Isn't it a most extraordinary thing that when people are in a
comfortable house, with a good roof over their heads, solid meals
served at regular intervals three or four times a day, and every
possible comfort, they instantly want to go outside and make
themselves not only thoroughly uncomfortable, but generally ill
besides, by having a picnic in the open? Ever since I had that walk
with Miss Pomeroy, she has done nothing but talk about a picnic at
some beastly little village in the vicinity where there is a church
that the guide-books tell the usual lies about. As to churches--a
church to my mind is a place to go to on Sundays with the rest of the
congregation. It is plainly not constructed for week-days, when it is
empty, cold, and damp, and you have to take your hat off in the
draughts all the same, and talk in whispers. As to picnics--there's a
kind of folly about _them_ that it is altogether beyond me to
understand. Why such things ever take place outside the grounds of a
lunatic asylum, goodness only knows; they ought to be forbidden by
law, and the people who organise them shut up as dangerous. However, I
see I am in for this one. Miss Pomeroy wants the motor, but she won't
get the motor without me. Heaven be praised, the weather has broken up
in the meantime, which is the reason I am staying on here. Motoring on
Dartmoor in a tearing nor'easter is no catch. My quarters are
comfortable, and but for the women I should be doing very well.
The worst of it is, there is a whole batch of them now. A Mrs. MacGill
and her companion are here, and these two and the Americans seem to
have met before. The two old women are as thick as thieves, and the
fair Virginia (she told me her name, though she might have seen, I am
sure, that I was simply dying not to know it) seems to have a good
deal to say to the companion, though the latter doesn't appear to me
much in the line of such a lively young person. There's no rule, of
course, for women's likes and dislikes, any more than for anything
else that has to do with them. The unlucky part of it is that Mrs.
MacGill seemed to spot me the moment she heard my name. She says my
father was her brother-in-law's first cousin, and her brother-in-law
died in Agra in a fit; though what that has to do with it, goodness
knows. It means I have got to be civil and to get mixed up with the
rest of the party. A man can never be as rude as he feels, which is
one of the drawbacks of civilisation. So I have to sit at their table
now, and talk the whole time--can't even have a meal in peace. The old
woman MacGill is on one side, the American girl on the other. The
companion sits opposite. _She_ keeps quiet, which is one mercy;
generally has neuralgia,--a pale, rather lady-like young woman with a
seen-better-days-and-once-was-decidedly-pretty air about her. The
American girl's clothes take the cake, of course--a new frock every
night and such ribbons and laces--my stars! I'd rather not be the man
who has to pay for them. I'm surprised at her talking so much to the
humble companion--thought this sort of girl never found it worth while
to be civil to her own sex; but I conclude this is not invariably the
case.
'I'm afraid your neuralgia is very bad up here,' I heard her say to
Miss Evesham (that's the companion's name) after dinner last night.
'You come right along to my room, and I'll rub menthol on your poor
temples.' And they went off together and disappeared for the night.
The weather has cleared up to-day, though it is still too cold and
windy, thank the Lord, for the picnic to Widdington-in-the-Wolds. I
took the motor to a little town about four miles off, and overtook
the fair Virginia and Miss Evesham, footing it there on some errand of
Mrs. MacGill's. I slowed down as I got near, but I soon saw Miss
Pomeroy intended me to stop; there's no uncertainty about any of _her_
desires.
'Now, Sir Archibald,' said she with a straight look which made me
understand that obedience was my _rĂ´le_, 'I know what you're going to
do this very minute. Miss Evesham's neuralgia is so bad that she can
scarcely see, and you've got to take her right along in your motor to
the Unicorn Inn, and help choose a pony for Mrs. MacGill. Just a man's
job--you'd love doing it, I should think.'
I wanted to hum and haw a bit, but she didn't give me the chance. She
pulled open the door behind. 'Get in quick!' she said to the
companion. 'Quick, quick! a motor puff-puffing this way always makes
me think it's in a desperate hurry and won't wait!'
_I_, however, was not in such a hurry this time, though there's
nothing I hate more, as a rule, than wasting motor power standing
still.
'What are _you_ going to do, Miss Pomeroy?' I shouted above the
throbbing and shaking of the machine.
'Going right home to my mother,' she replied. 'It's about time, too.'
'No, you don't,' thought I, 'and leave me saddled with the companion.'
For if you _must_ have female society, you may as well have it
good-looking when you are about it.
'Won't you do me the pleasure of taking a ride too?' I asked politely.
I knew perfectly well she was dying for a ride in the motor, and I had
turned a deaf ear to dozens of hints. But now that she wanted to do
the other woman a good turn and walk home herself, nothing would
content me but to have her in the motor. I know how inconvenient it is
to be good-natured and unselfish. I am obliged to be both so often,
against my natural inclinations.
Miss Virginia's eyes gave a sparkle, but she hesitated a moment.
'The front seat's much the jolliest,' I remarked, 'and it's very good
going--no end of a surface.' She gave a jump and was up beside me in
half a second, and we were off.
By Jove--that was a good bit of going! The road was clear, the surface
like velvet. I took every bit out of the motor that was in it, and we
went the pace and no mistake. Miss Virginia was as pleased as Punch, I
could see. She had to hold on her hat with both hands, and her cheeks
and lips were as red as roses; the ribbons flew out from her neck, and
flapped across my face, which was a nuisance, of course; they had the
faint scent of some flower or other; I hate smells, as a rule, but
this was not strong enough to be bad. We got down at the Unicorn, and
though I said I knew nothing whatever about ponies, I had to look
through the stables with the hostler, and choose a beast and a trap
for Mrs. MacGill. There was only one of each, so the choice was not
difficult. The two girls drove home in the turnout. I thought it was
time to disappear.