XXIII
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
Tintagel,
August 13th
Dearest Lodestar: I can feel you drawing me across miles of land and sea, and if only I could travel on a telepathic pass I would start this minute, Ellaline or no Ellaline. Toward her and Sir Lionel I feel as Mercutio felt toward the Montagus and Capulets: "A plague on both your houses!" Nobody seems to care what becomes of me. Why should I care what becomes of them?
Everything is too horrid and too extraordinary to-day. I got into the wrong side of bed last night, and got out again on the wrong side this morning. It happened to be the only side there was, as the bed stands against the wall in an alcove, where it can't be pulled out; and nobody could expect me to bound like a kangaroo over the foot, could they? But there are times in life when every side of everything is wrong; and this is one of those times with me—has been since dinner last night, when Sir Lionel grinned with joy at the prospect of shunting me upon the Tyndal family for a day. (When you are friends with people they smile; when you are out with them, they grin.)
Well, this morning I thought I wouldn't hurry to get down. I felt, if Mrs. Senter beamed at me from under her becoming motor-hat at starting, I should do her a mischief, and if Emily smirked inoffensively I should throw Murray in her face. As for Sir Lionel—words fail to express what I believed myself capable of doing to him. I could have stolen his car, in which he appeared to grudge me a seat, and have gone off with it into space to be a motor pirate. Whence can I have inherited these vicious tendencies? Truly, I never supposed I had them before; but you don't know yourself until people have practically accused you of taking up too much room in their old automobiles, although you're perfectly aware that you are less than eighteen inches wide at your broadest part in your thickest frock, and you thought they liked your society and kept your gloves. In that mood I wouldn't have condescended to see Apollo off if he'd been twice a god, armed with an invitation for me from Juno to a house-party on Olympus.
No sooner, however, did I hear his dear familiar purr as he swept away from the door of the hotel (my balcony is a corner one, and I could just catch the well-known c-r-r-r) when I regretted intensely that I hadn't been en evidence, looking indifferent. Suddenly, I suffered pangs of apprehension lest my stopping in my room had seemed like (what it really was) a fit of the sulks; but it was past repentance-time. Apollo was gone, Mrs. Senter doubtless sitting by Sir Lionel's side as usual, and probably commenting wittily on my silly conduct.
The Tyndals told me last night that they meant to start at ten, so I went downstairs five minutes before, too late to have to wait about, too early to be called. I expected to find them in the hall, and when they weren't there, I strolled out to see if the motor had come to the door, thinking they might be watching the loading up of their luggage. As for mine, Apollo had taken it as usual, except a pretty little fitted handbag, small and wonderfully convenient, which Sir Lionel came across in a shop and bought for me (I mean for Ellaline) at Torquay. But there wasn't a Tyndal in sight, and not so much as the smell of a motor-car, so I wandered inside and asked the handsome landlady, whom I met near King Arthur's Round Table, whether she had seen the Tyndal automobile or its owners.