This was the doctor’s verdict and prescription; and, as his patients never disputed the one, or declined to take the other, Myra found herself, on “the glorious first of June” flying south in the Great Western express, bound for the little fishing village of Tregarth where she had ordered rooms at the Moorhead Inn, in the name of Mrs. O’Mara.
CHAPTER VI
AT THE MOORHEAD INN
The ruddy glow of a crimson sunset illumined cliff and hamlet, tinting the distant ocean into every shade of golden glory, as Myra walked up the gravelled path to the rustic porch of the Moorhead Inn, and looked around her with a growing sense of excited refreshment.
She had come on foot from the little wayside station, her luggage following in a barrow; and this mode of progression, minus a footman and maid, and carrying her own cloak, umbrella, and travelling-bag, was in itself a charming novelty.
At the door, she was received by the proprietress, a stately lady in black satin, wearing a double row of large jet beads, who reminded her instantly of all Lord Ingleby’s maiden aunts. She seemed an accentuated, dignified, concentrated embodiment of them all; and Myra longed for Billy, to share the joke.
“Aunt Ingleby” requested Mrs. O’Mara to walk in, and hoped she had had a pleasant journey. Then she rang a very loud bell twice, in order to summon a maid to show her to her room; and, the maid not appearing at once, requested Mrs. O’Mara meanwhile to write her name in the visitors’ book.
Lady Ingleby walked into the hall, passing a smoking-room on the left, and, noting a door, with “Coffee Room” upon it in gold lettering, down a short passage immediately opposite. Up from the centre of the hall, on her right, went the rather wide old-fashioned staircase; and opposite to it, against the wall, between the smoking-room and a door labelled “Reception Room,” stood a marble-topped table. Lying open upon this table was a ponderous visitors’ book. A fresh page had been recently commenced, as yet only containing four names. The first three were dated May the 8th, and read, in crabbed precise writing: