Early next morning while Polly, still only half awake, was pouring out coffee and giving Richard who, poor fellow, could not afford to leave his patients, an account of their doings—with certain omissions, of course: she did not mention the glaring indiscretion Agnes Glendinning had been guilty of, in disappearing with Mr. Henry Ocock into a dark shrubbery—while Polly talked, the postman handed in two letters, which were of a nature to put balls and races clean out of her head. The first was in Mrs. Beamish's ill-formed hand, and told a sorrowful tale. Custom had entirely gone: a new hotel had been erected on the new road; Beamish was forced to declare himself a bankrupt; and in a few days the Family Hotel, with all its contents, would be put up at public auction. What was to become of them, God alone knew. She supposed she would end her days in taking in washing, and the girls must go out as servants. But she was sure Polly, now so up in the world, with a husband doing so well, would not forget the old friends who had once been so kind to her—with much more in the same strain, which Polly skipped, in reading the letter aloud. The long and short of it was: would Polly ask her husband to lend them a couple of hundred pounds to make a fresh start with, or failing that to put his name to a bill for the same amount?
"Of course she hasn't an idea we were obliged to borrow money ourselves," said Polly in response to Mahony's ironic laugh. "I couldn't tell them that."
"No ... nor that it's a perpetual struggle to keep the wolf from the door," answered her husband, battering in the top of an egg with the back of his spoon.
"Oh, Richard dear, things aren't quite so bad as that," said Polly cheerfully. Then she heaved a sigh. "I know, of course, we can't afford to help them; but I DO feel so sorry for them"—she herself would have given the dress off her back. "And I think, dear, if you didn't mind VERY much, we might ask one of the girls up to stay with us ... till the worst is over."
"Yes, I suppose that wouldn't be impossible," said Mahony. "If you've set your heart on it, my Polly. If, too, you can persuade Master Purdy to forgo the comfort of your good feather-bed. And I'll see if I can wring out a fiver for you to enclose in your letter."
Polly jumped up and kissed him. "Purdy is going anyhow. He said only last night he must look for lodgings near the Police Station." Here a thought struck her; she coloured and smiled. "I'll ask Tilly first," said she.
Mahony laughed and shook his finger at her. "The best laid plans o' mice and men! And what's one to say to a match-maker who is still growing out of her clothes?"
At this Polly clapped a hand over his mouth, for fear Ellen should hear him. It was a sore point with her that she had more than once of late had to lengthen her dresses.
As soon as she was alone she sat down to compose a reply to Mrs. Beamish. It was no easy job: she was obliged to say that Richard felt unable to come to their aid; and, at the same time, to avoid touching on his private affairs; had to disappoint as kindly as she could; to be truthful, yet tactful. Polly wrote, and re-wrote: the business cost her the forenoon.
She could not even press Tilly to pack her box and come at once; for her second letter that morning had been from Sara, who wrote that, having decided to shake the dust of the colony off her feet, she wished to pay them a flying visit before sailing, "POUR FAIRE MES ADIEUX." She signed herself "Your affectionate sister Zara," and on her arrival explained that, tired of continually instructing people in the pronunciation of her name, she had decided to alter the spelling and be done with it. Moreover, a little bird had whispered in her ear that, under its new form, it fitted her rather "FRENCH" air and looks a thousand times better than before.