The summer dragged on. The days passed. Pleasant days they were, so far as the weather was concerned. I spent them somehow, walking, riding, golfing, reading. I gave up trying to work; the half-written novel remained half written. I could not concentrate my thoughts upon it and I lacked the courage to force myself to try. I wrote Campbell that he must be patient, I was doing the best I could. He answered by telling me not to worry, to enjoy myself. “Why do you stay there in England?” he wrote. “I ordered you to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die of dry rot. A British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod quahaug. You have been in that rectory about long enough. Go to Monte Carlo for change. You'll find it there—or lose it.”
It may have been good advice—or bad—according to the way in which it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me. I had no desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport, where I belonged. I felt no interest in Monte Carlo—for the matter of that, I felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else. I was not interested in anything or anybody—except one, and that one had gone out of my life. Night after night I went to sleep determining to forget and morning after morning I awoke only to remember, and with the same dull, hopeless heartache and longing.
July passed, August was half gone. Still we remained at the rectory. Our lease was up on the first of October. The Coles would return then and we should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether we wished to or not. Hephzy, although she did not say much about it, was willing to go, I think. Her “presentiment” had remained only a presentiment so far; no word came from Little Frank. We had heard or learned nothing concerning her or her whereabouts.
Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly as ever. For the first few days after our interview with Doctor Bayliss, Senior, Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family. Then the doctor called again. He seemed in better spirits. His son had yielded to his parents' entreaties and had departed for a walking tour through the Black Forest with some friends.
“The invitation came at exactly the right time,” said the old gentleman. “Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything. The poor boy was in the depths and when his mother and I urged him to accept he did so. We are hoping that when he returns he will have forgotten, or, if not that, at least be more reconciled.”
Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer. I met him on the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever. Our talk concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous consequences to her and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not disturbed him in the least. He greeted me blandly and cheerfully, asked how we all were, said he had been given to understand that “my charming little niece” was no longer with us, and proceeded to beat me two down in eighteen holes. I played several times with him afterward and, under different circumstances, should have enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly matched.
His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met. She went out of her way to be as sweetly gracious as possible. I presume she inferred from Frances' departure that I had taken her hint and had removed the disturbing influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path. At each of our meetings she spoke of the “invitation golf tournament,” several times postponed and now to be played within a fortnight. She insisted that I must take part in it. At last, having done everything except decline absolutely, I finally consented to enter the tournament. It is not easy to refuse to obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of Mayberry.
After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also had received an invitation. Not to play golf, of course; her invitation was of a totally different kind.
“What do you think, Hosy!” she cried. “I've got a letter and you can't guess who it's from.”
“From Susanna?” I ventured.