These few kindly words were a great reward for a very little work. Poor MacWhirter himself died a few months later.
Some years ago the Society of Women Journalists did me the honour of appointing me one of its Vice-Presidents, an unmerited honour, for I was a bad journalist in the sense of ordinary journalism. I have never written about fashions or Society functions, and did little of the ordinary journalistic hack-work, such as reporting, though I wrote yards of “copy” of all sorts and kinds.
One day the idea came to me that it would be nice to invite my fellow-journalists to tea before finally ringing down the curtain on my journalistic life, and as a tea-party composed entirely of themselves would be rather too much of a family affair, I decided to ask some of my own friends as well. The card indicated on the next page was accordingly sent out.
There are three hundred members of the Society of Women Journalists, not all of course living in London, so we reckoned that one hundred might turn up during the afternoon. As it happened, the total number of people who crossed my doorstep between 3.45 and 7.15 (for they came before the appointed time and stayed after the allotted hour) was four hundred—one hundred and sixty-four of whom were men!
Luckily, some days beforehand I had sorted out the glass and china, been to the plate-chest, seen to the table-linen, ordered the hat-stands and urns, and made everything in readiness, for on Monday night before this memorable Wednesday I was taken ill.
Internal chills are like influenza, they sound so little and may mean so much. Tuesday found me worse, and when the doctor came late in the day, my suffering was so intense that he insisted upon an injection of morphia. I was too dull with pain, too stupefied from the drug to so much as even think about putting off that party. It seemed to me an absolutely impossible task. I had not tacked those tiresome letters “R.S.V.P.” on the cards of invitation, and therefore had not the slightest idea how many people would come, so as everything had been arranged, it seemed best to let things take their course, and chance my being up, clothed, and in my right mind.
The Fates decided otherwise. By Tuesday night I was worse. The nurse shook her head, still the doctor saw the impossibility of stopping the party, and wisely begged me not to trouble myself about it.