  “Hullo, Robert Roberts! Any letters for us?” sang out Theo. She had darted out of the cottage, hatless, as usual, her nose already peeling with sunburn and her long bare legs covered with midge-bites and sea-holly scratches down to her white sand-shoes, to waylay our postman; he’s the son of Mrs. Roberts, our landlady, a young Welsh giant who wears that uniform coat for just that five minutes daily which it takes him to deliver the mails at Porth Cariad. “Yes, mam!” he announced. “Picture poss-card for you—I wonder shall I have it, mam, when you read it? Blodwen and me is making a co-leckshon of those. Letter for your mother; letter an’ big parsal for the strange young lady.” I—who have not been seen in the place before this year—am the strange young lady. “Here you are,” said Theo, bringing the mail into the kitchen-sitting-room where we’d just finished breakfast; a room that boasts three Meaning her brother. “And I suppose you’ll now have to fly off somewhere to read your love-letter all by yourself.” “Of course I must,” I laughed. For it’s rather amusing in the face of all this to think that, except for one sentimental scrap from Sydney, I’ve never had a love-letter to read in all my life! This duty-document of my official fiancÉ’s I’ve taken out on to the sand-hills; there’s a dip under the crest of one of them where I can curl up in comfort out of the wind, facing the view across the bay, with that pale lilac silhouette of the Carnarvonshire hills across the water. How funny it seems to unfold a letter bearing the familiar heading of the Near Oriental Shipping Company’s offices! But this one, actually, is not type-written, and signed by a “William Waters, per pro.,” and a scrawled “A. A.” of Mr. Alexander’s. William Waters has written in his own hand; not a particularly good one, either. Several sheets of it? Was it such an unusually slack day at the office, then? “July —, 1913. “My dear Nancy, “I was glad to hear from my mother” (I don’t see why he should underline the three last words; I shouldn’t be likely to write first.) “that you’d arrived safely and were comfortably settled into the cottages. I wonder what you think of Porth Cariad. I do hope you won’t be bored to extinction in such a quiet spot; but you were warned, weren’t you, not to expect esplanades and pier-concerts and shops and things? Do you think you can manage to make yourself at all happy without them? “How do you like the bathing in that little bay next to the cottages? Can you swim? If not, you will have to learn. I will teach you. “I am pretty keen on getting down myself, I can tell you. Town, in this heat, is the abomination of desolation; and smelly. So is the office. You’ve never been here in July. It’s awful. I’ll let you know later when I shall be coming; time of train, etc. “You were missed at The Lawn last night. I took a man who lives near to share my solitary meal there, and to have a game of billiards afterwards. He wanted me to try over ‘Ford of Kabul River’ for him; “When I go out to lunch I shall call at Fuller’s and order them to send you on—for the look of the thing—a box of chocolates. I hope they have one with a picture of forget-me-nots or something of the sort on the lid,” (Yes; they had. White satin, with the sprays of flowers embroidered in pale blue silk.) “as Theo notices everything. Don’t let her bag all the sweets, though.” (Here the writing gets more scrawly and hurried.) “Have just got in from lunch, which I had with my uncle. He was full of talk; you can imagine it!” (I can.) “I also saw two other men whom I’d got to meet, and as a result of this, I think I’ve managed to get through the business that was keeping me. So I shall be down at the end of the week after all; cheers for some fresh air and a dip! Please be very glad to see me, will you? as Theo—but I put that before. “Just before I went out to lunch a very rum thing happened: at least, I thought it was rum until I found out what it was. I was opening the door of my room when I heard, in the passage, your voice, Nancy! Yes, your voice, with that little dare-devil tone you put on sometimes, saying these extraordinary words: ‘I think it’s to the Savoy that I’m going out with Mr. Waters to-day!’ “I couldn’t think what on earth was the meaning of it, with you miles away in Anglesey.” (But already I smiled, seeing what was coming!) “I wondered what could have brought you back, or if I’d got an hallucination—can you hear hallucinations?—and I bolted out into the passage, nearly knocking over two of the typists who were coming down it. “Miss Smith (that’s the one whose affections are otherwise engaged, isn’t it?) fled like a hare; but that tall, dark Miss Robinson stood her ground, only moving aside a little for me to pass. I stopped and asked her straight out, ‘Was it you who were speaking a moment ago?’ “She said ‘Yes’—all meekness at once. ‘Mimicking hussy’ I thought—for it really “And she said (in that ‘mim’ voice, which I’m blest if I shall ever feel able to believe in again!) ‘Will you please give her my love, Mr. Waters?’ “So with love from Miss Robinson, I remain, “Your “Billy.” (What’s this? “Your” Billy? It can’t be. Oh, no. It’s his disgraceful handwriting. It’s the “r” being scrawled into the “s” like that. “Yours, Billy,” is how it really reads. How stupid of me not to see that at once! Then there’s a bit across the top.) “Six-forty train Porth Cariad on Saturday. You might write and tell me how you do like the place; and you might answer at once, even if it’s only for the girls to take it to the post.” So, for the benefit of Blanche and Theo, I will write at once; I’ll do it out here, in pencil on my pad, as I’ve so often taken down his own “Porth Cariad. July —, 1913. “Dear Sir, “Your favour of yesterday’s date to hand, for which we thank you.” (There! I wonder how he’ll like that. Will he think that it goes on all through?) “The lovely sweets really were appreciated; but I didn’t let Theo bag them all, nor take the pale-blue satin tie-up to make a bow for Cariad, which was what she wanted to do. So then she said of course Nancy would want to keep that ribbon to tie round all your letters. She does notice everything, doesn’t she? “As for how I like this place, I simply love it, and the cottages—I’m in the bigger one with your mother, and Theo and Blanche are together in the other until you come—and I love the sand-hills with the sea-holly and little prickly brambly roses and tiny purple pansies growing all over them,” (I might slip a pansy from this place that he’s fond of into the envelope? No, I mightn’t. There’s no Theo to “notice” at his end.) “and the cloud shadows on those hills opposite, and Mrs. Roberts, with her sackcloth cooking-apron and her clogs and the boy’s cap she wears; and Blodwen, even if all the English they know does always seem to be all about you! And I should hate a pier-concert if there was one. There’s everything here to make me quite happy. Since this very hot weather’s come, the bathing is delicious. I learned to swim when I was a little girl, thank you.” (So he needn’t think he can teach me anything.) “How was Mr. Albert Waters? Still chuckling and laughing ‘ho, ho!’ I expect. “I laughed at your being taken in like that by Miss Robinson. Yesterday morning I was almost taken in, by something that was like you: a sharp tap against my bedroom window that might have been a stone thrown up. But it was only a fat, speckly thrush cracking a snail; there are always lots of them crawling out of that southernwood bush by the door. “Mrs. Roberts asks me to tell you,” (What she said, in her speciously honeyed Welsh voice and with her irresistible if toothless “that the ’ooden ’ooman—it took me some time to remember that this was the figure-head on the cliff!—was want paint very bad, and she wonder would you do it when you come. Welsh people, I notice, are fond of ‘wondering’ like this, instead of asking straight out for what they want; yet they generally seem to get it.” (Dear me, this is rather different from the blank sheet I might have enclosed.... Anyhow, it mustn’t get any longer than his, so I’d better stop now.) “I will give this to Theo to post, and” (Goodness, it is difficult to think of how to sign oneself to young men. To Sydney I was always “Yours sincerely.” A stupid ending, means nothing at all.) “With kind regards.” (No.) “Assuring you always of my best attention,” (No. A bit of that at the beginning was enough.) “Will give this to Theo to post, and I am,” (Well! What I am, after all!) “Your official fiancÉe, “Monica Trant.” Ah! Now there’s something I’d forgotten! “P. S. I will remember what you’ve ordered—” (No, that sounds rather nasty; rather too like Manner B. Cross it out.) —“what you—wish”? No! “What you suggest about my being pleased to see you on Saturday. “N.” As a matter of fact—I shan’t write it, as it might possibly give a wrong impression!—but I really shall be quite pleased to see Billy Waters again. And now to find his young sister, and send her off to the post with what she, in her innocence, imagines to be a return love-letter! |
|
