Conversation -- Fiction; Entertaining -- Fiction; Hospitality -- Fiction; New England -- Fiction
Who in the world, for instance, would expect to find a cunningly
contrived toy-boat on Rollins's bureau with two star-fish listed as
the only passengers! Or Paul Brenswick's candle thrust into a
copperas-tinted knot of water-logged cedar? In the snug confines of
a small cigar box on a lovely dank bed of maroon and gray sea-weed
Victoria Brenswick had nested her treasure-trove. Certainly the
quaint garnet necklace could hardly have found a more romantic and
ship-wrecky sort of a setting. Even Allan John had started a little
procession of sand-dollars across his mantelpiece. But there was no
silver whistle figuring as the band, I noticed.
What would Victoria Brenswick have said, I wondered, what would
Allan John have thought if they had even so much as dreamed that
these precious "ship-wreck treasures" of theirs had been purchased
brand new in Boston Town within a week and "planted" most carefully
by my Husband with all those other pseudo mysteries in the old
trunk in the sand? But goodness me, one's got to "start" something
on the first day of even the most ordinary house-party!
With so much to watch outside the window, figures still moving
eagerly up and down the edge of the cliff, and so much to think
about inside, all the little personal whims and fancies betrayed by
the various hoards, the bed-making industry I'm afraid was somewhat
slighted on this particular morning. Was my Husband still standing
at that down-stairs window, I wondered, speculating about that
bungalow on the rocks even as I stood at the window just above him
speculating on the same subject? Why did he think that Ann Woltor
would be the one to get there first? What had Ann Woltor left there
the day before that made her specially anxious to get there first?
Truly this _Rainy Week_ experiment develops some rather unique
puzzles. Maybe if I tried, I thought, I could add a little puzzle
of my own invention! Just for sheer restiveness I turned and made
another round of the guest-rooms. Now that I remembered it there
was a bit more sand oozing from the Bride's necklace box to the
mahogany bureau-top than was really necessary.
The rest of the morning passed without special interest. But the
luncheon hour developed a most extraordinary interest in the
principles of physical geography which beginning with all sorts of
valuable observations concerning the weight of the atmosphere or
the conformation of mountains or the law of tides, ended invariably
with the one direct question: "At just what hour this evening, for
instance, will the tide be low again?"
My Husband was almost beside himself with concealed delight.
"Oh, but you don't think for a moment, do you--" I implored him in
a single whisper of privacy snatched behind the refilling of the
coffee urn. "You don't think for a moment that anybody would be
rash enough to try and make the trip in the big dory?"
"Well--hardly," laughed my Husband. "If you'd seen where I've
hidden the oars!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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