As she passed the
Post Office for the second time it occurred to her that there might be
letters for her there, and found quite a bundle of them in a little
pigeonhole high up. There was also a cablegram that had been waiting two
days. She opened that first. It was extravagantly long; the name
"Carlossie" at the head of it gave her a sickening pang of homesickness
for a moment. She read:
"Letter from Port Said arrived. Very anxious. Only way you treat drunkard
is leave him alone. Impossible cure. Above all do not marry him or shall
blame myself. Writing. Await letter I implore you.--Angus."
It was extraordinary extravagance for Dr. Angus. She felt guilty at
having worried him.
"But I never mentioned marrying Louis! I simply said he was one of the
passengers I was interested in."
There was a letter from Aunt Janet written after the _Oriana_ had sailed
and sent overland to Marseilles.
"I certainly miss you," she wrote, "but I shall get over it in time, I
expect. One gets very used to everything in time. I wonder if you will
ever come back? I expect so. Wullie the Hunchback came along with fish
for me twice. He misses you badly. You were always a great deal with
him."
Letters from Mrs. Mactavish and from Wullie, dictated to and written by
Bessie, said that she would be back soon; standing under the portico of
the Post Office, surrounded by the flower sellers with their bunches of
exuberant waratah, feathery wattle and sweet, sober-looking boronia, she
let her mind travel back to Lashnagar and the acrid smoke of the
green-wood fires, the pungency of the fish, the sharp tang of the salt
winds pushed the heavy perfume of flowers aside.
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