The Last Drive and Other Stories

The man at the wheel refolded the letter with a grunt of irritation and returned it to his pocket.

“No, she doesn’t even say what train,” he observed glumly to the radiator. “Of course she wouldn’t. Well, I’ll have to find out.”

He started the motor and turned into the driveway between the granite pillars. It led him deviously, around sweeping curves, to the carriage entrance of the house itself — a large rambling structure of gray stone and uncertain architecture, set in the centre of a century-old grove not more than a hundred yards from the bank of the river. A man came running up from the garage in the rear, touching his cap as he approached with a deferential,

“Good morning, Mr. Canby.”

“Good morning, Simmons. Put her away,” returned the other as he leaped out and mounted the steps of the piazza. At the door he was met by a red-faced middle-aged woman who greeted him with unfeigned relief and began to explain vociferously that her mistress had left so suddenly she didn’t know what to think, and she had been so afraid Mr. Canby wouldn’t come, and the young women expected from the city any minute—!

Without waiting for her to finish, Canby passed through to the front of the house and on upstairs to his sister’s writing-room, where, after a ten-minute search, he finally found a typewritten letter containing the information that the Misses Rose Manganaro, Mildred Lavicci and Nella Somi would arrive Wednesday morning on the 10:50 local; also, Mrs. Janet Morton Haskins would please accept the profound thanks of the East Side Vacation Club for giving these working girls the opportunity of enjoying the myriad delights and advantages of country life for the two weeks they would be free from their toilsom labor in the cruel city...

“This is what comes of having a widowed sister with contemplations on humanity,” observed Canby, as he tossed the letter back in the drawer. ‘Here’s a nice job I’ve got. Pleasant task for an aged bachelor: playing croquet with Tired Working Girls! I’m not sure it’s even decent. Lord, what names! Manganaro! — Lavicci! — Somi! They won’t be able to speak English, their hands and feet will be in the way, and they’ll have their pockets full of garlic to nibble between meals! Sis says she’ll be back tonight or tomorrow, and maybe she will and maybe she won’t. Oh Lord! Hanged if I’ll go to the station, anyway; I’ll send Simmons.”

Downstairs, having summoned the chauffeur from the garage and delivered his instructions, and having ascertained from the housekeeper that the rooms of the expected guests were in readiness, Canby deposited himself in a shady corner of the piazza with a morning newspaper, a box of cigarettes, a bottle, a siphon, and a glass. Soon he saw Simmons, in a new seven-passenger touring car, winding along the driveway on his way to the station, seven miles distant. Canby sighed and returned to his paper. He had had a match on for this morning with Garrett Linwood, a guest at his own country home, some fifteen miles to the northeast, and he had expected at about this hour to be standing on the sixth tee, driving across the brook. That’s what comes of having a sister...