HOTEL DE LA POULE D'OR,
TONNERRE.
_(Somewhere on the way to Dijon.)_
Dearest Mamma,--We have got this far! Never have you imagined such an
affair as our trip is. Coming across the Channel was bad enough. Aunt Maria
sniffed chloroform and remained semi-conscious until we got to Boulogne,
because she said one never could trust the sea, although it looked smooth
enough from the pier; on her honeymoon she recollected just the same
deceitful appearance and they took five hours and she was very sick and
decided not to chance it again! Uncle John had to hold one of her hands and
I the bottle, but we got there safely in the usual time and not a ripple on
the water! The motor had been sent on, and after sleeping at Boulogne we
started. The little gamins shouted, "Quel drole de char triomphant! Bon
voyage, Mesdames," and Aunt Maria smiled and bowed as pleased as possible,
not having heard a word.
Uncle John was as gay and attentive as I suppose he was on the
journey--this is how they speak of it--and made one or two quite risqué
jokes down the ear trumpet, and Aunt Maria blushed and looked so coy.
Apparently she had had hysterics at Folkestone originally--did you have
them when you married, Mamma? I never thought of such a thing when Harry
and I--but I did not mean to speak of him again. Aunt Maria wears the same
shaped bonnet now as she did then, and strangely enough it is exactly like
my new lovely chinchilla motor one Caroline sent for me to travel in. We
have the car open all the time and in the noise Aunt Maria hears much
better, so one has only to speak in an ordinary voice down the trumpet.
Everything went all right until this morning; we left Versailles at
dawn--how they were ever ready I don't know, considering the tremendous lot
of wraps and pillows and footwarmers and heaven knows what they
have;--besides Uncle John saying all the time it is their second honeymoon.
However, we got off, and as we have been on the road two days, even Janet,
who is naturally as meek as a mouse, is beginning to "turn" at her seat in
the rumble; because, it having rained and there being no dust, she and
Uncle John's valet are covered with mud instead, each time we arrive at a
place, and have to be scraped off before they can even enter a hotel.
Agnès would simply have had a fit of blue rage if one had put her
there;--as it is she is having an affair with the chauffeur. There must be
an epidemic in the air now for women of forty to play with boys, as they
get it even in her class. What was I saying, Oh! yes--Well, the first
trouble began with a burst tyre, and we all had to get out while the new
one was being put on; and as we were standing near, another car came up
from the opposite direction, and would have passed us, only I suppose Aunt
Maria looked so unusual the occupants stopped--occupant, I meant--it was an
American--and asked if it--he, I mean, could be of any assistance. Uncle
John, who thinks it right to gain information whenever he can from
travellers, said, No, not materially, but he would be obliged to know if
the country we were coming to was smooth or not. Then we knew it was an
American! In those big coats one can't tell the nation at first, but
directly he said: "It's like a base-ball ground--and I should say you'd
find any machine could do it--" we guessed at once. He was so nice looking,
Mamma--rather ugly, but good looking all the same; you know what I mean.
His nose was crooked but his jaw was so square, and he had such jolly brown
eyes--and they twinkled at one, and he was very, very tall. "We hope to get
to Dijon tonight," Uncle John said. "Can you tell us, sir, if we shall have
any difficulty?" The American did not bother to raise his hat or any fuss,
but just got out of his car and told the facts to Uncle John; and then he
turned to the chauffeur, who was fumbling with the tyre--it was something
complicated, not only just the bursting--and in a minute or two he was down
in the mud giving such practical advice. And you never heard such slang!
But I believe men like that sort of thing, as the chauffeur was not a bit
offended at being interfered with.
When they had finished grovelling, he got in again, and Uncle John insisted
upon exchanging cards with the stranger. He got out his from some pocket,
but the American had not one. "By the living jingo," he said, "I've no bit
of pasteboard handy--but my name is Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour--and
you'll find me any day at the Nelson Building, Osages City, Nevada. This is
my first visit to Europe." Perhaps I am not repeating exactly the right
American, Mamma, but it was something like that. But I wish you could have
seen him, I know you would have liked him as I did. Wait till I tell you
what he did afterwards, then you will, anyway. "Anyway" is American--you
see I have picked it up already!
We waved a kind of grateful goodbye and went our different ways, and beyond
its raining most of the time we had a quick journey; but at last we felt in
the dusk we were off the right road. Like all chauffeurs ours had whizzed
past every notice of the direction--so carefully printed up as they are in
France, too. From the way they behave one would think chauffeurs believe
themselves to possess a sixth sense and can feel in some occult manner the
right turns, as they never bother to look at sign posts, or condescend to
ask the way like ordinary mortals. Ours did not so much as stop even when
the lane got into a mere track, until, with the weight of Uncle John, Aunt
Maria and me in the back seat, and the extra stones in the rumble, as he
made a sensational backing turn into a fieldish looking place, (it was dark
twilight) our hind wheels sunk in up to their axles,--and the poor
machinery groaned in its endeavours to extricate us! We had to get out in
the gloom and mud, and Aunt Maria looked almost pathetic in her elastic
side "prunella" boots, edged with fur, white silk stockings and red quilted
silk petticoat held up very high. But she was so good tempered over it all!
She said when one had been married happily for fifty years, and was having
one's honeymoon all over again--(she had forgotten the hysterics)--one
ought not to grumble at trifles.
Meanwhile the hind wheels of the car sank deeper and deeper. I believe we
should never have got out, and it would have been there still, if we had
not heard a scream from a siren, and our American friend tore up again! It
was pitch dark by now, and the valet, the chauffeur, and Uncle John were
shoving and straining, and nothing was happening. Why he was returning this
way, right out of the main road, he did not explain, but he jumped out and
in a minute took command of the situation. He said, "If we had taken a
waggon over the desert, we'd know how to fix up this in a shake." He sent
his chauffeur back to the nearest village for some boards and a shovel, and
then dug out to firm ground and got the boards under, all so neatly and
quickly, and no one thought of disobeying him! And we were soon all packed
into the car again none the worse. Then he said he also found he was
obliged to go back and would show us the way as far as we liked. Uncle John
was so grateful, and we started.
Tonnerre was all as far as we could get to-night, and about six o'clock we
arrived at this hotel I am writing from.
Mr. Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour was a few yards in front of us. "Say, Lord
Wordon," he said to Uncle John, "I guess this is no kind of a place your
ladies have been accustomed to, but it's probably pretty decent in spite of
appearances. I know these sort of little shanties, and they aren't half as
bad as they look."
He took as much pains to shout down Aunt Maria's trumpet as Harry used in
the beginning when he wanted to please me, and when we got upstairs she
said she had no idea Americans were such "superior persons." "One of
Nature's gentlemen, my dear, which are the only sort of true gentlemen you
will find."
Such a hotel, Mamma! And Uncle John and Aunt Maria had to have the only big
bedroom on the first floor, and Mr. Renour and I were given two little ones
communicating on the back part. They thought of course we were of the same
party, and married.
"Madame" could have the inner one, they explained, and "Monsieur" the
outer! Aunt Maria, who thought, I suppose, they said Agnès, not "Monsieur,"
smiled pleasantly and agreed--that would be "tout à fait bien." Of course
if Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour had been a Frenchman, or even heaps of
Englishmen we know, he would have been delighted; instead of which he got
perfectly crimson all over his bronzed face and explained in fearful French
to the landlady he could not sleep except on a top floor. Wasn't it nice of
him, Mamma?
Dinner was at seven o'clock in the table d'hôte, and about eight commercial
travellers were already seated when we got down. We had glass racks to put
our forks and knives on, and that wrung out kind of table linen, not
ironed, but all beautifully clean; and wonderfully good food.
Uncle John made one end of our party and Mr. Renour the other, with Aunt
Maria and me in the middle, and the commercial travellers, who all tucked
in their table napkins under their chins, beyond. The American was so
amusing:--it was his language, not exactly what he said. I shall get into
it soon and tell you some of the sentences, but at first it is too
difficult. Presently he said he did not understand about English titles; he
supposed I had one, but he was not "kinder used to them," so did I mind his
calling me Lady Elizabeth, as he heard Aunt Maria calling me Elizabeth, and
he felt sure "Miss" wouldn't be all right, but would "Lady" be near enough?
I said, quite, I was so enchanted, Mamma, to be taken for a young girl,
after having been married nearly seven years and being twenty-four last
month! I would not undeceive him for the world, and as we shall never see
him again it won't matter. Think, too, how cross Harry--but I won't speak
of him!
Aunt Maria had an amiable smile on all the time. Can you imagine them
dining in a public room in an English hotel! The idea would horrify her,
but she says no one should make fusses travelling, and I believe she would
look just as pleased if we were shipwrecked on a desert island.
There was no salon to sit in after dinner, and the moon came out, so Mr.
Renour suggested we ought to see the church, which is one of the things
marked in the guide book. Uncle John said he would light his cigar and come
with us, while Aunt Maria went to bed, but when we got outside the dear old
fellow seemed tired and was quite glad to return when I suggested it; so
the American and I went on alone. I must say, Mamma, it is lovely being
married, when one comes to think of it, being able to stroll out like this
with a young man all alone;--and I have never had the chance before, with
Harry always so jealous, and forever at my heels. I shall make hay while
the sun shines! He was so nice. He told me all about himself--he is a very
rich mine owner--out West in America, and began as a poor boy without any
education, who went out first as a cow-boy on a ranch and then took to
mining and got a stroke of luck, and now owns the half of the great Osage
Mine. And he is only twenty-nine. "I kinder felt I ought to see Europe," he
said, "never having been further East than Chicago; so I came over at
Christmas time and have been around in this machine ever since." He calls
his automobile, an immense 90 h.p. Charon, his "machine!" He said all this
so simply, as if it were quite natural to tell a stranger his life story,
and he is perfectly direct--only you have to speak to him with the meaning
you intend in the words. Metaphor is not the least use: he answers
literally.
The church was shut, and as we had no excuse to stay out longer we strolled
back. He was intensely respectful, and he ended up by saying he found me
just the nicest girl he had seen "this side." I was so pleased. I hope he
will come on the rest of the way with us; we start at dawn. So good night,
dearest Mamma.
Your affectionate daughter,
ELIZABETH.