TO AN OLD MANOR.
"Will _ces dames_ join me in a marauding expedition? Like the poet
Villon, I am about to turn marauder, house breaker, thief. I shall hope
to end the excursion by one act, at least, of highway robbery. I shall
lose courage without the enlivening presence of _ces dames._ We will
start when the day is at its best, we will return when the moon smiles.
In case of finding none to rob, the coach of the desperadoes will be
garrisoned with provisions; Henri will accompany us as counsellor,
purveyor, and bearer of arms and costumes. The carriage for _ces dames_
will stop the way at the hour of eleven.
"I have the honor to sign myself their humble servant and
co-conspirator.
"John Renard."
"This, in plain English," was Charm's laconic translation of this note,
"means that he wishes us to be ready at eleven for the excursion to
P----, to spend the day, you may remember, at that old manor. He wants
to paint in a background, he said yesterday, while we stroll about and
look at the old place. What shall I wear?"
In an hour we were on the road.
A jaunty yellow cart, laden with a girl on the front seat; with a man,
tawny of mustache, broad of shoulder, and dark of eye, with face
shining to match the spring in the air and that fair face beside him;
laden also with another lady on the back seat, beside whom, upright and
stiff, with folded arms, sat Henri, costumer, valet, cook, and groom.
It was in the latter capacity that Henri was now posing. The role of
groom was uppermost in his orderly mind, although at intervals, when
his foot chanced to touch a huge luncheon-basket with which the cart
was also laden, there were betraying signs of anxiety; it was then that
the chef crept back to life. This spring in the air was all very well,
but how would it affect the sauces? This great question was written on
Henri's brow in a network of anxious wrinkles.
"Henri," I remarked, as we were wheeling down the roadway, "I am quite
certain you have put up enough luncheon for a regiment."
"Madame has said it, for a regiment; Monsieur Renard, when he works,
eats with the hunger of a wolf."
"Henri, did you get in all the rags?" This came from Renard on the
front seat, as he plied his steed with the whip.
"The costume of Monsieur le Marquis, and also of Madame la Marquise de
Pompadour, are beneath my feet in the valise, Monsieur Renard. I have
the sword between my legs," replied Henri, the costumer coming to the
surface long enough to readjust the sword.
"Capital fellow, Henri, never forgets anything," said Renard, in
English.
"Couldn't we offer a libation or something, on such a morning--"
"On such a morning," interrupted the painter, "one should be seated
next to a charming young lady who has the genius to wear Nile green and
white; even a painter with an Honorable Mention behind him and fame
still ahead, in spite of the Mention, is satisfied. You know a Greek
deity was nothing to a painter, modern, and of the French school, in
point of fastidiousness."
"Nonsense! it's the American woman who is fastidious, when it comes to
clothes."
Meanwhile, there was one of the party who was looking at the road; that
also was arrayed in Nile green and white; the tall trees also held
umbrellas above us, but these coverings were woven of leaves and sky.
This bit of roadway appeared to have slipped down from the upper
country, and to have carried much of the upper country with it. It was
highway posing as pure rustic. It had brought all its pastoral
paraphernalia along. Nothing had been forgotten: neither the hawthorn
and the osier hedges, nor the tree-trunks, suddenly grown modest at
sight of the sea, burying their nudity in nests of vines, nor the trick
which elms and beeches have, of growing arches in the sky. Timbered
farm-houses were here, also thatched huts, to make the next villa-gate
gain in stateliness; apple orchards were dotted about with such a
knowing air of wearing the long line of the Atlantic girdled about
their gnarled trunks, that one could not believe pure accident had
carried them to the edge of the sea. There were several miles of this
driving along beneath these green aisles. Through the screen of the
hedges and the crowded tree-trunks, picture succeeded picture; bits of
the sea were caught between slits of cliff; farmhouses, huts, and
villas lay smothered in blossoms; above were heights whereon poplars
seemed to shiver in the sun, as they wrapped about them their
shroud-like foliage; meadows slipped away from the heights, plunging
seaward, as if wearying for the ocean; and through the whole this line
of green roadway threaded its path with sinuous grace, serpentining,
coiling, braiding in land and sea in one harmonious, inextricable
blending of incomparable beauty. One could quite comprehend, after even
a short acquaintance with this road, that two gentlemen of Paris, as
difficult to please as Daubigny and Isabey, should have seen points of
excellence in it.
There are all sorts of ways of being a painter. Perhaps as good as any,
if one cares at all about a trifling matter like beauty, is to know a
good thing when one sees it. That poet of the brush, Daubigny, not only
was gifted with this very unusual talent in a painter, but a good thing
could actually be entrusted in his hands after its discovery. And
herein, it appears to me, lies all the difference between good and bad
painting; not only is an artist--any artist--to be judged by what he
sees, but also by what he does with a fact after he's acquired
it--whether he turns it into poetry or prose.
I might incautiously have sprung these views on the artist on the front
seat, had he not wisely forestalled my outburst by one of his own.
"By the way," he broke in; "by the way, I'm not doing my duty as
cicerone. There's a church near here--we're coming to it in a
moment--famous--eleventh or twelfth century, Romanesque
style--yes--that's right, although I'm somewhat shaky when it comes to
architecture--and an old manoir, museum now, with lots of old furniture
in it--in the manoir, I mean."
"There's the church now. Oh, let us stop!"
In point of fact there were two churches before us. There was one of
ivy: nave, roof, aisles, walls, and conic-shaped top, as perfectly
defined in green as if the beautiful mantle had been cut and fitted to
the hidden stone structure. Every few moments the mantle would be
lifted by the light breeze, as might a priest's vestment; it would move
and waver, as if the building were a human frame, changing its posture
to ease its long standing. Between this church of stone and this church
of vines there were signs of the fight that had gone on for ages
between them. The stones were obviously fighting decay, fighting ruin,
fighting annihilation; the vines were also struggling, but both time
and the sun were on their side. The stone edifice was now, it is true,
as Renard told us, protected by the Government--it was classed as a
"monument historique"--but the church of greens was protected by the
god of nature, and seemed to laugh aloud, as if with conscious gleeful
strength. This gay, triumphant laugh was reflected, as if to emphasize
its mockery of man's work, in the tranquil waters of a little pond,
lily-leaved, garlanded in bushes, that lay hidden beyond the roadway.
Through the interstices of the vines one solitary window from the
tower, like a sombre eye, looked down into the pond; it saw there,
reflected as in a mirror, the old, the eternal picture of a dead ruin
clasped by the arms of living beauty.
This Criqueboeuf church presents the ideal picturesque accessories. It
stands at the corner of two meeting roadways. It is set in an ideal
pastoral frame--a frame of sleeping fields, of waving tree-tops, of an
enchanting, indescribable snarl of bushes, vines, and wild flowers. In
the adjoining fields, beneath the tree-boughs, ran the long, low line
of the ancient manoir--now turned into a museum.
We glanced for a few brief moments at the collection of antiquities
assembled beneath the old roof--at the Henry II. chairs, at the
Pompadour-wreathed cabinets, at the long rows of panels on which are
presented the whole history of France--the latter an amazing record of
the industry of a certain Dr. Le Goupils.
"Criqueboeuf doesn't exactly hide its light under a bushel, you know,
although it doesn't crown a hill. No end of people know it; it sits for
its portrait, I should say at least twice a week regularly, on an
average, during the season. English water-colorists go mad over
it--they cross over on purpose to `do' it, and they do it extremely
badly, as a rule."
This was Renard's last comment of a biographical and critical nature,
concerning the "historical monument," as we reseated ourselves to
pursue our way to P----.
"Why don't you show them how it can be done?"
"Would," coolly returned Renard, "if it were worth while, but it isn't
in my line. Henri, did you bring any ice?"
Henri, I had noticed, when we had reseated ourselves in the cart, had
greeted us with an air of silent sadness; he clearly had not approved
of ruins that interfered with the business of the day.
"_Oui, monsieur_, I did bring some ice, but as monsieur can imagine to
himself--a two hours' sun--"
"Nonsense, this sun wouldn't melt a pat of butter; the ice is all
right, and so is the wine."
Then he continued in English: "Now, ladies, as I should begin if I were
a politician, or an auctioneer; now, ladies, the time for confession
has arrived; I can no longer conceal from you my burglarious scheme. In
the next turn that we shall make to the right, the park of the P----
manoir will disclose itself. But, between us and that Park, there is a
gate. That gate is locked. Now, gates, from the time of the Garden of
Eden, I take it, have been an invention of--of--the other fellow, to
keep people out. I know a way--but it's not the way you can follow.
Henri and I will break down a few bars, we'll cross a few fields over
yonder, and will present ourselves, with all the virtues written on our
faces, to you in the Park. Meanwhile you must enter, as queens
should--through the great gates. Behold, there is a curé yonder, a
great friend of mine. You will step along the roadway; you will ring a
door-bell; the curé will appear; you will ask him if it be true that
the manoir of P---- is to rent, you have heard that he has the keys; he
will present you the keys; you will open the big gate and find me."
"But--but, Mr. Renard, I really don't see how that scheme will work."
"Work! It will work to a charm. You will see. Henri, just help the
ladies, will you?"
Henri, with decisive gravity, was helping the ladies to alight; in
another instant he had regained his seat, and he and Renard were flying
down the roadway, out of sight.
"Really--it's the coolest proceeding," Charm began. Then we looked
through the bars of the park gate. The park was as green and as still
as a convent garden; a pink brick mansion, with closed window-blinds,
was standing, surrounded by a terrace on one side, and by glittering
parterres on the other.
"Where did he say the old curé was?" asked Charm, quite briskly, all at
once. Everything had turned out precisely as Renard had predicted.
Doubtless he had also counted on the efficacy of the old fable of the
Peri at the Gate--one look had been sufficient to turn us into arrant
conspirators; to gain an entrance into that tranquil paradise any ruse
would serve.
"Here's a church--he said nothing about a church, did he?"
Across the avenue, above the branches of a row of tall trees, rose the
ivied facade of a rude hamlet church; a flight of steep weedy steps led
up to its Norman doorway. The door was wide open; through the arched
aperture came the sounds of footfalls, of a heavy, vigorous tread;
Charm ran lightly up a few of the lower steps, to peer into the open
door.
"It's the curé dusting the altar--shall I go in?"
"No, we had best ring--this must be his house."
The clatter of the curé's sabots was the response that answered to the
bell we pulled, a bell attached to a diminutive brick house lying at
the foot of the churchyard. The tinkling of the cracked-voiced bell had
hardly ceased when the door opened.
But the curé had already taken his first glance at us over the garden
hedges.