Amboise,
_November Something-or-Other_.
Dear old Lamb,
Did you know that you were the papa of a chameleon? An eccentric
combination. But Aunt Mary says she has found out that I am one--a
chameleon, I mean; but I don't doubt she thinks me an "eccentric
combination" too. And, anyway, I don't see how I can help being
changeable. Circumstances and motor-cars rule dispositions.
I wrote you a long letter from Blois, but little did I think then--no,
_that_ isn't the way to begin. I believe my starting-handle must have
gone wrong, to say nothing of my valves--I mean nerves.
Last night we broke down at the other end of nowhere, and rather than
desert Mr. Micawber, alias the automobile, I decided to stop till next
morning at a wayside farmhouse--the sort of place, as Aunt Mary said,
"where anything might happen."
Of course, I needn't have stayed. The Frenchman I told you about in my
last letter offered to take us and some of our luggage on to Amboise on
his little car; but I didn't feel like saying "yes" to that proposal,
and I was sorry for poor Brown, who had worked like a Trojan. Besides,
to stay was an adventure. Monsieur Talleyrand stopped too, and we had
quite a nice supper in a big farm kitchen, but not as big as the room
which the people gave Aunt Mary and me--a very decent room, with two
funny high beds in it. I couldn't sleep much, because of remorse about
something I had done. I'm ashamed to tell you what, but you needn't
worry, for it only concerns the car. And then I didn't know in the least
how we were to get on again next day, as this time the automobile had
taken measures to secure itself a good long rest.
I'd dropped off to sleep after several hours of staring into the dark
and wondering if Brown by some inspiration would get us out of our
scrape, when a hand, trying to find my face, woke me up. "It's come!" I
thought. "They're going to murder us." And I was just on the point of
shrieking with all my might to Brown to save me, when I realized that
the hand was Aunt Mary's; it was Aunt Mary's voice also saying, in a
sharp whisper, "What's that? What's that?"
"That," I soon discovered, was a curious sound which I suppose had
roused Aunt Mary, and sent her bounding out of bed, like a baseball, in
her old age. I forgot to tell you that in one corner of our room, behind
a calico curtain, was a queer, low green door, which we had wondered at
and tried to open, but found locked. Now the sound was coming from
behind that door. It was a scuffling and stumbling of feet, and a
creepy, snorting noise.
Even I was frightened, but it wouldn't do, on account of discipline, to
let Aunt Mary guess. I just sort of formed a hollow square, told myself
that my country expected me to do my duty, jumped up, found matches,
lighted our one candle, and with it the lamp of my own courage. That
burned so brightly, I had presence of mind to take the key out of the
other door and try it in the mysterious green lock. It didn't fit, but
it opened the door; and what do you think was on the other side? Why, a
ladder-like stairway, leading down into darkness. But it was only the
darkness of the family stable, and instead of beholding our landlord and
landlady digging a grave for us in a business-like manner, as Aunt Mary
fully expected, we saw two cows and a horse, and three of those silly,
surprised-looking French chickens which are always running across roads
under our automobile's nose.
This was distinctly a relief. We locked the door, and laid ourselves
down to sleep once more. But--for me--that was easier said than done. I
lay staring into blackness, thinking of many things, until the blackness
seemed to grow faintly pale, the way old Mammy Luke's face used to turn
ashy when she was frightened at her own slave stories, which she was
telling me. The two windows took form, like grey ghosts floating in the
dark, and I knew dawn must be coming; but as I watched the squares
growing more distinct, so that I was sure I saw and didn't imagine them,
a light sprang up. It wasn't the dawn-light, but something vivid and
sudden. I was bewildered, for I'd been in a dozy mood. I flew up, all
dazed and stupid, to patter across the cold, painted floor on my poor
little bare feet.
Our room overlooked the courtyard, and there, almost opposite the window
where I stood, a great column of intense yellow flame was rising like a
fountain of fire--straight as a poplar, and almost as high. I never saw
anything so strange, and I could hardly believe that it wasn't a dream,
until a voice seemed to say inside of me, "Why, it's _your car that's on
fire_!"
In half a second I was sure the voice was right, and at once I was quite
calm. How the car could have got on fire of its own accord was a
mystery, unless it had spontaneous combustion, like that awful old man
of Dickens, who burnt up and left a greasy black smudge; but there was
no time to think, and I only kept saying to myself, as I hurried to slip
on a few clothes (the sketchiest toilet I ever made, just a mere
outline), how lucky it was that my automobile stood in the courtyard
where there was no roof, instead of being in the barn, like Monsieur
Talleyrand's. And I knew that Brown slept in the barn, so that, if it
had happened there, he might have been burnt to death in his sleep,
which made me feel as if I should have to faint away, even to imagine.
But I didn't faint. I tore out of the room, as soon as I was dressed,
with my long, fur-lined motoring coat over my "nighty," and yelled
"Fire!" at the top of my lungs. But I forgot to yell in French, so of
course the farm people couldn't have understood what was the matter,
unless they'd seen the light from their windows. It was still dark in
the shut-up house, but somehow I found my way downstairs, and to the
door by which we'd all come trooping in the evening before. Nobody had
appeared yet (though I fancied I heard Aunt Mary's frantic voice), so I
concluded that the farmer and his wife must be outside in the fields
about their day's work, for these French peasants rise with the dawn, or
before it.
I pulled open the door, and the light of the fire struck right at my
eyes, which had got used to the darkness in the passage. There was the
pillar of fire, as bright and straight and amazingly high as ever, not a
trace of the car to be seen in the midst; but silhouetted against the
yellow screen of flame was a tall black figure which I recognized as
Brown's. He was standing still, looking calmly on, _actually with his
hands in his pockets_, instead of trying to put out the fire, and I was
dumbfounded, for always before he had shown himself so resourceful.
I stood still, too, a minute, for I _was_ surprised. Aunt Mary was
having hysterics in one of our windows which she'd thrown open; and
Monsieur Talleyrand had come close behind me, it seemed, though I didn't
know that then.
I heard the queer clucking and roaring of the fire which was drinking
gallons of petrol, but the only thing I _really_ thought of was Brown
with his hands in his pockets while my car was burning up. I didn't love
it--at least I hadn't, and the night before I had behaved to it not at
all in a gentlemanly manner, but I couldn't have stood by like that to
watch it die without moving a finger.
"Oh, Brown!" I gasped out, running to him, so close that the fire was
hot on my face. "Oh, Brown, how _can_ you? Anybody would think that you
were glad."
"And he is!" cried a voice in French at my back. "It was he who set your
automobile on fire, mademoiselle. I myself, who tell you, saw him do
it." I whisked round, and there stood Monsieur Talleyrand, looking very
picturesque in an almost theatrical _deshabille_, with the firelight
shining on him, just as if it were a scene on the stage.
Brown faced round too, and at the same instant, the fire having drunk
the last drop of petrol, the flame suddenly died down, and there fell a
curious silence after the roaring of the fire, which had been like a
blast. The woodwork of the car, the hood and the upper part, as well as
the wooden wheels, had all disappeared--the flame had swallowed and
digested them. Of my varnished and dignified car there remained only a
heap of twisted bits of iron, glowing a dull red. In the grey dawn we
must have looked like witches at some secret and unholy rite. The going
out of the light had an odd effect upon us three. When Monsieur
Talleyrand launched his accusation at Brown, he had thrown up his chin,
and the light, striking on his eyeballs, made them glow like red sparks.
But with the dying of the light, the flash in his eyes died too; and his
face changed to a disagreeable, ashy grey. At the same minute, when I
turned to Brown, it was _his_ eyes that glowed, but the light seemed to
come from inside.
I forget whether I ever told you that Brown is a very good-looking
fellow; too good-looking for a mere _chauffeur_. His face is like his
name--brown; his eyes are brown too, and they can almost speak. One
can't help noticing these things, even in one's _chauffeur_. If he
weren't a _chauffeur_, one might certainly take him for a gentleman.
Some things really are a pity! But never mind.
Brown looked at Monsieur Talleyrand, and then he said, "You are a liar."
Oh, my goodness, I expected murder!
Monsieur Talleyrand gave a sort of leap.
"Scoundrel, hog, _canaille_!" he stammered, trembling all over. "To be
insulted by an English cad, a common _chauffeur_, that a gentleman
cannot call out, an incendiary----"
But here Brown broke in with a "Silence!" that made me jump. And the
funny part was that it was _he_ who looked the gentleman, and Monsieur
Talleyrand the cad--quite a little, mean cad, though he is really
handsome, with eyelashes you'd have to measure with a tape. That awful
"Silence!" seemed to blow his words down his throat like a gust of wind,
and while he was getting breath Brown followed up his first shot; but
this time it was aimed my way.
"Do you believe what that coward says?" he flung at me, without even
taking hold of the words with "Miss" for a handle. Between the two men
and the excitement, I gasped instead of answering, and perhaps he took
silence for consent, though that is such an old-fashioned theory,
especially when it concerns girls. Anyway, he seemed to grow three or
four inches taller, and his chin got squarer. "So far from burning your
car," said he (and you could have made a block of ice out of each
word), "I have been to Amboise to hire a car for you, and thought I had
been lucky in securing my old master's.
"As this expedition has occupied the whole night. I have really had no
time for plotting, even if there had been a motive, or if I were the
sort of man for such work. I hoped you knew I wasn't. But there"--and he
pointed to the road outside the open gate--"is my master's car, and the
motor is still hot enough to prove----"
"I don't want it to prove," I found breath to exclaim. "Of course, I
know you didn't burn my car----"
"But if I say I saw him," cut in Monsieur Talleyrand.
"Pooh!" said I. It was the only word I could think of that went "to the
spot," and I hurried on to Brown. "All I minded was seeing you with your
hands in your pockets. It didn't seem like you."
"You don't understand," said he. "Just as I opened the doors to drive in
the car I'd brought, I saw at a glance that there was something queer
about yours. The front seat was off; and as I came nearer I found the
screw had been taken out of the petrol tank. With that I caught sight of
a flame creeping along a tightly twisted piece of cotton waste--the
stuff one cleans cars with. Then I knew that someone had planned to set
fire to the car and leave himself time to escape. I sprang at it to
knock away the waste, but I was too late. That instant the vapour
caught, and I was helpless to do any good, because sand, and a huge lot
of it, was the only thing that might have put the fire out, if one
could have got it, and then gone near enough to throw it on. Since there
was none, the only thing to do was to stand by; and as I'd scorched my
hands a little, I suppose I instinctively put them in my pockets."
Monsieur Talleyrand laughed. "You tell your story very well," said he,
"but----"
He didn't get farther than that "but," for just then up came running the
farmer and his wife from the fields, where they had seen the flames.
They began chattering shrilly, in a dreadful state about their
buildings, but Brown quieted them down, pointing out that no harm had
been done to anything of theirs, and that the fire was out. "Now," he
said, "since I didn't burn the car, who did?"
I looked at Monsieur Talleyrand because Brown was looking at him, or
rather glaring, when suddenly a loud exclamation from the farmer and his
wife made me turn to see what was going to happen next. What I saw was
the most wonderful old figure hobbling out of the house, through the
door I'd left open--a mere knotted thread of an old thing, in a red
flannel nightgown, I think it must have been, and a few streaks of grey
hair hanging from a night-cap that tied up its flabby chin. It was the
old woman who had breathed so much in the dark the night before; and no
wonder they exclaimed at seeing her crawling out of doors, hardly
dressed.
Somehow I felt frightened; she was just like a witch--horrifying, but
pathetic too, so old, so little life left in her. She would have come
hobbling on into the courtyard, but the farmer stopped her; and there
she stood on the door-sill, raising herself up and up on her stick,
until suddenly she clutched the farmer's arm and pointed the stick
straight at Monsieur Talleyrand, gabbling out something which I couldn't
understand.
The farmer had just been going to hustle her inside the house, but he
changed his mind. "She says _you_ set fire to the automobile," he
exclaimed; "she saw it from the window. She thinks you will murder us
all. Monsieur, my mother has still her senses. She does not tell foolish
lies. You must go out of my house."
"Monstrous!" cried Monsieur Talleyrand. "Am I to be accused on the word
of a crazy old witch? I advise you to be careful what you say."
"Here is something else, which speaks for itself," Brown said. "Look!"
and he pointed to the ground not far from the gnawed bones of my car. We
looked, and saw some wisps of the stuff he had called cotton-waste,
twisted up and saturated with oil. "That was used to fire the petrol,"
he went on. "There was none like it on our car, but you carried plenty
in yours. I've seen you use it, and so, I think, has Miss Randolph."
For an instant Talleyrand seemed to be taken aback, and he looked so
pale in the dim light that I was almost going to be sorry for him, when
with a sudden inspiration he struck an attitude before me. He had the
air of ignoring the others, forgetting that they existed.
"Mademoiselle," he said in a low, really beautiful voice, that might
have drawn tears from an audience if he had been the leading man cruelly
mistaken for a neighbouring villain, "_chere mademoiselle_, I did what
these _canaille_ accuse me of. Yes, I did it! But they cannot understand
why. Only you are high enough to understand. It was--because of my great
love for you. All is to be forgiven to such love. Cheerfully, a hundred
times over, will I pay for this material damage I have done. I am not
poor, except in lacking your love. To gain an opportunity of winning it,
to take you from your brutal _chauffeur_, who is not fit to have
delicate ladies trusted to his care, I did what I have done, meaning to
lay my car, myself, all that I have and am, figuratively at your feet."
If he had really, instead of "figuratively," I'm sure I couldn't have
resisted kicking him, which would have been unladylike. How _could_ I
ever have thought he was nice? Ugh! I could have strangled him with his
own eyelashes! Brown was right about him, after all. I wonder why it
doesn't please one more to find out that other people are right?
"I don't want you to pay," said I. "I only want you to go away."
I've a dim impression that I emphasised these words with a gesture, and
that he seized my hand before I could pull it back. I also have a dim
impression of exclaiming, "Oh, Brown!" in a frightened voice--just as
silly as if I'd been an early-Victorian female. I wished I hadn't, but
it was too late. Brown, evoked, was not so easily revoked. A whirlwind
seemed to catch Monsieur Talleyrand up, but it was really Brown. They
went together to visit a disagreeable, shiny green pond in the middle
of the farmyard. Brown stopped at the brink; but Monsieur Talleyrand
didn't stop--I suspect Brown knew why. He went on, and in. And, oh, Dad!
to save my life, I couldn't help laughing. All my excitement and
everything went into that laugh--the half-crying kind I used to call the
"boo-higgles" when I was a little girl--you remember?
I was afraid the wretch might hear me, so I turned and fairly ran for
the house. Brown took some long steps, and reached me before I got
there, apparently not the least concerned in the splashing sounds which
so much interested everybody else.
"About my master's car, miss," said he coolly. "Will you have it? He was
at Amboise. I'd heard from him there, that if I knew of anyone wanting
to hire a car, his was in the market for the next few weeks, as he was
suddenly called away, and didn't want to take it. It's a good car--the
best I ever drove--and he's willing to let it go cheap, as he trusts me
to drive, and it's an accommodation to him."
"Oh, I'm delighted to have it," I answered, not stopping to ask the
price, because details didn't seem to matter at that moment. "It's--it's
just like the ram caught in the bushes, isn't it? And--I don't know how
to thank you enough for everything." I can't tell exactly what I meant
by that, except that I meant a lot.
"There's nothing to thank me for, miss," said Brown, quite respectful
again; but a queer little smile lurked in the corners of his mouth. "You
must be hungry," he remarked. "Shall I ask them to have breakfast
prepared by the time you're--ready?"
I believe he was going to say "dressed," and stopped for fear of hurting
my feelings. I only stayed long enough to throw a "Yes, please," over my
shoulder. But when I was upstairs with Aunt Mary, my face feeling rather
hot, I didn't begin to make my toilet; I went and "peeked" out of the
window.
That unspeakable Frenchman was shaking himself like a big dog, and
sneaking towards the house, with the farmer at his heels. The farmer was
a big fellow, and dependable; still, I ran and locked the door. I
suppose the Beast finished dressing and packed his bag. I heard nothing;
but half an hour later (I'd bathed and dressed like lightning, for
once), when we were just sitting down to breakfast, and Brown had come
into the room to ask a question, there was a light pattering on the
stairs; the front door opened, and somebody went out. Two minutes later
came the whirring of a motor, and I jumped up.
"Oh, Brown!" I exclaimed, "if he should have taken _your_ car!"
"No fear of that," said Brown. "I know the sound just as I know one
human voice from another. That's his Pieper. It's all right."
Still I wasn't at ease. "But he may have done something bad to yours.
He's capable of anything," I said. "Do let's go and see."
Brown flushed up a little. "I'll go," he said. He was off on the word,
racing across the farmyard. I couldn't eat my breakfast till he came
back, which he did in a few minutes. I knew by his face before he spoke
that something was wrong. "I was a fool to leave the car for even a
second till he was out of the way," said the poor fellow. "Every tyre
gashed. No doubt he'd have liked to smash up the car altogether if he'd
had time, but his object was to do his worst and get off scot free. He's
done both. It's thanks to you and your quick thought that the damage is
so small."
"If it hadn't been for me he wouldn't have been here," I almost wept.
"Now we're delayed again just when I began to hope that all might be
well."
"All shall be well," answered Brown encouragingly. "We'll go 'on the
rims' as far as Amboise."
I didn't know what it was to go on the rims, but when we'd settled up
with the farmer, and I'd said a last, long good-bye to my car's bones
(which I made the landlord a present of), I found out. It's something
like "going on your uppers." I don't need to explain that, do I? But the
car is such a beauty that seeing it with, its tyres _en deshabille_
seemed an indignity. Brown couldn't help showing his pride in it, and I
don't wonder. He is certainly a "Mascot" to me, for he has got me out of
every scrape I've been in since he "crossed my path," as the melodramas
say. And now this lovely car! On the way to Amboise he told me what it
was to be let for. Only twenty francs a day. I protested, because
Rattray had said that good cars couldn't be hired for less than twenty
_pounds_ a week; but Brown explained that this was because his master
liked him to drive it, and that really it wasn't so cheap as I thought.
I suppose it's all right. Funny, though, that I should have the car of
that Mr. John Winston, whose mother--Lady Brighthelmston--I met in
Paris, and promised to meet again in Cannes. Fancy Aunt Mary and me
lolling luxuriously (I love that word "lolling") in a snow-white car
with scarlet cushions, all the brass-work gleaming like a fireman's
helmet--the rakiest, smartest car imaginable! There are two seats in
front and a roomy _tonneau_ behind. The steering and other arrangements
are quite different from those in the poor dead Dragon--rest its wicked
soul! There's a steering-wheel, and below it two ducky little handles
that do everything. One's the "advance sparking lever," the other the
"mixture lever." There are no horrid belts to break themselves--and your
heart at the same time, but instead a "change speed gear" and a
"clutch." I had my first lesson in driving, sitting by Brown on the way
to Amboise. He teaches one awfully well, and I was perfectly happy
learning, especially when I found that the faster we went the easier the
dear thing is to steer. I was so interested that I didn't know a bit
what the road was like, except that it was good and white and mostly
level, so that when Brown suddenly said "There is the Chateau of
Amboise," I was quite startled.
Luckily he was driving again by that time, or I should probably have
shot us into the river instead of turning to the bridge; for we were on
the other side of the Loire looking across to the castle.
You poor, dear, stay-at-home Dad, to think of your never having seen any
of these lovely places that you've nobly sent me to browse among! You
_say_ you admire Wall Street more than French chateaux, and that when
you want a grand view you can go and look at Brooklyn Bridge or the
statue of Liberty by night; but you don't know what you're missing. And
if travelling would _really_ bore you, why do you like me to describe
things, so that I can "give you a picture though my eyes"?
I wonder if girls who have lived all their lives in old, old countries
can have the same sort of awed, surprised, almost dream-like feeling
that comes to me when I see these great feudal castles that are like
history in stone? Yes, in stone, and yet the stone seems _alive_ too as
if it were the _flesh_ of history; and as I think of all the things that
have happened behind the splendid walls, I can hear history's heart
beating as if it and the world were young with me.
This chateau country of the Loire must be one of the most interesting
spots on earth, centring as it did the old Court life of France, and
Brown says it really is so. He has travelled tremendously and remembers
everything, though he _is_ nothing but a _chauffeur_.
Each place we have come to I have thought must be the best; but I know
that no other castle will make me take Amboise down off the pedestal
I've set it on, in my mind.
As I glanced up at it in the sunshine the great white carved _facade_
dazzled me. It looked as if it had been cut out of ivory. The bridge
rests on an island in the middle of the wide, yellow, slow-moving stream
of the Loire, which has a curiously still surface like ice. Brown drove
slowly without my having to ask. He's wonderful that way. He always
knows what you are feeling, as if you had telegraphed him the news. And
there before us lay the little town of Amboise, sprinkled along the
river-bank as if each house were a votive offering on the shrine of the
Chateau towering above on its plateau of rock.
I couldn't make out the architecture at first. The castle was just a
vast, dazzling complication of enormous round towers, bastions,
terraces, balconies, and crenellations. Oh, those balconies! Instantly I
could see poor little fainting Queen Mary held up by wicked Catherine de
Medici--the record wickedest mother-in-law of history--to watch the
execution of the Huguenots. And then the row of heads hanging from the
balcony afterwards, like terrible red gargoyles! When we went into the
Chateau later the custodian, or whatever you call him, showed us where
the fine ironwork was stained and rusted with the Huguenots' blood.
I was very angry with Aunt Mary because she kept her nose in her
Baedeker, and preferred reading about the castle to seeing it when she
had the chance. I have my opinion of people who won't take their
Baedeker in doses either before or after meals of sight-seeing; but Aunt
Mary spreads it so thick over hers that what's underneath is lost.
We drove to a nice little hotel tucked away at the foot of the Chateau,
for _dejeuner_, and to get rid of our luggage, for we'd have to stop at
Amboise till the four new tyres (which Brown now wired for) should
arrive from Paris. We had so many courses that I grew quite impatient,
for I wanted to be off to the castle. And to save time I insisted on
Brown lunching with us. That's happened before several times, so that it
doesn't seem at all strange now, though Aunt Mary fussed at first, and
even I felt rather funny. But the queer part is, it's so _much_ more
difficult to remember that Brown's not a gentleman than to make an
effort to be civil to him as if he were one. Rattray at the table was
beyond words, and so are a lot of Frenchmen who ought to know better;
but--you'll laugh at me--I don't see how a duke could eat any better
than Brown, or have nicer hands and nails; though how he does it with
the car to clean is more than I can tell.
We came towards the castle, after _dejeuner_, from the back through the
town, which was gay with booths and blue blouses and pretty peasant
girls, because the market was being held. We went right through the
crowd, up, up a sloping path, where suddenly we were in a restful
silence, after the chattering and chaffering below. And I felt as if we
had got into a novel of Scott's; for if we'd been his characters he
would have brought us up short at a secretive door in a tower, just like
the one where we had to knock. One couldn't guess what would be on the
other side of that tower; and it was like walking on through the next
chapter of the same novel (walking slowly and with dignity, so that we
might "live up to" the author of our being) to wander up a steep road
leading to a plateau and reach the still, formal garden with the great
castle rising out of it.
On this plateau a lovely thing simply took my eyes captive and wouldn't
let them go. It was the most perfect gem of a little chapel out of
dreamland. Brown said it was "a jewel of the pure Gothic, one of the
most precious of the florid kind in France." Comic to have one's
_chauffeur_ talking to one like that, isn't it? But I'm used to it now,
and feel quite injured if Brown happens not to know something I ask him
about.
I never realised what an important lady Anne of Brittany was, till I was
introduced to her sweet little ermine at Blois. Brown hinted then that I
would keep on realising it more and more as we drove through the Loire
country, and so I do. This chapel was hers--built for her, and I envy
her having it. Couldn't you, Dad dear, just make a bid, and have it
taken over for our garden at Lennox? But no! that would be sacrilege.
It's almost sacrilege even to joke about it. Yet, oh, that carving of
St. Hubert and his holy stag over the door! I've no jewellery so lovely
as that cameo in stone; and I've got to leave it behind in Europe.
Poor Charles the Eighth, too, seemed to come to us like a human, every
day young man one knew when we saw the low doorway where he knocked his
head and killed himself, running in a great hurry to play tennis. How
little he guessed when he started that he should never have that game,
and why! I wonder if Anne was sorry when he died, or if she liked having
another wedding and being a queen all over again when she married Louis
the Twelfth?
I should have thought more about the ladies' love affairs, only I got
so interested in an _oubliette_, and in a perfectly Titanic round tower,
with an inclined plane corkscrewing up, round and round inside it, so
broad and so gradual that horses and carriages used in old, old days to
be driven from the town-level up to the top. "Only think what fun,
Brown," I couldn't help saying, "if we could drive the _car_ up here!"
"The idea!" sniffed Aunt Mary. "As if they'd allow such a thing!" But
Brown didn't answer; he just looked thoughtfully at the gradient.
We went up, too, on the top of one of the great towers of the castle
itself, and it was glorious to stand there looking away over the
windings of the river. We were at a bend midway between Blois and Tours,
and ever so far off we could see two little horns sticking up over the
undulations of the land. They were the towers of the cathedral of Tours;
and in that same direction Brown showed me a queer thing like a long,
thin finger pointing at the sky--the Lanterne of Rochecorbon. They used
to flash signals from it all the way to Amboise, and so on to Blois,
when any horror happened with which they were particularly pleased, like
a massacre of Huguenots.
Now, most patient gentleman, at last I've finished my harangue. I'm
ashamed to think how long it is, but I'm writing wrapped up in a warm
coat, under a _tilleul_ in the Chateau garden, where I've been allowed
to bring my campstool. Do you know what a _tilleul_ is? I don't believe
you do. I didn't till the other day; but I shan't tell you, except that
the very name suggests to me leisured ease and sauntering courtiers.
You must come over to France and find out--and incidentally fetch me
home--only not yet, please, oh, not yet. As for the _tilleul_, if you've
any romance left in your dear old body you'd love sitting under it, even
in winter. If it were summer, with the limes in blossom--well, the best
way to express my feeling is to remark that if, in June moonlight, under
a _tilleul_, a man I hated should propose to me, I'd believe for the
moment I loved him and say "Yes--yes!" But you need not be frightened;
it _isn't_ summer or moonlight, and there's no man except Brown within a
hundred miles of your silly
Molly.