Biarritz, _December 11_.
My dear Montie,
I have let you rest a good long time without a letter (not that I've
been taking a rest myself), and now I should think you are opening your
eyes with astonishment at the picture on my paper of a hotel at
beautiful, blowy Biarritz. Thereby hangs a tale of adventure and
misadventure.
No doubt my fair employer believes me at this moment to be consorting
with couriers in the servants hall (if there be one) of her hotel. But,
as usual, I know a trick worth two of that; and having washed his hands
of Brown for the time being, your friend Jack sits smoking his pipe and
writing to you in what is known as the "monkey-house" of this hotel. As
you don't know Biarritz, you'll think that in exchanging all the
comforts of a servants' hall for a monkey-house I am not doing myself as
well as I might. But there are monkey-houses and monkey-houses. This one
is a delightful glass room built on to the front of the hotel, facing a
garden and tennis courts, commanding a glorious view of the sea and also
of every creature, human and inhuman, who goes by. One has tea in the
monkey-house; one writes letters, reads novels, smokes or gossips,
according to sex and inclination; one can also be seen at one's private
avocations by the madding crowd outside the glass house, hence the name.
The air is luminous with sunshine and pungent with ozone. Great green
rollers are marching in, to break in thunder on the beach, and fling
rainbow spouts of spray over tumbled brown rocks. In the distance the
sea has all the colours of a peacock's tail; the world is at its best,
and I ought to be rejoicing in its hospitality; but I'm not. The fact
is, I'm upset in my mind. I'm over head and ears in love, and as there's
no hope of scrambling out again (I'm hanged if I would, even if I could)
or of getting my feet on solid ground, mere beauty of landscape and
seascape appear slightly irrelevant.
I wouldn't bother you with my difficulties, which, I admit, are mostly
my own fault, and serve me right for beginning wrong, but you asked in
your letter if you could help me in any way; and it does help to let off
steam. You are my safety-valve, old man.
You will have had my hasty line from Angouleme (birthplace of
witch-stories and of Miss Randolph's beloved Francis the First) telling
you how we got rid of Eyelashes. I don't think we shall ever encounter
that beautiful young vision again, and I sincerely hope that we shall be
spared others of his kind, but one never knows what will happen with an
American girl at the helm. I told you also of our doings among the
chateaux. Altogether, that was an idyllic time; and still, though I have
been grumbling to you just now, when I can shut my eyes to to-morrow, I
haven't much fault to find with Fate. You remember that weird story of
Hawthorne's, about the man who walked out of his own house one morning,
took lodgings in a neighbouring street, disguised himself, and watched
for years the agony of his wife, who gave him up for dead? At last the
desire for home came over him again; he knocked at his own door and went
in; there the story ends.
My position is like that of Hawthorne's hero, without the tragedy. When
shall I return to my own home? I cannot tell. I have stepped out of my
own sphere into another, and sometimes I have an odd sense of
detachment, as if I were floating in a void. It is only when I am
writing to you or when I get letters from the world I have left that I
feel the link which unites me with the past. Since I left Paris I have
had only four letters from my world, which have fallen into Brown's
world like strange reminders of another existence. I have had your own
welcome words, and a letter from my mother at Cannes (I gave her my
address at Poitiers) telling me of the arrival there of Jabez Barrow
with his "one fair daughter," and urging me to haste. As if I should
rush from the society of the Goddess in the car to the opulent charms
(in both senses) of Miss Barrow! It appears that Jabez the Rich does not
care for Cannes, but sighs for Italy, and that my mother has promised to
"personally conduct" them to Rome. She wants me to reach Cannes before
they leave, or if that's impossible, to abandon my car and follow by
rail to Rome, lest I "miss this great chance." I am not surprised at
this move. My dear mother, when the travelling fit is upon her, is
nothing if not erratic. She is here to-day, and, having seen the charms
of another place advertised on a poster, is gone to-morrow.
On getting this letter a happy inspiration came into my mind. It had
been the more or less vague intention of the Goddess, after inspecting
the castles of the Loire, to steer for Lyons, arriving at Nice by way of
Grenoble. I offered the wily suggestion, however, that it would make a
more varied and less "obvious" tour if we went down by Bordeaux and
Biarritz, snatched a glimpse of Spain, travelled along the foot of the
Pyrenees to Marseilles, and so reach the Riviera by this long detour.
The word "obvious" is a black beast to an American girl, who will be
original or nothing; therefore my suggestion is in the way of being
carried out. I've written to my mother that I can't reach Cannes before
she herself leaves for Rome; thus I gain time. Still, the day of
disclosure must come at last, and the longer it's put off the less I
like to think about it.
The Goddess (alias Miss Randolph) is staying with her aunt at the
"Angleterre." I have slunk off here, having arranged matters with the
hall porter at the other place, who will, if my mistress wants me, send
a messenger post-haste. Meanwhile the car reposes in a _garage_, where
it is kept clean and in running order without any trouble to me. As I
have gradually drifted into the position of Miss Randolph's courier as
well as her _chauffeur_, I can plan these things as I like, for she
never glances at her bills, which I settle, giving an account every few
days. Do you recall your own story of the conscientious Yankee from the
country who failed in his efforts to eat straight through the _menu_ at
a Paris hotel dinner, and appealed to the waiter to know whether he
might now "skip from thar to thar"? Well, I would skip on my _menu_ from
Loches to Biarritz; but you were to have been my companion on this trip,
and you cry for details.
From Loches we took a cross-country route which brought us out in the
main road from Tours to Bordeaux at Dange. There isn't much to say about
that run, except that it was through agreeable, undulating country with
wide horizons, like a thousand other undulations and horizons in France.
At La Haye-Descartes we struck a pretty picture when crossing a bridge
over the River Creuse. The setting sun had performed the miracle of
turning the water into wine, and, chattering and laughing as if that
wine had gone to their pretty heads, a company of girls and young women,
all on their knees, cheerfully did their washing in the stream. It was
one of those homely scenes that one is constantly coming across in this
"pleasant land of France" to leave a picture in one's mind. Miss
Randolph would have me stop the car on the bridge to watch it.
A queer thing about France, by the way. You and I have both been
entertained right royally in jolly old _chateaux_ by delightful French
people of our own class. We know that life in such country houses can be
as charming as it is in England; yet if one had never seen it from the
inside, one would fancy in travelling that nothing of the sort existed.
Roughly, one might sum the difference up in a phrase by saying that
France presents a peasant's landscape, England a landlord's. In England
you see twenty good country houses for every one you pass in
France--excepting only the district of the Loire; and outdoor life as we
know it, on the road and on the river, doesn't seem to exist over here.
Somehow I was never so much struck with this contrast before, though I
know this country almost as well as I know my hat. Think of the English
roads and lanes, of the pretty girls and decent men one meets on
horseback or in smart dogcarts, the dowagers in victorias, the crowds of
cyclists, the occasional fine motor-car, knickerbockered men walking for
the pleasure of exercise! Here, though one knows there are more motors
than at home, one rarely comes across them out of towns; and as for
ladies and gentlemen, or, indeed, any sort of people out solely for
enjoyment, they're as rare as black opals. I look in vain for pretty
field paths and rural lanes, where workmen and their sweethearts wander
when the day is done. I suppose they prefer to do their love-making
indoors or in front of a cafe, or perhaps they sandwich it in with their
long hours of work, and that is the reason why the whole of France seems
so much more cultivated than country England--the reason why every acre
is turned to account, not a square yard of earth left untilled. It's
only the magnificent roads which aren't enough appreciated, apparently,
by the "nobility and gentry," as the tradesmen's circulars have it. And
what roads the Routes Nationales are--born for motor-cars!--varying a
little from department to department, but equally good almost
everywhere. You come to a stone marking the boundary of a department,
for instance, and crossing an imaginary line, find yourself on a
different kind of surface, each department being allowed to make it's
road after the manner which pleases it best--provided only it makes it
well.
The Route Nationale from Paris to Bayonne, along part of which we've
lately travelled, is good nearly all the way. From Dange to Poitiers is
a splendid bit, and up to Poitiers one climbs a considerable hill. It's
a cheerful town, with a fine cathedral, and lively streets full of
red-legged soldiers, rather weedy and shambling fellows, like most
French conscripts. Beyond Poitiers the road is one long, exhilarating
switchback--you rush down one hill, climb another, swoop again into a
hollow, and so on, the road unrolling itself like a great white tape.
You try to drive faster than the tape unrolls, but somehow you can never
beat it.
That we were getting into the south was shown by the fact that the road
was bordered by endless rows of walnut trees. Under a tumbled sky, and
with an occasional spatter of rain, we passed that day through a vast
stretch of rolling, cultivated land, with obscure villages at long
intervals. In a little town called Couhe-Verac we lunched rather late.
The regular _dejeuner_ was over, as it was nearly three in the
afternoon; but in ten minutes after we got into the house we sat down to
this luncheon: boiled eggs, roast veal, _b[oe]uf a la mode_, _puree_ of
potatoes, pheasant, a delicious _pate_, grapes, peaches, pears, sweet
biscuits, cream cheese, red and white wine, and bread _ad libitum_; all
for two francs fifty per head. Think of it! This was a homely village
inn, with no pretensions. What would have happened if we had turned up
unexpectedly at such a house in England? We should have been offered
cold beef and pickles, with the alternative of ham and eggs, or possibly
"chop or steak, sir; take twenty minutes." Truly in cooking we are
barbarians. The French dine; we feed.
The landlord was a man of character. He had delightful manners, and
though he was young his hair was greyish, and cut low and straight
across a broad forehead. Through gold-rimmed glasses gleamed the blue
eyes of an enthusiast. He went with me to look at the car, and explained
that he was an inventor--that he had designed a new system of marine
propulsion more powerful than the screw. It followed the action of a man
in swimming, "regular in irregularity," and standing on his toes, he
flung out his arms, and beat them rhythmically in the air to illustrate
his theory. It was hard, he confided in me, to have to keep an inn in a
small town, when he ought to be in Paris, among engineers, perfecting
his invention. Did I, by any chance, know of a capitalist who would back
him? I sympathised and regretted; but who knows if he has not got hold
of an idea? At Blois they have a statue of Denis Papin, who, the French
say, invented the steam engine. Perhaps, years hence, if my
grandchildren pass through Couhe-Verac, they may see a statue to the
blue-eyed landlord of its little inn.
Beyond Couhe-Verac we had our first dog accident. Dogs, you know, are as
great a nuisance to automobiles as they are to cycles, and they charge
at one's car with such vehemence that their impetus almost carries them
under the wheels. Sometimes they show their strength by galloping
alongside the car for a couple of hundred yards, barking so furiously
the while that their bodies are contorted by the violence of the effort.
I was driving at a moderate pace (something under thirty miles an hour)
when a beautiful collie which had been standing by the roadside walked
quietly out and planted himself with his back to me in front of the car.
The fact was that he saw his master coming along the road, and had gone
forward to greet him. The whole thing happened in an instant, so that I
had no time to stop. I think the dog must have been deaf not to hear the
noise of the car. I shouted, but he took no notice. To swerve violently
to one side was to risk upsetting the car; besides, there was no room to
do this as another vehicle happened to be passing. If there had been
only the car to sacrifice, I would have sacrificed it to save that
collie; but I couldn't sacrifice Miss Randolph. There was nothing for it
but to drive over the dog. With a sickening wrench of the heart, I saw
the nice beast disappear under the front of the car. Instantly slowing
down, I looked behind me expecting to see a mangled corpse. But there
was the dog rolling over and over on the road. Clearly some under part
of the car had struck him and sent him spinning. The noise, the
unexpected blow, the fierce, hot blast of the poisonous exhaust pouring
into his face, must have made the poor fellow think that he had struck a
travelling earthquake. But happily he was unhurt. As I looked he got on
to his feet, and with his tail between his legs, ran to his master for
consolation. Our last glimpse showed us that comedy had followed
tragedy, for the master was beating the dog with a cane for getting in
our way. I was afraid Miss Randolph would scream or faint, but she did
neither, only turned white as marble, and never looked prettier in her
life. Aunt Mary yelled, of course, but more in fear for ourselves than
for the collie, I think. She says she would like dogs better "if their
bark could be extracted."
Angouleme is, like Poitiers, a town set upon a hill, a quaint old town,
worth seeing, but we were eager now to get to the true South, and merely
gave ourselves time to lunch (the waiter producing, with a flourish,
enticing but indigestible _pates de perdrix aux truffes_) and to drive
slowly along some of the famous terraced boulevards that form the
distinction and the charm of Angouleme. Certainly the place stands
romantically on its high and lonely hill, almost surrounded by the clear
waters of the Charante. At Angouleme we saw, I may say, the first
professional beggars we had met on the tour. A warm sun seems to breed
beggars as it breeds mosquitoes, or is it that Southern peoples have
less self-respect than the Northern?
A drawback to automobilism in France is the fact that many of the great
direct main roads are _pave_. I believe that this is a remnant of the
old days of road-making, when these heavy cobbles formed the one
surface that would stand artillery. For ordinary traffic the _pave_
roads are impossible, and their existence must be a drawback to trade
and intercourse. In France they sell special bicycling maps showing with
dotted lines all the _pave_ roads, and these I have carefully studied,
as it is worth making any _detour_ to avoid the awful jolting of the
_pave_. But somehow, between Angouleme and Bordeaux, I took a wrong
turning, and suddenly on ahead of us the good road ceased abruptly as if
a straight line had been ruled across it, and the detestable _pave_
began.
"Oh, let's try it as an experience," commanded my Goddess. "I hate going
back, and perhaps it doesn't last long." I trusted to this hope, for I
knew that in many places the _pave_ is being dug up, here and there only
short stretches of it being left, and I gingerly drove the Napier on to
the execrable surface of uneven stones. We rattled and tossed, and
steering became a matter of difficulty. The irritating thing was that
each side of this detestable road were wide belts of inviting grass, but
with malignant ingenuity these are cut up at frequent intervals by
oblique drainage gutters, which forbid the passage of anything wider
than a bicycle. For bicycles there are indeed special tracks kept in
order by the Touring Club de France, but all four-wheeled vehicles must
jolt and bump along the rough, uneven stones. By the time we reached the
first cross-road Aunt Mary begged for mercy, and I was glad to have the
order to get off the _pave_ at any cost. Soundly as the Napier is built,
it was a tremendous and unfair strain upon springs and tyres, and all
the while I was dreading that something would go. Threading our way
through endless vineyards by a labyrinth of by-ways, we ran through
Barbezieux and Libourne, and as day was falling crossed the noble bridge
over the Garonne into bustling Bordeaux.
Next day we took a run on the car along the Quai des Chartrons and
through some of the chief streets and squares of Bordeaux, just to get a
glimpse of the handsome town, at which Miss Randolph turned up her
pretty nose because it was "new and prosperous"; then, guided by a
porter from the hotel who went before us on his bicycle, we threaded the
city on our way out to Arcachon. There was some unavoidable _pave_ and
many odious tramlines; but at last our guide left us on the outskirts of
the town, and we sped on to a curious little toy suburb called St.
Martin, studded with neat, one-storied, red-roofed cottages, like houses
in a child's box of bricks, and all with romantic names, such as Belle
Idee, Mon Repos, Augustine, Mon C[oe]ur, and so on. The whole place
seemed like an assemblage of dove cotes specially planned for honeymoon
couples, and gave the oddest effect of unreality. Then we passed into
the green twilight of the great pine forest which extends all the way to
the sea.
A romantically beautiful road lay before us. For more than thirty miles
it runs straight and smooth through high aromatic pines, springing from
a carpet of bracken. Miss Randolph, I must tell you, has become an
expert driver, and at sight of the long, straight road said she would
take the wheel. So I stopped a moment, and we changed places. She put
the car at its highest speed, and we flew along the infinite perspective
of the never-ending avenue. This vast pine forest is a desert, and we
passed only through small and scattered villages. That flight through
the pine forest of the Landes will always be to me an ineffaceable
memory. None of us spoke; two of us felt, I think, that we were close to
Nature's heart. The heady, balsamic odour of the pines exhilarated us,
and the wind, playing melancholy music on the Eolian harps of their
branches, seemed like a deep accompaniment to the humming throb of the
tireless motor. As often as I dared I stole a look sideways at Miss
Randolph's profile. She sat erect, her little gauntletted hands resting
light as thistledown upon the wheel, but her fingers and her wrist
nervous and alert as a jockey riding a thoroughbred, her eyes intent on
the long, straight road before her, and a look almost of rapture upon
her face.
We had raced silently through the forest for nearly an hour, when,
mingling with the balsam of the pines there came a pungent odour of
ozone floating from open blue spaces beyond the sombre girdle of the
pines. Miss Randolph threw at me a questioning glance. "It must be the
sea," I answered, and in a few moments more, after passing through the
ancient town of La Teste, we came out upon the edge of a vast lagoon,
semicircular, the distant shores almost lost in an indistinct blue haze.
"The Bassin d'Arcachon," I said. Still, no town was visible, only the
great expanse of landlocked sea, its shore dotted with the brown wooden
cabins of the oyster fishers. It seemed like coming to the end of the
world.
Slowing down a little, we followed a raised causeway that skirted the
edge of the Bassin, and presently entered upon a long, straight
street--one of the oddest streets you have ever seen, one whole side of
it (that next the sea) being composed of fantastic bungalows and
pleasure-houses of all imaginable styles, each set in its own garden,
and the whole town drowned in an ocean of pines. At the outskirts I took
the helm again, for Miss Randolph scarcely trusts her skill in traffic.
Not that there was enough to be alarming in Arcachon, for the place
seemed under a spell of silence. We drove through the long main street,
past an imposing white chateau and a good many quite charming houses,
until we came to a hotel which the Goddess fancied, and turned into a
garden. I'd never been to Arcachon before, and supposed from the
guide-books that this was the place for "my ladies" (as the couriers
say) to stop. But the landlady came out, and welcoming us with one
breath, recommended us with the next to their winter house in the
forest. This place, looking over the sea, was for summer; the other was
now more agreeably sheltered.
The "house in the forest" sounded well in the ears of the Goddess, so we
drove off to find it, according to the directions of Madame Feras. The
Napier spun us up a steep, winding road into a charming garden
surrounding an Alhambra sort of place, which Aunt Mary thought "real
gay," being bitterly disappointed to find it was not our hotel, but
Arcachon's casino. The garden proved to be, however, practically the
beginning of the _Ville d'Hiver_, a quaint and delightful collection of
villas which look as if they had been scattered like ornate seeds among
the crowding pine of the Landes. Of these seeds the "Continental" is the
most imposing, and, by-the-way, this climate would suit you, I should
think; it's an extraordinary combination of pine and sea air, which
would make a doctor's fortune as a tonic, if he could cork it up in
bottles.
As both hotels are run by the same management, I feared gossip if I went
down to the "Grand" and did the Doctor Jekyll act; so I cautiously
remained Mr. Hyde, alias Brown, and was a serf among other serfs. After
dining in the society of maids and valets (whose manners and
conversation would have given me ripping "copy" if I were a journalist)
I stole out to cleanse my mind with a draught of pure air and a look at
the sky. A cat may look at a king, and a _chauffeur_ may walk on a
terrace built for his betters, especially if the betters elect to shut
themselves up in stuffy drawing-rooms, with every window anxiously
closed. I availed myself of this privilege, for the hotel has a fine
terrace. As it was apparently empty, I sauntered along with my nose in
the air and my eyes on the stars, letting my footsteps take care of
themselves. Suddenly there was a startled "Oh!" in a familiar voice, and
I became aware that I had collided with the Goddess, who had also been
thinking of the stars and not of her feet--which, by-the-by, _I_ very
often think of, as they are the prettiest I ever saw.
I instantly clapped my pipe in my pocket, where it revenged itself on me
for neglecting to put it out by burning a hole through to my skin. I
apologised, and would have taken my humble chauffeury self away, but my
mistress detained me. "What is that wonderful, faraway sound, Brown?"
she asked in the delicious way she has of expecting me to know
everything, as if I were an encyclopaedia and she'd only to turn over my
leaves to come to a new fact.
I stopped breathing to listen; I'd do it permanently to please her. And
there _was_ a sound--a wonderful sound. If I hadn't been thinking about
her and the stars, I should have been conscious of it before. Out of the
night-silence the sound seemed to grow, and yet be a part of the
silence, or rather, to intensify the _near_ silence by its distant
booming, deep and ominous, like the far-off roaring of angry lions never
pacified. At first I thought it must be a rush of wind surging through
the mighty pine forest; but not a dark branch moved against the spangled
embroidery of stars, though the air seemed faintly to vibrate with the
continuous, solemn note. Suddenly the meaning of the sound came to me;
it was the majestic music of the Atlantic surf beating on the bar ten
miles away. But it was too divine standing there in the night with Her
in silence. For a moment I had not the heart to speak and tell her of my
discovery. A faint light came to us from the stars and from the
curtained windows of the hotel. I could just see her face and her lovely
great eyes looking up questioningly in absolute confidence at me. Jove,
what wouldn't I have given just then to be Jack Winston and not Brown!
If I had been, that girl wouldn't have got back into the house without
being proposed to, and having another "scalp" to count, as they say
American beauties do. Not that I think she'd be that kind. I don't know
how long I shouldn't have tried to make the magic of the moment last, if
Aunt Mary hadn't bounced out of the hotel (done up in a shawl, like a
large parcel) to call "Molly! Molly, it's time you came in!"
Molly didn't move, but Aunt Mary descended the steps, relentless as
fate; so I made the most of my information, and added a short
disquisition on Arcachon oysters and oyster fishing, for the sake of
retaining the Goddess's society. Unfortunately, however, I happened to
remark that the oyster women wore trousers exactly like the men, and
this so disgusted Miss Kedison that she incontinently dragged her niece
from the contamination of the _chauffeur's_ presence.
Next day was Sunday. Miss Randolph went to the English church, which is
the prettiest I've ever seen in France, and afterwards, escorted by the
chaplain with whom she'd made friends, went forth to see the sights,
while I inquired as to how we might best proceed upon our way. While
Miss Randolph and Miss Kedison read their prayer-books, I studied that
useful volume, _Les Routes de France_, and was duly warned against the
impracticable roads of the Landes. The one thing to do, according to the
oracle, was to return to Bordeaux and make a long detour to Bayonne by
Mont de Marsan. I knew Miss Randolph would dislike this plan, for she
hates going back, and so do I. If I had been alone, or with you, I
would have chanced it without a moment's hesitation, making straight for
Bayonne by way of the forbidden Landes, with all its pitfalls. But I
funked the idea of perhaps getting Her into a mess--and hearing Aunt
Mary say "I told you so," as she invariably does when there's any
trouble.
To my joy, however, plucky Parson Radcliff had actually advanced the
idea of the Landes, during their excursion, and the Goddess sent for me
on Sunday evening, full of enthusiasm. Far be it from me to dampen the
ardour of youth; and early on Monday morning we started to follow the
route La Teste, Sanguinet, Parentis, Yehoux, Liposthey, which names
reminded Miss Randolph of _Gulliver's Travels_.
She and I were in fine spirits, expecting the unexpected, and bracing
ourselves to encounter difficulties. There was mystery in the very
thought of the Landes--that strange waste of forest and sand so little
known outside its own people. I felt it, and so did Miss Randolph, I
knew. How I knew I couldn't explain to you; but some electric current
usually communicates her mood to me, and I should almost believe from
various signs that it was so with her in regard to me, if I weren't a
mere _chauffeur_ in the lady's pay.
For some distance the going was good, but we were only reading the
preface to the true Landes as yet; and when we reached the boundary post
between the department of the Gironde and the real Landes, there was one
of those sudden, complete changes I've mentioned in the quality of the
road. To drive into this dim, pine-clad region was like driving back
into the years a century or two. A motor-car was an anachronism, and if
we came to grief our blood was upon our own heads. The way became
grass-grown and rutty, and I was obliged to drive slowly. Deeper and
deeper we penetrated into the forest, and deeper and deeper also we sank
into the soft earth. Aunt Mary groaned and prophesied disaster as we
crawled along in ruts up to our axles; but I think Miss Randolph and I
would have perished sooner than retreat. I trusted in the Napier and she
trusted in me. In one place the road had been mended with a covering of
loose rocks rather than stones; we panted and crunched our way over
them, enormously to the astonishment of the road-menders and one or two
dark-faced peasants, perched like cranes on the old-fashioned stilts not
yet utterly abandoned as a means of navigating this sea of sand and
pines. Still, on we went, the engine labouring a little, like an
overworked heart; but it was a loyal heart, and the tyres were trumps.
Miss Randolph said that if she were a tyre and condemned to such hard
labour, she would burst out of sheer spite. I think Miss Kedison nearly
did so as it was; but as for us (I suppose you can't conceive the
satisfaction to a poor _chauffeur_ of bracketing his lady and himself
familiarly as "us"), we were intoxicated by the heavy balsam of the
turpentine, for which every tree we passed was being sliced. On each a
great flake of the trunk had been struck off with an axe, and a small
earthen cup affixed to catch the resin, which is the heart's blood of
the wounded tree. There was something Dante-esque in the effect of these
bleeding wounds, among old, scarcely healed scars; and that effect was
intensified by the shadowy gloom of the dense forest, and the
never-ceasing sound of the wind among the high, dark branches, like the
beating of surf upon an unseen shore.
At last, when the feeling was strong upon us that the ocean of pines had
engulphed us, like Pharaoh's chariot in the Red Sea, we came upon a
rambling village, called Parentis. As if to announce the arrival of the
first motor car ever seen in the dim, forgotten Landes, the off front
tire began to hiss. "I _told_ you so!" said Aunt Mary. My eyes and Miss
Randolph's met, and we both burst out laughing. It was a great liberty
in me, and though I couldn't have helped it to save my neck, and became
preternaturally solemn afterwards as a penance, I don't believe that the
lady I should like to have for an aunt-in-law will ever forgive me. She
ought, however, as this was our first accident with the Napier, while
with poor little Miss Randolph's late esteemed Dragon, one breakfasted,
lunched, dined, and supped on horrors. Besides, the Dragon invariably
schemed to do its worst, far from human aid, while my long-suffering
Napier had brought us to the very courtyard of the village inn before
(as Miss Randolph expressed it) "sitting down to rest."
Inside this convenient courtyard I set about doing the repairs, jacking
up the car, taking off the tyre, patching it, and getting it on again in
twenty minutes; not bad for an amateur _mecanicien_. All the people of
the inn and many of the villagers gathered round to see the great sight,
and Aunt Mary consoled herself by showing off her somewhat eccentric
French to the landlady and her family.
There were three generations in this group, I took time to notice. A
bowed and wrinkled old dame; her daughter, a strong, sad-faced woman in
black; and a golden-haired granddaughter, about the prettiest creature I
ever saw--bar one. And it was charming to see my Goddess laying herself
out to be nice to the trio. Her personality (which is the last word in
well-groomed, high-strung, vivacious American girlhood) contrasted
strikingly with these countrywomen, who had perhaps never been outside
their own forest. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but she has the
most extraordinary way of always hitting on the right thing to please
and interest people, without departing from truth or descending to
flattery. All three gazed at her with delight and admiration, the little
beauty of the Landes with deepening colour and wistful eyes. No
Frenchwoman, no Englishwoman, no woman save an American of the best
type, could have exactly that manner, which is indescribable to one who
doesn't know. Strange for a vision like that to flash into these quiet
lives, then flash away, never to be seen again--only remembered.
It was too early for luncheon, but as we had had the shelter of the inn
I wanted to order something for "the good of the house." I accordingly
asked for Bordeaux and biscuits, and the pretty rose of a granddaughter
brought a bottle of--what do you think? Pontet Canet! It was nectar, and
cost--three francs a bottle!
When we drove away Miss Randolph was reflective. I would have liked to
offer a penny for her thoughts, but that sort of indulgence is not in
the sphere of a _chauffeur_. Presently she broke out, however. "Did you
ever see anything so lovely as that girl?" she exclaimed. "She's all
white and gold and rose. Her presence in that sombre place reminds me of
a shaft of warm, golden light breaking through the dark canopy of pines.
She's like a maiden in Hans Christian Andersen. And her name's Angele.
Isn't that perfect? It seems cruel that such a creature, who would make
a sensation in Paris or London or New York, must bloom and ripen and
wither at last, unknown, in that wilderness. Oh, how I should love to
snatch her away?"
"What would you do with her, miss, if you could?" I ventured to ask, at
my humblest--which in Aunt Mary's eyes, is my best. "Would you take her
for your maid?"
"A _maid_?" echoed my Goddess scornfully. "Why, if I meant such a crime
as that, I should expect white bears to come out of these woods and
devour me. No; I would give her pretty dresses, and arrange a good
marriage for her."
"Is that what young girls in America like, miss," I meekly inquired, "to
have marriages arranged for them?"
"No; they hate it, and go away from America to show that they hate
it--sometimes; but this would be different," said she. And I wondered
if she had accidentally betrayed anything.
At Liposthey we struck the direct road, with good surface, from Bordeaux
to Bayonne. Thus on through Labouheyre to Castets, still walled in with
dark, balsamic forest, where we lunched. Just beyond, however, we found
that we were bidding the pines farewell, and we were regretting them
despite the beauty of the road--increasing every moment--when suddenly
we had a great surprise. At what precise point it came I don't quite
know, for I was snatched up out of the dull "flatland" of facts. Miss
Randolph was driving, and I was glancing interestedly about, as an
intelligent young man of the working-class may, when away to the left I
saw up in the skies a long chain of blue, serrated mountains looking far
too high to belong to this world. I started on my seat; then Miss
Randolph saw what I saw. "Oh--h!" she breathed, with a responsive sigh
of appreciation. Not an adjective; not a word. I blessed her for that.
Unfortunately, Aunt Mary seized this moment to awake, and she did not
spare us fireworks. She never does. She is one of those women who insist
upon your knowing that they have a soul for beauty. But she went to
sleep again when she had used up all her rockets, and left the Goddess
and me alone with the Pyrenees. Much nearer Bayonne we had another
surprise--a notice, in English, by the roadside: "To the Guards'
Cemetery." An odd sign to come across in France, _n'est ce pas, mon
brave_? And just as I was calling up the past, Miss Randolph exclaimed;
"I wonder if _your_ Napier is any relation to _that_ Napier?" which
shows that she has the Peninsular Campaign at her finger-ends; or else
Aunt Mary has been cramming her out of a guide-book.
It was not late in the afternoon when we crossed the bridge over the
Adour (_she_ says the proverb, "Don't cross your bridges till you get to
them," can't apply to France, as you're always getting to them), but
already the sky was burnished with sunset; and if there's anything finer
than a grand and ancient fortified gateway turned to copper by the sun,
I don't know it. I advised Miss Randolph to come back one day from
Biarritz, if we stayed long enough, to see the exquisite old glass
window for which the Bayonne cathedral is famous; but it was too late to
pause for such details as windows then, so we flew on along the
switchback road over the remaining five miles to Biarritz. Here, in this
agreeable town, we play about till I have orders from headquarters to
proceed. Our programme is now to go straight along the Pyrenees to
Marseilles, and so to Nice. Ah, if only I can get Her to go on to Italy!
You had better address me next at the Riviera Palace, Cimiez. We are to
pause at Pau, call at Carcassonne, and honour other places _en route_ to
the Riviera, so there ought to be ample time for this long screed to
reach you and for you to send reproach or praise to Nice. Tell me about
yourself; how you are; what you read; what girl you love.
Your sincere, but somewhat selfish friend,
Jack Winston.