Hotel du Louvre, Marseilles,
_December 18_.
My dear Montie,
We have just been passing through some of the most interesting parts of
France, therefore in the world, and I have derived a certain rarefied
enjoyment from it all, as I should have been only half a man not to do.
But Brown stock has gone down a little since Carcassonne, why, I know
not, though I suspect; and there is depression, if not panic in the
market. Jimmy, having made his peace and promised caution, has again
been promoted to the post of driver, and from the Jehu point of view I
must confess that during a large part of the journey he has covered
himself with as much credit as dust. This is saying a good deal, for,
owing to the slight rainfalls in these southern departments, the roads
are often buried inches deep under a coating of grey, pungent dust,
enveloping all passing vehicles in a noisome cloud. They have also, set
in their surface at irregular intervals, large pans or dishes with
perpendicular walls from an inch to three inches in depth. These dishes
being concealed by the all-pervading dust, it is impossible--at least
for a Jimmy Payne--to know where they are until the wheels bump into
them. Sometimes one of our wheels would drop in, sometimes all four. You
may imagine the strain of this sort of work upon the tyres, frame, and
springs. But in a whole day's run of a hundred and thirty miles we
punctured only one tyre, which I mended in fifteen minutes.
Beziers, seen from a distance, set strikingly upon a hill, looked an
imposing town, but turned out to be an ordinary and dirty place when we
came to ascend its long, winding streets. Beyond, we ran for a while
along the edge of a great lagoon, and knew, though we could not see it,
that the Mediterranean lay close at our right hand.
At Montpellier we did not stop, and I delivered no lecture on the
subject of the gorgeous, all-conquering Duchess, as I might have been
tempted to do if we'd had no addition to our party. It's a large,
bright, and stately town, very liveable-looking; but nothing was said
about lingering, though there are some things worth seeing. We had an
impressive entrance into the ancient city of Nimes, running in by early
moonlight, across a great, open plain, under a spacious, purpling dome
of sky, the sun dying in carmine behind us, the evening star a big,
flashing diamond in the moon-paled east. The old Roman amphitheatre
stood up darkly and nobly in the silver twilight; but we passed on to
our hotel, the programme evidently being to satisfy the senses at the
expense of the soul. They do one very well at the hotel in Nimes, but I
looked forward hopefully to a request to play courier among the sights
of the dear old town next morning. It did not come, however. The two
ladies went forth with Jimmy, and as I saw them go I could but
acknowledge my rival to be a personable fellow. Sherlock Holmes and
Little Lord Fauntleroy were both personable fellows in their way, and it
is useless to deny Jimmy's possession of the picked attributes of each.
For some reason the word seems to have gone forth that we are to hurry
on to Cannes. In the circumstances I am inclined to change my mind, and
instead of wishing my dear mother to have departed before our arrival,
I'm not sure it wouldn't be wiser to hope that she'll still be there.
Miss Randolph "hasn't decided what she'll do after reaching the
Riviera." I can't help feeling that Jimmy Sherlock has succeeded in
getting in some deadly work of a mysterious nature. It's on the cards
that I may find at Cannes or Nice that the trip is finished, and Brown
is finished too. Then, as I can't and won't part from my Goddess without
a Titanic struggle, I might find it convenient to tell my mother all,
throw myself on her mercy, and get her to intercede with Miss Randolph
for me. You may argue that her views regarding the fair Barrow are
likely to militate against co-operation in this new direction; but I can
be eloquent on occasion, and even a mother must see that a Barrow is
nothing beside a Goddess.
Altogether, I am nervous. The future looks wobbly, and it is not a
pleasant sensation to feel that one is being secretly undermined. Jimmy
had better look out, though. The first shadow of proof I get that he's
breaking his half of the bargain he shall learn that even a _chauffeur_
will turn. And I look upon Cannes, somehow, as the turning-point in more
senses of the word than one.
But to our muttons. No pleasant dallying for me in beautiful old Nimes
or Arles, either one of which would repay weeks of lingering. What
dallying there was, Jimmy got--confound him!--and my only joy was in his
hatred of early rising. They had him up at an unearthly hour for a
glimpse of the amphitheatre and the Maison Carree at Nimes, and by nine
we were on the road to Arles, Payne driving with creditable caution. We
crossed the Rhone and completed the eighteen flat miles in little more
than thirty minutes. When we arrived at the end of this time in the
astonishing little town of Arles, halting in a diminutive square with
two great pillars of granite and a superb Corinthian pediment (dating
from Roman occupation) built into the walls of modern houses, Miss
Randolph announced that they would walk about for half an hour and look
at the antiquities. "Half an hour!" I couldn't help echoing; "why, Arles
is one of the most interesting places in France. It is an open-air
museum."
"I know," said she, looking up at me with an odd expression which I
would have given many a bright sovereign for the skill to read. "But
maybe I shall have a chance to see it some other time, and the others
don't care much for antiquities or architecture. We really _must_ hurry
as fast as possible to Cannes."
Now, why--why? What is to happen at Cannes? Is Jimmy's loathly hand in
this? Or--blessed thought!--is all sight-seeing for her, as well as for
me, poisoned by his society? Is she regretting her rash generosity in
promising to carry him to the Riviera (to say nothing of _Lord Lane_!)
and is she panting to rid herself of him? I daren't hope it. But write
me your deduction. Perhaps in your enforced inaction at Davos it may
amuse you to piece together a theory and account for the actions of
certain persons in France, whom possibly you know better than if you had
ever met them.
While the three went off to bolt in one bite such delicate morsels as
the sculptured porch of the cathedral of St. Trophinus and the Roman
theatre I gloomily played Casabianca by the car, Ixion at the wheel, or
what you will. I waited their return before the hotel, and no sooner did
they come back, at the end of their stingy half-hour, than we started,
taking the road across the great plain of La Crau towards Salon.
A most extraordinary region that plain of La Crau. It is as flat as a
pancake, only far away to the north one sees a range of brown, stony
mountains. Formerly it was a forbidding, stony desert, the dumping-place
for every pebble and boulder brought down by the Rhone and the Durance.
But all over the vast wilderness there has been carried out a wonderful
system of irrigation, and now it yields sweet herbage for sheep, while
figs, mulberries, and cypresses are dotted in green oases. The surface
of the land is thickly veined with the beneficent little canals,
carrying life-giving water from the Canal de Craponne, which has its
origin at La Roque, on the Durance.
Across this vast plain we raced towards Salon, along a road straight as
if drawn by a ruler, and bordered by small poplars standing shoulder to
shoulder like trees in a child's box of toys. We met no other vehicles;
we seemed to have the world to ourselves; but once, far along the road,
we spied a black dot which seemed to come towards us with incredible
speed, growing larger as it came. In less time than it takes to write we
saw that it was an enormous racing automobile, probably undergoing a
test of speed. We were running at our own highest pace, perhaps
forty-five miles an hour; the thing approaching us was coming at seventy
or more. You may imagine the rush of air as we passed each other. One
glimpse we had of a masked automobilist like a figure of death in an
Albert Durer cartoon, or the familiar of a Vehmgericht, and then we were
gasping in the vortex of air caused by the speed of the gigantic car.
Almost before we could turn our heads it was a black dot again on the
horizon. Perhaps it was the great Fournier himself.
Beyond Salon the road becomes interestingly _accidentee_. One climbs
among the mountains which fold Marseilles in their encircling arms, and
has spacious views over the great Etang de Berre to the glittering
Mediterranean. The Napier crested the hills without faltering, and from
the top we had a long run down (over bad _pave_ at the last) into the
lively, noisy streets of gay Marseilles, Payne guiding the car very
decently over intricate tram lines, finally turning across the pavement
to circle into the white, airy court of a large hotel. When my
passengers had got down I drove the car to a _garage_ and went quietly
off to another hotel, where, warned by past experience at Pau, I entered
myself in the register modestly as James Brown.
Now I shall hurl at your devoted and friendly head this enormous letter,
and presently shall begin another to tell of the Further Adventures on
the Riviera of
Your much-enduring Friend,
The Amateur Chauffeur.