The garden on the battlements at Beaucaire seemed to bring out all
that's best in Lady Turnour, and she was--for her--quite radiant when we
arrived at Arles. Not that it was much credit to her to be radiant, when
the road had been perfect, and the car had behaved like an angel, as
usual; but small favours from small natures are thankfully received; and
just as it is a blight upon the spirits of the whole party when her
ladyship frowns, so do we cheer up and hope for better things when she
smiles.
As we were to spend the night at Arles, and arrived at the quaint,
delightful Hôtel du Forum before lunch, even the working classes
(meaning my alleged brother and myself) could afford that pleasant,
leisured feeling which is the right of those more highly placed.
The moment we arrived I knew that I was going to fall in love with
Arles, and I hurried to get the unpacking done, so that I might be free
to make its acquaintance. Lady Turnour, still in her garden mood, told
me to do as I liked till time to dress her for dinner, but to mind and
have no more accidents, as all her frocks hooked at the back.
I am getting to be quite a skilled lady's-maid now, and am not sure it
ought not to be my permanent _métier_, though I do like to think I was
born for better things, and comfort myself by remembering how mother
used to say that a lady can always do everything better than a common
person if she chooses to try, even menial work, because she puts her
intelligence and love for daintiness into all she does. I unpacked my
master's and mistress's things with the flashing speed of summer
lightning and the neatness of a drill-sergeant. In a twinkling
everything was in exactly the right place, and my conscience felt as if
it were growing wings as I flew off to my luncheon. The whole afternoon
free, and the saints only knew what nice, unexpected adventures might
happen! Cousin Catherine used to say, not meaning to be complimentary,
that I "attracted adventures as some people seem to attract microbes,"
and I could almost hear them buzzing round my head as I ran down-stairs.
There, waiting for me as if he were an incarnate adventure, was the
chauffeur, who appeared to be quite excited. "You must have a peep into
the dining-room," he said. "The door's open. You can look in without
being noticed, and see the walls, which are painted with pictures from
Mistral's works. Also there's something else of interest, but I won't
tell you what it is. I want to see if you can discover it for yourself."
I peeped, and found the pictures charming. After following them with my
eyes all round the green walls which they decorate effectively, my gaze
lit upon a man sitting at one of the small tables. He was with two or
three friends who hung upon the words which he accompanied by the most
graceful, spirited, yet unconscious gestures. Old he may have been as
years go, but the fire of eternal youth was in his vivid dark eyes, and
his smile, which had in it the tenderness of great experience, of long
years lived in sympathy and love for mankind. His head was very noble;
and its shape, and the way he had of carrying it, would alone have shown
that he was Someone.
"Who is that man?" I whispered to Jack Dane. "That one who is so
different from all the others."
"Can't you guess?" he asked.
"Not Mistral?"
"Yes. It's one of his days here. He'll be in the museum after lunch.
I'll take you there, and if he sees that you're interested in things,
he'll talk to you."
"Oh, how glorious!" I breathed, quite awed at the prospect. "But if he
should find out that we're only lady's-maid and chauffeur?"
"Do you think it would matter to him _who_ we were--a great genius like
that? He wouldn't care if we were beggars, if we had souls and brains
and hearts."
"Well, we have got _some_ of those things," I said. "Do let's hurry, and
get to the museum before our betters. They can always be counted upon to
spend an hour and a half at lunch if there's a good excuse, such as
there's sure to be in this place, famous for rich Provençal cooking.
Whereas Monsieur Mistral looks as if he would grudge more than half an
hour on an occupation so prosaic as eating."
"Nothing could be prosaic to him," said Mr. Dane. "And that's the secret
of life, isn't it? I think you have it, too, and I'm trying to take
daily lessons from you. By the time we part I hope I shan't be quite
such a sulky, discontented brute as I am now."
"By the time we part!" The words gave me a queer, horrid little prick,
with just that nasty ache that comes when you jab a hatpin into your
head instead of into your hat, and have got to pull it out again. I have
grown so used to being constantly with him, and having him look after me
and order me about in his dictatorial but curiously nice way, that I
suppose I shall rather miss him for a week or two when this odd
association of ours comes to an end.
It is strange how one ancient town can differ utterly from its
neighbour, and what an extraordinary, unforgettable individuality each
can have.
The whole effect of Avignon is mediæval. In Arles your mind flies back
at once to Rome, and then pushes away from Rome to find Greece. All
among the red, pink, and yellow houses, huddled picturesquely together
round the great arena, you see Rome in the carved columns and dark piles
of brick built into mediæval walls. The glow and colour of the shops and
houses seem only to intensify the grimness and grayness of that Roman
background, the immense wall of the arena. Greece you see in the eyes of
the beautiful, stately women, young and old, in their classic features,
and the moulding of their noble figures. (No wonder Epistemon urged his
giant to let the beautiful girls of Arles alone!) You feel Greece, too,
in the soft charm of the atmosphere, the dreamy blue of the sky, and the
sunshine, which is not quite garish golden, not quite pale silver; a
special sky and special sunshine, which seem to belong to Arles alone,
enclosing the city in a dream of vanished days. The very gaiety which
must have sparkled there for happy Greek youths and maidens gives a
strange, fascinating sadness to it now, as if one felt the weight of
Roman rule which came and dimmed the sunlight.
It was delightful to walk the streets, to look at the lovely women in
their becoming head-dresses, and to stare into the windows of curiosity
shops. But there was the danger of committing _lèse-majesté_ by running
into the arms of the bride and groom at the museum, so "my brother"
hurried me along faster than I liked, until the fascination of the
museum had enthralled me; then I thanked him, for Mistral was there, for
the moment all alone.
Mr. Dane hadn't told me that they had met before, but Monsieur Mistral
greeted him at once as an acquaintance, smiling one of his illuminating
smiles. He even remembered certain treasures of the museum which the
chauffeur--in unchauffeur days--had liked best. These were pointed out
and their interest explained to me, best of all to my romantic, Latin
side being the "Cabelladuro d'Or," the lovely golden hair of the dead
Beauty of Les Baux, that enchanted princess whose magic sleep was so
rudely broken. We all talked together of the exquisite Venus of Arles,
agreeing that it was wicked to have transplanted her to the Louvre; and
Mistral's eyes rested upon me with something like interest for a moment
as I said that I had seen and loved her there. I felt flattered and
happy, forgetting that I was only a servant, who ought scarcely to have
dared speak in the presence of this great genius.
"She seems to understand something of the charm of Provence, which
makes our country different from any other in the world, does she not?"
the poet said at last to my companion. "She would enjoy an August fête
at Arles. Some day you ought to bring her."
Mr. Dane did not answer or look at me; and I was thankful for that,
because I was being silly enough to blush. It was too easy so see what
Monsieur Mistral thought!
"Why didn't you tell me you knew him already?" I asked, when we had
reluctantly left the museum (which might be invaded by the Philistines
at any minute) and were on our way to the famous Church of St. Trophime.
That we meant to see first, saving the theatre for sunset.
"Oh," answered the chauffeur evasively, "I wasn't at all sure he'd
remember me. He has so many admirers, and sees so many people."
"I have a sort of idea that your last visit to this part of the world
was paid _en prince_, all the same!" I was impertinent enough to say.
He laughed. "Well, it was rather different from this one, anyhow," he
admitted. "A little while ago it made me pretty sick to compare the past
with the present, but I don't feel like that now."
"Why have you changed?" I asked.
"Partly the influence of your cheerful mind."
"Thank you. And the other part?"
"Another influence, even more powerful."
"I should like to know what it is, so that I might try to come under it,
too, if it's beneficent," that ever-lively curiosity of mine prompted me
to say.
"I am inclined to think it is not beneficent," he answered, smiling
mysteriously. "Anyhow, I'm not going to tell you what it is."
"You never do tell me anything about yourself," I exclaimed crossly,
"whereas I've given you my whole history, almost from the day I cut my
first tooth, up to that when I--adopted my first brother."
"Or had him thrust upon you," he amended. "You see, you've nothing to
reproach yourself with in your past, so you can talk of it without
bitterness. I can't--yet. Only to think of some things makes me feel
venomous, and though I really believe I'm improving in the sunbath of
your example, which I have every day, the cure isn't complete yet. Until
I am able to talk of a certain person without wanting to sprinkle my
conversation with curses, I mean to be silent. But I owe it to you that
I don't _want_ to curse her any more. A short time ago it gave me actual
pleasure."
So it is to a woman he owes his misfortunes! As Alice said in
Wonderland, it grows "mysteriouser and mysteriouser." Also it grows more
romantic, when one puts two and two together; and I have always been
great at that. The "sentimental association" of the battlement garden
plus the inspiration to evil language, equal (in my fancy) one fair,
faithless lady, once loved, now hated. I hate her, too, whatever she
did, and I should like to box her ears. I hope she's _quite_ old, and
married, and that she makes up her complexion, and everything else which
causes men to tire of their first loves sooner or later. Not that it is
anything to me, personally; but one owes a little loyalty to one's
friends.
The porch and cloisters of St. Trophime's were too perfectly beautiful
to be marred by a mood; but my brother Jack's mysteriously wicked
sweetheart would keep coming in between me and the wonderful carvings in
the most disturbing way. Some women never know when they are wanted! But
I did my best to make Mr. Dane forget her by taking an intelligent
interest in everything, especially the things he cared for most, though
once, in an absent-minded instant, I did unfortunately say: "I don't
admire that type of girl," when we were talking about a sculptured
saint; and although he looked surprised I thought it too complicated to
try and explain.
The afternoon light was burnishing the ancient stone carvings to copper
when we left the cloisters of St. Trophime, took one last look at the
porch, and turned toward the amphitheatre. We were right to have waited,
for the vast circle was golden in the sunset, like a heavy bracelet,
dropped by Atlas one day, when he stretched a weary arm; and the
beautiful fragments of coloured marbles, which the Greeks loved and
Christians destroyed, were the jewels of that great bracelet. The place
was so pathetically beautiful in the dying day that a soft sadness
pressed upon me like a hand on my forehead, and echoes of the long-dead
past, when Greek Arles was a harbour of commerce by sea and river, or
when it was Roman Arelate, rich and cruel, rang in my ears as we
wandered through the cells of prisoners, the dens of lions, and the
rooms of gladiators, where the young "men about town" used to pat their
favourites on oiled backs, or make their bets on ivory tablets.
"If we were here by moonlight, we should see ghosts," I said. "Come,
let us go before it grows any darker or sadder. The shadows seem to
move. I think there's a lion crouching in that black corner."
"He won't hurt you, sister Una," said my brother Jack. "There's one
thing you must see here before I take you home--back to the hotel, I
mean; and that is the Saracen Tower, as they call it."
So we went into the Saracen Tower, and high up on the wall I saw the
presentment of a hand.
"That is the Hand of Fatima," explained the guide, who had been
following rather than conducting us, because the chauffeur knew almost
as much about the amphitheatre as he did. "You should touch it,
mademoiselle, for luck. All the young ladies like to do that here; and
the young men also, for that matter."
Instantly my brother lifted me up, so that I might touch the hand; and
then I would not be content unless he touched it too.
I had dinner in the couriers' room that evening, with my brother, when I
had dressed Lady Turnour for hers. We were rather late, and had the room
to ourselves, for the crowd which had collected there at luncheon time
had vanished by train or motor. There was a nice old waiter, who was
frankly interested in us, recognizing perhaps that, as a maid and
chauffeur, we were out of the beaten track. He wanted to know if we had
done any sight-seeing in Arles, and seemed to take it as a personal
compliment that we had.
"Mademoiselle touched the Hand of Fatima, of course?" he asked, letting
a trickle of sauce spill out of a sauce-boat in his friendly eagerness
for my answer.
"Oh, yes, I saw to it that she did that," replied Mr. Dane, with
conscious virtue in the achievement.
"It is for luck, isn't it?" I said, to make conversation.
"And more especially for love," came the unexpected answer.
"For love!" I exclaimed.
"But yes," chuckled the old man. "If a young girl puts her hand on the
Hand of Fatima at Arles, that hand puts love into hers. Her fate is
sealed within the month, so it is said."
"Nonsense!" remarked Mr. Dane, "I never heard that silly story before."
And he went on eating his dinner with extraordinary nonchalance and an
unusual, almost abnormal, appetite.