that we must share and share alike, or we would have nothing. I made the
tea, in a battered tin pot which looked like an heirloom, and we all sat
at an uncovered kitchen table together, though our host protested. It
was fun; and the old thing told us weird tales of the forest which made
me conscious that I have a spine and marrow, just as certain wild music
does. His name is Purkess; he thinks he is descended from Purkess, the
charcoal-burner who found the body of William Rufus; and his ancestors,
some of whom were smugglers and poachers, have lived in the forest for a
thousand years. He was so old that he could remember as a child hearing
his old grandfather tell of the days of the wicked, illegal
timber-selling in the forest for the building of warships. Just think,
grand oaks, ash and thorn, trees stanch as English hearts, sold for the
price of firewood!
I sat at the table, watching the firelight play on my ring, which I
hadn't seen till we got into the hut; and it is beautiful. I shall enjoy
having it, though only for a little while, and shall regard it as a
trust for Ellaline.
The charcoal-burner assured us we needn't worry; he would put us on the
way home, and give us landmarks which, after he'd guided us a certain
distance, we couldn't miss even at night.
When we'd finished our eggs and bacon, our tea and chunks of dry bread,
Sir Lionel laid a gold piece on the table. Blind as he was, the old man
wasn't too blind to see _that_, and he simply beamed.
"Bless you all the days of your life, sir, and your good, pretty lady!"
he cackled.
That's the third time I've been taken for Sir Lionel's wife. The other
times I didn't care, but this time, though I laughed, it was a _put on_
laugh, because of those dim questionings about myself floating in the
background of my mind.
The descendant of poachers knew the forest, as he said, "with his eyes
shut." He limped before us for nearly half a mile, along what he called
a "walk"--a New Forest word--and then abandoned us to our fate, after
describing the profile of each important tree which we must pass, and
pointing out a few stars as guides. Then we bade each other good-bye for
ever. He went back to gloat over his gold piece, and Sir Lionel and I
went on together.
Somehow, we fell to talking of our favourite virtues, and without
thinking, I said, "My mother's is gratitude."
"Gratitude," he repeated, as if in surprise, but he didn't seem to
notice that I'd used the present tense. To make him forget my slip, I
hurried on to say I thought mine was courage, in a man, anyhow. What
was his, in a woman?
"Truth," he answered, with an instant's hesitation.
Luckily he couldn't see me blush in the dark. But the real Audrie was
always decently truthful, wasn't she? It's only this Ellaline-Audrie
that isn't free to be true.
"Only in women?" I asked, uncomfortably.
"Truth goes without saying in men--the sort of men one knows," said he.
"Don't you think women love the truth as much as men?" I persisted.
"No, I don't," he answered abruptly. Then qualified his "no," as if he
ought to apologize for it. "But I haven't had much experience," he
finished, a heavy, dull sound coming into his voice.
Well, dearest, that's all I have to tell you on this, my birthday night,
except that we found our way back to the hotel safely, arriving about
half-past ten, and only Emily was anxious about us. The other two were
inclined to be frivolous; and Mrs. Senter noticed the new ring, which I
had forgotten to take off my finger. Nothing ever escapes her eyes! I
saw them light, and linger, but of course she didn't refer to the ring,
and naturally I didn't.
I hadn't quite decided whether or not I should wear it "for every day,"
and had been inclined to think it would be better not, even at the risk
of disappointing the giver. But I made up my mind, when Mrs. Senter
looked so peculiarly at it, that I would brazen the thing out, and so I
will.
"I envy you your adventure," she said, in what _I_ felt was a meaning
voice, though Sir Lionel didn't appear to read under the commonplace
surface.
I don't care if she does choose to be horrid. I don't see how she can
hurt me. And as for Dick, he has done his worst. He has made me get them
both asked for the tour. I should think that's enough.
We are going to stop at the Compton Arms for two or three days, running
about in the car to see different parts of the forest, and coming "home"
at night. I love that way!
The only thing I don't like in going from one hotel to another, is
having all sorts of queer little birthmarks on my hankies and other
things in the wash. Good-bye, Angel Duck.
Your Grown-up
Daughter.
Only think, I am now of age!
By the way, Sir Lionel, who expected his ward to be a little girl
(thoughtless of him!), said to-night: "You're so old, I can't get used
to you."
And I retorted, "You're so young, I can't get used to _you_."
I hope it didn't sound pert, to answer like that?
XIII
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Lulworth Cove_,
_July 30th_
Why aren't you with me, dearest, seeing what I am seeing?
It's all very well for you to write that my letters make a panorama pass
before your eyes, and I'm flattered, but I want you. Although I am
enjoying life, I'm more excited than happy, and I don't sleep well. I
dream horrid dreams about Mrs. Senter and Dick Burden, and about
Ellaline, too, but I always laugh when I wake up.
Thank you so much for telling me that you think I'm behaving pretty
well, considering. But I wonder what you'll say in your next, after my
last?
Every day since then I've been meaning to write, if only a short note,
but we've had early starts and late stops; and then, from not sleeping
at night, I'm often so tired when the end of the day comes that I feel
too stupid to try and earn your compliments.
It is morning, and I'm writing out of doors, sitting on a rock, close by
the sea. But before I begin to describe Lulworth, I must tell you a
little about the glorious things of which I've had flying glimpses since
the letter dated Compton Arms. This is our first all-night stopping
place since we left Stony Cross "for good," but I've picked up many a
marvellous memory by the way.
People who haven't seen the New Forest haven't seen England.
I had no idea what it was like till we stayed there. I knew from
guide-books that there were thousands of acres of woodland still, though
much had been "deforested"; but I didn't know it hid many beautiful
villages, and even towns. It's a heavenly place for motoring, but I'm
not sure it wouldn't be even better to walk, because you could eke out
the joy of it longer. I should like a walking honeymoon (a whole round
moon) in the New Forest--if it were with just the right man.
Oh, I mustn't forget to say I'm glad I didn't see Rufus's Stone by
daylight. Mrs. Senter and Dick went the morning after I wrote to you,
but I wouldn't go again, because I didn't want to lose the enchanted
picture in my mind. She laughed when I refused. I could have slapped
her. But never mind.
When they came back they were disgusted, and said there was a
ginger-beer woman and a man with the game of "Aunt Sally," and a crowd
of cockney excursionists round them and the Stone. Talk of malfays!
Sir Lionel had made out an itinerary for the day, and we were to start
for Lyndhurst, Beaulieu Abbey, Lymington, Brockenhurst, and Mark Ash,
all of which we were to visit before evening, coming back by way of
Lyndhurst again, and stopping there for tea. But before we got off, such
a comic thing happened.
I didn't think to mention it in a letter, but one day we passed a
motor-car that was having tire trouble by the side of the road. The
chauffeur was rolling on a new tire, with a curious-looking machine, in
which Young Nick was passionately interested, as he'd never seen one
before. Sir Lionel explained that it was an American tool, not very long
invented, and said to be good. He added, in an evil moment, that he
wished he'd thought to buy one like it before leaving London, as
probably the thing couldn't be got in the Provinces.
Well, just as we were about to spin away in great style from the Compton
Arms, one of our tires sighed, and settled down for an unearned rest.
But instead of looking black-browed and murderous, as he did when the
same thing occurred before, Nick smiled gleefully. He jumped down, and
without a word produced a machine exactly like the one his master
admired a few days ago.
"Where did you get that?" asked Sir Lionel.
"Last night, sahib," returned Nick, imperturbably. (He can speak quite
good English.)
"What! Since we had our trouble?"
"Yes, sahib." An odd expression now began to play among Nick's brown
features, like a breeze over a field of growing wheat.
"How's that? There's no shop."
"The sahib says true. I found this thing."
"Where?" sharply.
"But a little way from here. In the road."
"You rascal," exclaimed Sir Lionel. "You stole it."
Young Nick made Buddha eyebrows and a Buddha gesture. "The sahib knows
all. But if I did take it? Those men, they were going again to the big
city. We away. They never miss this. They buy another. It is better we
have it."
Trying to look very angry, though I knew he was dying to laugh, Sir
Lionel reproached Nick for breaking a solemn promise. "You swore you'd
never do such a thing in England if I brought you with me. Now you've
begun again, the same old game. I shall have to send you back, that is
all."
"Then I die, and _that_ is all," replied Young Nick, calmly.
The end of the story is, that Sir Lionel found out the names of the men,
who had spent the night at the Compton Arms, and had written their
address in the visitors' book. He sent the tool to them, with an
explanation which I should have loved to read. And it appears that,
though Nick is honest personally, he is a thief for the car, and in
Bengal took anything new and nice which other motors had and his hadn't.
Now, Mrs. Norton is afraid that, if Sir Lionel scolds him much, he will
commit hari-kari on the threshold of the hotel, which would be
embarrassing. And it does no good to tell her that hari-kari is a
Japanese or Chinese trick. She says, if Nick would not do that he might
do something worse.
Gliding over the perfect roads of the Forest, Apollo seemed actually to
float. I never felt anything so delicious, and so like being a goddess
reclining on a wind-blown cloud. No wonder motorists' faces, when you
can see them, almost always look madly happy. So different from "hay
motorists," as The Blot says. _They_ generally look grumpy.
The little wild ponies were one of the Forest's surprises for me. We met
lots of them, mostly miniature mothers giving their innocent-faced,
rough babies an airing; delightful beastkins. And I almost liked Mrs.
Senter for having a cousin who owns one of these ponies as a pet, a
dwarf one, no bigger than a St. Bernard dog. It wears a collar with
silver bells, follows her everywhere, thinks nothing of curling up on a
drawing-room sofa, and once was found on its mistress's bed, asleep on a
new Paris hat.
The enticing rose-bowered cottages we passed ought to have told me that
we were back in Hampshire again, if the New Forest hadn't seemed to a
poor little foreigner like a separate county all by itself. It would be
no credit to a bride to clamour for love in such a cottage, and turn up
her nose at palaces. She might be married at the beautiful church of
Lyndhurst (a most immediate jewel of a church, with an exquisite
altar-piece by Lord Leighton, a Flaxman, and a startlingly fine piece of
sculpture by an artist named Cockerell), then, safely wedded, plunge
with her bridegroom into the Forest, and be perfectly happy without ever
coming out again. I wish I had had the "Forest Lovers" to re-read while
we were there. I think Maurice Hewlett must have got part of his
inspiration in those mysterious green "walks" which lead away into that
land where fairy lore and historic legend go hand in hand.
Lyndhurst, which King George III. loved, is pretty, but we didn't stop
to look at it, because we were coming back that way. After seeing the
church which, though modern, I wouldn't have missed for a great deal, we
spun on to Beaulieu Abbey, the home of a hero of motoring. There we saw
a perfect house, rising among trees, and sharing with the sky a clear
sheet of water as a mirror. Once this was a guest-house for the Abbey;
now it's called the Palace House, and deserves its name. Its
looking-glass is really only a long creek, which spills out of the
Solent, but it seems like a lake; and you've only to walk along a meadow
path to the refectory of the old abbey. From there you go through a
mysterious door into the ruined cloisters, which used to belong to the
Cistercians--the "White Monks." King John provided money for the
building; which proves that it's an ill wind which blows no one any
good, because the stingy, tyrannical old king wouldn't have given a
penny to the abbots if they hadn't scourged him in a nightmare he had. I
shan't soon forget the magnolia and the myrtle in the quadrangle, and if
I were one of the long-vanished monks, I should haunt the place. There
couldn't be a lovelier one.
From Beaulieu we went to Lymington, a quaint and ancient town, with a
picturesque port. Everything there looked happy and sleepy, except the
postillions on the Bournemouth coach, which was stopping at the hotel
where we had an early lunch. They were wide awake and jolly, under their
old-fashioned, broad-brimmed beaver hats.
After Lymington, we skimmed through the Forest, hardly knowing or caring
whither, though we did manage to find Brockenhurst, and Mark Ash, which
was almost the finest of all with its glorious trees. Our one wish was
to avoid highways, and Sir Lionel was clever about that. The sweetest
bit was a mere by-path, hardly to be called a road, though the surface
was superb. Young Nick had to get down and open a gate, which led into
what seemed a private place, and no one who hadn't been told to go that
way would have thought of it. On the other side of the gate it was just
another part of forest fairyland, whose inhabitants turned themselves
into trees as we, in our motor-car, intruded on them. I never saw such
extraordinary imitations of the evergreen family as they contrived on
the spur of the moment. It was a glamorous wood, and throughout the
whole forest I had more and more the feeling that England isn't so small
as it's painted. There are such vast spaces not lived in at all, yet
haunted with legend and history. One place we passed--hardly a place, it
was so small--was called Tyrrel's Ford; and there Sir Walter Tyrrel is
said to have stopped to have his horse's shoes reversed by a blacksmith,
on his flight to the sea, after killing the Red King. Or no, now I
remember, this was next day, between Ringwood and Christchurch!
When we were having tea at Lyndhurst on our way back, at a hotel like a
country house in a great garden, we found out that it once had been the
home of your forty-second cousin, the Duc de Stacpoole, who came to
England with Louis Philippe. There's his beautiful tapestry, to this
day, in the dining-room, and his gorgeous magnolia tree looking
wistfully into the window, as if asking why he isn't there to admire its
creamy flowers, big as fat snowballs.
On our way home the rabbits of the New Forest were having a party, and
were annoyed with us for coming to it without invitations. They kept
"crossing our path," as people in melodramas say, so that we had to go
slowly, not to run over them, and sometimes they galloped ahead, just in
front of us, exactly in the middle of the road, so that we couldn't pass
them. Dick kept longing to "pot" at the poor little pets, but Sir Lionel
said he had lived out of England long enough to find a good deal of
pleasure in life without taking that of any other creature. That isn't a
very dragonish sentiment, is it?
Next day we had a delicious run (there's no other adjective which quite
expresses it) through Ringwood, which is a door of the Forest, to
Christchurch, another Abbey--(no, it's a Priory; but to me that's a
detail) which stands looking at its own beauty in a crystal mirror. It's
Augustan, not Cistercian, like Beaulieu; and it's august, as well; very
noble; finer to see than many a cathedral. You and I, in other lands,
have industriously travelled many miles to visit churches without half
as many "features" as Christchurch. One of its quaintest is a leper's
window; and a few of the beauties are the north transept, with unique
"hatchet" ornamentation; a choir with wonderful old oak carvings--and
the tomb of the Countess of Salisbury, of whom you read aloud to me when
I was small, in a book called "Some Heroines of History." She came last
in the volume because she was only a countess, and not a queen, but I
cried when she said she didn't mind being killed, only being touched by
a horrid, common axe, and wanted them to cut off her head with a sword.
There are lots of other beautiful things in the church, too, and a nice
legend about an oak beam which grew long in the night, and building
materials which came down from a hill of their own accord, because one
of the builders was Christ himself. That's why they named it
Christchurch, you see, instead of Twyneham, as it would otherwise have
been.
We stopped only long enough, after we had seen the Priory, to pay our
respects to a splendid old Norman house near by, and then dashed away
toward Boscombe and Bournemouth, which reminded me a little of
Baden-Baden, with its gardens and fountains and running waters; its
charming trees and exciting-looking shops. Just because it's modern, we
didn't pause, but swept on, through scenery which suddenly degenerated.
However, as I heard Sir Lionel say to Mrs. Senter: "You can't go far in
this country without finding beauty"; and presently she was her own
lovely self again, fair as Nature intended her to be. I mean England,
not Mrs. Senter, who is lovelier than Nature made her.
We ran through miles of dense pine forests, where rhododendrons grew
wild; where gulls spread silver wings and trailed coral feet a few yards
above our heads; and the tang of the sea mingled with pine-balsam in our
nostrils.
Soon after dull, but historic Wareham we came quite into the heart of
Thomas Hardy's country. Scarcely had we turned our backs on Wareham
(which I wasn't sorry to do), when I cried out at something on a distant
height--something which was like a background in a mediæval picture. It
was Corfe Castle, of which I'd been thinking ever since Amesbury,
because of the wicked Elfrida; but the glimpse was delusive, for the
dark shape hid in a moment, and we didn't see it again for a long
time--not until our curving road ran along underneath the castle's
towering hill. Then it soared up with imposing effect, giving an
impression of grisly strength which was heightened the nearer we
approached. Distance lends no enchantment to Corfe, for the castle
dominates the dour, gray town that huddles round it, and is never nobler
than when you tap for admittance at its gates.
I tried to think, as we waited to go in, how young Edward felt--Edward
the Martyr--when he stood at the gates, waiting to go in and visit his
half-brother whom he loved, and his step-mother Elfrida, whom he hated.
He never left the castle alive, poor boy! Afterward, in the ruins, I
went to the window where Elfrida was supposed to have watched the young
king's coming, before she ran down to the gates and directed the murder
which was planned to give her own son the kingdom. It made the story
seem almost too realistic, because, as you often tell me, my imagination
carries me too fast and too far. There's nothing easier than to send it
back ten or twelve centuries in the same number of minutes--and it's
such a cheap way of travelling, too!
Corfe is in Dorset, you must know, a county as different from others as
I am different from the real Ellaline Lethbridge, and the castle is at
the very centre of the Isle of Purbeck, which makes it seem even more
romantic than it would otherwise. I'm afraid it wasn't really even begun
in the days of Elfrida, or "Ælfrith," who had only a hunting lodge
there; but if people _will_ point out her window, am I to blame if I try
to make firm belief attract shy facts? Besides, facts are such dull dogs
in the historical kennels until they've been taught a few tricks.
Anyhow, Corfe is Norman, at worst, and not only did King John keep much
treasure there, but one supposes there's some hidden still. If I could
only have found it, I'd be buying a castle for you and me to live in.
Sir Lionel thinks that I, as his ward, will live in his castle; and he
was telling me at Corfe about the Norman tower at Graylees. But, alas, I
knew better. Oh, I didn't mean that "alas"! Consider it erased; and the
other silly things I wrote you the other night, please. They're all so
_useless_.
There were loads of interesting prisoners in Corfe Castle, at one time
or another, knights from France, and fair ladies, the fairest of all,
the beautiful "Damsel of Brittany," who had claims to the English crown.
And kings have visited there; and in Cromwell's day a lady and her
daughters successfully defended it in a great siege. It was such a
splendid and brave defence that it seems sad, even to this day, to think
how the castle fell after all, a year later, and to see the great stones
and masses of masonry lying, far below the height, exactly where they
rolled when Parliament ordered the conquered towers to be blown up by
gunpowder. The Bankes family, who still own Corfe, must be proud of that
Lady Bankes, their ancestress, who held the castle. And isn't it nice,
the Bankes still have the old keys, where they live, at Kingston Lacy?
You like Thomas Hardy's "Hand of Ethelberta" next to "Far from the
Madding Crowd." Well, Coomb Castle in that book is really Corfe Castle.
I told you we were in Hardy country. After Wareham, and not very far
away, at Wool, is an old, old manor-house of the Turbervilles, turned
into a farmhouse now. You don't need to be reminded of what Hardy made
of that, I know.
We lunched at an interesting old inn, like all the rest of the ancient
houses of Corfe, slate-roofed, grim and gray. Then we coasted down the
steep hill to the plain again, making for Swanage. It was dusty, but we
weren't sorry, because, just when we were travelling rather fast, on a
perfectly clear road, a policeman popped out like a Jack-in-the-Box,
apparently from nowhere. You could tell by his face he was a "trappist,"
as Dick calls the motor-spies, and though Sir Lionel wasn't really going
beyond the legal limit, he glared at our number as if he meant mischief.
But that number-plate had thoughtfully masked itself in dust, so with
all the will in the world he could work us no harm after our backs were
turned. Once in a while it does seem as if Nature sympathized with the
poor, maligned motorist whom nobody loves, and is willing to throw her
protection over him. It would be like tempting Providence to polish off
dust or mud, in such circumstances, wouldn't it?
My face was a different matter, though, and I longed to polish it.
Before we got to Swanage, it felt--even under chiffon--just as an iced
cake must feel. Only the cake, fortunately for its contour, never needs
to smile.
We were going to Swanage because of the caves--Tilly Whim Caves. Did you
ever hear of them, Parisienne mamma? Small blame to you, if not, because
one can't know everything; but they are worth seeing; and the Swanage
harbour is a little dream. The town is good, too. Old-world, and very,
very respectable-looking, as if it were full of long-established lawyers
and clergymen, yet not dull, like Wareham, which was important in Saxon
days, long before Swanage was born or thought of. It's "Knollsea" in the
"Hand of Ethelberta." Do you remember? And Alfred the Great had a
victory close by--so close, that in a storm the Danish ships blew into
what is the town now, as if they had been butterflies with their wings
wet.