something about the dim, moonlit look of the interior made me feel
_good_. You will say that's rather a change for me, perhaps, because you
tell me reproachfully, sometimes, after I've thought about the people's
hats and the backs of their blouses in church, that I have only a bowing
acquaintance with religion. I don't know whether I mayn't be doing the
most dreadful wrong every minute by pretending to be Ellaline; but it
was _begun_ for a good purpose, as you know, and you yourself consented.
And though I have twinges sometimes, I did feel good at Exeter. Oh, it
did me heaps of good to _feel_ good! You have to live up to your
feelings, if you feel like that. And I prayed in the Cathedral. I prayed
to be happy. Is that a wrong note for a prayer? I don't believe it is,
if it rings true. Anyway, it makes me feel young and strong to pray,
like Achilles, after he'd rolled on the earth. And I do feel so young
and strong just now, dear! I have to sing in my bath, and when I look
out of the window--also sometimes when I look in the glass, for it seems
to me that I am growing brighter and prettier.
I love to be pretty, because it's such a beautiful world, and to be
pretty is to be in the harmony of it. Though, perhaps--only perhaps,
mind!--I'm glad I'm not a regular beauty. It would be such a
responsibility in the matter of wearing one's clothes, and doing one's
hair, and never getting tanned or chapped.
And I love to be thin, and alive--alive, with my soul in proportion to
my body, like a hand in a glove, not like a seed in a big apple. But
isn't this funny talk, in the midst of describing Exeter? It's because
of the reaction from misery to ecstasy that I'm so bubbly. I can't stop;
but luckily it didn't come on in Exeter, because the delightful, queer
old streets aren't at all suitable to bubble in. It's impertinent to be
excessively young there, especially in the beautiful cathedral close,
where it is so calm and dignified, and the rooks, who are very, very
old, do nothing but caw about their ancestors. I think some curates
ought to turn into rooks when they die. They would be quite happy.
Our hotel, as I said, was fascinating, though Mrs. Norton fell once or
twice, as there were steps up and down everywhere, and Dick bumped his
forehead on a door. (I wasn't at all sorry for him.) Mrs. Senter said,
if we'd stopped long she would have got "cottage walk," and as she
already had motor-car face and bridge eye, she thought the combination
would be _trop fort_. If she weren't Dick's aunt, and if she weren't so
determined to flirt with Sir Lionel without his knowing what she's at,
and if she didn't make little cutting speeches to me when he isn't
listening, I think I should find her amusing.
The only things I didn't like at the hotel were the eggs; which looked
so nice, quite brown, and dated the morning you had them, on their
shells, but tasting mediæval. I wonder if eggs can be post-dated, like
cheques? As for the other eatables, there was very little taste in them,
mediæval or otherwise. I do think ice-cream, for instance, ought to
taste like something, if it's only hair oil. And the head waiter had
such mournful-looking hair!
I never got a talk alone with Sir Lionel in Exeter, because though he
tried once or twice, with the air of having a painful duty to
accomplish, I was afraid he was going to ask me about Dick, and I just
felt I couldn't bear it, so avoided him, or instantly tacked myself on
to Emily or someone. I think Emily approves of my running to her,
whenever threatened by man's society, because she thinks the instinctive
desire to be protected from anything male is pretty and maidenly. She
certainly belongs to the Stone Age in some of her ideas; though her
maxims are of a later period. Many of them she draws (and quarters) from
the Scriptures; at least, she attributes them to the Scriptures, but I
know some of them to be in Shakespeare. Lots of people seem to make that
mistake!
Of course, in the car I never talk to Sir Lionel, except a word flung
over shoulders now and then, for Mrs. Senter sits by him. She asked to.
Did I tell you that before? So the day we left Exeter things were just
the same between us; not trustful and silently happy, as at the time of
the _ring_, but rather strained, and vaguely official.
It had rained a little in Exeter, but the sky and landscape were
clean-washed and sparkling as we sailed over the pink road, past
charming little Starcross, with its big swan-boat and baby swan-boat;
past Dawlish of the crimson cliffs and deep, deep blue sea (if I were a
Bluer--just as good a word as Brewer!--I would buy Dawlish as an
advertisement for my blue. It seems made for that by Nature, and is so
brilliant you'd never believe it was true, on a poster); down a toboggan
slide of a hill into Teignmouth, another garden-town by the sea, and
through one of England's many Newtons--Newton Abbot, this time--to
Torquay.
As we hadn't left Exeter until after luncheon, it was evening when we
arrived; but that, Sir Lionel said, was what he wanted, on account of
the lights in and on and above the water, which he wanted us to see as
we came to the town. He has been here before, long ago, as he has been
at most of the places; but he says that he enjoys and appreciates
everything more now than he did the first time.
It was like a dream!--a dream all the way from Newton Abbot, where
sunset began to turn the silver streak of river in the valley red as
wine. There was just one ugly interval: the long, dull street by which
we entered Torquay, with its tearing trams and common shops; but out of
it we came suddenly into a scene of enchantment. That really isn't too
enthusiastic a description, for in front of us lay the harbour; the
water violet, flecked with gold, the sky blazing still, coral-red to the
zenith, where the moon drenched the fire with a silver flood. The hills
were deeper violet than the sea, sparkling with lights that sprang out
of the twilight; and on the smooth water a hundred little white boats
danced over their own reflections.
We begged Sir Lionel not to let Young Nick light our lamps, for they are
so fierce and powerful, they swallow up the beauty of the evening. But I
do think, where there are lots of motors about, it would be nice if
_people_ had to be lighted at night, and especially dogs.
Now, at last, I have come to the Thing--the thing that makes me happy,
with a happiness all the more vivid because it can't last. But even if I
fall to the depths of misery once more, I shan't be a coward, and moan
to you. It must be horrid to get letter after letter, full of wails! I
don't see how Mademoiselle Julie de Lespinasse could write the letters
she did; and I can't much blame Monsieur de Guibert for dreading to read
them, always in the same key, and on the same note: "I suffer, I suffer.
I want to die."
Well, I've kept you waiting long enough, or have you, perhaps, read
ahead? I should, in your place, though I hope _you_ haven't.
We came to the Osborne because Sir Lionel knew and liked it, though
there's another hotel grander, and we usually go to the grandest (so
odd, that feels, after our travels, yours and mine, when our _first_
thought was to search out the cheapest place in any town!), and the
Osborne has a terraced garden, which runs down and down the cliffs,
toward the sea, with a most alluring view.
Mrs. Senter had luggage come to meet her here, and she appeared at
dinner in our private sitting-room looking quite startlingly handsome,
in a black chiffon dress embroidered in pale gold, exactly the colour of
her hair. The weather had turned rather cold, however, since the rain at
Exeter, so, gorgeous as the moonlight was, she wanted to stop indoors
after dinner, and proposed bridge, as usual.
That was the signal for me to slip away. I'd finished "Lorna Doone,"
which is the loveliest love story in the English language (except part
of "Richard Feverel"), so I thought I would go into the garden. I felt
moderately secure from Dick, because, even if he really _is_ in love
with me, he is as much in love with bridge, and besides, he's afraid of
his aunt, for some reason or other. As for Sir Lionel, it didn't occur
to me that he might even _want_ to come.
I strolled about at first, not far from the hotel. Then I was tempted
farther and farther down the cliff path, until I found a thatched
summer-house, where I sat and thought what a splendid, ornamental world
it would be to live in if one were _quite_ happy.
By this time the sky and sea were bathed in moonlight, the stone
pines--so like Italian pines--black against a silver haze. In the dark
water the path of the moon lay, very broad and long, all made of great
flakes of thick, deep gold, as if the sea were paved with golden scales.
It was so lovely it saddened me, but I didn't want to go indoors; and
presently I heard footsteps on the path. I was afraid it was Dick, after
all, as he is horribly clever about finding out where one has gone--so
detectivey of him!--but in another second I smelt Sir Lionel's kind of
cigarette smoke. It would make me think of him if it were a hundred
years from now! Still, Dick borrows his cigarettes often, as he says
they're too expensive to buy, so I wasn't safe. Indeed, _which ever_ it
turned out to be, I wasn't safe, because one might be silly, and the
other might scold.
But it was Sir Lionel, and he saw me, although I made myself little and
stood in the shadow, not daring to sit down again, because the seat
squeaked.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked.
I answered that I was quite warm.
Then he said that it was a nice night, and we talked about the weather,
and all that idiotic sort of thing, which means empty brains or hearts
too full.
By and by, when I was beginning to feel as though I should scream if it
went on much longer, he stopped suddenly, in a conversation about fresh
fish, and said: "Ellaline, I think I must speak of something that's been
on my mind for some days."
He'd never called me "Ellaline" before, but only "you," and this gave me
rather a start, to begin with, so I said nothing. And, as it turned out,
that was probably the best thing I could have done. If I'd said
anything, it would have been the wrong thing, and then, perhaps, we
should have started off with a misunderstanding.
"I should hate to have you think me unsympathetic," he went on. "I'm
not. But--do you want to marry Dick Burden, some day?"
If he'd put it differently I might have hesitated what to answer, for I
_am_ afraid of Dick, there's no use denying it--of course, mostly on
Ellaline's account, but a little on my own too, because I'm a coward,
and don't want to be disgraced. As it was, I _couldn't_ hesitate, for
the thought of marrying Dick Burden would have been insupportable if it
hadn't been ridiculous. So you see, I forgot to dread what Dick might do
if he heard, and just blurted out the truth.
"I'd sooner go into a convent," said I.
"You mean that?" Sir Lionel pinned me down.
"I do," I repeated. "Could you imagine a girl wanting to marry Dick
Burden?"
"No, _I_ couldn't," said Sir Lionel. And then he laughed--such a nice,
happy laugh, like a boy's, quite different from the way I have heard him
laugh lately--though at first, in London, he seemed young and
light-hearted. "But I'm no judge of the men--or boys--a girl might want
to marry. Dick's good-looking, or near it."
"Yes," I admitted. "So is your little chauffeur. But I don't want to
marry it."
"Are you flirting with Dick, then?" Sir Lionel asked, not sharply, but
almost wistfully.
I couldn't stand that. I had to tell the truth, no matter for to-morrow!
"I'm not flirting with him, either," I said.
"What then?"
"Nothing."
"But he seems to think there is something--something to hope."
"Did he tell you so?"
"No. He sent me word."
"Oh! Words get mixed, when they're sent. He _knows_ I'm not flirting
with him."
"Does he know--forgive me--does he know that you don't love him--a
little?"
"He knows I don't love him at all."
"Then I--can't understand," said Sir Lionel.
"Would you like me to love him?" I couldn't help asking.
"No," he began, and stopped. "I should like you to be happy, in your own
way," he went on more slowly. "I've been at a loss, because a little
while ago you said you didn't like Burden, and then you seemed to change
your mind----"
"It was only seeming," I continued on my reckless course. "My mind
toward him stands where it did."
"If that is so, what have you done to him, to give him hope?"
"Nothing I could help," I said.
"There's a strange misunderstanding somewhere, apparently," Sir Lionel
reflected aloud.
"Oh, don't let there be one between us!" I begged, looking up at him
suddenly.
He put his hand out as suddenly, and grabbed--literally grabbed--mine. I
was so happy! Isn't it nice that men are so much stronger than women,
and that we're meant to like them to be? It can make life so
interesting.
As his fingers pressed mine, I let mine press his too, and felt we were
friends. "By Jove, no, we won't," he said. And though it wasn't much to
say, nothing could have pleased me better. The words and the tone seemed
to match the close clasp of our hands.
"Would you be willing to trust me?" I asked.
"Of course. But in what way do you mean?"
"About Dick Burden. He _doesn't_ think I'm flirting, and he doesn't
think I care for him. Yet I want you to trust me, and not say anything
to him or to his aunt. Let Dick and me fight it out between us."
He laughed again. "With all my heart, if you want to fight. But I won't
have you annoyed. If he annoys you he must go. I will get rid of him."
"Dick can't annoy me if he doesn't make trouble for me with you, Sir
Lionel," I said. (And that was the truth.) "Only, if you'll just trust
me to manage him?"
"You're very young to undertake the management of a man."
"Dick isn't a man. He's a boy."
"And you--are a child."
"I may seem a child to you," I said, "but I'm not. I'll be so happy, and
I'll thank you so much, if you'll just let things go on as they are for
a little while. You'll be glad afterward if you do."
And he will, when I've gone and Ellaline has come. He will be glad he
didn't give himself too much trouble on my account. But I'm not going to
think now of what his opinion of me may be _then_. At present he has a
very good, kind opinion. Even though I am a child in his eyes, I am a
dear child; and though it can't last, it does make me happy to be dear
to him, in any way at all--this terrible Dragon of Ellaline's.
But that isn't the end of our conversation. The real end was an
anti-climax, perhaps, but I liked it. For that matter, the tail of a
comet's an anti-climax.
It was only that, when we'd talked on, and he'd promised to trust me,
and leave the reins in my hands, while he attended solely to the
steering of his motor-car, I said: "Now we must go in. Mrs. Senter will
be wanting to finish her rubber." (I forgot to tell you that he
explained she'd had a telegram, and had been obliged to hurry and write
a letter, to catch the last post. That had stopped a game in the
middle.)
"Oh, hang it all, I suppose she will!" he grumbled, more to himself than
to me, because, if he'd paused to think, he would have been too polite
to express himself so about a guest, whatever his feelings were. But
that's why I was pleased. He spoke impulsively, without thinking. Wasn't
it a triumph, that he would rather have stayed there in the garden, even
with a "child," than hurry back to that radiant white-and-gold (and
black) vision?
Now you know why I am so pleased with life.
All that happened last night, and to-day we have had "excursions," but
no "alarums." We (every one, not just he and I) have been to Kent's
Cavern, where prehistoric tigers' teeth grinned at us from the walls,
and have taken a walk to Babbicombe Bay, where we had tea. I think it
was the loveliest path I ever saw, that cliff way, with the gray rocks,
and the blue sea into which the sky had emptied itself, like a cup with
a silver rim. And the wild flowers--the little, dainty, pink-tipped
daisies, which I couldn't bear to crush--and the larks that sprang out
of the grass! There are things that make you feel so at _home_ in
England, dear. I think it is like no other country for that.
To-morrow we are to motor to Princetown, on Dartmoor--Eden Phillpotts
land--and are coming back to Torquay at night. If I have time I'll write
you a special Dartmoor letter, for I have an idea that I shall find the
moor wonderfully impressive. But we mayn't get back till late; and the
day after we are to start early in the morning for Sir Lionel's county,
Cornwall. Afterward we shall come back into another part of Devonshire,
and see Bideford and Exmoor. That's why I've been able to forget some of
my worries in "Westward Ho!" and "Lorna Doone" lately. But Sir Lionel
can't wait longer for Cornwall, and, so day-after-to-morrow night my
eyes shall look upon--only think of it--"dark Tintagel by the Cornish
sea." That is, we shall see it, Apollo permitting, for motors and men
gang aft aglee.
This isn't apropos of Apollo's usual behaviour, but of the stories we've
been told concerning Dartmoor roads. They say--well, there's nothing to
worry about with Sir Lionel at the helm; but I shouldn't wonder if
to-morrow will be an adventure.
There, now, I'm sorry I said that. You may be anxious; but I can't
scratch it out, and it's nearly at the bottom of _such_ a big sheet. So
I'll wire to-morrow night, when we get back, and you'll have the
telegram before you have this letter.
Your how-to-be-happy-though-undeserving,
But ever loving,
Audrie.
XVI
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Still Torquay, Ten Thirty_,
_August 7th_
Dearest: I thought the moor would be impressive. It is
overwhelming. Oh, this Devonshire of my father's people is far from
being all a land of cream and roses!
Dartmoor has given me so many emotions that I am tired, but I must tell
you about it and them. When I shut my eyes, I see tors, like ruined
watch-towers, against the sky. And I see Princetown, grim and terrible.
No country can look its best on a map, no matter what colour be chosen
to express it; but I did like Dartmoor's rich brown, which set it apart
from the green parts of Devonshire. It took some time, though, even in a
motor, to come to the brown; for our road was fairy-like as far as Holne,
Charles Kingsley's birthplace. We got out there, of course, and looked
at his memorial window in the charming village church. At Holne Bridge
I thought of the beautiful way to the Grande Chartreuse; so you can
imagine it was far from sterile, although we were on the fringe of the
moor. And ah, what a lovely green fringe the brown moor wears! It is all
trimmed round the edge with woods, and glens, where the baby River Dart
goes laughing by. And there's a most romantic Lover's Leap, of course.
Strange how so many lovers, though of different countries, have all that
same wild desire to jump off something! If I were a lover I should much
rather die a flat, neat death.
We saw this Lover's Leap only at a distance when going toward the moor,
but coming back--however, I will tell you about it afterward, when I
come to Buckland Chase, on the way home.
It was at Holne that the big hills, of which we'd been warned, began;
but Apollo merely sniffs at gradients that make smaller, meaner motors
grunt with rage. We had a car behind us (which had started ahead), but
it was rather an ominous sign to see no "pneu" tracks in the white dust
of the road as we travelled. Other days, we have always had them to
follow; and it makes a motor feel at home to know that his brethren have
come and gone that way. This must have seemed to Apollo like isolation;
and as if to emphasize the sensation which we all shared, suddenly we
began to _smell_ the moor.
I can't describe to you exactly what that smell was like, but we _knew_
it was the moor. The air became alive and life-giving. It tingled with a
cold breath of the north, and one thought of granite with the sun on it,
and broom in blossom, and coarse grass such as mountain-sheep love,
though one saw none of those things yet. The scenery was still gentle
and friendly, and the baby Dart was singing at the top of its voice.
Really, it was almost a tune. I felt, as I listened, that it would be
easy to set it to music. The moss-covered stones round which purled the
clear water looked like the whole notes and half notes, all ready to be
pushed into place, so that the tune might "arrange itself." And the
amber brown of the stream was mottled with gold under the surface, as if
a sack full of sovereigns had been emptied into the river.
The first tor on our horizon was Sharp Tor, which the Dart evidently
feared. The poor little river disappeared at sight of it, hurrying away
from its frown, and as the stream vanished all the dainty charm of the
landscape fled, too. We saw the moor towering toward us, stern and
barren, with that great watch-tower of Nature's pinning it to the sky.
Moorland ponies raced to and fro, mad with the joy of some game they
were playing, and they were not afraid of us. I should think the live
things of the moor were afraid of nothing that could come to them out of
the world beyond, for that pungent air breathes "courage," and the gray
granite, breaking through the poor coat of grass, dares the eyes that
look at it not to be brave.
Near the moorland ponies--on Holne Moor--we came to the strangest
reservoir you could dream of. It was vast, and blue as a block fallen
out of the sky; and once, Sir Lionel said, it had been a lake, though
now it gives water to the prison town. An old road used to run through
it; and to this day you can see the bridge under water. The story is
that strange forms cross that bridge at night. I'm sure it's true, for
anything could happen on the moor, and of course it swarms with pixies.
You believe that, don't you? Well, anyway, you would if you saw the
moor.
The next tor was nameless for us, but it was even finer than Sharp Tor.
After seeing Stonehenge I felt so certain it must be Druidical that it
was disappointing to hear it wasn't--that all such theories about the
tors had "exploded." Afterward there were lots of tors; and there were
tin mines, too, not far from our wild, desolate road--tin mines that
have always been worked, they say, since the days of the Phoenicians.
I should have been more interested in thinking about them, however, if
we hadn't just then begun gliding down a hill which, from the top,
looked as if it might go straight through to China. My toes felt as if
they'd been done up in curl-papers for years. But there was a savage joy
in the creepiness of it, and Apollo "chunk-chunked" sturdily down, in a
nice, dependable way, toward a lonely village, which I felt sure was
entirely populated by Eden Phillpotts people. He, and the other authors
who write about the moor, invariably make their leading characters have
"primitive passions," so I thought perhaps the faces of the moor folk
would be wilder and stranger, and have more meaning than other civilized
faces. But all those I saw looked just like everybody else, and I was so
disappointed! They even dropped their "h's"; and once, when we stopped a
moment at a place where Sir Lionel wasn't sure of the way, I asked a boy
on a rough pony the names of some trees we had passed. "H'ash and green
h'elm, miss," said he. It _was_ a blow!
Toward eleven, the sun had drunk up the cold mist, and the moor basked
in heat. We were in an empty world, save for a cottage now and then, and
a Cyclopean wall of stones loosely piled one upon another. Yet this was
the main road from Ashburton to Princetown! Apollo glided along a
desolate white way between creamy and silver grasses artistically
intermingled, and burning, golden gorse, which caught the sun. The
splendid, dignified loneliness of the moor was like the retreat chosen
by a hermit god! There may be only twenty square miles of moor, but it
feels like a hundred.