interested, largely because of "Evelina," who stopped at the Hot Wells,
in the "most romantic part of the story." I couldn't for my life
remember who wrote "Evelina"--which was awkward; and it hasn't come back
to me yet. I always mix the book up with "Clarissa Harlowe," and so does
Dick, though, of course, he's read neither.
We went to see a lot of things in Bristol, but the best was a church
called St. Mary Redcliffe. Mrs. Norton, though tired, pined to go when
she heard it was famous; and it's as much as your life is worth to deny
her a church if she wants one. The others, except Dick, said it was
worth stopping for; also that they were glad they did; so somebody was
pleased! And Sir L. and E. jabbered enough history in Bristol to last a
schoolmaster a week. I was quite thankful to start again, and stop the
flow of intelligence, because I hadn't found time to fag up Bristol and
Clifton beforehand, as I do some towns.
So we came to Bath, where we've been stopping for two days at one of the
best hotels in England, and where I might enjoy a little well-earned
civilization if it weren't that there are a thousand and one old houses
and other "features" which Mademoiselle Ellaline pretends she yearns to
visit. Of course, _I_ know that all she wants is a chance to monopolize
Sir L.'s society, but _he_ doesn't know that; and my business is not
only to fight unjust monopoly, but to establish a Senter-Pendragon Trust
myself. Consequently there is no rest for the wicked, and willy-nilly,
I, too, gloat over relics of the past.
Luckily for me, as I have had to do more sight-seeing here than almost
anywhere else, Bath is a fascinating place, and I believe it's becoming
very fashionable again. Anyhow, all the great ones of earth seem to have
lived here at one time or another. I wonder if it mightn't be nice for
you to spend a season, taking the waters, or bathing, or whatever is the
smartest thing to do? I've noticed it's only the very smartest thing
that ever thoroughly agrees with you, and I sympathize. I have the sort
of feeling that what is good for duchesses may be good for me; but if I
bring off what I'm aiming at now, Lady Pendragon shall rise on the
ladder of her husband's fame and her own charm to the plane of
royalties.
By the way, in nosing about among the foundations of a church here, St.
Peter's--they found the wife (her body, I mean) of that King Edmund
Thingummy I never could find out about. He seems always to be cropping
up!
I was in hopes we'd only have to go back to the Roman days of Bath, as
that saves trouble; but, oh no, down I must dip into Saxon lore, or I'm
not in it with the industrious Miss Lethbridge! I think the wretched
Saxons had a mint here, or something, and there were religious pageants
of great splendour in which that everlasting St. Dunstan mixed himself
up. I tell you these things, I may explain, not because I think you will
be interested, but because I want to fix them in my mind, as we haven't
finished "doing" Bath yet, and are to stop another day or two.
As for Roman talk, there is no end of it among us; it mingles with our
meals, which would otherwise be delicious; and in my dreams, instead of
being lulled by the music of a beautiful weir under my window, I find
myself mumbling: "Yes, Sir Lionel, Ptolemy should have said the place
was outside, not in, the Belgic border." (Sounds like something new in
embroidery, doesn't it?) "Strange, indeed, that they only discovered the
Roman Baths so late as the middle of the eighteenth century! And then,
only think of finding the biggest and best of all, more than a hundred
years later!"
I assure you, I have kept my end up with my two too-well-informed
companions, and I was even able to tell Sir Lionel a legend he didn't
know: about Bladud, a son of the British King Lud Hudibras, creating
Bath by black magic, secreting a miraculous stone in the spring, which
heated the water and cured the sick. Then Bladud grew so conceited about
his own powers that he tried to fly, and if he had succeeded there would
have been no need for the Wright brothers to bother; but when he got as
far as London from Bath the wing-strings broke and he fell, plop! on a
particularly hard temple of Apollo. After him reigned his son, no less a
person than King Lear. I got this out of a queer little old book I
bought the first day we came, but I assumed the air of having known it
since childhood. There's another legend, it seems, about Bladud and a
swine, but it's less esoteric than this, and Sir Lionel likes mine
better.
I do wish we hadn't to spend so much time poking about in the Roman
Baths, for though there are good enough sights to see there, for those
who love that sort of thing, one does get such cold feet, and there are
such a lot of steps up and down, one's dress is soon dusty round the
bottom, and that's a bore when one has no maid.
If I could choose, I'd prefer the Pump Room, and would rather talk of
Beau Nash and the old Assembly Rooms than of Minerva and her temple--or
indeed of Pepys, or Miss Austen and Fanny Burney. By the way, "Evelina"
was hers. I've found that out, without committing myself. I wish I could
buy the book for sixpence. I think I'll try, when nobody is looking; and
it ought to be easy, for we simply haunt a bookshop in Gay Street,
belonging to a Mr. Meehan, who is a celebrity here. He has written a
book in which Sir Lionel is much interested, called "Famous Houses of
Bath," and as it seems he knows more about the place as it was in old
days and as it is now than any other living person, he has been going
round with us, showing us those "features" I mentioned. He appears to
have architecture of all kinds at his finger tips, and not only points
out here and there what "Wood the elder and Wood the younger" did, under
patronage of Ralph Allen, but knows which architect's work was good,
which bad, which indifferent; and that really is beyond me! I suppose
one can't have a soul for Paris fashions and English architecture too? I
prefer to be a judge of the former, thanks! It's of much more use in
life.
I should think there can hardly be a street, court, or even alley of Old
Bath into which we haven't been led by our clever cicerone, to see a
"bit" which oughtn't on any account to be missed. Here, the remains of
the Roman wall, crowded in among mere, middle-aged things; there the
place where Queen Elizabeth stayed, or Queen Anne; where "Catherine
Morland" lodged, or "General Tilney"; where "Miss Elliot" and "Captain
Wentworth" met; where John Hales was born, and Terry, the actor; where
Sir Sidney Smith and De Quincey went to school; the house whence
Elizabeth Linley eloped with Sheridan; the place where the "King of
Bath," poor old Nash, died poor and neglected; and so on, ad infinitum,
all the way to Prior Park, where Pope stayed with Ralph Allen,
rancorously reviling the town and its sulphur-laden air. So now you can
imagine that my "walking and standing" muscles are becoming abnormally
developed, to the detriment of the sitting-down ones, which I fear may
be atrophied or something before we return to motor life.
Sir Lionel has remarked that Bath is a "microcosm of England," and I
hastened to say "Yes, it is." Do you happen to know what a microcosm
means? Dick says it's a conglomeration of microbes, but he is always
wrong about abstract things unconnected with Sherlock Holmes.
By this time you will be as tired of Bath as if you had pottered about
in it as much as I have, and won't care whether it had two great
periods--Roman and eighteenth century--or twenty, inextricably entangled
with the South Pole and Kamchatka. _More_ tired than I, even, for I have
got a certain amount of satisfaction to the eye from the agreeable,
classic-looking terraces and crescents, and the pure white stone
buildings that glitter on the hillsides overlooking the Avon. That is
the sort of background which is becoming to me, and as I had all my
luggage meet me in Bath, I have been able to dress for it; whereas Miss
Lethbridge has done most of her exploring in blue serge.
In a day or two we are off again--Wales sooner or later, I believe,
though I ask no questions, as I don't care to draw attention to my own
future plans. We were asked for a fortnight, and I am not troubling my
memory to count by how many days we have overstayed--not our welcome, I
hope--but our invitation. You will wonder perhaps why I "overstay,"
since I frankly admit that I'm "fed up" with too much scenery and too
much information. Yet no, you are far too clever to wonder, dear Sis.
You will see for yourself that I must go on, like "the brook," until Sir
Lionel asks me to go on--as Lady Pendragon. Or else until I have to
abandon hope. But I won't think of that. And I am being so nice to Mrs.
Norton (whenever necessary) that I think she has forgiven me the colour
of my hair, and will advise her brother to invite me to make a little
visit at Graylees Castle, where it is understood the tour eventually
comes to an end. When this end may arrive the god of automobiles knows.
A chauffeur proposes; the motor-car disposes. And the Woman-in-the-Car
never reposes--when there's another woman and a man in the case.
Your-enduring-to-the-end,
Gwen.
P. S.--That was an inspiration of mine about the Cheddar Cavern, wasn't
it? I have another now, and will make a note of it. N.B.--Get Sir L. to
take me to see the ruins of Tintern Abbey by moonlight (if any) and
while there induce him to propose, or think he has done so. I have a
white dress which would just suit.
XXVII
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Tintern Abbey_,
_August 27th_
Dearest Saint: We're not exactly living in Tintern Abbey; that
would be too good to be true, and would also annoy the rooks which cry
and cry always in the ruins, as if they were ghosts of the dead
Cistercian monks, clothed not in white, but in decent black, ever
mourning their lost glory. But we are in a perfect duck of a hotel,
covered with Virginia creeper, and as close by as can be. We arrived
this afternoon, and have had an hour or two of delightful dawdling in
the Abbey. Soon we are to have an early dinner, which we shall bolt if
necessary, so that we may go in again by moonlight, before the moon
escapes. I have dressed quickly, because I wanted to begin a letter to
you. I shan't have time to finish it, but I'll do that when we've come
back from the heavenly ruins, with moonlight in my pores and romance in
my soul. I ought to write a better letter in such a mood, oughtn't I?
And I do try to write nice letters to my Angel, because she says such
dear, kind things about them, and also because I love her better every
day.
We've seen quantities of beautiful things and places since I wrote you
last, darling. To think them over is like drawing a long gold chain,
strewn at intervals with different precious stones, through the fingers,
slowly, jewel by jewel. The gold chain is our road and the beautiful
beads are the places, of course. I can say "draw them slowly through the
fingers," because we don't scorch. We are out to see the "fair face of
England," not to scurry over it like distracted flies.
I don't remember many "jewels" on the way to Gloucester from Bath
through Cold Aston and Stroud; but if I were properly up in history, no
doubt I should have noted more than I did; yet Gloucester itself was a
diamond of the first water. I feared to be disappointed in the
Cathedral, so soon after exquisite Wells and the Abbey at Bath, which I
loved. But as soon as I got inside it was quite otherwise, especially as
I had Sir Lionel to show me things, and he knew Gloucester of old. To
me, the interior was almost as interesting as Winchester itself (which,
so far, has outranked all), for the transition from one period to
another is so clearly and strangely marked, and it's the actual
birthplace of Perpendicular architecture. The Cloisters must be among
the loveliest in the world; and there's a great, jewelled window which
leaves a gorgeous scintillating circle in my mind's eye, just as the sun
does on your body's eye, when you have looked in the face of its glory.
Oh, and the extraordinary stone veil, with its gilded ornamentation! I
shan't forget that, but shall think of it when I am old. There is an
effect as of tall rows of ripe wheat bending toward one another,
gleaming as wheat does when the breeze blows and the sun shines.
We heard the choir singing, an unseen choir of boys and men; and the
voices were like shafts of crystal, rising, rising, rising, up as far as
heaven, for all I know.
Don't you feel that the voice of a boy is purer, more impersonal and
sexless, somehow, than the clearest soprano of a woman, therefore
exactly fulfilling our idea of an angel singing?
Think of Gloucester having been laid out on the same plan as the
prætorian camp at Rome! They've proved it by a sketch map of Viollet le
Duc's; and under the city of the Saxons, and mediæval Gloucester, lies
Gloucestra--"Fair City"--of the Romans. You can dig bits of its walls
and temples up almost anywhere if you go deep enough, people say. It
must have been an exciting place to live in when Rome ruled Britain,
because the fierce tribes from Southern Wales, just across the Severn,
were always spoiling for a fight. But now one can't imagine being
excited to any evil passion in this shrine of the great "Abbey of the
Severn Lands." The one passion I dared feel was admiration; admiration
everywhere, all the way through from the tomb of Osric the Woden who
founded the abbey, to the New Inn (which is very old, and perfectly
beautiful); in the ancient streets, at the abbot's gateway, all round the
Cathedral, inside and out, pausing at the tombs (especially that of poor
murdered King Edward II., who was killed at Berkeley Castle only a few
miles away), and so on and on, even into the modern town which is
inextricably tangled with the old.
There are quantities of interesting and lovely places, according to Sir
Lionel, where one ought to go from Gloucester, especially with a motor,
which makes seeing things easier than not seeing them; there's
Cheltenham, with a run which gives glorious views over the Severn
Valley; and Stonebench, where you can best see the foaming Severn Bore;
and Tewkesbury, which you'll be interested to know is the Nortonbury of
an old book you love--"John Halifax, Gentleman"; and Malvern; and
there's even Stratford-on-Avon, not too far away for a day's run. But
Sir Lionel has news that the workmen will be out of Graylees Castle
before long, and he says we must leave some of the best things for
another time; Oxford and Cambridge, for instance; and Graylees is so
near Warwick and Kenilworth and Stratford-on-Avon that it will be best
to save them for separate short trips after we have "settled down at
home."
How little he guesses that there'll be no settling down for me--that
already I have been with him longer than I expected! Whenever he speaks
of "getting home," and what "we" will do after that, it gives me a
horrid, choky feeling; and I'm afraid he thinks me unresponsive on the
subject of the beautiful old place which he apparently longs to have me
see, because my throat is always too shut up, when it is mentioned, to
talk about it. I can't do much more than say "Yes" and "No," in the
absolutely necessary places, and generally show symptoms of cold in the
head, if there's a hanky handy.
Of course, I am dying to see you, dearest. You know that, without my
telling, and you are everything to me--my whole world. Yet it hurts me
dreadfully to know that, when Sir Lionel Pendragon is at home, instead
of carrying out the nice plans he makes each day for "us" in the future,
he will be despising me heartily, and thinking me the very worst girl,
without exception, who ever lived. I believe he now dislikes Bloody
Queen Mary more than any other woman who ever spoiled the earth with her
offensive presence; but probably she will go up one when he gets to know
about me.
I don't doubt that he'll be angry with the real Ellaline as well, but
not absolutely disgusted with her, as he will be with me. Besides,
whatever he feels, it won't matter to her very much, except where money
is concerned, because she will be married before he knows the truth. She
won't have to live in his house, or even in the same country with him,
for her home will be in France with her soldier-husband. Unfortunately,
I'm afraid his opinion of her may matter in a mercenary way, for I have
heard the whole story--I believe the _true_ story--of Ellaline's mother
and father, as connected with Sir Lionel's past.
Mrs. Senter told it, and enjoyed telling it, because she thought it
would depress and take the spirit out of me. She hoped, I'm sure, that
it would make me shrink from Sir Lionel's society in shame and
mortification; also she very likely fancied that I might consider myself
an unfit bride for her nephew, whose attentions to me are extremely
convenient for her; but she would prefer not to have them end in
matrimony.
If I were Ellaline Lethbridge, with the feelings of Audrie Brendon, I
should have taken the recital precisely as she expected; though really I
don't think Ellaline herself, as she is, would have minded desperately,
except about the money. But being Audrie Brendon, and not Ellaline, I
could have shouted for joy at almost every word that woman said, if it
hadn't been in a cave where shouting would have made awful echoes.
You know, dear, how I have been puzzling over Sir Lionel the Noble, as
he appears to me, and Sir Lionel the Dragon, as painted by Ellaline, and
how I've vainly tried to match the pieces together. Well, thanks to Mrs.
Senter's revelations, the puzzle no longer exists. Of course, long ago,
I made up my mind that there was a mistake somewhere, and that it wasn't
on my side; still, I couldn't understand certain things. Now, there
_isn't one detail_ which I can't understand very well; and that's why
I'm so ready to believe Mrs. Senter's story to be true. Most
disagreeable things are; and this is certainly as disagreeable for poor
little Ellaline as it was meant to be disagreeable for me.
Mrs. Senter excused herself for telling me horrid tales about my people
by saying that my ignorance gave me the air of being ungrateful to Sir
Lionel, and unappreciative of all he had done for me. That he, being a
man, was likely to blame me for extravagance and indifference to
benefits received, although aware, when he actually reflected on the
subject, that I sinned through ignorance. She thought (said she) that it
would be only fair to tell me the whole truth, as I could then change my
line of conduct accordingly; but she hoped I wouldn't give her away to
Sir Lionel or Dick, as she was speaking for my sake.
When I had promised, she informed me that "my mother," Ellaline de
Nesville, a distant cousin of Lionel Pendragon's, was engaged to him
when they were both very young. There was a lawsuit going on at the time
about some tin mines in Cornwall, from which most of his money came, for
the property was claimed by a man from another branch of the family, who
suddenly appeared waving a marriage certificate or a will, or something
melodramatic. Well, the lawsuit was decided for the other man, just
about the time that Sir Lionel (who wasn't Sir Lionel then) got shot in
the arm and seemed likely to be a cripple for life. Both blows coming
together were too much for Mademoiselle de Nesville, who was fascinating
and pretty, but apparently a frightful little cat as well as flirt, so
she promptly bolted with an intimate friend of her fiancé, a Mr.
Frederic Lethbridge, rich and "well connected." They ran off and were
married in Scotland, as Ellaline the second expects to be. (Odd how even
profane history repeats itself!) And this though Mr. Lethbridge knew his
friend was desperately in love with the girl.
What happened immediately after I don't know, except that Mrs. Senter
says Sir Lionel was horribly cut up, and lost his interest in life. But
anyhow, sooner or later, the lawsuit, which had gone to a higher court,
was, after all, decided in his favour. The other man turned out to be a
fraud, and retired into oblivion with his wills and marriage
certificates. Meanwhile, Ellaline Number One awoke to the fact that her
husband wasn't as rich as he was painted, or as nice as she had fancied.
Some of his people were millionaires, but he had run through a good deal
of his fortune because he was mad about gambling. At first, when the
bride supposed that there was heaps of money, she enjoyed gambling, too,
and they were always at Longchamps, or Chantilly, or the English
race-courses, or at Aix or Monte Carlo. By and by, though, when she
found that they were being ruined, she tried to pull her husband up--but
it was too late; or else he was the sort of person who can't be stopped
when he's begun running down hill.
Probably she regretted her cousin by that time, as he was rich again,
and likely to be richer, as well as very distinguished. And when a few
years later (while our Ellaline was a baby) Frederic Lethbridge forged a
millionaire uncle's name, and had to go to prison, she must have
regretted Sir Lionel still more, for she was a little creature who loved
pleasure, and hardly knew how to bear trouble.
Mrs. Senter said that Mr. Lethbridge had been sure the uncle would
shield him rather than have a scandal in the family, and so it was a
great surprise to him to be treated like an ordinary criminal. When he
was sentenced to several years in prison, after a sensational trial, he
contrived to hang himself, and was found stone-dead in his cell. His
widow had to go and live with some dull, disagreeable relations in the
country, who thought it their duty to take her and the baby for a
consideration, and there she died of disappointment and galloping
consumption, leaving a letter for her jilted cousin Lionel, in Bengal,
which begged him to act as guardian for her child. All the money she had
at her death was a few thousand pounds, of which she had never been able
to touch anything but the income, about two hundred pounds a year; and
that sum, Mrs. Senter gave me to understand, constituted my sole right
to consider myself an heiress.
Despite the shameful way in which she had behaved to him, Sir Lionel
accepted the charge, eventually took his cousin's little girl away from
the disagreeable relatives, and put her at Madame de Maluet's, where
Mother Ellaline was educated and particularly desired her daughter to be
educated. Not only did he pay for her keep at one of the most expensive
schools in France (Madame's is that, and she prides herself on the
fact), but gave her an allowance "far too large for a schoolgirl" in the
opinion of Mrs. Senter's unknown (to me) informant.
Doesn't this account for everything that looked strange, and for all
that appeared cold-hearted, almost cruel, in Sir Lionel to Ellaline, who
had heard the wrong side of the story, certainly from Madame de
Blanchemain--a silly woman, I fancy--and perhaps even from Madame de
Maluet, whose favourite pupil Ellaline the First was?
No wonder Sir Lionel didn't write to the child, or want her to write to
him, or send her photograph, or anything! And no wonder he dreaded
having her society thrust on him when Madame de Maluet hinted that it
was hardly decent to keep his ward at school any longer. I even
understand now why, when I show the slightest sign of flirtatiousness or
skittishness, he stiffens up, and draws into his shell.
I very politely let Mrs. Senter see that I appreciated her true
disinterestedness in repeating to me this tragic family history; and of
course she was a cat twice over to do it. At the same time, I never
liked her so much in my life, because it was so splendid to have Sir
Lionel not only justified (he hardly needed that with me, at this stage)
but haloed. I think he has behaved like a saint on a stained-glass
window, don't you?
I have interrupted my letter about places and things tremendously, to
tell you the story as it was told to me; but it seemed to come in
appropriately, and I wanted you to know it, so that you might begin to
appreciate Sir Lionel at his true worth in case you have been doubting
him a little up to now.