because of the Abbey afterward, and not keeping them waiting; but
perhaps, if I skip soup and fish, I may stop long enough to add that
after Gloucester we went to quaint old Ross, sacred to the memory of
"The Man of Ross," who was so revered that a most lovely view over the
River Wye has been named for him. We had lunch there, at a hotel where I
should love to stay, and then passed on, along a perfect road, down the
Wye, till we came to Kerne Bridge, near Goodrich Castle. There we got
out, leaving Buddha as the god in the car, and walked for half a mile
along a romantic path to the ruined castle. It was one of the first
built in England, and there are early Norman parts of it still intact,
and incredibly strong looking, as if they meant to last another thousand
years. I was so interested in it, and wish whoever it may concern would
leave the castle to me in his will. I would fix up a room or two and
bring you there, and we'd have that exquisite view always under our
eyes. As for servants, we could employ ghosts.
The Wye is even more charming as a river and as a valley than we used to
imagine when we wanted to "do" England, before it burst upon us that
most of the wherewithal was used up. Nothing could be more dreamy and
daintily pretty than landscape and waterscape, though here and there is
a bit which might be gray and grim if the beetling rocks weren't hatted
with moss and mantled with delicate green trees. Wherever there is a
boulder in the river, the bright water laughs and plays round it, as if
forbidding it to look stern.
The real way to see the Wye isn't by motor, but by boat, I am sure, even
though that may sound treacherous to Apollo and disloyal to my petrol;
but we did the best we could, and went out of our way some miles to see
Symond's Yat, a queer, delightful, white village on a part of the river
which is particularly divine. There's a splendid rock, and the Yat is
the rock, as well as the village. Also there's a cave; but I wasn't
sorry not to stop and go in, lest Mrs. Senter might seize the
opportunity of telling me some other fearsome tale, less welcome than
the last.
In old days it used to take a week by coach from London to Monmouth.
Now, with a motor, I dare say we could do it in one long, long day, if
we tried. Only it would be silly to try, because one wouldn't see
anything, and would make oneself a nuisance as a "road hog" to everybody
one met or passed. It was Monmouth we came to next, after "digressing"
to Symond's Yat, and as it was nearly evening by that time, Sir Lionel
decided to stay the night. He meant to start again in the morning; but
Monmouth Castle, towering out of the river, was so fine that it was a
pity to leave it unvisited, particularly as Henry V., a special hero of
Sir Lionel's (mine, too!) was born there. Then we took an unplanned
eight-mile run to Raglan Castle, a magnificently impressive ruin; and
that is why we arrived so late to-day at Tintern.
This letter has grown like Jack's beanstalk, until I think I'd better
post it on my way to dinner, instead of adding rhapsodies about
moonlight in the Abbey. I won't forget to put them in though, next time
I write, which will be almost immediately--if not sooner.
Your even more loving than loquacious
Audrie.
XXVIII
MRS. SENTER TO HER SISTER, MRS. BURDEN
_Tintern Abbey_
My Dear Sis: He came, the moon saw, and I--didn't conquer!
You know what I mean? I'm sure you remember what I hoped to do at
Tintern Abbey by the light of the moon; and if you are the good elder
sister I think you are, I trust you prayed for my success. If you did,
don't mind too much about the prayer not being answered, but try again,
and give Sir Lionel "absent treatments," and all that sort of thing,
because, if the moon had been properly turned on, he might have been
brought to the point. For I look my best by moonlight, and have a great
gift of pathos in a white light--like heroines of melodrama who always
have themselves followed about by it on purpose--or else by a patch of
snow. But the moon was only on at half-cock, and didn't work well, and
after we had stubbed our toes on several things in dark shadows among
the ruins, I just folded up my plan of campaign, and put it into my
pocket until next time.
The pity of it!--when I had been at a lot of trouble to persuade Mrs.
Norton that it would be damp in the Abbey, and that there exists a
special kind of bat which haunts ruins and is consumed by an invincible
desire to nest in the front hair. So she stopped in the hotel; and as
for Miss Lethbridge, I knew I could trust Dick to look after her.
But--well, it can't be helped, and the moon is growing bigger and
brighter every night. I don't know whether there were any toe-stubbing
incidents in the ranks of the rear-guard; but something must have
happened, for mademoiselle has come home looking _stricken_. I'm dying
to hear what's the matter, but Dick won't tell. Perhaps she swallowed a
bat!
Yours (would that I could say Sir L.'s) ever lovingly,
Gwen.
XXIX
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Tintern Abbey_,
_Same night_
After all, I'm writing again, darling mother. I do think that Dick is an
unmitigated cad. I told him so, and he said it was only because I was so
unkind to him, and he was determined I shouldn't "chuck" him. He is
hateful! It's too horrid to be obliged to obey Dick Burden's orders,
just for Ellaline's sake, when if it weren't for her I could not only
tell him what I think of him, but have him sent away in disgrace. Sir
Lionel would thrash him, I believe, if he knew--but it's useless to talk
about that. And as Dick gracefully reminds me, the pot can't call the
kettle black. I am the pot. Oh!
I was in such a happy mood when we went into the Abbey, and so delighted
that we were able to be there by moonlight, dreaming as little of what
would happen as Red Riding Hood did before she met the wolf.
Sir Lionel and I started together, somehow, but the minute we were in
the ruins Mrs. Senter called him to ask a question about the tombs that
break the soft green carpet of grass in the long aisles. Instantly Dick
pounced on me, just as his aunt did in the cave the other day, and I
could only have got away from him by showing that I'd rather be with Sir
Lionel--which, of course, I wouldn't do.
Dick began at once accusing me of avoiding him, and keeping out of his
way on purpose when he tried to speak with me alone, ever since he came
back from Scotland; and I retorted flippantly: "Oh, have you only
noticed that since then?"
But in a minute I wished I hadn't defied him. He said, if I wanted him
to be considerate, making him angry wasn't the right way to set about
it; and that, if I had been in his power before, I was a good deal
deeper in now.
Still, I wasn't so very frightened, because I'm used to his threats, and
I thought he was only "bluffing"; so I bluffed back, and laughed, saying
that it didn't suit his style to be melodramatic.
"You make me want to shake you," he said, crossly.
"I know that," said I. And then he burst like a thunder-cloud--at least,
his news did; the news he had been wanting to tell me since Bideford.
When he was in Scotland, _he saw Ellaline_. She had arrived with those
McNamarras I told you about, and their place must be near the one where
Dick's mother is visiting. He recognized her from that photograph of the
school garden-party (where he saw my picture, too, you know, and was
able to find out my name, and where we live in Versailles). That is, he
thought he couldn't be mistaken, but made sure by inquiring, until he
hit upon someone who could tell him that a Mademoiselle de Nesville had
come to stay with Mrs. and Miss McNamarra. Of course, he couldn't have
known that Ellaline had taken the name of de Nesville, but as he had
heard that de Nesville was her mother's maiden name, it wasn't difficult
for a budding Sherlock Holmes to put two and two together.
You see how much worse the position is now, both for Ellaline and me,
and that the little wretch didn't exaggerate when he boasted that I'm
more "in his power" than ever. What a misfortune that Ellaline should
have come to Scotland--so near where we shall be, too, if we go to the
Roman Wall! He has only to tell the whole thing to Sir Lionel, and say:
"If you don't believe it, run up to such and such a place, and there you
will see the real Ellaline Lethbridge, whom perhaps you may recognize
from her likeness to your cousin, her dead French mother."
If only Ellaline were safely married! But she can't be yet, for days and
days, I'm afraid. She was to have written or telegraphed me at
Gloucester, if there were any chance of her soldier lover getting away
sooner than last expected; but I had no word from her at all, at the
Poste Restante there.
All that sounds bad enough for me, doesn't it? But there's worse to
come. The wretch swears he will (as he calls it), "give the show away"
to Sir Lionel to-morrow if I don't tell Sir L. myself that I have fallen
in love with Dick.
I said that Sir Lionel wouldn't believe me if I did, because I'd told
him at Torquay I wasn't in love with Dick. That admission slipped out,
and Sherlock Holmes caught at it. "Ah, I thought you'd done something to
put him off the scent!" he flashed out. "I call that downright
treacherous of you; and all the more I'll hold you down to your bargain
this time. I said I'd speak to-morrow unless you did what I told you to
do, but now I say I'll speak this minute, if you don't promise by all
that's sacred to ask him for his consent to-morrow. I'll shout to him
now. One--two--three!"
"Yes, yes, I will!" I cried--because Dick had worked himself up to such
a fury that I saw that he meant what he said.
"I shall know fast enough whether you keep your word or not," he
growled. "And if you don't, you understand just what you have to
expect."
If I hadn't given in to Ellaline! I ought to have known that nothing but
trouble could come of it. Yet no--I won't wish it undone. I can't! No
matter what happens, I shall never really regret what gave me the chance
of meeting a man like Sir Lionel. I don't think there is another in the
world. And to-morrow I am to have the honour of informing him that I'm
in love with that little worm, Dick Burden. Having seen the sun, I love
a flicker of phosphorus on a sulphur match.
Do write me the minute you get this, won't you? No, telegraph if you can
think of anything consoling to say. Poste Restante, Chester.
Your frightened and loving
Audrie.
XXX
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Aberystwith_,
_August 29th_
Brightest and Best: I have a short reprieve, because Dick has
had to go away again; not to his mother, this time, but to London. A
telegram was forwarded to him from Gloucester, where he had left
sending-on instructions; and he knocked at my door early yesterday
morning (at Tintern) to say he must leave immediately by the first
train. He was excited, because the telegram came from the head of a firm
of well-known private detectives with whom he had been in correspondence
for some time, trying to buy a junior partnership for a few hundreds
left him by his grandmother. There's a chance now that he may get the
partnership, only he must be on the spot, as another man is making an
offer "more advantageous--in some ways." Dick is wild to get in, and
regards this as the opportunity of a lifetime. Doesn't that prove the
type of mind he has? Actually yearning to be in business as a detective!
Well, he's had good practice lately, and I must say he has made the most
of it.
"This call couldn't have come at a worse time, but I must obey it," he
pronounced solemnly, while I peeped through my half-open door, in my
prettiest Ellaline dressing-gown--far too nice to waste on Dick.
Disgusted with life, as I was, I nearly laughed in his face, and _at_
his face; but dared not quite, for fear of enraging him again just when
he appeared to be in a comparatively lenient mood.
He had come to explain and apologize, and in his perky conceit really
seemed to fancy that I might be hurt at his desertion. So when he asked
if I would "bid him good-bye pleasantly, and remember to keep my
promise," I had a small inspiration. I would bid him good-bye
pleasantly, I bargained, provided he let me off keeping the promise
until he should come back; because, I said, it would be humiliating to
plead with Sir Lionel on the very day my _fiancé_ turned his back upon
me in order to attend to mere business.
"You call this _mere_ business?" sputtered Dick; and I soothed him, but
persisted firmly, gently, until at last he agreed to grant the reprieve.
I think his own vanity, not my eloquence, obtained the concession,
because it pleased him to believe that I leaned upon him in this crisis.
And of course I had to promise over again, more earnestly than ever,
"not to back out, but to stick to my word."
I must still stick to it, of course (unless a wire or letter from you
meanwhile suggests some miraculous, agreeable, honourable alternative);
but sufficient for the day is the evil thereof--and the Dick thereof.
This day and several days to come are free from both; for my albatross
can't arrange the details of its partnership, sell out some investments
in order to pay the money down, and join us again before Chester. There
I shall certainly hear from you; and I have such infinite faith in your
dove-like serpentineness, that I let myself cling to the ragged edge of
hope. Meanwhile, I shall enjoy myself as much as I possibly can, so
that, at worst, I shall have more good days to remember when bad days
come. For the days will be very bad indeed if I have to bear Sir
Lionel's silent scorn, and still remain with him, awaiting release from
Ellaline.
I felt like a different human being after Dick had gone, and would have
written you at once, but he had delayed me so long that I had to finish
dressing at top speed, because we were to make an earlier start than
usual. There was Chepstow Castle to see (quite near, and a shame to have
missed it), as well as a hundred-and-fifty-mile run to Tenby.
Chepstow was splendidly picturesque and striking; but the country
through which we had to pass on the way to Tenby would not have been
particularly interesting if it weren't for the legends and history with
which it is as full as it is of ruined castles. It is largely coal
country now, and after the lovely, winding Wye, playing hide-and-seek
with its guardian hills, we might have found the road unattractive as we
ran through Newport, Cardiff, Neath, Swansea, and Carmarthen. But it
made all the difference in the world to know that Carmarthen was
Merlin's birthplace; that stories of Arthur's exploits and knightly
deeds leave golden landmarks everywhere; and that it seems quite an
ordinary, reasonable thing to the people to name railway engines after
Sir Lancelot. Isn't it charming of them? Yet what would Elaine, the Lily
Maid of Astolat, say to such a liberty, I wonder?
We arrived in Tenby too late for anything save an impression, last
evening; but it was one of those enchanting, mysterious impressions
which one can only have after dusk, when each old ivied wall is purple
with romance, and each lamp in a high window is a lovelight.
My first thought as we came in and found Tenby on fire with sunset, was
that the place looked like a foreign town set down in England; and so of
course it is, for it was founded by a band of Flemish people, who fled
from persecution. The huge old city walls and quaint gates put me in
mind of a glorified Boulogne, or a bit of old Dinan, under the castle.
And the way the town lies, with its beautiful harbour far below, its
gray rocks and broken walls by the sea, in golden sands, is like
Turner's ideas of historic French fortresses. The Benedictine monks,
too, who come across the gleaming stretch of water from Caldy Island in
a green-and-red steam yacht, add one more foreign note. And I'm
delighted to tell you that the hotel where we stayed is built upon the
city wall of which nobody seems to know the date--not even the
guide-books. The people we asked rather apologized for having to confess
that probably it was no earlier than the twelfth century; for the
twelfth century is considered crudely modern for Welsh things.
In front of my bedroom window an old lookout tower, darkly veined with
ivy, stood up from the vast foundation of the stone wall; and at night I
could gaze down, down, over what seemed in the moon-mist to be a mile of
depth, to an almost tropical garden laid out on the wall itself. When
the tide comes in and drowns the gold of the sands, the sea breaks
against the buttress of rock and stone, and the hotel seems all
surrounded with the wash and foam of waters, like a fortified castle of
long-ago.
We ought to have stopped more than one night and part of a next day, but
there is so much, so much to do; and, as I told you, Sir Lionel's
thoughts are already marching on toward home. There are all the beauty
spots of Wales before us; and the Lake Country, and the North by the
Roman Wall, before we turn south again for Graylees. I say "we"--but you
know what I mean.
The run we had to-day, coming through Cardigan to Aberystwith, has begun
to show me what Wales can do in the way of beauty when she really puts
her soul to it; but Sir Lionel says it is nothing to what we shall see
to-morrow. What joy that I have still a to-morrow--and a day after
to-morrow--empty of Dick! Do you suppose a condemned person finds his
last sip of life the sweetest in the cup? I can imagine it might be so.
You'll be glad to get this, I'm sure, dearest, so I'll send it at once,
with loads and loads of love from,
Your Criminal Child.
P. S. I forgot to tell you that Aberystwith isn't nearly as beautiful as
Tenby, but it has a castle towering over the sea, built by no one less
than Gilbert Strongbow the Cruel, who grabbed all Cardiganshire for
himself, and dotted castles about everywhere--or else stole other
people's, which saved trouble. I know you like to picture me wherever I
am, so I must tell you at least that about Aberystwith, though
describing places seems irrelevant in my present mood. I am keyed to the
"top notch," and don't feel able to do anything leisurely. I do not
expect to sleep to-night, and shall get up as soon as it's light, and
dart down to the beach to look for amber, or carnelian, or onyx, which
they say can be found here. I asked a chambermaid of the hotel, after we
arrived this evening, what all the mysterious, stooping people were
doing on the sands, and she said searching for amber, to bring them
luck. I hope I may come across a bit--even a tiny bit. I am needing a
luck-bringer.
There was another mystery which puzzled me here: droves of pretty girls,
between twelve and twenty, flitting past the windows, on "the front,"
every few minutes; sometimes two by two, sometimes four or five
together. I thought I had never seen so many young girls. There were
enough for the girl population of a large city, yet here they were all
crowded together in this small watering-place. But the chambermaid has
swept away the mystery. It's a college, and the girls "live out" in
different houses. At the other end of the town is another college for
young men. That sounds entertaining, doesn't it?
XXXI
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Pen-y-gwrd-Hotel_,
_August 30th_
Dear Rose-Without-a-Thorn: I didn't find the amber, but Sir
Lionel found a fat little, round lump, and gave it to me; and that seems
almost more lucky than finding it myself; because it may mean that
something good is to come to me from him.
He was on the Aberystwith beach when I got there, though it was only
half-past six. He hadn't said a word the night before, but he made up
his mind then to find some amber--for me. You see, he knew the
superstition about luck, and how everybody goes hunting for it.
I picked up a pretty piece of carnelian, and gave it to him in exchange,
asking him "to keep it to remember me by."
"I don't want to remember you," he answered. And when, perhaps, I looked
hurt, he went on: "Because I want to keep you in my life. I want you
very much, if----"
But just then Mrs. Senter came behind us, and left that "if" like a key
sticking in a door which couldn't be opened without one more turn. I
should have liked to know what was behind the door; but I daresay there
was nothing much, really.
She, too, had come to look for amber and other things. I don't know
about the other things, but she didn't find the amber.
At eleven o'clock, after seeing something of the place, we slipped away
toward Machynlleth, along a hilly road, which grew lovelier with each of
its many twists among low mountains. Now, said Sir Lionel, we were about
to see the heart of Wales; and I should soon have realized that without
his telling, for as we slowed down to pass through little villages we
heard the children talking Welsh--a soft, pleasant language, which I can
only try to describe by saying that it sounded like whispering out loud.
But that is a very Irish description!
The scenery was so gentle in its beauty that my wild, excited mood was
lulled by its soft influence. The colour of landscape and sky kept the
delicate tints of spring, though we are in full, rich summer; and there
was none of the tropical verdure we saw near Tenby; no crimson fountains
of fuchsias, no billows of blood-red roses, and fierce southern flowers.
Pale honey-suckle draped the gray or whitewashed stone cottages. Rocks
and crannies of walls were daintily fringed with ferns, or cushioned
with the velvet of moss, and crusted with tarnished golden lichen. A
modern-timbered house, rising pertly here and there, looked out of place
among dwellings whose early owners quarried each stone from among their
own mountains.
As we left the fairy glades of those wooded hills for rugged mountains
scantily clad with ragged grass, slate-quarries tried their ugly best to
blotch and spoil the scene, but owing to some strange charm of
atmosphere, like a gauze veil on the stage, they could not quite
succeed. By and by the gauze veil turned to rain, but rain suited the
wild landscape--far better, by the way, than it suited Mrs. Senter,
whose nightly hair-wavers are but a reed to lean upon in wet weather.
She made some excuse to come behind with Emily and me, and before the
car started again I summoned courage to ask if I might take her place,
saying I loved to feel the rain.
So there I was with Sir Lionel once more; and I wondered if he thought
of that night when we rushed through the storm from Tintagel to
Clovelly? Soon this also bade fair to be a storm, for the rain began to
tumble out of the sky, rather than fall, as if an army of people stood
throwing down water by the bucketful. I revelled in it, and in the
sombre scenery, where sharp rocks stood out like bones through the
tattered green coats of soldier-mountains. All the world was gray or
gray-green, save for a patch of purple heather here and there, like the
stain of a new wound.
We were under Cadir Idris, mounting the pass high above a deep ravine;
yet the blowing rain hid the mountain from our eyes as if he were the
veiled prophet. The sound of the wind, which seemed to come from all
quarters at once, was like the mysterious music of a great Æolian harp,
as it mingled with the song of ghostly cascades that veined the dark
rocks with marble. Mountain sheep sprang from crag to crag as Apollo
rounded a corner and broke into their tranquil lives, now and then
loosening a stone as they jumped. One good-sized rock would have bounced
down on the roof of our car if Sir Lionel hadn't seen it coming, and put
on such a spurt of speed that Apollo leaped ahead of the danger. But he
always does see things in time. You wouldn't think sheep could have as
much expression as those sheep had, when they saw us and weren't sure
which way to run. Of course they needn't have run at all; but whichever
way they decided, it was certain to be wrong!