Chapter V: Part 5

A queer thing about France, by the way. You and I have both been entertained right royally in jolly old _chateaux_ by delightful French people of our own class. We know that life in such country houses can be as charming as it is in England; yet if one had never seen it from the inside, one would fancy in travelling that nothing of the sort existed. Roughly, one might sum the difference up in a phrase by saying that France presents a peasant's landscape, England a landlord's. In England you see twenty good country houses for every one you pass in France--excepting only the district of the Loire; and outdoor life as we know it, on the road and on the river, doesn't seem to exist over here. Somehow I was never so much struck with this contrast before, though I know this country almost as well as I know my hat. Think of the English roads and lanes, of the pretty girls and decent men one meets on horseback or in smart dogcarts, the dowagers in victorias, the crowds of cyclists, the occasional fine motor-car, knickerbockered men walking for the pleasure of exercise! Here, though one knows there are more motors than at home, one rarely comes across them out of towns; and as for ladies and gentlemen, or, indeed, any sort of people out solely for enjoyment, they're as rare as black opals. I look in vain for pretty field paths and rural lanes, where workmen and their sweethearts wander when the day is done. I suppose they prefer to do their love-making indoors or in front of a cafe, or perhaps they sandwich it in with their long hours of work, and that is the reason why the whole of France seems so much more cultivated than country England--the reason why every acre is turned to account, not a square yard of earth left untilled. It's only the magnificent roads which aren't enough appreciated, apparently, by the "nobility and gentry," as the tradesmen's circulars have it. And what roads the Routes Nationales are--born for motor-cars!--varying a little from department to department, but equally good almost everywhere. You come to a stone marking the boundary of a department, for instance, and crossing an imaginary line, find yourself on a different kind of surface, each department being allowed to make it's road after the manner which pleases it best--provided only it makes it well.

The Route Nationale from Paris to Bayonne, along part of which we've lately travelled, is good nearly all the way. From Dange to Poitiers is a splendid bit, and up to Poitiers one climbs a considerable hill. It's a cheerful town, with a fine cathedral, and lively streets full of red-legged soldiers, rather weedy and shambling fellows, like most French conscripts. Beyond Poitiers the road is one long, exhilarating switchback--you rush down one hill, climb another, swoop again into a hollow, and so on, the road unrolling itself like a great white tape. You try to drive faster than the tape unrolls, but somehow you can never beat it.

That we were getting into the south was shown by the fact that the road was bordered by endless rows of walnut trees. Under a tumbled sky, and with an occasional spatter of rain, we passed that day through a vast stretch of rolling, cultivated land, with obscure villages at long intervals. In a little town called Couhe-Verac we lunched rather late. The regular _dejeuner_ was over, as it was nearly three in the afternoon; but in ten minutes after we got into the house we sat down to this luncheon: boiled eggs, roast veal, _b[oe]uf a la mode_, _puree_ of potatoes, pheasant, a delicious _pate_, grapes, peaches, pears, sweet biscuits, cream cheese, red and white wine, and bread _ad libitum_; all for two francs fifty per head. Think of it! This was a homely village inn, with no pretensions. What would have happened if we had turned up unexpectedly at such a house in England? We should have been offered cold beef and pickles, with the alternative of ham and eggs, or possibly "chop or steak, sir; take twenty minutes." Truly in cooking we are barbarians. The French dine; we feed.

The landlord was a man of character. He had delightful manners, and though he was young his hair was greyish, and cut low and straight across a broad forehead. Through gold-rimmed glasses gleamed the blue eyes of an enthusiast. He went with me to look at the car, and explained that he was an inventor--that he had designed a new system of marine propulsion more powerful than the screw. It followed the action of a man in swimming, "regular in irregularity," and standing on his toes, he flung out his arms, and beat them rhythmically in the air to illustrate his theory. It was hard, he confided in me, to have to keep an inn in a small town, when he ought to be in Paris, among engineers, perfecting his invention. Did I, by any chance, know of a capitalist who would back him? I sympathised and regretted; but who knows if he has not got hold of an idea? At Blois they have a statue of Denis Papin, who, the French say, invented the steam engine. Perhaps, years hence, if my grandchildren pass through Couhe-Verac, they may see a statue to the blue-eyed landlord of its little inn.

Beyond Couhe-Verac we had our first dog accident. Dogs, you know, are as great a nuisance to automobiles as they are to cycles, and they charge at one's car with such vehemence that their impetus almost carries them under the wheels. Sometimes they show their strength by galloping alongside the car for a couple of hundred yards, barking so furiously the while that their bodies are contorted by the violence of the effort. I was driving at a moderate pace (something under thirty miles an hour) when a beautiful collie which had been standing by the roadside walked quietly out and planted himself with his back to me in front of the car. The fact was that he saw his master coming along the road, and had gone forward to greet him. The whole thing happened in an instant, so that I had no time to stop. I think the dog must have been deaf not to hear the noise of the car. I shouted, but he took no notice. To swerve violently to one side was to risk upsetting the car; besides, there was no room to do this as another vehicle happened to be passing. If there had been only the car to sacrifice, I would have sacrificed it to save that collie; but I couldn't sacrifice Miss Randolph. There was nothing for it but to drive over the dog. With a sickening wrench of the heart, I saw the nice beast disappear under the front of the car. Instantly slowing down, I looked behind me expecting to see a mangled corpse. But there was the dog rolling over and over on the road. Clearly some under part of the car had struck him and sent him spinning. The noise, the unexpected blow, the fierce, hot blast of the poisonous exhaust pouring into his face, must have made the poor fellow think that he had struck a travelling earthquake. But happily he was unhurt. As I looked he got on to his feet, and with his tail between his legs, ran to his master for consolation. Our last glimpse showed us that comedy had followed tragedy, for the master was beating the dog with a cane for getting in our way. I was afraid Miss Randolph would scream or faint, but she did neither, only turned white as marble, and never looked prettier in her life. Aunt Mary yelled, of course, but more in fear for ourselves than for the collie, I think. She says she would like dogs better "if their bark could be extracted."

Angouleme is, like Poitiers, a town set upon a hill, a quaint old town, worth seeing, but we were eager now to get to the true South, and merely gave ourselves time to lunch (the waiter producing, with a flourish, enticing but indigestible _pates de perdrix aux truffes_) and to drive slowly along some of the famous terraced boulevards that form the distinction and the charm of Angouleme. Certainly the place stands romantically on its high and lonely hill, almost surrounded by the clear waters of the Charante. At Angouleme we saw, I may say, the first professional beggars we had met on the tour. A warm sun seems to breed beggars as it breeds mosquitoes, or is it that Southern peoples have less self-respect than the Northern?

A drawback to automobilism in France is the fact that many of the great direct main roads are _pave_. I believe that this is a remnant of the old days of road-making, when these heavy cobbles formed the one surface that would stand artillery. For ordinary traffic the _pave_ roads are impossible, and their existence must be a drawback to trade and intercourse. In France they sell special bicycling maps showing with dotted lines all the _pave_ roads, and these I have carefully studied, as it is worth making any _detour_ to avoid the awful jolting of the _pave_. But somehow, between Angouleme and Bordeaux, I took a wrong turning, and suddenly on ahead of us the good road ceased abruptly as if a straight line had been ruled across it, and the detestable _pave_ began.

"Oh, let's try it as an experience," commanded my Goddess. "I hate going back, and perhaps it doesn't last long." I trusted to this hope, for I knew that in many places the _pave_ is being dug up, here and there only short stretches of it being left, and I gingerly drove the Napier on to the execrable surface of uneven stones. We rattled and tossed, and steering became a matter of difficulty. The irritating thing was that each side of this detestable road were wide belts of inviting grass, but with malignant ingenuity these are cut up at frequent intervals by oblique drainage gutters, which forbid the passage of anything wider than a bicycle. For bicycles there are indeed special tracks kept in order by the Touring Club de France, but all four-wheeled vehicles must jolt and bump along the rough, uneven stones. By the time we reached the first cross-road Aunt Mary begged for mercy, and I was glad to have the order to get off the _pave_ at any cost. Soundly as the Napier is built, it was a tremendous and unfair strain upon springs and tyres, and all the while I was dreading that something would go. Threading our way through endless vineyards by a labyrinth of by-ways, we ran through Barbezieux and Libourne, and as day was falling crossed the noble bridge over the Garonne into bustling Bordeaux.

Next day we took a run on the car along the Quai des Chartrons and through some of the chief streets and squares of Bordeaux, just to get a glimpse of the handsome town, at which Miss Randolph turned up her pretty nose because it was "new and prosperous"; then, guided by a porter from the hotel who went before us on his bicycle, we threaded the city on our way out to Arcachon. There was some unavoidable _pave_ and many odious tramlines; but at last our guide left us on the outskirts of the town, and we sped on to a curious little toy suburb called St. Martin, studded with neat, one-storied, red-roofed cottages, like houses in a child's box of bricks, and all with romantic names, such as Belle Idee, Mon Repos, Augustine, Mon C[oe]ur, and so on. The whole place seemed like an assemblage of dove cotes specially planned for honeymoon couples, and gave the oddest effect of unreality. Then we passed into the green twilight of the great pine forest which extends all the way to the sea.

A romantically beautiful road lay before us. For more than thirty miles it runs straight and smooth through high aromatic pines, springing from a carpet of bracken. Miss Randolph, I must tell you, has become an expert driver, and at sight of the long, straight road said she would take the wheel. So I stopped a moment, and we changed places. She put the car at its highest speed, and we flew along the infinite perspective of the never-ending avenue. This vast pine forest is a desert, and we passed only through small and scattered villages. That flight through the pine forest of the Landes will always be to me an ineffaceable memory. None of us spoke; two of us felt, I think, that we were close to Nature's heart. The heady, balsamic odour of the pines exhilarated us, and the wind, playing melancholy music on the Eolian harps of their branches, seemed like a deep accompaniment to the humming throb of the tireless motor. As often as I dared I stole a look sideways at Miss Randolph's profile. She sat erect, her little gauntletted hands resting light as thistledown upon the wheel, but her fingers and her wrist nervous and alert as a jockey riding a thoroughbred, her eyes intent on the long, straight road before her, and a look almost of rapture upon her face.

We had raced silently through the forest for nearly an hour, when, mingling with the balsam of the pines there came a pungent odour of ozone floating from open blue spaces beyond the sombre girdle of the pines. Miss Randolph threw at me a questioning glance. "It must be the sea," I answered, and in a few moments more, after passing through the ancient town of La Teste, we came out upon the edge of a vast lagoon, semicircular, the distant shores almost lost in an indistinct blue haze. "The Bassin d'Arcachon," I said. Still, no town was visible, only the great expanse of landlocked sea, its shore dotted with the brown wooden cabins of the oyster fishers. It seemed like coming to the end of the world.

Slowing down a little, we followed a raised causeway that skirted the edge of the Bassin, and presently entered upon a long, straight street--one of the oddest streets you have ever seen, one whole side of it (that next the sea) being composed of fantastic bungalows and pleasure-houses of all imaginable styles, each set in its own garden, and the whole town drowned in an ocean of pines. At the outskirts I took the helm again, for Miss Randolph scarcely trusts her skill in traffic. Not that there was enough to be alarming in Arcachon, for the place seemed under a spell of silence. We drove through the long main street, past an imposing white chateau and a good many quite charming houses, until we came to a hotel which the Goddess fancied, and turned into a garden. I'd never been to Arcachon before, and supposed from the guide-books that this was the place for "my ladies" (as the couriers say) to stop. But the landlady came out, and welcoming us with one breath, recommended us with the next to their winter house in the forest. This place, looking over the sea, was for summer; the other was now more agreeably sheltered.

The "house in the forest" sounded well in the ears of the Goddess, so we drove off to find it, according to the directions of Madame Feras. The Napier spun us up a steep, winding road into a charming garden surrounding an Alhambra sort of place, which Aunt Mary thought "real gay," being bitterly disappointed to find it was not our hotel, but Arcachon's casino. The garden proved to be, however, practically the beginning of the _Ville d'Hiver_, a quaint and delightful collection of villas which look as if they had been scattered like ornate seeds among the crowding pine of the Landes. Of these seeds the "Continental" is the most imposing, and, by-the-way, this climate would suit you, I should think; it's an extraordinary combination of pine and sea air, which would make a doctor's fortune as a tonic, if he could cork it up in bottles.

As both hotels are run by the same management, I feared gossip if I went down to the "Grand" and did the Doctor Jekyll act; so I cautiously remained Mr. Hyde, alias Brown, and was a serf among other serfs. After dining in the society of maids and valets (whose manners and conversation would have given me ripping "copy" if I were a journalist) I stole out to cleanse my mind with a draught of pure air and a look at the sky. A cat may look at a king, and a _chauffeur_ may walk on a terrace built for his betters, especially if the betters elect to shut themselves up in stuffy drawing-rooms, with every window anxiously closed. I availed myself of this privilege, for the hotel has a fine terrace. As it was apparently empty, I sauntered along with my nose in the air and my eyes on the stars, letting my footsteps take care of themselves. Suddenly there was a startled "Oh!" in a familiar voice, and I became aware that I had collided with the Goddess, who had also been thinking of the stars and not of her feet--which, by-the-by, _I_ very often think of, as they are the prettiest I ever saw.

I instantly clapped my pipe in my pocket, where it revenged itself on me for neglecting to put it out by burning a hole through to my skin. I apologised, and would have taken my humble chauffeury self away, but my mistress detained me. "What is that wonderful, faraway sound, Brown?" she asked in the delicious way she has of expecting me to know everything, as if I were an encyclopaedia and she'd only to turn over my leaves to come to a new fact.

I stopped breathing to listen; I'd do it permanently to please her. And there _was_ a sound--a wonderful sound. If I hadn't been thinking about her and the stars, I should have been conscious of it before. Out of the night-silence the sound seemed to grow, and yet be a part of the silence, or rather, to intensify the _near_ silence by its distant booming, deep and ominous, like the far-off roaring of angry lions never pacified. At first I thought it must be a rush of wind surging through the mighty pine forest; but not a dark branch moved against the spangled embroidery of stars, though the air seemed faintly to vibrate with the continuous, solemn note. Suddenly the meaning of the sound came to me; it was the majestic music of the Atlantic surf beating on the bar ten miles away. But it was too divine standing there in the night with Her in silence. For a moment I had not the heart to speak and tell her of my discovery. A faint light came to us from the stars and from the curtained windows of the hotel. I could just see her face and her lovely great eyes looking up questioningly in absolute confidence at me. Jove, what wouldn't I have given just then to be Jack Winston and not Brown! If I had been, that girl wouldn't have got back into the house without being proposed to, and having another "scalp" to count, as they say American beauties do. Not that I think she'd be that kind. I don't know how long I shouldn't have tried to make the magic of the moment last, if Aunt Mary hadn't bounced out of the hotel (done up in a shawl, like a large parcel) to call "Molly! Molly, it's time you came in!"

Molly didn't move, but Aunt Mary descended the steps, relentless as fate; so I made the most of my information, and added a short disquisition on Arcachon oysters and oyster fishing, for the sake of retaining the Goddess's society. Unfortunately, however, I happened to remark that the oyster women wore trousers exactly like the men, and this so disgusted Miss Kedison that she incontinently dragged her niece from the contamination of the _chauffeur's_ presence.

Next day was Sunday. Miss Randolph went to the English church, which is the prettiest I've ever seen in France, and afterwards, escorted by the chaplain with whom she'd made friends, went forth to see the sights, while I inquired as to how we might best proceed upon our way. While Miss Randolph and Miss Kedison read their prayer-books, I studied that useful volume, _Les Routes de France_, and was duly warned against the impracticable roads of the Landes. The one thing to do, according to the oracle, was to return to Bordeaux and make a long detour to Bayonne by Mont de Marsan. I knew Miss Randolph would dislike this plan, for she hates going back, and so do I. If I had been alone, or with you, I would have chanced it without a moment's hesitation, making straight for Bayonne by way of the forbidden Landes, with all its pitfalls. But I funked the idea of perhaps getting Her into a mess--and hearing Aunt Mary say "I told you so," as she invariably does when there's any trouble.

To my joy, however, plucky Parson Radcliff had actually advanced the idea of the Landes, during their excursion, and the Goddess sent for me on Sunday evening, full of enthusiasm. Far be it from me to dampen the ardour of youth; and early on Monday morning we started to follow the route La Teste, Sanguinet, Parentis, Yehoux, Liposthey, which names reminded Miss Randolph of _Gulliver's Travels_.

She and I were in fine spirits, expecting the unexpected, and bracing ourselves to encounter difficulties. There was mystery in the very thought of the Landes--that strange waste of forest and sand so little known outside its own people. I felt it, and so did Miss Randolph, I knew. How I knew I couldn't explain to you; but some electric current usually communicates her mood to me, and I should almost believe from various signs that it was so with her in regard to me, if I weren't a mere _chauffeur_ in the lady's pay.

For some distance the going was good, but we were only reading the preface to the true Landes as yet; and when we reached the boundary post between the department of the Gironde and the real Landes, there was one of those sudden, complete changes I've mentioned in the quality of the road. To drive into this dim, pine-clad region was like driving back into the years a century or two. A motor-car was an anachronism, and if we came to grief our blood was upon our own heads. The way became grass-grown and rutty, and I was obliged to drive slowly. Deeper and deeper we penetrated into the forest, and deeper and deeper also we sank into the soft earth. Aunt Mary groaned and prophesied disaster as we crawled along in ruts up to our axles; but I think Miss Randolph and I would have perished sooner than retreat. I trusted in the Napier and she trusted in me. In one place the road had been mended with a covering of loose rocks rather than stones; we panted and crunched our way over them, enormously to the astonishment of the road-menders and one or two dark-faced peasants, perched like cranes on the old-fashioned stilts not yet utterly abandoned as a means of navigating this sea of sand and pines. Still, on we went, the engine labouring a little, like an overworked heart; but it was a loyal heart, and the tyres were trumps.

Miss Randolph said that if she were a tyre and condemned to such hard labour, she would burst out of sheer spite. I think Miss Kedison nearly did so as it was; but as for us (I suppose you can't conceive the satisfaction to a poor _chauffeur_ of bracketing his lady and himself familiarly as "us"), we were intoxicated by the heavy balsam of the turpentine, for which every tree we passed was being sliced. On each a great flake of the trunk had been struck off with an axe, and a small earthen cup affixed to catch the resin, which is the heart's blood of the wounded tree. There was something Dante-esque in the effect of these bleeding wounds, among old, scarcely healed scars; and that effect was intensified by the shadowy gloom of the dense forest, and the never-ceasing sound of the wind among the high, dark branches, like the beating of surf upon an unseen shore.

At last, when the feeling was strong upon us that the ocean of pines had engulphed us, like Pharaoh's chariot in the Red Sea, we came upon a rambling village, called Parentis. As if to announce the arrival of the first motor car ever seen in the dim, forgotten Landes, the off front tire began to hiss. "I _told_ you so!" said Aunt Mary. My eyes and Miss Randolph's met, and we both burst out laughing. It was a great liberty in me, and though I couldn't have helped it to save my neck, and became preternaturally solemn afterwards as a penance, I don't believe that the lady I should like to have for an aunt-in-law will ever forgive me. She ought, however, as this was our first accident with the Napier, while with poor little Miss Randolph's late esteemed Dragon, one breakfasted, lunched, dined, and supped on horrors. Besides, the Dragon invariably schemed to do its worst, far from human aid, while my long-suffering Napier had brought us to the very courtyard of the village inn before (as Miss Randolph expressed it) "sitting down to rest."

Inside this convenient courtyard I set about doing the repairs, jacking up the car, taking off the tyre, patching it, and getting it on again in twenty minutes; not bad for an amateur _mecanicien_. All the people of the inn and many of the villagers gathered round to see the great sight, and Aunt Mary consoled herself by showing off her somewhat eccentric French to the landlady and her family.

There were three generations in this group, I took time to notice. A bowed and wrinkled old dame; her daughter, a strong, sad-faced woman in black; and a golden-haired granddaughter, about the prettiest creature I ever saw--bar one. And it was charming to see my Goddess laying herself out to be nice to the trio. Her personality (which is the last word in well-groomed, high-strung, vivacious American girlhood) contrasted strikingly with these countrywomen, who had perhaps never been outside their own forest. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but she has the most extraordinary way of always hitting on the right thing to please and interest people, without departing from truth or descending to flattery. All three gazed at her with delight and admiration, the little beauty of the Landes with deepening colour and wistful eyes. No Frenchwoman, no Englishwoman, no woman save an American of the best type, could have exactly that manner, which is indescribable to one who doesn't know. Strange for a vision like that to flash into these quiet lives, then flash away, never to be seen again--only remembered.

It was too early for luncheon, but as we had had the shelter of the inn I wanted to order something for "the good of the house." I accordingly asked for Bordeaux and biscuits, and the pretty rose of a granddaughter brought a bottle of--what do you think? Pontet Canet! It was nectar, and cost--three francs a bottle!

When we drove away Miss Randolph was reflective. I would have liked to offer a penny for her thoughts, but that sort of indulgence is not in the sphere of a _chauffeur_. Presently she broke out, however. "Did you ever see anything so lovely as that girl?" she exclaimed. "She's all white and gold and rose. Her presence in that sombre place reminds me of a shaft of warm, golden light breaking through the dark canopy of pines. She's like a maiden in Hans Christian Andersen. And her name's Angele. Isn't that perfect? It seems cruel that such a creature, who would make a sensation in Paris or London or New York, must bloom and ripen and wither at last, unknown, in that wilderness. Oh, how I should love to snatch her away?"

"What would you do with her, miss, if you could?" I ventured to ask, at my humblest--which in Aunt Mary's eyes, is my best. "Would you take her for your maid?"

"A _maid_?" echoed my Goddess scornfully. "Why, if I meant such a crime as that, I should expect white bears to come out of these woods and devour me. No; I would give her pretty dresses, and arrange a good marriage for her."

"Is that what young girls in America like, miss," I meekly inquired, "to have marriages arranged for them?"

"No; they hate it, and go away from America to show that they hate it--sometimes; but this would be different," said she. And I wondered if she had accidentally betrayed anything.

At Liposthey we struck the direct road, with good surface, from Bordeaux to Bayonne. Thus on through Labouheyre to Castets, still walled in with dark, balsamic forest, where we lunched. Just beyond, however, we found that we were bidding the pines farewell, and we were regretting them despite the beauty of the road--increasing every moment--when suddenly we had a great surprise. At what precise point it came I don't quite know, for I was snatched up out of the dull "flatland" of facts. Miss Randolph was driving, and I was glancing interestedly about, as an intelligent young man of the working-class may, when away to the left I saw up in the skies a long chain of blue, serrated mountains looking far too high to belong to this world. I started on my seat; then Miss Randolph saw what I saw. "Oh--h!" she breathed, with a responsive sigh of appreciation. Not an adjective; not a word. I blessed her for that. Unfortunately, Aunt Mary seized this moment to awake, and she did not spare us fireworks. She never does. She is one of those women who insist upon your knowing that they have a soul for beauty. But she went to sleep again when she had used up all her rockets, and left the Goddess and me alone with the Pyrenees. Much nearer Bayonne we had another surprise--a notice, in English, by the roadside: "To the Guards' Cemetery." An odd sign to come across in France, _n'est ce pas, mon brave_? And just as I was calling up the past, Miss Randolph exclaimed; "I wonder if _your_ Napier is any relation to _that_ Napier?" which shows that she has the Peninsular Campaign at her finger-ends; or else Aunt Mary has been cramming her out of a guide-book.

It was not late in the afternoon when we crossed the bridge over the Adour (_she_ says the proverb, "Don't cross your bridges till you get to them," can't apply to France, as you're always getting to them), but already the sky was burnished with sunset; and if there's anything finer than a grand and ancient fortified gateway turned to copper by the sun, I don't know it. I advised Miss Randolph to come back one day from Biarritz, if we stayed long enough, to see the exquisite old glass window for which the Bayonne cathedral is famous; but it was too late to pause for such details as windows then, so we flew on along the switchback road over the remaining five miles to Biarritz. Here, in this agreeable town, we play about till I have orders from headquarters to proceed. Our programme is now to go straight along the Pyrenees to Marseilles, and so to Nice. Ah, if only I can get Her to go on to Italy! You had better address me next at the Riviera Palace, Cimiez. We are to pause at Pau, call at Carcassonne, and honour other places _en route_ to the Riviera, so there ought to be ample time for this long screed to reach you and for you to send reproach or praise to Nice. Tell me about yourself; how you are; what you read; what girl you love.

Your sincere, but somewhat selfish friend,
Jack Winston.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

Hotel Gassion, Pau,
_December 14_.

Dear Universal Provider of Love and Cheques,

Thank you a thousand times for both, which have just been forwarded along the route of this "wild-goose chase," as you call it. Well, if it is one, I don't know who the goose is, unless Aunt Mary. She is rather like that sometimes, poor dear; but we get on splendidly. Oh, I would get on splendidly with five Aunt Marys (which Heaven forbid!), for I'm _so_ happy, Dad! I'm having such a good time--_the_ time of my life, or it would be if you were in it.

If you ever lose all your money and come a nice, gentlemanly cropper in the street called Wall, we might come to Biarritz to live, just you and I. We _would_ have fun! And we could stop in our pretty little cheap villa all the year round, for one season only waits politely till another is out to step in; it's always gay and fashionable, and yet you needn't be either unless you like. And the sea and sky have more gorgeous colour in them than any other sea and sky, and the air has more ozone; and the brown rocks that go running a hippopotamus race out into the beryl-green water are queerer and finer than any other rocks. So you see everything is superlative, even the hotels, and _as_ for a certain Confectioner; but he, or rather she, deserves a capital. There are drives and walks, and curio-shops where I spent my little all; and there's fox-hunting, which would be nice if it weren't for the poor tame fox; and golf, and _petits cheveaux_ at the casino, where Aunt Mary gambled before she knew what she was doing, and kept on a long time after she did; and mysterious Basque persons with ancestors and costumes more wonderful than anybody else's, who dance strange dances in the streets for money, and play a game called La Pelotte, which is great sport to watch. And you walk by the sea, with its _real_ waves, like ours at home, not little tuppenny-ha'penny ones like those I saw in the English Channel; and you look across an opal bay through a creamy haze to a mystic land made entirely of tumbled blue mountains. And then, one of the best things about Biarritz is that you're next door to Spain. Ah, that door of Spain! I've knocked and been in through it, but just across the threshold. The way of it was like this--

I'd been up early and out to the golf course for a lesson from the professional; when I came home a little before eleven Brown was waiting. He wanted to know if I wouldn't care to have a peep at Spain, and said that we could easily go there and back by dinner-time. Aunt Mary and I were ready in a "jiffy," so was the car, and we were buzzing away along a beautiful road (though a little "_accidentee_," as the French say) near the ocean. There were the most lovely lights I ever saw on land or sea, over the mountains and the great, unquiet Atlantic; and St. Jean de Luz, which we came to in no time, as it seemed, was another charming little watering-place for us to come and live if you get poor. A good many English people do live there all the year round, and whom do you think is one of them? George Gissing. You know how I made you read his books, and you said they seemed so real that you felt you had got into the people's houses by mistake, and ought to say "Excuse me"? Well, he has come to live in St. Jean de Luz, the all-knowing Brown tells me. His master admires Mr. Gissing very much, so the Honourable John must be a nice and clever man.

As for history, Brown is an inexhaustible mine. I simply "put in my thumb and pull out a plum." But I forgot--there _aren't_ usually plums in mines, are there, except in the prospectuses? Anyhow, it was Brown who made me realise what tremendously interesting things _frontiers_ are. That imaginary line, and then--people, language, costumes, and customs changing as if a fairy had waved a wand. The frontier between France and Spain is a great wide river--on purpose to give us another bridge. Doesn't the name, "Bidassoa," suggest a broad, flowing current running swiftly to the sea?

This time we would have none of the bridge. It was too much bother paying duty on the car, and having a lot of red tape about getting it back again in an hour or two; so we left Balzac, as I have named it, at the last French town and rowed across, on past the first Spanish town, Irun, to a much older, more picturesque one--Fuenterrabia. A particularly handsome boatman wanted to row us, but Brown would do it himself, either to show how well he can manage the oars, or else because the boatman had abnormally long eyelashes, and Brown is rather sick of eyelashes.

Even crossing the river and going down towards the mouth of the stream (with a huge, old ruined castle towering up to mark Fuenterrabia) was quite thrilling, because of the things in history that have happened all around. The estuary runs down to the sea between mountains of wild and awesome shapes. One of them is named after Wellington, because it is supposed to look like his profile lying down, and the other mountains had a chance to see his real profile many times, though I'll be bound his enemies never saw his back. He fought among them--both mountains and enemies, and the latter were some of Napoleon's smartest marshals. He took a whole army across the ford in the Bidassoa, attacked Soult, and chased him all the way up the mountains to the very summit of La Rhune, a great conical peak high up in the sky. Another thing was the Isle des Faisans, right in the middle of the river, where Philippe and Louis the Fourteenth fixed everything up about Louis' Spanish bride. It's the smallest island you ever saw; you wouldn't think there would be room for a whole King of Spain and a King of France to stand on it at the same time, much less sign contracts.

When our boat touched Spanish soil on the beach below Fuenterrabia, two rather ferocious-looking Spaniards in uncomfortable uniforms were waiting for us. They had the air of demanding "your money or your life"; but after all it was only the extraordinarily high, ugly collars of their overcoats which gave them such a formidable appearance. They were custom-house officers guarding the coast, though how they see over those collars to find out what's going on under their noses I don't know. Brown says that soldiers at Madrid have to dress like that in winter to protect themselves from the terrible icy winds, and as Madrid sets the fashion for everything in Spain, the provincial soldiers have to choke themselves in the same way.

It did seem to me that the very air of Spain was different from across the river in France. It was richer and heavier, like incense. It _is_ nice to have an imagination, isn't it, instead of having to potter about leading _facts_ by a string, as if they were dogs? Well, anyway, I am sure people have bigger and blacker eyes in Spain. Just walking up from the beach to the strange old town, I saw two or three peasant women and children with wonderful eyes, like black velvet with stars shining through--eyes that princesses would give fortunes for.

I couldn't help humming "In Old Madrid" under my breath, and I fancied that the salt-smelling breeze brought the snapping of castanets. The sun was hot; but coolness, and rich, tawny shadows swallowed us up in a silent street, crowded with fantastic, beautifully carved, bright-coloured houses, all having balconies, each one more overhanging than the other. Not a soul was to be seen; our footsteps rang on the narrow side-walk, and it seemed rude of our voices when we talked to wake the sleepy silence out of its afternoon nap. But suddenly a handsome young man appeared from a side street, and stopping in the middle of the road, vigorously tinkled a musical bell. Immediately the street became alive. Each house door showed a man; women hung over the gaily-draped balconies; children ran out and clustered round the bell-ringer. He began to speak very fast in guttural Spanish, and we couldn't understand a word he said, though Brown has a smattering of the language--enough to get on with in shops and hotels. When he had finished everyone laughed. All up and down the street came the sound of laughter; deep, bass laughter from the men; contralto laughter from the women. The handsome bell-ringer laughed too, and then vanished as suddenly as he had come. All the life of the quaint street seemed to fade away with him. Slowly the people took themselves indoors; the balconies were empty; the street silent as in a city of the dead. It was like something on the stage; but I suppose it's just a bit of everyday life in Fuenterrabia and old, old Spain.

We went on up to the castle we had seen from the beach, and I turned my eyes away from a big, ugly round building, like a country panorama-place, for that was the bull ring, and the one thing that makes Spain hateful to me. I didn't want even to think of it. The gateway of the palace--for it had been a palace--was splendid--an arch across the street. But on the other side I burst out laughing at a sign, in what was meant to be English, advertising the castle for sale. Capitals were sprinkled about everywhere; the painter had thought they would look pretty, and evidently it was held out as a lure to Britishers and Americans that Charles the Fifth had built it and lived in it. I know Mrs. Washington Potts would love to buy it, and then go home and mention in an absent-minded manner that she'd "acquired a royal palace in Spain as a winter residence." Can't you hear her? But oh, poor palace! It's as airy a mansion now as most castles in Spain, though what's left of its walls is about fifteen feet thick. Still, the glorious view of sea and mountains from the roof would be worth paying for, and wouldn't need thousands of dollars' worth of restoration, like the house.

While we lingered in Fuenterrabia absorbing the atmosphere of old Spain, the time was inconsiderate enough to run away and leave us with only a twisted channel among sand-banks to remember it by. So we took an oddly shaped carriage with a white tasselled awning on it and drove back to Hendaye and our motor-car. But the day was a great success, and I congratulated Brown, which Aunt Mary said it was silly to do, as it is his business to think of everything for us.

Now, as you see by the date of my letter, we're at Pau, to which we came from Biarritz in a delicious morning's run through a pearl-coloured landscape trimmed with blue mountains. As we got into the town the Lightning Conductor, who was driving, whisked us through a few streets, swooped round a large square, and suddenly stopped the car on a broad terrace with an air as though he said, "There! what do you think of _that_?" I think I gasped. I know I wanted to by way of saluting what must be one of the most wonderful views in the whole world.

We had stopped on a terrace not the least like a street. At one end was an old grey chateau; then a long line of imposing buildings, almost too graceful to be hotels, which they really were; a church sending a white, soaring spire into the blue sky; an open, shady _place_, with a statue of Henri Quatre; villas hotels, hotels villas in a sparkling line, with great trees to cut it and throw a blue haze of shadow. That is one side of the terrace. The other is an iron railing, a sudden drop into space, and--the view. Your eyes travel across a park where even in this mid-winter season roses are blooming and date palms are flourishing. Then comes a hurrying river, giving life and music to the landscape; beyond that a wide sweep of hills, with bunches of poplars, and valleys where white villages lie half concealed; and further still, leaping into the sky, the immense line of the Pyrenees, looking to-day so near and sharply outlined that they seemed to be cut out of cardboard. When I was able to speak I told Brown that the very first thing I should do would be to walk to those delectable mountains. "I don't think you could quite manage it, miss," he said, with his quiet smile, "for they are nearly forty miles away." Then we turned round and drove into the courtyard of the hotel, which faces the great view.

It looked tremendously swell, and Aunt Mary and I tried to live up to it by sweeping haughtily in as if we hadn't collected any of the historic dust of France on our motoring coats and hats. Just as we were acquitting ourselves quite creditably who should step out from a group of the very people we were hoping to impress with our superiority but Jimmy Payne! Oh, you wicked old man, I believe you must have wired or written him a hint. You know you have a weakness for Jimmy, or rather for his family. But I can't go about marrying the sons of all the pretty ladies you were in love with in your vanished youth. Probably there were dozens, for you're as soft-hearted as you are hard-headed, and you can't deny it.

Still, I don't mind confessing that I was rather pleased to see Jimmy, not a bit because he is _Jimmy_, but because he seemed to bring a breath of homeyness with him, and it is nice to have an old friend turn up in a "far countree" when you've got dust on your hat and the other women who are staring at you haven't. If only the friend doesn't proceed to bore you by insisting on being something more than a friend, which I hope Jimmy is by this time tired of doing, I think I shall rather enjoy the encounter than otherwise. As for anything else, it doesn't appeal to _me_ that he's his mother's son, or that he's clever in stocks, or that he's got as much money as you have. So now you know, and I hope he does.

Well, we talked a little, and then I found that Aunt Mary was chattering like mad with the Garrisons (one "talks" oneself; other people "chatter"; foreigners "jabber"); so we were all glad to see each other, or said so, which comes to the same thing.

"How's your automobile?" was almost the first thing I asked Jimmy, for the last time I'd seen him it was the pride of his heart. "I suppose," I said, "that, like us, you're making a tour around Europe on it?"

I thought his face changed a little, though I don't know why it should. "Oh," said he, "I've lent it to my friend Lord Lane; charming fellow I met last year in Paris. He'll meet me with it a little later. Where are _you_ going after this?"

"We're working slowly on to the Riviera," said I.

"Oh, isn't that funny," said Jimmy, "that's where Lord Lane and I are going to meet! At Cannes, or Nice, or Monte Carlo; it isn't quite settled yet which. I suppose you're going to all of them, as you're driving about on a car?"

I said that we expected to, and pointed through the glass door at my automobile, with Brown superintending the hotel servants who were lifting down the luggage. He looked hard at the car and the _chauffeur_, as if he envied me both, and I think he had something more to say which he considered important, but I was in a hurry to change and make myself prettier--_much_ prettier--than the Garrison girls.

By the way, they--the Garrisons--suggested that we should sit at a small table with them, where they've already given a place to Jimmy. We accepted the invitation, and now we've just dined together. My frock was a dream; it's always nice to come to the sort of hotel where one can wear something pretty, as here and at Biarritz. Afterwards we all put on coats and cloaks and strolled in the moonlight on the terrace. Jimmy tried to call up from the "vasty deep" of his broken (?) heart the spirit of the Past, with a capital P, but I would force him into the track of automobilism instead. I don't believe he knows a bit more than I do about it, if as much, now that I've learned such a lot from the Lightning Conductor, and if he takes to boasting I'll just _show_ him.

Now, good-night, my dear old Dad. I shall treat myself to a "night-cap" draught of mountain air before I go to bed on my balcony facing the Pyrenees.

Your
Molly-who-loves-only-you.

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

Pau, _December 15_.

Dear Safety Valve,

After the recent budget from Biarritz I had no intention of inflicting another upon you--at least, until we should reach Nice. But--there's as much virtue in "but" as in "if"--you will be thinking in Davos that it never rains but it pours letters; I am thinking in Pau that it never rains but it pours young men--Miss Randolph's young men. We've got another one now, in his way as objectionable as the first; and though I don't regard this specimen as an active menace to the car, nor do I believe he will resort to ripping up the tyres, he has his knife into me.

Well, we arrived in Pau, which I know of old, and in which I've had some rather jolly times, as Miss Randolph would put it. Pau is the sort of place where you meet your friends, and I scented danger, but we were booked for only two days, and luck had befriended me so well thus far that I trusted it once more. I came to a hotel at some distance from the Goddess's. Between two evils I chose the less, and put my name down as "J. Winston," hoping that if anyone knew me they wouldn't know Miss Randolph, or _vice versa_. Besides, I took counsel with prudence, engaged a private sitting-room, and ordered my meals sent up, to avoid being on show in the _salle a manger_. All seemed serene, when suddenly an adverse wind began to blow (as usual) from an unexpected quarter.

Lured by fancied security, I took advantage of that idleness for which Satan is popularly supposed to provide mischief to put in a little private fun on my own account. On the morning after our arrival in Pau, Miss Randolph informed me that the car and I would not be wanted, as she had met some American friends and would be at their disposal during the day. In an evil moment a golf rage overpowered me, and I yielded, seeing no special reason why I shouldn't. The Pau links are the best on the Continent, and I had retained my membership of the club from last year, when I was here with my mother, so that was all right. I nicked into a cab and told the man to drive to the golf club.

The steward remembered me, so did the professional; but as it was fairly early in the morning as well as early in the season there were only a couple of men in the smoking-room. I sat down to write a letter at a corner table, and as one of the fellows was talking in loud tones, advertising all the wares in his shop windows, so to speak, I couldn't help over-hearing what he said. He had one of those objectionable, Anglo-maniac, American voices that get on your nerves; you know the snobbish sort that, instead of being proud as punch of their own country, want to appear more English than the English, and get up for the part like an actor with all an actor's exaggerations. Well, this was one of those voices; and for all the owner might have taken his accent from his groom, he was mightily pleased with it.

I hadn't looked at the chap at first, but when I heard him telling his meek little exclamatory friend stories about a lot of my own friends (invariably making his impression by mentioning their titles first, then dropping into Christian names), I did take a glance at him over my shoulder.