Your-enduring-to-the-end,
Your-enduring-to-the-end,
Gwen.
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
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 thetruestory—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, thereisn't one detailwhich 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.
Everyone has gone down to dinner, I'm afraid, and I must go, too, 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
Your even more loving than loquacious
Audrie.
Audrie.
XXVIII
MRS. SENTER TO HER SISTER, MRS. BURDEN
Tintern Abbey
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 lookingstricken. 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,
Yours (would that I could say Sir L.'s) ever lovingly,
Gwen.
Gwen.
XXIX
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
Tintern Abbey,Same night
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
Your frightened and loving
Audrie.
Audrie.
XXX
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
Aberystwith,August 29th
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, andathis 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 myfiancéturned his back upon me in order to attend to mere business.
"You call thismerebusiness?" 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.
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
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!
I was sorry to leave that pass behind, and have its door shut after us, for we came out into a pastoral landscape, where the only wild things were the grazing black cattle. It was charming country, though; and in less than a mile we had reached a famous spot known as the Tourist Walk. The rain was pelting down harder than ever, so we could not get out and take the walk; but soon after we had abandoned it the deluge suddenly turned from lead to a thick spray of diamonds, mixed with sparkling gold-dust. Our road glittered ahead of us like a wide silver ribbon unrolled, as we sailed into the little gray town of Dolgelly on its torrent river; and beyond, in a fresh-washed radiance of sunlight, the way was one long enchantment, the sweet world of green hills and musical waters looking as young as if God had made it that day. The graceful mountains which pressed round the valley had the air of waiting each her turn to stoop and drink a life-giving draught from the river, which, as we neared Barmouth, opened to the sea, gleaming like a vast sheet of quicksilver. Further on, travelling through woods where young green trees shot up from gilded rocks, glimpses of the estuary came to us like a vision of some Italian lake.
Just before Harlech, the wild yet nymph-like beauty of the world changed to an almost startling grandeur, for the coast moved back from the sea with a noble sweep, magnificent mountains towered along the shore, and line after line of beryl waves shattered into pearl upon a beach of darkened gold.
Harlech Castle was an event in my life. I thought I had begun to take ruined castles for granted in Wales, as you do sea-shells on the shore; but Harlech is a castle that you couldn't take for granted. It was a shock at first to find that a hotel had been built in the very face of it, as if bearding it in its den; yet it is a nice hotel; and when we had lunched there agreeably, I not only forgave it for existing, but began to like and thank it for having thoughtfully placed itself on that admirable height.
From here our eyes ought to have been smitten with the sight of Snowdon; but the Grand Old Mountain was asleep, his head buried in white cloud-pillows which alone betrayed his whereabouts; so we had to be content with the castle. And I was content. To see the splendid ruin reared on its great rock, dark against sea and sky, was thrilling as a vision of an old wounded knight girding his strength for a last stand.
The splendid ruin, reared on its great rock
"The splendid ruin, reared on its great rock"
History says that Harlech Castle is no older than Edward I.; but story says (which is more important, because more romantic) that in the dim dawn while History still dozed, here rose the Tower of Twr Brauwen, white-bosomed sister of Bran the Blessed. Also, it came into the possession of Hawis Gadern, a great beauty and heiress, whose uncles tried to wrest it from her, but were defeated and imprisoned in the castle. Anyway, however that may be, Owen Glendower came and conquered, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, when he was forging a chain of wonderful deeds which made him the hero of Wales. Never mind if he was driven away a few years after by Prince Henry. That's another story.
The way from Harlech by Portmadoc to exquisite Pont Aberglaslyn and Beddgelert is very Arthurian; that is, it suggests pre-mediæval backgrounds, and at every turn I caught myself expecting to come upon Camelot, unspoiled, unchanged. The high mountains still wore their invisibility masks, but the lower mountains, not too proud to show themselves to motoring mortals, grouped as graciously together as if they were lovely ladies and gay knights, turned to stone just when they had assembled to tread a minuet. And the fair Glaslyn flowed past their feet with a swing and sweep, as though the crystal flood kept time to dance music which our ears were not attuned to catch.
Quickly we flashed by more than one beautiful lake, too; a jewel hidden among mountains, found by our eyes unexpectedly, only to be lost again. And all the while Cader Idris and Snowdon drew hoods of mist over their heads, pulling them down tightly and firmly. Not once had we caught a glimpse of either mountain, though we were almost near enough to knock our noses or Apollo's bonnet against their sharp elbows; but we were too happy to care much—at least, one of us was!—and we cared even less when rain came on again. I still kept my place beside Sir Lionel, who was repentant for having made me cry over the dreadful, agonizing, too-tragic story of Gelert. I won't repeat it to you, because it's wickedly sad, and grayhound Gelert was so much nobler than most people.
Sheets of spun glass shimmered and waved before us, as we rushed on through the mountains, past the beautiful place of Gelert's grave, up toward Pen-y-gwrd. And the tinkling swish of the rain on the glass sounded to me as the Welsh names had begun to sound. I wish you could hear them spoken, for the spelling gives no idea of their pronunciation, or the pleasant, muffled music of them. But all I can tell you is, that when you come into Wales you will feel they are characteristic of the country; mysterious, sympathetic, rather secretive.
Sir Lionel was happy in the thought of Pen-y-gwrd, because some of the best memories of his boyhood are associated with that little spot in the mountain-land of Wales. He used to come, and climb with an old friend a few years older than himself, a Colonel O'Hagan, who is in Bengal now, and who—he thinks—will like me. Not much chance of our ever meeting!
Just as Sir Lionel finished quoting Charles Kingsley on Pen-y-gwrd, we drew up in front of a low gray stone building; and Kingsley's merry words rang in my ears as the door of the hotel opened. You know I can always remember a verse after having once heard it.