Part 32 (1/2)
Dozens of motors arrived while we were eating, gorgeous cars with resplendent chauffeurs, but there wasn't one to put the bonnet of ”Apollo” (as someone has named ours) out of joint; and not one chauffeur as striking as our extraordinary Bengali in his native dress.
I forgot to mention that I bound Ellaline to secrecy before I began my tale, saying that I'd had the information in confidence. She has her faults, but I don't think she'd break her word. She is one of those tall, upstanding, head-in-the-air creatures who pride themselves on keeping a promise till it's mouldy.
My headache was better, after relieving my mind, and I enjoyed the run to Clifton and Bristol. We had to go through the queer old gray village of Cheddar, which was as cheesy looking as one would expect it to be; and I suppose the Market Cross we pa.s.sed must have been good, as Sir Lionel would stop and take a photograph. As we turned out of the place for Axbridge, I threw a glance over my shoulder, back at the exit of the queer valley, and a carved bronze screen seemed already to have been drawn across it.
It was a fine road; Axbridge a sort of toy village whose houses might have been made for good little girls to play with; and to avoid the traffic in the main road we went by way of Congresbury, where the Milford-Joneses live. I was glad we didn't meet them driving their old pony-chaise. I should have been ashamed to bow. There was a turn which led us into a charming road, winding high among woods, then coming out where the gorge of the Avon burst upon our view. It always pleases Sir Lionel if one is enthusiastic over scenery, so I was, though I really hated going over that awfully high suspension bridge, as I detest looking down from heights. So does Mrs. Norton; but I can't afford to be cla.s.sed with her, therefore I joined Ellaline in exclaiming that the bridge was glorious. I suppose it is fine, if one could only look without fear of being seasick.
We stopped all night in Clifton, in which Miss Lethbridge was interested, largely because of ”Evelina,” who stopped at the Hot Wells, in the ”most romantic part of the story.” I couldn't for my life remember who wrote ”Evelina”--which was awkward; and it hasn't come back to me yet. I always mix the book up with ”Clarissa Harlowe,” and so does d.i.c.k, though, of course, he's read neither.
We went to see a lot of things in Bristol, but the best was a church called St. Mary Redcliffe. Mrs. Norton, though tired, pined to go when she heard it was famous; and it's as much as your life is worth to deny her a church if she wants one. The others, except d.i.c.k, said it was worth stopping for; also that they were glad they did; so somebody was pleased! And Sir L. and E. jabbered enough history in Bristol to last a schoolmaster a week. I was quite thankful to start again, and stop the flow of intelligence, because I hadn't found time to f.a.g up Bristol and Clifton beforehand, as I do some towns.
So we came to Bath, where we've been stopping for two days at one of the best hotels in England, and where I might enjoy a little well-earned civilization if it weren't that there are a thousand and one old houses and other ”features” which Mademoiselle Ellaline pretends she yearns to visit. Of course, _I_ know that all she wants is a chance to monopolize Sir L.'s society, but _he_ doesn't know that; and my business is not only to fight unjust monopoly, but to establish a Senter-Pendragon Trust myself. Consequently there is no rest for the wicked, and w.i.l.l.y-nilly, I, too, gloat over relics of the past.
Luckily for me, as I have had to do more sight-seeing here than almost anywhere else, Bath is a fascinating place, and I believe it's becoming very fas.h.i.+onable again. Anyhow, all the great ones of earth seem to have lived here at one time or another. I wonder if it mightn't be nice for you to spend a season, taking the waters, or bathing, or whatever is the smartest thing to do? I've noticed it's only the very smartest thing that ever thoroughly agrees with you, and I sympathize. I have the sort of feeling that what is good for d.u.c.h.esses may be good for me; but if I bring off what I'm aiming at now, Lady Pendragon shall rise on the ladder of her husband's fame and her own charm to the plane of royalties.
By the way, in nosing about among the foundations of a church here, St.
Peter's--they found the wife (her body, I mean) of that King Edmund Thingummy I never could find out about. He seems always to be cropping up!
I was in hopes we'd only have to go back to the Roman days of Bath, as that saves trouble; but, oh no, down I must dip into Saxon lore, or I'm not in it with the industrious Miss Lethbridge! I think the wretched Saxons had a mint here, or something, and there were religious pageants of great splendour in which that everlasting St. Dunstan mixed himself up. I tell you these things, I may explain, not because I think you will be interested, but because I want to fix them in my mind, as we haven't finished ”doing” Bath yet, and are to stop another day or two.
As for Roman talk, there is no end of it among us; it mingles with our meals, which would otherwise be delicious; and in my dreams, instead of being lulled by the music of a beautiful weir under my window, I find myself mumbling: ”Yes, Sir Lionel, Ptolemy should have said the place was outside, not in, the Belgic border.” (Sounds like something new in embroidery, doesn't it?) ”Strange, indeed, that they only discovered the Roman Baths so late as the middle of the eighteenth century! And then, only think of finding the biggest and best of all, more than a hundred years later!”
I a.s.sure you, I have kept my end up with my two too-well-informed companions, and I was even able to tell Sir Lionel a legend he didn't know: about Bladud, a son of the British King Lud Hudibras, creating Bath by black magic, secreting a miraculous stone in the spring, which heated the water and cured the sick. Then Bladud grew so conceited about his own powers that he tried to fly, and if he had succeeded there would have been no need for the Wright brothers to bother; but when he got as far as London from Bath the wing-strings broke and he fell, plop! on a particularly hard temple of Apollo. After him reigned his son, no less a person than King Lear. I got this out of a queer little old book I bought the first day we came, but I a.s.sumed the air of having known it since childhood. There's another legend, it seems, about Bladud and a swine, but it's less esoteric than this, and Sir Lionel likes mine better.
I do wish we hadn't to spend so much time poking about in the Roman Baths, for though there are good enough sights to see there, for those who love that sort of thing, one does get such cold feet, and there are such a lot of steps up and down, one's dress is soon dusty round the bottom, and that's a bore when one has no maid.
If I could choose, I'd prefer the Pump Room, and would rather talk of Beau Nash and the old a.s.sembly Rooms than of Minerva and her temple--or indeed of Pepys, or Miss Austen and f.a.n.n.y Burney. By the way, ”Evelina”
was hers. I've found that out, without committing myself. I wish I could buy the book for sixpence. I think I'll try, when n.o.body is looking; and it ought to be easy, for we simply haunt a bookshop in Gay Street, belonging to a Mr. Meehan, who is a celebrity here. He has written a book in which Sir Lionel is much interested, called ”Famous Houses of Bath,” and as it seems he knows more about the place as it was in old days and as it is now than any other living person, he has been going round with us, showing us those ”features” I mentioned. He appears to have architecture of all kinds at his finger tips, and not only points out here and there what ”Wood the elder and Wood the younger” did, under patronage of Ralph Allen, but knows which architect's work was good, which bad, which indifferent; and that really is beyond me! I suppose one can't have a soul for Paris fas.h.i.+ons and English architecture too? I prefer to be a judge of the former, thanks! It's of much more use in life.
I should think there can hardly be a street, court, or even alley of Old Bath into which we haven't been led by our clever cicerone, to see a ”bit” which oughtn't on any account to be missed. Here, the remains of the Roman wall, crowded in among mere, middle-aged things; there the place where Queen Elizabeth stayed, or Queen Anne; where ”Catherine Morland” lodged, or ”General Tilney”; where ”Miss Elliot” and ”Captain Wentworth” met; where John Hales was born, and Terry, the actor; where Sir Sidney Smith and De Quincey went to school; the house whence Elizabeth Linley eloped with Sheridan; the place where the ”King of Bath,” poor old Nash, died poor and neglected; and so on, ad infinitum, all the way to Prior Park, where Pope stayed with Ralph Allen, rancorously reviling the town and its sulphur-laden air. So now you can imagine that my ”walking and standing” muscles are becoming abnormally developed, to the detriment of the sitting-down ones, which I fear may be atrophied or something before we return to motor life.
Sir Lionel has remarked that Bath is a ”microcosm of England,” and I hastened to say ”Yes, it is.” Do you happen to know what a microcosm means? d.i.c.k says it's a conglomeration of microbes, but he is always wrong about abstract things unconnected with Sherlock Holmes.
By this time you will be as tired of Bath as if you had pottered about in it as much as I have, and won't care whether it had two great periods--Roman and eighteenth century--or twenty, inextricably entangled with the South Pole and Kamchatka. _More_ tired than I, even, for I have got a certain amount of satisfaction to the eye from the agreeable, cla.s.sic-looking terraces and crescents, and the pure white stone buildings that glitter on the hillsides overlooking the Avon. That is the sort of background which is becoming to me, and as I had all my luggage meet me in Bath, I have been able to dress for it; whereas Miss Lethbridge has done most of her exploring in blue serge.
In a day or two we are off again--Wales sooner or later, I believe, though I ask no questions, as I don't care to draw attention to my own future plans. We were asked for a fortnight, and I am not troubling my memory to count by how many days we have overstayed--not our welcome, I hope--but our invitation. You will wonder perhaps why I ”overstay,”
since I frankly admit that I'm ”fed up” with too much scenery and too much information. Yet no, you are far too clever to wonder, dear Sis.
You will see for yourself that I must go on, like ”the brook,” until Sir Lionel asks me to go on--as Lady Pendragon. Or else until I have to abandon hope. But I won't think of that. And I am being so nice to Mrs.
Norton (whenever necessary) that I think she has forgiven me the colour of my hair, and will advise her brother to invite me to make a little visit at Graylees Castle, where it is understood the tour eventually comes to an end. When this end may arrive the G.o.d of automobiles knows.
A chauffeur proposes; the motor-car disposes. And the Woman-in-the-Car never reposes--when there's another woman and a man in the case.
Your-enduring-to-the-end,
Gwen.
P. S.--That was an inspiration of mine about the Cheddar Cavern, wasn't it? I have another now, and will make a note of it. N.B.--Get Sir L. to take me to see the ruins of Tintern Abbey by moonlight (if any) and while there induce him to propose, or think he has done so. I have a white dress which would just suit.
XXVII