Part 18 (1/2)
”I wish I--Look here, mademoiselle _ma soeur_, I'm all out of repartees.
Perhaps I shall be better after breakfast. I shall be able to eat, now that I know you've forgiven me.”
”I don't believe you would care if I hadn't,” I exclaimed. ”You are so stolid, so phlegmatic, you Englishmen!”
”Do you think so? Well, it would have been a little awkward for me to have taken you about on a sightseeing expedition this morning if we were at daggers drawn--no matter how appropriate the situation might have been to Avignon manners of the Middle Ages, when everybody was either torturing everybody else or fighting to the death.”
”_Are_ you going to take me about?”
”That's for you to say.”
”Isn't it for Lady Turnour to say?”
”Sir Samuel told me last night that I shouldn't be wanted till two o'clock, as he was going to see the town with her ladys.h.i.+p. He wanted to know if we could sandwich in something else this afternoon, as he considered a whole day too much for one place. I suggested Vaucluse for the afternoon, as it's but a short spin from Avignon, and I just happened to mention that her ladys.h.i.+p might find use for you there, to follow her to the fountain with extra wraps in case of mistral. I thought, of all places you'd hate to miss Vaucluse. And we're to come back here for the night.”
I feared that Monsieur Charretier's sudden disappearance might upset the Turnours' plans, but Mr. Dane didn't think so. He had impressed it upon Sir Samuel that no motorist who had not thoroughly ”done” Avignon and Vaucluse would be tolerated in automobiling circles.
He was right in his surmise, and though her ladys.h.i.+p was vexed at losing a new acquaintance whom it would have been ”nice to know in Paris,” she resigned herself for the morning to the society of husband and Baedeker. It was kind old Sir Samuel's proposal that I should be left free to do some sight-seeing on my own account while they were gone (I had meant to break my own shackles); and though my lady laughed to scorn the idea that a girl of my cla.s.s should care for historical a.s.sociations, she granted me liberty provided I utilized it in buying her certain stay-laces, shoe-strings, and other small horrors for which no woman enjoys shopping.
When she and Sir Samuel were out of the way, as safely disposed of as Monsieur Charretier himself, I felt so extravagantly happy in reaction, after all my worries, that I danced a jig in her ladys.h.i.+p's sacred bedchamber.
Then I prepared to start for my own personally conducted expedition; and this time I took no great pains to do my hair unbecomingly. Naturally, I didn't want to be a jarring note in harmonious Avignon, so I made myself look rather attractive for my jaunt with the chauffeur.
He was sauntering casually about the _Place_ before the hotel, where long ago Marshal Brune was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and we walked away together as calmly as if we had been followed by a whole drove of well-trained chaperons. When one has joined the ranks of the lower cla.s.ses, one might as well reap some advantages from the change!
”What we'll do,” said Mr. Dane, ”is to look first at all the things the Turnours are sure to look at last. By that plan we shall avoid them, and as I know my way about Avignon pretty well, you may set your mind at rest.”
I can think of nothing more delightful than a day in Avignon, with an agreeable brother and--a mind at rest. I had both, and made the most of them.
When her ladys.h.i.+p's shoe-strings and stay-laces were off my mind and in my coat pocket, we wandered leisurely about the modern part of the wonderful town, which has been busier through the centuries in making history than almost any other in France. Seen by daylight, I no longer resented the existence of a new--comparatively new--Avignon. The pretty little theatre, with its dignified statues of Corneill and Moliere, seemed to invite me kindly to go in and listen to a play by the splendidly bewigged gentlemen sitting in stone chairs on either side of the door. The clock tower with its ”Jacquemart” who stiffly struck the quarter hours with an automatic arm, while his wife criticized the gesture, commanded me to stop and watch his next stroke; and the curiosity shops offered me the most alluring bargains. People we met seemed to have plenty of time on their hands, and to be very good-natured, as if rich Provencal cooking agreed with their digestions.
Sure that the Turnours would be at the Palace of the Popes or in the Cathedral, we went to the Museum, and searched in vain among a riot of Roman remains for the tomb of Petrarch's Laura, which guide-books promised. In the end we had to be satisfied with a memorial cross made in the lovely lady's honour by order of some romantic Englishmen.
”Yet you say we're stolid and phlegmatic!” muttered Mr. Dane, as he read the inscription. (Evidently that remark had rankled.)
We had not a moment to waste, but the Turnours had to be avoided; so my brother proposed that we combine profit with prudence, and take a cab along the road leading out to Port St. Andre. Where the ancient tower of Philippe le Bel crowns a lower slope I should have my first sight of that grim mountain of architecture, the Palace of the Popes. It was the best place from which to see it, if its real grandeur were to be appreciated, he said--or else to go to Villeneuve, across the Rhone, which we dared not steal time to do; but the Turnours were certain not to think of anything so esoteric in the way of sight-seeing.
The vastness of the stupendous ma.s.s of brick and stone took my breath away for an instant, as I raised my eyes to look up, on a signal of ”Now!” from Mr. Dane. It seemed as if all the history, not alone of Old Provence, but of France, might be packed away behind those tremendous b.u.t.tresses.
Of what romances, what tragedies, what triumphs, and what despairs could those huge walls and towers tell, if the echoes whispering through them could crystallize into words!
There Queen Jeanne of Naples--that fateful Marie Stuart of Provence--stood in her youth and beauty before her accusers, knowing she must buy her pardon, if for pardon she could hope. There the wretched Bishop of Cahors suffered tortures incredible for plots his enemies vowed he had conceived against the Pope. There came messages from Western Kings and Eastern Emperors; there Bertrand du Guesclin, my favourite hero, was excommunicated: and there great Rienzi lay in prison.
”Now I think we might risk going to the Palace,” said Mr. Dane, when we had stood gazing in silence for more minutes than we could well afford.
So we made haste back, and walked up to the Rochers des Doms, where we lurked cautiously in the handsome modern gardens, glorying in the view over the old and new bridges, and to far off Villeneuve, where the Man in the Iron Mask was first imprisoned. When we had admired the statue of Althen the Persian, with his hand full of the beneficent madder that did so much for Provence, we were rewarded for our patience by seeing Sir Samuel and Lady Turnour rush out from the Papal Palace, looking furious.
”They look like that, because they've been inside,” said the chauffeur.
”Their souls aren't artistic enough to resent consciously the ruin and degradation of the place, but even they can be depressed by the hideous whitewashed barracks which were once splendid rooms, worthy of kings.
You will look as they do if you go in.”
”I hope my cheeks wouldn't be dark purple and my nose a pale lilac!” I exclaimed.