We've been in Chester for several hours, my Angel; and not only is there no Dick (for which heaven be praised), but no word from you, which worries me. Still, I shan't be really anxious unless on my second call at the post-office (to be made by and by) I draw a blank again. At least, I didn't draw a blank exactly when I went there before. I drew a letter from Ellaline, with vexing news. Honoré de Guesclin is in a scrape. He could get leave now, and come to her, but he and some of his brother officers have been amusing themselves by learning to play bridge. Naturally, those who played best came off best, and Honoré wasn't one of them. He has borrowed of a money-lender, and is in a hole, because the fellow won't let him have more, and is bothering for a settlement. Also, Honoré owes some of his friends, and hasn't a penny to pay up or start on a journey. Ellaline doesn't seem to think much about the moral aspect of her Honoré's affairs (you see, she knows nothing of what her mother must have suffered from her father's penchant), but she is in a great state of nerves about the delay. She has always been told it was bad luck to put off a wedding, and besides, she finds Scotland triste, and wants to be married.
You can guess to what all this is leading up! I must get money, somehow, anyhow, but a great deal, and immediately. I must send her at least four thousand francs by return of post; five thousand, if possible; but if "Monsieur le Dragon is too stingy to give more, at all events nothing less will be of the least use."
It's easy for her to dictate terms. She hasn't got to face the very upright and honourable gentleman whom, she calls the Dragon, whereas I have; and I've already shamed myself by asking for large sums at short intervals. I simply can't go to him here and "hold him up" for four thousand francs. It would be monstrous, and if he asked what I wanted to do with it (as it seems to me it would be only his duty to ask the young schoolgirl he thinks me) I should be able to find no decent excuse, as I have no expenses beyond those he pays. However, I shall have to do something desperate, I don't know yet what. He has given me some pretty things, and though I hate the thought of parting with them in such a way, as they're Ellaline's by rights, it's no more than fair she should benefit by them in the hour of her need. Poor girl! Of course there's nothing for it but she must marry the young man now, yet it seems a poor outlook, doesn't it?
She explains in a P. S. that she was too upset to write me to the last place, as she hadn't heard from Honoré when she expected; but now, if the money is forthcoming all right he will start for Scotland as soon as possible after receiving it from her, and settling up. I have calculated times as well as I could, and fancy that if I can in any way send her a post-office order from Chester to-morrow, she and Honoré may be able to marry in a week. Once I shouldn't have believed I could be sorry to have my "principal" arrive and take back her own part; but now, if it weren't for Dick Burden, it would actually be a temptation to me to delay Ellaline's appearance on the scene. Of course, I wouldn't be such a wicked wretch as to yield to the temptation, but I should feel it.
Ellaline promises to telegraph the moment Honoré arrives, and again when they're safely married, so as to give the understudy plenty of time to scuttle off the stage, before the guardian is informed that his charge has been taken off his hands. She doesn't want to see Sir Lionel, she says, but she and Honoré will write him unless, when Honoré has consulted a Scottish solicitor (if that's what they're called), it's considered wiser for the lawyer himself to write. So you see, this makes it harder for me to know what to do about repeating Mrs. Senter's story. If Ellaline understood her position she would, perhaps, think it better to come with her bridegroom and throw herself at her injured guardian's feet.
What a nice world this would be if your affairs didn't get so hopelessly tangled up with other people's that you can hardly call your conscience your own! And never have I realized the niceness of the world more fully than in the last few days.
Yesterday I had a little easy climb with Sir Lionel and the old guide, and saw the glory of Llanberis Pass. To-day, on the wings of Apollo, we have flown through amazingly interesting country. It really did seem like flying, because the road surface was so like velvet stretched over elastic steel that eyesight alone told us we touched earth.
Miles aren't tyrants any more, but slaves to the mastery of good motor-cars; and any motoring Monte Cristo can fairly exclaim, "The world is mine!" (N. B. This isn't original. Sir Lionel said it at lunch.) From North Wales to Cheshire looks a long run on the map, but motors are made to live down maps; and we arrived in this astonishingly perfect old town early in the afternoon, coming by way of Capel Curig (whence we saw Snowdon crowned with a double rainbow), sweet Bettws-y-coed, or "station in the wood," and so down the river valley in a bird swoop, to noble Conway, with its castle that was once a famous Welsh fortress. Now, in piping days of peace, its towers and turrets still dominate bridge and river, and the great pile is as fine, in its way, as Carcassone. Don't you remember, it was from Conway Castle that Richard the Second started out to meet Bolingbroke?
We stopped to take photographs and buy a few small pearls from the "pearl-breeding river"; and while we gazed our fill at the mighty monument, we learned from a guardian that in old days a certain Lady Erskine hired the castle for six shillings and eightpence a year, in addition to a "dish of fish for the Queen," when her majesty chanced to pass!
At Colwyn Bay we lunched early, at a charming hotel in a garden above a sea of Mediterranean blue; and the red-roofed town along the shore reminded me of Dinard. After that, coming by Abergele and Rhuddlan to Chester, the way was no longer through a region of romance and untouched beauty. There were quarries, which politely though firmly announced their hours of blasting, and road users accommodated themselves to the rules as best they might. But there were castles on the heights, as well as quarries in the depths; and though Sir Lionel says that inhabitants of Wales never think of turning to look at such a "common object of the seashore" as a mere castle, I haven't come to that state of mind yet.
Near Rhuddlan there was a tremendous battle at the end of the seventh century, out of which so many fine songs have been made that the Welsh princes and nobles who were slain have never lost their glory. There's a castle, too (of course), but the best thing that happened for us was a gloriously straight road like a road of France, and as nobody was on it save ourselves at that moment, we did about six miles before the next moment, when others might claim a share. I believe the Holyhead road is very celebrated.
Soon we had to turn our backs upon a mystic mountain-land that ringed us in, and face the sea once more--a wide water-horizon whose line was broken with great ships steaming from all parts of the world to Liverpool.
Apollo had seemed a little faint before luncheon, because of some inner disturbance, but he was flying fast as a saint on his way to Paradise as we crossed the Dee, into England out of Wales, and sprang into Gladstone country.
When people are obliged to reach a town by rail, there must be disappointments to lovers of the picturesque, as you and I know by experience. It's like arriving at a house by the tradesmen's entrance; but with a motor one sails up to the front door through the park.
Of all the towns to which Apollo has brought us, the entrance to Chester to-day was the best. The first effect of colour left on my eyes the impression of sunset-red, warm as copper beeches. The place seemed to be lit with fading firelight, and I wondered at the soft glow everywhere, until I realized that the big buildings--the Cathedral, the great houses and the old city wall--were all made of rosy sandstone.
You can't imagine how a large town which has lived as long as Chester has, and gone on growing, could have contrived to remain so satisfyingly beautiful, or keep such an air of old-time completeness. But the secret is, I suppose, that Chester is "canny" as well as "bonny," and, being wise, she refused to throw away her precious antique garments for glaring new ones. When she had to add houses, or even shops, wherever possible she reproduced the charm and quaintness of the black and white Tudor or Stuart buildings which are Chester's intimate treasures.
Of course, I've seen little of the place yet; but after I had been to the post-office, I strolled about before coming back to the hotel, partly to recover from my disappointment in not hearing from you, partly because I was so bewitched with my first glimpse that I couldn't bear to come indoors still a stranger to the town. Hovering in front of the Cathedral (a curious building, black in its oldest parts, bright pink where it has been renovated) I saw Sir Lionel and Mrs. Norton coming. That was awkward, because I had said I wanted to "settle in" before sight-seeing, but I explained vaguely that I'd changed my mind, and was invited to go into the Cathedral with them. Perhaps it was because Emily was with us that nothing seemed very wonderful in the interior--unless the carved oak in the choir--but the cloisters are beautiful, and I liked the chapter house.
After "doing" the Cathedral, Mrs. Norton was tired, so Sir Lionel and I had a walk alone, an adventure Mrs. Senter would never have allowed if she'd guessed I was out of my room. She is a dog in the manger about walks. She hates them herself, but she won't let other people take them without her if she can help it.
We dropped Emily at the hotel, and had a delicious ramble (speaking for myself!) through the four extraordinary streets which stand for much in Chester's peculiar fame. Wandering there, it was easy to believe what the guide-books say: that nowhere in Great Britain does a town exist which so preserves the ancient character of all its architecture. I don't know if there are British relics; but the city wall and gates are Roman, part of the castle, too; and since mediæval days nothing seems to have lost in picturesqueness. People come from all over the world to see the Rows: streets dug out below the rock-surface on which the town was originally built, having shops and even warehouses on their level, with galleries above, open fronted, stone-paved, balustraded with black oak, so that these "Rows" all look as if the houses were wide open, communicating with one another. The carved oak fronts of the houses and shops, done ingeniously with strange pargetting, and adorned with wondrous windows, are so adorably queer, with their stagey effects, that I don't wonder Chester has become a kind of Mecca for travellers from my native land, where most things are new.
When we had thus skimmed a little of the cream from the town itself, we had a walk on the old wall, while church bells, near and distant, chimed; but still I don't feel I've more than glanced at the place. To-morrow we plan to run out to Knutsford, which is Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford really, and I have begged to start early, because if we do (though naturally I don't allege this reason) we can get off before Dick arrives. Then, when we come back, we can do more sight-seeing, and maybe be out when he turns up at the hotel. After that event, unless you save me to-night with some miraculous suggestion, all pleasure will be over. And at best, I'm not looking forward with undiluted joy to to-morrow, because I must not only decide what to do for Ellaline, but do it.
While I was walking on the wall with Sir Lionel just now, gazing up at watch-towers, or down over the town, and dodging seedy amateur guides whom we nicknamed "Wallers," I kept thinking, thinking, about what to sell. The only thing Sir Lionel has given me of really great value, which could be easily disposed of, is the ruby and diamond ring. But how it would hurt me to give it up in such a sordid way! It was my birthday present from him, and it's associated in my mind with that night of moonlight in the New Forest when I first knew I cared. But I'm sorely afraid it must be the thing to go. There are several important-looking antique shops here, and I noticed, when casting my eye about, one where they make a speciality of curious and rare jewellery. I shall look at it again more carefully when I run out to the post-office, in a few minutes, and perhaps I may have courage to try and strike a bargain, so as to send the money off in the morning before Knutsford--if I get it----
An hour later.
Dearest, I've got your wire, now, having retrieved it from the Poste Restante, and I'm thankful for it--thankful that you're well, thankful that you don't blame me for anything I've done, faults committed or mistakes made. But--alas, I don't think the advice, good as it is, will be of any use to me. You see, you don't know Mrs. Senter. It would be hopeless for me to try and force her to exert authority over Dick Burden.
In the first place, she has no real authority, as apparently he has no expectations from her; and in the second place, though I'm almost sure she doesn't know the truth about me and Ellaline, she suspects that Dick has a hold over me; and after all I've submitted to from him already it would be impossible to "bluff" her into the belief that I'd dare ask Sir Lionel to send them both away. No, my dear one, there's little hope for me in that scheme. I allowed Ellaline to make my bed for me, and I must lie in it, although it has proved to be one of those nasty folding ones that will shut and swallow me up in a trap.
No, it's cowardly to whine like that. It won't be pleasant to keep my promise to Dick; but there have been worse things; and I shall probably be able to escape before long. Anyhow it will all be the same a hundred years hence. As soon as I am with you again it will be as if nothing had happened; and meanwhile I am going to keep a "stiff upper lip." It mayn't be becoming, but that won't matter, as Sir Lionel will never look at me; and you will see by my letters in future how well I am getting on.
