Brightest and Best: La Donna é automobile. I am "la donna"; and the most inward Me-ness of my Me é automobile.
Some people--Mrs. Norton, for instance--might say: "What on earth does the silly thing mean?" But you always know what I mean. You and I were born knowing quite a lot of nice little things like that, weren't we? Things we picked up during our various incarnations; things new souls haven't had time to collect, poor dears.
My automobiliness is the reason I've only sent you snippy "how-do-you-do and good-bye" notes, interspersed with telegrams, for the last few days, just thanking you for wise advice, and saying "Glad-you're-well; so-am-I."
You will guess from my very handwriting that I'm feeling more at home in life than I did when I wrote you last. And I can't help being pleased that Ellaline's adored one won't be able to leave his manoeuvres, to make her his own, till a fortnight or so later than she expected. That is, I can't help being glad, as the doctor thinks you ought to stop at Champel-les-Bains till after the first week of September, and we couldn't be together, even if I were back in Paris. You swear you didn't hypnotize him to say that? I would enjoy more peace of mind, while careering through England in Apollo, if I were certain.
Oh, that reminds me, I forgot to tell you what fun it was christening Apollo. I quite enjoyed it, and felt immensely important. Don't you think "Apollo" an appropriate name for such a magnificent car as I've described to you? The Sun God--Driver of the Chariot of the Sun? Sir Lionel likes it; but he says he isn't sure "The Cloud" wouldn't be a more appropriate name, because the car costs such a lot that "she" has a silver lining. I began by calling her "it," but he won't let me do that. He doesn't much mind my being amateurish, but he hates me to be disrespectful.
I am so dazzled by the motor and enchanted with the sport of motoring--as well as seeing things even more lovely than I hoped for--that I'm not worrying over Dick Burden and his mysterious hints about himself as a detective. Besides, when he and his aunt came to tea (you'll remember I told you in a scrap of a note that it was the day Sir Lionel went to Warwickshire, and how vexed Mrs. Senter was to find him gone), Mr. Dick made himself quite pleasant. He wasn't impertinent, or too admiring, or anything which a well-brought-up young Englishman ought not to be. Indeed, I thought by his manner that he wanted tacitly to apologize for his bad behaviour when we first met; so probably, when I fancied he looked wicked that night at Ennis's Rooms, it was because he wanted to sneeze. You have taught me to give everybody, except young men, the benefit of the doubt; but I don't see why one shouldn't give it to young men, too. I think they're rather easier to forgive, somehow, than women. Is that why they're dangerous? But D. B. could never be dangerous to me, in the sense of falling in love.
His aunt certainly wishes to throw us together; I suppose on account of Ellaline's money. She doesn't like girls, I'm sure, but would always be ready, on principle, to give first aid to heiresses. It is something to be thankful for that she hasn't grafted herself on to our party, as I feared she might; and though they're both going to stop at some country house near Southsea, and they "hope we may meet," I dare say I shan't be bothered by them again while I'm in England. I don't intend to worry. La donna é automobile!
I haven't properly described our start, or told you about the things I've seen en route, and I promised to tell you everything; so I'll go back to the beginning of the trip.
There was Apollo, throbbing with joy of life in front of the hotel door, at nine o'clock of a perfect English morning. There were statuesque, Ritzy footmen, gazing admiringly at the big golden-yellow car (that was one of the reasons I thought she should be named after the Sun God, she is so golden). There was Charu Chunder Bose, alias Young Nick, who would think it a sin against all his gods to dress as a chauffeur, and who continues to garb himself as a self-respecting Bengali--Young Nick, with his sleepy eyes, and his Buddha-when-young smile, about as appropriate on a motor-car as a baby crocodile. There was Sir Lionel waiting to tuck us in. There were we two females in neat gray motor dust-cloaks, on which the Dragon insisted; Mrs. Norton in a toque, which she wore as if it were a remote and dreaded contingency; your Audrie in a duck of an early Victorian bonnet, in which she liked herself better than in anything else she ever had on before. There, too, was our luggage, made to fit the car, and looking like the very last word of up-to-dateness--if you know what that look is.
Of course, it wasn't the first time I'd been out in the car, for I think I told you, the day Apollo was christened I had a spin; but it rained, and we went only through the Park. That was nothing. This morning we were bidding good-bye to London, and our pulses were beating high for the Tour. Young Nick drove on the christening day, but this time Sir Lionel took the driver's seat, with the brown idol beside him; and I saw instantly, by the very way he laid his hand on the steering-wheel, with a kind of caress--as a horse-lover pats a beloved mare's neck--that he and the golden car were in perfect sympathy.
We were starting early, because Sir Lionel had planned a good many things for us to see before dark; but early as it was, Piccadilly and Knightsbridge were seething with traffic. Motor-'buses like mad hippopotamuses; taxi-cabs like fierce young lions; huge carts like elephants; and other vehicles of all sorts to make up a confused medley of wild animals escaped from the Zoo. It looked appalling to mingle with, but our own private Dragon drove so skilfully, yet so carefully, that I never bit my heart once. Always the car seemed sentient, steering its way like a long, thin pike; then when the chance came, flashing ahead, dauntless and sure.
We went by a great domed palace--Harrod's Stores--and then over Putney Bridge, passing Swinburne's house, whose outside is as deceiving as an oyster-shell that hides a pearl; through Epsom, Charles the Second's "Brighton" (which I've been reading about in a volume of Pepys Sir Lionel has given me), to Leatherhead, along the Dorking Road, slowing up for a glimpse of Juniper Hall, glowing red as a smouldering bonfire behind a dark latticed screen of splendid Lebanon cedars. I dare say it's a good deal changed since dear little Fanny Burney's day, for the house looks quite modern; but then neither buildings nor the people who live in them show their age early in England.
Close under Box Hill we glided; and Sir Lionel pointed out a little path leading up on the left to George Meredith's cottage. Just a small house of gray stone it is (for I would get out and walk up part way to see it from far off, not to intrude or spy); and there that great genius shines out, a clear, white light for the world, like a beacon or a star.
Evidently Surrey air suits geniuses. Do you remember reading about Keats, that he wrote a lot of "Endymion" at Burford Bridge? It was only a little after ten o'clock when we passed the quaint-looking hotel there, but already at least a dozen motors were drawn up before it. I wanted to go in and ask if they show the room Lord Nelson used; but we had too many things to see.
Of course, I am always wishing for you, but I began to wish the hardest just as we came into this green, brackeny, fairyland of Surrey. It's the kind of country you love best; although I must say it was never planned for motors. Winding through those green tunnels which are the Surrey lanes, I felt as if, in some quaint dream, I were motoring on a tight-rope, expecting another car to want to pass me on the same rope--which naturally it couldn't!
It would have been much worse, though, if Young Nick had been driving. That little, smooth brown face of his looks as if its idol-simper hid no human emotions, and I believe if people and animals were perfectly flat, like paper dolls, so that they would do no harm to his car, he wouldn't mind how many he drove over. Luckily, however, they aren't flat, and the only thing earthly he adores, after his master, is his motor; so he is nice and cautious for its sake. But the Dragon thinks of everyone, and says there's no pleasure for him in motoring if he leaves a trail of distress or even annoyance along the road as he passes. He slows down at corners; he goes carefully round them; he almost walks Apollo in places where creatures of any kind may start out unexpectedly; and he blows our pleasant musical horn as if by instinct, never forgetting, as I'm sure I should do.
As we twisted and turned through the Surrey lanes, between Dorking and Shere, little children in red cloaks and tams appeared from behind hedges, looking like blowing poppies as they ran. And blue-eyed, gold-brown haired girls in cottage doorways, under hanging bowers of roses, were as decorative as Old Chelsea china girls. The red tiles of their roofs, as I turned back for one more glimpse, would already be half hidden in waves of green, but would just show up like beds of scarlet geraniums buried in leaves.
Shere was almost too beautiful to be real, with its rows of Elizabethan cottages whose windows twinkled at us with their diamond-shaped, diamond-bright panes, sparkling under their low, thatch-eyebrows, from between black oak beams. The Tudor chimneys were as graceful as the smoke wreaths that lazily spiraled above them, and the whole effect was--was--well, inexpressibly Birket Foster. I used to think he idealized; but then, I'd never seen anything of England but London, and didn't know how all English trees, cottages, and even clouds, are trained to group themselves to suit artists of different schools.
I kept wishing that you'd made me study architecture and botany, instead of languages and music. In justice to oneself, one ought, when travelling in England, to have at least a bowing acquaintance with every sort of architecture, and all families of flowers, to say nothing of trees, so that one might exclaim, as snobs do of royalties and celebrities: "Oh, she was the great granddaughter of So-and-So." "He married Lady This-and-That." Also, I find I need much more knowledge of literature than I have. This country is divided off into a kind of glorious chessboard, each square being sacred to some immortal author, playwright, or poet. The artists press them close, without overcrowding; and history lies underneath--history for every square inch.
"Twelve coffin deep," I quoted Kipling to myself, as my mind panted along Roman roads, and the Pilgrim's Way.
"Why, was there a cemetery there?" asked Mrs. Norton, looking mildly interested.
She, by the way, doesn't much care for ruins. She says they're so untidy.
You and I travelled till our money threatened to give out in the noble cause of sight-seeing, but I never realized history quite so potently even in Italy as I do in England. Yet that's not strange, when you think how tiny England is, compared with other countries, and how things have gone on happening there every minute since the Phoenicians found it a snug little island. Its chapters of history have to be packed like sardines, beginning down, down, far deeper than Kipling's "twelve coffins."
One Surrey village telleth another, just to slip through in a motor-car, though none could ever be tiresome in the telling; but if one stopped to hear the real story of each one, how different they would all be! There would be grand chapters of fighting, and mysterious chapters of smuggling--oh, but long ones about smuggling, since most of the manors and half the old cottages have "smugglers' rooms," where the lace and spirits used to be hidden, in their secret journey from Portsmouth to London. It's difficult to believe in these thrilling chapters now, in the rich, placid county, where the only mystery floats in the veil of blue mist that twists like a gauze scarf around the tree trunks in the woods, and the only black spots are the dark downs in the distance, with the sky pale gold behind them.
You would love motoring, not only for what you do see, but for what you nearly see, and long to see, but can't--just as Dad used to say "Thank God for all the blessings I've never had!" Why, every road you don't go down looks fantastically alluring, just twice as alluring as the one you are in. You grudge missing anything, and fear, greedily, that there may be better villages with more history beyond the line of your route. It's no consolation when Mrs. Norton says, "Well, you can't see everything!" You want to see everything. And you wish you had eyes all the way round your head. It would be inconvenient for hair and hats, but you could manage somehow.
We had to go through Petworth, a most feudal-looking old place, reeking of history since the Confessor, and mentioned in the Domesday Book (I do so respect towns or houses mentioned in the Domesday Book!), and if it had been the right day we could have seen Lord Leconsfield's collection of pictures, some of the best in England; but it was the wrong day, so we sailed on out of Surrey into Sussex, and arrived at Bignor.
All I knew about Bignor was that I must expect something amazing there. Sir Lionel asked me not to read about it in the books of which we have a travelling library in the car--one at least for each county we shall visit. He said he "wanted Bignor to be a surprise" for me; and it is odd the way one finds oneself obeying that man! Not that one's afraid of him, but--well, I don't know why exactly, but one just does it. We didn't stop in the village, though there was the quaintest grocery shop there you can imagine, perfectly mediæval; and in the churchyard yew trees grand enough to make bows for half the archers of England--if there were any in these days. We went on to quite a modern-looking farmhouse, and Sir Lionel said, "I am going to ask Mrs. Tupper if she will give us a little lunch. If she says 'yes,' it's sure to be good."
"I don't know any Tuppers, Lionel," objected Mrs. Norton. "Who are they?"
"Relatives of Martin Tupper, if that name recalls anything to your mind," said he.
Mrs. Norton had a vague idea that she had been more or less brought up on extracts from Martin Tupper, and seemed to associate him with Sundays, when, as a child, she hadn't been allowed to play. But that didn't explain how Lionel happened to know connections of his in a Sussex farmhouse. Besides, he couldn't possibly have seen them for more than fifteen years.
"That is true, and I only saw them once, even then," he admitted. "But Mrs. Tupper had been here for a good many years, engaged in the most delightful work, which you will hear about by and by; and I'm sure she is here still, and will be for many more years to come, because I don't want to imagine the place without her."
Mrs. Norton said no more, and her brother knocked on the door of the farmhouse, which stood hospitably open. In a minute, a dear old white-haired lady appeared, and instantly her face lighted up.
"Why, if it isn't Mr. Pendragon--I mean Sir Lionel--come back to see us again!" said she.
Sir Lionel grew red with pleasure, at being remembered by her, for apparently he hadn't at all expected it. He seems to forget that he is a celebrity, and generally doesn't like being reminded of the fact, but he was pleased that Mrs. Tupper had read about him in the papers from time to time, and had never forgotten his face.
She said she would be delighted to provide us with lunch, if we didn't mind a simple one; and then she would have gone on to say something which would have given the "surprise" away, if Sir Lionel hadn't stopped her.
We had delicious country things to eat, with real Surrey cream and apple dumplings. They did taste good after the elaborate French cooking in London, by way of contrast! Then, when we had finished, Sir Lionel said, "Now, Mrs. Tupper, can you take us for a stroll round the farm?"
That didn't sound exciting, did it? We walked out, and it seemed a very nice farm, but nothing remarkable. As we wandered toward some sheds, in a field of mangolds, Sir Lionel made us look up at a big hill, and said, "There was a Roman camp there. If you'd stood where you stand now, on a quiet night in those times, you could have heard the clanking of armour or the soldiers quarrelling over their dice. Here Roman Stane Street ran, and chariots used to stop to bring the latest news from Rome to the owner of the villa."
"Was there a villa?" asked Mrs. Norton, who thinks it polite to ask her brother questions, whether she is interested or not.
"Let's take a look into this shed," said he, by way of answer. And, there, protected by that rough roof, was a great stretch of splendid mosaic pavement. It was done in circular compartments of ornamentation, and in one was a beautiful head of Ganymede--in another, Winter. Alas, I shouldn't have known what they were if I hadn't been told, but I would have known that they were rare and wonderful.
This was the "surprise." This was the secret of Bignor; but it wasn't nearly all. There were lovely broken pillars, and lots more pavements, acres of mosaic, it seemed; for the villa had been large and important, and must have been built by a rich man with cultivated taste. He knew how to make exile endurable, did that Roman gentleman! Standing in his dining-hall, I could imagine him and his fair lady-wife sitting at breakfast, looking out from between white, glittering pillars at the Sussex downs, grander than those of Surrey, reminding me of great, brave shoulders raised to protect England. Now we knew what Mrs. Tupper's "delightful work" was! For forty-nine years she has cleaned the mosaic pavement of the vanished Roman villa, all of which were discovered by the grandfather of the present owner of the farm. Never once has she tired of looking at the mosaics, because, as she explained to us, "one doesn't tire of what is beautiful." There speaks true appreciation, doesn't it? Only a born lover of the beautiful could have said that so simply.
There was an Italian, a man from Venice, repairing the mosaic. He could hardly speak a word of English, and beamed with a sudden smile when I asked him some question in his native tongue. We talked awhile, and I translated several things he said to Sir Lionel and his sister. I'm ashamed to confess, dear, that I was pleased to show off my poor little accomplishment, and proud because I knew one thing which our famous man didn't. Wasn't that low of me?
"Well, you weren't disappointed in my surprise, I think?" said Sir Lionel, when we were starting away at last.
I just gave him one look. It really wasn't necessary to answer.
As we flashed on, through country always exquisite, and over perfect roads, I could think of nothing but Bignor, until suddenly, after passing through a long aisle of great beeches, like an avenue in a private park, a tremendous bulk of stone looming at me made me jump, and cry out, "Oh!"
Sir Lionel turned his head long enough for half a smile. "Arundel Castle," he said.
It's lucky for me that Mrs. Norton doesn't know much about any part of England except her own home, and the homes of her particular friends, or else she would always be explaining things to me, and I should hate that. It would be like having purple hot-house grapes handed out to one impaled on the prongs of a plated silver fork. I should have wanted to slap her, if she had told me I was looking at Arundel Castle, but I was grateful to her brother for the information. This was a wickedness in me; but if you knew how I felt, having started out from the Ritz expecting a quiet day's run through one or two of the garden counties of England, to come like this, bang into the midst of Roman villas, and under the shadow of a tenth-century castle-keep, maybe you'd excuse my morals for being upset.
You can't have centuries roll away, like a mere cloud of dust raised by your motor, and be perfectly normal, can you? I tried to seem calm, because I hate to be gushing and school-girlish (for Ellaline's sake, I suppose, as it can't make any difference what her Dragon thinks of me), but I'm pretty sure he saw that I was rather "out of myself" over all his surprises.
He stopped the motor, and we sat for a long time gazing up at the towers beyond the green and silver beeches--a pile of battlemented stone, looking like the Middle Ages carved in granite, yet more habitable to-day than ever before.
We had lunched early, and had plenty of time, so we walked through the park, which made me feel that England must be rather big, after all, to have room for thousands of such parks--even much larger ones--and all its great cities--and miles and miles of farms and common land, and mere "country."
When we lived in New York, you and Dad and I, we used to joke about the way we should feel in England if we should ever go to visit Dad's ancestral Devonshire. We used to pretend that, after being accustomed to the vast distances of America, we should be afraid of tumbling off the edge of England; but so far I find that I don't dread that imminent peril. Just now England seems so vast that my only fear is I mayn't have time to reach the Roman Wall.
The Duke's midges bit us a good deal, in the park, so we didn't linger, but went back to Apollo, where Young Nick's remarkable appearance had attracted a crowd of boys and girls from Arundel town. They stood in the road gaping at him, with that steady, unblinking stare English children and French grown-ups have, while the brown image sat motionless in the car, as scornfully oblivious of his critics as if he'd been the idol he looked.
Poor Sir Lionel hates the attention his extraordinary little chauffeur excites, for, in spite of his long expatriation, he loathes being conspicuous in any way as heartily as other Englishmen do. But (Mrs. Norton has told me) he saved Young Nick from being murdered by someone who was a "family enemy." Since then--it was when Nick was scarcely more than a child--the brown image has worshipped the Dragon, and refused to be separated from him. When Sir Lionel proposed providing for him well, and leaving him behind, Nick made no complaints, but began industriously to starve himself to death. So, of course, he had to be brought to England, and his master just makes the best of him, costume, features, broomstick legs, and all.
We had tea in a picture of Turner's: for Littlehampton, with its tidal river, its harbour and pier, its fishing boats and shining sails, its windmill, its goldy-brown sands, and its banked violet clouds, was a genuine Turner. Of course, he wouldn't have painted the Beach Hotel, in spite of its nice balconies, but we were glad it was there, and it didn't spoil the picture.
By that time, it was nearly half-past five, but we had hours of daylight before us, so we stopped for a look at Climping Church (don't you love the "ing" that shows a place has kept its Saxon name?) with its splendid Norman doorway and queer, long windows, shaped like open pods of peas beautifully ornamented round their edges. Thank goodness, there was nothing "perp" about it! I get so tired of "perp" things in guide books.
Slinden we glanced at, too, a most idyllic village, garrisoned with the noblest beeches I ever saw. Hilaire Belloc, whose "Path to Rome" we liked so much, stayed at Slinden, writing delightful things about Sussex. I mean to get and read all I can, because, even in the glimpse I've had, I can see that Sussex has a character, as well as a charm, individually its own. The Downs give it, and make you feel that a true man of Sussex would be frank, warm-hearted, simple and brave, with old-fashioned ways which, with a pleasant obstinacy, he would be loath to change. I heard Mrs. Tupper quote two or three quaint proverbs which were new to me, but Sir Lionel said they were old, almost, as the Sussex downs, and as racy of the soil. I always associated Brighton with Sussex, which made it seem a sophisticated county: but you see, true Sussex--the Downs--stands all independent and sturdy, between the pleasure-places by the sea and the snug Weald.
The faces we passed didn't look like faces descended from smugglers, they seemed so kind and good; but then, of course, smuggling was quite a respectable industry in Sussex, where the secretive formation of the coast clearly showed that Providence had meant it to epict. I love the Sussex downs, I like the Sussex faces, and I admire the Sussex church spires--tall and pointed, covered with lichened shingles.
We stopped at Boxgrove, too, a church adored by architects; and as we went our way to Goodwood the sea was a torn sheet of silver seen behind great downs which the afternoon sun was gilding. Oh, the Lebanon cedars and the views of Goodwood! If I were there for the races, I think not even the finest horses, the most beautiful women, and the prettiest frocks in England could hold my eyes long from that view. I can shut my eyes now--the day after--and see those Lebanon cedars black against an opal sky. Another picture I can see, too, is Bosham Church, standing up tall and pure as a gray nun singing an Ave Maria beside the clear water. It comes back to me from my studies of English history that Vespasian had a villa there, and that Harold sailed from Bosham. Do you know, he's in the act of doing it on the Bayeux tapestry? Once, the Danes stole the Bosham church bells, and the dear things still ring at the bottom of the sea, because the robber ship was wrecked, and went down with the chime, in mid channel. I like that story. It matches the picture and the tapestry.
Our day stopped at Chichester, and my letter must stop, too, for all this I tell you of was only yesterday. We arrived last evening, and now it's nearly midnight of the next day. I began to write just after dinner, sitting in my dear old-fashioned room, and if I don't soon say good-night I shan't get much beauty sleep. To-morrow morning, at half-past nine, we're going on; but before we start I'll scribble a Chichester postscript. So you see, I must be up bright and early, especially as I mean to fly out for one more glimpse of the cathedral--though I spent most of this afternoon in it.
I wonder if you are sparing a few minutes to-night to dream of
Your Audrie?
P. S.--Eight-twenty in the morning, and I've been up for two hours.
You'd like Chichester immensely. I don't say "love," for it hasn't engaged my affections, somehow; but I do love the beautiful jewel of a market cross, and some of the tombs in the cathedral. The cross is quite a baby compared with lots of others, it seems, being only just born at the time Henry VIII. was cutting off pretty ladies' heads when he had tired of their hearts. Several tombs are so lovely, you almost want to be dead, and have one as like as possible; but, though part of the cathedral is satisfyingly old (eleventh century), its new spire reminds one of a badly chosen hat, and the whole building somehow looks cold and dull, like a person with a magnificent profile who never says anything illuminating.
As for Chichester itself, except the market cross, the only thing that has touched my heart was St. Mary's Hospital, surely the quaintest old almshouse on earth. The town has rather a self-conceited air to me, and unless one were wise, one mightn't realize without being informed that it's immemorably old. Of course, though, if one were wise, one would know the Romans had had a hand in the making or re-making of it, because of the geometric, regular way in which it's built. Sir Lionel Pendragon told me that. He seems to remember all he ever learned, whereas ever so many little bundles are already knocking about in dusty corners of my brain, with their labels lost.
There couldn't be a more thrilling road than the road along which we came to Chichester, and by which we will leave it in a few minutes now. Think of Roman Stane Street, and listen for the rumble of ghostly chariot wheels! Then--if you've not come this way for Goodwood races--you can throw your mind a little further ahead to the days of the crusaders and the pilgrims; and to kings' processions glittering with gold and glossy with velvets; to armies on their way to fight; and further ahead, to coaches plying along the Portsmouth road. I wonder how many people in the hundreds of motors that flash back and forth each day do think of it all? I pity those who don't, because they lose a thought that might embroider their world with rich colours.
P.P.S.--I met Sir Lionel, accidentally, of course, in the cathedral this morning, where he, too, was saying good-bye to the most fascinating of the old tombs. And wasn't it odd, we had the same favourites? They looked even nicer and queerer than yesterday, with no Mrs. Norton to spatter inappropriate remarks about.
We walked back to the hotel together, and he asked me, just as we were coming in, whether my allowance was enough, or would I like to have more?
I had burst out that it was heaps, before I stopped to realize that he was asking that question really of Ellaline, not of me. Perhaps I ought to have temporized, and said I would make up my mind in a few days--meanwhile writing to her. I suppose she must be quite an heiress; but he can't be as mercenary as she thinks, or he wouldn't have made such a suggestion.
I'm called! The motor's ready. I'll post this from the hotel.
