Seeing France with Uncle John Part 4

_Next day._

Oh, it has been awful! How can I write it all!

You see, Uncle has a little balcony, and the sun came out, so he did, too, this morning, on his little balcony. And he saw Mrs. Clary being brought back in an automobile by M. Sibilet and two French officers. Of course Harry was there, too, but that didn't mend matters any. In looking over, Uncle's gla.s.ses fell to the ground, and they were his comfortable ones with the rubber round the nose, and that part broke, too. Edna was taking a bath, and I had to stand the brunt of the whole.

Uncle told me not to dare to fancy for a minute that he cared who Mrs.

Clary went about with; but he did wish for the credit of America that she would steer clear of men like Sibilet. He was much put out over the French officers, too, and said that if he was a French officer he'd go and walk around Alsace until he came to his senses. While he was talking he knocked the water-pitcher over, and then Edna was ready to dress; so he went away while I sopped up the floor.

Mrs. Clary came in right afterward. She has had a splendid time, and she says she doesn't care what relation the old lady is so long as she can have them for friends. She has had no end of fun since she came from Havre, and she says it's a shame about Uncle. She went to a beautiful lawn-fete at a countess's, and she says I mustn't worry over Lee and Uncle. She rode horseback, too, and drove with a coach, and she says Edna must remember that Uncle is always peculiar and doesn't mean half he says. She went to two dinner-parties, and no one would believe that she was Harry's mother. She says I ought not to be exasperated over anything, because nothing in the world can be so exasperating as having a son with a moustache when you don't look thirty-five, and that she doesn't let _that_ worry _her_. M. Sibilet is going to give a dinner for her at the Ritz, and she's going to get a lace dress all in one piece, and she says it was she who told Mr. Edgar that we were coming from Rouen, and that Betty Burleigh is considered very fast, and that it won't take long for her to settle Uncle. I'm sure I hope so with all my heart; but I don't believe he'll like the idea of the dinner-party much.

Mrs. Clary says Mme. Sibilet's chateau is a perfect castle, and that one of the French officers in the automobile was a duke. She says we must be patient, and Uncle will get used to the Continent, just as all American men do. She says they never take to it like women, though. The other French officer was in the ministry once, and counts more than any duke.

Mrs. Clary is always so sweet and comforting, and she is such a nice chaperon, because she always has men enough herself never to be spiteful.

Mr. Chopstone sent Edna back a _pet.i.t-bleu_ that he had the box at the opera, and what should he do about it. Mrs. Clary says for us to go. She says she'll take care of Uncle, for she wants to straighten out her accounts, and she can just as well straighten him out at the same time.

She gave me a long letter from Lee that he left with her, and she told Edna to go and have a nice walk with Harry, and she'd tell Uncle they were both asleep in their rooms. I declare, it's good to have her back.

I feel as if a mountain was lifted off me, and on to her. She says you never dreamed of such fun as she's had out there at Neuilly, and that it's quite absurd--my worrying over little things like Lee and Uncle.

She talked so much that I grew quite light-hearted, and had early dinner and went off to the--

I'll have to write the rest to-morrow. A boy says Uncle wants to speak to me.

_Next day._

I do believe Lee knows better how to manage Uncle than all of us put together!

When Uncle sent for me, I saw right off that Mrs. Clary hadn't gotten him anywhere near all smoothed out. He looked awfully vexed, and he told me he was done with Paris and he was going to clear out at once. He said he knew that Edna and I wanted to go to Italy, but, unfortunately, he couldn't see it himself in that light. Then he paused and said "Hum!"

and I waited. After a little he said that he'd happened to run across two or three things lately that had rather interested him in Brittany, and how would I like to go there. I was almost stunned at the success of Lee's scheme, and I was so happy that I suddenly felt as if I wanted Mrs. Clary and Edna to be happy, too, and I threw my arms right around his neck and said: "Oh, _Uncle_, let's go off together--just you and me--and have a real good time together, all by ourselves. Will you?"

I must have done it _very_ well, for Uncle's face smoothed out at once, and he told me that he'd been meaning to give me Aunt Jane's watch ever since she died, only that it needed a new spring, and he never could remember to take it to the jeweler's. His face clouded some later, and he shook his head and said he wished he felt more security as to Mrs.

Clary and Edna; but then he crossed his legs the other way, and said we only had one life to live, and could I be ready to start by day after to-morrow. I said that I was sure I could, and he said "Hum!" very pleasantly, and I went to my own room and told Mrs. Clary. She was so pleased; she says I am a saint, and that it's too bad for me to miss the dinner. She is going to wear her pink pearls, and she says that she will try to telegraph Lee.

I will confess that my heart sinks a little bit from time to time when I think of trying to bear Uncle all alone for I don't know how long; but I have great faith in Lee, and I know that he'll be somewhere along the coast, and that will be a comfort.

Uncle has been out and bought a Gaelic grammar and the history of the Siege of La Roch.e.l.le, for he says he wants to have some intelligent conception of what he sees. He wants me to learn the grammar, and he says, where he sees to everything, he should think I could do a little trifle like that for him once in a while. When he put it that way, I thought I must try; but, oh, heavens! you ought to see that grammar!

I will write again as soon as I can. Harry is going to take us all to the Cafe aux Fleurs for tea.

Lovingly, YVONNE.

VII

My Dearest Mama: We are _en route_! We left Paris at the cheerful hour of 7 A.M. yesterday morning. No one was up, and there was another train at half-past nine, but Uncle said that, considering the work that lay before us, we had better not begin by dawdling. I do think there is a happy medium between rising at five and "dawdling," but of course I didn't tell him so.

Edna sat up in bed and kissed me good-by. She and Mrs. Clary looked upon me as a cross between the saver of the situation, and a burnt offering on Uncle's altar; but they were all happy, and I didn't care--much.

Uncle mapped out the route, and, as a result, we got down at Chartres about half-past nine. He put the baggage in _consigne_, and then looked about with the air of a charger who sniffs the battle afar. I stood beside him, feeling like Mazeppa just before they let the horse loose.

The outlook from the station is not very attractive, and the first thing that Uncle said was that he didn't believe it was worth while stopping at all, and that he had a good mind to go on with the train; but just at that instant the train went on by itself, so we did not need to discuss the subject.

You see there is a high ridge that runs in front of the station, and Chartres is on the other side. Nearly all the towns here seem to be quite a little ways from the railway stations. Mr. Edgar says it's because the railroads run after their pa.s.sengers in Europe instead of running over them, as they do in America. Uncle says it's very inconvenient, anyhow, and he pulled his hat down hard and said, "Well, let's have a look at the cathedral, anyway."

So we stormed the ridge forthwith, and spread down into the flat country beyond. As we descended the slope, Uncle began to be glad he had come.

Chartres is very modest and mainly one story high, so the Cathedral towers aloft in a most soul-satisfying manner. Uncle said it was "Something like." I was ever so glad that he felt so because he said in Beauvais that something he had read had led him to expect that the cathedral there would be big enough to hold the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in one of its niches, and of course he was horribly disappointed, as a consequence.

We walked straight to the cathedral, and it was so big that Uncle thought we had better each take one side and meet behind, "so as to save time and not miss anything." I acquiesced, because I mean to keep him good-tempered, if keeping good-tempered myself and acquiescing will do so.

We started "fair" in front of the middle front door, and I could hardly keep a straight face as we walked promptly and solemnly off in opposite directions. The cathedral is enormous and just covered with carving, and I was only part way down the side when I saw Uncle coming around the corner, swinging his umbrella in the briskest sort of manner. He looked absolutely disgusted when he saw me, and said in the most injured tone imaginable, "You must have been stopping to look!"

He wouldn't hear to my continuing my tour of circ.u.mnavigation, so we went inside at once, and there I held the guide-book and read the explanation while he kept up a running contradiction of everything I read. I don't see the good of Uncle's carrying a guide-book, for he says they needn't suppose he doesn't know better than most of it.

There is a wonderful carved marble screen around the altar, and a sacred statue with a yellow satin dress on; but being inside made Uncle want to be outside right away, so we left very quickly, and then he studied the Baedeker just long enough to let me notice how all the Roman noses on the kings and saints outside had been turned into Eskimo noses by the rains of centuries; and then he suddenly shut it, and said we would go right straight off then and there and see the famous enamels that Diane de Poitiers gave Henry II. He explained to me that this wasn't the English Henry II, but the French Henry II, and then he asked me which of us had the luggage-checks, and if I had noticed whether the train went at eleven or half-past. I must say it is like doing multiplications in your head to travel with Uncle, but of course I enjoy it, and the walk to St. Peter's Church was very pleasant, through quaint streets and along by little ca.n.a.ls like those at Gisors.

The church was open, and open in more ways than one, for they were tearing up the whole floor to put in a furnace and grave-stones and pick-axes were leaning up against the columns everywhere. There wasn't a soul to be seen, and Uncle was so happy to be able to poke about unconcierged for a while that I sat down and let him desecrate around with his cane until he came to with a start and asked me what I supposed we came to Chartres for, anyway. I got up at that, and we went to look at the enamels, which are in behind a locked bal.u.s.trade and have curtains hung in front of them besides. We had to get a woman to unlock the gate and draw the curtains aside and explain which enamel was which Apostle; and uncle was very much put out over their being apostles at all. I don't know what he expected in a church, but he said he never thought about the church; he only thought about Diane de Poitiers. He says he doesn't think it was in good taste her having anything to do with the apostles, and then he read in the book again and found he'd made a mistake, and it was the king who gave them to her, and not she who gave them to the king, and that used him all up, and he said he wished that he had never come.

I saw that we should have to have something to eat right off, so I said I was hungry and Uncle said that was just like a woman, but to come on.

We found a small restaurant and had a very good lunch, and then Uncle said if I felt satisfied he would take it as a personal favor if we could go on to Dreux. I do wish he wouldn't put everything just that way when I really haven't done anything; but he looked at his watch and found that the time before when he had looked at it he had looked at it wrong and that we had barely ten minutes to make the train. As a matter of fact, the train was going then, but they don't go until ten minutes after in France, so when you miss a train you always have ten minutes left to make it. We took a cab, and Uncle made the man understand that if he hurried it would pay; so we galloped madly over the ridge and just got aboard in time to learn that Uncle had left his cane in the cab and that we'd forgotten our luggage in _consigne_.

Of course the ride was rather gloomy, because there was almost no way to lay the blame on me; but after a while Uncle asked me if I really ever did see such a rank idiot as M. Sibilet, and he felt better after that.

We reached Dreux about two o'clock, and I telegraphed back about the luggage while Uncle looked up a train for Argentan and set his watch by the railway time. He told me that the train that he had decided on left at 3:04 and that we could make it and see the mausoleum "easy." I never contradict Uncle, because it doesn't do any good and does upset him awfully, so I went with him to get the cab, and wondered how long a mausoleum usually took to examine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dreux]

It seems that there are no cabs in Dreux!

I thought that that would end the mausoleum, but Uncle merely swept his eyes over the prospect and said we'd have to walk, and walk pretty prompt. It was 2:10, and we walked fast. The mausoleum is on top of a hill, and Uncle said we could catch our breath after we got to the top.

We never spoke a word going up. I knew that I was too young to die of heart-disease, so I didn't care, if he didn't.

It was a terrible climb, but we reached there at 2:32. It's the mausoleum of the Orleans family, and is modern. There is a concierge who takes you around, and we followed him, Uncle with his watch in his hand and going on like this: "2:40--tomb of the king's mother, eh? Fine old lady! 2:41--tomb of the Duc d'Aumale; good face, handsome decorations on his bosom, stained-gla.s.s windows--all made at Sevres, eh? 2:43--" etc.

You can imagine!

But what you can't imagine is the sublime and peaceful beauty of all those exquisite marble people sleeping there under the slanting rainbow sun-rays of the magnificent windows. They affected me so deeply that, in spite of Uncle, I could hardly keep back the tears. They didn't seem living and they didn't seem dead; I don't know what they were like--spirits made visible, perhaps. The d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans has her arm stretched across, so that it touches her husband, who was the eldest son of Louis Philippe. The king himself stands upright in the midst of them all, and Queen Marie Amelie kneels at his side in a beautiful pose. Two precious little babies are sculptured together on one tomb, and all the while we were going about, the place resounded with the echoes of the chisels that were preparing a place for the Prince Henry who was killed in Africa.

I could have stayed there hours, wrapped up in the mystery and wonder of it all, but Uncle fell down some steps while he was looking at his watch, and we departed forthwith. He said we must walk fast, and so again we walked fast. Of course it was easier, though, going down-hill, and I said, when we were near enough not to be anxious any more, "It was worth seeing, wasn't it?" To which Uncle replied: "Yes, if you enjoy that kind of thing; but all I could think of was the idea of spending such a lot of money on statues and then not having any cabs at the depot."

There was no time to get anything more to eat at the moment, so I just held my tongue until we were safely on the train again.

We reached Argentan at 6:15 and I felt as if I'd been running Uncle, or, rather, running with Uncle, for a month.

The next morning we were called at seven, and I really thought that I could not get up at first; but, I made it at the third try, and Uncle and I were out "seeing Argentan" at eight. At half-past he declared that there was really nothing to see, so we went to the _gare_, and he bought a Paris "Herald." As we were sitting there waiting for the 8:04 train to Couliboeuf, in came Elfrida Sanders and her sister with bicycles. I was _so_ astonished, and Uncle was rather pleased, too. They are doing Normandy on wheels, and they have their tools and a kodak and a small set of toilet-things and four clean collars all tied on to them.

Elfrida says they've had a lovely time--only broken gla.s.s once, and rain two days. The sister is going to write a book and call it "Two on a Trot." I think that's a funny name for a bicycle story. Uncle said to call it "Two on a Tire"; but you know how stupid Elfrida is, and so she said, "Oh, but it's not a tandem." They were going to Couliboeuf, too, but we couldn't go together because they were traveling third-cla.s.s.

Elfrida says they are seeing Europe nicely on less than a dollar a day, and Uncle said "Great Scott!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Elfrida says they are seeing Europe nicely on less than a dollar a day, and Uncle said 'Great Scott!'"]

While we were on the train it began to rain and then it poured. Uncle became very gloomy and said that is just what we might have expected.