Set in Silver
bridges and canal. Then to Exmouth, with its flowering "front," its tiny
"Maison Carree" (which would remind one more of Nimes if it had no bay
windows), and its exquisite view across silver river, and purple hills
that ripple away into faint lilac shadows in the distance. Then we
struck inland, to Exeter, and at Exeter we stopped two days, in the very
oldest and queerest but nicest hotel imaginable.
I wasn't so very happy there, because the Thing I'm going to tell you
about in good time hadn't happened yet. But I'm not sure that I wasn't
more in tune with Exeter than if I had been as happy as I am now. The
scenery here suits my joyous mood; and the grave tranquillity of the
beautiful old cathedral town calmed my spirit when I needed calm.
I've given up expecting to love any other cathedral as I loved
Winchester. Chichester I've half forgotten already--except some of the
tombs. Salisbury was far more beautiful, far more impressive in its
proportions than Winchester, yet to me not so impressive in other ways;
and Exeter Cathedral struck me at first sight as curiously low, almost
squat. But as soon as I lived down the first surprise of that effect I
began to love it. The stone of which the Cathedral is built may be cold
and gray; but time and carvings have made it solemn, not depressing. I
stood a long time looking up at the west front, not saying a word; but
something in me was singing a Te Deum. And how you would love the
windows! You used always to say, when we were in Italy and France, that
it was beautiful windows which made you love a cathedral or church, as
beautiful eyes make one love a face.
This Cathedral has unforgettable eyes, and a tremendously long history,
beginning as far back as nine hundred and something, when Athelstan came
to Exeter and drove out the poor British who thought it was theirs. He
built towns, founded a monastery in honour of Saint Mary and Saint
Peter, not having time, I suppose, to do one for each. And afterward the
monastery decided that it would be a cathedral instead. But two hundred
and more years earlier, that disagreeable St. Boniface, who disliked the
Celts so much, went to a Saxon school in Exeter! I wonder what going to
school was like when all the world was young?
I wandered into the Cathedral both mornings to hear the music; and
something about the dim, moonlit look of the interior made me feel
_good_. You will say that's rather a change for me, perhaps, because you
tell me reproachfully, sometimes, after I've thought about the people's
hats and the backs of their blouses in church, that I have only a bowing
acquaintance with religion. I don't know whether I mayn't be doing the
most dreadful wrong every minute by pretending to be Ellaline; but it
was _begun_ for a good purpose, as you know, and you yourself consented.
And though I have twinges sometimes, I did feel good at Exeter. Oh, it
did me heaps of good to _feel_ good! You have to live up to your
feelings, if you feel like that. And I prayed in the Cathedral. I prayed
to be happy. Is that a wrong note for a prayer? I don't believe it is,
if it rings true. Anyway, it makes me feel young and strong to pray,
like Achilles, after he'd rolled on the earth. And I do feel so young
and strong just now, dear! I have to sing in my bath, and when I look
out of the window--also sometimes when I look in the glass, for it seems
to me that I am growing brighter and prettier.
I love to be pretty, because it's such a beautiful world, and to be
pretty is to be in the harmony of it. Though, perhaps--only perhaps,
mind!--I'm glad I'm not a regular beauty. It would be such a
responsibility in the matter of wearing one's clothes, and doing one's
hair, and never getting tanned or chapped.
And I love to be thin, and alive--alive, with my soul in proportion to
my body, like a hand in a glove, not like a seed in a big apple. But
isn't this funny talk, in the midst of describing Exeter? It's because
of the reaction from misery to ecstasy that I'm so bubbly. I can't stop;
but luckily it didn't come on in Exeter, because the delightful, queer
old streets aren't at all suitable to bubble in. It's impertinent to be
excessively young there, especially in the beautiful cathedral close,
where it is so calm and dignified, and the rooks, who are very, very
old, do nothing but caw about their ancestors. I think some curates
ought to turn into rooks when they die. They would be quite happy.
Our hotel, as I said, was fascinating, though Mrs. Norton fell once or
twice, as there were steps up and down everywhere, and Dick bumped his
forehead on a door. (I wasn't at all sorry for him.) Mrs. Senter said,
if we'd stopped long she would have got "cottage walk," and as she
already had motor-car face and bridge eye, she thought the combination
would be _trop fort_. If she weren't Dick's aunt, and if she weren't so
determined to flirt with Sir Lionel without his knowing what she's at,
and if she didn't make little cutting speeches to me when he isn't
listening, I think I should find her amusing.
The only things I didn't like at the hotel were the eggs; which looked
so nice, quite brown, and dated the morning you had them, on their
shells, but tasting mediaeval. I wonder if eggs can be post-dated, like
cheques? As for the other eatables, there was very little taste in them,
mediaeval or otherwise. I do think ice-cream, for instance, ought to
taste like something, if it's only hair oil. And the head waiter had
such mournful-looking hair!
I never got a talk alone with Sir Lionel in Exeter, because though he
tried once or twice, with the air of having a painful duty to
accomplish, I was afraid he was going to ask me about Dick, and I just
felt I couldn't bear it, so avoided him, or instantly tacked myself on
to Emily or someone. I think Emily approves of my running to her,
whenever threatened by man's society, because she thinks the instinctive
desire to be protected from anything male is pretty and maidenly. She
certainly belongs to the Stone Age in some of her ideas; though her
maxims are of a later period. Many of them she draws (and quarters) from
the Scriptures; at least, she attributes them to the Scriptures, but I
know some of them to be in Shakespeare. Lots of people seem to make that
mistake!
Of course, in the car I never talk to Sir Lionel, except a word flung
over shoulders now and then, for Mrs. Senter sits by him. She asked to.
Did I tell you that before? So the day we left Exeter things were just
the same between us; not trustful and silently happy, as at the time of
the _ring_, but rather strained, and vaguely official.
It had rained a little in Exeter, but the sky and landscape were
clean-washed and sparkling as we sailed over the pink road, past
charming little Starcross, with its big swan-boat and baby swan-boat;
past Dawlish of the crimson cliffs and deep, deep blue sea (if I were a
Bluer--just as good a word as Brewer!--I would buy Dawlish as an
advertisement for my blue. It seems made for that by Nature, and is so
brilliant you'd never believe it was true, on a poster); down a toboggan
slide of a hill into Teignmouth, another garden-town by the sea, and
through one of England's many Newtons--Newton Abbot, this time--to
Torquay.
As we hadn't left Exeter until after luncheon, it was evening when we
arrived; but that, Sir Lionel said, was what he wanted, on account of
the lights in and on and above the water, which he wanted us to see as
we came to the town. He has been here before, long ago, as he has been
at most of the places; but he says that he enjoys and appreciates
everything more now than he did the first time.
It was like a dream!--a dream all the way from Newton Abbot, where
sunset began to turn the silver streak of river in the valley red as
wine. There was just one ugly interval: the long, dull street by which
we entered Torquay, with its tearing trams and common shops; but out of
it we came suddenly into a scene of enchantment. That really isn't too
enthusiastic a description, for in front of us lay the harbour; the
water violet, flecked with gold, the sky blazing still, coral-red to the
zenith, where the moon drenched the fire with a silver flood. The hills
were deeper violet than the sea, sparkling with lights that sprang out
of the twilight; and on the smooth water a hundred little white boats
danced over their own reflections.
We begged Sir Lionel not to let Young Nick light our lamps, for they are
so fierce and powerful, they swallow up the beauty of the evening. But I
do think, where there are lots of motors about, it would be nice if
_people_ had to be lighted at night, and especially dogs.
Now, at last, I have come to the Thing--the thing that makes me happy,
with a happiness all the more vivid because it can't last. But even if I
fall to the depths of misery once more, I shan't be a coward, and moan
to you. It must be horrid to get letter after letter, full of wails! I
don't see how Mademoiselle Julie de Lespinasse could write the letters
she did; and I can't much blame Monsieur de Guibert for dreading to read
them, always in the same key, and on the same note: "I suffer, I suffer.
I want to die."
Well, I've kept you waiting long enough, or have you, perhaps, read
ahead? I should, in your place, though I hope _you_ haven't.
We came to the Osborne because Sir Lionel knew and liked it, though
there's another hotel grander, and we usually go to the grandest (so
odd, that feels, after our travels, yours and mine, when our _first_
thought was to search out the cheapest place in any town!), and the
Osborne has a terraced garden, which runs down and down the cliffs,
toward the sea, with a most alluring view.
Mrs. Senter had luggage come to meet her here, and she appeared at
dinner in our private sitting-room looking quite startlingly handsome,
in a black chiffon dress embroidered in pale gold, exactly the colour of
her hair. The weather had turned rather cold, however, since the rain at
Exeter, so, gorgeous as the moonlight was, she wanted to stop indoors
after dinner, and proposed bridge, as usual.
That was the signal for me to slip away. I'd finished "Lorna Doone,"
which is the loveliest love story in the English language (except part
of "Richard Feverel"), so I thought I would go into the garden. I felt
moderately secure from Dick, because, even if he really _is_ in love
with me, he is as much in love with bridge, and besides, he's afraid of
his aunt, for some reason or other. As for Sir Lionel, it didn't occur
to me that he might even _want_ to come.
I strolled about at first, not far from the hotel. Then I was tempted
farther and farther down the cliff path, until I found a thatched
summer-house, where I sat and thought what a splendid, ornamental world
it would be to live in if one were _quite_ happy.
By this time the sky and sea were bathed in moonlight, the stone
pines--so like Italian pines--black against a silver haze. In the dark
water the path of the moon lay, very broad and long, all made of great
flakes of thick, deep gold, as if the sea were paved with golden scales.
It was so lovely it saddened me, but I didn't want to go indoors; and
presently I heard footsteps on the path. I was afraid it was Dick, after
all, as he is horribly clever about finding out where one has gone--so
detectivey of him!--but in another second I smelt Sir Lionel's kind of
cigarette smoke. It would make me think of him if it were a hundred
years from now! Still, Dick borrows his cigarettes often, as he says
they're too expensive to buy, so I wasn't safe. Indeed, _which ever_ it
turned out to be, I wasn't safe, because one might be silly, and the
other might scold.
But it was Sir Lionel, and he saw me, although I made myself little and