Set in Silver
to me yet. I always mix the book up with "Clarissa Harlowe," and so does
Dick, though, of course, he's read neither.
We went to see a lot of things in Bristol, but the best was a church
called St. Mary Redcliffe. Mrs. Norton, though tired, pined to go when
she heard it was famous; and it's as much as your life is worth to deny
her a church if she wants one. The others, except Dick, said it was
worth stopping for; also that they were glad they did; so somebody was
pleased! And Sir L. and E. jabbered enough history in Bristol to last a
schoolmaster a week. I was quite thankful to start again, and stop the
flow of intelligence, because I hadn't found time to fag up Bristol and
Clifton beforehand, as I do some towns.
So we came to Bath, where we've been stopping for two days at one of the
best hotels in England, and where I might enjoy a little well-earned
civilization if it weren't that there are a thousand and one old houses
and other "features" which Mademoiselle Ellaline pretends she yearns to
visit. Of course, _I_ know that all she wants is a chance to monopolize
Sir L.'s society, but _he_ doesn't know that; and my business is not
only to fight unjust monopoly, but to establish a Senter-Pendragon Trust
myself. Consequently there is no rest for the wicked, and willy-nilly,
I, too, gloat over relics of the past.
Luckily for me, as I have had to do more sight-seeing here than almost
anywhere else, Bath is a fascinating place, and I believe it's becoming
very fashionable again. Anyhow, all the great ones of earth seem to have
lived here at one time or another. I wonder if it mightn't be nice for
you to spend a season, taking the waters, or bathing, or whatever is the
smartest thing to do? I've noticed it's only the very smartest thing
that ever thoroughly agrees with you, and I sympathize. I have the sort
of feeling that what is good for duchesses may be good for me; but if I
bring off what I'm aiming at now, Lady Pendragon shall rise on the
ladder of her husband's fame and her own charm to the plane of
royalties.
By the way, in nosing about among the foundations of a church here, St.
Peter's--they found the wife (her body, I mean) of that King Edmund
Thingummy I never could find out about. He seems always to be cropping
up!
I was in hopes we'd only have to go back to the Roman days of Bath, as
that saves trouble; but, oh no, down I must dip into Saxon lore, or I'm
not in it with the industrious Miss Lethbridge! I think the wretched
Saxons had a mint here, or something, and there were religious pageants
of great splendour in which that everlasting St. Dunstan mixed himself
up. I tell you these things, I may explain, not because I think you will
be interested, but because I want to fix them in my mind, as we haven't
finished "doing" Bath yet, and are to stop another day or two.
As for Roman talk, there is no end of it among us; it mingles with our
meals, which would otherwise be delicious; and in my dreams, instead of
being lulled by the music of a beautiful weir under my window, I find
myself mumbling: "Yes, Sir Lionel, Ptolemy should have said the place
was outside, not in, the Belgic border." (Sounds like something new in
embroidery, doesn't it?) "Strange, indeed, that they only discovered the
Roman Baths so late as the middle of the eighteenth century! And then,
only think of finding the biggest and best of all, more than a hundred
years later!"
I assure you, I have kept my end up with my two too-well-informed
companions, and I was even able to tell Sir Lionel a legend he didn't
know: about Bladud, a son of the British King Lud Hudibras, creating
Bath by black magic, secreting a miraculous stone in the spring, which
heated the water and cured the sick. Then Bladud grew so conceited about
his own powers that he tried to fly, and if he had succeeded there would
have been no need for the Wright brothers to bother; but when he got as
far as London from Bath the wing-strings broke and he fell, plop! on a
particularly hard temple of Apollo. After him reigned his son, no less a
person than King Lear. I got this out of a queer little old book I
bought the first day we came, but I assumed the air of having known it
since childhood. There's another legend, it seems, about Bladud and a
swine, but it's less esoteric than this, and Sir Lionel likes mine
better.
I do wish we hadn't to spend so much time poking about in the Roman
Baths, for though there are good enough sights to see there, for those
who love that sort of thing, one does get such cold feet, and there are
such a lot of steps up and down, one's dress is soon dusty round the
bottom, and that's a bore when one has no maid.
If I could choose, I'd prefer the Pump Room, and would rather talk of
Beau Nash and the old Assembly Rooms than of Minerva and her temple--or
indeed of Pepys, or Miss Austen and Fanny Burney. By the way, "Evelina"
was hers. I've found that out, without committing myself. I wish I could
buy the book for sixpence. I think I'll try, when nobody is looking; and
it ought to be easy, for we simply haunt a bookshop in Gay Street,
belonging to a Mr. Meehan, who is a celebrity here. He has written a
book in which Sir Lionel is much interested, called "Famous Houses of
Bath," and as it seems he knows more about the place as it was in old
days and as it is now than any other living person, he has been going
round with us, showing us those "features" I mentioned. He appears to
have architecture of all kinds at his finger tips, and not only points
out here and there what "Wood the elder and Wood the younger" did, under
patronage of Ralph Allen, but knows which architect's work was good,
which bad, which indifferent; and that really is beyond me! I suppose
one can't have a soul for Paris fashions and English architecture too? I
prefer to be a judge of the former, thanks! It's of much more use in
life.
I should think there can hardly be a street, court, or even alley of Old
Bath into which we haven't been led by our clever cicerone, to see a
"bit" which oughtn't on any account to be missed. Here, the remains of
the Roman wall, crowded in among mere, middle-aged things; there the
place where Queen Elizabeth stayed, or Queen Anne; where "Catherine
Morland" lodged, or "General Tilney"; where "Miss Elliot" and "Captain
Wentworth" met; where John Hales was born, and Terry, the actor; where
Sir Sidney Smith and De Quincey went to school; the house whence
Elizabeth Linley eloped with Sheridan; the place where the "King of
Bath," poor old Nash, died poor and neglected; and so on, ad infinitum,
all the way to Prior Park, where Pope stayed with Ralph Allen,
rancorously reviling the town and its sulphur-laden air. So now you can
imagine that my "walking and standing" muscles are becoming abnormally
developed, to the detriment of the sitting-down ones, which I fear may
be atrophied or something before we return to motor life.
Sir Lionel has remarked that Bath is a "microcosm of England," and I
hastened to say "Yes, it is." Do you happen to know what a microcosm
means? Dick says it's a conglomeration of microbes, but he is always
wrong about abstract things unconnected with Sherlock Holmes.
By this time you will be as tired of Bath as if you had pottered about
in it as much as I have, and won't care whether it had two great
periods--Roman and eighteenth century--or twenty, inextricably entangled
with the South Pole and Kamchatka. _More_ tired than I, even, for I have
got a certain amount of satisfaction to the eye from the agreeable,
classic-looking terraces and crescents, and the pure white stone
buildings that glitter on the hillsides overlooking the Avon. That is
the sort of background which is becoming to me, and as I had all my
luggage meet me in Bath, I have been able to dress for it; whereas Miss
Lethbridge has done most of her exploring in blue serge.
In a day or two we are off again--Wales sooner or later, I believe,
though I ask no questions, as I don't care to draw attention to my own
future plans. We were asked for a fortnight, and I am not troubling my
memory to count by how many days we have overstayed--not our welcome, I
hope--but our invitation. You will wonder perhaps why I "overstay,"
since I frankly admit that I'm "fed up" with too much scenery and too
much information. Yet no, you are far too clever to wonder, dear Sis.
You will see for yourself that I must go on, like "the brook," until Sir
Lionel asks me to go on--as Lady Pendragon. Or else until I have to
abandon hope. But I won't think of that. And I am being so nice to Mrs.
Norton (whenever necessary) that I think she has forgiven me the colour
of my hair, and will advise her brother to invite me to make a little
visit at Graylees Castle, where it is understood the tour eventually
comes to an end. When this end may arrive the god of automobiles knows.
A chauffeur proposes; the motor-car disposes. And the Woman-in-the-Car
never reposes--when there's another woman and a man in the case.
Your-enduring-to-the-end,
Gwen.
P. S.--That was an inspiration of mine about the Cheddar Cavern, wasn't
it? I have another now, and will make a note of it. N.B.--Get Sir L. to
take me to see the ruins of Tintern Abbey by moonlight (if any) and
while there induce him to propose, or think he has done so. I have a
white dress which would just suit.
XXVII
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Tintern Abbey_,
_August 27th_
Dearest Saint: We're not exactly living in Tintern Abbey; that
would be too good to be true, and would also annoy the rooks which cry
and cry always in the ruins, as if they were ghosts of the dead
Cistercian monks, clothed not in white, but in decent black, ever
mourning their lost glory. But we are in a perfect duck of a hotel,
covered with Virginia creeper, and as close by as can be. We arrived
this afternoon, and have had an hour or two of delightful dawdling in
the Abbey. Soon we are to have an early dinner, which we shall bolt if
necessary, so that we may go in again by moonlight, before the moon
escapes. I have dressed quickly, because I wanted to begin a letter to
you. I shan't have time to finish it, but I'll do that when we've come
back from the heavenly ruins, with moonlight in my pores and romance in
my soul. I ought to write a better letter in such a mood, oughtn't I?
And I do try to write nice letters to my Angel, because she says such
dear, kind things about them, and also because I love her better every
day.
We've seen quantities of beautiful things and places since I wrote you
last, darling. To think them over is like drawing a long gold chain,
strewn at intervals with different precious stones, through the fingers,
slowly, jewel by jewel. The gold chain is our road and the beautiful
beads are the places, of course. I can say "draw them slowly through the
fingers," because we don't scorch. We are out to see the "fair face of
England," not to scurry over it like distracted flies.
I don't remember many "jewels" on the way to Gloucester from Bath
through Cold Aston and Stroud; but if I were properly up in history, no
doubt I should have noted more than I did; yet Gloucester itself was a
diamond of the first water. I feared to be disappointed in the
Cathedral, so soon after exquisite Wells and the Abbey at Bath, which I
loved. But as soon as I got inside it was quite otherwise, especially as
I had Sir Lionel to show me things, and he knew Gloucester of old. To
me, the interior was almost as interesting as Winchester itself (which,
so far, has outranked all), for the transition from one period to
another is so clearly and strangely marked, and it's the actual
birthplace of Perpendicular architecture. The Cloisters must be among
the loveliest in the world; and there's a great, jewelled window which