Seeing France with Uncle John

Anne Warner

Seeing France with Uncle John

I

YVONNE TO HER MOTHER

Second day out at sea.

Dear Mama: We did get off at last, about four in the afternoon, but you never imagined anything like the day we had with Uncle John. It was awful, and, as luck would have it, he just happened to go aft or sou'west, or whatever it is on shipboard, in time to see them drop his trunk into the hold, and they let it fall from such a height that he swore for an hour. I don't see why Uncle is so unreasonable; a Russian gentleman had the locks broken to both his trunks and just smiled, and a very lovely Italian lady had her trunk caved in by the hoisting-rope and only shrugged her shoulders; but Uncle turned the whole deck fairly black and blue on account of a little fall into the hold. If Lee had only been along to soothe him down! But Lee is in London by this time. I do think he might have waited and gone with us, but Uncle says he's glad he didn't, because he says he has more than half an idea that Lee's in love with me, and that no girl alive could be happy with him. I wish Uncle liked Lee better. I wish Lee wouldn't slap him on the back and call him "old boy" the way he does.

Mrs. Clary doesn't like it because she has to sit next to the doctor and talk English to him, and he can't talk English. She says whenever she goes on board a liner the doctor always spots her as intelligent-looking, and has her put next to him for English purposes. She says she's made seven trips as nursery-governess to a doctor with linguistic aspirations. The consequence is, she has most of her meals on deck with a man named Mr. Chopstone. Uncle doesn't like Mr. Chopstone, because he says he has a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Chopstone admires Edna. He says Edna could never be happy with a man like Mr. Chopstone.

More later.

Fourth day out.

I've been writing Lee; I can mail it at Plymouth. It does seem to me as if Lee might have waited and gone with us.

We are nicely adjusted now, and Uncle has had his trunk brought to his room, and has examined the corners and found them intact; so now the trunk is off his mind. But he has almost had fits over a man named Monsieur Sibilet, so the situation has been about as brimstony as ever. M. Sibilet is a Frenchman going back to France, but his chair is next to Mrs. Clary's, and Uncle says steamer-chairs are never accidents, but are always premeditated and with intent to kill. He asked Mrs. Clary if she couldn't see that no woman could ever be happy with a dancing fan-tan like Sibilet. We didn't know what a "fan-tan" was, but we all agreed with Uncle's premises as to poor monsieur; and then it developed that there is a Mme. Sibilet deathly sick down below, and Uncle said that he had known it all the time and was only joking.

Edna and Harry are very happy, but they have to be awfully careful, because Uncle says he has a half-fledged notion that Harry is paying attention to Edna, and that he won't allow anything of the kind – not for one York second. We don't know what a "York second" is, and we haven't asked. Uncle plays poker nights, and we make the most of it. There is a nice Yale man on board, and I walk around with him. His name is Edgar. Uncle says he looks as if he had his bait out for a fortune, but Mrs. Clary says to never mind it – to go right on walking. She lies still while we walk, ande talks to M. Sibilet in French.

Uncle says he is the head of this expedition, and there's to be no foolishness. He says it's all rot about a man not being able to see through women, and that Edna and I needn't expect to keep any secrets from him. I do wish Lee was here to soothe him down. He was so furious to-day because he shut up his wash-stand and let the tooth-powder slide to perdition. M. Sibilet offered him an extra box of his own, but Uncle wasn't a bit grateful. He says he is sure M. Sibilet is in love with Mrs. Clary now, or why under the sun should he offer him his tooth-powder? He says he thinks it's disgraceful, considering poor Mme. Sibilet, and he took mine instead.

More later.

Sixth day out.

I do wish we were in Havre, or anywhere where Uncle had more room. The third officer invited him up on the bridge yesterday, and Uncle says you needn't tell him that any third officer in this world ever would invite him up to the bridge unless he had his eye on Edna or me. Uncle says for Edna and me to remember that old uncles have eyes as well as young third officers, and to bear in mind that it would be a dog's life to be married to a third officer. I'm beginning to be very glad, indeed, that Lee took another steamer; I reckon Lee saw how it would be. Uncle says he'd like to know what we took a slow steamer for, anyhow. He says it would have been more comfortable to have all been in death agonies and to have been in Havre by this time. He was terribly upset to-day by Mme. Sibilet's coming on deck and proving to be an old lady with white hair and the mother of monsieur instead of the wife. He says you needn't talk to him about French honor after this. We don't know what the connection is between poor old Mme. Sibilet and French honor, but we think it best not to ask. The truth is, Uncle lost all patience with M. Sibilet the day it rained and pitched – I think it was the third day out. He never did like him very much, anyhow. Mrs. Clary wanted to sit in the wind that day, and she and monsieur sat in the wind until the rain grew so bad that they were absolutely driven to come around and sit by Uncle, under the lee of the port, or whatever it is on board ship. Monsieur lugged Mrs. Clary's chair because he couldn't find a steward, and he brought it around by the smoking-room and the whole length of the deck, with the steamer pitching so that half the time he was on top of the chair, and the other half of the time the chair was on top of him. There was no one on deck but us, on account of the storm, and I thought we should die laughing, because there were forty empty chairs under shelter already. Uncle waited until, with a final slip and a slide, the poor man landed the chair, and then he screamed: "I say, Sibbilly, just take the cards out and change them another time. That's the way we Americans do."

You should have seen poor monsieur's face! Uncle said the whole affair gave him a queer feeling as to what might be in store for us in France. He said if M. Sibilet was a sample Frenchman, he thought he wouldn't get off at Havre, after all.

Mrs. Clary is in lots of trouble over the doctor. He comes up on deck and bothers her half to death, talking English. She can't understand his English, and M. Sibilet gets tired translating. M. Sibilet speaks seven languages. Uncle says that's nothing to his credit, however.

More later.

Ninth day out.

Uncle is in high spirits to-day, for he won the pool. He has been so disgusted because Mr. Edgar has won it three times. Uncle says that's no sign he'd be a good husband, though. I do think Uncle's logic is so very peculiar. He came into my state-room to-day and asked me if I didn't think the doctor was absolutely impertinent in the way he was pursuing Mrs. Clary. You'd have thought the doctor tore after her around the deck, to hear him. He said he expected to have trouble with Edna and me, but he never looked for Mrs. Clary to be a care. He said he didn't suppose she was over forty, but she ought to consider appearances more. He was quite put out, and I am gladder than ever that Lee isn't with us.

We laughed ourselves half sick to-day over Mr. Chopstone. Uncle's port-hole doesn't work very easily, and Mr. Chopstone heard him talking about it to himself as he passed in the corridor, and he went in to help him. Uncle asked Mr. Chopstone if he had a crow-bar or a monkey-wrench with him, and Mr. Chopstone didn't have a crow-bar or a monkey-wrench with him, but said why not ring for the steward. Uncle wouldn't hear to the steward, and so they climbed on the divan together and tried to pry it with Uncle's hair-brush.

The hair-brush broke, and Uncle went spinning, but Mr. Chopstone caught his cuff in the crack, and it tore, and half of his shirt-sleeve with a diamond cuff-link went to sea. At first we all felt awful about it, but he was so composed that Edna said he must be a millionaire, and Uncle said it must be a paste diamond. That is all only preliminary to the funny part. This afternoon we were lying in our chairs and Uncle was standing by the rail looking at a ship. All of a sudden he exclaimed, "Great Scott! Chopstone, if there isn't your cuff!" Mr. Chopstone made just one bound from his chair to the rail, and looked over so hard that his cap fell into the sea. Of course the mere idea of the cuff having sailed as fast as we did all day used us up completely, and Uncle in particular had to hang to the rail for support while he sort of wove back and forth in an ecstasy of speechless joy. Even M. Sibilet was overcome by mirth, although it turned out afterward that he thought the fun was on account of the lost cap. And then, when we got ourselves selves under control once more, Mr. Chopstone explained that what he had thought was that the cuff had caught somewhere on the outside of the steamer and that Uncle saw it hanging there. Edna says that it all shows that poor Mr. Chopstone is not a millionaire, and Mrs. Clary says it proves, too, that it was a real diamond.

It is beginning to seem like a pretty long trip, and Mrs. Clary has started packing her trunk. The little flag that marks our progress across the chart is making Europe in great jumps, and we are all glad. Uncle gets more restless every day, and he says if the doctor don't quit coming up on deck to talk to Mrs. Clary, something will soon drop. The doctor is really very amusing; he says the first officer has a pet "marmadillo," but we cannot see it because it is too anxious. He means "frightened," it seems. Mr. Edgar is very nice; both he and Mr. Chopstone are going to Paris. Lee will be in Paris by Wednesday, I hope, and I most sincerely trust he will keep on the right side of Uncle.

They say we will land early day after to-morrow. I can mail my letters in Plymouth to-morrow evening. Uncle says he's going express hereafter; he says no more dilly-dally voyages for him.

Tenth day out.

What do you think! Uncle took me into the parlor after dinner to-night and told me that he wasn't going to Paris with the rest. He says he didn't come abroad to scurry around like a wild rabbit, and that he's going to stop in Havre for a day or two. He says Edna and I had better stay with him, as he can't think of our traveling with Mr. Edgar and Mr. Chopstone alone. I said, "But there's Mrs. Clary." And he said, "Yes; but you forget Sibbilly." I do think Uncle's logic is so remarkable.

Eleventh day out.

Everybody is getting their trunks in from the baggage-room and running to the rail to look at ships. Uncle won the pool again to-day; he says this is one of the pleasantest trips he ever made, and he shook hands with M. Sibilet when he met him on deck this morning.

Mrs. Clary is awfully upset over our staying in Havre, and she says if Lee is in Paris he won't like it, either. We expect a mail in Plymouth.

Later.

The mail came, and I had a letter from Lee. He is going to Russia for a week, and he folded in an extra piece, saying to give Uncle the letter. It was a funny kind of letter, but of course it had to be a funny kind of letter if I was to give it to Uncle. I gave it to Uncle, and he said, "Hum!" and that was all. He says if Mr. Edgar or Mr. Chopstone stay in Havre he'll know the reason why. I do think Uncle might be more reasonable. Edna has been crying. She doesn't want to stay in Havre; she wants to go to Paris when Harry goes.

Yours with love, as ever,Yvonne.

II

UNCLE JOHN IN ROUEN

9 a. m.

"Well, girls, are you ready to get up and out and set about improving your minds? I've been reading the guide-book and spilling my coffee with trying to do two things at once, ever since eight o'clock. But what your Uncle John doesn't know about Rouen now isn't worth stopping to look up in the index. Why, I've even got the real French twang to the pronunciation. It's Rooank; only you stop short of the 'n' and the 'k,' so to speak. The waiter who brought my breakfast showed me how to do it – said he never saw a foreigner catch on to the trick so quick before. I gave him one of those slim little quarters they have here, and he was so pleased that he taught me how to say 'Joan of Arc' for nothing. It's Shondark —Shondark. I learned it in no time. Well, come on, if you're ready. I've been waiting almost an hour.

"I declare, but this fresh, free atmosphere is refreshing! As soon as you get outside of your bedroom door you begin to get the full benefit of the Continental climate. I presume, if you're poor, you get it as soon as you get outside of your bed clothes. Rather a medieval staircase, eh? And four orange-trees at the bottom to try and fool us into feeling balmy. However, I don't mind little discomforts: all I mind is being shut up on a ship with a darned fool like that man Sibbilly. I shouldn't wonder if his mother was his wife, after all. I could believe anything of him. I didn't like him.

"We'll go to take in the cathedral first; it isn't far, and I've got it all by heart. Thirteenth century and unsymmetrical – you must remember that. There, that's it ahead there – with the scaffolding. They're bolstering it up somewhat, so as to keep on hooking tourists, I presume. The biggest tower is the Butter Tower, built out of paid-for permissions to eat butter in Lent. Rather a rough joke, its being so much the biggest, isn't it? The whole cathedral's lopsided from eating butter, so to speak. I believe it's the thing to stop in front and act as if you were overcome; so we'll just call a halt here and take in the general effect of the scaffolding.

"Now we'll walk around the whole thing. I haven't come abroad to take life with a hop, skip, and jump; I've come to be thorough, and I want you girls to form the habit of being thorough, too. What I didn't like about that fellow Edgar was his not being thorough. When he went down to look at the ship's machinery he only stayed an hour. Now, I didn't go at all; but if I had gone, I should have stayed more than an hour. Good job of scaffolding, isn't it? You see, they make the scaffolding out of young trees withed together, and use them over and over. Economical. Just about what you'd expect of Sibbilly. Those gargoyles and saints around the top stick their heads out pretty interested-like, don't they? But their view is for the most part blocked. Now this cheerful old jail at the back is the palace of the archbishop. I wish, young ladies, that you would note those little bits of high windows and the good thick bars across them as illustrating the secure faith that the dead and gone archbishops had in their loving people. I'll bet there's been plenty of battering and rioting around under these walls, first and last; plenty of fists and sticks and stones. It's big, isn't it? Big as half a block, and things look so much bigger here than they do at home. They slide a roof up slanting and cock it full of little crooked windows, and you feel as if you must tip over backward to take in the top. I vow, I don't just see how it's done; but – oh, here's where we go in. This dark, damp little stone-paved alley is the celebrated 'Portail des Libraires,' so called because those arcades used to be full of book-stalls. We go along on the cobble-stones, ont throw ourselves hard against this little swinging door; it creaks, it yields, we enter – hush!

"Great Scott, isn't it big, and isn't it damp? Will you look up in that roof? I feel solemn in spite of myself; but, then, feeling solemn is no use: what we want to do is to find some one to open those big iron gates, for the most of what is to see is in back there. Edna, you ask that man how we can get hold of some other man. Well, what did he say? Said to ask the Swiss, did he? What does he mean by that? Is it a joke, or can't they trust a Frenchman with their old relics? I've been told that in Japanese banks they always have to have a Chinaman to handle the money, and maybe it's equally the thing in a French cathedral to have a Swiss look after the relics. But the guide-book never said a word about a Swiss: it said 'fee,' and I've got my pocket full of them.

"Well, where can we get a Swiss? I should think he'd be more handy than he appears to be. There's another man looking for him, too. He – Great Scott! if it isn't – no, that is impossible. Yes, it is!

"I beg your pardon, sir, but is your name Porter? Yes? Robert Porter – Bobby Porter that went to the Washington School? Bob, do you remember me? Well, of all the larks!

"Girls, this man and I went to school side by side for eight years, and he's the finest – my nieces, Bob. That's Edna and this is Yvonne, and – you don't say he's your son? Didn't know you ever married. Oh, I'll take your word for it, of course; but, I say, Bob, you've got to come and dine with us to-night. You must; I won't have it any other way. You and I'll have to just sit down and overhaul all our old memories together. Do you remember – but how do you come to be in Europe, anyhow; and what liner did you line up on? We had a beastly trip, – only came from Havre last night, – and, by the way, how in thunder can we get hold of the man who opens these iron gates? Everything in the place is back there.

"Is that a Swiss – that splendid circus-chariot driver? Give you my word, I thought he was a cardinal! How much of a tip is that much gold lace going to look forward to getting? I wish he was plainer, somehow. I'll tell you, Bob; you pay, and I'll settle up later. I certainly am glad to see the gates open; I felt more like a serpent shut out of paradise than I ever expected to feel in all my life.

"Well, now we begin. Who's buried here? Henry II of England, eh? I can't read Latin, so Henry's virtues and dates are all one to me. Which Henry was he, anyhow – the one with six wives or the one who never shed a smile? Either way, let's move on.

"What comes next? Richard-Cœur-de-Lion – petrified, eh? Oh, only a statue of him; that's less interesting. I thought at last I was looking at Richard when he was himself again. What is our Swiss friend hissing about? Heart buried underneath? Whose heart? – Richard's? Ask if it's his bona fide heart or only a death-mask of it? Strikes me as a pretty big statue to put up to a heart, don't you think, Bob? But come on; I want to be looking at something else.

"So this is the tomb of the husband of Diana of Poitiers? I didn't know she ever had a husband – thought she only had a king. I've never been brought up to think of Diana of Poitiers mourning a husband. But maybe she did, maybe she did. They say you must check your common sense at the hotel when you set out to inspect Europe, and I believe it – I believe it. It's a nice tomb, and if they kneel and mourn in a gown with a train, she certainly is doing it up brown. However, let's go on.

"Two cardinals of Amboise kind of going in procession on their knees over their own dead bodies – or maybe it's only hearts again. Well, Bob, the Reformation was a great thing, after all, wasn't it? Must have felt fine to straighten up for a while. Stop a bit; the guide-book said there was something to examine about these two – wait till I find the place. Oh, well, never mind; I dare say a guide-book's very handy, but I move we quit this damp old hole, anyway. I wouldn't bother to come again. That's a sad thing about life, Bob; as soon as you get in front of anything and get a square look at it, you're ready to move on – at least I am.

"What's he saying? Well, ask him again. Whose grave? Well, ask him again. Rollo's! What, Rollo that was 'At Work' and 'At Play' and at everything else when we were kids? Another? What other? Well, ask him. Rollo the Norman? I don't see anything very remarkable in a Norman being buried in Normandy, do you, Bob? When did he die? Well, ask him. What are we paying him for, anyway? Died about 900, eh! And this church wasn't built till four hundred years later. Where did he spend the time while he was waiting to be buried? Well, ask him. I declare, if I could talk French, I bet I'd know something about things. You are the dumbest lot! Here's Rollo lying around loose for as long as we've had America with us, and no one takes any interest in where. Is that the tomb he finally got into? Clever idea to have it so dark no one can see it, after all. I suppose he thinks we'll be impressed, but I ain't. I don't believe Rollo's in there, anyhow.

"Come on; I'm tired of this old church. I move that we go out and look at the place where they burned Joan of Arc, or something else that is bright and cheerful. What's he saying? No, I don't want to see any treasury; I've done enough church-going for one week-day. Give him his money, Bob, and let's get out. You tell us where to go next; you must know everything, if you were here all day yesterday. I want to see that double-faced clock and those carvings of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. They're all over in the same direction.

"Good to be out in the air, eh? I vow, I never was great on churches. What boat did you come over on? Did it roll? Ours rolled and pitched, too. I never saw such a rolling. I tell you, Bob, the man will make a fortune who invents a level liner. I used to try and figure on how to hang the passenger department in an open square, so it could swing free, – do you get the idea? – but I don't know as it could be managed. I was trying to work it out one morning, and I came up against the wash-stand so sudden that I thought I was cut in two; the next second I went backward so quick that the edge of the berth nearly amputated my legs; and then the whole craft arose on such a swell that I swallowed half my tooth-brush. You may laugh, Bob, but I'm not telling this to be funny; I'm telling it for a fact. I had to have the steward in to put the washing-apparatus to rights, and I asked him what in thunder was up outside. He was standing at an angle of forty-five degrees, looking up at me where I sat in the lower berth, and he said, 'If the wind shifts, we're very likely to have it rough.' Just then he took on an angle of ninety-five degrees, and my trunk slid out on his feet so quick he had to hop. I said: 'Have it rough, eh? Well, I'm glad to know, so that I can take advantage of this calm spell.'

"So that's the clock! Well, it's a big one, surely – almost as wide as the street, although candor compels us to own that the street is about the narrowest ever. All right, I'm done; a clock is a clock, and one look in its face always tells me all I want to know. Come on; we can't stand dilly-dallying if we're to get through Rouen to-day, and I must say I consider a day to a town as quite enough in Europe. I know, when I was young and traveled for wholesale shoes, I used often and often to do three towns a day and never turn a hair. I tell you, Bob, when I was —

"Is that the fountain? Hold on; we want to see that! The guide-book has it in italics. I don't see anything to underline, though; looks foreign to me. Come on; we've got to be getting somewhere, or I shall feel I was a fool to stop off at Rouen. Not that I'm not glad to have met you again, Bob; but that could have happened anywhere else just as well, you know. When did you come over? Last year! Great Scott, what are you staying so long for? I bet I get enough in six weeks; I feel as if I'd got pretty close to enough now. Not that time ever hangs heavy on my hands, you know. No, not by a long shot. I'm the kind of man that can always amuse himself. Give me a fair show, – off a ship, of course, – and I'll defy any one to get on better. Take the day we landed, for instance, there in Havre, – rainy, not a thing to do, and every one else off for Paris. You might have looked for me to be a little disgusted, naturally; but not a bit of it. The day went like the wind. We landed at noon, I slept all the afternoon, and in the evening I took a bath. I tell you, Bob, a fellow with brains can get on anywhere. I never know what it is to feel bored.

"What's our Goddess of Liberty doing up there? What's that Indian beadwork around her feet for? Who? You don't mean to tell me that's Joan of Arc? Well, all I can say is, I never imagined her like that. But what are the beads? French funeral wreaths! Great Scott! do they keep Charlemagne wreathed, too, or is five hundred years the bead-wreath limit? Pretty idea, to put up a fountain where they burnt her – keep her memory damp at all events, eh? What's the moral of her train turning into a dolphin? Just to bring the mind gradually down to the level of the fact that it is a fountain, after all, I suppose.