Seeing France with Uncle John

"She wasn't burnt here, anyhow, the book said. The book said she was burnt farther over. Smart people here – have two places where she was burnt, so people must trot through the whole market if they try to be conscientious. Look at that woman, with her bouquet of live chickens – novel effect in chickens, eh, Bob? Strikes me it was an enterprising idea to burn Joan in the market, anyhow – good business for the market. Folks come to see the statue, and incidentally buy some peanuts.

"Well, where can we go now? I say to set out and have a look at the tower where she was imprisoned. Pulled down! It isn't, either; it's starred in the book. What's that? This tower named for her, and hers pulled down! Well, there's French honor for you again. What do you think of Sibbilly now, Edna? I don't want to see the tower if it ain't the real one. I want to see the bas-reliefs of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and then I want to go back to the hotel to lunch. I tell you, this sight-seeing is a great appetizer. The more old ruins and burnings I look over, the hungrier I get.

"Is this the place? Makes me think of a sort of glorified gate to a woodyard. What is it, now? Well, ask somebody! A bank, eh? Are those the famous bas-reliefs? Those! Them! Well, well, I must say the touring public is easy game. They're all worn off. What's the tin overhead for? To keep the rain from damaging them, eh? Pretty bit of sarcasm, eh, Bob? Great pity they didn't think to put it four or five hundred years sooner. I don't see a man with a head or a horse with a leg from here. It lacks character, to my idea. Let's go home. Come on. I've racked around Rouen all I care to for one day."

III

YVONNE TO HER MOTHER

Rouen.

Dearest Mama: It is midnight, and I must tell you the most astonishing piece of news. We came here with Uncle last night, and all this morning we were out with him. When we came home and unlocked our room we found Lee sitting by the window. But he doesn't want Uncle to know. It was fortunate that Uncle's room is across the hall, for I screamed. We couldn't see how he got in, but he says that he has bent a buttonhook so that he can travel all over Europe. It seems he never meant to go to Russia at all; but he doesn't want Uncle to know. He says he thinks Russia is a good place for Uncle to imagine him in. We had such fun! We told him all about the voyage and all about Uncle. He says M. Sibilet's mother is his wife – he married her for money. He says he's a painter. Lee is really going yachting, but he doesn't want Uncle to know. He isn't going for a while, though; and he doesn't want Uncle to know that, either. While we were talking, Uncle rapped, and Lee had to get into the wardrobe while Uncle came in and read us a lecture. When we were in the cathedral to-day he found a man he used to know in school, and he was utterly overjoyed until he saw that the man had a son; and then, of course, he was worried over the son. So he came in to-night to tell us that it he discovered any skylarking, he should at once give up a friendship which had always meant more to him than we young things could possibly imagine. He said we must understand that he'd have no sort of foolishness going on, and at that the wardrobe creaked so awfully that Edna had a fit of coughing, and I didn't know what I should have if he kept on. He didn't go until it was high lunch-time, and I was afraid Lee would have to stay in the wardrobe until he smothered. When Uncle was gone, Edna asked Lee how under the sun he kept still, and he said he nearly died, because so many hooks hooked into his coat and he had nothing to perch on except shoe-trees. I do think Lee is so clever. I wish Uncle thought so, too. He went to his room, and we lunched with Uncle, Mr. Porter, and Mr. Porter, Jr.; and afterward we visited the church of the Bon-Secours and the monument to Jeanne d'Arc. She stands on top, her hands manacled, with her big, frightened eyes staring sadly and steadily out over the town where she met death. Uncle admired her so much that he tripped on one of the sheep that are carved on the steps, and after that he didn't admire anything or anybody. We got back about five, and Lee came in for a visit of an hour. Lee says he had a fine voyage. It stormed, and he says he never was battened down with such a lively lot of people. Uncle came in twice while he was there, but Lee has the wardrobe by heart now, and doesn't take a second. He says the men he's going yachting with are great sport, and he expects to have the time of his life. I do wish Uncle liked Lee, so that he could go around with us these days; he would be so much fun.

We are going to Jumièges to-morrow, Uncle says. Lee says he must take the early train for Havre. He's just been in to say good-by. He brought a cherry-tart and his shoe-horn, and we had ours, and so we had no trouble at all in eating it.

It has raised my spirits lots, seeing Lee. It seemed so terrible for him to go off to Russia like that. Uncle spoke of it yesterday. He said he was glad to have one worry off his mind and safe in Russia. The wardrobe squeaked merrily.

Now good-by.

Love fromYvonne.

IV

YVONNE TO HER MOTHER

Rouen.

Dear Mama: Lee is gone. I do wish he could have stayed longer, but he thought it was risky. Uncle John was sure he smelt cigarette smoke in my room, and although it wasn't true at all, Edna cried and said the wardrobe was getting on her nerves, and Lee said he reckoned he'd take his button-hook and move on. We had an awful time bidding him good-by, for Uncle came in three times, and the second time he had lost his umbrella and thought it must be in our wardrobe. I never was so frightened in all my life; for, you know, if Uncle had been hunting for his umbrella and had found Lee, he wouldn't have liked it at all. Edna volunteered to look in the wardrobe, and I know I must have looked queer, for Uncle asked if I'd taken cold. You know how much I think of Lee, but I couldn't help being relieved when he was gone. It is such a responsibility to have a man in your wardrobe so much of the time. He said that I must try to steer Uncle toward Brittany, because he'll be yachting all around there. He says I must mark places in the Baedeker with strips of paper. He says that's a fine way to make any one go anywhere, and that if Edna and I will talk Italy and mark Brittany, Uncle is almost sure to wind up in the Isle of Jersey. Lee says he wishes he'd been kinder to Uncle in America, and then he'd like him better in Europe. He's afraid Uncle will never forgive him for taking him bobbing that time and dumping him off in the snow. It was too bad.

We went to Jumièges to-day. Uncle found it in the guide-book, and we took an eleven-o'clock train. Mr. Porter and his son were late, and just had time to get into the rear third-class coach. Uncle was much distressed until we came to Yainville, where the train stopped, and they got out. Uncle wanted them to get in with us, and he talked so forcibly on the subject that the train nearly started again before Mr. Porter could make him understand that Yainville is where you get off for Jumièges.

I do wish it wasn't so hard to turn Uncle's ideas another way when he's got them all wrong.

Yainville has a red-brick depot on the edge of a pleasant, rolling prairie, but there is a little green omnibus to hyphenate it with Jumièges. We were a very tight fit inside, for of course we could only sit in Uncle's lap, and he didn't suggest it, so I had to hold Edna; and Mr. Porter and his son knew Uncle well enough not to suggest taking her. I thought that we should never get there; and it was so tantalizing, for the country became beautiful, and we could only see it in little triangular bits between shoulders and hats. Young Mr. Porter wanted to get out and walk, but Uncle said, "Young man, when you are as old as I am, you will know as much as I do," so he gave up the idea. I do believe we were cooped up for a solid hour before we finally rolled down a little bit of a hill into a little bit of a village, and climbed stiffly out into the open air.

We all had to cry out with wonder and admiration then, it was really so wonderful. On one side were the hills, with the Seine winding off toward Paris; and on the other side was the wood, with the ragged ruins of the abbey-church walls towering up out of the loftiest foliage. Uncle thought we had better go and see all there was to be seen directly, so we walked off down the little road with a funny feeling of being partly present and partly past, but very well content.

The story goes that one of the ancient French kings took two young princes of a rival house, crippled them, put them on a boat, and set them afloat at Paris. They drifted down the current as far as this spot, and here they were rescued. They founded a monastery in gratitude, and their tomb was in the church, which is now in ruins. Later we saw the stone, with their effigies, in the little museum by the gate. They were called "Les Deux Enervés," in reference to their mutilation. Uncle thought the word meant "nervous," and we heard him say to Mr. Porter, "Well, who wouldn't have been, under the circumstances?" The whole of the abbey is now the private property of a lady who lives in a nice house up over back beyond somewhere. She built the lodge, and also a little museum for relics from the ruins, and has stopped the wholesale carrying off of stones from the beautiful remnants of what must have once been a truly superb monument. I am sure I shall never in all my life see anything more grand or impressive than the building as it is to-day. It is much the same plan as the cathedral at Rouen, only that that has been preserved, and this has been long abandoned. It is so curious to think of the choir which we saw yesterday, with its chapels and stained glass, and then to compare it with this roofless and windowless one, out of the tops of the walls of which fir-trees – big ones – are growing. You don't know what a strange sensation it is to see trees growing out of the tops of ruined walls the foundations of which were laid by Charlemagne's relatives. Edna and I felt very solemn, and Uncle was quiet ever so long, and then only said, "I vow!" The grass is growing in the nave and transept, and the big carved pediments stick up through the turf here and there, with moss and lichen clinging to the shadowy sides. The rows of pillars are pretty even, and the set of big arches above are mostly all there still. There were a third and a fourth gallery above, and although they are fallen away in places, still you can see exactly how it used to be. When you look away up to the fourth tier of columns, the main walls of the nave are still soaring higher yet; and when you follow the sky-line of their vastness, you see the two mighty towers rising, rising, straight up toward heaven, with the rooks whirling and circling about them and screaming in the oddest, most awfully mournful manner. I'm sure I shall never feel the same way again, not even if I live to be a thousand years old myself. I felt overcome; I felt a way that I never felt before. I don't know what I felt.

Uncle was delighted; he sighed with satisfaction. "This is the real thing," he said to Mr. Porter; "I like this. You can see that there's been no tampering with this ruin." Mr. Porter looked up at the sky above and said: "I should say that there had been considerable tampering with this ruin. I will take my oath that the whole of the little town yonder was built with the stone taken from these walls and those of the monastery buildings."

Uncle is getting very nervous over Mr. Porter, Jr., because he walks around with Edna so much; so we were not allowed out of his sight during the visit, and didn't explore half as much as we wanted to. The little museum was really very interesting, and had the tombstone of one of Joan of Arc's judges. I feel very sorry for Joan's poor judges. They had to do as they were bid, and have been execrated for it ever since.

We came home late in the afternoon, and Mr. Porter found a telegram calling him to Brussels on business, so he and his son said good-by hurriedly and took a half-past-six train. Uncle said at dinner that it was a strange thing to see how, after forty-five years of seeing the world, a man could still be the same as when one had to do all his sums for him at school. We absorbed this luminous proposition in silence, and then Uncle looked severely at Edna and said that at the rate that things were progressing he wouldn't have been surprised to have had a John Gilpin in the family any day. We were struck dumb at this threat or prophecy or whatever was intended, and went meekly to bed. Edna had a letter from Lee and I had one from Harry. Lee didn't dare write me and Harry didn't dare write Edna because of Uncle. But they each sent the other their love.

Uncle wants to go to Gisors to-morrow.

P. S. I must add a line to tell you that Mrs. Braytree and the four girls have arrived. They saw Uncle on the stairs coming up, and all came straight to our room. They landed yesterday, and had a real good passage, only Eunice fell out of the berth and sprained her wrist. She has it in a sling. They had a hard time arranging about the dog, as the hotel didn't want him in the rooms. He is one of those dogs that look scratchy and whiny at the first glance. Mrs. Braytree has lost her keys, so she sat with us while the hotel people got a man to open her trunks. She says she's in no hurry to unpack, for she had so many bottles she's almost positive one cork at least must have come out. They entirely forgot to bring any hairpins and suffered dreadfully on shipboard on that account. They had trouble with one of their port-holes too, and Mrs. Braytree and Uncle are both going to carry crowbars at sea hereafter.

They are going to stay here a week. It's so nice to meet some one from home!

Always yours lovingly,Yvonne.

V

UNCLE JOHN EN ROUTE

Rouen.

"Come on, girls, this is quite an expedition. I vow I shook a little when Mrs. Braytree suggested coming, too. Seven women to one man would be too many for comfort as a general thing; but your Uncle John never shows the white feather, so I only drew the line at the dog. Why the devil five women want to travel with one dog and eight trunks I can't see; but if I was Mrs. Braytree, I'd probably know more about it. Curious little creature, the cross-eyed one, isn't she? And that Pauline – always wanting to be somewhere else. I told her pretty flatly at dinner that if she couldn't get any more fun out of Rouen than by wishing it was St. Augustine, she'd better have stayed in New York. Anything but these fault-finders.

"Well, ain't you ready? I've sent the luggage along, and it seems to me that we ought to be following its good example. Lord knows, two days is enough to waste in an old hole like Rouen; I was wondering last night what we ever came for. I never was so cold anywhere in my life, and sleeping on a slope with a pillow on your feet isn't my idea of comfort at night, anyhow. I don't understand the moral of the scheme, and the pillow keeps sliding, and I keep swearing, all night long. Also, I can't learn to appreciate the joy of standing on a piece of oil-cloth to wash. I must say that one needs to wear an overcoat and ear-muffs to wash here, anyhow. I was dancing under the bell-rope and ringing for hot water a good half-hour this morning. I'm going to write and have the asterisk subtracted from this hotel.

"Well, come on, if you're ready. Whose umbrella is that getting left by the door? Mine? I vow, I didn't remember putting it down. But no one can think of everything. Edna, is this soap yours? No? Well, I just asked. I seem to have left mine somewhere, and it's live and learn. Come on! come on!

"Good morning, Mrs. Braytree – Eunice – Emma – Pauline – Augusta. I reckon we'd better be hustling along pretty promptly. The train doesn't go until five minutes after the time, if we don't hurry. It's truly a pleasure having you join us, Mrs. Braytree. A little excursion like this makes such a pleasant break in the routine of sight-seeing, I think, and these quaint old – there, all get out now, I have the money. I'll take the tickets; we're all full-fare, aren't we? Or – how old is the little cross-eyed one? I beg your pardon, Mrs. Braytree, but I had to know in a hurry.

"There, come on! come on! Squeeze through. Se – ven women and one man. Hurry! we want a compartment, here – no, there. Run, Edna, and get ahead of that old lady; here's two umbrellas to throw crossways, and then you can tell her there's no room, and the law will uphold you. You look surprised, Mrs. Braytree, but I learned that little trick coming from Havre. I tell you, by the time I get to Paris I'll be on to every kind of game going. I learn fast – take to Europe as a duck takes to water, so to speak.

"Well, we're off for Gisors. Great pleasure to have you with us, Mrs. Braytree; no more work to steer seven – Good Lord! there aren't but six here! Who isn't here? Edna's gone! What is it, Yvonne? I sent her ahead, did I? Oh, so I did, so I did. And of course she is waiting for us. Poor child! I hope she's not worried. As soon as we get out of the tunnel I'll hang out of the window and holler to her. Very convenient method of talking to your friends aboard, Mrs. Braytree; only I should think a good many would lose their heads as a consequence. However, as the majority of the heads would be foreigners', I don't suppose it would matter much in the long run.

"Speaking of Gisors, Mrs. Braytree, it's really a very interesting place – according to the guide-book. As far as I'm personally concerned, I'd be willing to take the time to go there to learn how to pronounce it. The workings of the mind which laid out the way to speak French don't at all jibe with the workings of the mind which laid out the way to spell it – not according to my way of thinking. There's that place which we've just left, for instance, – 'Ruin' as plain as the nose on your – on anybody's face, – and its own inhabitants can't see it – pronounce the R in a way that I should think would make their tongues feel furry, and then end up as if, on second thought, they wouldn't end at all.

"Yvonne, I wish you'd hang out and see if you see any of Edna hanging out. I declare, this is a very trying situation to be in. You don't know what a trip I had, Mrs. Braytree, trying to keep track of these girls; and since we landed – well, I just had to call a halt in Havre and come off alone. Curious place, Havre, don't you think? See any one you knew there? We – who did you say? Why, that can't be, he's in Russia. Yvonne, didn't that young reprobate write you he was going to Russia? Yes, I thought so. Well, Mrs. Braytree says she saw him in Havre. Good joke his not knowing we were in Rouen; he'd have been down there in a jiffy, I'll bet anything. But your Uncle John is a rather tough customer to handle, and I expect that young man knows the fact, and so thought it best to give Rouen a wide berth. Not that I have anything in particular against young Reynolds, only I don't consider that any girl could be happy with him. And it's foolish to have a man around unless you can make him happy – I mean unless he can make you happy. My wife was very happy up to the time she developed melancholia – a sad disease, Mrs. Braytree. Yvonne, I wish you'd hang out and see if you can see anything of Edna.

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