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 leaves a gorgeous scintillating circle in my mind's eye, just as the sun does on your body's eye, when you have looked in the face of its glory. Oh, and the extraordinary stone veil, with its gilded ornamentation! I shan't forget that, but shall think of it when I am old. There is an effect as of tall rows of ripe wheat bending toward one another, gleaming as wheat does when the breeze blows and the sun shines.
We heard the choir singing, an unseen choir of boys and men; and the voices were like shafts of crystal, rising, rising, rising, up as far as heaven, for all I know.
Don't you feel that the voice of a boy is purer, more impersonal and sexless, somehow, than the clearest soprano of a woman, therefore exactly fulfilling our idea of an angel singing?
Think of Gloucester having been laid out on the same plan as the prætorian camp at Rome! They've proved it by a sketch map of Viollet le Duc's; and under the city of the Saxons, and mediæval Gloucester, lies Gloucestra--"Fair City"--of the Romans. You can dig bits of its walls and temples up almost anywhere if you go deep enough, people say. It must have been an exciting place to live in when Rome ruled Britain, because the fierce tribes from Southern Wales, just across the Severn, were always spoiling for a fight. But now one can't imagine being excited to any evil passion in this shrine of the great "Abbey of the Severn Lands." The one passion I dared feel was admiration; admiration everywhere, all the way through from the tomb of Osric the Woden who founded the abbey, to the New Inn (which is very old, and perfectly beautiful); in the ancient streets, at the abbot's gateway, all round the Cathedral, inside and out, pausing at the tombs (especially that of poor murdered King Edward II., who was killed at Berkeley Castle only a few miles away), and so on and on, even into the modern town which is inextricably tangled with the old.
There are quantities of interesting and lovely places, according to Sir Lionel, where one ought to go from Gloucester, especially with a motor, which makes seeing things easier than not seeing them; there's Cheltenham, with a run which gives glorious views over the Severn Valley; and Stonebench, where you can best see the foaming Severn Bore; and Tewkesbury, which you'll be interested to know is the Nortonbury of an old book you love--"John Halifax, Gentleman"; and Malvern; and there's even Stratford-on-Avon, not too far away for a day's run. But Sir Lionel has news that the workmen will be out of Graylees Castle before long, and he says we must leave some of the best things for another time; Oxford and Cambridge, for instance; and Graylees is so near Warwick and Kenilworth and Stratford-on-Avon that it will be best to save them for separate short trips after we have "settled down at home."
How little he guesses that there'll be no settling down for me--that already I have been with him longer than I expected! Whenever he speaks of "getting home," and what "we" will do after that, it gives me a horrid, choky feeling; and I'm afraid he thinks me unresponsive on the subject of the beautiful old place which he apparently longs to have me see, because my throat is always too shut up, when it is mentioned, to talk about it. I can't do much more than say "Yes" and "No," in the absolutely necessary places, and generally show symptoms of cold in the head, if there's a hanky handy.