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XVI
ANGÉLE, PATRICIAS MAID, TO THE MARQUISE DE MONCOURT

(Translation)

Kidd's Pines.

I take again the liberty of communicating with Madame la Marquise, having as always her interests at heart.

Matters develop after a manner somewhat serious since my last letter. The engagement of this poor charming gentleman to the altogether undesirable Madame Shuster touches a sharp crisis. I had the highest hopes that constant association of some days in an automobile might force a crash, as it was but the spirit of laissez faire and the pressing need of money which led Monsieur into the ambush, as Madame la Marquise already knows. I am not carried on these frequent and sudden excursions which have become a family custom with us; for I was obliged firmly to make Mademoiselle comprehend that I could not in self-respect run myself off my feet to wait upon the numberless ladies stuffed in fashion of sardines into these conveyances. To be the slave of half a dozen bourgeoises does not comport with the dignity of one who for years served Madame la Marquise and indeed indirectly serves her still. I was not therefore acquainted with the events of the tour which followed the two betrothals, until after the return of the expedition; and it was a great disillusion for me to find that the unfortunate gentleman and the less than lady were still in the same relation.

As for Mademoiselle and the millionaire, they also return as they went; but that is not of importance to Madame la Marquise, who wishes only the future high position of her friend's daughter. That will be assured through this marriage. The one danger is that both engagements are bound up together by a singular entanglement. I will explain to Madame la Marquise.

I informed myself of the situation through overhearing (by accident, of course) a talk between Monsieur Moore and Mademoiselle. I knew already that a ring of great magnificence brought back after a special journey to New York by Monsieur Caspian did not please Mademoiselle. In fact she wore it only for a few hours, and on retiring to her room that night threw it so roughly on the table de toilette that it fell on the floor and rolled under the bed. Having engaged herself, she could not in ordinary circumstances refuse to wear the gage d'amour of her rich fiancé, even though three wild young boys, who stay here spending money for love of her, choose to laugh at the size of the diamond and compare it to the headlight of a locomotive. I heard them pretend to suffer pain in the eyes from its intense brilliance, and they even went so far as to manufacture for themselves green shades to tie over the forehead, which gave them a ridiculous appearance and set all the world laughing. No! Mademoiselle was obliged to have a more reasonable excuse for taking from her finger the sign of her betrothal. But she found one without difficulty. Myself, I heard her plead to Monsieur Caspian that for the risks of these tours in automobile a jewel of this value was unsuitable. She requested him to keep the ring in safety not only for a few days but some weeks, as there was question of a longer expedition through several eastern states.

This Monsieur Caspian wisely refused to do, realizing no doubt that if the jewel returned to his possession a further pretext might be found why it should remain there. There was a lively discussion outside the door of Mademoiselle where Monsieur had pursued her, I being stationed inside. Finally it was agreed that Monsieur Moore should place the ring in a safe. And from this discussion all the trouble in ridding himself of Madame Shuster has resulted.

Now I arrive at the conversation overheard by me, after the short tour of three days from which I had hoped much for the unselfish interests of Madame la Marquise. I was in the wardrobe of Mademoiselle on the night of the return – one of the strange wardrobes which in this country they dig into the wall instead of placing against it. I was engaged in hanging up the dresses which Mademoiselle had taken with her (shockingly wrinkled!) when she came – I might say bounced like a young panther – into the room with Monsieur her father. The wardrobe door was open, but rather than interrupt them at such a crisis, by showing myself, I very discreetly and without sound closed it to a certain extent.

This poor Monsieur was in great trouble. Money is for him but something to be exchanged for pleasures of one kind or another. He is not a man to study mean economies, and it is for that he is of an attraction so great for all the world, especially for women. What more could be asked of him for the good of his child than to consent that so beautiful an old property should be vulgarized as an hotel? Money comes in, much money, I believe, but there are great debts. Monsieur had become bankrupt. A percentage must, in honour, be paid to those who trusted him. Alas! however, that was not quite all. Madame la Marquise will remember the last visit of Monsieur Moore to France, and how he persuaded her by telegram to go with friends and see him win great sums at Monte Carlo. Unfortunately after she obeyed, the winnings ceased, and there was nothing agreeable to see. On the contrary! Well, it appears that in New York there are several of these establishments. Monsieur had very good luck before our arrival from France. He tested it too often, however. At these places are men who watch the tables and lend money to players. They demand outrageous interest, and they must be paid soon, or there are anxieties. Knowing the good income from the scheme of the hotel, one of these birds of prey took advantage of Monsieur Moore's impulsive nature. The results were disastrous.

The conversation which so accidentally reached me could not have been the first on the subject. At least one other I had missed, or I should not have neglected reporting to Madame la Marquise. In speaking the father and daughter referred to matters not only already discussed but arranged. I learned that in desperation, through these ignoble creditors, Monsieur Moore had placed the ring not in the safe but in the Mont de Pieté, which here is called the pawnbroker, or uncle. Mademoiselle had evidently regretted it, fearing that the procedure was not honest, but Monsieur had convinced her that, as the jewel was her property, she had a legal right to dispose of it. And indeed, for all I can tell to the contrary, the thing had been done before she was consulted.

No doubt Monsieur was right in his assertion about legality, if the engagement continued. But I learned as I hung up the dresses that both Mademoiselle and her father had reached the point of high exasperation with the fiancé and fiancée. They both wished to break. Yet what was to be done? Mademoiselle could not give back the ring to Monsieur Caspian. Monsieur Moore, who had still other debts not yet settled by the uncle, could not burst the bond which – being known to outsiders – procures him a certain indulgence. Madame Shuster is rich!

They now all start off once more in automobiles; but short of murder or suicide I do not see how Monsieur Moore is to escape his ennuis. I do not venture to suggest any action to Madame la Marquise, but I have again faithfully represented to her the situation of her friend. And I am as always her devoted servant,

Angéle.

XVII
PETER STORM TO JAMES STRICKLAND

Dear Strickland:

These few hasty lines in answer to your question, which, if I'd had my wits about me, I should not have waited for you to ask. No apology do I make, however, as you know as well as I do that my wits are not wool but rose gathering.

I inquired of Moncourt before starting off again whether he had heard anything lately from young Marcel. It was rather a delicate subject to open with him, as you can readily believe, it having been dropped between us by common agreement. He's extremely sensitive, and highly nervous like all great artists such as he is, but I was as tactful as possible, and finally got out of him that he had no tidings whatever for nearly a year. "No news was good news," he had tried to persuade himself, and the last thing he'd heard, Marcel was doing pretty well in the Argentine. When I'd worked up to mentioning the brilliant comet calling itself de Moncourt which has suddenly appeared in French skies, the old boy reflected, then gave it as his opinion that it can hardly be our Marcel who has lanced himself upon this adventure. Unless, of course, Marcel Junior felt it his duty – or his pleasure – to give up his personal interests and join the French Army! That suggestion (mine) struck and rather pleased Moncourt. But in spite of it, we both agree that, considering all things, Marcel wouldn't dare tempt Providence by taking the bold line ascribed to the "rich new American cousin" of the Marquise de Moncourt and her family. Besides, if he were in the army, and on leave, Miss Moore's friend wouldn't speak of him as an American, would she? However, write circumspectly to the man you mention in Paris and try to make sure, as that will be best for all concerned.

As for my affairs, they go vilely. Having sown dragon's teeth all my life I now expect to reap strawberries and cream, so I suppose I can't complain if I don't get them.

Yours ever,

P. S.

XVIII
MOLLY WINSTON TO LORD AND LADY LANE

New London.

Dear Duet:

I nearly said "dear people," but Aunt Mary used to impress upon me when I was small that two could not be called "people." "People" must mean a "company or crowd"; and I used to addle my infantine brain wondering how it could be that "two was a company," if two couldn't be a crowd, yet a company and a crowd were the same thing. Two must be spoken of as "persons" according to Aunt M., and I can't address you as "Dear Persons," can I?

You will judge from this prelude that I have come into Aunt Mary-zone again. Well, I have: we have not visited her yet; but she has been to New York on business and I know just how old I am, how many freckles I have on my nose, that my hair is shades darker than it used to be, and that I must have gained at least an inch round my waist since we saw each other last. As for Jack, she wonders I let him tear about the country the way we are doing. Her opinion is that he would be better off in bed, though she's glad to see him of course. If only I could retaliate in kind, couldn't I be cattish? But noblesse oblige!

Jack and I are as proud as Punch (and Judy) that the travel letters make you both want to come and do likewise. Ah, if you could! But we'll do as you ask: go on as we've begun, and so if possible carry you with us in spirit. I say "we," because, though I do the writing, Jack has been keeping rough, joggly notes taken down en automobile for me to incorporate in my letters to you. We were at Awepesha only a few days after I wrote you last, because Sir George Bingham and his wife, who are distant cousins of Jack's, arrived in New York after exciting adventures in the East, and as they couldn't leave town we went to visit them at their hotel. Just for the first day it was quite a relief to have something new to think of, and not worry my gray matter constantly over Patricia Moore's affairs, but the second day I was dying to know how things were going at Kidd's Pines; and when the time came to join the party (as we had promised) for the New England trip, I was all joy and excitement at the thought of plunging into the vortex again – in spite of the visit to Aunt Mary looming ahead. And then, I'm always happy to be in a car. Not that I love all cars indiscriminately – I don't. I love the one I'm in, and tolerate those that others are in when the weather's fine. In dust and mud I loathe all except my own, and feel they have no right to exist. Indeed, none have quite the individuality they used to have when they were a new breed of beasts; don't you find it so? Nothing ever happens to the good ones. They never break down and sob by the roadside and have to be petted and comforted by their mothers and fathers, as in the dear dead days of long ago. Of course we hated to have them break down then, and longed for the time when they should be improved beyond that stage, but I do find them a little too eugenic now.

Well, to go back to the creatures who haven't improved – ourselves and others.

Jack and I had our auto in New York, so we started from there, as before, and this time met the procession at Rye. Only think, on the way, after crossing the Bronx River we paused a few minutes to gaze at a cottage where Edgar Allan Poe once lived. It didn't look a bit like him, or as if he could have lived there, but we were glad to have seen it. As for New Rochelle, it's as pretty and fresh and fashionable as a summer bride. I always pretend to myself when I read Mrs. Cutting's stories about those dear, human young married couples or engaged girls and boys of hers, that they live in New Rochelle, outside the "smart" circle which only the most ambitious ones can ever hope to enter.

We loved coming on to the old Post Road between Boston and New York, but I've told you already how Jack and I feel about Post Roads, and wouldn't dream of writing the words without capitals. It may be conceited (or isn't it conceit to boast of one's husband?), but I don't believe most of the automobilious travellers we met, evidently native-grown Americans, knew or cared half as much about the history of every mile as did my English Jack. You can guess pretty well by people's faces whether they're saying to themselves, "How long will it take me to get there?" or "This used to be an Indian trail before it was a Post Road"; or "Paul Revere rode this way"; or "Fenimore Cooper once lived at Heathcote Hill and wrote 'The Spy'" (delicious book!); "Here, close by Mamaroneck, is a chimney of the old house where the hero of the story was hidden; here at Christchurch, in charming little Rye, Fenimore Cooper's eyes have gazed on the silver chalice presented by Queen Anne." Fancy the difference travelling with a person whose visage expresses that wild, road-pig desire to get on at any price, and one like Jack, who has the "I want to see and know all that's beautiful" face!

Talking of faces, I wish you could see Ed Caspian's when he motors. He's so anxious to look as if he had done it all before, in a better car if possible, that he's like an image of Buddha reflected in a convex mirror. His cap is quite wrong, too. He thinks it's heather mixture, but it's the purple of a bruise. Peter's is exactly right. As for Pat's – well, a girl's hat should be her crowning glory, shouldn't it? Hers is; and it is becoming to Pat to be sad and puzzled about life. But all this is an "aside." I, too, must "get on!" And to get on, we go through Portchester, which is like melting a map of Poland and a map of Italy, and mixing them together, because there are so many Poles and Italians there. We came to Portchester along a lovely, shady road, and it's really an old place, though it looks new. We had a river to cross named after an Indian village jokingly called "Bay Rum," but they've decorously altered it to Byram; and on its other side we were in Connecticut, which Jack pronounces precisely as it's spelled! These English!

Greenwich was our first Connecticut town, a charming introduction to a new state: highroad and streets thickly tree-lined, and once, when we lost ourselves at a turning, we passed exquisite houses in lovely gardens. There was a divine smell of ozone-haunted seaweed in the air, for Greenwich is on Long Island Sound, with gold-green sedgy shores, and everybody is rich or richish. Surely, though, the people are not "exclusive" in that selfish way I hate, for in this part of the world they can prowl all over each other's lawns; they have hardly any fences. It seems, however, that things are very difficult politically. You can't do your hair in a new way without asking permission! I simply would, wouldn't you? and do it so prettily they couldn't fuss. Yet the really exciting thing about Greenwich is not the way you do your hair or moustache. It is the cottage where (apropos of moustaches) General Israel Putnam was shaving off his when British soldiers rudely surprised him. The cottage is on the road, a beautiful road, and it's a still more beautiful stone cottage, with a flag and two cannons on the lawn. Certain horrid people say he lived at another house, but probably that's because they wanted to get the cottage cheap for themselves! You have only to look at it, to feel that General Putnam must have lived there. As for the creatures who insist that he took a mere cowpath for his great escape, and didn't ride down the old stone steps on the face of the cliff, why, they wouldn't dare repeat it in front of his monument in Putnam Hill Park, I'm sure!

When you get out of a town or village here, in a minute you might be a hundred miles from anywhere, and living a hundred years ago – except for motors; and you can pretend they are insects, if you like. There are sweet, mysterious byways which it breaks your heart not to see the end of, and ponds like the Long Island ponds, which is to say, like broken blue panes dropped from the windows of Heaven.

We took a détour after Coscob (an Indian-named village) because the road was being mended; and there was a little summer settlement called Sound Beach which I should love to have to play dolls in. It would be just right for that.

The big event of our morning, however, was seeing the famous Marks place. Every one is allowed to drive through, so we were not fortune's favourites, yet it was a favour of fortune to have such a vision. There's a romance about the ownership – rather a sacred and beautiful romance of love, and perhaps that partly accounts for the extraordinarily romantic effect of the place itself. Only a man inspired by love could have planned those mysterious flowery openings in the forest of hemlock which borders the lake as forests edge the lakes in the Trossachs. Only a man so inspired could have known just how to use his backgrounds of rock and cliff, or group his irises along the brookside, and mass his rhododendrons in the sunlight, where they blaze like the rose-flames of driftwood. I should hardly have been surprised if the swans floating like great lilies on the shining lake had all begun to sing some wonderful Wagnerian song in chorus.

We were in a dream as we sailed slowly out (yes, slowly, my dear, because motoring folk are kindly asked, "Hold ye speed to two and half leagues an hour") on to the Post Road again, under an arch of elms characteristic of New England, and of pure architectural value.

I could tell you things about each place we glided or tore through – treesy, yet important and city-like, like Stamford, where they make the Yale locks that burglars all over the world have cause to curse; elm-bowered Darien; Norwalk, once a great shipping port for reluctantly banished oysters, managing still to be picturesque because of its pretty common where cattle have a legal right to graze; sweet old Westport, on an inlet of the Sound, dim with elm-shadow; Fairfield, with its beautiful old and new houses, its "village green," and its romance of John Hancock, who risked being caught by the British in order to meet and hastily marry Dorothy Quincy; but then, if I told you all that Jack and I told each other, there would be no room to tell you of ourselves. Besides, the whole thing is like a connected, serial story, in which the Post Road itself plays a leading part. One ought to begin with the early settlers, making the road which is so perfect now; then the Continental armies marching along it in the days when it was (luckily for the fighting Americans) still rough and difficult to travel. In spite of the neat prosperity nowadays, and the sign-posts which tell you everything you can possibly want to know about directions, it is easy to read the faded print of that long serial romance of generations. Old houses tell it, old trees tell it, old names tell it, and the very modernness of the new things emphasizes the heroic drama of the past. Think, for instance, of the boulder monument at Fairfield, commemorating its birth in 1639 and its burning by the British in 1779!

We crossed the river at Westport, and found the scenery even prettier than before. Then, after Fairfield, we came out on the Post Road again, though it called itself "Fairfield Avenue," and presently we were in a turmoil of life at Bridgeport. There was as much noise as in New York, but a hundred thousand people can make themselves heard in the world, especially if they're Americans! Haven't we read in the papers about immense buildings blowing up at Bridgeport since the war began? But we couldn't see anything that looked blown up, or sensational, except the heroes on posters of "movie" theatres – oh, more movie theatres than I thought there were in the world! We tried to listen through the roar and rumble of a big town for gorgeous distant yells of lions and trumpetings of elephants, but perhaps the dear beasts were off on "tour." Bridgeport is only the winter quarters of Barnum, and now we are on the way to summer. By the by, Bridgeport people ought to enjoy themselves in summer, judging from all the yachts and pleasure boats we saw dancing in their sleep on the water.

After Stratford (a most lovable old town, of charming gray-shingle houses, which, to escape loneliness, crowded close to the edge of the elm-shaded road) we crossed the Housatonic. The shores stretched away into mystery, so broad was the river; and the moment we were out of a town, in the country, the scene was like a dream of Indian days, just interrupted by waking now and then at sight of some houses grouped round a common. There was Milford, for instance, which looked as if nothing could happen in its pretty peacefulness, yet it was the hiding-place of a regicide judge who ran away to America after the head of Charles the First was off!

At New Haven, the "City of Elms," we could have turned toward Boston along a fine road by way of Springfield, but we preferred to keep to the charming coast road, and it goes without saying that we stopped to prowl about among the college buildings; also we lunched. "A village of learning and light" the place is called, but of course its village days are outgrown, though the learning and light will remain forever, while Yale lasts. Washington reviewed the Yale students on the Green, which is the historic centre of New Haven, just as the college is its ever-pulsing heart. (I wonder if the dear boys had already invented that lovely Yale yell, and gave it in Washington's honour?) Benedict Arnold helped also to write the romance of the Green by drawing up his company there. The great elms which look down on it now must have seen him and perhaps read his treacherous mind, for they say the elms of New Haven are the most intelligent and learned anywhere in New England except at Harvard itself; and you know that knot-holes are trees' eyes. They don't tell this to any one save their most intimate friends, but Jack and I know tree language. At home in the park we put our ears against their trunks and listen in the spring, when they are most talkative and don't mind telling their best secrets.

The brown and red Yale buildings, restful and interesting, Jack and I loved, and we insisted on lingering to look at them, though every one was impatient with us except Pat, Peter, and the three dear bareheaded Boys. Peter thought the beautiful white library and its surroundings "like a vista of Washington seen through a diminishing glass"; so evidently he has been to Washington in his mysterious past!

If some of us hadn't suffered from motoritis and speeditis rather badly we should have pottered about half the day, but ours is a hard procession to manage. Besides, Ed Caspian hates to have Pat interested in things, because then he's obliged to get out and look at them with her, or risk her in Peter's society. This danger he runs only when he can't run himself. He is so proud of his well-shaped feet that he has his boots made too small, and if the weather is warm it's a real penance for him to walk far. There's really something pathetic about this, or would be were Caspian only a little less bumptious than he is, for if gossip tells the truth, the millionaire of to-day was once one of those sterling socialists who began their career to fame walking the king's highway with bare feet and their spare clothes tied up in their one handkerchief. (How awkward if they had a cold in the head!)

After all the fuss he made about "wasted time," we arrived early at New London, where we planned to spend the night. Something happened there, but I haven't come to that yet. First, I must tell you just a little about the dazzling beauty of the way! I should like to tell you a lot, and force you to stop at every place en route. Easthaven, with trees and a church steeple which almost succeed in reaching heaven; Branford, where Yale College was founded, and where there are the very nicest seventeenth century houses you ever saw —fighting houses with overhanging upper stories where you could look down through holes in the floor and pot at Indians trying to break in; Guilford, prettiest of all the villages on Jack's list of places where he'd like to live (we almost envied Fitz Greene Halleck, the poet, for being born there); Clinton, with its parklike common which reminded us of the Lichtenthal Allée at Baden-Baden; old Saybrook, worthy of its name, and thrilling for its antique shops; old Lyme, the haunt of artists, glimmering white in a grove of elms; Flanders village – East Lyme – where all the flowers on earth were jumbled sweetly together like happy families in every garden. But if I did delay you thus, your poor mind would become like one of these jumbled gardens, full of sweet things impossible to sort. Mine is like that already; but, after all, it doesn't matter so much for me, because Jack has promised to bring me this way once again before we go back home. Then, if I've mixed one village with another in a kind of mental earthquake, I can rearrange my tout ensemble. Impressions of the country, however, I shall never lose or blur disastrously with those of any other part: it is too individual, and makes too clear a picture.

Much of our way was like a private park bigger than any king or emperor in Europe ever owned. Then, after miles of trees with blue, misty vistas hanging between, like painted gauze curtains, we flashed suddenly out to open spaces purple-red with fireweed, and vast, flat stretches of tawny marshland swept with tides of colour, rainbow streaks of amethyst and rose-topaz. The Sound was within sight and smell. Salt perfume of ocean mingled with spicy fragrance from the sunburnt bayberry flung in thick ruglike masses upon bare gray rock, and azure veinings of the sea, stray among the marshes, made strong-growing water plants give out a tang that was tonic to our nostrils.

You may think that such a picture could be sketched in colour along the coastline of almost any country, but if so, you will be mistaken, for all this as we saw it was extraordinarily individual and American. Why, exactly, I can't define, but you will understand, if Monty doesn't. Though you say you haven't been much in New England you know what the soul of America is. Well, this soul, whose first (remembered) spark came from the Indians, was brightened to living fire by the Puritans from over the sea who called the world they found New England. Somehow, the combination is unique, and the same curious sense of personality runs through everything, linking all together as a golden thread might link many different coloured beads. The cedars crowning the hills could be only American cedars. "Joe Pye weed" (whose Indian name is lost, but whose pinky purple colour is ever present) is so patriotic a plant that it would perish rather than grow in foreign parts. The ponds crusted with water-lily pads and ringed round with young trees like children dancing hand in hand seem to sing "We are of New England!" And even the apple trees – immense domed tents of green and pink brocade – are like colonial ladies dressed in their hoop-skirted best.

New London, on the contrary – when we came to it at last – struck us as being like some town of England, or of Scotland. That was only a first impression, however, and a superficial likeness. We soon began to find out the differences, for New London was our night stop, and we had hours before dark to criticise and admire. It hadn't been a long run, as runs go, from New York, and at New Haven we heard motor fiends at luncheon near us in the hotel talk of "pushing on to Boston." Just such a fiend would Caspian be if he could, because he so hates the stops devoted to sight-seeing; but Jack and Peter are, after all, powers behind the throne, or, rather, behind the engines. They don't drive, yet unostentatiously they direct less determined or less firmly concentrated minds. Nobody except your Molly realized that we were to spend an afternoon and night at New London because Jack Winston and Peter Storm wished it, but so, indeed, it was. Nobody but your Molly guessed that a sight-seeing plot was hatching against Caspian and – incidentally – against Mrs. Shuster. Idonia Goodrich had been carefully incited to keen interest in New London because of the Yale and Harvard boat races, and though nothing was going on, she wanted to see the place where such things did go on. Where Idonia goes, the fickle Larry likes to go just now, for when a good-looking girl flags him with the signal, "I'm ready to flirt if you are!" he simply can't resist, which means that where Idonia and Larry go, thither goeth Lily also. As for Pat, she knows that actively seeing sights is her one hope (if any) of escape from Caspian. Consequently she had listened with almost unnatural interest to Jack's talk, before starting, of the principal "features" to be sought out at our first night's stopping place.