Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis Part 22

AIX-LES-BAINS.

July 6th, 1900.

DEAR FAMILY:

Cecil and I arrived last night tired and about worn out--we had had a month on board ship and two days in the cars and when we got out at Aix and found our rooms ready and Francois waiting, we shouted and cheered.

It was never so beautiful as it looked in the moonlight and we walked all over it, through the silent streets chortling with glee. They could not give us our same rooms but we got the suite just above them, which is just as good. They were so extremely friendly and glad to see us and had flowers in all the rooms. We have not heard a word about Chas yet, as our mail has not arrived from Paris, but I will cable in a minute and hear. We cannot wait any longer for news of him. I got up at seven this morning so excited that I could not sleep and have been to the baths, where I was received like the President of the Republic.

In fact everybody seems to have only the kindest recollections of us and to be glad to have us back.

Such a rest as it is and so clean and bright and good--Only I have absolutely nothing to wear except a two pound flannel suit I bought at Lorenzo Marquez until I get some built by a French tailor. I must wear a bath robe or a bicycle suit until evening. We have not been to the haunts of evil yet but we are dining there to night and all will be well. Cecil sends her love to you all-- Goodbye and G.o.d bless you.

Richard and his wife returned to America in the early fall of 1900 and, after a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Clark at Marion, settled for the winter in New York. They took a house in East Fifty-eighth Street where they did much entertaining and lived a very social existence, but I do not imagine that either of them regarded the winter as a success. Richard was unable to do his usual amount of work, and both he and his wife were too fond of the country to enjoy an entire winter in town. In the spring they went back to Marion.

MARION, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS. May, 1901.

We arrived here last night in a glowing sunset which was followed by a grand moon. The house was warm and clean and bright, with red curtains and open fires and everything was just as we had left it, so that it seemed as though we had just come out of a tortuous bad dream of asphalt and L. roads and bad air. I was never so glad to get away from New York.

Outside it is brisk and fine and smells of earth and melting snow and there is a grand breeze from the bay. We took a long walk to-day, with the three dogs, and it was pitiful to see how glad they were to be free of the cellar and a back yard and at large among gra.s.s and rocks and roots of trees. I wanted to bottle up some of the air and send it to all of my friends in New York. It is so much better to smell than hot-house violets. Seaton came on with us to handle the dogs and to unpack and so to-day we are nearly settled already with silver, pictures, clothes and easels and writing things all in place. The gramophone is whirling madly and all is well-- Lots and lots of love.

d.i.c.k.

The following was written by Richard to his mother on her birthday:

MARION, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

June 27th, 1901.

DEAR MOTHER:

In those wonderful years of yours you never thought of the blessing you were to us, only of what good you could find in us. All that time, you were helping us and others, and making us better, happier, even n.o.bler people. From the day you struck the first blow for labor, in The Iron Mills on to the editorials in The Tribune, The Youth's Companion and The Independent, with all the good the novels, the stories brought to people, you were always year after year making the ways straighter, lifting up people, making them happier and better. No woman ever did better for her time than you and no shrieking suffragette will ever understand the influence you wielded, greater than hundreds of thousands of women's votes.

We love you dear, dear mother, and we KNOW you and may your coming years be many and as full of happiness for yourself as they are for us.

RICHARD.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SPANISH AND ENGLISH CORONATIONS

Interrupted by frequent brief visits to New York Philadelphia, and Boston, Richard and his wife remained in Marion from May, 1901, until the early spring of 1902. During this year Richard accomplished a great deal of work and lived an ideal existence. In the summer months there were golf and tennis and an army of visitors, and during the winter many of their friends came from New York to enjoy a most charming hospitality and the best of duck shooting and all kinds of winter sports.

Late in April, they sailed for Gibraltar on their way to Madrid, where Richard was to report the coronation ceremonies, and from Madrid they went to Paris and then to London to see the coronation of King Edward.

It was while on a visit to the Rudyard Kiplings that they heard the news that Edward had been suddenly stricken with a serious illness and that the ceremony had been postponed.

11, St. James's Place, St. James's Street, S. W.

London.

June, 1902.

DEAR MOTHER:--

This is only to say that at the Kipling's we heard the news, and being two newspaper men, refused to believe it and went to the postoffice of the little village to call up Brighton on the 'phone. It was very dramatic, the real laureate of the British Empire asking if the King were really in such danger that he could not be crowned, while the small boy in charge of the grocery shop, where the postoffice was, wept with his elbows on the counter. They sent me my ticket--unasked--for the Abbey, early this morning, and while I was undecided whether to keep it--or send it back, this came. So, now, I shall frame it as a souvenir of one of the most unhappy occasions I ever witnessed. You can form no idea of what a change it has made. It really seems to have stunned every one--that is the usual and accepted word, but this time it describes it perfectly.

Goodbye, d.i.c.k.

During the summer of 1903 my mother and father occupied a cottage at Marion, and every morning Richard started the day by a visit to them.

My brother had already bought his Crossroads Farm at Mount Kisco, and the new house was one of the favorite topics of their talk. The following letter was written by my mother to Richard, after her return to Philadelphia.

September, 1903.

Here we are in the old library and breakfast over. There seemed an awful blank in the world as I sat down just now, and I said to Dad "Its d.i.c.k--he must come THIS morning."

You don't know how my heart used to give a thump when you and Bob came in that old door. It has been such a good month--everybody was so friendly--and Dad was so well and happy--but your visits were the core of it all. And our good drives! Well we'll have lots of drives at the Crossroads. You'll call at our cottage every morning and I'm going to train the peac.o.c.ks to run before the trap and I'll be just like Juno.

There isn't a sc.r.a.p of news. It is delightfully cool here.

M.

CHAPTER XIV

THE j.a.pANESE-RUSSIAN WAR

During the fall and early winter of 1903 Richard and his wife lingered on in Marion, but came to New York after the Christmas holidays. The success of his farce "The Dictator" had been a source of the greatest pleasure to Richard, and he settled down to playwriting with the same intense zeal he put into all of his work. However, for several years Robert J. Collier and my brother had been very close friends, and Richard had written many articles and stories for Collier's Weekly, so that when Collier urged my brother to go to the j.a.panese-Russian War as correspondent with the j.a.panese forces, Richard promptly gave up his playwriting and returned to his old love--the role of reporter.

Accompanied by his wife, Richard left New York for San Francisco in February.

February, 1904.

DEAR MOTHER:

We are really off on the "long trail" bound for the boundless East. We have a charming drawing-room, a sympathetic porter and a courtly conductor descended from one of the first Spanish conquerors of California. We arranged the being late for lunch problem by having dinner at five and cutting the lunch out. Bruce and Nan came over for dinner and we had a very jolly time. They all asked after you all, and drank to our re-union at Marion in July. Later they all tried to come with us on the train. It looked so attractive with electric lights in each seat, and observation car and library. A reporter interviewed us and Mr. Clark gave us a box of segars and a bottle of whiskey. But they will not last, as will Dad's razors and your housewife. I've used Dad's razors twice a day, and they still are perfect. It's snowing again, but we don't care. They all came to the station to see us off but no one cried this time as they did when we went to South Africa.

Somehow we cannot take this trip seriously. It is such a holiday trip all through not grim and human like the Boer war. Just quaint and queer. A trip of cherry blossoms and Geisha girls. I send all my love to you.

d.i.c.k.