Seeing France with Uncle John Part 5

I didn't expect rain, and I didn't see why I should have expected it, so I only nodded. Uncle didn't like my nodding, and said I shouldn't take such a pessimistic view of life at my age. While he was talking I suddenly remembered the umbrella and asked him where it was, and he had left it in Argentan! Then there was no more conversation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Falaise]

We had to change cars at Couliboeuf, and we reached Falaise about noon.

Elfrida and her sister got right on to their wheels and b.u.mped gaily away over the cobblestones at once. The rain was over and the sun was shining, but Uncle said he had lost all faith in France and wanted to buy another umbrella the very first thing. We went to a store, and he said to buy a cheap one, as I would be sure to lose it. I asked for a cheap one, but the woman was quite indignant and said that she did not keep any cheap umbrellas--that the lowest she had was two francs--forty cents. I had to translate it to Uncle, and he was so amused that he bought one for three francs and gave a franc to her baby that was tied in a high chair by the window.

Then we took a cab to the castle and paid the man at the entrance and let him go. There is a lovely sloping road that follows the curve of the outer wall up to the summit of the hill, and we forgot how tired we were in thinking how pretty it was. These old castle enclosures are all so big. This one contains a college at one end, and then there is quite a wood which you must walk through before you come to the castle itself at the other end.

The castle is wonderful. It is splendid and big and old and strong and Norman. It is built out of the red rock, and it has...o...b..iettes and wells and pits and towers and everything of the kind that heart could wish to see. We saw the room where Prince Arthur was imprisoned for seven years and the room where William the Conqueror was born. It's a very little room in which to have had such a wonderful thing happen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Paid the man at the entrance and let him go."]

Uncle enjoyed the castle immensely; he took the deepest interest in every inch of it, and when the concierge showed us the window from which Robert the Devil first saw Arlette, he planted himself firmly inside it and I almost thought that he was going to stay there forever. My feet ached so that I was glad enough to lean up anywhere for a minute, and I honestly believe that it was ten before he moved. Then he gave himself a little shake and said: "Well to think of owning this place, and being able to stand in a window as high up as that one, and then to look down as far as that well is, and then only to need to say, 'Bring her up!'

and to know she'd got to come! Great Scott! No wonder their son conquered England. I'm only surprised that he didn't wipe Europe off the face of the continent!" Then he shook his head for quite a little while, and we got under way again and went to Talbot's Tower.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The coming down was awful"]

It's high, and Uncle wanted to climb it. I didn't mind his climbing it, but he wanted me to climb it, too, and some one was ringing the bell, so the concierge had to leave us and go back before anything was settled. Uncle said it was rather hard when he was doing so much to try and finish me up (he meant "finish me off," I think), for me to be so lukewarm about being finished so I started in to climb, although my knees felt like crumpled tissue-paper. [1]The steps were so worn that it was awful work and Uncle would go up as far as anyone could. He had the umbrella and I had the candle and often we had to step two and even three steps at once. When we came to the place where the steps ended, he stood and peeked out of a window (imagining himself Lord Talbot, I reckon--) and then we started back. The coming down was awful,--I was honestly frightened. Uncle went first and I stepped on his coat twice and spilt candle-grease on his hat. Uncle found it easier coming down than going up, and it wasn't until we reached the bottom that we discovered that the reason why was because he had left the umbrella behind and so had two hands to hold on by. I said, "Never mind, it only cost sixty cents"; but he was not to be comforted, and said bitterly, "You forget the franc that I gave her baby." I would have gone back for it, but I felt so hot and tired.

[1] The author begs the reader's lenient consideration as to this description of Talbot's Tower. The story was written from notes taken five years ago, since which time the tower has undergone a thorough restoration.

We came to Caen this noon, and went to bed, and I don't believe we shall ever get up again. Uncle said that with my kind permission he would suggest that I should not disturb him, and heaven knows that I have no desire to. I telegraphed Mrs. Clary about mail, and then I went to sleep and I slept until just now.

I never was so near dead in all my life; but you mustn't think for a minute that I'm not having a lovely time, for I am, and it was so kind of Uncle to bring me. Now good-by, and with much love,

Yours, YVONNE.

VIII

UNCLE JOHN PARALYZED

"Come in! Come on! Well, don't you hear? Can't you understand any--Oh, it's you, child. I thought it was one of those darned waiters.

"Sit down; pull up a chair by the bed. It's so long since I sent for you that I just about thought that you were not coming. I suppose you were surprised at my sending for you; but it was the only way to do. It's a hard thing to break to you, Yvonne; but you'd have to know in the course of the day, and I always do everything right off that I've not decided to wait and see about. Now don't look frightened, my dear; n.o.body's _dead_--it's only that I'm paralyzed!

"There, what do you think of that? Yes, it's true for a fact. My legs! I had some premonitory symptoms yesterday going up that cursed old tower, and I had some very advanced ones coming down from it; and this morning, when I started to shave, the truth just burst in my face. Now, don't try to say anything, for I've read too many patent-medicine advertis.e.m.e.nts not to recognize paralysis when I feel it up and down the back of my own legs. I'm not the man not to know my own feelings, and I want to tell you that when I got up this morning I couldn't stand up, and then, after I stood up, I couldn't sit down; and if that isn't a clear case of having completely given out, I don't know what you would call it.

"Now, my dear, the question is, what's to be done? Of course our travels have come to a full stop, for I shall probably never walk again. The curious thing is that I don't feel any particular inclination ever to walk again. You've no conception of the sentiments that I feel in my legs; but if you roll the fatigue of a lifetime into either the left or the right, you can get some faint inkling of the first freshness of paralysis. I tell you, Yvonne, it is awful. Every cobblestone I've gone over seems to be singing in my calves; but that's neither here nor there. What I want you to do is to go to the pocket of my valise get out the cable-code book and look out a word that means 'Both legs paralyzed.

What shall I do with the girls?' You'll find a word that means it, if you look long enough. They've got forty pages of words that mean every fool thing on earth from 'It's a boy' to 'Impossible to lend you ten dollars.' I was reading it over in Paris the other day while I waited for my money at the bank.

"Well, ain't you going to get the code-book? I don't want to be impatient, but I want some one to be doing something. You don't know how restless it makes me to think of lying still for the rest of my life.

While I was waiting for you, I was thinking that probably I shall live right here in Caen till I die. I'm very glad we got here too late to see anything, because now I can take it bit by bit and drag it out through my remaining days. I shall have a wheeling-chair and a man to push me around, and--well, maybe it's in the little outside pocket. I know I had it in Paris, anyhow; I remember I was just reading that 'salsify' means 'Your mother-in-law left by the ten o'clock train,' and that 'salsifry'

means that she didn't, when they brought me my money, and I was free to go.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I'm happy that it will be out of the question for me ever to travel again.'"]

"Well, now you've got it. I thought maybe it would be in the little valise all the time. Seems to me the sicknesses begin with 'Salt.' I remember 'Saltfish' means 'have got smallpox; keep away,' and 'Saltpetre' means 'have got a cold; come at once.' You look along there and find 'paralysis.' I'll just keep quiet while you're looking. I'd better be learning to keep quiet. Keeping quiet must be the long suit of the paralyzed, I should fancy. But you see what it is now to be an optimist. Here's my life practically over all of a sudden, and, instead of being blue, I'm as cheerful as a cricket. No need of fussing over the candle-grease on my hat now, for I shall never wear a hat again, I shall wear a soft felt tied over my ears with a plaid shawl as they always do in rolling-chairs; as for the umbrella, I'm actually glad I left it. It would only have been an aggravation to have seen it lying around. But all the same I can't see why you didn't notice it lying down there. It must have been in plain sight,--I remember pointing over at Mont Mirat with it, and saying the rock looked as if it had been dropped there from above. Yvonne, I tell you when I think of all we did these last two days I feel perfectly content to be paralyzed. I'm glad to think that I've got such a good excuse to stay right in bed; I'm happy that it will be out of the question for me ever to travel again. I feel as if I've traveled enough to last me forever; I actually don't want to see anything more. No more catching trains and climbing castles for your Uncle John--not in his life. You can put the Baedeker in the fire right now--I never want to see a red cover or a green string or an index again as long as I live. What's that? No, I sha'n't want it to look over and recall things by; I can recall more than I want to just by the way I feel. I don't need any guide-book to remember what I've been through since I left Paris. I remember too much. I remember so much that I am rejoiced to think that muscles over which I have no control will prevent my having to go out to-day and see anything else. It seems a little hard to think of having sight-seen so hard that you never want to see another sight, but I'm perfectly content. And I don't want a doctor, either; I've no faith in French doctors. It would be just like one to hypnotize me and set me going again, and I don't want to go. I want to lie right here, and I thank the Lord that I have money enough to allow me to lie here forever, if I feel like it. I was thinking this morning what a horrible existence a tramp must lead--always going on to new places.

Thank Heaven, I can just settle down in this old one and stay on indefinitely. I want you to go down to the office and ask what rate they'll make for this room by the year. I want this same room right along. It's the first restful spot I've struck since my trunk went smash into that ship. Yvonne, did you notice the way they handled those trunks when we landed--as if they were eggs? I tell you, the baggage system at home is a burning disgrace. That's one reason I like Europe so--it's quiet and peaceful. I heard some goats go by this morning; I'd like to know a hotel in America where you can listen to a goat. And then that wallpaper, what a tranquil pattern--a basket of sunflowers upside down alternately with a single palm upside up! What a contrast to the paper on that room I sailed from! It looked more like snakes doing physical culture than anything else.

"Yvonne, I was thinking it all over as I lay here this morning waiting for you, and the truth is, we've been traveling too fast. I wanted you to see all there was to see, and I overlooked myself completely. Don't feel badly, child, because I know you never meant it; but it _is_ the truth, and, as a consequence, here I lie paralyzed. Yes, we've been traveling too fast. It's the vice of the American abroad; it's the terrible secret drain upon the strength of our better cla.s.ses. We come over to rest, and if we don't do two countries a week we feel we've wasted our money. The idea of leaving Paris in the morning and doing Chartres and Dreux and getting to Argentan that night! Why, Hercules himself would have been used up. And then that castle at Falaise. But I'm not sorry that I went to Falaise. No, I'm not sorry. Yvonne, there was something about that castle that I'll never get over. I tell you those were the days to live in! I was thinking about it while I was waiting for you this morning. Will you consider what it must have been to put on a suit that you couldn't be punched through, and then get out with an ax that faced two ways and have full freedom to hack at people you hated. I tell you, child, I should have been one of those who barricaded themselves behind the dead bodies they had killed and kept right on firing over the top. And to-day my armor would be hanging up somewhere all full of dents and rusty blood-stains, and I'd be a sight in some cathedral with your Aunt Jane wearing a funnel and an accordion beside me. We'd both be in marble, of course, some worn by time and some chipped by tourists--ah, well!

"Can't you find anything suitable in that code-book? Here, I've been waiting a quarter of an hour for you to hunt--hand me the book. I remember 'Sh.e.l.l' is 'have broken my left leg,' and 'Sh.e.l.l-fish' is 'have broken my right leg,' and 'Shawl' is--wait a bit--keep still, Yvonne; no one in the wide world can study a code and listen at the--

"Oh, well, I'll leave it till to-night. Not that I'm irritated at your interruption, for I never let anything ruffle me, and when you write home the first thing I want you to tell your mother is that being paralyzed has not changed me one particle. Same even disposition, same calm outlook on life, same disinclination to ever bother anyone. I want you to make them understand in particular how cheerful I am. Some men would turn cynical at waking up paralyzed, but not me. I feel as if I might get about quite a little in Caen, maybe even get to Falaise again some time; but you can bank on one thing, and that is that if I ever go back to Falaise I won't go up that tower again. I was wondering this morning as I lay here waiting for you how in thunder you were holding that candle to spill so much grease on my hat. You can't say that you didn't know I was there, for every second step you took your foot hit me in the small of the back. You ought to have gone first, anyhow. I know the rule is for a man to go first going down a staircase, but I don't call that business we were on any staircase; it was more like a series of cascades with us forming the merry, leaping, part. I tell you what, Yvonne, the next time it's up to your Uncle John to play the chamois that springs from crag to crag over an old middle-aged staircase while his niece pours candle-grease on his hat, you can excuse me.

"What I like is clean, open-to-the-day-light ruins like that old one at Jumieges! No peril, no anxiety--all on a level, and time to look up at what wasn't. I tell you, I wouldn't have missed seeing Jumieges for anything. I was thinking this morning as I lay here waiting for you that I have a good mind to write a book about my travels, and that when I do I shall have the frontispiece, me in front of Jumieges. I could take an artist down there on purpose, and while he wasn't doing me, I could look it all over again. Maybe I could go there alone with a kodak and get a satisfactory frontispiece, only those rocks were so thick that most people would think it was a defective plate. I shouldn't like to have them think that, for if I was going to have a book at all, I should have it in good style--gold edges, bevel-plate, and so forth, don't you know.

I'd like to write a book about Europe, I vow. I haven't been here very long, but I'll swear I know ten times more than any book ever tells. It never said a word in Baedeker about there not being any cabs at Dreux, or about the condition of those steps in Talbot's Tower, and such things ought to be known. It's all right to make light of perils past, but those steps were too dark for me to ever make light of in this world. Up toward the top where we had to sit down and stretch for the next one--you remember?--I must own that I was honestly sorry I came.

"Well, my child, it must be nearing noon, and I feel like taking a nap before dinner. Suppose you go in and write to your mother and Mrs.

Clary. After your mother gets the cable, she'll naturally be anxious for details, and she won't want to wait longer than ten days to know all. I wish you'd ring and tell them to bring me some hot water before you go; tell them I want it in a pitcher. Make them understand a pitcher. They brought it last night in a sort of bra.s.s cylinder, and I couldn't get the thing open anyway--had to use it for a hot-water-bag in bed in the end. It worked fine for that. Never cooled off all night, in fact, I couldn't put my feet against it till morning.

"There, now, you go on and leave me to sleep. You haven't the faintest idea of how used-up I feel. Don't forget to write your mother how cheerful I am; don't forget the hot water. I'll send for you when I want you. There--there--I'm all right, child, don't you worry. Just pull the curtains and let me sleep."

IX

YVONNE TO HER MOTHER

_Caen._

Dearest Mama: We are still there, and I'm so happy Uncle is in bed, and at first he thought he was paralyzed, but now he says he's only refusing to take chances. It's so nice having him in bed, because Lee is here, and Uncle makes it all right without knowing anything about it. It was yesterday that he thought he was paralyzed; he sent for me before I was awake to tell me. I was so dreadfully stiff and lame that I thought at first that I could not get up; but of course I did, and went to him as soon as I could. He told me that he was paralyzed, really paralyzed; but I wasn't frightened, because, when he explained his feelings, I knew every one of them, and of course I knew that I wasn't paralyzed. Only when he rolled around upon his pillows and said he certainly would end his days right here in Caen, I couldn't help wishing that he had left me to enjoy my pillows, also.

But he wanted to talk, so I listened for ever so long; and then he wanted to sleep, so I came away to write you, and there was a note from Lee in my room. He was down-stairs waiting, and I went right down, and my, but it was good to see him! I didn't kiss him, because it was a hotel parlor, even if we don't know any one in Caen; but I told him about Uncle, and he said it was fine and that he hoped he would be in bed a week, but no such luck. The yacht has broken a thumb-screw, or whatever it is on a yacht, and they have all come here to meet some automobile people. Lee looks real well; he says he's had no end of fun lately, and that it is a shame I can't go, too.

While we were talking, Mrs. Catherwood-Chigley came in. I didn't know that she was in Europe, and Lee was dreadfully put out for she sat right down and asked all about us. Lee explained that he was here with a yacht and that I was here with Uncle; but she didn't seem to believe us, and shook her head, and asked about Mrs. Clary. She said Mr. Chigley was here, too, and they have seen a monument in the cemetery here that is just what they want for Mr. Catherwood. She says Mr. Catherwood was so clear-cut and Doric in his ideas that it has been very hard to find the right thing. She said Mr. Chigley was out making a sketch of the monument then. She says Mr. Chigley is devotion itself to Mr.

Catherwood's memory, and cabled a beautiful wreath on his wedding anniversary and palms tied with purple the day he died. She said she was very happy, and Mr. Chigley just loves to hear her tell stories about Mr. Catherwood by the hour. Lee was awfully rude and kept yawning, and I know she didn't like it by the way she looked at him. It was awfully trying to have her just then, because, of course, there's no telling how long Uncle will stay paralyzed. We really thought she would stay until lunch-time, but Lee yawned so that she went at last.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Lee was awfully rude and kept yawning, and I know she didn't like it by the way she looked at him."]

Lee said that we ought to join them in the touring-cars and do Brittany that way, but he didn't like to tackle Uncle. He says Uncle is a very tough proposition, because he is so devilish observing, and he never begged my pardon for saying it, either. Of course Uncle brought me, and I must do as he wishes, but I do wish that he liked Lee. Lee says he wishes he liked him, too; he says it would be so devilish convenient just now, and he didn't beg my pardon that time, either.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Caen]

I ran up, and Uncle was still asleep, so I had lunch with Lee at the table d'hote. Mr. Chigley and Mrs. Catherwood-Chigley sat opposite, and she does look so funny with her wedding-rings and engagement-rings alternating on the same finger. Mr. Chigley said he should call on Uncle, and Lee and I were frightened to death until I remembered that Uncle wouldn't be able to read the card or understand the waiter without me. After luncheon I ran up again, and Uncle was still asleep, so we went out to walk. We had a lovely walk, and never looked at a sight, and when we came back I ran up again, and Uncle was still asleep; so Lee and I sat down in the parlor, and we were just going to be so happy when Pinkie and Bunnie Clemens came in. Well, really, I hardly knew either, they have changed so, and Pinkie has a beard and Bunnie is over six feet high. They are on a bicycle tour with eight men, and they saw Elfrida and her sister yesterday, headed for Bayeux. Pinkie says it's been such bad weather they've had to tie umbrellas and waterproofs to them, too.

He says Elfrida looks half-witted, and her sister looks like a full idiot. I was so glad that I had on a Paris frock. They wanted me to go to the theater with them, but of course I couldn't, for I couldn't be sure about Uncle's staying paralyzed.

He slept till eight o'clock last night, and then he had dinner and went right to sleep again, so I could have gone to the theater after all; but how could I know to dare to risk it?

Lee and the men from the yacht are at another hotel, so he didn't come very early this morning, and it was fortunate, because Uncle sent for me about nine to explain Mr. Chigley's card, which they poked under the door last night. Uncle was so curious to know what it was that he got out of bed and found he could walk. He said he had never felt sure that it was paralysis, only he wanted to be on the safe side, and he is in bed still, only he is so lively that I am half crazy over Lee. If Uncle concludes he's all right, and comes down and finds Lee, I know he isn't going to like it at all. Pinkie and Bunnie have gone on to Mont St.

Michel, and the Catherwood-Chigleys took the train for Dol right after breakfast. Mr. Chigley was very sorry not to see Uncle, and Mrs.

Catherwood-Chigley said she should write you all about how well and happy I was looking. I know that what she really means to write about is Lee; but you know all about him, so I don't care.