Shawl-Straps Part 6

'This is a pious-feeling church, and I could say my prayers here with all my soul; for it seems as if the religion of centuries had got built into it,' added Lavinia, thinking of the ugly imitations at home.

'You will both turn Catholic before we get through,' prophesied Amanda, retiring to study the tomb of Berengaria, Coeur de Lion's wife.

The square before the hotel was gay with a market, many soldiers lounging about, and flocks of people eating ices before the _cafes_. The ladies enjoyed it from the balcony, and then slumbered peacefully in a great room with three alcoves, much muslin drapery, and a bowl and pitcher like a good-sized cup and saucer.

Another look at the cathedral in the early morning, and then away to Tours, which place they found a big, clean, handsome city, all astir for the _Fete-Dieu_.

'We will stay over Sunday and see it,' was the general vote as the trio headed for the great church, and, catching sight of it, they subsided into a seat by the fountain opposite, and sat looking silently at the magnificent pile.

How strangely impressive and eloquent it was! The evening red touched its grey towers with a mellow light, like sunshine on a venerable head.

Lower down, flights of rooks circled round the fretted niches, quaint windows, and grotesque gargoyles, while the great steps below swarmed with priests and soldiers, gay strangers and black-robed nuns, children and beggars.

For an hour our pilgrims sat and studied the wonderful _facade_, or walked round the outside, examining the rich carvings that covered every inch of the walls. Twilight fell before they had thought of entering, and feeling that they had seen enough for that night, they went thoughtfully home to dream of solemn shadows and saintly faces, for the cathedral haunted them still.

Next day was spent in viewing Charlemagne's Tower, and seeing the grand procession in honour of the day. The streets were hung with garlands, gay tapestries and banners, strewn with fresh boughs, and lined with people in festival array. As the procession pa.s.sed, women ran out and scattered rose-leaves before it, and one young mother set her blooming baby on a heap of greenery in the middle of the street, leaving it there, that the Holy Ghost under its canopy might pa.s.s over it. A pretty sight, the rosy little creature smiling in the sunshine as it sat playing with its own blue shoes, while the golden pageant went by; the chanting priests stepping carefully, and looking down with sudden benignity in their tired faces as the holy shadow fell on the bright head, making baby blessed, and saved for ever in its pious mother's eyes.

A great band played finely, scarlet soldiers followed, then the banners of patron saints were borne by children. Saint Agnes and her lamb led a troop of pretty little girls carrying tall white lilies, filling the air with their sweetness. Mary, Our Mother, was followed by many orphans with black ribbons crossed over the young hearts that had lost so much.

Saint Martin led the charity boys in purple suits of just the colour of the mantle he was dividing with the beggar on the banner. A pleasant emblem of the charitable cloak that covers so many.

Priests in full splendour paced solemnly along with censers swinging, candles flickering, sweet-voiced boys singing, and hundreds kneeling as they pa.s.sed. Most impressive figures, unless one caught a glimpse of something comically human to disturb the effect of the heavenly pageant.

Lavinia had an eye for the ludicrous and though she dropped a tear over the orphans, and with difficulty resisted a strong desire to catch and kiss the pretty baby, she scandalized her neighbours by laughing outright the next minute. A particularly portly, pious-looking priest, who was marching with superb dignity, and chanting like a devout b.u.mble-bee, suddenly mislaid his temper, and injured the effect by boxing a charity boy's ears with his gilded missal, and then capped the climax by taking a pinch of snuff with a sonorous satisfaction that convulsed the heretic.

The afternoon was spent in the church, wandering to and fro, each alone to study and enjoy in her own way. Matilda lost her head entirely, and had silent raptures over the old pictures. Amanda said her prayers, looked up her dates, and imparted her facts in a proper and decorous manner, while Lavinia went up and down, finding for herself little pictures not painted by hands, and reading histories more interesting to her than those of saints and martyrs.

In one dim chapel, with a single candle lighting up the divine sorrow of the Mater Dolorosa, knelt a woman in deep black, weeping and praying all alone. In another flowery nook dedicated to the Infant Jesus, a peasant girl was telling her beads over the baby asleep in her lap; her sunburnt face refined and beautiful by the tenderness of mother-love. In a third chapel a pale, wasted old man sat propped in a chair, while his rosy old wife prayed heartily to St. Gratien, the patron saint of the church, for the recovery of her John Anderson. And most striking of all was a dark, handsome young man, well-dressed and elegant, who was waiting at the door of a confessional with some great trouble in his face, as he muttered and crossed himself, while his haggard eyes were fixed on the benignant figure of St. Francis, as if asking himself if it were possible for him also to put away the pleasant sins and follies of the world, and lead a life like that which embalms the memory of that good man.

'If we don't go away to-morrow we never shall, for this church will bewitch us, and make it impossible to leave,' said Amanda, when at length they tore themselves away.

'I give up trying to sketch cathedrals. It can't be done, and seems impious to try,' said Matilda, quite exhausted by something deeper than pleasure.

'I think the "Reminiscences of a Rook" would make a capital story. They are long-lived birds, and could tell tales of the past that would entirely eclipse our modern rubbish,' said Lavinia, taking a last look at the solemn towers, and the shadowy birds that had haunted them for ages.

The ladies agreed to be off early in the morning, that they might reach Amboise in time for the eleven o'clock breakfast. Amanda was to pay the bill, and to make certain enquiries at the office; Mat to fly out and do a trifle of shopping; while Lavinia packed up the bundles and mounted guard over them. They separated, but in half-an-hour all met again, not in their room according to agreement, but before the cathedral, which all had decided not to revisit on any account.

Matilda was there first, and as each of the others came stealing round the corner, she greeted them with a laugh, in which all joined after the first surprise was over.

'I told you it would bewitch us,' said Amanda; and then all took a farewell look, which lasted so long that they had to rush back to the hotel in most unseemly haste.

'Now to fresh _chateaux_ and churches new,' sang Lavinia, as they rolled away on the fourth stage of their summer journey. A very short stage it was, and soon they were in an entirely new scene, for Amboise was a little, old-time village on the banks of the Loire, looking as if it had been asleep for a hundred years. The Lion d'Or was a quaint place, so like the inns described in French novels, that one kept expecting to see some of Dumas' heroes come dashing up, all boots, plumes, and pistols, with a love-letter for some court beauty in the castle on the hill beyond.

Queer galleries and stairs led up outside the house to the rooms above.

The _salle-a-manger_ was across a court, and every dish came from a kitchen round the corner. The _garcon_, a beaming, ubiquitous creature, trotted perpetually, diving down steps, darting into dark corners, or skipping up ladders, producing needfuls from most unexpected places. The bread came from the stable, soup from the cellar, coffee out of a meal-chest, and napkins from the housetop, apparently, for Adolphe went up among the weather-c.o.c.ks to get them.

'No one knows us, no one can speak a word of English, and if we happen to die here it will never be known. How romantic and nice it is!'

exclaimed Mat, in good spirits, for the people treated the ladies as if they were d.u.c.h.esses in disguise, and the young women liked it.

'I'm not so sure that the romance is all it looks. We should be in a sweet quandary if anything happened to our sheet-anchor here. Just remember, in any danger, save Amanda first, then she will save us. But if she is lost, all is lost,' replied Lavinia, darkly, for she always took tragical views of life when her bones ached.

Up the hill they went after breakfast; and balm was found for the old lady's woes in the sight of many Angora cats, of great size and beauty.

White as snow, with tails like plumes, and mild, yellow eyes, were these charmers. At every window sat one; on every door-step sprawled a bunch of down; and frequently the eye of the tabby-loving spinster was gladdened by the touching spectacle of a blonde mamma in the bosom of her young family.

'If I could only carry it, I'd have one of those dears, no matter what it cost!' cried Lavinia, more captivated by a live cat than by all the dead Huguenots that Catherine de Medicis hung over the castle walls on a certain memorable occasion.

'Well, you can't, so come on and improve your mind with some good, useful history,' said Amanda, leading them forward. 'You _must_ remember that Charles VII. was born here in 1470--that Anne of Brittany married him for her first husband, and that he b.u.mped his head against a low door in the garden here above, as he was running through to play bowls with his Anne, and it killed him.'

'Which? the b.u.mp or the bowls?' asked Mat, who liked to have things clearly stated.

'Don't be frivolous, child. Here Margaret of Anjou and her son were reconciled to Warwick. Abd-el Kader and his family were kept prisoners here, and in the garden is a tomb with a crescent on it; likewise a "pleached walk," and a winding drive inside the great tower, up which lords and ladies used to ride straight into the hall,' continued the sage Amanda, who yearned to enlighten the darkness of her careless friends.

A brisk old woman did the honours of the castle, showing them mouldy chapels, sepulchral halls, rickety stairs, grubby cells, and pitch-dark pa.s.sages, till even the romantic Matilda was glad to see the light of day, and repose in the pleasant gardens while removing the cobwebs from her countenance and the dust from her raiment.

A lovely view gladdened their eyes as they stood on the balcony whence the amiable Catherine surveyed the walls hung thick, and the river choked up with the dead. Below, the broad Loire rolled slowly by between its green banks. Little boys, in the costume of Cupid, were riding great horses in to bathe after the day's work. The grey roofs of the town nestled to the hillside, and far away stretched the summer landscape, full of vague suggestions of new scenes and pleasures to the pilgrims.

'We start for Chenonceaux at seven in the morning; so, ladies, I beg that you will be ready punctually,' was the command issued by Amanda, as they went to their rooms, after a festive dinner of what Lavinia called 'earth-worms and cacti,' not being fond of stewed brains, baked eels, or thistles and pigweed chopped up in oil.

Such a droll night as the wanderers spent! No locks on the doors and no bells. Stairs leading straight up the gallery from the courtyard, carts going and coming, soft footsteps stealing up and down, whispers that sounded suspicious (though they were only orders to kill chickens and pick salad for the morrow), and a ghostly whistle that disturbed Lavinia so much, she at last draped herself in the green coverlet, and went boldly forth upon the balcony to see what it meant.

She intended to demand silence in French that would strike terror to the soul of the bravest native. But when she saw that poor, dear, hard-worked _garcon_ blacking boots by the light of the moon, her heart melted with pity; and, resolving to give him an extra fee, she silently retired to her stone-floored bower, and fell asleep in a stuffy little bed, whose orange curtains filled her dreams with volcanic eruptions and conflagrations of the most lurid description.

At seven, an open carriage with a stout pair of horses and a sleepy driver rolled out of the court-yard of the Lion d'Or. Within it sat three ladies, who gazed at one another with cheerful countenances, and surveyed the world with an air of bland content, beautiful to behold.

'I am fairly faint with happiness,' sighed Matilda, as they drove through fields scarlet with poppies, starred with daisies, or yellow with b.u.t.tercups, while birds piped gaily, and trees wore their early green.

'You did not eat any breakfast. That accounts for it. Have a crust, do,'

said Amanda, who seldom stirred without a good, sweet crust or two; for they were easy to carry, wholesome to chew, and always ready at a moment's notice.

'Let us save our "entusymusy" till we get to the _chateau_, and enjoy this lovely drive in a peaceful manner,' said Lavinia, still a little sleepy after her adventures in the glimpses of the moon.

So, for an hour or two, they rolled along the smooth road, luxuriating in the summer sights and sounds about them; the wayside cottages, with women working in the gardens; villages cl.u.s.tered round some tiny, picturesque church; windmills whirling on the distant hill-tops; vineyards full of peasants tying up the young vines, or trudging by with baskets on their backs, heaped with green cuttings for the goats at home. Old men, breaking stone by the roadside, touched their red caps to the pilgrims, jolly boys shouted at them from the cherry trees, and little children peeped from behind the rose-bushes blooming everywhere.

Soon, glimpses of the winding Cher began to appear, then an avenue of stately trees, and then, standing directly in the river, rose the lovely _chateau_ built for Diane de Poictiers by her royal lover. Leaving the carriage at the lodge, our sight-seers crossed the moat, and, led by a wooden-faced girl with a lisp, entered the famous pleasure-house, which its present owner (a pensive man in black velvet, who played fitfully on a French-horn in a pepper-pot tower) is carefully restoring to its former splendour.

The great picture-gallery was the chief attraction; and beginning with Diane herself--a tall, simpering baggage, with a bow, hounds, crescent, and a blue sash for drapery--they were led through a rapid review of all sorts of worthies and unworthies, relics and rubbish, without end.

Portraits are always interesting. Even Lavinia, who 'had no soul for Art,' as Mat said, looked with real pleasure at a ba.s.s-relief of Agnes of Sorel, and pictures of Montaigne, Rabelais, Ninon d'Enclos, Madame de Sevigne, and miniatures of La Fayette and Ben Franklin. The latter gentleman looked rather out of place in such society; but, perhaps, his good old face preached the Dianes and Ninons a silent sermon. His plain suit certainly was a relief to the eye, wearied with periwigged sages and bejewelled sinners.

Here was the little theatre where Rousseau's plays were acted. Here were the gilded chairs in which kings had sat, swords heroes had held, books philosophers had pored over, mirrors that had reflected famous beauties, and painted walls that had looked down on royal revels long ago.

The old kitchen had a fireplace big enough for a dozen cooks to have spoiled gallons of broth in, queer pots and pans, and a handy little window, out of which they could fish at any moment, for the river ran below.

The chapel, chambers, balconies, and terraces were all being repaired; for, thanks to George Sand's grandmother, who owned the place in the time of the Revolution, it was spared out of respect to her, and is still a charming relic of the past.

The ladies went down the mossy steps, leading from the gallery to the further sh.o.r.e, and, lying under the oaks, whiled away the noon-time by re-peopling the spot with the shapes that used to inhabit it. A very happy hour it was, dreaming there by the little river, with the scent of new-mown hay in the fresh wind, and before them the airy towers and gables of the old _chateau_ rising from the stream like a vision of departed splendour, love, and romance.

Having seen every thing, and bought photographs _ad libitum_ of the wooden-faced lisper, who cheated awfully, the pilgrims drove away, satiated with relics, royalty, and '_regardez_.'

Another night in the stony-hearted, orange-coloured rooms, with the sleepless _garcon_ sweeping and murmuring outside like a Banshee, while the hens roosted sociably in the gallery, the horses seemed to be champing directly under the bed, and the dead Huguenots b.u.mping down upon the roof from the castle-walls. Another curious meal wafted from the bowels of the earth and cooled by all the airs that blow,--then the shawl-straps were girded anew, the carriage (a half-grown omnibus with the jaundice) mounted, the farewell bows and adieux received, and forth rumbled the d.u.c.h.esses _en route_ for Blois.

'My heart is rent at leaving that lovely _chateau_,' said Mat, as they crossed the bridge.