Elizabeth Visits America

Tonnerre

HOTEL DE LA POULE D'OR,
TONNERRE.
(Somewhere on the way to Dijon.)

Dearest Mamma,--We have got this far! Never have you imagined such an affair as our trip is. Coming across the Channel was bad enough. Aunt Maria sniffed chloroform and remained semi-conscious until we got to Boulogne, because she said one never could trust the sea, although it looked smooth enough from the pier; on her honeymoon she recollected just the same deceitful appearance and they took five hours and she was very sick and decided not to chance it again! Uncle John had to hold one of her hands and I the bottle, but we got there safely in the usual time and not a ripple on the water! The motor had been sent on, and after sleeping at Boulogne we started. The little gamins shouted, "Quel drole de char triomphant! Bon voyage, Mesdames," and Aunt Maria smiled and bowed as pleased as possible, not having heard a word.

Uncle John was as gay and attentive as I suppose he was on the journey--this is how they speak of it--and made one or two quite risque jokes down the ear trumpet, and Aunt Maria blushed and looked so coy. Apparently she had had hysterics at Folkestone originally--did you have them when you married, Mamma? I never thought of such a thing when Harry and I--but I did not mean to speak of him again. Aunt Maria wears the same shaped bonnet now as she did then, and strangely enough it is exactly like my new lovely chinchilla motor one Caroline sent for me to travel in. We have the car open all the time and in the noise Aunt Maria hears much better, so one has only to speak in an ordinary voice down the trumpet.

Everything went all right until this morning; we left Versailles at dawn--how they were ever ready I don't know, considering the tremendous lot of wraps and pillows and footwarmers and heaven knows what they have;--besides Uncle John saying all the time it is their second honeymoon. However, we got off, and as we have been on the road two days, even Janet, who is naturally as meek as a mouse, is beginning to "turn" at her seat in the rumble; because, it having rained and there being no dust, she and Uncle John's valet are covered with mud instead, each time we arrive at a place, and have to be scraped off before they can even enter a hotel.

Agnes would simply have had a fit of blue rage if one had put her there;--as it is she is having an affair with the chauffeur. There must be an epidemic in the air now for women of forty to play with boys, as they get it even in her class. What was I saying, Oh! yes--Well, the first trouble began with a burst tyre, and we all had to get out while the new one was being put on; and as we were standing near, another car came up from the opposite direction, and would have passed us, only I suppose Aunt Maria looked so unusual the occupants stopped--occupant, I meant--it was an American--and asked if it--he, I mean, could be of any assistance. Uncle John, who thinks it right to gain information whenever he can from travellers, said, No, not materially, but he would be obliged to know if the country we were coming to was smooth or not. Then we knew it was an American! In those big coats one can't tell the nation at first, but directly he said: "It's like a base-ball ground--and I should say you'd find any machine could do it--" we guessed at once. He was so nice looking, Mamma--rather ugly, but good looking all the same; you know what I mean. His nose was crooked but his jaw was so square, and he had such jolly brown eyes--and they twinkled at one, and he was very, very tall. "We hope to get to Dijon tonight," Uncle John said. "Can you tell us, sir, if we shall have any difficulty?" The American did not bother to raise his hat or any fuss, but just got out of his car and told the facts to Uncle John; and then he turned to the chauffeur, who was fumbling with the tyre--it was something complicated, not only just the bursting--and in a minute or two he was down in the mud giving such practical advice. And you never heard such slang! But I believe men like that sort of thing, as the chauffeur was not a bit offended at being interfered with.

When they had finished grovelling, he got in again, and Uncle John insisted upon exchanging cards with the stranger. He got out his from some pocket, but the American had not one. "By the living jingo," he said, "I've no bit of pasteboard handy--but my name is Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour--and you'll find me any day at the Nelson Building, Osages City, Nevada. This is my first visit to Europe." Perhaps I am not repeating exactly the right American, Mamma, but it was something like that. But I wish you could have seen him, I know you would have liked him as I did. Wait till I tell you what he did afterwards, then you will, anyway. "Anyway" is American--you see I have picked it up already!

We waved a kind of grateful goodbye and went our different ways, and beyond its raining most of the time we had a quick journey; but at last we felt in the dusk we were off the right road. Like all chauffeurs ours had whizzed past every notice of the direction--so carefully printed up as they are in France, too. From the way they behave one would think chauffeurs believe themselves to possess a sixth sense and can feel in some occult manner the right turns, as they never bother to look at sign posts, or condescend to ask the way like ordinary mortals. Ours did not so much as stop even when the lane got into a mere track, until, with the weight of Uncle John, Aunt Maria and me in the back seat, and the extra stones in the rumble, as he made a sensational backing turn into a fieldish looking place, (it was dark twilight) our hind wheels sunk in up to their axles,--and the poor machinery groaned in its endeavours to extricate us! We had to get out in the gloom and mud, and Aunt Maria looked almost pathetic in her elastic side "prunella" boots, edged with fur, white silk stockings and red quilted silk petticoat held up very high. But she was so good tempered over it all! She said when one had been married happily for fifty years, and was having one's honeymoon all over again--(she had forgotten the hysterics)--one ought not to grumble at trifles.

Meanwhile the hind wheels of the car sank deeper and deeper. I believe we should never have got out, and it would have been there still, if we had not heard a scream from a siren, and our American friend tore up again! It was pitch dark by now, and the valet, the chauffeur, and Uncle John were shoving and straining, and nothing was happening. Why he was returning this way, right out of the main road, he did not explain, but he jumped out and in a minute took command of the situation. He said, "If we had taken a waggon over the desert, we'd know how to fix up this in a shake." He sent his chauffeur back to the nearest village for some boards and a shovel, and then dug out to firm ground and got the boards under, all so neatly and quickly, and no one thought of disobeying him! And we were soon all packed into the car again none the worse. Then he said he also found he was obliged to go back and would show us the way as far as we liked. Uncle John was so grateful, and we started.

Tonnerre was all as far as we could get to-night, and about six o'clock we arrived at this hotel I am writing from.

Mr. Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour was a few yards in front of us. "Say, Lord Wordon," he said to Uncle John, "I guess this is no kind of a place your ladies have been accustomed to, but it's probably pretty decent in spite of appearances. I know these sort of little shanties, and they aren't half as bad as they look."

He took as much pains to shout down Aunt Maria's trumpet as Harry used in the beginning when he wanted to please me, and when we got upstairs she said she had no idea Americans were such "superior persons." "One of Nature's gentlemen, my dear, which are the only sort of true gentlemen you will find."

Such a hotel, Mamma! And Uncle John and Aunt Maria had to have the only big bedroom on the first floor, and Mr. Renour and I were given two little ones communicating on the back part. They thought of course we were of the same party, and married.

"Madame" could have the inner one, they explained, and "Monsieur" the outer! Aunt Maria, who thought, I suppose, they said Agnes, not "Monsieur," smiled pleasantly and agreed--that would be "tout a fait bien." Of course if Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour had been a Frenchman, or even heaps of Englishmen we know, he would have been delighted; instead of which he got perfectly crimson all over his bronzed face and explained in fearful French to the landlady he could not sleep except on a top floor. Wasn't it nice of him, Mamma?

Dinner was at seven o'clock in the table d'hote, and about eight commercial travellers were already seated when we got down. We had glass racks to put our forks and knives on, and that wrung out kind of table linen, not ironed, but all beautifully clean; and wonderfully good food.

Uncle John made one end of our party and Mr. Renour the other, with Aunt Maria and me in the middle, and the commercial travellers, who all tucked in their table napkins under their chins, beyond. The American was so amusing:--it was his language, not exactly what he said. I shall get into it soon and tell you some of the sentences, but at first it is too difficult. Presently he said he did not understand about English titles; he supposed I had one, but he was not "kinder used to them," so did I mind his calling me Lady Elizabeth, as he heard Aunt Maria calling me Elizabeth, and he felt sure "Miss" wouldn't be all right, but would "Lady" be near enough? I said, quite, I was so enchanted, Mamma, to be taken for a young girl, after having been married nearly seven years and being twenty-four last month! I would not undeceive him for the world, and as we shall never see him again it won't matter. Think, too, how cross Harry--but I won't speak of him!

Aunt Maria had an amiable smile on all the time. Can you imagine them dining in a public room in an English hotel! The idea would horrify her, but she says no one should make fusses travelling, and I believe she would look just as pleased if we were shipwrecked on a desert island.

There was no salon to sit in after dinner, and the moon came out, so Mr. Renour suggested we ought to see the church, which is one of the things marked in the guide book. Uncle John said he would light his cigar and come with us, while Aunt Maria went to bed, but when we got outside the dear old fellow seemed tired and was quite glad to return when I suggested it; so the American and I went on alone. I must say, Mamma, it is lovely being married, when one comes to think of it, being able to stroll out like this with a young man all alone;--and I have never had the chance before, with Harry always so jealous, and forever at my heels. I shall make hay while the sun shines! He was so nice. He told me all about himself--he is a very rich mine owner--out West in America, and began as a poor boy without any education, who went out first as a cow-boy on a ranch and then took to mining and got a stroke of luck, and now owns the half of the great Osage Mine. And he is only twenty-nine. "I kinder felt I ought to see Europe," he said, "never having been further East than Chicago; so I came over at Christmas time and have been around in this machine ever since." He calls his automobile, an immense 90 h.p. Charon, his "machine!" He said all this so simply, as if it were quite natural to tell a stranger his life story, and he is perfectly direct--only you have to speak to him with the meaning you intend in the words. Metaphor is not the least use: he answers literally.

The church was shut, and as we had no excuse to stay out longer we strolled back. He was intensely respectful, and he ended up by saying he found me just the nicest girl he had seen "this side." I was so pleased. I hope he will come on the rest of the way with us; we start at dawn. So good night, dearest Mamma.

Your affectionate daughter,
ELIZABETH.