Tartarins to be proud of, besides the noble old castle where King René used to spend his springs and summers when he was tired of living in state at Aix. There is the church of Saint Martha, and the beautiful Hotel de Ville, and—almost best of all for its quaintness, though far from beautiful—the great Tarasque lurking in a dark and secret lair.
We couldn't go into the château, but perhaps it was better to see it only from the outside, and remember it always in a crystal picture, framed with the turquoise of the sky. Besides, not going in gave us more time for Beaucaire, just across the river—Beaucaire of the Fair; Beaucaire of sweet Nicolete and her faithful lover Aucassin.
I know a song about Nicolete of the white feet and hair of yellow gold, and I sang it below my breath, sitting beside my brother Jack, as we crossed the bridge. Although I sang so softly, he heard, and turned to me for an instant. "You can sing!" he said.
"You don't like singing," I suggested.
"Only better than most things—that's all."
"Yet you didn't want me to sing the other night."
"That was because your hair was down. I couldn't stand both together."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you? All the better. Never mind trying to guess. Let's think about the fair. Wouldn't you have liked to come here in the days when it was one of the greatest shows in all France?"
"I couldn't have come in a motor then."
"You're getting to be an enthusiast. You'll have to marry a millionaire with at least a forty-horse-power car."
"I happen to be running away from one now, in a sixty-horse-power car. But I don't want to think of him in this romantic country. The idea of Corn Plasters, near the garden where Nicolete's little feet tripped among the daisies by moonlight, is too appalling."
"Up on the hill are the towers of the castle where Aucassin was in prison for his love of Nicolete," said the chauffeur. "If only I can induce them to go there, and walk in the garden on the battlements! It's beautiful, full of great perfumed Provençal roses, and quantities of fleur-de-lys growing wild under pine trees and peering out of formal yew hedges. You never saw anything quite like it. Oh, I must manage the thing somehow."
"I think you could, in their present mood," said I. "They're quite properly honey-moony since the storm, which was a blessing in disguise. They'll go up, and feel romantic and young; but as for me—"
"You'll go up, and be the things they can only feel. I should like to go with you there—" he broke off, looking wistful.
"Oh, do get some one to guard the car, and come," I begged him. "You've seen it all before?"
"Yes."
"You look as if the place had sentimental memories for you."
He smiled. "There is a sentiment attaching to it. Someday I may tell you—" he stopped again. "No, I don't think I'll do that."
Suddenly the thought of the garden was spoiled for me. I imagined that, in happier days, he must have walked there with a girl he loved. Perhaps he loved her still, only misfortune had come to him, and they could not marry. In that case, I'd been misjudging him, maybe. His bluntnesses and abruptnesses and coldnesses didn't mean that the compartments were "love-tight," as I'd fancied, but that they were already full to overflowing.
He did induce the Turnours to see the garden on the old battlements, and he did find a suitable watch-dog for the car in order to be my companion. And he was less self-conscious and happier in his manner than he had been since the first day or two of our acquaintance. Also the garden, starred with spring flowers, was even more lovely than I had expected. I ought to have enjoyed every moment there; but—it is never pleasant to be with a man when you think he is wishing that you were another girl.
"Was she pretty?" I couldn't resist asking.
For an instant he looked bewildered; then he understood. "Very," he replied, smiling. "About the prettiest girl I ever saw. The description of Nicolete would fit her very well. 'The clear face, delicately fine,' and all that. But I don't let my mind dwell much on girls in these days, when I can help it, as you can well imagine."
"And when you can't help it?" I wanted to know.
"Oh, when I can't help it, I feel like a bear with a sore head, and no honey in my hollow tree."
So that is why he is so disagreeable, sometimes! He is thinking of the girl of the battlemented garden at Beaucaire. I shall try and find out all about her; but I don't know that I shall feel better satisfied when I have.
Chapter XVIII
The garden on the battlements at Beaucaire seemed to bring out all that's best in Lady Turnour, and she was—for her—quite radiant when we arrived at Arles. Not that it was much credit to her to be radiant, when the road had been perfect, and the car had behaved like an angel, as usual; but small favours from small natures are thankfully received; and just as it is a blight upon the spirits of the whole party when her ladyship frowns, so do we cheer up and hope for better things when she smiles.
As we were to spend the night at Arles, and arrived at the quaint, delightful Hôtel du Forum before lunch, even the working classes (meaning my alleged brother and myself) could afford that pleasant, leisured feeling which is the right of those more highly placed.
The moment we arrived I knew that I was going to fall in love with Arles, and I hurried to get the unpacking done, so that I might be free to make its acquaintance. Lady Turnour, still in her garden mood, told me to do as I liked till time to dress her for dinner, but to mind and have no more accidents, as all her frocks hooked at the back.
I am getting to be quite a skilled lady's-maid now, and am not sure it ought not to be my permanent métier, though I do like to think I was born for better things, and comfort myself by remembering how mother used to say that a lady can always do everything better than a common person if she chooses to try, even menial work, because she puts her intelligence and love for daintiness into all she does. I unpacked my master's and mistress's things with the flashing speed of summer lightning and the neatness of a drill-sergeant. In a twinkling everything was in exactly the right place, and my conscience felt as if it were growing wings as I flew off to my luncheon. The whole afternoon free, and the saints only knew what nice, unexpected adventures might happen! Cousin Catherine used to say, not meaning to be complimentary, that I "attracted adventures as some people seem to attract microbes," and I could almost hear them buzzing round my head as I ran down-stairs.
There, waiting for me as if he were an incarnate adventure, was the chauffeur, who appeared to be quite excited. "You must have a peep into the dining-room," he said. "The door's open. You can look in without being noticed, and see the walls, which are painted with pictures from Mistral's works. Also there's something else of interest, but I won't tell you what it is. I want to see if you can discover it for yourself."
I peeped, and found the pictures charming. After following them with my eyes all round the green walls which they decorate effectively, my gaze lit upon a man sitting at one of the small tables. He was with two or three friends who hung upon the words which he accompanied by the most graceful, spirited, yet unconscious gestures. Old he may have been as years go, but the fire of eternal youth was in his vivid dark eyes, and his smile, which had in it the tenderness of great experience, of long years lived in sympathy and love for mankind. His head was very noble; and its shape, and the way he had of carrying it, would alone have shown that he was Someone.
"Who is that man?" I whispered to Jack Dane. "That one who is so different from all the others."
"Can't you guess?" he asked.
"Not Mistral?"
"Yes. It's one of his days here. He'll be in the museum after lunch. I'll take you there, and if he sees that you're interested