|
Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
in, a precaution necessary with aged, moneyed folks living absolutely alone.
A fourth visit was paid to a charming old Philemon and Baucis, the best possible specimens of their
class. The husband lay in bed, ill of an incurable malady, and spotlessly white were his tasselled
nightcap, shirt and bedclothes. Very clean and neat too was the bedroom opening on to the little front
yard, beneath each window of the one-storeyed dwelling being a brilliant border of asters. The housewife
also was a picture of tidiness, her cotton gown carefully patched and scrupulously clean. This worthy
couple are said to be worth fifty thousand francs. The wife, a sexagenarian, does all the work of the
house besides waiting on her good man, to whom she is devoted, but a married son and daughter-in-law
share her duties at night. Here was no touch of sordidness or suggestion of "La Terre," instead a
delightful picture of rustic dignity and ease. The housewife sold us half a bushel of pears, these two like
their neighbours living by the produce of their small farm and garden.
I often dropped in upon Madame B - - to whom even morning calls were acceptable.
On the occasion of my farewell visit she had something pretty to say about one of my own novels, a
French translation of which I had presented her.
"I suppose," I said, "that you have some books of your own?"
"Here they are," she said, depositing an armful on the table. "But I have never read much, and mostly
bibelots" (trifles.)
Her poor little library consisted of bibelots indeed, a history of Jeanne d'Arc for children, and half
a dozen other works, mostly school prizes of the kind awarded before school prizes in France were worth
the paper on which they were printed.
CHAPTER VI. LARCHANT.
There is a certain stimulating quality of elasticity and crispness in the French atmosphere which our own
does not possess. France, moreover, with its seven climates - for the description of these, see Reclus'
Geography - does undoubtedly offer longer, less broken, spells of hot summer weather than the United
Kingdom. But let me for once and for all dispel a widespread illusion. The late Lord Lytton, when
Ambassador in Paris, used to say that in the French capital you could procure any climate you pleased.
And experience proves that without budging an inch you may in France get as many and as rapid climatic
changes as anywhere else under the sun. At noon in mid-May last I was breakfasting with friends on the
Champs Elysees, when my hostess put a match to the fire and my host jumped up and lighted six wax
candles. So dense had become the heavens that we could no longer see to handle knives and forks! Hail,
wind, darkness and temperature recalled a November squall at home. Yet the day before I had enjoyed
perfect summer weather in the Jardin d'Acclimitation. Invariableness is no more an attribute of the
French climate than our own. Wherever we go we must take a change of dress, for all the world as if we
were bound for the other side of the Tweed.
My first Sunday at Bourron, on this third visit, was of perfect stillness, unclouded brilliance and southern
languor, heralding, so we fondly imagined, the very morrow for an excursion.
In the night a strong wind rose up, but as we had ordered a carriage for Larchant, and as carriages in
these parts are not always to be had, as, moreover, grown folks no more than children like to defer their
pleasure, off we set, two of the party on cycles forming a body guard. There seemed no likelihood of rain
and in the forest we should not feel the wind.
|
