I'm sure. It's a perfect revelation to me,' said Matilda, in a calm rapture at the beauty all about her.
'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, Cœur 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 cafés. 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 Fête-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 façade, 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 passed, 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 pass 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 passed. 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 bumble-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 châteaux 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-à-manger was across a court, and every dish came from a kitchen round the corner. The garçon, 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-cocks 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 duchesses in disguise, and the young women liked it.
