Chapter IX: Holidays in France

I N Michael’s last term at St. James’ Preparatory School, Mrs.
Fane settled that he should for the holidays go to France with
Mr. Vernon and Mr. Lodge, two masters who were accustomed each
year to take a few boys away with them to the coast of
Brittany. Five boys were going this summer—Michael and Hands
and Hargreaves and Jubb and Rutherford; and all five of them
bragged about their adventure for days before school broke up.
Miss Carthew drove with Michael to Victoria Station and handed
him over to Mr. Lodge who was walking about in a very thick and
romantic overcoat. Mr. Lodge was a clean-shaven, large-faced
and popular master, and Mr. Vernon was an equally popular
master, deep-voiced, heavy-moustached, hook-nosed. In fact it
was impossible to say which of the two one liked the better.
Mr. Lodge at once produced two packets of Mazawattee tea which
he told Michael to put in his pocket and say nothing about when
he landed in France, and when Hands, Hargreaves, Rutherford and
Jubb arrived, they were all given packets of tea by Mr. Lodge
and told to say nothing about them when they landed in France.
Mr. Vernon appeared, looking very business-like and shouting
directions about the luggage to porters, while Mr. Lodge
gathered the boys together and steered them through the barrier
on to the platform and into the train for Newhaven. The steamer
by which they were going to cross was not an ordinary
packet-boat, but a cargo-boat carrying vegetable ivory. For
Channel voyagers they were going to be a long while at sea,
calling

at Havre and afterwards rounding Cherbourg and Brest, before
they reached St. Corentin, the port of their destination at the
mouth of the Loire. It was rough weather all the way to Havre,
and Michael was too ill to notice much the crew or the boat or
any of the other boys. However, the excitement of disembarking
at Havre about midnight put an end to sea-sickness, for it was
very thrilling at such an hour to follow Mr. Lodge and Mr.
Vernon through the gloomy wharves and under their dripping
archways. When after this strange walk, they came to a wide
square and saw cafés lighted up and chairs and tables in the
open air before the doors, Michael felt that life was opening
out on a vista of hitherto unimagined possibilities. They all
sat down at midnight, wrapped up in their travelling coats and
not at all too much tired to sip grenadine sucrée and to crunch
Petit Beurre biscuits. Michael thought grenadine sucrée was
just as nice as it looked and turned to Hands, a skull-headed
boy who was sitting next to him:

“I say, this is awfully decent, isn’t it?”

“Rather,” squeaked Hands in his high voice. “Much nicer than Pineappleade.”

After they had stayed there for a time, watching isolated
passers-by slouch across the wind-blown square, Mr. Lodge
announced they must hurry back to the boat and get a good
night’s sleep. Back they went between the damp walls of the
shadowy wharves, plastered with unfamiliar advertizements,
until they reached their boat and went to bed. In the morning
when Michael woke up, the steamer was pitching and rolling:
everything in the cabin was lying in a jumble on the floor, and
Rutherford and Hargreaves were sitting up in their bunks
wideawake. Rutherford was the oldest boy of the party and he
was soon going in for his Navy examination; but he had been so
sea-sick the day before that Michael felt that he was just as
accessible
as the others and was no longer afraid to talk to this hero
without being spoken to first. Rutherford, having been so
sick, felt bound to put on a few airs of grandeur; but he was
pleasant enough and very full of information about many
subjects which had long puzzled Michael. He spoke with
authority on life and death and birth and love and marriage,
so that when Michael emerged into the wind from the jumbled
cabin, he felt that to dress beside Rutherford was an event
not easily to be forgotten: but later on as he paced the
foam-spattered deck, and meditated on the facts of existence
so confidently revealed, he began to fear that the learned
Rutherford was merely a retailer of unwarranted legends. Still
he had propounded enough for Michael, when he returned to
Carlington Road, to theorize upon and impart to the
Macalisters; and anyway, without bothering about physiological
problems, it was certainly splendid to walk about the deck in
the wind and rain, and no longer to hate, but even to enjoy
the motion of the boat. It was exhilarating to clamber right
up into the bows among coils of rope and to see how the boat
charged through the spuming water. Michael nearly made up his
mind to be a sailor instead of a Bengal Lancer, and looked
enviously at the ship’s boy in his blue blouse. But presently
he heard a savage voice, and one of the sailors so much
admired kicked the ship’s boy down the companion into the
forecastle. Michael was horrified when, late in the grey and
stormy afternoon, he heard cries of pain from somewhere down
below. He ran to peer into the pit whence they came, and in
the half-light he could see a rope’s-end clotted with blood.
This sight dismayed him, and he longed to ask Mr. Lodge or Mr.
Vernon to interfere and save the poor ship’s boy, but a
feeling of shame compelled silence and, though he was
sincerely shocked by the thought of the cruel scenes acted
down there in the heart of the ship, he could not keep back a
certain exultation and excitement
similar to that which he had felt at Folkestone in the girls’
school last summer.

Soon the steamer with its cargo of vegetable ivory and tortured ship’s boy and brutal crew were all forgotten in the excitement of arriving at St. Corentin, of driving miles into the country until they reached the house where they were going to spend six weeks. It was an old house set far back from the high road and reached by a long drive between pollarded acacias. All round the house were great fig trees and pear trees and plum trees. The garden was rank with unpruned gooseberry and currant bushes, untidy with scrambling gourds and grape vines. It was a garden utterly unlike any garden that Michael had ever known. There seemed to be no flowers in this overwhelming vegetation which matted everything. It was like the garden of the Sleeping Beauty’s palace. The crumbling walls were webbed with briars; their foundations were buried in thickets of docks and nettles, and the fruit trees that grew against them had long ago broken loose from any restraint. It was a garden that must surely take a very long time to explore, so vast was it, so trackless, so much did every corner demand a slow advance.

When the boys had unpacked and when they had been introduced to
Mrs. Wylde, the mistress of the house, and when they had
presented to her the packets of Mazawattee tea and when they
themselves had eaten a deliciously novel dinner at the unusual
hour of six, they all set out to explore the luxuriant
wilderness behind the house. Mr. Vernon and Mr. Lodge shouted
to them to eat only the ripe fruit and with this solitary
injunction left them to their own amusements until bed-time.
Rutherford, Hargreaves and Jubb at once set out to find ripe
fruit, and as the first tree they came to was loaded with
greengages, Rutherford, Hargreaves and Jubb postponed all
exploration for the present. Michael and Hands, who was
sleeping in his
room and with whom he had already made friends, left the
others behind them. As they walked farther from the house,
they spoke in low tones, so silent was this old garden.

“I’m sure it’s haunted,” said Michael. “I never felt so funny, not exactly frightened, you know, but sort of frightened.”

“It’s still quite light,” squeaked the hopeful Hands.

“Yes, but the sun’s behind all these trees and you can’t hear anything, but only us walking,” whispered Michael.

However, they went on through a jungle of artichokes and through an orchard of gnarled apple trees past a mildewed summer-house, until they reached a serpentine path between privet bushes, strongly scented in the dampness all around.

“Shall we?” murmured Hands doubtfully.

“Yes. We can bunk back if we see anything,” said Michael. “I like this.”

They walked on following the zigzags of the path, but stopped dead as a blackbird shrilled and flapped into the bushes affrighted.

“By Jove, that beastly bird made me awfully funky,” said Michael.

“Let’s go back,” said Hands. “Suppose we got murdered. People do in France.”

“Rot,” said Michael. “Not in a private garden, you cuckoo.”

With mutual encouragement the two boys wandered on, until they found farther progress barred by a high hedge, impenetrable apparently and viewless to Michael and Hands who were not very tall.

“What sucks!” said Michael. “I hate turning back. I think it’s
rotten to turn back. Don’t you? Hullo!” he cried. “Look here,
Hands. Here’s a regular sort of tunnel going down hill. It’s
quite steep.”

In a moment Hands and Michael were half sliding, half climbing down a cliff. The lower they went, the faster they travelled and soon they were sliding all the way, because they had to guard their faces against the brambles that twined above them.

“Good Lord!” gasped Michael, as he bumped down a sheer ten-feet of loose earth. “I’m getting jolly bumped. Look out, Hands, you kicked my neck, you ass.”

“I can’t help it,” gasped Hands. “I’m absolutely slipping, and if I try to catch hold, I scratch myself.”

They were sliding so fast that the only thing to do was to laugh and give way. So, with shouts and laughter and bumps and jolts and the pushing of loose stones and earth before them, Michael and Hands came with a run to the bottom of the cliff and landed at last on soft sea-sand.

“By gum,” said Michael, “we’re right on the beach. What a rag!”

The two boys looked back to the scene of their descent. It was a high cliff covered with shrubs and brambles, apparently unassailable. Before them was the sea, pale blue and gold, and to the right and to the left were the flat lonely sands. They ran, shouting with excitement, towards the rippling tide. The sand-hoppers buzzed about their ankles: Hands tripped over a jelly-fish and fell into several others: sea-gulls swooped above them, crying continually.

“It’s like Robinson Crusoe,” Michael declared.

He was mad with the exhilaration of possession. He owned these sands.

“Oh, young Hands fell down on the sands,” he cried, bursting
into uncontrollable laughter at the absurdity of the rhyme.
Then he found razor-shells and waved his arms triumphantly. He
found, too, wine-stained shells and rosy shells and great
purple mussels. He and Hands took off their shoes and stockings
and ran through the limpid water that sparkled with gold and
tempted them to wade
for ever ankle deep. They reached a broken mass of rock which
would obviously be surrounded by water at high tide; they
clambered up to the summit and found there grass and rabbits’
holes.

“It’s a real island,” said Michael. “It is! I say, Hands, this is our island. We discovered it. Bags I, we keep it.”

“Don’t let’s get caught by the tide,” suggested cautious Hands.

“All right, you funk,” jeered Michael.

They came back to the level sands and wandered on towards the black point of cliff bounding the immediate view.

“I say, there’s a cave. I bet you there’s a cave,” Michael called to his companion who was examining a dead fish.

“Wait a jiffy,” shouted Hands; but Michael hurried on to the cave. He wanted to be the first to enter under its jagged arch. Already he could see the silver sand shimmering upon the threshold of the inner darkness. He walked in, awed by the secrecy of this sea-cavern, almost expectant of a mermaid or octopus in the deepest cranny. Suddenly he stopped. His heart beat furiously: his head swam: his legs quivered under him. Then he turned and ran towards the light.

“Good lummy!” said Hands, when Michael came up to him. “Whatever’s the matter? You’re simply frightfully white.”

“Come away,” said Michael. “I saw something beastly.”

“What was it?”

“There’s a man in there and a woman. Oh, it was beastly.”

Michael dragged Hands by the arm, but not before they had left the cave far behind would he speak.

“What was it really?” asked Hands, when they stood at the bottom of the cliff.

“I couldn’t possibly tell anybody ever,” said Michael.

“You’re making it up,” scoffed Hands.

“No, I’m not,” said Michael. “Look here, don’t say anything to the others about that cave. Promise.”

Hands promised silence; and he and Michael soon discovered a pathway up the cliff. When they reached the garden, it was a deeper green than ever in the falling twilight, and they did not care to linger far from the house. It was a relief to hear voices and to see Rutherford, Hargreaves and Jubb still eating plums. Presently they played games on a lawn with Mr. Vernon and Mr. Lodge, and soon, after reading sleepily for a while in the tumble-down room which was set apart for the boys’ use, Michael and Hands went to bed and, after an exciting encounter with a bat, fell asleep.

The days in Brittany went by very swiftly. In the morning at eight o’clock there were great bowls of café au lait and rolls with honey and butter waiting in the dining-room for the boys, when they came back from bathing. All the other boys except Michael had come to France to improve their French; but he worked also at the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and at Lucian’s Charon, because he was going in for a scholarship at St. James’. However, these classical subjects were put away at eleven o’clock, when déjeuner with all sorts of new and delicious dishes was served. After this there was nothing to do until six o’clock but enjoy oneself. Sometimes the boys made expeditions into St. Corentin, where they wondered at the number of dogs to each inhabitant and bought cakes and sweets at a pastrycook’s and gas-filled balloons which they sent up in the market-place. Or they would stroll down to the quays and watch the shipping and practise their French on sailors looking more like pirates than ordinary sailors.

Once, while Michael was gazing into a shop window at some dusty
foreign stamps in a brass tray, a Capuchin friar spoke to him
in very good English and asked if he collected stamps. Michael
said that he did, and the Capuchin invited
him to come back to the convent and see his collection.
Michael thought this was a splendid invitation and willingly
accompanied the Capuchin whom, except for a sore on his lip,
he liked very much. He thought the inside of the convent was
rather like the inside of an aquarium, but he enjoyed the
stamps very much. The friar gave him about a dozen of his
duplicates, and Michael promised to write to him, when he got
home, and to send him some of his own. Then they had tea in
the friar’s cell, and afterwards Michael set out to walk back
to St. Antoine. It was not yet six o’clock when he reached the
house, but there was a terrible fuss being made about his
adventure. Telegrams had been despatched, the gendarmerie had
been informed, and the British Vice-consul had been
interviewed. Mr. Vernon asked in his deepest voice where the
deuce he had been, and when Michael told him he had been
taking tea with a monk, Mr. Vernon was more angry than ever.

“Don’t do things like that. Good heavens, boy, you might have been kidnapped and turned into a Catholic, before you knew where you were. Hang it all, remember I’m responsible for your safety and never again get into conversation with a wandering monk.”

Michael explained about the stamps, but Mr. Vernon said that
was a very pretty excuse, and would by no means hear of Michael
visiting the convent again. When Michael thought over this
fuss, he could not understand what it had all been about. He
could not imagine anything more harmless than this Capuchin
friar with the sore on his lip. However, he never did see him
again, except once in the distance, when he pointed him out to
Mr. Vernon, who said he looked a dirty ruffian. Michael
discovered that grown-up people always saw danger where there
was no danger, but when, as on the occasion when Hands and he
plainly perceived a ghost in the garden, there was every cause
for real alarm, they merely laughed.

The weather grew warmer as August moved on, and Michael with
Mr. Vernon and Mr. Lodge used sometimes to plunge into the
depths of the country, there to construe Ovid and Lucian while
the other boys worked at French with the Frenchman who came in
from St. Corentin to teach them. Michael enjoyed these
expeditions with Mr. Vernon and Mr. Lodge. They would sit down
in the lush grass of a shady green lane, close to a pool where
the bull-frogs croaked. Michael would construe the tale of
Deucalion and Pyrrha to Mr. Lodge, while Mr. Vernon lay on his
back and smoked a large pipe. Then a White Admiral butterfly
would soar round the oak trees, and Ovid would be thrown behind
them like Deucalion’s stones; while Michael and Mr. Vernon and
Mr. Lodge manœuvred and shouted and ran up and down, until the
White Admiral was either safely bottled with the cyanide of
potassium or soared away out of sight. When Ovid was finished
for the day, Mr. Lodge used to light a big pipe and lie on his
back, while Michael construed the Dialogue of Charon to Mr.
Vernon. Then an Oak Eggar moth would fly with tumbling reckless
flight beyond the pool, luring Michael and Mr. Lodge and Mr.
Vernon to charge through in pursuit, not deterred by the vivid
green slime of the wayside water as the ghosts were deterred by
gloomy Styx. Indeed, as the hot August days went by, each one
was marked by its butterflies more definitely than by anything
else. Michael thought that France was a much better place for
collecting them than England. Scarce Swallow-tails and Ordinary
Swallow-tails haunted the cliffs majestically. Clouded Yellows
were chased across the fields of clover. Purple Emperors and
Camberwell Beauties and Bath Whites were all as frequent as
Heath Browns at home. Once, they all went a long expedition to
Bluebeard’s Castle on the other side of the Loire, and, while
they sat in a garden café, drinking their grenadine sucrée,
hundreds of Silver-washed Fritillaries
appeared over the tables. How the fat French bourgeois stared
to see these mad English boys chasing butterflies in their
sunny bee-haunted garden. But how lovely the Fritillaries
looked, set upside down to show their powdered green and rosy
wings washed by silver streaks. Perhaps the most exciting
catch of all happened, close to the shutting in of a September
dusk, in the avenue of pollarded acacias. Michael saw the moth
first on the lowest bough of a tree. It was jet-black marked
with thick creamy stripes. Neither he nor Hands had a net, and
they trembled with excitement and chagrin. Michael threw a
stone rather ineffectively and the moth changed its position,
showing before it settled down on a higher branch underwings
of glowing vermilion.

“Oh, what can it be?” Michael cried, dancing.

“It’s frightfully rare,” squeaked Hands.

“You watch it carefully, while I scoot for a net,” commanded Michael.

He tore along up the darkening drive, careless of ghosts or travelling seamen bent on murder and robbery. He rushed into the hall and shouted, ‘A terribly rare moth in the drive! Quick, my net!’ and rushed back to the vigilant Hands. The others followed, and after every cunning of the hunter had been tried, the moth was at last secured and after a search through Kirby’s Butterflies and Moths pronounced to be a Jersey Tiger, not so rare, after all, in fact very common abroad. But it was a glorious beast when set, richly black, barred and striped with damasked cream over a flame of orange-scarlet.

The six weeks were over. Michael had to leave in advance of the
others, in order to enter for his scholarship examination at
St. James’. Mr. Lodge took him to St. Malo and handed him over
to the charge of Rutherford’s older brother, who was already at
St. James’ and would see Michael safely to London. Michael
could scarcely believe that this Rutherford was a boy, so tall
was he, such a heavy
black moustache had he and so pleasant was he to Michael.
Michael thought with regret of the green and golden days in
Brittany, as he waved to Mr. Lodge standing on the St. Malo
jetty. He felt, as the steamer sailed across the glassy sea
through a thick September haze, that he was coming back to
greater adventures, that he was older and, as he paced beside
Rutherford up and down the deck, that he was more important.
But he thought with regret of Brittany and squeaky Hands and
the warm days of butterflies. He hoped to return next year and
see again the fig tree by his bedroom window and the level
shore of the Loire estuary and the tangled tumble-down garden
on the cliff’s edge. He would always think of Mr. Lodge and
Mr. Vernon, those very dearly loved schoolmasters. He would
think of the ghostly Breton lanes at twilight and the glorious
Sundays unspoilt by church or best clothes and of the
bull-frogs in the emerald pools.

Michael disliked the examination very much indeed. He hated the way in which all the other competitors stared. He disliked the speed with which they wrote and the easy manners of some of them. However, he gained his scholarship mostly by age marks and was put in the Lower Third, the youngest boy in the class by two years, and became a Jacobean, turning every morning round the same gate, walking every morning up the same gravel path, running every morning up the same wide steps, meeting every morning the same smell of hot-water pipes and hearing every day the same shuffle of quick feet along the corridors past the same plaster cast of the Laocoön.