A Versailles Christmas-Tide | Page 2

crying
"London" and "À Becket" was scarce so impotent as Placidia; for any
information the Saracen maiden had she retained, while Placidia
naively admitted that she had already forgotten by which line of
steamers her passage through the Mediterranean had been taken.
Placidia had an irrational way of losing her possessions. While yet on
her way to the London railway station she had lost her tam-o'-shanter.
So perforce, she travelled in a large picture-hat which, although pretty
and becoming, was hardly suitable headgear for channel-crossing in
mid-winter.
[Illustration: Storm Warning]
It was a wild night; wet, with a rising north-west gale. Tarpaulined
porters swung themselves on to the carriage-steps as we drew up at
Dover pier, and warned us not to leave the train, as, owing to the storm,
the Calais boat would be an hour late in getting alongside.
The Ostend packet, lying beside the quay in full sight of the travellers,
lurched giddily at her moorings. The fourth occupant of our
compartment, a sallow man with yellow whiskers, turned green with
apprehension. Not so Placidia. From amongst her chaotic hand-baggage
she extracted walnuts and mandarin oranges, and began eating with an
appetite that was a direct challenge to the Channel. Bravery or
foolhardiness could go no farther.

Providence tempers the wind to the parents who are shorn of their lamb.
The tumult of waters left us scatheless, but poor Placidia early paid the
penalty of her rashness. She "thought" she was a good sailor--though
she acknowledged that this was her first sea-trip--and elected to remain
on deck. But before the harbour lights had faded behind us a
sympathetic mariner supported her limp form--the feathers of her
incongruous hat drooping in unison with their owner--down the
swaying cabin staircase and deposited her on a couch.
"Oh! I do wish I hadn't eaten that fruit," she groaned when I offered her
smelling-salts. "But then, you know, I was so hungry!"
In the train rapide a little later, Placidia, when arranging her wraps for
the night journey, chanced, among the medley of her belongings, upon
a missing boat-ticket whose absence at the proper time had threatened
complications. She burst into good-humoured laughter at the discovery.
"Why, here's the ticket that man made all the fuss about. I really
thought he wasn't going to let me land till I found it. Now, I do wonder
how it got among my rugs?"
We seemed to be awake all night, staring with wide, unseeing eyes out
into the darkness. Yet the chill before dawn found us blinking sleepily
at a blue-bloused porter who, throwing open the carriage door, curtly
announced that we were in Paris.
Then followed a fruitless search for Placidia's luggage, a hunt which
was closed by Placidia recovering her registration ticket (with a
fragment of candy adhering to it) from one of the multifarious pockets
of her ulster, and finding that the luggage had been registered on to
Marseilles. "Will they charge duty on tobacco?" she inquired blandly,
as she watched the Customs examination of our things. "I've such a lot
of cigars in my boxes."
There was an Old-Man-of-the-Sea-like tenacity in Placidia's smiling
impuissance. She did not know one syllable of French. A new-born
babe could not have revealed itself more utterly incompetent. I verily
believe that, despite our haste, we would have ended by escorting
Placidia across Paris, and ensconcing her in the Marseilles train, had

not Providence intervened in the person of a kindly disposed polyglot
traveller. So, leaving Placidia standing the picture of complacent
fatuosity in the midst of a group consisting of this new champion and
three porters, we sneaked away.
[Illustration: Treasure Trove]
Grey dawn was breaking as we drove towards St. Lazare Station, and
the daily life of the city was well begun. Lights were twinkling in the
dark interiors of the shops. Through the mysterious atmosphere figures
loomed mistily, then vanished into the gloom. But we got no more than
a vague impression of our surroundings. Throughout the interminable
length of drive across the city, and the subsequent slow train journey,
our thoughts were ever in advance.
The tardy winter daylight had scarcely come before we were jolting in
a fiacre over the stony streets of Versailles. In the gutters, crones were
eagerly rummaging among the dust heaps that awaited removal. In
France no degradation attaches to open economies. Housewives on
their way to fetch Gargantuan loaves or tiny bottles of milk for the
matutinal café-au-lait cast searching glances as they passed, to see if
among the rubbish something of use to them might not be lurking. And
at one alluring mound an old gentleman of absurdly respectable
exterior perfunctorily turned over the scraps with the point of his cane.
We had heard of a hotel, and the first thing we saw of it we