The next day, with his dead wife’s photograph and his travelling kit in my box, as steerage passengers we went down the Thames together, both happy, on board the s.s. Albatross, bound for Bordeaux.
Arriving at Bordeaux, we found it advisable, owing to the state of our exchequer, to live outside in the suburbs, so we rented a pretty little chateau in the Rue V——, Cauderon. The weather was bitterly cold, and we spent a good portion of the day in trying to make our coke fire burn. Every night we walked into Bordeaux and got a good feed in a restaurant; one franc fifty centimes secured us several courses, with a bottle of wine each included. I wandered about Bordeaux a good deal, and went down the leafy pathways of the Botanical Gardens, but could not appreciate anything owing to the cold winds. I had thought to visit spots associated with the old French philosopher, Montaigne, who doubtless in his day wandered over the historic streets where I now walked looking for violin engagements. In my sea-chest at our chateau I had Montaigne’s Essays, and I satisfied myself by lying in my bed and reading the deep, innocent wisdom of the great Frenchman. Near where we lived there was a wine merchant and many residents who, I think, worked in the vineyards. From the merchant we got credit, and things eventually became so bad that we lived for some time on wine and haricot beans. At last I secured a course of concert engagements at English and French clubs and concerts.
My comrade and I invited the wine-seller and several Frenchmen to supper every night, and the little chateau with “Zee Engleise gentlemen” in it rang with song as a French harp-player and I played. Long after midnight the noise went on: they all lifted their arms and opened their mouths, while Mr Bonnivard told those chivalrous Frenchmen of his experiences in the Siege of Paris. They were delighted with my comrade’s yarns, and he went on spinning them vigorously. I could not speak French, so I could only watch their faces expressing horror or surprise as he fired away.
About two weeks later the smash came. The rent of the chateau was a hundred francs a month and was due; we also owed the wine-seller for about a hundred bottles of red and white wine. It was cheap enough, fourpence a litre.
We could not possibly pay the rent, but we held a hurried and private council and resolved to give our friend the wine-seller fifty francs and send the remainder after we arrived at Biarritz. We dared not give him more, otherwise we should not have our fare. We intended sending the rent to the agent, who was a little Frenchman and lived round the corner, directly we had some luck, and we did do so.
Before we went away we invited them all to a grand supper, which ended at midnight with the stirring Marseillaise. We had to be at the Midi station by ten o’clock next morning. The cab arrived; we first went to the agent to tell him we were obliged to leave for the English season at Biarritz and would send the rent on, but he was out, so off we drove. We had no sooner turned the corner of the street than the agent passed us in a small chaise and spied us and our boxes. About five minutes after we saw him chasing after us, about a quarter of a mile behind, shouting at the top of his voice. “Hadn’t we better stop and explain?” I said to my companion. But he would not do so; a whole regiment of gendarmes with drawn swords behind us would not have disturbed him, but would have simply supplied more excitement to the splendour of his “La Belle France.” He compared everything that happened around him to his life in the Homerton Workhouse, and so rubbed his hands with delight, and shouted in French to the driver, who at once whipped up the horse, and away we rumbled at full speed. I painfully felt that we were not in the South Seas, and began to feel uncomfortable when I noticed that the little agent was gaining upon us. I had come to France to make my fortune, and the prospect did not appear much better than it did when I was seeking wealth in the Australian gold-fields a few years before. I stood up and shouted “Two francs more” in the driver’s ear. He seemed to understand, and gave the poor horse another slash, and as we flew by the French people rushed from their villas and shops, thinking a fire engine was passing through the maze of Bordeaux’s streets. We eventually lost sight of the agent, caught the train and arrived in due course at Biarritz.
In Biarritz I did well: played at the Casino and gave private concerts at the different clubs and hotels where the wealthy English visitors stayed, the Hôtel de Paris, Hôtel d’Angleterre and Hôtel du Prince. The British residents consisted of titled folk: high chiefs, princes and princesses, descendants of old tribes of blue-blooded lineage. My comrade was worth his weight in gold; his engaging manner enabled him to take liberties with old colonels and the austere English “set” which would have been strongly resented if perpetrated by anyone else. I saw aristocratic old gentlemen flush and clutch their falling eyeglass with astonishment as he smacked them on the back, but they recovered and were amused by his manner, for his appearance and address revealed a personality and intellectual quality equal to their own.
We also went to Bayonne, an old-fashioned city surrounded by crumbling ramparts. They had a splendid military band there and played brilliantly. My companion was so delighted with the change in his affairs that he sang my songs and no one else’s as he walked and hummed by my side.
Before we left Biarritz we stayed for a week at the Hôtel St Julien. Mr Morrison, who ran it, gave a farewell concert on our behalf and refused to accept anything for our stay in his hotel. My comrade loved singing, but had no voice for expressing the love. Mrs Morrison heroically presided at the piano as he sang, over and over again, the one song which he sang other than my compositions. It was The Heart bowed down with Weight of Woe. Mr Morrison would clench his teeth and drink a stiff glass of cognac, and then, as the old fellow bowed in a courtly way, encore him! Our host was a clever literary man, and had all the kindness and sincerity of a true Bohemian gentleman. My old friend and I were sorry to bid him and his kind wife good-bye. They made us up a hamper of savoury food and told us to write to them if we ever got into a tight corner.
With about five hundred francs in our possession we crossed the Pyrenees, and after a month’s travelling, playing at various concerts and Spanish festivals, we arrived at Madrid. We secured apartments in the old Moorish quarter, then sallied forth and mingled with the swarthy population. The avenues and parks were alive with youths and beautiful dark girls with Arab eyes and glorious dark or bronze hair. Groups of roystering men stood about smoking cigarettes. They looked like a mixture of Italian, Moor, Turk and Arab, so reminiscent were they of those races. We wandered by the Puerta de Sol and in the crowded streets near by, and aristocratic, sharp-bearded hidalgos, with large-brimmed sombreros on the heads and cloaks thrown over their shoulders, passed us like cavaliers of the mediæval ages. Till I became used to the scene round me I felt that we walked the streets of some old, lost city; that the sailors of the Spanish Armada still had lovers among the Spanish beauties who sang in groups as they passed us, wearing short, ornamental skirts and coloured kerchiefs loosely swathing their heads of thick dark hair. The Spaniards gazed over their mantled shoulders with admiring eyes, and the laughing, flattered Spanish maidens reciprocated their gallant attention by gazing back with amorous eyes at their handsome figures, with black velvet breeches, slashed at the sides to reveal pink drawers and frills. The fajas (sashes) of the men vied in vividness of colour with the gay swathing of the fair, bronzed maids.