Reproduced from the original painting through the courtesy of Dr. D. M. Stimson
Villerville had for years been thronged in summer and fall by painters, French, English, and American; perhaps it is so still. Guillemet had been there for twenty consecutive seasons; Duez had built himself a house and studio with a Norman tower. Stanley Reinhart came both summers while we were there, with that most sweet wife of his and their pretty little children. The Forbes-Robertsons had a little villa for a while,—the parents, that is, and Miss Frances, then a girl of sixteen; and the actor son must have spent some considerable part of his vacation with them, for I recall a rather animated discussion we had one night, pacing up and down the estacade in the moonlight, when he declaimed in so ardent a fashion about the intrinsic and extrinsic glories of England, that a mere sense of equilibrium made the interjection of a “What about Ireland? What about India?” seem to me inevitable. “Oh! unjust, if you insist,” said he. “But I am an Englishman—Scotch as a matter of fact, I suppose. And you must admit that a man is bound to stand up for his country, right or wrong.” It is a sentiment I have never been able to understand. Some of us, I suppose, are born cosmopolitans, or else look forward to “an abiding city wherein dwelleth justice,” since not even patriotism can insist that it has a local abiding place here.
And that reminds me of another incident belonging to the winter time, when, as there was not an English-speaking soul in the entire neighborhood except ourselves, our landlord one day brought me in despair a lady whose vernacular it was, accompanied by a French bonne and two little children as apple-faced and ruddy as Polly Toodles’ babies. She explained that she was the wife of a major in the English army, and had but just returned with him from India; also, that while there she had read such a glowing description of the beauties of Villerville in a copy of “The Queen,” that she had determined to examine them for herself. I did what I could for her in the way of finding a furnished apartment, and before they had removed to it, went one morning to return her call at one of the hotels. I found her and the major at a late breakfast, with the English newspapers lying about. The period antedated Mr. Joseph Chamberlain’s change of his political coat, the Irish question was well to the front, and my new acquaintances spoke English with one of the most sonorous brogues that had ever greeted my ear. Here was a case in which my own sympathies and the presumable ones of my audience seemed naturally to invite a moderate expression of views on a current topic. Dead silence fell for a moment after I had stopped speaking. Then the major said with an accent that positively projected: “Excuse me, but I am English: that is to say, I am Irish, but of the landlord class!” It was simply a matter of the point of view.
It was this question of the seasons, I think, which chiefly necessitated my learning the language which was afterward of so much use to both of us up to the very end. It also necessitated a more incessant companionship than at any period was ever possible in the city of the Century Club. It was easy to pick up French enough to carry on such intercourse as was absolutely necessary with the people about us, but my serious study of it was undertaken in the first place in order that I might continue to read aloud to Homer in the evenings after the available supply of English novels and periodicals had been exhausted. I began with About’s “Roi des Montagnes,” my method being to read a sentence to accustom his ear and my tongue to the unfamiliar sounds, and forthwith to translate it literally. Of course, I had teachers, one of whom had taught this, her native language, in a London private school, while a second was at the time professor of English in the College of Honfleur. Curious English it must have been! But he was praiseworthily anxious to increase his own knowledge as well as mine. But the best one of the three was a delightful woman, Mademoiselle Lemonnier, the village postmistress, who did not know a word of English although her mother had been an Englishwoman. She was very well read and intelligent as well as companionable and kindly. I had applied to her, when my first instructress found it impossible to come any longer, to find me another. We already knew each other pretty well, and when she said, “If you will let me teach you for love, I will do it myself, but if you insist on paying, I will inquire for some one else,” it was simply a new version of Hobson’s choice. I could not have done better in any case. When Homer went abroad for the last time, he made a point of crossing the Channel to visit Mademoiselle Lemonnier. Slender as were their means of communication, they had managed to understand and sympathize with each other very completely, a strong sense of humor on either side helping greatly to that consummation.
THE CRIQUEBŒUF CHURCH
Reproduced from the original drawing through the courtesy of Dr. D. M. Stimson
We lived in Villerville for nineteen months. An excellent studio with two adjacent rooms had been arranged for us before our arrival, and we lunched and dined at Madame Cornu’s hotel, providing our breakfast in our own quarters. A quaint old English priest whom I knew in London, and who had to the full the hereditary prejudice against “Johnny Crapaud,” had warned me not merely of what he believed to be the prevalent Jansenism which would prevent so frequent an approach to the sacraments as I had been accustomed to, but against the cheating, the conscienceless thievery to which he assured me we would be subjected on all sides. “I would not spend a farthing in France!” said he. Well, in Paris, perhaps, though I had no personal experience of it even there. But in Villerville, and afterward in Honfleur, there was absolutely no exception to the perfect cordiality, absolute trust, and gentle politeness which greeted us on all sides. I have never met anything like it elsewhere save in the parish of the Paulist Fathers in New York. I speak from what may be called exhaustive knowledge, since there was a period, before we left the former place, when we were out of money for so long that when at last we were able to settle Madame Cornu’s bill it amounted to the considerable sum of two thousand francs. I had asked her some time previously if she were not in need of it, but only to receive the smiling answer: “When Madame pleases. We are neither of us robbers.” So in Honfleur, where, after we had been domiciled for a month or so, and had found our fresh bread and rolls on the kitchen-window ledge every morning, I went to the baker to inquire for and settle his account. “But, Madame,” objected the fresh-cheeked young woman in charge, “we have kept no account. Does not Madame know how much it is herself?” “Why, yes,” said I; “you have brought so much for so many days at such a price.” “C’est ça” she smiled. “Whatever Madame says.” And this, again, reminds me of Madame Cornu and her remarkable bill. There had been a price set in the first place of so much a day for our two meals, which were always abundant and well-cooked. I knew the dates and was ready with the exact sum. But when my tally was placed beside her bill there was a discrepancy arising from the fact that Homer would sometimes be absent from the midday meal by reason of a sketching excursion or something of the sort, and she was never notified beforehand. Yet on every such occasion a deduction had been scrupulously made. Such an experience never befell us elsewhere.
To Homer also Villerville was as delightful as any place could be while lacking that social intercourse with men of brains and cultivation which was always his chief pleasure and relaxation. Years afterward, Mr. Brownell said one evening when we were all dining together in those pleasant apartments of theirs on Fifty-sixth Street, that the three weeks which he and his wife had spent there with us seemed to him more like his idea of heaven than anything he remembered. And he asked me whether I would not like to live it all over again. In retrospect, yes; as I have just been proving. But, were it possible in reality? O no! Never have I seen a day that has tempted me to say to it: “Stay, thou art fair!”
