“Our American hero, Mr. Jones, used to put in here, they say,” remarked Nancy casually.
“What Mr. Jones?” asked Cynthia, then at Nancy’s deepening dimple, always an index to her mood, suspected a trap. “Who was Mr. Jones?”
“Why surely you remember John Jones, of the U. S. Navy? No? ... Not Mr. John Paul Jones?”
“Beast!” laughed Cynthia, then “Tell me some more.”
“Well, as you know, this is the Department of Finisterre, Lands End, and is the farthest west of all western provinces. Some centuries ago, dunno how many, but not long, it belonged to England and the people here are closer to the southwest-of-England type than you could imagine.”
They turned a corner, past a wide lipped stone well where a woman dipped water in a huge, creamy-toned pitcher. Cynthia murmured, “Wait till I can get to my sketch book!” and Nancy nodded understandingly.
“Then the French got it back,” she continued, “and perhaps the English again after that. Anyway the English burnt it a couple of times, though there were still some English families living here, but spared the houses in which they lived. That’s why there are still some very old places, in spite of the conquerors. Here’s the quay. You must get out your canvas sneakers, these cobbles are death on good leather shoes. Wooden sabots are best, though I’ve never tried ’em.”
The tiny hotel smelled pleasantly of soap and good Breton cooking. One went steeply up two flights of stairs to a narrow hall and turned into a small, whitewashed room with a dresser, a wash stand and a white covered bed. The single window overlooked the long stretch of quay and the tidal river, very low now and turning to marvelous lavender in the sunset light.
“My room is next door, and mother’s beyond that. Here are your things. I brought you the longest way so you could see the town—Goodness, you aren’t catching a cold are you?”
Cynthia sneezed again. “I hope not. But a small child in the train from Paris had frightful snuffles, right in my own compartment, and it was sort of drafty on the trolley from Brest.”