'I know what that is,' said Alice impatiently on hearing it, which they did not fail to do as soon as they were out of the train; 'that is surf. It is the same as at Madras. Horrid! I never slept a wink.'
It was only to be heard during certain winds—a very rare direction of the wind, explained the hotel porter, who understood enough English to catch what was being said. He had explained only that morning to a sentimental English lady of uncertain age, who loved the sad song of the waves with all the gushing ardour of her poetic soul, that the said song was always there, floating in the air above the pines. Besides, knowing the times of the trains and the price of hired carriages, this man was by no means ignorant in the ways of sweet deception. He was a good hotel-porter, and could lie with conviction when he tried.
Imagine a fishing village shaken up in a huge box with a fashionable watering-place, and set down pell-mell at the edge of a large inlet of the sea, and you have Arcachon. Amidst the pines, on the slopes behind the town, are villas, where hypochondriacs live and imbibe the wondrous breath of the maritime pine. Oysters are cheap, and the air is invigorating. From the westward the wind blows directly across the broad Atlantic; from the east it sighs through trackless forests. Beyond that there is little to recommend this southern town, though some of us may think highly of such important adjuncts to human happiness as oysters and atmosphere.
A certain spasmodic sociability flickers through the small English colony, consisting, as most of our Continental colonies do, of military men and retired civil servants suffering either from slender purses or unsatisfactory lungs. Among these the advent of the three ladies caused a distinct flutter, and I have reason to believe that several dresses, and not a few bonnets, were subsequently rebuilt upon new and approved lines.
The flutter was scarcely reciprocal. Brenda was not at this period inclined to indiscriminate sociability. She was in a critical frame of mind, and the intellectual standard of the average Briton residing abroad will not bear criticism. Alice found the retired civil servants intolerably trivial and dull. The old soldiers were men of a bygone day when the army had not gone to the dogs, which departure seemed to date from the time of their several resignations.
Mrs. Wylie noted these things, and took them with her usual placid cheerfulness. She had not expected much, and was in nowise disappointed—the blessed privilege of pessimists. She looked upon the three weeks spent at Arcachon as an unpleasant interlude, necessary and unavoidable, and while there made herself as comfortable as circumstances allowed, according to her wont.
Thus Christmas with its forced festivity was tided over. I sometimes wonder why that happy season in each recurring year stands out upon the road of life like public-houses on the roads we tread here below. Wise men direct Jehu by the Spotted Dog or the Marquis of Granby, and I think most of us divide our journey into stages (some consciously, others without realizing it), marked and defined by the Christmas Day at the end of each. It is the 25th of December that stands clearly marked in my memory as having been passed in some outlying corner of the world in each successive year. There is no record of the 24th or the 26th. Having devoted some thought to this matter, I have concluded that the memory is closely connected with the appetite. There are certain dishes set apart for consumption on Christmas Day, and the absence or presence in perfection of these remains indelibly engraved on the mind.
It must be confessed that the Christmas spent at Arcachon by the three ladies was not of a very festive character; but it should be remembered that two of them were widows, and the third a thoughtful young person of by no means a gay and lightsome heart.
Early in January they turned their faces homeward, and by mutual tacit consent parted company in Paris. It happened that Alice Huston met some friends there, who pressed her to stay on with them, pleading to Mrs. Wylie that a change would be beneficial to the spirits of the young widow. Brenda returned to Suffolk Mansions with the Admiral's widow.