They left next day for Marseilles, where they found, much to their delight, not only their motor-car, which had been shipped from New York, but Monseigneur Charmiton and his sister, who were on the point of leaving for their villa at Cap Ferrat. "And how did you like Avignon?" were their first words. Although too polite to say "I told you so," they now insisted the Riviera be given a fair trial. So, chance and friendly counsel prevailing, the Stevenson party motored east through lovely Provence, passing swiftly through Hyères of haunting memory, and on to Cannes, where they stopped the night; and so to an hotel in Beaulieu, where Monseigneur's sister had engaged rooms for them till a villa was found to their liking. And soon a charming one at St. Jean-sur-Mer, a little village near Beaulieu, was taken for the season.
The Villa Mes Rochers stood in a walled garden, which sloped gently to a terrace on the edge of the sea—a place for tea in the afternoons when the mistral was not blowing. Here they settled down for the winter.
It was a pleasant, easy life. There were friends in Nice and Monte Carlo; there was the daily motor ride; there were books to read, letters to write, and recipes to be learned from the French and set down in the famous cook book without which Mrs. Stevenson never travelled. Here they lingered till April, and then set out in their motor for London.
Their route again lay through Provence. They stopped at Arles, famous alike for its beautiful women and its sausages. The beautiful women were absent that day, but a sausage appeared at table and was pronounced worthy of its niche in the sausage Hall of Fame. Further along, in the Cevennes, they were enchanted with Le Puy, and the lovely, lovely country where Louis had made his memorable journey with Modestine. And so they went on north, by Channel steamer to Folkstone, up through Kent, and into London by the Old Kent Road; then to lodgings in Chelsea, where old friends called and old ties were renewed.
After a month in London a house was taken in Chiddingfold, Surrey, to be near "the dear Favershams," as Mrs. Stevenson always called them. Mr. and Mrs. William Faversham, whom Mrs. Stevenson held in great affection, owned The Old Manor in Chiddingfold, and they had found a place for her near them—Fairfield, a charming old house in an old-world garden, and, best of all, not five minutes' walk from The Old Manor.
Life at Fairfield, except for constant rain, was delightful. Graham Balfour, the well-beloved, came for a visit; Austin Strong and his wife ran down from London; many an afternoon was spent at Sir James Barrie's place near Farnham. Sir James loved Mrs. Stevenson—a dear, shy man who had so little to say to so many, so much to say to her. Then there were the Williamsons (of Lightning Conductor fame), whom she had met in Monte Carlo; they also had a house in Surrey. And there were Sir Arthur and Lady Pinero, who lived only a mile or two from Fairfield. Mrs. Stevenson considered the genial, witty, gently cynical Sir Arthur one of the most interesting men she had ever met. Lady Pinero always called her husband "Pin," and Sir Arthur was enchanted when, after looking at him with smiling eyes, Mrs. Stevenson one day turned to Lady Pinero and remarked, "I've always doubted that old saying, 'It is a sin to steal a Pin,' but now I understand it perfectly."
Katherine de Mattos, Stevenson's cousin, also honoured Fairfield with a visit, and Coggie Ferrier, sister of Stevenson's boyhood friend, and the woman perhaps above all others in England whom Mrs. Stevenson loved best, came frequently. And always there were the Favershams, who were very dear to her heart. It was a memorable summer, full of pleasant companionship—and rain. Towards the middle of August, on account of the never-ceasing rain, it was finally decided to abandon Fairfield and return to France for a long motor trip.
The first night out from Chiddingfold was spent at Tunbridge Wells, and next day a stop was made at Rye to call on Henry James. Never did travellers receive a more hearty or gracious welcome. It is a quaint, lost place, Rye—one of the old Cinque Ports; to enter it one passes under an ancient Roman arch; the nearest railroad is miles away. It is nice to think that after giving him a cup of tea in her drawing-room in San Francisco two years before, Mrs. Stevenson could see the house he lived in, admire his garden, drink tea in his drawing-room, and talk long and pleasantly with this old and valued friend she was never to see again.
The second motor trip in France was an unqualified success. Keeping to the west and avoiding Paris, this time their route lay through Blois, Tours, Angoulême, Libourne, Biarritz, till, finally, several miles from Pau, they had a panne, as they say in France, and their motor, which had behaved remarkably well until that moment, entered Pau ignominiously at the end of a long tow-rope. As it took ten days to make the repairs necessary, they used the interval of waiting to go by train to Lourdes. It was the particular time when pilgrims go to seek the healing waters of the miraculous fountain, and they saw many sad and depressing sights—for the lame, the halt, the blind, people afflicted with every sort of disease, and some even in the last agonies, crowded the paths in a pitiful procession. Mrs. Stevenson afterwards said that when she saw the blind come away from the sacred fount with apparently seeing eyes, and the lame throw away their crutches and walk, she was, as King Agrippa said unto Paul, "almost persuaded" to believe.
Gladly putting this picture behind them, they went on to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, a little village nestling at the base of the Pyrenees. The weather there was perfect, and the whole atmosphere of the place so sweetly simple and unsophisticated that Mrs. Stevenson loved it best of all. After six pleasant days spent there, the motor now mended, they returned by train to Pau and resumed their trip—due east to Carcassonne, that lovely, lovely city, with its mediæval ramparts and towers, and then on to Cette on the Mediterranean, where they landed in a storm.