For the first hundred and thirty miles or so of the journey the Pallas
Athene did all that could be expected of an eight-cylinder sports model
driven by a young man who did not shrink from paying an occasional
fine. The needle of the speedometer often flickered past the sixty
miles mark. The average speed fell little short of double that which
our legislators--the same people who made the laws about beer--consider
sufficient. Ilchester was reached in less than four hours. Jimmy,
slowing down slightly through the long narrow street of the village,
congratulated himself and his passengers on the achievement.
"I call that a satisfactory record so far," he said, "and we haven't
killed or maimed so much as a dog, which just shows the advantage of
careful driving."
He congratulated himself too soon. The inhabitants of Ilchester,
indeed, escaped with their lives. Three main roads unite to run through
their village, so they have learnt to be exceedingly alert and active.
Lord Colavon had not so much as a broken collar-bone on his conscience
when he pressed his foot on the accelerator at the end of the village.
But a few miles along the road the engine began to give trouble. Jimmy
was perfectly sure that he knew what was the matter with it. He spent
ten minutes in oily work with a spanner. After that, things became
rapidly worse. Noises of the most terrifying kind became frequent, and
it was no longer possible to persuade the Pallas Athene to do more than
thirty miles an hour on a level stretch of road.
Jimmy, less confident than he had been that he knew what was the
matter, left his direct road and went to Taunton. There he sought help
in a garage while the two girls had tea. The mechanic, an intelligent
and competent man, shook his head over the Pallas Athene. He preferred
a soberer and more reliable kind of car, even if it could not be driven
very fast. In his opinion it would be folly to go on any farther, and
he spoke vaguely of telegraphing to the makers of the car for some
spare parts.
"Spare parts be damned," said Jimmy. "That means waiting here for the
best part of a week."
The mechanic could not deny that the getting of spare parts is often
a tedious business, especially--here he glanced with dislike at the
Pallas Athene--"from the makers of cars like that."
"Can't you patch her up somehow," said Jimmy, "so that I can push on
another forty or fifty miles? I haven't much more than that to do."
"I can patch her up," said the mechanic, "but there's no man living can
tell how far she'll run afterwards."
Being a cautious man, experienced in the ways of motor-cars, he
refused, even when pressed, to give any exact estimate of the distance
which the patched Pallas Athene might run. The only thing he regarded
as certain was that she would break down completely in the end.
"It might be two miles out of the town," he said, "or it might be a
hundred."
"Do the best you can with her while I'm getting a cup of tea," said
Jimmy. "Then fill up her tank and give her a pint of oil. I'll risk
it."
The behaviour of the Pallas Athene after leaving Taunton was excellent.
It may have been that the hour's rest in the garage revived her.
More probably she was pleased by the attention she received from the
mechanic. All women, even dignified Greek goddesses, like being fussed
over and petted. Jimmy was moderate in his demands for speed and
did not demand anything more than what he called "a funeral trot" of
thirty-five miles an hour. Exeter was passed successfully, and the time
came when the main road must be left for the last stage of the journey.
Jimmy, gaining confidence, ran at a fair speed up and down some abrupt
hills on roads marked on the maps in inferior colours, occasionally not
coloured at all. On a lonely open stretch of one of what the map makers
describe as "other metalled roads, narrow," the breakdown, prophesied
by the Taunton mechanic, came. Without so much as a warning shriek or
a death rattle the Pallas Athene gasped and stopped.
Jimmy did all that a man could do. He lay on his back and screwed
nuts. He lay on his side and screwed other nuts. He crawled on his
stomach. He knelt, stooped, crouched, tapped and hammered. Like the
good Samaritan, he poured in oil and would have poured in wine too if
he had had any. Beth and Mary encouraged him and tried to help him.
They spread a whole kit of tools out on a bank on the side of the road
and very soon learned to distinguish between a double-ended spanner, a
box spanner and an adjustable spanner, often handed the right weapon to
Jimmy without giving him a wrong one more than a couple of times first.
"Well I'm damned if I know what's wrong," said Jimmy, after an hour's
experimental effort. "If only the wretched thing had held out another
quarter of an hour we'd have been there, we can't be more than seven
or eight miles from Morriton St. James, and Uncle Evie's house is just
outside."
"Couldn't Mary and I walk on," said Beth, "and send somebody back for
you? There must be a car in the village?"
"Morriton St. James is a town, not a village," said Jimmy, "and there
are lots of cars, but it would take you the best part of three hours to
get there--if you ever got there at all. Look at Mary's shoes, and your
own are no better."
Mary exhibited, for admiration or contempt, a delicate suède shoe,
certainly not intended for long walks over rough roads.
"I'd go myself," said Jimmy, "but I hate leaving you two alone in a
place like this. I never saw such a road in my life. Not a blessed
thing has passed, going either way since the Pallas Athene lay down and
died."
"I'll do a lisp next week," said Beth, "on the dangerously congested
condition of our country roads."
"I don't suppose anything ever does pass or ever will," said Jimmy.
He had been too optimistic at Ilchester over the performances of the
Pallas Athene. He was too pessimistic now about the traffic on the road
to Morriton St. James. A moving object appeared far off. The sound of
clanging metal reached their ears. A very old Ford car came rattling
towards them at a steady, but apparently laborious, twenty miles an
hour. At the steering wheel sat James Hinton of the Anchor Inn in
Hailey Compton.
Jimmy was determined not to be passed by. There are a few motorists
as indifferent to the calls of charity as if they were priests or
Levites, who go their way without succouring those in distress on the
roadside. The driver of the Ford might be such a man. Jimmy made sure
that he would at least stop by standing with outstretched hands in the
middle of the road. The Pallas Athene, her wheels against one bank,
occupied about one third of the road, which was not very wide. Jimmy,
half-way to the other bank, made passing impossible without homicide.
He need not have taken such extreme measures. James Hinton pulled up
and inquired politely what was the matter and whether he could be of
any use.
"If you'll take these two ladies into Morriton St. James," said Jimmy,
"and send someone back to tow this car I shall be greatly obliged,
and----"
He felt in his pocket for a coin, looking hard at James Hinton, to
discover, if possible, whether he was the sort of man to whom a tip
should be offered. James Hinton, since he pulled up, had been looking
hard at Jimmy. In spite of the smears of oily dust which were on his
face and his generally dishevelled appearance, he was recognisable.
"Certainly, my lord," he said. "It will be nothing but a pleasure to
oblige your lordship in any possible way. Would it be convenient if I
was to take the two ladies straight to the Manor House. It occurs to me
that your lordship may intend to pay a visit to Sir Evelyn Dent, your
lordship's uncle."
"I say," said Jimmy. "You seem to know all about me, and I'm delighted
to meet you again and all that; but--damned stupid of me, of course--I
can't for the life of me recollect who you are."
"Your lordship wouldn't recollect me," said Hinton. "It's not to be
expected that you would; but I was in the late earl's service as first
footman, and I had the honour of valetting your lordship sometimes
lately when you stayed with Lord Dollman without bringing your own
man."
"Got you now," said Jimmy. "You're the fellow Dolly thought such a lot
of. Said he never knew anyone with such a talent for spotting winners.
Anyhow, Dolly used to make pots while he had you."
"Very kind of his lordship to say so," said Hinton. "It's always been
my wish to give satisfaction."
"I suppose you don't happen to be out of a job now. If you cared to
come to me---- What about it?"
"Very kind of your lordship," said Hinton, "but I've retired from
gentlemen's service. But of course if I could be of any use to your
lordship----"
"You can and shall," said Jimmy. "You shall take these two ladies to
the Manor House."
"Jimmy, dear," said Mary, catching his arm, "I daren't, simply daren't
face your uncle without you. I don't believe Beth would either. He
wouldn't know who we were."
"It would be a bit awkward," said Beth. "I don't suppose Sir Evelyn has
so much as heard our names."
She was wrong about that. Sir Evelyn had heard her name very often
since the idea of the smuggling pageant occurred to Mrs. Eames. He had
even read, with gratification, every lisp of Lilith's in which his name
had been mentioned since Beth began her campaign of advertising the
pageant.
James Hinton, who had left his seat and was arranging the back part
of his car for the reception of ladies, understood the situation, or
thought he did. In fact he understood it too well, believing it to be
rather more awkward than it actually was. It was perfectly plain to him
that the two girls did not belong to the class which habitually visits
the houses of our higher aristocracy. Since, in spite of that, they
spoke to Lord Colavon as "Jimmy, dear," he assumed that they belonged
to another class which could not be introduced to Jimmy's aunts, or
even to his uncle without some explanation.
"If I might be allowed to make a suggestion, my lord," he said, "why
not permit me to tow your car into Morriton St. James and then your
lordship could accompany the ladies to the Manor House."
Jimmy looked at the derelict Pallas Athene. She was a long, low car,
and her body sloped back in lines rather like the rake of the masts of
a pirate schooner in a novel. Her delicate pale blue paint still shone,
though covered with the dust of the long journey. Her aluminium bonnet
glistened in the rays of the setting sun. Her great balloon tyres lay
like coiled monsters under her wide black wings. He looked at Hinton's
Ford, squat, dumpy, perched absurdly above her little wheels. He noted
the battered mud guards, the chipped paint, the tattered hood strapped
into an untidy bundle at the back. A pang of acute humiliation gripped
him hard.
"Can you do it?" he asked with a sigh.
"On low gear," said Hinton. "There is no doubt that we can do it on low
gear. Your lordship has not perhaps had much experience of Fords."
"None," said Jimmy bitterly.
"Then perhaps your lordship will excuse my saying that a Ford will do
anything in low gear."
"If so," said Jimmy, with a burst of real magnanimity, "a Ford is a
damned sight better car than a Pallas Athene eight cylinder sports
model. It won't do anything on any gear."
A really good servant, accustomed to the best houses, is never found
wanting, or unable to meet any demand made on him. Asked suddenly
in the middle of the afternoon for tripe and onions he displays no
astonishment; but in a short time brings tripe and onions into the
drawing-room, in a nice dish on a silver salver. Told, at luncheon,
that a complete outfit for water polo is required immediately
afterwards for a party of eight, he produces, without fuss or protest,
bathing suits, balloons and everything else required. James Hinton
had been a thoroughly good servant, one of the very best in England, a
country which produces the best servants in the world.
From the locker under the back seat of his car he took a long and
reliable rope. It was as if he had fully expected to come upon a
derelict Pallas Athene when he left home in the afternoon.
The two girls were packed into the back seat of the Ford with many
polite apologies. James Hinton took his seat, rigidly upright in front.
Jimmy, crushed with shame, crouched over the steering wheel of the
Pallas Athene.
The drive began with a gallant effort of Hinton's to be better than
his word. He tried the Ford on her top gear. She clanged, snorted,
missed fire on one plug after another, made spasmodic jumps and finally
stopped, her engine stalled. James Hinton got out, worked hard at the
handle for a while and started again. This time he made no attempt to
get out of low gear. The progress was slow. On the slightest incline
it dropped to about four miles an hour. On a serious hill it became a
crawl. Steam rose from the Ford's radiator like smoke from the funnel
of a locomotive. The water inside could be heard boiling furiously.
Oily smoke rose occasionally between the floor boards at Hinton's feet.
The noise was terrific. The heat, even in the back part of the car
where the two girls sat, was great. For Hinton it was blasting. But
he stuck to his post and the car stuck to its work. She had emerged,
a giddy young thing from the works in Detroit eleven years before.
Time had sobered her, but had not broken that determination to get
somewhere, somehow, which is the characteristic of all Fords of all
ages.
The eight miles to Morriton St. James were accomplished in something
a little over an hour. The procession stopped at the door of the
principal garage in the town and a crowd quickly gathered round.
"That car," said Jimmy to the proprietor of the garage, "cost me twelve
hundred pounds this morning. I'll swap it for one like James Hinton's
if you happen to have such a thing in stock."
The garage owner refused to make the exchange. He was an honest man
and would not take advantage of a stranger whose nervous system was
wrecked. Besides, it would have been very difficult to dispose of the
Pallas Athene sports model at any price in Morriton St. James, a town
inhabited by sober and cautious people.