They say that every man should have a master, but, for my part, I
prefer a mistress. Give me a nice young woman with plenty of money in
her pocket, and a bit of taste for seeing life, and I'll leave you all
the prying "amatoors" that ever sniffed about a gear-box without
knowing what was inside that same.
I have driven plenty of pretty girls in my life; but I don't know that
the prettiest wasn't Fauny Dartel, of the Apollo. This story isn't
about her--except in a way--so it doesn't much matter; but when I first
knew Fauny she was getting thirty bob a week in "The Boys of Boulogne,"
and, as she paid me three pound ten every Saturday, and the car cost
her some four hundred per annum to run, she must have been of a saving
disposition. Certainly a better mistress no man wants--not Lal
Britten, which is yours truly. I drove her for five months, and never
had a word with her. Then a man, who said he was a bailiff, came and
took her car away, and there was no money for me on the Saturday. So I
suppose she married into the peerage.
My story isn't about Fauny Dartel, though it's got to do with her.
It's about a man who didn't know who he was--at least, he said so--and
couldn't tell you why he did it. We picked him up outside the Carlton
Hotel, Fauny and me,[1] three nights before "The Boys of Boulogne" went
into the country, and "The Girls" from some other shop took their
place. She was going to sup with her brother, I remember--astonishing
how many brothers she had, too--and I was to return to the mews off
Lancaster Gate, when, just as I had set her down and was about to drive
away, up comes a jolly-looking man in a fine fur coat and an opera hat,
and asks me if I was a taxi. Lord, how I stared at him!
"Taxi yourself," says I, "and what asylum have you escaped out of?"
"Oh, come, come," says he, "don't be huffy. I only wanted to go as far
as Portman Square."
"Then call a furniture van," says I, "and perhaps they'll get you
aboard."
My dander was up, I tell you, for I was on the box of as pretty a
Daimler landaulette as ever came out of Coventry, and if there's
anything I never want to be, it's the driver of a pillar-box with a
flag in his left ear. No doubt I should have said much more to the
gentleman, when what do you think happens--why, Fauny herself comes up
and tells me to take him.
"I'm sure we should like some one to do the same for us if no taxis
were about," says she very sweetly; "please take the gentleman,
Britten, and then you can go home."
Well, I sat there as amazed a man as any in the Haymarket. It's true
there weren't any taxis on the rank at the minute; but he could have
got one by walking a hundred yards along Trafalgar Square, and she must
have known it as well as he did. All the same, she smiled sweetly at
him and he at her--and then, with a tremendous sweep of his hat, he
makes a gallant speech to her.
"I am under a thousand obligations," says he; "really, I couldn't
intrude."
"Oh, get in and go off," says she, almost pushing him. "I shall lose
my supper if you don't."
He obeyed her immediately, and away we went. You will remember that
his talk had been of a house in Portman Square; but no sooner had I
turned the corner by the Criterion than he began speaking through the
tube, and telling me to go to Playford's in Berkeley Square. There he
stopped, notwithstanding that it was getting on for twelve o'clock; and
when he had rung the bell and entered the house, I had to wait a good
fifteen minutes before he was ready for the second stage.
"Is it Portman Square now?" I asked him. He laughed and slipped a
sovereign into my hand.
"I can see you're one of the right sort," he said. "Would you mind
running round to the King's Road, Chelsea, for ten minutes? Perhaps
there'll be another sovereign before we get to bed to-night."
I pocketed the money--you don't find many drivers who are long off the
fourth speed in that line, and Lal Britten is no exception. As for the
gentleman, he did seem a merry fellow, and his air was that of a Duke
all over--the kind of man who says "Do it," and finds you there every
time. We were round at the King's Road, Chelsea, perhaps a quarter of
an hour after he had spoken, and there we stopped at the door of a lot
of studios, which I have been told since are where some of the great
painters of the country keep their pictures. Here my friend was gone
perhaps twenty minutes, and when next I saw him he had three flash-up
ladies with him, and every one as classy as he was.
"Relations of mine," says he, as he pushes 'em into the landaulette,
and closes the door himself. "Now you may drive to Portman Square just
as fast as you please, for I'm an early bird myself, and don't approve
of late hours."
Well, I stared, be sure of it, though staring didn't fit that riddle,
not by a long way. My mistress had lent her landaulette to a stranger;
but I felt sure that she wouldn't have liked this sort of thing--and
yet, remember, the gentleman had told me to drive to Portman Square, so
there could not be much the matter, after all.
As for the ladies, it wasn't for me to quarrel with them. They were
all very well dressed, and behaved themselves perfectly. I came to the
conclusion that I was dealing with some rich man who had a bee in his
bonnet, and, my curiosity getting the better of me, I drove away to
Portman Square without as much as a word.
Now, this would have been some time after twelve o'clock. It was, I
think, a quarter to one when we turned into Portman Square, and he
began to work the signal on the driver's seat which tells you whether
you are to go to the right or the left, slow or easy, out or home
again. All sorts of contradictory orders baffling me, we drew up at
last before a big house on the Oxford Street side, and this, to my
astonishment, had a "To Let" board in the window, and another at the
pillar of the front door. What was even more astonishing was the fact
that this empty house--for I saw at a glance it was that--was just
lighted up from cellar to attic, while there was as many as three
furniture vans drawn up against the pavement, and sending in their
contents as fast as a dozen men could carry them. All this, mind you,
I took in at a glance. No time was given me to think about it, for the
stranger was out of the car in a jiffy and had given me my instructions
in two.
"Here's your sovereign," says he; "if you want to earn ten times as
many come back for me at four o'clock--or, better still, stay and give
'em a hand inside. We want all the help we can get to-night, and no
mistake about it. You can get your supper here, and bring that car
round when I'm ready."
Well, I didn't know what to do. My mistress had said nothing about
stopping up until four o'clock--but for that matter she hadn't
mentioned ten pounds sterling either--and here was this merry gentleman
talking about it glibly enough.
For my part the fun of the whole thing began to take hold of me, and I
determined to see it through whatever the cost. There were goings on
in Portman Square, and no mistake about it--and why should Lal Britten
be left out in the cold? Not much, I can tell you. And I had the car
away in the garage off the Edgware Road, and was back at the old
gentleman's house just about as quick as any driver could have made the
journey.
There I found the square half full of people. Three policemen stood at
the door of the house, and a pretty crowd of loafers, such as a party
in London can always bring together, watched the fun, although they
couldn't make much of it. Asking what the hullabaloo was about, a
fellow told me that Lord Crossborough had come up from the country
suddenly, and was "a-keeping of his jubilee" at No. 20B.
"Half the Gaiety's there, to say nothing of the Merry Widow," says he,
as I pushed past him, "and don't you be in a hurry, guv'nor, 'cause
you've forgotten yer diamond collar. They won't say nothink up there,
not if you was to go in a billycock 'at and a duster, s'welp me, they
wouldn't----" But I didn't listen to him, and going up the front door
steps by the policemen, I told them I was Lord Crossborough's driver,
and passed right in.
Now I have been through many funny scenes in my life, seen many funny
gentlemen, to say nothing of funny ladies, and have had many a good
time on many a good car. But this I shall say at once, that I never
got a greater surprise than when I got back to 20B, and found myself in
the empty hall among twenty or thirty pairs of yellow breeches and as
many cooks in white aprons, all pushing and shouting, and swearing that
the area gate was locked and bolted, and the kitchen in no fit state to
serve supper to a dog.
Upstairs on the landings men in white aprons were carrying plants in
pots, and building up banks of roses; while higher up still stood Lord
Crossborough himself--the gentleman I had driven from the
Carlton--shouting to them to do this and to do that, smoking a cigar as
long as your arm, and all the time as merry as a two-year-old at a
morning gallop.
As for the young ladies, they had taken off their cloaks, and all wore
pretty gowns, same as they would wear for any party in that part of the
world, and they were standing by his lordship's side, apparently just
as much amused as he was. What astonished me in particular was this
nobleman's affability towards me, for he cried out directly he saw me,
and implored me for heaven's sake to get the padlock off the area gate,
or, says he, "I'm d--d if they won't be cooking the ducks in the
drawing-room."
I was only too ready to oblige him, that goes without saying, though I
had to run round to the garage for a file and a chisel, and when I got
back for the second time, it took me twenty minutes to get off the
padlock, after which they sent me upstairs, as they said, "to help with
the flats." Then I discovered that a play, or something, was to be
given in the drawing-room, the back part of which was full of scenery,
showing a castle on the top of a precipice and a view of the Thames
Embankment just below it, while away in the small library on the other
side of the staircase stood twenty or thirty ballet girls, just come
from one of the West End theatres.
Immediately after they had arrived, a number of fiddlers came tumbling
up the stairs, and the fun began in earnest. A proper gentleman, who
seemed to know what he was talking about, though, to be sure, he did
call all the ladies his "darlings," started to put 'em through their
paces. I saw one of our leading musical ladies coming down the stairs
from the rooms above, and presently a lot of guests arrived from the
hall below, and went into the great drawing-room, where the audience
was to sit. "After all," says I, "this is just his lordship's bit of
fun--he's giving one of those impromptu parties we've heard so much
about, and this play-acting is the surprise of it." You shall see
presently how very wrong I was.
Well, the play went merry enough, as it should have done, seeing it was
performed by people who have to make their living by plays. When it
was over, his lordship gets up and says something about their having
supper, not in the English way but the French, same as they do at the
Catsare[2] in Paris. This pleased them all very much, and I could see
that the most part of them were not real ladies and gentlemen at all,
but riff-raff Bohemian stuff out for a spree, and determined to have
one. The supper itself was the most amusing affair you ever saw; for
what must they do but flop down on the floor just where they stood, not
minding the bare boards at all, and eat cold chicken and twist rolls
from paper bags the footman threw to them. As for the liquor, you
would have thought they never could have enough of it--but it's not for
me to say anything about that, seeing I had a bottle of the best to
myself down in the corner by the conservatory, and more than one paper
bag when the first was empty.
Now, this supper occupied them until nearly three in the morning. I
make out--as I had to do to the police--that it was just a quarter past
three when the real business began, and a pretty frightening business,
as my sequel will show. First it began with the sweepers, who swept up
the wreck of the vittals with long brooms, and sprinkled scented water
afterwards to lay the dust. Then the musicians played a mournful sort
of tune, and after that, what do you think?--why, in came a number of
stage carpenters, who began to hang the whole place with black.
I have told you already that it was an empty house and not a stick of
furniture in it, save what we carried there--so you will see that all
this affair must have been arranged a long time before, for the black
hangings were all made to fit the room, and upon them they hung black
candlesticks with yellow candles in them--as melancholy as those used
for a funeral, and just the same kind, so far as I could see. This
interested the company very much. I could hear all sorts of remarks
from the riff-raff who were making love on the stairs; and presently
they all crowded into the room and listened to Lord Crossborough while
he made them a speech.
Let me confess that what I know about this speech I learned chiefly
from the newspapers. His lordship spoke of his family affairs, and
spoke of them in a way that might very well astonish the company.
To begin with, he mentioned his own eccentricities during the last five
months, when, as he reminded them, he had retired from public life and
gone down to Hertfordshire to found an academy where, with a few
convivials, he might study Latin and Greek and forget the high old time
he had had in London formerly.
This, he said, had been a pretty slow business, and quite given him the
jumps. He began to find himself sighing for the old days. Plato and
Socrates were fine old boys, but he preferred "The Boys of Boulogne" at
the Apollo, and no mistake about it. So he had given up keeping house
with Plato and the other gentleman, and was going over to France, when
he discovered Captain Blackham's adventure with Jenny Frobisher of the
Opera House, and wanted to know more about it. Did they think he would
put up with that? Not for a minute, and, seeing that you can't get law
in such affairs in this country, he meant to do his own law-making.
That very night he had asked Captain Blackham to come to this house
that they might meet and have it out like gentlemen should do. One of
them would not return--he left it to the company to bear witness that
all was done squarely as between men of honour, and he begged them to
keep his confidence. It was then half-past three. They might expect
the Captain in ten minutes, during which time he would make his
preparations. He was sure they would never betray him.
You may imagine the excitement this speech gave rise to. I was at the
bottom of the stairs at the time, and I could hear the women crying out
to each other, and the men asking what it all meant. Such a confusion
and babel I shall never listen to again in any house. What with some
running downstairs and calling for their carriages, the band playing,
his lordship bawling for his servants--and, upon all this, the sudden
arrival of the Captain, who carried a pair of swords in his hand--why,
no madhouse could have matched it.
Well enough, I say, for Lord Crossborough to ask people not to betray
him; but what woman could hold her tongue under such circumstances, and
how did he think that such a game could be played and the police hear
nothing of it? Why, I tell you that half a dozen girls were bawling
"Murder!" before five minutes were past, and as many more imploring the
police outside to step up and stop it. For myself I made no bones
about the matter; and, not wishing to appear in a police court next
day, and thinking certainly that Lord Crossborough was as mad as any
first-floor tenant of Hanwell, I pushed my way through the press and
went off to the garage. Ten pound or no ten pound, I was for bed.
Will you ask me if I was surprised when, going up to the car, the very
first person I met was his lordship, with a cigar about seven inches
long in his mouth, and as pretty a smile above his long black beard as
I have seen this many a day.
"Well, my boy," says he, opening the door quite calmly and stepping
inside with no more concern than if I had just driven him from the
Carlton to Hyde Park Corner, "well, now I think we shall soon have
earned that extra ten-pound note. The next house is in
Hertfordshire--three miles from Potter's Bar, on the road to Five
Corners. Do you happen to know it, by the way?"