"Seeing that neither of us is in the theatrical line, I don't suppose
that anybody is going to take me for Sir Beerbohm Tree, or you for the
Merry Widow," says I, "but, anyway, I'll do my best."
This pleased her, and she looked at me out of her pretty eyes, just
sweet enough to make a man think himself a beauty.
"You see, Britten," says she, "if the car broke down just outside Lord
Badington's house, perhaps they would give me shelter for the night; at
least, I hope they would, and if they would not, well, it doesn't
really matter, and we can go and stop at the hotel at Sandwich. It
would have to be a real breakdown, for Lord Badington keeps motor-cars
of his own, and his drivers would be sure to be clever at putting
anything right----"
"Oh," says I, quickly enough, "if they can get this car right when I
have done with it, I'll put up statues to 'em in the British Museum.
You say no more, miss. We'll break down right enough, and if you are
not breakfasting with his lordship to-morrow morning, don't blame me."
She nodded her head; and I could swear the excitement of it set her
eyes on fire. Lord Badington's house, you must know, stands
overlooking Pegwell Bay, not very far from the golf links, while the
Ramsgate Road runs right before its doors. There is nothing but a bit
of an inn near by, and not a cottage in sight. I saw that the place
could not have been better chosen, and fifty yards from the big iron
gates I got off my seat and prepared for business.
"You're really sure that you mean this, miss?" I asked her, knowing
what women are. "You won't change your mind afterwards, and blame me
because the car isn't going?"
"How can you ask such a thing?" was her answer. "Doesn't my whole
future depend on our success, Britten?"
"Then you won't have long to wait," I rejoined, and, opening the
bonnet, I set to work upon the magneto, and in twenty minutes had done
the job as surely as it could have been done by the makers themselves.
"If this car is going on to-night," said I, "some one will have to push
it. Now will you please tell me what is the next move, miss, for I'm
beginning to think I should like my supper?"
She was down on the road herself by this time, and pretty enough she
looked in her motor veil, and the beautiful sables which Mr. Sarand had
given her last winter. When she told me to go on to the house, and to
say that a lady's motor-car had broken down at the gates, I would have
laid twenty to one on the success of her scheme, always provided that
we weren't left to the menials who bark incivilities at a nobleman's
door. Here luck stood by Miss Dolly, for hardly had I pulled the great
bell at Lord Badington's gate when his own car came flying up the
drive, with his lordship himself sitting in the back of it.
"What do you want, my man?" he asked, in a quick, sharp tone--he's a
wonder for fifty-two, and there has been no smarter man in the Guards
since he left them. "Where do you come from?"
"Begging your pardon, sir," said I, for I didn't want to pretend that I
knew him for a lord, "but my mistress's car has come by a bit of
trouble, and she sent me to ask if any one could help her."
"What, you're broken down----"
"It's just that, sir; magneto gone absolutely wrong. I shall have to
be towed if I go any further to-night."
He stood on the steps beside me, and seemed to hesitate an instant. A
word and he would have told his own chauffeur to drive us on to
Sandwich; but it was never spoken, and I'll tell you why. Miss Dolly
herself had followed me up the drive, and she arrived upon the scene at
that very instant.
"Oh, I am so sorry to trouble you," she cried in her sweetest voice,
"but my car's gone all wrong, and I'm so tired and hungry, I don't know
what to do. Will you let me rest here just a little while?"
Talk about actresses; there isn't one of 'em in the West End would have
done half so well. There she was, looking the picture of distress, and
there was his lordship, twisting his moustache, and eyeing her as one
who was at his wits' end to know what to do. If he didn't take long to
come to a resolution, put it down to Dolly's blue eyes--he couldn't see
the colour of them at that time of night, but he could feel them, I'll
be bound; and, jumping, as it were, to a conclusion he turned to his
man and gave him an order.
"This lady will stay here to-night," he said. "Go and help her driver
to get the car in, and see that he is looked after," and without
another word he waited for Miss Dolly to enter the house. Believe me,
I never thought Mr. John's stock stood higher--and "Britten, my boy,"
says I to myself, "if this isn't worth a cool fifty when the right time
comes, don't you never drive a pretty girl no more."
I had a rare lark that night, partly with Biggs, his lordship's
chauffeur, and partly with a motor expert who came along on a bicycle,
and said he'd have my Renault going in twenty minutes. I'm not one
that can stand a billet in servants' quarters, and I chose rather to
put up at the little inn down by the bay and take my luck there. It
was here that Biggs came after supper, and he and the motor expert got
going on my high-tension magneto.
Bless the pair of them, they might have been a month there, and no
better off--for, you must know that I had taken out the armature, and
if you take out an armature and don't slip a bit of soft iron in after
it, your magnets are done for, and will never be worth anything again
until they are re-magnetised. This baffled the pair of them, and they
were there until after eleven o'clock, drinking enough beer to float a
barge, and confessing that it was a mystery.
"Never see such a thing in ten years' experience," said the motor
expert.
"I'm blowed if I don't think the devil has got inside the magneto,"
said Biggs; and there I agreed with him. For wasn't it Miss Dolly who
had done it, and isn't she--but there, that wouldn't be polite to the
sex, so I won't write it down.
I learned from Biggs that Lord Badington's daughter and stepson were
staying in the house with him, and a couple of old gentlemen, who, when
they weren't making laws at Westminster, were making fools of
themselves on the links at Sandwich. It was a golfing party, in fact,
and next morning early, Biggs took them on to Prince's--and, will you
believe me?--the car came back for the ladies by-and-by, and off went
Miss Dolly, as calmly as though she had known them all her life. Not a
word to me, not a word about going on, or getting the car ready, but
just a nod and a laugh as she went by, and a something in her eyes
which seemed to say, "Britten, I'm doing famously, and I haven't
forgotten you."
The same afternoon about tea-time she sent for me, and had a word with
me in the hall. I learned then that she had promised to stop until the
following morning, and she asked, in a voice which nobody could
mistake, if the car would be ready. When I told her that I was waiting
for a new magneto from London I thought she would kiss me on the spot.
"Oh, Britten," she said in a whisper, "suppose we couldn't get on for
three or four days."
"In that case," said I, "I should consider that we were really
unfortunate, miss, but I'll do my best."
"Are you comfortable at the inn, Britten?"
"Putting on flesh rapidly, miss. I never knew there were so many red
herrings in the world."
"And your room?"
"They built it when they thought the King was coming to Sandwich."
She laughed and looked at me, and, just as I was leaving, she
whispered, "Do make it three or four days, Britten," and I promised her
with a glance she could not mistake. And why not? What was against
us? Was it not all plain sailing? Truly so, but for one little fact.
I'll tell you in a word--Hook-Nosed Moss and the old bill he carried
about like a love-letter--a bill against Dolly St. John for
seventy-five pounds sixteen shillings and fourpence.
Well, Moss came down from town suddenly on the second afternoon, and
while he carried a new magneto under his arm, the bill was in his
pocket right enough. I was standing at the inn door as he drove up in
a fly, and when I recognised the face, you might have knocked me down
with a cotton umbrella. Not, mind you, that I lost my presence of
mind, or said anything foolish, but just that I felt sorry enough for
Dolly St. John to risk all I'd got in the world to save her from this
land shark. That Moss had found her out, I did not doubt for an
instant, and his first words told me I was right.
"Do you know who you've been trotting about the country?" he asked, as
he stepped down. I replied that I did not, but that I believed the
lady to be a relative of Lord Badington's. Then he was fair angry.
"Lord Badington be d----d," he said, speaking through his nose as he
always did, "her dabe's Dolly Sid John, and she's the sabe who did us
id de winter. I wonder you were such a precious fool as not to
recognise her. Do you mean to dell me you didn't dow her?"
"What!" I cried, opening my eyes wide, "she Dolly St. John! Well, you
do surprise me; and she gone to Dover this very afternoon--leastwise,
if it isn't to Dover, it's to Folkestone--but Biggs would tell us. Are
you quite sure about it, sir?"
He swore he was sure, and went on to tell me that if I hadn't been the
greatest chump in Europe I would have known it from the start.
"Where are your eyes?" he kept asking me; "do you mean to say you can
drive a woman for ted days in London and not dow her again three months
afterwards? A fine sort of chap you are. You deserve a statue in the
Fools' Museum, upod my word you do. Now take me to the car, and let's
see what's the matter. I'll have more to say to you whed we're in
London, you mark that, my man."
I didn't give him any cheek, much as I would have liked to. My game
was to protect Miss Dolly as far as I was able, and to hold my tongue
for her sake.
Clearly her position was perilous. If this dun of a Jew went up to the
house, and told them her name was not More, but St. John, the fat would
be in the fire with a vengeance, and her chance of marrying John Sarand
about equal to mine of mating with the crowned heads of Europe. What
to do I knew no more than the dead. I had no messenger to send up to
the house; I dare not leave Moss to get talking to the people of the
inn; and there I was, helping him to fit and time the new magneto, and
just feeling I'd pay ten pounds for the privilege of knocking him down
with his own spanner.
We finished the job in about half an hour, and the Renault started up
at once. Moss hadn't spoken of Miss Dolly while we were at work; but
directly the engine started he remembered his business, and turned on
me like a fury.
"Whed did you say she started off?" he asked.
"About two this afternoon, I think."
"In whose car?"
"Why, his lordship's, of course."
"She seems pretty thick with the dobility. Perhaps I'd better give her
a chadce of paying?"