fond second I dreamed that they were waiting to witness our arrival. But
that pleasant delusion died almost as soon as born. As the group divided
at our approach we saw that they had been collected round a large
motor-car--a motor-car so resplendent that beside it our poor
rejuvenated thing looked like a little, made-up, old Quaker lady.
In colour this hated rival was a rich, ripe scarlet, with cushions to
match in her luxurious tonneau. Her bonnet was like a helmet of gold for
the goddess Minerva, and wherever there was space, or chance, for
something to sparkle with jewelled effect, that something availed
itself, with brilliance, of the opportunity.
The long scarlet body of the creature was shaded with a canopy of
canvas, white as the breast of a gull, and finished daintily all round
with a curly fringe. The poles which held it were apparently of
glittering gold, and the railing designed to hold luggage on the top, if
not of the same precious metal, was as polished as the letters of Lord
Chesterfield to his long-suffering son.
One jealous glance was enough to paint this glowing picture upon our
retinas, and there it remained, like a sun-spot, even when a later one
was stamped upon it. Three figures in long, grey motor-coats, exactly
alike, and motor-caps, held on with shirred chiffon veils came forward,
two advancing more quickly than the third.
"How _do_ you do, Sir Ralph? Good morning, Mr. Barrymore," Mrs. Kidder
and Beechy were saying. "We're all ready," went on the former,
excitedly. "We've been admiring the Prince's car, which came last night.
Isn't it a perfect beauty? Just _look_ at the sweet poppy-colour, and
his crest in black and gold. I never saw anything so pretty, did you?"
"I like Sir Ralph's car," said Miss Destrey. "It's such a cool grey, and
even in wind or dust it will always look neat. We shall match it very
well with our grey coats and veils."
I could have kissed her; while as for Terry, standing cap in hand, he
looked grateful enough to have grovelled at our fair champion's feet.
Nevertheless, we could not help knowing in our hearts that no normal
girl could help preferring that celestial peacock to our grey hen, and
that Miss Destrey's wish to be kind must have outstripped her obligation
to be truthful. This knowledge was turning a screw round in our vitals,
when His Highness himself appeared to give it a still sharper twist.
He had been standing at a short distance, talking with a small chauffeur
of a peculiarly solemn cast of countenance. Now he turned and joined the
ladies with a brisk step and an air of proprietorship.
The fact that he was wearing a long motor-coat, of a smart cut, and a
peaked cap which became him excellently, struck me as ominous. Had he
caught the birds--our birds--after all, at the last moment, and had they
been too cowardly to let us know?
"Oh, good morning, Sir Ralph," said he. "So that is the famous car. Mine
is a giant beside it, is it not? No doubt you and your friend are clever
men, but you will need all your cleverness to provide comfortable
accommodation for these ladies' luggage as well as themselves. I would
not mind betting you ten to one that you will fail to do it to their
satisfaction."
"I'll take the bet if the ladies don't mind," responded Terry promptly,
those lazy Irish eyes of his very bright and dark.
"What--a bet? Why, that will be real fun," laughed the Countess, showing
her dimples. "What is it to be?"
A slightly anxious expression hardened the lines of the Prince's face
when he found himself taken in earnest. "A thousand francs against a
hundred of yours shall it be, Monsieur? I don't wish to plunge my hand
into your pockets," said he, shrewdly making a virtue of his caution.
"As you like," Terry assented. "Now for the test. Your luggage has come
down, Countess?"
"Yes; here it all is," said Mrs. Kidder, guiltily indicating three stout
hotel porters who stood in the background heavily laden. "Dear me, it
_does_ look as if it was going to be a mighty tight squeeze, doesn't
it?"
In response to a gesture, the porters advanced in line, like the Three
Graces; and counting rapidly, I made out that their load consisted of
one good-sized "Innovation" cabin box, two enormous alligator-skin
dressing bags, one small bag, and two capacious hold-alls, umbrellas,
parasols, and a tea-basket.
I began to tremble for more than Terry's five pounds. I now saw all the
Prince's guile. He had somehow managed to produce his car, and had, no
doubt, used all his eloquence to persuade Mrs. Kidder that she would be
justified in changing her mind at the last moment. That he had failed
was owing either to her sense of honour or her liking for the
English-speaking races over foreigners, even princely ones. But refusing
to abandon hope, His Highness had pinned his last fluttering rag of
faith upon the chance that our car would fail to fulfil its contract.
With this chance, and this alone still to depend upon, he had probably
kept his melancholy chauffeur up all night, sponging and polishing. If
the Panhard refused to absorb the ladies' luggage, there would be his
radiant chariot waiting to console them in the bitter hour of their
disappointment.
As Terry stood measuring each piece of luggage with his eye, silently
apportioning it a place in the car, I felt as I had felt at "Monte"
when, at roulette, as many as three of my hard-won five franc pieces
might easily go "bang," like the sixpence of another canny Scot. Will it
be _rouge_; will it be _noir_?... I could never look; and I could not
look now.
Turning to Beechy, who stood at my shoulder eagerly watching, I flung
myself into conversation. "What are you laughing at?" I asked.
"At all of you," said the Infant. "But especially the Prince."
"Why especially the Prince?" I was growing interested.
"I should think you'd know."
"How could I know?"
"Because I guess you're pretty bright. Sometimes I look at you, and you
seem to be thinking the same things I am. I don't know whether that
makes me like you or hate you, but anyway it makes me give you credit
for good wit. I'm not exactly _stupid_."
"I've noticed that. But about the Prince?"
"Can't you guess how he got his automobile just in the nick of time?"
"Yes, I can guess; but maybe it wouldn't be right."
"And maybe it would. Let's see."
"Well, the Countess heard favourably from her lawyer in Denver on
Tuesday, and paid down something in advance for the Dalmatian estate."
"_And_ the title. Right first time. The 'something' was eight thousand
dollars."
"Phew!"
"That's just the word for it. When she's seen the place, she'll pay the
rest--eight thousand more. Quite a lot for those gold crowns on the
luggage; but we all have our dolls with eyes to open or shut, and poor
Mamma hasn't had any chance to play dolls till just lately. She's busy
now having heaps of fun, and I'm having a little, too, in my simple
childish way. Well, so long as we don't interfere with each other!...
The Prince sees that Mamma can afford to buy dolls, so he would like to
play with her, and me, and--"
"And he doesn't want Barrymore and me in the playroom."
"I _thought_ you were bright! It made him just sick to think of you two
walking off with us from under his nose. _There_ was his automobile in
Paris, and there was he _here_, perfectly useless, because I'm sure he'd
lent the auto to his uncle."
"To his uncle?" I echoed.
"Don't you say that in England, or Scotland, or wherever you come from?
'Put it up the Spout'--pawned it; and he couldn't move one way or the
other till he'd got Mamma's money. The minute that was in his pocket he
began to plan. The first thing he did was to tell Mamma that he had a
surprise for her, which he'd been getting ready for several days, and it
would be spoiled if we all went off with you and that awfully
good-looking chauffeur of yours on Thursday. He said he _must_ have till
Saturday morning, and Mamma was so curious to know what the mystery was,
and so afraid of hurting a real live Prince's feelings, that she was
finally persuaded to wait."
"Oh, that is the explanation of her letter to me."
"Yes. I suspected what was going on, but she didn't; having dimples
makes people so soft and good-natured. I don't _know_ what the Prince
did after she'd given her word to stay, but I guessed."
"He wired money to his chauffeur in Paris or somewhere, had the car got
out of the clutches of that relative you referred to, and brought on
here at top speed."
"But not its own speed. When it arrived here last night, it was just as
spick and span as it is now."
"Then it must have come by train."
"That's what I think. I bet the Prince was too much afraid some accident
might happen to it on the way, and upset all his plans, to trust to
having the thing driven down here by road."
"You must be careful not to let your brain develop too fast," I pleaded,
"or when you grow up, you--"
"That's such a long time off, I don't need to worry yet," Miss Kidder
remarked demurely. "Do you think I look more than my age?"
"No, but you _talk_ more," said I.
"How can you judge? What do you know about little girls like me?"
"I don't know anything about little girls like you, because all the
rest got broken; but if you'll teach me, I'll do my best to learn."
"The Prince is doing his best too, I guess. I wonder which will learn
faster?"
"That depends partly on you. But I should have thought all his time was
taken up with your mother."
"Oh my! no. He wants _her_ to think that. But you see, he's got more
time than anything else, so he has plenty to spare for me, and Maida
too. Do you know what he called us to a friend of his in this hotel? The
friend's wife told her maid, and she passed it on to our Agnes, who
repeated it to me because we were sending her away. 'Kid, Kidder,
Kiddest.' I'm Kiddest, of course; that's easy enough; but it would save
the Prince lots of trouble and brain-fag if he only knew which was
'Rich,' which 'Richer,' and which 'Richest.'"
"Heavens!" I ejaculated. "If you have got together all this mass of
worldly wisdom at thirteen, what will you have accumulated at twenty?"
"It all depends on when Mamma allows me to be twenty," retorted the
little wretch. And what lengths this indecently frank conversation might
have reached between us I dare not think, had not an exclamation from
Terry cut it short.
"What do you say to that, Countess, and Miss Destrey? Have I won the
bet?" he was demanding, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket,
as he stood to survey his work.
If I had not infinite belief in Terry's true Irish ingenuity, I would
have considered the day and the bet both lost before the test had been
essayed. But he had justified my faith, and there on the almost
obliterated lines of the motor-car, behold a place for everything, and
everything in its place.
On one step the "Innovation" cabin-box reared itself on end like a
dwarfish obelisk; a fat hold-all adorned each mud-guard, where it lay
like an underdone suet pudding; the two huge dressing-bags had been
pushed under the corner seats of the tonneau, which fortunately was of
generous dimensions, while the third and smallest one (no doubt Miss
Destrey's) was so placed that it could be used as a footstool, or pushed
to the front out of the way. Umbrellas and parasols stood upright in a
hanging-basket especially designed for them; books and maps had
disappeared into a box, which was also a shelf on the back of the
driver's seat, and the tea-basket had been lashed on top of this.
The Prince's voice responded to Terry's question with ribald mirth
before it could be answered by the ladies.
"Ha, ha, ha!" cried he, shouting with laughter at the appearance of the
car; and even my lips twitched, though I would have vowed it was St.
Vitus's dance if anyone had accused me of a smile. "Ha, ha, the
automobile looks like nothing so much as a market-woman going home with
the family provisions for a month. But will she ever _get_ home?" Here
he became spasmodic, and as he had made a present of his picturesque
smile to all the lookers-on as well as to those whom it most concerned,
a grin rippled over the faces of the various groups as a breeze ruffles
the surface of a pond.
If I could have done His Highness Prince Dalmar-Kalm a mischief at this
moment, without imperilling my whole future, I would have stuck at
nothing; but there is capital punishment in France, and, besides, there
were no weapons handy except the ladies' hatpins. Still, it was useless
denying it, the car looked, if not like a market-woman, at least like a
disreputable old tramp of the motor world, with its wreaths of luggage
looped on anyhow, as if it were a string of giant sausages; and I hated
the Prince not only for his impertinent pleasure in our plight, but for
the proud magnificence of his car, which gained new lustre in the
disgrace of ours.
"You have more, what do you call it in English--cheek, is it not?--than
most of your countrymen, to ask the ladies whether they can be satisfied
with _that_," he went on, between his mirthful explosions. "_Chère_
Countess, do not let your kind heart run away with you. Let me tell Sir
Ralph Moray that it is impossible for you to tour with him under such
conditions, which are surely not what you had a right to expect. If you
will go with me, _that_"--pointing a derisive finger at the
Panhard--"can follow with the luggage."
Mrs. Kidder shook her auburn head, though her dimples were obscured, and
a pinkness of complexion for which she had not paid betrayed the fact
that her _amour propre_ was writhing under this ordeal. Poor little
woman, I really pitied her, for even with my slight knowledge of her
character, I guessed that she had dreamed of the sensation the departure
_en automobile_ of a party so distinguished would create at the hotel.
She had confidingly judged the charms of the advertised car from those
of the advertisers, and this was her reward. Could we blame her if, in
the bitterness of mortification, she yielded to the allurement of that
glittering car which was our detractor's best argument? But she was
loyal on the rack.
"No," she said, "I never backed out of anything yet, and I'm not going
to now. Besides, we don't want to, do we, girls? Sir Ralph's automobile
is just as nice as it can be, and it's our fault, not his, or Mr.
Barrymore's, if we've got a little more luggage than we were told we
ought to take. I guess we'll get along all right as soon as we're used
to it, and we shall have _the_ time of our lives."
"Mamma, you're a brick, and I'm glad Papa married you," was Beechy's
pæan of praise.
"And I think the way our things are arranged looks really _graceful_,"
said Miss Destrey. "Mr. Barrymore has won that bet easily, hasn't he,
Kitty and Beechy?"
"Yes," came faintly from the Countess and cordially from the child. And
I whistled "Hail, the Conquering Hero" _sotto voce_, as Dalmar-Kalm,
with a smile like a dose of asafoetida, counted out the amount of his
lost wager.
"Well," he said, squaring his shoulders to make the best of a bad
bargain, "you are three brave ladies to trust yourselves in a machine
without room, speed, or power to cross the Alps."
"You can go to the Cathedral at Monaco and pray for us to Saint Joseph,
who, Agnes told me, looks after travellers," said Beechy. "But I do
think a more modern saint ought to be invented for motorists."
"I shall do better than that. I shall be your protecting saint. I shall
go with you as a surgeon attends a company of soldiers," returned the
Prince, with his air of _grand seigneur_. "That is, I shall keep as near
you as a twenty-horse-power car with a light load can possibly keep to a
twelve, with three times the load it's fitted to carry."
"You're not very complimentary to Mamma," glibly remarked the
Irrepressible.
"I fancy, in spite of our load," said Terry with undaunted cheerfulness,
"we shall find room to stow away a coil of rope which may prove useful
for towing the Prince's car over some of those Alps he seems to think so
formidable, in case he decides to--er--follow us. If I'm not mistaken,
Prince, your motor is a Festa, made in Vienna, isn't it?"
"Certainly; the most successful in Austria. And mine is the handsomest
car the company has yet turned out. It was a special order."
"There's an old proverb which says, 'all isn't gold that glitters.' I
don't know whether it's apropos to anything that concerns us or not, but
we shall perhaps remember it sooner or later. Now, ladies, I think
everything is shipshape, and there's nothing to keep us any longer. How
would you like to sit? Some people think the best place beside the
driver, but--"
"Oh, _I_ wouldn't sit there for worlds with no horse in front to fall
out on in case anything happened!" exclaimed Mrs. Kidder; "and I
couldn't let Beechy either. Maida is her own mistress, and can do as she
likes."
"If that girl is going to get in the habit of sitting by Terry day after
day," I hurriedly told myself, "I might far better have let him sell his
car and grow ostriches or something in South Africa. _That_ idea shall
be nipped before it is a bud."
"I fear I should take up too much room in the tonneau," I suggested with
feigned meekness. "You ladies had better have it all to yourselves, and
then you can be comfortable. Terry and I, on the driver's seat, will act
as a kind of screen for you against the wind."
"But you really don't take up nearly as much room as Maida does in her
thick motor-coat," said Mrs. Kidder. "If she's not _afraid_--"
"Of course I'm not afraid!" cut in Maida.
"Well, then, I think it would be nicer if Sir Ralph sat with us,
Beechy," went on Mrs. Kidder, "unless it would bore him."
Naturally I had to protest that, on the contrary, such an arrangement
would be what I most desired, had I dared to consult my own selfish
wishes. And I had to see the Vestal Virgin (looking incredibly
interesting with her pure face and dark eyes framed with the motor-hood)
helped to seat herself in fatal proximity to my unfortunate friend. Talk
of a powder magazine and a lighted match!--well, there you have the
situation as I felt it, though I was powerless for the moment to avert a
catastrophe.
V
A CHAPTER OF ADVENTURES
The Prince let us take the lead. He could start twenty minutes later and
still easily pass us before the frontier, he said. He had two or three
telegrams to send, and one or two little affairs to settle; but he would
not be long in catching us up, and after that the ladies might count
upon his services in any--er--any emergency.
"He might better have gone on ahead and polished up that old castle of
his a bit before Mrs. Kidder sees it," Terry murmured to me; but we had
no right to object to the Prince's companionship, if it were agreeable
to our employers, and we uttered no audible word of dissent to his plan.
Beechy and her mother had the two corner seats in the roomy tonneau, and
I settled myself on the flap which lets down when the door is closed. In
doing this, I was not unconscious of the fact that if the fastening of
the door gave way owing to vibration or any other cause, I should
indubitably go swinging out into space; also, that if this disagreeable
accident did occur, it would be my luck to have it happen when the back
of the car was hanging over a precipice. Nevertheless I kept a calm
face. These things usually befall some one else rather than one's self;
the kind of some one else you read of over your morning coffee,
murmuring, "Dear me, how horrid!" before you take another sip.
Terry started the car, and though it carried five persons and enough
luggage for ten (I speak of men, not women), we shot away along the
perfect road, like an arrow from the bow.
At our first fine panther bound, Mrs. Kidder half rose in her seat and
seized my right arm, while Beechy's little hand clutched anxiously at my
left knee.
"Oh, mercy!" the Countess exclaimed. "Tell him not to go so fast--oh,
quick! we'll be killed."
"No, we won't, Don't be frightened; it's all right," I answered
soothingly, primed by my late experience in leaving the Châlet des Pins.
"Why, we're going slowly--_crawling_ at the rate of twenty--"
"Fifteen!" laughed our chauffeur over his shoulder.
"Fifteen miles an hour," I amended my sentence wondering in what way the
shock of surprise had affected the Vestal Virgin. Somehow I couldn't
fancy her clawing weakly at any part of Terry's person. "You wouldn't
have us go slower, would you? The Prince is sure to be watching."
"Oh, I don't _know_," wailed Mrs. Kidder. "I didn't think it would be
like this. Isn't it awful?"
"I believe I--I'm going to like it by-and-by," gasped Beechy, her eyes
as round as half-crowns, and as big. "Maida, have you _fainted_?"
Miss Destrey looked back into the tonneau, her face pale, but radiant.
"I wouldn't waste time fainting," said she. "I'm buckling on my wings."
"Wish she were a coward!" I thought. "Terry hates 'em like poison, and
would never forgive her if she didn't worship motoring at the first
go-off." As for me, I have always found a certain piquant charm in a
timid woman. There is a subtle flattery in her almost unconscious appeal
to superior courage in man which is perhaps especially sweet to an
undersized chap like me; and I had never felt more kindly to the
Countess and her daughter than I did at this moment.
As Lothair with his Corisande, I "soothed and sustained their agitated
frames" so successfully, that the appealing hands stole back to their
respective laps, but not to rest in peace for long. The car breasted the
small hill at the top of the Cap, sturdily, and we sped on towards
Mentone, which, with its twin, sickle bays, was suddenly disclosed like
a scene on the stage when the curtains have been noiselessly drawn
aside. The picture of the beautiful little town, with its background of
clear-cut mountains, called forth quavering exclamations from our
reviving passengers; but a few minutes later when we were in the long,
straight street of Mentone, weaving our swift way between coming and
going electric trams, all the good work I had accomplished had to be
done over again.
"I can't stand it," moaned Mrs. Kidder, looking, in her misery, like a
frost-bitten apple. "Oh, can't the man _see_ that street car's going to
run us down? And now there's another, coming from behind. They'll crush
us between them. Mr. Terrymore, stop--stop! I'll give you a thousand
dollars to take me back to Cap Martin. Oh, he doesn't hear! Sir
Ralph--why you're _laughing_!"
"Mamma, you'd send a mummied cat into hysterics," giggled Beechy. "I
guess together we'd make the fortune of a dime museum, if they could
show us now. But the cars _didn't_ run over us, did they?"
"No, but the next ones will--and oh, this cart! Mr. Terrymore's the
queerest man, he's steering right for it. No, we've missed it _this_
time."
"We'll miss it every time, you'll see," I reassured her. "Barrymore is a
magnificent driver; and look, Miss Destrey isn't nervous at all."
"She hasn't got as much to live for as Mamma and I have," said Beechy,
trying to hide the fact that she was holding on to the side of the car.
"You might almost as well be smashed in an automobile as end your days
in a convent."
Here was a revelation, but before I had time to question the speaker
further, she and her mother were clinging to me again as if I were a
Last Straw or a Forlorn Hope.
This sort of thing lasted for four or five minutes, which doubtless
appeared long to them, but they were not in the least tedious for me. I
was quite enjoying myself as a Refuge for Shipwrecked Mariners, and I
was rather sorry than otherwise when the mariners began to find their
own bearings. They saw that, though their escapes seemed to be by the
breadth of a hair, they always were escapes, and that no one was anxious
except themselves. They probably remembered, also, that we were not
pioneers in the sport of motoring; that some thousands of other people
had done what we were doing now, if not worse, and still lived to tell
the tale--with exaggerations.
Presently the strained look left their faces; their bodies became less
rigid; and when they began to take an interest in the shops and villas I
knew that the worst was over. My arm and knee felt lonely and deserted,
as if their mission in life had been accomplished, and they were now
mere obstacles, occupying unnecessary space in the tonneau.
As for Terry, I could see by the set of his shoulders and the way he
held his head that he was pleased with life, for he is one of those
persons who shows his feelings in his back. He had fought against the
idea of this trip, but now that the idea was crystallizing into fact he
was happy in spite of himself. After all, what could he ask for that he
had not at this moment? The steering wheel of his beloved motor
(preserved for him by my cunning) under his hand; beside him a plucky
and beautiful girl; behind him a devoted friend; in front, the fairest
country in the world, and a road which would lead him to the Alps and to
Piedmont; to stately Milan and to the blue, rapturous reaches of Como; a
road that would beckon him on and on, past villages sleeping under
cypresses on sunny hillsides to Verona, the city of the "star-crossed
lovers;" to Giotto's Padua, and by peerless Venice to strange Dalmatia,
where Christian and Moslem look distrustfully into one anothers' eyes.
What all this would be to Terry I knew, even though he was playing a
part distasteful to him; for if he had missed being born an Irishman,
and had reconciled it to his sense of humour to be born at all, he would
certainly have been born an Italian. He loves Italy; he breathes the air
as the air of home, drawn gratefully into the lungs after a long
absence. He learned to speak Italian as easily as he learned to walk,
and he could pour out liquid line after line of old Italian poetry, if
he had not all a British male's self-conscious fear of making an ass of
himself. History was the only thing except cricket and rowing, in which
he distinguished himself at Oxford, and Italian history was to him what
novels are to most boys, though had it occurred to him at the time that
he was "improving his mind" by reading it, he would probably have shut
up the book in disgust.
He was not a stranger in the country to which we were going, though he
had never entered it by this gate, and most of his motoring had been
done in France; but I knew that he would revel in visiting once more the
places he loved, in his own car.
"Have you ever been in Italy?" I asked the Countess, but she was evilly
fascinated by a dog which seemed bent on committing suicide under our
car, and it was Beechy who answered.
"We've never been _anywhere_ before, any of us," she said. "Mamma and I
only had our machinery set running a few months ago, but now we _are_
wound up, goodness knows how far we'll get. As for Maida--she's no
mechanical doll like us. But do you know the play about the statue that
came to life?"
"Galatea?" I suggested.
"Yes, that's the name. Maida's like that; and I suppose she'll go back
as soon as she can, and ask to be turned into a statue again."
"What do you mean?" I ventured to inquire; for these hints of the
child's about her cousin were gradually consuming me to a grey ash with
curiosity.
"I can't tell you what _I_ mean, because I promised I wouldn't. But
that's what _Maida_ means."
"What she means?"
"Yes, to go back and be turned into a statue, forever and ever."
I ought to have been glad that the girl destined herself for a colder
fate than a union with a happy-go-lucky Irishman as poor as herself,
but somehow I was not glad. Watching the light glint on a tendril of
spun gold which had blown out from the motor-hood, I could not wish her
young heart to be turned to marble in that mysterious future to which
Beechy Kidder hinted she was self-destined.
"Perhaps I'd better make love to her myself," was the suggestion that
flashed into my mind; but innate canniness sturdily pushed it out again.
With my seven hundred a year, and _The Riviera Sun_ only just beginning
to shed a few golden beams, I could not afford to take a penniless
beauty off Terry's hands, even to save him from a disastrous marriage or
her from the fate of Galatea.
Yet what a day it was in which to live and love, and motor over perfect
roads through that radiant summer-land which the Ligurians loved, the
Romans conquered, and the modern world comes from afar to see.
Though it was early in April, with Easter but a few days behind us, the
sky, the air, the flowers, belonged to June--a rare, rich June to praise
in poetry or song. Billows of roses surged over old pink and yellow
stucco walls, or a soaring flame of scarlet geranium ran along their
tops devouring trails of ivy with a hundred fiery tongues. White villas
were draped with gorgeous panoply of purple-red bougainvillea; the
breeze in our faces was sweet with the scent of lemon blossoms and a
heavier under-tone of white-belled datura. Far away, over that polished
floor of lapis-lazuli which was the sea, summer rain-clouds boiled up
above the horizon, blue with the soft grey-blue of violets; and in the
valleys, between horned or pointed mountains, we saw spurts of golden
rain glittering in the morning sun.
What a world! How good to be in it, to be "in the picture" because one
had youth, and was not hideous to look upon. How good to be in a
motor-car. This last thought made the chorus at the end of each verse
for me. I was very glad I had put that advertisement in _The Riviera
Sun_, and that "Kid, Kidder, and Kiddest" had been before any one else
in answering it.
I could hear Terry telling Miss Destrey things, and I knew that if they
listened the others could hear him too. This was well, because an
unfailing flow of information was included in the five guineas a day,
and I should have been embarrassed had I, as the supposed owner of the
car, been called upon to supply it.
I listened with a lazy sense of proprietorship in the man, as my
chauffeur related the pretty legend of St. Agnes's ruined castle and the
handsome Pagan who had loved the Christian maiden; while he described
the exquisite walks to be found up hidden valleys among the serrated
mountains behind Mentone; and enlarged upon the charms of picnics with
donkeys and lunch-baskets under canopies of olives or pines, with a
carpet of violets and primroses.
He seemed well up in the history of the Grimaldis and that exciting
period when Mentone and legend-crusted Roquebrune had been under the
rule of tyrannical princes of that name, as well as Hercules's rock,
Monaco, still their own. He knew, or pretended to know, the precise date
when Napoleon III. filched Nice and Savoy from reluctant Italy as the
price of help against the hated Austrians. Altogether, I was so pleased
with the way in which he was beginning, that I should have been tempted
to raise his wages had he been my paid chauffeur.
We skimmed past Englishmen and English or American girls in Panama hats,
on their way to bathe or play tennis; on all hands we heard the English
tongue. Skirting the Old Town, piled high upon its narrow nose of land,
we entered the East Bay, and so climbed up to the French side of the
Pont St. Louis.
"Now for some red tape," explained Terry. "When I came to the Riviera
this season I had no idea of going further, and I'm sorry to say I left
my papers in London, where apparently they've disappeared. But as the
Countess doesn't care to come back into France, I hope it won't matter
much."
As he spoke, a _douanier_ lounged out of his little whitewashed lair,
and asked for that which Terry had just said he had not.
"I have no papers," Terry informed him, with a smile so agreeable that
one hoped it might take away the sting.
"But you intend to return to France?" persisted the official, who
evidently gave even a foreigner credit for wishing to rush back to the
best country on earth with as little delay as possible.
"No," said Terry apologetically. "We are on our way to Italy and
Austria, and may go eventually to England by the Hook of Holland."
The _douanier_ gave us up as hopeless, with a resigned shrug of his
shoulders. He vanished into his lair, consulted a superior officer, and
after a long delay returned with the news that we must pay ten centimes,
probably as a penance for our mulish stupidity in leaving France.
I dropped a penny into his palm.
"Will you have a receipt for this sum?" he asked.
"No, thanks," I smiled. "I have infinite trust in your integrity."
"Perhaps we'd better get the receipt all the same," said Terry. "I've
never been paperless before, and there may be some fuss or other."
"It took them twenty minutes to decide about their silly ten centimes,"
said the Countess "and it will take them twenty more at least to make
out a receipt for it. Do let's go on, if he'll let us. I'm dying to see
what's on the other side of this bridge. We haven't been over into Italy
before; there was so much to do in Nice and Monte Carlo."
"All right, we'll risk it, then, as you wish it," Terry agreed; and our
prophetic souls did not even turn over in their sleep.
On we went, up the steep hill which, with our load, we were obliged to
climb so slowly that Terry and I were ashamed for the car, and tried
diplomatically to make it appear that, had we liked, we could have flown
up with undiminished speed.
[Illustration: _As he spoke a douanier lounged out of his little
whitewashed lair_]
Terry pointed out objects of interest here and there. I questioned him
rapidly and he, playing into my hand, answered as quickly, so that,
if our wheels lagged, our tongues gave the effect of keeping up a
rattling pace.
"Don't you think there's something particularly interesting and romantic
about frontiers?" asked Terry of the company in general. "Only a
fictitious and arbitrary dividing line, one would say, and yet what a
difference on either side, one from the other! Different languages,
different customs, prejudices so different that people living within ten
yards of each other are ready to go to war over them. Here, for
instance, though the first thing one thinks of in crossing the bridge is
the splendid view, the second thought that comes must be, how bare the
Italian country looks compared to the luxuriant cultivation we're
leaving behind. We're turning our backs now on cosy comfort, well-kept
roads, tidy houses, tidy people; and we're on our way to meet beggars,
shabbiness, and rags, poverty everywhere staring us in the face. Yet
much as I admire France, it's to Italy I give my love."
"Talking of frontiers," I flung back the ball to him, "I've often asked
myself why it is that a whole people should with one accord worship
coffin-beds, six inches too short for a normal human being, hard wedges
instead of bolsters, and down coverings three feet thick; while another
whole people just round a geographical corner fiercely demand brass
beds, springy mattresses, and blankets light as--as love. But nobody has
ever satisfactorily answered that question, which may be far more
important in solving the profound mystery of racial differences than it
would seem."
"Why are _you_ prudent and economical, and I reckless and extravagant?"
inquired Terry.
"Because I come from the country that took over England, and you from
the country that England took over," I explained. But Terry only
laughed, being too busy to pick up the cudgels for his native land.
"Probably that's also why I'm a chauffeur while you're an editor," he
added, and Miss Destrey's little nose and long curve of dark eyelash,
seen by me in profile, expressed the sympathy which one young soul in
misfortune must feel for another.
"Now we're in Italy," he went on. "What I said is coming true already.
Look at these carts crawling to meet us down the hill. The harness seems
to be a mere collection of 'unconsidered trifles,' picked up accidently
by the drivers; bits of leather, string and rope. And the road you see
is strewn with loose stones, though a few metres further back it was so
smooth one might dance on it. In dear, lazy Italy, steam-rollers are
almost as unknown as dragons. In most districts, if one wants to mend a
road, one dumps some stones on it, and trusts to luck and traffic to
have them eventually ground in. But luckily our tyres are almost as
trustworthy as the Bank of England, and we don't need to worry about the
roads."
At the pink Italian custom house Terry got down and vanished within, to
pay the deposit and receive certain documents without which we could not
"circulate" on Italian soil. Far above our heads looked down the old,
brown keep of the Grimaldis, once lords of all the azure coast; below us
glittered Mentone, pink and blue and golden in the sun; beyond Monte
Carlo sat throned, siren-like, upon her rock.
Terry had scarcely engaged the attention of the officials when the buzz
of a motor, livelier and more nervous than our faithful "thrum, thrum,"
called to us to turn our heads; and there was Prince Dalmar-Kalm's
brilliant car flying up the hill, even as we had wished to fly.
The Prince stopped his motor close to ours, to speak with the Countess
sitting alone in it, and announced that he would have overtaken us long
ago, had he not found himself obliged to pause for a talk with the
ex-Empress Eugenie.
This announcement much impressed Mrs. Kidder, who doubtless realized
more fully than before her good fortune in having such a distinguished
personage for a travelling companion.
He stood leaning on the side of our luggage-wreathed vehicle, with an
air of charming condescension. There was no need for him to hurry over
the formalities of the _douane_, he said, for even if he were
considerably behind us in starting, he would catch us up soon after we
had reached La Mortola.
Thus beguiled, the half-hour occupied by the leisurely officials in
providing us with papers and sealing the car with an important looking
leaden seal, passed not too tediously for the ladies. Finally, the
Prince saw us off, smiling a "turned-down smile" at our jog trot as we
proceeded up that everlasting hill, which runs like a shelf along the
face of the great grey cliff of rock.
Far below, azure waves draped the golden beach with blue and silver
gauze and fringed it daintily with a foam of lace.
Then, at last, the steep ascent came to an end, with a curve of the road
which plunged us down into a region of coolness and green shadow.
"Why, I don't think Italy's so shabby after all," exclaimed the
Countess. "Just see that pretty little Maltese cross above the road, and
that fine school-house--"
"Ah, but we're in Hanbury-land now," I said.
"Hanbury-land? I never heard of it. Is it a little independent
principality like Monacoa? But how funny it should have an
English-sounding name sandwiched in right here between Italy and
France."
"The lord of the land is an Englishman, and a benevolent one, a sort of
fairy god-father to the poor in all the country round," I explained.
"You won't find Hanbury-land mentioned on the map; nevertheless it's
very real, fortunately for its inhabitants; and here's the gate of the
garden which leads to the royal palace. La Mortola is a great show
place, for the public are allowed to go in on certain days. I forget if
this is one of them, but perhaps they will let us see the garden,
nevertheless. Shall I ask?"
It was in my mind that, if we stopped, we might miss the Prince as well
as see the garden, so that we should be killing two birds with one
stone, and I was glad when the Countess caught eagerly at the suggestion
that we should beg for a glimpse of La Mortola, a place famed throughout
Europe.
Permission was given; the big iron gates swung open to admit us. We
entered, and a moment later were descending a long flight of stone steps
to terraces far below the level of the road where the car stood waiting
our return.
Had Aladdin rubbed his lamp in the days before his unfortunate
misunderstanding with the Geni and demanded the most beautiful of
gardens, the fulfilment of his wish could have taken no fairer form than
this. Strange, tropical flowers, vivid as flame, burned in green
recesses; water-sprites upset their caskets of pearls over rock-shelves
into translucent pools where lilies lay asleep, dreaming of their own
pale beauty. Long, green pergolas, starred with flowers, framed
blue-veiled pictures of distant coast-line, and mediæval strongholds,
coloured with the same burnt umber as the hills on which they stood,
gloomed and glowed across a cobalt sea.
There is nothing that pleases the normal male more than to be able to
point out objects worthy of interest or admiration to the female of his
kind. Since time immemorial, have not landscape-pictures in books of
travel been filled in, in the foreground, with the figures of men
showing the scenery to women? Did any one ever see such a work of art
representing a woman as indicating any point of view to a man? No doubt
many could have done so; and the ladies in the pictures had probably
noticed the objects in question before their male escorts pointed to
them; but knowing the amiable weakness of the other sex, they politely
refrained from saying, "Oh, we saw that _long_ ago."
Thus did Terry and I, after the conventional traditions of our species,
lead our little party through avenues of cypresses, to open rock-spaces,
or among a waving sea of roses to battle-grounds of rare cacti, with
writhing arms like octopi transformed into plants.
Here, peering down into a kind of dyke, paved with rough tesselation, we
vied with each other in telling our charges that this was the old Roman
road to Gaul, the Aurelian Way, over which Julius Cæsar, St. Catherine
of Siena, Dante, and other great ones passed. Then we showed them one of
Napoleon's old guns, covered with shells, as when it was fished out of
the sea. We enlarged upon the fact that there was no tree, shrub, or
blossom on the known face of the earth of which a specimen did not grow
at La Mortola; and when we had wandered for an hour in the garden
without seeing half there was to see, we climbed the long flight of
steps again, congratulating ourselves--Terry and I--that we had played
Dalmar-Kalm rather a neat trick. The crowd of villagers who had
clustered round our car outside the entrance gates would screen it from
the Prince as he flashed by, and he would go on and on, wondering how we
had contrived to get so far ahead.
Our way would take us, after passing through Ventimiglia, up the Roya
Valley which Terry had decided upon as a route because of its wild and
unspoiled beauty, different from anything that our passengers could have
seen in their brief experience of the Riviera. But as there were no inns
which offered decent entertainment for man or automobile within
reasonable distance, we were to lunch at Ventimiglia, and no arrangement
had been made with Dalmar-Kalm concerning this halt. His
confidence--perhaps well founded--in the superiority of his speed over
ours had led him to believe that he could pause at our side for
consultation whenever he wished. Therefore, we had left Cap Martin
without much discussion of plans. Mrs. Kidder was of opinion that we
would find him waiting in front of the "best hotel in Ventimiglia," with
an excellent luncheon ordered.
"The best hotel in Ventimiglia!" poor lady, she had an awakening before
her. Not only was there no Prince, but there was no best hotel. Old
Ventimiglia, in its huddled picturesqueness, must delight any man with
eyes in his head; new Ventimiglia must disgust any man with a vacancy
under his belt. As we sat in the shabby dining-room of a seventh-rate
inn (where the flies set an example of attentiveness the waiters did not
follow), pretending to eat macaroni hard as walking-sticks and veal
reduced to _chiffons_, I feared the courage of our employers would fail.
They could never, in all their well-ordered American lives, have known
anything so abominable as this experience into which we had lured them,
promising a pilgrimage of pleasure. But the charmingly dressed beings,
who looked like birds of paradise alighted by mistake in a pigsty, made
sport of the squalor which we had expected to evoke their rage.
"Dear me, I wish we'd brought some chewing gum," was Beechy's one
sarcasm at the expense of the meal, and Maida and the Countess laughed
merrily at everything, even the flies, which they thought did not know
their own power as well as American flies.
"We've some _lovely_ cakes and candy packed in that sweet tea-basket we
bought at an English shop in Paris," said Mrs. Kidder; "but I suppose
we'd better not get anything out to eat now, for fear of hurting the
waiters' feelings. What do you think, Sir Ralph?"
"Personally, I should like nothing better than to hurt them," I replied
severely, "but I'm thinking of myself. Cakes and candy on top of those
walking-sticks! 'T were more difficult to build on such a foundation
than to rear Venice on its piles and wattles.
"We'd better save what we have till later on," said Maida. "About four
o'clock, perhaps we shall be glad to stop somewhere, and I can make tea.
It will be fun having it in the automobile."
"There she goes now, revealing domestic virtues!" I thought ruefully.
"It will be too much for Teddy to find her an all-round out-of-doors and
indoors girl in one. He always said the combination didn't exist; that
you had to put up with one or the other in a nice girl, and be jolly
thankful for what you'd got."
But Terry did not seem to be meditating upon the pleasing trait just
brought to light by his travelling companion. He remarked calmly that by
tea-time we should doubtless have reached San Dalmazzo, a charming
little mountain village with an old monastery turned into an inn; and
then he audibly wondered what had become of the Prince.
"My! What a shame, I'd almost forgotten him!" exclaimed Mrs. Kidder.
"He must have given us up in despair and gone on."
"Perhaps he's had a break-down," I suggested.
"What! with that wonderful car? He told me last night that nothing had
ever happened to it yet. He must be miles ahead of us by now."
"Then this is his astral body," said Terry. "Clever of him to 'project'
one for his car too. Never heard of its being done before."
Nor had I ever heard of an astral body who swore roundly at its
chauffeur, which this apparition now stopping in front of the restaurant
windows did. It called the unfortunate shape in leather by several
strange and creditably, or perhaps discreditably, original names, but as
this flow of eloquence was in German, it could not be appreciated by the
ladies. Mrs. Kidder knew the languages not at all, and Miss Destrey and
Beechy had remarked, when Dalmatia was proposed, that their knowledge
was of the copy-book order.
So completely upset was the Prince, that on joining us he forgot to be
sarcastic. Not a question, not a sneer as to our progress, not an
apology for being late. He flung himself into a chair at the table,
ordered the waiters about with truculence, and, having thus relieved his
mind, began complaining of his bad luck.
An Austrian Prince, when cross and hungry, can be as undesirable a
social companion as a Cockney cad, and the Countess's distinguished
friend did not show to advantage in the scene which followed. Yes, there
had been an accident. It was unheard of--abominable; entirely the fault
of the chauffeur. Chauffeurs (and he looked bleakly at Terry) were
without exception brutes--detestable brutes. You put up with them
because you had to; that was all. The automobile had merely stopped. It
must have been the simplest thing in the world for a professional to
discover what was wrong; yet this animal, Joseph, could do nothing but
poke his nose into the machinery and then shrug his hideous shoulders.
Why yes, he had taken out the valves, of course, examined the sparkling
plugs, and tested the coil. Any amateur could have done so much. It gave
a good spark; there was no short circuit; yet the motor would not start,
and the chauffeur was unable to give an explanation. Twice he had taken
the car to pieces without result--absolutely to pieces. Then, and not
till then, had the creature found wit enough to think of the
carburetter. There was the trouble, and nowhere else. All that delay and
misery had been caused by some grit which had penetrated into the
carburetter and prevented the needle working. This it was to have a
donkey instead of a chauffeur.
"But it didn't occur to you that it might be the carburetter," said
Terry, taking advantage of a pause made by the arrival of the Prince's
luncheon, which that gentleman attacked with ardour.
"Why should it?" haughtily inquired Dalmar-Kalm. "I am not engaged in
that business. I pay other people to think for me. Besides, it is not
with me as with you and your friend, who must be accustomed to accidents
of all sorts on a low-powered car, somewhat out of date. But I am not
used to having mine _en panne_. Never mind, it will not happen again.
_Mon Dieu_, what a meal to set before ladies. I do not care for myself,
but surely, Sir Ralph, it would have been easy to find a better place
than this to give the ladies luncheon?"
"Sir Ralph and Mr. Barrymore wanted us to go to the railway-station,"
Miss Destrey defended us, "but we thought it would be dull, and
preferred this, so our blood is on our own heads."
We finished gloomily with lukewarm coffee, which was so long on the way
that the Countess thought we might as well wait for the "poor Prince."
Then, when we were ready, came a violent shower, which meant more
waiting, as the Countess did not agree cordially with her daughter's
remark that to "drive in the rain would be good for the complexion."
When at last we were able to start it was after three, and we should
have to make good speed if we were to arrive at San Dalmazzo even by
late tea-time. Terry was on his mettle, however, and I guessed that he
was anxious our first day should not end in failure.
Tooling out of Ventimiglia, that grim frontier town whose name has
become synonymous to travellers with waiting and desperate resignation,
we turned up by the side of the Roya, where the stream gushes seaward,
through many channels, in a wide and pebbly bed. The shower just past,
though brief, had been heavy enough to turn a thick layer of white dust
into a greasy, grey paste of mud. On our left was a sudden drop into the
rushing river, on the right a deep ditch, and the road between was as
round-shouldered as a hunchback. Seeing this natural phenomenon, and
feeling the slightly uncertain step of our fat tyres as they waddled
through the pasty mud, the pleasant smile of the proud motor-proprietor
which I had been wearing hardened upon my face. I didn't know as much
about motors as our passengers supposed, but I did know what side-slip
was, and I did not think that this was a nice place for the ladies to be
initiated. There might easily be an accident, even with the best of
drivers such as we had in Terry, and I was sure that he was having all
he could do to keep on the crown of the road. At any moment, slowly as
we were going, the heavily laden car might become skittish and begin to
waltz, a feat which would certainly first surprise and then alarm the
ladies, even if it had no more serious consequences.
It was while we were in this critical situation, which had not yet begun
to dawn upon our passengers, that Dalmar-Kalm seized the opportunity of
racing past us from behind, blowing a fanfarronade on his horn, to prove
how much faster his car could go than ours. In the instant that he was
abreast of us, our tonneau, which overhung the back axle further than is
considered wise in the latest types of cars, swung outwards, with a slip
of the tyre in the grey grease, and only by an inch which seemed a mere
hair's breadth was Terry able to save us from a collision.
The Countess screamed, Beechy clung once more to my knee, and we all
glared at the red car with the white canopy as it shot ruthlessly ahead.
The Prince's tyres were strapped with spiked leather covers, which we
could not carry as they would lose us too much speed; therefore the
danger of side-slip was lessened for him, and he flew by without even
knowing how near we had been to an accident. The anger painted on our
ungoggled faces he doubtless attributed to jealousy, as he glanced back
to wave a triumphant _au revoir_ before flashing out of sight, round a
bend of the road.
There is something very human, and particularly womanish, about a
motor-car. The shock of the narrow escape we had just had seemed to have
unsteadied the nerve of our brave Panhard for the moment. We were
nearing a skew bridge, with an almost right-angled approach; and the
strange resultant of the nicely balanced forces that control an
automobile skating on "pneus" over slippery mud twisted us round,
suddenly and without warning. Instantly, oilily, the car gyrated as on a
pivot, and behold, we were facing down the valley instead of up. Terry
could not had done it had he tried.
"Oh, my goodness!" quavered the Countess, in a collapse. "Am I dreaming,
or has this happened? It seems as if I must be out of my wits!"
"It _has_ happened," answered Terry, laughing reassuringly, but far from
joyous within, I knew. "But it's nothing alarming. A little side-slip,
that's all."
"A _little_ side-slip!" she echoed. "Then may I be preserved from a big
one. This automobile has turned its nose towards home again, of its own
accord. Oh, Sir Ralph, I'm not sure I like motoring as much as I thought
I would. I'm not sure the Hand of Providence didn't turn the car back."
"Nonsense, Mamma!" cried Beechy. "The other day the Hand of Providence
was pointing out Sir Ralph's advertisement in the newspaper. It can't be
always changing its mind, and you can't, either. We're all _alive_,
anyhow, and that's something."
"Ah, but how long shall we be?" moaned her mother. "I don't want to be
silly, but I didn't know that an automobile had the habits of a
kangaroo and a crab, and a base-ball, and I'm afraid I shall never get
used to them."
Terry explained that his car was not addicted to producing these
sensational effects, and compared the difficulties it was now combatting
with those which a skater might experience if the hard ice were covered
an inch deep with soft soap. "We shall soon be out of this," he said,
"for the road will be better higher up where the hill begins, and the
rain has had a chance to drain away."
Cheered by these promises, the poor Countess behaved herself very well,
though she looked as if she might burst an important blood-vessel, as
Terry carefully turned his car on the slippery surface of the road's
tortoise-back. I was not happy myself, for it would have been as "easy
as falling off a log" for the automobile to leap gracefully into the
Roya; but the brakes held nobly, and as Terry had said, there was better
going round the next corner.
Here the mountains began to draw together, so that we were no longer
travelling in a valley, but in a gorge. Deep shadow shut us in, as if we
had left the warm, outer air and entered a dim castle, perpetually
shuttered and austerely cold. Dark crags shaped themselves
magnificently, and the scene was of such wild grandeur that even Beechy
ceased to be flippant. We drove on in silence, listening to the battle
song of the river as it fought its way on through the rocky chasm its
own strength had hewn.
The road mounted continuously, with a gentle incline, weaving its grey
thread round the blind face of the mountain, and suddenly, turning a
shoulder of rock we came upon the Prince's car which we had fancied many
kilometres in advance. The big red chariot was stationary, one wheel
tilted into the ditch at the roadside, while Dalmar-Kalm and his
melancholy chauffeur were straining to rescue it from its ignominious
position.
Our Panhard had been going particularly well, as if to justify itself in
its employers' eyes after its late slip from rectitude. "She" was taking
the hill gaily, pretending not to know it from the level, and it did
seem hard to play the part of good Samaritan to one marked by nature as
a Levite. But--_noblesse oblige_, and--honour among chauffeurs.
Terry is as far from sainthood as I am, and I knew well that his bosom
yearned to let Dalmar-Kalm stew in his own petrol. Nevertheless, he
brought the car to anchor without a second's hesitation, drawing up
alongside the humiliated red giant. Amid the exclamations of Mrs.
Kidder, and the suppressed chuckles of the _enfante terrible_, we two
men got out, with beautiful expressions on our faces and dawning haloes
round our heads, to help our hated rival.
Did he thank us for not straining the quality of our mercy? His name and
nature would not have been Dalmar-Kalm if he had. His first words at
sight of the two ministering angels by his side were: "You must have
brought me bad luck, I believe. Never have I had an accident with my car
until to-day, but now all goes wrong. For the second time I am _en
panne_. It is too much. This viper of a Joseph says we cannot go on."
Now we began to see why the Prince's chauffeur had acquired the
countenance of a male Niobe. Wormlike resignation to utter misery was,
we had judged, his prevailing characteristic; but hard work,
ingratitude, and goodness knows how much abuse, caused the worm to turn
and defend itself.
"How go on with a change-speed lever broken short off, close to the
quadrant?" he shrilled out in French. "And it is His Highness who broke
it, changing speed too quickly, a thing which I have constantly warned
him against in driving. I cannot make a new lever here in a wilderness.
I am not a magician."
"Nor a Félicité," I mumbled, convinced that, had my all-accomplished
adjutant been a chauffeur instead of a cook, she would have been equal
to beating up a trustworthy lever out of a slice of cake.
"Be silent, brigand!" roared the Prince, and I could hardly stifle a
laugh, for Joseph is no higher than my ear. His shoulders slope; his
legs are clothespins bound with leather; his eyes swim in tears, as our
car's crankhead floats in an oil bath; and his hair is hung round his
head like many separate rows of black pins, overlapping one another.
"We shall save time by getting your car out of the ditch, anyhow,"
suggested Terry; and putting our shoulders to it, all four, we succeeded
after strenuous efforts in pushing and hauling the huge beast onto the
road. I had had no idea that anything less in size than a railway engine
could be so heavy.
There was no question but that the giant was helpless. Terry and Joseph
peered into its inner workings, and the first verdict was confirmed.
"There's an imperfection in the metal," said expert Terry. In his place,
I fear I should not have been capable of such magnanimity. I should have
let the whole blame rest upon my rival's reckless stupidity as a driver.
"It's plain you can do nothing with your car in that condition," he went
on. "After all" (even Terry's generous spirit couldn't resist this one
little dig), "it would have been well if I'd brought that coil of rope."
"Coil of rope? For what purpose?"
"To tow you to the nearest blacksmith's, where perhaps a new lever could
be forged."
"This is not a time for joking. Twelve horses cannot drag twenty-four."
"They're plucky and willing. Shall they try? Here comes a cart, whose
driver is wreathed in smiles. Labour exulting in the downfall of
Capitol. But Labour looks good-natured." "Good morning," Terry hailed him
in Italian. "Will you lend me a stout cord to tow this automobile?"
The Prince was silent. Even in his rage against Fate, against Joseph,
and against us, he retained enough common sense to remember that 'tis
well to choose the lesser of two evils.
The carter had a rope, and an obliging disposition. A few francs changed
hands, and the Hare was yoked to the Tortoise. Yoked, figuratively
speaking only, for it trailed ignominiously behind at a distance of
fifteen yards, and when our little Panhard began bumbling up the hill
with its great follower, it resembled nothing so much as a very small
comet with a disproportionately big tail.
The motor, in starting, forged gallantly ahead for a yard or two, then,
as it felt the unexpected weight dragging behind, it appeared surprised.
It was, indeed, literally "taken aback" for an instant, but only for an
instant. The brave little beast seemed to say to itself, "Well, they
expect a good deal of me, but there are ladies on board, and I won't
disappoint them."
"Félicité," I murmured. "She might have stood sponser to this car."
With another tug we began to make progress, slow but steady. Joseph, as
the lighter weight, sat in his master's car, his hand on the
steering-wheel, while the Prince tramped gloomily behind in the mud.
Seeing how well the experiment was succeeding, however, he quickened his
pace and ordered the chauffeur down. "I do not think that the difference
in weight will be noticeable," he said, and as Joseph obediently jumped
out the Prince sprang in, taking the wheel. Instantly the rope snapped,
and the big red chariot would have run back had not Joseph jammed on the
brake.
Terry stopped our car, and the ill-matched pair had to be united again,
with a shorter rope. "Afraid you'll have to walk, Prince," said he, when
he had finished helping Joseph, who was apparently on the brink of
tears.
Dalmar-Kalm measured me with a glance. "Perhaps Sir Ralph would not
object to steering my car?" he suggested. "Then Joseph could walk, and I
could have Sir Ralph's place in the tonneau with the ladies, where a
little extra weight would do no harm. Would that not be an excellent
arrangement?"
"David left Goliath on the ground, and dragged away only his head," I
remarked. "_We_ are dragging Goliath; and I fear his head would be the
last--er--feather. So sorry. Otherwise we should be delighted."
What the Prince said as the procession began to move slowly up-hill
again, at a pace to keep time with the "Dead March in Saul," I don't
pretend to know, but if his remarks matched his expression, I would not
in any case have recorded them here.
VI
A CHAPTER OF PREDICAMENTS
On we went, and twilight was falling in this deep gorge, so evidently
cut by the river for its own convenience, not for that of belated
tourists. Here and there in the valley little rock towns stood up
impressively, round and high on their eminences, like brown, stemless
mushrooms. Each little group of ancient dwellings resembled to my mind a
determined band of men standing back to back, shoulder to shoulder,
defending their hearths and homes from the Saracens, and saying grimly,
"Come on if you dare. We'll fight to the death, one and all of us."
At last, without further mishap, we arrived at a mean village marked
Airole on Terry's map. It was a poverty-stricken place, through which,
in happier circumstances, we should have passed without a glance,
but--there, by the roadside was a blacksmith's forge, more welcome to
our eyes than a castle double-starred by Baedeker.
Joseph's spleen reduced by the sight of his master tramping in the mud
while he steered, the little chauffeur looked almost cheerful. He
promised to have a new lever ready in half an hour, and so confident was
he that he urged us to go on. But the Prince did not echo the
suggestion, and Mrs. Kidder proposed that we should have tea while we
waited.
Though it was she who gave birth to the idea, it would have been Miss
Destrey who did all the work, had not Terry and I offered such help as
men can give. He went in search of water to fill the shining kettle; I
handed round biscuits and cakes, while the Prince looked on in the
attitude of Napoleon watching the burning of Moscow.
We were as good as a circus to the inhabitants of Airole; nay, better,
for our antics could be seen gratis. The entire population of the
village, and apparently of several adjacent villages, collected round
the two cars. They made the ring, and--we did the rest. We ate, we
drank, and they were merry at our expense. The children wished also to
eat at our expense, and when I translated (with amendments) a flattering
comment on Mrs. Kidder's hair and complexion offered by an incipient Don
Juan of five years, she insisted that all the spare pastry should be
distributed among the juveniles. The division led to blows, and tears
which had to be quenched with coppers; while into the mêlée broke a
desolate cry from Joseph, announcing that his lever was a failure. The
Prince strode off to the blacksmith's shop, forgetful that he held a
teacup in one hand and an _éclair_ in the other. With custard dropping
onto the red-hot bar which Joseph hammered, he looked so forlorn a
figure that Terry was moved to pity and joined the group at the forge.
He soon discovered what Joseph might have known from the first, had he
not lived solely in the moment, like most other chauffeurs. The village
forge was not _assez bien outillée_ for a finished lever to be produced;
the Prince's car must remain a derelict, unless we towed it into port.
We started on again, in the same order as before and at the same pace,
followed by all our village _protegés_, who commented frankly upon the
plight of the Prince, and the personal appearance of the whole party. At
length, however, our moving audience dwindled. A mile or two beyond
Airole the last, most enterprising boy deserted us, and we thought
ourselves alone in a twilight world. The white face of the moon peered
through a cleft in the mountain, and our own shadows crawled after us,
large and dark on the grey ribbon of the road. But there was another
shadow which moved, a small drifting shadow over which we had no
control. Sometimes it was by our side for an instant as we crept up the
hill, dragging our incubus, then it would fall behind and vanish, only
to reappear again, perhaps on the other side of the road.
"What _is_ that tiny black thing that comes and goes?" asked Mrs.
Kidder.
"Why," exclaimed Miss Destrey, "I do believe it's that forlorn little
dog that was too timid to eat from my hand in the village. He must have
followed all this time."
"Do see if it is the same dog, Prince," Beechy cried to the tall, dark
figure completing the tail of our procession.
A yelp answered. "Yes, it is he," called the Prince. "A mangy little
mongrel. I do not think he will trouble us any longer."
Then a surprising thing happened. The Vestal Virgin rose suddenly in the
car. "You have _kicked_ him!" she exclaimed, the gentleness burnt out of
her pretty voice by a swift flame of anger. "Stop the car, Mr.
Barrymore--quickly, please. I want to get down."
Never had that Panhard of Terry's checked its career in less space. Out
jumped Maida, to my astonishment without a word of objection from her
relatives. "I will not have that poor, timid little creature frightened
and hurt," I heard her protesting as she ran back. "How _could_ you,
Prince!"
Now, though the girl was probably no more than a paid companion, she was
lovely enough to make her good opinion of importance to the most
inveterate fortune hunter, and as Miss Destrey called, "Here, doggie,
doggie," in a voice to beguile a rhinoceros, Dalmar-Kalm pleaded that
what he had done had been but for the animal's good. He had not injured
the dog, he had merely encouraged it to run home before it was
hopelessly lost. "I am not cruel, I assure you. My worst troubles have
come from a warm heart. I hope you will believe me, Miss Destrey."
"I should be sorry to be your dog, or--your chauffeur," she answered.
"He won't come back to be comforted, so I suppose after all we shall
have to go on. But I shall dream of that poor little lonely, drifting
thing to-night."
Hardly had she taken her seat, however, than there was the dog close to
the car, timid, obsequious, winning, with his wisp of a head cocked on
one side. We drove on, and he followed pertinaciously. Mildly adjured by
the Countess to "go home, little dog," he came on the faster. Many
adventures he had, such as a fall over a heap of stones and entanglement
in a thorn-bush. But nothing discouraged the miniature motor maniac in
the pursuit of his love, and we began to take him for granted so
completely that after a while I, at least, forgot him. On we toiled with
our burden, the moon showering silver into the dark mountain gorges, as
if it were raining stars.
The further we burrowed into the fastnesses of the Roya, the more wild
in its majestic beauty grew the valley, so famed in history and legend.
The gorge had again become a mere gash in the rock, with room only for
the road and the roaring river below. High overhead, standing up against
the sky like a warning finger, towered the ancient stronghold of Piena,
once guardian fortress of the valley; where the way curved, and crossed
a high bridge spanning the torrent, we passed a tablet of gleaming
bronze set against the rock wall, in commemoration of Masséna's victory
in an early campaign of Napoleon's against Italy. Sometimes we rushed
through tunnels, where the noise of the motor vibrated thunderously;
sometimes we looked down over sublime precipices; but the road was
always good now, and we had no longer to fear side-slip.
We met no one; nevertheless Terry got down and lit our lamps,
Dalmar-Kalm making an unnecessary delay by insisting that Joseph should
light his too. This was sheer vanity on the Prince's part. He could not
bear to have his great Bleriots dark, while our humbler acetylene
illumined the way for His Mightiness.
Suddenly we ran out of the bewildering lights and shadows, woven across
our way by the moon, into the lights of a town; and two _douaniers_
appeared in the road, holding up their hands for us to stop. Down jumped
Terry to see why he should be challenged in this unexpected place, and
the Prince joined him.
"Your papers, if you please," demanded the official.
Terry produced those which had been given us at the custom-house in
Grimaldi.
"But these are Italian papers. Where are those for France?" asked the
_douanier_.
"This is not France," said the Prince, before Terry could speak.
"It is Breil, and it is France," returned the man. "France for nine
kilometres, until Fontan, where Italian territory begins again."
Terry laughed, rather ruefully. "Well," said he, "I have no French
papers, but we paid a penny at the Pont St. Louis to leave France. This
car is French, and we ought not to pay anything to enter; nevertheless,
I shall be delighted to hand you the same sum for the privilege of
coming in again."
"Ah, you paid ten centimes? Then, if you have the receipt it may be
possible to permit you to go on."
"Permit us to go on!" echoed Dalmar-Kalm angrily. "I should think so,
indeed."
"I'm sorry, I took no receipt," said Terry. "I thought it an unnecessary
formality."
"_No_ formality is unnecessary, monsieur," said the servant of form. "I
also am sorry, but in the circumstances you cannot enter French
territory without a receipt for the ten centimes. As a man I believe
implicitly that you paid the sum, as an official I am compelled to doubt
your word."
Who but a Frenchman could have been so exquisitely pompous over a penny?
I saw by Terry's face that he was far from considering the incident
closed; but he had too much true Irish tact to try and get us through by
storming.
"Let us consider," he began, "whether there is not some means of escape
from this difficulty."
But Dalmar-Kalm was in no mood to temporize, or keep silent while others
temporized. The lights of Breil showed that it was a town of comparative
importance; it was past eight o'clock; and no doubt His Highness's
temper was sharpened by a keen edge of hunger. That he--he should be
stopped by a fussy official figure-head almost within smell of food,
broke down the barrier of his self-restraint--never a formidable
rampart, as we had cause to know. In a few loud and vigorous sentences
he expressed a withering contempt for France, its institutions, its
customs, and especially its custom-houses.
"If you'd mix up the Prince's initials, as you do Mr. Barrymore's
sometimes, and call him Kalmar-Dalm, there'd be some excuse for it,"
Beechy Kidder murmured to the Countess.
"Hush, he'll hear!" implored the much-enduring lady, but there was small
danger that His Highness would hear any expostulations save his own.
The functionary's eye grew dark, and Terry frowned. Had the _douanier_
been insolent, my peppery Irishman would have been insolent too,
perhaps, in the hope of cowering the man by truculence more
swashbuckling than his own; but he had been as polite as his countrymen
proverbially are, if not goaded out of their suavity. "Look here,
Prince," said Terry, hanging onto his temper by a thread (for he also
was hungry), "suppose you leave this matter to me. If you'll take the
ladies to the best hotel in town, Moray and I will stop and see this
thing through. We'll follow when we can."
Dalmar-Kalm snapped at the suggestion; our passengers saw that it was
for the best, and yielded. As they moved away, a shadowy form hovered in
their wake. It was the little black dog of Airole.
The Marquis of Innisfallen's first quarrel with his brother had been
caused by Terry's youthful preference for an army instead of a
diplomatic career. Now, could his cantankerous relative have seen my
friend, he would once more have shaken his head over talents wasted. The
oily eloquence which Terry lavished on that comparatively insignificant
French _douanier_ ought to have earned him a billet as first secretary
to a Legation. He pictured the despair of the ladies if the power of
France kept them prisoners at the frontier; he referred warmly to that
country's reputation for chivalry; he offered to pay the usual deposit
on a car entering France and receive it back again at Fontan. To this
last suggestion the harassed official replied that technically his
office was closed for the night, and that after eight o'clock he could
not receive money or issue papers. Finally, therefore, Terry was reduced
to appealing to the cleverness and resource of a true Frenchman.
It was a neat little fencing-match, which ended in the triumph of Great
Britain. The functionary, treated like a gentleman by a gentleman,
became anxious to accommodate, if he could do so "consistently with
honour." He had an inspiration, and suggested that he would strain his
duty by sending a messenger with us to Fontan, there to explain that we
were merely _en passage_. Out of the crowd which had collected a loutish
youth was chosen; a _pourboire_ promised; and after many mutual
politenesses we were permitted to _teuf-teuf_ onto the sacred soil of
France.
It is no more safe to judge a French country inn by its exterior, than
the soul of Cyrano de Bergerac by his nose. The inn of Breil had not an
engaging face, but it was animated by the spirit of a Brillat Savarin,
by which we were provided with a wonderful dinner in numerous courses.
We could not escape from it, lest we hurt the _amour-propre_ of the
cook, and it was late when we were ready for our last _sortie_.
"You will never reach San Dalmazzo to-night, towing that car," we were
informed by the powers that were in the hotel. "The hills you have
passed are as nothing to the hills yet to come. You will do well to
spend the night with us, for if you try to get on, you will be all night
upon the road."
Our passengers were asked to decide, and we expected a difference of
opinion. We should have said that the two girls would have been for
pushing on, and the Countess for stopping. But that plump lady had
already conquered the tremors which, earlier in the day, had threatened
to wreck our expedition at its outset.
"It's a funny thing," said she, "but I want to go on, just _on_, for the
sake of _going_. I never felt like that before, travelling, not even in
a Mann Boudoir car at home, which I guess is the most luxurious thing on
wheels. I always wanted to _get_ there, wherever 'there' was; but now I
want to go on and on--I wouldn't care if it was to the end of the world,
and I can't think why, unless it's the novelty of automobiling. But it
can't be that, either, I suppose, for only a little while ago I was
thinking that bed-ridden people weren't badly off, they were so _safe_."
We all laughed at this (even the Prince, whom plenty of champagne had
put into a sentimental mood), and I suddenly found myself growing quite
fond of the Countess, crowns and all.
After the heat of the _salle à manger_, the night out of doors appeared
strangely white and cold, its purple depths drenched with moonlight, the
high remoteness of its dome faintly scintillant with icy points of
stars. An adventure seemed to lie before us. We turned wistfully to each
other for the warmth of human companionship, and had not the Prince been
trying to flirt with little Beechy unseen by Mamma, I should have felt
kindly even to him. Even as it was, I consented to let him try sitting
in his own car, and the rope, inured to suffering, had the consideration
not to break.
We forged on, up, up the higher reaches of the Roya valley, so glorious
in full moonlight that it struck us into silence. The mountains towering
round us shaped themselves into castles and cathedrals of carved marble,
their façades, grey by day, glittering white and polished under the
magic of the moon. The wonderful crescent town of Saorge, hanging on the
mountain-side, would alone have been worth coming this way to see if
there had been nothing else. Veiled by the mystery of night, the old
Ligurian stronghold appeared to be suspended between two rocky peaks,
like a great white hammock for a sleeping goddess, and now and then we
caught a jewelled sparkle from her rings.
They had not told an idle tale at the inn. The road, weary of going
up-hill on its knees, like a pilgrim, got suddenly upon its feet and we
were on its back, with the Prince's chariot trailing after us.
Nevertheless, our car did not falter, though the motor panted. Scarcely
ever were we able to pass from the first speed to the second, but then
(as Beechy remarked), considering all things, we ought to be thankful
for any speed above that of a snail.
At Fontan--when he had vouched for us--we dismissed our _oaf_, with a
light heart and a heavy pocket. Again, we were in Italy, a silent,
sleeping Italy, drugged with moonlight, and dreaming troubled dreams of
strangely contorted mountains. Then suddenly it waked, for the moon was
sinking, and the charm had lost its potence. The dream-shapes vanished,
and we were in a wide, dark basin, which might be green as emerald by
day. A grey ghost in a long coat, with a rifle slung across his back,
flitted into the road and startled the Countess by signing for us to
stop.
"Oh, mercy! are we going to be held up?" she whispered. "I'd forgotten
about the brigands."
"Only an Italian custom-house brigand," said Terry. "We've got to San
Dalmazzo after all, and it isn't morning yet."
"Yes, but it is!" cried Beechy. "There's a clock striking twelve."
A few minutes later we were driving along a level in the direction of
the monastery-hotel, which was said to be no more than a hundred metres
beyond the village. I had often heard of this hostelry at the little
mountain retreat of San Dalmazzo, loved and sought by Italians in the
summer heat. The arched gateway in the wall was clearly monastic, and we
felt sure that we had come to the right place, when Terry steered the
car through the open portal and a kind of tunnel on the other side.
Before the door of a long, low building he stopped the motor. Its
"thrum, thrum" stilled, the silence of the place was profound, and not a
light gleamed anywhere.
Terry got down and rang. We all waited anxiously, for much as we had
enjoyed the strange night drive, the day had been long, and the chill
of the keen mountain air was in our blood. But nothing happened, and
after a short pause Terry rang again. Silence was the only answer, and
it seemed to give denial rather than consent.
Four times he rang, and by this time the Prince and I were at his back,
striving to pierce the darkness behind the door which was half of glass.
At last a greenish light gleamed dim as a glow-worm in the distance, and
framed in it a figure was visible--the figure of a monk.
For an instant I was half inclined to believe him a ghost, haunting the
scene of past activities, for one does not expect to have the door of an
hotel opened by a monk. But ghosts have no traffic with keys and bolts;
and it was the voice of a man still bound to flesh and blood who greeted
us with a mild "_Buona sera_" which made the night seem young.
Terry responded and announced in his best Italian that we desired
accommodation for the night.
"Ah, I see," exclaimed the monk. "You thought that this was still a
hotel? I am sorry to disappoint you, but it ceased to be such only
to-day. The house is now once more what it was originally--a monastery.
It has been bought by the Order to which I belong."
"Isn't he going to take us in?" asked the Countess, dolefully.
"I'm afraid not," said Terry, "but I'll see what I can do."
Ah, that "seeing what he could do!" I knew it of old, for Terry's own
brother is the only person I ever met who could resist him if he stooped
to wheedle. Italian is a language which lends itself to wheedling, too;
and though the good monk demurred at first, shook his head, and even
flung up his hands with a despairing protest, he weakened at last, even
as the _douanier_ had weakened.
"He says if we'd come to-morrow, it would have been impossible to admit
us," translated Terry for the ladies' benefit. "The lease is going to be
signed then. Until that's done the house isn't actually a monastery, so
he can strain a point and take us in, rather than the ladies should have
to travel further so late at night. I don't suppose we shall find very
luxurious accommodation, but--"
"It will be perfectly lovely," broke in Beechy, "and Maida, anyhow, will
feel quite at home."
"He won't accept payment, that's the worst of it," said Terry, "for we
shall make the poor man, who is all alone, a good deal of bother. Still,
I shall offer something for the charities of his Order, and he can't
refuse that."
We filed into the hall, lit only by the lantern in our host's hand, and
"Kid, Kidder, and Kiddest," charmed with the adventure, were
delightfully ready to be pleased with everything. We seemed to have
walked nearly half a kilometre before we were shown into small, bare
rooms, furnished only with necessaries, but spotlessly clean. Then beds
had to be made and water brought. Every one worked except the Prince,
and every one, with the same exception, forgot to be tired and ceased to
be cold in the pleasure of the queer midnight picnic. We had not dared
hope for anything to eat, but when our host proposed a meal of boiled
eggs, bread, and wine, the good man was well-nigh startled by the
enthusiastic acceptance of his guests.
A small room containing a table, and a pile of chairs against the wall,
was chosen for the banquet. Terry and Maida laid the table with the
dishes from the tea-basket, and a few more found in neighbouring
cupboards. Beechy boiled the eggs while our host unearthed the wine; the
Countess cut slices of hard, brown bread, and I added butter in little
hillocks.
Then we ate and drank; and never was a meal so good. We seemed to have
known each ether a long time, and already we had common jokes connected
with our past--that past which had been the present this morning. It was
after one o'clock when it occurred lo us that it was bedtime; and as at
last the three ladies flitted away down the dim corridor, Terry and I,
watching them, saw that something flitted after.
It was the little black dog of Airole.