In the Oak Room, the "White Lion,"
Cobham, Surrey, _November 12_.
Dear Shiny-headed Angel,
I hope you won't mind, but I've changed all my plans. I've bought an
automobile, or a motor-car, as they call it over here; and while I'm
writing to you, Aunt Mary is having nervous prostration on a sofa in a
corner at least a hundred years old--I mean the sofa, not the corner,
which is a good deal more. But perhaps I'd better explain.
Well, to begin with, some people we met on the steamer (they were an
archdeacon, with charming silk legs, and an archdeaconess who snubbed us
till it leaked out through that Aunt Mary that you were _the_ Chauncey
Randolph) said if we wanted to see a thoroughly characteristic English
village, we ought to run out to Cobham; and we ran--to-day.
Aunt Mary had one of her presentiments against the expedition, so I was
sure it would turn out nice. When we drove up to this lovely old
red-brick hotel, in a thing they call a fly because it crawls; there
were several automobiles starting off, and I can tell you I felt
small--just as if I were Miss Noah getting out the ark. (Were there any
Miss Noahs, by the way?)
One of the automobiles was different from any I've ever seen on our side
or this. It was high and dignified, like a chariot, and looked over the
heads of the others as the archdeaconess used to look over mine till she
heard whose daughter I was. A _chauffeur_ was sitting on the front seat,
and a gorgeous man had jumped down and was giving him directions. He
wasn't looking my way, so I seized the opportunity to snapshot him, as a
souvenir of English scenery; but that tactless Kodak of mine gave the
loudest "click" you ever heard, and he turned his head in time to
suspect what had been happening. I swept past with my most "haughty Lady
Gwendolen" air, talking to Aunt Mary, and hoped I shouldn't see him
again. But we'd hardly got seated for lunch in a beautiful old room,
panelled from floor to ceiling with ancient oak, when he came into the
room, and Aunt Mary, who has a sneaking weakness for titles (I suppose
it's the effect of the English climate), murmured that _there_ was her
ideal of a duke.
The Gorgeous Man strolled up and took a place at our table. He passed
Aunt Mary some things which she didn't want, and then began to throw out
a few conversational feelers. If you're a girl, and want fun in England,
it's no end of a pull being American; for if you do anything that people
think queer, they just sigh, and say, "Poor creature! she's one of those
mad Americans," and put you down as harmless. I don't know whether an
English girl would have talked or not, but I did; and he knew lots of
our friends, especially in Paris, and it was easy to see he was a
raving, tearing "swell," even if he wasn't exactly a duke. I can't
remember how it began, but _really_ it was Aunt Mary and not I who
chattered about our trip, and how we were abroad for the first time, and
were going to "do" Europe as soon as we had "done" England.
The Gorgeous Man had lived in France (he seems to have lived nearly
everywhere, and to know everybody and everything worth knowing), and,
said he, "What a pity we couldn't do our tour on a motor-car!" At that I
became flippant, and inquired which, in his opinion, would be more
suitable as _chauffeur_--Aunt Mary or I; whereupon he announced that he
was not joking, but serious. We ought to have a motor-car and a
_chauffeur_. Then we might say, like Monte Cristo, "The world is mine."
He went on to tell of the wonderful journeys he'd made in his car,
"which we might have noticed outside." It seemed it was better than any
other sort of car in the world; in fact there was no other exactly like
it, as it had been made especially for him. You simply couldn't break
it, it was so strong; the engine would outlast two of any other kind;
and one of the advantages was that it had belts and a marvellous
arrangement called a "jockey pulley" to regulate the speed: consequently
it ran more "sweetly" (that was the word he used) than gear-driven cars,
which, according to him, jerk, and are noisy, break easily, and do all
sorts of disagreeable things.
By the time we were half through lunch I was envying him his car, and
feeling as if life wasn't worth living, because I couldn't have it to
play with. I asked if I could buy one like it, but he was very
discouraging. He had had his fitted up with lots of expensive
improvements, and it didn't pay the firm to make cars like that for the
public, so I would have to order one specially, and it might be months
before it could be delivered. I was thinking it rather inconsiderate in
him to work me up to such a pitch, just to cast me down again, when he
mentioned, in an incidental way, that he intended to sell his car,
because he had ordered a racer of forty horse-power.