All the same, I wondered a great deal how he came there, and I hoped
that he was wondering the same sort of thing about me. In fact, I laid
myself out to produce such a result. That is to say, I took some pains
to show myself as little like the common or parlour lady's-maid as
possible. I never took so much pains to impress any human being, male or
(far less) female, as I took to impress that mere chauffeur--the very
chauffeur I'd been lying awake at night dreading as the most
objectionable feature in my new life.
All the nice things I'd thought of by the way, before we introduced
ourselves to each other, I trotted out (at least, as many as I had
presence of mind to remember); and though I'm afraid he didn't pay me
the compliment of trying to "brill" in return, I told myself that it was
not because he didn't think me worth brilling for, but because he's
English. It never seems to occur to an Englishman to "show off." I
believe if Sir Samuel Turnour's chauffeur, Mr. What's-his-name, knew
twenty-seven languages, he could be silent in all of them.
He did let me play the car's musical siren, though; a fascinating
bugbear, supposed to warn children, chickens, and other light-minded
animals that something important is coming, and they'd better look
alive. It has two tunes, one grave, one gay. I suppose we would use the
grave one if the creature hadn't looked alive?
Although he didn't say much, the chauffeur (or "shuvvie" as he
scornfully names himself) knew all about Robert Macaire and Gaspard De
Besse--knew more about them than I, also their escapades on this road
over the Esterels, and in the mountain fastnesses, when highwaymen were
as fashionable as motor-cars are now. I'd forgotten that it was this
part of the world where they earned their bread and fame; and was quite
thrilled to hear that the ghost of De Besse is supposed to keep on, as a
permanent residence, his old shelter cave near the summit of strangely
shaped Mont Vinaigre. I'm sure, though, even if we'd passed his pitch at
midnight instead of midday, he wouldn't have dared pop out and cry
"Stand and deliver!" to a sixty-horsepower Aigle.
I almost wished it were night, as we swooped over mountain tops, our
eyes plunging down the deep gorges, and dropping with fearful joy over
precipices, for the effect would have been more solemn, more mysterious.
I could imagine that the fantastically formed rocks which loomed above
us or stood ranged far below would have looked by moonlight like statues
and busts of Titans, carved to show poor little humanity such creatures
as a dead world had known. But it is hard for one's imagination to do
the best of which it feels capable when one is dying for lunch.
Even the old "Murder Inn," which my companion obligingly pointed out,
didn't give me the thrill it ought, because time was getting on when we
flew past it, and I would have been capable of eating vulgar bread and
cheese under its wickedly historic roof if I had been invited.
"Do you suppose they know anything about the road and its history?" I
asked the chauffeur, with a slight gesture of my swathed head toward the
solid wall of glass which was our background.
"They? Certainly not, and don't want to know," he answered with an air
of assurance.
"Why do they go about in motors then," I wondered, "if they don't take
interest in things they pass?"
"You must understand as well as I do why this sort of person goes about
in motors," said he. "They go because other people go--because it's the
thing. The 'other people' whom they slavishly imitate may really like
the exhilaration, the ozone, the sight-seeing, or all three; but to this
type the only part that matters is letting it be seen that they've got a
handsome car, and being able to say 'We've just come from the Riviera in
our sixty-horse-power motor-car.' They'd always mention the power."
"Lady Turnour did, even to me," I remembered. "But is Sir Samuel like
that?"
"No, to do him justice, he isn't, poor man. But his wife is his
Juggernaut. I believe he enjoys lying under her wheels, or thinks he
does--which is the same thing."
"Have you been with them long?" I dared to inquire.
"Only a few days. I brought the car down for them from Paris, though not
this way--a shorter one. We're new brooms, the car and I."
"All their brooms seem to be new," I reflected. "I wonder what the
stepson is like?"
"Luckily it doesn't matter much to me," said the chauffeur
indifferently.
"Nor to me. But his name's Herbert."
"His surname?"
"I don't know. There's a Herbert lurking somewhere. It always suggests
to me oily hair parted in the middle and smeared down on each side of a
low, narrow forehead. Could you know a 'Bertie'?"
"I did once, and never want to again. He was a swine and a snob. Hope
you never came across the combination?"
I forgot to answer, because, having left the mountain world behind, a
formidable line of nobly planned arches began striding along beside us,
through the sun-bright fields, and I was sure it must be the giant Roman
aqueduct of Fréjus.
Instead of discussing such little things as the Turnours and their
Bertie, we began to talk of Phoenicians, Ligurians, and of Romans; of
Pliny, who had a beloved friend at Fréjus; and all the while to breathe
in the perfume of a land over which a vast tidal wave of balsamic pines
had swept.
Fréjus we were not to see now: that was for the dim future, after lunch;
but we turned to the left off the main road, and ran on until we saw,
bathed in pines, deliciously deluged and drowned in pines, the white
glimmer of classic-looking villas. These meant Valescure, said the
chauffeur; and the Grand Hotel--not classic looking, but pretty in its
terraced garden--meant luncheon.
The car drew up before the door, according to order, or rather,
according to hypnotic suggestion; for it seems that it is the chauffeur
who alone knows anything of the way, and who, while appearing to be
non-committal, is virtually planning the tour. "Valescure might be a
good stopping-place for lunch," he had murmured, an eye on the road map
over which his head bent with Sir Samuel's. "Very beautiful--rather
exclusive. You may remember Mr. Chamberlain stopped there."
The exclusiveness and the Chamberlain-ness decided Lady Turnour, behind
Sir Samuel's shoulder (so the chauffeur told me); consequently, here we
were--and not at St. Raphael, which would have seemed the more obvious
place to stop.
I say "we," but Lady Turnour would have been surprised to hear that her
maid dared count herself and a chauffeur in the programme. Creatures
like us must be fed, just as you pour petrol into the tanks of a motor,
or stoke a furnace with coals, because otherwise our mechanism wouldn't
go, and that would be awkward when we were wanted.
The chauffeur opened the door of the car as if he had been born to open
motor-car doors, and Lady Turnour allowed herself to be helped out by
her husband. Her jewel-bag clutched in her hand (she doesn't know me
well enough yet to trust me with it, and hasn't had bagsful of jewels
for long), she passed her two servants without expending a look on them.
Sir Samuel followed, telling his chauffeur to have the automobile ready
at the door again in an hour and a quarter; and we two Worms were left
to our own resources.
"I shan't garage her," said my fellow Worm of the car. "I'll just drive
her out of the way, where I can look over her a bit when I've snatched
something to eat. I'll take the fur rugs inside--you're not to bother,
they're big enough to swamp you entirely. And then you--"
"Yes, then I--" I repeated desolately. "What is to become of me?"
"Why, you're to have your lunch, of course," he replied. "I thought you
said you were hungry."
"So I am, starving. But--"
"Well?"
"Aren't you going to have a proper lunch?"
"A sandwich and a piece of cheese will do for me, because there are one
or two little things to tinker up on the car, and an hour and a quarter
isn't long. I think I shall bring my grub out of doors, and--But is
anything the matter?"
"I can't go in and have lunch alone. I simply can't," I confessed to the
young man whose society I had intended to avoid like a pestilence. "You
see, I--I never--this is the first time."
A look of comprehension flashed over his face.
"Yes, I see," he said. "Of course, the moment I heard your voice I
realized that this wasn't your sort of work, but I didn't know you were
quite so new to it as all that. You've never taken a meal in the
couriers' room of an hotel?"
"No," I confessed. "At the Majestic Palace Lady Kil--that is, I decided
to have everything brought up to my room, there."
"By Jove, we are a strange pair! This is my first job, too, and so far
I've been able to feed where I chose; but that's too good to last on
tour. One must accommodate oneself to circumstances, and a man easily
can. But you--I know how you feel. However, it's the first step that
costs. Do you mind much?"
"It's the stepping in alone that costs the most," I said.
"Well, I'm only too delighted if I can be of the least use. Let the car
rip! I'll see to her afterward. Now I'm going to take care of you. You
need it more than she does."
What would Lady Kilmarny have said if she had heard my deliberate
encouragement of the chauffeur, and his reckless response? What would
she have thought if she could have seen us walking into the couriers'
dining-room, side by side, as if we had been friends for as many years
as we'd really been acquaintances for minutes, leaving the car he was
paid to cherish in his bosom sulking alone!
That sweet lady's face, surprised and reproachful, rose before my eyes,
but I had no regrets. And instead of trembling with apprehension when I
saw that the couriers' room was empty, I rejoiced in the prospect of
lunching alone with the redoubtable chauffeur.
It was too early for the regular feeding hour of the _pensionnaires_,
maids, and valets, and we sat down opposite each other at the end of a
long table. A bored young waiter, with little to hope for in the way of
_pourboires_, ambled off in quest of our food. I began to unfasten my
head covering, and after a search for various fugitive pins I emerged
from obscurity, like the moon from behind a cloud.
With a sigh of relief, I smiled at my companion; and it was only his
expression of surprise which reminded me that he had been seeing me "as
through a glass darkly."
I suppose, unless you are a sort of Sherlock Holmes of physiognomy, you
can't map out a woman's face by a mere glimpse of eyes through a
triangular bit of talc, already somewhat damaged by exposure to sun and
wind.
It mayn't be good manners to look a gift motor-veil in the talc, but I
must admit that, glad as I was of its protection, mine was somewhat the
worse for certain bubbles, cracks, and speckles; so whether or no Mr.
Bane or Dane may combine the science of chauffeuring with that of
physiognomy, it's certain that he had the air of being taken aback.
Of course, I know that I'm not exactly plain, and that the contrast
between my eyes and hair is a little out of the common; so, as soon as I
remembered that he hadn't seen me before, I guessed more or less what
his almost startled look meant. Still, I suppose most girls--anyway,
half-French, half-American girls--would have done exactly what I
proceeded to do.
I looked as innocent as a fluffy chicken when it first sidles out of its
eggshell into the wide, wide world; and said: "Oh, I do hope I haven't a
smudge on the end of my nose?"
"No," replied the chauffeur, instantly becoming expressionless. "Why do
you ask?"
"Only I was afraid, from your face, that there was something wrong."
"So far as I can see, there's nothing wrong," said he, calmly, and
broke a piece of bread. "Very good butter, this, that they give to _nous
autres_," he went on, in the same tone of voice, and my respect for him
increased.
(Men are really rather nice creatures, take them all in all!)
As he had sacrificed his duty to the car for me, I sacrificed my duty to
my digestion for him, and bolted my luncheon. Then, when released from
guard duty, he returned to his true allegiance, and I ventured to walk
on the terrace to admire the view.
Far away it stretched, over garden, and pineland, and flowery
meadow-spaces, to the blue, silver-sewn sea, which to my fancy looked
Homeric. Nothing modern caught the eye to break the romance of the
illusion. All was as it might have been twenty or thirty centuries ago,
when on the Mediterranean sailed "Phoenicians, mariners renowned, greedy
merchantmen with countless gauds in a black ship."
I had just begun to play that I was a young woman of Tyre, taken on an
adventurous excursion by an indulgent father, when presto! Lady
Turnour's voice brought me back to the present with a jump. There's
nothing Homeric about her!
She and Sir Samuel had finished their luncheon, and so had several other
people. There was an exodus of well-dressed, nice-looking women from
dining-room to terrace, and conscious that I ought to have been herding
among their maids, I fled with haste and humility. What right had I, in
this sweet place divinely fit to be a rest-cure for goddesses tired of
the social diversions of Olympus?
I scuttled off to the car, and stood ready to serve my mistress when it
should please her to be tucked under her rugs.
Despite delays, the chauffeur had finished whatever had to be done, and
soon we were spinning away from Valescure, far away, into a world of
flowers.
Black cypresses soared skyward, so clean cut, so definite, that I seemed
to hear them, crystal-shrill, like the sharp notes in music, as they
leaped darkly out from a silver monotone of olives and a delicate ripple
of pearly plum or pear blossom. Mimosas poured floods of gold over the
spring landscape, blazing violently against the cloudless blue. Bloom of
peach and apple tree garlanded our road on either side; the way was
jewelled with roses; and acres of hyacinths stretched into the distance,
their perfume softening the keenness of the breeze.
"Are they going to let you pass Fréjus without pausing for a single
look?" I asked mournfully. But at that instant there came a peal of the
electric bell which is one of the luxurious fittings of the car. It
meant "stop!" and we stopped.
"Aren't there some ruins here--something middle-aged?" asked Sir Samuel,
meaning mediæval.
"Roman ruins, sir," replied his chauffeur, without changing countenance.
"Are they the sort of things you ought to say you've seen?"
"I think most people do stop and see them, sir."
"What is your wish, my dear?" Sir Samuel gallantly deferred to his
bride. "I know you don't like out-of-door sightseeing when it's windy,
and blows your hair about, but--"
"We might try, and if I don't like it, we can go on," replied Lady
Turnour, patronizing the remains of Roman greatness, since it appeared
to be the "thing" for the nobility and gentry to do.
The chauffeur obediently turned the big blue Aigle, and let her sail
into the very centre of the vast arena where Cæsar saw gladiators fight
and die.
It was very noble, very inspiring, and from some shady corner promptly
emerged a quaintly picturesque old guardian, ready to pour forth floods
of historic information. He introduced himself as a soldier who had seen
fighting in Mexico under Maximilian, therefore the better able to
appreciate and fulfil his present task. But her ladyship listened for
awhile with lack-lustre eyes, and finally, when dates were flying about
her ears like hail, calmly interrupted to say that she was "glad she
hadn't lived in the days when you had to go to the theatre out of
doors."
"I can't understand more than one word in twelve that the old thing
says, anyhow," she went on. "Elise must give me French lessons every day
while she does my hair. I hope she has the right accent."
"He's saying that this amphitheatre was once almost as large as the one
at Nîmes, but that it would only hold about ten thousand spectators,"
explained the chauffeur, who was engaged partly for his French and
knowledge of France.
"It's nonsense bothering to know that now, when the place is tumbling to
pieces," sneered her ladyship.
"I beg your pardon, my lady; I only thought that, as a rule, the best
people do feel bound to know these things. But of course--" He paused
deferentially, without a twinkle in his eye, though I was pressing my
lips tightly together, and trying not to shake spasmodically.
"Oh, well, go on. What else does the old boy say, then?" groaned Lady
Turnour, _martyrisée_.
Mr. Bane or Dane didn't dare to glance at me. With perfect gravity he
translated the guide's best bits, enlarging upon them here and there in
a way which showed that he had independent knowledge of his own. And it
was a feather in his cap that his eloquence eventually interested Lady
Turnour. She made him tell her again how Fréjus was Claustra Gallæ to
Cæsar, and how it was the "Caput" for this part of the wonderful Via
Aurelia, which started at Rome, never ending until it came to Arles.
"Why, we've been to Rome, and we're going to Arles," she exclaimed. "We
can tell people we've been over the whole of the Via Aurelia, can't we?
We needn't mention that the automobile didn't arrive till after we got
to Cannes. And anyway, you say there were once theatres there, and at
Antibes, like the one at Fréjus, so we've been making a kind of Roman
pilgrimage all along, if we'd only known it."
"It is considered quite the thing to do, in Roman amphitheatres, to make
a tour of the prisoners' cells and gladiators' dressing-rooms, the guide
says," insinuated the chauffeur. And then, when the bride and
bridegroom, reluctant but conscientious, were swimming round the vast
bowl of masonry, like tea-leaves floating in a great cup, he turned to
me.
"Why don't you thank me?" he inquired. "I was doing it for you. I knew
you hated to miss all this, and I saw she meant to go on, so I
intervened, in the only way I could think of, to touch her."
"If you're always as clever as that, I don't see why this shouldn't be
_our_ trip," I said. "That will be a consolation."
"I'm afraid you'll often need more consolation than that," he answered.
"Lady Turnour is--as the Americans say--a pretty 'stiff proposition.'"
"Still, if you can hypnotize her into going to all the places, and
stopping to look at all the nicest things, this will at least be a cheap
automobile tour for us both."
I laughed, but he didn't; and I was sorry, for I thought I deserved a
smile. And he has a nice one, with even white teeth in it, and a wistful
sort of look in his eyes at the same time: a really interesting smile.
I wondered what he was thinking about that made him look so grave; but I
conceitedly felt that it was something concerning me--or the situation
of us both.