There was a telegram from "Bertie" at Millau. The invitation to the
château where he was stopping near Clermont-Ferrand, had been asked for
and given. I heard all about it, of course, from the conversation
between the bride and groom; for Lady Turnour prides herself on
discussing things in my presence, as if I were deaf or a piece of
furniture. She has the idea that this trick is a habit of the "smart
set"; and she would allow herself to be tarred and feathered, in
Directoire style, if she could not be smart at smaller cost.
Nothing was ever more opportune than that telegram, for her ladyship had
burnt her frock and chilled her liver in the boat, and though the hotel
at Millau was good, she arrived there with the evident intention of
making life a burden to Sir Samuel. The news from Bertie changed all
that, however; and though the weather was like the breath of icebergs
next morning, Lady Turnour was warmed from within. She chatted
pleasantly with Sir Samuel about the big luggage which had gone on to
Clermont-Ferrand, and asked his advice concerning the becomingness of
various dresses. The one unpleasant thing she allowed herself to say,
was that "certainly Bertie wasn't doing this for nothing," and that his
stepfather might take her word for it, Bertie would be neither slow nor
shy in naming his reward. But Sir Samuel only grinned, and appeared
rather amused than otherwise at the shrewdness of his wife's insight
into the young man's character.
I was conscious that my jacket hadn't been made for motoring, when I
came out into the sharp morning air and took my place in the Aigle. I
was inclined to envy my mistress her fur rugs, but to my surprise I saw
lying on my seat a Scotch plaid, plaider than any plaid ever made in
Scotland.
"Does that belong to the hotel?" I asked the chauffeur, as he got into
the car.
"It belongs to you," said he. "A present from Millau for a good child."
"Oh, you mustn't!" I exclaimed.
"But I have," he returned, calmly. "I'm not going to watch you slowly
freezing to death by my side; for it won't be exactly summer to-day. Let
me tuck you in prettily."
I groaned while I obeyed. "I've been an expense to you all the way,
because you wouldn't abandon me to the lions, even in the most expensive
hotels, where I knew you wouldn't have stayed if it hadn't been for me.
And now, _this!_"
"It cost only a few francs," he tried to reassure me. "We'll sell it
again--afterward, if that will make you happier. But sufficient for the
day is the rug thereof--at least, I hope it will be. And don't flaunt
it, for if her ladyship sees there's an extra rug of any sort on board
she'll be clamouring for it by and by."
Northward we started, in the teeth of the wind, which made mine chatter
until I began to tingle with the rush of ozone, which always goes to my
head like champagne. Our road was a mere white thread winding loosely
through a sinuous valley, and pulled taut as it rose nearer and nearer
to the cold, high level of _les Causses_, the roof of that gnome-land
where we had journeyed together yesterday. From snow-covered billows
which should have been sprayed with mountain wild-flowers by now, a
fierce blast pounced down on us like a swooping bird of prey. We felt
the swift whirr of its wings, which almost took our breath away, and
made the Aigle quiver; but like a bull that meets its enemy with lowered
horns, the brave car's bonnet seemed to defy the wind and face it
squarely. We swept on toward the snow-reaches whence the wind-torrent
came. Soon we were on the flat plateau of the Causse, where last year's
faded grass was frosted white, and a torn winding-sheet wrapped the
limbs of a dead world. There was no beauty in this death, save the wild
beauty of desolation, and a grandeur inseparable from heights. Before us
grouped the mountains of Auvergne, hoary headed; and looking down we
could see the twistings of the road we had travelled, whirling away and
away, like the blown tail of a kite trailed over mountain and foothill.
"The people at Millau told me I should get up to St. Flour all right, in
spite of the fall of snow," said the chauffeur, his eyes on the great
white waves that piled themselves against a blue-white sky, "but I begin
to think there's trouble before us, and I don't know whether I ought to
have persisted in bringing you."
"Persisted!" I echoed, defending him against himself. "Why, do you
suppose wild horses would have dragged Lady Turnour in any other
direction, now that she's actually invited to be the guest of a marquis
in a real live castle?"
"A railway train could very well have dragged her in the same direction
and got her to the castle as soon, if not a good deal sooner than she's
likely to get in this car, if we have to fight snow. I proposed this way
originally because I wanted you to see the Gorge of the Tarn, and
because I thought that you'd like Clermont-Ferrand, and the road there.
It was to be _your_ adventure, you know, and I shall feel a brute if I
let you in for a worse one than I bargained for. Even this morning it
wasn't too late. I could have hinted at horrors, and they would have
gone by rail like lambs, taking you with them."
"Lady Turnour can do nothing like a lamb," I contradicted him. "I should
never have forgiven you for sending me away from--the car. Besides, Lady
Turnour wants to teuf-teuf up to the château in her sixty-horse-power
Aigle, and make an impression on the aristocracy."
"Well, we must hope for the best now," said he. "But look, the snow's an
inch thick by the roadside even at this level, so I don't know what we
mayn't be in for, between here and St. Flour, which is much higher--the
highest point we shall have to pass in getting to the Château de
Roquemartine, a few miles out of Clermont-Ferrand."
"You think we may get stuck?"
"It's possible."
"Well, that _would_ be an adventure. You know I love adventures."
"But I know the Turnours don't. And if--" He didn't finish his
sentence.
Higher we mounted, until half France seemed to lie spread out before us,
and a solitary sign-post with "Paris-Perpignans" suggested unbelievable
distances. The Aigle glided up gradients like the side of a somewhat
toppling house, and scarcely needed to change speed, so well did she
like the rarefied mountain air. I liked it too, though I had to be
thankful for the plaid; and above all I liked the wild loneliness of the
Causse, which was unlike anything I ever saw or imagined. The savage
monotony of the heights was broken just often enough by oases of pine
wood; and the plains on which we looked down were blistered with conical
hills, crowned by ancient castles which would have rejoiced the hearts
of mediæval painters, as they did mine. Severac-le-Château, perched on
its naked pinnacle of rock, was best of all, as we saw it from our
bird's-eye view, and then again, almost startlingly impressive when we
had somehow whirled down below it, to pass under its old huddled town,
before we flew up once more to higher and whiter levels.
Never had the car gone better; but Lady Turnour had objected to the
early start which the chauffeur wanted, and the sun was nearly overhead
when many a huge shoulder of glittering marble still walled us away from
our journey's end. The cold was the pitiless cold of northern midwinter,
and I remembered with a shiver that Millau and Clermont-Ferrand were
separated from one another by nearly two hundred and fifty kilometres of
such mountain roads as these. Oh yes, it was an experience, a splendid,
dazzling experience; nevertheless, my cowardly thoughts would turn,
sunflower-like, toward warmth; warm rooms, even stuffy rooms, without a
single window open, fires crackling, and hot things to drink. Still, I
wouldn't admit that I was cold, and stiffened my muscles to prevent a
shudder when my brother asked me cheerfully if I would enjoy a visit to
the Gouffre de Padirac, close by.
A "gouffre" on such a day! Not all the splendours of the posters which I
had often seen and admired, could thrill me to a desire for the
expedition; but I tried to cover my real feelings with the excuse that
it must now be too late to make even a small détour. Mr. Jack Dane
laughed, and replied that he had no intention of making it; he had only
wanted to test my pluck. "I believe you'd pretend to be delighted if I
told you we had plenty of time, and mustn't miss going," said he. "But
don't be frightened; this isn't a Gouffre de Padirac day, though it
really is a great pity to pass it by. What do you say to lunch instead?"
And we rolled through a magnificent mediæval gateway into the ancient
and unpronounceable town of Marvejols.
Before he had time to make the same suggestion to his more important
passengers, it came hastily from within the glass cage. So we stopped at
an inn which proudly named itself an hotel; and chauffeur and maid were
entertained in a kitchen destitute of air and full of clamour.
Nevertheless, it seemed a snug haven to us, and never was any soup
better than the soup of "Marvels," as Sir Samuel and Lady Turnour called
the place.
The word was "push on," however, for we had still the worst before us,
and a long way to go. The Quality had promised to finish its luncheon in
an hour; and well before the time was up, we two Worms were out in the
cold, each engaged in fulfilling its own mission. I was arranging rugs;
the chauffeur was pouring some libation from a long-nosed tin upon the
altar of his goddess when our master appeared, wearing such an "I
haven't stolen the cream or eaten the canary" expression that we knew at
once something new was in the wind.
He coughed, and floundered into explanations. "The waiter, who can speak
some English, has been frightening her ladyship," said he. "After the
day before yesterday she's grown a bit timid, and to hear that the cold
she has suffered from is nothing to what she may have to experience
higher up, and later in the day, as the sun gets down behind the
mountains, has put her off motoring. It seems we can go on from here by
train to Clermont-Ferrand and that's what she wants to do. I hate
deserting the car, but after all, this _is_ an expedition of pleasure,
and if her ladyship has a preference, why shouldn't it be gratified?"
"Quite so, sir," responded the chauffeur, his face a blank.
"My first thought on making up my mind to the train was to have the car
shipped at the same time," went on Sir Samuel, "but it seems that can't
be done. There's lots of red tape about such things, and the motor might
have to wait days on end here at Marvels, before getting off, to say
nothing of how long she might be on the way. Whereas, I've been
calculating, if you start now and go as quick as you can, you ought to
be at the château" (he pronounced it 'chattoe') "before us. Our train
doesn't leave for more than an hour, and it's a very slow one. Still, it
will be warm, and we have cards and Tauchnitz novels. Then, you know,
you can unload the luggage at the château and run back to the railway
station at Clermont-Ferrand, see to having our big boxes sent out
(they'll be there waiting for us) and meet our train. What do you think
of the plan?"
"It ought to do very well--if I'm not delayed on the road by snow."
"Do you expect to be?"
"I hope not. But it's possible."
"Well, her ladyship has made up her mind, and we must risk it. I'll
trust you to get out of any scrape."
The chauffeur smiled. "I'll try not to get into one," he said. "And I'd
better be off--unless you have further instructions?"
"Only the receipt for the luggage. Here it is," said Sir Samuel. "And
here are the keys for you, Elise. Her ladyship wants you to have
everything unpacked by the time she arrives. Oh--and the rugs! We shall
need them in the train."
"Isn't mademoiselle going with you?" asked my brother, showing surprise
at last.
"No. Her mistress thinks it would be better for her to have everything
ready for us at the 'chattoe.' You see, it will be almost dinner-time
when we get there."
"But, sir, if the car's delayed--"
"Well," cut in Sir Samuel, "we must chance it, I'm afraid. The fact is,
her ladyship is in such a nervous state that I don't care to put any
more doubts into her head. She's made up her mind what she wants, and
we'd better let it go at that."
If I'd been near enough to my brother I should have stamped on his foot,
or seized some other forcible method of suggesting that he should kindly
hold his tongue. As it was, my only hope lay in an imploring look, which
he did not catch. However, in pity for Sir Samuel he said no more; and
before we were three minutes older, if her ladyship had yearned to have
me back, it would have been too late. We were off together, and another
day had been given to us for ours.
The chauffeur proposed that I should sit inside the car; but I had
regained all my courage in the hot inn-kitchen. I was not cold, and
didn't feel as if I should ever be cold again.
The road mounted almost continuously. Sometimes, as we looked ahead, it
seemed to have been broken off short just in front of the car, by some
dreadful earth convulsion; but it always turned out to be only a sudden
dip down, or a sharp turn like the curve of an apple-paring. At last we
had reached the highest peak of the Roof of France--a sloping,
snow-covered roof; but steep as was the slant, very little of the snow
appeared to have slipped off.
The Cévennes on our right loomed near and bleak; the Auvergne stretched
endlessly before us, and the virgin snow, pure as edelweiss, was
darkened in the misty distance by patches of shadow, purple-blue, like
beds of early violets.
At first but a thin white sheet was spread over our road, but soon the
lace-like fabric was exchanged for a fleecy blanket, then a thick quilt
of down, and the motor began to pant. The winds seemed to come from all
ways at once, shrieking like witches, and flinging their splinters of
ice, fine and small as broken needles, against our cheeks. Still I would
not go inside. I could not bear to be warm and comfortable while Jack
faced the cold alone. I knew his fingers must be stiff, though he
wouldn't confess to any suffering, and I wished that I knew how to drive
the car, so that we might have taken turns, sitting with our hands in
our pockets.
In the deepening snow we moved slowly, the wheels slipping now and then,
unable to grip. Then, on a steep incline, there came a report like a
revolver shot. But it didn't frighten me now. I knew it meant a
collapsed tyre, not a concealed murderer; but there couldn't have been a
much worse place for "jacking up." Nevertheless, it's an ill tyre that
blows up for its own good alone, and the forty minutes out of a waning
afternoon made the chauffeur's cold hands hot and the hot engine cold.
Starting on again, we had ten miles of desolation, then a tiny hamlet
which seemed only to emphasize that desolation; again another ten-mile
stretch of desert, and another hamlet; here and there a glimpse of the
railway line, like a great black snake, lost in the snow; now and then
the gilded picture of an ancient town, crowning some tall crag that
stood up from the flat plain below like a giant bottle. And there was
one thrilling view of a high viaduct, flinging a spider's web of
glittering steel across a vast and shadowy ravine. "Garabit!" said the
chauffeur, as he saw it; and I remembered that this road was not new
for him. He did not talk much. Was he thinking of the companion who
perhaps had sat beside him before? I wondered. Was it because he thought
continually of her that he looked at me wistfully sometimes, often in
silence, wishing me away, maybe, and the woman who had spoilt his life
by his side again for good or ill?
Suddenly we plunged into a deep snow-bank which deceitfully levelled a
dip in the road, and the car stopped, trembling like a horse caught by
the hind leg while in full gallop.
On went the first speed, most powerful of all, but not powerful enough
to fight through snow nearly up to the hubs. The Aigle was prisoned like
a rat in a trap, and could neither go back nor forward.
"Well?" I questioned, half laughing, half frightened, at this fulfilment
of the morning's prophecy.
"Sit still, and I'll try to push her through," said Jack jumping out
into the deep snow. "It's only a drift in a hollow, you see; and we
should have got by the worst, just up there at St. Flour."
I looked where his nod indicated, and saw a town as dark and seemingly
as old as the rock out of which it grew, climbing a conical hill, to
dominate all the wide, white reaches above which it stood, like an
armoured sentinel on a watch-tower. As I gazed, struck with admiration,
which for an instant made me forget our plight, he began to push. The
car, surprised at his strength and determination, half decided to move,
then changed her mind and refused to budge. In a second, before he could
guess what I meant to do, I had flashed out of my seat into the snow,
and was wading in his tracks to help him when he snatched me up--a hand
on either side of my waist--and swung me back into my place again.
"Little wretch!" he exclaimed. "How dare you disobey me?"
Then I was vexed, for it was ignominious to be treated as a child, when
I had wanted to aid him like a comrade.
"You are very unkind--very rude," I said. "You wouldn't dare to do that,
or speak like that to _Her_."
He laughed loudly. "What--haven't you forgotten 'Her?'" (As if I ever
could!) "Well, I may tell you, it's just because I did dare to 'speak
like that' to a woman, that I'm a chauffeur stuck in the snow with
another man's car, and the--"
"The rest is another epithet which concerns me, I suppose," I remarked
with dignity, though suddenly I felt the chill of the icy air far, far
more cruelly than I had felt it yet. I was so cold, in this white
desolation, that it seemed I must die soon. And it wouldn't matter at
all if I were buried under the drifts, to be found in the late spring
with violets growing out of the places where my eyes once had been.
"Yes," said he, in that cool way he has, which can be as irritating as a
chilblain. "It was an epithet concerning you, but luckily for me I
stopped to think before I spoke--an accomplishment I'm only just
beginning to learn."
I swallowed something much harder and bigger than a cannon ball, and
said nothing.
"Of course you're covered with snow up to your knees, foolish child!" He
was glaring ferociously at me.
"It doesn't matter."
"It does matter most infernally. Don't you know that you make no more
than a featherweight of difference to the car?"
"I feel as if I weighed a thousand pounds, now."
"It's that snow!"
"No. It's you. Your crossness. I _can't_ have people cross to me, on
lonely mountains, just when I'm trying to help them."
His glare of rage turned to a stare of surprise. "Cross? Do you think I
was cross to you?"
"Yes. And you just stopped in time, or you would have been worse."
"Oh, I see," he said. "You thought that the 'epithet' was going to be
invidious, did you?"
"Naturally."
"Well, it wasn't. I--no, I _won't_ say it! That would be the last folly.
But--I wasn't going to be cross. I can't have you think that, whatever
happens. Now sit still and be good, while I push again."
I weighed no more than half the thousand pounds now, and the cannon ball
had dissolved like a chocolate cream; but the car stood like a rock,
fixed, immutable.
"There ought to be half a dozen of me," said the chauffeur. "Look here,
little pal, there's nothing else for it; I must trudge off to St. Flour
and collect the missing five. Are you afraid to be left here alone?"
Of course I said no; but when he had disappeared, walking very fast, I
thought of a large variety of horrors that might happen; almost
everything, in fact, from an earthquake to a mad bull. As the sun leaned
far down toward the west, the level red light lay like pools of blood
in the snow-hollows, and the shadows "came alive," as they used when I
was a child lying awake, alone, watching the play of the fire on wall
and ceiling.
Long minutes passed, and at last I could sit still no longer. Gaily
risking my brother's displeasure, now I knew that he wasn't "cross," I
slipped out into the snow again, opened the car door, stood in the
doorway, hanging on with one hand, and after much manoeuvring extricated
the tea-basket from among spare tyres and luggage on the roof. Then,
swinging it down, planted it inside the car, opened it, and scooped up a
kettleful of snow. As soon as the big white lump had melted over a rose
and azure flame of alcohol, I added more snow, and still more, until the
kettle was filled with water. By the time I had warmed and dried my feet
on the automatic heater under the floor, the water bubbled; and as jets
of steam began to pour from the spout I saw six figures approaching,
dark as if they had been cut out in black velvet against the snow.
"Tea for seven!" I said to myself; but the kettle was large, if the cups
were few.
It took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her up from the hollow
where the snow lay thickest. When she stood only a foot deep, she
consented readily to move. We bade good-bye to the five men, for whom we
had emptied our not-too-well filled pockets, and forged, bumbling, past
St. Flour. It was a great strain for a heavy car, and the chauffeur only
said, "I thought so!" when a chain snapped five or six miles farther on.
"What a good thing Lady Turnour isn't here!" said I, as he doctored the
wounded Aigle.
[Illustration: "_It took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her
up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest_"]
"Lots of girls would be in a blue funk," said he. "I could shake that
beastly woman for not taking you with her."
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "When I'm not doing you _any_ harm!"
He glanced up from his work, and then, as if on an irresistible impulse,
left the chain to come and stand beside me, as I sat wrapped up in his
gift "for a good girl."
He gazed at me for a moment without speaking, and I wonderingly returned
the gaze, not knowing what was to follow.
The moon had come sailing up like a great silver ship, over the snow
billows, and gleamed against a sky which was still a garden of
full-blown roses not yet faded, though sunset was long over. The soft,
pure light shone on his dark face, cutting it out clearly, and he had
never looked so handsome.
"You don't mean to do _me_ any harm, do you?" he said.
"I couldn't if I would, and wouldn't if I could," I answered in
surprise.
"Yet you _do_ me harm."
"You're joking!"
"I never was further from joking in my life. You do me harm because you
make me wish for something I can't have, something it's a constant fight
with me, ever since we've been thrown together, not to wish for, not to
think of. Yet you say I'm cross! Now, do you know what I mean, and will
you help me a little to remain your faithful brother, instead of
tempting me--tempting me, however unconsciously, to--to
wish--for--for--what a fool I am! I'm going to finish my mending."
I sat perfectly still, with my mouth open, feeling as if it were _my_
chain, not the car's, which had broken!
Of course if it hadn't been for all his talk of _Her_, I should have
known, or thought that I knew, well enough what he meant. But how could
I take his strange words and stammered hints for what they seemed to
suggest, knowing as I did, from his own veiled confessions, that he was
in love with some beautiful fiend who had ruined his career and then
thrown him over!
I longed to speak, to ask him just one question, but I dared not. No
words would come; and perhaps if they had, I should have regretted them,
for I was so sure he was not a man who would fall out of love with one
woman to tumble into love for another, that I didn't know what to make
of him; but the thought which his words shot into my mind, swift and
keen, and then tore away again, showed me very well what to make of
myself.
If I hadn't quite known before, I knew suddenly, all in a minute, that I
was in love, oh, but humiliatingly deep in love, with the chauffeur! It
seemed to me that no nice, well-regulated girl could ever have let
herself go tobogganing down such a steep hill, splash into such a sea of
love, unless the man were at the bottom in a boat, holding out his arms
to catch her as she fell. But the chauffeur hadn't the slightest
intention of holding out his arms to the poor little motor maid. He went
on mending the chain, and when he got into the car beside me again he
began to talk about the weather.