Buch lesen: «The Lightning Conductor: The Strange Adventures of a Motor-Car», Seite 9
FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE
Pau, December 15.
Dear Safety Valve,
After the recent budget from Biarritz I had no intention of inflicting another upon you-at least, until we should reach Nice. But-there's as much virtue in "but" as in "if" – you will be thinking in Davos that it never rains but it pours letters; I am thinking in Pau that it never rains but it pours young men-Miss Randolph's young men. We've got another one now, in his way as objectionable as the first; and though I don't regard this specimen as an active menace to the car, nor do I believe he will resort to ripping up the tyres, he has his knife into me.
Well, we arrived in Pau, which I know of old, and in which I've had some rather jolly times, as Miss Randolph would put it. Pau is the sort of place where you meet your friends, and I scented danger, but we were booked for only two days, and luck had befriended me so well thus far that I trusted it once more. I came to a hotel at some distance from the Goddess's. Between two evils I chose the less, and put my name down as "J. Winston," hoping that if anyone knew me they wouldn't know Miss Randolph, or vice versâ. Besides, I took counsel with prudence, engaged a private sitting-room, and ordered my meals sent up, to avoid being on show in the salle à manger. All seemed serene, when suddenly an adverse wind began to blow (as usual) from an unexpected quarter.
Lured by fancied security, I took advantage of that idleness for which Satan is popularly supposed to provide mischief to put in a little private fun on my own account. On the morning after our arrival in Pau, Miss Randolph informed me that the car and I would not be wanted, as she had met some American friends and would be at their disposal during the day. In an evil moment a golf rage overpowered me, and I yielded, seeing no special reason why I shouldn't. The Pau links are the best on the Continent, and I had retained my membership of the club from last year, when I was here with my mother, so that was all right. I nicked into a cab and told the man to drive to the golf club.
The steward remembered me, so did the professional; but as it was fairly early in the morning as well as early in the season there were only a couple of men in the smoking-room. I sat down to write a letter at a corner table, and as one of the fellows was talking in loud tones, advertising all the wares in his shop windows, so to speak, I couldn't help over-hearing what he said. He had one of those objectionable, Anglo-maniac, American voices that get on your nerves; you know the snobbish sort that, instead of being proud as punch of their own country, want to appear more English than the English, and get up for the part like an actor with all an actor's exaggerations. Well, this was one of those voices; and for all the owner might have taken his accent from his groom, he was mightily pleased with it.
I hadn't looked at the chap at first, but when I heard him telling his meek little exclamatory friend stories about a lot of my own friends (invariably making his impression by mentioning their titles first, then dropping into Christian names), I did take a glance at him over my shoulder.
I found him a curious combination of Sherlock Holmes and Little Lord Fauntleroy. He might have "gone on" at a moment's notice as understudy either for Mr. William Gillette in the one part, or for that clever little What's-his-name who resurrected the latter in London lately; though as for his dramatic talent, I've yet to judge, and may be called upon to do so, as you shall hear.
He went on gassing about all sorts of impossible feats he'd accomplished on a Panhard car, which he alluded to as his. According to himself, Fournier wasn't in it with him. Having heard to the end the tale of a motor race in which Sherlock-Fauntleroy, in company with the Duke of Bedford, had beaten King Edward the Seventh, the other man, deeply impressed, inquired through his nose (which he, being frankly Far-Western, didn't mind using as a channel of communication) whether his magnificent acquaintance was at present travelling on the famous Panhard, and had it with him.
"No," was the answer; "fact is I got a bit tired of keeping the road, and lent my car to my old friend Montie-Lord Lane, don't you know, who's running it about the Riviera now."
Aha, my boy, does that make you sit up? I assure you it did me. And if, just before, I hadn't heard the gentleman discoursing on the pleasures of a certain trip taken with Burford at a date when you and Burford and I happened to be together, I should have sat still straighter. I might have said to myself, "So all is discovered. My Montie-or rather his Montie-has taken a leaf out of Brown's book, and instead of stuffing himself with fresh air and eggs at Davos, is flashing about the Riviera in his dear chum's Panhard, which he must have lately learnt to drive, as he didn't know gearing from belts when I saw him last." As it is, however, I assure you no such suspicions are at present keeping me awake; I've enough worries of my own to do that.
But Fauntleroy-Holmes was continuing, and I sat in my obscure corner inhaling his tobacco smoke and his equally ephemeral anecdotes.
"I am going on to Nice myself in a day or two, with some ladies, on their motor-car," said he. "Very good car, I believe; one of the ladies very handsome. She has a chauffeur, of course, but I shall drive and let him do the dirty work. I fancy I shall be able to show my friend something in the way of driving. She wants to learn, and ought to have good instruction to begin with; one never recovers form if taught bad ways at first."
I lay low, like Brer Rabbit, but my ears were burning. He'd named no names, and I had no reason to fit a cap on anybody's head. There were plenty of ladies and plenty of motor-cars in Pau, any of which might be going to Nice. I had never seen the man before, and didn't believe Miss Randolph knew him from Adam; still, I had a sensation of heat in my ears, and when I'd finished the letter I had begun (it was to Burford, by the way, but I refrained from telling him how his name had been taken in vain, less out of good nature than because I couldn't be bothered), I got up, went out, and asked the steward who the young man was who looked like Sherlock Holmes.
He knew at once who I meant, grinned, and informed me that the gentleman was a very rich American, named Payne, a great amateur automobilist, and a keen golfer. How he had obtained all these particulars it wasn't difficult to guess, when one reflected upon Mr. Payne's fondness for talking of himself. By the way, have you ever met the man at all?
A few minutes after questioning the steward, I was strolling on the lawn thinking over what I had heard, when Sherlock walked out of the club, his obtrusive eyeglass dangling from his buttonhole.
He advanced towards me, somewhat to my surprise, and hailed me from afar, seeing, I suppose, that I was inclined to move on. "I say, sir," he began, "if you want a game, will you take me on? I've a friend just gone, and there doesn't seem to be anyone here but you and me-"
By this time he had stuck the big monocle in his eye, where it had somewhat the effect of a biscuit. I fancied it was the addition of the eyeglass which discomposed his expression, but almost immediately I realised that the change was due to a cause more violent.
"B-ah Jove!" he ejaculated. And then, "'Pon my word, what damned impertinence!" He stood glaring at me through that eyeglass with such an "I am the Duke of Omnium, who the devil are you?" sort of expression that I thought he must be mad, and I stared also, in amazed silence.
After looking me up and down he began again, "What do you mean by it, I want to know, swaggering about here, among gentlemen, as if you were one of Us? I'll have you put out by the waiters." With this extraordinary outburst he turned on his heel, and was making off towards the club-house; but as you know, my temper is not of the sweetest, and mad or not mad, I didn't exactly yearn over Mr. Payne. I took advantage of the long legs about which "my friend Montie" has occasionally chaffed me and caught him up. I cannot conceal from you that I did more. I gripped him by the shoulder. I held him firmly, apparently somewhat against his will. I also shook him, and it now comes dimly back to me that his eyeglass jumped out of his eye.
"You damned cad!" I then remarked in a tone which some people might consider abrupt; "what in h- do you mean?"
He took to stuttering-some men do in emergencies-and I knew from that instant that he couldn't drive a motor-car. "L-et go," he stammered like a schoolboy. "You-you-confounded chauffeur, you! I'll tell your mistress of you, and have you discharged. You-you're Miss Randolph's chauffeur, and you come here to pass yourself off as a member at a gentleman's club."
On the point of knocking him down, I decided I wouldn't, and dropped him instead like a hot chestnut. You see, he "had me on the hip"; for I am Miss Randolph's chauffeur, and there was no good denying it. In a small way it was one of the nastiest situations of my life. What "A." in Vanity Fair would have done I don't know, and I didn't know what to do myself for a minute. You see, my prophetic soul tells me that the time hasn't come to confess all and throw myself on the Goddess's mercy, as I hope it may some day; and I couldn't afford to be plunged into hot water with her when the facts would look fishy and be impossible to explain. Still, I couldn't eat humble pie with that Bounder; sooner I would have quietly killed him, and stuffed him into a hole in the links. However, a sweet little cherub of inspiration looked out for the fate of poor Jack, and whispered an alternative in my ear.
"Do you dare deny it?" Payne demanded, plucking up courage.
"I 'dare' do a good deal," said I, looking him straight in the eyes. "But I don't intend to deny it. I am Miss Randolph's chauffeur." How he had found that out I couldn't imagine.
"Then, I can tell you, you won't long remain so," blustered the fellow, as cocksure as if he were her brother, or something nearer-hang him! "A man who is capable of practising such deception isn't fit to be trusted with a lady. I shall get you the sack."
"You ought to be a good judge of deception," said I. "Have you told Miss Randolph yet about that trip of yours with the Duke of Burford last summer?"
Sherlock-Fauntleroy got as red as a beet, and the Fauntleroy characteristics predominated. I thought tears were about to start from his eyes, but he merely relapsed into another fit of the stutters. "Wh-hat d-do you mean?" he chattered. "Y-you don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh yes, I do," I said, growing calmer as he grew excited, "a good deal more than you knew what you were talking about when you claimed the Duke as your friend. I happened to be with him at the time last summer, when you said you were driving him on your car."
"You with the Duke!" sneered Sherlock. "Who would believe that?"
"Miss Randolph would," said I. "The Duke of Burford was driving his own car last summer. Now you can guess how I happened to be with him. There was just one other man on board; your friend Montie, Lord Lane, you know. Lord Lane was another of my old masters." (Hope you don't object to being referred to as an Old Master, and I was your fag at Eton.) "I know him very well. He can do a good many things, can Lord Lane, but he can't drive a motor-car. And another little detail you've got wrong. He isn't running about on the Riviera. He is at Davos Platz. I've had a letter from him there the other day; he's very thoughtful of his old servants. Miss Randolph would think it queer if you said you expected to meet Lord Lane on the Riviera with your car, and I showed her a letter from him which proved he'd been at Davos for the last six weeks. Or he wouldn't mind telegraphing if I wired."
"You're a regular blackmailer," gasped Payne.
"Not at all," said I. "I suggest a bargain, but I don't want money. All I want is not to lose my job. Don't you give me away, and I won't give you away. Do you agree to that compromise and no more said?"
We had been holding each other by the eye, but suddenly his wandered, assisted by the monocle. So odd an expression sat on his face that I followed his straying glance, and saw what he saw-Miss Randolph! Miss Randolph at one of the long French windows of the club-house, with several other ladies. Without a second's hesitation I gripped Payne by the arm and dragged him across the lawn, using him as a screen. Once round the corner of the house, I let him go; but I dared not wait to chaffer. "Remember, it's a bargain," I reminded the fellow. "While you keep to your part I keep to mine, and not a moment longer." With this I darted into one of the waiting cabs. That was a narrow shave, but I congratulated myself that I had come out of it "on top," joyful in the hope that I should snatch Miss Randolph away in a day or two, and the episode would be closed. But mice and men should go slow in self-congratulation. Even a confirmed liar occasionally tells the truth by mistake. Next day (which means to-day) I learned this through bitter experience. Nothing had happened, and when I presented myself to Miss Randolph in the morning for orders, her manner was so pleasant, so exactly the same as usual, that I made sure Mr. Payne had chosen the better part of valour and held his peace. Evening came, however; my mistress sent for me, as I was informed through the invaluable hall-porter. Coward conscience, or some other intricate internal organ, gave a twinge. I asked myself blankly if I had been betrayed, if I were in for a scolding, if I should have to choose between being ignominiously chucked out of my precious berth, or prematurely owning up to the trick I have played, with the consequent risk of losing my lady forever. I felt pretty sick as I went up the servants' stairs to Miss Randolph's floor at the "Gassisn" and knocked at the door of her private sitting-room.
The door was on the latch, and as I tapped I heard Aunt Mary exclaim in a tone of extreme scorn, "Ask him 'if he objects,' indeed! One would think you were the servant and he the master. You shall do nothing of the kind."
My knocking evidently cut short the argument. Miss Randolph called "Come in!" and I obeyed, all black leather and humility. I hardly raised my eyes to the ladies, yet I saw that She was looking adorable in a white dress, with nothing but sparkling lacey stuff over the loveliest neck and arms on earth. She smiled, so I hoped that my sin had not found me out, but it was not precisely one of her own frank, starry smiles; there was something new and constrained, and my heart still misgave me.
"Brown," said she (and I observed that Aunt Mary had fixed her with a threatening eye), "Brown, I thought I'd send for you to say that we'll have another passenger to-morrow for a few days. Or that is we may have to ask him to drive sometimes, out of politeness, for I believe he's a good driver, and he might be hurt if we didn't; though I'm sure he drives no better than you."
By this time I knew what was coming, and steeled myself to bear it, but there might have been a certain involuntary elongation of countenance, for the poor child rushed into explanations to save my battered feelings. "You see," she went on, "this gentleman, Mr. Payne, is a very old friend of the family, and he has been travelling in Europe a long time, for a rest. He overworked himself or something, and broke down. Now, he has lent his car to an English friend of his, Lord Lane, whom he arranged to rejoin on the Riviera. But he doesn't feel well, and railway travelling disagrees with him. His doctor here has just told him that he must be continually in the open air if he doesn't want to have a relapse; and Miss Kedison thinks my father would be annoyed if we didn't ask him to drive with us, as we are going the way he must go. The Napier is such a fine car, I suppose it can take four as well as three, and a little more luggage?"
"Oh yes, miss, there'll be no difficulty about that," I answered grudgingly.
"And you won't feel that it is lack of trust in you, if he drives part of the time?"
At this Aunt Mary glared, but that Angel paid not the slightest attention.
There is an unwritten law that a man shall not be a brute; and after her sweet consideration of my chauffery feelings I couldn't show myself ungracious. I assured her that I should not feel hurt, and that she was very kind to think of me at all. I would do my best for the party, unless, of course, my services would be superfluous, now that she was to be accompanied by a friend who was a competent driver.
I wonder what I should have done in the unlikely event that she took me at my word? Picture my feelings, bereft of my Goddess, bereft of my Napier at one and the same time, constrained to resignation, while a confounded impostor drove off with both from under my very nose! Miss Randolph hastened to deny any such thought, and to impress upon me my value as a chauffeur. But things are bad enough as they are.
Here I am saddled with a fellow who hates me as a cur hates a man who has thrashed him, and will snap if he dares. Instead of turning my back upon him, I have to carry him away on it; and if a rod isn't in pickle for me, I'm not
Your old friend,
Jack Winston.
FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE
Toulouse, December 16.
Dear Montie,
I can't let you alone, you see. I must unburden myself, or something will happen-something apoplectic. If I have sinned, I am punished; and so far as I can see the worst still stretches before me in a long vista. It was good of you to scrawl off that second letter, at midnight, as an afterthought. It was forwarded, and has just reached me here, by grand good luck.
You say I would do better to make a clean breast of it; but that's easier said than done. You're not here, and you can't see the "lie of the land" as I can. I'll explain the position to you, from my point of view, for I think you don't quite understand it.
Not to mince matters, I am a Fraud, and Miss Randolph is the sort of girl to resent being imposed upon, If this Payne, who rejoices in the name of Jimmy, should find out the truth about me and tell her to-morrow, she would be exceedingly angry, as she would have a right to be, and would, I think, find it hard to forgive me. It is because I have felt this instinctively that I have let things slide. I have drifted down the stream of enjoyment, saying to the passing hour, like Goethe's hero, "Stay, thou art fair," though too often the thought would present itself that this could not go on for ever. Besides, there were drawbacks, big or little, according to my mood. I have always kept it before myself, more or less, that some day Miss Randolph would dispense with me and my car, in the natural course of affairs, even if the event were not hastened by some contretemps or other; and that it might then be as difficult to adjust matters as it is now. But in truth I hope it won't be so. What I aim to do is to make myself so indispensable to her as Brown that she can't bring herself to get on without me as Jack Winston. I haven't done that yet, though it isn't for lack of trying; therefore I'm not ready for the crisis, and therefore I'm afraid of Payne. Yes, "afraid," that's the word. And my one consolation is that he's equally afraid of me.
Your ordinary, habitual liar can bear up if he's found out, and laugh it off somehow, but your snob and boaster can't. This man could hardly survive being stripped of his dukes and earls, with which he's covered his untitled nakedness as with a mantle, for the eyes of Miss Randolph. In this natural phenomenon lies my chance of gaining time, and other things that I want.
You would have had some pure enjoyment out of to-day if you had been the fifth person on my Napier. If you could have heard Aunt Mary (who, in common with a certain type of American, worships a title and rolls it on her tongue as if it were a plover's egg out of season) asking "Jimmy" questions about his grand English friends! Knowing that my cold and venomous eye was upon him, and writhing under it, he had to answer her questions. "What sort of looking man is the Duke of Burford, Jimmy? Did you ever stay at any of his country places? Is it true that he often entertains the Royalties? Were you ever asked to a house-party to meet the King and Queen?"
I could almost have found it in my heart to pity him; but my interests at stake were too big for me to have derived the serene pleasure from the situation that you might have enjoyed as an initiated outsider. But with my attempted explanations and my chortlings I've digressed too much, and I'll get back to "Hecuba."
We started from the "Gassion." Miss Randolph announced that she would drive at first. This was, I judged, a sop for me, as Cerberus. But Payne was given the seat of honour beside her, and I was relegated to the tonneau with Aunt Mary and the other impedimenta. My day was over!
Miss Kedison considers it infra dig. to converse with a servant, though she has been content often enough to use me as a guide-book. She doesn't like sitting in front, so she was obliged to put up with my physical nearness, but she took pains to emphasise her soul's remoteness. I think her opinion of me has been for some time that I am "too big for my boots," and I was not surprised to learn that it was by her advice Mr. Payne had been invited to join the party. No doubt she thought it would put me in my proper place, and so it has. Besides, we had not been long en route when I gleaned from several indications, small in themselves, that "Jimmy" is a great favourite with her, so great that she would not object to becoming his aunt by marriage. They are warm friends, and if he hasn't already poured into her ear confidences prejudicial to me, there, I fear, lies danger for the future.
We had not been gone long from Pau before Miss Randolph glanced round at me-a risky thing to do when you're driving; but the road was straight and clear as far as the eye could see. I was half in hopes she would request me to drive; but not so. "By the way, Brown," said she, "I forgot to ask; didn't I see you at the golf club the other day?"
From the form of the question I couldn't tell whether Payne had played the sneak or not, nor could I guess from her face, as she had turned to business again. As for him, he had ignored me haughtily since the start.
"Me, miss, at the golf club?" I promptly protested, regardless of grammar and not sure I wasn't in for an explosion which would blow poor Brown sky-high; "why, a chauffeur wouldn't be admitted there."
"I suppose not," she answered over her shoulder. "But there was a man very like you when my friends took me-and walking with Mr. Payne, too."
"Now for it!" thought I. But then Jimmy's first words reassured me. "Oh, I don't know all the strangers one talks to at a club," he replied in haste; and then, by way of changing the subject, the bounder asked Miss Randolph if she wouldn't let him drive. "It's over a hundred miles to Toulouse, and you'll want a firm hand, for the days are short," he had the impudence to add.
At that I lost my head, and made a big mistake. I felt I couldn't stand sitting still while he tried experiments with my car, and almost before I knew what I was doing I blurted out, "Beg pardon, miss, but are you sure this gentleman understands driving a Napier? My master expected that I was to drive his car when he let it out, and-"
Such a look of reproach as the Goddess threw me! "But I understand that, while I hire the car it is mine to do as I like with, in reason," she cut me short. "Mr. Payne tells me that he has often driven his friend the Duke of Burford's Napier. And if anything happens to your master's car while I have it, I will pay for the damage up to its full value, so your mind may be at ease on his account."
With this well-deserved, but none the less crushing snub she brought the car to a standstill and inadvertently stopped the motor. After virtually agreeing the night before to let Payne drive, I ought to have kept my mouth shut; but you will admit that the temptation was strong. I descended, like a well-conducted chauffeur, to help my mistress change places with my hated rival, and of course it was my duty to start the motor again, which I did. Before I could get out of the way, Payne started-on the third speed, like the duffer he is, changing so quickly to the second that I had to race after the car and hurl myself into the tonneau to avoid being left behind. In doing this I unfortunately trod on Aunt Mary's toes. She groaned, glared, and muttered only half below her breath, "Clumsy creature!" Thoroughly humiliated, and no longer in a mood to care whether their Jimmy wrecked the car and killed us (all but one) I took my seat. I do believe that Aunt Mary secretly thinks me capable of having misjudged and ill-treated Eyelashes, who laid himself out to "be nice" to her.
Hardly had we started when I heard Miss Randolph telling Payne that this car belonged to the Honourable John Winston, Lord Brighthelmston's son, and asking him if he had ever met Mr. Winston. I suppose that, in the excitement of managing a big machine which he knew little or nothing about, Payne forgot that, since I "went with the car," the owner must have been one of those (to him) fatal old masters of mine. He can't bear to deny the soft impeachment of knowing anyone whom he thinks may be a swell, and in the hurry of the moment habit got the better of prudence.
"Oh yes, I know Jack very well!" he exclaimed; then drew in his breath with a little gasp which he turned into a cough. In that moment he had probably remembered me.
"I suppose you know his mother, then?" said Miss Randolph. "I met her in Paris. She's at Cannes now, and so you will see her there."
"Ye-es," returned Jimmy. "Oh yes, I shall certainly see her. I know Lord Brighthelmston better than I do her; but I shall call, of course."
What with his fear of having committed himself anew, and the chill in his marrow produced by my critical eye on his vertebræ, he grew more and more nervous, wobbling whenever there was a delicate piece of steering to be done or a restive horse to be passed. He changed speeds so clumsily that the pinions went together with a crash each time, and shivers ran up and down my spine when I heard the noise and thought of the damage this conceited idiot might do to my poor gears. Could you stand by like Patience on the lee cathead, smiling at a wet swab, while some duffer with a whip and spurs bestrode your favourite stallion, Roland? Perhaps that simile will help you to understand how I've been feeling all day.
Payne is a rank amateur. I doubt if he ever drove a Napier before, and would bet something he depended for his success to-day (such as it was) on keen observation of everything Miss Randolph did before he took the helm. He knows how to steer a moderately straight course and to change speeds-that's about all; and I wouldn't trust his nerve in an emergency. However, we bowled along without incident through Tarbes and Tournay, thanks more to the fine car than the driver; but when mounting a long stretch of steep road beyond a place called Lanespède, where a great railway viaduct crosses the valley, Payne missed his change, and then completely lost his head, failing to put on the brakes to prevent us running down the hill backwards. Luckily I was sitting on the brake side, and reaching out of the tonneau, I seized the lever of the hand-brake and jammed it on. Next instant (to make quite sure) I jumped out, ran to the front, and lowered the sprag. I don't think any of them knew what a narrow escape we'd had, and Payne covered himself by abusing the car. We started up again on the second, and came out on an undulating plain overlooking a little watering-place called Capvern-les-Bains, lying far below in a dimple of the Pyrenean foothills.
There was no other incident till we came to Montréjeau, where my road-book showed that there was an uncommonly steep hill. So I ventured to say over Payne's shoulder, "Better look out here, sir; a bad hill." The cad had not the civility to notice my warning, but charged through the long street of the town till he came to the verge of a dangerous descent, dipping steeply and suddenly for a little way, then turning abruptly to the left. He was taking the hill at a reckless pace, not because he was plucky, but because he knew no better; and half-way down, seeing a lumbering station-omnibus climbing slowly up, not leaving much room, he began to get wild in his steering. Again I hung out, and gently but firmly put on the hand-brake, steadying the car. The idiot didn't even see how I had saved him, for when we got safely down he said to Miss Randolph, "Took that hill flying, didn't I?" I can tell you I was glad when we pulled up for luncheon at St. Gaudens, knowing that the road here turns away from the Pyrenees to cross the great plain of Languedoc.
Blessed plain of Languedoc, which has been abused by some travellers for its monotony! Sitting silently in the tonneau with Aunt Mary, I revelled in the long, straight level of wide, poplar-fringed road that stretched as far as the eye could reach, running up to a point in the distant perspective. "Here, at any rate," I reflected, "the duffer at the wheel can't do us much harm." It was a beautiful scene, had I been in tune to enjoy it, for the Pyrenees showed their blue outlines on the far horizon, and the Garonne gave us many pictures near at hand. There was in particular one sweet sylvan "bit" at a place called St. Martory, which, though it was but a fleeting glimpse, framed itself in my mind with all the precision of a stereoscopic view.
It was a relief to me, when this evening, we ran into Toulouse; its many buildings of brick lying along the bank of the broad and peaceful Garonne, looking curiously rose-hued in the level rays of the declining sun.
