Cynthia's Chauffeur

“The affair arranges itself admirably,” he said. “At most cathedrals there is an anthem, followed by a sermon by some eminent preacher, about three o’clock. Write your letters this morning, or, better still, climb to the top of the Yat and see the glorious view from the top. Come back for lunch at one, and – ”

“I’ll see what Mrs. Devar thinks of it,” broke in Cynthia, whose cheeks were borrowing tints from the red roses and the white with astonishing fluctuations of color. She ran off, more like Io, the sylph, than ever, and Medenham stood there in a brown study.

“This sort of thing can’t go on,” he argued with himself. “At any minute now I shall be taking her in my arms and kissing her, and that will not be fair to Cynthia, who is proud and queenly, and who will strive against the dictates of her own heart because it is not seemly that she should wed her father’s paid servant. So I must tell her, to-day – perhaps during the run home from Hereford, perhaps to-night. But, dash it all! that will break up our tour. One ought to consider the world we live in; Cynthia will be one of its leaders, and it will never do to have people saying that Viscount Medenham became engaged to Cynthia Vanrenen while acting as the lady’s chauffeur during a thousand-mile run through the West of England and Wales. Now, what am I to do?”

The answer came from a bedroom window that overlooked the veranda.

“Mr. Fitzroy!”

He knew as he looked up that Cynthia dared not face him again, for her voice was too exquisitely subtle in its modulations not to betray its owner’s disappointment before she uttered another word.

“I am very sorry,” she said rapidly, “but I feel I ought not to leave Mrs. Devar until she is better, so I mean to remain indoors all day. I shall not require the car before nine o’clock to-morrow. If you like to visit Hereford, go at any time that suits your convenience.”

She seemed to regret the curtness of her speech, though indeed she was raging inwardly because of certain barbed shafts planted in her breast by Mrs. Devar’s faint protests, and tried to mitigate the blow she had inflicted by adding, with a valiant smile:

“For this occasion only, Jupiter must content himself with Mercury as a companion.”

“If I had Jove’s power – ” he began wrathfully.

“If you were Cynthia Vanrenen, you would do exactly what she is doing,” she cried, and fled from the window.

It is not to be denied that he extracted some cold comfort from that last cryptic remark. Cynthia wanted to come, but Mrs. Devar had evidently burked the excursion. Why? Because Cynthia’s escort would be Viscount Medenham and not Arthur Simmonds, orthodox and highly respectable chauffeur. But Mrs. Devar plainly declared herself on the side of Viscount Medenham last night. Why, then, did she stop a short journey by motor, with the laudable objective of hearing an anthem and a sermon in a cathedral, when overnight she permitted the far less defensible trip on the river with the hated Fitzroy? It needed no great penetration to solve this puzzle. Mrs. Devar was afraid of some development that might happen if the girl visited Hereford that day. She counted on Medenham being chained to Symon’s Yat while Cynthia was there – consequently she had heard something from Dale that rendered it eminently necessary that neither he nor Cynthia should be seen in Hereford on the Sunday. Probably, too, she did not anticipate that Cynthia would don the haircloth of self-discipline and avoid him during the whole of the day, since that was what the girl meant by her allusion to Monday’s starting-time.

Perhaps, using a woman’s privilege, she might change her mind towards sunset; meanwhile, it behooved him to visit Hereford and pry into things there.

Nevertheless, he was a wise lover. Cynthia might dismiss him graciously to follow his own behests, but it might not please her if she discovered that he had taken her permission too literally. He entered the hotel and wrote a letter:

“My dear Miss Vanrenen – ” no pretense of “Madam” or other social formula, but a plain and large “My dear,” with the name appended as a concession to the humbug of life, even in regard to the woman he loved – “I am going to Hereford, but shall return here for luncheon. Mrs. Devar’s illness is not likely to be lasting, and the view from the Yat is, if possible, better in the afternoon than in the morning. In addition to my obvious need of a clean collar, I believe that our presence in Hereford to-day is not desired. Why? I shall make it my business to find out. Yours ever sincerely – ”

Then he reached a high and stout stone wall of difficulty. Was he to fall back on the subterfuge of “George Augustus Fitzroy,” which, of course, was his proper signature in law? He disliked this veil of concealment more and more each instant, but it was manifestly out of the question that he should sign himself “Medenham,” or “George,” while he had fought several pitched battles at Harrow with classmates who pined to label him “Augustus,” abbreviated. So, greatly daring, he wrote: “Mercury’s Guv’nor,” trusting to luck whether or not Cynthia’s classical lore would remind her that Mercury was the son of Jupiter.

He reread this effusion twice, and was satisfied with it as the herald of others. “My dear” sounded well; the intimacy of “our presence” was not overdone; while “yours ever sincerely” was excellent. He wondered if Cynthia would analyze it word for word in that fashion. Well, some day he might ask her. For the present he sealed the letter with a sigh and gave it to a waiter for safe delivery; he fancied, but could not be quite sure, that a good deal of unnecessary play with the motor’s Gabriel horn five minutes later brought a slender muslined figure to a window of the then distant hotel.

From Symon’s Yat to Hereford is about fifteen miles, and Medenham drew out of the narrow lane leading from the river to Whitchurch about a quarter-past nine. Thenceforth a straight and good road lay clear before him, and he meant to break the law as to speed limit by traveling at the fastest rate compatible with his own safety and that of other road-users. It was no disgrace to the Mercury car, therefore, when a dull report and a sudden effort of the steering-wheel to swerve to the right betokened the collapse of an inner tube on the off side. From the motorist’s point of view it was difficult to understand the cause of the mishap. The whole four tires were new so recently as the previous Monday, and Medenham was far too deeply absorbed in his own affairs to grasp the essential fact that Fate was still taking an intelligent interest in him.

Of course, he did not hurry over the work as though his life depended on it. Even when the cover was replaced and the tire pumped to the proper degree of air-pressure he lit a cigarette and had a look at the magneto before restarting the engine. Two small boys had appeared from space, and he amused himself by asking them to reckon how long it would take two men to mow a field of grass which one of the men could mow in three days and the other in four. He promised a reward of sixpence if the correct answer were forthcoming in a minute, and raised it to a shilling during the next minute. This stimulated their wits to suggest “a day and three-quarters” instead of the first frantic effort of “three days and a half.”

“No,” said he. “Think it over, ponder it with ardor, and if you have the right answer ready when I pass this way again about midday I’ll give you a shilling each.”

There is no saying what sum he would have given those urchins if some magician had spoken by their mouths and bade him hasten to Hereford with all the zest of all the horses pent beneath the Mercury’s bonnet. But he left the boys ciphering on a gate with a bit of lead pencil which he lent them, and pulled up at the door of the Green Dragon Hotel in Hereford just five minutes after the Sunday morning express to London had snatched a fuming and indignant Earl of Fairholme from off the platform of the Great Western railway station.

“Whose car?” inquired a hall-porter.

“Mine,” said Medenham, rather surprised by the question.

“Sorry, sir. I thought you might be the party Lord Fairholme was expecting.”

“Did you say ‘Lord Fairholme’?”

Medenham spoke with the slow accents of sheer astonishment, and the man hastened to explain.

“Yes, sir. His lordship has been a-damnin’ everybody since two o’clock yesterday afternoon because a Miss Vanrenen, who had ordered rooms here, didn’t turn up. She’s on a motor tour through England, so I thought – ”

“You have made no mistake. But are you quite sure that the Earl of Fairholme asked for Miss Vanrenen?”

“Not exactly that, sir, but he seemed to be uncommon vexed when we could give him no news of her.”

“Where is his lordship now?”

“Gone to London, sir, by the 10.5. He damned me for the last time half an hour ago.”

“Oh, did he?”

Medenham glanced at his watch, twisted himself free of the wheel, leaped to the pavement, and tapped one of the hall-porter’s gold epaulettes impressively.

“I am forced to believe that you are speaking the truth,” he said. “Now, tell me all about it, there’s a good fellow. I am a bit rattled, because, don’t you see, Lord Fairholme is my father, and he is the last man on earth whom I would have expected to meet in Hereford to-day. During the less exciting intervals in his speech did you find out why he came here?”

“Perhaps the manageress may be able to tell you something, sir. Beg pardon, but may I ask your name?”

“Medenham.”

The man tickled the back of his ear in doubt, since he was aware that an Earl’s son usually has a courtesy title.

“Lord Medenham?” he hazarded.

“Viscount.”

“I thought, perhaps, you might have been a gentleman named Fitzroy, my lord,” he said.

“Well, I am that, too. If you feel that I ought to be presented to the manageress in state, kindly announce me as George Augustus Fitzroy, Viscount Medenham, of Medenham Hall, Downshire, and 91 Cavendish Square, London.”

The hall-porter’s eyes twinkled.

“I didn’t mean that, my lord, but there’s a chauffeur, name of Dale – ”

“Ah, what of him?”

“He knows all about it, my lord, and he’s hiding in a hayloft down the stable yard at this minnit, because your lordship’s father threatened to give him in charge for stealing a couple of your portmanteaux.”

“Tell me he thieved successfully and I shall fork out handsomely.”

The man grinned. He was shrewd enough to realize that, no matter what mystery lay behind all this, the aid of the police would not be requisitioned.

“I believe – ” he began. Then he made off, with a cry of “Wait just a few seconds, my lord. I’ll bring Dale.”

And Dale appeared, picking bits of hay off his uniform, and striving vainly to compose his features into their customary expression of a stolid alertness that hears nothing but his master’s orders, sees nothing that does not concern his duties. He gave one sharp glance at the car, and his face grew chauffeurish, but the look of hang-dog despair returned when he met Medenham’s eyes.

“I couldn’t get away to save me life, my lord,” he grumbled. “It was a fair cop at Bristol, an’ no mistake. His lordship swooped down on me an’ Simmonds at the station, so wot could I do?”

Medenham laughed.

“I don’t blame you, Dale. You could not have been more nonplussed than I at this moment. Will you kindly remember that I know nothing whatever of the Earl’s appearance either at Bristol or Hereford – ”

“Gord’s trewth! Didn’t they tell you I telephoned, my lord?”

Dale would not have spoken in that fashion were he not quite woebegone and down-hearted; and not without reason, for the Earl had dismissed him with contumely not once but a dozen times. Medenham saw that his retainer would be more muddled than ever if he realized that Mrs. Devar had intercepted the telephone message, so he slurred over that element of the affair, and Dale quickly enlightened him as to the course taken by events after the departure of the Mercury’s tourists from Bristol.

The Earl, too, had referred to Lady St. Maur’s correspondent at Bournemouth, and Medenham could fill in blanks in the story quite easily, but the allusions to Marigny were less comprehensible.

Dale’s distress arose chiefly from the Earl’s vows of vengeance when he discovered that his son’s baggage had been spirited away during the breakfast hour that morning, but Medenham reassured him.

“Don’t bother your head about that,” he said. “I’ll telegraph and write to my father a full explanation to-day. You have obeyed my orders, and he must blame me, not you, if they ran counter to his. Take charge of the car while I change my clothes and make a few inquiries. To save any further mix-up, you had better come with me to Symon’s Yat.”

Within five minutes he ascertained that Count Edouard Marigny had occupied a room in the Mitre Hotel, just across the street, since the previous afternoon. More than that, the Frenchman was traveling to London by the same train as the Earl. Then Medenham felt really angry. It was inconceivable that his father should have allowed himself to be drawn into a pitiful intrigue by such doubtful agents as Marigny and the Countess of Porthcawl.

“I’ll write,” he vowed, “and in pretty stiff terms, too, but I’m jiggered if I’ll wire. The old chap should have shown more confidence in me. Why on earth didn’t he announce his visit to Bristol? Jolly good job he left Hereford to-day before I arrived – there might have been ructions. Good Lord! He evidently takes Cynthia for an adventuress!”

Yet, in spite of the chance of ructions, it would have been far better had Medenham not missed his father that morning. He was too dutiful a son, the Earl was too fair-minded a parent, that they should not be able to meet and discuss matters without heat. By noon they would have reached Symon’s Yat; before lunch was ended the older man would have been Cynthia’s most outspoken admirer. As it was – well, as it was – there used to be a belief in the Middle Ages that the Evil One’s favorite nook lay amid the deepest shadow of a cathedral, and modern fact is ofttimes curiously akin to medieval romance.

CHAPTER XI

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

When he came to think of it, Medenham decided to return at once to Symon’s Yat. It was advisable, however, to inform the proprietor of the hotel that the Earl’s denunciation of Dale as a pilferer of luggage was based on a complete misunderstanding of the facts. With that object in view he entered the office; another surprise awaited him there.

A lady bookkeeper, casting an appraising eye over his motoring garments, asked instantly:

“Are you Mr. Fitzroy, driver of a Mercury car, Number X L 4000?”

“Yes,” said he, prepared now to see his name and description blazoned across the west front of the cathedral.

“You are wanted on the telephone. Miss Vanrenen wishes you to ring her up.”

After a soul-chastening delay he heard Cynthia’s voice:

“That you, Mr. Fitzroy?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so glad I caught you before you hurried away again… Er – that is – I suppose you traveled rather fast, you and Mercury?”

He laughed. That was all. He did not intend to let her assume so readily that he had missed the first thought which bubbled forth in words. She well knew that he was not in Hereford from personal choice, but she had not meant to tell him that she knew.

“What are you sniggering at?” she demanded imperiously.

“Only at your divination,” he answered. “Indeed, if a tire had not given out soon after I left Whitchurch I would now be well on my way to the Yat.”

Suddenly he recollected the singular outcome of the incident. There was some reasonable probability that it might exercise a material effect on the course of events during the next few days.

So, after a little pause, he added: “That is one reason; there are others.”

“Is something detaining you, then?” she asked.

“Yes, a trivial matter, but I shall be at the hotel long before lunch.”

“Mrs. Devar is much better… She is so sorry I remained indoors this morning.”

“Mrs. Devar is cultivating angelic qualities,” he said, but he murmured under his breath: “The old cat finds now that she has made a mistake.”

“I want you to pay the hotel people for the rooms I reserved but have not occupied. Then, perhaps, they will hand you any mail that may have been sent after me. And please give them my address at Chester. Will you do all that?”

“Certainly. There should be no difficulty.”

“Is Hereford looking very lively?”

“It strikes me as peculiarly empty,” he said with convincing candor.

“Shall we have time to see all the show places to-morrow?”

“We shall make time.”

“Well, good-bye! Bring my letters. I have not heard from my father since we left Bournemouth.”

“Ah, there I have the better of you. I heard of, if not from, my revered dad since reaching Hereford.”

“Unexpectedly?”

“Oh, quite.”

“Nothing wrong, I hope?”

“The old gentleman’s temper seems to be a trifle out of gear; the present attack is not serious; he will survive it – for many years, I trust.”

“You must not be flippant where your father is concerned. I believe he is annoyed because you came away with me, and so failed to keep the appointment fixed for Saturday in London. Eh? What did you say?”

“I said ‘Well, I am surprised,’ or words to that effect. As my name is George I cannot tell a lie, so I must admit regretfully that you have guessed right. Indeed, Miss Vanrenen, I may go so far as to suggest, by letter, that before my father condemns me he should first meet you. Of course, I shall warn him that you are irresistible.”

“Good-by again,” said Cynthia severely. “You can tell me all about it after – oh, some time to-day, anyhow.”

The Green Dragon proved to be most undragonish. No manner of doubt was cast on Medenham’s good faith; he pocketed half a dozen letters for Cynthia, and one, unstamped, bearing the crest of the Mitre, for Mrs. Devar. By the merest chance he caught sight of a note, addressed “Viscount Medenham,” stuck in a rack among some telegrams. The handwriting was his father’s. But how secure it without arousing quite reasonable suspicion? He tried the bold course.

“I may as well take that, too,” he said offhandedly.

“Is Viscount Medenham also in your party?” inquired the bookkeeper.

“Yes.”

Again no demur was raised, since the Earl’s repeated demands for information as to Miss Vanrenen’s whereabouts showed that some sort of link must exist between him and the missing tourists.

Medenham sat in his car outside and read:

My Dear George – If this reaches you, please oblige me by returning to town at once. Your aunt is making a devil of a fuss, and is most unpleasant. I say no more now, since I am not sure that you will be in Hereford before we meet.

Yours ever,F.

“I can see myself being very angry with Aunt Susan,” he growled in the first flush of resentment against the unfairness of her attitude.

But that phase soon passed. His mind dwelt rather on Lady St. Maur’s bland amazement when she encountered Cynthia. He could estimate with some degree of precision her ladyship’s views regarding the eighty millions of citizens of the United States; had she not said in his hearing that “American society was evidently quite English – but with the head cut off?”

That, and a sarcastic computation as to the difference between Ten Thousand and Four Hundred, constituted her knowledge of America. Still, he made excuses for her. It was no new thing for an aristocracy to be narrow-minded. Horace, that fine gentleman, “hated the vulgar crowd,” and Nicolo Machiavelli, fifteen centuries later, denounced the nobles of Florence for their “easy-going contempt of everything and everybody”; so Lady St. Maur had plenty of historical precedent for the coining of cheap epigrams.

The one person Medenham was really bitter against was Millicent Porthcawl. She had met Cynthia; she herself must have frowned at the lying innuendoes written from Bournemouth; it would give him some satisfaction to tell Cynthia that the Porthcawl ménage ought not to figure on her visiting list. But there! Cynthia was too generous-minded even to avenge her wrongs, though well able to deal with the Millicents and Mauds and Susans if they dared be spiteful.

Then the coming of Dale with various leather bags roused him from the reverie induced by his father’s curt missive, and he laughed at the discovery that he was fighting Cynthia’s battles already.

The Mercury was raising a good deal of dust in the neighborhood of Whitchurch when its occupants noticed a pair of urchins perched on a gate, signaling frantically. It pleased Medenham to mystify Dale, who was, if possible, more taciturn than ever since those heart-searching experiences at Gloucester and Hereford.

He pulled up some fifty yards or more down the road.

“You saw those boys?” he said.

“Yes, my lord, but they’re only having a game.”

“Nothing of the sort. Skip along and ask them if they have found out the answer. If they say ‘a day and five-sevenths,’ hand them a shilling each. Any other reply will be wrong. Don’t talk. Just run there and back, and pay only on a day and five-sevenths.”

Dale ran. Soon he was in his seat again.

“I gev’ ’em a bob each, my lord,” he announced, grave as an owl.

While they were running slowly down the winding lane that led to the Yat Medenham determined to make sure of his ground with reference to Mrs. Devar.

“I suppose you left no room for doubt as to my identity in the mind of the lady to whom you spoke over the telephone last night?” he inquired.

“None whatever, my lord. She wormed it out of me.”

“Did you mention the Earl?”

“Like an ijjit, I began by giving his lordship’s name. It was my only chanst, I couldn’t get to the post-office nohow. Why, I was ordered to bed at eight o’clock, so’s his lordship could smoke in peace, as he said.”

“Then my father was determined to stop you from communicating with me, if possible?”

“If his lordship knew that I crep’ down a back stairs to the telephone I do believe he’d have set about me with a poker,” said Dale grimly.

“Strange!” mused Medenham, with eyes now more intent on the hotel than on the road. “Influences other than Aunt Susan’s must be at work. My father would never have rushed off in a fever from town merely because of some ill-natured gossip in a letter from Lady Porthcawl.”

His mind flew to the Earl’s allusions to Marigny, and it occurred to him then that the latter had used his father’s name at Bristol. He turned to Dale again.

“Before this business is ended I shall probably find it necessary to kick a Frenchman,” he said.

“Make it two of ’em, my lord, an’ let me take it out of the other one,” growled Dale.

“Well, there is a bottle-holder,” said Medenham, thinking of Devar, “a short, fat fellow, an Englishman, but a most satisfactory subject for a drop kick.”

“Say when, my lord, an’ I’ll score a goal with him.”

Dale seemed to be speaking feelingly, but his master paid slight heed to him then. A girl in muslin, wearing a rather stylish hat – now, where did Cynthia get a hat? – had just sauntered to that end of the hotel’s veranda which gave a glimpse of the road.

“Make yourself comfortable in one of the cottages hereabouts,” was Medenham’s parting instruction to his man. “I don’t suppose the car will be needed again to-day, but you might refill the petrol tank – on the off chance.”

“Yes – my lord.”

Dale lifted his cap. The ostler who had helped in the cleaning of the car overnight was standing near the open doors of the coach-house. He might not have heard the words, but he certainly saw the respectful action. His eyes grew round, and his lips pursed to give vent to an imaginary whistle.

“I knew,” he told himself. “He’s a toff, that’s wot he is. Mum’s the word, Willyum. Say nothink, ’specially to wimmen!”

Bowing low before his smiling goddess, Medenham produced the packet of letters. It happened that the unstamped note for Mrs. Devar lay uppermost, and Cynthia guessed some part, at least, of its contents.

“Poor Monsieur Marigny!” she cried. “I fear he had a cheerless evening in Hereford. This is from him. I know his handwriting… While father and I were in Paris he often sent invitations for fixtures at the Velo – once for a coach-drive to Fontainebleau. I was rather sorry I missed that.”