The Lightning Conductor: The Strange Adventures of a Motor-Car

I'd been up early and out to the golf course for a lesson from the professional; when I came home a little before eleven Brown was waiting. He wanted to know if I wouldn't care to have a peep at Spain, and said that we could easily go there and back by dinner-time. Aunt Mary and I were ready in a "jiffy," so was the car, and we were buzzing away along a beautiful road (though a little "accidentée," as the French say) near the ocean. There were the most lovely lights I ever saw on land or sea, over the mountains and the great, unquiet Atlantic; and St. Jean de Luz, which we came to in no time, as it seemed, was another charming little watering-place for us to come and live if you get poor. A good many English people do live there all the year round, and whom do you think is one of them? George Gissing. You know how I made you read his books, and you said they seemed so real that you felt you had got into the people's houses by mistake, and ought to say "Excuse me"? Well, he has come to live in St. Jean de Luz, the all-knowing Brown tells me. His master admires Mr. Gissing very much, so the Honourable John must be a nice and clever man.

As for history, Brown is an inexhaustible mine. I simply "put in my thumb and pull out a plum." But I forgot-there aren't usually plums in mines, are there, except in the prospectuses? Anyhow, it was Brown who made me realise what tremendously interesting things frontiers are. That imaginary line, and then-people, language, costumes, and customs changing as if a fairy had waved a wand. The frontier between France and Spain is a great wide river-on purpose to give us another bridge. Doesn't the name, "Bidassoa," suggest a broad, flowing current running swiftly to the sea?

This time we would have none of the bridge. It was too much bother paying duty on the car, and having a lot of red tape about getting it back again in an hour or two; so we left Balzac, as I have named it, at the last French town and rowed across, on past the first Spanish town, Irun, to a much older, more picturesque one-Fuenterrabia. A particularly handsome boatman wanted to row us, but Brown would do it himself, either to show how well he can manage the oars, or else because the boatman had abnormally long eyelashes, and Brown is rather sick of eyelashes.

Even crossing the river and going down towards the mouth of the stream (with a huge, old ruined castle towering up to mark Fuenterrabia) was quite thrilling, because of the things in history that have happened all around. The estuary runs down to the sea between mountains of wild and awesome shapes. One of them is named after Wellington, because it is supposed to look like his profile lying down, and the other mountains had a chance to see his real profile many times, though I'll be bound his enemies never saw his back. He fought among them-both mountains and enemies, and the latter were some of Napoleon's smartest marshals. He took a whole army across the ford in the Bidassoa, attacked Soult, and chased him all the way up the mountains to the very summit of La Rhune, a great conical peak high up in the sky. Another thing was the Isle des Faisans, right in the middle of the river, where Philippe and Louis the Fourteenth fixed everything up about Louis' Spanish bride. It's the smallest island you ever saw; you wouldn't think there would be room for a whole King of Spain and a King of France to stand on it at the same time, much less sign contracts.

When our boat touched Spanish soil on the beach below Fuenterrabia, two rather ferocious-looking Spaniards in uncomfortable uniforms were waiting for us. They had the air of demanding "your money or your life"; but after all it was only the extraordinarily high, ugly collars of their overcoats which gave them such a formidable appearance. They were custom-house officers guarding the coast, though how they see over those collars to find out what's going on under their noses I don't know. Brown says that soldiers at Madrid have to dress like that in winter to protect themselves from the terrible icy winds, and as Madrid sets the fashion for everything in Spain, the provincial soldiers have to choke themselves in the same way.

It did seem to me that the very air of Spain was different from across the river in France. It was richer and heavier, like incense. It is nice to have an imagination, isn't it, instead of having to potter about leading facts by a string, as if they were dogs? Well, anyway, I am sure people have bigger and blacker eyes in Spain. Just walking up from the beach to the strange old town, I saw two or three peasant women and children with wonderful eyes, like black velvet with stars shining through-eyes that princesses would give fortunes for.

I couldn't help humming "In Old Madrid" under my breath, and I fancied that the salt-smelling breeze brought the snapping of castanets. The sun was hot; but coolness, and rich, tawny shadows swallowed us up in a silent street, crowded with fantastic, beautifully carved, bright-coloured houses, all having balconies, each one more overhanging than the other. Not a soul was to be seen; our footsteps rang on the narrow side-walk, and it seemed rude of our voices when we talked to wake the sleepy silence out of its afternoon nap. But suddenly a handsome young man appeared from a side street, and stopping in the middle of the road, vigorously tinkled a musical bell. Immediately the street became alive. Each house door showed a man; women hung over the gaily-draped balconies; children ran out and clustered round the bell-ringer. He began to speak very fast in guttural Spanish, and we couldn't understand a word he said, though Brown has a smattering of the language-enough to get on with in shops and hotels. When he had finished everyone laughed. All up and down the street came the sound of laughter; deep, bass laughter from the men; contralto laughter from the women. The handsome bell-ringer laughed too, and then vanished as suddenly as he had come. All the life of the quaint street seemed to fade away with him. Slowly the people took themselves indoors; the balconies were empty; the street silent as in a city of the dead. It was like something on the stage; but I suppose it's just a bit of everyday life in Fuenterrabia and old, old Spain.

We went on up to the castle we had seen from the beach, and I turned my eyes away from a big, ugly round building, like a country panorama-place, for that was the bull ring, and the one thing that makes Spain hateful to me. I didn't want even to think of it. The gateway of the palace-for it had been a palace-was splendid-an arch across the street. But on the other side I burst out laughing at a sign, in what was meant to be English, advertising the castle for sale. Capitals were sprinkled about everywhere; the painter had thought they would look pretty, and evidently it was held out as a lure to Britishers and Americans that Charles the Fifth had built it and lived in it. I know Mrs. Washington Potts would love to buy it, and then go home and mention in an absent-minded manner that she'd "acquired a royal palace in Spain as a winter residence." Can't you hear her? But oh, poor palace! It's as airy a mansion now as most castles in Spain, though what's left of its walls is about fifteen feet thick. Still, the glorious view of sea and mountains from the roof would be worth paying for, and wouldn't need thousands of dollars' worth of restoration, like the house.

While we lingered in Fuenterrabia absorbing the atmosphere of old Spain, the time was inconsiderate enough to run away and leave us with only a twisted channel among sand-banks to remember it by. So we took an oddly shaped carriage with a white tasselled awning on it and drove back to Hendaye and our motor-car. But the day was a great success, and I congratulated Brown, which Aunt Mary said it was silly to do, as it is his business to think of everything for us.

Now, as you see by the date of my letter, we're at Pau, to which we came from Biarritz in a delicious morning's run through a pearl-coloured landscape trimmed with blue mountains. As we got into the town the Lightning Conductor, who was driving, whisked us through a few streets, swooped round a large square, and suddenly stopped the car on a broad terrace with an air as though he said, "There! what do you think of that?" I think I gasped. I know I wanted to by way of saluting what must be one of the most wonderful views in the whole world.

We had stopped on a terrace not the least like a street. At one end was an old grey château; then a long line of imposing buildings, almost too graceful to be hotels, which they really were; a church sending a white, soaring spire into the blue sky; an open, shady place, with a statue of Henri Quatre; villas hotels, hotels villas in a sparkling line, with great trees to cut it and throw a blue haze of shadow. That is one side of the terrace. The other is an iron railing, a sudden drop into space, and-the view. Your eyes travel across a park where even in this mid-winter season roses are blooming and date palms are flourishing. Then comes a hurrying river, giving life and music to the landscape; beyond that a wide sweep of hills, with bunches of poplars, and valleys where white villages lie half concealed; and further still, leaping into the sky, the immense line of the Pyrenees, looking to-day so near and sharply outlined that they seemed to be cut out of cardboard. When I was able to speak I told Brown that the very first thing I should do would be to walk to those delectable mountains. "I don't think you could quite manage it, miss," he said, with his quiet smile, "for they are nearly forty miles away." Then we turned round and drove into the courtyard of the hotel, which faces the great view.

It looked tremendously swell, and Aunt Mary and I tried to live up to it by sweeping haughtily in as if we hadn't collected any of the historic dust of France on our motoring coats and hats. Just as we were acquitting ourselves quite creditably who should step out from a group of the very people we were hoping to impress with our superiority but Jimmy Payne! Oh, you wicked old man, I believe you must have wired or written him a hint. You know you have a weakness for Jimmy, or rather for his family. But I can't go about marrying the sons of all the pretty ladies you were in love with in your vanished youth. Probably there were dozens, for you're as soft-hearted as you are hard-headed, and you can't deny it.

Still, I don't mind confessing that I was rather pleased to see Jimmy, not a bit because he is Jimmy, but because he seemed to bring a breath of homeyness with him, and it is nice to have an old friend turn up in a "far countree" when you've got dust on your hat and the other women who are staring at you haven't. If only the friend doesn't proceed to bore you by insisting on being something more than a friend, which I hope Jimmy is by this time tired of doing, I think I shall rather enjoy the encounter than otherwise. As for anything else, it doesn't appeal to me that he's his mother's son, or that he's clever in stocks, or that he's got as much money as you have. So now you know, and I hope he does.

Well, we talked a little, and then I found that Aunt Mary was chattering like mad with the Garrisons (one "talks" oneself; other people "chatter"; foreigners "jabber"); so we were all glad to see each other, or said so, which comes to the same thing.

"How's your automobile?" was almost the first thing I asked Jimmy, for the last time I'd seen him it was the pride of his heart. "I suppose," I said, "that, like us, you're making a tour around Europe on it?"

I thought his face changed a little, though I don't know why it should. "Oh," said he, "I've lent it to my friend Lord Lane; charming fellow I met last year in Paris. He'll meet me with it a little later. Where are you going after this?"

"We're working slowly on to the Riviera," said I.

"Oh, isn't that funny," said Jimmy, "that's where Lord Lane and I are going to meet! At Cannes, or Nice, or Monte Carlo; it isn't quite settled yet which. I suppose you're going to all of them, as you're driving about on a car?"

I said that we expected to, and pointed through the glass door at my automobile, with Brown superintending the hotel servants who were lifting down the luggage. He looked hard at the car and the chauffeur, as if he envied me both, and I think he had something more to say which he considered important, but I was in a hurry to change and make myself prettier-much prettier-than the Garrison girls.

By the way, they-the Garrisons-suggested that we should sit at a small table with them, where they've already given a place to Jimmy. We accepted the invitation, and now we've just dined together. My frock was a dream; it's always nice to come to the sort of hotel where one can wear something pretty, as here and at Biarritz. Afterwards we all put on coats and cloaks and strolled in the moonlight on the terrace. Jimmy tried to call up from the "vasty deep" of his broken (?) heart the spirit of the Past, with a capital P, but I would force him into the track of automobilism instead. I don't believe he knows a bit more than I do about it, if as much, now that I've learned such a lot from the Lightning Conductor, and if he takes to boasting I'll just show him.

Now, good-night, my dear old Dad. I shall treat myself to a "night-cap" draught of mountain air before I go to bed on my balcony facing the Pyrenees.

YourMolly-who-loves-only-you.

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."