Cynthia's Chauffeur Part 25

Cynthia told Medenham, and there was a touch of regret in her voice.

"Poor dear," she said in an undertone, "the Castle was too much for her, and the fresh air has made her drowsy."

He glanced quickly over his shoulder, and instantly made up his mind to broach a project that he had thought out carefully since his quarrel with the Frenchman.

"You mean to stay in Hereford during the whole of to-morrow, Miss Vanrenen?" he asked.

"Yes. Somehow, I don't see myself scampering across the map on the British Sabbath. Besides, I am all behindhand with my letters, and my father will be telegraphing something emphatic if I don't go beyond 'Much love' on a picture postcard."

"Symon's Yat is exceptionally beautiful, and there is a capital little hotel there. The Wye runs past the front door, the boating is superb, and there will be a brilliant moon after dinner."

"And the answer is?"

"That we could run into Hereford before breakfast, leaving you plenty of time to attend the morning service at the cathedral."

Cynthia did not look at him or she would have seen that he was rather baronial in aspect just then. Sad to relate, they were speeding down the Wyndcliff gorge without giving it the undisturbed notice it merited.

"I have a kind of notion that Mrs. Devar wouldn't catch on to the boating proposition," she said thoughtfully.

"Perhaps not, but the river takes a wide bend there, and she could see us from the hotel veranda all the time."

"Guess it can't be fixed up, anyhow," she sighed.

Twice had she lapsed into the idioms of her native land. What, then, was the matter with Cynthia that she had forgotten her self-imposed resolution to speak only in that purer English which is quite as highly appreciated in New York as in London?

It was Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and they overtook and pa.s.sed a break-load of beanfeasters going to Tintern. There is no mob so cruelly sarcastic as the British, and it may be that the revelers in the break envied the dusty chauffeur his pretty companion. At any rate, they greeted the pa.s.sing of the car with jeers and cat-calls, and awoke Mrs. Devar.

It is a weakness of human nature to endeavor to conceal the fact that you have been asleep when you are supposed to be awake, so she leaned forward now, and asked nonchalantly:

"Are we near Hereford?"

"No," said Cynthia. "We have a long way to go yet." She paused. "Are you really very tired?" she added, as an afterthought.

"Yes, dear. The air is positively overpowering."

There was another pause.

"Ah, well," sighed the girl, "we shall have a nice long rest when we stop for tea at--at--what is the name of the place?"

"Symon's Yat."

Medenham's voice was husky. Truth to tell, he was rather beside himself. He had played for a high stake and had nearly won. Even now the issue hung on a word, a mere whiff of volition: and if he knew exactly how much depended on that swing of the balance he might have been startled into a more earnest plea, and spoiled everything.

"But that will throw us late in arriving at Hereford," said Mrs.

Devar.

"Does it really matter? We shall be there all day to-morrow."

"No, it is of no consequence, though Count Edouard said he would meet us there."

"And I refused to pledge myself to any arrangement. In fact, I would much prefer that his Countship should scorch on to Liverpool or Manchester, or wherever he happens to be going."

"Oh, Cynthia! And he going out of his way to be so friendly and agreeable!"

"Well, perhaps that was an unkind thing to say. What I mean is that we must feel ourselves at liberty to depart from a cut-and-dried schedule. Half the charm of wandering through England in an automobile is in one's freedom from timetables."

Back dropped Mrs. Devar, and Medenham recovered sufficient self-control to point out to Cynthia her first glimpse of the gray walls that vie with Fountains Abbey and Rievaulx for pride of place as the most beautiful ruin in England.

Certainly those old Cistercians knew how and where to build their monasteries. They had the true sense of beauty, whether in site or design, and at Tintern they chose the loveliest nook of a lovely valley. Cynthia silently feasted her vision on each new panorama revealed by the winding road, and ever the gray Abbey grew more distinct, more ornate, more completely the architectural gem of an entrancing landscape.

But disillusion was at hand.

Rounding the last bend of the descent, the Mercury purred into the midst of a collection of horsed vehicles and frayed motors. By some unhappy chance the whole countryside seemed to have chosen Tintern as a rendezvous that Sat.u.r.day. The patrons of a neighboring hotel overflowed into the roadway; the brooding peace of the dead-and-gone monks had fled before this invasion; instead of memories of mitered abbots and cowled friars there were the realities of loud-voiced grooms and porkpie-eating excursionists.

"Please drive on," whispered Cynthia. "I must see Tintern another time."

Although Medenham hoped to consume a precious hour or more in showing her the n.o.ble church, the cloisters, the chapter-house, the monks'

parlor, and the rest of the stone records of a quiet monastic life, he realized to the full how utterly incongruous were the enthusiastic trippers with their surroundings. The car threaded their ranks gingerly, and was soon running free along the tree-shaded road to Monmouth.

Happily, that delightful old town was sufficiently familiar to him in earlier days that he was now able to supplement the general knowledge of its past gleaned already by the girl's reading. He halted in front of the Welsh Gate on Monnow Bridge, and told her that although the venerable curiosity dates back to 1270 it is nevertheless the last defensive work in Britain in which serious preparations were made for civil war, as it was expected that the Chartists would march from Newport to attack Monmouth Jail in 1839.

"Six hundred years," mused Cynthia aloud. "If there are sermons in stones what a history is pent in these!"

"And how greatly it would differ from the accepted versions," laughed Medenham.

"Do we never know the truth, then?"

"Oh, yes, if we are actually mixed up in some affair of worldwide importance, but that is precisely the reason why the actors remain dumb."

Oddly enough, this was the first of Medenham's utterances that Mrs.

Devar approved of.

"Evidently you have moved in high society, Fitzroy," she chimed in.

"Yes, madam," he said. "More than once, when in a hurry, I have run madly through Mayfair."

"Oh, nonsense!" she cried, resenting the studied civility of the "madam" and ruffled by the quip, "you speak of Mayfair, yet I don't suppose you really know where it is."

"I shall never forget where Down Street is, I a.s.sure you," he said cheerfully.

"And pray, why Down Street in particular?"

"Because that is where I met Simmonds, last Wednesday, and arranged to take on his job."

"In your mind, then, it figures as broken-down-street," cooed Cynthia.

After that the Mercury crossed the Monnow, and Mrs. Devar muttered something about the mistake one made when one encouraged servants to be too familiar. But Cynthia was not to be repressed. She was bubbling over with high spirits, and amused herself by telling Medenham that Henry V. was born at Monmouth and afterwards won the battle of Agincourt--"sc.r.a.ps of history not generally known," she confided to him.

From the back of the car Mrs. Devar watched them with a hawklike intentness that showed how thoroughly those "forty winks" s.n.a.t.c.hed while in the Wyndcliff had restored her flagging energies. Though it was absurd to suppose that Cynthia Vanrenen, daughter of a millionaire, a girl dowered with all that happy fortune had to give, would so far forget her social position as to flirt with the chauffeur of a hired car, this experienced marriage-broker did not fail to realize what a stumbling-block the dreadful person was in the path of Count Edouard Marigny.