My Friend the Chauffeur Part 10

He stood leaning on the side of our luggage-wreathed vehicle, with an air of charming condescension. There was no need for him to hurry over the formalities of the _douane_, he said, for even if he were considerably behind us in starting, he would catch us up soon after we had reached La Mortola.

Thus beguiled, the half-hour occupied by the leisurely officials in providing us with papers and sealing the car with an important looking leaden seal, pa.s.sed not too tediously for the ladies. Finally, the Prince saw us off, smiling a "turned-down smile" at our jog trot as we proceeded up that everlasting hill, which runs like a shelf along the face of the great grey cliff of rock.

Far below, azure waves draped the golden beach with blue and silver gauze and fringed it daintily with a foam of lace.

Then, at last, the steep ascent came to an end, with a curve of the road which plunged us down into a region of coolness and green shadow.

"Why, I don't think Italy's so shabby after all," exclaimed the Countess. "Just see that pretty little Maltese cross above the road, and that fine school-house--"

"Ah, but we're in Hanbury-land now," I said.

"Hanbury-land? I never heard of it. Is it a little independent princ.i.p.ality like Monacoa? But how funny it should have an English-sounding name sandwiched in right here between Italy and France."

"The lord of the land is an Englishman, and a benevolent one, a sort of fairy G.o.d-father to the poor in all the country round," I explained.

"You won't find Hanbury-land mentioned on the map; nevertheless it's very real, fortunately for its inhabitants; and here's the gate of the garden which leads to the royal palace. La Mortola is a great show place, for the public are allowed to go in on certain days. I forget if this is one of them, but perhaps they will let us see the garden, nevertheless. Shall I ask?"

It was in my mind that, if we stopped, we might miss the Prince as well as see the garden, so that we should be killing two birds with one stone, and I was glad when the Countess caught eagerly at the suggestion that we should beg for a glimpse of La Mortola, a place famed throughout Europe.

Permission was given; the big iron gates swung open to admit us. We entered, and a moment later were descending a long flight of stone steps to terraces far below the level of the road where the car stood waiting our return.

Had Aladdin rubbed his lamp in the days before his unfortunate misunderstanding with the Geni and demanded the most beautiful of gardens, the fulfilment of his wish could have taken no fairer form than this. Strange, tropical flowers, vivid as flame, burned in green recesses; water-sprites upset their caskets of pearls over rock-shelves into translucent pools where lilies lay asleep, dreaming of their own pale beauty. Long, green pergolas, starred with flowers, framed blue-veiled pictures of distant coast-line, and mediaeval strongholds, coloured with the same burnt umber as the hills on which they stood, gloomed and glowed across a cobalt sea.

There is nothing that pleases the normal male more than to be able to point out objects worthy of interest or admiration to the female of his kind. Since time immemorial, have not landscape-pictures in books of travel been filled in, in the foreground, with the figures of men showing the scenery to women? Did any one ever see such a work of art representing a woman as indicating any point of view to a man? No doubt many could have done so; and the ladies in the pictures had probably noticed the objects in question before their male escorts pointed to them; but knowing the amiable weakness of the other s.e.x, they politely refrained from saying, "Oh, we saw that _long_ ago."

Thus did Terry and I, after the conventional traditions of our species, lead our little party through avenues of cypresses, to open rock-s.p.a.ces, or among a waving sea of roses to battle-grounds of rare cacti, with writhing arms like octopi transformed into plants.

Here, peering down into a kind of d.y.k.e, paved with rough tesselation, we vied with each other in telling our charges that this was the old Roman road to Gaul, the Aurelian Way, over which Julius Caesar, St. Catherine of Siena, Dante, and other great ones pa.s.sed. Then we showed them one of Napoleon's old guns, covered with sh.e.l.ls, as when it was fished out of the sea. We enlarged upon the fact that there was no tree, shrub, or blossom on the known face of the earth of which a specimen did not grow at La Mortola; and when we had wandered for an hour in the garden without seeing half there was to see, we climbed the long flight of steps again, congratulating ourselves--Terry and I--that we had played Dalmar-Kalm rather a neat trick. The crowd of villagers who had cl.u.s.tered round our car outside the entrance gates would screen it from the Prince as he flashed by, and he would go on and on, wondering how we had contrived to get so far ahead.

Our way would take us, after pa.s.sing through Ventimiglia, up the Roya Valley which Terry had decided upon as a route because of its wild and unspoiled beauty, different from anything that our pa.s.sengers could have seen in their brief experience of the Riviera. But as there were no inns which offered decent entertainment for man or automobile within reasonable distance, we were to lunch at Ventimiglia, and no arrangement had been made with Dalmar-Kalm concerning this halt. His confidence--perhaps well founded--in the superiority of his speed over ours had led him to believe that he could pause at our side for consultation whenever he wished. Therefore, we had left Cap Martin without much discussion of plans. Mrs. Kidder was of opinion that we would find him waiting in front of the "best hotel in Ventimiglia," with an excellent luncheon ordered.

"The best hotel in Ventimiglia!" poor lady, she had an awakening before her. Not only was there no Prince, but there was no best hotel. Old Ventimiglia, in its huddled picturesqueness, must delight any man with eyes in his head; new Ventimiglia must disgust any man with a vacancy under his belt. As we sat in the shabby dining-room of a seventh-rate inn (where the flies set an example of attentiveness the waiters did not follow), pretending to eat macaroni hard as walking-sticks and veal reduced to _chiffons_, I feared the courage of our employers would fail.

They could never, in all their well-ordered American lives, have known anything so abominable as this experience into which we had lured them, promising a pilgrimage of pleasure. But the charmingly dressed beings, who looked like birds of paradise alighted by mistake in a pigsty, made sport of the squalor which we had expected to evoke their rage.

"Dear me, I wish we'd brought some chewing gum," was Beechy's one sarcasm at the expense of the meal, and Maida and the Countess laughed merrily at everything, even the flies, which they thought did not know their own power as well as American flies.

"We've some _lovely_ cakes and candy packed in that sweet tea-basket we bought at an English shop in Paris," said Mrs. Kidder; "but I suppose we'd better not get anything out to eat now, for fear of hurting the waiters' feelings. What do you think, Sir Ralph?"

"Personally, I should like nothing better than to hurt them," I replied severely, "but I'm thinking of myself. Cakes and candy on top of those walking-sticks! 'T were more difficult to build on such a foundation than to rear Venice on its piles and wattles.

"We'd better save what we have till later on," said Maida. "About four o'clock, perhaps we shall be glad to stop somewhere, and I can make tea.

It will be fun having it in the automobile."

"There she goes now, revealing domestic virtues!" I thought ruefully.

"It will be too much for Teddy to find her an all-round out-of-doors and indoors girl in one. He always said the combination didn't exist; that you had to put up with one or the other in a nice girl, and be jolly thankful for what you'd got."

But Terry did not seem to be meditating upon the pleasing trait just brought to light by his travelling companion. He remarked calmly that by tea-time we should doubtless have reached San Dalmazzo, a charming little mountain village with an old monastery turned into an inn; and then he audibly wondered what had become of the Prince.

"My! What a shame, I'd almost forgotten him!" exclaimed Mrs. Kidder.

"He must have given us up in despair and gone on."

"Perhaps he's had a break-down," I suggested.

"What! with that wonderful car? He told me last night that nothing had ever happened to it yet. He must be miles ahead of us by now."

"Then this is his astral body," said Terry. "Clever of him to 'project'

one for his car too. Never heard of its being done before."

Nor had I ever heard of an astral body who swore roundly at its chauffeur, which this apparition now stopping in front of the restaurant windows did. It called the unfortunate shape in leather by several strange and creditably, or perhaps discreditably, original names, but as this flow of eloquence was in German, it could not be appreciated by the ladies. Mrs. Kidder knew the languages not at all, and Miss Destrey and Beechy had remarked, when Dalmatia was proposed, that their knowledge was of the copy-book order.

So completely upset was the Prince, that on joining us he forgot to be sarcastic. Not a question, not a sneer as to our progress, not an apology for being late. He flung himself into a chair at the table, ordered the waiters about with truculence, and, having thus relieved his mind, began complaining of his bad luck.

An Austrian Prince, when cross and hungry, can be as undesirable a social companion as a c.o.c.kney cad, and the Countess's distinguished friend did not show to advantage in the scene which followed. Yes, there had been an accident. It was unheard of--abominable; entirely the fault of the chauffeur. Chauffeurs (and he looked bleakly at Terry) were without exception brutes--detestable brutes. You put up with them because you had to; that was all. The automobile had merely stopped. It must have been the simplest thing in the world for a professional to discover what was wrong; yet this animal, Joseph, could do nothing but poke his nose into the machinery and then shrug his hideous shoulders.

Why yes, he had taken out the valves, of course, examined the sparkling plugs, and tested the coil. Any amateur could have done so much. It gave a good spark; there was no short circuit; yet the motor would not start, and the chauffeur was unable to give an explanation. Twice he had taken the car to pieces without result--absolutely to pieces. Then, and not till then, had the creature found wit enough to think of the carburetter. There was the trouble, and nowhere else. All that delay and misery had been caused by some grit which had penetrated into the carburetter and prevented the needle working. This it was to have a donkey instead of a chauffeur.

"But it didn't occur to you that it might be the carburetter," said Terry, taking advantage of a pause made by the arrival of the Prince's luncheon, which that gentleman attacked with ardour.

"Why should it?" haughtily inquired Dalmar-Kalm. "I am not engaged in that business. I pay other people to think for me. Besides, it is not with me as with you and your friend, who must be accustomed to accidents of all sorts on a low-powered car, somewhat out of date. But I am not used to having mine _en panne_. Never mind, it will not happen again.

_Mon Dieu_, what a meal to set before ladies. I do not care for myself, but surely, Sir Ralph, it would have been easy to find a better place than this to give the ladies luncheon?"

"Sir Ralph and Mr. Barrymore wanted us to go to the railway-station,"

Miss Destrey defended us, "but we thought it would be dull, and preferred this, so our blood is on our own heads."

We finished gloomily with lukewarm coffee, which was so long on the way that the Countess thought we might as well wait for the "poor Prince."

Then, when we were ready, came a violent shower, which meant more waiting, as the Countess did not agree cordially with her daughter's remark that to "drive in the rain would be good for the complexion."

When at last we were able to start it was after three, and we should have to make good speed if we were to arrive at San Dalmazzo even by late tea-time. Terry was on his mettle, however, and I guessed that he was anxious our first day should not end in failure.

Tooling out of Ventimiglia, that grim frontier town whose name has become synonymous to travellers with waiting and desperate resignation, we turned up by the side of the Roya, where the stream gushes seaward, through many channels, in a wide and pebbly bed. The shower just past, though brief, had been heavy enough to turn a thick layer of white dust into a greasy, grey paste of mud. On our left was a sudden drop into the rushing river, on the right a deep ditch, and the road between was as round-shouldered as a hunchback. Seeing this natural phenomenon, and feeling the slightly uncertain step of our fat tyres as they waddled through the pasty mud, the pleasant smile of the proud motor-proprietor which I had been wearing hardened upon my face. I didn't know as much about motors as our pa.s.sengers supposed, but I did know what side-slip was, and I did not think that this was a nice place for the ladies to be initiated. There might easily be an accident, even with the best of drivers such as we had in Terry, and I was sure that he was having all he could do to keep on the crown of the road. At any moment, slowly as we were going, the heavily laden car might become skittish and begin to waltz, a feat which would certainly first surprise and then alarm the ladies, even if it had no more serious consequences.

It was while we were in this critical situation, which had not yet begun to dawn upon our pa.s.sengers, that Dalmar-Kalm seized the opportunity of racing past us from behind, blowing a fanfarronade on his horn, to prove how much faster his car could go than ours. In the instant that he was abreast of us, our tonneau, which overhung the back axle further than is considered wise in the latest types of cars, swung outwards, with a slip of the tyre in the grey grease, and only by an inch which seemed a mere hair's breadth was Terry able to save us from a collision.

The Countess screamed, Beechy clung once more to my knee, and we all glared at the red car with the white canopy as it shot ruthlessly ahead.

The Prince's tyres were strapped with spiked leather covers, which we could not carry as they would lose us too much speed; therefore the danger of side-slip was lessened for him, and he flew by without even knowing how near we had been to an accident. The anger painted on our ungoggled faces he doubtless attributed to jealousy, as he glanced back to wave a triumphant _au revoir_ before flashing out of sight, round a bend of the road.

There is something very human, and particularly womanish, about a motor-car. The shock of the narrow escape we had just had seemed to have unsteadied the nerve of our brave Panhard for the moment. We were nearing a skew bridge, with an almost right-angled approach; and the strange resultant of the nicely balanced forces that control an automobile skating on "pneus" over slippery mud twisted us round, suddenly and without warning. Instantly, oilily, the car gyrated as on a pivot, and behold, we were facing down the valley instead of up. Terry could not had done it had he tried.

"Oh, my goodness!" quavered the Countess, in a collapse. "Am I dreaming, or has this happened? It seems as if I must be out of my wits!"

"It _has_ happened," answered Terry, laughing rea.s.suringly, but far from joyous within, I knew. "But it's nothing alarming. A little side-slip, that's all."

"A _little_ side-slip!" she echoed. "Then may I be preserved from a big one. This automobile has turned its nose towards home again, of its own accord. Oh, Sir Ralph, I'm not sure I like motoring as much as I thought I would. I'm not sure the Hand of Providence didn't turn the car back."

"Nonsense, Mamma!" cried Beechy. "The other day the Hand of Providence was pointing out Sir Ralph's advertis.e.m.e.nt in the newspaper. It can't be always changing its mind, and you can't, either. We're all _alive_, anyhow, and that's something."

"Ah, but how long shall we be?" moaned her mother. "I don't want to be silly, but I didn't know that an automobile had the habits of a kangaroo and a crab, and a base-ball, and I'm afraid I shall never get used to them."

Terry explained that his car was not addicted to producing these sensational effects, and compared the difficulties it was now combatting with those which a skater might experience if the hard ice were covered an inch deep with soft soap. "We shall soon be out of this," he said, "for the road will be better higher up where the hill begins, and the rain has had a chance to drain away."