The Car of Destiny Part 26

"We can't go about suspecting everyone we meet to be in Carmona's pay,"

said I. "We'd be mistaken as often as right, and then we should feel small. After all, there isn't much harm done."

"It's a wonder we haven't smashed something, sir," sighed the much enduring Ropes.

"That's what Carmona prayed to his demons we would do," said d.i.c.k.

"I'll back San Cristobal against them all," said I.

"Besides, there was the mule with the four white feet, and the goat-herd,"

Pilar reminded me.

"I can't say they've brought us luck."

"Wait," said Pilar.

"Meanwhile let's turn back," said d.i.c.k. "Another hundred yards like this, and even if we don't smash the differential or the cha.s.sis, Ropes will get side-slip of the brain. Half an hour of such driving must be equal to a week in Purgatory for a chauffeur."

We did turn back, and feeling years older, arrived once more at the point from which he had started. We would have given something to see the man with the two hats, and his companion, but they had prudently taken themselves off, like full-fed vultures. This time we made no inquiries, but trusted to our intuition and our maps, which, without once contradicting each other, led us into a decent road that seemed like a path to paradise after all we had endured.

Making up for lost time, and revelling in joy of motion, we put on our best speed, which for a few moments brought the roadside telegraph posts as close together as fir trees in a Norwegian forest. But suddenly the motor slowed, and stopped with a tired sigh within sight of a village white as newly polished silver.

"Petrol gone," said Ropes. "It oughtn't to be, but it is. Extra strain in that short cut of the Duke's used it up."

He got out, and untied a _bidon_ from the reserve store fastened upon the foot-board. But the tin was light in his hand as a feather. He gave a low whistle, and a shadow darkened his face, a shadow which was not made by the brim of his motor-cap as he bent his head to examine the _bidon_.

"There's a leak here, sir," he said to me-for though d.i.c.k was now supposed to be his master, in moments of stress he clung to old habits. "Looks as if the tin had been p.r.i.c.ked with some sharp instrument. H'm! Shouldn't wonder if it had been. It would be of a piece with all the rest."

"You mean at Toledo?"

"Yes, sir. Everything was right, then. I bought enough petrol in Madrid to last to Cordoba, pretty well all we could carry, and ordered more to meet us there, _grande vitesse_, in case I couldn't get it-as you said we were sure now to go that way."

"Well, let's look at your other bidons. We shall be in a fix if we're held up here."

"Two more empty," announced Ropes. "And three _bidons_ don't suddenly take to leaking, of themselves. I suppose if I'd had my wits about me, I'd have looked, at Toledo, before starting; but who's to think of everything? I did have a thorough go at the car, for fear of mischief, but forgot the _bidons_ However, there's one to go on with, I'm pretty sure; for it's stowed away in a place n.o.body would think of, if they had to do the villain act in a hurry."

Whereupon he handed out a new _bidon_ from the tool box, and we both gave a sigh of relief to see that it was intact. At least, we had now enough to get us to Manzanares; and at worst we could but be hung up there while Ropes went back by train as far as Madrid to buy petrol.

While we had been making these discoveries, however, the village had been discovering us. It was not the time of year, as Pilar said, for bears and monkeys to arrive by road, therefore when something was seen approaching rapidly and stopping suddenly, the inhabitants of the white town had not been able to bear the suspense. Somebody had given the word that there was a thing to see, and out Torralba came pouring in its hundreds, a brilliant procession a full quarter of a mile long.

Youth and beauty took the lead. Girls with arms thrown round the shoulders of one another's blue, pink, or yellow jackets skipped along the dazzling road like peasant graces. Little, star-eyed brown boys had apparently taken the trouble to step off Murillo's canvases to find out what we were, while their toddling sisters cried at being outdistanced. Behind these came men, middle-aged and old, in strange-shaped caps like fur and leather coal-scuttles, women with bare black heads, or faded blue handkerchiefs shadowing withered faces, and beggars hobbling on their sticks; a shouting, laughing army pouring its bright coloured stream down the white line of the straight road. And before the Gloria had been refreshed with her long drink of petrol, the wave of life had broken round her bonnet.

Bright eyes stared, brown hands all but touched us; and children knew not whether to shriek with fright or laugh with joy as they saw themselves reflected in the gla.s.s turned up against our roof. But at the first cough of the motor as it throbbed into waking, the throng rolled back, dividing to let us pa.s.s, as if the car had cloven it in two, and joining again to tear home in our wake.

All the able-bodied women who had not come out to meet us were sitting before the doors of their white houses, making lace mantillas and flounces for the young Queen-elect,-Torralba is famous for its lace-makers,-and they waved work-worn hands as we ran by, wishing us good speed, or throwing an improvised _copla_ after the vanishing Gloria.

Now we were in Don Quixote land; and had we gone back to his day as we entered his country of La Mancha, our red car could have roused little more excitement. Village after village turned out for us; always the same gorgeous colours against the background of white houses and blue arch of sky; always the same brilliant eyes and rich brown faces with scarlet lips that laughed. It was even a relief to the monotony to meet a band of fierce-eyed young carters ranged in a line with big stones in their hands, wanting to bash in the aristocrat's features, if the aristocrats frightened their mules. But neither the aristocrats nor mules showed fear.

Pilar even leaned out, as if daring the four or five sullen fellows to throw their stones into a girl's face, and their arms fell inoffensively.

"I don't believe any Spaniard, no matter how bad, would hurt a woman who had done him no harm!" she exclaimed.

The road, with its rutty, irritating surface, seemed endless. We had started late, according to our promise, and having lost more than an hour on the "short cut," grey wings of twilight began at last to fold in the landscape. It was long since we had pa.s.sed a village; Manzanares was not yet near, and I began to wonder whether the Gloria would not again grow thirsty before we could give her drink.

Turn after turn; always the same jolting; always the same scene, till our minds wearied. Then, suddenly rounding a bend, we came upon something which made every one of us forget boredom.

There was the Duke's car-the grey car which we had sworn to avoid-stuck in a _caniveau_ that cut the road in two. There were Carmona and his chauffeur staring balefully into the inner workings of the motor; there were the d.u.c.h.ess and Lady Vale-Avon, dust-powdered and disconsolate, sitting forlornly on roadside hillocks; and there was Monica, her veil off, walking up and down impatiently with her little hands buried in the pockets of her grey coat, the last gleam of sunset finding a responsive note in the gold of her hair.

"What did I tell you!" exclaimed Pilar. "The goat-herd! The mule with the white feet! It's the luck of the Dream-Book!"

XXIII

THE GLORIFICATION OF MONICA

Slowing up, we were almost upon the group; and for once we were welcome to our enemies. Even Carmona's face brightened, a flicker of hope lit Lady Vale-Avon's grey eyes; and the d.u.c.h.ess deliberately courted us with a smile.

As for Monica, she was radiant as a child who has been surprised by the home-coming of loved ones; yet there was a new wistfulness in her eyes, despite the joy she showed.

"Oh, how glorious that you've come to the rescue!" she cried, all dimples and roses. Still, she looked from me to Pilar, and from Pilar to me, as if she longed to ask one or the other some question which it was impossible to speak; and I said to myself that it would go hard with me if I did not find out before I was many hours older, what that question was.

Any port is welcome in a storm or among fellow-motorists, if you are helpless by the roadside with several ladies when night is coming on; and Carmona's first words showed that he had no scruple in making use of us.

But with the trials he had gone through, and his natural preference for the help of any other car rather than the hated Gloria, he was in a black mood. He wished to be civil, lest we should be goaded into leaving him in the lurch; yet it was plainly such an effort that I could have laughed aloud. Pilar would have been able to quote paragraph and page of her Dream-Book.

The worst damage to the car was a broken spring, though something seemed to have gone wrong also with the ignition in that disastrous b.u.mp into the _caniveau_. They had been where we found them for a couple of hours, Carmona admitted, without encountering any vehicle or animal to give them a tow. The first hope had been to stagger on to Manzanares (which originally they had meant to pa.s.s) with a broken spring; but the bee in the motor's bonnet could not be made to buzz, and in despair, Carmona had been about to send his chauffeur on foot, in search of some conveyance for the ladies and their luggage. More hours must have pa.s.sed, at best, before the man could have returned to the rescue, and already everybody was hungry.

The ladies of the Duke's party had to be transferred to the Gloria; and d.i.c.k, with airs of ownership, urged vague and voluble reasons why I should be their companion in the tonneau. We were the masters of the situation, and Carmona's face, as he was obliged to take his seat beside the chauffeur who must steer the car in tow, repaid me for grievous wrongs.

Pilar, not to be outdone in ingenuity by d.i.c.k, did for me what I could not do for myself, in contriving that I should sit next to Monica. Though I could say nothing for her ears which other ears might not hear, it was a joy to feel her slight shoulder nestling warm against my arm, to know that she could not be s.n.a.t.c.hed from me by her mother or Carmona, but that as it was now, so it must be for many moments, perhaps an hour, to come. There was also satisfaction to be got from the fact that my enemy, b.u.mping on behind in his own disabled car (propelled by our generosity and power), was glaring with malice, envy, and all uncharitableness at my back.

My one regret in these moments which should have been perfect, was that my prophetic soul hadn't caused me to write a long letter to Monica, which I might have been able to slip into her hand under cover of rugs and darkness.

Ropes had to light the lamps before we saw more of Manzanares than an illusive church spire which kept appearing and disappearing like a will-o'-the-wisp. But the petrol held out, and the Gloria's breathing was regular, despite the weight she had to tow over ruts and across gutters.

Once, however, Ropes looked back at me with an expressive movement of the shoulders which I interpreted as, "we're lucky if we get there!" so I could have shouted "hurrah!" at sight of the first houses, though they brought my last moment of happiness.

Another instant, and the population of Manzanares was answering to the thrum of our motor, as soldiers to the call of the drum. From somewhere, their saints alone knew where, an army of children poured into the long straight street, and as we slowed to avoid wholesale murder, they took advantage of our consideration to swarm up the car like ants. They ran shouting beside us, climbed on to the steps, hung on behind, fighting so ruthlessly for choice positions that they all but fell under the wheels.

One would not have supposed there could be other children left in Spain.

How there could be room for these in the town of Manzanares was a wonder; how they could all have turned out on the second in their thousands, was a miracle; and their promptness would have done credit to any commander.

The shrill cries of this legion, drowning the sound of the motor, and increasing as the contingent was swelled from each side street, roused the town. Families left their tables and rushed to the door, their supper in their hands. Bakers with white arms left to-morrow's bread in the troughs; a group of farriers shoeing a horse stopped work, until the glowing iron paled. Shopkeepers who had lighted their windows with a blaze of electricity, ran into the street. Mules and donkeys tied to doorposts shared the general excitement, plunged and reared before the advance of the human breaker with the car on its crest snapped their cords, and dashed into their master's houses.

Never, among all our successes, had we made such a _succes fou_ as this; but then, never before had we had a car in tow. Half our triumph belonged to the Lecomte; yet either of us would gladly have dispensed with all; and had it not been for a small but determined policeman who struggled to preserve the credit of the town, we might have been half the night fighting our way to an hotel.

He dealt blows and exhortations indiscriminately, piloted us through side streets which it would never have occurred to our imagination to enter, and with exertions worthy of him who "singly kept the bridge," helped us make a lane for the ladies to dart into the door of the little _fonda_.

It was an iron door of elaborate openwork, leading, Moorish fashion, through a shallow vestibule into a _patio_-the first we had seen on our way south; and if it had not been slammed shut with a loud click, by some person inside, half Manzanares would have poured after the fugitives.