The Princess Passes Part 4

I had never before sufficiently realised the solemnity of that word "now." It sounded in my ears like a knell, but I swallowed hard, and echoed it. To do myself justice, though, I don't think I was afraid. I was only in a funk that I should do something stupid, and be disgraced forever in the eyes of Molly Winston. However, I reflected, it couldn't be so very bad. Molly herself, and even Jack, had to learn.

Winston had explained to me several times the purpose of all the different levers, and, at least, I shouldn't touch the brake handle when I wanted to change the speed.

"No need to grip the wheel so tightly," said Jack, and I became aware that I had been clinging to it as if it were a forlorn hope. "A light touch is best, you know; it's rather like steering a boat. A very slight movement does it, and in half an hour it has got to be automatic. Of course, always start on the lowest, that is, the first speed, and with the throttle nearly shut."

Mine was in much the same condition, but I managed to mutter something as I moved the lever, and touched the clutch-pedal with a caress timid as a falling snowflake. Almost apologetically, I slid the lever into position, and let in the clutch. Somehow, I had not expected it to answer so soon; but, as if it disliked being patted by a stranger, the dragon took the bit between its teeth and bolted. I hung on and did things more by instinct than by skill, for the beast was hideously lithe and strong, a thousand times stronger and wilder than I had dreamed.

Every faculty of body and brain was concentrated on first keeping the monster out of the ditch on the off side, then the ditch on the near.

My eyes expanded until they must have filled my goggles. We waltzed, we wavered, we shied, until we outdid the Seine in the windings of its channel.

I fully expected that Winston would pluck me like a noxious weed from the driver's seat where I had taken root, and s.n.a.t.c.h the helm himself; but strange to relate, I remained unmolested. Jack confined his interference to an occasional "Whoa," or "Steady, old boy"; while in the tonneau so profound a silence reigned that, if I had had time to think of anything, I should have supposed Molly to be swooning.

"Why don't you curse me, and put me out of my misery?" I gasped, when I had by a miracle avoided a tree as large as a house, which I had seen deliberately step out of its proper place to get in my way.

"'Curse you,' my dear fellow? You're doing splendidly," said Jack.

"You deserve praise, not blows. I did a lot worse when I began."

Thus encouraged, I gained confidence in myself and the machine. Almost at once, I was conscious of improvement in mastering the touch of the wheel. Soon, I was imitating a straight line with fair success, subject to a few graceful deviations. I realised that, after all, we were not going very fast, though my sensation at starting had been that of hanging on to a streak of greased lightning.

I began to sigh for more worlds to conquer, and when Jack reminded me that we were on the first speed, I p.r.o.nounced myself equal to an experiment with the second. He made me practice taking one hand from the wheel, looking about me a little, and trying to keep the car straight by feeling rather than sight. When I had accomplished these feats, and had not brought the car to grief (even though we pa.s.sed several vehicles, and I was drawn by a demoniac influence to swerve towards each one as if it had been the loadstone to my magnet, or the candle to my moth), Jack finally consented to grant my request. He told me clearly what to do, and I did it, or some inward servant of myself did, whenever the master was within an ace of losing his head.

I pressed down the clutch-pedal, pulled the lever affectionately towards me, and very gradually opened the throttle, so as not to startle it. In spite of my caution, however, I thought for an instant we were really going to get on the other side of the horizon, which had been avoiding us for so long. We shot ahead alarmingly, but to my intense relief, as well as surprise, I found that Jack had not exaggerated. It was easier to steer on the second speed than on the first. I had merely to tickle the wheel with my finger, to send us gliding, swanlike, this way or that. To be sure, I did well-nigh run over a chicken, but I would be prepared to argue with it till it was black in the face (or resort to litigation, if necessary) that the proper place for its blood would be on its own silly head, not mine.

Elated by my triumphs, I scarcely listened further to Jack's directions; how, if I thought there was danger, all I had to do was to unclutch, and put on the brake, whereupon the car would stop as if by magic, as it had for Molly in the Fulham Road; how I must not forget that the foot brakes had a way of obeying fiercely, and must not be applied with violence; how I must remember to pull the brake lever by my hand, towards me if I wanted to stop; how it acted on expanding rings on the inside faces of drums, which were on the back wheels (I pitied those poor, concealed faces, for the description was neuralgic, somehow), and I could lock them at almost any speed.

"I want to get on the third, and then I'll try the fourth, thank you,"

I interpolated impatiently. "More-more! Faster, faster! Whew, this knocks spots out of the Ice Run!"

"Let him have his way, Jack," cried Molly, speaking for the first time. "Hurrah, the motor microbe is in his blood, and never, never will he get it out again."

"Full speed ahead, then!" said Jack.

I took him at his word. I could have shouted for joy. Mercedes was mine, and I was Mercedes'.

CHAPTER IV

Pots, Kettles, and Other Things

"Seared is, of course, my heart--but unsubdued Is, and shall be, my appet.i.te for food."

--C.S. CALVERLEY.

"A little b.u.t.tery, and therein A little bin, Which keeps my little loaf of bread Unchipt, unflead; Some little sticks of thorn or brier Make me a fire."

--ROBERT HERRICK.

If any man had told me before I started, that in two days I should find it a genuine sacrifice to stop driving a motor car, I should have looked upon him as a polite lunatic. It was only because Jack could drive faster than he dared to let me, and because I was ashamed to tell Molly that after all I was not in a desperate hurry to reach Paris or anywhere else, that I finally tore myself from the driver's seat of the Mercedes. Afterwards, though I had not reached the stage when confession is good for the soul, I sat wondering what there was expensive and at the same time disagreeable which I could give up for the sake of possessing a motor of my own. In various phases of my mental and spiritual development, I had framed different conceptions of a future state beyond this life. Never, even in my earliest years, had I sincerely wished to be an angel with an undeserved crown weighing down my forehead, and a harp, which I should be totally incompetent to play, within my hand; but now it struck me that there might be a worse sort of Nirvana than driving a 10,000 horsepower car along a broad, straight road free from dogs, chickens, or any other animals (except, perhaps, rich, knighted grocers), and reaching all round Saturn's ring.

Dogs had been the one "little speck in garnered fruit" for me when driving, for I love dogs and would not willingly injure so much as the end hair of the most moth-eaten mongrel's tail; therefore my brain searched a remedy against their onslaught, as I sat mute, inglorious, in the tonneau, after my late triumphs.

We flashed on, pa.s.sing the kilometre stones in quick succession. At pretty little Mantes we crossed the Seine, and presently came into the France I knew in my old, conventional way; for we pa.s.sed St. Germain, and so on to Paris by Le Pecq, Reuil, the long descent to the Pont de Suresnes (which seemed to hold laughable memories for Jack and Molly), through the Bois down the Champs Elysees, and to our hotel in the Place Vendome, where Jack announced that we had had a run of 130 miles. Winston and I flattered ourselves that Paris had few secrets from us (though I don't doubt that five minutes' wrestling with Baedeker might have made us feel small), and we had no wish to linger at this season. But, if we were deaf to the sirens who sing in the Rue de la Paix, Molly was not. She had discovered that there were some "little things she wanted, which she really thought she had better buy." I fancy that the little things were shoes; anyhow, it was to be Jack's blissful privilege to help her choose them, and he was of opinion (probably founded on experience) that it would take nearly all day. I decided to call on a man at the Emba.s.sy, ask him out to lunch, and do him very well. I had not seen him for years, and he had bored me to extinction the last time we met; but it had come to my ears that he had been in love with Helen Blantock, and proposed to her, so I felt that there would be a certain charm in his society.

Later, there was a "little thing" which I, too, wished to buy (though I did not intend to seek it in the Rue de la Paix), and then I was to meet Molly and Jack about tea time at our hotel, in time to arrange for dining out somewhere.

After all, the man was more boring than ever, as he had got himself engaged to another girl, and insisted upon talking of her, instead of Helen. My one pleasure in the day, therefore, lay in purchasing the article of which I had fixed my mind after driving yesterday. This was a water pistol, warranted to keep dogs at bay, in motoring. I had some difficulty in obtaining it, and when I did, it was expensive, but I was rewarded by the thought of the pleasure my acquisition would afford my friends. The wild dashes of dogs in front of the wheels gave Molly such frequent starts of anguish, that I wondered Jack had not thought of this simple preventive, and I congratulated myself on having remembered an advertis.e.m.e.nt of the weapon which I had seen in some magazine. It was, I thought, rather clever of me to remember, since in those days motors had been no affair of mine; but then, the ill.u.s.tration had been striking, in every sense of the word. It had represented a lovely girl, with hair unbound, saving from destruction the automobile in which she sat with several companions, by shooting a fierce blast of water into the face of a huge beast well-nigh as terrible as Cerberus. I determined to surprise Jack and Molly, when the right time should come; accordingly, the moment I reached our hotel, I filled the pistol with water, and placed it, thus loaded, in the pocket of my motoring coat ready for emergencies. Hardly had I made this preparation for the future when I discovered on the table a note addressed to me in Winston's handwriting.

"Dear Monty," I read, "Molly and I have a bet on. She has bet me a dinner that you will drive her car out to Madrid, and meet us at half-past seven, so that we can have the dinner by daylight. I have bet her the same dinner that you won't. Which of us must pay?--Yours, Jack."

I whistled. What, drive the car through the traffic of Paris? It must be a joke. Of course it was a joke, but----

When I had dressed for dinner, I strolled over to the garage not far away where the creature lurked. Anyhow, I would have a look at her, and see what orders Gotteland had received. Yes, of course it was a joke. Or else my poor friends had gone mad. Still, there was a kind of madness with method in it. Diabolical wretches, with their bets, and their dinners! Did they dream I would try to do it, and smash the car?

"Nothing like driving a motor through traffic, to give one self-confidence afterwards," Jack had said yesterday, after praising me for refraining from killing a small boy in a village street. "Once a man has been thrown on his own resources, and has got through the ordeal all right, it is as good as a certificate," he had added.

Gotteland was in the shrine of his G.o.ddess, talking to other cosmopolitan-looking persons in leather. There was a nice smell of petrol in the place. I snuffed at it as a war-horse scents the battle, and promptly decided that the joke should become deadly earnest, no matter what the consequence to the cart the chauffeur, or myself.

"Everything is ready, my lord," said one of the sacrifices about to be offered up. He had now discovered that there was a sort of starting-handle to my name, and seemed as fond of using it as he was of the equivalent on his beloved motor.

"Did Mr. Winston--er--say anything about my driving?" I humbly inquired.

"Well, my lord, his orders were that it should be as you pleased. But perhaps I had better mention that driving is careless in Paris, with cabs and automobiles all over the road, to say nothing of the trams; and then there's the keeping to the right instead of the left. If you should happen to get a little confused, my lord, not being accustomed to drive in France----"

"I wish I had a _mille_ note for every time I've driven a four-in-hand through this blessed town," said I. "I'm not afraid if you're not."

"Oh, my lord, I've been in so many accidents, one or two more can't matter," he replied, as Hercules might have replied if asked whether he were equal to a Thirteenth Labour in odd moments. "When I was jockey in Count Tokai's racing stables, a horse went mad and kicked me nearly to death. Then I was a racer in old bicycling days, and had several bad spills. This scar on my face I got in a smash with one of the first Benz cars made. My master thought it a fine thing at that time to go ten miles an hour, and before he'd driven much, my lord, he was determined to take the car through the streets of Dusseldorf himself. There was a wagon coming one way----"

"Thank you," I cut in, "I'll bear the rest of that story another time.

I'm not sure it would exhilarate me much at the moment. We'll be off now, and I'll do my best not to adorn you with a second scar."

Without another word, Gotteland started the motor. The critical eyes of the a.s.sembled chauffeurs pierced to my marrow, but I squared my shoulders, prayed my presence of mind to behave itself and not get stage fright; then--_n.o.blesse oblige!_--we swept in a creditable curve to the door of the garage, and out in fine style. Gotteland also tried to look unconcerned. I think I must have seen this with my ears, as both eyes were fully occupied in searching a way through the surging current of street traffic, but I did see it. I was pleased to find that I was the better actor of the two, for Gotteland's att.i.tude revealed a strained alertness. He was like a woman sitting beside a driver of skittish horses, saying to herself: "No, I _won't_ scream or seize the reins till I must!"

A sneaking impulse p.r.i.c.ked me to take the easiest way, by the Rue de Rivoli, and across the Place de la Concorde, but I shook myself free of it, and with high resolve turned the car towards the Boulevards, determined that, if Molly won her bet, it should be well won. A sailor steering a quivering smack towards harbour in a North Sea hurricane; an Indian guiding a bark canoe through the leaping rapids of a swollen river: to both of these I likened myself as the dragon threaded in and out among the adverse streams of traffic. The great crossing by the Opera was a whirling maelstrom; a policeman with a white staff, scowled when he should have pitied; I felt alone in chaos before the creation of the world. As for Noah and his ark, not an experience could he have had that I might not have capped it before I reached the Bois.

If I have a guardian spirit, I am sure that to numberless other good qualities he adds the skill of an accomplished motorist; for if he did not get the car to Madrid, without a single scratch upon her brilliant body, I do not know who did. I have no distinct memories, after the first, yet when we arrived at our destination, Gotteland generously complimented, and as I did not care to go into psychological explanations, I accepted his eulogium. It was Jack, not Molly, who paid for the dinner at Madrid, and it was a good one.

Next morning early we started on our way again. Jack driving, and I watching his prowess. I was now as anxious to meet dogs belligerently inclined towards motors, as I had been to avoid them, but it was not until we were well past Fontainebleau that the chance for which I yearned, arrived. Suddenly we came upon a yard of Dachshund wandering lizard-like across the road, accompanied by a pert Spitz. The waddler prudently retired, but the Spitz, with all the disproportionate courage of a knight of old attacking a fire-breathing dragon, lanced himself in front of the car. After all, what are dragons but strange, new things which we know nothing about and therefore detest? This brave little knight detested us, and with magnificent self-confidence essayed to punish us for troubling his existence.

My hand flew to my pocket, but paused, even as it grasped the water pistol. The dog was small, the weapon large. A fierce jet of water propelled from its muzzle might blow the breath from that tiny body, which my sole wish was to warn from under the wheels of Juggernaut.

However, he was persistent, and was in real danger, since to avoid an approaching cart, Jack was forced to steer perilously near the yapping beast.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed the weapon, pulled the trigger, and--a mild, mellifluous trickle which would have disgraced a toilet vaporiser sprayed forth.

Jack, Molly, and the peasants in the approaching cart burst into shouts of laughter. The Spitz, undismayed by the gentle shower, which had spattered his nose with a drop or two, leaped at the weapon, and, irritated, I flung it at his head. It fell innocuously in the road and our last sight of the Spitz was when, rejoined by his lizard friend, he industriously gnawed at the pistol, mistaking it for a bone, while the Dachs gratefully lapped up the water I had provided. My surprise was a popular success, but not the kind of success which I had planned. Jack said that he could have "told me so" if I had asked him, and I vowed in future to let dogs delight to bark and bite without interference from me.

The one inept remark which Sh.e.l.ley seems ever to have made was that "there is nothing to see in France." My opinion, as we spun along the road which would lead us to Lucerne and my waiting mule, was that there was almost too much to see, too much charm, too much beauty for the peace of mind of an imaginative traveller; there were so many valleys which one longed to explore, in which one felt one could be content without going farther, so many blue glimpses of mysterious mountains, veiled by the haze of dreamland, that one suffered a constant succession of acute pangs in thinking that one would probably never see them again, that one would need at least nine long lives if one were to spend, say, even a month in each place.

Molly advised me not to be a spendthrift of my emotions, at this stage of the journey, lest I should be a worn-out wreck before the grandest part came, but the idea of husbanding enthusiasm did not commend itself to me. Why not enjoy this moment, instead of waiting until the moment after next? It was too much like saving up one's good clothes for "best," a lower-middle-cla.s.s habit which I have detested since the days when I howled for my smartest Lord Fauntleroy frills in the morning.

There were sweet villages where they made cheese, and where I could have been happy making it with Helen Blantock; there were chateaux with turret rooms where my book shelves would have fitted excellently; but always we fled on, on, until at last, after two bewildering, cinematographic days, we drove into the streets of that dignified and delightful city, Bern.