Cynthia's Chauffeur. Tracy Louis
on the right track. From sheer enjoyment of an absurd situation she would have caused Fitzroy to be summoned then and there, if only to see Wiggy Devar’s crestfallen face on learning that she had entertained a viscount unawares.
But the violins were singing the Valse Bleu, and Cynthia was upstairs, longing for an excuse to venture forth into the night, and three people, at least, in the crowded lounge were thinking of anything but the amazing oddity that had puzzled Ducrot, who did not con his Burke.
Medenham, of course, realized that he had been vouchsafed another narrow escape. What the morrow might bring forth he neither knew nor cared. The one disconcerting fact that already shaped itself in the mists of the coming day was Simmonds tearing breathlessly along the Bath Road during the all too brief hours between morn and evening.
It is not to be wondered at if he read Cynthia’s thoughts. There is a language without code or symbol known to all young men and maidens – a language that pierces stout walls and leaps wide valleys – and that unlettered tongue whispered the hope that the girl might saunter towards the pier. He turned forthwith into the public gardens, and quickened his pace. Arrived at the pier, he glanced up at the hotel. Of girls there were many on cliff and roadway, girls summer-like in attire, girls slender of waist and airy of tread, but no Cynthia. He went on the pier, and met more than one pair of bright eyes, but not Cynthia’s.
Then he made off in a fume to Dale’s lodging, secured a linen dust-coat which the man happened to have with him, returned to the hotel, and hurried unseen to his room, an easy matter in the Royal Bath, where many staircases twine deviously to the upper floors, and brilliantly decorated walls dazzle the stranger.
He counted on the exigencies of Lady Porthcawl’s toilette stopping a too early appearance in the morning, and he was right.
At ten o’clock, when Cynthia and Mrs. Devar came out, the men lounging near the porch were too interested in the girl and the car to bestow a glance on the chauffeur. Ducrot was there, bland and massive in a golf suit. He pestered Cynthia with inquiries as to the exact dates when her father would be in London, and Medenham did not hesitate to cut short the banker’s awkward gallantries by throwing the Mercury into her stride with a whirl.
“By Jove, Ducrot,” said someone, “your pretty friend’s car jumped off like a gee-gee under the starting gate.”
“If that chauffeur of hers was mine, I’d boot him,” was the wrathful reply.
“Why? What’s he done?”
“He strikes me as an impudent puppy.”
“Anyhow, he can swing a motor. See that!” for the Mercury had executed a corkscrew movement between several vehicles with the sinuous grace of a greyhound.
Now it was Mrs. Devar, and not Cynthia, who leaned forward and said pleasantly:
“You seem to be in a hurry to leave Bournemouth, Fitzroy.”
“I am not enamored of bricks and mortar on a fine morning,” he answered.
“Well, I have full confidence in you, but don’t embroil us with the police. We have a good deal to see to-day, I understand.”
Then he heard the strenuous voice addressing Cynthia.
“Millicent Porthcawl says that Glastonbury is heavenly, and Wells a peaceful dream. I visited Cheddar once, some years ago, but it rained, and I felt like a watery cheese.”
Lady Porthcawl’s commendation ought to have sanctified Glastonbury and Wells – Mrs. Devar’s blue-moldy joke might even have won a smile – but Cynthia was preoccupied; strange that she, too, should be musing of Simmonds and a hurrying car, for Medenham had told her that the transfer would take place at Bristol.
She was only twenty-two, and her very extensive knowledge of the world had been obtained by three years of travel and constant association with her father. But her lines had always been cast in pleasant places. She had no need to deny herself any of the delights that life has to offer to youth and good health and unlimited means. The discovery that friendship called for discretion came now almost as a shock. It seemed to be a stupid social law that barred the way when she wished to enjoy the company of a well-favored man whom fate had placed at her disposal for three whole days. Herself a blue-blooded American, descendant of old Dutch and New England families, she was quite able to discriminate between reality and sham. Mrs. Devar, she was sure, was a pinchbeck aristocrat; Count Edouard Marigny might have sprung from many generations of French gentlemen, but her paid chauffeur was his superior in every respect save one – since, to all appearance, Marigny was rich and Fitzroy was poor.
Curiously enough, the man whose alert shoulders and well-poised head were ever in view as the car hummed joyously through the pine woods had taken on something of the mere mechanic in aspect since donning that serviceable linen coat. The garment was weather-stained. It bore records of over-lubrication, of struggles with stiff outer covers, of rain and mud – that bird-lime type of mud peculiar to French military roads in the Alpes Maritimes – while a zealous detective might have found traces of the black and greasy deposit that collects on the door handles and side rails of P. L. M. railway carriages. Medenham borrowed it because of the intolerable heat of the leather jacket. Its distinctive character became visible when he viewed it in the June sunshine, and he wore it as a substitute for sackcloth, since he, no less than Cynthia, recognized that a dangerous acquaintance was drawing to an end. So Dale’s coat imposed a shield, as it were, between the two, but the man drove with little heed to the witching scenery that Dorset unfolded at each turn of the road, and the woman sat distrait, almost downcast.
Mrs. Devar was smugly complacent. Difficulties that loomed large overnight were now vague shadows. When the Mercury stopped in front of a comfortable inn at Yeovil it was she, and not Cynthia, who suggested a social departure.
“This seems to be the only place in the town where luncheon is provided. You had better leave the car in charge of a stableman, and join us, Fitzroy,” she said graciously.
“Thank you, madam,” said Medenham, rousing himself from a reverie, “I prefer to remain here. The hotel people will look after my slight wants, as I dislike the notion of anyone tampering with the engine while I am absent.”
“Is it so delicate, then?” asked Cynthia, with a smile that he hardly understood, since he could not know how thoroughly he had routed Mrs. Devar’s theories of the previous night.
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