My Friend the Chauffeur Part 2

II

A CHAPTER OF PLANS

So it is that Fate calmly arranges our lives in spite of us. Although no details of the coming trip were settled during what remained of our new employers' visit, that was their fault and the fault of a singularly premature sunset, rather than mine, or even Terry's; and we both felt that it came to the same thing. We were in honour bound to "personally conduct" Mrs. Kidder, Miss Beechy Kidder, and Miss Destrey towards whatever point of the compa.s.s a guiding finger of theirs should signify.

It has always been my motto to take Father Time by the fore-lock, for fear he should cut it off, or get away, or play some other trick upon me, which the cantankerous old chap (no parent of mine!) is fond of doing. Therefore, if I could, I would have had terms, destination, day and hour of starting definitely arranged before that miraculously-produced tea of Felicite's had turned to tannin. But man may not walk through a solid wall, or strive against such conversational gifts as those of Mrs. Kidder.

She could and would keep to anything except the point. That, whatever its nature, she avoided as she would an indelicacy.

"Well, now, Mrs. Kidder," I began, "if you really want us to organize this tour, don't you think we'd better discuss--"

"Of _course_ we want you to!" she broke in. "We all think it's just awfully good of you to bother with us when you must have so many friends who want you to take them--English people in your own set. By the way, do you know the d.u.c.h.ess of Carborough?"

"I know very few d.u.c.h.esses or other Americans," I replied. Whereupon Miss Kidder's imp laughed, though her mother remained grave, and even looked mildly disappointed.

"That's a funny way of putting it," said Beechy. "One would think it was quite an American habit, being a d.u.c.h.ess."

"So it is, isn't it?" I asked. "The only reason we needn't fear its growing like the Yellow Peril is because there aren't enough dukes. I've always thought the American nation the most favoured in the world.

Aren't all your girls brought up to expect to be d.u.c.h.esses, and your men presidents?"

"_I_ wasn't," snapped Beechy. "If there was a duke anywhere around, Mamma would take him, if she had to s.n.a.t.c.h him out of my mouth. What are English girls brought up to expect?"

"Hope for, not expect," I corrected her. "Any leavings there are in the way of marquesses or earls; or if none, a mere bishop or a C. B."

"What's a C. B.?" asked Mrs. Kidder anxiously.

"A Companion of the Bath."

"My goodness! Whose bath?"

"The Bath of Royalty. We say it with a capital B."

"My! How awkward for your King. And what was done about it when you had only a Queen on the throne?"

"You must inquire of the chamberlains," I replied. "But about that trip of ours. The--er--my car is in a garage not far away, and it can be ready when--"

"Oh, I hope it's a _red_ car, with your coat of arms on it. I do so admire red for an automobile. We could all fix ourselves up in red cloaks and hats to match, and make ourselves look awfully swell--"

"Everybody'd call us 'The Crimson Ramblers,' or 'The Scarlet Runners,'

or something else horrid," t.i.ttered that precocious child Beechy.

"It isn't red, it's grey," Terry managed hastily to interpolate; which settled one burning question, the first which had been settled or seemed likely to be settled at our present rate of progress.

"If you are keen on starting--" I essayed again, hope triumphing over experience.

"Yes, I'm just looking forward to that start," Mrs. Kidder caught me up.

"We _shall_ make a sensation. We're neighbours of yours, you know. We're at the Cap Martin Hotel. Isn't it perfectly lovely there, with that big garden, the woods and all? When we were coming to the Riviera, I told the man at Cook's that we wanted to go to the grandest hotel there was, where we could feel we were getting our money's worth; and he said all the kings and princes, and queens and princesses went to the Cap Martin, so--"

"We thought it might be good enough for us," capped Beechy.

"It's as full of royalties, as--as--"

"As a pack of cards," I suggested.

"And some of them have splendid automobiles. I've been envying them; and only this morning I was saying to my little girl, what a lot of nice things there are that women and children can't do, travelling alone--automobiling for one. Then, when I came on that advertis.e.m.e.nt of yours, I just _screamed_. It did seem as if the Hand of Providence must have been pointing it out. And it was so funny your home being on the Cap, too, within ten minutes' walk of our hotel. I'm sure it was _meant_, aren't you?"

"Absolutely certain," I responded, with a glance at Terry, who was not showing himself off to any advantage in this scene although he ought to have been the leading actor. He did nothing but raise his eyebrows when he thought that no one was looking, or tug at his moustache most imprudently when somebody was. Or else he handed the cakes to Miss Destrey, and forgot to offer them to her far more important relatives.

"I'm so sure of it," I went on, "that I think we had better arrange--"

"Yes, indeed. Of course your ch--Mr. Barrymore (or did I hear you say Terrymore?) is a very experienced driver? We've never been in an automobile yet, any of us, and I'm afraid, though it will be perfectly lovely as soon as we're used to it, that we may be a little scary at first. So it would be nice to know for sure that the driver understood how to act in any emergency. I should _hate_ to be killed in an automobile. It would be such--such an _untidy_ death to die, judging from what you read in the papers sometimes."

"I should prefer it, myself," I said, "but that's a matter of taste, and you may trust Terry--Mr. Barrymore. What he doesn't know about a motor-car and its inner and outer workings isn't worth knowing. So when we go--"

"Aunt K--I mean Kittie, don't you think we ought to go home to the hotel?" asked Miss Destrey, who had scarcely spoken until now, except to answer a question or two of Terry's, whom she apparently chose to consider in the Martyr's Boat, with herself. "We've been here for _hours_, and it's getting dark."

"Why, so it is!" exclaimed Mrs. Kidder, rising hurriedly. "I'm quite ashamed of myself for staying so long. What will you think of us? But we had such a lot of things to arrange, hadn't we?"

We had had; and we had them still. But that was a detail.

"We _must_ go," she went on. "Well, we've decided nearly everything"

(this was news to me). "But there are one or two things yet we'll have to talk over, I suppose."

"Quite so," said I.

"Could you and Mr. Terrymore come and dine with us to-night? Then we can fix _everything_ up."

"Speaking for myself, I'm afraid I can't, thanks very much," Terry said, hastily.

"What about you, Sir Ralph? I may call you Sir Ralph, may I not?"

"Please. It's my name."

"Yes, I know it. But it sounds so familiar, from a stranger. I was wondering if one ought to say 'Sir Ralph Moray,' till one had been acquainted a little longer. Well, anyway, if you could dine with us, without your friend--"

I also thanked her and said that matters would arrange themselves more easily if Barrymore and I were together.

"Then can you both lunch with us to-morrow at one o'clock?"

Quickly, before Terry could find time to object if he meditated doing so, I accepted with enthusiasm.

Farewells were exchanged, and we had walked to the gate with the ladies--I heading the procession with Mrs. Kidder, Terry bringing up the rear with the two girls--when my companion stopped suddenly. "Oh, there's just one thing I ought to mention before you come to see us at the hotel," she said, with a little catch of the breath. Evidently she was embarra.s.sed. "I introduced myself to you as Mrs. Kidder, because I'm used to that name, and it comes more natural. I keep forgetting always, but--but perhaps you'd better ask at the hotel for the Countess Dalmar.

I guess you're rather surprised, though you're too polite to say so, my being an American and having that t.i.tle."

"Not at all," I a.s.sured her. "So many charming Americans marry t.i.tled foreigners, that one is almost more surprised--"

"But I haven't married a foreigner. Didn't I tell you that I'm a widow?