CHAPTER XXIV
THERE was a telegram from "Bertie" at Millau. The invitation to the château where he was stopping near Clermont-Ferrand, had been asked for and given. I heard all about it, of course, from the conversation between the bride and groom; for Lady Turnour prides herself on discussing things in my presence, as if I were deaf or a piece of furniture. She has the idea that this trick is a habit of the "smart set"; and she would allow herself to be tarred and feathered, in Directoire style, if she could not be smart at smaller cost.
Nothing was ever more opportune than that telegram, for her ladyship had burnt her frock and chilled her liver in the boat, and though the hotel at Millau was good, she arrived there with the evident intention of making life a burden to Sir Samuel. The news from Bertie changed all that, however; and though the weather was like the breath of icebergs next morning, Lady Turnour was warmed from within. She chatted pleasantly with Sir Samuel about the big luggage which had gone on to Clermont-Ferrand, and asked his advice concerning the becomingness of various dresses. The one unpleasant thing she allowed herself to say, was that "certainly Bertie was n't doing this for nothing," and that his step-father might take her word for it, Bertie would be neither slow nor shy in naming his reward. But Sir Samuel only grinned, and appeared rather amused than otherwise at the shrewdness of his wife's insight into the young man's character.
I was conscious that my jacket had n't been made for motoring, when I came out into the sharp morning air and took my place in the Aigle. I was inclined to envy my mistress her fur rugs, but to my surprise I saw lying on my seat a Scotch plaid, plaider than any plaid ever made in Scotland.
"Does that belong to the hotel?" I asked the chauffeur, as he got into the car.
"It belongs to you," said he. "A present from Millau for a good child."
"Oh, you mustn't!" I exclaimed.
"But I have," he returned, calmly. "I 'm not going to watch you slowly freezing to death by my side; for it won't be exactly summer to-day. Let me tuck you in prettily."
I groaned while I obeyed. "I 've been an expense to you all the way, because you would n't abandon me to the lions, even in the most expensive hotels, where I knew you would n't have stayed if it had n't been for me. And now, this!"
"It cost only a few francs," he tried to reassure me. "We 'll sell it again—afterward, if that will make you happier. But sufficient for the day is the rug thereof—at least, I hope it will be. And don't flaunt it, for if her ladyship sees there 's an extra rug of any sort on board she 'll be clamouring for it by and by."
Northward we started, in the teeth of the wind, which made mine chatter until I began to tingle with the rush of ozone, which always goes to my head like champagne. Our road was a mere white thread winding loosely through a sinuous valley, and pulled taut as it rose nearer and nearer to the cold, high level of les Causses, the roof of that gnome-land where we had journeyed together yesterday. From snow-covered billows which should have been sprayed with mountain wild-flowers by now, a fierce blast pounced down on us like a swooping bird of prey. We felt the swift whirr of its wings, which almost took our breath away, and made the Aigle quiver; but like a bull that meets its enemy with lowered horns, the brave car's bonnet seemed to defy the wind and face it squarely. We swept on toward the snow-reaches whence the wind-torrent came. Soon we were on the flat plateau of the Causse, where last year's faded grass was frosted white, and a torn winding-sheet wrapped the limbs of a dead world. There was no beauty in this death, save the wild beauty of desolation, and a grandeur inseparable from heights. Before us grouped the mountains of Auvergne, hoary headed; and looking down we could see the twistings of the road we had travelled, whirling away and away, like the blown tail of a kite trailed over mountain and foothill.
"The people at Millau told me I should get up to St. Flour all right, in spite of the fall of snow," said the chauffeur, his eyes on the great white waves that piled themselves against a blue-white sky, "but I begin to think there 's trouble before us, and I don't know whether I ought to have persisted in bringing you."
"Persisted!" I echoed, defending him against himself. "Why, do you suppose wild horses would have dragged Lady Turnour in any other direction, now that she 's actually invited to be the guest of a marquis in a real live castle?"
"A railway train could very well have dragged her in the same direction and got her to the castle as soon, if not a good deal sooner than she 's likely to get in this car, if we have to fight snow. I proposed this way originally because I wanted you to see the Gorge of the Tarn, and because I thought that you 'd like Clermont-Ferrand, and the road there. It was to be your adventure, you know, and I shall feel a brute if I let you in for a worse one than I bargained for. Even this morning it was n't too late. I could have hinted at horrors, and they would have gone by rail like lambs, taking you with them."
"Lady Turnour can do nothing like a lamb," I contradicted him. "I should never have forgiven you for sending me away from—the car. Besides, Lady Turnour wants to teuf-teuf up to the château in her sixty-horse-power Aigle, and make an impression on the aristocracy."
"Well, we must hope for the best now," said he. "But look, the snow 's an inch thick by the roadside even at this level, so I don't know what we may n't be in for, between here and St. Flour, which is much higher—the highest point we shall have to pass in getting to the Château de Roquemartine, a few miles out of Clermont-Ferrand."
"You think we may get stuck?"
"It 's possible."
"Well, that would be an adventure. You know I love adventures."
"But I know the Turnours don't. And if ⸺" He did n't finish his sentence.
Higher we mounted, until half France seemed to lie spread out before us, and a solitary sign-post with "Paris-Perpignans" suggested unbelievable distances. The Aigle glided up gradients like the side of a somewhat toppling house, and scarcely needed to change speed, so well did she like the rarefied mountain air. I liked it too, though I had to be thankful for the plaid; and above all I liked the wild loneliness of the Causse, which was unlike anything I ever saw or imagined. The savage monotony of the heights was broken just often enough by oases of pine wood; and the plains on which we looked down were blistered with conical hills, crowned by ancient castles which would have rejoiced the hearts of mediæval painters, as they did mine. Severac-le-Château, perched on its naked pinnacle of rock, was best of all, as we saw it from our bird's-eye view, and then again, almost startlingly impressive when we had somehow whirled down below it, to pass under its old huddled town, before we flew up once more to higher and whiter levels.
Never had the car gone better; but Lady Turnour had objected to the early start which the chauffeur wanted, and the sun was nearly overhead when many a huge shoulder of glittering marble still walled us away from our journey's end. The cold was the pitiless cold of northern midwinter, and I remembered with a shiver that Millau and Clermont-Ferrand were separated from one another by nearly two hundred and fifty kilometres of such mountain roads as these. Oh yes, it was an experience, a splendid, dazzling experience; nevertheless, my cowardly thoughts would turn, sunflower-like, toward warmth; warm rooms, even stuffy rooms, without a single window open, fires crackling, and hot things to drink. Still, I would n't admit that I was cold, and stiffened my muscles to prevent a shudder when my brother asked me cheerfully if I would enjoy a visit to the Gouffre de Padirac, close by.
A "gouffre" on such a day! Not all the splendours of the posters which I had often seen and admired, could thrill me to a desire for the expedition; but I tried to cover my real feelings with the excuse that it must now be too late to make even a small détour. Mr. Jack Dane laughed, and replied that he had no intention of making it; he had only wanted to test my pluck. "I believe you 'd pretend to be delighted if I told you we had plenty of time, and must n't miss going," said he. "But don't be frightened; this is n't a Gouffre de Padirac day, though it really is a great pity to pass it by. What do you say to lunch instead?"
And we rolled through a magnificent mediæval gateway into the ancient and unpronounceable town of Marvejols.
Before he had time to make the same suggestion to his more important passengers, it came hastily from within the glass cage. So we stopped at an inn which proudly named itself an hotel; and chauffeur and maid were entertained in a kitchen destitute of air and full of clamour. Nevertheless, it seemed a snug haven to us, and never was any soup better than the soup of "Marvels," as Sir Samuel and Lady Turnour called the place.
The word was "push on," however, for we had still the worst before us, and a long way to go. The Quality had promised to finish its luncheon in an hour; and well before the time was up, we two Worms were out in the cold, each engaged in fulfilling its own mission. I was arranging rugs; the chauffeur was pouring some libation from a long-nosed tin upon the altar of his goddess when our master appeared, wearing such an "I have n't stolen the cream or eaten the canary" expression that we knew at once something new was in the wind.
He coughed, and floundered into explanations. "The waiter, who can speak some English, has been frightening her ladyship," said he. "After the day before yesterday she 's grown a bit timid, and to hear that the cold she has suffered from is nothing to what she may have to experience higher up, and later in the day, as the sun gets down behind the mountains, has put her off motoring. It seems we can go on from here by train to Clermont-Ferrand and that 's what she wants to do. I hate deserting the car, but after all, this is an expedition of pleasure, and if her ladyship has a preference, why should n't it be gratified?"
"Quite so, sir," responded the chauffeur, his face a blank.
"My first thought on making up my mind to the train was to have the car shipped at the same time," went on Sir Samuel, "but it seems that can't be done. There 's lots of red tape about such things, and the motor might have to wait days on end here at Marvels, before getting off, to say nothing of how long she might be on the way. Whereas, I 've been calculating, if you start now and go as quick as you can, you ought to be at the château (he pronounced it "chattoe") before us. Our train does n't leave for more than an hour, and it 's a very slow one. Still, it will be warm, and we have cards and Tauchnitz novels. Then, you know, you can unload the luggage at the château and run back to the railway station at Clermont-Ferrand, see to having our big boxes sent out (they 'll be there waiting for us) and meet our train. What do you think of the plan?"
"It ought to do very well—if I 'm not delayed on the road by snow."
"Do you expect to be?"
"I hope not. But it's possible."
"Well, her ladyship has made up her mind, and we must risk it. I 'll trust you to get out of any scrape."
The chauffeur smiled. "I 'll try not to get into one," he said. "And I 'd better be off—unless you have further instructions?"
"Only the receipt for the luggage. Here it is," said Sir Samuel. "And here are the keys for you, Elise. Her ladyship wants you to have everything unpacked by the time she arrives. Oh—and the rugs! We shall need them in the train."
"Isn't mademoiselle going with you?" asked my brother, showing surprise at last.
"No. Her mistress thinks it would be better for her to have everything ready for us at the 'chattoe.' You see, it will be almost dinner-time when we get there."
"But, sir, if the car's delayed ⸺"
"Well," cut in Sir Samuel, "we must chance it, I 'm afraid. The fact is, her ladyship is in such a nervous state that I don't care to put any more doubts into her head. She 's made up her mind what she wants, and we 'd better let it go at that."
If I 'd been near enough to my brother I should have stamped on his foot, or seized some other forcible method of suggesting that he should kindly hold his tongue. As it was, my only hope lay in an imploring look, which he did not catch. However, in pity for Sir Samuel he said no more; and before we were three minutes older, if her ladyship had yearned to have me back, it would have been too late. We were off together, and another day had been given to us for ours.
The chauffeur proposed that I should sit inside the car; but I had regained all my courage in the hot inn-kitchen. I was not cold, and did n't feel as if I should ever be cold again.
The road mounted almost continuously. Sometimes, as we looked ahead, it seemed to have been broken off short just in front of the car, by some dreadful earth convulsion; but it always turned out to be only a sudden dip down, or a sharp turn like the curve of an apple-paring. At last we had reached the highest peak of the Roof of France—a sloping, snow-covered roof; but steep as was the slant, very little of the snow appeared to have slipped off.
The Cévennes on our right loomed near and bleak; the Auvergne stretched endlessly before us, and the virgin snow, pure as edelweiss, was darkened in the misty distance by patches of shadow, purple-blue, like beds of early violets.
At first but a thin white sheet was spread over our road, but soon the lace-like fabric was exchanged for a fleecy blanket, then a thick quilt of down, and the motor began to pant. The winds seemed to come from all ways at once, shrieking like witches, and flinging their splinters of ice, fine and small as broken needles, against our cheeks. Still I would not go inside. I could not bear to be warm and comfortable while Jack faced the cold alone. I knew his fingers must be stiff, though he would n't confess to any suffering, and I wished that I knew how to drive the car, so that we might have taken turns, sitting with our hands in our pockets.
In the deepening snow we moved slowly, the wheels slipping now and then, unable to grip. Then, on a steep incline, there came a report like a revolver shot. But it did n't frighten me now. I knew it meant a collapsed tyre, not a concealed murderer; but there could n't have been a much worse place for "jacking up." Nevertheless, it 's an ill tyre that blows up for its own good alone, and the forty minutes out of a waning afternoon made the chauffeur's cold hands hot and the hot engine cold.
Starting on again, we had ten miles of desolation, then a tiny hamlet which seemed only to emphasize that desolation; again another ten-mile stretch of desert, and another hamlet; here and there a glimpse of the railway-line, like a great black snake, lost in the snow; now and then the gilded picture of an ancient town, crowning some tall crag that stood up from the flat plain below like a giant bottle. And there was one thrilling view of a high viaduct, flinging a spider's web of glittering steel across a vast and shadowy ravine. "Garabit!" said the chauffeur, as he saw it; and I remembered that this road was not new for him. He did not talk much. Was he thinking of the companion who perhaps had sat beside him before? I wondered. Was it because he thought continually of her that he looked at me wistfully sometimes, often in silence, wishing me away, maybe, and the woman who had spoilt his life by his side again for good or ill?
Suddenly we plunged into a deep snow-bank which deceitfully levelled a dip in the road, and the car stopped, trembling like a horse caught by the hind leg while in full gallop.
On went the first speed, most powerful of all, but not powerful enough to fight through snow nearly up to the hubs. The Aigle was prisoned like a rat in a trap, and could neither go back nor forward.
"Well?" I questioned, half laughing, half frightened, at this fulfilment of the morning's prophecy.
"Sit still, and I 'll try to push her through," said Jack jumping out into the deep snow. "It 's only a drift in a hollow, you see; and we should have got by the worst, just up there at St. Flour."
I looked where his nod indicated, and saw a town as dark and seemingly as old as the rock out of which it grew, climbing a conical hill, to dominate all the wide, white reaches above which it stood, like an armoured sentinel on a watch-tower. As I gazed, struck with admiration, which for an instant made me forget our plight, he began to push. The car, surprised at his strength and determination, half decided to move, then changed her mind and refused to budge. In a second, before he could guess what I meant to do, I had flashed out of my seat into the snow, and was wading in his tracks to help him when he snatched me up—a hand on either side of my waist—and swung me back into my place again.
"Little wretch!" he exclaimed. "How dare you disobey me?"
Then I was vexed, for it was ignominious to be treated as a child, when I had wanted to aid him like a comrade.
"You are very unkind—very rude," I said. "You would n't dare to do that, or speak like that to Her."
He laughed loudly. "What—haven't you forgotten 'Her?'" (As if I ever could!) "Well, I may tell you, it 's just because I did dare to 'speak like that' to a woman, that I 'm a chauffeur stuck in the snow with another man's car, and the ⸺"
"The rest is another epithet which concerns me, I suppose," I remarked with dignity, though suddenly I felt the chill of the icy air far, far more cruelly than I had felt it yet. I was so cold, in this white desolation, that it seemed I must die soon. And it would n't matter at all if I were buried under the drifts, to be found in the late spring with violets growing out of the places where my eyes once had been.
"Yes," said he, in that cool way he has, which can be as irritating as a chilblain. "It was an epithet concerning you, but luckily for me I stopped to think before I spoke—an accomplishment I 'm only just beginning to learn."
I swallowed something much harder and bigger than a cannon ball, and said nothing.
"Of course you 're covered with snow up to your knees, foolish child!" He was glaring ferociously at me.
"It doesn't matter." "It does matter most infernally. Don't you know that you make no more than a featherweight of difference to the car?"
"I feel as if I weighed a thousand pounds, now."
"It's that snow!"
"No. It's you. Your crossness. I can't have people cross to me, on lonely mountains, just when I 'm trying to help them."
His glare of rage turned to a stare of surprise. "Cross? Do you think I was cross to you?"
"Yes. And you just stopped in time, or you would have been worse."
"Oh, I see," he said. "You thought that the 'epithet' was going to be invidious, did you?"
"Naturally."
"Well, it was n't. I—no, I won't say it! That would be the last folly. But—I was n't going to be cross. I can't have you think that, whatever happens. Now sit still and be good, while I push again."
I weighed no more than half the thousand pounds now, and the cannon ball had dissolved like a chocolate cream; but the car stood like a rock, fixed, immutable.
"There ought to be half a dozen of me," said the chauffeur. "Look here, little pal, there 's nothing else for it; I must trudge off to St. Flour and collect the missing five. Are you afraid to be left here alone?"
Of course I said no; but when he had disappeared, walking very fast, I thought of a large variety of horrors that might happen; almost everything, in fact, from an earthquake to a mad bull. As the sun leaned far down toward the west, the level red light lay like pools of blood in the snow-hollows, and the shadows "came alive," as they used when I was a child lying awake, alone, watching the play of the fire on wall and ceiling.
Long minutes passed, and at last I could sit still no longer. Gaily risking my brother's displeasure, now I knew that he was n't "cross," I slipped out into the snow again, opened the car door, stood in the doorway, hanging on with one hand, and after much manoeuvring extricated the tea-basket from among spare tyres and luggage on the roof. Then, swinging it down, planted it inside the car, opened it, and scooped up a kettleful of snow. As soon as the big white lump had melted over a rose and azure flame of alcohol, I added more snow, and still more, until the kettle was filled with water. By the time I had warmed and dried my feet on the automatic heater under the floor, the water bubbled; and as jets of steam began to pour from the spout I saw six figures approaching, dark as if they had been cut out in black velvet against the snow.
"Tea for seven!" I said to myself; but the kettle was large, if the cups were few.
It took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest. When she stood only a foot deep, she consented readily to move. We bade good-bye to the five men, for whom we had emptied our not-too-well filled pockets, and forged, bumbling, past St. Flour. It was a great strain for a heavy car, and the chauffeur only said, "I thought so!" when a chain snapped five or six miles farther on.
"What a good thing Lady Turnour is n't here!" said I, as he doctored the wounded Aigle. 
"It took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her
up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest"
"Lots of girls would be in a blue funk," said he. "I could shake that beastly woman for not taking you with her."
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "When I 'm not doing you any harm!"
He glanced up from his work, and then, as if on an irresistible impulse, left the chain to come and stand beside me, as I sat wrapped up in his gift "for a good girl." He gazed at me for a moment without speaking, and I wonderingly returned the gaze, not knowing what was to follow.
The moon had come sailing up like a great silver ship, over the snow billows, and gleamed against a sky which was still a garden of full-blown roses not yet faded, though sunset was long over. The soft, pure light shone on his dark face, cutting it out clearly, and he had never looked so handsome.
"You don't mean to do me any harm, do you?" he said.
"I could n't if I would, and would n't if I could," I answered in surprise.
"Yet you do me harm."
"You 're joking!"
"I never was further from joking in my life. You do me harm because you make me wish for something I can't have, something it 's a constant fight with me, ever since we 've been thrown together, not to wish for, not to think of. Yet you say I 'm cross! Now, do you know what I mean, and will you help me a little to remain your faithful brother, instead of tempting me—tempting me, however unconsciously, to—to wish—for—for—what a fool I am! I 'm going to finish my mending."
I sat perfectly still, with my mouth open, feeling as if it were my chain, not the car's, which had broken!
Of course if it had n't been for all his talk of Her, I should have known, or thought that I knew, well enough what he meant. But how could I take his strange words and stammered hints for what they seemed to suggest, knowing as I did, from his own veiled confessions, that he was in love with some beautiful fiend who had ruined his career and then thrown him over!
I longed to speak, to ask him just one question, but I dared not. No words would come; and perhaps if they had, I should have regretted them, for I was so sure he was not a man who would fall out of love with one woman to tumble into love for another, that I did n't know what to make of him; but the thought which his words shot into my mind, swift and keen, and then tore away again, showed me very well what to make of myself.
If I had n't quite known before, I knew suddenly, all in a minute, that I was in love, oh, but humiliatingly deep in love, with the chauffeur! It seemed to me that no nice, well-regulated girl could ever have let herself go tobogganing down such a steep hill, splash into such a sea of love, unless the man were at the bottom in a boat, holding out his arms to catch her as she fell. But the chauffeur had n't the slightest intention of holding out his arms to the poor little motor maid. He went on mending the chain, and when he got into the car beside me again he began to talk about the weather.