VII.—The Pegasus Car.
Extreme poverty and a low diet are not in themselves attractive, but in some ways I was happier in my low-water period than I was now with enough money banked to keep me in moderate comfort for a couple of years. I might be more satisfied with my circumstances, but I now had leisure to become profoundly dissatisfied with myself. I had come to London to play a lone hand and do well by it. I was not going into any of the ruts. I would not become a governess. I had brilliant ideas and enterprise and all the rest of the bag of tricks to make a millionairess of me, yet I had only made few and comparatively small sums by my wits, the rest had been pure luck, or—and this seemed more degrading still—had come to me more because of the outside of my head than of the inside. On my arrival in London I did extremely well, merely from the fact that there was a chance resemblance between a girl who was dead and myself. My success in the strange commission that Mr. Wentworth Holding gave me had not been due in the least to my cleverness, but to the fact that I was pretty. I had been outwitted by a fraudulent spiritualist and by a romantic lady of title. My attempts at literature had been practically failures. When I had taken my bright ideas to business men they had either ridiculed me or robbed me. So, on a general review of the case, I did not think as well of myself as I had done. Self-disapproval is not only very unpleasant but it is positively bad for one. It takes away one's spirit; it checks one's invention. I determined to make a serious and sober effort to recover my own esteem and incidentally to make a little money.
I looked round for a point from which to start, and after a great deal of consideration I noted as a very useful fact that new motor-cars sold for very high prices. A person who could influence the sale of motor-cars would be likely to make a good commission, In the old days, after this brief reflection I should have put on a cheerful smile and my best hat and gone round to one of the big places in Long-acre to explain that I should like to sell cars for them, and the manager of that place, having discovered in twenty seconds that I knew nothing whatever about motor-cars, had no influential connection, and was about as likely to sell a motor-car as I was to sell the moon, would have shown me out—quite politely, because I happened to be pretty.
So I began in a different way. I went out and bought dark blue linen—many yards of it—and came back and consulted with Minnie Saxe on the manufacture of a garment. Ultimately it was manufactured, and I have seldom seen anyone look more pained and distressed than Minnie Saxe did when I put the abomination on.
“I can't let you go out in that, miss,” she said. “You'd 'ave all the boys in the place callin' after you, and that brings disgrice on me, it being known as I work for you.” .
“That's all right, Minnie,” I said. “I'm not going to wear it in the street.”
So far I had not gone outside my own province and had moved with comparative ease. My next step had to be more circumspect, for I was about to attack the business man once more.
There are many cars, and at that time they were all the same to me. I read the motoring news in the daily papers assiduously for a week, and then I thought that I would try the Pegasus people. The Pegasus car had just done some remarkable trials; it had one or two novelties in construction; it had not an immense reputation already, but it seemed to have the chance of making one.
So one afternoon I put on gorgeous apparel and walked into the showroom of the Pegasus people looking exactly as if I were about to buy a car. I even felt a little like it too. A tall, handsome man in a frock coat and a powerful little fellow in a dirty overall removed their attention from a car's duodenum as I approached. The handsome man came forward. The powerful squat man remained by the car; he still seemed busy with its vermiform appendix, but he was listening all the time.
“I want,” I said, “to learn how to drive the Pegasus car. I want also to learn a good deal about the interior of the car so that I can do adjustments and slight repairs. And I want to learn every thing about tyres.”
There was just a flicker of a smile over the handsome man's face, but in a moment he had stowed it away at the back of his head and was asking me suavely if I wished to buy a car.
“No,” I said boldly. “Not at all. I could not afford it. I have not the money. Buy a car? I'm more likely to sell one. All I want at present is to understand the car thoroughly and to know how to drive it.”
The handsome man hesitated. The man in the dirty overall lifted up a bit of the car's femoral artery, looked at it, and then gave his undivided attention to the handsome man and myself.
“I should, of course, be prepared to pay,” I added.
“Yes, of course, miss,” said the handsome man, “but you see—well, so much of the work is hardly suited for a lady. Some of it requires a good deal of muscular strength. Then, if I may mention it, you would spoil your hands. Then, again, you would hardly like to work in our repairing shop among the ordinary workmen who are there. There really are many difficulties. Hadn't you better think it over, perhaps?”
“Marshall!” It was the voice of the powerful man in the dirty overall. It was a loud voice and packed full of authority.
“Yes, sir,” said the handsome man in the frock coat.
“You will arrange that. See? Do the best you can for the lady.”
Then he wandered away through a glazed door which seemed to lead to outer darkness, carrying tenderly in one hand one of the car's vertebræ.
I had been imagining all this time that the frock coat was the supreme manager and general god of the place, and that the dirty overall was a mere workman. I now saw that this was not the case.
“Well, miss,” said Mr. Marshall, “we can but try it, as Mr. James says so. You will have to get something to cover up your clothes if you don't want to spoil them.”
“I haw» got that already,” I said. “I don't want to work many hours a day. Two or three in the morning would be quite enough. I suppose I could not begin by driving?”
“No,” said Mr. Marshall. “You would begin by trying to understand the car; then, of course, the rest would depend upon how you got on.” There was no hope in his face whatever.
Nothing remained but to settle the terms, and here it seemed to me that Mr. Marshall was very reasonable and lenient. But the man to whom I should have liked to talk was Mr. James, and he did not appear again that morning.
A very few days were enough to show me that there was a good deal to be said for Mr. Marshall's point of view. I had expected to get my hands covered with black oil, and I was not in the least disappointed. I did not like breaking my nails, but that happened also. It takes more force than a woman generally uses to take a tyre off or to screw a thing up really tight. The workmen in the place were all decent, intelligent mechanics, a little inclined to be amused at me at first, but they concealed their amusement, having the fear of Mr. James before their eyes. I saw him several times in the course of my lessons. He could do anything that had to be done in the shop rather better than anybody else in it.
At the end of a month I was still learning my business. One morning as I was leaving Mr. James stood outside with one of the big Pegasus cars in waiting. The overall had vanished. He looked smart, clean, and indefinitely connected with his Majesty's Navy.
“If you have an hour to spare, Miss Castel, I want you to begin to learn how to drive these cars.”
“Thanks very much,” I said. “I should like it. Who'll teach me?“
“I shall,” said Mr. James. “Now, if you'll get in, please”
I rather despised his style of driving then. He was particularly careful; slowed down round every corner, did not exceed the speed limit, did not take narrow shaves. He made the car go fast up hill and steadied her coming down. He was an excellent driver, really; a driver with great knowledge and good nerve, and without any of the vain idiot's desire to show off.
Some weeks afterwards, when my motor education was nearing its completion, Mr. James asked me suddenly one day what I was doing it for. “Do you mean to get a post as driver?” he asked. “You could, you know. We could fairly recommend you, and I daresay some ladies would prefer to have a lady driver.”
“No,” I said, “that was not my idea. My idea was to work for your firm when you think I am good enough.”
“You drive all right. I'll guarantee you know a lot more about the car than a good many men do who are driving it about the country at present. But what was it that you are proposing to do for us? “
“I am proposing to show cars for you. The fact is that your car looks a little bit complicated at first. If an intending purchaser found that a young girl understood it and drove it easily he would be reassured.”
“Yes,” said Mr. James reflectively. “I'd thought of that. There's something in it, perhaps.”
He seemed to be debating the matter with himself in silence for a few moments; then he said: “Look here. I've got a man coming up to-morrow. He may buy a Pegasus, or he may buy some other car. Anyhow, he's going to buy a car, and we should prefer that he bought a Pegasus. He's a nervous kind of man, and my first idea was that in order to make him feel quite secure I would drive him myself. Now I'll change my mind. He'd be more impressed if I sent the car out with a girl. If you sell the car to him we will pay you a small commission. Remember he's a nervous man. You don't want to show him how fast the car can go. Show him how handy it is in a block or very slow traffic; the ease with which it is steered; the quietness of the engines; the impossibility of skid.
“Yes, yes,” I said. “I see all that. I shall sell him that car.”
I was round next morning at eleven. The possible purchaser was an elderly solicitor, retired from practice, who, after long searchings of heart, had decided that he would have a motor-car. He looked dubiously at the big Pegasus waiting to take him his trial trip as if he expected that it might go off any moment. He was a good deal startled when he was told that I should drive him.
“Is that all right?” I heard him ask Mr. James.
“I am sending you out,” said Mr. James, “with one of the best drivers we've got.”
I got up, switched on the spark, and the engines started.
“Dear me,” said Mr. Hoskins, “I was always under the impression that it was necessary to wind it up to turn a handle.”
“So it would be,” I said, “if the car had been standing for a long time, or on a very cold day; but a good four-cylinder car will generally start with switching on the spark.”
“You are a careful driver, I hope,” he said, as I took him through Piccadilly-circus.
“Yes, I think so,” I said; “but then this car is particularly easy to manage.”
His nervousness wore off as we got further away from London. He desired me ardently to show him the utmost the car could do. As it could do fifty miles an hour and we were in a police-trapped country at the time I refrained, but I showed him what it was to have plenty of power in going up steep hills. The car made nothing of them. He became silent as we drove back, and I did not bother him by chattering. Just as we were nearing home he said, “I like this car. It goes well, and there can be no great difficulty about it if a girl can drive it. I shall buy it.”
He did not buy that particular car. He got one like it, and we tuned it up for him and found him a driver. He was in great trouble about myself. If one of the ordinary drivers had taken him he would have tipped the man, but he felt that he could not tip me, although he could see that I was an employed person. He sent me a charming letter of thanks and a very good motor rug. And I got my commission. Better still, I had now got back my self-respect.
After this I often drove for Mr. James when he wanted to show a car. Naturally, I did not always find a purchaser, but on the whole I was fairly successful. Mr. James himself seemed to think that I had unusually good luck. I did not in the least mind what work I did. I was there one morning when Mr. Marshall had just opened a telegram. It was from a young man living in Bedford who had bought one of the cars, which had been delivered the day before. The car had been driven to Bedford by one of Mr. James's mechanics. It had already been run for a hundred miles and properly tuned up, and the mechanic had had no trouble of any sort with it. The telegram said: “Engines will not start. Please send man.”
“We can't,” said Marshall.
Mr. James reflected. It was a very busy time, and everybody on the place was fully engaged. “It can't be anything serious,” said Mr. James. “It's some fool thing or other that he's done.”
Then I volunteered. “I'll go if you like,” I said.
“Really?” said Mr. James. “It would be awfully good of you if you would. Will you go by train or drive yourself down?”
I decided to go by train. At Bedford I took a cab to the house, and told the butler who answered the door that I had called about the car. He looked a little puzzled and showed me into the drawing-room. I was wearing my most enchanting clothes. I had put them on with intent for the fun of the thing, but I had brought my overall with me in case of need. A puzzled and sweet-looking young lady came into the room, said “Good morning,” and shook hands; and then, “Am I right? I understand you have called about my husband's car?”
“Yes,” I said. “He wired to the Pegasus people for an engineer to be sent. I am the engineer.”
She seemed considerably staggered. “Do you mean this? Really? You an engineer?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you mind?” It was rather cheeky.
Then she found her husband for me, a fluffy, enthusiastic young man. weary and dirty with long wrestling with that car's interior. I went with him to the shed and looked it over.
There was perhaps one teaspoonful of petrol in the tank. I pointed out to him that petrol cars went better when petrol was used. We then filled up the tank and started. I think I never saw anyone so absolutely abject. What he wanted to do and did not dare to do was to ask me not to reveal the nature of the trouble to the firm when I got back. He needn't have minded. To the firm it was all in the day's work. And the curious thing was that the young man was by no means a fool in mechanical matters; it was simply that he had not happened to think of the petrol.
I got along very well now. I might have saved myself a good deal of trouble if I had started on this business at once. I was now making an income which justified me, I thought, in removing from my little flat to something better and nearer to the middle of civilisation. It was Minnie Saxe who decided it for me. She lingered one morning after she had brought my breakfast; not lachrymose—for she never wept—but stern and depressed.
“I am afraid I shall have to leave you, miss,” she said.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Why?”
“Well, father's broken down again. These last three weeks he's brought back his money a shilling short and great paper bags of almond-rock in his pocket. Nothing I can say seems to be able to save him.”
I did not smile outwardly. “Well, what are you going to do about it, Minnie?”
“I am going to do what I ought to have done long ago. He's got a bit of money put by, and I know where there's a good opening. I'm going into the sweets and general.”
“What!” I said. “Going to sell sweets? But your father will eat the stock.”
“That's just it,” said Minnie. “What's more, he'll be encouraged to eat it. What's more, when he's finished he'll be made to go on again. He'll get that and nothing else for a week, and if he can look sugar in the face at the end of it I'm a Dutchman. Him a grown man, too! I could find another girl to do you up, miss, I think, though I won't say that she'd be quite my class. Still, I would have her here the week before I left, and if anybody can knock a thing into a girl's head I think I can.”
I explained to Minnie that she need not trouble and that I should move from the neighbourhood.
Some time later I made a point of visiting Miss Saxe's emporium. I was served by her father, who looked distinctly chastened and rather thinner. He told me that his daughter was a wonderful girl, and I believed him. He waved one hand over the assorted boxes on the counter. “I never touch anything of this kind now,” he said. “One loses one's taste for it as one gets older.” So Mr. Saxe was happily reclaimed.
The Pegasus people began now to manufacture a light, cheap 61⁄2-h.p. runabout car. It was entered for a reliability trial, and Mr. James told me that I was to drive it. I was nearly off my head with joy over that. Subsequently I nearly broke my heart over It. I'll tell the story as briefly as possible. I had already tried the car thoroughly myself and did not know of anything in the same class to touch it. I was not the least nervous; indeed, now I come to think of it, I believe I have never been nervous. The first day it did splendidly, and we were more than a minute ahead of everything up Onslow Hill. The second day the car broke down, and Mr. James and myself were unable to find what was wrong and put it right again within the time-limit. Nothing but the turn of a screw was required, and a few minutes later we were ready to start, but our chance was gone as far as that trial was concerned. Mr. James got a couple of Pressmen whom he knew to get up on the car, and we had a little private demonstration. One of the Pressmen afterwards wrote on the question as to whether reliability trials really proved reliability. I did not talk much during our run; I was too much upset by the failure of the car.
As soon as I could I got back to the muggy little hotel. Mr. James came in there and asked for me, and I went down to see him.
“What have you been crying for?” he said sharply.
“Nothing,” I said; which is what an ass of a woman would say.
“It wasn't your fault,” he went on. “It was my fault for sleeping in a bedroom. The next time I go in for one of these things I'll sleep on my car. That needle-valve never went wrong by itself. Prove it? Of course I can't prove it. But I know it, though I am going to say nothing about it.”
So far we had been standing up. He then sat down, and immediately and in rather a dictatorial way asked me if I would marry him.
I told him that I would not. He could do all these things without appearing in the least to be a fool. It was I and not he who seemed to be humiliated when I refused him.
I left the service of the Pegasus people in consequence. Mr. James thought it would be better, and had no doubt whatever that he could find me another post. So these external personal qualities which had brought me fortune before now cut off, for the time, at least, the profitable employment which I had found for myself by sheer hard work and common-sense.
I sometimes thought at this time that if there were no men in the world women would get on a good deal better.