CHAPTER I
ONE hears of people whose hair turned white in a single night. Last night I thought mine was turning. I had a creepy feeling in the roots, which seemed to crawl all the way down inside each separate hair, wriggling as it went. I suppose you could n't have nervous prostration of the hair? I worried dreadfully, it kept on so long; and my hair is so fair it would be almost a temptation for it, in an emergency, to take the one short step from gold to silver. I did n't dare switch on the light in the wagon-lit and peep at my pocket-book mirror (which reflects one's features in sections of a square inch, giving the survey of one's whole face quite a panorama effect) for fear I might wake up the Bull Dog.
I've spelt him with capitals, after mature deliberation, because it would be nothing less than lèse majesté to fob him off with little letters about the size of his two lower eye-tusks, or chin-molars, or whatever one ought to call them.
He was on the floor, you see, keeping guard over his mistress's shoes; and he might have been misguided enough to think I had designs on them—though what I could have used them for, unless I'd been going to Venice and wanting a private team of gondolas, I can't imagine.
I being in the upper berth, you might (if you had n't seen him) have fancied me safe; but already he had once padded half-way up the step-ladder, and sniffed at me speculatively, as if I were a piece of meat on the top shelf of a larder; and if half-way up, why not all the way up? Il était capable du tout.
I tried to distract my mind and focus it hard on other things, as Christian Scientists tell you to do when you have a pin sticking into your body for which les convenances forbid you to make an exhaustive search.
I lay on my back with my eyes shut, trying not to hear any of the sounds in the wagon-lit (and they were not confined to the snoring of His Majesty), thinking desperately. "I will concentrate all my mentality," said I to myself, "on thoughts beginning with P, for instance. My Past. Paris. Pamela."
Just for a few minutes it was comparatively easy. "Dear Past!" I sighed, with a great sigh which for divers reasons I was sure could n't be heard beyond my own berth. (And though I try always even to think in English, I find sometimes that the words group themselves in my head in the old patterns—according to French idioms.) "Dear Past, how thou wert kind and sweet! How it is brutalizing to turn my back upon thee and thy charms forever!"
"Oh, my goodness, I shall certainly die!" squeaked a voice in the berth underneath; and then there was a sound of wallowing.
She (my stable-companion, shall I call her?) had been giving vent to all sorts of strange noises at intervals, for a long time, so that it would have been hopeless to try and drown my sorrows in sleep. Away went the Gentle Past with a bump, as if it had knocked against a snag in the current of my thoughts.
Paris or Pamela instead, then! or both together, since they seem inseparable, even when Pamela is at her most American, and tells me to "talk United States."
It was all natural to think of Pamela, because it was she who gave me the ticket for the train de luxe, and my berth in the wagon-lit. It it had n't been for Pamela I should at this moment have been crawling slowly, cheaply, down Riviera-ward in a second-class train, sitting bolt upright in a second-class carriage with smudges on my nose, while perhaps some second-class child shed jammy crumbs on my frock, and its second-class baby sister howled.
"Oh, why did I leave my peaceful home?" wailed the lady in the lower berth.
Heaven alone (unless it were the dog) knew why she had, and knew how heartily I wished she had n't. A good thing Cerberus was on guard, or I might have dropped a pillow accidentally on her head!
Just then I was n't thanking Pamela for her generosity. The second-class baby's mamma would have given it a bottle to keep it still; but there was nothing I could give the fat old lady; and she had already resorted to the bottle (something in the way of patent medicine) without any good result. Yet, was there nothing I could give her?
"Oh, I 'm dying, I know I 'm dying, and nobody cares! I shall choke to death!" she gurgled.
It was too much. I could stand it and the terrible atmosphere no longer. I suppose, if I had been an early Christian martyr, waiting for my turn to be devoured might have so got on my nerves eventually that I would have thrown myself into the arena out of sheer spite at the lions, and then tried my best to disagree with them.
Anyway, Bull Dog or no Bull Dog, having made a light, I slid down from my berth—no thanks to the step-ladder—dangled a few wild seconds in the air, and then offering—yes, offering my stockinged feet to the Minotaur, I poked my head into the lower berth.
"What are you going to do?" gasped its occupant, la grosse femme whose fault it would be if my hair did change from the gold of a louis to the silver of a mere franc.
"You say you 're stifling," I reminded her, politely but firmly, and my tone was like the lull before a storm.
"Yes, but " We were staring into each other's eyes, and—could I believe my sense of touch, or was it mercifully blunted? It seemed that the monster on the floor was gently licking my toes with a tongue like a huge slice of pink ham, instead of chewing them to the bone. But there are creatures which do that to their victims, I 've heard, by way of making it easier to swallow them, later.
"You also said no one cared," I went on, courageously. "I care—for myself as well as for you. As for what I 'm going to do—I 'm going to do several things. First, open the window, and then—then I 'm going to undress you."
"You must be mad!" gasped the lady, who was English. Oh, but more English than any one else I ever saw in my life.
"Not yet," said I, as I darted at the thick blind she had drawn down over the window, and let it fly up with a snap. I then opened the window itself, a few inches, and in floated a perfumed breath of the soft April air for which our bereaved lungs had been longing. The breeze fluttered round my head like a benediction until I felt that the ebbing tide of gold had turned, and was flowing into my back hair again.
"No wonder you 're dying, madam," I exclaimed, switching the heat-lever to "Froid." "So was I, but being merely an Upper Berth, with no rights, I was suffering in silence. I watched you turn the heat full on, and shut the window tight. I saw you go to bed in all your clothes, which looked terribly thick, and cover yourself up with both your blankets; but I said nothing, because you were a Lower Berth, and older than I am. I thought maybe you wanted a Turkish Bath. But since you don't—I 'll try and save you from apoplexy, if it is n't too late."
I fumbled with brooches and buttons, with hooks and eyes. It was even worse than I 'd supposed. The creature's conception of a travelling costume en route for the South of France consisted of a heavy tweed dress, two gray knitted stay-bodices, one pink Jaeger chemise, and a couple of red flannel petticoats. My investigations went no further; but, encouraged in my rescue work by spasmodic gestures on the part of the patient, and forbearance on the part of the dog, I removed several superfluous layers of wool. One blanket went to the floor, where it was accepted in the light of a gift by His Majesty, and the other was returned to its owner.
"Now are you better, madam?" I asked, panting with long and well-earned breaths. She reposed on an elbow, gazing up at me as at a surgeon who has performed a painful but successful operation; and she was an object pour faire rire, the poor lady!
She wore an old-fashioned false front of hair, "sunning over with curls" (brown ones, of a brown never seen on land or sea), and a pair of spectacles, pushed up in an absent-minded moment, were entangled in its waves. Her face, which was large, with a knot of tiny features in the middle, shone red with heat and excitement. She would have had the look of an elderly child, if it had n't been for her bright, shrewd little eyes, which twinkled observantly—and might sparkle with temper. Nobody who was not rich and important would dare to dress as badly as she did. Altogether she was a figure of fun. Indeed, I could n't help feeling what quaint mantelpiece ornaments she and her dog would make. Yet, for some reason, I did n't feel inclined to laugh, and I eyed her as solemnly as she eyed me. As for His Majesty, I began to see that I had misunderstood him. After all, he had never, from the first, regarded me as an eatable.
"Yes, I am better," replied His Majesty's mistress. "People have always told me it came on treacherously cold at night in France, so I prepared accordingly. I suppose I ought to thank you. In fact, I do thank you."
"I acted for myself as much as for you," I confessed. "It was so hot, and you were suffering out loud."
"I have never travelled at night before," the lady defended herself. "Indeed, I 've made a point of travelling as little as possible, except by carriage. I don't consider trains a means of conveyance for gentlefolk. They seem well enough for cattle who may not mind being herded together."
"Or for dogs," I suggested.
"Nothing is too good for Beau—my only Beau!" (at this I did not wonder). "But I would n't have moved without him. He 's as necessary to me as my conscience. I was afraid the guard was going to make a fuss about him, which would have been awkward, as I can't speak a word of French, or any other silly language into which Latin has degenerated. But luckily English gold doesn't need to be translated."
"It loses in translation," said I, amused. I sat down on my bag as I spoke, and timorously invited Beau (never was name less appropriate) to be patted. He arose from the blanket and accepted my overtures with an expression which may have been intended for a smile, or a threat of the most appalling character. I have seen such legs as his on old-fashioned silver teapots; and the crook in his tail would have made it useful as a door-knocker.
"I don't think I ever saw him take so to a stranger," exclaimed his mistress, suddenly beaming.
"I wonder you risked him with me in such close quarters then," said I. "Would n't it have been safer if you 'd had your maid in the compartment with you ⸺"
"My maid? My tyrant!" snorted the old lady. "She 's the one creature on earth I am afraid of, and she knows it. When we got to Dover, and she saw the Channel wobbling about a little, she said it was a great nasty wet thing, and she would n't go on it. When I insisted, she showed symptoms of seasickness; and in consequence she is waiting for me in Dover till I finish the business that 's taking me to Italy. I had no more experience than she, but I had courage. It 's perhaps a question of class. Servants consider only themselves. You, too, I see, have courage. I was inclined to think poorly of you when you first came in, and to wish I 'd been extravagant enough to take the two beds for myself, because I thought you were afraid of Beau. Yet now you 're patting him."
"I was rather afraid at first," I admitted. "I never met an English bull dog socially before."
"They 're more angels than dogs. Their one interest in life is love—for their friends; and they would n't hurt a fly."
"Larger game would be more in their way, I should think," said I. "But I 'm glad he likes me. I like to be liked. It makes me feel more at home in life."
"H'm! That's a funny idea!" remarked the old lady. "'At home in life!' You 've made yourself pretty well at home in this wagon-lit, anyhow, taking off all your clothes and putting on your nightgown. I should never have thought of that. It seems hardly decent. Suppose we should be killed."
"Most people do try to die in their nightgowns, when you come to think of it," said I.
"Well, you have a quaint way of putting things. There 's something very original about you, my dear young woman. I thought you were mysterious at first, but I believe it 's only the effect of originality."
"I don't know which I 'd rather be," I said, "original or mysterious, if I could n't afford both. But I 'm not a young woman."
"Goodness!" exclaimed the old lady, wrinkling up her eyes to stare at me. "I may be pretty blind, but it can't be make-up."
I laughed. "I mean je suis jeune fille. I 'm not a young woman. I 'm a young girl."
"Dear me, is there any difference?"
"There is in France."
"I 'm not surprised at queer ideas in France, or any other foreign country, where I 've always understood that anything may happen. Why can't everybody be English? It would be so much more simple. But you 're not French, are you?"
"Half of me is."
"And what 's the other half, if I may ask?"
"American. My father was French, my mother American."
"No wonder you don't always feel at home in life, divided up like that!" she chuckled. "It must be so upsetting."
"Everything is upsetting with me lately," I said.
"With me too, if it comes to that—or would be, if it were n't for Beau. What a pity you have n't got a Beau, my dear."
I smiled, because (in the Americanized sense of the word) I had one, and was running away from him as fast as I could. But the thought of Monsieur Charretier as a "beau" made me want to giggle hysterically.
"You say 'was,' when you speak of your father and mother," went on the old lady, with childlike curiosity, which I was encouraging by not going back to bed.
"Does that mean that you 've lost them?"
"Yes," I said.
"And lately?"
"My father died when I was sixteen, my mother left me two years ago."
"You don't look more than nineteen now."
"I 'm nearly twenty-one."
"Well, I don't mean to catechize you, though one certainly must get friendly—or the other way—I suppose, penned up in a place like this all night. And you 've really been very kind to me. Although you 're a pretty girl, as you must know, I did n't think at first I was going to like you so much."
"And I did n't you," I retorted, laughing, because I really did begin to like the queer old lady now, and was glad I had n't dropped a pillow on her head.
"That's right. Be frank. I like frankness. Do you know, I believe you and I would get on very well together if our acquaintance was going to be continued? If Beau approves of a person, I let myself go."
"You use him as if he were a barometer."
"There you are again, with your funny ideas! I shall remember that one, and bring it out as if it were my own. I consider myself quite lucky to have got you for a travelling companion. It 's such a comfort to hear English again, and talk it, after having to converse by gesture—except with Beau. I hope you 're going on to Italy?"
"No. I 'm getting off at Cannes."
"I 'm sorry. But I suppose you 're glad?"
"Not particularly," said I.
"I 've always heard that Cannes was gay."
"It won't be for me."
"Your relations there don't go out much?"
"I 've no relations in Cannes. Are n't you tired now, and would n't you like me to make you a little more comfortable?"
"Does that mean that you 're tired of answering questions? I have n't meant to be rude."
"You have n't been," I assured her. "You 're very kind to take an interest."
"Well, then, I 'm not tired, and I wouldn't like to be made more comfortable. I 'm very well as I am. Do you want to go to sleep?"
"I want to, but I know I can't. I 'm getting hungry. Are you?"
"Getting? I 've got. If Simpkins were here I 'd have her make us tea, in my tea-basket."
"I 'll make it if you like," I volunteered.
"A French—a half French—girl make tea?"
"It 's the American half that knows how."
"You look too ornamental to be useful. But you can try."
I did try, and succeeded. It was rather fun, and never did tea taste so delicious. There were biscuits to go with it, which Beau shared; and I do wish that people (other people) were obliged to make faces when they eat, such as Beau has to make, because if so, one could add a new interest to life by inviting even the worst bores to dinner.
I was fascinated with his contortions, and I did not attempt to conceal my sudden change of opinion concerning Beau as a companion. When I had humbly invited him to drink out of my saucer, which I held from high tide to low, I saw that my conquest of his mistress was complete. Already we had exchanged names, as well as some confidences. I knew that she was Miss Paget, and she knew that I was Lys d'Angely; but after the tea-drinking episode she became doubly friendly.
She told me that, owing to an unforeseen circumstance (partly, even largely, connected with Beau) which had caused a great upheaval in her life, she had now not a human being belonging to her, except her maid Simpkins, of whom she would like to get rid if only she knew how.
"Talk of the Old Man of the Sea!" she sighed. "He was an afternoon caller compared with Simpkins. She 's been on my back for twenty years. I suppose she will be for another twenty, unless I slam the door of the family vault in her face."
"Couldn't Beau help you?" I asked.
"Even Beau is powerless against her. She has hypnotized him with marrow bones."
"You 've escaped from her for the present," I suggested. "She 's on the other side of the Channel. Now is your time to be bold."
"Ah, but I can't stop out of England for ever, and I tell you she 's waiting for me at Dover. A relative (a very eccentric one, and quite different from the rest of us, or he would n't have made his home abroad) has left me a house in Italy, some sort of old castle, I believe—so unsuitable! I 'm going over to see about selling it for I 've no one to trust but myself, owing to the circumstances of which I spoke. I want to get back as soon as possible—I hope in a few weeks, though how I shall manage without any Italian, heaven may know—I don't! Do you speak it?"
"A little."
"Well, I wish I could have you with me. You 'd make a splendid companion for an old woman like me: young, good to look at, energetic (or you would n't be travelling about alone), brave (conquered your fear of Beau), accomplished (three languages, and goodness knows what besides!), presence of mind (the way you whisked my clothes off), handy (I never tasted better tea)—altogether you sum up ideally. What a pity you 're rich, and out of the market!"
"If I look rich my appearance must be more distinguished than I supposed—and it 's also very deceiving," said I.
"You 're rich enough to travel for pleasure in wagon-lits, and have silver-fitted bags."
"I'm not travelling for pleasure. You exaggerate my bags and my wagon-lits, for I 've only one of each; and both were given me by a friend who was at the Convent with me."
"The Convent! Good heavens! are you an escaping nun?"
I laughed. "I went to school at a Convent. That was when I thought I was going to be rich—at least, rich enough to be like other girls. And if I am 'escaping' from something, it is n't from the arms of religion."
"If you 're not rich, and are n't going to relatives, why not take an engagement with me? Come, I 'm in earnest. I always make up my mind suddenly, if it 's anything important, and hardly ever regret it. I 'm sure we should suit. You 've got no nonsense about you."
"Oh yes I have, lots!" I broke in. "That's all I have left—that, and my sense of humour. But seriously, you 're very kind—to take me on faith like this—especially when you began by thinking me mysterious. I 'd accept thankfully, only—I 'm engaged already."
"To be married, I suppose you mean?"
"Thank heaven, no! To a Princess."
"Dear me, one would think you were a man hater!"
"So I am, a one-man hater. What Simpkins is to you, that man is to me. And that 's why I 'm on my way to Cannes to be the companion of the Princess Boriskoff, who 's said to be rather deaf and very quick-tempered, as well as elderly and a great invalid. She sheds her paid companions as a tree sheds its leaves in winter. I hear that Europe is strewn with them."
"Nice prospect for you!"
"Is n't it? But beggars must n't be choosers."
"You don't look much like a beggar."
"Because I can make my own dresses and hats—and nightgowns."
"Well, if your Princess sheds you, let me know, and you may live yet to deliver me from Simpkins. I feel you'd be equal to it! My address is—but I'll give you a card." And, burrowing under her pillow, she unearthed a fat handbag from which, after some fumbling, she presented me with a visiting-card, enamelled in an old-fashioned way. I read: "Miss Paget, 34a Eaton Square. Broomlands House, Surrey."
"Now you 're not to lose that," she impressed upon me. "Write if you 're scattered over Europe by this Russian (I never did believe much in Princesses, excepting, of course, our own dear Royalties), or if you ever come to England. Even if it 's years from now, I assure you Beau and I won't have forgotten you. As for your address ⸺"
"I have n't any," I said. "At present I 'm depending on the Princess for one. She 's at the Hotel Majestic Palace, Cannes; but from what my friend Pam—the Comtesse de Nesle—says, I fancy she does n't stop long in any town. It was the Comtesse de Nesle who got me the place. She 's the only one who knows where I 'm going, because—after a fashion, I 'm running away to be the Princess's companion."
"Running away from the Man?"
"Yes; also from my relatives who 're sure it 's my duty to be his companion. So you see I can't give you their address. I 've ceased to have any right to it. And now I really think I had better go back to bed."