CHAPTER VI
PAMELA'S mother-in-law, la Comtesse douairière, wears a lovely, fluffy white thing over her own diminishing front hair, which I once heard her describe, when struggling to speak English, as her "combination." Pam and I laughed nearly to extinction, but I did n't laugh this morning when I was obliged to help Lady Turnour put on hers.
They say an emperor is no hero to his valet, and neither can an empress be a heroine to her maid when she bursts for the first time upon that humble creature's sight, without her transformation.
It did make an unbelievable difference with her ladyship; and it must have been a blow to poor Sir Samuel, after all his years of hopeless love for a fond gazelle, when at last he made that gazelle his own, and saw it running about its bedroom with all its copper-coloured "ondulations" naively lying on its dressing-table.
Poor Miss Paget's false front was one of those frank, self-respecting old things one might have allowed one's grandmother to wear, just as she would wear a cap; but a transformation—well, one has perhaps believed in it, if one has not the eye of a lynx, and the disillusion is awful.
Of course, a lady's-maid is not a human being, and what it is thinking matters no more than what thinks a chair when sat upon; so I don't suppose "her ladyship" cared ten centimes for the impression I was receiving and trying to digest in the first ten minutes after my morning entrance.
As my hair waves naturally, I 've scarcely more than a bowing acquaintance with a curling-iron; but luckily for me I always did Cousin Catherine's when she wanted to look as beautiful as she felt; and though my hands trembled with nervousness, I not only "ondulated" Lady Turnour's transformation without burning it up, but I added it to her own locks in a manner so deft as to make me want to applaud myself.
Even she could find no fault. The effect was twice as chic and becoming as that of yesterday. She looked younger, and nearer to being the grande dame that she burns to be. I saw various emotions working in her mind, and attributed her silence on the subject of my personal defects (unchanged despite her orders) to the success I was making with her toilet. In her eyes, I began to take on lustre as a Treasure not to be lightly thrown away on the turn of a dye.
When she was dressed and painted to represent a "lady motorist," it was my business to pack not only for her but for Sir Samuel, who is the sort of man to be miserable under the domination of a valet. There were a round dozen of trunks, which had to be sent on by rail, and there was also luggage for the automobile; such ingenious and pretty luggage (bran new, like everything of her ladyship's, not excepting her complexion) that it was really a pleasure to pack it. As for the poor motor maid, it was broken to her that she must, figuratively speaking, live in a bag during the tour, and that bag must have a place under her feet as she sat beside the driver. It might make her as uncomfortable as it liked, but whatever it did, it must on no account interfere with the chauffeur.
We were supposed to start at ten, but a woman of Lady Turnour's type does n't think she 's making herself of enough importance unless she keeps people waiting. She changed her mind three times about her veil, and had her dressing-bag (a gorgeous affair, beside which mine is a mere nutshell) reopened at the last minute to get out different hatpins.
It was half-past ten when the luggage for the automobile was ready to be taken away, and having helped my mistress into her motoring coat, I left her saying farewell to some hotel acquaintances she had scraped up, and went out to put her ladyship's rugs into the car.
I had not seen it yet, nor the dreaded chauffeur, my galley-companion; but as the front door opened, voilà both; the car drawn up at the hotel entrance, the chauffeur dangling from its roof.
Never did I see anything in the way of an automobile so large, so azure, so magnificent, so shiny as to varnish, so dazzling as to brass and crystal.
Perhaps the windows are n't really crystal, but they were all bevelly and glittering in the sunshine, and seemed to run round the car from back to front, giving the effect of a Cinderella Coach fitted on to a motor. Never was paint so blue, never was crest on carriage panel so large and so like a vague, over-ripe tomato. Never was a chauffeur so long, so slim, so smart, so leathery. He was dangling not because he fancied himself as a tassel, but because he was teaching some last piece of luggage to know its place on the roof it was shaped to fit.
"Thank goodness, at least he 's not fat, and won't take up much room," I thought, as I stood looking at the back of his black head.
Then he jumped down, and turned round. We gave each other a glance, and he could not help knowing that I must be her ladyship's maid, by the way I was loaded with rugs, like a beast of burden. Of my face he could see little, as I had on a thick motor-veil with a small triangular talc window, which Lady Kilmarny had given me as a present when I bade her good-bye. I had the advantage of him, therefore, in the staring contest, because his goggles were pushed up on the top of his cap with an elastic, somewhat as Miss Paget's spectacles had been caught in her false front.
His glance said: "Female thing, I 've got to be bothered by having you squashed into the seat beside me. You 'd better not be chatty with the man at the wheel, for if you are, I shall have to teach you motor manners."
My glance, I sincerely hoped, said nothing, for I hurriedly shut it off lest it should say too much, the astonished thought in my mind being: "Why, Leather Person, you look exactly like a gentleman! You have the air of being the master, and Sir Samuel your servant."
He really was a surprise, especially after Lady Kilmarny 's warning. Still, I at once began to tell myself that chauffeurs must have intelligent faces. As for this one's clear features, good gray eyes, brown skin, and well-made figure, they were nothing miraculous, since it is admitted that even a lower grade of beings, grooms and footmen, are generally chosen as ornaments to the establishments they adorn. Why should n't a chauffeur be picked out from among his fellows to do credit to a fine, sixty-horse-power blue motor-car? Besides, a young man who can't look rather handsome in a chauffeur's cap and neat leather coat and leggings might as well go and hang himself.
The Leather Person opened the door of the car for me, that I might put in the rugs. I murmured "thank you" and he bowed. No sooner had I arranged my affairs, and slipped the scent-bottle and bottle of salts, newly filled, into a dainty little case under the window, when Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel appeared.
I have met few, if any, queens in daily life, but I 'm almost sure that the Queen of England, for instance, would n't consider it beneath her dignity to take some notice of her chauffeur's existence if she were starting on a motor tour. Lady Turnour was miles above it, however. So far as she was concerned, one would have thought that the car ran itself; that at sight of her and Sir Samuel, the arbiters of its destiny, its heart began to beat, its body to tremble with delight at the honour in store for it.
"Tell him to shut the windows," said her ladyship, when she was settled in her place. "Does he think I 'm going to travel on a day like this with all the wind on the Riviera blowing my head off?"
The imperial order was passed on to "him," who was addressed as Bane, or Dane, or something of that ilk; and I was sorry for poor Sir Samuel, whose face showed how little he enjoyed the prospect of being cooped up in a glass box.
"A day like this" meant that there was a wind which no one under fifty had any business to know came out of the east, for it arrived from a sky blue as a vast, inverted cup of turquoise. The sea was a cup, too; a cup of gold glittering where the Esterel mountains rimmed it, and full to the frothing brim of blue spilt by the sky.
Perhaps there was a hint of keenness in the breeze, and the palms in the hotel garden were whispering to each other about it, while they rocked the roses tangled among their fans; yet it seemed to me that the whispers were not of complaint, but of joy—joy of life, joy of beauty, and joy of the spring. The air smelled of a thousand flowers, this air that Lady Turnour shunned as if it were poison, and brought me a sense of happiness and adventure fresh as the morning. I knew I had no right to the feeling, because this was n't my adventure. I was only in it on sufferance, to oil the wheels of it, so to speak, for my betters; yet golden joy ran through all my veins as gaily, as generously, as if I were a princess instead of a lady's-maid.
Why on earth I was happy, I did n't know, for it was perfectly clear that I was going to have a horrid time; but I pitied everybody who was n't young, and starting off on a motor tour, even if on fifty francs a month "all found."
I pitied Lady Turnour because she was herself; I pitied Sir Samuel because he was married to her; I pitied the people in the big hotel, who spent their afternoons and evenings playing bridge with all the windows hermetically sealed, while there was a world like this out of doors; and I wasn't sure yet whether I pitied the chauffeur or not.
He did n't look particularly sorry for himself, as he took his seat on my right. I was well out of his way, and he had the air of having forgotten all about me, as he steered away from the hotel down the flower-bordered avenue which led to the street.
"Anyhow," said I to myself, behind my little three-cornered talc window, "whatever his faults may be, appearances are very deceptive if he ever tries to chuck me under the chin."
There we sat, side by side, shut away from our pastors and masters by a barrier of glass, in that state of life and on that seat to which it had pleased Providence to call us, together.
"We're far enough apart in mind, though," I told myself. Yet I found my thoughts coming back to the man, every now and then, wondering if his nice brown profile were a mere lucky accident, or if he were really intelligent and well educated beyond his station. It was deliciously restful at first to sit there, seeing beautiful things as we flashed by, able to enjoy them in peace without having to make conversation, as the ordinary jeune fille must with the ordinary jeune monsieur.
"And is it that you love the automobilism, mademoiselle?"
"But yes, I love the automobilism. And you?"
"I also." (Hang it, what shall I say to her next?) "And the dust. It does not too much annoy you?"
(Oh, bother, I do wish he 'd let me alone!)
"No, monsieur. Because there are compensations. The scenery, is it not?"
"And for me your society." (What a little idiot she is!)
And so on. And so on. Oh yes, there were consolations in being a motor maid, sitting as far away as possible from a cross-looking if rather handsome chauffeur, who would want to bite her if she tried to do the "society act."
But after a while, when we 'd spun past the charming villas and attractive shops of Cannes (which looks so deceitfully sylvan, and is one of the gayest watering-places in the world) silence began to be a burden.
It is such a nice motor car, and I did want to ask intelligent questions about it!
I was almost sure they would be intelligent, because already I know several things about automobiles. The Milvaines have n't got one, but most of their friends in Paris have, and though I 've never been on a long tour before, I 've done some running about. When one knows things, especially when one 's a girl—a really well-regulated, normal girl—one does like to let other people know that one knows them. It 's all well enough to cram yourself full to bursting with interesting facts which it gives you a vast amount of trouble to learn, just out of respect for your own soul; and there 's a great deal in that point of view, in one's noblest moments; but one's noblest moments are like bubbles, radiant while they last, then going pop! quite to one's own surprise, leaving one all flat, and nothing to show for the late bubble except a little commonplace soap.
Well, I am like that, and when I 'm not nobly bubbling I love to say what I 'm thinking to somebody who will understand, instead of feeding on myself.
It really was a waste of good material to see all that lovely scenery slipping by like a panorama, and to be having quite heavenly thoughts about it, which must slip away too, and be lost for ever. I got to the pass when it would have been a relief to be asked if "this were my first visit to the Riviera;" because I could hastily have said "Yes," and then broken out with a volley of impressions.
Seeing beautiful things when you travel by rail consists mostly on getting half a glimpse, beginning to exclaim, "Oh, look there!" then plunging into the black gulf of a tunnel, and not coming out again until after the best bit has carefully disappeared behind an uninteresting, fat-bodied mountain. But travelling by motor-car! Oh, the difference! One sees, one feels; one is never, never bored, or impatient to arrive anywhere. One would enjoy being like the famous brook, and "go on forever."
Other automobiles were ahead of us, other cars were behind us, in the procession of Nomads leaving the South for the North, but there had been rain in the night, so that the wind carried little dust. My spirit sang when we had left the long, cool avenue lined with the great silver-trunked plane trees (which seemed always, even in sunshine, to be dappled with moonlight) and dashed toward the barrier of the Esterels that flung itself across our path. The big blue car bounded up the steep road, laughing and purring, like some huge creature of the desert escaped from a cage, regaining its freedom. But every time we neared a curve it was considerate enough to slow down, just enough to swing round with measured rhythm, smooth as the rocking of a child's cradle.
Perhaps, thought I, the chauffeur was n't cross, but only concentrated. If I had to drive a powerful, untamed car like this, up and down roads like that, I should certainly get motor-car face, a kind of inscrutable, frozen mask that not all the cold cream in the world could ever melt.
I wondered if he resorted to cold cream, and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself staring at the statuesque brown profile through my talc triangle.
Evidently animal magnetism can leak through talc, for suddenly the chauffeur glanced sharply round at me, as if I had called him. "Did you speak?" he asked.
"Dear me, no, I should n't have dared," I hurried to assure him. Again he transferred his attention from the road to me, though only a fraction, and for only the fraction of a second. I felt that he saw me as an eagle on the wing might see a fly on a boulder toward which he was steering between intervening clouds.
"Why should n't you dare?" he wanted to know.
"One does n't usually speak to lion-tamers while they 're engaged in taming," I murmured, quite surprised at my audacity and the sound of my own voice.
The chauffeur laughed. "Oh!" he said.
"Or to captains of ocean liners on the bridge in thick fogs," I went on with my illustrations.
"What do you know about lion-tamers and captains on ocean liners?" he inquired.
"Nothing. But I imagine. I 'm always doing a lot of imagining."
"Do you think you will while you 're with Lady Turnour?"
"She has n't engaged my brain, only my hands and feet."
"And your time."
"Oh, thank goodness it does n't take time to imagine. I can imagine all the most glorious things in heaven and earth in the time it takes you to put your car at the next corner."
He looked at me longer, though the corner seemed dangerously near—to an amateur. "I see you 've learned the true secret of living," said he.
"Have I? I did n't know."
"Well, you have. You may take it from me. I 'm a good deal older than you are."
"Oh, of course, all really polite men are older than the women they 're with."
"Even chauffeurs?"
It was my turn to laugh now. "A chauffeur with a lady's-maid."
"You seem an odd sort of lady's-maid."
"I begin to think you 're an odd sort of chauffeur."
"Why?"
"Well—" I hesitated, though I knew why, perfectly. "Are n't you rather abrupt in your questions? Suppose we change the subject. You seem to have tamed this tiger until it obeys you like a kitten."
"That 's what I get my wages for. But why do you think I 'm an odd sort of chauffeur?"
"For that matter, then, why do you think I 'm an odd lady's-maid?"
"As to that, probably I 'm no judge. I never talked to one except my mother's, and she—was n't at all like you."
"Well, that proves my point. The very fact that your mother had a maid, shows you 're an odd sort of chauffeur."
"Oh! You mean because I wasn't always 'what I seem,' and that kind of Family Herald thing? Do you think it odd that a chauffeur should be by way of being a gentleman? Why, nowadays the woods and the story-books are full of us. But things are made pleasanter for us in books than in real life. Out of books people fight shy of us. A 'shuvvie' with the disadvantage of having been to a public school, or handicapped by not dropping his H's, must knock something off his screw."
"Are you really in earnest, or are you joking?" I asked.
"Half and half, perhaps. Anyway, it isn't a particularly agreeable position—if that 's not too big a word for it. I envy you your imagination, in which you can shut yourself up in a kind of armour against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."
"You would n't envy me if you had to do Lady Turnours hair," I sighed.
The chauffeur laughed out aloud. "Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed.
"I'm sure Sir Samuel would forbid, anyhow," said I. "Do you know, I don't think this trip's going to be so bad?" said he.
"Neither do I," I murmured in my veil.
We both laughed a good deal then. But luckily the glass was expensively thick, and the car was singing.
"What are you laughing at?" I asked.
"Something that it takes a little sense of humour to see, when you 've been down on your luck," said he.
"A sense of humour was the only thing my ancestors left me," said I. "I don't wonder you laugh. It really is quaintly funny."
"Do you think we 're laughing at the same thing?"
"I 'm almost sure of it."
"Do tell me your part, and let 's compare notes."
"Well, it 's something that nobody but us in this car—unless it 's the car itself—knows."
"Then it is the same thing. They haven't an idea of it, and would n't believe it if anyone told them. Yes, it is funny."
"About their not being ⸺"
"While you ⸺"
"And you ⸺"
"Thanks. A lady ⸺"
"A gentleman ⸺"
"And the only ones on board ⸺"
"Are the two servants!"
"As long as they don't notice ⸺"
"And we do!"
"Perhaps we may get some fun out of it?"
"Extra—outside our wages. Would it be called a 'perquisite'?" "If so, I 'm sure we deserve it."
I sighed, thinking of her ladyship's transformation, and lacing up her boots. "Well, there 's a lot to make up for."
And he gave me another look—a very nice look, although he could see nothing of me but eyes and one third of a nose. "If I can ever at all help to make up, in the smallest way, you must let me try," he said.
I ceased to think that his profile was cross, or even stern.
I was glad that the chauffeur and I were in the same box—I mean, the same car.