Cynthia's Chauffeur
but the older woman persisted in visiting every dungeon and scrambling
up every broken stair. The girl took several photographs, and had
reached the last film in a roll, when the whim seized her to pose
Medenham in front of a Norman arch.
"You look rather like a baron," she said gleefully. "I wish I could
borrow some armor and take you in character as the gentleman who built
this castle. By the way, his name was Fitz-something-or-other. Was he
a relation?"
"Fitz Osborne," said Medenham.
"Ah, yes. Fitzroy means King's son, doesn't it?"
"I--er--believe so."
"Well, I can imagine you scowling out of a vizor. It would suit you
admirably."
"But I might not scowl."
"Oh, yes, you would. Remember this morning. Just force yourself to
think for a moment that I am Monsieur----"
She stopped abruptly.
"A little more to the left, please--and turn your face to the sun.
There, that is capital."
"Why should Fitzroy scowl at the recollection of Count Edouard?"
demanded Mrs. Devar, her eyes devouring the telltale blush that
suffused the girl's face and neck.
"Only because the Count wished to supplant him as our chauffeur," came
the ready answer.
"I thought Monsieur Marigny's offer a very courteous one."
"Undoubtedly. But as I had to decide the matter I preferred to travel
in a car that was at my own disposal."
Mrs. Devar dared not go farther. She relapsed into a sulky silence.
She said not a word when Cynthia occupied the front seat for the climb
through Chepstow's High Street, and when the girl turned to call her
attention to the view from the crest of the famous Wyndcliff she was
nodding asleep!
Cynthia told Medenham, and there was a touch of regret in her voice.
"Poor dear," she said in an undertone, "the Castle was too much for
her, and the fresh air has made her drowsy."
He glanced quickly over his shoulder, and instantly made up his mind
to broach a project that he had thought out carefully since his
quarrel with the Frenchman.
"You mean to stay in Hereford during the whole of to-morrow, Miss
Vanrenen?" he asked.
"Yes. Somehow, I don't see myself scampering across the map on the
British Sabbath. Besides, I am all behindhand with my letters, and my
father will be telegraphing something emphatic if I don't go beyond
'Much love' on a picture postcard."
"Symon's Yat is exceptionally beautiful, and there is a capital little
hotel there. The Wye runs past the front door, the boating is superb,
and there will be a brilliant moon after dinner."
"And the answer is?"
"That we could run into Hereford before breakfast, leaving you plenty
of time to attend the morning service at the cathedral."
Cynthia did not look at him or she would have seen that he was rather
baronial in aspect just then. Sad to relate, they were speeding down
the Wyndcliff gorge without giving it the undisturbed notice it
merited.
"I have a kind of notion that Mrs. Devar wouldn't catch on to the
boating proposition," she said thoughtfully.
"Perhaps not, but the river takes a wide bend there, and she could see
us from the hotel veranda all the time."
"Guess it can't be fixed up, anyhow," she sighed.
Twice had she lapsed into the idioms of her native land. What, then,
was the matter with Cynthia that she had forgotten her self-imposed
resolution to speak only in that purer English which is quite as
highly appreciated in New York as in London?
It was Saturday afternoon, and they overtook and passed a break-load
of beanfeasters going to Tintern. There is no mob so cruelly sarcastic
as the British, and it may be that the revelers in the break envied
the dusty chauffeur his pretty companion. At any rate, they greeted
the passing of the car with jeers and cat-calls, and awoke Mrs. Devar.
It is a weakness of human nature to endeavor to conceal the fact that
you have been asleep when you are supposed to be awake, so she leaned
forward now, and asked nonchalantly:
"Are we near Hereford?"
"No," said Cynthia. "We have a long way to go yet." She paused. "Are
you really very tired?" she added, as an afterthought.
"Yes, dear. The air is positively overpowering."
There was another pause.
"Ah, well," sighed the girl, "we shall have a nice long rest when we
stop for tea at--at--what is the name of the place?"
"Symon's Yat."
Medenham's voice was husky. Truth to tell, he was rather beside
himself. He had played for a high stake and had nearly won. Even now
the issue hung on a word, a mere whiff of volition: and if he knew
exactly how much depended on that swing of the balance he might have
been startled into a more earnest plea, and spoiled everything.
"But that will throw us late in arriving at Hereford," said Mrs.
Devar.
"Does it really matter? We shall be there all day to-morrow."
"No, it is of no consequence, though Count Edouard said he would meet
us there."
"And I refused to pledge myself to any arrangement. In fact, I would
much prefer that his Countship should scorch on to Liverpool or
Manchester, or wherever he happens to be going."
"Oh, Cynthia! And he going out of his way to be so friendly and
agreeable!"
"Well, perhaps that was an unkind thing to say. What I mean is that we
must feel ourselves at liberty to depart from a cut-and-dried
schedule. Half the charm of wandering through England in an automobile
is in one's freedom from timetables."
Back dropped Mrs. Devar, and Medenham recovered sufficient
self-control to point out to Cynthia her first glimpse of the gray
walls that vie with Fountains Abbey and Rievaulx for pride of place as
the most beautiful ruin in England.
Certainly those old Cistercians knew how and where to build their
monasteries. They had the true sense of beauty, whether in site or
design, and at Tintern they chose the loveliest nook of a lovely
valley. Cynthia silently feasted her vision on each new panorama
revealed by the winding road, and ever the gray Abbey grew more
distinct, more ornate, more completely the architectural gem of an
entrancing landscape.
But disillusion was at hand.
Rounding the last bend of the descent, the Mercury purred into the
midst of a collection of horsed vehicles and frayed motors. By some
unhappy chance the whole countryside seemed to have chosen Tintern as
a rendezvous that Saturday. The patrons of a neighboring hotel
overflowed into the roadway; the brooding peace of the dead-and-gone
monks had fled before this invasion; instead of memories of mitered
abbots and cowled friars there were the realities of loud-voiced
grooms and porkpie-eating excursionists.
"Please drive on," whispered Cynthia. "I must see Tintern another
time."
Although Medenham hoped to consume a precious hour or more in showing
her the noble church, the cloisters, the chapter-house, the monks'
parlor, and the rest of the stone records of a quiet monastic life, he
realized to the full how utterly incongruous were the enthusiastic
trippers with their surroundings. The car threaded their ranks
gingerly, and was soon running free along the tree-shaded road to
Monmouth.
Happily, that delightful old town was sufficiently familiar to him in
earlier days that he was now able to supplement the general knowledge
of its past gleaned already by the girl's reading. He halted in front
of the Welsh Gate on Monnow Bridge, and told her that although the
venerable curiosity dates back to 1270 it is nevertheless the last
defensive work in Britain in which serious preparations were made for
civil war, as it was expected that the Chartists would march from
Newport to attack Monmouth Jail in 1839.
"Six hundred years," mused Cynthia aloud. "If there are sermons in
stones what a history is pent in these!"
"And how greatly it would differ from the accepted versions," laughed
Medenham.
"Do we never know the truth, then?"
"Oh, yes, if we are actually mixed up in some affair of worldwide
importance, but that is precisely the reason why the actors remain
dumb."
Oddly enough, this was the first of Medenham's utterances that Mrs.
Devar approved of.
"Evidently you have moved in high society, Fitzroy," she chimed in.
"Yes, madam," he said. "More than once, when in a hurry, I have run
madly through Mayfair."
"Oh, nonsense!" she cried, resenting the studied civility of the
"madam" and ruffled by the quip, "you speak of Mayfair, yet I don't
suppose you really know where it is."
"I shall never forget where Down Street is, I assure you," he said
cheerfully.
"And pray, why Down Street in particular?"
"Because that is where I met Simmonds, last Wednesday, and arranged to
take on his job."
"In your mind, then, it figures as broken-down-street," cooed Cynthia.
After that the Mercury crossed the Monnow, and Mrs. Devar muttered
something about the mistake one made when one encouraged servants to
be too familiar. But Cynthia was not to be repressed. She was bubbling
over with high spirits, and amused herself by telling Medenham that
Henry V. was born at Monmouth and afterwards won the battle of
Agincourt--"scraps of history not generally known," she confided to
him.
From the back of the car Mrs. Devar watched them with a hawklike
intentness that showed how thoroughly those "forty winks" snatched
while in the Wyndcliff had restored her flagging energies. Though
it was absurd to suppose that Cynthia Vanrenen, daughter of a
millionaire, a girl dowered with all that happy fortune had to give,
would so far forget her social position as to flirt with the chauffeur
of a hired car, this experienced marriage-broker did not fail to
realize what a stumbling-block the dreadful person was in the path of
Count Edouard Marigny.
For once in her life, "Wiggy" Devar forced herself to think clearly.
She saw that "Fitzroy" was a man who might prove exceedingly dangerous
where a girl's susceptible heart was concerned. He had the address and
semblance of a gentleman; he seemed to be able to talk some jargon of
history and literature and art that appealed mightily to Cynthia;
worst of all, he had undoubtedly ascertained, by some means wholly
beyond her ken, that she and the Frenchman were in league. She was
quite in the dark as to the cause of her son's extraordinary behavior
the previous evening, but she was beginning to suspect that this
meddlesome Fitzroy had contrived, somehow or other, to banish Captain
Devar as he had outwitted Marigny on the Mendips. Talented schemer
that she was, she did not believe for a moment that Simmonds had told
the truth at Bristol. She argued, with cold logic, that the man would
not risk the loss of an excellent commission by bringing from London a
car so hopelessly out of repair that it could not be made available
under four or five days. But her increasing alarm centered chiefly in
Cynthia's attitude. If, by her allusion to a "cut-and-dried schedule,"
the girl implied a design to depart from the tour planned in London,
then the Count's wooing became a most uncertain thing, since it was
manifestly out of the question that he should continue to waylay them
at stopping-places chosen haphazard during each day's run.
So Mrs. Devar noted with a malignant eye each friendly glance
exchanged by the couple in front, and listened to the snatches of
their talk with a malevolence that was fanned to fury by their obvious
heedlessness of her presence. She felt that the crisis called for
decisive action. There was only one person alive to whose judgment
Cynthia Vanrenen would bow, and Mrs. Devar began seriously to consider
the advisability of writing to Peter Vanrenen.
If any lingering doubt remained in her mind as to the soundness of
this view, it was dispelled soon after they reached Symon's Yat. She
was sitting in the inclosed veranda of a cozy hotel perched on the