Cynthia's Chauffeur
rowing, and Cynthia held the tiller ropes; but Mrs. Devar's thoughts
turned her mind's eyes inward, and they surveyed a gray prospect.
Dale, the unseen monster who had struck this paralyzing blow, spoke of
"the Frenchman." Lord Fairholme had charged both Dale and "the
Frenchman" with tricking him. Therefore, the Earl and Marigny had met
at Bristol. If so, and there could be little doubt of it, Marigny
would hardly appear in Hereford, and if she attempted to telephone to
the Green Dragon Hotel, where Cynthia had engaged rooms, she would not
only fail to reach Marigny but probably reveal to a wrathful Earl the
very fact which Dale seemed to have withheld from him, namely, his
son's address at the moment.
She assumed that Dale knew how to communicate with his master because
Medenham had telegraphed the name of the hotel at Symon's Yat. Therein
she was right. Medenham wanted his baggage, and, having ascertained
that there was a suitable train, sent instructions that Dale was to
travel by it. This, of course, the man could not do. Lord Fairholme
had carried off his son's portmanteaux, and had actually hired a room
in the Green Dragon next to that reserved for Cynthia.
Suddenly grown wise, Mrs. Devar decided against the telephone.
But there remained the secrecy of the post-office. What harm if
she sent a brief message to both the Green Dragon and the Mitre
Hotels--Marigny would be sure to put up at one or the other if he were
in Hereford--and demand his advice? She hurried to the drawing-room and
wrote:
Remaining Symon's Yat Hotel to-night. Suppose you are aware
of to-day's developments. F. is son of gentleman you met in
Bristol. Wire reply. DEVAR.
She went to the hotel bureau, but a sympathetic landlady shook her
head.
"The post-office is closed. No telegrams can be dispatched until eight
o'clock on Monday," she said. "But there is the telephone----"
"It is matterless," said Mrs. Devar, crushing the written forms in her
fingers as though she had reason to believe they might sting her.
She resolved to let events drift now. They had passed beyond her
control. Perhaps a policy of masterly inactivity might rescue her from
the tornado which had swept her off her feet. In any case, she must
fight her own battles, irrespective of the cabal entered into in
Paris. Captain James Devar was an impossible ally; the French Count
was a negligible quantity when compared with an English viscount whose
ancestry threw back to the Conquest and whose estates covered half of
a midland shire; but there remained, active as ever, the self-interest
of a poor widow from whose despairing grasp was slipping a golden
opportunity.
"Is it too late?" she asked herself. "Can anything be done? Maud, my
dear, you are up against it, as they say in America. Pull yourself
together, and see if you can't twist your mistakes to your own
advantage."
Cynthia, meanwhile, was enjoying herself hugely. The placid reaches
of the Wye offered a delightful contrast to the sun-baked roads
of Monmouthshire; and, it may be added, there was enough of Mother
Eve in her composition to render the proceeding none the less
attractive because it was unconventional. Perhaps, deep hidden in her
consciousness, lurked a doubt--but that was successfully stifled for
the hour.
Indeed, her wits were trying to solve a minor puzzle. Her woman's eye
had seen and her quick brain was marveling at certain details in
Medenham's costume. There are conditions, even in England, in which a
flannel suit is hard to obtain, and the manner of their coming to
Symon's Yat seemed to preclude the buying of ready-made garments, a
solution which would occur to an American instantly. Yet here was that
incomprehensible chauffeur clad in the correct regalia of the Thames
Rowing Club, though Cynthia, of course, did not recognize the colors.
"How did you manage it?" she asked, wide-eyed and smiling.
"I hunted through the hotels and met a man about my own size who was
just off to town," he said.
"But--there are gaps."
"I thought they fitted rather well. In fact, he was slightly the
stouter of the two."
"Don't be stupid. The gaps are in your story. Did you borrow or buy?"
"I borrowed. Luckily, he was a decent fellow, and there was no
trouble."
"Did you know him?"
"By name only."
"Do Englishmen lend their clothes to promiscuous strangers?"
"More, much more; they give them at times."
She was silent for a few seconds. He had persuaded her that oars were
preferable to sails on such a still night, especially as he was not
acquainted with the shallows, but he had not explained that if he
rowed and she steered he would be able to gaze his fill at her.
"What colors are those?" she demanded suddenly.
"I ought to have told you that I happened to find a member of the club
to which I belong," he countered. Then, before she could pin him down
to a definite statement, he tried to carry the war into the enemy's
country.
"By the way, I hope I am not presuming on the fact that you have
consented to take this little excursion, Miss Vanrenen, but may I ask
how _you_ contrive to appear each evening in a muslin frock? Those
hold-alls on the motor are strictly utilitarian, and a mere man would
imagine that muslin could not escape being crushed."
"It doesn't. I have a maid iron it for me before dinner. At Hereford I
shall receive a fresh one from London, and send this back by post. But
fancy you noticing such a thing! Have you any sisters?"
"Yes, one."
"How old is she?"
"Twenty-three."
"Dear me! A year older than me. Oh, ought I to have said 'than I'?
That always puzzles me."
"You have Milton on your side. He wrote:
Satan--than whom no higher sat.
Still, it is generally allowed that Milton wrote bad grammar there."
Cynthia was awed momentarily--a quotation from "Paradise Lost" always
commands respect--so she harked back to an easier topic.
"Is your sister married?"
"Yes."
"What is her husband?"
"She married rather well, as the saying is. Her husband is a man named
Scarland, and he is chiefly interested in pedigree cattle."
"Let me see," she mused. "I seem to remember the name; it had
something to do with fat cattle, too.... Scarland? Does he exhibit?"
Medenham wished then that he had not been so glib with the Marquis of
Scarland's pet occupation.
"I have been in England so little during the past few years----" he
began.
"I hope you haven't quarreled with your sister?" she put in promptly.
"What, quarrel with Betty? I?" And he laughed at the conceit, though
he wondered what Cynthia would say if, on Monday, he deviated a few
miles from the Hereford and Shrewsbury main road and showed her
Scarland Towers and the park in which the marquis's prize stock were
fattening.
"Oh, is she so nice? And pretty, too, I suppose?"
"People generally speak of her as good-looking. It is a recognized
fact, I believe, that pretty girls usually have brothers not so
favored----"
"What, fishing now as well as rowing? Didn't I say you had a Norman
aspect?"
"Consisting largely of a scowl, I understand."
"But a man is bound to look fierce sometimes. At least, my father
does, though he is celebrated for his unchanging aspect, no matter
what happens. Perhaps he may look like a Sphinx when he is carrying
through what he calls 'a deal,' but I remember very well seeing
lightning in his eye when an Italian prince was rude to me one day. We
were at Pompeii, and this Prince Monte-something induced me to look at
a horrid fresco under the pretense that it was very artistic. Without
thinking what I was doing, I ran to father and complained about it. My
goodness! I wonder the lava didn't melt again before he got through
with his highness, who, after all, was a bit of a virtuoso, and may
have really admired nasty subjects so long as they conformed to
certain standards of art."
"Some ideals call for correction by the toe of a strong boot--I share
Mr. Vanrenen's views on that point most emphatically."
Medenham's character was one that transmuted words to deeds. He drove
the skiff onward with a powerful sweep that discovered an unexpected
shoal. There might have been some danger of an upset if the oars were
in less skillful hands. As it was, they were back in deep water within
a few seconds.
Cynthia laughed without the least tremor.
"You were kicking my Italian acquaintance in imagination then; I hope
you see now that you might have been mistaken," she cried.
"Even in this instance I only touched mud."
"Well, well, let us forget the Signor Principe. Tell me about
yourself. How did you come to enlist? In my country, men of your stamp
do not join the army unless some national crisis arises. But, perhaps,
that applies to your case. The Boers nearly beat you, didn't they?"
He took advantage of the opening thus presented, and was able to
interest her in stories of the campaign without committing himself to
details. Nevertheless, a man who had served on the headquarters staff
during the protracted second phase of the South African war could
hardly fail to exhibit an intimate knowledge of that history which
is never written. Though Cynthia had met many leaders of thought and
action, she had never before encountered one who had taken part in a
struggle of such peculiar significance as the Boer revolt. She was not
an English girl, eager only to hear tales of derring-do in which her
fellow-countrymen figure heroically, but a citizen of that wider
world that refuses to look at events exclusively through British
spectacles; therein lay the germ of real peril to Medenham. He had not
only to narrate but to convince. He was called on to answer questions
of policy and method that few if any of the women in his own circle
would think of putting. Obviously, this appeal to his intellect
weakened the self-imposed guard on his lips. There is excellent
authority for the belief that Desdemona loved Othello for the dangers
he had passed, and did with greedy ear devour his discourse, yet it
may well be conceded that an explanatory piquancy would have been
added to the Moor's account
Of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
if the lady were not a maid of Venice but hailed from some kindred
city that refused to range all the virtues on the side of the Mistress
of the Adriatic.
More than once it chanced that Medenham had to exercise his wits very
quickly to trip his tongue when on the verge of some indiscretion
that would betray him. Perhaps he was unduly cautious. Perhaps his
listener's heart had mastered her brain for the time. Perhaps she
would not have woke up in a maze from a dream that was not less a
dream because she was not sleeping even if some unwary utterance
caused her to ask what manner of man this could be.
But that can never be known, since Cynthia herself never knew. The
one sharp and clear fact that remained in her mind as a memory
of a summer's evening passed in a boat on a river flowing through
fairyland, was provided by a set of circumstances far removed from
tales of stormy night-riding after De Wet or the warp and weft of
European politics as they fashioned the cere-cloths of the two Dutch
republics.
Neither the one nor the other should be blamed if they found a boat on
the Wye a most pleasant exchange for an eager automobile on roads that
tempted to high speed. At any rate, they gave no heed to the time
until Cynthia happened to glance at the horizon and saw that the sun
was represented by a thin seam of silver hemming the westerly fringe
of a deep blue sky. If there was a moon, it was hidden by the hills.
"Whatever o'clock is it?" she cried in a voice that held almost a
sound of scare.
Medenham looked at his watch, and had to hold it close to his eyes