Cynthia's Chauffeur
own phrase--and the relief of seeing her errant charge again was so
great that the shriek merged into a sob.
"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she wept, "what a shock you have given me! I
thought you were gone!"
"Not so bad as that," was the contrite answer. Cynthia interpreted
"gone" as meaning "dead," and naturally read into the other woman's
anxiety her own knowledge of the disaster to the boat. "We had a bit
of an upset--that is all--and the bread always flops to the floor
buttered side down, doesn't it? So we had to struggle ashore on the
wrong bank. It couldn't be helped--that is, the accident couldn't--but
I ought not to have been on the river at such a late hour. Do forgive
me, dear Mrs. Devar!"
By this time the girl's left arm was around her friend's portly form;
in her intense eagerness to assuage Mrs. Devar's agitation she began
to stroke her hair with the disengaged hand. A deeply sympathetic
landlady, a number of servants, and most of the feminine guests in the
hotel--all the men were down on the quay--had gathered to murmur their
congratulations; but Mrs. Devar, dismayed by Cynthia's action, which
might have brought about a catastrophe, revived with phenomenal
suddenness.
"My dear child," she cried, extricating herself from the encircling
arm, "_do_ let me look at you! I want to make sure that you are not
injured. The boat upset, you say. Why, your clothes must be wringing
wet!"
Cynthia laughed. She had guessed why her chaperon wished to keep her
literally at arm's length. She spread her skirts with a quick gesture
that relieved an awkward situation.
"Not a drop on my clothes," she said gleefully. "The water just
touched the soles of my boots, but before you could say 'Jack
Robinson' Fitzroy had whisked me out of the skiff--and landed me on
dry land."
"You were in shallow water, then?" put in the smiling proprietress.
"Oh no, fairly deep. Fitzroy was up to his waist in the stream."
"And the boat upset?" came the amazed chorus.
"I didn't quite mean that. What actually happened was this. I
discovered that the hour was rather late, and Fitzroy was rowing down
stream at a great pace when some sunken thing, a tree-root he thinks,
caught the side of the boat and started a plank. I was so taken by
surprise that I should have sat right there and gone to the bottom
with the boat, but Fitzroy jumped overboard straight away and hiked me
out."
Ready-tongued Cynthia was beginning to find detailed explanation
rather difficult, and her speech reverted to the picturesque idioms of
her native land. It was the happiest ruse she could have adopted.
Everyone laughed at the notion of being "hiked out." None of her
hearers knew quite what it meant, yet it covered the requisite ground,
which was more than might have been achieved by explicit English.
"Where did the accident take place?" asked the landlady.
Cynthia was vague on this point, but when she told how the return
journey was made, the pretty Welsh waitress hit on a theory.
"In-deed to goot-ness, miss," she cried, "you wass be-tween the
Garren River an' Huntsham Bridge. It iss a bad place, so it iss,
however. Me an' my young man wass shoaled there once, we wass."
Cynthia felt that her face and neck had grown positively scarlet, and
she could have kissed the well-disposed landlady for entering on a
voluble disquisition as to the tricks played by the Wye on those
unaware of its peculiarities, especially at night. A general
conversation broke out, but Mrs. Devar, rapidly regaining her spirits
after enduring long hours of the horrible obsession that Medenham had
run off with her heiress, noted that telltale blush. At present her
object was to assist rather than embarrass, so with a fine air of
motherly solicitude she asked:
"Where did you leave Fitzroy?"
"He saw preparations being made to send boats in search of us, and he
went to stop them. Oh, here he is!"
Medenham entered, and the impulsive Mrs. Devar ran to meet him. Though
he had been in the river again only five minutes earlier, the walk up
a dust-laden path had covered his sopping boots with mud, and in the
not very powerful light of the hall, where a score or more of anxious
people were collected, it was difficult to notice that his clothes
were wet. But "Wiggy" Devar did not care now whether or not the story
told by Cynthia was true. With reaction from the nightmare that had
possessed her since ten o'clock came a sharp appreciation of the
extraordinarily favorable turn taken by events so far as she was
concerned. If a French count were to be supplanted by an English
viscount, what better opportunity of approving the change could
present itself?
"Mr. Fitzroy," she said in her shrill voice, "I can never thank you
sufficiently for the courage and resource you displayed in rescuing
Miss Vanrenen. You have acted most nobly. I am only saying now what
Mr. Vanrenen will say when his daughter and I tell him of your
magnificent behavior."
He reddened and tried to smile, though wishing most heartily that
these heroics, if unavoidable, had been kept for some other time
and place. He could not believe that Cynthia had exalted a not
very serious incident into a "rescue," yet she might be vexed if he
cheapened his own services. In any event, it was doubtful whether she
would wish her father to hear of the escapade until she told him
herself at the close of the tour.
"I am sure Miss Vanrenen felt safe while in my care," was all he dared
to say, but Cynthia promptly understood his perplexity and came to his
aid.
"Mrs. Devar thinks far more of our adventure than we do," she broke
in. "Our chief difficulty lay in finding the road. The only time I
felt worried was when you crossed the river to retrieve the ferryboat.
But surely I have caused enough excitement for to-night. You ought to
take some hot lemonade and go to bed."
A man who had walked up the hill from the boathouse with Medenham
laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
"Come along, old chap!" he cried. "You certainly want a hot draught of
some sort, and you must not hang about in those wet clothes."
"Yes," purred Mrs. Devar, "don't run the risk of catching cold,
Fitzroy. It would spoil everything if _you_ were laid up."
Her gracious manner almost deceived Medenham. During his years of
wandering he had come across unexpected good qualities in men from
whom he looked for naught but evil--was it the same with women? He
hoped so. Perhaps this scheming marriage-broker had shed her worldly
scales under the stress of emotion.
"You need have no fear that the car will not be waiting for you in the
morning, Mrs. Devar," he said, smiling frankly into her steel-gray
eyes. "Did you say half-past nine, Miss Vanrenen?" he asked, turning
to snatch one last look at Cynthia.
"Yes. Good-night--and thank you."
She offered her hand to him before them all. The touch of her cool
fingers was infinitely sweet, but when he strove to surprise some hint
of her thought in those twin pools of limpid light that were wont to
gaze at him so fearlessly he failed, for all the daring had fled from
Cynthia, and he knew--how Heaven and lovers alone can tell--that her
heart was beating with a fright she had not felt when he staggered
under the relentless pressure of the river while holding her in his
arms.
To the lookers-on the girl's outstretched hand was a token of
gratitude; to Medenham it carried an acknowledgment of that equality
which should reign between those who love. His head swam in a sudden
vertigo of delight, and he hurried away without uttering a word. There
were some, perhaps, who wondered; others who saw in his brusqueness
nothing more than the confusion of an inferior overwhelmed by the
kindly condescension of a young and charming mistress; but the one
who did fully and truly interpret the secret springs of his action
went suddenly white to the lips, and her voice was curiously low and
strained as she turned to Mrs. Devar.
"Come, dear," she murmured, "I am tired, it would seem; and you, you
must be quite worn out with anxiety."
"My darling child," gushed Mrs. Devar, "I should have been nearly dead
if I had not known that Fitzroy was with you, but he is one of those
men who inspire confidence. I refused to admit even to myself that
anything of evil consequence could happen to you while he was present.
How fortunate we were that day in town----"
The man who had suggested that the hotel pharmacist could dispense hot
drinks other than lemonade nudged an acquaintance.
"Our chauffeur friend has a rippin' nice job," he whispered.
"Wouldn't mind taking his billet myself--it 'ud be a change from
everlastin' goff. Hello! Where is he? I meant to----"
Medenham had gone, striding away up the hillside in a very frenzy
of happiness. Four days, and Cynthia as good as won! Was it possible,
then, that the disguised prince of the fairytale could be a
reality--that such romances might still be found in this gray old
world? Four days! He could not be deeper in love with Cynthia had he
known her four years, or forty, and he was certain now that he had
really loved her before he had been in her company four minutes.
But these rhapsodies were cut short by his arrival at the hotel
garage, with the displeasing discovery that no one named Dale had
reached Symon's Yat that evening, while the stolid fact stared him
in the face that his cherished Mercury demanded several hours of
hard-working attentions if it were to glisten and hum in its usual
perfection next morning.
"Queer thing," he said, thinking aloud rather than addressing the
stableman who had given this disconcerting news. "I have never before
known him fail; and I wired to Hereford early enough."
"Oh, he's in Hereford, is he?" inquired the man.
"He ought not to be, but he is, I fear."
"Then it'll be him who axed for ye on the telephone?"
"When?"
"It 'ud be somewheres about a quarter or half past eight. Lizzie tole
me after the old leddy kem up to see if you'd taken the car out."
Medenham's wits were alert enough now.
"I don't fully understand," he said. "What old lady, and why did she
come?"
"That's wot bothered me," was the reply. "Everybody knew that the
young leddy an' you were on the Wye: 'deed to goodness, some of us
thought you were in it. Anyways, it was long after ten when she----"
"You mean Mrs. Devar, I suppose--the older lady of the two who arrived
in my car?"
"Yes, that's her. She wanted to be sure the car wasn't gone, and
nothing would suit her but the key must be brought from the orfis an'
the coach-house door unlocked so's she could see it with her own eyes.
Well, Lizzie sez to me, 'That's funny, it is, because she watched they
two goin' on the river, and was in the box a long time telephonin' to
a shuffer called Dale, at Hereford.' Thinks I, 'It's funnier that the
shuffer who's here should be expectin' a chap named Dale,' but I said
nothink. I never does to wimmen. Lord luv yer, they'll twist a tale
twenty ways for Sundays to suit their own pupposes afterwards."
Lightning struck from a cloudless sky a second time that night at
Symon's Yat, and in its gleam was revealed the duplicity of Mrs.
Devar. Medenham could not guess the double significance of Dale's
message and failure to appear, but he was under no delusion now as
to the cause of those honeyed words. Dale had been indiscreet, had
probably blurted out his employer's title, and Mrs. Devar knew at
last who the chauffeur was whose interference had baffled her plans.
He laughed bitterly, but did not pursue the inquiry any further.
"Can you clean coachwork and brass?" he asked, stooping to unlock the
toolbox.
The stableman shuffled uneasily from one foot to the other. The hour
was past midnight, and the alarm raised at the hotel had already