Cynthia's Chauffeur
robbed him of two hours' sleep.
"Hosses is more in my line," he answered gruffly.
"But if I give you half a sovereign perhaps you will not mind helping
me. I shall attend to the engine myself."
"'Arf a suv-rin did you say, mister?" came the panting question.
"Yes. Be quick! Off with your coat, and get busy. A man who can groom
a horse properly ought to be able to use a rubber and hose."
By two o'clock the Mercury was shining above and below. Thoroughly
weary, yet well satisfied with the day's record, Medenham went to
bed. He was up at seven, and meant to talk severely to Dale after
breakfast; then he found, by consulting a directory, that the small
hotel where his man had arranged to stay did not possess a telephone.
It was annoying, but he had the consolation of knowing that an
hour's slow run would bring him to Hereford and reunite him with his
sorely-needed baggage. He was giving a few finishing touches to the
car's toilette, when the Welsh waiting-maid hurried to the garage;
Miss Vanrenen wanted him at once.
She awaited him in the veranda of the hotel, which fronted the
southeast. A shower of June roses, pink and crimson and white,
bespangled the sloping roof and hid the square posts that supported
it, and a flood of vivid sunshine irradiated Cynthia as she leaned
over the low rail of the balcony and smiled a greeting. She presented
a picture that was a triumph of unconscious art, and her beauty
affected Medenham more than a deep draught of the strongest wine
ever vinted by man. Yesterday she was a charming girl, radiantly
good-looking, and likely to attract attention even in circles where
pretty women were plentiful as blackberries in a September thicket,
but to-day, in Medenham's eyes, she was a woodland sprite, an ethereal
creature cast in no mortal mold. So enthralled was he by the vision
that he failed to note her attire. She wore the muslin dress of the
previous night, and this, in itself, might have prepared him for what
was to come.
"Good-morning, Mr. Fitzroy," she said, with a fine attempt at
re-establishing those friendly relations which might reasonably exist
between the owner of a motor-car and its hirer, "how are you after
your strenuous labors of yesterday? I have heard all about you. Fancy
remaining out of bed till two o'clock! Couldn't that precious car of
yours be cleaned this morning, and by someone else?"
He found his tongue at that.
"Mercury obeys none but Jupiter," he said.
Her eyes met his fairly, and she laughed.
"That is the first conceited thing I have heard you say," she cried,
"and, by Jove, aren't you flying high?"
"Jupiter assumed disguises," he reminded her. "Once, when he peered
into an Olympian grove, he saw Io, and took the form of a youth so
that he might talk with her. He found her so lovable that he passed
many a pleasant hour in her company wandering on the banks of the
classic stream that flowed through the wood, and in those hours he was
not Jupiter but a boy, a boy very much in love. Every man has, or
ought to have, something of Jupiter, a good deal of the boy, in his
make-up."
He turned and looked at the Wye and its tree-shaded banks. Then he
faced Cynthia again, and his hands rested on the barrier that divided
them. For one mad instant he thought of vaulting it, and Cynthia read
his thought; she drew back in a panic. A less infatuated wooer than
Medenham might have noted that she seemed to fear interruption more
than any too impulsive action on his part.
"I sent for you to tell you that Mrs. Devar is ill," she said in a
flurry of words. "I am afraid she suffered more from the fright than I
imagined last night. Anyhow, she has asked me to let her remain here
to-day. You won't mind, I am sure, though it must be a bother not to
have your luggage. Can't you run in to Hereford and get it? I am quite
content to rest in this pretty place and write letters."
"I do honestly believe that Mrs. Devar is more frightened than ill,"
he said.
"Oh, she isn't making a fuss about it. Indeed, she was willing to go
to Hereford this afternoon if I particularly wanted to attend service
at the cathedral. I did, as a matter of fact, but it would be real
mean to insist on it after scaring the poor thing into a nervous
headache."
"The affair arranges itself admirably," he said. "At most cathedrals
there is an anthem, followed by a sermon by some eminent preacher,
about three o'clock. Write your letters this morning, or, better
still, climb to the top of the Yat and see the glorious view from the
top. Come back for lunch at one, and----"
"I'll see what Mrs. Devar thinks of it," broke in Cynthia, whose
cheeks were borrowing tints from the red roses and the white with
astonishing fluctuations of color. She ran off, more like Io, the
sylph, than ever, and Medenham stood there in a brown study.
"This sort of thing can't go on," he argued with himself. "At any
minute now I shall be taking her in my arms and kissing her, and that
will not be fair to Cynthia, who is proud and queenly, and who will
strive against the dictates of her own heart because it is not seemly
that she should wed her father's paid servant. So I must tell her,
to-day--perhaps during the run home from Hereford, perhaps to-night.
But, dash it all! that will break up our tour. One ought to consider
the world we live in; Cynthia will be one of its leaders, and it will
never do to have people saying that Viscount Medenham became engaged
to Cynthia Vanrenen while acting as the lady's chauffeur during a
thousand-mile run through the West of England and Wales. Now, what
_am_ I to do?"
The answer came from a bedroom window that overlooked the veranda.
"Mr. Fitzroy!"
He knew as he looked up that Cynthia dared not face him again, for her
voice was too exquisitely subtle in its modulations not to betray its
owner's disappointment before she uttered another word.
"I am very sorry," she said rapidly, "but I feel I ought not to leave
Mrs. Devar until she is better, so I mean to remain indoors all day. I
shall not require the car before nine o'clock to-morrow. If _you_ like
to visit Hereford, go at any time that suits your convenience."
She seemed to regret the curtness of her speech, though indeed she was
raging inwardly because of certain barbed shafts planted in her breast
by Mrs. Devar's faint protests, and tried to mitigate the blow she had
inflicted by adding, with a valiant smile:
"For this occasion only, Jupiter must content himself with Mercury as
a companion."
"If I had Jove's power----" he began wrathfully.
"If you were Cynthia Vanrenen, you would do exactly what she is
doing," she cried, and fled from the window.
It is not to be denied that he extracted some cold comfort from that
last cryptic remark. Cynthia wanted to come, but Mrs. Devar had
evidently burked the excursion. Why? Because Cynthia's escort would
be Viscount Medenham and not Arthur Simmonds, orthodox and highly
respectable chauffeur. But Mrs. Devar plainly declared herself on the
side of Viscount Medenham last night. Why, then, did she stop a short
journey by motor, with the laudable objective of hearing an anthem and
a sermon in a cathedral, when overnight she permitted the far less
defensible trip on the river with the hated Fitzroy? It needed no
great penetration to solve this puzzle. Mrs. Devar was afraid of some
development that might happen if the girl visited Hereford that day.
She counted on Medenham being chained to Symon's Yat while Cynthia was
there--consequently she had heard something from Dale that rendered it
eminently necessary that neither he nor Cynthia should be seen in
Hereford on the Sunday. Probably, too, she did not anticipate that
Cynthia would don the haircloth of self-discipline and avoid him
during the whole of the day, since that was what the girl meant by her
allusion to Monday's starting-time.
Perhaps, using a woman's privilege, she might change her mind towards
sunset; meanwhile, it behooved him to visit Hereford and pry into
things there.
Nevertheless, he was a wise lover. Cynthia might dismiss him
graciously to follow his own behests, but it might not please her if
she discovered that he had taken her permission too literally. He
entered the hotel and wrote a letter:
"My dear Miss Vanrenen----" no pretense of "Madam" or other social
formula, but a plain and large "My dear," with the name appended as a
concession to the humbug of life, even in regard to the woman he
loved--"I am going to Hereford, but shall return here for luncheon.
Mrs. Devar's illness is not likely to be lasting, and the view from
the Yat is, if possible, better in the afternoon than in the morning.
In addition to my obvious need of a clean collar, I believe that our
presence in Hereford to-day is not desired. Why? I shall make it my
business to find out. Yours ever sincerely----"
Then he reached a high and stout stone wall of difficulty. Was he to
fall back on the subterfuge of "George Augustus Fitzroy," which, of
course, was his proper signature in law? He disliked this veil of
concealment more and more each instant, but it was manifestly out of
the question that he should sign himself "Medenham," or "George,"
while he had fought several pitched battles at Harrow with classmates
who pined to label him "Augustus," abbreviated. So, greatly daring,
he wrote: "Mercury's Guv'nor," trusting to luck whether or not
Cynthia's classical lore would remind her that Mercury was the son of
Jupiter.
He reread this effusion twice, and was satisfied with it as the herald
of others. "My dear" sounded well; the intimacy of "our presence" was
not overdone; while "yours ever sincerely" was excellent. He wondered
if Cynthia would analyze it word for word in that fashion. Well, some
day he might ask her. For the present he sealed the letter with a sigh
and gave it to a waiter for safe delivery; he fancied, but could not
be quite sure, that a good deal of unnecessary play with the motor's
Gabriel horn five minutes later brought a slender muslined figure to a
window of the then distant hotel.
From Symon's Yat to Hereford is about fifteen miles, and Medenham drew
out of the narrow lane leading from the river to Whitchurch about a
quarter-past nine. Thenceforth a straight and good road lay clear
before him, and he meant to break the law as to speed limit by
traveling at the fastest rate compatible with his own safety and that
of other road-users. It was no disgrace to the Mercury car, therefore,
when a dull report and a sudden effort of the steering-wheel to swerve
to the right betokened the collapse of an inner tube on the off side.
From the motorist's point of view it was difficult to understand the
cause of the mishap. The whole four tires were new so recently as the
previous Monday, and Medenham was far too deeply absorbed in his own
affairs to grasp the essential fact that Fate was still taking an
intelligent interest in him.
Of course, he did not hurry over the work as though his life depended
on it. Even when the cover was replaced and the tire pumped to the
proper degree of air-pressure he lit a cigarette and had a look at the
magneto before restarting the engine. Two small boys had appeared from
space, and he amused himself by asking them to reckon how long it
would take two men to mow a field of grass which one of the men could
mow in three days and the other in four. He promised a reward of
sixpence if the correct answer were forthcoming in a minute, and
raised it to a shilling during the next minute. This stimulated their
wits to suggest "a day and three-quarters" instead of the first
frantic effort of "three days and a half."
"No," said he. "Think it over, ponder it with ardor, and if you have
the right answer ready when I pass this way again about midday I'll