Cynthia's Chauffeur
striving to cloak emotions that threatened at any moment to throw off
the last vestige of concealment.
"My father is a very clever man, Mr. Fitzroy," she said slowly. "If he
did not choose to tell you why he did a thing, you could no more
extract the information from him than from a bit of marble."
"He has one weak point, I am sure," and Medenham smiled confidently
into her eyes.
"I do not know it," she murmured.
"But I know it, though I have never seen him. He is vulnerable through
his daughter."
Her cheeks flamed into scarlet, and her lips trembled, but she strove
valiantly to govern her voice.
"You must be very careful in anything you say about me," she said with
a praiseworthy attempt at light raillery.
"I shall be careful with the care of a man who has discovered some
rare jewel, and fears lest each shadow should conceal an enemy till he
has reached a place of utmost security."
She sighed, and her glance wandered away into the sun-drowned valley.
"Such fortresses are rare and hard to find," she said. "Take my own
case. I was really enjoying this pleasant tour of ours, yet it is
broken in two, as it were, by some force beyond our control, and the
severance makes itself felt here, in this secluded nook, a retreat not
even marked on our self-drawn map. Where could one be more secure--as
you put it--less open to that surge of events that drives resistlessly
into new seas? I am something of a fatalist, Mr. Fitzroy, though the
phrase sounds strange on my lips. Yet I feel that after to-morrow we
shall not meet again so soon or so easily as you imagine, and--if I
may venture to advise one much more experienced than myself--the way
that leads least hopefully to my speedy introduction to your aunt is
that you should see my father, before I rejoin him. You know, I am
sure, that I look on you rather as a friend than a mere--a mere----"
"Slave," he suggested, trying to wrench some spark of humor out of the
iron in their souls.
"Don't be stupid. I mean that you and I have met on an equality that I
would deny to Simmonds or to any of the dozen chauffeurs we have
employed in various parts of the world. And I want to warn you of
this--knowing my father as well as I do--I am certain he has asked
Mrs. Leland's help for the undertaking that others have failed in.
I--can't say more. I----"
"Cynthia, dear! I have been looking for you everywhere," cried a
detested voice. "Ah, there you are, Mr. Fitzroy!" and Mrs. Devar
bustled forward cheerfully. "You have been to Hereford, I hear. How
kind and thoughtful of you! Were there any letters for me?"
"Sorry," broke in Cynthia. "I was so absorbed in my own news that I
forget yours. Here is your letter. It is only from Monsieur Marigny,
to blow both of us up, I suppose, for leaving him desolate last night.
But what do you think of _my_ budget? My father is in London; Mrs.
Leland, a friend of ours, joins us at Chester to-morrow; and Fitzroy
deserts us at the same time."
Mrs. Devar's eyes bulged and her lower jaw fell a little. She could
hardly have exhibited more significant tokens of alarm had each of
Cynthia's unwelcome statements been punctuated by the crash of
artillery fired in the garden beneath.
During a long night and a weary morning she had labored hard at the
building of a new castle in Spain, and now it was dissipated at a
breath. Her sky had fallen; she was plunged into chaos; her brain
reeled under these successive shocks.
"I--don't understand," she gasped, panting as if she had run across
vast stretches of that vague "everywhere" during her quest of Cynthia.
"None of us understands. That is not the essence of the contract.
Anyhow, father is in England, Mrs. Leland will be in Chester, and
Fitzroy is for London. He is the only real hustler in the crowd.
Unless my eyes deceived me, he brought his successor in the car from
Hereford. Really, Mr. Fitzroy, don't you think you ought to skate by
the next train?"
"I prefer waiting till to-morrow evening if you will permit it," he
said humbly.
Cynthia was lashing herself into a very fair semblance of hot anger.
She felt that she was trammeled in a net of deception, and, like the
freedom-loving American that she was, she resented the toils none the
less because their strands remained invisible. Seeing Medenham's
crestfallen aspect at her unjust charge with reference to Dale's
presence, she bit her lip with a laugh of annoyance and turned on Mrs.
Devar.
"It seems to me," she cried, "that Count Edouard Marigny has been
taking an interest in me that is certainly not warranted by any
encouragement on my part. Open your letter, Mrs. Devar, and see if he,
too, is on the London trail.... Ah, well--perhaps I am mistaken. I was
so vexed for the moment that I thought he might have telegraphed to
father when we did not turn up at Hereford. Of course, that is sheer
nonsense. He couldn't have done it. Father was in England before
Monsieur Marigny was aware of our failure to connect with Hereford.
I'm sure I don't know what is vexing me, but something is, or
somebody, and I want to quarrel with it, or him, or her, real bad."
Without waiting for any opening of Marigny's note she ran off to her
room. Medenham had turned to leave the hotel when he heard a gurgling
cry:
"Mr. Fitzroy--Lord Medenham--what does it all mean?"
Mrs. Devar's distress was pitiable. Snatches of talk overheard in
Paris and elsewhere warned her that Mrs. Leland would prove an
unconquerable foe. She was miserably conscious that her own letter,
posted overnight, would rise up in judgment against her, but already
she had devised the plausible excuse that the very qualities which
were excellent in a viscount were most dangerous in a chauffeur.
Nevertheless, the letter, ill-advised though it might be, could not
account for Peter Vanrenen's sudden visit to England. She might
torture her wits for a year without hitting on the truth, since the
summoning of the millionaire to the rescue appeared to be the last
thing Count Edouard Marigny would dream of doing. She actually held in
her hand a summary of the telegrams he had dispatched from Bristol,
but her mind was too confused to work in its customary grooves, and
she blurted out Medenham's title in a frantic attempt to gain his
support.
"It means this," he said coolly, resolved to clear the ground
thoroughly for Mrs. Devar's benefit; "your French ally is resorting to
the methods of the blackmailer. If you are wise you will cut yourself
entirely adrift from him, and warn your son to follow your example. I
shall deal with Monsieur Marigny--have no doubt on that score--and if
you wish me to forget certain discreditable incidents that have
happened since we left London you will respect my earnest request
that Miss Vanrenen shall not be told anything about me by you. I mean
to choose my own time and place for the necessary explanations. They
concern none but Miss Vanrenen and myself, in the first instance, and
her father and mine, in the second. I have observed that you can be a
shrewd woman when it serves your interests, Mrs. Devar, and now you
have an opportunity of adding discretion to shrewdness. I take it you
are asking for my advice. It is simple and to the point. Enjoy
yourself, cease acting as a matrimonial agent, and leave the rest to
me."
The residents in the hotel were gathering in the veranda, as the
luncheon hour was approaching, so Mrs. Devar could not press him to be
more explicit. In the privacy of her own room she read Marigny's
letter. Then she learnt why Cynthia's father had hurried across the
Channel, for the Frenchman had not scrupled to warn him that his
presence was imperative if he would save his daughter from a rogue who
had replaced the confidential Simmonds as chauffeur.
Forthwith, Mrs. Devar became more dazed than ever. She felt that she
must confide in someone, so she wrote a full account of events at
Symon's Yat to her son. It was the worst possible thing she could have
done. Unconsciously--for she was now anxious to help instead of
hindering Medenham's wooing--some of the gall in her nature distilled
itself into words. She dwelt on the river episode with all the sly
rancor of the inveterate scandalmonger. She was really striving to
depict her own confusion of ideas when stunned by the discovery of
Medenham's position, but she only succeeded in stringing together a
series of ill-natured innuendoes. Sandwiched between each paragraph of
the story were the true gossip's catchwords--thus: "What was I to
think?" "What would people say if they knew?" "My dear, just picture
your mother's predicament when midnight struck, and there was no
news!" "Of course, one makes allowances for an American girl," and the
rest.
Though this soured woman was a ready letter-writer, she was no reader,
or in days to come she might have parodied Pope's "Epistle to Dr.
Arbuthnot":
Why did I write? What sin to me unknown
Dipped me in ink?--my parents', or my own?
Not content with her outpouring to Devar she dashed off a warning to
Marigny. She imagined that the Frenchman would grin at his broken
fortunes, and look about for another heiress! And so, abandoning a
meal to the fever of scribbling, she packed more mischief into an hour
than any elderly marriage-broker in Europe that day, and waddled off
to the letterbox with a sense of consolation, strong in the belief
that the morrow would bring telegrams to guide her in the fray with
Mrs. Leland.
Medenham sent a short note to his father, saying that he would reach
London about midnight next day and asking him to invite Aunt Susan to
lunch on Tuesday. Then he waited in vain for sight of Cynthia until,
driven to extremes by tea-time, he got one of the maids to take her a
verbal message, in which he stated that the climb to the summit of the
Yat could be made in half an hour.
The reply was deadening.
"Miss Vanrenen says she is busy. She does not intend to leave the
hotel to-day; and will you please have the car ready at eight o'clock
to-morrow morning."
Then Medenham smiled ferociously, for he had just ascertained that the
local telegraph office opened at eight.
"Kindly tell Miss Vanrenen that we had better make a start some few
minutes earlier, because we have a long day's run before us," he said.
And he hummed a verse of "Young Lochinvar" as he moved away, thereby
provoking the maid-servant to an expression of opinion that some folk
thought a lot of themselves--but as for London shuffers and their
manners--well there!
CHAPTER XII
MASQUES, ANCIENT AND MODERN
The clouds did not lift until Cynthia was standing in front of that
remarkable Map of the World which reposes behind oaken doors in the
south aisle of Hereford Cathedral. During the run from Symon's Yat,
not even a glorious sun could dispel the vapors of that unfortunate
Sunday. Cynthia had smiled a "Good-morning" when she entered the car,
but beyond one quick glance around to see if the deputy chauffeur was
in attendance--which Medenham took care he should not be--she gave no
visible sign of yesterday's troubles, though her self-contained manner
showed that they were present in her thoughts.
Mrs. Devar tried to be gracious, and only succeeded in being stilted,
for the shadow of impending disaster lay black upon her. Medenham's
only thrill came when Cynthia asked for letters or telegrams at the
Green Dragon, and was told there were none. Evidently, Peter Vanrenen
was not a man to create a mountain out of a molehill. Mrs. Leland
might be trusted to smooth away difficulties; perhaps he meant to
await her report confidently and in silence.
But that square of crinkled vellum on which Richard of Holdingham and
Lafford had charted this strange old world of ours as it appeared