My Friend the Chauffeur
windows did. It called the unfortunate shape in leather by several
strange and creditably, or perhaps discreditably, original names, but as
this flow of eloquence was in German, it could not be appreciated by the
ladies. Mrs. Kidder knew the languages not at all, and Miss Destrey and
Beechy had remarked, when Dalmatia was proposed, that their knowledge
was of the copy-book order.
So completely upset was the Prince, that on joining us he forgot to be
sarcastic. Not a question, not a sneer as to our progress, not an
apology for being late. He flung himself into a chair at the table,
ordered the waiters about with truculence, and, having thus relieved his
mind, began complaining of his bad luck.
An Austrian Prince, when cross and hungry, can be as undesirable a
social companion as a Cockney cad, and the Countess's distinguished
friend did not show to advantage in the scene which followed. Yes, there
had been an accident. It was unheard of--abominable; entirely the fault
of the chauffeur. Chauffeurs (and he looked bleakly at Terry) were
without exception brutes--detestable brutes. You put up with them
because you had to; that was all. The automobile had merely stopped. It
must have been the simplest thing in the world for a professional to
discover what was wrong; yet this animal, Joseph, could do nothing but
poke his nose into the machinery and then shrug his hideous shoulders.
Why yes, he had taken out the valves, of course, examined the sparkling
plugs, and tested the coil. Any amateur could have done so much. It gave
a good spark; there was no short circuit; yet the motor would not start,
and the chauffeur was unable to give an explanation. Twice he had taken
the car to pieces without result--absolutely to pieces. Then, and not
till then, had the creature found wit enough to think of the
carburetter. There was the trouble, and nowhere else. All that delay and
misery had been caused by some grit which had penetrated into the
carburetter and prevented the needle working. This it was to have a
donkey instead of a chauffeur.
"But it didn't occur to you that it might be the carburetter," said
Terry, taking advantage of a pause made by the arrival of the Prince's
luncheon, which that gentleman attacked with ardour.
"Why should it?" haughtily inquired Dalmar-Kalm. "I am not engaged in
that business. I pay other people to think for me. Besides, it is not
with me as with you and your friend, who must be accustomed to accidents
of all sorts on a low-powered car, somewhat out of date. But I am not
used to having mine _en panne_. Never mind, it will not happen again.
_Mon Dieu_, what a meal to set before ladies. I do not care for myself,
but surely, Sir Ralph, it would have been easy to find a better place
than this to give the ladies luncheon?"
"Sir Ralph and Mr. Barrymore wanted us to go to the railway-station,"
Miss Destrey defended us, "but we thought it would be dull, and
preferred this, so our blood is on our own heads."
We finished gloomily with lukewarm coffee, which was so long on the way
that the Countess thought we might as well wait for the "poor Prince."
Then, when we were ready, came a violent shower, which meant more
waiting, as the Countess did not agree cordially with her daughter's
remark that to "drive in the rain would be good for the complexion."
When at last we were able to start it was after three, and we should
have to make good speed if we were to arrive at San Dalmazzo even by
late tea-time. Terry was on his mettle, however, and I guessed that he
was anxious our first day should not end in failure.
Tooling out of Ventimiglia, that grim frontier town whose name has
become synonymous to travellers with waiting and desperate resignation,
we turned up by the side of the Roya, where the stream gushes seaward,
through many channels, in a wide and pebbly bed. The shower just past,
though brief, had been heavy enough to turn a thick layer of white dust
into a greasy, grey paste of mud. On our left was a sudden drop into the
rushing river, on the right a deep ditch, and the road between was as
round-shouldered as a hunchback. Seeing this natural phenomenon, and
feeling the slightly uncertain step of our fat tyres as they waddled
through the pasty mud, the pleasant smile of the proud motor-proprietor
which I had been wearing hardened upon my face. I didn't know as much
about motors as our passengers supposed, but I did know what side-slip
was, and I did not think that this was a nice place for the ladies to be
initiated. There might easily be an accident, even with the best of
drivers such as we had in Terry, and I was sure that he was having all
he could do to keep on the crown of the road. At any moment, slowly as
we were going, the heavily laden car might become skittish and begin to
waltz, a feat which would certainly first surprise and then alarm the
ladies, even if it had no more serious consequences.
It was while we were in this critical situation, which had not yet begun
to dawn upon our passengers, that Dalmar-Kalm seized the opportunity of
racing past us from behind, blowing a fanfarronade on his horn, to prove
how much faster his car could go than ours. In the instant that he was
abreast of us, our tonneau, which overhung the back axle further than is
considered wise in the latest types of cars, swung outwards, with a slip
of the tyre in the grey grease, and only by an inch which seemed a mere
hair's breadth was Terry able to save us from a collision.
The Countess screamed, Beechy clung once more to my knee, and we all
glared at the red car with the white canopy as it shot ruthlessly ahead.
The Prince's tyres were strapped with spiked leather covers, which we
could not carry as they would lose us too much speed; therefore the
danger of side-slip was lessened for him, and he flew by without even
knowing how near we had been to an accident. The anger painted on our
ungoggled faces he doubtless attributed to jealousy, as he glanced back
to wave a triumphant _au revoir_ before flashing out of sight, round a
bend of the road.
There is something very human, and particularly womanish, about a
motor-car. The shock of the narrow escape we had just had seemed to have
unsteadied the nerve of our brave Panhard for the moment. We were
nearing a skew bridge, with an almost right-angled approach; and the
strange resultant of the nicely balanced forces that control an
automobile skating on "pneus" over slippery mud twisted us round,
suddenly and without warning. Instantly, oilily, the car gyrated as on a
pivot, and behold, we were facing down the valley instead of up. Terry
could not had done it had he tried.
"Oh, my goodness!" quavered the Countess, in a collapse. "Am I dreaming,
or has this happened? It seems as if I must be out of my wits!"
"It _has_ happened," answered Terry, laughing reassuringly, but far from
joyous within, I knew. "But it's nothing alarming. A little side-slip,
that's all."
"A _little_ side-slip!" she echoed. "Then may I be preserved from a big
one. This automobile has turned its nose towards home again, of its own
accord. Oh, Sir Ralph, I'm not sure I like motoring as much as I thought
I would. I'm not sure the Hand of Providence didn't turn the car back."
"Nonsense, Mamma!" cried Beechy. "The other day the Hand of Providence
was pointing out Sir Ralph's advertisement in the newspaper. It can't be
always changing its mind, and you can't, either. We're all _alive_,
anyhow, and that's something."
"Ah, but how long shall we be?" moaned her mother. "I don't want to be
silly, but I didn't know that an automobile had the habits of a
kangaroo and a crab, and a base-ball, and I'm afraid I shall never get
used to them."
Terry explained that his car was not addicted to producing these
sensational effects, and compared the difficulties it was now combatting
with those which a skater might experience if the hard ice were covered
an inch deep with soft soap. "We shall soon be out of this," he said,
"for the road will be better higher up where the hill begins, and the
rain has had a chance to drain away."
Cheered by these promises, the poor Countess behaved herself very well,
though she looked as if she might burst an important blood-vessel, as
Terry carefully turned his car on the slippery surface of the road's
tortoise-back. I was not happy myself, for it would have been as "easy
as falling off a log" for the automobile to leap gracefully into the
Roya; but the brakes held nobly, and as Terry had said, there was better
going round the next corner.
Here the mountains began to draw together, so that we were no longer
travelling in a valley, but in a gorge. Deep shadow shut us in, as if we
had left the warm, outer air and entered a dim castle, perpetually
shuttered and austerely cold. Dark crags shaped themselves
magnificently, and the scene was of such wild grandeur that even Beechy
ceased to be flippant. We drove on in silence, listening to the battle
song of the river as it fought its way on through the rocky chasm its
own strength had hewn.
The road mounted continuously, with a gentle incline, weaving its grey
thread round the blind face of the mountain, and suddenly, turning a
shoulder of rock we came upon the Prince's car which we had fancied many
kilometres in advance. The big red chariot was stationary, one wheel
tilted into the ditch at the roadside, while Dalmar-Kalm and his
melancholy chauffeur were straining to rescue it from its ignominious
position.
Our Panhard had been going particularly well, as if to justify itself in
its employers' eyes after its late slip from rectitude. "She" was taking
the hill gaily, pretending not to know it from the level, and it did
seem hard to play the part of good Samaritan to one marked by nature as
a Levite. But--_noblesse oblige_, and--honour among chauffeurs.
Terry is as far from sainthood as I am, and I knew well that his bosom
yearned to let Dalmar-Kalm stew in his own petrol. Nevertheless, he
brought the car to anchor without a second's hesitation, drawing up
alongside the humiliated red giant. Amid the exclamations of Mrs.
Kidder, and the suppressed chuckles of the _enfante terrible_, we two
men got out, with beautiful expressions on our faces and dawning haloes
round our heads, to help our hated rival.
Did he thank us for not straining the quality of our mercy? His name and
nature would not have been Dalmar-Kalm if he had. His first words at
sight of the two ministering angels by his side were: "You must have
brought me bad luck, I believe. Never have I had an accident with my car
until to-day, but now all goes wrong. For the second time I am _en
panne_. It is too much. This viper of a Joseph says we cannot go on."
Now we began to see why the Prince's chauffeur had acquired the
countenance of a male Niobe. Wormlike resignation to utter misery was,
we had judged, his prevailing characteristic; but hard work,
ingratitude, and goodness knows how much abuse, caused the worm to turn
and defend itself.
"How go on with a change-speed lever broken short off, close to the
quadrant?" he shrilled out in French. "And it is His Highness who broke
it, changing speed too quickly, a thing which I have constantly warned
him against in driving. I cannot make a new lever here in a wilderness.
I am not a magician."
"Nor a Felicite," I mumbled, convinced that, had my all-accomplished
adjutant been a chauffeur instead of a cook, she would have been equal
to beating up a trustworthy lever out of a slice of cake.
"Be silent, brigand!" roared the Prince, and I could hardly stifle a
laugh, for Joseph is no higher than my ear. His shoulders slope; his
legs are clothespins bound with leather; his eyes swim in tears, as our
car's crankhead floats in an oil bath; and his hair is hung round his