My Friend the Chauffeur
Terry produced those which had been given us at the custom-house in
Grimaldi.
"But these are Italian papers. Where are those for France?" asked the
_douanier_.
"This is not France," said the Prince, before Terry could speak.
"It is Breil, and it is France," returned the man. "France for nine
kilometres, until Fontan, where Italian territory begins again."
Terry laughed, rather ruefully. "Well," said he, "I have no French
papers, but we paid a penny at the Pont St. Louis to leave France. This
car is French, and we ought not to pay anything to enter; nevertheless,
I shall be delighted to hand you the same sum for the privilege of
coming in again."
"Ah, you paid ten centimes? Then, if you have the receipt it may be
possible to permit you to go on."
"Permit us to go on!" echoed Dalmar-Kalm angrily. "I should think so,
indeed."
"I'm sorry, I took no receipt," said Terry. "I thought it an unnecessary
formality."
"_No_ formality is unnecessary, monsieur," said the servant of form. "I
also am sorry, but in the circumstances you cannot enter French
territory without a receipt for the ten centimes. As a man I believe
implicitly that you paid the sum, as an official I am compelled to doubt
your word."
Who but a Frenchman could have been so exquisitely pompous over a penny?
I saw by Terry's face that he was far from considering the incident
closed; but he had too much true Irish tact to try and get us through by
storming.
"Let us consider," he began, "whether there is not some means of escape
from this difficulty."
But Dalmar-Kalm was in no mood to temporize, or keep silent while others
temporized. The lights of Breil showed that it was a town of comparative
importance; it was past eight o'clock; and no doubt His Highness's
temper was sharpened by a keen edge of hunger. That he--he should be
stopped by a fussy official figure-head almost within smell of food,
broke down the barrier of his self-restraint--never a formidable
rampart, as we had cause to know. In a few loud and vigorous sentences
he expressed a withering contempt for France, its institutions, its
customs, and especially its custom-houses.
"If you'd mix up the Prince's initials, as you do Mr. Barrymore's
sometimes, and call him Kalmar-Dalm, there'd be some excuse for it,"
Beechy Kidder murmured to the Countess.
"Hush, he'll hear!" implored the much-enduring lady, but there was small
danger that His Highness would hear any expostulations save his own.
The functionary's eye grew dark, and Terry frowned. Had the _douanier_
been insolent, my peppery Irishman would have been insolent too,
perhaps, in the hope of cowering the man by truculence more
swashbuckling than his own; but he had been as polite as his countrymen
proverbially are, if not goaded out of their suavity. "Look here,
Prince," said Terry, hanging onto his temper by a thread (for he also
was hungry), "suppose you leave this matter to me. If you'll take the
ladies to the best hotel in town, Moray and I will stop and see this
thing through. We'll follow when we can."
Dalmar-Kalm snapped at the suggestion; our passengers saw that it was
for the best, and yielded. As they moved away, a shadowy form hovered in
their wake. It was the little black dog of Airole.
The Marquis of Innisfallen's first quarrel with his brother had been
caused by Terry's youthful preference for an army instead of a
diplomatic career. Now, could his cantankerous relative have seen my
friend, he would once more have shaken his head over talents wasted. The
oily eloquence which Terry lavished on that comparatively insignificant
French _douanier_ ought to have earned him a billet as first secretary
to a Legation. He pictured the despair of the ladies if the power of
France kept them prisoners at the frontier; he referred warmly to that
country's reputation for chivalry; he offered to pay the usual deposit
on a car entering France and receive it back again at Fontan. To this
last suggestion the harassed official replied that technically his
office was closed for the night, and that after eight o'clock he could
not receive money or issue papers. Finally, therefore, Terry was reduced
to appealing to the cleverness and resource of a true Frenchman.
It was a neat little fencing-match, which ended in the triumph of Great
Britain. The functionary, treated like a gentleman by a gentleman,
became anxious to accommodate, if he could do so "consistently with
honour." He had an inspiration, and suggested that he would strain his
duty by sending a messenger with us to Fontan, there to explain that we
were merely _en passage_. Out of the crowd which had collected a loutish
youth was chosen; a _pourboire_ promised; and after many mutual
politenesses we were permitted to _teuf-teuf_ onto the sacred soil of
France.
It is no more safe to judge a French country inn by its exterior, than
the soul of Cyrano de Bergerac by his nose. The inn of Breil had not an
engaging face, but it was animated by the spirit of a Brillat Savarin,
by which we were provided with a wonderful dinner in numerous courses.
We could not escape from it, lest we hurt the _amour-propre_ of the
cook, and it was late when we were ready for our last _sortie_.
"You will never reach San Dalmazzo to-night, towing that car," we were
informed by the powers that were in the hotel. "The hills you have
passed are as nothing to the hills yet to come. You will do well to
spend the night with us, for if you try to get on, you will be all night
upon the road."
Our passengers were asked to decide, and we expected a difference of
opinion. We should have said that the two girls would have been for
pushing on, and the Countess for stopping. But that plump lady had
already conquered the tremors which, earlier in the day, had threatened
to wreck our expedition at its outset.
"It's a funny thing," said she, "but I want to go on, just _on_, for the
sake of _going_. I never felt like that before, travelling, not even in
a Mann Boudoir car at home, which I guess is the most luxurious thing on
wheels. I always wanted to _get_ there, wherever 'there' was; but now I
want to go on and on--I wouldn't care if it was to the end of the world,
and I can't think why, unless it's the novelty of automobiling. But it
can't be that, either, I suppose, for only a little while ago I was
thinking that bed-ridden people weren't badly off, they were so _safe_."
We all laughed at this (even the Prince, whom plenty of champagne had
put into a sentimental mood), and I suddenly found myself growing quite
fond of the Countess, crowns and all.
After the heat of the _salle a manger_, the night out of doors appeared
strangely white and cold, its purple depths drenched with moonlight, the
high remoteness of its dome faintly scintillant with icy points of
stars. An adventure seemed to lie before us. We turned wistfully to each
other for the warmth of human companionship, and had not the Prince been
trying to flirt with little Beechy unseen by Mamma, I should have felt
kindly even to him. Even as it was, I consented to let him try sitting
in his own car, and the rope, inured to suffering, had the consideration
not to break.
We forged on, up, up the higher reaches of the Roya valley, so glorious
in full moonlight that it struck us into silence. The mountains towering
round us shaped themselves into castles and cathedrals of carved marble,
their facades, grey by day, glittering white and polished under the
magic of the moon. The wonderful crescent town of Saorge, hanging on the
mountain-side, would alone have been worth coming this way to see if
there had been nothing else. Veiled by the mystery of night, the old
Ligurian stronghold appeared to be suspended between two rocky peaks,
like a great white hammock for a sleeping goddess, and now and then we
caught a jewelled sparkle from her rings.
They had not told an idle tale at the inn. The road, weary of going
up-hill on its knees, like a pilgrim, got suddenly upon its feet and we
were on its back, with the Prince's chariot trailing after us.
Nevertheless, our car did not falter, though the motor panted. Scarcely
ever were we able to pass from the first speed to the second, but then
(as Beechy remarked), considering all things, we ought to be thankful
for any speed above that of a snail.
At Fontan--when he had vouched for us--we dismissed our _oaf_, with a
light heart and a heavy pocket. Again, we were in Italy, a silent,
sleeping Italy, drugged with moonlight, and dreaming troubled dreams of
strangely contorted mountains. Then suddenly it waked, for the moon was
sinking, and the charm had lost its potence. The dream-shapes vanished,
and we were in a wide, dark basin, which might be green as emerald by
day. A grey ghost in a long coat, with a rifle slung across his back,
flitted into the road and startled the Countess by signing for us to
stop.
"Oh, mercy! are we going to be held up?" she whispered. "I'd forgotten
about the brigands."
"Only an Italian custom-house brigand," said Terry. "We've got to San
Dalmazzo after all, and it isn't morning yet."
"Yes, but it is!" cried Beechy. "There's a clock striking twelve."
A few minutes later we were driving along a level in the direction of
the monastery-hotel, which was said to be no more than a hundred metres
beyond the village. I had often heard of this hostelry at the little
mountain retreat of San Dalmazzo, loved and sought by Italians in the
summer heat. The arched gateway in the wall was clearly monastic, and we
felt sure that we had come to the right place, when Terry steered the
car through the open portal and a kind of tunnel on the other side.
Before the door of a long, low building he stopped the motor. Its
"thrum, thrum" stilled, the silence of the place was profound, and not a
light gleamed anywhere.
Terry got down and rang. We all waited anxiously, for much as we had
enjoyed the strange night drive, the day had been long, and the chill
of the keen mountain air was in our blood. But nothing happened, and
after a short pause Terry rang again. Silence was the only answer, and
it seemed to give denial rather than consent.
Four times he rang, and by this time the Prince and I were at his back,
striving to pierce the darkness behind the door which was half of glass.
At last a greenish light gleamed dim as a glow-worm in the distance, and
framed in it a figure was visible--the figure of a monk.
For an instant I was half inclined to believe him a ghost, haunting the
scene of past activities, for one does not expect to have the door of an
hotel opened by a monk. But ghosts have no traffic with keys and bolts;
and it was the voice of a man still bound to flesh and blood who greeted
us with a mild "_Buona sera_" which made the night seem young.
Terry responded and announced in his best Italian that we desired
accommodation for the night.
"Ah, I see," exclaimed the monk. "You thought that this was still a
hotel? I am sorry to disappoint you, but it ceased to be such only
to-day. The house is now once more what it was originally--a monastery.
It has been bought by the Order to which I belong."
"Isn't he going to take us in?" asked the Countess, dolefully.
"I'm afraid not," said Terry, "but I'll see what I can do."
Ah, that "seeing what he could do!" I knew it of old, for Terry's own
brother is the only person I ever met who could resist him if he stooped
to wheedle. Italian is a language which lends itself to wheedling, too;
and though the good monk demurred at first, shook his head, and even
flung up his hands with a despairing protest, he weakened at last, even
as the _douanier_ had weakened.
"He says if we'd come to-morrow, it would have been impossible to admit
us," translated Terry for the ladies' benefit. "The lease is going to be