My Friend the Chauffeur
under my chin for a minute. "There's more fun to be had in playing with
him than with dolls," I said to myself, "if I set about it in the right
way. But what _is_ the right way? I can't be bothered having him for my
doll, because he'd take up too much time. Shall I give him to Maida? No,
I'll lend him to Mamma to play with, so long as she plays the way I want
her to, and doesn't get in earnest."
"What are you anxious to say about me that can't wait till breakfast?" I
asked.
"_Those men_ will be at breakfast," said he. "They are in the position
of your couriers, yet they put themselves forward, as if on an equality
with me. I do not find that conducive to conversation."
"Mamma asked Maida yesterday whether it was better to be an Austrian
prince, or an English baronet?" said I. "Sir Ralph Moray's a baronet."
"So he says," sneered the Prince.
"Oh, he is. Mamma looked him out in Burke the very day I found you were
thirty-nine in the Almanach de Gotha."
"Anybody can be a baronet. That is nothing. It is a mere word."
"It's in three syllables, and 'prince' is only in one. Besides,
Austrians are foreigners, and Englishmen aren't."
"Is that what Miss Destrey said to your Mamma?"
"No, because Mamma's a foreign Countess now, and it might have hurt her
feelings. Maida said she felt more at home with a plain mister--like Mr.
Barrymore, for instance; only he's far from plain."
"You consider him handsome?"
"Oh, yes, we all do."
"But I think you have not known him and Sir Ralph Moray for long. Your
Mamma has not mentioned how she met them, but from one or two things
that have been dropped, I feel sure they are in her employ--that she has
hired them to take you about in their very inadequate car; is it not
so?"
"I'll ask Mamma and tell you what she says, if you'd like me to," I
replied.
"No, no, dear child, you are too literal. It is your one fault. And I
find that you are all three too trusting of strangers. It is a beautiful
quality, but it must not be carried too far. Will you not let me be your
friend, Miss Beechy, and come to me for advice? I should be delighted to
give it, for you know what an interest I take in all connected with you.
There! Now you have heard what I followed you out especially to say. I
hoped that this would be a chance to establish a confidential
relationship between us. _Voulez-vous, ma chere petite?_"
"What kind of a relationship shall we establish, exactly?" I asked. "You
say you don't want to be my Papa."
"If I were your Papa, I should be dead."
"If you were my brother, and the age you are now, Mamma might as well be
dead."
"Ah, I would not be your brother on any consideration. Not even your
step-brother; though some step-relationships are delightful. But your
Mamma is too charming--you are _all_ too charming, for my peace of mind.
I do not know how I lived before I met you."
I thought that the money-lenders perhaps knew; but there are some things
even little Beechy can't say.
"Your Mamma must have great responsibilities for so young a woman," he
went on, while I pruned and prismed. "With her great fortune, and no one
to guard her, she must often feel the weight of her burden too heavy for
one pair of shoulders."
"One can always spend one's fortune, and so get rid of the burden, if
it's too big," said I.
The Prince looked horrified. "Surely she is more wise than that?" he
exclaimed.
"She hasn't spent it all yet, anyhow," I said.
"Are you not anxious lest, if your Mamma is extravagant, she may throw
away your fortune as well as her own; or did your Papa think of that
danger, and make you quite secure?"
"I guess I shall have a little something left, no matter what happens,"
I admitted.
"Then your Papa was thoughtful for you. But was he also jealous for
himself? Had I been the husband of so fascinating a woman as your Mamma,
I would have put into my will a clause that, if she married again, she
must forfeit everything. But it may be that Americans do not hug their
jealousy in the grave."
"I can't imagine poor Papa hugging anything," I said. "I never heard
that he objected to Mamma marrying again. Anyhow, she's had several
offers already."
"She should choose a man of title for her second husband," said the
Prince, very pleased with the way the pump was working.
"Maybe she will," I answered.
He started slightly.
"It should be a title worth having," he said, "and a man fitted to bear
it, not a paltry upstart whose father was perhaps a tradesman. You, Miss
Beechy, must watch over your dear Mamma and rescue her from fortune
hunters. I will help. And I will protect _you_, also. As for Miss
Destrey, beautiful as she is, I feel that she is safe from unworthy
persons who seek a woman only for her money. Her face is her fortune,
_n'est-ce pas_?"
"Well, it's fortune enough for any girl," said I, thinking again of Job
and all the other really solemn characters in the Old Testament as hard
as ever I could.
The Prince sighed, genuinely this time, as if my answer had confirmed
his worst suspicions. "He will be nice to Mamma, now," said little
Beechy to big Beechy. "No more vacillating. He'll come straight to
business." And promising myself some fun, I got up from the bench so
cautiously that the poor river was cheated of a victim. "Now I _must_ go
in," I exclaimed. "_Good_-bye, Prince. Let me see; what are we to each
other?"
"Confidants," he informed me. "You are to come to me with every
difficulty. But one more word before we part, dear child. Be on your
guard, and warn your Mamma to be on hers, with those two adventurers.
Perhaps, also, you had better warn Miss Destrey. Who knows how
unscrupulous the pair might be? And unfortunately, owing to the
regrettable arrangements at present existing, I cannot always be at hand
to watch over you all."
"Owing a little to your automobile too, maybe," said I. "By the way,
what is its state of health?"
"There has been no room for the automobile in my thoughts," said the
Prince, with a cooled-down step-fatherly smile. "But I have no doubt it
will be in good marching order by the time it is wanted, as my chauffeur
was to rise at four, knock up a mechanic at some shop in the village,
and make the new change-speed lever which was broken yesterday. If you
are determined to leave me so soon, I will console myself by finding
Joseph and seeing how he is getting on."
We walked together towards the house, which had opened several of its
green eyelids now, and at the mouth of a sort of stucco tunnel which led
to the door there was Joseph himself--a piteous, dishevelled Joseph,
looking as if birds had built nests on him and spiders had woven webs
round him for years.
"Well," exclaimed the Prince with the air of one warding off a blow.
"What has happened? Have you burnt my automobile, or are you always like
this when you get up early?"
"I am not an incendiary, Your Highness," said Joseph, in his precise
French, which it's easy to understand, because when he wishes to be
dignified he speaks slowly. "I do not know what I am like, unless it is
a wreck, in which case I resemble your automobile. As you left her last
night, so she is now, and so she is likely to remain, unless the
gentlemen of the other car will have the beneficence to pull her up a
still further and more violent hill to the village of Tenda. There finds
himself the only mechanic within fifty miles."
"I engaged _you_ as a mechanic!" cried the Prince.
"But not as a workshop, Your Highness. That I am not and shall not be
this side of Paradise. And it is a workshop that we must have."
"Do not let me keep you, Miss Beechy," said the Prince, "if you wish to
go to your Mamma. This little difficulty will arrange itself."
I adore rows, and I should have liked to stay; but I couldn't think of
any excuse, so I skipped into the house, and almost telescoped (as they
say of railroad trains) with the nice monk, who was talking to Maida in
the hall.
I supposed she was telling him about the Sisters, but she was quite
indignant at the suggestion, and said she had been asking if we could
have breakfast in the garden. The monk had given his consent, and she
had intended to have everything arranged out doors, as a surprise, by
the time we all came down.
"Aunt Kathryn is up; I've been doing her hair," explained Maida, "but we
didn't hear a sound from your room, so we decided not to disturb you.
What _have_ you been about, you weird child?"
"Playing dolls," said I, and ran off to help Mamma put on her
complexion.
But it was on already, all except the icing. I confessed the Prince to
her, and she looked at me sharply. "Don't forget that you're a little
girl now, Beechy," she reminded me. "What were you talking about?"
"You and my other dolls, Mamma," said I. "Even when I was seventeen I
never flirted fasting."
"What did you say about me, dearest?"
"Oh, it was the Prince who said things about you. You can have him to
play with, if you want to."
"Darling, you shouldn't talk of playing. This is a very serious
consideration," said Mamma. "I never heard much about Austrians at home.
Most foreigners there were Germans, which made one think of beer and
sausages. I do wonder what standing an Austrian Prince would have in
Denver? Should you suppose he would be preferred to--to persons of less
exalted rank who were--who were not quite so _foreign_?"
"Do the Prince and Sir Ralph Moray intend to go over as samples?" I
asked sweetly, but Mamma only simpered, and as a self-respecting child I
cannot approve of a parent's simpering.
"I wish you wouldn't be silly, Beechy," she said. "It is a step, being a
Countess, but it is not enough."
"You mean, the more crowns you have, the more crowns you want."
"I mean nothing of the sort," snapped Mamma, "but I have some ambition,
otherwise what would have been the good of coming to Europe? And if one
gets opportunities, it would be sinful to neglect them. Only--one wants
to be sure that one has taken the best."
"There they all three are, in the yard," I remarked, pointing out of the
window at the Opportunities, who were discoursing earnestly with Joseph.
"Of course, I'm too young _now_ to judge of such matters, but if it was
_I_ who had to choose--"
"Well?"
"I'd toss up a penny, and whichever side came, I'd take--"
"Yes?"
"Mr. Barrymore."
"Mr. Barrymore! But he has no title! I might as well have stayed in
America."
"I said that, because I think he'd be the hardest to get. The other
two--"
"What about them?"
"Well, you don't need to decide between them yet. Just wait till we've
travelled a little further, and see whether you come across anything
better worth having."
"Oh, Beechy, I never know whether you're poking fun at me or not,"
sighed poor Mamma, so forlornly that I was sorry--for a whole
minute--that I'd been born wicked; and I tied her tulle in a lovely bow
at the back of her neck, to make up.
IX
A CHAPTER OF REVELATIONS
Maida really was the prettiest thing ever created, when I looked down at
her from Mamma's window, as she arranged flowers and cups and saucers on
the table which the monk had carried out for her, into the garden. He
had quite a gallant air, in his innocent way, as if he were an old beau,
instead of a monk, and his poor face seemed to fall when Mamma's
untitled Opportunity--all unconscious that he was an Opportunity--saw
Maida, left Joseph, and sprang to her assistance. But no wonder those
two men, so different one from the other, found the same joy in waiting
on her! The morning sun sprinkled gold on her hair, and made her fair
skin look milky white, like pearl; then, when she would pass under the
arbour of trees, the shadows threw a glimmering veil over her, and