My Friend the Chauffeur
turned her into a mermaid deep down in the green light of the sea.
I don't believe our glorified chauffeur would have stopped talking motor
talk and run about with dishes for Mamma or me as he did for Maida. And
I wonder if one of us had adopted that little scarecrow of a black dog,
whether he would have given it a bath in the fountain and dried it with
his pocket-handkerchief?
That is often the way. If a girl has set her face against marriage and
would rather be good to the poor than flirt, every man she's reluctantly
forced to meet promptly falls in love with her, while all the thoroughly
nice, normal female things like Mamma and me have to take a back seat.
By the way, Mamma and I are literally in the back seat on this
automobile trip; but my name isn't Beechy Kidder if it's dull for any
length of time.
However, this reflection is only a parenthesis in the midst of
breakfast; for we all had breakfast together in the monastery garden and
were as "gay as grigs." (N.B.--Some kind of animal for which Sir Ralph
is responsible.)
The Prince was nice to the two "adventurers," because he didn't want
them to repent their promise to tow his car up to Tenda; Maida was nice
to everybody, because a monastery was next best to a convent; Mr.
Barrymore was nice to her dog; Sir Ralph and the Prince were both nice
to Mamma, and Breakfast (I spell it with a capital to make it more
important) was nice to the poor little girl who would have had nobody to
play with, if each one hadn't been a dancing doll of hers without
realizing it.
The monk wouldn't charge us a cent for our board, so we had
unconsciously been paying him a visit all the time, though paying
nothing else, and the Prince had actually found fault with the coffee!
However, Sir Ralph gave him a donation for the charities of the house,
which he accepted, so we could bid him good-bye without feeling like
tramps who had stolen a lodging in somebody's barn.
As our automobile had to drag the Prince's, and it appeared that Tenda
was less than three miles away, Maida and I decided to walk. Sir Ralph
walked with us, and the Prince looked as if he would like to, but after
our talk before breakfast, he naturally felt that his place was by the
side of Mamma. She comes down two inches in common-sense walking shoes,
so of course hills are not for her, now that she's trying to be as
beautiful as she feels; but the Prince persuaded her to sit in the
tonneau of his car, as it crawled up the steep white road behind Mr.
Barrymore and the Panhard, so slowly that he could pace beside her. Sir
Ralph talked to Maida, as we three trailed after the two motors, and I
began to wonder if I hadn't been a little too strenuous in making the
Prince entirely over to Mamma.
Not that I wanted him personally, but I
did want some one to want me, so presently I pretended to be tired, and
running after the toiling cars, asked Mr. Barrymore whether my weight
would make much difference if I sat by him.
"No more than a feather," said he, with such a delightful smile that I
wished myself back at seventeen again, so that he might not talk "down"
to me in that condescending, uncomfortable way that grown-ups think
themselves obliged to use when they're entertaining children. If he had
only known it, I should have been quite equal to entertaining _him_; but
I was a victim to my pigtails and six inches of black silk stocking.
"Do you like motoring?" he asked, conscientiously.
"Yes," said I. "And it _is_ a fine day. And I would rather travel than
go to school. And I admire Europe almost as much as America So you
needn't bother about asking me those questions. You can begin right now
with something you would really _like_ to ask."
He laughed. "As you're so fastidious, I'd better consider a little," he
said.
"Maybe it would save time if I should suggest some subjects," said I,
"for I suppose we'll be at Tenda soon, even though the Prince's car is
as big as a house, and this hill is as steep as the side of one. Would
you like to ask me about Mamma's Past?"
"Good gracious, what do you take me for?" exclaimed Mr. Barrymore.
"I haven't decided yet," I replied, "though the Prince has talked to me
quite a good deal about you."
"Has he, indeed? What does he know about me?" and our magnificent
chauffeur turned suddenly so red under his nice dark skin, that I
couldn't help wondering if, by any chance, the Prince were the least
little bit right about his being an adventurer. I almost hoped he was,
for it would make things so much more romantic. I felt like saying,
"Don't mind me, my dear young sir. If you've anything to conceal about
yourself, I shall like you all the better." But what I really did say
was that the Prince seemed much more interested in people's Pasts than
he--Mr. Barrymore--appeared to be.
"My future is more interesting to me than my own past, or any one
else's," he retorted. But I thought that he looked a little troubled, as
if he were racking his brain for what the Prince could have let out, and
was too proud or obstinate to ask.
"You _are_ selfish," I said. "Then there's no use my trying to make this
ride pleasant for you, by telling you anecdotes of my past--or Maida's."
At this his profile changed. I can't say his "face" because he was
steering a great deal more than was flattering to me, or necessary in
going up hill. Would the fish bite at that last tempting morsel of bait?
I wondered. The Prince would have snapped at it; but though Mr.
Barrymore's title is only that of chauffeur, he is more of a gentleman
in his little finger than the Prince in his whole body. He may be an
adventurer, but anyhow he isn't the kind who pumps naughty little girls
about their grown-up relations' affairs.
"I am only concerned with yours and Miss Destrey's present," he said
after a minute.
"But the present so soon becomes the past, doesn't it? There's never
more than just a minute of the present, really, if you come to look at
it in that way, all the rest is past and future."
"Never mind," said Mr. Barrymore. "You've got more future than any of
the party."
"And poor Maida has less."
He forgot about his old steering-wheel for part of a second, and gave me
such a glance that I knew I had him on my hook this time.
"Why do you say that?" he asked, quite sharply.
"Oh, you _are_ interested in somebody's future beside your own then?"
"Who could help being--in hers?"
"You look as if you thought I meant she was dying of a decline," said I.
"It isn't quite as bad as that, but--well, beautiful as Maida is I
wouldn't change places with her, unless I could change souls as well. It
would be a good deal better for Maida in _this_ world if she could have
mine, though just the opposite in the next."
"Such talk clouds the sunshine," said Mr. Barrymore, "even for a
stranger like me, when you prophesy gloomy mysteries for one who
deserves only happiness. You said something of the sort to Moray
yesterday. He told me, but I was in hope that you had been joking."
"No," said I. "But I suppose Maida doesn't think the mysteries gloomy,
or she wouldn't 'embrace' them--if that's the right word for it. Mamma
and I imagined that coming to Europe would make her see differently
perhaps, but it hadn't the last time I asked her. She thought Paris lots
of fun, but all the same she was homesick for the stupid old convent
where she was brought up, and which she is going to let _swallow_ her up
in a year."
"Good Heavens, how terrible!" exclaimed our chauffeur, looking
tragically handsome. "Can nothing be done to save her? Couldn't you and
your mother induce her to change her mind?"
"We've tried," said I. "She saw a lot of society in Paris and when we
were at Cap Martin, but it gave her the sensation of having made a whole
meal on candy. Mamma has the idea of being presented to your Queen
Alexandra next spring, if she can manage it, and she told Maida that, if
she'd tack on a little piece to her year of travel, _she_ might be done
too, at the same time. But Maida didn't seem to care particularly about
it; and the society novels that Mamma loves don't interest her a bit.
Her favourite authors are Shakspere and Thomas Hardy, and she reads
Cooper and Sir Walter Scott. So what _can_ you do with a girl like
that?"
"There are other things in life besides society."
"Mamma doesn't think so. I guess we've both done all we can. I'm afraid
poor Maida's doomed. But there's one comfort; she'll look perfectly
beautiful in the white robe and veil that her Sisterhood wears."
Mr. Barrymore gave a sort of groan. "What a vocation for a girl like
that!" he muttered, more to himself than to me, I imagine. "Something
desperate ought to be done."
"_You_ might try to influence her," I said. "Not that I think it's
likely you _could_. But there's no harm in trying."
He didn't answer, but his face was as grave as if I had just invited him
to a funeral, and as even Job couldn't have kept my features from
playing (why shouldn't features play, if they can work?), I hastily
sought the first excuse for laughter I could find lying about loose.
"Oh, how _funny_!" I exclaimed. "Ha, ha, ha, how _funny_!"
"What is funny?" drearily demanded our chauffeur.
"Why, that queer little grey-brown town we're coming to. It looks for
all the world like an exhibition of patent beehives at a country fair."
"That is Tenda," volunteered Mr. Barrymore, still plunged in the depths
of gloom. "Your unfortunate namesake, poor Beatrice di Tenda, would have
been surprised to hear such a simile applied to her native town."
"Who was she?" I felt bound to inquire.
"I was telling Miss Destrey about her yesterday. She seemed interested.
Miss Destrey is very fond of history, isn't she?"
"Yes. But I'm tired talking of her now. I want to hear about the other
Beatrice. I suppose, if she was Italian, she was Bice too; but I'm sure
her friends never made her rhyme with mice."
"Her husband made her rhyme with murder. Did you never hear of the opera
of Beatrice di Tenda? Her story is one of the most romantic tragedies in
history. Well, there she was born, and there she lived as a beautiful
young woman in that old castle whose ruined tower soars so high above
your collection of beehives. When she was in her gentle prime of beauty,
the ferocious Duke Filippo Maria Visconti came riding here from Milan to
court the sweetest lady of her day. She didn't care for him, of course,
but young women of high rank had less choice in those times than they
have in these, and that was the way all the mischief began. She did love
somebody else, and the wicked Duke starved her to death in the tower of
another old castle. When we get to Pavia, which we shall pass on the way
to Milan, I'll show you and Miss Destrey where your namesake lived when
she was a duchess, and died when her duke would have her for a duchess
no more, but wanted somebody else. Poor Beatrice, I wonder if her spirit
has ever been present at the performance of the opera, and whether she
approved."
"I hope she came with the man she loved, and sat in a box, and that the
duke was down in--in--"
"The pit," said Mr. Barrymore, laughing, and giving a glance back over
his shoulder for Maida and Sir Ralph, as he stopped the car in front of
a machinist's place. "Here we are, Joseph," he called to the Prince's
chauffeur, who was steering the broken car. "Now, how soon do you expect
to finish your job?"
"With proper tools, it should be no more than an hour's work," said
Joseph, jumping down.
"An hour? Why, I should have thought three would be more like it,"
exclaimed Mr. Barrymore.
"I am confident that I can do it in one all little hour," reiterated
Joseph, and for once the Prince regarded him benignly.