My Friend the Chauffeur
"I will _make_ you understand," went on the Prince. "You know--you've
known for many days--how I love you. You have forced me to do this
thing, because you were obstinate, and would not give me yourself,
though I could not live without you. Because I could not, I have done
this. It was planned as long ago as Venice. I confided all to Corramini,
though not to his wife, and he promised to help me because he is in
money difficulties, and I agreed to do something for him. But if you had
been kind last night in Ragusa, when I gave you one more chance to
repent, you might have been spared this. It was only to happen if all
else failed."
"Still I don't understand," I said slowly.
"Then your brain is not as quick as usual, my dear one. I hoped Miss
Beechy would be ill to-day, for she was the one I feared. There was a
little medicine in that pink, Turkish stuff--not to hurt her much, but
enough for my purpose. If I could, I would have got rid of the aunt,
too; only she was needed as the cat's-paw. You would never have come
without her. Contessa Corramini knows nothing of this, though she has a
suspicion that something mysterious goes on. She was not on the
'Arethusa.' At this moment she is in Venice. Victorine was the one
woman beside yourself and the aunt on the yacht, and Victorine has been
well paid for the part she plays. She took the aunt's coat and hat and
mask out of the cabin, when the lady was on deck with Corramini and me,
wrapped in a becoming blue cloak with a hood, left on board by Contessa
Corramini. While the aunt was looking everywhere for her missing things,
you joined the masked lady in the car. Now, we are farther from Schloss
Hrvoya than from Cattaro. You are in Montenegro, where I have brought
you because the Austrian Consul is my friend, and he will marry us."
"He will not!" I cried, choking and breathless.
"He must. It is the only thing for you, now. Let me show you the
situation, in case you do not yet understand all. Your aunt is far away.
She will be enraged with you, and believe you to blame for the
humiliating trick played on her. Never will she forgive you. If there is
a scandal, she will do her best to spread it. I know women well. Don't
you remember, 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?' There will be
others, too. Victorine will tell a dramatic tale to the Contessa
Corramini, and Corramini will gossip at his clubs in Venice, Rome,
Florence, Paris, where many of your rich compatriots are members. The
rights of the story will never quite be known, but it will leak out that
you came to Montenegro with me alone, and spent many hours. The only
safeguard is to make it an elopement, and that safeguard I offer you,
with my heart and all that is mine. You must leave this place as the
Princess Dalmar-Kalm, or it would be better for your future that you
should never leave it. See, I am the last man in your world now, and it
is necessary that you take me."
"I didn't know," I answered in the dream, "that men like you existed out
of novels or stage plays. That is why I failed to understand at first. I
was giving you the benefit of the doubt. But I understand now. Let me
go--"
He laughed. "No! And if I did, what good would it do you? It is night;
you are many miles from anywhere, in the wildest mountains of Europe.
You do not speak one word of the language, or any one in this land a
word of yours. Practically, you are alone in the world with me. Even
your wretched little dog is not here to snarl. His curiosity took him
outside, and he cannot get back through the keyhole of the door, small
as he is. Presently the Consul will be at this house. I had meant to go
to his had it not been for the accident, but I will send for him. He is
my very good friend. He will do what I ask."
"But if I do not consent?" I flung at him.
"You will have to consent," he said; "and soon you will see that for
yourself."
PART V
TOLD BY TERENCE BARRYMORE
XXV
A CHAPTER OF CHASING
I wondered why the ladies didn't come to lunch, for the last thing they
had said when we brought them back in the motor was, "We shall see you
again at half-past twelve."
Ralph and Bari and his sister and I, waited for a quarter of an hour;
then we sat down, for the Signorina thought they might have changed
their minds and be lunching with the little invalid. But at half-past
one, while we were still at the table, a message came from Miss Beechy.
She had waked up from her nap, "sent her compliments," and would be glad
to know when her Mamma and cousin would return to her.
That took the Signorina flying to the bedroom, and there was an interval
of some suspense for Ralph and me; for the absence of the ladies, with
this new light thrown upon it, began to appear a little strange.
The Italian girl was away for an age, it seemed, and we knew the instant
we saw her, that she was not the bearer of reassuring news. Her pretty
face looked worried and excited.
"The Countess and Miss Destrey have not been up-stairs," she announced
in her native tongue. "The little Bice has been awake for an hour,
wondering why they never came. Will you make inquiries of the landlord?"
I lost not a moment in obeying this request; and even before I got my
answer, I seemed to know that Dalmar-Kalm would be mixed up in the
affair. The ladies had driven away with His Highness in a hired cab not
many minutes after we had brought them to the hotel door with the
motor.
On the face of it, it looked ridiculous to fear mischief, yet I was
uneasy. If I had not worshipped Her so much--but then, there had ceased
to be any "if" in it long ago. I had very little hope that she could
ever be got to care, even if I could reconcile it with common decency to
ask a girl to think of a stony-broke beggar like me. But in some moods I
was mad to try my luck, when I reflected on what she had before her if
I--or some other brute of a man--didn't snatch her from it. But whether
or no she were ever to be more to me than a goddess, the bare thought of
trouble or harm coming to her was enough to drive me out of my wits.
While I was smoking two cigarettes a minute on the verandah, and asking
myself whether I should be Paddy the Fool to track her down, with her
aunt and the Prince, Signorina Bari (who had run up to Beechy with the
latest developments) came out to us. "Sir Ralph," said she, "little Miss
Kidder says she must see you, in a great hurry. She has something
important to tell, that she can't tell to any one else; so she has got
up, and is on the sofa in a dressing-gown, in the Countess's private
sitting-room."
Ralph looked surprised, but not displeased, and was away twenty minutes.
"Miss Beechy wants us to find out where Dalmar-Kalm has taken her mother
and Miss Destrey," said he, when he returned from the interview.
The order was welcome. Nothing was known at the hotel concerning the
destination of the Prince and his companions in the cab, so I hurried to
get the car, and Ralph and I drove off together, meaning to make
inquiries in the town.
"Did Miss Beechy's mysterious communication have anything to do with her
cousin?" I couldn't resist asking Ralph, who sat beside me, in that
blessed seat sacred so long to the One Woman.
"Yes, it had," he replied discreetly.
"And with Dalmar-Kalm?"
"Distinctly with Dalmar-Kalm."
That sent some blood up behind my eyes, and I saw Ragusa red, instead of
pink.
"By Jove, you've got to tell me what she did say, now!" I exclaimed.
"Can't, my dear chap. It's a promise--after a confidence. But I don't
mind letting out this much. It seems Miss Beechy has been playing dolls
with us, as she calls it, on this trip, without any of us suspecting
it--or at least seeing the game in its full extent. Owing to her
manipulation of her puppets, there's the dickens to pay, and she thinks
she has reason to know that Dalmar-Kalm had better not be allowed to
take a long excursion with Miss Destrey, even chaperoned by our dear,
wise Countess."
"Good Heavens!" I jerked out. "What do you mean?"
"I don't exactly know myself. Things mayn't be as serious as the little
girl thinks in her present remorseful mood, no doubt intensified by her
late illness. 'When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be,' you
know--and the rest of it. Still, we're safe in finding out where the
party has gone and taking steps accordingly."
"There's Joseph, mooning about with his hands in his pockets, like a
lost soul," I exclaimed.
"_Have_ lost souls pockets?"
"Shut up. I'm going to catechize him. He rather likes me, and has
several times relieved his mind on the subject of his master, by
spitting venom to his brother chauffeur until I refused to listen."
With this I stopped the car in front of the gaudy shop which had
attracted the dismal little Joseph.
"Is your car mended already?" I asked him in French.
"It was not broken, Monsieur."
"Really. I understood the Prince to say it was."
"I know not what he said. Is there anything that His Highness would not
say, if it pleased him? But so far from the car being injured, I was
kept up most of the night by his command, putting it in the best order,
looking to every nut, seeing that the grease-cups were filled, and
everything as fine as though to try for first prize in a show. This
morning did I get a moment's sleep? On the contrary, I must drive the
automobile at eight o'clock, before any one was up, down to the harbour,
and with much trouble put it on the yacht of the Conte Corramini, which
had come into this port, the saints alone know why."
"I should say the saints had little to do with the affair," remarked
Ralph, but I cut him short.
"What then?" I asked.
"Then it must be covered up, His Highness said, in case of rain--though
the sky was as dry as my throat--till you could not tell the automobile
from a haystack, on the forward deck where it had been placed."
"And after that?"
"After that I know nothing, except that His Highness condescended to
remark that he would go away for a trip to-day, and I was to wait for
him until I heard further. That will be soon, for when it comes to real
work on the car it breaks his heart. He can drive, but apart from that
he knows no more of the automobile than does the little black dog
adopted by the beautiful mademoiselle."
"I suppose you'll get a wire to-morrow at latest," said I. "Well, _au
revoir_. We're turning here."
"Going to the harbour?" Ralph asked, dryly, and I nodded.
I am afraid that we did the mile to Gravosa in a good deal less than the
legal limit, but luckily no one was the worse for it, and there were no
policemen about.
At Gravosa we found some men on the quay who could talk Italian, and in
five minutes I knew for certain what I had suspected. A white yacht
answering the description I gave of "Arethusa," had sent a boat before
noon to meet a cab bringing to the port two ladies and a gentleman. The
Signore were in long brownish coats and close hats. One was stout, with
much colour; the other, a young girl, transcendently beautiful.
"That impudent fellow has whisked them off to Cattaro, to see his
beastly ancestral ruin," suggested Ralph. "That's what he's done. He's
probably chuckling now with savage glee to think that willy-nilly
Countess Kidder-Dalmar can't get out of her bargain."
"I don't believe they would willingly have left the little girl lying
there ill, to say nothing of leaving us in the lurch without a word,"
said I. "Ralph, there's something pretty devilish under this, or I'll
eat my hat."
"Well, I should expect to see you devouring it, if--I hadn't heard
Beechy's confess--if she hadn't told me some things," Ralph amended his
sentence.
"I'm hanged if I won't give chase!" I exclaimed.