Cynthia's Chauffeur Part 31

Her gracious manner almost deceived Medenham. During his years of wandering he had come across unexpected good qualities in men from whom he looked for naught but evil--was it the same with women? He hoped so. Perhaps this scheming marriage-broker had shed her worldly scales under the stress of emotion.

"You need have no fear that the car will not be waiting for you in the morning, Mrs. Devar," he said, smiling frankly into her steel-gray eyes. "Did you say half-past nine, Miss Vanrenen?" he asked, turning to s.n.a.t.c.h one last look at Cynthia.

"Yes. Good-night--and thank you."

She offered her hand to him before them all. The touch of her cool fingers was infinitely sweet, but when he strove to surprise some hint of her thought in those twin pools of limpid light that were wont to gaze at him so fearlessly he failed, for all the daring had fled from Cynthia, and he knew--how Heaven and lovers alone can tell--that her heart was beating with a fright she had not felt when he staggered under the relentless pressure of the river while holding her in his arms.

To the lookers-on the girl's outstretched hand was a token of grat.i.tude; to Medenham it carried an acknowledgment of that equality which should reign between those who love. His head swam in a sudden vertigo of delight, and he hurried away without uttering a word. There were some, perhaps, who wondered; others who saw in his brusqueness nothing more than the confusion of an inferior overwhelmed by the kindly condescension of a young and charming mistress; but the one who did fully and truly interpret the secret springs of his action went suddenly white to the lips, and her voice was curiously low and strained as she turned to Mrs. Devar.

"Come, dear," she murmured, "I am tired, it would seem; and you, you must be quite worn out with anxiety."

"My darling child," gushed Mrs. Devar, "I should have been nearly dead if I had not known that Fitzroy was with you, but he is one of those men who inspire confidence. I refused to admit even to myself that anything of evil consequence could happen to you while he was present.

How fortunate we were that day in town----"

The man who had suggested that the hotel pharmacist could dispense hot drinks other than lemonade nudged an acquaintance.

"Our chauffeur friend has a rippin' nice job," he whispered.

"Wouldn't mind taking his billet myself--it 'ud be a change from everlastin' goff. h.e.l.lo! Where is he? I meant to----"

Medenham had gone, striding away up the hillside in a very frenzy of happiness. Four days, and Cynthia as good as won! Was it possible, then, that the disguised prince of the fairytale could be a reality--that such romances might still be found in this gray old world? Four days! He could not be deeper in love with Cynthia had he known her four years, or forty, and he was certain now that he had really loved her before he had been in her company four minutes.

But these rhapsodies were cut short by his arrival at the hotel garage, with the displeasing discovery that no one named Dale had reached Symon's Yat that evening, while the stolid fact stared him in the face that his cherished Mercury demanded several hours of hard-working attentions if it were to glisten and hum in its usual perfection next morning.

"Queer thing," he said, thinking aloud rather than addressing the stableman who had given this disconcerting news. "I have never before known him fail; and I wired to Hereford early enough."

"Oh, he's in Hereford, is he?" inquired the man.

"He ought not to be, but he is, I fear."

"Then it'll be him who axed for ye on the telephone?"

"When?"

"It 'ud be somewheres about a quarter or half past eight. Lizzie tole me after the old leddy kem up to see if you'd taken the car out."

Medenham's wits were alert enough now.

"I don't fully understand," he said. "What old lady, and why did she come?"

"That's wot bothered me," was the reply. "Everybody knew that the young leddy an' you were on the Wye: 'deed to goodness, some of us thought you were in it. Anyways, it was long after ten when she----"

"You mean Mrs. Devar, I suppose--the older lady of the two who arrived in my car?"

"Yes, that's her. She wanted to be sure the car wasn't gone, and nothing would suit her but the key must be brought from the orfis an'

the coach-house door unlocked so's she could see it with her own eyes.

Well, Lizzie sez to me, 'That's funny, it is, because she watched they two goin' on the river, and was in the box a long time telephonin' to a shuffer called Dale, at Hereford.' Thinks I, 'It's funnier that the shuffer who's here should be expectin' a chap named Dale,' but I said nothink. I never does to wimmen. Lord luv yer, they'll twist a tale twenty ways for Sundays to suit their own pupposes afterwards."

Lightning struck from a cloudless sky a second time that night at Symon's Yat, and in its gleam was revealed the duplicity of Mrs.

Devar. Medenham could not guess the double significance of Dale's message and failure to appear, but he was under no delusion now as to the cause of those honeyed words. Dale had been indiscreet, had probably blurted out his employer's t.i.tle, and Mrs. Devar knew at last who the chauffeur was whose interference had baffled her plans.

He laughed bitterly, but did not pursue the inquiry any further.

"Can you clean coachwork and bra.s.s?" he asked, stooping to unlock the toolbox.

The stableman shuffled uneasily from one foot to the other. The hour was past midnight, and the alarm raised at the hotel had already robbed him of two hours' sleep.

"Hosses is more in my line," he answered gruffly.

"But if I give you half a sovereign perhaps you will not mind helping me. I shall attend to the engine myself."

"'Arf a suv-rin did you say, mister?" came the panting question.

"Yes. Be quick! Off with your coat, and get busy. A man who can groom a horse properly ought to be able to use a rubber and hose."

By two o'clock the Mercury was s.h.i.+ning above and below. Thoroughly weary, yet well satisfied with the day's record, Medenham went to bed. He was up at seven, and meant to talk severely to Dale after breakfast; then he found, by consulting a directory, that the small hotel where his man had arranged to stay did not possess a telephone.

It was annoying, but he had the consolation of knowing that an hour's slow run would bring him to Hereford and reunite him with his sorely-needed baggage. He was giving a few finis.h.i.+ng touches to the car's toilette, when the Welsh waiting-maid hurried to the garage; Miss Vanrenen wanted him at once.

She awaited him in the veranda of the hotel, which fronted the southeast. A shower of June roses, pink and crimson and white, bespangled the sloping roof and hid the square posts that supported it, and a flood of vivid suns.h.i.+ne irradiated Cynthia as she leaned over the low rail of the balcony and smiled a greeting. She presented a picture that was a triumph of unconscious art, and her beauty affected Medenham more than a deep draught of the strongest wine ever vinted by man. Yesterday she was a charming girl, radiantly good-looking, and likely to attract attention even in circles where pretty women were plentiful as blackberries in a September thicket, but to-day, in Medenham's eyes, she was a woodland sprite, an ethereal creature cast in no mortal mold. So enthralled was he by the vision that he failed to note her attire. She wore the muslin dress of the previous night, and this, in itself, might have prepared him for what was to come.

"Good-morning, Mr. Fitzroy," she said, with a fine attempt at re-establis.h.i.+ng those friendly relations which might reasonably exist between the owner of a motor-car and its hirer, "how are you after your strenuous labors of yesterday? I have heard all about you. Fancy remaining out of bed till two o'clock! Couldn't that precious car of yours be cleaned this morning, and by someone else?"

He found his tongue at that.

"Mercury obeys none but Jupiter," he said.

Her eyes met his fairly, and she laughed.

"That is the first conceited thing I have heard you say," she cried, "and, by Jove, aren't you flying high?"

"Jupiter a.s.sumed disguises," he reminded her. "Once, when he peered into an Olympian grove, he saw Io, and took the form of a youth so that he might talk with her. He found her so lovable that he pa.s.sed many a pleasant hour in her company wandering on the banks of the cla.s.sic stream that flowed through the wood, and in those hours he was not Jupiter but a boy, a boy very much in love. Every man has, or ought to have, something of Jupiter, a good deal of the boy, in his make-up."

He turned and looked at the Wye and its tree-shaded banks. Then he faced Cynthia again, and his hands rested on the barrier that divided them. For one mad instant he thought of vaulting it, and Cynthia read his thought; she drew back in a panic. A less infatuated wooer than Medenham might have noted that she seemed to fear interruption more than any too impulsive action on his part.

"I sent for you to tell you that Mrs. Devar is ill," she said in a flurry of words. "I am afraid she suffered more from the fright than I imagined last night. Anyhow, she has asked me to let her remain here to-day. You won't mind, I am sure, though it must be a bother not to have your luggage. Can't you run in to Hereford and get it? I am quite content to rest in this pretty place and write letters."

"I do honestly believe that Mrs. Devar is more frightened than ill,"

he said.

"Oh, she isn't making a fuss about it. Indeed, she was willing to go to Hereford this afternoon if I particularly wanted to attend service at the cathedral. I did, as a matter of fact, but it would be real mean to insist on it after scaring the poor thing into a nervous headache."

"The affair arranges itself admirably," he said. "At most cathedrals there is an anthem, followed by a sermon by some eminent preacher, about three o'clock. Write your letters this morning, or, better still, climb to the top of the Yat and see the glorious view from the top. Come back for lunch at one, and----"

"I'll see what Mrs. Devar thinks of it," broke in Cynthia, whose cheeks were borrowing tints from the red roses and the white with astonis.h.i.+ng fluctuations of color. She ran off, more like Io, the sylph, than ever, and Medenham stood there in a brown study.

"This sort of thing can't go on," he argued with himself. "At any minute now I shall be taking her in my arms and kissing her, and that will not be fair to Cynthia, who is proud and queenly, and who will strive against the dictates of her own heart because it is not seemly that she should wed her father's paid servant. So I must tell her, to-day--perhaps during the run home from Hereford, perhaps to-night.

But, dash it all! that will break up our tour. One ought to consider the world we live in; Cynthia will be one of its leaders, and it will never do to have people saying that Viscount Medenham became engaged to Cynthia Vanrenen while acting as the lady's chauffeur during a thousand-mile run through the West of England and Wales. Now, what _am_ I to do?"

The answer came from a bedroom window that overlooked the veranda.