My Friend the Chauffeur. C. N. Williamson
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like to play with her, and me, and—"
"And he doesn't want Barrymore and me in the playroom."
"I thought you were bright! It made him just sick to think of you two walking off with us from under his nose. There was his automobile in Paris, and there was he here, perfectly useless, because I'm sure he'd lent the auto to his uncle."
"To his uncle?" I echoed.
"Don't you say that in England, or Scotland, or wherever you come from? 'Put it up the Spout'—pawned it; and he couldn't move one way or the other till he'd got Mamma's money. The minute that was in his pocket he began to plan. The first thing he did was to tell Mamma that he had a surprise for her, which he'd been getting ready for several days, and it would be spoiled if we all went off with you and that awfully good-looking chauffeur of yours on Thursday. He said he must have till Saturday morning, and Mamma was so curious to know what the mystery was, and so afraid of hurting a real live Prince's feelings, that she was finally persuaded to wait."
"Oh, that is the explanation of her letter to me."
"Yes. I suspected what was going on, but she didn't; having dimples makes people so soft and good-natured. I don't know what the Prince did after she'd given her word to stay, but I guessed."
"He wired money to his chauffeur in Paris or somewhere, had the car got out of the clutches of that relative you referred to, and brought on here at top speed."
"But not its own speed. When it arrived here last night, it was just as spick and span as it is now."
"Then it must have come by train."
"That's what I think. I bet the Prince was too much afraid some accident might happen to it on the way, and upset all his plans, to trust to having the thing driven down here by road."
"You must be careful not to let your brain develop too fast," I pleaded, "or when you grow up, you—"
"That's such a long time off, I don't need to worry yet," Miss Kidder remarked demurely. "Do you think I look more than my age?"
"No, but you talk more," said I.
"How can you judge? What do you know about little girls like me?"
"I don't know anything about little girls like you, because all the rest got broken; but if you'll teach me, I'll do my best to learn."
"The Prince is doing his best too, I guess. I wonder which will learn faster?"
"That depends partly on you. But I should have thought all his time was taken up with your mother."
"Oh my! no. He wants her to think that. But you see, he's got more time than anything else, so he has plenty to spare for me, and Maida too. Do you know what he called us to a friend of his in this hotel? The friend's wife told her maid, and she passed it on to our Agnes, who repeated it to me because we were sending her away. 'Kid, Kidder, Kiddest.' I'm Kiddest, of course; that's easy enough; but it would save the Prince lots of trouble and brain-fag if he only knew which was 'Rich,' which 'Richer,' and which 'Richest.'"
"Heavens!" I ejaculated. "If you have got together all this mass of worldly wisdom at thirteen, what will you have accumulated at twenty?"
"It all depends on when Mamma allows me to be twenty," retorted the little wretch. And what lengths this indecently frank conversation might have reached between us I dare not think, had not an exclamation from Terry cut it short.
"What do you say to that, Countess, and Miss Destrey? Have I won the bet?" he was demanding, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, as he stood to survey his work.
If I had not infinite belief in Terry's true Irish ingenuity, I would have considered the day and the bet both lost before the test had been essayed. But he had justified my faith, and there on the almost obliterated lines of the motor-car, behold a place for everything, and everything in its place.
On one step the "Innovation" cabin-box reared itself on end like a dwarfish obelisk; a fat hold-all adorned each mud-guard, where it lay like an underdone suet pudding; the two huge dressing-bags had been pushed under the corner seats of the tonneau, which fortunately was of generous dimensions, while the third and smallest one (no doubt Miss Destrey's) was so placed that it could be used as a footstool, or pushed to the front out of the way. Umbrellas and parasols stood upright in a hanging-basket especially designed for them; books and maps had disappeared into a box, which was also a shelf on the back of the driver's seat, and the tea-basket had been lashed on top of this.
The Prince's voice responded to Terry's question with ribald mirth before it could be answered by the ladies.
"Ha, ha, ha!" cried he, shouting with laughter at the appearance of the car; and even my lips twitched, though I would have vowed it was St. Vitus's dance if anyone had accused me of a smile. "Ha, ha, the automobile looks like nothing so much as a market-woman going home with the family provisions for a month. But will she ever get home?" Here he became spasmodic, and as he had made a present of his picturesque smile to all the lookers-on as well as to those whom it most concerned, a grin rippled over the faces of the various groups as a breeze ruffles the surface of a pond.
If I could have done His Highness Prince Dalmar-Kalm a mischief at this moment, without imperilling my whole future, I would have stuck at nothing; but there is capital punishment in France, and, besides, there were no weapons handy except the ladies' hatpins. Still, it was useless denying it, the car looked, if not like a market-woman, at least like a disreputable old tramp of the motor world, with its wreaths of luggage looped on anyhow, as if it were a string of giant sausages; and I hated the Prince not only for his impertinent pleasure in our plight, but for the proud magnificence of his car, which gained new lustre in the disgrace of ours.
"You have more, what do you call it in English—cheek, is it not?—than most of your countrymen, to ask the ladies whether they can be satisfied with that," he went on, between his mirthful explosions. "Chère Countess, do not let your kind heart run away with you. Let me tell Sir Ralph Moray that it is impossible for you to tour with him under such conditions, which are surely not what you had a right to expect. If you will go with me, that"—pointing a derisive finger at the Panhard—"can follow with the luggage."
Mrs. Kidder shook her auburn head, though her dimples were obscured, and a pinkness of complexion for which she had not paid betrayed the fact that her amour propre was writhing under this ordeal. Poor little woman, I really pitied her, for even with my slight knowledge of her character, I guessed that she had dreamed of the sensation the departure en automobile of a party so distinguished would create at the hotel. She had confidingly judged the charms of the advertised car from those of the advertisers, and this was her reward. Could we blame her if, in the bitterness of mortification, she yielded to the allurement of that glittering car which was our detractor's best argument? But she was loyal on the rack.
"No," she said, "I never backed out of anything yet, and I'm not going to now. Besides, we don't want to, do we, girls? Sir Ralph's automobile is just as nice as it can be, and it's our fault, not his, or Mr. Barrymore's, if we've got a little more luggage than we were told we ought to take. I guess we'll get along all right as soon as we're used to it, and we shall have the time of our lives."
"Mamma, you're a brick, and I'm glad Papa married you," was Beechy's pæan of praise.
"And I think the way our things are arranged looks really graceful," said Miss Destrey. "Mr. Barrymore has won that bet easily, hasn't he, Kitty and Beechy?"
"Yes," came faintly from the Countess and cordially from the child. And I whistled "Hail, the Conquering Hero" sotto voce, as Dalmar-Kalm, with a smile like a dose of asafœtida, counted out the amount of his lost wager.
"Well," he said, squaring his shoulders to make the best of a bad bargain, "you are three brave ladies to trust yourselves in a machine without room, speed, or power to cross the Alps."
"You can go to the Cathedral at Monaco and pray for us to Saint Joseph, who, Agnes told me, looks after travellers,"