My Friend the Chauffeur. C. N. Williamson
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he had gone into the drawing-room and fetched chairs, for they were all sitting down, but they were not being sociable. Mrs. Kidder's round chin was in the air, and she wore an "I'm as good as you are, if not better" expression. The imps in Beechy's eyes were critically cataloguing each detail of the strangers' costumes, and Miss Destrey was interested in the yellow cat, who had come to tell her the tragic tale of the stolen mouse.
The new arrivals were English. I can't explain exactly how I knew that, the moment I clapped eyes on them, but I did; and I felt sure their nearest male relative must have made money in beer, pickles, or it might have been corsets or soap. They were that kind; and they had a great many teeth, especially the daughters, who all three looked exactly thirty, no more and no less, and were apparently pleasantly conscious of superlative virtue.
I could see the house they lived in, in England. It would be in Surbiton, of course, with "extensive grounds." There would be a Debrett's "Peerage," and a Burke's "Landed Gentry," and a volume of "Etiquette of Smart Society" on the library shelves, if there was nothing else; and in the basket on the hall table the visiting cards of any titled beings of the family's acquaintance would invariably rise to the top like cream.
"I understand from your friend that it is your advertisement which appears in The Riviera Sun to-day," began the Mother, whose aspect demanded a capital M. "You are Sir Ralph Moray, I believe?"
I acknowledged my identity, and the lady continued: "I am Mrs. Fox-Porston. You will have heard of my husband, no doubt, and I daresay we know a great many of the same People at Home." (This with a dust-brush glance which swept the Americans out of the field.) "I think it is a very excellent idea of yours, Sir Ralph, to travel about the Continent on your motor-car with a few congenial companions, and I have brought my daughters with me to-day in the hope that we may arrange a delightful little tour which—"
"Ting-a-ling" at the gate bell robbed us of Mrs. Fox-Porston's remaining hope, and gave us two more visitors.
Little had I known what the consequences of one small, pink advertisement would be! Apparently it bade fair to let loose upon us, not the dogs of war, but the whole floating feminine population of the French Riviera. Something must be done, and done promptly, to stem the rising tide of ladies, or the Châlet des Pins and Terry and I with it, would be swamped.
I looked at Terry, he looked at me, as we rose like mechanical figures to indicate our hosthood to the new arrivals.
They were Americans; I could tell by their chins. They had no complexions and no particular age; they wore blue tissue veils, and little jingling bags on their belts, which showed that they were not married, because if they had been, their husbands would have ordered the little jingling bags into limbo, wherever that may be.
"Good-afternoon," said the leading Blue Veil. "I am Miss Carrie Hood Woodall, the lady lawyer from Hoboken, who had such a nice little paragraph in The Riviera Sun, close to your advertisement; and this is my chaperone, Mrs. Elizabeth Boat Cully. We're touring Europe, and we want to take a trip with you in your automobile, if—"
"Unfortunately, ladies," said I, "the services of—er—my car are already engaged to Mrs. Kidder, of Colorado, and her party. Isn't it so, Barrymore?"
"Yes," replied Terry stoutly. And that "yes" even if inadvertent, was equivalent I considered, to sign and seal.
Mrs. Kidder beamed like an understudy for The Riviera Sun. Beechy twinkled demurely, and tossed her plaits over her shoulder. Even Miss Destrey, the white goddess, deigned to smile, straight at Terry and no other.
At this moment Félicité appeared with a tray. Whipped cream frothed over the brow of a brown jug like a white wig on the forehead of a judge; lettuce showed pale green through filmy sandwiches; small round cakes were piled, crisp and appetizing, on a cracked Sèvres dish; early strawberries glowed red among their own leaves. Talk of the marengo trick! It was nothing to this. The miracle had been duly performed; but—there were only five cups.
Mrs. Fox-Porston and her daughters, Miss Carrie Hood Woodall and her chaperone, took the hint and their leave; and the companions of the future were left alone together to talk over their plans.
"Lock the gate, Félicité," said I. "Do make haste!" And she did. Dear Félicité!
II
A CHAPTER OF PLANS
So it is that Fate calmly arranges our lives in spite of us. Although no details of the coming trip were settled during what remained of our new employers' visit, that was their fault and the fault of a singularly premature sunset, rather than mine, or even Terry's; and we both felt that it came to the same thing. We were in honour bound to "personally conduct" Mrs. Kidder, Miss Beechy Kidder, and Miss Destrey towards whatever point of the compass a guiding finger of theirs should signify.
It has always been my motto to take Father Time by the fore-lock, for fear he should cut it off, or get away, or play some other trick upon me, which the cantankerous old chap (no parent of mine!) is fond of doing. Therefore, if I could, I would have had terms, destination, day and hour of starting definitely arranged before that miraculously-produced tea of Félicité's had turned to tannin. But man may not walk through a solid wall, or strive against such conversational gifts as those of Mrs. Kidder.
She could and would keep to anything except the point. That, whatever its nature, she avoided as she would an indelicacy.
"Well, now, Mrs. Kidder," I began, "if you really want us to organize this tour, don't you think we'd better discuss—"
"Of course we want you to!" she broke in. "We all think it's just awfully good of you to bother with us when you must have so many friends who want you to take them—English people in your own set. By the way, do you know the Duchess of Carborough?"
"I know very few duchesses or other Americans," I replied. Whereupon Miss Kidder's imp laughed, though her mother remained grave, and even looked mildly disappointed.
"That's a funny way of putting it," said Beechy. "One would think it was quite an American habit, being a Duchess."
"So it is, isn't it?" I asked. "The only reason we needn't fear its growing like the Yellow Peril is because there aren't enough dukes. I've always thought the American nation the most favoured in the world. Aren't all your girls brought up to expect to be duchesses, and your men presidents?"
"I wasn't," snapped Beechy. "If there was a duke anywhere around, Mamma would take him, if she had to snatch him out of my mouth. What are English girls brought up to expect?"
"Hope for, not expect," I corrected her. "Any leavings there are in the way of marquesses or earls; or if none, a mere bishop or a C. B."
"What's a C. B.?" asked Mrs. Kidder anxiously.
"A Companion of the Bath."
"My goodness! Whose bath?"
"The Bath of Royalty. We say it with a capital B."
"My! How awkward for your King. And what was done about it when you had only a Queen on the throne?"
"You must inquire of the chamberlains," I replied. "But about that trip of ours. The—er—my car is in a garage not far away, and it can be ready when—"
"Oh, I hope it's a red car, with your coat of arms on it. I do so admire red for an automobile. We could all fix ourselves up in red cloaks and hats to match, and make ourselves look awfully swell—"
"Everybody'd call us 'The Crimson Ramblers,' or 'The Scarlet Runners,' or something else horrid," tittered that precocious child Beechy.
"It