The Motor Maid. C. N. Williamson
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as if I were a princess instead of a lady's-maid.
Why on earth I was happy, I didn't know, for it was perfectly clear that I was going to have a horrid time; but I pitied everybody who wasn't young, and starting off on a motor tour, even if on fifty francs a month "all found."
I pitied Lady Turnour because she was herself; I pitied Sir Samuel because he was married to her; I pitied the people in the big hotel, who spent their afternoons and evenings playing bridge with all the windows hermetically sealed, while there was a world like this out of doors; and I wasn't sure yet whether I pitied the chauffeur or not.
He didn't look particularly sorry for himself, as he took his seat on my right. I was well out of his way, and he had the air of having forgotten all about me, as he steered away from the hotel down the flower-bordered avenue which led to the street.
"Anyhow," said I to myself, behind my little three-cornered talc window, "whatever his faults may be, appearances are very deceptive if he ever tries to chuck me under the chin."
There we sat, side by side, shut away from our pastors and masters by a barrier of glass, in that state of life and on that seat to which it had pleased Providence to call us, together.
"We're far enough apart in mind, though," I told myself. Yet I found my thoughts coming back to the man, every now and then, wondering if his nice brown profile were a mere lucky accident, or if he were really intelligent and well educated beyond his station. It was deliciously restful at first to sit there, seeing beautiful things as we flashed by, able to enjoy them in peace without having to make conversation, as the ordinary jeune fille must with the ordinary jeune monsieur.
"And is it that you love the automobilism, mademoiselle?"
"But yes, I love the automobilism. And you?"
"I also." (Hang it, what shall I say to her next?)
"And the dust. It does not too much annoy you?"
(Oh, bother, I do wish he'd let me alone!)
"No, monsieur. Because there are compensations. The scenery, is it not?"
"And for me your society." (What a little idiot she is!)
And so on. And so on. Oh yes, there were consolations in being a motor maid, sitting as far away as possible from a cross-looking if rather handsome chauffeur, who would want to bite her if she tried to do the "society act."
But after a while, when we'd spun past the charming villas and attractive shops of Cannes (which looks so deceitfully sylvan, and is one of the gayest watering-places in the world) silence began to be a burden.
It is such a nice motor car, and I did want to ask intelligent questions about it!
I was almost sure they would be intelligent, because already I know several things about automobiles. The Milvaines haven't got one, but most of their friends in Paris have, and though I've never been on a long tour before, I've done some running about. When one knows things, especially when one's a girl—a really well-regulated, normal girl—one does like to let other people know that one knows them. It's all well enough to cram yourself full to bursting with interesting facts which it gives you a vast amount of trouble to learn, just out of respect for your own soul; and there's a great deal in that point of view, in one's noblest moments; but one's noblest moments are like bubbles, radiant while they last, then going pop! quite to one's own surprise, leaving one all flat, and nothing to show for the late bubble except a little commonplace soap.
Well, I am like that, and when I'm not nobly bubbling I love to say what I'm thinking to somebody who will understand, instead of feeding on myself.
It really was a waste of good material to see all that lovely scenery slipping by like a panorama, and to be having quite heavenly thoughts about it, which must slip away too, and be lost for ever. I got to the pass when it would have been a relief to be asked if "this were my first visit to the Riviera;" because I could hastily have said "Yes," and then broken out with a volley of impressions.
Seeing beautiful things when you travel by rail consists mostly on getting half a glimpse, beginning to exclaim, "Oh, look there!" then plunging into the black gulf of a tunnel, and not coming out again until after the best bit has carefully disappeared behind an uninteresting, fat-bodied mountain. But travelling by motor-car! Oh, the difference! One sees, one feels; one is never, never bored, or impatient to arrive anywhere. One would enjoy being like the famous brook, and "go on forever."
Other automobiles were ahead of us, other cars were behind us, in the procession of Nomads leaving the South for the North, but there had been rain in the night, so that the wind carried little dust. My spirit sang when we had left the long, cool avenue lined with the great silver-trunked plane trees (which seemed always, even in sunshine, to be dappled with moonlight) and dashed toward the barrier of the Esterels that flung itself across our path. The big blue car bounded up the steep road, laughing and purring, like some huge creature of the desert escaped from a cage, regaining its freedom. But every time we neared a curve it was considerate enough to slow down, just enough to swing round with measured rhythm, smooth as the rocking of a child's cradle.
Perhaps, thought I, the chauffeur wasn't cross, but only concentrated. If I had to drive a powerful, untamed car like this, up and down roads like that, I should certainly get motor-car face, a kind of inscrutable, frozen mask that not all the cold cream in the world could ever melt.
I wondered if he resorted to cold cream, and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself staring at the statuesque brown profile through my talc triangle.
Evidently animal magnetism can leak through talc, for suddenly the chauffeur glanced sharply round at me, as if I had called him. "Did you speak?" he asked.
"Dear me, no, I shouldn't have dared," I hurried to assure him. Again he transferred his attention from the road to me, though only a fraction, and for only the fraction of a second. I felt that he saw me as an eagle on the wing might see a fly on a boulder toward which he was steering between intervening clouds.
"Why shouldn't you dare?" he wanted to know.
"One doesn't usually speak to lion-tamers while they're engaged in taming," I murmured, quite surprised at my audacity and the sound of my own voice.
The chauffeur laughed. "Oh!" he said.
"Or to captains of ocean liners on the bridge in thick fogs," I went on with my illustrations.
"What do you know about lion-tamers and captains on ocean liners?" he inquired.
"Nothing. But I imagine. I'm always doing a lot of imagining."
"Do you think you will while you're with Lady Turnour?"
"She hasn't engaged my brain, only my hands and feet."
"And your time."
"Oh, thank goodness it doesn't take time to imagine. I can imagine all the most glorious things in heaven and earth in the time it takes you to put your car at the next corner."
He looked at me longer, though the corner seemed dangerously near—to an amateur. "I see you've learned the true secret of living," said he.
"Have I? I didn't know."
"Well, you have. You may take it from me. I'm a good deal older than you are."
"Oh, of course, all really polite men are older than the women they're with."
"Even chauffeurs?"
It was my turn to laugh now. "A chauffeur with a lady's-maid."
"You seem an odd sort of lady's-maid."
"I begin to think you're an odd sort of chauffeur."
"Why?"
"Well—" I hesitated, though I knew why, perfectly. "Aren't you rather abrupt in your questions? Suppose we change the subject. You seem to have tamed this tiger until it obeys you like a kitten."
"That's what I get my wages