"For that matter, then, why do you think I'm an odd lady's-maid?"
"As to that, probably I'm no judge. I never talked to one except my mother's, and she—wasn't at all like you."
"Well, that proves my point. The very fact that your mother had a maid, shows you're an odd sort of chauffeur."
"Oh! You mean because I wasn't always 'what I seem,' and that kind of Family Herald thing? Do you think it odd that a chauffeur should be by way of being a gentleman? Why, nowadays the woods and the story-books are full of us. But things are made pleasanter for us in books than in real life. Out of books people fight shy of us. A 'shuvvie' with the disadvantage of having been to a public school, or handicapped by not dropping his H's, must knock something off his screw."
"Are you really in earnest, or are you joking?" I asked.
"Half and half, perhaps. Anyway, it isn't a particularly agreeable position—if that's not too big a word for it. I envy you your imagination, in which you can shut yourself up in a kind of armour against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."
"You wouldn't envy me if you had to do Lady Turnour's hair," I sighed.
The chauffeur laughed out aloud. "Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed.
"I'm sure Sir Samuel would forbid, anyhow," said I.
"Do you know, I don't think this trip's going to be so bad?" said he.
"Neither do I," I murmured in my veil.
We both laughed a good deal then. But luckily the glass was expensively thick, and the car was singing.
"What are you laughing at?" I asked.
"Something that it takes a little sense of humour to see, when you've been down on your luck," said he.
"A sense of humour was the only thing my ancestors left me," said I. "I don't wonder you laugh. It really is quaintly funny."
"Do you think we're laughing at the same thing?"
"I'm almost sure of it."
"Do tell me your part, and let's compare notes."
"Well, it's something that nobody but us in this car—unless it's the car itself—knows."
"Then it is the same thing. They haven't an idea of it, and wouldn't believe it if anyone told them. Yes, it is funny."
"About their not being—"
"While you—"
"And you—"
"Thanks. A lady—"
"A gentleman—"
"And the only ones on board—"
"Are the two servants!"
"As long as they don't notice—"
"And we do!"
"Perhaps we may get some fun out of it?"
"Extra—outside our wages. Would it be called a 'perquisite'?"
"If so, I'm sure we deserve it."
I sighed, thinking of her ladyship's transformation, and lacing up her boots. "Well, there's a lot to make up for."
And he gave me another look—a very nice look, although he could see nothing of me but eyes and one third of a nose. "If I can ever at all help to make up, in the smallest way, you must let me try," he said.
I ceased to think that his profile was cross, or even stern.
I was glad that the chauffeur and I were in the same box—I mean, the same car.
CHAPTER VII
All the same, I wondered a great deal how he came there, and I hoped that he was wondering the same sort of thing about me. In fact, I laid myself out to produce such a result. That is to say, I took some pains to show myself as little like the common or parlour lady's-maid as possible. I never took so much pains to impress any human being, male or (far less) female, as I took to impress that mere chauffeur—the very chauffeur I'd been lying awake at night dreading as the most objectionable feature in my new life.
All the nice things I'd thought of by the way, before we introduced ourselves to each other, I trotted out (at least, as many as I had presence of mind to remember); and though I'm afraid he didn't pay me the compliment of trying to "brill" in return, I told myself that it was not because he didn't think me worth brilling for, but because he's English. It never seems to occur to an Englishman to "show off." I believe if Sir Samuel Turnour's chauffeur, Mr. What's-his-name, knew twenty-seven languages, he could be silent in all of them.
He did let me play the car's musical siren, though; a fascinating bugbear, supposed to warn children, chickens, and other light-minded animals that something important is coming, and they'd better look alive. It has two tunes, one grave, one gay. I suppose we would use the grave one if the creature hadn't looked alive?
Although he didn't say much, the chauffeur (or "shuvvie" as he scornfully names himself) knew all about Robert Macaire and Caspard De Besse—knew more about them than I, also their escapades on this road over the Esterels, and in the mountain fastnesses, when highwaymen were as fashionable as motor-cars are now. I'd forgotten that it was this part of the world where they earned their bread and fame; and was quite thrilled to hear that the ghost of De Besse is supposed to keep on, as a permanent residence, his old shelter cave near the summit of strangely shaped Mont Vinaigre. I'm sure, though, even if we'd passed his pitch at midnight instead of midday, he wouldn't have dared pop out and cry "Stand and deliver!" to a sixty-horsepower Aigle.
I almost wished it were night, as we swooped over mountain tops, our eyes plunging down the deep gorges, and dropping with fearful joy over precipices, for the effect would have been more solemn, more mysterious. I could imagine that the fantastically formed rocks which loomed above us or stood ranged far below would have looked by moonlight like statues and busts of Titans, carved to show poor little humanity such creatures as a dead world had known. But it is hard for one's imagination to do the best of which it feels capable when one is dying for lunch.
Even the old "Murder Inn," which my companion obligingly pointed out, didn't give me the thrill it ought, because time was getting on when we flew past it, and I would have been capable of eating vulgar bread and cheese under its wickedly historic roof if I had been invited.
"Do you suppose they know anything about the road and its history?" I asked the chauffeur, with a slight gesture of my swathed head toward the solid wall of glass which was our background.
"They? Certainly not, and don't want to know," he answered with an air of assurance.
"Why do they go about in motors then," I wondered, "if they don't take interest in things they pass?"
"You must understand as well as I do why this sort of person goes about in motors," said he. "They go because other people go—because it's the thing. The 'other people' whom they slavishly imitate may really like the exhilaration, the ozone, the sight-seeing, or all three; but to this type the only part that matters is letting it be seen that they've got a handsome car, and being able to say 'We've just come from the Riviera in our sixty-horse-power motor-car.' They'd always mention the power."
"Lady Turnour did, even to me," I remembered. "But is Sir Samuel like that?"
"No, to do him justice, he isn't, poor man. But his wife is his Juggernaut. I believe he enjoys lying under her wheels, or thinks he does—which is the same thing."
"Have you been with them long?" I dared to inquire.
"Only a few days. I brought the car down for them from Paris, though not this way—a shorter one. We're new brooms, the car and I."