The Lightning Conductor - December 16
In which Jack has an attack of conscience and is unnerved by other peoples' driving
FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE
Toulouse, December 16.
Dear Montie,
I can't let you alone, you see. I must unburden myself, or something will happen - something apoplectic. If I have sinned, I am punished; and so far as I can see the worst still stretches before me in a long vista. It was good of you to scrawl off that second letter, at midnight, as an afterthought. It was forwarded, and has just reached me here, by grand good luck.
You say I would do better to make a clean breast of it; but that's easier said than done. You're not here, and you can't see the "lie of the land" as I can. I'll explain the position to you, from my point of view, for I think you don't quite understand it.
Not to mince matters, I am a Fraud, and Miss Randolph is the sort of girl to resent being imposed upon, If this Payne, who rejoices in the name of Jimmy, should find out the truth about me and tell her to-morrow, she would be exceedingly angry, as she would have a right to be, and would, I think, find it hard to forgive me. It is because I have felt this instinctively that I have let things slide. I have drifted down the stream of enjoyment, saying to the passing hour, like Goethe's hero, "Stay, thou art fair," though too often the thought would present itself that this could not go on for ever. Besides, there were drawbacks, big or little, according to my mood. I have always kept it before myself, more or less, that some day Miss Randolph would dispense with me and my car, in the natural course of affairs, even if the event were not hastened by some contretemps or other; and that it might then be as difficult to adjust matters as it is now. But in truth I hope it won't be so. What I aim to do is to make myself so indispensable to her as Brown that she can't bring herself to get on without me as Jack Winston. I haven't done that yet, though it isn't for lack of trying; therefore I'm not ready for the crisis, and therefore I'm afraid of Payne. Yes, "afraid," that's the word. And my one consolation is that he's equally afraid of me.
Your ordinary, habitual liar can bear up if he's found out, and laugh it off somehow, but your snob and boaster can't. This man could hardly survive being stripped of his dukes and earls, with which he's covered his untitled nakedness as with a mantle, for the eyes of Miss Randolph. In this natural phenomenon lies my chance of gaining time, and other things that I want.
You would have had some pure enjoyment out of to-day if you had been the fifth person on my Napier. If you could have heard Aunt Mary (who, in common with a certain type of American, worships a title and rolls it on her tongue as if it were a plover's egg out of season) asking "Jimmy" questions about his grand English friends! Knowing that my cold and venomous eye was upon him, and writhing under it, he had to answer her questions. "What sort of looking man is the Duke of Burford, Jimmy? Did you ever stay at any of his country places? Is it true that he often entertains the Royalties? Were you ever asked to a house-party to meet the King and Queen?"
I could almost have found it in my heart to pity him; but my interests at stake were too big for me to have derived the serene pleasure from the situation that you might have enjoyed as an initiated outsider. But with my attempted explanations and my chortlings I've digressed too much, and I'll get back to "Hecuba."
We started from the "Gassion." Miss Randolph announced that she would drive at first. This was, I judged, a sop for me, as Cerberus. But Payne was given the seat of honour beside her, and I was relegated to the tonneau with Aunt Mary and the other impedimenta. My day was over!
Miss Kedison considers it infra dig. to converse with a servant, though she has been content often enough to use me as a guide-book. She doesn't like sitting in front, so she was obliged to put up with my physical nearness, but she took pains to emphasise her soul's remoteness. I think her opinion of me has been for some time that I am "too big for my boots," and I was not surprised to learn that it was by her advice Mr. Payne had been invited to join the party. No doubt she thought it would put me in my proper place, and so it has. Besides, we had not been long en route when I gleaned from several indications, small in themselves, that "Jimmy" is a great favourite with her, so great that she would not object to becoming his aunt by marriage. They are warm friends, and if he hasn't already poured into her ear confidences prejudicial to me, there, I fear, lies danger for the future.
We had not been gone long from Pau before Miss Randolph glanced round at me - a risky thing to do when you're driving; but the road was straight and clear as far as the eye could see. I was half in hopes she would request me to drive; but not so. "By the way, Brown," said she, "I forgot to ask; didn't I see you at the golf club the other day?"
From the form of the question I couldn't tell whether Payne had played the sneak or not, nor could I guess from her face, as she had turned to business again. As for him, he had ignored me haughtily since the start.
"Me, miss, at the golf club?" I promptly protested, regardless of grammar and not sure I wasn't in for an explosion which would blow poor Brown sky-high; "why, a chauffeur wouldn't be admitted there."
"I suppose not," she answered over her shoulder. "But there was a man very like you when my friends took me - and walking with Mr. Payne, too."
"Now for it!" thought I. But then Jimmy's first words reassured me. "Oh, I don't know all the strangers one talks to at a club," he replied in haste; and then, by way of changing the subject, the bounder asked Miss Randolph if she wouldn't let him drive. "It's over a hundred miles to Toulouse, and you'll want a firm hand, for the days are short," he had the impudence to add.
At that I lost my head, and made a big mistake. I felt I couldn't stand sitting still while he tried experiments with my car, and almost before I knew what I was doing I blurted out, "Beg pardon, miss, but are you sure this gentleman understands driving a Napier? My master expected that I was to drive his car when he let it out, and--"
Such a look of reproach as the Goddess threw me! "But I understand that, while I hire the car it is mine to do as I like with, in reason," she cut me short. "Mr. Payne tells me that he has often driven his friend the Duke of Burford's Napier. And if anything happens to your master's car while I have it, I will pay for the damage up to its full value, so your mind may be at ease on his account."
With this well-deserved, but none the less crushing snub she brought the car to a standstill and inadvertently stopped the motor. After virtually agreeing the night before to let Payne drive, I ought to have kept my mouth shut; but you will admit that the temptation was strong. I descended, like a well-conducted chauffeur, to help my mistress change places with my hated rival, and of course it was my duty to start the motor again, which I did. Before I could get out of the way, Payne started - on the third speed, like the duffer he is, changing so quickly to the second that I had to race after the car and hurl myself into the tonneau to avoid being left behind. In doing this I unfortunately trod on Aunt Mary's toes. She groaned, glared, and muttered only half below her breath, "Clumsy creature!" Thoroughly humiliated, and no longer in a mood to care whether their Jimmy wrecked the car and killed us (all but one) I took my seat. I do believe that Aunt Mary secretly thinks me capable of having misjudged and ill-treated Eyelashes, who laid himself out to "be nice" to her.
Hardly had we started when I heard Miss Randolph telling Payne that this car belonged to the Honourable John Winston, Lord Brighthelmston's son, and asking him if he had ever met Mr. Winston. I suppose that, in the excitement of managing a big machine which he knew little or nothing about, Payne forgot that, since I "went with the car," the owner must have been one of those (to him) fatal old masters of mine. He can't bear to deny the soft impeachment of knowing anyone whom he thinks may be a swell, and in the hurry of the moment habit got the better of prudence.
"Oh yes, I know Jack very well!" he exclaimed; then drew in his breath with a little gasp which he turned into a cough. In that moment he had probably remembered me.
"I suppose you know his mother, then?" said Miss Randolph. "I met her in Paris. She's at Cannes now, and so you will see her there."
"Ye-es," returned Jimmy. "Oh yes, I shall certainly see her. I know Lord Brighthelmston better than I do her; but I shall call, of course."
What with his fear of having committed himself anew, and the chill in his marrow produced by my critical eye on his vertebræ, he grew more and more nervous, wobbling whenever there was a delicate piece of steering to be done or a restive horse to be passed. He changed speeds so clumsily that the pinions went together with a crash each time, and shivers ran up and down my spine when I heard the noise and thought of the damage this conceited idiot might do to my poor gears. Could you stand by like Patience on the lee cathead, smiling at a wet swab, while some duffer with a whip and spurs bestrode your favourite stallion, Roland? Perhaps that simile will help you to understand how I've been feeling all day.
Payne is a rank amateur. I doubt if he ever drove a Napier before, and would bet something he depended for his success to-day (such as it was) on keen observation of everything Miss Randolph did before he took the helm. He knows how to steer a moderately straight course and to change speeds - that's about all; and I wouldn't trust his nerve in an emergency. However, we bowled along without incident through Tarbes and Tournay, thanks more to the fine car than the driver; but when mounting a long stretch of steep road beyond a place called Lanespède, where a great railway viaduct crosses the valley, Payne missed his change, and then completely lost his head, failing to put on the brakes to prevent us running down the hill backwards. Luckily I was sitting on the brake side, and reaching out of the tonneau, I seized the lever of the hand-brake and jammed it on. Next instant (to make quite sure) I jumped out, ran to the front, and lowered the sprag. I don't think any of them knew what a narrow escape we'd had, and Payne covered himself by abusing the car. We started up again on the second, and came out on an undulating plain overlooking a little watering-place called Capvern-les-Bains, lying far below in a dimple of the Pyrenean foothills.
There was no other incident till we came to Montréjeau, where my road-book showed that there was an uncommonly steep hill. So I ventured to say over Payne's shoulder, "Better look out here, sir; a bad hill." The cad had not the civility to notice my warning, but charged through the long street of the town till he came to the verge of a dangerous descent, dipping steeply and suddenly for a little way, then turning abruptly to the left. He was taking the hill at a reckless pace, not because he was plucky, but because he knew no better; and half-way down, seeing a lumbering station-omnibus climbing slowly up, not leaving much room, he began to get wild in his steering. Again I hung out, and gently but firmly put on the hand-brake, steadying the car. The idiot didn't even see how I had saved him, for when we got safely down he said to Miss Randolph, "Took that hill flying, didn't I?" I can tell you I was glad when we pulled up for luncheon at St. Gaudens, knowing that the road here turns away from the Pyrenees to cross the great plain of Languedoc.
Blessed plain of Languedoc, which has been abused by some travellers for its monotony! Sitting silently in the tonneau with Aunt Mary, I revelled in the long, straight level of wide, poplar-fringed road that stretched as far as the eye could reach, running up to a point in the distant perspective. "Here, at any rate," I reflected, "the duffer at the wheel can't do us much harm." It was a beautiful scene, had I been in tune to enjoy it, for the Pyrenees showed their blue outlines on the far horizon, and the Garonne gave us many pictures near at hand. There was in particular one sweet sylvan "bit" at a place called St. Martory, which, though it was but a fleeting glimpse, framed itself in my mind with all the precision of a stereoscopic view.
It was a relief to me, when this evening, we ran into Toulouse; its many buildings of brick lying along the bank of the broad and peaceful Garonne, looking curiously rose-hued in the level rays of the declining sun.
But poor car! when I set to work at cleaning it after its ill-treatment it seemed to reproach me for disloyalty. Its very lamps were like mournful, misunderstood eyes. And this is only the first day of many. How long, O friend, how long? I don't quite see what is to become of your unfortunate
Jack Winston.
Thanks to Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders for providing the text for this work of public domain literature - and many, many others.
poor Jack, having to just let this fool mistreat his car!