Part 39 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXVII
The Strange Mushroom
”Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face?”
--SHAKESPEARE.
When Joseph had gone, with his pockets and his heart both full to bursting, I felt much like the captain of a small fis.h.i.+ng vessel, wrecked in strange seas, who has seen his comrades depart on rafts, while he stayed on board his sinking s.h.i.+p alone with three biscuits and a gill of water. There was also a certain resemblance between me and a well-meaning plant which has been pulled up by its roots just as it had begun to grow nicely, and then stuck into the earth again, upside down, to do the best it can.
I was not quite sure yet which was up or down, and which way I had better grow, if at all. There was, however, an attraction in a southerly direction: letters were to be forwarded to me at Gren.o.ble, and there would probably be one from Jack or Molly Winston, saying when and where they might be expected to come upon the scene with Mercedes. Finding me stranded, they would doubtless take pity upon my forlornness, and offer me a lift in their car, down to the Riviera.
And to the Riviera I still felt strongly impelled to go, though I had no longer the Contessa for an excuse. She had been engaged, in my little drama, for the part of ”leading juvenile,” with the privilege of understudying the heroine. But she had not shown an apt.i.tude for either role, and having stepped down to that of first walking lady, she had minced off my stage altogether. Now the cast was filled up without her, though strangely filled, since after the first act there had been no leading lady at all. Nevertheless, having arranged a scene at Monte Carlo I could not persuade myself to give it up, though it would not be played, in any event, at the Contessa's villa.
The Boy had vanished, and the sole word he had left was that I had better not count upon seeing him again. But the more I thought of it, the less necessity I saw for taking him at that word. He perhaps flattered himself that he had picked up all clues and carried them off with him in the wonderful bag. But he had purposefully hinted that ”something might happen at Monte Carlo,” and I hoped the something might mean that, after all, the Boy would materialise with his sister at the Hotel de Paris on the night after our arrival. In any case, if the Princess were going to Monte Carlo, there would the Fairy Prince be also, and I did not see why I should not be there too, whether Molly and Jack tooled me down in their motor or not.
Fifteen minutes after Joseph had gone from my life to mingle his lot with Innocentina's, I had my own plans definitely mapped out. I would stop in Chambery overnight, to wait for the portmanteau with which I had kept up a speaking acquaintance in the larger centres of civilisation, during the tour, and next day I would go on to Gren.o.ble by train, there to pick up letters.
The luggage duly arrived in the evening, so that there was no bar to the carrying out of my design; and, accordingly, after my coffee on the following morning, I conscientiously went out to see more of the town before taking the eleven-o'clock train.
It was only ten, and as my arrangements were all made, I had time for strolling--too much to suit my mood. The murmur of an automobile preparing to take flight attracted me from a distance, for it seemed that the voice had the cadence of a car I knew. I hastened my steps, turned a corner, and there, in front of the Hotel de France's rival, stood a fine motor, panting, quivering in eagerness to dart away.
It was a Mercedes, and if it were not Molly Winston's wedding-present Mercedes, it was that Mercedes' twin. But there was a strange mushroom in it.
I would have known Molly's mushroom among a thousand. It was small, round, compact, and of a dark cream colour. This mushroom was flatter, wider, more expansive, with an exceedingly slender stem; and in tint it was of a pale silvery grey. It grew up straight and slim in the tonneau of the car, all alone, unaccompanied by any similar growths, or any guardian goblins; and several servants of the hotel were grouped about, waiting to see it off.
I waited, too, sniffing adventure with the scent of petrol, and interested in the resemblance to that good Dragon with which I had been friends; but I was about to turn away at last when a form which had evidently been squatting behind the car on the other side, rose to its feet. It was that of Gotteland, and had he been a long-lost uncle from Australia with his pockets crammed with wills in my favour, I could not have been more delighted to see him.
As I rushed forward to claim him as my own, Molly and Jack came out of the hotel.
”Monty!” Jack cried, with a sincerity of joy which warmed my heart.
As for his wife, she cried not at all, but merely gasped.
”What luck for me!” I exclaimed, shaking both Molly's hands so hard that it was fortunate (as she remarked afterwards) that she had on ”only her rainy-day rings.” ”I did hope to hear of you at Gren.o.ble, but scarcely dared think of actually meeting you, even there. In two minutes more I should have been on the way to catch my train.”
”Here's your train, old man,” said Jack, indicating the throbbing automobile.
”My one true love, Mercedes,” I remarked, looking fondly at the car.
”s.h.!.+” whispered Molly, with an odd little sound which was like a giggle strangled at birth. ”She's there.”
”Who?” I started, bewildered.
”Mercedes.”
”I know; the darling! I long to have my hands on her again.”
”Oh, Lord Lane, do be careful! You don't understand. I mean the real Mercedes. The girl who gave me the car. She's sitting there. She'll hear you.”
”It's all right,” said Jack. ”The motor's making such a row, she wouldn't catch the words.”
”She joined us h--lately,” explained Molly hurriedly.