Part 28 (1/2)
”Alais,” was the answer the chauffeur made with his lips, while his eyebrows said ”I told you so!” to me.
”I think we'd better lunch here,” Sir Samuel went on. And the arrival of a princely blue motor car at the nearest inn was such a shock to the nerves of the landlady and her staff that the interval before lunch was as long and solemn as the Dead March in Saul. To show what he could do in an emergency, the chef slaughtered and cooked every animal within reach for miles around.
They appeared in a procession, according to their kind, when necessary disguised in rich and succulent sauces which did credit to the creator's imagination; and there were reserve forces of cakes, preserves, and puddings, all of which coldly furnished forth the servants' meal when they had served our betters.
It was nearly three o'clock when we were ready to leave Alais, and the chauffeur had on his bronze-statue expression as he took his seat beside me after starting the car.
”What's the matter?” I asked.
”Nothing,” said he, ”except that I don't know where we're likely to lay our heads to-night.”
”Where do you want to lay them?” I inquired flippantly. ”Any gorge will do for mine.”
”It won't for Lady Turnour's. But it may have to, and in that case she will probably snap yours off.”
”Cousin Catherine has often told me it was of no use to me, except to show my hair. But aren't there hotels in the gorge of the Tarn?”
”There are in summer, but they're not open yet, and the inns--well, if Fate casts us into one, Lady Turnour will have a fit. My idea was: a splendid run through some of the wildest and most wonderful scenery of France--little known to tourists, too--and then to get out of the Tarn region before dark. We may do it yet, but if we have any more trouble--”
He didn't finish the sentence, because, as if he had been calling for it, the trouble came. I thought that an invisible enemy had fired a revolver at us from behind a tree, but it was only a second tyre, bursting out loud, instead of in a ladylike whisper, like the other.
Down got Mr. Dane, with the air of a condemned criminal who wants every one to believe that he is delighted to be hanged. Down got I also, to relieve the car of my weight during the weird process of ”jacking up,”
though the chauffeur a.s.sured me that I didn't matter any more than a fly on the wheel. Our birds of paradise remained in their cage, however, Lady Turnour glaring whenever she caught a glimpse of the chauffeur's head, as if he had bitten that hole in the tyre. But before us loomed mountains--disagreeable-looking mountains--more like _embonpoints_ growing out of the earth's surface than ornamental elevations. On the tops there was something white, and I preferred having Lady Turnour glare at the chauffeur, no matter how unjustly, than that her attention should be caught by that far, silver glitter.
Suddenly my brother paused in his work, unbent his back, stood up, and regarded his thumb with as much intentness as if he were an Indian fakir pledged to look at nothing else for a stated number of years. He pinched the nail, shook his hand, and then, abandoning it as an object of interest, was about to inflate the mended tyre when I came forward.
”You've hurt yourself,” I said.
”I didn't know you were looking,” he replied, fixing the air-pump. ”Your back seemed to be turned.”
”A girl who hasn't got eyes in the back of her head is incomplete. What have you done to your hand?”
”Nothing much. Only picked up a splinter somehow. I tried to get it out and couldn't. It will do when we arrive somewhere.”
”Let me try,” I said.
”Nonsense! A little flower of a thing like you! Why, you'd faint at the sight of blood.”
”Oh, is it bleeding?” I asked, horrified, and forgetting to hide my horror.
He laughed. ”Only a drop or two. Why, you're as white as your name, child.”
”That's only at the thought,” I said. ”I don't mind the _sight_, although I _do_ think if Providence had made blood a pale green or a pretty blue it would have been less startling than bright red. However, it's too late to change that now. And if you don't show me your thumb, I'll have hysterics instantly, and perhaps be discharged by Lady Turnour on the spot.”
At this awful threat, which I must have looked terribly capable of carrying out, he obeyed without a word.
A horrid little, thin slip of iron had gone deep down between the nail and the flesh, and large drops of the most sensational crimson were splas.h.i.+ng down on to the ground.
”The idea of your driving like that!” I exclaimed fiercely. But my voice quivered. ”One, two, three!” I said to myself, and then pulled. I wanted to shut my eyes, but pride forbade, so I kept them as wide open as if my lids had been propped up with matches. Out came the splinter of metal, and seeing it in my hand--so long, so sharp--things swam in rainbow colours for a few seconds; but I was outwardly calm as a Stoic, and wrapped the thumb in my handkerchief despite my brother's protests.