Part 30 (1/2)
”I wonder if she is thinking about you to-night?” I asked, knowing he meant that the mysterious lady was carried along on this journey in his spirit, as I was in the car.
”Not seriously, if at all,” he answered, with what seemed to me a forced lightness. ”But I am thinking of her--thoughts which she will probably never know.”
Then I did wish that I, too, had a hidden sorrow in my life, a man in the background, but as unlike Monsieur Charretier as possible, for whose love I could call upon my brother's sympathy. And I suppose it was because he had some one, while I had no one, in this strange, hidden fairyland like a secret orchard of jewelled fruits, that I felt suddenly very sad.
He pointed out Castlebouc, a spellbound chateau on a towering crag that held it up as if on a tall black finger, above a village which might have fallen off a canvas by Gustave Dore. Farther on lay a strange place called Prades, memorable for a huge b.u.t.tress of rock exactly like the carca.s.s of a mammoth petrified and hanging on a wall. Then, farther on still, over the black face of the rocks flashed a whiteness of waving waters, pouring cascades like bridal veils whose lace was made of mountain snows.
”Here we are at Ste. Enemie,” said Mr. Dane. ”Don't you remember about her--'King Dagobert's daughter, ill-fated and fair to look upon?' Well, at this village of hers we must either light our lamps or rest for the night, which ever Sir Samuel--I mean her ladys.h.i.+p--decides.”
So he stopped, in a little town which looked a place of fairy enchantment under the moon. And as the song of the motor changed into jogging prose with the putting on of the brakes, open flew the door of an inn. Nothing could ever have looked half so attractive as the rosy glow of the picture suddenly revealed. There was a miniature hall and a quaint stairway--just an impressionist glimpse of both in play of firelight and shadow. With all my might I willed Lady Turnour to want to stay the night. The whole force of my mind pressed upon that part of her ”transformation” directly over the deciding-cells of her brain.
The chauffeur jumped down, and respectfully inquired the wishes of his pa.s.sengers. Would they remain here, if there were rooms to be had, and take a boat in the morning to make the famous descent of the Tarn, while the car went on to meet them at Le Rosier, at the end of the Gorge? Or would they, in spite of the darkness, risk--
”We'll risk nothing,” Lady Turnour promptly cut him short. ”We've run risks to-day till I feel as if I'd been in my grave and pulled out again. No more for me, by dark, _thank_ you, if I have to sleep in the car!”
”I hope your ladys.h.i.+p won't have to do that,” returned my Fellow Worm, alive though trodden under foot. ”I have never spent a night in Ste.
Enemie, but I've lunched here, and the food is pa.s.sable. I should think the rooms would be clean, though rough--”
”I don't find this country attractive enough to pay us for any hards.h.i.+ps,” said the mistress of our fate. ”I never was in such a dreary, G.o.d-forsaken waste! Are there no decent hotels to get at?”
Patiently he explained to her, as he had to me, how the better hotels which the Gorge of the Tarn could boast were not yet open for the summer. ”If we had not had such a chapter of accidents we should have run through as far as this early in the day, and could then have followed the good motoring road down the gorge, seeing its best sights almost as well as from the river; but--”
”Whose fault were the accidents, I should like to know?” demanded the lady. But obviously there was no answer to that question from a servant to a mistress.
”Shall I inquire about rooms?” the chauffeur asked, calmly.
And it ended in Sir Samuel going in with him, conducted by a smiling and somewhat excited young person who had been holding open the door.
They must have been absent for ten minutes, which seemed half an hour.
Then, when Lady Turnour had begun muttering to herself that she was freezing, Sir Samuel bustled back, in a cheerfulness put on awkwardly, like an ill-fitting suit of armour in a pageant.
”My dear, they're very full, but two French gentlemen were kind enough to give up their room to us, and the landlady'll put them out somewhere--”
”What, you and I both squashed into one room!” exclaimed her ladys.h.i.+p, forgetful, in haughty horror, of her lodging-house background.
”But it's all they have. It's that or the motor, since you won't risk--”
”Oh, very well, then, I suppose it can't _kill_ me!” groaned the bride, stepping out of the car as if from tumbril to scaffold.
What a way to take an adorable adventure! I was sorry for Sir Samuel, but dimly I felt that I ought to be still sorrier for a woman temperamentally unable to enjoy anything as it ought to be enjoyed. Next year, maybe, she will look back on the experience and tell her friends that it was ”fun”; but oh, the pity of it, not to gather the flowers of the Present, to let them wither, and never pluck them till they are dried wrecks of the Past!
I was ready to dance for joy as I followed her ladys.h.i.+p into the miniature hall which, if not quite so alluring when viewed from the inside, had a friendly, welcoming air after the dark mountains and cold white moonlight. I didn't know yet what arrangements had been made for my stable accommodation, if any, but I felt that I shouldn't weep if I had to sit up all night in a warm kitchen with a purry cat and a snory dog.
The stairs were bare, and our feet clattered crudely as we went up, lighted by a stout young girl with bared arms, who carried a candle.
”What a hole!” snapped Lady Turnour; but when the door of a bedroom was opened for her by the red-elbowed one, she cried out in despair. ”Is _this_ where you expect me to sleep, Samuel? I'm surprised at you! I'm not sure it isn't an insult!”
”My darling, what can _I_ do?” implored the unfortunate bridegroom.