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Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson - The Motor Maid

A >> Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson >> The Motor Maid



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THE MOTOR MAID


* * * * *


BOOKS BY C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON

LORD LOVELAND DISCOVERS AMERICA
SET IN SILVER
THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR
THE PRINCESS PASSES
MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR
LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER
ROSEMARY IN SEARCH OF A FATHER
THE PRINCESS VIRGINIA
THE CAR OF DESTINY
THE CHAPERON


* * * * *


THE MOTOR MAID

by

C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON

Authors of "Lord Loveland Discovers America,"
"My Friend the Chauffeur," "The Princess Virginia," etc.

With Four Illustrations in Color
by F. M. Du Mond and F. Lowenheim







[Illustration: "We raced along a clear road, the Etang shimmering blue
before us"]



A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
All rights reserved, including that of translation
into foreign languages, including the scandinavian
Copyright, 1910, By Doubleday, Page & Company
Published, August, 1910
The Country Life Press, Garden City, N.Y.





To The Three Gertrudes





ILLUSTRATIONS

"We raced along a clear road, the Etang shimmering
blue before us" _Frontispiece_

facing page
"While I wrestled ... with a bodice as snug as
the head of a drum, the lord of all it contained
appeared in the doorway" 48

"It took half an hour to dig the car out, and push
her up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest" 272

"Jack's hand, inside Mr. Stokes's beautiful, tall
collar, shook Bertie back and forth till his teeth
chattered like castanets" 328





CHAPTER I


One hears of people whose hair turned white in a single night. Last
night I thought mine was turning. I had a creepy feeling in the roots,
which seemed to crawl all the way down inside each separate hair,
wriggling as it went. I suppose you couldn't have nervous prostration of
the hair? I worried dreadfully, it kept on so long; and my hair is so
fair it would be almost a temptation for it, in an emergency, to take
the one short step from gold to silver. I didn't dare switch on the
light in the _wagon-lit_ and peep at my pocket-book mirror (which
reflects one's features in sections of a square inch, giving the survey
of one's whole face quite a panorama effect) for fear I might wake up
the Bull Dog.

I've spelt him with capitals, after mature deliberation, because it
would be nothing less than _lese majeste_ to fob him off with little
letters about the size of his two lower eye-tusks, or chin-molars, or
whatever one ought to call them.

He was on the floor, you see, keeping guard over his mistress's shoes;
and he might have been misguided enough to think I had designs on
them--though what I could have used them for, unless I'd been going to
Venice and wanting a private team of gondolas, I can't imagine.

I being in the upper berth, you might (if you hadn't seen him) have
fancied me safe; but already he had once padded half-way up the
step-ladder, and sniffed at me speculatively, as if I were a piece of
meat on the top shelf of a larder; and if half-way up, why not all the
way up? _Il etait capable du tout._

I tried to distract my mind and focus it hard on other things, as
Christian Scientists tell you to do when you have a pin sticking into
your body for which _les convenances_ forbid you to make an exhaustive
search.

I lay on my back with my eyes shut, trying not to hear any of the sounds
in the _wagon-lit_ (and they were not confined to the snoring of His
Majesty), thinking desperately. "I will concentrate all my mentality,"
said I to myself, "on thoughts beginning with P, for instance. My Past.
Paris. Pamela."

Just for a few minutes it was comparatively easy. "Dear Past!" I sighed,
with a great sigh which for divers reasons I was sure couldn't be heard
beyond my own berth. (And though I try always even to _think_ in
English, I find sometimes that the words group themselves in my head in
the old patterns--according to French idioms.) "Dear Past, how thou wert
kind and sweet! How it is brutalizing to turn my back upon thee and thy
charms forever!"

"Oh, my goodness, I shall certainly die!" squeaked a voice in the berth
underneath; and then there was a sound of wallowing.

She (my stable-companion, shall I call her?) had been giving vent to all
sorts of strange noises at intervals, for a long time, so that it would
have been hopeless to try and drown my sorrows in sleep.

Away went the Gentle Past with a bump, as if it had knocked against a
snag in the current of my thoughts.

Paris or Pamela instead, then! or both together, since they seem
inseparable, even when Pamela is at her most American, and tells me to
"talk United States."

It was all natural to think of Pamela, because it was she who gave me
the ticket for the _train de luxe_, and my berth in the _wagon-lit_. If
it hadn't been for Pamela I should at this moment have been crawling
slowly, cheaply, down Riviera-ward in a second-class train, sitting bolt
upright in a second-class carriage with smudges on my nose, while
perhaps some second-class child shed jammy crumbs on my frock, and its
second-class baby sister howled.

"Oh, why did I leave my peaceful home?" wailed the lady in the lower
berth.

Heaven alone (unless it were the dog) knew why she had, and knew how
heartily I wished she hadn't. A good thing Cerberus was on guard, or I
might have dropped a pillow accidentally on her head!

Just then I wasn't thanking Pamela for her generosity. The second-class
baby's mamma would have given it a bottle to keep it still; but there
was nothing I could give the fat old lady; and she had already resorted
to the bottle (something in the way of patent medicine) without any good
result. Yet, _was_ there nothing I could give her?

"Oh, I'm dying, I _know_ I'm dying, and nobody cares! I shall choke to
death!" she gurgled.

It was too much. I could stand it and the terrible atmosphere no longer.
I suppose, if I had been an early Christian martyr, waiting for my turn
to be devoured might have so got on my nerves eventually that I would
have thrown myself into the arena out of sheer spite at the lions, and
then tried my best to disagree with them.

Anyway, Bull Dog or no Bull Dog, having made a light, I slid down from
my berth--no thanks to the step-ladder--dangled a few wild seconds in
the air, and then offering--yes, offering my stockinged feet to the
Minotaur, I poked my head into the lower berth.

"What are you going to do?" gasped its occupant, _la grosse femme_ whose
fault it would be if my hair did change from the gold of a louis to the
silver of a mere franc.

"You say you're stifling," I reminded her, politely but firmly, and my
tone was like the lull before a storm.

"Yes, but----" We were staring into each other's eyes, and--could I
believe my sense of touch, or was it mercifully blunted? It seemed that
the monster on the floor was gently licking my toes with a tongue like a
huge slice of pink ham, instead of chewing them to the bone. But there
are creatures which do that to their victims, I've heard, by way of
making it easier to swallow them, later.

"You also said no one cared," I went on, courageously. "_I_ care--for
myself as well as for you. As for what I'm going to do--I'm going to do
several things. First, open the window, and then--_then I'm going to
undress you_."

"You must be mad!" gasped the lady, who was English. Oh, but more
English than any one else I ever saw in my life.

"Not yet," said I, as I darted at the thick blind she had drawn down
over the window, and let it fly up with a snap. I then opened the window
itself, a few inches, and in floated a perfumed breath of the soft April
air for which our bereaved lungs had been longing. The breeze fluttered
round my head like a benediction until I felt that the ebbing tide of
gold had turned, and was flowing into my back hair again.

"No wonder you're dying, madam," I exclaimed, switching the heat-lever
to "Froid." "So was I, but being merely an Upper Berth, with no rights,
I was suffering in silence. I watched you turn the heat full on, and
shut the window tight. I saw you go to bed in _all_ your clothes, which
looked terribly thick, and cover yourself up with both your blankets;
but I said nothing, because you were a Lower Berth, and older than I am.
I thought maybe you _wanted_ a Turkish Bath. But since you don't--I'll
try and save you from apoplexy, if it isn't too late."

I fumbled with brooches and buttons, with hooks and eyes. It was even
worse than I'd supposed. The creature's conception of a travelling
costume _en route_ for the South of France consisted of a heavy tweed
dress, two gray knitted stay-bodices, one pink Jaeger chemise, and a
couple of red flannel petticoats. My investigations went no further;
but, encouraged in my rescue work by spasmodic gestures on the part of
the patient, and forbearance on the part of the dog, I removed several
superfluous layers of wool. One blanket went to the floor, where it was
accepted in the light of a gift by His Majesty, and the other was
returned to its owner.

"Now are you better, madam?" I asked, panting with long and well-earned
breaths. She reposed on an elbow, gazing up at me as at a surgeon who
has performed a painful but successful operation; and she was an object
_pour faire rire_, the poor lady!

She wore an old-fashioned false front of hair, "sunning over with curls"
(brown ones, of a brown never seen on land or sea), and a pair of
spectacles, pushed up in an absent-minded moment, were entangled in its
waves. Her face, which was large, with a knot of tiny features in the
middle, shone red with heat and excitement. She would have had the look
of an elderly child, if it hadn't been for her bright, shrewd little
eyes, which twinkled observantly--and might sparkle with temper. Nobody
who was not rich and important would dare to dress as badly as she did.
Altogether she was a figure of fun. Indeed, I couldn't help feeling what
quaint mantelpiece ornaments she and her dog would make. Yet, for some
reason, I didn't feel inclined to laugh, and I eyed her as solemnly as
she eyed me. As for His Majesty, I began to see that I had misunderstood
him. After all, he had never, from the first, regarded me as an eatable.

"Yes, I _am_ better," replied His Majesty's mistress. "People have
always told me it came on treacherously cold at night in France, so I
prepared accordingly. I suppose I ought to thank you. In fact, I do
thank you."

"I acted for myself as much as for you," I confessed. "It was so hot,
and you were suffering out loud."

"I have never travelled at night before," the lady defended herself.
"Indeed, I've made a point of travelling as little as possible, except
by carriage. I don't consider trains a means of conveyance for
gentlefolk. They seem well enough for cattle who may not mind being
herded together."

"Or for dogs," I suggested.

"Nothing is too good for Beau--my _only_ Beau!" (at this I did not
wonder). "But I wouldn't have moved without him. He's as necessary to me
as my conscience. I was afraid the guard was going to make a fuss about
him, which would have been awkward, as I can't speak a word of French,
or any other silly language into which Latin has degenerated. But
luckily English gold doesn't need to be translated."

"It loses in translation," said I, amused. I sat down on my bag as I
spoke, and timorously invited Beau (never was name less appropriate) to
be patted. He arose from the blanket and accepted my overtures with an
expression which may have been intended for a smile, or a threat of the
most appalling character. I have seen such legs as his on old-fashioned
silver teapots; and the crook in his tail would have made it useful as a
door-knocker.

"I don't think I ever saw him take so to a stranger," exclaimed his
mistress, suddenly beaming.

"I wonder you risked him with me in such close quarters then," said I.
"Wouldn't it have been safer if you'd had your maid in the compartment
with you----"

"My maid? My tyrant!" snorted the old lady. "She's the one creature on
earth I am afraid of, and she knows it. When we got to Dover, and she
saw the Channel wobbling about a little, she said it was a great nasty
wet thing, and she wouldn't go on it. When I insisted, she showed
symptoms of seasickness; and in consequence she is waiting for me in
Dover till I finish the business that's taking me to Italy. I had no
more experience than she, but I had _courage_. It's perhaps a question
of class. Servants consider only themselves. You, too, I see, have
courage. I was inclined to think poorly of you when you first came in,
and to wish I'd been extravagant enough to take the two beds for myself,
because I thought you were afraid of Beau. Yet now you're patting him."

"I _was_ rather afraid at first," I admitted. "I never met an English
bull dog socially before."

"They're more angels than dogs. Their one interest in life is love--for
their friends; and they wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Larger game would be more in their way, I should think," said I. "But
I'm glad he likes me. I like to be liked. It makes me feel more at home
in life."

"H'm! That's a funny idea!" remarked the old lady. "'At home in life!'
You've made yourself pretty well at home in this _wagon-lit_, anyhow,
taking off all your clothes and putting on your nightgown. I should
never have thought of that. It seems hardly decent. Suppose we should be
killed."

"Most people do try to die in their nightgowns, when you come to think
of it," said I.

"Well, you have a quaint way of putting things. There's something very
original about you, my dear young woman. I thought you were mysterious
at first, but I believe it's only the effect of originality."

"I don't know which I'd rather be," I said, "original or mysterious, if
I couldn't afford both. But I'm not a young woman."

"Goodness!" exclaimed the old lady, wrinkling up her eyes to stare at
me. "I may be pretty blind, but it can't be make-up."

I laughed. "I mean _je suis jeune fille_. I'm not a young woman. I'm a
young girl."

"Dear me, is there any difference?"

"There is in France."

"I'm not surprised at queer ideas in France, or any other foreign
country, where I've always understood that _anything_ may happen. Why
can't everybody be English? It would be so much more simple. But you're
not French, are you?"

"Half of me is."

"And what's the other half, if I may ask?"

"American. My father was French, my mother American."

"No wonder you don't always feel at home in life, divided up like that!"
she chuckled. "It must be so upsetting."

"Everything is upsetting with me lately," I said.

"With me too, if it comes to that--or would be, if it weren't for Beau.
What a pity you haven't got a Beau, my dear."

I smiled, because (in the Americanized sense of the word) I had one, and
was running away from him as fast as I could. But the thought of
Monsieur Charretier as a "beau" made me want to giggle hysterically.

"You say 'was,' when you speak of your father and mother," went on the
old lady, with childlike curiosity, which I was encouraging by not
going back to bed. "Does that mean that you've lost them?"

"Yes," I said.

"And lately?"

"My father died when I was sixteen, my mother left me two years ago."

"You don't look more than nineteen now."

"I'm nearly twenty-one."

"Well, I don't mean to catechize you, though one certainly must get
friendly--or the other way--I suppose, penned up in a place like this
all night. And you've really been very kind to me. Although you're a
pretty girl, as you must know, I didn't think at first I was going to
like you so much."

"And I didn't you," I retorted, laughing, because I really did begin to
like the queer old lady now, and was glad I hadn't dropped a pillow on
her head.

"That's right. Be frank. I like frankness. Do you know, I believe you
and I would get on very well together if our acquaintance was going to
be continued? If Beau approves of a person, I let myself go."

"You use him as if he were a barometer."

"There you are again, with your funny ideas! I shall remember that one,
and bring it out as if it were my _own_. I consider myself quite lucky
to have got you for a travelling companion. It's such a comfort to hear
English again, and talk it, after having to converse by gesture--except
with Beau. I hope you're going on to Italy?"

"No. I'm getting off at Cannes."

"I'm sorry. But I suppose you're glad?"

"Not particularly," said I.

"I've always heard that Cannes was gay."

"It won't be for me."

"Your relations there don't go out much?"

"I've no relations in Cannes. Aren't you tired now, and wouldn't you
like me to make you a little more comfortable?"

"Does that mean that _you're_ tired of answering questions? I haven't
meant to be rude."

"You haven't been," I assured her. "You're very kind to take an
interest."

"Well, then, I'm _not_ tired, and I _wouldn't_ like to be made more
comfortable. I'm very well as I am. Do you want to go to sleep?"

"I want to, but I know I can't. I'm getting hungry. Are you?"

"Getting? I've _got_. If Simpkins were here I'd have her make us tea, in
my tea-basket."

"I'll make it if you like," I volunteered.

"A French--a half French--girl make tea?"

"It's the American half that knows how."

"You look too ornamental to be useful. But you can try."

I did try, and succeeded. It was rather fun, and never did tea taste so
delicious. There were biscuits to go with it, which Beau shared; and I
do wish that people (other people) were obliged to make faces when they
eat, such as Beau has to make, because if so, one could add a new
interest to life by inviting even the worst bores to dinner.

I was fascinated with his contortions, and I did not attempt to conceal
my sudden change of opinion concerning Beau as a companion. When I had
humbly invited him to drink out of my saucer, which I held from high
tide to low, I saw that my conquest of his mistress was complete.
Already we had exchanged names, as well as some confidences. I knew that
she was Miss Paget, and she knew that I was Lys d'Angely; but after the
tea-drinking episode she became doubly friendly.

She told me that, owing to an unforeseen circumstance (partly, even
largely, connected with Beau) which had caused a great upheaval in her
life, she had now not a human being belonging to her, except her maid
Simpkins, of whom she would like to get rid if only she knew how.

"Talk of the Old Man of the Sea!" she sighed. "_He_ was an afternoon
caller compared with Simpkins. She's been on my back for twenty years. I
suppose she will be for another twenty, unless I slam the door of the
family vault in her face."

"Couldn't Beau help you?" I asked.

"Even Beau is powerless against her. She has hypnotized him with marrow
bones."

"You've escaped from her for the present," I suggested. "She's on the
other side of the Channel. Now is your time to be bold."

"Ah, but I can't stop out of England for ever, and I tell you she's
waiting for me at Dover. A relative (a very eccentric one, and quite
different from the rest of us, or he wouldn't have made his home abroad)
has left me a house in Italy, some sort of old castle, I believe--so
unsuitable! I'm going over to see about selling it for I've no one to
trust but myself, owing to the circumstances of which I spoke. I want to
get back as soon as possible--I hope in a few weeks, though how I shall
manage without any Italian, heaven may know--I don't! Do you speak it?"

"A little."

"Well, I wish I could have you with me. You'd make a splendid companion
for an old woman like me: young, good to look at, energetic (or you
wouldn't be travelling about alone), brave (conquered your fear of
Beau), accomplished (three languages, and goodness knows what besides!),
presence of mind (the way you whisked my clothes off), handy (I never
tasted better tea)--altogether you sum up ideally. What a pity you're
rich, and out of the market!"

"If I look rich my appearance must be more distinguished than I
supposed--and it's also very deceiving," said I.

"You're rich enough to travel for pleasure in _wagon-lits_, and have
silver-fitted bags."

"I'm not travelling for pleasure. You exaggerate my bags and my
_wagon-lits_, for I've only one of each; and both were given me by a
friend who was at the Convent with me."

"The Convent! Good heavens! are you an escaping nun?"

I laughed. "I went to school at a Convent. That was when I thought I
_was_ going to be rich--at least, rich enough to be like other girls.
And if I _am_ 'escaping' from something, it isn't from the arms of
religion."

"If you're not rich, and aren't going to relatives, why not take an
engagement with me? Come, I'm in earnest. I always make up my mind
suddenly, if it's anything important, and hardly ever regret it. I'm
sure we should suit. You've got no nonsense about you."

"Oh yes I have, lots!" I broke in. "That's all I have left--that, and my
sense of humour. But seriously, you're very kind--to take me on faith
like this--especially when you began by thinking me mysterious. I'd
accept thankfully, only--I'm engaged already."

"To be married, I suppose you mean?"

"Thank heaven, no! To a Princess."

"Dear me, one would think you were a man hater!"

"So I am, a _one_-man hater. What Simpkins is to you, that man is to me.
And that's why I'm on my way to Cannes to be the companion of the
Princess Boriskoff, who's said to be rather deaf and very
quick-tempered, as well as elderly and a great invalid. She sheds her
paid companions as a tree sheds its leaves in winter. I hear that Europe
is strewn with them."

"Nice prospect for you!"

"Isn't it? But beggars mustn't be choosers."

"You don't look much like a beggar."

"Because I can make my own dresses and hats--and nightgowns."

"Well, if your Princess sheds you, let me know, and you may live yet to
deliver me from Simpkins. I feel you'd be equal to it! My address
is--but I'll give you a card." And, burrowing under her pillow, she
unearthed a fat handbag from which, after some fumbling, she presented
me with a visiting-card, enamelled in an old-fashioned way. I read:
"Miss Paget, 34a Eaton Square. Broomlands House, Surrey."

"Now you're not to lose that," she impressed upon me. "Write if you're
scattered over Europe by this Russian (I never did believe much in
Princesses, excepting, of course, our _own_ dear Royalties), or if you
ever come to England. Even if it's years from now, I assure you Beau and
I won't have forgotten you. As for your address--"

"I haven't any," I said. "At present I'm depending on the Princess for
one. She's at the Hotel Majestic Palace, Cannes; but from what my friend
Pam--the Comtesse de Nesle--says, I fancy she doesn't stop long in any
town. It was the Comtesse de Nesle who got me the place. She's the only
one who knows where I'm going, because--after a fashion, I'm running
away to be the Princess's companion."

"Running away from the Man?"

"Yes; also from my relatives who're sure it's my duty to be _his_
companion. So you see I can't give you their address. I've ceased to
have any right to it. And now I really think I _had_ better go back to
bed."




CHAPTER II


At half-past ten this morning we parted, the best of friends, and I
dropped a good-bye kiss into the deep black gorge between the
promontories of Beau's velvet forehead and plush nose.

We'd had breakfast together, Miss Paget and I, to say nothing of the
dog, and I felt rather cheerful. Of course I dreaded the Princess; but I
always did like adventures, and it appeared to me distinctly an
adventure to be a companion, even in misery. Besides, it was nice to
have come away from Monsieur Charretier, and to feel that not only did
he not know where I was, but that he wasn't likely to find out. Poor me!
I little guessed what an adventure on a grand scale I was in for.
Already this morning seems a long time ago; a year at the Convent used
to seem shorter.

I drove up to the hotel in the omnibus which was at the station, and
asked at the office for the Princess Boriskoff. I said that I was
Mademoiselle d'Angely, and would they please send word to the Princess,
because she was expecting me.

It was a young assistant manager who received me, and he gave me a very
queer, startled sort of look when I said this, as if I were a suspicious
person, and he didn't quite know whether it would be better to answer me
or call for help.

"I haven't made a mistake, have I?" I asked, beginning to be anxious.
"This _is_ the hotel where the Princess is staying, isn't it?"

"She was staying here," the youth admitted. "But--"

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