Charles Norris Williamson - British Murder Mysteries – 10 Novels in One Volume

Long minutes passed, and at last I could sit still no longer. Gaily risking my brother's displeasure, now I knew that he wasn't "cross," I slipped out into the snow again, opened the car door, stood in the doorway, hanging on with one hand, and after much manoeuvring extricated the tea-basket from among spare tyres and luggage on the roof. Then, swinging it down, planted it inside the car, opened it, and scooped up a kettleful of snow. As soon as the big white lump had melted over a rose and azure flame of alcohol, I added more snow, and still more, until the kettle was filled with water. By the time I had warmed and dried my feet on the automatic heater under the floor, the water bubbled; and as jets of steam began to pour from the spout I saw six figures approaching, dark as if they had been cut out in black velvet against the snow.

"Tea for seven!" I said to myself; but the kettle was large, if the cups were few.

It took half an hour to dig the car out, and push her up from the hollow where the snow lay thickest. When she stood only a foot deep, she consented readily to move. We bade good-bye to the five men, for whom we had emptied our not-too-well filled pockets, and forged, bumbling, past St. Flour. It was a great strain for a heavy car, and the chauffeur only said, "I thought so!" when a chain snapped five or six miles farther on.

"What a good thing Lady Turnour isn't here!" said I, as he doctored the wounded Aigle.

"Lots of girls would be in a blue funk," said he. "I could shake that beastly woman for not taking you with her."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "When I'm not doing you any harm!"

He glanced up from his work, and then, as if on an irresistible impulse, left the chain to come and stand beside me, as I sat wrapped up in his gift "for a good girl."

He gazed at me for a moment without speaking, and I wonderingly returned the gaze, not knowing what was to follow.

The moon had come sailing up like a great silver ship, over the snow billows, and gleamed against a sky which was still a garden of full-blown roses not yet faded, though sunset was long over. The soft, pure light shone on his dark face, cutting it out clearly, and he had never looked so handsome.

"You don't mean to do me any harm, do you?" he said.

"I couldn't if I would, and wouldn't if I could," I answered in surprise.

"Yet you do me harm."

"You're joking!"

"I never was further from joking in my life. You do me harm because you make me wish for something I can't have, something it's a constant fight with me, ever since we've been thrown together, not to wish for, not to think of. Yet you say I'm cross! Now, do you know what I mean, and will you help me a little to remain your faithful brother, instead of tempting me—tempting me, however unconsciously, to—to wish—for—for—what a fool I am! I'm going to finish my mending."

I sat perfectly still, with my mouth open, feeling as if it were my chain, not the car's, which had broken!

Of course if it hadn't been for all his talk of Her , I should have known, or thought that I knew, well enough what he meant. But how could I take his strange words and stammered hints for what they seemed to suggest, knowing as I did, from his own veiled confessions, that he was in love with some beautiful fiend who had ruined his career and then thrown him over!

I longed to speak, to ask him just one question, but I dared not. No words would come; and perhaps if they had, I should have regretted them, for I was so sure he was not a man who would fall out of love with one woman to tumble into love for another, that I didn't know what to make of him; but the thought which his words shot into my mind, swift and keen, and then tore away again, showed me very well what to make of myself.

If I hadn't quite known before, I knew suddenly, all in a minute, that I was in love, oh, but humiliatingly deep in love, with the chauffeur! It seemed to me that no nice, well-regulated girl could ever have let herself go tobogganing down such a steep hill, splash into such a sea of love, unless the man were at the bottom in a boat, holding out his arms to catch her as she fell. But the chauffeur hadn't the slightest intention of holding out his arms to the poor little motor maid. He went on mending the chain, and when he got into the car beside me again he began to talk about the weather.

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It was ten o'clock when we came into Clermont-Ferrand, which looked a beautiful old place in the moonlight, with the great, white Puy de Dome floating half way up the sky, like a marble dream-palace.

I trembled for our reception at the château, for everything would be our fault, from the snow on the mountains to Lady Turnour's lack of a dinner dress; and the consciousness of our innocence would be our sole comfort. Not for an instant did we believe that it would help our case to stop at the railway station and arrange for the big luggage to be sent the first thing in the morning; nevertheless, we satisfied our consciences by doing it, though we were so hungry that everything uneatable seemed irrelevant.

A young woman in a book, who had just pried into the depths of her soul, and discovered there a desperate love, would have loathed the thought of food; but evidently I am unworthy to be a heroine, for my imagination called up visions of soup and steak; and because it seemed so extremely important to be hungry, I could quite well put off being unhappy until to-morrow.

It is only three miles from Clermont-Ferrand to the Château de Roquemartine, and we came to it easily, without inquiries, Jack having carefully studied the road map with Sir Samuel. He had only to stop at the porter's lodge to make sure we were right, and then to teuf-teuf up a long, straight avenue, sounding our musical siren as an announcement of our arrival. It was only when I saw the fine old mansion on a terraced plateau, its creamy stone white as pearl in the moonlight, its rows upon rows of windows ablaze, that I remembered my position disagreeably. I was going to stay at this charming place, as a servant, not as a member of the house-party. I would have to eat in the servants' hall—I, Lys d'Angely, whose family had been one of the proudest in France. Why, the name de Roquemartine was as nothing beside ours. It had not even been invented when ours was already old. What would my father say if he could see his daughter arriving thus at a house which would have been too much honoured by a visit from him? I was suddenly ashamed. My boasted sense of humour, about which I am usually such a Pharisee, sulked in a corner and refused to come out to my rescue, though I called upon it. Funny it might be to eat in the kitchens of inns, but I could not feel that it was funny to be relegated to the servants' brigade in the private house of a countryman of my father.

What queerly complicated creatures we little human animals are! An avalanche of love hadn't destroyed my hunger. A knife-thrust in my vanity killed it in an instant; and I can't believe this was simply because I'm female. I shouldn't be surprised if a man might feel exactly the same—or more so.

"Oh, dear!" I sighed. "It's going to be horrid here. But"—with a stab of remorse for my self-absorption—"it's just as bad for you as for me. You don't need to stay in the house, though. You're a man, and free. Don't stop for my sake. I won't have it! Please live in an inn. There's sure to be one near by."

"I'm not going to look for it," said my brother. "You needn't worry about me. I've got pretty callous. I shall have quarters for nothing here—you're always preaching economy."