THE CHAUFFEUR and the CHAPERON Alice Muriel Williamson
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THE CHAUFFEUR AND THE CHAPERON Alice Muriel Williamson And C. N. Williamson NELL VAN BUREN'S POINT OF VIEW I Sometimes I think that having a bath is the nicest part of the day, especially if you take too long over it, when you ought to be hurrying. Phyllis and I (Phil is my stepsister, though she is the most English creature alive) have no proper bath-room in our flat. What can you expect for forty pounds a year, even at Clapham? But we have a fitted-up arrangement in the box-room, and it has never exploded yet. Phyllis allows herself ten minutes for her bath every morning, just as she allows herself five minutes for her prayers, six to do her hair, and four for everything else, except when she wears laced-up boots; but then, she has principles, and I have none; at least, I have no maxims. And this morning, just because there were lots of things to do, I was luxuriating in the tub, thinking cool, delicious thoughts. As a general rule, when you paint glorious pictures for yourself of your future as you would like it to be, it clouds your existence with gray afterwards, because the reality is duller by contrast; but it was different this morning. I had stopped awake all night thinking the same things, and I was no more tired of the thoughts now than when I first began. I lay with my eyes shut, sniffing Eau de Cologne (I'd poured in a bottleful for a kind of libation, because I could afford to be extravagant), and planning what a delightful future we would have. "I should love to chop up Phil's type-writer and burn the remains," I said to myself; "but she's much more likely to put it away in lavender, or give it to the next-door-girl with the snub nose. Anyhow, I shall never have to write another serial story for Queen- Woman, or The Fireside Lamp, or any of the other horrors. Oh the joy of not being forced to create villains, only to crush them in the end! No more secret doors and coiners' dens, and unnaturally beautiful dressmakers' assistants for me! Instead of doing typing at ninepence a thousand words Phil can embroider things for curates, and instead of peopling the world with prigs and puppets at a guinea a thou', I can--oh, I can do anything. I don't know what I shall want to do most, and that's the best of it--just to know I can do it. We'll have a beautiful house in a nice part of town, a cottage by the river, and, best of all, we can travel-- travel--travel." Then I began to furnish the cottage and the house, and was putting up a purple curtain in a white marble bath- room with steps down to the bath, when a knock came at the door. I knew it was Phil, for it could be nobody else; but it was as unlike Phil as possible--as unlike her as a mountain is unlike itself when it is having an eruption. "Nell," she called outside the door. "Nell, darling! Are you ready?" "Only just begun," I answered. "I shall be--oh, minutes and minutes yet. Why?" "I don't want to worry you," replied Phil's creamy voice, with just a little of the cream skimmed off; "but--do make haste." "Have you been cooking something nice for breakfast?" (Our usual meal is Quaker oats, with milk; and tea, of course; Phil would think it sacrilegious to begin the day on any other drink.) "Yes, I have. And it's wasted." "Have you spilt--or burnt it?" "No; but there's nothing to rejoice over or celebrate, after all; at least, comparatively nothing." "Good gracious! What do you mean?" I shrieked, with my card-house beginning to collapse, while the Eau de Cologne lost its savor in my nostrils. "Has a codicil been found to Captain Noble's will, as in the last number of my serial for----" "No; but the post's come, with a letter from his solicitor. Oh, how stupid we were to believe what Mrs. Keithley wrote--just silly gossip. We ought to have remembered that she couldn't know; and she never got a story straight, anyway. Do hurry and come out." "I've lost the soap now. Everything invariably goes wrong at once. I can't get hold of it. I shall probably be in this bath all the rest of my life. For goodness' sake, what does the lawyer man say?" "I can't stand here yelling such things at the top of my lungs." Then I knew how dreadfully poor Phil was really upset, for her lovely voice was quite snappy; and I've always thought she would not snap on the rack or in boiling oil. As for me, my bath began to feel like that-- boiling oil, I mean; and I splashed about anyhow, not caring whether I got my hair wet or not. Because, if we had to go on being poor after our great expectations, nothing could possibly matter, not even looking like a drowned rat. I hadn't the spirit to coax Phyllis, but I might have known she wouldn't go away, really. When I didn't answer except by splashes which might have been sobs, she went on, her mouth apparently at the crack of the door---- "I suppose we ought to be thankful for such mercies as have been granted; but after what we'd been led to expect----" "What mercies, as a matter of fact, remain to us?" I asked, trying to restore depressed spirits as well as circulation with a towel as harsh as fate. "Two hundred pounds and a motor-boat." "A motor-boat? For goodness' sake!" "Yes. The pounds are for me, the boat for you. It seems you once unfortunately wrote a postcard, and told poor dear Captain Noble you envied him having it. It's said to be as good as new; so there's one comfort, you can sell it second-hand, and perhaps get as much money as he has left me." I came very near falling down again in the bath with an awful splash, beneath the crushing weight of disappointment, and the soap slipping under my foot. "Two hundred pounds and a motor-boat--instead of all those thousands!" I groaned--not very loudly; but Phil heard me through the door. "Never mind, dearest," she called, striving, in that irritating way saints have, to be cheerful in spite of all. "It's better than nothing. We can invest it." "Invest it!" I screamed. "What are two hundred pounds and a motor-boat when invested?" Evidently she was doing a sum in mental arithmetic. After a few seconds' silence she answered bravely---- "About twelve pounds a year." "Hang twelve pounds a year!" I shrieked. Then something odd seemed to happen in my inner workings. My blood gave a jump and flew up to my head, where I could hear it singing--a wild, excited song. Perhaps it was the Eau de Cologne, and not being used to it in my bath, which made me feel like that. "I shan't invest my motor-boat," I said. "I'm going a cruise in it, and so are you." "My darling girl, I hope you haven't gone out of your mind from the blow!" There was alarm and solicitude in Phil's accents. "When you've slipped on your dressing- gown and come out we'll talk things over." "Nothing can make me change my mind," I answered. "It's been made up a whole minute. Everything is clear now. Providence has put a motor-boat into our hands as a means of seeing life, and to console us for not being Captain Noble's heiresses, as Mrs. Keithley wrote we were going to be. I will not fly in Providence's face. I haven't been brought up to it by you. We are going to have the time of our lives with that motor-boat." The door shook with Phil's disapproval. "You do talk like an American," she flung at me through the panel. "That's good. I'm glad adoption hasn't ruined me," I retorted. "But could you--just because you're English-- contentedly give up our beautiful plans, and settle down as if nothing had happened--with your type- writer?" "I hope I have the strength of mind to bear it," faltered Phyllis. "We've only had two days of hoping for better things." "We've only lived for two days. There's no going back; there can't be. We've burned our ships behind us, and must take to the motor-boat." "Dearest, I don't think this is a proper time for joking--and you in your bath, too," protested Phil, mildly. "I'm out of it now. But I refuse to be out of everything. Miss Phyllis Rivers--why, your very name's a prophecy!--I formally invite you to take a trip with me in my motor-boat. It may cost us half, if not more, of your part of the legacy; but I will merely borrow from you the wherewithal to pay our expenses. Somehow-- afterwards--I'll pay it back, even if I have to reëstablish communication with heavenly shop-girls and villainous duchesses. Oh, Phil, we'll get some fun out of this, after all.