The Man Who Drove the Car.

by Max Pemberton.

I

THE ROOM IN BLACK

They say that every man should have a master, but, for my part, I prefer a mistress. Give me a nice young woman with plenty of money in her pocket, and a bit of taste for seeing life, and I'll leave you all the prying "amatoors" that ever sniffed about a gear-box without knowing what was inside that same.

I have driven plenty of pretty girls in my life; but I don't know that the prettiest wasn't Fauny Dartel, of the Apollo. This story isn't about her--except in a way--so it doesn't much matter; but when I first knew Fauny she was getting thirty bob a week in "The Boys of Boulogne,"

and, as she paid me three pound ten every Sat.u.r.day, and the car cost her some four hundred per annum to run, she must have been of a saving disposition. Certainly a better mistress no man wants--not Lal Britten, which is yours truly. I drove her for five months, and never had a word with her. Then a man, who said he was a bailiff, came and took her car away, and there was no money for me on the Sat.u.r.day. So I suppose she married into the peerage.

My story isn't about Fauny Dartel, though it's got to do with her.

It's about a man who didn't know who he was--at least, he said so--and couldn't tell you why he did it. We picked him up outside the Carlton Hotel, Fauny and me,[1] three nights before "The Boys of Boulogne" went into the country, and "The Girls" from some other shop took their place. She was going to sup with her brother, I remember--astonishing how many brothers she had, too--and I was to return to the mews off Lancaster Gate, when, just as I had set her down and was about to drive away, up comes a jolly-looking man in a fine fur coat and an opera hat, and asks me if I was a taxi. Lord, how I stared at him!

"Taxi yourself," says I, "and what asylum have you escaped out of?"

"Oh, come, come," says he, "don't be huffy. I only wanted to go as far as Portman Square."

"Then call a furniture van," says I, "and perhaps they'll get you aboard."

My dander was up, I tell you, for I was on the box of as pretty a Daimler landaulette as ever came out of Coventry, and if there's anything I never want to be, it's the driver of a pillar-box with a flag in his left ear. No doubt I should have said much more to the gentleman, when what do you think happens--why, Fauny herself comes up and tells me to take him.

"I'm sure we should like some one to do the same for us if no taxis were about," says she very sweetly; "please take the gentleman, Britten, and then you can go home."

Well, I sat there as amazed a man as any in the Haymarket. It's true there weren't any taxis on the rank at the minute; but he could have got one by walking a hundred yards along Trafalgar Square, and she must have known it as well as he did. All the same, she smiled sweetly at him and he at her--and then, with a tremendous sweep of his hat, he makes a gallant speech to her.

"I am under a thousand obligations," says he; "really, I couldn't intrude."

"Oh, get in and go off," says she, almost pushing him. "I shall lose my supper if you don't."

He obeyed her immediately, and away we went. You will remember that his talk had been of a house in Portman Square; but no sooner had I turned the corner by the Criterion than he began speaking through the tube, and telling me to go to Playford's in Berkeley Square. There he stopped, notwithstanding that it was getting on for twelve o'clock; and when he had rung the bell and entered the house, I had to wait a good fifteen minutes before he was ready for the second stage.

"Is it Portman Square now?" I asked him. He laughed and slipped a sovereign into my hand.

"I can see you're one of the right sort," he said. "Would you mind running round to the King's Road, Chelsea, for ten minutes? Perhaps there'll be another sovereign before we get to bed to-night."

I pocketed the money--you don't find many drivers who are long off the fourth speed in that line, and Lal Britten is no exception. As for the gentleman, he did seem a merry fellow, and his air was that of a Duke all over--the kind of man who says "Do it," and finds you there every time. We were round at the King's Road, Chelsea, perhaps a quarter of an hour after he had spoken, and there we stopped at the door of a lot of studios, which I have been told since are where some of the great painters of the country keep their pictures. Here my friend was gone perhaps twenty minutes, and when next I saw him he had three flash-up ladies with him, and every one as cla.s.sy as he was.

"Relations of mine," says he, as he pushes 'em into the landaulette, and closes the door himself. "Now you may drive to Portman Square just as fast as you please, for I'm an early bird myself, and don't approve of late hours."

Well, I stared, be sure of it, though staring didn't fit that riddle, not by a long way. My mistress had lent her landaulette to a stranger; but I felt sure that she wouldn't have liked this sort of thing--and yet, remember, the gentleman had told me to drive to Portman Square, so there could not be much the matter, after all.

As for the ladies, it wasn't for me to quarrel with them. They were all very well dressed, and behaved themselves perfectly. I came to the conclusion that I was dealing with some rich man who had a bee in his bonnet, and, my curiosity getting the better of me, I drove away to Portman Square without as much as a word.

Now, this would have been some time after twelve o'clock. It was, I think, a quarter to one when we turned into Portman Square, and he began to work the signal on the driver's seat which tells you whether you are to go to the right or the left, slow or easy, out or home again. All sorts of contradictory orders baffling me, we drew up at last before a big house on the Oxford Street side, and this, to my astonishment, had a "To Let" board in the window, and another at the pillar of the front door. What was even more astonishing was the fact that this empty house--for I saw at a glance it was that--was just lighted up from cellar to attic, while there was as many as three furniture vans drawn up against the pavement, and sending in their contents as fast as a dozen men could carry them. All this, mind you, I took in at a glance. No time was given me to think about it, for the stranger was out of the car in a jiffy and had given me my instructions in two.

"Here's your sovereign," says he; "if you want to earn ten times as many come back for me at four o'clock--or, better still, stay and give 'em a hand inside. We want all the help we can get to-night, and no mistake about it. You can get your supper here, and bring that car round when I'm ready."

Well, I didn't know what to do. My mistress had said nothing about stopping up until four o'clock--but for that matter she hadn't mentioned ten pounds sterling either--and here was this merry gentleman talking about it glibly enough.

For my part the fun of the whole thing began to take hold of me, and I determined to see it through whatever the cost. There were goings on in Portman Square, and no mistake about it--and why should Lal Britten be left out in the cold? Not much, I can tell you. And I had the car away in the garage off the Edgware Road, and was back at the old gentleman's house just about as quick as any driver could have made the journey.

There I found the square half full of people. Three policemen stood at the door of the house, and a pretty crowd of loafers, such as a party in London can always bring together, watched the fun, although they couldn't make much of it. Asking what the hullabaloo was about, a fellow told me that Lord Crossborough had come up from the country suddenly, and was "a-keeping of his jubilee" at No. 20B.

"Half the Gaiety's there, to say nothing of the Merry Widow," says he, as I pushed past him, "and don't you be in a hurry, guv'nor, 'cause you've forgotten yer diamond collar. They won't say nothink up there, not if you was to go in a billyc.o.c.k 'at and a duster, s'welp me, they wouldn't----" But I didn't listen to him, and going up the front door steps by the policemen, I told them I was Lord Crossborough's driver, and pa.s.sed right in.

Now I have been through many funny scenes in my life, seen many funny gentlemen, to say nothing of funny ladies, and have had many a good time on many a good car. But this I shall say at once, that I never got a greater surprise than when I got back to 2OB, and found myself in the empty hall among twenty or thirty pairs of yellow breeches and as many cooks in white ap.r.o.ns, all pushing and shouting, and swearing that the area gate was locked and bolted, and the kitchen in no fit state to serve supper to a dog.

Upstairs on the landings men in white ap.r.o.ns were carrying plants in pots, and building up banks of roses; while higher up still stood Lord Crossborough himself--the gentleman I had driven from the Carlton--shouting to them to do this and to do that, smoking a cigar as long as your arm, and all the time as merry as a two-year-old at a morning gallop.

As for the young ladies, they had taken off their cloaks, and all wore pretty gowns, same as they would wear for any party in that part of the world, and they were standing by his lordship's side, apparently just as much amused as he was. What astonished me in particular was this n.o.bleman's affability towards me, for he cried out directly he saw me, and implored me for heaven's sake to get the padlock off the area gate, or, says he, "I'm d--d if they won't be cooking the ducks in the drawing-room."

I was only too ready to oblige him, that goes without saying, though I had to run round to the garage for a file and a chisel, and when I got back for the second time, it took me twenty minutes to get off the padlock, after which they sent me upstairs, as they said, "to help with the flats." Then I discovered that a play, or something, was to be given in the drawing-room, the back part of which was full of scenery, showing a castle on the top of a precipice and a view of the Thames Embankment just below it, while away in the small library on the other side of the staircase stood twenty or thirty ballet girls, just come from one of the West End theatres.

Immediately after they had arrived, a number of fiddlers came tumbling up the stairs, and the fun began in earnest. A proper gentleman, who seemed to know what he was talking about, though, to be sure, he did call all the ladies his "darlings," started to put 'em through their paces. I saw one of our leading musical ladies coming down the stairs from the rooms above, and presently a lot of guests arrived from the hall below, and went into the great drawing-room, where the audience was to sit. "After all," says I, "this is just his lordship's bit of fun--he's giving one of those impromptu parties we've heard so much about, and this play-acting is the surprise of it." You shall see presently how very wrong I was.

Well, the play went merry enough, as it should have done, seeing it was performed by people who have to make their living by plays. When it was over, his lordship gets up and says something about their having supper, not in the English way but the French, same as they do at the Catsare[2] in Paris. This pleased them all very much, and I could see that the most part of them were not real ladies and gentlemen at all, but riff-raff Bohemian stuff out for a spree, and determined to have one. The supper itself was the most amusing affair you ever saw; for what must they do but flop down on the floor just where they stood, not minding the bare boards at all, and eat cold chicken and twist rolls from paper bags the footman threw to them. As for the liquor, you would have thought they never could have enough of it--but it's not for me to say anything about that, seeing I had a bottle of the best to myself down in the corner by the conservatory, and more than one paper bag when the first was empty.

Now, this supper occupied them until nearly three in the morning. I make out--as I had to do to the police--that it was just a quarter past three when the real business began, and a pretty frightening business, as my sequel will show. First it began with the sweepers, who swept up the wreck of the vittals with long brooms, and sprinkled scented water afterwards to lay the dust. Then the musicians played a mournful sort of tune, and after that, what do you think?--why, in came a number of stage carpenters, who began to hang the whole place with black.

I have told you already that it was an empty house and not a stick of furniture in it, save what we carried there--so you will see that all this affair must have been arranged a long time before, for the black hangings were all made to fit the room, and upon them they hung black candlesticks with yellow candles in them--as melancholy as those used for a funeral, and just the same kind, so far as I could see. This interested the company very much. I could hear all sorts of remarks from the riff-raff who were making love on the stairs; and presently they all crowded into the room and listened to Lord Crossborough while he made them a speech.

Let me confess that what I know about this speech I learned chiefly from the newspapers. His lordship spoke of his family affairs, and spoke of them in a way that might very well astonish the company.

To begin with, he mentioned his own eccentricities during the last five months, when, as he reminded them, he had retired from public life and gone down to Hertfordshire to found an academy where, with a few convivials, he might study Latin and Greek and forget the high old time he had had in London formerly.

This, he said, had been a pretty slow business, and quite given him the jumps. He began to find himself sighing for the old days. Plato and Socrates were fine old boys, but he preferred "The Boys of Boulogne" at the Apollo, and no mistake about it. So he had given up keeping house with Plato and the other gentleman, and was going over to France, when he discovered Captain Blackham's adventure with Jenny Frobisher of the Opera House, and wanted to know more about it. Did they think he would put up with that? Not for a minute, and, seeing that you can't get law in such affairs in this country, he meant to do his own law-making.

That very night he had asked Captain Blackham to come to this house that they might meet and have it out like gentlemen should do. One of them would not return--he left it to the company to bear witness that all was done squarely as between men of honour, and he begged them to keep his confidence. It was then half-past three. They might expect the Captain in ten minutes, during which time he would make his preparations. He was sure they would never betray him.

You may imagine the excitement this speech gave rise to. I was at the bottom of the stairs at the time, and I could hear the women crying out to each other, and the men asking what it all meant. Such a confusion and babel I shall never listen to again in any house. What with some running downstairs and calling for their carriages, the band playing, his lordship bawling for his servants--and, upon all this, the sudden arrival of the Captain, who carried a pair of swords in his hand--why, no madhouse could have matched it.

Well enough, I say, for Lord Crossborough to ask people not to betray him; but what woman could hold her tongue under such circ.u.mstances, and how did he think that such a game could be played and the police hear nothing of it? Why, I tell you that half a dozen girls were bawling "Murder!" before five minutes were past, and as many more imploring the police outside to step up and stop it. For myself I made no bones about the matter; and, not wishing to appear in a police court next day, and thinking certainly that Lord Crossborough was as mad as any first-floor tenant of Hanwell, I pushed my way through the press and went off to the garage. Ten pound or no ten pound, I was for bed.

Will you ask me if I was surprised when, going up to the car, the very first person I met was his lordship, with a cigar about seven inches long in his mouth, and as pretty a smile above his long black beard as I have seen this many a day.

"Well, my boy," says he, opening the door quite calmly and stepping inside with no more concern than if I had just driven him from the Carlton to Hyde Park Corner, "well, now I think we shall soon have earned that extra ten-pound note. The next house is in Hertfordshire--three miles from Potter's Bar, on the road to Five Corners. Do you happen to know it, by the way?"

I could hardly answer him for amazement.

"But what about the Captain, sir," cried I.

"Oh," says he, "the Captain will never trouble me again. Now get up and make haste. Is your back lamp all right? That's good--I particularly wish all the policemen to get our number. Go right ahead and stop for no one. It's a big house, I am told, and we cannot miss it."

"But," cried I, "isn't it your lordship's house?"

He laughed, the merriest laugh in all the world.