The Princess of the School by Angela Brazil (essential books to read .txt) 📖

places on the way. Major Rogers, poring over map and[123] guide books, would plan out their daily route each morning at the breakfast table in the hotel.

"With good luck and no punctures we ought to reach Exeter to-night easily," he remarked, looking through the window of an old-fashioned country inn into the cobbled street where their luggage was being strapped on to the car.

"But, my dear!" remonstrated his wife. "Why in such a hurry to reach Exeter? Let us stay the night at Wells, and look over the cathedral; then we can spend a few hours in Bath too."

"Daddy and Johnson always like to tear along at about a hundred miles an hour," said Sheila. "Except as a means of getting along the road, I hate motoring! I always think Johnson is going to run into everybody. He shaves his corners so narrowly, and doesn't give conveyances enough room. I call him very reckless."

"Nonsense! He's an excellent driver!" declared her father. "One of the best chauffeurs we've ever had, though he's only a young chap. He's wonderfully intelligent too. I'd trust him with repairs as well as any man at a garage. A civil fellow, too."

"Yes, his manners are really quite superior," agreed Mrs. Rogers, stepping on to the balcony and watching the smart, good-looking figure of the young chauffeur, who was opening the bonnet[124] of the car for some last inspection. "Personally I feel perfectly safe when Johnson is driving me. I'm never nervous in the least!"

"And I'm in such a perpetual panic that I often read so as not to look at the road," confessed Sheila. "I do wish you'd ask him to sound his horn oftener in these narrow roads. The banks and hedges are so high, you can't see anything that's coming till it's almost upon you."

"Well, it certainly might be a wise precaution," said Major Rogers. "In motoring you have to guard against the stupidity of other people, and that fellow in the gray two-seater nearly charged straight into us yesterday. A regular road-hog he was!"

If Johnson had hitherto been a little slack in respect of sounding his horn, it was the only fault of which his employers could complain. He kept the fittings of the car at the very zenith in the matter of polish, he was punctuality personified, and most skilful at the tedious business of repairing or changing tires; he rarely spoke addressed, but when questioned he seemed to have a good acquaintance with the country, knew which were the best roads, and what sights were worth visiting in the various places through which they passed. All of which are highly desirable qualities in a chauffeur, and a satisfaction to all concerned.

[125]It was the general plan of the holiday to start about ten or eleven o'clock, take a picnic-basket with them, lunch somewhere in the woods, arrive at their next halting-place about three or four, and spend the remainder of the day in sight-seeing, or in Major Rogers' case resting, if he were suffering from a severe attack of pain.

As they motored across Somerset in the direction of Wells, they chose for their mid-day stop a lovely place on the top of a range of low hills. A belt of fir trees edged the roadside, and through these a gate led into a field. As the gate was open they felt licensed to enter, and to encamp upon a sunny bank under a hedge. One of the motor rugs was spread for Major Rogers, and Mrs. Rogers, Sheila, and Carmel sat severally on an air cushion, a tree-stump, and on the grass. There was a grand view over a slope of cornfields and pastures, and though the sun was warm there was a delicious little breeze to temper the heat. Not that it was too hot for any one except Sheila, who panted in the shade while the others exulted in the sunshine. Carmel, outstretched upon the grass, basked like a true daughter of the south, throwing aside her hat, somewhat to Mrs. Rogers' consternation.

"You'll spoil your complexion, child! I'm sure your mother never allows you to go hatless in Sicily! Put your handkerchief over your face.[126] Yes, I like to feel the warmth myself, though not on my head. This is the sort of holiday that does people good, just to sit in the open air."

"It's a rabbit holiday here," murmured the Major lazily. "Didn't you read that supreme article in Punch a while ago? Well, it was about a doctor who invented a drug that could turn his patients into anything they chose for the holidays. A worried mother of a family lived an idyllic month at a farm as a hen, with six children as chickens, food and lodging provided gratis; a portly dowager enjoyed a rest cure as a Persian cat at a country mansion; some lively young people spent a fortnight as sea-gulls, while the hero of the article was just about to be changed into a rabbit when——"

"When what happened?"

"The usual thing in such stories; the maid broke the precious bottle of medicine that was to have worked the charm, and when he hunted for the doctor to buy another, the whole place had disappeared."

"How disappointing!"

"Yes, but a field like this, with burrows in it, is a near substitute. I feel I could live up here. Suppose I buy a shelter and get leave to erect it?"

"Then it would promptly rain, Daddy, and you'd be in the depths of misery and longing for a decent hotel!" declared Sheila.

[127]To suit Major Rogers' humor they stayed nearly two hours in the field. The quiet was just what his doctor had ordered for him. He had spent a restless night, and, though he could not sleep now, the air and the sunshine calmed his nerves. He seemed better than he had been for days, and enjoyed the run downhill into Wells.

As they were stepping out of the motor at the hotel, Carmel gave an exclamation of concern.

"I've lost my bracelet!" she declared. "What a nuisance! Wherever can it have gone?"

Johnson, the chauffeur, immediately searched on the floor and cushions of the car, but without success. No bracelet was there.

"When did you have it last?" asked Mrs. Rogers.

"In the rabbit field where we had lunch. I remember clasping and unclasping it, and I suppose it must have slipped off my wrist without my noticing. Never mind!"

"I'm sorry, but it certainly is too far to go back and look for it, dear," said Mrs. Rogers.

"Was it valuable?" asked Sheila.

"Oh no, not at all! Only Mother gave it to me on my last birthday. It doesn't really matter, and of course it can't be helped now."

Carmel was vexed, nevertheless, with her own carelessness. The little bracelet had been a favorite,[128] and she hated to lose it. She missed the feel of it on her wrist. Her first thought when she woke next morning was of annoyance at the incident. As she walked down to breakfast in the coffee-room, the chauffeur was standing by the hall door. He came up at once, as if he had been expressly waiting for her, and handed her a small parcel. To her utter surprise it contained the missing bracelet.

"Johnson!" she called, for he had turned quickly away. "Johnson—oh, where did you find this? Not in the car, surely?"

"No, Miss Carmel, it was just where you thought you had left it—in the field where you had lunch. I got up early and fetched it before breakfast," replied Johnson pausing on the doorstep.

"You went all that way! How kind of you! Thank you ever so much!" exclaimed Carmel, clasping her bangle on her wrist again. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to have it!"

But Johnson, avoiding her eyes, and seeming anxious to get away from her thanks, was already out of the front door, and half-way across the courtyard to the garage.

"I wonder if English men-servants are always as shy as that?" thought Carmel. "An Italian would certainly have waited to let me say 'Thank you!'"

chapter x A Meeting

After a morning in Wells, to look at the Cathedral[129] and other beauty spots, the party motored on to Glastonbury, where again they called a halt to look at the Abbey and the Museum. Major Rogers was interested in the objects which had been excavated from the prehistoric lake dwellings in the neighborhood, and spent so much time poring over bronze brooches, horn weaving-combs, flint scrapers, glass rings, and fragments of decorated pottery that Sheila lost all patience.

"Is Dad going to spend the whole day in this moldy old museum?" she asked dramatically. "I hate anything b. c.! What does it matter to us how people lived in pile dwellings in the middle of a lake? To judge from those fancy pictures of them on the wall there they must have been a set of uncouth savages. Why can't we drive on to Dawlish, or some other decent seaside place, instead of poking about in musty cathedrals and tiresome museums? I'm fed up!"

"Now, Sheila, don't be naughty!" whispered her mother. "I'm only too glad to see your[130] father take an interest in anything. I believe he's enjoying this tour. If you're tired of the museum, go out and look at the shops until we're ready."

"There aren't any worth looking at in a wretched little country town!" yawned Sheila. "No, I really don't want to go over the Abbey either, thanks! I shall sit inside the car and write, while you do the sight-seeing."

Major Rogers never hurried himself to suit his daughter's whims, so Sheila was left to sit in the car, addressing tragic letters and picture post cards to her friends, and the rest of the party finished examining the museum, and went to view the ruins of the famous Abbey.

"If Sheila prefers to stay outside, she can look after the car," said her father, "and I shall take Johnson in with us. He's an intelligent fellow, and I'm sure he appreciates the shows. It's rather hard on him if he never gets the chance to see anything."

"I believe he goes sight-seeing on his own account when he has the opportunity," replied Mrs. Rogers, "but bring him in, by all means. He always strikes me as having very refined tastes. I should think he's trying to educate himself. But he's so reserved, I never can get anything out of him."

"He seems fond of books," volunteered Carmel.[131] "He reads all the time when he's waiting for us in the car."

Johnson accepted with alacrity the invitation to view the Abbey, and walked round the ruins apparently much interested in what he saw, though, following his usual custom, he spoke seldom, and then only in brief reply to questions. Once, when Major and Mrs. Rogers were puzzling over a Latin inscription, he seemed on the point of making a remark, but apparently changed his mind, and walked away.

"He's almost too well trained!" commented Mrs. Rogers. "Of course a conversational chauffeur is a nuisance, but I have an impression that Johnson could be quite interesting if he liked. Some day I shall try to make him talk."

"Better leave him alone," said Major Rogers. "I think things do very well as they are."

From Glastonbury they motored through the beautiful county of Somerset into leafy Devonshire, taking easy stages so as not to overtire the invalid, and halting at any place where the guide book pointed out objects worthy of notice. To please Carmel, they were making in the direction of Tivermouth, where they hoped to arrive in time to meet the Ingletons. They had telegraphed for rooms at the Hill Crest Hotel, and, if the place suited Major Rogers, they proposed to spend a week there.

[132]"There may be perhaps a dance, or a tennis tournament, or something interesting going on!" exulted Sheila, who had urged the decision. "At any rate there'll be somebody to talk to in a decent hotel—it won't be just all scenery! Let us spin along, Dad, and get there!"

"Hurry no man's cattle!" replied her father. "Remember, I am out for a 'rabbit' holiday, and I like long rests by the roadside. I'm looking forward to a siesta on the grass somewhere this afternoon. The scent of the woods does me good."

So once more the party found a picturesque spot and stopped for lunch and an hour or two of quiet under the trees before they took again to the open road. The spot which they chose this time was on a slope reaching down to a river. Above was a thick belt of pines, and below the water dashed with a pleasant murmuring sound very soothing on a warm afternoon. It was an ideal "rabbit playground" for Major Rogers, and he established himself comfortably with rugs and cushions after lunch, hoping to be able to snatch some much-needed sleep. Mrs. Rogers took her knitting from her hand-bag, and Sheila, who had a voluminous correspondence, asked Johnson for her dispatch case and began to write letters.

As Carmel had nothing very particular to do,[133] and grew tired of sitting still, she rose presently and rambled down the wood to the river-side. It was beautiful to stand and