# The Lightning Conductor/Chapter 13

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MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER
rand Hotel, Toulon December 20.
My Wingless Angel,
It's lucky your poor dear hair is getting conspicuous by its absence, or it would stand up on end, I don't doubt, when you read a few lines farther. So, you see, even baldness is a blessing in disguise.
I won't keep you in suspense. The worst shall come first; after all that's happened I don't mind such a little thing as an anticlimax in writing to my indulgent and uncritical Dad.
Now for it.
I have deserted Aunt Mary and Jimmy Payne in a gorge. I am alone in a hotel—with Brown. Yet I ask you to suspend judgment; I have not exactly eloped.
It is all Jimmy Payne's fault.
I wired you yesterday from Marseilles, because I hadn't written since my second letter from Pau, when I told you how Aunt Mary had persuaded me that it would be perfectly caddish not to invite Jimmy to drive with us to the Riviera, as his car was there and he was going that way. I felt in my bones to an almost rheumatic extent that to ask him would be a big mistake; still, in a weak moment I ​consented, when Jimmy had been particularly nice and had just paid you a whole heap of compliments, I lay awake nearly all night afterwards, thinking whether 'twere nobler in the mind of Molly to hurt Brown's feelings or Jimmy's, since injury must be dealt to one. Finally, I tossed up for it in the sanctity of my chamber. Heads, Brown drives; tails, Jimmy; and it was tails. Well, I'd vowed that should settle it, so I wouldn't go back on myself; and, anyhow, Jimmy was the guest, so that French copper had the rights of it. I did my best to make all straight with the Lightning Conductor, who behaved like the trump he is.
Jimmy had spared no pains or expense in advertising himself as an expert driver, nevertheless I knew him well enough not to be surprised at finding out he didn't know much more than I did. I soon saw that, though the first day everything went well enough. The second day he nearly landed us in a dreadful scrape with some peasants, but since Brown brought us safely through, I won't tell tales out of school, especially as the tables were rather turned on the poor fellow at Carcassonne—the most splendid place. I send you with this a little book all about it, full of pictures, and you are to be sure to read it. I was rather sorry for Jimmy afterwards; he was so humble, and besides, he took a cold in his head waiting in the car while I went sight-seeing. He promised to be very prudent if I would only trust him again, and cleverly took my mind off his late misdeeds by exciting my curiosity. At breakfast in Narbonne, where we'd unexpectedly stayed the ​night, he hinted darkly of most exciting events in which we were intimately concerned, which would in all probability take place at Cannes, if we could only arrive there soon enough. I couldn't get him to tell me what they were, but I fancy Aunt Mary is at least partly in his confidence. She wouldn't betray him, but she assured me that to miss the treat in store for us would mean lasting regret. And she was bursting with importance and mystery. Now I don't believe much in Jimmy's show; nothing of his ever does come off, except his hat when he drives. Still, a little of Jimmy's society goes a long way in the intimate association of a motoring journey; what it would be in married life I don't know and don't want to know; and as I too began to think I shouldn't be sorry to get to the Riviera, I consented to be whirled through some lovely places, just to satisfy Aunt Mary and Jimmy's craving for haste, and lack of love for ancient architecture.
We arrived at Marseilles, Jimmy doing well. I would see something of the place, for I was true to my Monte Cristo, and insisted upon having a glimpse of the Château d'If. We got in at night, and stayed at a delightful hotel. Early in the morning I was up, and rather than I should take Brown as courier, Jimmy (who resents Brown) was up early too. We had breakfast together—for Aunt Mary stayed in bed—and went out to walk. But it wasn't like going about with the Lightning Conductor, who knows everything and has been everywhere before. We had to inquire our way every minute, and shouldn't have known which things were worth ​seeing if Monsieur Rathgeb, the landlord, hadn't told us to be sure and go up the hill of Notre Dame de la Garde for the view; so we went up in a lift, and it was glorious. Some soldiers marching on a green boulevard below looked like tiny black-beetles, and the music of their bugle band came floating faintly to us like sounds heard through a gramophone. The Ile d'lf and all the others were splendid from there, and I would have liked to stay a long time, if Jimmy hadn't begun to be tiresome and harangue me about the confidential way in which I treat Brown. "Social distinctions," said he didactically, "are the bulwarks of society." Ha, ha! I couldn't help laughing—could you in my place? I told him I thought he would make a fortune as a lecturer, but lectures weren't much in my line; and I asked if he'd ever read Ibsen's Pillars of Society, which of course he hadn't. Then we went down in the lift, and back to the hotel for Aunt Mary, who naturally wanted to shop; and by the time she had finished buying veils and cold cream it was time for lunch, which we had in one of the most charming restaurants I was ever in, on the Corniche Road. I don't care so very much about good things to eat; but I do think that oysters, langouste à l'Americaine, bouillabaisse à la Provençale, perfectly cooked and served, and mixed with a heavenly view, may be something to rave about. Oh, there's a lot to see and do in Marseilles, I assure you, Dad, though one's friends never seem to tell you much about it; and it was three o'clock in the afternoon before I would consent to be torn away. Of course, so far south ​the daylight lingers long; still, we knew we had but an hour and a half more of it when we started. There had been a shower of rain while Aunt Mary and I were packing, and we had not been out of the hotel many minutes when we had a surprise.
Jimmy was driving along a paved street, slimy with fresh mud, and confusing with the dash and clash of electric street cars, which Jimmy is English enough to call "trams." He tried to pass one on the off side, but just as he was getting ahead of it another huge car came whizzing along from the opposite direction. I didn't say a word. I just "sat tight," but I had the queerest feeling in my feet as if I wanted to jump or do something. It looked as if we were going to be pinched right between the two, and I'd have given a good deal if Brown had been at the helm, for I would have been sure that somehow he'd contrive to get us through all right. But Jimmy lost his head and indeed there are only a few men who wouldn't, for the drivers of both cars were furiously clanging their bells, and the whole world seemed to be nothing but noise, noise, and great moving things coming every way at once. He jammed on the brakes suddenly, which was just what Brown in the tonneau was trying to warn him not to do, and before I knew what had happened our automobile waltzed round on the road with a slippery sort of slide, the way your foot does when you step on ice under snow.
I thought we were finished, and I'm afraid I shut my eyes. "Just like a girl!" O yes, thank you; I know that; but I didn't know it or anything else at that minute. There was loud shouting and swearing, ​then a bump, a noise of splintering wood, another bump, and we were still alive and unhurt, with a buzz of voices round us—quite unkind voices some of them, though I never felt more as if I wanted kindness. It occurred to me to open my eyes, and I found that we had brought up against the curbstone, while one of our mud-guards had been smashed by the iron rail of the electric street car, now stationary. Our Napier had turned completely round. The conductor of the tram was scrutinising his scratched rail and saying things; but Brown, who had jumped out to examine into our damage, slyly slipped something that looked like a five-franc piece into his hand. This reminds me, I must pay Brown back; he can't refuse such a thing as that, though it seems he has taken a sort of pledge against accepting tips in his professional career. Funny, isn't it? "For a touch of new paint," I heard him murmur to the conductor in his nice French, and that man must have been in a great hurry to try the effect of the "touch," for no sooner did the coin change hands than he stopped scolding, and away buzzed the big electric bumblebee.
"For mercy's sake, what was it that happened?" gasped Aunt Mary.
"Side-slip, miss," said Brown in a tone dry enough to turn the mud to dust, " from putting on the brakes too quickly. A driver can't be too careful on a surface like this." Which was one for Jimmy.
The poor fellow took it with outward meekness, though I saw his eyes give a flash—and, do you know, our blond Jimmy can look quite malevolent! ​He didn't speak to Brown, but turned to me, and said the side-slip wasn't really his fault at all; it might happen to anybody in greasy weather; but he would be still more cautious now than before. I didn't like to humiliate a guest by superseding him with a servant, capable as the servant is, so I said that I hoped he would be very careful, and we started on again, somewhat chastened in our mood, driving slowly, slowly, through interminable suburbs to a place called Aubagne.
There was a splendid sunset after the rain, with a wonderful effect of heavy violet cloud-curtains with jagged gold edges, drawn up to show a clear sky of pale beryl-green; and sharp against the green were cut out purple mountains and white villages that looked like flocks of resting gulls. We were in wild and beautiful country by the time the thickening clouds compelled us to stop and light our two oil-lamps and the huge acetylene Bleriot.
There was a good deal of wind, and Aunt Mary began to shiver as we started on, still going slowly. "Oh dear!" she exclaimed crossly, "we shall never get anywhere to-night if we crawl like this. Surely there's no danger now?"
That was enough for Jimmy. He said that certainly there was no danger now, and never had been. Opening the throttle, he began to tell me anecdotes of a trip he had made with his Panhard over the Stelvio with snow on the ground. If I weren't afraid now of a decent pace, he'd get us into Toulon in no time.
I do hate to have people think I'm afraid, so of ​course I denied it sharply, and we began to fly down hill. Our lamps seemed to have shut the night down closely all around us. We didn't see much except the road with the light flying along it; but suddenly circling round a curve, there appeared—dark within the brilliant circle of our Bleriot—a great, unlighted waggon lumbering up the hill we were descending, and on the wrong side of the road.
We were close on to it, and oh, Dad, that was a bad moment! It was made up of lightning-quick impressions and feelings, no reasoning at all. Jimmy was frantically blowing the horn, though it was too late to be of much good. I had a vision of a startled Jack-in-the-box man appearing from the bottom of the waggon to snatch wildly at the reins; the next instant our car waltzed round just as it had in Marseilles, twisted off the road, and, with a loud shriek from Aunt Mary, who had clutched me by the arm, we all pitched headlong into darkness.
It felt as if we were falling for ever so long, just as it does in a dream before you wake up with a great start; but I suppose it really wasn't more than a second. The next thing I knew, I was on my hands and knees among some stones; and evidently I'm vainer than I fancied, for among other thoughts coming one on top of the other, I was glad my face wasn't hurt. I've always imagined that it must be terrible for a girl to come to herself after an accident and find she had no face.
I scrambled to my feet and began calling to the others. I think I called Brown first, because, you see, he is so quick in emergencies, and he would be ​ready to look after the others. But he didn't speak, and the most awful cold, sick feeling settled down on my heart. "Oh, Brown, Brown!" I heard myself crying, just as you hear yourself in a nightmare, and it hardly seemed more real than that. Into the midst of my calling Aunt Mary's voice mingled, and I was thankful, for it didn't sound as if she were much hurt.
Our lamps had gone out, and it was almost pitch dark now, for clouds covered the moon. But there came a glimmer, which kept growing brighter; and looking up I saw a man standing with a lantern held over his head, peering down a steep bank with a look of horror. The same glimmer showed me something else—Brown's face on the ground, white as a stone, his eyes wide open with an unseeing stare. I ran to him, and found that I was pushing Aunt Mary back, as she was trying to get up from somewhere close at hand. She caught at me, and wouldn't let me go by. "Oh dear, oh dear!" she was sobbing, and I begged her to tell me if she were hurt.
"No, thank Heaven! I fell on Brown," she said, "and that saved me."
I could have boxed her ears. One would have thought, to hear her, that he was a sort of fire-escape. I snatched my dress out of her hands, and knelt down beside poor Brown, who was perhaps dead, all through my fault—for I saw now that I ought never to have let Jimmy Payne drive the car. By this time the man with the lantern (it was the carter who had made the trouble for us) had slid down the steep bank, and come straight to where I was kneeling. ​"Ah, mademoiselle, il est mort!" he exclaimed. How I did hate him! I screamed out, "He isn't, he isn't!" but it was only to make myself believe it wasn't true, and I couldn't help crying—big hot tears that splashed right down into Brown's eyes. And I suppose it was their being so hot that woke him up, for he did wake up, and looked straight at me, dazed at first, then sensibly—such a queer effect, the intelligence and brightness taking the place of that frightened stare. The first thing he said was, "Are you hurt?" And I said "No"; and then I discovered that I was holding his hand as fast as ever I could —only think, holding your chauffeur's hand!—but such a brave, faithful chauffeur, never thinking of his own face, as I had of mine, but of me.
That made me laugh and draw back, and we both said something about being glad. And I wanted to help him, but he didn't need any help, and was up like an arrow the next second. And then, for the first time, I saw the car, standing upright with Jimmy Payne, sitting in it, hanging on like grim death to the steering-post, which he was embracing as if he were a monkey on a stick.
I did laugh at that—one does laugh more when something dreadful has nearly happened, but not quite, than at any other time, I think—though into the midst of my laugh came a sudden little pain. It was in my left wrist, and it ached hard, one quick throb after another, as if they were in a hurry to get their chance to hurt. But I didn't say anything, for it seemed such a trifle. Brown assured me that he was "right as rain," that he'd only been dazed ​and perhaps unconscious for a minute through falling on his head. I wondered if he knew about Aunt Mary. But it was too delicate a subject to raise. Anyway, she hadn't a bruise. And wasn't it extraordinary about Jimmy? The car had "fallen on its feet," so to speak, and he had hung on to the steering-post so hard that not only had he kept his seat, but he had wrenched the steering-gear. Brown discovered this in peering into the works by the light of one of our own oil-lamps, relit from the carter's lantern. If the Napier hadn't been a magnificent car it would have been frightfully damaged, although, finding itself compelled to take a twelve-foot jump off the road, it had cleverly chosen comparatively smooth, meadow-like ground to descend upon. Not even a tyre was punctured; no harm whatever appeared to have been done except that, as I said, owing to Jimmy's savage contortions in search of safety, the steering-gear was wrenched.
There's a thing called a worm in steering-gear, it seems, also a rod; and new ones would have to be fitted in ours before we could go on again. When I heard this I felt rather qualmish, for my wrist was aching a good deal, and had begun to swell. Brown and the carter were talking together, and according to them the best thing seemed to be to carry luggage and rugs to the nearest village, Le Beausset, and try to get accommodation there for the night. Brown would go on to Toulon, he said, and try to get new parts for the car, with which he'd come back early in the morning.
Still I didn't say anything about my wrist. Aunt ​Mary and I scrambled up the bank, and Brown, Jimmy, and the carter went back and forth for our things. The latter had been going away from Le Beausset, not towards it when the accident happened, but he agreed to turn round and take our luggage on his cart to the village. He made room for Aunt Mary too, sitting on bags and portmanteaus like Marius on the ruins of Carthage, and the rest of us walked, about a mile.
Le Beausset proved to be a tiny place, and at the solitary inn there was but one small bedroom to let, the rest being taken by some rough, selfish-looking commercial travellers, who were having an early dinner in a hot and smelly salle à manger, with every breath of air religiously excluded.
I thought that without being fussy I might draw the general attention to myself. I announced a wrist, and demanded a surgeon lest I had cracked a bone. Brown vanished like a pantomine demon, but returned almost immediately with a long face, and the intelligence that Le Beausset had neither surgeon nor resident doctor. There was no vehicle, not even a bicycle, to be had for love or money at this time of day, but he would make all haste to Toulon and send back a competent man. The worst of it was there might be delay, as it was about ten miles to Toulon. Halfway between Le Beausset and the big town was a small one called Ollioules, and there, it appeared, one could take an electric tram into Toulon; but it was a long way for a doctor to come, and it might be several hours before he could arrive.
"Then I'll go to Toulon with you," said I. "I ​don't feel as if I could stand much waiting; the walk will take my mind off the pain, and I can have my wrist attended to the minute I get there."
Instantly Aunt Mary burst into a cataract of objections, and I only dammed the flood (quite in the proper sense of the word, because, like Marjorie Fleming, I was "most unusual calm; I did not give, a single damn") by suggesting that, once in Toulon, I might send back a comfortable carriage and engage rooms in a good hotel for us all for the night.
"Well, I can't and won't stay here alone, that's flat," pronounced my dear aunt; and despite all her lectures against "liberty, fraternity, and equality" in my treatment of poor Brown, she was willing to let me go unchaperoned save by him, for the sake of retaining Jimmy Payne's protecting presence herself. As for Jimmy, it was easy to see that he didn't like the idea at all; but he had jarred himself a good deal in his eccentric fall, and evidently funked another tramp. He had limped ostentatiously every step of the way to Le Beausset. Brown was afraid that I wasn't up to the walk, but I assured him it would be much less uncomfortable than indefinite waiting, and I think he saw by my face that I was right. After all our delay it was only half-past five when we set off, and would scarcely have been thoroughly dark if it hadn't been for the clouds which had been boiling up from the west all over the sky.
I had no idea what kind of a walk we were in for when we started, neither had Brown, for he had never been over exactly this part of the world either walking or driving, but only in the train. We hadn't ​been gone long when we plunged downwards into a deep and winding mountain gorge, the kind of cut-throat place where you'd expect brigands to grow on blackberry bushes. Oh, but it was dark, with only now and then a fitful gleam of moonlight cutting its way through a rent in the inky clouds! Hardly had the word "brigands" crept into my mind with an accompaniment of heart-beats something like the plink! plink! plink! villain entrance-music on the stage, when two indistinct forms loomed out of the blackness before us. A perpendicular wall of rock shot up from the road on one side, and on the other, in some unseen depth below, roared a torrent, which drowned my voice when I whispered to Brown, so I clutched his coat-sleeve instead of speaking.
The two men were chattering loudly in Italian. "Ah, Italian brigands, worse and worse!" thought I; but Brown said "Good-evening" to them boldly, and they answered as mildly as a pair of lambs, falling behind to let us pass on. I skipped along, expecting at any instant to feel a knife in my back, but the blade did not penetrate any part more vital than my imagination, though the pair hung on our footsteps till we emerged from the mountain defile into the town of Ollioules.
I never knew what an attractive object an electric tram could be, until I saw one there awaiting our convenience, glittering with hospitable light. We jumped in, and were flashed into Toulon in no time, stopping close to the best hotel. We found that they could accommodate our party, but Brown quite took the upper hand; wouldn't allow me to stop and ​talk, had me swept off to a very nice room, and said that not only would he see about a surgeon for me, but would arrange for a carriage to drive back for Aunt Mary and Jimmy.
Till we got into the electric car at Ollioules I hadn't noticed in the dark that Brown was carrying anything. But he put down on the car seat quite a heavy bag of mine and a sort of big dressing-case of his own, which is his only baggage on the automobile. "Why did you lug all that?" I exclaimed. "Oh, I thought you might need something before the others arrived," said he, "and I didn't like to trouble them to look after mine." Wasn't he thoughtful? And I was glad to have my bag—without waiting. But just think of the state of that poor fellow's muscles!
It was a quarter to seven when I got into my rooms at the hotel, and ten minutes later the doctor arrived. If he had had bad news to give me about my wrist, I shouldn't have written the tale of this adventure so frankly; but I can leave a good impression on your mind in the end by telling you that all's well with your "one fair daughter." It's a sprain, no worse; and the stuff which the clever man prescribed has soothed the pain wonderfully. I'm so thankful it's my left wrist, not the right; and so ought you to be, or you would have to do without letters. This is the time when I miss my maid; but a dear little femme de chambre of the hotel helped me dress, and it is wonderful how well you can get on with only one hand.
Now I've something else to break to you, Dad.
​The hotel was rather full, and all the private sitting-rooms were gone, otherwise I might have had dinner upstairs; but I drew the line at dining abjectly in a bedroom. Still, I didn't quite like the idea of sailing into a big salle à manger, alone, with a bound-up wrist, and perhaps making an exhibition of myself cutting up meat in a one-handed way. So before Brown went to call the doctor I just said to him casually that it would be an accommodation if he would dine in the salle à manger with me this once. He looked surprised, and seemed to hesitate a little before he said that he would do so with pleasure, if I thought it best. I was almost sorry I'd asked, but I wouldn't go back; and, anyhow, what else could I have done? He is extraordinarily gentlemanly in his looks and manner, and never takes the least advantage; so I hope you'll agree with me that of two evils I chose the less. And when I made the arrangement I supposed Aunt Mary and Jimmy would be arriving before bedtime, so that I should only be a lone, unprotected female for a few hours. But we hadn't been in the hotel five minutes before it came on to rain again, a perfect deluge this time, with thunder and lightning; and while the nice femme de chambre was helping me into a ducky little lace waist which was in the bag Brown had carried, to my great surprise a telegram was brought to my door. At first I thought there must be a mistake, but it really was for me. Brown had mentioned the name of the best hotel in Toulon, where we would try to get rooms before he and I left the others at Le Beausset; and the telegram was from Aunt Mary. ​"Don't send carriage. Prefer stay here to driving in such storm. Feel sure you are safe without us."
I knew the carriage was already ordered, but thinking it might not have started, I scribbled a line in pencil to Brown, and enclosed the telegram. Aunt Mary is such a coward in thunderstorms; but it was silly of her, for it couldn't have gone on thundering all night. I was rather cross, but I had to laugh when I thought of Jimmy. He must have been wild.
If I'd known in time, perhaps I should have stayed ignominiously in my bedroom, but I wouldn't make a change then; it seemed such a tempest in a teapot. So when I was ready I went down as if nothing had happened, and looked around for Brown where I'd told him to meet me at half-past eight, in the hall. My goodness! I was surprised when I saw him in evening dress—a jolly dinner-jacket and a black tie. He might have been a prince. I wouldn't have said a word if I'd stopped to think; but I exclaimed on the impulse, and was dreadfully ashamed of myself, for he got rather red. He said quite humbly that he hadn't wished to discredit me, since I'd done him the honour of allowing him to serve me in a somewhat different capacity this evening (that was a nice way of putting it, wasn't it?), so he had decided to wear a suit of clothes which Mr. John Winston had left him; and he hoped I wasn't displeased.
After all, why should I have been when you come to think of it? So we dined at a little table all to ourselves, with pretty shaded candles and some lovely flowers. People were already beginning to leave the ​room, and nobody noticed anything strange about us as a couple; we appeared just like everybody else, only rather better looking, if I do say it myself. I had a very interesting talk with Brown, and he told me several things about his life, though I had to draw them out, as he is more modest than Jimmy Payne. He is far above his work, though he does it so well. I wish so much you could do something nice for him. Can't you?
This is the next morning, and I am writing in my room, waiting for the car to arrive. Aunt Mary and Jimmy will come in it; they've telegraphed again.
I am looking forward to the Riviera now, but I have such a queer, unsettled feeling—sort of half sad, without knowing why, which is stupid, as I'm having a splendid time. I suppose it's my wrist which has made me nervous.
Your loving Molly.