Chapter 1

THE CAR OF DESTINY BY C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON [Logo]

Illustrations by Armand Both

NEW YORK THE McCLURE COMPANY MCMVII

*OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHORS*

Lady Betty Across the Water, My Friend the Chauffeur, The Princess Virginia, etc.

_Copyright, 1907, by The McClure Company_ Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips & Co.

[Lady Monica]

LADY MONICA

_To_ _Doña María del Pilar Harvey,_ _We Dedicate This Spanish Story_

_C.N. and A.M. Williamson_

CONTENTS

The King’s Car The Girl The Guest Who Was Not Asked “I Don’t Threaten—I Warn” A Mystery Concerning a Chauffeur Puzzle: Find the Car The Impudence of Showing a Handkerchief Over the Border A Stern Chase The Unexpectedness of Miss O’Donnel María del Pilar to the Rescue Under a Balcony What Happened in the Cathedral Some Little Ideas of Dick’s How the Duke Changed A Secret of the King’s Like a Thief in the Night The Man Who Loved Pilar A Parcel for Lieutenant O’Donnel The Magic Word The Duchess’s Hand The Luck of the Dream-Book The Glorification of Monica The Goodwill of Mariquita What Cordoba Lacked In the Palace of the Kings Moonlight in the Garden Let Your Heart Speak The Garden of Flaming Lilies The Hand Under the Curtains Behind an Iron Grating On the Road to Cadiz The Seven Men of Ecija The Race The Moon in the Wilderness Wiles and Enchantments Dreams and an Awakening The Fountain Day After To-morrow Through the Night The Fifth Bull; and After

I

THE KING’S CAR

“Motor to Biarritz? You must be mad,” said Dick Waring.

“Why?” I asked; though I knew why as well as he. “A nice way to receive an invitation.”

“If you must know, it’s because the King of Spain will be there, visiting his English fiancée,” Dick answered.

“I wish him happiness,” said I. “I hear he’s a fine young fellow. Why isn’t there room in Biarritz for the King and for me?”

“The detectives won’t think there is, nor will they give you credit for your generous sentiments,” said Dick.

“They won’t know I’m there.”

“They knew when you went to Barcelona, from Marseilles.”

This was a sore subject. It is not my fault that my father was as recklessly brave a general, and as obstinately determined a partisan as Don Carlos ever had. If I had been born in those days, it is possible that I should have done as my father did; but I was not born, and therefore not responsible. Nor was it the King’s fault that we lost our estates which my ancestors owned in the days of Charles V; nor that we lost our fortune, we Casa Trianas; nor that my father was banished from Spain. For the King was not born, therefore he was not responsible; so why should I blame him for anything that has happened to me?

It was perhaps ill-judged to visit my father’s land, since to him it had been a land forbidden. But a few months after his death, when I was twenty-one, the longing to see Spain had become an obsession. And it must have been my evil star which influenced an anarchist to throw a bomb at a royal personage on the very day I arrived at Barcelona, thinly “disguised” under an English name.

My identity was discovered at once, as the son of the great dead Carlist. I was suspected and clapped into a cell, to wait until my innocence could be proved. This was not easy; but, on the other hand, there was no proof against me; and after an experience which scourged my pride and emptied my purse, I was released, only to be politely but firmly advised never again to show the undesirable face of a Casa Triana in Spain.

It was after this that I flung myself off to Russia, and through friendly influence got a commission in the army. I had some adventures in the Boxer rising; and though Heaven knows I have no grudge against the Japanese, the fight I made later on the Russian side gave me something to do for two years. After the Peace with Idleness, came the motor mania, and I thought of nothing else for a time. But when you have run your car for months, motoring for its own sake ceases to be all in all. You ask yourself what country you would like best to visit with the machine you love.

Pride kept me from answering that question with the name of “Spain”; but it was because Biarritz is at the door of Spain that I had just invited Dick Waring—the best of friends, the most delightful of Americans, who fought side by side with me, for fun, in China—to drive there in my Gloria car.

“Yes, they knew when I went to Barcelona,” I admitted; for Dick was familiar with the story. “But that was different. Anyhow, I’m going to Biarritz, whatever happens. You can do as you like.”

“If you _will_ go, I’ll go too,” said Dick; “and if anything happens I’ll be in it with you. But you may regret your rashness.”

“I’ve never yet regretted rashness,” I said. “Things done on impulse always turn out for the best.”

So we started from Paris the next day, and had a splendid run, through scenery to set the spirit singing in tune with the thrumming of the motor.

Whatever was to happen in Biarritz, and I was far enough from guessing then, nothing happened by the way; and we arrived on a morning of blue and gold.

We put up at a private hotel out of the way from fashionable thoroughfares; and, as my childhood and early youth were passed in England, I could use an English name without making myself ridiculous by a foreign accent. As for my brown face and black eyes, many a Cornishman has a face as brown and eyes as black; therefore, I edited the name of Triana into Cornish Trevenna, and changed Cristóbal, my middle name, into Christopher.

We took our first meal in the restaurant, and everyone at the little tables near by, was talking of the King and “Princess Ena”; how pretty she was, how much in love he; how charming their romance. My heart quite warmed to my youthful sovereign, who has had seven fewer years on earth than I. I felt that, if I had had a fair chance, I should have been his loyal subject.

“I’d like to have a look at him,” said I to Waring after lunch. “The lady with the nose who sat on our left said to her husband with the chin, that the King and the two Princesses motor every afternoon. We’ll motor too; and where they go, there we’ll go also.”

“Take care,” said Dick.

“A cat may look at a king. So may Chris Trevenna.”

“No good advising you to be cautious.”

“Of course not. You wouldn’t care a rap for me if there was.”

“Shouldn’t I? Anyhow, Chris Trevenna might as well wear goggles.”

“There’s no dust to-day,” said I. “It rained in the night.”

“I give you up,” said Dick. And if giving me up meant going out with me in my big blue car directly after lunch, then he kept his word. Ropes, my chauffeur, and right-hand man, who sits always in the tonneau, had already heard all about the King’s automobile, and was primed with particulars. He leaned across to describe its appearance, as well as mention the make; and when such a car as he was in the act of picturing passed us, going round a bend of the road which leads to Spain, there was no mistaking it.

“Let’s follow,” said I.

Dick sighed, but naturally I paid no attention to that.

There were five persons in the King’s car. The slim young owner, three ladies, two very slender and young, and the chauffeur, all five masked or goggled, so that it was impossible to see their faces.

“I wish something would happen to them,” I said.

Waring looked shocked.

“Just enough of a something to stop the car, and tempt the ladies to take off their motor-veils. I may never have another chance to see the future Queen of Spain.”

When I was a small lad in England, I used to lie under a favourite apple-tree in the orchard of the old place where we lived, and wish with all my might for the fall of a certain apple on which eyes and heart were fixed. It was extraordinary how often the apple would fall.

In a flash I remembered those wishes and those apples as we began to gain upon the King’s car. Its pace slackened, and then it stopped. The chauffeur jumped out, and two of the ladies were raising their thick veils as we came up.

As we were not supposed to know the King, who was “incog,” the ordinary civilities between motorists were in order. I slowed down, and taking off my hat, inquired in French if there were anything I could do.

The two girls, who had hastily whipped off their veils, turned and glanced at me. Both were more than pretty; blond, violet-eyed, with radiant complexions; but one seemed to me beautiful as the Blessed Damozel looking down from the star-framed window of heaven; and I was suddenly sick with jealousy of the King, because I believed that she was his Princess.

It was he who answered, in French better than mine. He thanked me for my kind offer, and referred me to his chauffeur, who had not yet discovered the cause of the car’s sudden loss of power. But even as he spoke, the mystery was solved. There was a leak in the petrol-tank, near the bottom; the last drop of _essence_ had run away, and, as they had come out for a short spin, there was none in reserve.

An odd chance it seemed that brought me, the son of a banished rebel, to the King’s aid; but life is odd. I rejoiced because it was odd, and more because of the girl.

I had a spare _bidon_ of petrol which, with conventional expressions of pleasure, I gave to my fellow motorist. We exchanged compliments, and as nobody stared at me askance, I had reason to believe that neither words, actions, nor looks were out of the way. Yet what I said and did was said and done with no more guidance of the mind than the gestures and speech of a mechanical doll.

I was conscious only of the girl’s eyes, for I had done that unreasonable, indefinable thing—fallen in love at first sight, and I had fallen very far, and very deep. She did not glance at me often, and after the first I scarcely glanced at her at all, lest my eyes should be indiscreet. It was the most curious thing in the world, and far beyond anything that had ever happened to me; but already I knew that I could not lose her out of my life. Sooner could I lose life itself. If she were the Princess who was to be Queen of Spain, I would follow her to Madrid, come what might, just for the joy of breathing the air she breathed, of seeing her drive past me in her carriage sometimes. I had wondered, knowing the traditions of our family, many of them tragic, when love would come to me. Now it had come quickly, in a moment; but not to go as it had come. It and I would be one, for always. The girl was little more than a child, but I knew she was to be the one woman for me; and that was what I feared my eyes might tell her. So I would not look; yet the air seemed charged with electricity to flash a thousand messages, and my blood tingled with the assurance that she had had my message, that unconsciously she was sending back a message to me.

All this was going on in my inner self, while the outer husk of self delivered itself of conventional things.

A leak was mended, a tank filled, while my life was being remade. Then there were bows, lifting of caps, many politenesses, and the King’s car shot away.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Waring by and by.

“Nothing,” I answered. “Why do you ask?”

“You act as if you’d had a stroke. Aren’t you going to drive on?”

“No. Yes. I’m going back,” I said, and turned the car.

“You don’t mean to follow, then?”

“There’s something I need to do at once at Biarritz,” I answered. It was true. I needed to find out whether she was the Princess, or—just a girl.

II

THE GIRL

It was easy to learn that she was not the Princess. I did that by going into a stationer’s shop and asking for a photograph of the royal lovers. It was not quite so easy to find out who she was, without pinning my new secret on my sleeve; but luckily everyone in Biarritz boasted knowledge of the King’s affairs, and the affairs of the pretty Princess. Christopher Trevenna made himself agreeable after dinner to the lady with the nose, who would probably have shrunk away in fear if she had known that she was talking with the Marqués de Casa Triana.

I, in my character of Trevenna, found out that the Princess had a friend, Lady Monica Vale, daughter of the widowed Countess of Vale-Avon, who, when at home, lived in the Isle of Wight. At present, the two were staying at Biarritz, in a villa; and Lady Monica, a girl of eighteen or nineteen, sometimes had the honour of going out with the Princesses, in the King’s motor.

There were other privileged friends as well; but the description of Lady Monica Vale, though painted with a colourless brush, was unmistakable.

Casually I inquired the name of the house where Lady Vale-Avon and her daughter were staying, and having learned it, I made an excuse to escape from the lady with the nose.

It was half-past ten o’clock, and a night flooded with moonlight. I strolled out, smoking a cigarette, and in ten minutes stood before the garden gate of the Villa Esmeralda.

There were lights in three or four of the windows, sparkling among close-growing trees; and I had not finished my second cigarette, when a carriage drove round the corner and stopped.

I moved into the background. A groom jumped down, unfastened the gate, and having opened the brougham door, respectfully aided a middle-aged lady to descend.

The moonlight showed me a clear, proud profile, and fired the diamonds in a tiara which crowned a head of waved grey hair.

There were billows of violet satin and lace to keep off the ground; and as the groom helped the wearer to adjust them under her chinchilla coat, a girl sprang out of the carriage, her white figure and rippling hair of daffodil gold in full moonlight.

I stood as a man might stand who sees a vision, hardly breathing. I made no sound, yet she turned and saw me, sheltered as I was by the dappled trunk of a tall plane-tree. It was as if I had called, and she had answered.

I knew she remembered me, and that she did not misunderstand my presence. There was no anger in her face, only surprise, and a light which was hidden as she dropped her head, and passed on through the gate.

I could have sung the song of the stars. She had not forgotten me since the afternoon. The look in my eyes then, had arrested some thought of hers, and set me apart in her mind from other men.

It was no stupid conceit which made me feel this, but a kind of exalted conviction.

When the gate was shut, I took off my hat and looked at the lighted windows. I could make her care. I said to myself, “We’re meant for each other. And if that’s true, though all the mountains in the world were piled up as barriers between us, I’d cross them.”

That was a vow. And through the remaining hours of the night I tried to plan how it would be best to begin its fulfilment.

Men who have gone through a campaign as close friends, have few secrets from one another; and I had none from Dick Waring. Nevertheless, I would now have kept one if it were possible; but it was not. If I had not told him, he would have guessed, and then he might have thought that he had the right to chaff me on losing my head.

It is only a happy lover who can bear to be chaffed, however, and a few words were enough to show my tactful American where to set his feet on the slippery path.

He too had seen the girl; therefore he could not be surprised at my state of mind. But he regretted it, and urged that the best I could do was to go away, before the thought of her had taken too deep a hold upon me.

“You see,” he said, “you’re in a hopeless position; and it’s better to look facts in the face. If you’d fallen in love with almost any other girl, except Princess Ena herself, you might have hoped. But as it is, what have you to look forward to? You oughtn’t to have come to Biarritz. In the circumstances, and with the King here, it was bravado. Friends of his, enemies of yours, might even say it was bad taste, which is worse. And then, having come, you proceed to follow the King’s motor-car; you fall head over ears in love with a girl in it, a friend of the bride-elect, to whom your real name, if she’s not heard it already, could easily be made to seem anathema maranatha. But that’s not all. You’re here under a name not your own. If you should by luck or ill-luck get a chance to meet Lady Monica, you couldn’t be introduced to her as Christopher Trevenna; it would be a false pretence; still less could you throw your real name in her face; for between the King of Spain as a friend, and you as an acquaintance, the girl would be in an uncomfortable position, to say the least. No, my dear fellow, you can’t meet this young lady; and the only thing for your peace of mind, if you’ve really fallen in love, is to go away.”

I had no arguments with which to meet Dick’s. I listened in silence, but—I made no preparation for departure. If there was nothing to be gained by staying, at least there was as little to be gained by going; for I knew that I should not forget the girl. If I were struck blind, her face would still live for my eyes, white and pure against a background of darkness.

We stayed on at Biarritz, but I behaved with circumspection, and made no further attempts to put myself in the King’s Way, though he arrived at the Villa Mouriscot every morning from San Sebastian. Dick approved my conduct and, pitying my depression, perhaps repented his hardness. He found several Parisian friends at Biarritz, and when we had been there for three days, he came back to the hotel from the Casino one night with an important air.

“Strange how one’s tempted to do things one knows one oughtn’t to do,” said he. “Now, it’s unwise to tell you I’ve met a man who knows Lady Monica Vale, yet I’m doing it.”

“What did the man say?” I asked.

“A number of things—charming, of course. She’s not engaged, if that’s any consolation.”

“Oh, I knew that.”

“How?”

“By her eyes.”

“Apparently she observed yours also.”

“What? She’s spoken of—she—”

“The sister of my man is a friend of Lady Monica’s. She told the sister about the motor-car adventure.”

“For goodness sake don’t force me to ask questions.”

“I won’t. I’ve a soft heart, which has often been my undoing. She said she’d seen the most interesting man in the world. Don’t faint.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“I’m not chaffing. She did say that—honest Injun. At least, I’ve Henri de la Mole’s word for it. His sister was at school at the convent of the Virgin of Tears with Lady Monica Vale. Lady Monica supposed the other day that we were both French, which is a compliment to your accent. She said she wished she could find out ‘who was the brown man with the eyes.’ I’m a fool to have told you that though, eh? It can’t do you any good, and will probably make you worse.”

“But it has done me good.”

“Flattered your vanity. However, I haven’t told you all yet. De la Mole says the mother’s a dragon, hard as iron, cold as steel, living for ambition. She was left poor, on her husband’s death, as the Vale-Avon estates went with the title to a distant relative, and the girl’s been brought up to make a brilliant match. She’s been given every accomplishment under Heaven, to add to her beauty; and as the family’s one of the oldest in Great Britain, connected with royalty in one way or another, in Stuart days, Lady’s Monica’s expected to pull off something from the top branch, in the way of a marriage. De la Mole’s heard that the present Lord Vale-Avon has been first favourite with the mother up till lately, though he’s next door to an idiot. Princess Ena’s engagement to the King of Spain has changed everything. You see, Lady Vale-Avon and her daughter live not far from the Princess, in the Isle of Wight. When the King came a-courting to England, came also, though not exactly in his train, another Spaniard, the Duke of Carmona, and—”

“Don’t,” I cut in; “I won’t hear his name in connection with her’s. That half Moorish brute!”

“He may have a dash of Moorish blood, but he’s not half Moorish; and if he’s a brute, he’s a good-looking brute, according to de la Mole, also he’s one of the richest young men in Spain. Lady Vale-Avon—”

I jumped up and stopped Dick. “I’m in earnest,” I said. “I can’t bear to listen. I know the sort of things you’d say. But don’t. If you do, I think I’ll kill the fellow.”

“Ever met him?”

“No. The men of my house and of his have been enemies for generations. But I’ve heard of certain exploits.”

“He’s coming here to stop with his mother, the old Duchess, who’s been spending the winter at Biarritz. Another reason for you to vamose.”

“You mean, to stay. At least, he shan’t have a clear coast.”

“I don’t see how you can hope to block it.”

“I will—somehow.”

“No doubt you’re a hundred times the man he is, but—fate’s handicapped you for a show place in the matrimonial market. You are—”

“A man countryless and penniless. Don’t hesitate to state the case frankly.”

“Well, _you’ve_ said it. While the other’s rich, and a grandee of Spain. And, though de la Mole says the King doesn’t care for him, on account of something or other connected with the Spanish-American War, he’s bound to become a _persona grata_ at Court if he marries a friend of the young Queen; and, no doubt, that influences his choice.”

“Thank Heaven, Lady Monica isn’t Spanish.”

“Ah, but Spain’s the fashion now. And you haven’t heard all my news. Henri de la Mole says Lady Monica is asked to be a maid of honour for the young Queen of Spain, the one Englishwoman she’s to have in attendance.”

“At least the wedding won’t be till June. It’s only the end of February now. I’ve got more than three months.”

“You haven’t got one. Soon after the Princesses leave Biarritz, Lady Vale-Avon and Lady Monica are going to visit the old Duchess of Carmona in Spain.”

“What, they’re going to Seville?”

“If her house is there. I’m telling you what I’ve been told.”

“The principal house of the Duke is in Seville, though he has a place near Granada, and a flat in Madrid as a substitute for a fine house that was burned down.”

“Then Seville’s where they’ll be. Anyhow, they’re to see the great show in Holy Week there.”

It was as if Dick had suddenly drenched me with iced water.

For a few seconds I did not speak. Then I said, “Are you trying to break it to me that the match is arranged?”

“I told you Lady Monica wasn’t engaged.”

“And I told you I knew she wasn’t. But that isn’t to say the mother, the woman ‘as hard as iron and cold as steel,’ hasn’t planned her daughter’s future, a girl so young, and always kept under control.”

“It looks as if the wind was setting in that quarter. A person of Lady Vale-Avon’s type would hardly accept such an invitation if she didn’t intend something to come of it.”

“You’re certain the invitation’s been accepted?”

“Certain. Angèle de la Mole has been with her brother in Spain, and Lady Monica’s been asking her advice about what to take and what to wear. The Duke himself is in Paris, buying a new automobile; at least, so his mother says; but other people say he’s at Monte Carlo. Anyhow, he’s expected here in time for the ball.”

“What ball?”

“Didn’t I tell you? A masked ball the old Duchess is giving in honour of Princess Ena. A grand affair it will be, says de la Mole. There’s been jealousy about the invitations, which have been carefully weeded.”

“You and I’ll accept,” said I.

“We’re not likely to have the chance.”

“Sometimes a man must make a chance. I shall meet Lady Monica at the Duchess’s ball.”

“All right. Suppose you go in the garb of a palmer?”

“Eh?”

“I was thinking of another first meeting, case not dissimilar, you know, Romeo and Juliet. My poor, mad friend, there’s more hope for a Montague with a Capulet than for a Casa Triana with a friend of the future Queen of Spain, and the daughter of a Lady Vale-Avon.”

“Romeo won Juliet.”