James Pethel | Page 9

told Mrs. Pethel of their intention to go on to Switzerland for some climbing.
Of his secretiveness for his wife's sake I had a touching little instance after luncheon. We had adjourned to have coffee in front of the hotel. The car was already in attendance, and Peggy had darted off to make her daily inspection of it. Pethel had given me a cigar, and his wife presently noticed that he himself was not smoking. He explained to her that he thought he had smoked too much lately, and that he was going to "knock it off" for a while. I would not have smiled if he had met my eye, but his avoidance of it made me quite sure that he really had been "thinking over" what I had said last night about nicotine and its possibly deleterious action on the gambling thrill.
Mrs. Pethel saw the smile that I could not repress. I explained that I was wishing I could knock off tobacco, and envying her husband's strength of character. She smiled, too, but wanly, with her eyes on him.
"Nobody has so much strength of character as he has," she said.
"Nonsense!" he laughed. "I'm the weakest of men."
"Yes," she said quietly; "that's true, too, James."
Again he laughed, but he flushed. I saw that Mrs. Pethel also had faintly flushed, and I became horribly aware of following suit. In the sudden glow and silence created by Mrs. Pethel's paradox, I was grateful to the daughter for bouncing back among us, and asking how soon we should be ready to start.
Pethel looked at his wife, who looked at me and rather strangely asked if I was sure I wanted to go with them. I protested that of course I did. Pethel asked her if SHE really wanted to come.
"You see, dear, there was the run yesterday from Calais. And to-morrow you'll be on the road again, and all the days after."
"Yes," said Peggy; "I'm SURE you'd much rather stay at home, darling Mother, and have a good rest."
"Shall we go and put on our things, Peggy?" replied Mrs. Pethel, rising from her chair. She asked her husband whether he was taking the chauffeur with him. He said he thought not.
"Oh, hurrah!" cried Peggy. "Then I can be on the front seat!"
"No, dear," said her mother. "I am sure Mr. Beerbohms would like to be on the front seat."
"You'd like to be with mother, wouldn't you?" the girl appealed. I replied with all possible emphasis that I should like to be with Mrs. Pethel. But presently, when the mother and daughter reappeared in the guise of motorists, it became clear that my aspiration had been set aside. "I am to be with mother," said Peggy.
I was inwardly glad that Mrs. Pethel could, after all, assert herself to some purpose. Had I thought she disliked me, I should have been hurt; but I was sure her desire that I should not sit with her was due merely to a belief that, in case of accident, a person on the front seat was less safe than a person behind. And of course I did not expect her to prefer my life to her daughter's. Poor lady! My heart was with her. As the car glided along the sea-front and then under the Norman archway, through the town, and past the environs, I wished that her husband inspired in her as much confidence as he did in me. For me the sight of his clear, firm profile (he did not wear motor-goggles) was an assurance in itself. From time to time (for I, too, was ungoggled) I looked round to nod and smile cheerfully at his wife. She always returned the nod, but left the smile to be returned by the daughter.
Pethel, like the good driver he was, did not talk; just drove. But as we came out on to the Rouen road he did say that in France he always rather missed the British police-traps. "Not," he added, "that I've ever fallen into one. But the chance that a policeman MAY at any moment dart out, and land you in a bit of a scrape does rather add to the excitement, don't you think?" Though I answered in the tone of one to whom the chance of a police-trap is the very salt of life, I did not inwardly like the spirit of his remark. However, I dismissed it from my mind. The sun was shining, and the wind had dropped: it was an ideal day for motoring, and the Norman landscape had never looked lovelier to me in its width of sober and silvery grace.
*The other names in this memoir are, for good reason, pseudonyms.
I presently felt that this landscape was not, after all, doing itself full justice. Was it not rushing rather too