The worst damage to the car was a broken spring, though something seemed to have gone wrong also with the ignition in that disastrous bump into the _caniveau_. They had been where we found them for a couple of hours, Carmona admitted, without encountering any vehicle or animal to give them a tow. The first hope had been to stagger on to Manzanares (which originally they had meant to pass) with a broken spring; but the bee in the motor’s bonnet could not be made to buzz, and in despair, Carmona had been about to send his chauffeur on foot, in search of some conveyance for the ladies and their luggage. More hours must have passed, at best, before the man could have returned to the rescue, and already everybody was hungry.
The ladies of the Duke’s party had to be transferred to the Gloria; and Dick, with airs of ownership, urged vague and voluble reasons why I should be their companion in the tonneau. We were the masters of the situation, and Carmona’s face, as he was obliged to take his seat beside the chauffeur who must steer the car in tow, repaid me for grievous wrongs.
Pilar, not to be outdone in ingenuity by Dick, did for me what I could not do for myself, in contriving that I should sit next to Monica. Though I could say nothing for her ears which other ears might not hear, it was a joy to feel her slight shoulder nestling warm against my arm, to know that she could not be snatched from me by her mother or Carmona, but that as it was now, so it must be for many moments, perhaps an hour, to come. There was also satisfaction to be got from the fact that my enemy, bumping on behind in his own disabled car (propelled by our generosity and power), was glaring with malice, envy, and all uncharitableness at my back.
My one regret in these moments which should have been perfect, was that my prophetic soul hadn’t caused me to write a long letter to Monica, which I might have been able to slip into her hand under cover of rugs and darkness.
Ropes had to light the lamps before we saw more of Manzanares than an illusive church spire which kept appearing and disappearing like a will-o’-the-wisp. But the petrol held out, and the Gloria’s breathing was regular, despite the weight she had to tow over ruts and across gutters. Once, however, Ropes looked back at me with an expressive movement of the shoulders which I interpreted as, “we’re lucky if we get there!” so I could have shouted “hurrah!” at sight of the first houses, though they brought my last moment of happiness.
Another instant, and the population of Manzanares was answering to the thrum of our motor, as soldiers to the call of the drum. From somewhere, their saints alone knew where, an army of children poured into the long straight street, and as we slowed to avoid wholesale murder, they took advantage of our consideration to swarm up the car like ants. They ran shouting beside us, climbed on to the steps, hung on behind, fighting so ruthlessly for choice positions that they all but fell under the wheels. One would not have supposed there could be other children left in Spain. How there could be room for these in the town of Manzanares was a wonder; how they could all have turned out on the second in their thousands, was a miracle; and their promptness would have done credit to any commander.
The shrill cries of this legion, drowning the sound of the motor, and increasing as the contingent was swelled from each side street, roused the town. Families left their tables and rushed to the door, their supper in their hands. Bakers with white arms left to-morrow’s bread in the troughs; a group of farriers shoeing a horse stopped work, until the glowing iron paled. Shopkeepers who had lighted their windows with a blaze of electricity, ran into the street. Mules and donkeys tied to doorposts shared the general excitement, plunged and reared before the advance of the human breaker with the car on its crest snapped their cords, and dashed into their master’s houses.
Never, among all our successes, had we made such a _succés fou_ as this; but then, never before had we had a car in tow. Half our triumph belonged to the Lecomte; yet either of us would gladly have dispensed with all; and had it not been for a small but determined policeman who struggled to preserve the credit of the town, we might have been half the night fighting our way to an hotel.
He dealt blows and exhortations indiscriminately, piloted us through side streets which it would never have occurred to our imagination to enter, and with exertions worthy of him who “singly kept the bridge,” helped us make a lane for the ladies to dart into the door of the little _fonda_.
It was an iron door of elaborate openwork, leading, Moorish fashion, through a shallow vestibule into a _patio_—the first we had seen on our way south; and if it had not been slammed shut with a loud click, by some person inside, half Manzanares would have poured after the fugitives.
Assured of the ladies’ safety, the men of the two (outwardly) united parties remained to help the chauffeurs and a bewildered landlord to take down luggage. Overwhelmed by a wave of halfgrown children and a thick spray of babies, Carmona’s man lost his presence of mind. The two cars had hardly stopped before the little creatures were in them, and on them, and under them, trying to pinch the tyres, blowing the horn, squalling, laughing, crying. “Mon Dieu, c’est un obsession!” wailed the unfortunate Frenchman; and even the imperturbable Ropes showed signs of “nerves.”
As fast as the thronging goblins were beaten off, they were up again in redoubled force; but so merry they were, and so handsome was each bold brown face, with its dazzling eyes, that it was impossible to be angry. Somehow, we rescued the luggage, and with the aid of the landlord pitched, or slid, or rolled it through the door, momentarily opened.
“For Heaven’s sake, sir, see me through this!” implored Ropes, noticing that the men of the party were on the point of following the luggage. “Hate to trouble you, but I don’t think my Spanish will run to it.” In pity I climbed into the car to go with him to the stable which the landlord indicated as our garage. It was an experience to be remembered in nightmares; yet there was in it a sort of schoolboy pleasure. We seemed to have done battle against the whole force of the army out against us; nevertheless when we returned to the _fonda_, swept along by a large bodyguard, we found a regiment assembled round the door. How we got through was food for another wild dream, but we did get through, to stand panting on the other side of the grating, in the _patio_.
Dozens of dark faces were pressed against the bars, like tier above tier of glowing pansies in a flower-bed; and we knew at last the sensation of those who are the observed, not the observers, in a menagerie.
Everyone was in the _patio_, where electric lights hanging from the balconies mingled with rich yellow lamplight and ruddy firelight streaming from the kitchen. All the luggage was piled anyhow, in a chaotic heap surging with suit-cases, boiling with dressing-bags; while near by, like Marius and a friend or two at the ruins of Carthage, stood the Duchess, Lady Vale-Avon, Carmona, Dick, and the Cherub. Monica and Pilar had been talking at a distance with a young girl of the house, but seeing me gravitate in their direction, Lady Vale-Avon called her daughter.
“The ladies are saying they can’t stay here,” announced Dick, his voice in sympathy with a twinkle in his eyes.
“I’m not saying so,” cut in Monica. “I think it will be fun; a real adventure. The landlady’s wonderful, and all her daughters and nieces beauties. If we’re nice to them, they’ll be adorable to us.”
“The place is a den!” exclaimed Lady Vale-Avon. “There must be something better in the town.”
“I’m afraid there isn’t,” said the Duke. “This accident has made me helpless. I’m horribly sorry; but we can’t get on anywhere else to-night.”
“We can sit up,” said the Duchess, “in the automobile.”
“Do let’s look at the rooms,” begged Monica. “And don’t let them see we’re finding fault. Their feelings will be hurt.”
“What nonsense!” replied Lady Vale-Avon. “As if they had feelings!”
“If you don’t consider them, they won’t take pains to make you comfortable,” I said, knowing by instinct the people with whom we had to deal. “They’re beginning to suspect already that something’s wrong, and judging from the expression of their faces it will take only a little more for the landlord to say he has no rooms. Then we really may have to sit in the automobiles.”
The keeper of the _fonda_ and his family, who had come so warmly to welcome the strangers, were now hovering aloof, silent and suspicious, their spirits dashed by the contemptuous looks of Lady Vale-Avon and the Duchess. Standing in semi-darkness, the landlord’s face was a blur of brown shadow, featureless, save for a pair of enormous eyes burning with an emotion which was no longer hospitality. His wife, whose broad shoulder was pressed against her husband’s as if to form a line of defence, was a dark-browed, gypsy-like woman, who must once have been beautiful, and might now be formidable. Behind them were grouped a handsome boy, and three or four extraordinarily pretty girls with red and white roses in their hair.