A governess-car is made to seat four, but they have to be people of reasonable size. The driver’s size was not reasonable. Good Ransby ale and a sedentary mode of life had swelled him out breadthwise, so that there was no room left on his side of the carriage except for a child; consequently I took my seat by Vi.
The driver thought he knew me, but was still a little doubtful in his mind. With honest, Suffolk downrightness, he immediately commenced to ask questions.
“You bain’t a Ransby man, be you, sir?”
“I’m a half-and-half.”
“Thought I couldn’t ’a’ been mistooken. I’ve lived in Ransby man and boy, and I never forgets a face. Which ’alf of you might be Ransby?”
“I’m Ransby all through on my parents’ side, but I’ve lived away.”
“Why, you bain’t Mr. Cardover, be you—gran’son to old Sir Charles?”
“You’ve guessed right.”
“Well, I never! And to think that you should be goin’ to Woadley! Why, I knew your Ma well, Mr. Cardover; The gay Miss Fannie Evrard, we called ’er. Meanin’ no disrespec’ to you, sir, I was groom to Miss Fannie all them years ago, before she run away with your father. She were as nice and kind a mistress as ever a man might ’ope to find. It’s proud I am to meet you this day.”
As we bowled along through the leafy country, all shadows and sunshine, he fell to telling me about my mother, and I was glad to listen to what he had to say. The story had been told often before. By his inside knowledge of the elopement, he had acquired that kind of local importance which money cannot buy. It had provided him with the one gleam of lawless romance that had kindled up the whole of his otherwise dull life. According to his account, the marriage would never have come off, unless he had connived at the courting. My mother, he said, took him into her confidence, and he was the messenger between her and my father. He would let my father know in which direction they intended to ride. When they came to the place of trysting, he would drop behind and my mother would go on alone. He pointed with his whip to some of the meeting-places with an air of pride. He was godfather, as you might say, to the elopement. After it had taken place, Sir Charles had discovered his share in it, and had dismissed him. The word had gone the round among the county gentry—he had never been able to find another situation. So he had bought himself a governess-car and pony, and had plied for hire. “And I bain’t sorry, sir,” he said. “If it were to do again, I should be on the lovers’ side. I’m only sorry I ’ad to take to drivin’ instead o’ ridin’; it makes a feller so ’eavy.”