CHAPTER XXXITAKING RISKS
Earlyin January Wynyard found himself on the Continent, roaming hither and thither as dictated by the caprice of his employer. First they went to Paris, then, leaving behind them the intricacies of the traffic, departed from that gay city by the Port de Choisy for Mellun, Sens, and Dijon. From Dijon (the Charing Cross of motors) they sped across to Biarritz, over the Pyrenees to Madrid, then back to the Riviera,viaCarcassonne and Toulouse.
It was Masham’s custom to start at daybreak; the car was on the wing as soon as the birds. They swept along the great straight highways, by quiet sleeping farms, through low-hanging mists, and now and then past an old white-faced château, staring sternly from amidst its woods—or again, a gaudy red villa smothered in lime trees. Masham had not overstated the case when he declared that he “took risks.” Once or twice, when they hummed along wide, empty roads, as the wind roared past their ears, and the engine vibration was such that every nerve was ajar, it appeared to the chauffeur that he was trusting his life to a madman!Speed, his employer’s passion, seemed to grow insatiable with time—his appetite for eating up, with furious haste, miles and miles and miles, and ever hurrying onwards to the unattainable horizon, increased with indulgence. Theintoxication of motion appeared to lift him completely out of himself—and to change his personality.
Wynyard had once quoted to his friend, “Needs must when the devil drives!” Now at times he could readily believe that the old gentleman himself was holding the steering-wheel!
Sometimes, as they tore through villages, they left a track of whirling feathers—the remains of a flock of geese or poultry; and Masham boasted, to his chauffeur’s disgust, that once, between Pau and Biarritz, he and his machine had been the death of five dogs. On more than one occasion, when his excitement was frenzied, and he undoubtedly sawred, Wynyard had endeavoured to wrest the steering-wheel from his employer. They had several narrow escapes, and many of their skids were neither more nor less than hair-raising. Wynyard’s face, which was tanned and weather-beaten, displayed several new lines, and sometimes wore a very grim expression, as the car whirled round a sharp corner with a single and defiant hoot! But these risks were his price; it was all in the day’s work, for three hundred a year.
It seemed strange that he was unable to find a commonplace situation, which offered the happy medium; either he drove an old doddering car at infrequent intervals, or he was bound to this grey racer, like Ixion to his wheel.
Excepting on the occasions when Masham was specially reckless, the situation was all right. They lived at the best hotels, and he sat at the same table with his employer—whose talk was ever and always of the car, or other people’s cars—of petrol, garages, tyres, and racing. He was a man of one idea.
His companion-chauffeur was a good deal staggered by the large quantity of cognac absorbed by his patron;but it never appeared to affect his nerves, and merely rendered him unsociable and morose. His one, all-devouring ambition was to win a race for the highest speed, and to be known as the most daring and successful motorist in Europe! When they stopped at hotels he herded with his kind—after the manner of golfers and racing people—comparing cars, speeds, weights, and prices, talking knowingly of “mushroom valves” and the “new sliding sleeve engine.” On such occasions, instead of being, as usual, somewhat stolid and glum, he became extraordinarily animated and eloquent!
Masham was a man of good family, his own master, and the non-resident owner of a fine property in the north of England, which, in order to indulge his passion for speed, he neglected shamefully.
Arrived at Nice, he put up at one of the fashionable hotels, running over daily to Monte Carlo, which, in the month of March, was crammed. On these expeditions, he was accompanied by his companion, and the car was garaged, whilst its owner took what he called “a turn in the rooms.” He played for high stakes, generally put down amillenote, and was uncannily lucky. This good fortune he attributed to the little silver figure of a certain saint, which he clutched in one hand, whilst he staked with the other; this saint was his mascot. He never remained long in the Casino, being too impatient and restless; and when he had made a round of his favourite tables, would sally forth in search of refreshment, or to saunter about the square and the exquisite gardens. His companion did not gamble—strong as were inherited instincts, and hot as was the gambling fever which ran in his blood;—he had no money to lose, and the prize he wished to win was Aurea Morven.
Naturally, Masham came across many acquaintancesin such a cosmopolitan rendezvous as “Monte.” Wynyard also encountered several familiar faces, and, one afternoon, as he was passing through a great crowd at the “Café de Paris,” a light hand was laid on his arm, and, looking down, he was astonished to meet the upturned blue eyes of Mrs. Ramsay—Mrs. Ramsay in black, but no longer in weeds; Mrs. Ramsay another woman, and ten years younger; Mrs. Ramsay self-confident, prosperous, and handsome.
“Why, it’sOwen!” she exclaimed. “Who would have thought of seeing you here?”
He smiled affirmatively, and glanced at her companions round the tea-table. Ottinge was strongly represented: here were the Rector and Miss Aurea, also General and Mrs. Morven, and a smart young man in attendance on the younger lady.
“Hullo, Owen!” exclaimed Mr. Morven, rising and shaking hands; “thisisan unexpected meeting!” and he stared with puzzled interest at the erect figure, high-bred face, unimpeachable grey suit, and Homburg hat.
“I’m not over here to gamble,” he continued. “We are at Mentone, and I’ve come to have a look at this pretty, wicked place.”
“It’s pretty wicked by all accounts!” replied Wynyard, speaking now, as Mr. Morven noted, in the tone of equal to equal.
“Aurea,” he said, turning to his daughter, “don’t you see Owen?”
Miss Morven—who had entirely regained her beauty, and was charmingly dressed—glanced up from underneath her immense rose-wreathed hat, and coolly surveyed her former lover. She was, if possible, prettier than ever, he said to himself, as he doffed his hat in acknowledgment of her curt nod; but her eyes, as theymet his, resembled two dark pools—frozen. For some unknown and unguessed-at reason, Aurea was no longer friendly to him—much less anything nearer—and the discovery seemed to plant a dagger in his throat. He found it desperately difficult to utter a word, much less to carry on a brisk conversation with the Rector and Mrs. Ramsay. General and Mrs. Morven were, he concluded, the important elderly couple who sat at the other side of the table, and the young man, who was engrossing Miss Morven’s sole attention, was some idle ass, who wore his hair parted in the middle, and three rings on his left hand. He hated him then and there!
Meanwhile, Miss Morven encouraged him, and kept up a conversation in low, confidential tones. Her hat concealed her face, and Wynyard realised, for the first time in his life, how rude a hat could be! This black hat, garlanded with pink flowers, was but too eloquently expressive of the fact, that its wearer desired to ignore the existence—much less the presence—of her aunts’ late employé.
However, the Rector and Mrs. Ramsay were most anxiously disposed to make amends for Miss Morven’s detachment.
“What do you think of the gardens?” inquired the former, indicating the flower-beds that lay between them and the Casino—a blaze of velvet violas. “Quite in your line, eh?”
Wynyard muttered an inarticulate assent—all his thoughts were concentrated on Aurea.
“I’m glad to see you are getting on,” resumed the Rector cheerily; “prospects improving, eh?”
“I’m afraid not,” answered the chauffeur; his mind full of this gentleman’s only daughter, and the haughty little face which was so studiously concealed.
“What are you doing now, eh?”
“I’m with Masham, a man who has a racing motor, as useful companion.”
“Oh, by Jove, I know him!” broke in the General. “Masham’s the wildest driver in England, or, indeed, Europe—a racing lunatic—wish you safely out of his company! Is he here?”
“Yes, in the rooms; and I’m just loafing about till he is ready to go back to Nice.”
“You have never asked about poor dear little Ottinge,” interposed Mrs. Ramsay, with an injured air,—Mrs. Ramsay who had hitherto been a silent and much interested spectator of Wynyard and Aurea. Whatwasthe matter with the girl?
“And how is Ottinge?” he inquired, turning to the Rector.
“Oh, pretty well, thank you. Young Hogben is married to Dilly Topham. I must say I never thoughtthatwould come off, but it has; and they seem fairly happy. Old Mrs. Topham, however, gave no dowry; she cannot bear to part with a penny, but she sent a present of three jars of mouldy jam, and a broken-down lamp.”
“Miss Parrett has been dangerously ill,” supplemented Mrs. Ramsay, “but is better. Old Thunder has bought a donkey and a bath-chair; and oh, sad news indeed!—howamI to tell you?—Mackenzie is no more.”
“I can bear up,” he answered, with a short laugh. This was ungrateful, for was it not Mackenzie who had introduced him to Aurea?
“He was kicked by a horse, and was killed on the spot,” said the Rector; “I think, Mrs. Ramsay, you show a very unneighbourly spirit.”
“But I never considered myself the neighbour ofMackenzie!” she argued, “just the opposite—and he was not an estimable character. A good man should not own a bad dog.”
“Oh, well, give a dog a bad name——”
“And Mackenzie deserved it,” she interrupted; “he was the village bully. If he met a smaller dog, it was death for the small dog; if one of his own size, he passed on. You know, or you may not know, that, at teas at the Rectory, he sat on the laps of timid ladies, devoured their offerings, and intimidated them with growls—they dared not displace him.” Then, turning her head, “Aurea, we are talking of Mackenzie and his enormities.”
“Oh, are you?” she rejoined, with civil indifference.
“Yes,” resumed Mrs. Ramsay; “and is not it well known that he attacked a solitary visitor in the Rectory drawing-room—whose furs affronted him—and tore her muff to shreds with ferocious satisfaction? I believe her screams could be heard at the Drum, and she had to be restored with brandy and burnt feathers.”
“You would delight Dr. Johnson, my dear lady,” said the Parson; “he loved a good hater.”
“Oh, if you only knew how he treated and maltreated my poor paying guests,”—and she looked at Wynyard—“youremember the beagle, and how you doctored him; only for you he would have died.”
“Yes; but the beagle survives—Mackenzie is no more.De mortuis nil nisi bonum.”
To hear this chauffeur with a ready Latin quotation in his mouth! What was the world coming to? thought Mrs. Morven, who had finished her tea, and was now playing the part of a dignified audience.
“We are all at the Hôtel des Montaignes, Mentone,” continued Mrs. Ramsay; “I want you to come over and see me, will you?”
“I should be delighted, but my time is not my own—perhaps I can get off on Sunday. May I write?”
“Do; and I shall expect to hear that you are coming to lunch.”
“Here is Masham,” he announced, as the muscular, brick-faced gentleman pushed and elbowed his way towards them.
“Hullo, Owen, ready to start, eh? We must get a move on.”—“Oh,” to the General, “glad to see you—splendid weather out here, eh?”
At this moment a party of compatriots arrived, and figuratively swallowed up General and Mrs. Morven, the Rector, Mrs. Ramsay, and even the celebrated Mr. Masham. Here was Wynyard’s opportunity, and, as usual, he seized upon it without ceremony. It was impossible that Aurea (who was rarely out of his thoughts), whose little word, “perhaps,” had buoyed him up on many stormy waters, meant what her looks and attitude implied. Resolutely he came up to her, ignoring the glassy stare of her companion, and said—
“Miss Morven—has forgotten me—perhaps?”
Miss Morven looked up at him with an expression of delicate disdain. Could this self-possessed young lady, in a wonderful hat and Parisian frock, be the self-same girl who had stood beside him on Yampton Hill, with loosened hair and spattered habit?
After a reflective pause, she murmured—
“No, I’ve not forgotten my aunts’—er—chauffeur; but I do not think we were ever—acquainted.”
Wynyard had wonderful self-command, but mentally he reeled; he felt as if some one had suddenly dealt him a terrible blow between the eyes. Outwardly he turned a sudden, pallid white, and drew back, as Miss Morven rose, picked up her parasol, and said to her companion—
“Now, if you like, I will go down to the Condamine and see the motor boats.”
And, almost at the same moment, Mr. Masham claimed his companion and hurried him away to the garage.
“I say,” said the General to his brother (he usually prefaced his remarks with “I say”), “who was the young stranger who seemed to know Ottinge? ’Pon my word, he deserves a medal for the discovery. Wait, I seem to know his face! Yes, I’ve got it. Wynyard of the Red Hussars—he went the pace—uncle cut up rough—he’s in my club.”
“No, for once you are a bit out! You will be amused to hear that that good-looking, well-set-up young man was Bella’s chauffeur.”
“Nonsense!”
“It’s a sober fact. I liked him,” continued the Rector; “he has good manners—manners make the man—I had him in the choir, and he’s a first-class cricketer. I always, between you and me, believed him to be a gentleman who was expiating some—er—mistake. I declare, Susan was actually fond of him, and he turned the heads, unintentionally—I’ll say that for him—of every girl in the village.”
“Well, I’m blowed! He is the very image of Dick Wynyard’s heir—next to the baronetcy and property. Old Dick never speaks of him now, and I’ve not seen him about for nearly two years. Mrs. Ramsay, what do you say to a village romance, and a chauffeur being as like a young swell as two peas?”
“Oh,” replied the lady, deliberately moulding on her gloves, “truth is stranger than fiction; I’ve known some funny things in my life. I always liked Owen, and I am glad to see he is getting up in the world.”
“Up!” repeated the General; “if he is companion toMasham, he is much more likely to leave the world altogether—and that at an early date! Well, Edgar, Aurea has gone off with young Beauclerc and his people to the boats. Shall we go to La Turbie as arranged, and have the honour of escorting the two ladies?”
And then, with one consent, they rose with a loud noise of scraping chairs, and passed into the square in single file.