CHAPTER XXXI
TAKING RISKS
Early in 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, via Carcassonne 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. The intoxication 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 saw red, 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 a mille note, 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.