Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Suzanne Shell, and the
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[Illustration: THE FLYING MERCURY]
THE
FLYING
MERCURY
By
ELEANOR M INGRAM
Author of
THE GAME AND THE CANDLE
With Illustrations by
EDMUND FREDERICK
Decorations by
BERTHA STUART
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1910
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
* * * * *
_To_
MY MOST DELIGHTFUL COMRADES AND
INDULGENT MOTOR INSTRUCTORS
--MY TWO BROTHERS
* * * * *
I
The roaring reports of the motor fell into abrupt silence, as the
driver brought his car to a halt.
"You signaled?" he called across the grind of set brakes.
In the blending glare of the searchlights from the two machines, the
gray one arriving and the limousine drawn to the roadside, the young
girl stood, her hand still extended in the gesture which had stopped
the man who now leaned across his wheel.
"Oh, please," she appealed again.
On either side stretched away the Long Island meadows, dark,
soundless, apparently uninhabited. Only this spot of light broke the
monotony of dreariness. A keen, chill, October wind sighed past,
stirring the girl's delicate gown as its folds lay unheeded in the
dust, fluttering her fur-lined cloak and shaking two or three childish
curls from the bondage of her velvet hood. The driver swung himself
down and came toward her with the unhasting swiftness of one trained
to the unexpected.
"I beg pardon--can I be of some use?" he asked.
"We are lost," she confessed hurriedly. "If you could set us right, I
should be grateful. I--we must get home soon. I have been a guest at a
house somewhere here, and started to return to New York this
afternoon. The chauffeur does not know Long Island; we can not seem
to find any place. And now we have lost a tire. I was afraid--"
She broke off abruptly, as her companion descended from the limousine.
"We only want to know the way; we're all right," he explained. "This
is my cousin; I came out after her, you see. Don't get so worried,
Emily--we'll go straight on as soon as Anderson changes the tire."
He huddled his words slightly and spoke too rapidly, the round,
good-humored face he turned to the white light was too flushed;
otherwise there was nothing unusual in his appearance. And his caste
was evident and unquestionable, in spite of any circumstance. There
was no anger in the girl's dark eyes as she gazed straight before her,
only pity and helpless distress.
"I can tell your chauffeur the road," the driver of the gray car
quietly said. "Have you far to go?"
"To the St. Royal," she answered, looking at him. "My uncle is there.
Is that far?"
"No; you can reach there by ten o'clock. I will speak to your
chauffeur."
"Do, like a good fellow," the other man interposed. "Awfully obliged.
You're not angry, Emily," he added, lowering his voice, and moving
nearer her. "Since we're engaged, why should you get frightened simply
because I proposed we get married to-night instead of waiting for a
big wedding? I thought it was a good idea, you know. It isn't my fault
Anderson got lost instead of getting us home for dinner, is it?"
"Hush, Dick," she rebuked, hot color sweeping her face. "You, you are
not well. And we are not engaged; you forget. Just because people want
us to be--" Too proud to let her steadiness quiver, she broke the
sentence.
If the driver had heard, and it was scarcely possible that he had not,
he made no sign. By the acetylene light he produced an envelope and
pencil, and proceeded to sketch a map, showing the route to the
limousine's chauffeur.
"Understand it?" he queried, concluding. He had a certain decision of
manner, not in the least arrogant, but the result of a serene
self-surety that somehow accorded with his lithe, trained grace of
movement. A judge of men would have read him an athlete, perhaps in an
unusual line.
"Yes, sir," the chauffeur replied. "I'll get Miss Ffrench home in no
time after I get the tire on."
The indiscretion of the spoken name was ignored, except for a slight
lift of the hearer's eyebrows.
"How long does it take you to change a tire?"
"About half an hour; it's night, of course."
An odd, choking gurgle sounded from the gray machine, where a dark
figure had sat until now in quiescent muteness.
"Half an hour!" echoed the gray machine's driver, and faced toward the
chuckle. "Rupert, it isn't in your contract, but do you want to come
over and change this tire?"
"I'll do it for you, Darling," was the sweet response; the small
figure rolled over the edge of the car with a cat-like celerity.
"Where are your tools, you chauffeur? Quick!"
The bewildered chauffeur mechanically reached for a box on the
running-board, as the young assistant came up, grinning all over his
malign dark face.
"Oh, quicker! What's the matter, rheumatism? They wouldn't have you in
a training camp for motor trucks on Sunday. Hustle, _please_."
There never had been anything done to that sedate limousine quite as
this was done. Even the preoccupied girl looked on in fascination at a
rapidity of unwasted movement suggesting a conjuring feat.
"By George!" exclaimed her escort. "A splendid man you've got there!
Really, a splendid chauffeur, you know."
The driver smiled with a gleam of irony, but disregarded the comment.
"Would you like to get into your car?" he asked the girl. "You will be
able to start very soon."
"I see that," she acknowledged gratefully. "Thank you; I would rather
wait here."
"Is your chauffeur trustworthy?"
"Oh, yes; he has been in my uncle's employ for three years. But he was
never before out here, in this place."
There was a pause, filled by the soft monotone of insults drifting
from the side of the limousine, for Rupert talked while he worked and
his fellow-worker did not please him.
"Wrench, baby hippo! Oh, look behind you where you put it--you need a
memory course. You ought to be passing spools to a lady with a
sewing-machine. Did you ever see a motor-car before? There, pump her
up, do." He rose, drew out his watch and glanced at it. "Five minutes;
I'll have to beat that day after to-morrow."
The driver looked over at him and their eyes laughed together. Now,
for the first time, the girl noticed that across the shoulders of both
men's jerseys ran in silver letters the name of a famous foreign
automobile.
"I am very grateful, indeed," she said bravely and graciously. "I wish
I could say more, or say it better. The journey will be short, now."
But all her dignity could not check the frightened shrinking of her
glance, first toward the interior of the limousine and then toward the
man who was to enter there with her. And the driver of the gray
machine saw it.
"We have done very little," he returned. "May I put you in your car?"
The chauffeur was gathering his tools, speechlessly outraged, and
making ready to start. Seated among the rugs and cushions, under the
light of the luxurious car, the girl deliberately drew off her glove
and held out her small uncovered hand to the driver of the gray
machine.
"Thank you," she said again, meeting his eyes with her own, whose
darkness contrasted oddly with the blonde curls clustered under her
hood.
"You are not afraid to drive into the city alone?" he asked.
"Alone! Why, my cousin--"
"Your cousin is going to stay with me."
She flung back her head; amazement, question, relief struggled over
her sensitive face, and finally melted into irrepressible mirth under
the fine amusement of his regard.
"You are clever--and kind, to do that! No, I am not afraid."
He closed the door.
"Take your mistress home," he bade the chauffeur. "Crank for him,
Rupert."
"Why, why--" stammered the limousine's other passenger, turning as the
motor started.
No one heeded him.
"By-by, don't break any records," Rupert called after the chauffeur.
"Hold yourself in, do. If you shed any more tires, telegraph for me,
and if I'm within a day's run I'll come put them on for you and save
you time."
Silence closed in again, as the red tail-light vanished around a bend.
The gray car's driver nodded curtly to the stupefied youth in the
middle of the road.
"Unless you want to stay here all night, you'd better get in the
machine," he suggested. "My name's Lestrange--I suppose yours is
Ffrench?"
"Dick Ffrench. But, see here, you mean well, but I'm going with my
cousin. I'd like a drive with you, but I'm busy."
"You're not fit to go with your cousin."
"Not--"
"Fit," completed Lestrange definitely. "Can you hang on somewhere,
Rupert?"
"I can," Rupert assured, with an inflection of his own. "Get your
friend aboard."
Lestrange was already in his seat, waiting.
"What's that for?" asked the dazed guest, as, on taking his place, a
strap was slipped around his waist, securing him to the seat.
"So you won't fall out," soothed the grinning Rupert. "You ain't well,
you know. Not that I'd care if you did, but somebody might blame
Darling."
The car leaped forward, gathering speed to an extent that was a
revelation in motoring to Ffrench. The keen air, the giddy rush
through the dark, were a sobering tonic. After a while he spoke to the
man beside him, nervously embarrassed by a situation he was beginning
to appreciate.
"This is a racing car?"
"It was."
"Isn't it now?"
"If I were going to race it day after to-morrow, I wouldn't be risking
it over a country road to-night. A racing machine is petted like a
race-horse until it is wanted."
"And then?"
"It takes its chances. If you are connected with the Ffrenches who
manufacture the Mercury car, you should know something of automobile
racing yourself. I noticed your limousine was of that make."
"Yes, that is my uncle's company. I did see a race once at Coney
Island. A car turned over and killed its driver and made a nasty muss.
I--I didn't fancy it."
A wheel slipped off a stone, giving the car a swerving lurch which was
as instantly corrected--with a second lurch--by its pilot. The effect
was not tranquilizing; the shock swept the last confusion from
Ffrench's brain.
"Where are you taking me?" he presently asked.
"Where do you want to go? I will set you down at the next village we
come to; you can stay there to-night or you can get a trolley to the
city."
The question remained unanswered. Several times Ffrench glanced,
rather diffidently, at his companion's clear, firm profile, and looked
away again without speaking.
"I went out to get my cousin to-day, and my host gave me a couple of
highballs," he volunteered, at last. "I don't know what you thought--"
Lestrange twisted his car around a belated farm-wagon.
"How old are you?" he inquired calmly.
"Twenty-three."
"I'm nearly twenty-seven. That's what I thought."
The simpler mind considered this for a space.
"Some men are born awake, some awake themselves, and some are shaken
into awakening," paraphrased Lestrange, in addition. "If I were you,
I'd wake up; it comes easier and it's sure to arrive anyhow. There is
the village ahead--shall I stop?"
"It looks terribly dull," was the doleful verdict.
"Then come with me," flashed the other unexpectedly; for a fractional
instant his eyes left the road and turned to his companion's face.
"Did you ever see race practice at dawn? Come try a night in a
training camp."
"You'd bother with me?"
"Yes."
A head bobbed up by Ffrench's knee, where Rupert was clinging in some
inexplicable fashion.
"Once I rode eight miles out there by the hood, head downward, holding
in a pin," he imparted, by way of entertainment.
Ffrench stared at the reeling perch indicated, and gasped.
"What for?" he asked.
"So we could keep on to our control instead of being put out of the
running, of course. Did you guess I was curing a headache?"
"But you might have been killed!" exclaimed Ffrench.
Even by the semi-light of the lamps there was visible the
mechanician's droll twist of lip and brow.
"I'd drive to hell with Lestrange," he explained sweetly, and settled
back in his place.
Ffrench drew a long breath. After a moment he again looked at the
driver.
"I'll come," he accepted. "And, thank you."
It was Lestrange who smiled this time, with a sudden and enchanting
warmth of mirth.
"We'll try to amuse you," he promised.
II
It was a business consultation that was being held in Mr. Ffrench's
firelit library, in spite of the presence of a tea-table and the young
girl behind it. A consultation between the two partners who composed
the Mercury Automobile Company, of whom the lesser was speaking with a
certain anecdotal weight.
"And he said he was losing too much time on the turns; so the next
round he took the bend at seventy-two miles an hour. He went over, of
course. The third car we've lost this year; I'm glad the season's
closed."
Emily Ffrench gave an exclamation, her velvet eyes widening behind
their black lashes.
"But the driver! Was the poor driver hurt, Mr. Bailey?"
"He wasn't killed, Miss Emily," answered Bailey, with a tinge of
pensive regret. He was a large, ruddy, white-haired man, with the slow
and careful habit of speech sometimes found in those who live much
with massive machinery. "No, he wasn't killed; he's in the hospital.
But he wrecked as good a car as ever was built, through sheer
foolishness. It costs money."
Mr. Ffrench responded to the indirect appeal with more than usual
irritation, his level gray eyebrows contracting.
"We ought to have better drivers. Why do you not get better men,
Bailey? You wanted to go into this racing business; you said the cars
needed advertising. My brother always attended to that side of the
factory affairs, while he lived, with you as his manager. Now it is
altogether in your hands. Why do you not find a proper driver?"
"Perhaps my hands are not used to holding so much," mused Bailey
unresentfully. "A man might be a good manager, maybe, and weak as a
partner. It isn't the same job. But a first-class driver isn't easy to
get, Mr. Ffrench. There's Delmar killed, and George tied up with
another company, and Dorian retired, all this last season; and we
don't want a foreigner. There's only one man I like--"
"Well, get him. Pay him enough."
Bailey hunched himself together and crossed his legs.
"Yes, sir. He's beaten our cars--and others--every race lately, with
poorer machines, just by sheer pretty driving. He drives fast, yet he
don't knock out his car. But there's a lot after him--there's just one
way we could get him, and get him for keeps."
"And that?"
"He's ambitious; he wants to get into something more solid than
racing. If we offered to make him manager, he'd come and put some new
ideas, maybe, into the factory, and race our cars wherever we chose to
enter them. I know him pretty well."
The proposition was advanced tentatively, with the hesitation of one
venturing in unknown places. But Ethan Ffrench said nothing, his gray
eyes fixed on the hearth.
"He understands motor construction and designing, and he's been with
big foreign firms," Bailey resumed, after waiting. "He'd be useful
around; I can't be everywhere. What he'd do for us in racing would
help a whole lot. It's very well to make a fine standard car, but it
needs advertising to keep people remembering. And men like to say 'my
machine is the same as Lestrange won the Cup race with.' They like
it."
"I don't know," said Mr. Ffrench slowly, "that it is dignified for the
manager of the Mercury factory to be a racing driver."
"The Christine cars are driven by the son of the man who makes them,"
was the response. "Some drive their own."
"The son of the man who makes them," repeated the other. He turned his
face still more to the quivering fire, his always severe expression
hardening strangely and bitterly. "The son--"
The girl rose to draw the crimson curtains before the windows and to
push an electric switch, filling the room with a subdued golden glow
in place of the late afternoon grayness. Her delicate face, as she
regarded her uncle, revealed most strongly its characteristic
over-earnestness and a sensitive reflection of the moods of those
around her. Emily Ffrench's childhood had been passed in a Canadian
convent, and something of its mysticism clung about her. As the
cheerful change she had wrought flashed over the room, Mr. Ffrench
held out his hand in a gesture of summons, so that she came across to
sit on the broad arm of his chair during the rest of the conference,
her soft gaze resting on the third member.
"My adopted son and nephew having no such talents, we must do the best
we can," Mr. Ffrench stated, with his most precise coldness. "Being
well-born and well-bred, he has no taste for a mechanic's labor or for
circus performances with automobiles in public. Who is your man,
Bailey?"
"Lestrange, sir. You must have heard of him often."
"I never read racing news."
"I read ours," said Bailey darkly. "We've been licked often enough by
him. And he's straight--he's one of the few men who'll stop at the
grand-stand and lose time reporting a smash-up and sending help
around. Every man on the track likes Darling Lestrange."
"Likes _whom_?"
Bailey flushed brick-red.
"I didn't mean to call him that. He signs himself D. Lestrange, and
some of them started reading it Darling, joking because he was such a
favorite and because they liked him anyhow. It's just a nickname."
Emily laughed out involuntarily, surprised.
"I beg pardon," she at once apologized, "but it sounded so frivolous."
"If you try this man, you had better keep that nickname out of the
factory," Mr. Ffrench advised stiffly. "What respect could the workmen
feel for a manager with such a title? If possible, you would do well
to prevent them from recognizing him as the racing driver."
Bailey, who had risen at the chime of a clock, halted amazed.
[Illustration]
"Respect for him!" he echoed. "Not recognize him! Why, there isn't a
man on the place who wouldn't give his ears to be seen on the same
side of the street with Lestrange, let alone to work under him. They
_do_ read the racing news. That part of it will be all right, if I can
have him."
"If it is necessary--"
"I think it is, sir."
Emily moved slightly, pushing back her yellow-brown curls under the
ribbon that banded them. On a sudden impulse her uncle looked up at
her.
"What is your opinion?" he questioned. "If Dick had been listening I
should have asked his, and I fancy yours is fully as valuable. Come,
shall we have this racing manager?"
Astonished, she looked from her uncle to the other man. And perhaps it
was the real anxiety and suspense of Bailey's expression that drew her
quick reply.
"Let us, uncle. Since we need him, let us have him."
"Very well," said Mr. Ffrench. "You hear, Bailey."
There was a long silence after the junior partner's withdrawal.
"Come where I can see you, Emily," her uncle finally demanded. "I
liked your decided answer a few moments ago; you can reason. How long
have you been a daughter in my house?"
"Six years," she responded, obediently moving to a low chair opposite.
"I was fifteen when you took me from the convent--to make me very,
very happy, dear."
"I sent for you when I sent for Dick, and for the same reason. I have
tried three times to rear one of my name to fitness to bear it, and
each one has failed except you. I wish you were a man, Emily; there
is work for a Ffrench to do."
"When you say that, I wish I were. But--I'm not, I'm not." She flung
out her slender, round arms in a gesture of helpless resignation. "I'm
not even a strong-minded woman who might do instead. Uncle Ethan, may
I ask--it was Mr. Bailey who made me think--my cousin whom I never
saw, will he never come home?"
Her voice faltered on the last words, frightened at her own daring.
But her uncle answered evenly, if coldly:
"Never."
"He offended you so?"
"His whole life was an offense. School, college, at home, in each he
went wrong. At twenty-one he left me and married a woman from the
vaudeville stage. It is not of him you are to think, Emily, but of a
substitute for him. For that I designed Dick; once I hoped you would
marry him and sober his idleness."
"Please, no," she refused gently. "I am fond of Dick, but--please,
no."
"I am not asking it of you. He is well enough, a good boy, not
overwise, but not what is needed here. Failed, again; I am not
fortunate. There is left only you."
"Me?"
Her startled dark eyes and his determined gray ones met, and so
remained.
"You, and your husband. Are you going to marry a man who can take my
place in this business, in the factory and the model village my
brother and I built around it; a man whose name will be fit to join
with ours and so in a fashion preserve it here? Will you wait until
such a one is found and will you aid me to find him? Or will you too
follow selfish, idle fancies of your own?"
"No!" she answered, quite pale. "I would not do that! I will try to
help."
"You will take up the work the men of your name refuse, you will
provide a substitute for them?"
Her earnestness sprang to meet his strength of will, she leaned nearer
in her enthusiasm of self-abnegation, scarcely understood.
"I will find a substitute or accept yours. I, indeed I will try not to
fail."
It was characteristic that he offered neither praise nor caress.
"You have relieved my mind," said Ethan Ffrench, and turned his face
once more to the fire.
III
It was October when the consultation was held in the library of the
old Ffrench house on the Hudson; December was very near on the sunny
morning that Emily drove out to the factory and sought Bailey in his
office.
"I wanted to talk with you," she explained, as that gentleman rose to
receive her. "We have known each other for a long time, Mr. Bailey;
ever since I came from the Sacred Heart to live with Uncle Ethan. That
is a _very_ long time."
"It's a matter of five or six years," agreed the charmed Bailey,
contemplating her with affectionate pride in her prettiness and grace.
"You used to drive out here with your pony and spend many an hour
looking on and asking questions. You'll excuse me, Miss Emily, but
there was many a man passed the whisper that you'd have made a fine
master of the works."
She shook her head, folding her small gloved hands upon the edge of
the desk at the opposite sides of which they were seated.
"At least I would have tried. I am quite sure I would have tried. But
I am only a girl. I came to ask you something regarding that," she
lifted her candid eyes to his, her soft color rising. "Do you
know--have you ever met any men who cared and understood about such
factories as this? Men who could take charge of a business, the
manufacturing and racing and selling, like my uncles? I have a reason
for asking."
"Sure thing," said Bailey, unexpectedly prompt. "I've met one man who
knows how to handle this factory better than I do, and I've been at it
twelve years. And there he is--" he turned in his revolving chair and
rolled up the shade covering the glass-set door into the next room,
"my manager, Lestrange."
The scene thus suddenly opened to the startled Emily was sufficiently
matter-of-fact, yet not lacking in a certain sober animation of its
own. Around a drafting table central in the bare, systematic disorder
of the apartment beyond, three or four blue-shirted men were grouped,
bending over a set of drawings, which Lestrange was explaining.
Explaining with a vivid interest in his task that sparkled over his
clear face in a changing play of expression almost mesmeric in its
command of attention. The men watched and listened intently; they
themselves no common laborers, but the intelligent workmen who were to
carry out the ideas here set forth. Wherever Lestrange had been, he
was coatless and the sleeves of his outing shirt were rolled back,
leaving bare the arms whose smooth symmetry revealed little of the
racing driver's strength; his thick brown hair was rumpled into boyish
waves and across his forehead a fine black streak wrote of recent
personal encounter with things practical.
"Oh!" exclaimed Emily faintly. And after a moment, "Close the curtain,
please."
None of the group in the next room had noticed the movement of the
shade, absorbed in one another; any sound being muffled by the throb
of adjacent machinery. Bailey obeyed the request, and leaned back in
his chair.
"That's Darling Lestrange," he stated with satisfaction. "That's his
own design for an oiling system he's busy with, and it's a beauty.
He's entered for every big race coming this season, starting next week
in Georgia, and meantime he oversees every department in every
building as it never was done before. The man for me, he is."
Emily made an unenthusiastic sign of agreement.
"I meant very different men from Mr. Lestrange," she replied, her
dignity altogether Ffrench. "I have no doubt that he is all you say,
but I was thinking of another class. I meant--well, I meant a
gentleman."
"Oh, you meant a gentleman," replied Bailey, surveying her oddly. "I
didn't know, you see. No; I don't know any one like that."
"Thank you. Then I will go. I--it does not matter."
She did not go, however, but remained leaning on the arm of her chair
in troubled reverie, her long lashes lowered. Bailey sat as quietly,
watching her and waiting.
The murmur of voices came dully through the closed door, one, lighter
and clearer in tone, most frequently rising above the roar pervading
the whole building. It was not possible that Emily's glimpse of
Lestrange across the glass should identify him absolutely with the man
she had seen once in the flickering lights and shadows on the Long
Island road; but he was not of a type easily forgotten, and she had
been awakened to a doubting recognition.
Now, many little circumstances recurred to her; a strangeness in
Dick's manner when the new manager was alluded to, the fact that her
rescuer on that October night had been driving a racing car and had
worn a racing costume; and lastly, when Bailey spoke of "Darling"
Lestrange there had flashed across her mind the mechanician's
ridiculous answer to the request to aid her chauffeur in changing a
tire: "I'll do it for you, Darling." And listening to that dominant
voice in the next room, she slowly grew crimson before a vision of
herself in the middle of a country road, appealing to a stranger for
succor, like the heroine of melodramatic fiction. Decidedly, she
would never see Lestrange, never let him discover Miss Ffrench.
"I will go," she reiterated, rising impetuously.
The glass-set door opened with unwarning abruptness.
"I'll see Mr. Bailey," declared some one. "He'll know."
Helpless, Emily stood still, and straightway found herself looking
directly into Lestrange's gray eyes as he halted on the threshold.
It was Bailey who upheld the moment, all unconsciously.
"Come in," he invited heartily. "Miss Ffrench, this is our manager,
Mr. Lestrange; the man who's going to double our sales this year."
Emily moved, then straightened herself proudly, lifting her small
head. Lestrange had recognized her, she felt; the call was to
courage, not flight.
"I think I have already met Mr. Lestrange," she said composedly. "I am
pleased to meet him again."
"Met him!" cried Bailey. "Met him? Why--"
Neither heeded him. A gleaming surprise and warmth lit Lestrange's
always brilliant face.
"Thank you," he answered her. "You are more than good to recall me,
Miss Ffrench. I owe an apology for breaking in this way, but I fancied
Mr. Bailey alone--and he spoils me."
"It is nothing; I was about to go." She turned to give Bailey her
hand, smiling involuntarily in her relief. With a glance, an
inflection, Lestrange had stripped their former meeting of its
embarrassment and unconventionality, how, she neither analyzed nor
cared.
"Good morning," said Bailey. "Shall I take you through, or--"
But Lestrange was already holding open the door, with a bright
unconcern as to his workmanlike costume which impressed Emily
pleasantly. She wondered if Dick would have borne the situation as
well, in the impossible event of his being found at work.
The two walked together down an aisle of the huge, machinery-crowded
room, the grimy men lifting their heads to gaze after Emily as she
passed. Once Lestrange paused to speak to a man who sat, note-book and
pencil in hand, beside another who manipulated under a grinding wheel
a delicate aluminum casting.
"Pardon," he apologized to Emily, who had lingered also. "Mathews
would have let that go wrong in another moment. He," his smile glanced
out, "he is not a Rupert at changing his tires, so to speak, but just
a good chauffeur."
The gay and natural allusion delighted her. For the first time in her
life Emily Ffrench laughed out in a genuine, mischievous sense of
adventure.
"Yes? I wonder you could separate yourself from that Rupert to come
here; he was a most bewildering person," she retorted.
"Separate from Rupert? Why, I would not think of racing a taxicab, as
he would say, without Rupert beside me. He is here taking a
post-graduate course in this type of car, in order to be up to his
work when we go down to Georgia next week."
"Next week? You expect to win that race?"
"No. We are running a stock car against some heavy foreign racing
machines; the chance of winning is slight. But I hope to outrun any
other American car on the course, if nothing goes wrong."
She looked up.
"And if something does?" she wondered.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Pray be careful of those moving belts behind you, Miss Ffrench. If
something does--there is a chance in every game worth playing."
"A chance!" her feminine nerves recoiled from the implied
consequences. "But only a chance, surely. You were never in an
accident, never were hurt?"
Lestrange regarded her in surprise mingled with a dawning raillery
infinitely indulgent.
"I had no accidents last season," he guardedly responded. "I've been
quite lucky. At least Rupert and I play our game unhampered; there
will be no broken hearts if we are picked up from under our car some
day."
They had reached the door while he spoke; as he put his hand on the
knob to open it, Emily saw a long zigzag scar running up the extended
arm from wrist to elbow, a mute commentary on the conversation. In
silence she passed out across the courtyard to where her red-wheeled
cart waited. But when Lestrange had put her in and given her the
reins, she held out her hand to him with more gravity.
"I shall wish you good luck for next week," she said.
Lestrange threw back his head, drawing a quick breath; here in the
strong sunlight he showed even younger than she had thought him, young
with a primitive intensity of just being alive.
"Thank you. I would like--if it were possible--to win this race."
"This one, especially?"
"Yes, because it is the next step toward a purpose I have set myself,
and which I shall accomplish if I live. Not that I will halt if this
step fails, no, nor for a score of such failures, but I am anxious to
go on and finish."
Up to Emily's face rushed the answering color and fire to his; drawn
by the bond of mutual earnestness, she leaned nearer.
"You live to do something? So do I, so do I! And every one else
_plays_."
However Lestrange would have replied, he was checked by the crash of
the courtyard gate. Abruptly recalled to herself, Emily turned, to see
Dick Ffrench coming toward them.
Remembering how the three had last met, the situation suggested
strain. But to Emily's astonishment the young men exchanged friendly
nods, although Dick flushed pink.
"Good morning, Lestrange," he greeted. "I've just come up from the
city, Emily, and there wasn't any carriage at the station, so when one
of the testers told me you were here I came over to get a ride."
"I've been to see Mr. Bailey," she responded. "Get in."
As Dick climbed in beside her, she bent her head to Lestrange; if she
had regretted her impulsive confidence, again the clear sanity and
calm of the gray eyes she encountered established self-content.
When they were trotting down the road toward home, in the crisp air,
Emily glanced at her cousin.
"I did not know you and Mr. Lestrange were so well acquainted," she
remarked.
"I see him now and then," Dick answered uneasily. "He's too busy to
want me bothering around him much. You--remembered him?"
"Yes."
He absently took the whip from its socket, flecking the horse with it
as he spoke.
"It was awfully square of you, Emily, not to mention that night to
Uncle Ethan. It wasn't like a girl, at all. I made an idiot of
myself, and you've never said anything to me about it since. I never
told you where Lestrange took me, because I didn't like to talk of the
thing. I'm really awfully fond of you, cousin."
"Yes, Dickie," she said patiently.
"Well, Lestrange rubbed it in. Oh, he didn't say much. But he carried
me down to where they were practising for a road race. Such a jolly
lot of fellows, like a bunch of kids; teasing and calling jokes back
and forth at one another half the night until daybreak, everything raw
and chilly. Busy, and their mechanics busy, and one after another
swinging into his car and going off like a rocket. By the time
Lestrange went off, I was as much stirred up as anybody. When he made
a record circuit at seventy-seven miles an hour average, I was
shouting over the rail like a good one. And then, while he was off
again, a big blue car rolled in and its driver yelled that Lestrange
had gone over on the Eastbury turn, and to send around the ambulance.
It was like a nightmare; I sat down on a stone and felt sick."
"He--"
"He shook me up half an hour later, and stood laughing at me. 'Upset?'
he said. 'No; we shed a tire and went off into a field, but it didn't
hurt the machine, so we righted her and came in.' He was limping and
bruised and scratched, but he was laughing, while a crowd of people
were trying to shake hands with him and say things. I felt--funny; as
if I wasn't much good. I never felt like that before. 'This is only
practise,' he said, when I was about to go. 'The race to-morrow will
do better. We find it more exciting than cocktails.' That was all, but
I knew what he meant, all right. I've been careful ever since. He won
the race next day, too."
"Dick, didn't it ever occur to you that you as well as Mr. Lestrange
might do real things?" she asked, after a moment.
He turned his round, good-humored face to her in boundless amazement.
"I? I race cars and break my neck and call it fun, like Lestrange?
You're laughing at me, Emily."
"No, no," in spite of herself the picture evoked brought her smile.
"Not like that. But you might be interested in the factory. You might
learn from Mr. Bailey and take charge of the business with Uncle
Ethan. It would please uncle, _how_ it would please him, if you
did!"
[Illustration]
Dick stirred unhappily.
"It would take a lot of grind," he objected. "I haven't the head for
it, really. I'm not such an awfully bad lot, but I hate work. Let's
not be serious, cousin. How pretty the frosty wind makes you look!"
Emily tightened the reins with a brief sigh of resignation.
"Never mind, Dickie. I--uncle will find a substitute. Things must go
on somehow, I suppose, even if we do not like the way."
But the way loomed distasteful that morning as never before.
IV
Mr. Ffrench and his niece were at breakfast, on the Sunday when the
first account of the Georgia race reached Ffrenchwood.
"You will take fresh coffee," Emily was saying, the little silver pot
poised in her hand, when the door burst open and Dick hurried,
actually hurried, into the room.
"He's won! He's got it!" he cried, brandishing the morning newspaper.
"The first time for an American car with an American driver. And how
he won it! He distanced every car on the track except the two big
Italian and French machines. Those he couldn't get, of course; but the
Frenchman went out in the fourth hour with a broken valve. Then he
was set down for second place--second place, Emily, with every other
big car in the country entered. They say he drove like, like--I don't
know what. A hundred and some miles an hour on the straight
stretches."
"Oh," Emily faltered, setting down the coffee-pot in her plate.
He stopped her eagerly, half turning toward Mr. Ffrench, who had put
on his pince-nez to contemplate his nephew in stupefaction, not at his
statement, but at his condition.
"Wait. In the last hour, the Italian car lost its chain and went over
into a ditch on a back stretch, three miles from a doctor. People
around picked the men out of the wreck, and Lestrange came up to find
that the driver was likely to die from a severed artery before help
got there. Emily, he stopped, stopped, with victory in his hands, had
the Italian lifted into the mechanician's seat, and Rupert held him in
while they dashed around the course to the hospital. He got him there
fifteen minutes before an ambulance could have reached him, and the
man will get well. But Lestrange had lost six minutes. He had rushed
straight to the doctor's, given them the man, and gone right on, but
he had lost six minutes. When people realized what he'd done, they
went wild. Every one thought he'd lost the race, but they cheered him
until they couldn't shout. And he kept on driving. It's all here," he
waved the gaudy sheet. "The paper's full of it. He had half an hour to
make up six minutes, and he did it. He came in nineteen seconds ahead
of the nearest car. The crowd swarmed out on the course and fell all
over him. Old Bailey's nearly crazy."
To see Dick excited would have been marvel enough to hold his auditors
mute, if the story itself had not possessed a quality to stir even
non-sporting blood. Emily could only sit and gaze at the head-lines of
the extended newspaper, her dark eyes wide and shining, her soft lips
apart.
"He telegraphed to Bailey," Dick added, in the pause. "Ten words:
'First across line in Georgia race. Car in fine shape. Lestrange.'
That was all."
Mr. Ffrench deliberately passed his coffee-cup to Emily.
"You had better take your breakfast," he advised. "It is unusual to
see you noticing business affairs, Dick; I might say unprecedented. I
am glad if Bailey's new man is capable of his work, at least. I
suppose for the rest, that he could scarcely do less than take an
injured person to the hospital. Why are you putting sugar in my cup,
Emily?"
"I don't know," she acknowledged helplessly.
"I didn't mean to disturb any one," said Dick, sulky and resentful.
"It'll be a big thing though for our cars, Bailey says. I didn't know
you disliked Lestrange."
Mr. Ffrench stiffened in his chair.
"I have not sufficient interest in the man to dislike him," was the
cold rebuke. "We will change the subject."
Emily bent her head, remedying her mistake with the coffee. She
comprehended that her uncle had conceived one of his strong, silent
antipathies for the young manager, and she was sorry. Sorry, although,
remembering Bailey's unfortunate speech the night Lestrange's
engagement was proposed, she was not surprised. But she looked across
to Dick sympathetically. So sympathetically, that after breakfast he
followed her into the library, the colored journals in his hand.
"What's the matter with the old gentleman this morning?" he
complained. "He wants the business to succeed, doesn't he? If he does,
he ought to like what Lestrange is doing for it. What's the matter
with him?"
Emily shook back her yellow curls, turning her gaze on him.
"You might guess, Dickie. He is lonely."
"Lonely! He!"
All the feminine impulse to defend flared up.
"Why not?" she exclaimed with passion. "Who has he got? Who stands
with him in his house? No wonder he can not bear the man who is hired
to do what a Ffrench should be doing. It is not the racing driver he
dislikes, but the manager. And do not you blame him, Dick Ffrench."
Quite aghast, he stared after her as she turned away to the nearest
window. But presently he followed her over, still holding the papers.
"Don't you want to read about the race?" he ventured.
Smiling, though her lashes were damp, Emily accepted the peace
offering.
"Yes, please."
"You're not angry? You know I'm a stupid chump sometimes; I don't mean
it."
This time she laughed outright.
"No; I am sorry I was cross. It is I who would like to shirk my work.
Never mind me; let us read."
They did read, seated opposite each other in the broad window-seat and
passing the sheets across as they finished them. Dick had not
exaggerated, on the contrary he had not said enough. Lestrange and his
car were the focus of the hour's attention. The daring, the reckless
courage that risked life for victory, the generosity which could throw
that victory away to aid a comrade, and lastly the determination and
skill which had won the conquest after all--the whole formed a feat
too spectacular to escape public hysteria. It was very doubtful
indeed whether Lestrange liked his idolizing, but there was no escape.
The two who read were young.
"It was a splendid fight," sighed Dick, when they dropped the last
page.
"Yes," Emily assented. "When he comes back, when you see him, give him
my congratulations."
"When I see him? Why don't you tell him yourself?"
Something like a white shadow wiped the scarlet of excitement from her
cheeks, as she averted her face.
"I shall not see him; I shall not go to the factory any more. It will
be better, I am sure."
Vaguely puzzled and dismayed, Dick sat looking at her, not daring to
question.
Emily kept her word during the weeks that followed. Through Dick and
Bailey she heard of factory affairs; of the sudden increase of orders
for the Mercury automobiles, the added prestige gained, and the public
favor bestowed on the car. But she saw nothing of the man who was
responsible for all this. Instead she went out more than ever before.
Their social circle was too painfully exclusive to be large or gay.
Three times a week it was Mr. Ffrench's stately custom to visit the
factory and inspect it with Bailey. At other times Bailey came up to
the house, where affairs were conducted. But in neither place did Mr.
Ffrench ever come in contact with his manager, during all the months
while winter waxed and waned again to spring.
"That's Bailey's doing," chuckled Dick, when Emily finally wondered
aloud at the circumstance. "He isn't going to risk losing Lestrange
because our high and mighty uncle falls out with him. And it would be
pretty likely to happen if they met. Lestrange has a temper, you know,
even if it doesn't stick out all over him like a hedgehog; and a dozen
other companies would give money to get him."
Emily nodded gravely. It was a sunny morning in the first of March,
and the cousins were at the end of the old park surrounding
Ffrenchwood, where they had strolled before breakfast.
"Mr. Bailey likes Mr. Lestrange," she commented.
"Likes him! He loves him. You know Lestrange lives with him; a
bachelor household, cozy as grigs."
Just past here ran the road, beyond a high cedar hedge. While he was
speaking, the irregular explosive reports of a motor had sounded down
the valley, unmistakable to those familiar with the testing of the
stripped cars, and rapidly approaching. Now, as Emily would have
answered, the roar suddenly changed in character, an appalling series
of explosions mingled with the grind of outraged machinery suddenly
braked, and some one shouted above the din. The next instant a huge
mass shot past the other side of the hedge and there followed a dull
crash.
"That's one of our men!" gasped Dick, and plunged headlong through the
shrubbery.
Dazed momentarily, Emily stood, then caught up her skirts and ran
after him. She knew well enough what the testers of the cars risked.
"Dick!" she appealed. "Dick!"
But it was not the wreck she anticipated that met her eyes as she came
through the hedge. On the opposite side of the road a long low
skeleton car was standing, one side lurched drunkenly down with two
wheels in the gutter. Still in his seat, the driver was leaning over
the steering-wheel, out of breath, but laughing a greeting to the
astonished Dick.
"A break in the steering-gear," he declared, by way of explanation. "I
told Bailey it was a weak point; now perhaps he'll believe me and
strengthen it."
"You're not hurt," Dick inferred.
"I think she's not--a tire gone. Find anything wrong, Rupert?"
"Two tires off," said the laconic mechanician. "Two funerals
postponed. That was a pretty stop, Darling."
"Very," coolly agreed Lestrange, rising and removing his goggles.
"What's the matter, Ffrench?"
"You frightened us out of our five senses, that's all. Do you usually
practise for races out here?"
"_Us?_" repeated Lestrange, and turning, saw the girl at the edge of
the park. "Miss Ffrench, I beg your pardon!"
The swift change in his tone, the ease of deference with which he
bared his head and, motor caps not being readily donned or doffed, so
remained bareheaded in the bright sunlight, savored of the Continent.
"It is too commonplace to say good morning," Emily replied, her color
rising with her smile. "I am very glad you escaped. But that is
commonplace, too, I'm afraid."
"Every one is commonplace before breakfast," reassured her cousin.
"Honestly, Lestrange, do you practise racing here?"
"Hardly. I'm trying out the car; every car has to go through that
before it is used. Don't you know that we've recently secured from the
local authorities a permit to run at any speed over this road between
four o'clock and eight in the morning? I thought all the country-side
knew that."
"But we have a regiment of men to test cars."
Lestrange passed a caressing glance over the dingy-gray machine in its
state of bareness that suggested indecorum.
"This is my car, the one I'll race this spring and summer. No one
drives it but me. Besides, I have to have some diversion."
He stepped to the ground with the last word, and went around to where
Rupert was on his knees beside the machine.
"Can you fix it here?" he demanded.
"Not precisely," was the drawled reply. "Back to camp for it with a
horse in front."
"All right. You'll have to walk down and get a car from Mr. Bailey to
tow it home."
Rupert got up, his dark, malign little face twisted.
"If I'd broken a leg they'd have sent a cart for me," he mourned. "Now
I'll have to walk, and I ain't used to it. Hard luck!"
"If you go around to the stables they will give you my pony cart,"
Emily offered impulsively. "You," her dimpling smile gleamed out, "you
once put a tire on for me, you know. Please let me return the
service."
Rupert's black eyes opened, a slow grin of appreciation crinkled
streaks of dust and oil as he surveyed the young girl.
"I'll put tires on every wheel you run into control, day and night
shifts," he acknowledged with sweet cordiality. "But I'm no
horse-chauffeur, thanks; I guess I'll walk."
"He is a gentle pony," she remonstrated. "Any one can drive him."
He turned a side glance toward the motionless car.
"That's all right, but I'm used to being killed other ways. I'll be
going."
"Jack Rupert, do you mean to tell me that you will race with
Lestrange every season, and yet you're afraid to drive a fat cob?"
cried the delighted Dick.
"I'm not telling anything. I had a chum who was pitched out by a horse
he lost control of, and broke his neck. I'm taking no chances."
"How many men have you seen break their necks out of autos?"
"That's in business," pronounced Rupert succinctly. "I'm going on,
Darling; it's only a two-mile run."
"Here, wait," Dick urged. "Emily, I'll stroll around to the stables
with him and make one of the men drive him down. You don't mind my
leaving you?"
"No," Emily answered. "I will wait for you."
She might have walked back alone, if she had chosen. But instead she
sat down on a boulder near the hedge, folding her hands in her lap
like a demure child. The house was so dull, so hopelessly monotonous
contrasted with this fresh, wind-tossed outdoors and Lestrange in his
vigor of life and glamour of ultramodern adventure.
"You and Mr. Ffrench are very good," Lestrange said presently. "I am
afraid I appreciate it more than Rupert, though."
"Is he really afraid of horses?"
"I should not wonder; I never tried him. But he is amazingly
truthful."
Their eyes met across the strip of sunny road as they smiled; again
Emily felt the sudden confidence, the falling away of all constraint
before the direct clarity of his regard.
"You won your race," she said irrelevantly. "I was glad, since you
wanted it."
"Thank you," he returned with equal simplicity. "But I did not want it
that way, so far as I was concerned."
"Yet, it was the next step?"
"Yes, it was the next step. I meant that one does not care to be
victor because the leading cars were wrecked. There is no elation in
defeating a driver who lies out on the course. But, as you say, it
helped my purpose. You," he hesitated for the right phrase, "you are
most kind to recall that I have a purpose."
It was the convent-bred Emily who looked back at him, earnest-eyed,
exaltedly serious.