National Velvet (37 page)

    
“Good God!” said Lord Tunmarsh. “Open the window, Simkin.”

    
Mr. Simkin struggled with the dusty catch. Mr. Seckham helped him and the ancient window flew up. A roar flooded in on the air. The Committee listened.

    
“They want the child,” said the Chairman. “Taylor, go down and look after her. Bolt the doors, Simkin! Get down and see everything's shut. What's your back way out?”

    
“The bar's down across the street door, m'lord,” said the clerk. “But they're all up over the window sills. They seem to think Miss Brown is getting . . .”

    
“Getting what?”

    
“Two men, m'lord, shouted through the doorway as I was shutting it, 'You tick her off an' we'll cut your livers out!' m'lord.”

    
“ ‘Ticking her off' they think! Well, so we are. Come on, young Mits! You get her out the back way!”

    
“The crowd's gone round there like water flowing, m'lord.”

    
“I suppose there's a roof exit?” said the Chairman, looking at the ceiling. “These old massive roofs. . . . Where's your fire exit? Here she is!”

    
“I brought her up,” said Mi. “Such a din and faces at the windows. You better up here, an't you, Velvet?”

    
“What do they want?” said Velvet, looking white.

    
“To save you from us,” said the Chairman. “It looks to me as though you're going to get a Lindbergh-Amy-Johnson week. I suggest we suspend the Committee and that Captain Schreiber take the victim out over the roof. Here y'are, Mits! Take my card as Chairman.”

    
“The police are coming,” said Mr. Simkin, looking down. “Mounted police.”

    
“Oh, let me look!” said Velvet.

    
She hung out of the window and the crowd caught sight of her. A roar went up.

    
“Now you've done it!” said the Chairman.

    
It took the police an hour to disperse the crowd. Meanwhile Mits Schreiber, Velvet, Mi and a clerk crossed the roofs of Cavendish Square and descended by J. Denvers' “Cotton House.” They knocked at the glass window of the fire escape and were let in by a typist.

    
“Fire down the Square!” said the typist.

    
“Yes, we're from it,” said Mits briefly. “Is this the way down?”

    
They went down into the street by the iron staircase and were met by the Manager of the Cotton Works at the bottom.

    
“Card,” said Mits Schreiber. “Thank you very much. Thank that girl of yours for letting us through.”

    
“Fire, m'lord?” said the Manager.

    
“Kind of fire,” said Mits. “There's a taxi. Come on while the crowd's busy down there.”

    
They left the clerk behind and bundled into a taxi. Velvet and Mits sat together and Mi on the strap seat.

    
“Where d'you want to go?” said Mits to Mi.

    
“Victoria Station, sir,” said Mi. “But I'd like to take her to the pictures first.”

    
“I shouldn't,” said Mits Schreiber. “Not to-day. You'll be mobbed. They're still running the film of the
National. But you'll be mobbed if you put your nose inside. The place is simply feverish to-day.”

    
“Where to?” said the taxi-man again.

    
“Victoria Station,” said Mits, “and drop me off at Brook Street.” The taxi started. “I've got to get to Scotland to-night.”

    
“What'll you all do to us?” said Velvet timidly.

    
“Drop the whole thing of course,” said Mits absently. “But you won't get your money or your cup, you know.”

    
“That bay'll get it,” said Velvet. “He was a good bay.”

    
“I'm not sure you won't be officially warned off, too. No Newmarket Plate for you now.”

    
“Oh . . . THAT . . .” said Velvet.

    
“Yes, I forgot. It's not much after winning the Grand National. What are you going to do now?”

    
“Oh, jes' go home,” said Velvet. “I expect I'll go out an' have a look at the horse to-night.”

    
“Look here . . .” said Mits Schreiber earnestly. “We're getting to Brook Street. I've bin all over the world with horses an' I want to say this. You try to keep life just the same for you from now on. The public's been after you, but they're flogged tired, and they'll drop it soon. There'll be a tale about our flight tomorrow in the Press, and that clerk Cotton'll go an' give away what he dare. You've been having a queer kind of hot air puffing round you. You've bin blown up like a pink pig in the air fit to burst, and maybe now they'll let you die away with a squeak like a pink pig
does. Don't let me find you one day with a hard face an' a dirty bit of cigarette and nerves all gone to blazes, looking for this hot air again! It's bad stuff. Mi–What's yer name, look after her! Here I am. Stop, man, stop! Blast! he's over-shot the house. I bin some funny crowds an' I know! That child's bin written across the sky like somebody's pills. You see she gets over it! Good-bye, both of you. Off you go. Victoria Station, Brighton line.”

    
“Oh, isn't he nice!” said Velvet. “So they're going to let us off! Aren't they sweet, Mi? I say, Mi, have you got money for the taxi?”

    
“No, I haven't,” said Mi. “I got the tickets an' a shilling. I knew I hadn't.”

    
“It's two and nine,” said Velvet, leaning forward. “Here's the station, too.”

    
The taxi drew up and Mi opened the door and got out. As Velvet stood in the door there was a soft fluttering noise, like veiled pistols being shot into blankets. Velvet was snapped and snapped again from every angle. The black hoods of the cameras were turned on her in a set circle. She saw hooded men kneeling, squatting, standing. Mi clutched Velvet by the arm and swung her towards the taxi-man. “I'm short,” he said. “Ain't got it, Percy. Give you a shilling an' . . .”

    
“It's all right. I can lend it to you,” said a nice-looking boy in a blue suit.

    
(“Gentleman!” thought Mi.)

    
“Here y'are, taxi,” said the boy. “Look here, Miss
Brown, I've got a car here. I'll drive you . . . both . . . down to Brighton. Drive you home, see? Sports Bentley.”

    
“You the Press?” said Mi shortly.

    
“You come in my car and see,” said the boy. “I won't publish a thing you don't . . .”

    
“Come on, Velvet,” said Mi. “Run for it!”

    
It was too late. They couldn't run in a heavy sea. The crowd pressed in from behind to see what was happening. “What'sa matter? Accident? No, that girl that won the National. They're photographing her. Where? What? National Velvet!”

    
“National Velvet!” shouted the crowd as Mi and Velvet pressed slowly forward.

    
“Won't you let me pass!” said Velvet in a small voice. She had her foot trodden on. Several shook her hands. Left hand, right hand. She lost her purse.

    
“No fun about this,” muttered Mi. “This is awful.”

    
“My purse has dropped. Now I've no ticket,” she called to Mi.

    
“Leave it. Don't stoop down. You'll be trodden on,” said Mi, getting his arm round her.

    
They surged past the fruit shop and the telephone boxes and a door opened in the great ticket office and a man swept them inside. Velvet dropped on to a chair panting.

    
Half an hour later the police got them into their train. An hour later the red Buicks were tearing up the Embankment from Carmelite Street . . . “National Velvet at Victoria Station.”

    
“National Velvet had up before the Hunt Committee,” “Great Crowds in Cavendish Square. Flight with Lord Tunmarsh over the roofs,” (This was an error, owing to the card.)

    
The fever about her raged until the findings of the National Hunt Committee came out in the evening papers.
They had decided to drop the whole thing
.

    
Again the news machinery was set in motion. Cleared lines gulped that which sped along them. But by the morning the story was dead. The public had been overwhipped. It could stand no more. Dead news like dead love has no phænix in its ashes.

    
“Velvet Brown,” said the man in New York, whipping out his orders. “Cut her out. Old stuff. That Jane only rates a couple of sticks.”

    
Chrysanthemums, roses in winter, glacéd sweets, love letters, interviews, satin pillow-dolls,–the house had flowed with gifts, Edwina, Mally and Merry had eaten themselves sick, but Velvet, who did not care for flowers, could not stomach many sweets, did not read the love letters, never played with dolls, remained with her real desires sharp and intact, the ascending spirit with which she was threaded unquenched by surfeit.

    
While the glory had sedged and seethed about her she had been aware that as she moved so had the public
rippled. That she had been like a boat that made a wake, that waves on either side had clapped and sparkled.

    
But no one had learnt anything about her. No one had formed the slightest picture of her, and she had gathered an impression of isolation as she moved, was touched, hemmed in. Her thin face on the sheet of the cinema was not more strange than her portrait had been in the minds of those who had surrounded her. Her name, which had blazed in the sky, now hung there in a quiet corner with the letters unlit. The arch at the opening of the street first withered, then blew down. The village took her back. If people called her “National Velvet” it was in fun and affection, and like a dig in the ribs. It meant “What next, you little blighter! Get on with your growing.”

    
Mrs. Brown found an old trunk for the chocolate boxes and the flower ribbons and Mally's collection. It was April. The gymkhana summer was all before them.

    
Thus Velvet was not fifteen when the thing left her and passed on, the alienating substance, the glory-wine. She was like a child who is offered wine too young and does not really drink. She put her lips to the goblet while thinking of other things. She got off. She glanced the most acute and heady danger and got off. The Press blew, the public stared, hands flew out like a million little fishes after bread. Velvet had shone, a wonder, a glory, a miracle child.

    
And now, finished with that puzzling mixture of insane
intimacy and isolation which is notoriety, Velvet was able to get on quietly to her next adventures. For obviously she was a person to whom things happened, since in a year she had become an heiress, got a horse for a shilling, and won the Grand National.