The Palliser Novels (545 page)

“If you have no room for me,” he said to Mrs. Jones, “you must scold Lady Mab. She has told me that you told her to invite me.”

“Of course I did. Do you think I would not sleep in the stables, and give you up my own bed if there were no other? It is so good of you to come!”

“So good of you, Mrs. Jones, to ask me.”

“So very kind to come when all the attraction has gone!” Then he blushed and stammered, and was just able to say that his only object in life was to pour out his adoration at the feet of Mrs. Montacute Jones herself.

There was a certain Lady Fawn, — a pretty mincing married woman of about twenty-five, with a husband much older, who liked mild flirtations with mild young men. “I am afraid we’ve lost your great attraction,” she whispered to him.

“Certainly not as long as Lady Fawn is here,” he said, seating himself close to her on a garden bench, and seizing suddenly hold of her hand. She gave a little scream and a jerk, and so relieved herself from him. “You see,” said he, “people do make such mistakes about a man’s feelings.”

“Lord Silverbridge!”

“It’s quite true, but I’ll tell you all about it another time,” and so he left her. All these little troubles, his experience in the “House,” the necessity of snubbing Tifto, the choice of a wife, and his battle with Reginald Dobbes, were giving him by degrees age and flavour.

Lady Mabel had fluttered about him on his first coming, and had been very gracious, doing the part of an old friend. “There is to be a big shooting to-morrow,” she said, in the presence of Mrs. Jones.

“If it is to come to that,” he said, “I might as well go back to Dobbydom.”

“You may shoot if you like,” said Lady Mabel.

“I haven’t even brought a gun with me.”

“Then we’ll have a walk, — a whole lot of us,” she said.

In the evening, about an hour before dinner, Silverbridge and Lady Mabel were seated together on the bank of a little stream which ran on the other side of the road, but on a spot not more than a furlong from the hall-door. She had brought him there, but she had done so without any definite scheme. She had made no plan of campaign for the evening, having felt relieved when she found herself able to postpone the project of her attack till the morrow. Of course there must be an attack, but how it should be made she had never had the courage to tell herself. The great women of the world, the Semiramises, the Pocahontas, the Ida Pfeiffers, and the Charlotte Cordays, had never been wanting to themselves when the moment for action came. Now she was pleased to have this opportunity added to her; this pleasant minute in which some soft preparatory word might be spoken; but the great effort should be made on the morrow.

“Is not this nicer than shooting with Mr. Dobbes?” she asked.

“A great deal nicer. Of course I am bound to say so.”

“But in truth, I want to find out what you really like. Men are so different. You need not pay me any compliment; you know that well enough.”

“I like you better than Dobbes, — if you mean that.”

“Even so much is something.”

“But I am fond of shooting.”

“Only a man may have enough of it.”

“Too much, if he is subject to Dobbes, as Dobbes likes them to be. Gerald likes it.”

“Did you think it odd,” she said after a pause, “that I should ask you to come over again?”

“Was it odd?” he replied.

“That is as you may take it. There is certainly no other man in the world to whom I would have done it.”

“Not to Tregear?”

“Yes,” she said; “yes, — to Tregear, could I have been as sure of a welcome for him as I am for you. Frank is in all respects the same as a brother to me. That would not have seemed odd; — I mean to myself.”

“And has this been — odd, — to yourself?”

“Yes. Not that anybody else has felt it so. Only I, — and perhaps you. You felt it so?”

“Not especially. I thought you were a very good fellow. I have always thought that; — except when you made me take back the ring.”

“Does that still fret you?”

“No man likes to take back a thing. It makes him seem to have been awkward and stupid in giving it.”

“It was the value — “

“You should have left me to judge of that.”

“If I have offended you I will beg your pardon. Give me anything else, anything but that, and I will take it.”

“But why not that?” said he.

“Now that you have fitted it for a lady’s finger it should go to your wife. No one else should have it.”

Upon this he brought the ring once more out of his pocket and again offered it to her. “No; anything but that. That your wife must have.” Then he put the ring back again. “It would have been nicer for you had Miss Boncassen been here.” In saying this she followed no plan. It came rather from pique. It was almost as though she had asked him whether Miss Boncassen was to have the ring.

“What makes you say that?”

“But it would.”

“Yes, it would,” he replied stoutly, turning round as he lay on the ground and facing her.

“Has it come to that?”

“Come to what? You ask me a question and I answer you truly.”

“You cannot be happy without her?”

“I did not say so. You ask me whether I should like to have her here, — and I say Yes. What would you think of me if I said No?”

“My being here is not enough?” This should not have been said, of course, but the little speech came from the exquisite pain of the moment. She had meant to have said hardly anything. She had intended to be happy with him, just touching lightly on things which might lead to that attack which must be made on the morrow. But words will often lead whither the speaker has not intended. So it was now, and in the soreness of her heart she spoke. “My being here is not enough?”

“It would be enough,” he said, jumping on his feet, “if you understood all, and would be kind to me.”

“I will at any rate be kind to you,” she replied, as she sat upon the bank looking at the running water.

“I have asked Miss Boncassen to be my wife.”

“And she has accepted?”

“No; not as yet. She is to take three months to think of it. Of course I love her best of all. If you will sympathise with me in that, then I will be as happy with you as the day is long.”

“No,” said she, “I cannot. I will not.”

“Very well.”

“There should be no such marriage. If you have told me in
confidence — “

“Of course I have told you in confidence.”

“It will go no farther; but there can be no sympathy between us. It — it — it is not, — is not — ” Then she burst into tears.

“Mabel!”

“No, sir, no; no! What did you mean? But never mind. I have no questions to ask, not a word to say. Why should I? Only this, — that such a marriage will disgrace your family. To me it is no more than to anybody else. But it will disgrace your family.”

How she got back to the house she hardly knew; nor did he. That evening they did not again speak to each other, and on the following morning there was no walk to the mountains. Before dinner he drove himself back to Crummie-Toddie, and when he was taking his leave she shook hands with him with her usual pleasant smile.

The Leger this year was to be run on the 14th September, and while Lord Silverbridge was amusing himself with the deer at Crummie-Toddie and at Killancodlem with the more easily pursued young ladies, the indefatigable Major was hard at work in the stables. This came a little hard on him. There was the cub-hunting to be looked after, which made his presence at Runnymede necessary, and then that “pig-headed fellow, Silverbridge” would not have the horses trained anywhere but at Newmarket. How was he to be in two places at once? Yet he was in two places almost at once: cub-hunting in the morning at Egham and Bagshot, and sitting on the same evening at the stable-door at Newmarket, with his eyes fixed upon Prime Minister.

Gradually had he and Captain Green come to understand each other, and though they did at last understand each other, Tifto would talk as though there were no such correct intelligence; — when for instance he would abuse Lord Silverbridge for being pig-headed. On such occasions the Captain’s remark would generally be short. “That be blowed!” he would say, implying that that state of things between the two partners, in which such complaints might be natural, had now been brought to an end. But on one occasion, about a week before the race, he spoke out a little plainer. “What’s the use of your going on with all that before me? It’s settled what you’ve got to do.”

“I don’t know that anything is settled,” said the Major.

“Ain’t it? I thought it was. If it ain’t you’ll find yourself in the wrong box. You’ve as straight a tip as a man need wish for, but if you back out you’ll come to grief. Your money’s all on the other way already.”

On the Friday before the race Silverbridge dined with Tifto at the Beargarden. On the next morning they went down to Newmarket to see the horse get a gallop, and came back the same evening. During all this time, Tifto was more than ordinarily pleasant to his patron. The horse and the certainty of the horse’s success were the only subjects mooted. “It isn’t what I say,” repeated Tifto, “but look at the betting. You can’t get five to four against him. They tell me that if you want to do anything on the Sunday the pull will be the other way.”

“I stand to lose over £20,000 already,” said Silverbridge, almost frightened by the amount.

“But how much are you on to win?” said Tifto. “I suppose you could sell your bets for £5,000 down.”

“I wish I knew how to do it,” said Silverbridge. But this was an arrangement, which, if made just now, would not suit the Major’s views.

They went to Newmarket, and there they met Captain Green. “Tifto,” said the young Lord, “I won’t have that fellow with us when the horse is galloping.”

“There isn’t an honester man, or a man who understands a horse’s paces better in all England,” said Tifto.

“I won’t have him standing alongside of me on the Heath,” said his Lordship.

“I don’t know how I’m to help it.”

“If he’s there I’ll send the horse in; — that’s all.” Then Tifto found it best to say a few words to Captain Green. But the Captain also said a few words to himself.
“D––––
young fool; he don’t know what he’s dropping into.” Which assertion, if you lay aside the unnecessary expletive, was true to the letter. Lord Silverbridge was a young fool, and did not at all know into what a mess he was being dropped by the united experience, perspicuity, and energy of the man whose company on the Heath he had declined.

The horse was quite a “picture to look at.” Mr. Pook the trainer assured his Lordship that for health and condition he had never seen anything better. “Stout all over,” said Mr. Pook, “and not an ounce of what you may call flesh. And bright! just feel his coat, my Lord! That’s ‘ealth, — that is; not dressing, nor yet macassar!”

And then there were various evidences produced of his pace, — how he had beaten that horse, giving him two pounds; how he had been beaten by that, but only on a mile course; the Leger distance was just the thing for Prime Minister; how by a lucky chance that marvellous quick rat of a thing that had won the Derby had not been entered for the autumn race; how Coalheaver was known to have had bad feet. “He’s a stout ‘orse, no doubt, — is the ‘Eaver,” said Mr. Pook, “and that’s why the betting-men have stuck to him. But he’ll be nowhere on Wednesday. They’re beginning to see it now, my Lord. I wish they wasn’t so sharp-sighted.”

In the course of the day, however, they met a gentleman who was of a different opinion. He said loudly that he looked on the Heaver as the best three-year-old in England. Of course as matters stood he wasn’t going to back the Heaver at even money; — but he’d take twenty-five to thirty in hundreds between the two. All this ended in the bet being accepted and duly booked by Lord Silverbridge. And in this way Silverbridge added two thousand four hundred pounds to his responsibilities.

But there was worse than this coming. On the Sunday afternoon he went down to Doncaster, of course in company with the Major. He was alive to the necessity of ridding himself of the Major; but it had been acknowledged that that duty could not be performed till after this race had been run. As he sat opposite to his friend on their journey to Doncaster, he thought of this in the train. It should be done immediately on their return to London after the race. But the horse, his Prime Minister, was by this time so dear to him that he intended if possible to keep possession of the animal.

When they reached Doncaster the racing-men were all occupied with Prime Minister. The horse and Mr. Pook had arrived that day from Newmarket, via Cambridge and Peterborough. Tifto, Silverbridge, and Mr. Pook visited him together three times that afternoon and evening; — and the Captain also visited the horse, though not in company with Lord Silverbridge. To do Mr. Pook justice, no one could be more careful. When the Captain came round with the Major, Mr. Pook was there. But Captain Green did not enter the box, — had no wish to do so, was of opinion that on such occasions no one whose business did not carry him there should go near a horse. His only object seemed to be to compliment Mr. Pook as to his care, skill, and good fortune.

It was on the Tuesday evening that the chief mischief was done. There was a club at which many of the racing-men dined, and there Lord Silverbridge spent his evening. He was the hero of the hour, and everybody flattered him. It must be acknowledged that his head was turned. They dined at eight and much wine was drunk. No one was tipsy, but many were elated; and much confidence in their favourite animals was imparted to men who had been sufficiently cautious before dinner. Then cigars and soda-and-brandy became common and our young friend was not more abstemious than others. Large sums were named, and at last in three successive bets Lord Silverbridge backed his horse for more than forty thousand pounds. As he was making the second bet Mr. Lupton came across to him and begged him to hold his hand. “It will be a nasty sum for you to lose, and winning it will be nothing to you,” he said. Silverbridge took it good-humouredly, but said that he knew what he was about. “These men will pay,” whispered Lupton; “but you can’t be quite sure what they’re at.” The young man’s brow was covered with perspiration. He was smoking quick and had already smoked more than was good for him. “All right,” he said. “I’ll mind what I’m about.” Mr. Lupton could do no more, and retired. Before the night was over bets had been booked to the amount stated, and the Duke’s son, who had promised that he would never plunge, stood to lose about seventy thousand pounds upon the race.