The Park had been empty, but the opera-house was full; and in the
brilliance of the lights and divine soaring of the music, the genius of
Champagne luncheons discussed the fate of the horse Templemore; some, as
a matter of remote history; some, as another delusion in horse-flesh
the greater number, however, with a determination to stand by the beaten
favourite, though he had fallen, and proclaim him the best of racers
and an animal foully mishandled on the course. There were whispers,
and hints, and assertions; now implicating the jockey, now the owner
of Templemore. The Manchester party, and the Yorkshire party, and their
diverse villanous tricks, came under review. Several offered to back
Templemore at double the money they had lost, against the winner. A
favourite on whom money has been staked, not only has friends, but in
adversity he is still believed in; nor could it well be otherwise, for
the money, no doubt, stands for faith, or it would never have been put
up to the risks of a forfeit.
Foremost and wildest among the excited young men who animated the
stalls, and rushed about the lobby, was Algernon. He was the genius of
Champagne luncheon incarnate. On him devolves, for a time, the movement
of this story, and we shall do well to contemplate him, though he may
seem possibly to be worthless. What is worthless, if it be well
looked at? Nay, the most worthless creatures are most serviceable for
examination, when the microscope is applied to them, as a simple study
of human mechanism. This youth is one of great Nature's tom-fools:
an elegant young gentleman outwardly, of the very large class who are
simply the engines of their appetites, and, to the philosophic eye,
still run wild in woods, as did the primitive nobleman that made a noise
in the earlier world.
Algernon had this day lost ten times more than he could hope to be in a
position to pay within ten years, at the least, if his father continued
to argue the matter against Providence, and live. He had lost, and might
speedily expect to be posted in all good betting circles as something
not pleasantly odoriferous for circles where there is no betting.
Nevertheless, the youth was surcharged with gaiety. The soul of mingled
chicken and wine illumined his cheeks and eyes. He laughed and joked
about the horse--his horse, as he called Templemore--and meeting Lord
Suckling, won five sovereigns of him by betting that the colours of one
of the beaten horses, Benloo, were distinguished by a chocolate bar. The
bet was referred to a dignified umpire, who, a Frenchman, drew his right
hand down an imperial tuft of hair dependent from his chin, and gave a
decision in Algernon's favour. Lord Suckling paid the money on the spot,
and Algernon pocketed it exulting. He had the idea that it was the first
start in his making head against the flood. The next instant he could
have pitched himself upon the floor and bellowed. For, a soul of chicken
and wine, lightly elated, is easily dashed; and if he had but said to
Lord Suckling that, it might as well be deferred, the thing would have
become a precedent, and his own debt might have been held back. He went
on saying, as he rushed forward alone: “Never mind, Suckling. Oh, hang
it! put it in your pocket;” and the imperative necessity for talking,
and fancying what was adverse to fact, enabled him to feel for a time
as if he had really acted according to the prompting of his wisdom. It
amazed him to see people sitting and listening. The more he tried it,
the more unendurable it became. Those sitters and loungers appeared like
absurd petrifactions to him. If he abstained from activity for ever so
short a term, he was tormented by a sense of emptiness; and, as he said
to himself, a man who has eaten a chicken, and part of a game-pie, and
drunk thereto Champagne all day, until the popping of the corks has
become as familiar as minute-guns, he can hardly be empty. It
was peculiar. He stood, just for the sake of investigating the
circumstance--it was so extraordinary. The music rose in a triumphant
swell. And now he was sure that he was not to be blamed for thinking
this form of entertainment detestable. How could people pretend to
like it? “Upon my honour!” he said aloud. The hypocritical nonsense of
pretending to like opera-music disgusted him.
“Where is it, Algy?” a friend of his and Suckling's asked, with a
languid laugh.
“Where's what?”
“Your honour.”
“My honour? Do you doubt my honour?” Algernon stared defiantly at the
inoffensive little fellow.
“Not in the slightest. Very sorry to, seeing that I have you down in my
book.”
“Latters? Ah, yes,” said Algernon, musically, and letting his under-lip
hang that he might restrain the impulse to bite it. “Fifty, or a
hundred, is it? I lost my book on the Downs.”
“Fifty; but wait till settling-day, my good fellow, and don't fiddle at
your pockets as if I'd been touching you up for the money. Come and sup
with me to-night.”
Algernon muttered a queer reply in a good-tempered tone, and escaped
him.
He was sobered by that naming of settling-day. He could now listen to
the music with attention, if not with satisfaction. As he did so, the
head of drowned memory rose slowly up through the wine-bubbles in his
brain, and he flung out a far thought for relief: “How, if I were to
leave England with that dark girl Rhoda at Wrexby, marry her like a man,
and live a wild ramping life in the colonies?” A curtain closed on the
prospect, but if memory was resolved that it would not be drowned, he
had at any rate dosed it with something fresh to occupy its digestion.
His opera-glass had been scouring the house for a sight of Mrs. Lovell,
and at last she appeared in Lord Elling's box.
“I can give you two minutes, Algy,” she said, as he entered and found
her opportunely alone. “We have lost, I hear. No interjection, pray. Let
it be, fors l'honneur, with us. Come to me to-morrow. You have tossed
trinkets into my lap. They were marks of esteem, my cousin. Take them in
the same light back from me. Turn them into money, and pay what is most
pressing. Then go to Lord Suckling. He is a good boy, and won't distress
you; but you must speak openly to him at once. Perhaps he will help you.
I will do my best, though whether I can, I have yet to learn.”
“Dear Mrs. Lovell!” Algernon burst out, and the corners of his mouth
played nervously.
He liked her kindness, and he was wroth at the projected return of his
gifts. A man's gifts are an exhibition of the royalty of his soul, and
they are the last things which should be mentioned to him as matters to
be blotted out when he is struggling against ruin. The lady had blunt
insight just then. She attributed his emotion to gratitude.
“The door may be opened at any minute,” she warned him.
“It's not about myself,” he said; “it's you. I believe I tempted you to
back the beastly horse. And he would have won--a fair race, and he would
have won easy. He was winning. He passed the stand a head ahead. He did
win. It's a scandal to the Turf. There's an end of racing in England.
It's up. They've done for themselves to-day. There's a gang. It's in the
hands of confederates.”
“Think so, if it consoles you,” said Mrs. Lovell, “don't mention your
thoughts, that is all.”
“I do think so. Why should we submit to a robbery? It's a sold affair.
That Frenchman, Baron Vistocq, says we can't lift our heads after it.”
“He conducts himself with decency, I hope.”
“Why, he's won!”
“Imitate him.”
Mrs. Lovell scanned the stalls.
“Always imitate the behaviour of the winners when you lose,” she
resumed. “To speak of other things: I have had no letter of late from
Edward. He should be anxious to return. I went this morning to see that
unhappy girl. She consents.”
“Poor creature,” murmured Algernon; and added “Everybody wants money.”
“She decides wisely; for it is the best she can do. She deserves pity,
for she has been basely used.”
“Poor old Ned didn't mean,” Algernon began pleading on his cousin's
behalf, when Mrs. Lovell's scornful eye checked the feeble attempt.
“I am a woman, and, in certain cases, I side with my sex.”
“Wasn't it for you?”
“That he betrayed her? If that were so, I should be sitting in ashes.”
Algernon's look plainly declared that he thought her a mystery.
The simplicity of his bewilderment made her smile.
“I think your colonies are the right place for you, Algy, if you can get
an appointment; which must be managed by-and-by. Call on me to-morrow,
as I said.”
Algernon signified positively that he would not, and doggedly refused to
explain why.
“Then I will call on you,” said Mrs. Lovell.
He was going to say something angrily, when Mrs. Lovell checked him:
“Hush! she is singing.”
Algernon listened to the prima donna in loathing; he had so much to
inquire about, and so much to relate: such a desire to torment and be
comforted!
Before he could utter a word further, the door opened, and Major Waring
appeared, and he beheld Mrs. Lovell blush strangely. Soon after, Lord
Elling came in, and spoke the ordinary sentence or two concerning the
day's topic--the horse Templemore. Algernon quitted the box. His ears
were surcharged with sound entirely foreign to his emotions, and he
strolled out of the house and off to his dingy chambers, now tenanted by
himself alone, and there faced the sealed letters addressed to Edward,
which had, by order, not been forwarded. No less than six were in
Dahlia's handwriting. He had imagination sufficient to conceive the
lamentations they contained, and the reproach they were to his own
subserviency in not sending them. He looked at the postmarks. The last
one was dated two months back.
“How can she have cared a hang for Ned, if she's ready to go and marry a
yokel, for the sake of a home and respectability?” he thought, rather in
scorn; and, having established this contemptuous opinion of one of the
sex, he felt justified in despising all. “Just like women! They--no!
Peggy Lovell isn't. She's a trump card, and she's a coquette--can't
help being one. It's in the blood. I never saw her look so confoundedly
lovely as when that fellow came into the box. One up, one down. Ned's
away, and it's this fellow's turn. Why the deuce does she always
think I'm a boy? or else, she pretends to. But I must give my mind to
business.”
He drew forth the betting-book which his lively fancy had lost on the
Downs. Prompted by an afterthought, he went to the letter-box, saying,--
“Who knows? Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck.”
There was a foreign letter in it from Edward, addressed to him, and
another addressed to “Mr. Blancuv,” that he tore open and read with
disgusted laughter. It was signed “N. Sedgett.” Algernon read it twice
over, for the enjoyment of his critical detection of the vile grammar,
with many “Oh! by Joves!” and a concluding, “This is a curiosity!”
It was a countryman's letter, ill-spelt, involved, and of a character
to give Algernon a fine scholarly sense of superiority altogether novel.
Everybody abused Algernon for his abuse of common Queen's English in his
epistles: but here was a letter in comparison with which his own were
doctorial, and accordingly he fell upon it with an acrimonious rapture
of pedantry known to dull wits that have by extraordinary hazard pounced
on a duller.
“You're 'willing to forgeit and forgeive,' are you, you dog!” he
exclaimed, half dancing. “You'd forge anything, you rascal, if you could
disguise your hand--that, I don't doubt. You 'expeck the thousand pound
to be paid down the day of my marriage,' do you, you impudent ruffian!
'acording to agremint.' What a mercenary vagabond this is!”
Algernon reflected a minute. The money was to pass through his hands. He
compressed a desire to dispute with Sedgett that latter point about the
agreement, and opened Edward's letter.
It contained an order on a firm of attorneys to sell out so much Bank
Stock and pay over one thousand pounds to Mr. A. Blancove.
The beautiful concision of style in this document gave Algernon a
feeling of profound deference toward the law and its officers.
“Now, that's the way to Write!” he said.