Lloyd's Luck.
We have found Gilbert Lloyd the centre of an amused circle at Carabas
House. Let us see what has been his career since he parted with his
wife at the George Inn at Brighton.
He was free! That was his first thought when he began to ponder over
the probable results of the step he had taken,--free to come and go as
he liked, to do as he listed, without the chance of incurring black
looks or reproaches. Not that he had had either from Gertrude for a
very long time. When her faith in her husband was first shattered;
when she first began to perceive that the man whom in her girlish
fancy she had regarded as a hero of romance--a creature bright,
glorious, and rare--was formed of very ordinary clay, Gertrude was
vexed and annoyed by the discovery. She was young, too, and had a
young woman's belief in the efficacy of tears and sulks; so that when
Gilbert stayed out late, or brought home companions to whom she
objected, or went away on business tours for several days together,
Gertrude at first met him with sharp reproaches, dissolving into
passionate fits of weeping, or varied with sufficiently feeble
attempts at dignity. But Gilbert laughed these last to scorn, and
either took no notice of the reproaches, or with an oath bade them
cease. And then, the glamour having utterly died out, and the
selfishness and brutality of her husband being fully known to her,
Gertrude's manner had entirely changed. No sighs were ever heard by
Gilbert Lloyd, no red eyelids, no cheeks swollen by traces of recent
tears were ever seen by him. If the cold cynical expression on his
wife's face had hot been sufficient, the bitter mocking tones of her
voice never failed to tell him of the contempt she felt for him. That
she was no longer his dupe; that she bitterly despised herself for
ever having been fooled by him; that she had gauged the depth of his
knavery and the shallowness of his pretensions,--all this was
recognisable in her every look, in her every word. No brutality on her
husband's part--and his brutality sometimes found other vent than
language--no intermittent fits of softness towards her such as would
occasionally come over him, had the smallest effect on her face or on
her voice. She bore his blows silently, his caresses shudderingly, and
when they were over she looked up at him with the cold cynical face,
and replied to him with the bitter mocking voice.
Gilbert Lloyd's friends--by which expression is meant the men of the
set in which he regularly lived--saw little of Mrs. Lloyd, who was
popularly supposed by them to be next to a nonentity, Lloyd being a
man who "always had his own way." And indeed, so far as those words
were ordinarily understood, Gilbert Lloyd's acquaintances were right.
For months and months his comings and goings, his long absences, his
conduct while at home, had been uncommented upon by Gertrude, save in
the expression of her face and in the tone of her voice. But these,
even at such rare intervals as he was subjected to them, were quite
enough to goad a man of his temperament, by nature irritable, and
rendered doubly petulant by the exciting life he led; and the
knowledge that he was free from them for ever, came to him with
immense relief. He was "on his own hook" now, and had the world before
him as much as he had before he committed the ridiculous error of
letting his passion get the better of his prudence, and so binding a
burden on to his back. A burden! yes, she had been a burden--a useless
helpless dead-weight--even when his fleeting passion for her began to
wane, he had hopes that after all he had not done such a bad thing in
marrying her. To a man who looked for his prey amongst the young and
inexperienced, a pretty woman would always prove a useful assistant,
and Gilbert Lloyd at one time thought of using his wife as a lure and
a bait. But any hopes of this nature which he may have entertained
were speedily uprooted. "Right-thinking" Gertrude Lloyd certainly was
not; of mental obliquity in the matter of distinguishing between good
and evil, she had her full share; but she was as proud as Lucifer, and
her pride stepped in to her aid where better qualities might not have
interfered. Her natural quickness enabled her at once to see through
her husband's designs, and she told him plainly and promptly that he
must seek elsewhere for a confederate; nay more, when Lloyd would have
insisted on her presiding at his table, and making herself agreeable
to his friends, her resistance, hitherto passive, became active; she
threatened to make known some of his proceedings, which would have
seriously compromised him in the eyes of persons with whom he wished
to stand well, and neither entreaties nor commands could alter her
resolution.
She had been a burden, and he was rid of her. The more he thought it
over, the more he congratulated himself on the step which he had
taken, and felt that he had the best of the arrangement just
concluded. He had never loved anyone; and the caprice, for it was
nothing more, which he had once felt for Gertrude had long since died
away. He was free now to pursue his own career, and he determined that
his future should be brighter and more ambitious than he had hitherto
hoped. Now was his chance, and he would take advantage of it.
Heretofore he had lived almost entirely in the society of the
Ring-men--among them, but not of them--despising his associates, and
using them merely as a means to an end. He had had more than enough of
such companionship, and would shake it off for ever. Not that Gilbert
Lloyd intended quitting the turf and giving up his career as a
betting-man. Such a thought never occurred to him; he knew no other
way by which he could so easily earn so much money, while its
Bohemianism, and even its chicanery, were by no means unpleasant
ingredients to his fallen nature. All he wished was to take higher
rank and live with a different section of the fraternity. There were
betting-men and betting-men; and Gilbert Lloyd knew that his birth and
education fitted him more for the society of the "swells" who looked
languidly on from the tops of drags or moved quietly about the Ring,
than for the companionship of the professionals and welchers who drove
what was literally a "roaring" trade outside the enclosure. There was,
moreover, considerably more money to be made amongst the former than
the latter. Opportunity alone had been wanting; now he thought that
had come, and Gilbert Lloyd determined on trying his luck and going
for a great _coup_.
He had a hundred pounds in hand and a capital book for Doncaster, so
he made up his mind to leave the last to the manipulation of an
intimate friend, who would watch the alterations in the market, and
report them to him at Baden, whither he started, at once. Here he
established himself in a pleasant little bedchamber in the bachelor's
wing of the Badischer Hof, and proceeded to commence operations. The
language, the appearance, the manners of the regular turfite he at
once discarded, though an occasional hint dropped in conversation at
the _table d'hôte_ or in the Kursaal, at both of which places he soon
made many promiscuous acquaintances, conveyed a notion that the
_arcana_ of the Ring were, or had been, sufficiently familiar to him.
At the tables he played nightly, with varying fortune it was thought,
though those who watched him closely averred that he was a
considerable winner. His pecuniary success, however, affected him very
slightly; he was glad, of course, to have been able to live
luxuriously during a month, and to leave the place with more money
than he took into it; but Gilbert Lloyd had done far better than
merely winning a few hundred louis--he had made his _coup_.
He made it thus. Staying at the Badischer Hof was the Earl of
Ticehurst, a young English nobleman who had recently succeeded to his
title and estate, and who, during the previous year, had caused a
great deal of talk in London. He was a big, heavy-looking young man,
with a huge jowl and a bull neck, coarse features, and small sunken
eyes. At Eton he had been principally noticeable for his cruelty to
animals and his power of beer-drinking. At Oxford these charming
qualities were more freely developed, but whereas they had been called
by their proper names by Viscount Etchingham's schoolfellows, they
became known as "high spirits", to the college dons and the
tuft-hunting tutors. It is probable, however, that even these
long-suffering individuals would have had to take notice of his
lordship's vivacious proceedings, had not his father died during his
first year of residence; and on succeeding to the earldom of
Ticehurst, Lord Etchingham at once left the University and entered
upon London life. This means different things to different people. To
the nobleman just interred in the family vault at Etchingham, in the
presence of the Premier and half the Cabinet, it had signified the
commencement of a brilliant political career. To his son, who had
succeeded him, it meant the acquisition of a stud of racers, the
sovereignty of the coffee-room at Hummer's, the well-known sporting
hotel, and the obsequious homage of some of the greatest scoundrels in
London. The young man delighted in his position, and felt that he had
really come into his kingdom. His name was in everyone's mouth, and
people who scarcely could distinguish a racer from a towel-horse had
heard of young Lord Ticehurst. The names of the horses which he owned
were familiar in the mouths of the most general of the "general
public," the amount of the bets which he won or lost was talked of in
all classes of society, and by the "sporting world" he was looked upon
as the great revivalist of those pastimes which are always described
by the epithets "old" and "British." The fighting of mains of cocks,
the drawing of badgers, the patronage of the rat-pit and the P.R.
("that glorious institution which, while it exists among us and is
fostered by the genial support of such true Corinthians as the E-- of
T--, will prevent Englishmen from having recourse to the dastardly use
of the knife," as it was prettily described by Snish, the fistic
reporter of the _Life_), the frequent fuddling of himself with ardent
spirits, the constant attendance at night-saloons, and the never going
home till morning--came into this category. Elderly Haymarket
publicans and night-cabmen began to think that the glorious days of
their youth had returned, when they witnessed or listened to the
pranks of Lord Ticehurst; and in his first London season he had
established a reputation for gentlemanly black-guardism and
dare-devilry quite equal to any in the records of the Bow-street
Police-court.
Needless to say that with Lord Ticehurst's reputation Gilbert Lloyd
was perfectly familiar, and that he had long and ardently desired the
opportunity of making the acquaintance of that distinguished nobleman.
To use his own language, he had "done all he knew" to carry out this
desirable result; but in vain. There are hawks and hawks; and the
birds of prey who hovered round Lord Ticehurst were far too clever and
too hungry to allow any of the inferior kind to interfere with their
spoil. Not that Gilbert Lloyd was inferior in any sense, save that of
mixing with an inferior class. Lord Ticehurst knew several men of
Lloyd's set--knew them sufficiently to speak to them in a manner
varying from the _de haut en bas_ style which he used to his valet to
the vulgar familiarity with which he addressed his trainer; but it
would not have suited Gilbert Lloyd to have been thrown in his way,
and he had carefully avoided being presented or becoming known to Lord
Ticehurst in an inferior position.
When Gilbert arrived at the Badischer Hof, the first person he saw at
the late _table d'hôte_ was Lord Ticehurst; the second was Plater
Dobbs, who acted as his lordship's henchman, Mentor, and confidential
upper servant. A stout short man, Plater Dobbs (his real name was
George, and he was supposed once to have been a major in something,
the nickname "Plater" attaching to him from the quality of the
racehorses he bred and backed), with a red face, the blood strangled
into it by his tight bird's-eye choker, a moist eye, a pendulous under
lip, a short gray whisker and stubbly moustache of the same colour, a
bell-shaped curly-brimmed hat, and a wonderful vocabulary of oaths.
Plater Dobbs was one of the old school in everything--one of the
hard-drinking, hard-riding, hard-swearing, five-o'clock-in-the-morning
old boys. A sportsman of the old school, with many recollections of
Pea-green Hayne, and Colonel Berkeley, and the Golden Ball, and other
lights of other days; a godless abandoned old profligate, illiterate
and debauched, but with a certain old-fashioned knowledge of
horse-flesh, an unlimited power of drinking without being harmed by
what he drank, and a belief in and an adherence to "the code of
honour" as then understood amongst gentlemen, as he had proved in
person on various occasions at home and abroad. He had taken entire
sway over Lord Ticehurst, bought racers with the young nobleman's
money, and trained and ran them when he chose; went with him
everywhere; and was alternately his Mentor and his butt--acting in
either capacity with the greatest equanimity.
Now, above all other men in the world, Lloyd hated Plater Dobbs. He
had long envied the position which the "vulgar old cad," as he called
him, had held in regard to Lord Ticehurst; and when he saw them
together at Baden, his rage was extreme, and a desire to supplant the
elderly Mentor at once rose in his breast. Not that Gilbert had any
feeling that the counsels or the example given and shown to Lord
Ticehurst by Plater Dobbs were wrong or immoral. All he felt about
them was that they were rococo, old-fashioned, and behind the mark of
the present day. The appointment of "confederate" to such a man as
Ticehurst, was one of the most splendid chances of a lifetime; and it
had now fallen to the lot of a senile debauchee, who was neither doing
good for himself nor obtaining credit for his pupil. If Ticehurst were
only in _his_ hands, what would not Gilbert Lloyd do for him and for
himself? Ticehurst should be in his hands, but how? That was the
problem which Lloyd set himself to solve. That was the thought which
haunted him day and night, which dulled his palate to M. Rheinbolt's
choicest _plats_, which even made him sometimes inattentive to the
monotonous cry of the _croupiers_. To secure Plater Dobbs' position
would be to land a greater stake than could be gained by the most
unexpected fluke at _trente et quarante_. Let him only hook Ticehurst,
and--_rien ne va plus!_
An ordinary sharper would have taken advantage of the frequent
opportunities afforded by the _table d'hôte_ and continental life
generally, have spoken to Lord Ticehurst, and managed to secure a
speaking acquaintanceship with him. But Gilbert Lloyd was not an
ordinary sharper, and he saw clearly enough how little that course
would tend to the end he had in view. He foresaw that Plater Dobbs'
jealousy would be at once aroused; and that while the acquaintance
with the bear was ripening, the bear-leader would have ample
opportunity of vilifying his would-be rival. He put it to himself
clearly that success was only to be gained by adventitious chance, and
that chance came thus.
Among the frequenters of the Kursaal was a French gentleman of
some thirty-five years of age, black-bearded, bright-eyed, and
thin-waisted. André de Prailles was this gentleman's name, Paris was
his nation, and, to carry out the old rhyme, the degradation of
England and her children was apparently his vocation. In private and
in public he took every opportunity of saying unpleasant things about
_la perfide Albion_, and the traitors, native and domiciled, nourished
by her. He had, for a Frenchman, an extraordinary knowledge of English
ways and manners of life--of life of a certain kind--which he amused
himself and certain of his immediate friends by turning into the
greatest ridicule. He played but little at the tables; indeed those
who had watched him narrowly avowed that there was a certain
understanding between him and the _croupiers_, who discouraged his
attendance; but be this as it might, he frequented the promenade and
the baths, lived in very fair style at the Hotel Victoria, and was "a
feature" in the society of the place. M. de Prailles' Anglophobia had
contented itself with disdainful glances at the representatives of the
land which he detested, and with muttering with bated breath at all
they said and did, until the arrival at Baden of Mdlle. de Meronville,
the celebrated _ingénue_ of the Vaudeville, with whom M. de Prailles
had an acquaintance, and for whom he professed an adoration.
Mdlle. de Meronville was a bright lithe little woman, with large black
eyes, an olive complexion, and what Lord Ticehurst called a "fuzzy"
head of jet-black hair; a pleasant good-natured little woman, fond of
admiration and _bonbons_ and good dinners and plenty of champagne; a
little woman who played constantly at the tables, screaming with
delight when she won, and using "strange oaths" when she lost--who
smoked cigarettes on the promenade, and gesticulated wildly, and beat
her companions with her parasol, and, in fact, behaved herself as
unlike a British female as is possible to be imagined. Perhaps it was
the entire novelty of her style and conduct that gave her such a charm
in the eyes of Lord Ticehurst, for charm she undoubtedly had. A
devotion to the opposite sex had never hitherto been classed among the
weaknesses of that amiable nobleman; but he was so completely overcome
by the fascinations of Eugénie de Meronville, that no youth ever
suffered more severely from "calf-love" than this reckless roisterer.
He followed her about like her shadow; when in her company, after he
had obtained an introduction to her, he would address to her the most
flowery compliments in a curious _mélange_ of tongues; and when absent
from her he would sit and puff his cigar in moody silence, obstinately
rejecting all efforts to withdraw him from his sentimental
abstraction. Plater Dobbs regarded this new phase in his pupil's
character with unspeakable horror, and was at his wits' end to know
how to put a stop to it. He endeavoured to lead Lord Ticehurst into
deeper play; but unless Mdlle. de Meronville were at the tables the
young man would not go near them. He organised a little supper-party,
at which were present two newly-arrived and most distinguished
beauties: an English grass-widow whose husband was in India, and a
Russian lady, who regarded the fact of her liege lord's being ruined,
and sinking from a position of affluence into that of a hotel-keeper,
as quite enough to excuse her leaving him for ever. But Ticehurst
sulked through the banquet, and the ladies agreed in voting him _bête_
and _mauvais ton_. The fact was that the man was madly in love with
Eugénie de Meronville, and cared for nothing but her society.
What one does and where one goes and with whom one passes one's time
is, of course, very easily known in a small coterie such as that
assembled in the autumn at Baden; and it is not to be wondered at that
M. André de Prailles suffered many a bad quarter of an hour as he
witnessed and heard of the amicable relations between his fair
compatriot and one of the leading representatives of that nation which
he detested. What added to M. de Prailles' anger was the fact that
whereas in Paris, where he was known to be the friend of certain
_feuilletonistes_ with whom it was well for every actress to be on
good terms, he had had cause for believing himself to be well thought
of by the _ingénue_ of the Vaudeville, at Baden, where no such
inducement existed, he had been completely snubbed by Eugénie, and
treated with a _hauteur_ which set his blood boiling in his veins. M.
de Prailles resented this after his own fashion. First, he addressed a
passionate letter to his idol, reproaching her for her perfidy. To
this he received a very short, and, to tell truth, a very ill-spelt,
answer, in which the goddess replied that it was not his "_afair_,"
and that she would behave herself "_come je voulai_" wheresoever and
with whomsoever she pleased. Then he took to a more open course of
defiance--following on the trail of Mdlle. de Meronville and Lord
Ticehurst, standing behind them at the table, occupying adjacent seats
to theirs in the Kursaal or on the promenade, and enunciating, in by
no means a hushed voice, his opinion on Englishmen in general and Lord
Ticehurst in particular. But Lord Ticehurst's comprehension of the
French language was limited, his comprehension of the English
language, as spoken by M. de Prailles, was still more limited; and the
strongest comment with which he favoured his opponent's ravings was a
muttered inquiry as to what "that d--d little Frenchman was jabbering
about."
At last, one night, the long-threatened explosion took place. A sudden
storm of wind and rain swept down from the Black Forest, and the
curious vehicle attached to the Hôtel d'Angleterre was sent for to
convey Mdlle. de Meronville from the Kursaal to her rooms. The little
actress had been playing with great ill-luck, and had been duly waited
upon by Lord Ticehurst; but at the moment when the arrival of the
droschky was notified to her, he had been called into another part of
the room by Plater Dobbs, and only arrived in time to see her,
mortified and angry, being conducted to the carriage on the arm of M.
de Prailles. Rushing forward to make his excuses, Lord Ticehurst
caught his foot in the train of Mdlle. de Meronville's gown, and, amid
the suppressed burst of laughter from the bystanders, pulled her
backwards and fell forward himself. He had scarcely recovered himself
when the roll of the departing vehicle was in his ears, and M. de
Prailles was standing before him fuming.
"An accident? nothing of the sort! _Exprès! tout à fait exprès!_"
A crowd gathered at the ominous words and at the tone of voice in
which they were uttered: Plater Dobbs and Gilbert Lloyd foremost among
the concurrents, the one flushed and excited, the other cool and
collected; Lord Ticehurst, very pale, and with an odd twitching in the
muscles of his month.
"It was no accident, that tumble!" shrieked M. de Prailles. "It was a
studied insult offered to a lady by a barbarian! _Exprès,
entendes-vous, messieurs, exprès?_"
Then, seeing that his opponent stood motionless, the little Frenchman
drew himself on tiptoes, and hissed out,
"_Et il ne dit rien? Décidément, milor, vous êtes un lâche!_" and he
made a movement as though he would have struck Lord Ticehurst with his
open hand.
But Plater Dobbs, who had been puffing and fuming and gasping for
breath, caught the angry Frenchman by the arm, and called out,
"Holla, none of that! We'll produce our man when he's wanted. We don't
want any rough-and-tumble here! _Ally, party, mossoo!_"
"_Au diable, ivrogne!_" was all the response which M. de Prailles
chose to make to this elegant appeal; but he turned to some of his
compatriots, and said, "_Regardez donc la figure de ce milor là!_" And
in truth Lord Ticehurst was almost livid, and the chair against which
he was leaning trembled in his grasp. At that moment Gilbert Lloyd
stepped forward.
"There's no question of producing any man on this occasion, except a
_gensdarme_," said he, addressing Plater Dobbs.
A hush fell on the little crowd--the Englishmen silenced by what they
heard, the foreigners by the effect which they saw the words had
produced. Only Dobbs spoke, and he said, "What the devil do you mean?"
"What I say," replied Lloyd; "it's impossible for Lord Ticehurst to
fight this fellow," with a contemptuous wave of the hand at De
Prailles. "I've long thought I recognised him; now I'm sure of it. I
don't know what he calls himself now, but he used to answer to the
name of Louis three years ago, when he was a billiard-marker at the
rooms over the Tennis-court, just out of the Haymarket."
"_Tu mens, canaille!_" screamed M. de Prailles, rushing at him; but
Gilbert Lloyd caught his adversary by the throat, and with every nerve
in his lithe frame strung to its tightest pitch, shook him to and fro.
"Drop that!" he said; "drop that, or by the Lord I'll fling you out of
the window. You know the height you'd have to fall!" and with one
parting shake he threw the Frenchman from him. "I'm glad my memory
served me so well; it would have been impossible for your lordship to
have gone out with such a fellow."
M. André de Prailles left Baden very early the next morning: but the
events of that night affected more than him. Although he was not of a
grateful or recognisant nature, Lord Ticehurst felt keenly the
material assistance which Gilbert Lloyd afforded him at what in his
inmost heart his lordship knew to have been a most critical and
unpleasant time, and he showed at once that he appreciated this
assistance at its proper value. He made immediate advances of
friendship to Gilbert, which advances Gilbert received with sufficient
_nonchalance_ to cause them to be repeated with double ardour. At the
same time he by no means declined the acquaintance which Lord
Ticehurst offered him, and in the course of various colloquies
contrived to indoctrinate his lordship with a notion of his
extraordinary 'cuteness in things in general, and in matters
pertaining to the turf and to society in particular. The world, as
viewed through Gilbert Lloyd's glasses, had to Lord Ticehurst quite a
different aspect from that under which he had hitherto seen it, and he
raged against opportunities missed and stupid courses taken while
under the tutelage of Plater Dobbs. To rid himself of that worthy's
companionship and to instal Gilbert Lloyd in his place was a task
which Lord Ticehurst set himself at once, and carried out with great
speed and success. He found little opposition from the Plater. That
worldly-wise old person had seen how matters stood--"how the cat
jumped," as he phrased it--from the first, and was perfectly prepared
to receive his _congé_. Nor, indeed, was he altogether displeased at
the arrangement. His good qualities were few enough, but among them
was the possession of personal pluck and courage, and a horror of
anyone in whom these were lacking. "I always knew Etchingham was a
duffer, sir," he would say in after-days--"a pig-headed, obstinate,
mean duffer--but I never thought he was a cur until that night. He was
in a blue funk, I tell you--in a blue funk of a d--d little Frenchman
that he could have swallowed whole! I don't complain, sir. He hasn't
behaved badly to me, and I hope he'll find he's done right in holding
on to Master Lloyd. A devilish slippery customer that, sir. But him
and me couldn't have been the same after I saw he funked that
Frenchman, and so perhaps it's better as it is." So Major Plater Dobbs
retired on an allowance of three hundred a year from his ex-pupil to
the cheerful city of York, and this history knows him no more.
When Gilbert Lloyd returned to England in time to accompany his patron
to Doncaster, where they witnessed the shameful defeat of all Lord
Ticehurst's horses, which had been trained under the Dobbs' _regime_,
he felt that he had made his _coup_; but he did not anticipate such
success as fell to his lot. By an excellent system of tactics, the
mainspring of which was to make himself sought instead of to seek, and
to speak his mind unreservedly upon all points on which he was
consulted, taking care never to interfere in cases where his opinion
was not asked, he obtained a complete ascendency over the young man,
who, after a very short time, made him overseer, not merely of his
stable, but of his house, his establishment, and his estates. And
excellently did Lloyd perform the functions then allotted to him. He
had a clear head for business, and a keen eye for "a good thing," and
as a large portion of all Lord Ticehurst's luck and success was shared
by his "confederate," it was not surprising that Lloyd employed his
time and brains in planning and achieving successes. Not a little of
his good fortune Lloyd owed to keeping in with his former allies the
Ring-men, who were treated by him with a frank cordiality which stood
him in excellent stead, and who were delighted to find that one of
their own order, as they judged him, could climb to such a height
without becoming stuck-up or spiteful. The old trainer, the jockeys,
and all the Dobbs' satellites were swept away as soon as Gilbert Lloyd
came into power, and were so well replaced that Lord Ticehurst's stud,
which had previously been the laughing-stock of Tattersall's, now
contained several animals of excellent repute, and one or two from
which the greatest things were expected.
Nor was the change less remarkable in Lord Ticehurst himself. Of
course his new Mentor would have lacked the inclination, even if he
had had the power, to withdraw his pupil from turf-life; but to a
certain extent he made him understand the meaning and the value of the
saying "_noblesse oblige_." It was understood that hence-forward Lord
Ticehurst's horses were run "on the square," and that there was to be
no more "pulling," or "roping," or any other chicanery. And after a
good deal of patience and persuasion Gilbert Lloyd succeeded in
indoctrinating his patron with the notion that it was scarcely worth
while keeping up the reputation of being "British" with a small
portion of the community at the expense of disgusting all the rest;
that if one had no original taste in the matter of costume, and needs
must copy someone else, there were styles not simpler perhaps, but at
all events as becoming as those of the groom; and that all the
literary homage of the _Life_ scarcely repaid a gentleman for having
to associate with such blackguards as he met in his patronage of the
prize-ring, the cock-pit, and the rat-hunt. The young man, who being
young was impressionable, was brought to see the force of these
various arguments; more easily, doubtless, because they were put to
him in a remarkably skilful way, without dictation and without
deference--simply as the suggestions of a man of the world to another
worldling, the force of which he, from his worldly knowledge, would
perfectly understand and appreciate. And so, within a year after
submitting himself to Gilbert Lloyd's tutelage, Lord Ticehurst, who
had been universally regarded as a "cub" and a "tiger," was admitted
to be a doosid good fellow, and his friends laid all the improvement
to Gilbert Lloyd.
Amongst those friends, perhaps the warmest of Lloyd's supporters was
Lord Ticehurst's aunt, Lady Carabas. Lady Carabas had always delighted
to have it thought that she was a _femme incomprise_; that while she
was looked upon as the mere worldling, the mere butterfly of fashion,
she had a soul--not the immortal part of her system which she took
notice of once a week in St. Barnabas's Church, but such a soul as
poets and metaphysical writers spell with a large S,--a Soul for
poetry, romance, love, and all those other things which are never
heard of in polite neighbourhoods. The Marquis of Carabas was quite
unaware of the existence of this portion of his wife's attributes, and
if he had known of it, it is probable it would have made very little
difference to him: it was nothing to eat, nothing to be shot at or
angled for, at least with a gun or a rod, so had no interest for his
lordship. But there was always someone sufficiently intimate with Lady
Carabas to be intrusted with the secret of the existence of this Soul,
and to be permitted to share in its aspirations. Lady Carabas had
married very early in life, and although she had two large and
whiskered sons, she was yet a remarkably handsome woman; so handsome,
so genial, and so winning, that there were few men who would not have
been gratified by her notice. And here let it be said, that all her
friendships--she had many, though never more than one at the same
time--were perfectly platonic in their nature. She pined to be
understood--she wanted nothing else, she said; but people remarked
that those whom she allowed to understand her were always
distinguished either by rank, good looks, or intellect. The immediate
predecessor of Gilbert Lloyd in dominion over Lady Carabas' Soul, was
an Italian singer with a straight nose, a curling brown beard, and a
pair of luminous gray eyes; and he in his turn had supplanted a Prince
of the Blood. Gilbert Lloyd was prime favourite now, and was treated
accordingly by the "regulars" in Beaumanoir-square. It was Lady
Carabas' boast that she could be "all things to all men." Thus while
her Soul had gushed with the regal romance of Arthur and Guinevere in
its outpourings to the Prince--an honest gentleman of limited
intellect and conversation restricted to the utterance of an
occasional "Hum, haw, Jove!"--it had burned with republican ardour in
its conference with the exiled Italian; and was now imbued with the
spirit of Ruff, _Bell_, Bailey, and other leading turf-guides, in its
lighter dalliance with Gilbert Lloyd. And this kind of thing suited
Lloyd very well, and tended to secure his position with Lord
Ticehurst.
At the time of Gilbert Lloyd's introduction to Miles Challoner at
Carabas House, that position was settled and secured. Not merely was
Lord Ticehurst, to all appearance, utterly dependent on his Mentor for
aid and advice in every action of his life, but Lloyd's supremacy in
the Ticehurst household was recognised and acquiesced in by all
friends and members of the family. It was so recognised, so apparently
secure, and withal so pleasant, that Lloyd had put aside any doubt of
the possibility of its ever being done away with; and the first idea
of such a catastrophe came to him as the old name, so long unheard,
sounded once more in his ears, and as in the handsome man before him
he recognised his elder brother. Miles Challoner, as we have seen,
sought safety in flight. Gilbert Lloyd, the younger man, but by far
the older worldling, soon recovered from his temporary disquietude, so
far as his looks were concerned, and gazed after the vanishing figure
of his brother with eyebrows uplifted in apparent wonderment at his
_gaucherie_. But in the solitude of his chamber, before he went to bed
that morning, he faced the subject manfully, and thought it out under
all its various aspects.
Would Miles betray him? That was the chief point. The blood surged up
in his pale face, and the beating of his heart was plainly audible to
himself as he thought of that contingency, and foresaw the unalterable
and immediate result. Exposure! proved to have been living for years
under an assumed name and in a false position--A slight ray of hope
here. The real name and the real position were incomparably better
than those he had assumed. Had he not rather lost than gained
by--Dashed out at once? Why did he hide his name and position? Forced
to. Why? O, that story must never be given up, or he would be lost
indeed. And then his thoughts digressed, and he found himself
picturing in his memory that last night in the old house--that
farewell of Rowley Court. Good God! how he recollected it all!--the
drive in the dogcart through the long lanes redolent of May; the
puzzled face of the old coachman, who knew young Master was going
away, and yet could not make out why old Master, and Master Miles, and
the household had not turned out to wish him "God speed;" the last
glimpse which, as he stood at the station-door, he caught of the
dog-cart thridding its way homewards through the lanes, almost every
inch of which he knew. Would Miles betray him? No, he thought not--at
least wilfully and intentionally. If the Miles of to-day had the same
characteristics as he remembered in the boy, he had an amount of pride
which would render it impossible for him to move in the matter.
Impossible! Yes, because to move in it would be to announce to the
world that he, the Squire of Rowley Court, was the brother of Mr.
Lloyd the turfite, the "confederate" of Lord Ticehurst, the--and
Gilbert cursed the pride which would make his brother look down upon
him, even though to that pride he principally looked for his own
safety. But might not Miles unintentionally blunder and blurt out the
secret? He had been hot-headed and violent of speech as a boy, and his
conduct at Carabas House on the introduction had proved that he had no
command over his feelings. This was what it was to have to do with
fools. And then Gilbert Lloyd recollected that, on the only other
occasion in his life when the chance of compromising his future was in
the hands of another person, it was his wife to whom the chance was
allotted; and he remembered the perfect security which he felt in her
sense and discretion. His wife! He had not thought of her for a very
long time. He wondered where she was and what she was doing. He
wondered whether she had altered in personal appearance, whether
anyone else had--pshaw! what the deuce did it matter to him?
Nevertheless, he angrily quickened the step with which he was pacing
the room as the thought crossed his mind. O no, Miles would not betray
him! There were other reasons why he should not. Did he not--perhaps
it was a mistake after all his having broken with Gertrude in that
manner? She would have been in his way here and there, perhaps; but
she was wonderfully accommodating, even in letting him have his own
way so far as coming and going were concerned; and how shrewd and
clear-headed she was! So good-looking, too! He found himself idly
tracing her profile with his finger on the table in front of him.
Strange girl--what an odd light there was on her face that--that night
when they parted! And Harvey Gore--O, good Lord! what had started that
vein of thought? That confounded meeting with Miles had upset him
entirely. Harvey Gore!--did Gertrude suspect--she knew. He was
certain, she knew, and that was what--It was for the best that he had
got rid of her; for the best that he was on his own hook--only himself
to consult and rely upon, and no one else with a chance of selling
him. All women were unreliable, and interfered with business. By the
way, what was that Ticehurst was saying as they came away in the
brougham about some woman who had sung in the early part of the
evening, before he got to Carabas House? Ticehurst was wonderfully
enthusiastic for him--such a face, such a figure, such a lovely voice!
These raptures meant nothing serious, Gilbert supposed; at all events
he intended to take care that they should mean nothing serious. That
affair of Eugénie de Meronville, when Ticehurst's admiration very
nearly brought him under an infuriated Frenchman's fire, had been of
infinite service, Gilbert reflected with a grin, in cooling his
lordship's love ardour, and indeed had kept him very much aloof from
the sex. It was better so; if Lord Ticehurst married, more than half
Gilbert Lloyd's influence would be gone, if indeed the turf were not
abandoned, and the "confederate" _chasséd_; and any other arrangement
in which a woman might be concerned would be equally unsatisfactory.
Fancy his having seen Miles, and heard the old name too! How much did
Miles know? He turned on his heel as if--and yet the old man would
never have told him. _His_ pride would have prevented that; at all
events nothing could be gained by keeping awake now. He had thought it
out, and decided that, for several reasons, his brother would not
betray him; and so Gilbert Lloyd turned into bed, and slept as
peacefully and as easily as the darkest schemers often do, despite all
the romancists say to the contrary.
Next day he was walking through the Park with his patron, on their way
to Tattersall's, when, just as they crossed the Drive, a brougham
dashed rapidly by them. Lord Ticehurst clutched his companion's arm,
and said eagerly, "Look, Gilbert--quick! there she is." Gilbert Lloyd
looked round, and said in a tone of irritation, "What? Who?" "The girl
who sang last night at Carabas's. The stunner I told you of." "Then I
wish the stunner had gone some other way," said Lloyd. "I didn't even
have the satisfaction of seeing her; and I was just totting-up how we
stood on the Ascot Cup, and you've startled all the figures out of my
head."