ridden fifty-two miles in the teeth of a dust-storm and held her life
in her hands one-hundred-and-twenty-seven distinct times between
Piccadilly and Pyecombe, makes about as effective an entrance into
Brighton as the last stone-bruised idiot in the shopboys' annual
walk. And while Reginald Rosacre is none too deft in handling his
own car, one really needs, to ride beside Thursa, nerves equal to
those of the racing gentleman who, on his way back from the Slough
railway accident, shot seventeen pigeons running in a £5 sweepstakes,
but was partially paralysed and completely prostrated by shock when
the railway company's doctor called on the following morning to
ascertain the extent of his injuries. Why, was not it only in August
last, dear, that she and he and the dandy chauffeur sustained their
memorable break-down on this very road? Did not they start out, on
one of those gummy, thunder-laden evenings, when the ceaseless
ambition for sleep is only thwarted by the pestiferous attentions of
the insects which everywhere abound, and fiercely attack all
unprotected flesh with their little spiked shoes, to run down to
Brighton and empty their lives of everything but petrol until
Doncaster? And what happened?
Along about the middle watches of that night, when only a white
streak marked the road and the travellers were exchanging the
luscious dews of Surrey for the first suggestions of the salt
sea-fret of Sussex, that car, which was popularly supposed not to
know what a hill was, even if you showed it one, gave three spits and
a conquassative tremor and came to a sudden stop. All in vain did
the dapper stoker key-up this and tighten that, and pour fresh
bituminous drinks carefully over the thing's appalling thirst; to no
effect did Lord Reginald Rosacre unload the astounding anthology of
profanity which he had at great pains acquired from one of the most
celebrated of the three hundred million professors of the art in
Asia; as a vehicle of progression that car was 99 in 100 behind a
crippled goat.
Through a hole in a hedge that hemmed about a redskin-flourball
pasture, the two men pushed and butted the inoperative box of
cylinders, Thursa, with her skirts held knee-high to elude the agile
and amatory potato-bug, looking on with an air of persecuted
resignation. She was elegantly dressed, as all women whose beauty is
due more to art than inheritance invariably are; and Balzac's crude
old line which, sterilised and disinfected, says that men love not
the woman, but the woman's clothes, arose with unpleasant
suggestiveness in Reginald's mind whenever he thought of going in
search of succour, and leaving the chauffeur to look after Thursa.
Equally impracticable did it seem to send forward Balzac's compatriot
of the cigarette-fingers and the steering-wheel, since he spoke no
language but his own; so ultimately the fair, over-dressed child-wife
had to be left at the mercy of the bugs with many misgivings, but
definite instructions to sound a loud horn should danger seem
impending.
Four miles and a quarter further on, there reposed in a Sleepy Hollow
ten cottages, a baker's, a harness shop, and a Georgian inn; but
Reginald Rosacre died ten deaths in reaching it. The first streaks
of dawn were coming from between the quaint old sixteenth-century
bungalows on Hogg's Hill and falling on his lordship's left cheek,
all grimy and grey with dust, as he staggered up to the tavern's
oaken door and rapped upon it with a long steel monkey-wrench. A
horse and trap--no matter at what cost--would still get them into
Brighton ere most folks were up.
"Oho, there! Within, within!" he cried, lambasting the brave ilexian
door with his puny implement.
A window sash, immediately above his head, was raised noisily, and a
red-faced, half-awakened man looked out and asked what the future
torment was the matter.
"Say, have you any flys heah?" cried Lord Rosacre.
"Millions an' millions of 'em, damyer!" roared the irate innkeeper,
really using a much coarser objurgation. "But we don't buy our
fly-papers in the middle o' the gory night! Take that!"
And, catching up two huge flower-bowls, or something, in the liquid
contents of which some such pungent stalks as those of mignonette or
wallflower had been stagnating for a week or more, he drenched his
unexpected visitors as freely and liberally as, in the wild old days
on the Euphrates, the magnificent Lucius Verus did his guests when he
emptied murrhine vases filled with nard upon their heads before being
carried up drunk to bed in a coverlet of camel-hair.
No, Marshall, say please that I have gone to Turkey to gather arum
lilies.
Thine, dear,
VIOLA.
EPISTLE VIII
BUCKTHORN MANSE, SURREY, _January_ 6_th._
MY DEAREST PATRICIA,--
When you ingenuously asked in your refreshingly-conventional Yuletide
rigmarole whether I duly suspended my stocking on Christmas Eve and,
if so, what I got out of it, you were actuated more, I believe, by a
vapid desire to appear "seasonable" than by a spirit of idle inquiry
as to whether I had sensibly cloven the continuity of a ghastly
practice; but in either case it cheers me greatly to be able to
inform you that, though my shins are still covered with woven brown
silk to a point that is defiant of criticism, I really _did_ find it
convenient to hang up my enamelled garters for a tenner, and, thanks
to subsequent investments at the Buckthorn Park New Year's Hunt
Meeting, that sum has been multiplied sevenfold. A hunt meeting _per
se_ would mean less than nothing to you, dear, but when one is
staying, as I am, with the people who are the breath in the nostrils
of the whole thing, one becomes a part of the meeting itself and
appreciates with a new perception the points which previously were
unseen or unrecognised. Unlike such foxy fixtures as Ascot and Epsom
and Goodwood, where the roguery of the owner is too often reflected
in the reluctance of the racehorse, an atmosphere of probity and
rectitude envelops the hunt meeting and inspires its votaries to
pursue the same policy of frank, unbuckled integrity and veracious
candour by which alone it sternly silences the ever-ready tongue of
scandal. Not as in flat-racing, where all is whispered and
inscrutable, there is no concealment here from first to last--from
the titled stewards meeting in the lavatory regularly before each
race to equitably arrange the rates of betting; the humane trainers
giving their horses a refreshing bucket of water apiece before
sending them to the starting-post; the returning jockey of the winner
pulling up without dismounting at the paddock bar and taking three
large, courage-giving drinks and a pork pie before going in to scale;
and finally the principal bookmaker driving off the course in a
dogcart behind the hot favourite who was so unfortunately left at the
post in the opening event. To me the whole thing is completely
bewitching, for though, in the absence of trains reserved exclusively
for the use of "Club" members, one may have to travel in the company
of persons whose knowledge of attenuated English classics is limited
and whose conversations, even when ostentatiously suppressed, are
distinctly not anæmic, there is ample compensation to be had in the
overheard narrative of the drinking of strong wines from reeking
gourds, to say nothing of the conversational "pointers" which
accompany it. How I should _love_ to stay in the dining-room with
the men to-night whence all (the petticoats) but I had fled, to, like
a gramophone, repeat this memoir of my journey down:
"Did ye 'ear about Bill Willis an' Tom Reeder a-goin' to Plumpton,
George?"
"Which Bill Willis d'ye mean, 'Arry; him as set the old woman on the
fire at Doncaster?"
"No, no; not him. The Bill Willis what the doctor in the Sunday
paper told to eat a raw inion at each meal--him as they used to call
'Ev'ry-Morn-I-Bring-Thee-Vi'lets'?"
"Oh, _him_! Why, what happened to 'em?"
"They set out about a week ago to carry on the noble work at Plumpton
Steeplechases, an', as both felt as they could do with a bit of a
change, they arranges to stop 'private' in Brighton, at a little case
in Black Lion Street where Tom Reeder annually took his old woman
every August. It's not by no means a fash'nable lodgin' for society
ducks--in fact, as showin' that the lan'lady wasn't expectin' winter
lodgers, Bill and Tom found as she'd been snowballin' the layout, or
in other words, stuffin' all the settin'-room furniture, with that
chemical moth-stuff what looks like candles but hums like as if the
gas was turned on. There was only one bedroom, too, but it had a
brace o' kips in it as well as a big double wardrobe for to 'ang yer
clothes in; in every respec' as good a place as a man need want, and
all comin' at a figure that didn't compel ye to give the lan'lady the
frozen face on the last day o' the meetin' unless things went _extra_
kerteever. You follow me, George?"
"Abso-pleadin'-lutely, 'Arry. Well?"
"Well--but you know what Brighton is, George; the wettest part o' the
glorious place lies north o' the beach, not south. You stroll along
the front fully intendin' to give yer old liver a good washin' in
Schilling's beautiful natural sel'zer water, an', before you're half
way to the Metropole, you've done eight or ten splits, a pint o'
stout along o' the oysters what you've 'ad at the little shop behind
the Star an' Garter, so many gins-an'-bitters that yer stomach,
originally humbugged into believin' it was a-goin' to have a square
meal, refuses to take any further notice of 'em, a stray slosh o' bay
rum where you got shaved in Ship Street, two or three drops o' that
stuff as you took when the doctor told yer to do all as you could to
be sick--
"Ver-mooth."
"Aye, ver-mooth; an' by the time you oughter be half way to the
racecourse you're still a-lookin' for a conveyance round about Castle
Square, an' a-gapin' to such an extent that street boys comes up to
you an' offers to show yer the chemist's shop in East Street where
they sells the infallible yawn drops. But there's one thing I _will_
say for the Brighton atmosphere: you seem to pull yerself round again
just as quick as you seemed to get oiled--consequently Bill Willis
an' Tom Reeder spent a thoroughly enj'yable an' int'lectual week of
it."
"I'm sure!"
"Any'ow, on the Saturday mornin' just about nine o'clock, Bill
marches into the 'Swan' in Ship Street with his tongue a-feelin' like
a ash-heap an' literally a-gaspin' for his mornin's mornin'. Now the
'Swan' in Ship Street is a sort of 'ome-from-'ome for families an'
sportsmen visitin' Brighton, an' from goin' there so frequent like,
both Bill an' Tom had come to know the manager. So, as Bill glides
softly in, lookin' as if he'd just seen Hell in a nightmare, the
manager wishes him good-mornin' an' asks him if he hadn't slep' well
last night. 'Fact is, mister,' said Bill, 'I've only a hazy
remembrance of 'ow I got to bed at all, an' it certainly wasn't till
close on four this mornin' in any case. That gentleman-friend o'
mine an' me had two other gents to dinner at our lodgin's--I dessay
you remember we took eight bottles o' Scotch away from here with
us?--an' I must have had the devil's own luck at cards, for although
I seemed to get whacked every time as I went the bundle, jiggered if
I didn't wake up this mornin' with close on twelve quid in my kick--a
state o' things that whistles aloud for a bottle o' the best. Give
us yer wine list, an' set out one tumbler for yerself.' But the
manager, though producin' the wine list, says he makes it a rule
never to drink so early; besides he's jest had one; also it's the
brewery traveller's day for comin' down, an' that'll mean another.
So Bill Willis, with that glorious feelin' of affluence that comes
from a well-lined kick--when one feels matey with all the world, an'
seriously considers why he don't write to the brewery an' ask for
special terms for a wholesale order--sings a bottle o' something
extra sec at fourteen-an'-a-tanner, an' takes it from a half-pint
tumbler. 'Drink 'earty, boy!' he says to himself aloud as he fills
his second glass, an'--well, just as he said the words, in rushes Tom
Reeder!"
"Just in time, eh?"
"No, a wee bit late. Tom's awfully hot-under-the-collar about
something or other, for he no sooner sets eyes on Bill, than he
bellers out, 'Gawdstroth, Bill, I've run half over Brighton to find
yer!' 'Well, you should have took a fly,' says Vi'lets, bold with
the booze; 'but what's the matter?' 'Matter enough!' shouts Tom,
'when you went to that ruddy wardrobe this mornin' you put on _my_
trahsers!"
It may not have been a very convincing _argumentum ad judicium_ (as
they said at Weatherby's when a certain racing countess wanted to
register "Haste to the Wedding" as the name of a gelding) for one so
well posted to have purchased before the eyes of all men a shilling
card from a racecourse tipster, whose wardrobe would have precluded
his obtaining employment at delivering coals, but I stood by the
rails to listen to the engaging story of how he never failed to find
the winner, but that it was his fearful thirst which seemed to keep
him broke; how he should "be 'aving something very 'ot" for the last
race, cabled straight to him by Slod Toan, who was at present
schooling yearlings for President Roosevelt in the Phillypeanut
Islands, on to which he wanted us to get our money into action quick,
tear up our return briefs, and ride 'ome in an airship. Up to now,
he continued, the Ring didn't even know that such an 'orse existed;
but owner, trainer, and jockey had tried it to give two stone to
Pretty Polly, and were surprised to find it even so much better than
_that_, that they had wired to Coutts's to reserve room in their new
premises for another scuttleful. All that he asked us to do was to
get on before the Ring rumbled, and show his card to our friends
afterwards.
Oh yes, dear; to anticipate your inevitable inquiry, I "done it," as
my tipster would have said, but it did not finish in the first eight.
The horse that won was owned by the brother-in-law of the authorised
printer of the official racecard, was bedded in the jockey's
ambulance room on dried seaweed, patented and sold on commission by
the handicapper, and came up and ate loaf-sugar out of the hand of
the clerk-of-the-scales. Nevertheless, no sooner had "All right!"
been called, than the preposterous horse-watcher was peacocking up
and down the course in front of the lawn, closely followed by an
all-night souse without shoes or socks and blackballed in perpetuity
at the Rowton Residences, but shouting, with well assumed enthusiasm,
"Brayvo! He's bin an' done it agen. Brayvo!" If only the poor
thing had realised his possibilities, and taken a short, graduating
course in one of the advertisement-concocting colleges (as the clerk
of the course, who took half the profits on the tipster's cards as
the price of giving permission to sell them, observed, as he stood
beside me and checked the man's sales) what couldn't he have torn off
the public with some more refined thimble-game, such as a new sawdust
health-food, a heal-the-blind "institute," or a dud encyclopedia?
But I must on no account omit to tell you of an ingenuous incident
which followed the decision of the antepenultimate event--"A Handicap
Hurdle Plate of 30 sovs. (to quote the card), for the produce of
mares that have never thrown a winner under any rules; gentlemen
riders, Members of the Postman's Knock Hunt who have touched twice
over one race to carry 7 lb. extra; the winner to be sold for 40
sovs. Two miles, over eight flights of hurdles. Six subs."
This valuable prize had just been taken by a ten-to-one shot, ridden
most admirably by the acquitted co-respondent of the noble horseman
who had bunkered the favourite down the wrong course, and we all
filed round to the back of the stand to see the winner bought in. It
was about the only thing there was to do for ten minutes or so,
wherefore all but the tactiturn, the tired, and the tight-booted
trapesed round to the rostrum with a Cleopatra-going-to-meet-Antony
hopefulness. Round and round a small railed-in grass plot, a stable
lad paced a still panting mare, whose sides were pinked by the spur,
and whose knees were so far ahead of her toes, that when she stood
still she looked as though she were getting ready to make a jump.
There would surely be a vitriolic battle-royal to possess her, and,
anticipating much spirited bidding, and being anxious not to begin
till all were assembled, the rural auctioneer stood in his pulpit
rubbing his hands together like the handkerchiefless person who eats
prawns in a race-train, and grinning as if he had suddenly contracted
gas on the brain. Nor was he disappointed. Opposed by a venal bunch
of leather-legginged get-rich-quick's, Bronzewing's owner had to go
to sixty-five guineas to retain her; and then, for a moment, we
looked like languishing again, for even the excitement attaching to
the attempted dispersal of a sensational stud of one soon dies down.
"But don't go away, please," cried the auctioneer, to our intense
relief, "I've one here that also ran. Williams, bring in Little
Breeches."
And Williams did. Little Breeches, a nine-year-old gelding, standing
about 17.2, came into the ring sideways like a one-eyed ghost
reluctantly winging its way to heaven. Little Breeches had been
given a pint and a half of the celebrated "Flying Hornet" preserving
whisky before going to the post, and had tried three times to hang
himself in the starting-gate; now that the first effects of the
powerful stimulant were working off, there remained only a splitting
headache, whose mission it was to beat it into him that he had been
played, and, still too doped to show resentment, he walked round and
round as though in a trance.
"Now, gentlemen," cried the auction person, "I claim your attention
to Little Breeches, by Gumsucker out of Sewing Girl, by Gozo, by Wild
Oats. A nice, handy animal, gentlemen, and one that is sure to pick
up a perfect roll of money this winter. He's in the Sluggard's Plate
at Sandown Park next Tuesday at a nice weight, and only needs keying
up to concert pitch; now what may I say for him?"
But answer there came none.
"Come, gentlemen, come," rated the auctioneer, in a tone of
astonished reproach, "it only wants one of you to give me a start;
may I put him in at five guineas? Walk him round again, Williams. A
great, slashing colt like this--he was fairly on terms with the
winner at the last hurdle--and five guineas only bid! Five--five in
two places--six, thank you, sir. Six guineas only for Little
Breeches! About a tenth of what he'd fetch to pull an omnibus!
Seven, seven--against you, sir, at seven--eight. And eight I'm only
offered; have you all done at--nine, thank you, nine; may I make it
ten for you, sir? Ten--going at ten----"
But even as the auctioneer hung upon his own words there came running
from the inner recesses of the refreshment room a burly, fatherly man
of fifty, who had the hansom-cab industry stamped indelibly all over
him. He seemed amazed to find that the sale had progressed so far,
while he had been painting the future of cabbing in rosy colours and
bottled stout, and he pushed and elbowed his way through the throng
as though eager to retrieve lost opportunities. Ducking beneath the
railings and entering the sale-ring, he stooped and ran his critical
right-hand fingers up and down the forelegs of Little Breeches.
"What's this one, mister?" he asked the auctioneer.
"Little Breeches, sir, by Gumsucker out of Sewing Girl," replied the
alert salesman, and added, "and it is against you at ten. Now have
you all done at ten----"
"AND SIX!" advanced the representative of the Shoful Trust, with the
guileless air of one who hails from near to Nature's heart; and in
two ticks he was being roughly hustled towards the bleak high road by
a posse of the pantomimic pensioners done up in football pads, known
as the racecourse police.
But there are more takedowns at this game of racing than are
suspected by those who "do" their Derby dryfooted at their favourite
music-hall--even if one gives them in the takedown by the exhilarated
gentleman who is so pleased with himself at having worn dark blue and
yellow braces, that he enters the stalls with them dangling at his
heels for the racegoers in the pit to see and applaud. Though these
stallites, after seeing St Amant spring from somewhere underneath the
orchestra, execute a few wild buck and wing steps in Barnard's Ring,
and then shoot bodily over the top of Mr Sherwood's cottage, may say
of the sporting press what David said in his haste of all concerned,
the dark thought and aching heart of desperation and despair are as
often seen in racing, as the black eye and splitting headache of
delirious joy. For instance, estimate if you can, the weight of
anguish that is but faintly shadowed in the following letter, picked
up by me from the platform at Victoria:
"PEAVINE VILLA, NEW YEAR'S NIGHT.
"MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,--
Having cried over your sympathetic letter of yesterday until I have
started my nose a-bleeding, I have now hypothecated my wedding ring
and keeper, as you advised, and propose to stack my drapery and
return to dear old Saffron Walden to-morrow by the 10.25 from
Liverpool Street. Heav'n knows I have loved James Henry (who has
again recently lost his voice in formally applying for a rise in his
salary) as ardently as any woman could; but the accursed Yellow Card
has come between us. How little did I dream when, nine months ago,
James Henry offered me his heart, his hand, and whatever was left in
the weekly envelope after sweetening Topping and Spindler; and I
promised that even if he could not make me completely happy no other
should ever try to do so; that he entertained no thought of forsaking
the double-your-stake-but-stick-to-your-martingale system!
"For many months past James Henry, whose views on the true methods of
banishing poverty lend themselves felicitously to the purposes of the
vigilant humorist, has been strenuously endeavouring to choke a firm
at Flushing (postage 2½d.), and take it away from them. Meantime the
rent has fallen two quarters in arrear, and our butcher has had the
immortal rind to stop supplies entirely. The wretched grocer has
followed suit, and--from the quires of circulars telling how an
eighty-shilling income should carry a £200 bill-of-sale, which are
dropped into our letter-box--has mentioned the matter more than once
across his counter. The climax came on Tuesday evening, when, during
Henry's absence, the landlord called. He had a bunch of bananas, a
bottle of whisky, and six mince pies in a paper bag; and, saying he
would rather meet me than a mowing machine any day, he chased me
thirty-three times round the sitting-room sofa, and nearly forgot
that he was a gentleman. I judged it better, however, to tell James
Henry that Mr Groundrent's demeanour was extremely frigid and
bitterly threatening; for no wreck of matrimony can destroy its high
ideals or take from her, who was judicious while it lasted, the gain
to her own soul of unselfishly endeavouring to preserve peace at any
sacrifice; whereupon James Henry wrote as follows:
"'Look here, Groundrent, dear old soul; it galls me like sin to have
to hand you the ice-bowl once again, but all my stocks are
falling--Bath Tramways, Allsopp's Ordinary, Cotton Spinners'
Deferred, and Schweppe's Pref.--and I can't even book a date till one
of them goes up. Knowing, however, that you occasionally make out a
little bit of paper when you hear of any goods of an extra-superior
quality, I want you to keep your mouth shut and absorb the following
right straight into your system: You must have a pony each way
to-morrow, Broiled Bird in the Hardware Plate, and when it has
rollicked home, just pay yourself the two quarters' rent due, and act
honourably by dropping a little cheque for half of the diff.
remaining into any pillar-box, addressed to--Yours and so forth.'
"The occasional charwoman's little boy took the letter round, and was
unreflectingly detained in the hall--I say unreflectingly for the
reason that the youth was sucking a heavy line in paregoric lozenges
at the time--while Mr Groundrent penned the following reply:--
"'Sir, you omit, intentionally, or otherwise, the Turf alias of the
bug-eyed slanderer who averred that I occasionally pricked the
garter; but I respect your confidence, and even beg to slip you a
bigger cert than changing a shilling for a blind man. I want you to
take the cotton batting out of your ears and let the good thing soak
right in--Bum Bailiff for the Man in Possession Stakes, first thing
in the morning. Act honourably, as he has imperative orders to nail
anything to the floor if he catches you trying to shift it--Yours and
all, N. G.'