WHIRLWIND
Captain Willy Forrest admitted that he had few virtues, but he never
charged himself with the vice of idleness. In town or out of it, his
trim man-servant, Abel, would wake him at seven o'clock and see that he
had a cup of tea and the morning papers by a quarter-past. Fine physical
condition was one of the ambitions of this lithe shapely person, whose
father had been a jockey and whose mother had not forgotten to the day
of her death the manner in which measurements are taken upon a counter.
Willy Forrest, by dint of perseverance, had really come to believe that
these worthy parents never existed but in his imagination. To the world
he was the second son of the late Sir John Forrest, Bart., whose
first-born, supposed to be in Africa, had remained beyond the pale for
many years. Society, which rarely questions pleasant people, took him at
his word and opened many doors to him. In short, he was a type of
adventurer by no means uncommon, and rarely unsuccessful when there are
brains to back the pretensions.
He was not a particularly evil rascal, and women found him charming.
Possessed of a merry face, a horsey manner and a vocabulary which would
have delighted a maker of slang dictionaries, he pushed his my
everywhere, not hoping for something to turn up, but determined that his
own cleverness should contrive that desirable arrival. When he met Anna
Gessner at Ascot a year ago, the propitious moment seemed at hand. "The
girl is a gambler to her very boots," he told himself, while he
reflected that a seat upon the box of such a family coach would
certainly make his fortune. Willy Forrest resolved to secure such a seat
without a moment's loss of time.
This determination taken, the ardor with which he pursued it was
surprising. A cunning fox-like instinct led him to read Anna Gessner's
character as few others who had known her. Believing greatly in the
gospel of heredity, he perceived that Anna owed much to her father and
more to her nationality. "She is selfish and passionate, a little devil
in single harness who would be worse in double"--this was his reading of
her; to which he added the firm resolution to put the matter to the
proof without loss of time.
"I shall weigh in immediately and the weights will be light," he
thought. "She likes a bit of a flutter and I'll see that she gets it.
There is plenty of corn in the old man's manger, and if it comes to
bursting the bag, I will carry home the pieces. There's where I drive
the car. She shall play and I will be her pet lamb. Great Jupiter, what
a catch!"
The result of this pretty conclusion is next to be seen in a cottage in
Hampshire, not far removed from the racing stables of the great John
Farrier, who, as all the world knows, is one of the most honest and the
most famous trainers in the country. This cottage had Willy Forrest
furnished (indirectly at Anna's expense) in a manner worthy of all the
artistic catalogues. And hither would Anna come, driving over from her
father's country-house near Basingstoke, and caring not a fig what the
grooms might think of her.
"Captain Forrest is my trainer," she told the men, bidding them to be
secret.
For any other explanation they cared not at all. To run a horse in a
great race seemed to them the highest of human achievements, and great
was their wonder that this fragile girl should dare it. "She be a rare
good 'un and a stayer. Derned if I don't put my last button on
Whirlwind." This was the extent of the scandal that she caused.
Anna motored over to "The Nest" some three weeks after Alban had been
received at Hampstead, and found Willy Forrest anxiously waiting for her
at the gate. She had brought with her one of those obliging dependents
who act so cheerfully as unnecessary chaperones, and this "person" she
left in the smart car while she entered the cottage and told the owner
that he was forgiven. Their quarrel had been vehement and tempestuous
while it lasted--and the Captain remembered that she had struck him with
her whip.
"I knew you'd come, Anna," he said good-humoredly while he opened the
gate for her. "Of course, I don't bear you any grudge. Good Lord, how
you went it last time. I might have been a hair-trunk that had let you
down at a gate. Eh, what--do you remember it? And the old chin-pot which
cost me twenty guineas. Why, you smashed it all to bits with your
whip--eh, what? I've laughed till I cried every time I tried to stick it
together again. Come right in and let's shake hands. You've got an
oddish looking lot in the car--bought her in at the sale, I suppose--eh,
what? Well, I'm glad to see you really."
She looked a little downcast, he thought, but prettier than he had ever
seen her before. It was quite early in the morning and his table had
been set out for breakfast, with dainty old-fashioned china and a silver
kettle singing over a lamp. Anna took her favorite arm-chair, and
drawing it close to the table permitted him to give her a cup of tea.
"You wanted to make a cheat of me," she said calmly enough. "Oh, yes, I
have heard all about it. There's nothing whatever the matter with
Whirlwind. He must win the cup--John Farrier says so. You are the person
who does not wish him to win."
Adventurers never blush when they are found out, and Willy Forrest was
no exception to the rule.
"Oh, there you are," he cried boisterously, "just the same old
kettle-drum and the same old sticks. Do you think I don't know as much
about a horse as Farrier? Good Lord, he makes me sick--I'd sooner hear a
Salvation Army Band playing 'Jumping Jerusalem' on the trombone than old
John Farrier talking honest. Are we running nags to pay the brokers out
or to make a bit on our sweet little own--eh, what? Are we
white-chokered philanthropists or wee wee baby mites on the nobbly
nuggets? Don't you listen to him, Anna. You'll have to sell your boots
if you follow old John."
She stirred her tea and sipped it slowly.
"You said Whirlwind was going lame on the near fore-leg, and it isn't
true," she exclaimed upon a pause. "What was your object in telling me
that?"
"I said it before the grooms and you didn't give me a chance of blowing
the smoke away afterwards. You say you are racing to make money and
what's the good of hymns and milk? This horse will start at eleven to
four on unless you're careful--where's my gold-lined shower bath then?
Don't you see that you must put the market back--frighten the backers
off and then step in? That's what I was trying to teach you all the
time. Give out on the loud trumpet that the horse has gone dickey and
leave 'em uncertain for a week whether he's running or sticking. Your
money's on through a third party in the 'tween times and your cheeks are
as red as roses when the flag goes down."
"And if the horse should not win after you have cheated the people?"
"You'll be some five thousand out of pocket--that's all. Now, Anna,
don't let us have any mumble-pie between us. I'm not the dark man of the
story-books who lures the beautiful heroine on to play, and you're not
the wonderful Princess who breaks her old pa and marries because he's
stony. You can't get overmuch out of the old man and you're going to
make the rest at Tattersalls. If you listen to me, you'll make it--but
if you don't, if you play the giddy goat with old John Farrier in the
pulpit; well, then, the sooner you write cheques the better. That's the
plain truth and you may take it or leave it. There are not three honest
men racing and Willy Forrest don't join the trinity. We'll do as all
the crowd does and leave 'em to take care of themselves. You make a book
that they know how to do it. Oh, my stars, don't they--eh, what?"
Anna did not reply immediately to this odd harangue. She knew a good
deal about horses, but nothing whatever about the knavery of betting,
the shoddy tricks of it and the despicable spirit in which this great
game is often played. Something of her father's cunning, inherited and
ineradicable, led her to condone the Captain's sporting creed and not to
seek understanding. The man's high spirits made a sure appeal to her.
She could not comprehend it wholly--but she had to admit that none of
all her father's widening circle had ever appealed to her as this
nimble-tongued adventurer, who could make her heart quicken every time
their hands touched.
"I don't like it," she said anon, "and I don't want anything to do with
it. You make Whirlwind win the race and nobody will be hurt. If they bet
against the horse, what is that to me? How can I help what they
think--and I don't care either if they are so foolish. Didn't you
promise me that I should see him gallop this morning? I wouldn't have
motored over otherwise. You said that there was to be a Trial--"
"Divine angel, we are at your feet always. Of course, there's a Trial.
Am I so foolish as to suppose that you came over to see Willy
Forrest--eh, what? Have I lost the funny-bone up above? Farrier is going
to gallop the nags in half an hour's time. Your smoke-machine can take
us up the hill and there we'll form our own conclusions. You leave the
rest to me. It will be a bright sunny morning when they put any salt on
Willy Forrest's tail--eh, what?"
She admitted the truth with the first smile he had seen since she
entered the cottage. His quick bustling manner, the deference he always
paid to her, despite his odd phrases, won upon her good humor and led
her to open her heart to him.
"My father is going mad," she said quietly--his startled "eh, what" not
preventing her; "we are making our house a home for the destitute, and
the first arrived just three weeks ago. Imagine a flaxen-haired image of
righteousness, who draws my portrait on the covers of books and puts
feathers in my hat. He is in love with me, Willy, and he is to be my big
brother. Yesterday I took him to Ranalegh and heard a discourse upon the
beauties of nature and the wonders of the air and the sky. Oh, my dear
man--what a purgatory and what an event. We are going to sell our jewels
presently and to live in Whitechapel. My father, I must tell you, seems
afraid of this beautiful apparition and implores him every day not to go
away. I know that he stops because he is inclined to make love to me.
"Whew--so it's only 'inclined' at present?"
"Absolutely as you say. There appear to be two of us. I have been
expecting a passionate declaration--but the recollections of a feathered
beauty who once lived in a fairy palace, in a wonderland where you dine
upon red herrings--she is my hated rival. I am more beautiful,
observe--that is conceded, but he cannot understand me. The feathered
hat has become my salvation. My great big brother can't get over
it--and oh, the simplicity of the child, the youthful verdant
confidence, my Willy. Don't you see that the young man thinks I am an
angel and is wondering all the time where the wings have gone to."
"Ha, ha--he'd better ask Paquin. Are you serious, Anna?"
"As serious as the Lord High Executioner himself. My father has adopted
a youth--and I have a big brother. He has consented to dwell in our
house and to spend our savings because he believes that by so doing he
is in some way helping me. I don't in the least want his help, but my
father is determined that I shall have it. I am not to bestow my young
affections upon him--nor, upon the other hand, am I to offend him. Admit
that the situation is delightful. Pity a poor maiden in her distress."
Willy Forrest did not like the sound of it at all.
"The old chap must have gone dotty," he remarked presently; "they're
often taken this way when they get to a certain age. You'll have to sit
tight and see about it, Anna. He isn't too free with the ready as it
is--and if you've a boy hanging about, God help you. Why don't you be
rude to him? You know the way as well as most--eh, what?"
"I'm positively afraid to. Do you know, my dear man, that if this
Perfect Angel left us, strange things would happen. My father says so,
and I believe he speaks the truth. There is a mystery--and I hate
mysteries."
"Get hold of the feathered lady and hear what she has to say."
"Impossible but brilliant. She has gone to Germany."
"Oh, damn--then he'll be making love to you. I say, Anna, there's not
going to be any billing and cooing or anything of that sort. I'm not
very exacting, but the way you look at men is just prussic acid to me.
If this kid should begin--"
She laughed drolly.
"He is my great big brother," she said--and then jumping up--"let us go
and see the horses. You'll be talking nonsense if we don't. And, Willy,
I forbid you to talk nonsense."
She turned and faced him in mock anger, and he, responding instantly,
caught her in his arms and kissed her ardently.
"What a pair of cherubs," he exclaimed, "what a nest of cooing doves--I
say, Anna, I must kill that kid--or shall it be the fatted calf?
There'll be murder done somewhere if he stops at Hampstead."
"If it were done, then when it were done--O let me go, Willy, your arms
are crushing me."
He released her instantly and, snatching up a cap, set out with her to
the downs where the horses were being stripped for the gallop. The
morning of early summer was delightfully fragrant--a cool breeze came up
from the sea and every breath invigorated. Old John Farrier, mounted on
a sturdy cob, met them at the foot of a great grassy slope and
complained that it was over late in the day for horses to gallop, but,
as he added, "they'll have to do it at Ascot and they may as well do it
here." A silent man, old John had once accompanied Willy Forrest to a
dinner at the Carlton which Anna gave to a little sporting circle. Then
he uttered but one remark, seeming to think some observation necessary,
and it fell from his lips in the pause of a social discussion. "I always
eat sparrer-grass with my fingers," he had said, and wondered at the
general hilarity.
Old John was unusually silent upon this morning of the trial, and when
he named the weights at which the horses would gallop, his voice sank to
a sepulchral whisper. "The old 'oss is giving six pounds," he said, "he
should be beat a length. If it's more, go cautious, miss, and save your
money for another day. He hasn't been looking all I should like of him
for a long time--that's plain truth; and when a horse isn't looking all
I should like of him, 'go easy' say I and keep your money under the
bed."
Anna laughed at the kindly advice, and leaving the car she walked to the
summit of the hill and there watched the horses--but three pretty specks
they appeared--far down in the hollow. The exhilaration of the great
open spaces, the wide unbroken grandeur of the downs, the sweetness of
the air, the freshness of the day, brought blood to her pallid cheeks
and a sparkle of life to her eyes. How free it all was, how
unrestrained, how suggestive of liberty and of a boundless kingdom! And
then upon it all the excitements of the gallop, the thunder of hoofs
upon the soft turf, the bent figures of the jockeys, the raking strides
of the beautiful horses--Anna no longer wondered why sport could so
fascinate its devotees. She felt at such a moment that she would have
gladly put her whole fortune upon Whirlwind.
"He wins--he wins--he wins," she cried as the three drew near, and Willy
Forrest, watching her with cunning eyes, said that the trap was closed
indeed and the key in his possession. Whirlwind, a magnificent chestnut
four-year-old, came striding up the hill as though the last furlong of
the mile and a half he had galloped were his chief delight. He was a
winner by a short head as they passed the post, and old John Farrier
could not hide his satisfaction.
"He's the best plucked 'un in England to-day, lady, and you may put your
wardrobe on him after that. Be quick about it though, for there'll be no
odds to speak of when the touts have written to-day's work in the
newspapers. Go and telegraph your commissions now. There isn't a minute
to lose."
Willy Forrest seconded the proposal eagerly.
"I should back him for five thou," he said as they left the course
together, "what's the good of half measures? You might as well play
dominoes in a coffee shop. And I can always break the news to your
father if you lose."
Anna hardly knew what to say. When she consented finally to risk the
money, she did not know that Willy Forrest was the man who laid against
her horse, and that if she lost it would be to him.
"The boss is good enough," he told himself, "but the near-off is dicky
or I never saw one. She'll lose the money and the old boy will pay
up--if I compel her to ask him. That depends on the kid. She couldn't
help making eyes at him if her life depended on it. Well--she's going to
marry me, and that's the long and short of it. Fancy passing a certainty
at my time of life. Do I see it--eh, what?"
And so they went their ways: Anna back to London to the solemn routine
of the big house; Willy Forrest to Epsom to try, as he said, "and pick
up the nimble with a pencil."