TWO GIRLS
Gay Lawless looked particularly bewitching the while she entertained
her visitors that afternoon. She seemed more charming than usual to
both Chris and Carlton Mackrell, while even the Professor, who
usually noticed nothing, patted her approvingly on the head, and
remarked, "You look very well, my dear."
Gay was gifted (for no one can acquire it) with perfect taste in
clothes, and her tea-gown was cut with that attention to detail which
results in simplicity itself. Although one could be with Gay for
quite a long time, and have the pleasing assurance that she was the
best style in the world, there was always a great difficulty in
remembering exactly what she had worn.
"What had she on?" envious girls used to ask the men who admired her,
and the answer usually was, "I don't know, but it was quite simple,
and _such_ good style."
To-day she appeared to both men more lovable than ever, and Chris
thought what a shame it would be to bury such a bright creature in a
place like Epsom, with no one to amuse or to admire her except
himself.
He took short hold of his fancy before it carried him to further
flights, however, as he dropped into a chair by her side, while, much
to Carlton's disgust, the latter was button-holed by the Professor.
"What's the latest about your Trotters?" inquired Chris, breaking
into a smile that accentuated the crow's-feet round his young eyes.
"Great news," Gay replied with enthusiasm. "Mr. Mackrell has bought
me a couple he got to hear of, a green Trotter who can go in about
2.18 called 'Silver Streak,' and a pacer with a trial of 2.13¼ named
'Maudie T.' And isn't it kind of him, he's going to lend me his
trainer--sounds funny to talk of lending a man, doesn't it?--while
the craze lasts, as he calls it. But you know, Chris, it _isn't_ a
craze, it's a--a--almost a disease now! I'm racing one at Waterloo
Park next Monday, and oh! I do hope it will win, don't you?" she
asked eagerly.
"With all my heart," Chris replied, with more enthusiasm than he
thought he could work up over Trotting. "And may I be there to see.
Monday, you said, didn't you? That will suit me to a T. I've got
nothing to do till Wednesday at Kempton, so perhaps you'll return the
compliment, and come over to see me bump round on Beeswing? He did
well in a gallop this morning--better than I expected, in fact."
"Answered the question all right, did he?" Gay asked. "Does he
represent a betting chance on Wednesday, with the eminent
gentleman-jockey up--and is he _safe_?" she added, turning a little
pale.
"Well, he's about as safe a jumper as an amateur"--he grinned,
"that's what some of the professionals in their scorn for the
'leather-polishers' they call us, could wish to ride, and my head lad
says he has so much in hand that he could stop to scratch himself,
and then win," Chris chuckled. "Oh! _hang_ Lossie!"
The stifled ejaculation was prompted by the entrance of a remarkably
pretty girl, beautifully dressed in dark blue, who rustled across the
room to Gay, and kissed her perfunctorily.
"_How_ are you?" she inquired, but though her voice was affectionate,
her eyes flitted from Gay to Carlton Mackrell--where they stayed.
"A1, Lossie, thanks. I needn't ask how _you_ are. I never saw you
looking better--(or more expensive)", she added to herself with a
sigh, as her cousin shook hands with Carlton and Chris, and begged
Gay to give her a cup of tea.
Frank Lawless ambled forward, and was soon busily juggling with milk
and sugar basin, while Chris wondered what in Heaven was wrong with
the girl, for if she always gave him the same displeasing impression,
he could not possibly deny her beauty. Tall and dark, with masses of
silky blue-black hair, she had eyes blue as heaven, and straight,
delicate features that emphasised the irregularity of Gay's changing
face, of which the chief charm, perhaps, lay in its expression.
She seemed a bundle of nerves as her slender foot beat a tatoo on the
floor, while her wonderful eyes were never still, yet never rested
long on any single object save Carlton, who was certainly well worth
looking at.
It was Lossie's misfortune to have fallen genuinely in love with him,
not for his money, though she liked that well enough, but himself.
His was the Saxon temperament which veils the keenest pleasure, and
the deepest grief under the same quiet, almost bored exterior, but
she knew that his indifference concealed an ardent, even romantic
temperament, that might be counted upon sooner or later to betray him
into one of those follies so dear to the heart of woman, while
Chris's gay, almost affectionate manner to the women he liked, argued
a much greater warmth of temperament than he really possessed.
She felt completely out of it as the three sat talking horses, and
had leisure to note the eager look on Gay's face as she listened to
what Carlton was saying, also to digest the fact that this Trotting
fad would bring her cousin and Mackrell more together than ever.
"Both your horses are timed to do two minutes thirty seconds," said
Mackrell presently, "and upon that form they will be handicapped on
Monday. I think--at least, 'Brusher' tells me--that Silver Streak
had improved on that time in private, but he has always been 'just
beaten' lately, so they may put him on a few yards closer mark next
time he runs. When a horse is entered for a Trotting race, you
know," he explained, "the owner has to supply the handicappers with
his best time for a mile on a track."
"What's to stop a man representing his horse as being able to do two
minutes thirty seconds when he knows he can do it in less?" inquired
Chris, for his experience of the Turf had made him familiar with most
of the dodges for throwing dust in the handicappers' eyes, with a
view to getting dropped a few pounds in the scale. "You can't get
weight off in the stable," was a dictum he often heard, but never
practised.
"Well, for one thing," Mackrell replied, "the officials generally
like to see a horse do his time before they frame their handicap, to
prevent mistakes, you know," and he laughed. "For another, if a
horse improves appreciably on his entered time, the 'man in the box,'
as they call him, wants to know something about it, though, of
course, a few seconds faster might be owing to a good track and good
going. On the other hand, if a horse does not trot up to his time,
they can, if they like, put up their official driver to take him
round as fast as he can make him go. If the discrepancy is
considerable, the scheming owner will probably find himself suspended
for a few months, or even warned off."
"But," said Chris, who at heart deeply resented Mackrell's
encouraging Gay in her misguided fancy, "when such men as Rensslaer
and Vancouver and that ilk, all hold aloof from the sport as
understood in England, what chance has it of becoming a national
sport? The trotting tracks here are so bad that it is really kinder
not to enumerate them; most are in connection with public-houses, and
the people who frequent them are the middle class. Trotting, in
short, is the sport of that and the lower classes, and they trot
cheap horses in consequence."
"Unfortunately," said Mackrell, with a slightly heightened colour,
for he got fearfully chaffed among his own set for his bizarre taste,
"the upper classes take no interest in Trotting in England. It will
take time to prove to them that a trotter is not necessarily a
butcher's horse, but can vie with a hackney and swell carriage horse,
and is almost as fast as a motor car as well, thus combining the
horse and motor in one animal. Of course we all know that in America
the trotter is the National horse, as the thoroughbred is the English
one."
Chris was silent. He thought that Mackrell understood trotting, or
rather mixed trotting and pacing, as practised in England, but knew
nothing of the higher art of trotting, that is to say, real
first-class trotting with horses worth money, and which could go in
2.8 or better--like the famous Rensslaer's, for example.
"Are you _really_ going to keep Trotters, Gay?" Lossie cut in sharply.
"Rather! and I'm going to train at Flytton. Inigo Court's close by,
you know, and I shall love seeing my horses jog in the morning.
They'll let me do that, I suppose?" she asked Carlton Mackrell, and
pointedly turning her back on Chris.
"Oh, certainly," he replied, after a moment's hesitation, and much to
the disgust of the Professor, who considered that all this horsey
talk was more suitable for stables than a drawing-room. He did hope
Gay would not become one of those horrid, slangy, racing-women he
abominated; almost unconsciously he exchanged a glance with Lossie,
who flashed back one of sympathy, for jealousy and envy of Gay
corroded her.
All the advantages were with Gay--money, position, freedom--there was
even her great capacity for winning hearts to set against her
cousin's beauty; it wasn't fair, and the unfairest thing of all was
Carlton Mackrell's obvious devotion, and as Lossie sat unnoticed,
while Gay was the magnet that drew the eyes and hearts of both men
present, perhaps the two smartest and best-looking men of their
circle, and one of whom Lossie loved, her gorge rose.
Fortunately Gay was not in love with him, and up to now, at any rate,
Carlton had not picked a quarrel with Lossie for loving him unbidden,
as some men do (regarding it as an unwarrantable encroachment on
their liberty), and when Gay married Chris, whom she loved without
knowing it, then Lossie would cut in, and a beautiful woman at close
quarters is a beautiful woman all the world over.
Failing him, but the girl shuddered at the thought, there was the
Professor ... rich men did not grow on every bush, and her tastes
were expensive.
The mother of Frank and Gay had been wealthy, and their father and
his family comparatively poor, a fact greatly resented by Lossie, who
had a mordant tongue, and was wont to describe the Lawless branch of
the family as "the silk cloak," and hers as "the cotton lining."
It was with angry, embittered heart that later in the afternoon she
turned her steps homewards, bitterly comparing her lot with Gay's,
for Becky Sharp's type is much commoner than is generally
supposed--the type that can be good and happy (at a pinch) on five
thousand a year, but _quite_ good, and _quite_ happy on ten and
upwards, and Lossie was of that type.
She had friends, of course, and admirers, who came to see her, George
Conant much oftener than she wanted him, but a house without plenty
of money, and a man at the head of it, is not half equipped for life
and happiness. For the tiny establishment in South Street was run,
if not ruled, by Aunt Lavinia (Chris's especial pal), who would
greatly have preferred the more roomy comfort of Connaught Square, in
which the Professor and Gay buried their unfashionable heads.
Both Lossie's parents were dead, and Lavinia had given her sister's
child a home, tackling each day the difficult problem of trying to
love a singularly unloveable girl, though "Anyway, my dear, she's
delightful to look at!" Lavinia would say confidentially to Gay,
after some especially flagrant piece of selfishness on Lossie's part.
Lavinia had a queer religion of her own (but not so queer when you
come to reflect that nowadays real religion is found chiefly in those
who do not profess any), and it was summed up in the love of
humanity, and the law of human kindness.
"Teach folks to love," she used to say; "teach 'em to keep on
loving--the rest will follow. No soul was ever yet damned that knew
how to love--it's in the loving, not the _being_ loved, that we find
happiness. Have you ever noticed the courting couples about on
Sundays and holidays, that if the girls are not pretty, they _look_
so? Love has done the trick--not new clothes, or getting themselves
up, but just _loving_ something that's not themselves."
Lossie had an immense contempt for the "giving out" process of love
as practised by Aunt Lavinia, the more especially when it took the
form of cheques better employed in paying the milliners' bills of her
niece, nor was the Professor more appreciative, for he seldom or
never went to see his father's sister in South Street, though he
welcomed her cordially enough on her rare visits to Connaught Square.
Perhaps it was because (as he had long ago suspected) she reluctantly
recognised him as lazy, self-indulgent, ruined by his too abundant
means, amiable with the tepid amiability of a dog who does not fight,
and by blandishments hopes to be allowed to retain his bone.
Hall-marked he was, with the special form of selfishness that makes
the man completely happy in his bodily environment, and mental
pursuits and hobbies, shun the society of his kind, and to whom it is
a matter of complete indifference that "grass-grown become the paths
to friendship that are never trod."
He usually (in quite unconscious antagonism) ordered twenty pounds
worth of new books when through Lossie he heard of some
preposterously good deed done by Lavinia, but to go and do likewise
simply never occurred to him, nor did it at that time to Gay, who,
without knowing it, was selfish also.
Yet, but for this blessed privilege of youth, where would beautiful,
much-abused youth be? Gay was young, full of life and spirits, and
would have to suffer a bit herself before she vividly realised the
sufferings of others, even if she responded readily enough to any
demand on her purse, if not her time. All of this Lavinia perfectly
understood, but much as she loved the girl, Chris, whose mother's
friend she had been was the very light of her eyes.