A BEAUTIFUL CASE
"It was a beautiful case," said the Professor, looking rapturously at
Gay through his glasses, and he fired off a lot of technical terms
that she did not in the least understand, but inwardly shuddered at,
for it was Chris's flesh and bones of which he was speaking, and he
wound up by telling her of the cemetery so conveniently placed for
jockeys under the hill at Epsom.
"When are you going to see him again?" inquired Gay, sitting down to
hide a sudden faintness.
"I have placed him in charge of an excellent man at Epsom," said the
Professor in the superior way in which one doctor speaks of another,
"but I shall overlook him, of course."
"Take me when you go," pleaded Gay. "I could speak to Chris through
the door, you know, and it might buck him up."
"More slang," said the Professor resignedly. "And--ah--Epsom Downs
is not _quite_ the place for a young lady, my dear--the air is so
strong and keen, it nearly takes your head off--" And indeed he
looked more alive than he had done any time these ten years.
"I wonder if his mother knows," she said, and her voice trembled. We
seldom weep at things we _feel_, it is in the attempt to put them
into words that we break down, and quite unexpectedly a tear rolled
down her cheek.
A tear with Gay was so unprecedented an occurrence, that the
Professor realised the severe nervous strain the girl had passed
through, and that had kept her sleepless during the past night, but
before he could make up his mind to try and comfort her, Gay had
vanished, blaming herself for her lack of pluck.
After all, Chris lived, and that was everything; but oh! she hated
sport--hated anything to do with horses. She had taken Chris's
steeple-chasing more or less light-heartedly till the accident to
which she had been an eye-witness, she had only _heard_ of the
others--become used to his disappearances while being patched up.
But now she knew, in one lightning flash, that she could not bear to
live with the constant dread before her of his being killed, or
dragging out a maimed existence, and with her usual decision of
character, came to the conclusion that Chris would have to choose
between racing and herself.
She fell to wondering if Mrs. Summers would be offended if she sent
down by the Professor some of her famous strong mock turtle soup, and
she hoped his beef tea would be made properly, one part beef, one
mutton, one veal. She was still thinking about it when her cousin
walked in, unannounced, of course, as most undesirable things are.
"So Chris is going on all right," said Lossie, thus proving that she
had already looked up the Professor. "Awful good sort, isn't he?"
she added, in a tone of pretended warmth, for as she wanted Carlton
Mackrell for herself, she never missed a chance of pointing out
Chris's charms to Gay.
Gay nodded, and, in an effort to calm herself, took up a bit of
needlework, and began to plant delicate, intricate stitches. It was
significant, perhaps, that no one ever saw Lossie with a needle in
her hand, and as she had no maid, how she got mended was a mystery.
"You look awfully bad," said Lossie frankly. "But if you feel like
that, why not marry Chris Hannen when he gets up, and have done with
it? Steeplechasing doesn't begin again till the autumn, and you may
as well be his wife as his widow."
Gay paled. Lossie had brutally enough hit the right nail on the
head. It was because she could not bear to own Chris, then lose him,
that she must keep him at arm's length--be his comrade rather than
his wife, which was by no means what Chris wanted!
"How is Aunt Lavinia?" she said, abruptly changing the conversation.
"Just as idiotic as ever. Sent five pounds to Barnardo's Homes
yesterday, and refused to pay my hat bill."
Gay looked disgusted, knowing that the sweet lady's life was one long
struggle to balance Lossie's dressmaking bills and her own private
charities, the result being that she had not a frock or bonnet good
enough to play chaperon in, so that Lossie was dependent on her
friends and Gay to take her about.
"That reminds me," said Gay, "I haven't sent my contribution yet,"
and she rose and went to her writing-table, where she jotted down a
note.
"As to my dressmaker," said Lossie, "she's going to summon me. It's
all these hateful seasons of the year--as soon as one is straight for
spring, it's summer, then winter in the middle of _that_--and so on.
Why can't we live in a place where the same sort of clothes do all
the year round?"
"That blue frock you wore at the ball must have been very expensive,"
said Gay hesitatingly; "the dear aunt really does her best, you know."
"Oh, it's easy for you to talk," cried Lossie spitefully. "One-half
of the feminine world is a pincushion, for the other rich and happy
half to stick pins in, and I don't pretend to be like Aunt Lavinia,
who would rather be the pincushion than the pins!"
"I'm sure," said Gay wearily, too unhappy to be indignant, "_I_ never
stuck any pins in you or anybody else."
"Well, no," admitted Lossie, who had an excellent reason for getting
Gay into a good temper, "_you_ don't, but every woman is given two
chances of happiness in life, a rich father, or an adequate
husband--or both--but as a matter of fact, the double event seldom
comes off--indeed, far more women are ruined by their fathers than
their husbands. _Cherchez la femme_ indeed! Oh, it's easy enough
for a girl to be gay, to be happy, if she's rich--if men 'don't go
after the money,' they don't refuse to go where the money is!"
Gay coloured. She knew well enough that her fortune counted for
nothing in the eyes of at least two men towards her--Chris couldn't
and wouldn't give up trying to win her because she had more money
than he had, and Carlton was so rich, that if he ever cast it a
thought, it was merely as private pocket-money with which to buy
chiffons and fal-lals.
"How much will your dressmaker take off her account?" she said, for
she always preferred coming to the point, to beating about the bush,
and she was used to these periodical attacks on her pocket.
"Thirty pounds would do. Then I could order something for--"
"Don't," said Gay, who had drawn out her cheque-book, and begun to
write. "Lossie," she said half sadly, as she came forward, and
handed her cousin a slip of pink paper, "why do you bother so much
about the outside of you? Be rice, be natural, be _kind_; don't talk
scandal--men _hate_ it--" She paused and blushed; unconsciously she
was trying to teach Lossie those pretty manners and ways of her own
that men cherish so deeply, and to which their homage, so long
forgotten among brusque women, inevitably sprang.
"I can't be a dear little charmer like you, Gay, if you mean that,"
said Lossie, as she put the cheque away, and warmly thanked its
giver, though after all it was no more than her right. Those who
_had_, ought to share with those who had not, and our Labour Members'
vigorous contention that people who have money, should be forced to
provide for those who have spent theirs, also for those who can't and
won't work, expressed her opinion exactly.
And yet the cheque did not make Lossie as happy as usual. In sudden
flashes, now and then, she realised her position--saw over. Beauty
she had, and brains, but up to now, and she was twenty-seven, they
had brought her little good. She had received no really good offers,
but it never seemed to strike her that her extreme expensiveness in
dress and tastes had a good deal to do with it, and her absorbing
(and patent) passion for Mackrell still more. To be sure there was
that ridiculous George Conant, at present the favourite nephew and
heir of the enormously rich Mrs. Elkins, but as the old lady made a
new will every three months or so, and he might do something
specially idiotic to annoy her, it would be madness to bet on _that_
chance.
Poor Frank would be safe, and less trouble--anyway, she had no
intention of drifting into that grey life in which one is first with
nobody, or worse still (for Aunt Lavinia's pension died with her),
forming one of that hopeless army of incapables that is always
"looking for something," and helpless, unbraced, expects a
heaven-born post to fit it, not that it should learn to fit itself
for a post.
Lossie sighed impatiently, and glanced across at Gay, who sat,
needlework in hand, in the charming room that was feminine like
herself, and fresh and sweet, with nothing whatever about her to
suggest the Trotting or Race-course, and, as often before, she tried
to analyse the irresistible charm of her cousin.
"A good sort" (from the women), "a _darned_ good sort" (from the
men), was the invariable verdict passed upon her, and even taking up
vulgar Trotting, and doing things men hate their women to do, had not
affected her popularity. "The first time you see Gay Lawless you'll
hardly think her good-looking, the second you'll fall in love with
her, and the third you'll ask her to marry you!" Lossie had once
heard one man tell another--but as to _beauty_! It was true that
Gay's eyes had a curious power of refraction, so that shades of
feeling chased each other over them like shadows on a clear pool, and
her skin had the clear transparency that goes with hair that not so
long ago, as Gay confidentially told her men friends, was "carrots,"
though the laugh with which she said it, showing the loveliest little
white teeth in the world, usually inclined the person addressed to a
quite contrary opinion. But compared with what Lossie found in her
own mirror, Gay had no good looks at all.
"I half expected Mr. Rensslaer," said Gay, glancing at the clock.
"He's not a beauty," said Lossie, with some irrelevance, but he was
no favourite of hers, and, on his part, he had never found reason to
alter his summing up of her on the first occasion they had met.
"His kind face is more distinguished than any man's I know," cried
Gay with spirit. "I learn more from him in five minutes, than all
the stupid people I've ever known put together!"
"Including Chris?" said Lossie drily.
"Including Chris."
"Then the sooner you make yourself happy with this pattern of all the
perfections, including a few millions, the better," said Lossie, who
did not care who Gay married, so long as it was not Carlton.
Gay laughed. "Wasn't it Nathaniel Hawthorn who said that 'to have
wealth beyond a certain point, is only to undertake the labour of
living the lives of ten or a thousand men as well as your own?' And
besides--can't you see, but of course you can't, that a man like that
must have had his own ideal, his own romance, ages before he ever saw
silly little me? There's a story in his life, and no mean one, I'll
wager."
"Really," said Lossie, "I don't think your lovers are much comfort to
you. One lets you in for a disreputable sport, another breaks your
heart by half-killing himself, and the third string to your bow isn't
in the very least in love with you!"
At that moment the door opened, and Rensslaer came in.
"So Mr. Hannen is going on all right," he said in a tone of great
pleasure as he shook hands with Gay, and Lossie, with a vague wave of
her hand, disappeared.
"Yes--thank God!"
"Nice boy," said Rensslaer, as he sat down opposite Gay, and she gave
him a few details of Chris's case. There were dark rings round her
eyes--she looked really ill, and Rensslaer guessed that if Chris's
accident had shaken her into a vivid realisation of her love for him,
it had only the more convinced her that to see his life in almost
daily jeopardy for five months out of the year, would be more than
she could bear, and that this was the real parting of their ways.
"Couldn't you persuade him to give it up?" he said abruptly; it was
not the first time he had startled her by knowing precisely of what
she was thinking.
She shook her head
"You know," she said, "Chris is too tall for a jockey--he _will_
train--and, apart from accidents, all the tall jockeys go out
quickly. There was Archer--there are many others. It's sheer
perversity in a man of six feet to want to be a jock--"
Her voice broke, and Rensslaer bent his head, and looked away--it
struck her then that a man's silence is more decent, and worth more
sometimes, than all a woman's sympathy, and talk, and kisses.
"Perhaps this will sicken him of the game," he said presently.
It might have enlightened him as to Gay's chances of happiness to
know how at that very moment Chris, for the most part in bandages,
was using almost his first conscious moments to have held up before
his eyes by an unwilling nurse, his note-book of "fixtures" for the
ensuing week, the while eagerly calculating his chances of being able
to ride before the last day of the month, when steeplechasing ended.
Gay pulled herself together, but when Rensslaer spoke of her horses
and their engagements, and the much-coveted Gold Vase, she felt that
for the time being, at any rate, she hated anything to do with a race
of any kind.
And yet it was no more than two days ago that she had told Carlton
she would break her heart if it did not become hers, and he had by no
means forgotten....
"You must let me drive you down to Waterloo Park," said Rensslaer,
and then told her that on the Gold Vase day, he was for once entering
a horse, and going to drive himself, though not in competition for
the Vase.
Gay hardly heard him. She wanted to go to the telephone and get the
latest news of Chris. The Professor, now taking some rest, was to go
down to Epsom later in the day.