"FIGHTING" GAY
Those who thought they knew their Gay, and that she was humbled,
penitent, and willing to amend her "trotting" ways, speedily found
themselves mistaken on this point, and the first to whom she gave a
taste of her quality was the unhappy Professor, who entered the
breakfast-room next day, gibbering, and extending towards her an
illustrated morning paper.
Gay took it calmly from his hand, but a flush of anger rose to her
cheek as she saw that, whether from spite or ignorance, the artist
had maliciously altered the position of her feet, a pose emphasised
by the devil-may-care look in the pretty, saucy face turned
impudently over her shoulder.
"Somebody who doesn't like me, evidently," said Gay, sitting down at
the head of the table, and commencing to pour out coffee. "Wonder if
it's anyone Lossie knows?"
"Hardened! Shameless!" sputtered the Professor, walking to and fro
and wringing his hands. Gay felt glad Chris was not there, as he
used to get behind the Professor, and wring _his_ in imitation,
convulsing her.
"I insist on it," cried her brother, "that you wire your trainer
instantly to 'scratch'--I believe that is the expression--your horses
for all future meetings, and I will take you abroad till this
shocking scandal is forgotten. Why, even there, we shan't be safe,
for you will be lampooned on the boulevards--an English lady driving
like a stable-boy--in a man's attitude"--his voice rose to a shriek
as Gay walked to the chafing-dishes on the sideboard, and helped
herself to bacon.
"Shouldn't wonder if I get mentioned as a 'horrible example' from a
pulpit or two," she said placidly, "and probably there will be
several fancy sketches of me driving _really_ like a boy--in one of
those old-fashioned sulkies where you can't even see your horse's
head, and have to guide him by faith and a double squint. Have some
kidneys, Heron? They're awfully good."
But the angry Professor waved away the proffered delicacy, and
resumed his wind-mill antics up and down the room, thereby getting on
Gay's nerves.
"Look here, Heron," she said quietly, "it may save trouble if you
will just grasp the fact that my horses will not be withdrawn, that
their engagements _will_ be fulfilled, and that I shall be present at
_all_ the meetings, and if you don't care to chaperon me, I'll find
someone who will."
"Lossie won't!" screamed the Professor, now almost beside himself at
this flat rebellion, "nor Mrs. Bulteel either! You've never been
able to persuade her to set foot on a Trotting course--even if she
were willing, Tom Bulteel wouldn't let her!"
It was true, and Gay thought it horrid of Effie; then her soft little
face hardened, and she shot her bolt.
"Then I'll go under Min Toplady's protection," she said. "I can make
her do anything I like--and _she_ shall take me--and jolly good times
we shall have, too!"
"Good God!" cried the Professor, "my sister--my _sister_ going to
Meetings with public-house ladies in public-house traps"--he forgot
that he had once censured Lossie for thus speaking of Gay's old nurse.
Gay nodded emphatically.
"I shall stay at the 'Trotting Nag' altogether, if you're going on as
you are now," she said. "Lossie can come and keep house for you--no
one could say anything on the score of propriety, you know," she
added, with as much malice as her sweet temper permitted, "for she is
a relation!"
The Professor shuddered. He had not yet got over the shock Min
Toplady's remarks about Lossie had given him overnight. What would
become of his specimens, his microscopic work, of _him_, if
pitchforked into matrimony?
Lossie was a deuced pretty woman, of course, but she had a horrid
temper, and original as Gay was, his natural selfishness, and sure
male instinct, told him he was safer with the latter than the former.
"Well, well," he said, and sat down dejectedly. "A wilful man will
have his way, they say, and now that my feminine little sister has
taken up with a man's life and sports, I suppose she'll, like him,
have _her_ way, no matter who pays."
"Heron!" exclaimed Gay, suddenly contrite, and got up, and went round
to him. For a moment she did not speak, and it struck her that she
had shed more tears, felt more "sloppy," since she started Trotting,
than in all the years of her life before--yes, and apparently done
more mischief to others.
"Don't you see, Frank, that if I don't face the music, if I seem
ashamed of all this hateful publicity--for it _is_ hateful--I shall
only be a coward, and make things worse? I don't promise that I'll
give up Trotting, but probably I may--with poor Carlton warned off, I
don't expect to take much pleasure in it again. And now, Frank"--she
kissed him, and smoothed his hair--"you've got to eat your breakfast,
and forget about all this for the present."
She helped him to kidneys, and rang, for fresh coffee. Presently,
comforted against his will, Frank stole a glance at Gay, who seemed
deep in thought, and indeed with one lover outlawed from his
favourite sport, and the other absent, prevented for the time being,
from following a dangerous profession that Gay hated, she felt at
that moment very friendless indeed.
If Mr. Rensslaer would only weigh in, and race Trotters himself, she
thought, but he wouldn't, and then she got up, fetched her little
basket of keys, and waving her hand to Heron, set out on her usual
morning tour of housekeeping.
The Professor waited till she had gone, then deliberately kicked the
offending newspaper round the room (all men of science are childish),
and departed, well-pleased with himself, to his study. Inflating his
pigeon-chest, he said to himself that Gay was a dear little thing, if
misguided--and after all she had _him_ to stand by her. The escapade
of yesterday would probably do no more than make a nine days' talk,
then blow over, and when she married Chris, as the Professor had
always felt sure she intended to do ultimately, she would be just a
domesticated girl, with all this racing rubbish knocked clean out of
her head.
At eleven o'clock, Rensslaer was announced, and Gay rose eagerly to
meet him, for he might be able to give her news of Carlton, from whom
she had heard nothing, and she put the question without loss of time.
"Well," said Rensslaer, "it struck me as ironic that one of the few
men who had conferred distinction on the sport of Trotting in
England, should be expelled the Club, when so many undesirables
remain to disgrace it, so I looked in at St. James's Place just now
to tell him so."
Gay opened her lips to ask how he looked, then checked herself, but
in reality Carlton was not in the least disgraced. Everyone knew how
he had lost a race purposely that a pretty girl might win it, but he
_did_ blame himself for encouraging Gay in her fad, and still more
for the weakness that had at all costs determined her girlish wish
for the Gold Vase should be gratified.
He had done her as ill a turn as a man can do the woman he loves, but
he felt justly, that Rensslaer was to blame for the scandal of Gay's
driving herself, that the latter should have dissuaded her, and taken
Brusher's place, and had not hesitated to tell him so when he
appeared.
"We had a talk over his plans for the future," said Rensslaer, "and I
strongly advised him to race his horses in Vienna and Paris, and
offered him every assistance should he decide to do so. But he
didn't seem keen on it--promised to think it over, and let me know.
Said he was taking a short run abroad for the present--would probably
do a cure at Aix."
A look of keen relief crossed Gay's face, and at that moment a
servant entered with an express letter. While Gay, asking permission
from Rensslaer, read it, he thought how almost incredible was the
amount of wicked, even dishonest, things that a dear, pretty little
girl, honest as the day, could make a man do, and how ungrateful she
could prove herself for his doing them.
"Will she feel bound to reward him, I wonder? Will he expect it?" he
thought.
Yet with William Blake, Rensslaer knew that
"He who bends to himself a joy,
Does the wingéd life destroy,
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise."
"For it's that Hannen boy she loves, and he her. I've watched her
face--still, as he won't promise not to steeplechase, and she won't
marry him if he doesn't, I don't see what's going to happen."
"You're quite right," she said, "Mr. Mackrell is off to-day, and will
not have time to call here before he starts. I told my brother this
morning that my horses will keep the engagements for which they are
entered, but after that--" She hesitated, and looked at him
anxiously.
"After that, Miss Gay," he said gravely, "don't enter them for any
more. It's not a woman's game--at least, for one so womanly as you
are--and you'll never do any good at it over here."
"Aren't those snapshots and sketches of me horrible?" said Gay in a
whisper. "I'm looking forward with terror to the illustrated
weeklies."
"It was a plucky idea, pluckily carried out," he said, "though
Mackrell didn't mince his words to me just now--told me I ought to
have prevented you and done the driving myself. But I don't
think"--he smiled whimsically--"anything short of _force majeure_
would have stopped you."
"Not even the devil," cried Gay, with sparkling eyes. "I sin with my
eyes wide open, and I'd do it again this very minute."
"Why not?" he said equably. "As I said before, you must come over
and drive for me in Vienna. I have won so many prizes there," he
added quaintly, "that they don't like me to compete any more. Let me
know the dates of any Meetings you have to attend, and no matter how
far away I may be, I'll come back to escort you."
"Thank you," she cried, impulsively holding out both hands, and as he
took them, the door opened, and Effie Bulteel came in.
When he had gone, and he went immediately, Effie flung her arms round
Gay, and gave her a good hug.
"I don't care what Tom says, or how those horrid papers lampoon you,"
she cried, "it was awfully game of you, and I'd have loved to do it
myself!"
"You're a trump!" cried Gay. "You see, the driver was tight, and I
_longed_ to do it, so when the opportunity came, I was like the
teetotaler who joined the Blue Ribbon Army, because he thought it
must be so delicious to be tempted--and to _fall_--and I fell!"
Effie laughed heartily, then exclaimed:
"Poor Carlton! But what a fool to be caught like that! Gay, if ever
you want a thing done properly, get a knave to do it--"
"But I _didn't_ want," cried Gay, "and as to that Gold Vase, it may
be turned into a coal vase for all I care. He--he is going abroad at
once--he has written to tell me so."
"_Reculer pour mieux sauter_," said Effie significantly. "Awfully
good form of him, though, to clear out just now, instead of appearing
like a tradesman with his bill made out, waiting for it to be paid,
and a receipt given! And Chris out of the running, too! Poor Gay!
You'll have to take the Trotting man after all."
"Only, even if I wished it, he won't take me," said Gay, and laughed
at the epithet--Effie, like others, was still possessed of the
entirely mistaken idea that Trotting was the be-all and end-all of
Rensslaer's life, when in fact it was only one, and that by no means
the greatest, of his hobbies.
"I don't believe in platonics, you know," said Effie drily, "and I
intruded on quite an affecting little tableau just now. But now,
Gay, what are you going to do? Tom says, of course, you'll drop
it--the Trotting, I mean--
"I'd die sooner!" cried Gay, with flashing eyes. "Effie, if you've
come here only to tell me that, then you are no real pal of mine.
The least you can do is to stand by me, you and Tom--I can't attend
the race Meetings alone, or with Lossie, who has been perfectly
hateful to me."
"Ah!" said Effie sympathetically, "she would, you know!"
"And Frank simply won't--besides, I don't want to be regarded as
keeper to a lunatic. Failing you and Tom, I'll have to attend the
meetings with Rensslaer or Min Toplady--or both! We don't want our
friends when we are in the right, but to dig us out of holes that our
own folly has let us into--though in spite of everything I'm glad,
_glad_ I drove yesterday!"
"It's true I have some influence over Tom," said Effie thoughtfully.
"Boundless," murmured Gay.
"But I don't think it goes far enough to make him attend, or consent
to my appearing at, a Trotting Meeting. I believe he's really glad
Carlton's warned off--a sort of being saved from the evil to come,
you know."
"If the man I married, refused to perform an act of Christian charity
for my greatest friend, I'd know the reason why, that's all," said
Gay curtly.
Effie gasped. This was a new Gay, with whom she did not know how to
reckon--evidently Trotting was spoiling her sweet temper....
"But is it charity?" she said.
"Didn't you say just now how you'd have liked to do what I did?"
cried Gay in a rage, "and now you're jibbing at the consequences! I
don't--I face them. And it's just a piece of snobbishness for Tom to
turn up his nose at what is good enough for Rensslaer, and the very
pick of American sportsmen!"
"Yes, everywhere but in England," said Effie absently.
Gay's jibes had hit her hard, and she was wondering if it would be
possible to persuade Tom...
"When is the next Meeting--and where?" she said.
Gay told her, and making a rapid calculation of dates and
engagements, Effie exclaimed:
"There's no racing that day! Look here, Gay, I'll use every means of
bribery and corruption to get Tom to drive us down--"
"Don't," said Gay coldly. "Put it on the bare ground of loyalty to a
friend."
"Call it what you like. And if he does, we'll stick to you like
burrs--anyone who cheapens you, takes on the three--"
"Thank you, Effie," said Gay quietly, but wishing all the same that
her friend had done the right thing, without having the way pointed
out to her so violently.
"Come out," cried Effie briskly--"come out and show yourself. My
motor's at the door. Put on your smartest hat and clothes, and your
best 'don't-care-a-damn' smile, and face the music."
Gay did, and by the time they had shopped in Bond Street, traversed
Piccadilly twice, dropped in at Effie's club, and fooled round
generally till lunch-time, then attended an At Home or two, winding
up with tea at Rumpelmeyer's, it was the general opinion of those who
saw her, that the person least ashamed of what she had done the
preceding day, was Miss Gay Lawless.