When that night, during the interval between the first and second acts
of the opera, the door of the box opened and Sidney made his appearance,
Mrs. Vanderstein greeted him with a beaming smile and the most sincere
pleasure.
"How nice to see you, dear Joe," she said. "I didn't know you were in
London."
"I only came up from York last night," said her nephew, "or I should
have been to see you before. The Garringdons asked me to their box,
which is more or less under this, so I couldn't see if you were here,
but I thought you would be."
He sat down and began to talk about his doings and to ask questions
about theirs, Mrs. Vanderstein looking at him meanwhile with a feeling
of gratification at the decorative effect on her box of this good
looking youth. She hoped the audience, or at least some members of
it, had noticed his entrance, and she thought to herself that even
inconvenient nephews had their uses.
Joe Sidney was twenty-five years of age and his father's son. The late
Mr. Sidney had been a very tall, fair individual, and Joe resembled
him, showing the merest trace of the Jew in the droop of his nose,
which, however, was not very marked. His eyes too, perhaps--but why pick
to pieces a young man who really was, taken altogether, a very fine
specimen of his kind? Though he had not, or scarcely had, inherited the
appearance of his mother's race, he showed much of its sympathy with
art and music; and his intelligence was equalled by his prepossessing
manner, which had made him a favourite since his boyhood with nearly
all with whom he came in contact, and, combined with his wealth,
rendered him extremely popular in the cavalry regiment in which he
was a subaltern. He knew a great many smart people whose acquaintance
Mrs. Vanderstein would have given her ears to make, and from time to
time he invited her to meet one or two of them at a restaurant dinner
or theatre, quite unconscious of the pleasure he was giving; for the
very intensity of her longing made Mrs. Vanderstein shy of letting this
superior young relative guess at it, and Barbara had never hinted to him
at the weakness of his uncle's widow.
Poor Mrs. Vanderstein! One pities her when one reflects that if the good
Moses had survived a few years, till the advent of a Radical government
which was extremely short of sympathisers in the Upper House, she might
have lived to hear him called "My Lord," and have answered with beating
heart to the delicious salutation of "My Lady."
She seized the opportunity afforded by Sidney's presence now to gather
information about the occupants of the boxes facing them. Did Joe see
anyone he knew? Of course she knew by sight every one in the Royal box,
except that man behind the Queen. Who was that? Sidney thought it was
the Italian ambassador. What a distinguished looking man! And in the
next box? Sidney didn't know. And the one beyond that? He didn't know
either. Mrs. Vanderstein was disappointed in him. Well, who did he know?
Couldn't he tell her anyone?
"Really," said Sidney, "I don't see many, but there are one or two.
That woman with the red face and the purple dress is Lady Generflex,
and the man two boxes off hers on the right is Sir William Delaplage.
Then that girl in pink who has just taken up her opera glasses is Lady
Vivienne Shaw, and the man in the same box is Tom Cartwright, who was at
Eton with me. Down in the stalls there are one or two men I know, and I
think that's all. Of course there's old Fyves, next door. You know him,
don't you?"
Mrs. Vanderstein gazed with intent interest at the people he pointed
out; and then let her attention wander back to the Royal box while
Sidney talked to Barbara.
"Have you been racing?" she asked him soon.
"Off and on. I went to see my horse, Benfar, run the other day. He came
in easily last."
"I don't think that man can ride him well. He's a good horse. I saw him
as a two-year-old."
"There's something wrong somewhere, that's certain. If I don't
have better luck this year than I had last I shall give up keeping
race-horses," said Sidney with decision.
"Oh, you mustn't do that," cried Barbara in a tone of so much distress
that Sidney laughed.
"Why do you care?" he asked.
"I care a lot. I never see anything of racing people nowadays, or meet
anyone except you who knows a horse from a centipede. If you give up
racing I shall feel that my last link of connection with the turf is
severed."
"Why don't you get my aunt to bring you down to Epsom to-morrow?"
"Oh, she wouldn't like it a bit," said Barbara regretfully.
"I daresay she'd enjoy it enormously. Aunt Ruth, why don't you come
racing with me sometimes? Miss Turner and I will show you the ropes and
you'll probably be plunging wildly by this time next week."
"I hate spending a hot day walking from the stand to the paddock and
back again," said Mrs. Vanderstein. "I hate horses and I hate seeing
their heels waving round my head on every side, which seemed to me to be
the case the only time I went to a race meeting. Nasty vicious animals.
The way they are led about among the crowd by people who can't control
them is most dangerous, I consider."
"I expect you saw one let off a kick or two out of sheer lightness of
heart," said Barbara. "Horses are darlings, really; I wish you knew them
as well as I do."
Mrs. Vanderstein not only disliked horses herself, but she strongly
disapproved of Barbara's fondness for them. The career of the late Mr.
Turner had been unedifying to such a point that even Mr. Vanderstein
had been unable to disguise entirely from his wife some of its more
notorious features, and Mrs. Vanderstein would have been better pleased
if she could have persuaded herself that the girl had forgotten all
about the days of her companionship with so undesirable a father.
She had, moreover, no sympathy for speculation in any form, and
especially mistrusted that which took the shape of gambling on the
turf. Her greatest friend had married a man who had entirely ruined
himself by the practice of backing losers; and the sight of the misery
and privation that had, in this manner, been brought on a woman for
whom she felt a sincere affection left on Mrs. Vanderstein one of those
deep impressions that determine many of our strongest opinions and
prejudices throughout life. To Mrs. Vanderstein betting was one of the
most unpardonable sins. It was true that Mr. Vanderstein had kept a
racing-stable and she had never really forgiven him for not giving it
up at her request. But he had always assured her that he never betted.
She turned away without answering, and Barbara's conscience--for she
knew how much her friend disliked the subject of the turf--made her
think she detected an impatient expression in the back of the white
shoulders and told her it would be better to change the conversation.
The temptation was too strong, however, and she continued, dropping her
voice to a murmur:
"You are going to Epsom to-morrow yourself?"
"Yes," said Sidney, wondering why she leant so confidentially towards
him.
"Well, I wonder if you would be very kind and put a little money on a
horse for me. Would it be too much trouble?"
"Not a bit. What horse is it?"
"It's a tip Ned Foster sent me. He was one of my father's grooms,
you know, and I hear of him sometimes. He used to be very good to me
when I was a child. I had a letter from him to-day begging me to back
Averstone. He says he's absolutely certain to romp in on Wednesday."
"How much do you want me to put on him?" asked Sidney.
"I haven't got much, I'm afraid," said Barbara ruefully, "but I've saved
a little out of the pocket money your aunt gives me. It's only £20. I
wish it was more."
"Are you going to risk your entire fortune?" said Sidney. "You're a
pretty rash young lady, aren't you?"
"Oh, I must have a flutter. Besides, it's a dead certainty. I'd put a
thousand on if I had it."
"What a fearful gambler! When you've lost as much as I have you'll go a
bit slower."
"Have you lost much?" asked Barbara sympathetically. "I'm so sorry. Just
lately?"
"Well, yes, since you ask me I don't mind telling you that I have had
some rather nasty blows during the last few months. That brute, Benfar,
has a lot to answer for, my word!"
"He'll turn out a winner yet," said Barbara hopefully.
"He might come in first if all the other starters tumbled down," said
Sidney, with an effort to treat the subject lightly, "but I'm afraid
before that happens I shall have to shut up shop. Things can't go on
like this. I lost £10,000 over the Lincolnshire meeting, and that's only
a drop in the ocean. But I don't know why I'm bothering you with my
troubles," he concluded, pulling himself up abruptly.
"I am glad you tell me," she replied simply. "I am so very sorry that
you have had such rotten luck. You'd better change it by backing my tip.
Ned Foster would never have advised me to put my all on Averstone unless
he knew it was a sure thing. He really has a regard for me, I believe,
and he often used to say that the day would come when he'd make my
fortune and his own. He doesn't approve of betting as a general thing.
He's a most steady, cautious kind of individual."
"I wonder," said Sidney. "I think perhaps I'll have a last fling. What
are the odds?"
"They're long. Averstone's not supposed to have a ghost of a chance. I
think it's about 40 to 1 against him."
"My word, just think if one had a few thousands on him and it came off!"
said Sidney. "The bookies would all die on the spot."
"It would be rather annoying for some one," laughed Barbara. "I hope it
will come off."
"I'm afraid it would be too good to be true," said Sidney gloomily,
"but it would certainly save the situation if it did. If I lost a very
little more I'd have to leave the army."
"Is it as bad as that?" asked Barbara, for the first time realising the
graveness of the position for Sidney. "How dreadful. I _am_ sorry!"
The young man laughed awkwardly.
"It's awfully good of you," he said. "I've been a perfect ass, of
course. If I could win back half what I've lost, I swear I'd never back
a horse again!"
"I expect your luck will turn," repeated Barbara hopefully. She had all
a gambler's instinct of optimism.
But Sidney only laughed again rather recklessly as he got up to go. The
interval was over and the people were hurrying back to their seats.
"As the orchestra seems to be going to make another effort," he said,
"I must get back to the Garringdons' box. Good night, Miss Turner; good
night, Aunt Ruth; I'll come and look you up in a day or two, if I get
over to-morrow without being obliged to put a sudden end to my career."
"What did Joe mean by his last remark?" Mrs. Vanderstein asked as the
door shut behind the young man's vanishing form. "I don't understand
what he meant about putting an end to his career."
"He was telling me he has lost a lot of money lately, racing," Barbara
murmured rather reluctantly, for she was not sure if Sidney would like
her to repeat what he had said. Still, she thought, it was surely absurd
for her to imagine that he would confide in her anything he would
hesitate to tell a relation. "I suppose he was trying to joke about
that."
"It's nothing to joke about," said Mrs. Vanderstein severely. "Not that
I saw anything like a joke. I think it's disgraceful, and I shall alter
my opinion of him very seriously if he really has been betting. But
hush, the music is going to begin."
And she was soon entirely engrossed in listening to it.
But Barbara, to whose ear any but the most elementary tunes presented
nothing but a confused medley of noises, wriggled rather impatiently on
her chair from time to time, as she waited for the act to come to an
end. Recollections that had lain dormant for a long time, put away on
some high shelf of the wardrobe of memory, had been awakened again by
her conversation with Sidney and the letter she had that day received
from the old stableman. How happy her childhood seemed when viewed now
through the flattering medium of the intervening years, which obscured
all that had been disagreeable, and magnified the delights of her
unrestrained wanderings and of the free and easy company of her father
and her father's delightfully jocular friends.
How they used to laugh at each other's witty remarks, and how she,
too, had laughed, joining in the mirth without understanding in the
least what aroused it but with enjoyment none the less complete on
that account. With closed eyes she leant back against the wall of the
box, her lips curved in a smile and her head a little to one side in
an attitude of listening. But it was not the voices of the singers she
heard. Instead, the thud, thud of galloping hoofs sounded in her ears,
coming nearer and nearer, and, mixed with the creaking of leather, the
excited snorts of her pony and the jingling of bits. She seemed to see
around her the bare, open spaces of the heath and the figures of the
watchers, among them herself, crouching low in the saddle with her back
to the bitter east winds that sweep across the bleak Newmarket country
in the spring. Splendid bracing air, her father used to say, and for her
part she had never given a thought to the weather. Happy, happy times!
Oh, that they could return. Why could not Mrs. Vanderstein give her that
£500 a year, thought Barbara, and let her take a cottage, however tiny,
within reach of a race-course and within hail of a training stable? If
only she had a little money of her own. Money was everything, after all.
It meant liberty. If Averstone won his race it would be something to the
good.
Mrs. Vanderstein, turning to catch her eye at a point in the music
which, even more than the rest, gave her a pleasure that asked to be
shared, saw only the closed lids and the smiling lips, and with a
sensation of gratified surprise said to herself that Barbara was at last
developing an appreciation of music.