VII
The news of the defeat had already reached Halfmoon Street, and Galloway inclined his head when they passed quickly from the car into the hall of the flats, as if his patrons were returning from a funeral.
"We must telephone round to the Carlton to say that the dinner is off," said Tony; even that small action he left to his wife, himself sitting for the rest of the evening mute of speech, but drumming upon the table with his fingers or sometimes tambourinating upon an ash-tray. His dinner consisted of anchovy sandwiches washed down by brandy. There was no word from Houston, and Dorothy supposed that he was waiting to hear from her. "Going! Going! Clare! Clare! Clare!" The auctioneer's hammer seemed to be striking her temples, and, passing her hand over her forehead, she realized that it was only Tony who was drumming upon the table or tambourinating upon the ash-tray. She went to bed before he did and, lying awake in the rosy light of the reading-lamp, she wondered if, perhaps, he would try to forget this day in her arms, half hoped he would, and picked up the hand-mirror beside her bed to see how she was looking. He must have sat up drinking till very late—she had fallen asleep and did not hear him come to bed—and in the morning his eyes were bloodshot, his razor tremulous.
The letter-box was choked with bills; but there were several letters of condolence, and a reminder of the Day of Judgment from an enthusiastic enemy of the turf who, with ill-concealed relish, advised his lordship to observe the hand of God in the retribution which had been meted out to him and to turn away from his wickedness. Finally there were letters from O'Hara, the jockey, and Houston.
EPSOM SUMMER MEETING 1914.
Wednesday evening.
MY LORD,—I had hoped to have a few words with your lordship after the race, but was told you already left the course. I was intending to say that I could not go through what I suffered to-day on Friday, and would be obliged if your lordship wouldn't insist I would ride Vanity Girl in the Oaks. My lord, the filly is tired, and I wouldn't say another race mightn't kill her dead. It's not for me to give advice to your lordship, but how you ever come to run her in the Derby I don't know. She never was a stayer. I saw that plainly enough last autumn at Newmarket. I'm going back to France as soon as I hear from your lordship you won't run her in the Oaks. I'm engaged to ride Full Moon in the Grand Prix by Mr. Houston, and I hope I won't have to suffer what I suffered this afternoon. It's enough to make a jockey chuck riding for good and all.
I am,
Your lordship's obedient servant,
PATRICK O'HARA.
Pardon me if I've written a bit unfeelingly. It wasn't the filly's fault. She was tired. She didn't seem to know where she was, somehow, and when I flogged her along it near broke my heart to do it. She couldn't seem to understand what she was wanted to do. Poor little lady, I was so savage I could have shot her. But afterward I went and had a look at her, and had a few words with Mr. Starkey when he was abusing her.
QZI ALBANY, W.
Wednesday.
DEAR CLAREHAVEN,—I'm not going to worry you with sympathy at such a moment. But I'm writing as soon as possible to let you know that last week, owing to circumstances which would not interest anybody except a business man, I was compelled to part with my Clare mortgages for ready money, and I'm afraid that without doubt Reinhardt and Co. will foreclose on Monday. I wish I could offer to lend you the money to put yourself straight again, but I have been speculating myself and for the moment am a little short. By the way, I think Full Moon is a good thing for the Grand Prix. Perhaps you might get a bit on. Kindest regards to Lady Clarehaven.
Sincerely,
LIONEL HOUSTON.
Tony telegraphed to scratch Vanity Girl for the Oaks and ordered that she should be sold outright for what she would fetch; £200 was the figure, a tenth of what she had cost as a yearling and an insignificant fraction of what she had cost in ruinous disappointment, to which, perhaps, dishonor was soon to be added.
Houston's letter showed plainly that nothing was to be hoped for in that quarter.
"Reinhardt and Co.," scoffed Tony. "In my opinion Reinhardt and Co. includes Houston."
Dorothy wondered if the communication was intended to bring her quickly to heel, to show her brutally that unless she kept her bargain Clare was lost. She supposed that somehow Houston would be ingenious enough to keep Tony from being suspicious when he found his house and lands restored to him, and she even wondered if under the demoralizing effect of gambling he would much mind if he did know. She looked at him with a feeling half compassionate, half contemptuous while he was calculating, with an optimism rapidly rising, every knickknack in the flat at four times its value in the sale-room. She persuaded him to go out and forget his troubles at the theater, and telephoned to the Albany that she was coming to see Mr. Houston after dinner.
Dorothy dressed herself in a frock of champagne silk and wore no jewelry except a drop pendant of black pearls, thinking ironically, when she fastened it round her neck, how premature Tony had been in estimating that it would fetch £500 at auction. She flung over her shoulders a diaphanous black opera-cloak stenciled in gold and, covering her face with a heavy veil of black Maltese lace, she passed out of Halfmoon Street and walked slowly up Piccadilly in the June starlight. On second thought she decided to enter Albany from Burlington Street instead of through the courtyard, and, turning into Bond Street, moved like a ghost along the pavements where on thronged mornings in old Vanity days her radiance and roses used to compete for the public regard with the luxurious shops on either side. Burlington Street at this hour was deserted, and the porter of Albany with his appearance of an antique coachman, and his manner between a butler's and a beadle's, dared not hesitate to admit such an empress, and perhaps marveled, when he watched her walk imperiously along the glass-roofed cloister that smelled of freshly watered geraniums toward QZI, with what honey the ugly tenant of it was able to attract this proud-pied moth.
Lady Clarehaven might have been excused for feeling a heroine, a Monna Vanna in the tent of the conqueror, when she found herself in the big square room which she now visited for the first time. She did not indulge herself with heroics, however; it seemed to her so natural for her to save Clare that the adventure was as commonplace as when once in early days on the stage she had pawned a piece of jewelry she did not like in order to save a set of furs to which she attached a great importance. She threw back the opera-cloak and sat down in an arm-chair to wait for Houston with as little perturbation as if she were waiting for a dinner guest in her own drawing-room.
Suddenly he appeared from an inner doorway and, turning on several more lights, looked at her. He was in evening dress, and the sudden glare gave the impression that he was going to perform; he looked more like an intelligent ape than ever when he was in evening dress.
"Well, here I am," she said.
Her coolness seemed to confuse him, and he began to ask her how she liked his rooms, to say that he had been lucky enough to take them on as they stood from a man called Prescott who had killed himself here. One had the impression that he had bought the furniture for a song on account of the unpleasant associations with a suicide.
"I'm rather tired of values," said Dorothy. "Clarehaven has been valuing the flat at Halfmoon Street."
"Will you have something to drink?"
"Do you think that I require stimulating? Thanks, I don't."
It was curious that this man, who in Rhodes had appeared so sinister and powerful and almost irresistible, should here in this decorous room with only a background of good-breeding appear fussy and ineffective.
"But let me recommend you to have a drink," Dorothy laughed. "For, now that you've got me, you're as awkward as a baboon with a porcelain teacup."
Her instinct told her that she must dispel this atmosphere of embarrassment unless she wanted to be bowed out of the chambers as from those of a money-lender who had been compelled most respectfully and without offense to refuse a loan to her ladyship. The allusion to the baboon was sufficient. The decorum of Albany was shattered and Houston held her in his arms.
At that moment the servant tapped at the door and announced that Lord Clarehaven was in the anteroom; before Houston could hustle his quaking servant outside and lock the door Tony appeared in the entrance, a riding-crop in his hands.
"My God! you rascal," he was saying, "I've just found out all about you. I've been fooled by you and that scoundrel of a trainer you recommended. I've been ... That trial.... I've seen.... I've understood ... you blackguard!" Without noticing Dorothy he had forced Houston across a chair and was thumping him with the crop. "Yes, I've heard all about you.... Of course people tell me afterward ... damned cowards.... You damned sneaking hound ... I.D.B.... hound.., you dog ... and there's nothing to be done because you were too clever ... curse you ... but I'll have you booted off every racecourse in England...."
By this time he had beaten Houston insensible, and, looking up, perceived his wife.
"Tony," she cried, "you really are rather an old darling."
"What are you doing here?" he panted.
"I was pleading for Clare."
"You oughtn't to have done that," he said, roughly. "You might get yourself talked about, don't you know. Come along. It's rather lucky I blew in. I met old Cobbett, who talked to me like a father. Too late, of course, and nothing can be done. Besides.... However, come along. As you're dressed we might see the last act."
"We've seen that already," said Dorothy. So brilliant and gay was she that Tony forgot about everything. So did she, and they walked home arm in arm along the deserted streets of Mayfair like lovers.
The scene in Albany was not made public property; Houston came to himself in time to prevent that. Dorothy accepted Tony's interruption as a sign that fortune did not intend her to preserve Clare, and she now watched almost with equanimity the fabric of a great family crumble daily to irreparable ruin. Then Full Moon, the winner of the Guineas, scratched ignominiously for the Derby, won the Grand Prix in a canter, and the following letter from the Earl of Stilton, K.G., appeared in the Times:
SIR,—In the interests of our national sport, which all Englishmen rightly regard as our most cherished possession, I call upon Lord Clarehaven to give a public explanation of his recent behavior. The facts are probably only too painfully known to many of your readers. In May Lord Clarehaven's horse, Full Moon, won the Two Thousand Guineas; two years ago his horse Moonbeam won the same race. Moonbeam ran fourth in the Derby and was transferred to the same stable as the winner, Chimpanzee. This horse, owned by Mr. Lionel Houston, was scratched for the St. Leger, and the race was won by Moonbeam. This was explicable; but when two years later another of Lord Clarehaven's horses wins the Two Thousand Guineas and finds his stable companion preferred to him to carry Lord Clarehaven's colors in the Derby, when, furthermore, the chosen filly runs like a plater, and when this morning we read that Full Moon, now in the ownership of Mr. Lionel Houston, has won the Grand Prix in a canter at a price which the totalizator puts at sixty-three to one, a proof that nobody in Paris considered the chances of this animal, the public may, perhaps, demand what it all means. They will ask still more when I inform them that I have absolute authority for saying that this horse was heavily backed in England, which proves that by some his chance was considered excellent. I have no wish to accuse his lordship of having deliberately deceived the public for his own advantage; but I do accuse him of folly that can only be characterized as criminal. Perhaps he has been the victim of his friend and of his trainer; at any rate, if his lordship was deceived about the chance of Vanity Girl, and if it is true that the defeat of Vanity Girl in the Derby represented to his lordship a loss of thousands of pounds in bets, he should make this clear. In that case I have no hesitation in accusing Mr. Lionel Houston, formerly known as Leopold Hausberg, of having deliberately conspired with the Starkey Lodge trainer to perpetrate a fraud not only upon their friend and patron, but also upon the public.
I have the honor to be, sir,
Your obedient servant, STILTON.
Although Lord Stilton's letter hit the nail on the head, Tony was so furious at being called a fool in public that he sent the following letter to the paper:
SIR,—If Lord Stilton had not been my father's friend and a much older man than myself, I would pull his nose for the impudent letter he has written about me. The running of my filly in the Derby is an instance of the uncertainty of fortune, by which I am the greatest loser. I was convinced by a trial which I saw with my own eyes between Full Moon and Vanity Girl that the former did not stand a chance against the filly. It was I who insisted upon scratching him for the Derby so that the public might be spared the unpleasant doubt that always exists when an owner runs two horses in the same race. I sold the colt shortly after this trial to Mr. Houston, because I wished to put every halfpenny I could raise upon Vanity Girl. When I say that Mr. Houston is so little a friend of mine that I was unfortunately compelled to horsewhip him in his rooms on the day after the Derby, it will be understood even by Lord Stilton that there can be no possible suggestion of any collusion between myself and Mr. Houston. I do not know if Lord Stilton seriously means to insinuate that I have benefited by Full Moon's victory in the Grand Prix. If he does, the insinuation is cowardly and unjust. If Lord Stilton is so much concerned for the future of English sport, let him think twice before he hits a man who is down. Full Moon did not carry a halfpenny of my money.
I am, sir, etc., CLAREHAVEN.
This letter, with the reference to Lord Stilton's nose excised by a judicious editor, rehabilitated Tony in the eyes of the public and earned him a gracious apology from Lord Stilton, who also had to apologize much less graciously to Houston and Starkey, being threatened with legal proceedings unless he did so. Had there been the least chance of substantiating the ugly rumors, both earls might have gone to law; unfortunately legal advice said that neither of them stood a chance with the astute pair, and public opinion contented itself with compassion for the gallant young nobleman who had been thus victimized.
It may have been the victory of Full Moon in the Grand Prix with its suggestion of what might have been, or it may have been only the invincible optimism of the gambler, that started Tony off again upon his vice. When by the middle of July he and Dorothy found themselves with the rent of the flat paid up to Michaelmas, with enough furniture and enough clothes for present needs and with £250 in ready money, he told Dorothy that their only chance was for him to make money at cards. It was in vain that she argued with him; he seemed to have learned nothing from this disastrous summer, and with £100 in his pocket he went out one night, to return at six o'clock the next morning with £1,000.
"My luck's in again," he declared, "and I've got a thundering good system. You shall come with me every night, and I will give you two hundred pounds, which I must not exceed. Nothing that I say must induce you to give me another halfpenny. If I lose the two hundred pounds I must go away. It'll be all right, you'll see. I'm playing at Arrowsmith's place in Albemarle Street. Arrowsmith himself has promised not to advance me anything above two hundred pounds, so it'll be all right."
Dorothy begged him to be satisfied with the £1,000; but it was useless, and the following night she accompanied him. He won another £1,000, and when they had walked back under a primrose morning sky to Halfmoon Street Tony was so elated that he handed over all his winnings to Dorothy. The next night he lost the stipulated £200, but he came away still optimistic.
"I'm not going to touch that two thousand" he assured her. "I've got fifty left of my own, and one always wins when one's down to nothing; but on no account are you to offer me a halfpenny from your money. It's absolutely essential that you should bank everything I make."
The next evening Tony took the keeper of the hell aside and told him that he was to be sure not to let him exceed £50; if he should lose that, Arrowsmith was not to accept his I.O.U. and on no condition to allow him to go on. They were playing chemin de fer and Tony's luck had been poor; when his turn came to take the bank and he was stretching out his hand for the box of cards Arrowsmith told him he had already reached his limit.
"Oh, that's all right, Arrowsmith. I only meant that to count if I'd already had a bank."
"Excuse me, Lord Clarehaven, but I never go back on my word. The agreement we came to was...."
"That's all right," Tony interrupted, impatiently. "Dorothy, lend me some money."
"No, no. You made a promise, and really you must stick to it."
"Dash it! I haven't had a single bank this evening."
"You should have thought of that before."
"But, my dear girl, our agreement was that I shouldn't lose more than two hundred pounds at a sitting. I've only lost fifty pounds to-night."
"If I lend you any more," she said, "I must break into the two thousand pounds, which you told me I was not to do on any account."
The other players, with heavy, doll-like faces, sat round the table, waiting until the argument stopped and the game could be resumed. The keeper of the hell was firm; so was Dorothy; and Clarehaven had to yield his turn to his neighbor.
"I'll just stay and watch the play for a bit," he said. "It's only three o'clock." He took a banana from the sideboard and sat down behind the player who held the bank.
"No, no, come away," Dorothy begged him. "What is the good of tormenting yourself by watching other people play when you can't play yourself?"
"Damn it, Dorothy," he exclaimed, turning round angrily. "I wish to God I'd never brought you here. You always interfere with everything I want to do."
It happened that the bank which Tony had missed won steadily, and while the heavy-jowled man who held it raked in money from everybody, Tony watched him like a dog that watches his master eating. At last the bank was finished, and with a heavy sigh of satisfaction the owner of it passed on the box to his neighbor.
"How much did you make?" asked Tony, enviously.
"About two thousand five hundred. I'm not sure. I never count my winnings."
Tears of rage stood in Tony's eyes.
"God! Do you see what you've done for me by your confounded obstinacy?" he exclaimed to his wife.
All the way home he raged at her, and when they were in the flat he demanded that she should give him back all his £2,000.
"So you've reached the point," she said, bitterly, "when not even promises count?"
"If you don't give it back to me," Tony vowed, "I'll sell up the whole flat. Damn it, I'll even sell my boots," he swore, as he tripped over some outposts for which there was no place in the line that extended along the wall of his dressing-room.
Dorothy thought of that lunch-party in Christ Church and of the first time she had beheld those boots. She remembered that then she had beheld in them a symbol of boundless wealth. Now they represented a few shillings in a gambler's pocket. And actually next morning, in order to show that he had been serious the night before, Tony summoned two buyers of old clothes to make an offer for them.
"Don't be so childish," Dorothy exclaimed. "You can't sell your boots! Aren't you going down to camp this year?"
"To camp?" he echoed. "How the deuce do you think I'm going to camp without a halfpenny? No, my dear girl, a week ago I wrote to resign my commission in the N.D.D. You might make a slight effort to realize that we are paupers. And if you won't let me have any of that two thousand pounds we shall remain paupers."
At that moment a telegram was handed in:
All officers of North Devon Dragoons to report at depot immediately.
"Hasn't that fool of an adjutant got my letter?" Tony exclaimed.
Another telegram arrived:
Thought under circumstances you would want to cancel letter holding it till I see you.
"Circumstances? What circumstances?"
In the street outside a newspaper-boy was crying, "Austrian hultimatum! Austrian hultimatum!"
"My God!" Tony cried, a light coming into his eyes. "It can't really mean war? How perfectly glorious! Wonderful! Get out, you rascals!" and he hustled the old-clothes men out of the flat.
Three weeks later Dorothy received the following letter from Flanders:
DEAREST DOODLES,—You'd simply love this. I never enjoyed myself so much in all my life. Can't write you a decent letter because I'm just off chivvying Uhlans. It's got fox-hunting beat a thousand times. Sorry we had that row when I made such an ass of myself at Arrowsmith's that night. It's a lucky thing you were firm, because you've got just enough to go on with until I get back. Mustn't say too much in a letter; but I suppose we shall have chivvied these bounders back to Berlin in two or three months. Then I shall really have to settle down and do something in earnest. A man in ours says that Queensland isn't such a bad sort of hole. Old Cleveden put me against it by cracking it up so. It's suddenly struck me that Houston is probably a spy. If he is, you might make it rather unpleasant for him. I feel I haven't explained properly how sorry I am, but it's so deuced hard in a letter. By the way, Uncle Chat has just written rather a stupid letter about my mother's jointure. Perhaps you'd go down and talk to him about it. He ought to understand I'm too busy to bother about domestic finance at present. I had another notion—rather a bright one—that when I get back you and I could appear on the stage together. Rather a rag, eh? The captain of my troop was pipped last week. Awful good egg. I'm acting captain now. Paignton sends his love. Dear old thing, I wish you were out here with me.
Yours ever,
TONY.
A week later the fifth Earl of Clarehaven was killed in action.