“It can’t go on, Mother. It simply can’t. I feel an absolute worm whenever I’m with him. I shall have to clear out, like Beryl. He has just one object all the time—to make everyone feel small and mean.”
“Remember what he’s been through!”
“I don’t see whyweshould be part of his revenge. We’ve done nothing, except suffer through him.”
“He doesn’t want to hurt us or anyone.”
“Well, whenever people talk to him they dry up at once, as if he’d skinned them. It’s a disease.”
“One can only pity him.”
“He’s perfectly happy, Mother. He’s getting his own back.”
“If only that first night——”
“We tried. It’s no good. He’s absolutely self-sufficient. What about to-morrow night?”
“We can’t leave him on Christmas Day, Jack.”
“Then we must take him to Beryl’s. I can’t stick it here. Look! He’s just going out!”
Late—299 passed the window where they stood, loping easily, a book under his arm.
“He must have seen us. We mightn’t exist!...”
Late—299, with a book under his arm, entered Kew Gardens and sat down on a bench. A nursery governess with her charges came and settled down beside him.
“Peter, Joan, and Michael,” said Late—299, “quite in the fashion, for names.”
The governess stirred uneasily; the gentleman looked funny, smiling there!
“And what are you teaching them?”
“Reading, writing, and arithmetic, sir, and Bible stories.”
“Intelligent?... Ah! Not very. Truthful?... No! No children are.”
The governess twisted her hands. “Peter!” she said, “where’s your ball? We must go and look for it.”
“But I’ve got it, Miss Somers.”
“Oh, well, it’s too sharp, sitting here. Come along!”
She passed away, and Peter, Joan, and Michael trailed after her.
Late—299 smiled on; and a Pekinese, towing a stout old lady, smelled at his trousers.
“It’s my cat,” said Late—299. “Dogs and cats their pleasure is——”
Picking up the Pekinese, the stout old lady pressed it under her arm as though it were a bagpipe, and hurried on like a flustered goose.
Some minutes passed. A workman and his wife sat down beside him, and gazed at the Pagoda.
“Queer building!” said Late—299.
“Ah!” said the workman. “Japanese, they say!”
“Chinese, my friend. Good people, the Chinese—no regard for human life.”
“What’s that? Good—did you say?”
“Quite!”
“Eh?”
The workman’s wife peered round him.
“Come on, John! The sun gits in me eyes ’ere.”
The workman rose. “‘Good,’ you said, didn’t you?Goodpeople?”
“Yes.”
The workman’s wife drew at his arm. “There, don’t get arguin’ with strangers. Come on!” The workman was drawn away....
A clock struck twelve. Late—299 got up and left the Gardens. Walking between small houses, he rang at the side entrance of a little shop.
“If your father’s still blind—I’ve come to read to him again.”
“Please, sir, he’ll always be.”
“So I supposed.”
On a horsehair sofa, below the dyed-red plumes of pampas grass, a short and stocky man was sitting, whittling at a wooden figure. He sniffed, and turned his sightless eyes towards his visitor; his square face in every line and bump seemed saying: ‘You don’t down me.’
“What are you making?” said Late—299.
“Christmas Eve. I’m cuttin’ out our Lord. I make ’em rather nice. Would you like this one?”
“Thank you.”
“Kep’ His end up well, our Lord, didn’t He? ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’—that means you got to love yourself. And He did, I think; not against Him, neither.”
“Easier to love your neighbours when you can’t see them, eh?”
“What’s that? D’you mind lendin’ me your face a minute? It’ll help me a lot with this ’ere. I make ’em lifelike, you know.”
Late—299 leaned forward, and the tips of the blind man’s fingers explored his features.
“’Igh cheekbones, eyes back in the ’ead, supraorbital ridges extra special, rather low forehead slopin’ to thick hair. Comin’ down, two ’ollers under the cheekbones, thin nose a bit ’ooky, chin sharpish, no moustache. You’ve got a smile, ’aven’t you? And your own teeth? I should say you’d make a very good model. I don’t ’old with ’Im always ’avin’ a beard. Would you like the figure ’angin’, or carryin’ the cross?”
“As you wish. D’you ever use your own face?”
“Not for ’Im—for statesmen or ’eroes I do. I done one of Captain Scott with my face. Rather pugnacious, my style; yours is sharp, bit acid, suitable to saints, martyrs, and that. I’ll just go over you once more—then I’ll ’ave it all ’ere. Sharp neck; bit ’unchy in one shoulder; ears stick up a bit; tallish thin man, ain’t you, and throw your feet forward when you walk? Give us your ’and a minute. Bite your fingers, I see. Eyes blue, eh—with pin-points to ’em—yes? Hair a bit reddish before it went piebald—that right?Thank you, much obliged. Now, if you like to read, I’ll get on with it.”
Late—299 opened the book.
... “‘But at last in the drift of time Hadleyburg had the ill-luck to offend a passing stranger, possibly without knowing it, certainly without caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself and cared not a rap for strangers and their opinions. Still, it would have been well to make an exception in this one’s case, for he was a bitter man and revengeful.’”
“Ah!” interjected the blind man deeply, “there you ’ave it. Talkin’ of feelin’s, what gave you a fellow-feelin’ for me, if I may ask?”
“I can look at you, my friend, without your seeing me.”
“Eh! What about it with other people, then?”
“They can look at me without my seeing them.”
“I see! Misanthropical. Any reason for that?”
“Prison.”
“What oh! Outcast and rejected of men.”
“No. The other way on.”
The blind man ceased to whittle and scoop.
“I like independence,” he said; “I like a man that can go his own way. Ever noticed cats? Men are like dogs, mostly; only once in a way you get a man that’s like a cat. Whatwereyou, if it’s not a rude question. In the taxes?”
“Medico.”
“What’s a good thing for ’eartburn?”
“Which kind?”
“Wind, ain’t it? But I see your meanin’. Losin’ my sight used to burn my ’eart a lot; but I got over that. What’s the use? You couldn’t have any worse misfortune. It gives you a feelin’ of bein’ insured—like.”
“You’re right,” said Late—299, rising to go.
The blind man lifted his face in unison. “Got your smile on?” he said. “Just let me ’ave another feel at it, will you?”
Late—299 bent to the outstretched fingers.
“Yes,” said the blind man, “same with you—touched bottom. Next time you come I’ll ’ave something on show that’ll please you, I think; and thank you for readin’.”
“Let me know if it bores you.”
“I will,” said the blind man, following without movement the footsteps of his visitor that died away.
Christmas night—wild and windy, a shower spattering down in the street; Late—299 walking two yards before his wife, their son walking two yards behind his mother. A light figure, furred to the ears, in a doorway watching for them.
“Come along, darling. Sorry we had to bring him.”
“Of course you had to, Jack!”
“Look! He can’t even walk with mother. It’s a disease. He went to church to-day, and all through the sermon never took his eyes off—the poor old vicar nearly broke down.”
“What was it about?”
“Brotherly love. Mother says he doesn’t mean it—but it’s like—what’s that thing that stares?”
“A basilisk. I’ve been trying to put myself in his place, Jack. He must have swallowed blood and tears in there—ordered about like a dog, by common men, for three years nearly. If you don’t go under, you must become inhuman. This is better than if he’d come out crawling.”
“Perhaps. Look out—the rain! I’ll turn your hood up, darling.” A spattering shower, the whispering hushed....
A lighted open doorway, a red hall, a bunch of hanging mistletoe, a girl beneath, with bushy hair.
“Happy Christmas, Father!”
“Thanks. Do you want to be kissed?”
“As you like. Well, Mother darling! Hallo, you two! Come in! Roddy, take father’s coat.”
“How are you, sir? Beastly weather!”
“That was the advantage we had in prison.Weather never troubled us. ‘Peace and Goodwill’ in holly-berries! Very neat! They used to stick them up in there. Christianity is a really remarkable fraud, don’t you think?” ...
Once again those four in the street; and the bells chiming for midnight service.
“What an evening!”
“Let them get out of hearing, Jack.”
“Worse than ever! My God, he’d turn the milk sour! And I thought liquor might make him possible. He drank quite a lot.”
“Only a few days now, and then!...”
“Do you agree with mother that he doesn’t mean it, Mabel?”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“The way he sits and smiles! Why doesn’t he get himself a desert to smile in?”
“Perhaps he does....”
“’Ere you are!” said the blind man. “Best I can do under the circs. ’Ad a bit o’ trouble with the cross; got it too ’eavy, I’m afraid; but thought you’d rather carry it.”
“Quite a masterpiece!”
“Speaking serious?” said the blind man. “Youcould improve it with a box o’ colours; make it more ’uman-like.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I wouldn’t touch the face, nor the cross—leave ’em wooden; but the hair and the dress, and the blood from the crown o’ thorns might be all the better for a bit o’ brightenin’. How’s the man that corrupted ’Adleyburg?”
Late—299 opened the book.
“‘ ... Goodson looked him over, like as if he was hunting for a place on him that he could despise the most; then he says: “So you are the Committee of Enquiry, are you?” Sawlsberry said that was about what he was. “H’m! Do they require particulars, or do you reckon a kind ofgeneralanswer will do?” “If they require particulars I will come back, Mr. Goodson; I will take the general answer first.” “Very well, then; tell them to go to hell—I reckon that’s general enough. And I’ll give you some advice, Sawlsberry; when you come back for the particulars, fetch a basket to carry what’s left of yourself home in.”’”
The blind man chuckled.
“Ah! I like that Mark Twain. Nice sense o’ humour—nothin’ sickly.”
“Bark and quinine, eh?”
“Bark and bite,” said the blind man. “What do you think of ’uman nature yourself?”
“Little or nothing.”
“And yet there’s a bit of all right about it, too. Look at you and me; we got our troubles; and ’ere we are—jolly as sandboys! Be self-sufficient, or you’ve got to suffer. That’s what you feel, ain’t it? Am I mistook, or did you nod?”
“I did. Your eyes look as if they saw.”
“Bright, are they? You and me could ’ave sat down and cried ’em out any time—couldn’t we? But we didn’t. That’s why I say there’s a bit of all right about us. Put the world from you, and keep your pecker up. When you can’t think worse of things than what you do, you’ll be ’appy—not before. That’s right, ain’t it?”
“Quite.”
“Took me five years. ’Ow long were you about it?”
“Nearly three.”
“Well, you ’ad the advantage of birth and edjucation; I can tell that from your voice—got a thin, mockin’ sound.Istarted in a barber’s shop; got mine in an accident with some ’aircurlers. What I miss most is not bein’ able to go fishin’. No one to take me. Don’t you miss cuttin’ people up?”
“No.”
“Well, I suppose a gent never gets a passion; I’d a perfect passion for fishin’. Never missed Sunday, wet or fine. That’s why I learned this carvin’—must ’ave an ’obby to go on with. Are you goin’ to write your ’istory? Am I wrong, or did you shake your ’ead?”
“I did. My hobby is watching the show go by.”
“That might ’ave suited me at one time—always liked to see the river flowin’ down. I’m a bit of a philosopher myself. You ain’t, I should say.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I’ve a fancy you want life to come to heel too much—misfortune of bein’ a gent, perhaps. Am I right?”
Late—299 closed the book and rose. “Pride!” he said.
“Ah!” said the blind man, groping with his eyes, “that’s meat and drink to you. Thought as much. Come again, if I don’t worry you.”
“And take you fishing?”
“Reelly? You will? Shake ’ands.”
Late—299 put out his hand. The blind man’s groped up and found it....
“Wednesday again, is it, partner, if I’m not troublin’ you?”
“Wednesday it is.”
At the door of his house, with the ‘catch’ in a straw bag, the blind man stood a minute listening to his partner’s footsteps, then felt his way in to his horsehair sofa under the pampas grass. Putting his cold feet up under the rug, he heaved a sigh of satisfaction, and fell asleep.
Between the bare acacias and lilac-bushes of the little villas Late—299 passed on. Entering his house, he sought his study, and stretched his feet towards the fire, and the cat, smelling him fishy, sprang on to his knee.
“Philip, may I come in?”
“You may.”
“The servants have given notice. I wanted to say, wouldn’t you like to give this up and go abroad with me?”
“Why this sudden sacrifice?”
“Oh, Philip! You make it so hard for me. What do you really want me to do?”
“Take half my income, and go away.”
“What will you do, here, alone?”
“Get me a char. The cat and I love chars.”
“Philip!”
“Yes?”
“Won’t you tell me what’s in your heart? Do you want always to be lonely like this?”
Late—299 looked up.
“Reality means nothing to those who haven’t lived with it. I do.”
“But why?”
“My dear Bertha—that is your name, I think?”
“Oh, God! Youareterrible!”
“What would you have me—a whining worm? Crawling to people I despise—squirming from false position to false position? Do you want humility; what is it you want?”
“I want you to be human.”
“Then you want what you have got. Iamso human that I’ll see the world damned before I take its pity, or eat its salt. Leave me alone. I am content.”
“Is there nothing I can do?”
“Yes; stand out of my firelight....”
Two figures, in the dark outside, before the uncurtained window.
“Look, Mabel!”
“Be careful! He may see. Whisper!”
“The window’s shut.”
“Oh, why doesn’t he draw the blinds—if he must sit like that?”
“‘A desert dark without a sound....And not a drop to eat or drinkAnd a dark desert all around!’
“‘A desert dark without a sound....And not a drop to eat or drinkAnd a dark desert all around!’
“‘A desert dark without a sound....And not a drop to eat or drinkAnd a dark desert all around!’
“‘A desert dark without a sound....
And not a drop to eat or drink
And a dark desert all around!’
Jack, I pity him.”
“He doesn’t suffer. It’s being fond of people makes you suffer. He’s got all he wants. Look at him.”
The firelight on the face—its points and hollows, its shining eyes, its stillness and intensity, its smile; and on the cat, hunched and settled in the curve of the warm body. And the two young people, shrinking back, pass on between small houses, clutching each other’s hands.
1923.
Some quarter of a century ago, there abode in Oxford a small bookmaker called James Shrewin—or more usually ‘Jimmy’—a run-about and damped-down little man, who made a precarious living out of the effect of horses on undergraduates. He had a so-called office just off the ‘Corn,’ where he was always open to the patronage of the young bloods of Bullingdon, and other horse-loving coteries, who bestowed on him sufficient money to enable him to live. It was through the conspicuous smash of one of them—young Gardon Colquhoun—that he became the owner of a horse. He had been far from wanting what was in the nature of a white elephant to one of his underground habits, but had taken it in discharge of betting debts, to which, of course, in the event of bankruptcy, he would have no legal claim. She was a three-year old chestnut filly, by Lopez out of Calendar, bore the name of Calliope, and was trained out on the Downs near Wantage. On a Sunday afternoon, then, in late July, ‘Jimmy’ got his friend, GeorgePulcher, the publican, to drive him out there in his sort of dog-cart.
“Must ’ave a look at the bilkin’ mare,” he had said; “that young ‘Cocoon’ told me she was a corker; but what’s third to Referee at Sandown, and never ran as a two-year-old? All I know is, she’s eatin’ ’er ’ead off!”
Beside the plethoric bulk of Pulcher, clad in a light-coloured box-cloth coat with enormous whitish buttons and a full-blown rose in the lapel, ‘Jimmy’s’ little, thin, dark-clothed form, withered by anxiety and gin, was, as it were, invisible; and compared with Pulcher’s setting sun, his face, with shaven cheeks sucked in, and smudged-in eyes, was like a ghost’s under a grey bowler. He spoke offhandedly about his animal, but he was impressed, in a sense abashed, by his ownership. ‘What the ’ell?’ was his constant thought. Was he going to race her, sell her—what? How, indeed, to get back out of her the sum he had been fool enough to let young ‘Cocoon’ owe him, to say nothing of her trainer’s bill? The notion, too, of having to confront that trainer with his ownership was oppressive to one whose whole life was passed in keeping out of the foreground of the picture. Owner! He had never owned even a white mouse, let alone a white elephant. And an ’orsewould ruin him in no time if he didn’t look alive about it!
The son of a small London baker, devoted to errandry at the age of fourteen, ‘Jimmy’ Shrewin owed his profession to a certain smartness at sums, a dislike of baking, and an early habit of hanging about street corners with other boys, who had their daily pennies on an ’orse. He had a narrow, calculating head, which pushed him towards street corner books before he was eighteen. From that time on he had been a surreptitious nomad, till he had silted up at Oxford, where, owing to Vice-Chancellors, an expert in underground life had greater scope than elsewhere. When he sat solitary at his narrow table in the back room near the ‘Corn’—for he had no clerk or associate—eyeing the door, with his lists in a drawer before him, and his black shiny betting-book ready for young ‘bloods,’ he had a sharp, cold, furtive air, and but for a certain imitated tightness of trouser, and a collar standing up all round, gave no impression of ever having heard of the quadruped called horse. Indeed, for ‘Jimmy’ ‘horse’ was a newspaper quantity with figures against its various names. Even when, for a short spell, hanger-on to a firm of Cheap Ring bookmakers, he had seen almost nothing of horse; his racecourse hours were spentferreting among a bawling, perspiring crowd, or hanging round within earshot of tight-lipped nobs, trainers, jockeys, anyone who looked like having ‘information.’ Nowadays he never went near a race-meeting—his business, of betting on races, giving him no chance—yet his conversation seldom deviated for more than a minute at a time from that physically unknown animal, the horse. The ways of making money out of it, infinite, intricate, variegated, occupied the mind in all his haunts, to the accompaniment of liquid and tobacco. Gin and bitters was ‘Jimmy’s’ drink; for choice he smoked cheroots; and he would cherish in his mouth the cold stump of one long after it had gone out, for the homely feeling it gave him, while he talked, or listened to talk on horses. He was of that vast number, town bred, who, like crows round a carcase, feed on that which to them is not alive. And now he had a horse!
The dog-cart travelled at a clinking pace behind Pulcher’s bobtail. ‘Jimmy’s’ cheroot burned well in the warm July air; the dust powdered his dark clothes and pinched, sallow face. He thought with malicious pleasure of that young spark ‘Cocoon’s’ collapse—high-’anded lot of young fools, thinking themselves so knowing; many were the grins, and not few the grittings of his blackened teeth he hadto smother at their swagger. ‘Jimmy, you robber!’ ‘Jimmy, you little blackguard!’ Young sparks—gay and languid—well, one of ’em had gone out!
He looked round with his screwed-up eyes at his friend George Pulcher, who, man and licensed victualler, had his bally independence; lived remote from ‘the Quality’ in his paradise, the Green Dragon; had not to kowtow to anyone; went to Newbury, Gatwick, Stockbridge, here and there, at will. Ah! George Pulcher had the ideal life—and looked it: crimson, square, full-bodied. Judge of a horse, too, in his own estimation; a leery bird—for whose judgment ‘Jimmy’ had respect—who got ‘the office’ of any clever work as quick as most men! And he said:
“What am I going to do with this blinkin’ ’orse, George?”
Without moving its head the oracle spoke in a voice rich and raw: “Let’s ’ave a look at her first, Jimmy! Don’t like her name—Calliope; but you can’t change what’s in the Stud-book. This Jenning that trains ’er is a crusty chap.”
‘Jimmy’ nervously sucked-in his lips. The cart was mounting through the hedgeless fields which fringed the Downs; larks were singing, the wheat was very green, the patches of charlock brightened everything; it was lonely, few trees,few houses, no people, extreme peace, just a few rooks crossing under a blue sky.
“Wonder if he’ll offer us a drink?” said ‘Jimmy.’
“Not he; but help yourself, my son.”
‘Jimmy’ helped himself from a large wicker-covered flask.
“Good for you, George—here’s how!”
The large man shifted the reins and drank, in turn, tilting up a face whose jaw still struggled to assert itself against chins and neck.
“Well, here’s to your bloomin’ horse,” he said. “She can’t win the Derby now, but she may do us a bit of good yet.”
The trainer, Jenning, coming from his Sunday afternoon round of the boxes, heard the sound of wheels. He was a thin man, neat in clothes and boots, medium in height, with a slight limp, narrow grey whiskers, thin shaven lips, eyes sharp and grey.
A dog-cart stopping at his yard-gate; and a rum-looking couple of customers!
“Well, gentlemen?”
“Mr. Jenning? My name’s Pulcher—GeorgePulcher. Brought a client of yours over to see his new mare. Mr. James Shrewin, Oxford city.”
‘Jimmy’ got down and stood before his trainer’s uncompromising stare.
“What mare’s that?” said Jenning.
“Callĭōpe.”
“Callīŏpĕ—Mr. Colquhoun’s?”
‘Jimmy’ held out a letter.
“Dear Jenning,“I have sold Calliope to Jimmy Shrewin, the Oxford bookie. He takes her with all engagements and liabilities, including your training bill. I’m frightfully sick at having to part with her, but needs must when the devil drives.“Gardon Colquhoun.”
“Dear Jenning,
“I have sold Calliope to Jimmy Shrewin, the Oxford bookie. He takes her with all engagements and liabilities, including your training bill. I’m frightfully sick at having to part with her, but needs must when the devil drives.
“Gardon Colquhoun.”
The trainer folded the letter.
“Got proof of registration?”
‘Jimmy’ drew out another paper.
The trainer inspected it, and called out: “Ben, bring out Calliope. Excuse me a minute,” and he walked into his house.
‘Jimmy’ stood, shifting from leg to leg. Mortification had set in; the dry abruptness of the trainer had injured even a self-esteem starved from youth.
The voice of Pulcher boomed. “Told you he was a crusty devil. ’And ’im a bit of his own.”
The trainer was coming back.
“My bill,” he said. “When you’ve paid it you can have the mare. I train for gentlemen.”
“The hell you do!” said Pulcher.
‘Jimmy’ said nothing, staring at the bill. Seventy-eight pounds three shillings! A buzzing fly settled in the hollow of his cheek, and he did not even brush it off. Seventy-eight pound!
The sound of hoofs roused him. Here came his horse, throwing up her head as if enquiring why she was being disturbed a second time on Sunday! In the movement of that small head and satin neck was something free and beyond present company.
“There she is,” said the trainer. “That’ll do, Ben. Stand, girl!”
Answering to a jerk or two of the halter, the mare stood kicking slightly with a white hind foot and whisking her tail. Her bright coat shone in the sunlight, and little shivers and wrinklings passed up and down its satin because of the flies. Then, for a moment, she stood still, ears pricked, eyes on the distance.
‘Jimmy’ approached her. She had resumed her twitchings, swishings, and slight kicking, and at a respectful distance he circled, bending as if looking at crucial points. He knew what her sire and dam had done, and all the horses that had beaten or been beaten by them; could haveretailed by the half-hour the peculiar hearsay of their careers; and here was their offspring in flesh and blood, and he was dumb! He didn’t know a thing about what she ought to look like, and he knew it; but he felt obscurely moved. She seemed to him ‘a picture.’
Completing his circle, he approached her head, white-blazed, thrown up again in listening, or scenting, and gingerly he laid his hand on her neck, warm and smooth as a woman’s shoulder. She paid no attention to his touch, and he took his hand away. Ought he to look at her teeth or feel her legs? No, he was not buying her, she was his already; but he must say something. He looked round. The trainer was watching him with a little smile. For almost the first time in his life the worm turned in ‘Jimmy’ Shrewin; he spoke no word and walked back to the cart.
“Take her in,” said Jenning.
From his seat beside Pulcher, ‘Jimmy’ watched the mare returning to her box.
“When I’ve cashed your cheque,” said the trainer, “you can send for her;” and, turning on his heel, he went towards his house. The voice of Pulcher followed him.
“Blast your impudence! Git on, bobtail, we’ll shake the dust off ’ere.”
Among the fringing fields the dog-cart hurried away. The sun slanted, the heat grew less, the colour of young wheat and of the charlock brightened.
“The tyke! By Gawd, Jimmy, I’d ’ave hit him on the mug! But you’ve got one there. She’s a bit o’ blood, my boy; and I know the trainer for her, Polman—no blasted airs about ’im.”
‘Jimmy’ sucked at his cheroot.
“I ain’t had your advantages, George, and that’s a fact. I got into it too young, and I’m a little chap. But I’ll send the —— my cheque to-morrow. I got my pride, I ’ope.” It was the first time that thought had ever come to him.
Though not quite the centre of the Turf, the Green Dragon had nursed acoupin its day, nor was it without a sense of veneration. The ownership of Calliope invested ‘Jimmy’ Shrewin with the importance of those out of whom something can be had. It took time for one so long accustomed to beck and call, to mole-like procedure, and the demeanour of young bloods, to realise that he had it. But slowly, with the marked increase of his unpaid-for cheroots, with the way in which glasseshung suspended when he came in, with the edgings up to him, and a certain tendency to accompany him along the street, it dawned on him that he was not only an out-of-bounds bookie, but a man. So long as he had remained unconscious of his double nature he had been content with laying the odds, as best he might, and getting what he could out of every situation, straight or crooked. Now that he was also a man, his complacency was ruffled. He suffered from a growing headiness connected with his horse. She was trained, now, by Polman, further along the Downs, too far for Pulcher’s bobtail; and though her public life was carried on at the Green Dragon, her private life required a train journey over night. ‘Jimmy’ took it twice a week—touting his own horse in the August mornings up on the Downs, without drink or talk, or even cheroots. Early morning, larks singing, and the sound of galloping hoofs! In a moment of expansion he confided to Pulcher that it was ‘bally ’olesome.’
There had been the slight difficulty of being mistaken for a tout by his new trainer, Polman, a stoutish man with the look of one of those large sandy Cornish cats, not precisely furtive because reticence and craft are their nature. But, that once over, his personality swelled slowly. This monthof August was one of those interludes, in fact, when nothing happens, but which shape the future by secret ripening.
An error to suppose that men conduct finance, high or low, from greed, or love of gambling; they do it out of self-esteem, out of an itch to prove their judgment superior to their neighbours’, out of a longing for importance. George Pulcher did not despise the turning of a penny, but he valued much more the consciousness that men were saying: “Old George, what ’e says goes—knows a thing or two—George Pulcher!”
To pull the strings of ‘Jimmy’ Shrewin’s horse was a rich and subtle opportunity absorbingly improvable. But first one had to study the animal’s engagements, and, secondly, to gauge that unknown quantity, her ‘form.’ To make anything of her this year they must ‘get about it.’ That young ‘toff,’ her previous owner, had, of course, flown high, entering her for classic races, high-class handicaps, neglecting the rich chances of lesser occasions.
Third to Referee in the three-year-old race at Sandown Spring—two heads—was all that was known of her, and now they had given her seven two in the Cambridgeshire. She might have a chance, and again she might not. He sat twolong evenings with ‘Jimmy’ in the little private room off the bar, deliberating this grave question.
‘Jimmy’ inclined to the bold course. He kept saying: “The mare’s a flyer, George—she’s the ’ell of a flyer!”
“Wait till she’s been tried,” said the oracle.
Had Polman anything that would give them a line?
Yes, he had The Shirker (named with that irony which appeals to the English), one of the most honest four-year-olds that ever looked through bridle, who had run up against almost every animal of mark—the one horse that Polman never interfered with, or interrupted in his training lest he should run all the better; who seldom won, but was almost always placed—the sort of horse that handicappers pivot on.
“But,” said Pulcher, “try her with The Shirker, and the first stable money will send her up to tens. That ’orse is so darned regular. We’ve got to throw a bit of dust first, ‘Jimmy.’ I’ll go over and see Polman.”
In ‘Jimmy’s’ withered chest a faint resentment rose—it wasn’t George’s horse; but it sank again beneath his friend’s bulk and reputation.
The ‘bit of dust’ was thrown at the ordinary hour of exercise over the Long Mile on the last dayof August—the five-year-old Hangman carrying eight stone seven, the three-year-old Parrot seven stone five; what Calliope was carrying nobody but Polman knew. The forethought of George Pulcher had secured the unofficial presence of the Press. The instructions to the boy on Calliope were to be there at the finish if he could, but on no account to win. ‘Jimmy’ and George Pulcher had come out over night. They sat together in the dog-cart by the clump of bushes which marked the winning-post, with Polman on his cob on the far side.
By a fine, warm light the three horses were visible to the naked eye in the slight dip down by the start. And, through the glasses, invested in now that he had a horse, ‘Jimmy’ could see every movement of his mare with her blazed face—rather on her toes, like the bright chestnut and ‘bit o’ blood’ she was. He had a pit-patting in his heart, and his lips were tight-pressed. Suppose she was no good after all, and that young ‘Cocoon’ had palmed him off a pup! But mixed in with his financial fear was an anxiety more intimate, as if his own value were at stake.
From George Pulcher came an almost excited gurgle.
“See the tout! See ’im behind that bush. Thinks we don’t know ’e’s there, wot oh!”
‘Jimmy’ bit into his cheroot. “They’re running,” he said.
Rather wide, the black Hangman on the far side, Calliope in the middle, they came sweeping up the Long Mile. ‘Jimmy’ held his tobaccoed breath. The mare was going freely—a length or two behind—making up her ground! Now for it!
Ah! she ’ad The ’Angman beat, and ding-dong with this Parrot! It was all he could do to keep from calling out. With a rush and a cludding of hoofs they passed—the blazed nose just behind The Parrot’s bay nose—dead heat all but, with The Hangman beaten a good length!
“There ’e goes, Jimmy! See the blank scuttlin’ down the ’ill like a blinkin’ rabbit. That’ll be in to-morrow’s paper, that trial will. Ah! but ’ow to read it—that’s the point.”
The horses had been wheeled and were sidling back; Polman was going forward on his cob.
‘Jimmy’ jumped down. Whatever that fellow had to say, he meant to hear. It was his horse! Narrowly avoiding the hoofs of his hot, fidgeting mare, he said sharply:
“What about it?”
Polman never looked you in the face; his speech came as if not intended to be heard by anyone:
“Tell Mr. Shrewin how she went.”
“Had a bit up my sleeve. If I’d hit her a smart one, I could ha’ landed by a length or more.”
“That so?” said ‘Jimmy’ with a hiss. “Well,don’tyou hit her; she don’t want hittin’. You remember that.”
The boy said sulkily: “All right!”
“Take her home,” said Polman. Then, with that reflective averted air of his, he added: “She was carrying eight stone, Mr. Shrewin; you’ve got a good one there. She’s The Hangman at level weights.”
Something wild leaped up in ‘Jimmy’—The Hangman’s form unrolled itself before him in the air—he had a horse—he dam’ well had a horse!
But how delicate is the process of backing your fancy! The planting of a commission—what tender and efficient work before it will flower! That sixth sense of the racing man, which, like the senses of savages in great forests, seizes telepathically on what is not there, must be dulled, duped, deluded.
George Pulcher had the thing in hand. One might have thought the gross man incapable of such a fairy touch, such power of sowing with onehand and reaping with the other. He intimated rather than asserted that Calliope and The Parrot were one and the same thing. “The Parrot,” he said, “couldn’t win with seven stone—no use thinkin’ of this Callĭōpe.”
Local opinion was the rock on which, like a great tactician, he built. So long as local opinion was adverse, he could dribble money on in London; the natural jump-up from every long shot taken was dragged back by the careful radiation of disparagement from the seat of knowledge.
‘Jimmy’ was the fly in his ointment of those balmy early weeks while snapping up every penny of long odds, before suspicion could begin to work from the persistence of enquiry. Half-a-dozen times he found the ‘little cuss within an ace of blowing the gaff on his own blinkin’ mare’; seemed unable to run his horse down; the little beggar’s head was swellin’! Once ‘Jimmy’ had even got up and gone out, leaving a gin and bitters untasted on the bar. Pulcher improved on his absence in the presence of a London tout.
“Saw the trial meself! Jimmy don’t like to think he’s got a stiff ’un.”
And next morning his London agent snapped up some thirty-threes again.
According to the trial the mare was The Hangman at seven stone two, and really hot stuff—aseven to one chance. It was none the less with a sense of outrage that, opening theSporting Lifeon the last day of September, he found her quoted at 100—8. Whose work was this?
He reviewed the altered situation in disgust. He had invested about half the stable commission of three hundred pounds at an average of thirty to one, but, now that she had ‘come’ in the betting, he would hardly average tens with the rest. What fool had put his oar in?
He learned the explanation two days later. The rash, the unknown backer, was ‘Jimmy’! He had acted, it appeared, from jealousy; a bookmaker—it took one’s breath away!
“Backed her on your own just because that young ‘Cocoon’ told you he fancied her!”
‘Jimmy’ looked up from the table in his ‘office,’ where he was sitting in wait for the scanty custom of the Long Vacation.
“She’s nothishorse,” he said sullenly. “I wasn’t going to havehimget the cream.”
“What did you put on?” growled Pulcher.
“Took five hundred to thirty and fifteen twenties.”
“An’ see what it’s done—knocked the bottom out of the commission. Am I to take that fifty as part of it?”
‘Jimmy’ nodded.
“That leaves an ’undred to invest,” said Pulcher, somewhat mollified. He stood, with his mind twisting in his thick, still body. “It’s no good waitin’ now,” he said; “I’ll work the rest of the money on to-day. If I can average tens on the balance, we’ll ’ave six thousand three hundred to play with and the stakes. They tell me Jenning fancies this Diamond Stud of his.Heought to know the form with Callĭōpe, blast him! We got to watch that.”
They had! Diamond Stud, a four-year-old with eight stone two, was being backed as if the Cambridgeshire were over. From fifteens he advanced to sevens, thence to favouritism at fives. Pulcher bit on it. Jenningmustknow where he stood with Calliope! It meant—it meant she couldn’t win! The tactician wasted no time in vain regret. Establish Calliope in the betting and lay off! The time had come to utilise The Shirker.
It was misty on the Downs—fine weather mist of a bright October. The three horses became spectral on their way to the starting-point. Polman had thrown The Parrot in again, but this time he made no secret of the weights. The Shirker was carrying eight seven, Calliope eight, The Parrot seven stone.
Once more, in the cart, with his glasses sweepingthe bright mist, ‘Jimmy’ had that pit-patting in his heart. Here they came! His mare leading—all riding hard—a genuine finish! They passed—The Shirker beaten a clear length, with the Parrot at his girth. Beside him in the cart, George Pulcher mumbled:
“She’s The Shirker at eight stone four, Jimmy!”
A silent drive back to the river inn, big with thought; a silent breakfast. Over a tankard at the close the oracle spoke.
“The Shirker, at eight stone four, is a good ’ot chance, but no cert, Jimmy. We’ll let ’em know this trial quite open, weights and all. That’ll bring her in the betting. And we’ll watch Diamond Stud. If he drops back we’ll know Jenning thinks he can’t beat us now. If Diamond Stud stands up we’ll know Jenning thinks he’s still got our mare safe. Then our line’ll be clear: we lay off the lot, pick up a thousand or so, and ’ave the mare in at a nice weight at Liverpool.”
‘Jimmy’s’ smudged-in eyes stared hungrily.
“How’s that?” he said. “Suppose she wins?”
“Wins! If we lay off the lot, shewon’twin.”
“Pull her!”
George Pulcher’s voice sank half an octave with disgust.
“Pull her! Who talked of pullin’? She’ll run a bye, that’s all. We shan’t ever know whether she could ’a won or not.”
‘Jimmy’ sat silent; the situation was such as his life during sixteen years had waited for. They stood to win both ways with a bit of handling.
“Who’s to ride?” he said.
“Polman’s got a call on Docker. He can just ride the weight. Either way he’s good for us—strong finisher and a rare judge of distance; knows how to time things to a T. Win or not, he’s our man.”
‘Jimmy’ was deep in figures. Laying-off at sevens, they would still win four thousand and the stakes.
“I’d like a win,” he said.
“Ah!” said Pulcher. “But there’ll be twenty in the field, my son; no more uncertain race than that bally Cambridgeshire. We could pick up a thou. as easy as I pick up this pot. Bird in the ’and, Jimmy, and a good ’andicap in the bush. If she wins, she’s finished. Well, we’ll put this trial about and see ’ow Jenning pops.”
Jenning popped amazingly. Diamond Stud receded a point, then re-established himself at nine to two. Jenning was clearly not dismayed.
George Pulcher shook his head and waited,uncertain still which way to jump. Ironical circumstance decided him.
Term had begun; ‘Jimmy’ was busy at his seat of custom. By some miracle of guardianly intervention, young Colquhoun had not gone broke. He was ‘up’ again, eager to retrieve his reputation, and that little brute ‘Jimmy’ would not lay against his horse! He merely sucked-in his cheeks, and answered: “I’m not layin’ my own ’orse.” It was felt that he was not the man he had been; assertion had come into his manner, he was better dressed. Someone had seen him at the station looking quite a ‘toff’ in a blue box-cloth coat standing well out from his wisp of a figure, and with a pair of brown race-glasses slung over the shoulder. Altogether the ‘little brute was getting too big for his boots.’
And this strange improvement hardened the feeling that his horse was a real good thing. Patriotism began to burn in Oxford. Here was a ‘snip’ that belonged to them, as it were, and the money in support of it, finding no outlet, began to ball.
A week before the race—with Calliope at nine to one, and very little doing—young Colquhoun went up to town, taking with him the accumulated support of betting Oxford. That evening she stood at sixes. Next day the public followed on.
George Pulcher took advantage. In this crisis of the proceedings he acted on his own initiative. The mare went back to eights, but the deed was done. He had laid off the whole bally lot, including the stake money. He put it to ‘Jimmy’ that evening in a nutshell.
“We pick up a thousand, and the Liverpool as good as in our pocket. I’ve done worse.”
‘Jimmy’ grunted out: “She could ’a won.”
“Not she. Jenning knows—and there’s others in the race. This Wasp is goin’ to take a lot of catchin’, and Deerstalker’s not out of it. He’s a hell of a horse, even with that weight.”
Again ‘Jimmy’ grunted, slowly sucking down his gin and bitters. Sullenly he said:
“Well, I don’ want to put money in the pocket of young ‘Cocoon’ and his crowd. Like his impudence, backin’ my horse as if it was his own.”
“We’ll ’ave to go and see her run, Jimmy.”
“Not me,” said ‘Jimmy.’
“What! First time she runs! It won’t look natural.”
“No,” repeated ‘Jimmy.’ “I don’t want to see ’er beat.”
George Pulcher laid his hand on a skinny shoulder.
“Nonsense, Jimmy. You’ve got to, for thesake of your reputation. You’ll enjoy seein’ your mare saddled. We’ll go up over night. I shall ’ave a few pound on Deerstalker. I believe he can beat this Diamond Stud. And you leave Docker to me; I’ll ’ave a word with him at Gatwick to-morrow. I’ve known ’im since he was that ’igh; an’ ’e ain’t much more now.”
“All right!” growled ‘Jimmy.’
The longer you can bet on a race the greater its fascination. Handicappers can properly enjoy the beauty of their work; clubmen and oracles of the course have due scope for reminiscence and prophecy; bookmakers in lovely leisure can indulge a little their own calculated preferences, instead of being hurried to soulless conclusions by a half-hour’s market on the course; the professional backer has the longer in which to dream of his fortune made at last by some hell of a horse—spotted somewhere as interfered with, left at the post, running green, too fat, not fancied, backward—now bound to win this hell of a race. And the general public has the chance to read the horses’ names in the betting news for days and days; and what a comfort that is!
‘Jimmy’ Shrewin was not one of thosephilosophers who justify the great and growing game of betting on the ground that it improves the breed of an animal less and less in use. He justified it much more simply—he lived by it. And in the whole of his career of nearly twenty years since he made hole-and-corner books among the boys of London, he had never stood so utterly on velvet as that morning when his horse must win him five hundred pounds by merely losing. He had spent the night in London anticipating a fraction of his gains with George Pulcher at a music-hall. And, in a first-class carriage, as became an owner, he travelled down to Newmarket by an early special. An early special key turned in the lock of the carriage door, preserved their numbers at six, all professionals, with blank, rather rolling eyes, mouths shut or slightly fishy, ears to the ground; and the only natural talker a red-faced man, who had ‘been at it thirty years.’ Intoning the pasts and futures of this hell of a horse or that, even he was silent on the race in hand; and the journey was half over before the beauty of their own judgments loosened tongues thereon. George Pulcher started it.
“I fancy Deerstalker,” he said; “he’s a hell of a horse.”
“Too much weight,” said the red-faced man. “What about this Calliope?”
“Ah!” said Pulcher. “D’you fancy your mare, Jimmy?”
With all eyes turned on him, lost in his blue box-cloth coat, brown bowler, and cheroot smoke, ‘Jimmy’ experienced a subtle thrill. Addressing the space between the red-faced man and Pulcher, he said:
“If she runs up to ’er looks.”
“Ah!” said Pulcher, “she’s dark—nice mare, but a bit light and shelly.”
“Lopez out o’ Calendar,” muttered the red-faced man. “Lopez didn’t stay, but he was the hell of a horse over seven furlongs. The Shirker ought to ’ave told you a bit.”
‘Jimmy’ did not answer. It gave him pleasure to see the red-faced man’s eye trying to get past, and failing.
“Nice race to pick up. Don’t fancy the favourite meself; he’d nothin’ to beat at Ascot.”
“Jenning knows what he’s about,” said Pulcher.
Jenning! Before ‘Jimmy’s’ mind passed again that first sight of his horse, and the trainer’s smile, as if he—‘Jimmy’ Shrewin, who owned her—had been dirt. Tyke! To have the mare beaten by one of his! A deep, subtle vexation had oppressed him at times all these last days since George Pulcher had decided in favour of the mare’s running a bye. D——n George Pulcher! He took too much onhimself! Thought he had ‘Jimmy’ Shrewin in his pocket! He looked at the block of crimson opposite. Aunt Sally! If George Pulcher could tell what was passing in his mind!
But driving up to the course he was not above sharing a sandwich and a flask. In fact, his feelings were unstable and gusty—sometimes resentment, sometimes the old respect for his friend’s independent bulk. The dignity of ownership takes long to establish itself in those who have been kicked about.
“All right with Docker,” murmured Pulcher, sucking at the wicker flask. “I gave him the office at Gatwick.”
“She could ’a won,” muttered ‘Jimmy.’
“Not she, my boy; there’s two at least can beat ’er.”
Like all oracles, George Pulcher could believe what he wanted to.
Arriving, they entered the grand-stand enclosure, and over the dividing railings ‘Jimmy’ gazed at the Cheap Ring, already filling-up with its usual customers. Faces, and umbrellas—the same old crowd. How often had he been in that Cheap Ring, with hardly room to move, seeing nothing, hearing nothing but “Two to one on the field!” “Two to one on the field!” “Threes Swordfish!” “Fives Alabaster!” “Two to one on the field!”Nothing but a sea of men like himself, and a sky overhead. He was not exactly conscious of criticism, only of a dull ‘Glad I’m shut of that lot’ feeling.
Leaving George Pulcher deep in conversation with a crony, he lighted a cheroot, and slipped out on to the course. He passed the Jockey Club enclosure. Some early ‘toffs’ were there in twos and threes, exchanging wisdom. He looked at them without envy or malice. He was an owner himself now, almost one of them in a manner of thinking. With a sort of relish he thought of how his past life had circled round those ‘toffs,’ slippery, shadowlike, kicked about; and now he could get up on the Downs away from ‘toffs,’ George Pulcher, all that crowd, and smell the grass, and hear the bally larks, and watch his own mare gallop!
They were putting the numbers up for the first race. Queer not to be betting, not to be touting round; queer to be giving it a rest! Utterly familiar with those names on the board, he was utterly unfamiliar with the shapes they stood for.
‘I’ll go and see ’em come out of the paddock,’ he thought, and moved on, skimpy in his bell-shaped coat and billycock with flattened brim. The clamour of the Rings rose behind him while he was entering the paddock.
Very green, very peaceful, there; not many people, yet! Three horses in the second race were being led slowly in a sort of winding ring; and men were clustering round the further gate where the horses would come out. ‘Jimmy’ joined them, sucking at his cheroot. They were a picture! Damn it! he didn’t know but that ’orses laid over men! Pretty creatures!
One by one they passed out of the gate, a round dozen. Selling platers, but pictures for all that!
He turned back towards the horses being led about; and the old instinct to listen took him close to little groups. Talk was all of the big race. From a tall ‘toff’ he caught the word Calliope.
“Belongs to a bookie, they say.”
Bookie! Why not? Wasn’t a bookie as good as any other? Ah! and sometimes better than these young snobs with everything to their hand! A bookie—well, what chance had he ever had?
A big brown horse came by.
“That’s Deerstalker,” he heard the ‘toff’ say.
‘Jimmy’ gazed at George Pulcher’s fancy with a sort of hostility. Here came another—Wasp, six stone ten, and Deerstalker nine stone—top and bottom of the race!
‘My ’orse’d beat either o’ them,’ he thought stubbornly. ‘Don’t like that Wasp.’
The distant roar was hushed. They wererunning in the first race! He moved back to the gate. The quick clamour rose and dropped, and here they came—back into the paddock, darkened with sweat, flanks heaving a little!
‘Jimmy’ followed the winner, saw the jockey weigh in.
“What jockey’s that?” he asked.
“That? Why, Docker!”
‘Jimmy’ stared. A short, square, bow-legged figure, with a hardwood face! Waiting his chance, he went up to him and said:
“Docker, you ride my ’orse in the big race.”
“Mr. Shrewin?”
“The same,” said ‘Jimmy.’ The jockey’s left eyelid drooped a little. Nothing responded in ‘Jimmy’s’ face. “I’ll see you before the race,” he said.
Again the jockey’s eyelid wavered, he nodded and passed on.
‘Jimmy’ stared at his own boots—they struck him suddenly as too yellow and not at the right angle. But why, he couldn’t say.
More horses now—those of the first race being unsaddled, clothed, and led away. More men—three familiar figures: young ‘Cocoon’ and two others of his Oxford customers.
‘Jimmy’ turned sharply from them. Stand their airs?—not he! He had a sudden sickish feeling.With a win, he’d have been a made man—on his own! Blast George Pulcher and his caution! To think of being back in Oxford with those young bloods jeering at his beaten horse! He bit deep into the stump of his cheroot, and suddenly came on Jenning standing by a horse with a star on its bay forehead. The trainer gave him no sign of recognition, but signed to the boy to lead the horse into a stall, and followed, shutting the door. It was exactly as if he had said: ‘Vermin about!’
An evil little smile curled ‘Jimmy’s’ lips. The tyke!
The horses for the second race passed out of the paddock gate, and he turned to find his own. His ferreting eyes soon sighted Polman. What the cat-faced fellow knew, or was thinking, ‘Jimmy’ could not tell. Nobody could tell.
“Where’s the mare?” he said.
“Just coming round.”
No mistaking her; fine as a star; shiny-coated, sinuous, her blazed face held rather high! Who said she was ’shelly’? She was a picture! He walked a few paces close to the boy.
“That’s Calliope.... H’m!... Nice filly!... Looks fit.... Who’s this James Shrewin?... What’s she at?... I like her looks.”
His horse! Not a prettier filly in the world!
He followed Polman into her stall to see hersaddled. In the twilight there he watched her toilet; the rub-over; the exact adjustments; the bottle of water to the mouth; the buckling of the bridle—watched her head high above the boy keeping her steady with gentle pulls of a rein in each hand held out a little wide, and now and then stroking her blazed nose; watched her pretence of nipping at his hand: he watched the beauty of her exaggerated in this half-lit isolation away from the others, the life and litheness in her satin body, the wilful expectancy in her bright soft eyes.
Run a bye! This bit o’ blood—this bit o’ fire! This horse of his! Deep within that shell of blue box-cloth against the stall partition a thought declared itself: ‘I’m —— if she shall! She can beat the lot! And she’s —— well going to!’
The door was thrown open, and she led out. He moved alongside. They were staring at her, following her. No wonder! She was a picture, his horse—his! She had gone to ‘Jimmy’s’ head.
They passed Jenning with Diamond Stud waiting to be mounted. ‘Jimmy’ shot him a look. Let the —— wait!
His mare reached the palings and was halted. ‘Jimmy’ saw the short square figure of her jockey, in the new magenta cap and jacket—hiscap,hisjacket! Beautiful they looked, and no mistake!
“A word with you,” he said.
The jockey halted, looked quickly round.
“All right, Mr. Shrewin. No need.”
‘Jimmy’s’ eyes smouldered at him; hardly moving his lips, he said, intently: “You —— well don’t! You’ll —— well ride her to win. Never mindhim! If you don’t, I’ll have you off the Turf. Understand me! You’ll —— well ride ’er to win.”
The jockey’s jaw dropped.
“All right, Mr. Shrewin.”
“See it is,” said ‘Jimmy’ with a hiss....
“Mount jockeys!”
He saw magenta swing into the saddle. And suddenly, as if smitten with the plague, he scuttled away.