The Vanity Girl Part 46

The injured lady glared at him; it was her first Derby, and perhaps she did not realize that it mattered who won or lost.

"Come on, Doodles," said Tony. "Home. For G.o.d's sake, let's get home."

He would not wait to hear any explanation of the filly's defeat, but pushed his way savagely through the crowd to find the car.

"Gorblime!" a ragged vender of unauthorized race-cards was e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. near the garage. "Gor strike me blurry well pink! She'd make a blurry tortoise crick his blurry neck looking round to see why she was dawdling behind. Race-horse? Why, I reckon a keb-horse could give her three stone and win in a blurry canter, I do. Vanity Girl? Vanity b.i.t.c.h, that's what she ought to have been called."

VII

The news of the defeat had already reached Halfmoon Street, and Galloway inclined his head when they pa.s.sed 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, pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d 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 circ.u.mstances 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 compa.s.sionate, 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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s-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 p.a.w.ned 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 a.s.sociations 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 embarra.s.sment 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 G.o.d! 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 ... d.a.m.ned cowards.... You d.a.m.ned 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 n.o.body 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,