Of course he will, chorused half a dozen voices.
With all our pots on him, added the Seraph. Hes too much of a gentleman to put us all up a tree; he knows he carries the honor of the Household.
There are some good mounts, theres no denying that, said Chesterfield of the Blues (who was called Tom for no other reason than that it was entirely unlike his real name of Adolphus), where he was curled up almost invisible, except for the movement of the jasmine stick of his chibouque. That brute, Day Star, is a splendid fencer, and for a brook jumper, it would be heard to best Wild Geranium, though her shoulders are not quite what they ought to be. Montacute, too, can ride a good thing, and hes got one in Pas de Charge.
Im not much afraid of Monti, he makes too wild a burst first; he never saves on atom, yawned Cecil, with the coils of his hookah bubbling among the rose-water; the man Im afraid of is that fellow from the Tenth; hes as light as a feather and as hard as steel. I watched him yesterday going over the water, and the horse hell ride for Trelawney is good enough to beat even the King if hes properly piloted.
You havent kept yourself in condition, Beauty, growled Tom, with the chibouque in his mouth, else nothing could give you the go-by. Its tempting Providence to go in for the Gilt Vase after such a December and January as you spent in Paris. Even the week youve been in the Shires you havent trained a bit; youve been waltzing or playing baccarat till five in the morning, and taking no end of sodas after to bring you right for the meet at nine. If a man will drink champagnes and burgundies as you do, and spend his time after women, I should like to know how hes to be in hard riding condition, unless he expects a miracle.
With which Chesterfield, who weighed fourteen stone himself, and was, therefore, out of all but welter-races, and wanted a weight-carrier of tremendous power even for them, subsided under a heap of velvet and cashmere, and Cecil laughed; lying on a divan just under one of the gas branches, the light fell full on his handsome face, with its fair hue and its gentle languor on which there was not a single trace of the outrecuidance attributed to him. Both he and the Seraph could lead the wildest life of any men in Europe without looking one shadow more worn than the brightest beauty of the season, and could hold wassail in riotous rivalry till the sun rose, and then throw themselves into saddle as fresh as if they had been sound asleep all night; to keep up with the pack the whole day in a fast burst or on a cold scent, or in whatever sport Fortune and the coverts gave them, till their second horses wound their way homeward through muddy, leafless lanes, when the stars had risen.
Beauty dont believe in training. No more do I. Never would train for anything, said the Seraph now, pulling the long blond mustaches that were not altogether in character with his seraphic cognomen. If a man can ride, let him. If hes born to the pigskin hell be in at the distance safe enough, whether he smokes or dont smoke, drink or dont drink. As for training on raw chops, giving up wine, living like the very deuce and all, as if you were in a monastery, and changing yourself into a mere bag of bonesits utter bosh. You might as well be in purgatory; besides, its no more credit to win then than if you were a professional.
But you must have trained at Christ Church, Rock, for the Eight? asked another Guardsman, Sir Vere Bellingham; Severe, as he was christened, chiefly because he was the easiest-going giant in existence.
Did I! men came to me; wanted me to join the Eight; coxswain came, awful strict little fellow, docked his men of all their funtook plenty himself though! Coxswain said I must begin to train, do as all his crew did. I threw up my sleeve and showed him my arm; and the Seraph stretched out an arm magnificent enough for a statue of Milo. I said, there, sir, Ill help you thrash Cambridge, if you like, but train I wont for you or for all the University. Ive been Captain of the Eton Eight; but I didnt keep my crew on tea and toast. I fattened em regularly three times a week on venison and champagne at Christophers. Very happy to feed yours, too, if you like; game comes down to me every Friday from the Dukes moors; they look uncommonly as if they wanted it! You should have seen his face!fatten the Eight! He didnt let me do that, of course; but he was very glad of my oar in his rowlocks, and I helped him beat Cambridge without training an hour myself, except so far as rowing hard went.
And the Marquis of Rockingham, made thirsty by the recollection, dipped his fair mustaches into a foaming seltzer.
Quite right, Seraph! said Cecil; when a man comes up to the weights, looking like a homunculus, after hes been getting every atom of flesh off him like a jockey, he ought to be struck out for the stakes, to my mind. Tisnt a question of riding, then, nor yet of pluck, or of management; its nothing but a question of pounds, and of who can stand the tamest life the longest.
Well, beneficial for ones morals, at any rate, suggested Sir Vere.
Morals be hanged! said Bertie, very immorally. Im glad you remind us of them, Vere; youre such a quintessence of decorum and respectability yourself! I sayanybody know anything of this fellow of the Tenth thats to ride Trelawneys chestnut?
Jimmy Delmar! Oh, yes; I know Jimmy, answered Lord Cosmo Wentworth, of the Scots Fusileers, from the far depths of an arm-chair. Knew him at Aldershot. Fine rider; give you a good bit of trouble, Beauty. Hasnt been in England for years; troop been such a while at Calcutta. The Fancy take to him rather; offering very freely on him this morning in the village; and hes got a rare good thing in the chestnut.
Not a doubt of it. The White Lily blood, out of that Irish mare DOrleans Diamonds, too.
Never mind! Tenth wont beat us. The Household will win safe enough, unless Forest King goes and breaks his back over Brixwortheh, Beauty? said the Seraph, who believed devoutly in his comrade, with all the loving loyalty characteristic of the House of Lyonnesse, that to monarchs and to friends had often cost it very dear.
You put your faith in the wrong quarter, Rock; I may fail you, he never will, said Cecil, with ever so slight a dash of sadness in his words; the thought crossed him of how boldly, how straightly, how gallantly the horse always breasted and conquered his difficultiesdid he himself deal half so well with his own?
Well! you both of you carry all our money and all our credit; so for the fair fame of the Household do all you know. I havent hedged a shilling, not laid off a farthing, Bertie; I stand on you and the King, and nothing elsesee what a sublime faith I have in you.
I dont think youre wise then, Seraph; the field will be very strong, said Cecil languidly. The answer was indifferent, and certainly thankless; but under his drooped lids a glance, frank and warm, rested for the moment on the Seraphs leonine strength and Raphaelesque head; it was not his way to say it, or to show it, or even much to think it; but in his heart he loved his old friend wonderfully well.
And they talked on of little else than of the great steeple-chase of the Service, for the next hour in the Tabak-Parliament, while the great clouds of scented smoke circled heavily round; making a halo of Turkish above the gold locks of the Titanic Seraph, steeping Chesterfields velvets in strong odors of Cavendish, and drifting a light rose-scented mist over Berties long, lithe limbs, light enough and skilled enough to disdain all training for the weights.
Thats not the way to be in condition, growled Tom, getting up with a great shake as the clock clanged the strokes of five; they had only returned from a ball three miles off, when Cecil had paid his visit to the loose box. Bertie laughed; his laugh was like himselfrather languid, but very light-hearted, very silvery, very engaging.
Sit and smoke till breakfast time if you like, Tom; it wont make any difference to me.
But the Smoke Parliament wouldnt hear of the champion of the Household over the ridge and furrow risking the steadiness of his wrist and the keenness of his eye by any such additional tempting of Providence, and went off itself in various directions, with good-night iced drinks, yawning considerably like most other parliaments after a sitting.
It was the old family place of the Royallieu House in which he had congregated half the Guardsmen in the Service for the great event, and consequently the bachelor chambers in it were of the utmost comfort and spaciousness, and when Cecil sauntered into his old quarters, familiar from boyhood, he could not have been better off in his own luxurious haunts in Piccadilly. Moreover, the first thing that caught his eye was a dainty scarlet silk riding jacket broidered in gold and silver, with the motto of his house, Coeur Vaillant se fait Royaume, all circled with oak and laurel leaves on the collar.
It was the work of very fair hands, of very aristocratic hands, and he looked at it with a smile. Ah, my lady, my lady! he thought half aloud, do you really love me? Do I really love you?
There was a laugh in his eyes as he asked himself what might be termed an interesting question; then something more earnest came over his face, and he stood a second with the pretty costly embroideries in his hand, with a smile that was almost tender, though it was still much more amused. I suppose we do, he concluded at last; at least quite as much as is ever worth while. Passions dont do for the drawing-room, as somebody says in Coningsby; besidesI would not feel a strong emotion for the universe. Bad style always, and more detrimental to condition, as Tom would say, than three bottles of brandy!
He was so little near what he dreaded, at present at least, that the scarlet jacket was tossed down again, and gave him no dreams of his fair and titled embroideress. He looked out, the last thing, at some ominous clouds drifting heavily up before the dawn, and the state of the weather, and the chance of its being rainy, filled his thoughts, to the utter exclusion of the donor of that bright gold-laden dainty gift. I hope to goodness there wont be any drenching shower. Forest King can stand ground as hard as a slate, but if theres one thing hes weak in its slush! was Berties last conscious thought, as he stretched his limbs out and fell sound asleep.
CHAPTER III
THE SOLDIERS BLUE RIBBON
Take the Field bar one. Two to one on Forest King. Two to one on Bay Regent. Fourteen to seven on Wild Geranium. Seven to two against Brother to Fairy. Three to five on Pas de Charge. Nineteen to six on Day Star. Take the Field bar one, rose above the hoarse tumultuous roar of the ring on the clear, crisp, sunny morning that was shining on the Shires on the day of the famous steeple-chase.
The talent had come in great muster from London; the great bookmakers were there with their stentor lungs and their quiet, quick entry of thousands; and the din and the turmoil, at the tiptop of their height, were more like a gathering on the Heath or before the Red House, than the local throngs that usually mark steeple-chase meetings, even when they be the Grand Military or the Grand National. There were keen excitement and heavy stakes on the present event; the betting had never stood still a second in Town or the Shires; and even the knowing ones, the worshipers of the flat alone, the professionals who ran down gentlemen races and the hypercritics who affirmed that there is not such a thing as a steeple-chaser to be found on earth (since, to be a fencer, a water-jumper, and a racer were to attain an equine perfection impossible on earth, whatever it may be in happy hunting ground of immortality)even these, one and all of them, came eager to see the running for the Gilt Vase.
For it was known very well that the Guards had backed their horse tremendously, and the county laid most of its money on him, and the bookmakers were shy of laying off much against one of the first cross-country riders of the Service, who had landed his mount at the Grand National Handicap, the Billesdon Coplow, the Ealing, the Curragh, the Prix du Donjon, the Rastatt, and almost every other for which he had entered. Yet, despite this, the Fancy took most to Bay Regent; they thought he would cut the work out; his sire had won the Champion Stakes at Doncaster, and the Drawing-room at glorious Goodwood, and that racing strain through the White Lily blood, coupled with a magnificent reputation which he brought from Leicestershire as a fencer, found him chief favor among the fraternity.
His jockey, Jimmy Delmar, too, with his bronzed, muscular, sinewy frame, his low stature, his light weight, his sunburnt, acute face, and a way of carrying his hands as he rode that was precisely like Aldcrofts, looked a hundred times more professional than the brilliance of Beauty, and the reckless dash of his well-known way of sending the horse along with all he had in him, which was undeniably much more like a fast kill over the Melton country, than like a weight-for-age race anywhere. You see the Service in his stirrups, said an old nobbler who had watched many a trial spin, lying hidden in a ditch or a drain; and indisputably you did: Berties riding was superb, but it was still the riding of a cavalryman, not of a jockey. The mere turn of the foot in the stirrups told it, as the old man had the shrewdness to know.
So the King went down at one time two points in the morning betting.
Know them flash cracks of the Household, said Tim Varnet, as sharp a little Leg as ever got on a dark thing, and went halves with a jock who consented to rope a favorite at the Ducal. Them swells, ye see, they give any money for blood. They just go by Godolphin heads, and little feet, and winners strains, and all the rest of it; and so long as they get pedigree never look at substance; and their bone comes no bigger than a deers. Now, its force as well as pace that tells over a bit of plow; a critter that would win the Derby on the flat would knock up over the first spin over the clods; and that Kings legs are too light for my fancy, andsome as tis ondeniable he looksfor a little un, as one may say.
And Tim Varnet exactly expressed the dominant mistrust of the talent; despite all his race and all his exploits, the King was not popular in the Ring, because he was like his backersa swell. They thought him showyvery showy, a picture to frame, a luster to look at; but they disbelieved in him, almost to a man, as a stayer, and they trusted him scarcely at all with their money.
Its plain that hes meant, though, thought little Tim, who was so used to the shady in stable matters that he could hardly persuade himself that even the Grand Military could be run fair, and would have thought a Guardsman or a Hussar only exercised his just privilege as a jockey in roping after selling the race, if so it suited his book. Hes meant, thats clear, cause the swells have put all their pots on himbut if the pots dont bile over, strike me a loser! a contingency he knew he might very well invoke; his investments being invariably so matchlessly arranged that, let what would be bowled over, Tim Varnet never could be.