“I am glad you think so. But – you have only just come. Will you not stay? My husband must have a good deal to say to you.”
“We could talk for hours, my dear madam, but I must be going on.”
“You will stay to lunch?”
“Impossible. Most important business in the neighbourhood. Hilton has been most hospitable and refreshed me, and I really must be off – eh, Hilt?”
“Certainly.”
“The fact is, Lady Lisle, it is a question of money matters. Business connection with a bank.”
Lady Lisle bowed, and looked relieved.
“If you must go, then, Dr Granton – ”
“I really must, my dear madam. No, no, Hilton, dear boy, don’t ring for the horse; I’ll go round by the stables and pick up my hack. Don’t you come. Good-morning, Lady Lisle. I hope you will let me call if I am again this way?”
“Certainly, Dr Granton. I am always happy to extend the hospitality of the Denes to my husband’s friends.”
“Thank you; of course. Once more, good-morning. Morning, Hilton, dear boy. Au revoir!”
He passed out, and the frown on Lady Lisle’s brow deepened. “I’m afraid, Hilton,” she said, “that Dr Granton’s business may have something to do with the races.”
“Eh? Indeed! Well, now you say so, I suppose it is possible.”
“You have not allowed him to tempt you into going, Hilton?”
“No, my dear,” said the baronet; “certainly not.”
He spoke out quickly and firmly, the glow of the virtuous who had resisted temptation warming his breast.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, laying her hand almost caressingly upon her lord’s shoulder. “It could only have meant gambling, risking money to win that of others. Hilton, my love, it is so vile and despicable.”
“Think so, Laura?” he said, with the cold chill of his wife’s words completely extinguishing the virtuous glow.
“Think so? Oh, yes, Hilton. You cannot imagine how happy you make me by the way you are casting behind you your old weaknesses, and are devoting yourself to Parliamentary study.”
“For which I fear I am very unfit,” said Sir Hilton; and he turned cold directly after at a horrible thought which seemed to stun him.
Suppose she should say, “Well, give it up,” and want to withdraw that balance at the bank! “What an idiot I was to say that!” he thought. But relief – partial relief – came the next minute.
“That is your modesty, my dear,” said Lady Lisle. “I flatter myself that I know your capabilities better than you know them yourself. Hilton, I shall devote myself to the task of being your Parliamentary secretary, and I mean that you shall shine.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said the unhappy man, sadly, as he thought of the daring venture he had set in commission, and began to repent as he walked to the window and looked out.
“I ought not to have risked that money, though. Suppose the mare lost,” he mused. “Bah! I know her too well. There isn’t a horse can touch her in the straight, and it will regularly set me up. I shan’t have to go begging for a cheque, and then have ‘What for, darling?’ ringing in my ears. Hang it all! It makes a man feel so small. Why, the very servants pity me – I know they do. And as for that old scoundrel Trimmer – oh, if I could only give him something, even if it were only a wife to keep him short!”
“Suppose – ” he thought again, and could get no farther than that one word, which, like the nucleus of a comet, sent out behind or before it a tail of enormous proportions – a sort of gaseous mist of horrible probabilities concerning that four thousand pounds.
“If I could get a message to him and stop it all,” he muttered, as he watched Jane rapidly clear the table of the tardy breakfast things.
“Yes, my love, Parliament must be the goal of your ambition,” said Lady Lisle, with her eyes brightening, as soon as they were alone. “If I had been a man how I should have gloried in addressing the House!”
“Ah! there’s a deal of talk goes on there, my dear,” replied Sir Hilton.
“And what talk, Hilton! What a study! The proper study of mankind is man. How much better than devoting all your attention to dogs and horses!”
“‘How noble a beast is the horse,’ dear, it said in my first reading-book.”
“Absurd, my love. Pray don’t think of horses any more.”
Sir Hilton winced, and then watched his lady as she moved in a dignified way to the fireplace to rearrange her headgear.
“Going out again, my dear?” said Sir Hilton, for want of something better to say.
“Yes, love. I have ordered the carriage round, to drive over to Hanby.”
“To Hanby, dear?”
“Yes. Mr Browse drove by while I was at the vicarage,” said the lady, in a tone of disgust. “That man is in arrear with his rent for the farm. The vicar said he supposed the man was going to the races, and I am going over to see his wife.”
“For goodness’ sake, don’t go and interfere, my dear,” cried Sir Hilton, anxiously. “It would get talked about so at the Tilborough Market, and spread in all directions.”
“It would not matter, that I see,” said her ladyship, haughtily. “But I was not going to interfere. I might, perhaps, say a word or two of condolence to poor Mrs Browse, and point out how much happier she would be if her husband followed the example of mine.”
“But, hang it all, Laura, he can’t try to enter into Parliament!”
“No, my love, but he could give up horse-racing.”
“Surely you are not going over there – to drive all those miles – to say that?”
“No, my love, only to help carry on your election contest, and be in time. Mr Browse is in my – our debt, according to Mr Trimmer’s figures, for a whole year’s rental of the farm.”
“But you mustn’t go and dun people.”
“Dun, Hilton?”
“Well, collect rents. Leave that to Trimmer.”
“Of course I shall, my dear,” said her ladyship, with a condescending smile. “I am going over to name that circumstance of their indebtedness to me – us, and to tell her that I shall expect Mr Browse to vote for you. She will compel her husband to do so, and that will ensure one vote.”
“The grey mare’s the better horse,” said Sir Hilton to himself, and he was thinking of the train of circumstances in connection with the race, and planning to rush off and try to forestall the doctor’s risking money, as he sat back in his chair, when, slowly slouching along after passing through the swing gate, one of the regular hangers-on of a race-meeting approached the house. His aspect was battered, and the pink hunting-coat – one which had seen very much better days – was rubbed to whiteness here and greased to blackness there. It was frayed and patched, and wore the general aspect of having been used as a sleeping garment on occasion, being decorated with scraps of hay, prickly seed vessels, and the like, in addition to the chalky dust of the road, a good deal of which powdered the round-topped, peaked hunting cap, once of black velvet, now all fibre, with scarcely a trace of nap.
The coat was closely buttoned up to the throat, and a pair of much-worn cord trousers completed the man’s costume, all but his boots, which were ornamented with slashings, for the benefit, probably, of bunions, for if intended for effect, after the fashion of an old stuffed doublet, the effort was a mistake.
But there was no mistake about the man’s profession. He was hall-marked “tramp” by his blear eyes and horribly