She had never seen the girl, who had, indeed, been a subject of disagreement between her husband and herself, but she was so easy-going and good-natured at heart that a very short period of Barbara’s society had sufficed to change her prejudices and distrust into a warm affection, and she soon looked on her as she might have done on a younger sister.
There were occasions certainly when, if anything annoyed her, she would not refrain from pointing out to Barbara how much had been done for her and how exaggerated had been Mr. Vanderstein’s views in this direction.
“My dear husband,” she would exclaim, “would have ruined himself, if he had lived longer, by his own unbounded philanthropy. He was constitutionally unable to say ‘no’ to anyone, and goodness knows in what difficulties he would have landed himself if time had only been afforded him. How often he would admit to me that certain people had tried to borrow from him and that he had let them have what they wanted. In vain I begged him to be more firm. He would make me promises, but I would soon discover that he had been doing the same thing again. ‘My dear,’ he would reply to my reproaches, ‘I have really not the heart to refuse to help these poor young men.’ ”
Mr. Vanderstein did not bother his wife with details of his private affairs, holding that women have no concern with business; and he decidedly never thought it necessary to mention that he used a certain discretion in his benevolence, steeling himself against more supplications than she suspected.
It was true, however, that he never refused to lend money to such poor young men as were heirs to entailed estates or could offer other satisfactory security for the repayment of his kindness, and it was by these unobtrusive charities that his fortune was collected.
Mrs. Vanderstein’s prejudices against Joe Sidney had also decreased very rapidly when she became acquainted with that young man, as she did shortly after his mother’s death, and by the time this story begins—that is to say, three years after she herself had been left a widow—he had become a great favourite of hers, although there were still moments when she thought a little bitterly of the large sums he had deprived her of by the fact of his existence. However, she liked him well enough to let him know that it was her intention to comply with Mr. Vanderstein’s wishes in regard to the ultimate disposal of his fortune, and that her will constituted Sidney her sole legatee.
As she was only a few years older than himself and of a robust health, there was every likelihood that this provision would not affect his fortunes for many years to come, or even that she might survive him.
CHAPTER IV
When that night, during the interval between the first and second acts of the opera, the door of the box opened and Sidney made his appearance, Mrs. Vanderstein greeted him with a beaming smile and the most sincere pleasure.
“How nice to see you, dear Joe,” she said. “I didn’t know you were in London.”
“I only came up from York last night,” said her nephew, “or I should have been to see you before. The Garringdons asked me to their box, which is more or less under this, so I couldn’t see if you were here, but I thought you would be.”
He sat down and began to talk about his doings and to ask questions about theirs, Mrs. Vanderstein looking at him meanwhile with a feeling of gratification at the decorative effect on her box of this good looking youth. She hoped the audience, or at least some members of it, had noticed his entrance, and she thought to herself that even inconvenient nephews had their uses.
Joe Sidney was twenty-five years of age and his father’s son. The late Mr. Sidney had been a very tall, fair individual, and Joe resembled him, showing the merest trace of the Jew in the droop of his nose, which, however, was not very marked. His eyes too, perhaps—but why pick to pieces a young man who really was, taken altogether, a very fine specimen of his kind? Though he had not, or scarcely had, inherited the appearance of his mother’s race, he showed much of its sympathy with art and music; and his intelligence was equalled by his prepossessing manner, which had made him a favourite since his boyhood with nearly all with whom he came in contact, and, combined with his wealth, rendered him extremely popular in the cavalry regiment in which he was a subaltern. He knew a great many smart people whose acquaintance Mrs. Vanderstein would have given her ears to make, and from time to time he invited her to meet one or two of them at a restaurant dinner or theatre, quite unconscious of the pleasure he was giving; for the very intensity of her longing made Mrs. Vanderstein shy of letting this superior young relative guess at it, and Barbara had never hinted to him at the weakness of his uncle’s widow.
Poor Mrs. Vanderstein! One pities her when one reflects that if the good Moses had survived a few years, till the advent of a Radical government which was extremely short of sympathisers in the Upper House, she might have lived to hear him called “My Lord,” and have answered with beating heart to the delicious salutation of “My Lady.”
She seized the opportunity afforded by Sidney’s presence now to gather information about the occupants of the boxes facing them. Did Joe see anyone he knew? Of course she knew by sight every one in the Royal box, except that man behind the Queen. Who was that? Sidney thought it was the Italian ambassador. What a distinguished looking man! And in the next box? Sidney didn’t know. And the one beyond that? He didn’t know either. Mrs. Vanderstein was disappointed in him. Well, who did he know? Couldn’t he tell her anyone?
“Really,” said Sidney, “I don’t see many, but there are one or two. That woman with the red face and the purple dress is Lady Generflex, and the man two boxes off hers on the right is Sir William Delaplage. Then that girl in pink who has just taken up her opera glasses is Lady Vivienne Shaw, and the man in the same box is Tom Cartwright, who was at Eton with me. Down in the stalls there are one or two men I know, and I think that’s all. Of course there’s old Fyves, next door. You know him, don’t you?”
Mrs. Vanderstein gazed with intent interest at the people he pointed out; and then let her attention wander back to the Royal box while Sidney talked to Barbara.
“Have you been racing?” she asked him soon.
“Off and on. I went to see my horse, Benfar, run the other day. He came in easily last.”
“I don’t think that man can ride him well. He’s a good horse. I saw him as a two-year-old.”
“There’s something wrong somewhere, that’s certain. If I don’t have better luck this year than I had last I shall give up keeping race-horses,” said Sidney with decision.
“Oh, you mustn’t do that,” cried Barbara in a tone of so much distress that Sidney laughed.
“Why do you care?” he asked.
“I care a lot. I never see anything of racing people nowadays, or meet anyone except you who knows a horse from a centipede. If you give up racing I shall feel that my last link of connection with the turf is severed.”
“Why don’t you get my aunt to bring you down to Epsom to-morrow?”
“Oh, she wouldn’t like it a bit,” said Barbara regretfully.
“I daresay she’d enjoy it enormously. Aunt Ruth, why don’t you come racing with me sometimes? Miss Turner and I will show you the ropes and you’ll probably be plunging wildly by this time next week.”
“I hate spending a hot day walking from the stand to the paddock and back again,” said Mrs. Vanderstein. “I hate horses and I hate seeing their heels waving round my head on every side, which seemed to me to be the case the only time I went to a race meeting. Nasty vicious animals. The way they are led about among the crowd by people who can’t control them is most dangerous, I consider.”
“I expect you saw one let off a kick or two out of sheer lightness of heart,” said Barbara. “Horses are darlings,