Chapter 40

The Lovers' Quarrel

Boy did not appear at dinner.

The midday meal, especially on Sunday, she generally skipped.

Old Mat, Ma, and Silver lunched together and in silence.

The old trainer was absorbed in himself, and there was no question that he found himself exceedingly good company. His face became pink and his eye wet with the excellence of the joke he was brewing in his deeps. He slobbered over his food and spilt it. Mrs. Woodburn watched him with amused sympathy.

"You've been up to something you shouldn't, dad," she said. "I know you."

He held up a shaking hand in protest.

"Now don't you, Mar!" he said. "I been to church--that's all I done. Mr. Haggard preach a booriffle sermon on the 'Oly Innocents. 'There's some is saints,' he says, and he looks full glare at me; 'and there's some as isn't.' And he looks at his missus. 'There's some as is where they ought to be Sundays,' and he looks full glare at me. 'And there's some as isn't.' And he stares at the empty seat aside o' me. Yes, my dear, you'll cop it on the crumpet to-morrow when he comes to see you, and you'll deserve it, too."

After lunch, as the old man left the room, he beckoned mysteriously to Silver, and toddled away down the passage with hunched shoulders to his sanctum.

The young man followed him with amused eyes. He knew very well what was coming.

Once inside his office, Mat closed the door in his most secretive way.

"Only one thing for it," he whispered hoarsely. "The gal must ride."

Silver stared out of the window.

"But will she?"

The old man messed with his papers.

"She mayn't for me," he mumbled. "She might for someone--to help him out of a hole. I'll try her anyway. If she will I'll put a thousand on myself."

* * * * *

An hour later Silver was smoking a cigarette in the darkness of the wainscoted dining room, when the door burst open.

Boy came in upon him swift and radiant. She was in her blue skirt and blouse again, and her hair was like a halo against the dark wainscoting. The glory of the gallop was still upon her.

He rose to her, challenged and challenging.

She crossed the room to him, and stood with her hand on the mantelpiece. She did not laugh, she did not even smile, but there was in her the deep and quiet ecstasy that causes the thorn to blossom in beauty after a winter of reserve. It seemed to him that she was swaying as a rose sways in a gale, yet anchored always to the earth in perfect self-possession.

As always, she came straight to the point.

"Do you want me to ride him in the National?" she asked.

"I don't mind," he answered nonchalantly.

"Have you backed him?"

"Not yet."

"Are you going to?"

"I might--if I can get a hundred thousand to a thousand about him."

Her gray eyes searched him. Not a corner of him but her questioning spirit ransacked it.

"How much money have you got left?"

"When all's squared? a few thousand, I believe."

She looked into the fire, one little foot poised on the fender. He was provoking her. She felt it.

"I could just about win on him," she said. "I think."

"I'm not so sure," he answered.

She became defiant in a flash.

"One thing," she said, "I'm sure nobody else could."

He followed up his advantage deliberately.

"I'm not so sure," he said.

Her eyes sparkled frostily.

She understood.

He was furious because her father had spoken to her; resentful that in her hands should be the winning for him of a potential fortune.

She would show him.

"I might think of riding him perhaps," she said slowly, "on one condition."

"What's that?"

"That you don't bet on him."

He rolled off into deep, ironical laughter.

"Done with you!" he cried, holding out his hand.

She brushed it aside.

"What I said was that I _might think_ of it," she said, and made for the door.

He did not pursue.

"Oh, do!" he cried lazily. "Do!"

"I shall see," she answered. "I might and I might not. Probably the latter."

She went out with firm lips.

"I see what it is!" he cried after her, still ironical.

She turned about.

"What?"

"You're afraid of Aintree."

The girl, who in many matters was still a child, flared at once.

"Afraid of Aintree!" she cried. "I'll show you whether I'm afraid of Aintree or not!"

She marched down the passage, pursued by his mocking laughter, and went out into the yard with nodding head and flashing eyes.

Then she walked to the gate and looked across the Paddock Close.

Mr. Haggard was walking slowly up toward the church to take the children's service. On the public path by the stile were two figures engaged in conversation. She recognized them at once. They were Joses and Monkey Brand.

Thoughtfully she crossed into the stable.

It was Sunday afternoon, and there was nobody about but Maudie, who departed coldly on the entrance of the girl, suspecting trouble. Maudie's suspicions were but too well-founded.

The girl went straight to Four-Pound-the-Second's loose-box and opened it. The Monster-without-Manners emerged and greeted his mistress with yawns. The brown horse with the tan muzzle shifted slowly toward her. She ran her eye over him, adjusted a bandage, and went out into the yard.

Billy accompanied her, for he always passed his Sunday afternoons with his mistress.

As she left the stable Monkey Brand was entering the yard.

"What was Joses saying, Brand?" she asked sharply.

The little man did not seem to see or hear her. But as he passed her, she thought he dropped an eyelid. Then he limped swiftly on into the saddle-room.

Boy, balancing on the ladder, looked after him.

Then she went up into the loft, Billy Bluff at her heels trying with whimpers to thrust by that he might hold communion with fair Maudie on the top rung.

Maudie watched the approaching feet with sullen and apathetic disdain. When they were almost on her she rose suddenly. The languid lady with the manners of a West-End drawing-room became the screaming fish-wife of Wapping. She humped, swore, and scampered away to the loft, there to establish herself upon a cross-beam, where she was proof against assault.

Boy crossed the loft, entered her room, and closed the door.

She glanced out of the window.

Joses was crossing the Paddock Close toward the cottage where he lodged.

She watched him closely.

He was going to try it on. She was sure of it.

Then she would try it on him; and she would show no mercy.

She looked at herself in the glass, and smiled at what she saw.

Mr. Silver's affront still clouded her face, and the thought of Joses struck from the cloud a flash of lightning.

Suddenly an idea came to her. Her eyes sparkled, and she laughed merrily.

She let down her hair.

It was short, fine, and thick; massy, Mr. Haggard called it. Then she took a pair of scissors and began to snip. Flakes of gold fell on the floor and strewed her feet. She stood as on a threshing-floor.

As she worked, the boards of the loft sounded to the tramp of a heavy visitor.

Somebody knocked at the door. There came to the girl's eyes a look of amused defiance.

"Come in," she said, turning.

Mrs. Woodburn stood in the door, grieved and grim. She saw her daughter's face framed in thickets of gold, and the splendid ruin on the floor.

Boy crossed to her mother and closed the door quietly behind her. Then she led her mother to the bed, and sat down beside her.

The old lady was breathing deeply, and not from the effort of the climb.

The daughter's eyes, full of a tender curiosity, teasing and yet compassionate, searched her mother's face, in which there was no laughter.

"Are you going to, Boy?" asked the old lady.

"D'you want me not?"

The mother nodded.

"Why not?"

Mrs. Woodburn sighed.

"I'd rather not," she said.

"Why not?" persisted Boy.

"It's against the rules."

"Is that all?" with scorn.

"No."

"Then why not?"

"It's dangerous."

"Dangerous!" flashed the girl. "So you think I'm a coward, too!"

"I don't, I don't," pleaded the other. "But I don't want you to."

Boy put her hand on the old lady's knee.

Her mother and Mr. Haggard were the only two human beings to whom she ever demonstrated affection.

"Will you promise me?" said the mother.

"No," answered Boy.

Mrs. Woodburn tried to rise, but the girl held her down.

"Sit down, mother, please. You never come and see me up here."

Her eyes devoured her mother's face hungrily and with unlaughing eyes.

"Kiss me, mother," she ordered.

Mrs. Woodburn refrained.

"Kiss me, mother," sternly.

The mother obeyed.

"Shall you?" she asked.

"I shan't say," replied Boy.

She rose and went to the window.

Outside under the wood Mr. Silver, pipe in mouth, was sauntering round Ragamuffin's grave.

"He said I was afraid!" she muttered.

* * * * *

When her mother left the room, the girl went to the window.

The gallop had kindled in her for the moment the flame of her old ambition; but the desire had died down swiftly as it had risen.

Boy knew now that she no longer really wanted to ride the Grand National Winner. She wanted something else--fiercely.

Cautiously she peeped out of the window.

Mr. Silver, in that old green golf-jacket of his, that clung so finely to his clean shoulders, was prowling along the edge of the wood close to Ragamuffin's grave, peeping for early nests.

The girl remembered that it was St. Valentine's--the day birds mate.

She turned away.