Chapter 25

"No, my husband is out. I don't expect him back for an hour or so. Can I give him any message?"

She was on the point of asking him how he was. But there was something so harsh and formal in his tone and manner that she refrained. But the idea in her mind must have expressed itself in her face, for suddenly his manner softened. He drew a deep breath, and passed his hand across his forehead. Then, putting aside the involuntary thought, he said--

"Perhaps it will come through you as well as any other way. I had intended to speak to him, but I can explain the matter better to you.... It is about the betting that is being carried on here. We mean to put a stop to it. That's what I came to tell him. It must be put a stop to. No right-minded person--it cannot be allowed to go on."

Esther said nothing; not a change of expression came upon her grave face. Fred was agitated. The words stuck in his throat, and his hands were restless. Esther raised her calm eyes, and looked at him. His eyes were pale, restless eyes.

"I've come to warn you," he said, "that the law will be set in motion.... It is very painful for me, but something must be done. The whole neighbourhood is devoured by it." Esther did not answer, and he said, "Why don't you answer, Esther?"

"What is there for me to answer? You tell me that you are going to get up a prosecution against us. I can't prevent you. I'll tell my husband what you say."

"This is a very serious matter, Esther." He had come into command of his voice, and he spoke with earnest determination. "If we get a conviction against you for keeping a betting-house, you will not only be heavily fined, but you will also lose your licence. All we ask is that the betting shall cease. No," he said, interrupting, "don't deny anything; it is quite useless, we know everything. The whole neighbourhood is demoralized by this betting; nothing is thought of but tips; the day's racing--that is all they think about--the evening papers, and the latest information. You do not know what harm you're doing. Every day we hear of some new misfortune--a home broken up, the mother in the workhouse, the daughter on the streets, the father in prison, and all on account of this betting. Oh, Esther, it is horrible; think of the harm you're doing."

Fred Parsons' high, round forehead, his weak eyes, his whole face, was expressive of fear and hatred of the evil which a falsetto voice denounced with much energy.

Suddenly he seemed to grow nervous and perplexed. Esther was looking at him, and he said, "You don't answer, Esther?"

"What would you have me answer?"

"You used to be a good, religious woman. Do you remember how we used to speak when we used to go for walks together, when you were in service in the Avondale road? I remember you agreeing with me that much good could be done by those who were determined to do it. You seem to have changed very much since those days."

For a moment Esther seemed affected by these remembrances. Then she said in a low, musical voice--

"No, I've not changed, Fred, but things has turned out different. One doesn't do the good that one would like to in the world; one has to do the good that comes to one to do. I've my husband and my boy to look to. Them's my good. At least, that's how I sees things."

Fred looked at Esther, and his eyes expressed all the admiration and love that he felt for her character. "One owes a great deal," he said, "to those who are near to one, but not everything; even for their sakes one should not do wrong to others, and you must see that you are doing a great wrong to your fellow-creatures by keeping on this betting. Public-houses are bad enough, but when it comes to gambling as well as drink, there's nothing for us to do but to put the law in motion. Look you, Esther, there isn't a shop-boy earning eighteen shillings a week that hasn't been round here to put his half-crown on some horse. This house is the immoral centre of the neighbourhood. No one's money is refused. The boy that pawned his father's watch to back a horse went to the 'King's Head' to put his money on. His father forgave him again and again. Then the boy stole from the lodgers. There was an old woman of seventy-five who got nine shillings a week for looking after some offices; he had half-a-crown off her. Then the father told the magistrate that he could do nothing with him since he had taken to betting on horse-races. The boy is fourteen. Is it not shocking? It cannot be allowed to go on. We have determined to put a stop to it. That's what I came to tell your husband."

"Are you sure," said Esther, and she bit her lips while she spoke, "that it is entirely for the neighbourhood that you want to get up the prosecution?"

"You don't think there's any other reason, Esther? You surely don't think that I'm doing this because--because he took you away from me?"

Esther didn't answer. And then Fred said, and there was pain and pathos in his voice, "I am sorry you think this of me; I'm not getting up the prosecution. I couldn't prevent the law being put in motion against you even if I wanted to.... I only know that it is going to be put in motion, so for the sake of old times I would save you from harm if I could. I came round to tell you if you did not put a stop to the betting you'd get into trouble. I have no right to do what I have done, but I'd do anything to save you and yours from harm."

"I am sorry for what I said. It was very good of you."

"We have not any proofs as yet; we know, of course, all about the betting, but we must have sworn testimony before the law can be set in motion, so you'll be quite safe if you can persuade your husband to give it up." Esther did not answer. "It is entirely on account of the friendship I feel for you that made me come to warn you of the danger. You don't bear me any ill-will, Esther, I hope?"

"No, Fred, I don't. I think I understand." The conversation paused again. "I suppose we have said everything." Esther turned her face from him. Fred looked at her, and though her eyes were averted from him she could see that he loved her. In another moment he was gone. In her plain and ignorant way she thought on the romance of destiny. For if she had married Fred her life would have been quite different. She would have led the life that she wished to lead, but she had married William and--well, she must do the best she could. If Fred, or Fred's friends, got the police to prosecute them for betting, they would, as he said, not only have to pay a heavy fine, but would probably lose their licence. Then what would they do? William had not health to go about from race-course to race-course as he used to. He had lost a lot of money in the last six months; Jack was at school--they must think of Jack. The thought of their danger lay on her heart all that evening. But she had had no opportunity of speaking to William alone, she had to wait until they were in their room. Then, as she untied the strings of her petticoats, she said--

"I had a visit from Fred Parsons this afternoon."

"That's the fellow you were engaged to marry. Is he after you still?"

"No, he came to speak to me about the betting."

"About the betting--what is it to do with him?"

"He says that if it isn't stopped that we shall be prosecuted."

"So he came here to tell you that, did he? I wish I had been in the bar."

"I'm glad you wasn't. What good could you have done? To have a row and make things worse!"

William lit his pipe and unlaced his boots. Esther slipped on her night-dress and got into a large brass bedstead, without curtains. On the chest of drawers Esther had placed the books her mother had given her, and William had hung some sporting prints on the walls. He took his night-shirt from the pillow and put it on without removing his pipe from his mouth. He always finished his pipe in bed.

"It is revenge," he said, pulling the bed-clothes up to his chin, "because I got you away from him."

"I don't think it is that; I did think so at first, and I said so."

"What did he say?"

"He said he was sorry I thought so badly of him; that he came to warn us of our danger. If he had wanted to do us an injury he wouldn't have said nothing about it. Don't you think so?"

"It seems reasonable. Then what do you think they're doing it for?"

"He says that keeping a betting-house is corruption in the neighbourhood."

"You think he thinks that?"

"I know he do; and there is many like him. I come of them that thinks like that, so I know. Betting and drink is what my folk, the Brethren, holds as most evil."

"But you've forgot all about them Brethren?"

"No, one never forgets what one's brought up in."

"But what do you think now?"

"I've never said nothing about it. I don't believe in a wife interfering with her husband; and business was that bad, and your 'ealth 'asn't been the same since them colds you caught standing about in them betting rings, so I don't see how you could help it. But now that business is beginning to come back to us, it might be as well to give up the betting."

"It is the betting that brings the business; we shouldn't take five pounds a week was it not for the betting. What's the difference between betting on the course and betting in the bar? No one says nothing against it on the course; the police is there, and they goes after the welshers and persecutes them. Then the betting that's done at Tattersall's and the Albert Club, what is the difference? The Stock Exchange, too, where thousands and thousands is betted every day. It is the old story--one law for the rich and another for the poor. Why shouldn't the poor man 'ave his 'alf-crown's worth of excitement? The rich man can have his thousand pounds' worth whenever he pleases. The same with the public 'ouses--there's a lot of hypocritical folk that is for docking the poor man of his beer, but there's no one that's for interfering with them that drink champagne in the clubs. It's all bloody rot, and it makes me sick when I think of it. Them hypocritical folk. Betting! Isn't everything betting? How can they put down betting? Hasn't it been going on since the world began? Rot, says I! They can just ruin a poor devil like me, and that's about all. We are ruined, and the rich goes scot-free. Hypocritical, mealy-mouthed lot. 'Let's say our prayers and sand the sugar'; that's about it. I hate them that is always prating out religion. When I hears too much religion going about I says now's the time to look into their accounts."

William leaned out of bed to light his pipe from the candle on the night-table.

"There's good people in the world, people that never thinks but of doing good, and do not live for pleasure."

"'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,' Esther. Their only pleasure is a bet. When they've one on they've something to look forward to; whether they win or lose they 'as their money's worth. You know what I say is true; you've seen them, how they look forward to the evening paper to see how the 'oss is going on in betting. Man can't live without hope. It is their only hope, and I says no one has a right to take it from them."

"What about their poor wives? Very little good their betting is to them. It's all very well to talk like that, William, but you know, and you can't say you don't, that a great deal of mischief comes of betting; you know that once they think of it and nothing else, they neglect their work. There's Stack, he's lost his place as porter; there's Journeyman, too, he's out of work."

"And a good thing for them; they've done a great deal better since they chucked it."

"For the time, maybe; but who says it will go on? Look at old John; he's going about in rags; and his poor wife, she was in here the other night, a terrible life she's 'ad of it. You says that no 'arm comes of it. What about that boy that was 'ad up the other day, and said that it was all through betting? He began by pawning his father's watch. It was here that he made the first bet. You won't tell me that it is right to bet with bits of boys like that."

"The horse he backed with me won."

"So much the worse.... The boy'll never do another honest day's work as long as he lives.... When they win, they 'as a drink for luck; when they loses, they 'as a drink to cheer them up."

"I'm afraid, Esther, you ought to have married the other chap. He'd have given you the life that you'd have been happy in. This public-'ouse ain't suited to you."

Esther turned round and her eyes met her husband's. There was a strange remoteness in his look, and they seemed very far from each other.

"I was brought up to think so differently," she said, her thoughts going back to her early years in the little southern seaside home. "I suppose this betting and drinking will always seem to me sinful and wicked. I should 'ave liked quite a different kind of life, but we don't choose our lives, we just makes the best of them. You was the father of my child, and it all dates from that."

"I suppose it do."

William lay on his back, and blew the smoke swiftly from his mouth.

"If you smoke much more we shan't be able to breathe in this room."

"I won't smoke no more. Shall I blow the candle out?"

"Yes, if you like."

When the room was in darkness, just before they settled their faces on the pillow for sleep, William said--

"It was good of that fellow to come and warn us. I must be very careful for the future with whom I bet."

XXXVII

On Sunday, as soon as dinner was over, Esther had intended to go to East Dulwich to see Mrs. Lewis. But as she closed the door behind her, she saw Sarah coming up the street.

"Ah, I see you're going out."

"It don't matter; won't you come in, if it's only for a minute?"

"No, thank you, I won't keep you. But which way are you going? We might go a little way together."

They walked down Waterloo Place and along Pall Mall. In Trafalgar Square there was a demonstration, and Sarah lingered in the crowd so long that when they arrived at Charing Cross, Esther found that she could not get to Ludgate Hill in time to catch her train, so they went into the Embankment Gardens. It had been raining, and the women wiped the seats with their handkerchiefs before sitting down. There was no fashion to interest them, and the band sounded foolish in the void of the grey London Sunday. Sarah's chatter was equally irrelevant, and Esther wondered how Sarah could talk so much about nothing, and regretted her visit to East Dulwich more and more. Suddenly Bill's name came into the conversation.

"But I thought you didn't see him any more; you promised us you wouldn't."

"I couldn't help it.... It was quite an accident. One day, coming back from church with Annie--that's the new housemaid--he came up and spoke to us."

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'How are ye?... Who'd thought of meeting you!'"

"And what did you say?"

"I said I didn't want to have nothing to do with him. Annie walked on, and then he said he was very sorry, that it was bad luck that drove him to it."

"And you believed him?"

"I daresay it is very foolish of me. But one can't help oneself. Did you ever really care for a man?"

And without waiting for an answer, Sarah continued her babbling chatter. She had asked him not to come after her; she thought he was sorry for what he had done. She mentioned incidentally that he had been away in the country and had come back with very particular information regarding a certain horse for the Cesarewitch. If the horse won he'd be all right.

At last Esther's patience was tired out.

"It must be getting late," she said, looking towards where the sun was setting. The river rippled, and the edges of the warehouses had perceptibly softened; a wind, too, had come up with the tide, and the women shivered as they passed under the arch of Waterloo Bridge. They ascended a flight of high steps and walked through a passage into the Strand.

"I was miserable enough with him; we used to have hardly anything to eat; but I'm more miserable away from him. Esther, I know you'll laugh at me, but I'm that heart-broken... I can't live without him... I'd do anything for him."

"He isn't worth it."

"That don't make no difference. You don't know what love is; a woman who hasn't loved a man who don't love her, don't. We used to live near here. Do you mind coming up Drury Lane? I should like to show you the house."

"I'm afraid it will be out of our way."

"No, it won't. Round by the church and up Newcastle Street.... Look, there's a shop we used to go to sometimes. I've eaten many a good sausage and onions in there, and that's a pub where we often used to go for a drink."

The courts and alleys had vomited their population into the Lane. Fat girls clad in shawls sat around the slum opening nursing their babies. Old women crouched in decrepit doorways, fumbling their aprons; skipping ropes whirled in the roadway. A little higher up a vendor of cheap ices had set up his store and was rapidly absorbing all the pennies of the neighborhood. Esther and Sarah turned into a dilapidated court, where a hag argued the price of trotters with a family leaning one over the other out of a second-floor window. This was the block in which Sarah had lived. A space had been cleared by the builder, and the other side was shut in by the great wall of the old theatre.

"That's where we used to live," said Sarah, pointing up to the third floor. "I fancy our house will soon come down. When I see the old place it all comes back to me. I remember pawning a dress over the way in the lane; they would only lend me a shilling on it. And you see that shop--the shutters is up, it being Sunday; it is a sort of butcher's, cheap meat, livers and lights, trotters, and such-like. I bought a bullock's heart there, and stewed it down with some potatoes; we did enjoy it, I can tell you."

Sarah talked so eagerly of herself that Esther had not the heart to interrupt her. They made their way out into Catherine Street, and then to Endell Street, and then going round to St. Giles' Church, they plunged into the labyrinth of Soho.

"I'm afraid I'm tiring you. I don't see what interest all this can be to you."

"We've known each other a long time."

Sarah looked at her, and then, unable to resist the temptation, she continued her narrative--Bill had said this, she had said that. She rattled on, until they came to the corner of Old Compton Street. Esther, who was a little tired of her, held out her hand. "I suppose you must be getting back; would you like a drop of something?"

"It is going on for seven o'clock; but since you're that kind I think I'd like a glass of beer."

"Do you listen much to the betting talk here of an evening?" Sarah asked, as she was leaving.

"I don't pay much attention, but I can't help hearing a good deal."

"Do they talk much about Ben Jonson for the Cesarewitch?"

"They do, indeed; he's all the go."

Sarah's face brightened perceptibly, and Esther said--

"Have you backed him?'

"Only a trifle; half-a-crown that a friend put me on. Do they say he'll win?"

"They say that if he don't break down he'll win by 'alf a mile; it all depends on his leg."

"Is he coming on in the betting?"

"Yes, I believe they're now taking 12 to 1 about him. But I'll ask William, if you like."

"No, no, I only wanted to know if you'd heard anything new."

XXXVIII

During the next fortnight Sarah came several times to the "King's Head." She came in about nine in the evening, and stayed for half-an-hour or more. The ostensible object of her visit was to see Esther, but she declined to come into the private bar, where they would have chatted comfortably, and remained in the public bar listening to the men's conversation, listening and nodding while old John explained the horse's staying power to her. On the following evening all her interest was in Ketley. She wanted to know if anything had happened that might be considered as an omen. She said she had dreamed about the race, but her dream was only a lot of foolish rubbish without head or tail. Ketley argued earnestly against this view of a serious subject, and in the hope of convincing her of her error offered to walk as far as Oxford Street with her and put her into her 'bus. But on the following evening all her interest was centered in Mr. Journeyman, who declared that he could prove that according to the weight it seemed to him to look more and more like a certainty. He had let the horse in at six stone ten pounds, the official handicapper had only given him six stone seven pounds.

"They is a-sending of him along this week, and if the leg don't go it is a hundred pound to a brass farthing on the old horse."

"How many times will they gallop him?" Sarah asked.

"He goes a mile and a 'arf every day now.... The day after to-morrow they'll try him, just to see that he hasn't lost his turn of speed, and if he don't break down in the trial you can take it from me that it will be all right."

"When will you know the result of the trial?"

"I expect a letter on Friday morning," said Stack. "If you come in in the evening I'll let you know about it."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Stack. I must be getting home now."

"I'm going your way, Miss Tucker.... If you like, we'll go together, and I'll tell you," he whispered, "all about the 'orse."

When they had left the bar the conversation turned on racing as an occupation for women.

"Fancy my wife making a book on the course. I bet she'd overlay it and then turn round and back the favourite at a shorter price than she'd been laying."

"I don't know that we should be any foolisher than you," said Esther; "don't you never go and overlay your book? What about Syntax and the 'orse you told me about last week?"

William had been heavily hit last week through overlaying his book against a horse he didn't believe in, and the whole bar joined in the laugh against him.

"I don't say nothing about bookmaking," said Journeyman; "but there's a great many women nowadays who is mighty sharp at spotting a 'orse that the handicapper had let in pretty easy."

"This one," said Ketley, jerking his thumb in the direction that Stack and Sarah had gone, "seems to 'ave got hold of something."

"We must ask Stack when he comes back," and Journeyman winked at William.

"Women do get that excited over trifles," old John remarked, sarcastically. "She ain't got above 'alf-a-crown on the 'orse, if that. She don't care about the 'orse or the race--no woman ever did; it's all about some sweetheart that's been piling it on."

"I wonder if you're right," said Esther, reflectively. "I never knew her before to take such an interest in a horse-race."

On the day of the race Sarah came into the private bar about three o'clock. The news was not yet in.

"Wouldn't you like to step into the parlour; you'll be more comfortable?" said Esther.

"No thank you, dear; it is not worth while. I thought I'd like to know which won, that's all."

"Have you much on?"

"No, five shillings altogether.... But a friend of mine stands to win a good bit. I see you've got a new dress, dear. When did you get it?"

"I've had the stuff by me some time. I only had it made up last month. Do you like it?"

Sarah answered that she thought it very pretty. But Esther could see that she was thinking of something quite different.

"The race is over now. It's run at half-past two."

"Yes, but they're never quite punctual; there may be a delay at the post."

"I see you know all about it."

"One never hears of anything else."

Esther asked Sarah when her people came back to town, and was surprised at the change of expression that the question brought to her friend's face.

"They're expected back to-morrow," she said. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing; something to say, that's all."

The conversation paused, and the two women looked at each other. At that moment a voice coming rapidly towards them was heard calling, "Win-ner, win-ner!"

"I'll send out for the paper," said Esther.

"No, no... Suppose he shouldn't have won?"