Sir!' She Said (10 page)

“I should just say I should.”

Far wretcheder than he thought, or she cared to think. Even with her allowance paid only a few days back into her account, she did not know how she was going to get through the next few weeks. There were a number of bills that had grown uncomfortably pressing. They had not been too pleased with her the last time she had gone to her hairdressers. She would have to pay something on account or stop going there, and they wouldn't give her credit elsewhere until she had paid a bill or two. One had to earn credit. Nor could she really have the face to get another frock at Prew Catholic's? It would make things difficult for Julia. Then there was that loan that Madge Caroway was getting nasty over. She could go to her father,
of course. He'ld give her all she wanted for the asking, which was just what she wouldn't let him do. For though he would be far too decent to say anything, she knew what he would be thinking; knew how he would be remembering that long argument when he had insisted that within a month of her having a chequebook she would be up to the neck in debt.

“No woman,” he had said, “can ever believe that a piece of paper is real money. You'ld be far happier if I gave you six pounds in notes a week.”

She had indignantly refused.

“I'm not going about like a school girl,” she had said, “with my money in my purse. Think what an idiot I should look.”

Her father had given in: as people always did if you were sufficiently firm with them. But her father had been right. She had never been able to realise that writing figures on a piece of paper and footing them with your signature really meant that two days later you would have a peremptory summons from your bank: and that banks could not be cajoled as a parent could. Within a couple of months she had been up to her neck in debt. The only chance of salvation was the holidays. After three months of the Riviera with nothing to do but bathe, and nothing but citron pressées to spend one's money on, she ought to be able to get fairly straight. But as for wondering what would happen if the whole of her allowance were to go within a day of getting it, it just didn't bear thinking about.

“Then in that case,” Mander was continuing, “if you wanted a real thrill out of racing, I should tell you to draw out every penny of your allowance—in the first
week of the month there should be plenty there—and put it on, now let's see, which horse should you put it on?”

As he turned the page of the race-card, Melanie, with eyes closed, wondered how much she had actually in the bank. Her father gave her thirty pounds a month. The month was not more than three days old. She had not spent much so far. There had been so many bills that it had seemed useless to make a start on them. She must have at least twenty-five pounds: more possibly: certainly twenty-five.

“Now I don't think if I were you,” Mander was saying, “that I should back a favourite or a near favourite. The odds aren't good enough. And I don't think that I should back any of the outsiders to win. The betting against their pulling it off's too great. If I were you I should back Mauritius. It's a good beast. You'ld get five to one on it.”

Five to one. A hundred and twenty-five pounds. She had never had so much money in her life. It would settle every trouble that she had. A hundred and twenty-five pounds. And by half-past three that money might be in her bag without any effort on her part; just by sitting there; just by watching a horse go past.

“That,” concluded Mander, closing the race-card with a snap, “is what I should do, Miss Terance, if I were you.”

He spoke calmly, as though it were the most ordinary matter that they were discussing.

“And probably I should,” she said, “if I had enough money with me.”

“You could always borrow.”

“I never borrow.”

“You could cash a cheque then.”

“I haven't my cheque-book here.”

“You could borrow a friend's book and scratch the name of his bank out on it.”

“Could anybody lend me one?”

“I could.”

“But would a bookmaker take a cheque?”

“I doubt it, but your friend would.”

His willingness to help her both thrilled and frightened Melanie. If he had said, “I dare you to put all your money on a horse,” she would have laughed at him. His indifference, however, as to whether she did or didn't, goaded her.

“Very well, then,” she said. “Get out your cheque-book.”

He took a pocket cheque-book, tore out a cheque, handed her a fountain pen.

“Shall I make it out to you?”

He nodded. Over the middle line her pen hesitated. How much had she in her bank? Twenty-five pounds. She must have at least that. A cheque of thirty would probably get through. And, if she was going in for this at all, she had better go the whole way in. You could not put down an odd sum like twenty-seven. Resolutely she wrote the word thirty across the line.

“There you are,” she said light-heartedly. “I'll tell you when I've lost if it was worth the thrill.”

As their eyes met, she saw in his a look that had not been there before. “He realises now,” she
told herself, “that I'm not a baby that can be bluffed.”

“I wonder what he's thinking of me: really thinking?” she asked herself as she sat on the narrow bus seat waiting for his return.

As it happened Mander was not thinking of her at all. As he had strolled along the grass track behind the buses he had been hailed by a familiar voice, and turning had faced Leon Carstairs.

“Hullo,” he had said, “I didn't know you were a racing man.”

“I'm not,” Carstairs answered. “Some clients asked me to come. It's business.”

Mander laughed. “I wonder if any work is done in offices nowadays. Every one that I know does his on golf courses, in card-rooms, or at cocktail parties. How are things?”

For a moment they discussed mutual friends and mutual interests. But Druce Mander's thoughts, though he kept his end of the conversation moving, were abstracted. “Look here,” he said suddenly. “There was something I was thinking of writing to you about. As you are here, it might just as well be said. You know Clarkson and Greys, the tobacco people? Well, I've a large block of shares in that concern that I'ld be rather glad to be rid of. I don't want them on the market; it'ld knock their value down. I want them to be sold by private treaty. They're not in my name, but as I'm bound up in that world a fair amount, I don't want to put the deal through my own house. People might be suspicious. I wonder if you'ld care to handle them?”

“That's terribly good of you.”

“It's not, at all. You'll be doing me a kindness. The position's this, you see.”

He entered into explanations. By the time they were completed, the preliminaries for the big race had begun. “I'll have to be her bookmaker for that race,” he thought.

He returned to find Melanie in an electric mood. Her face was flushed. Her eyes were bright. She was answering at random the comments and questions of Todd and Paramount. She had passed during the last three-quarters of an hour through a century of moods. She had begun by picturing herself as the possessor of a hundred and fifty pounds. She had heard herself ringing up her friends. “Angel, I've made a packet at the Derby. I'm giving a lunch to celebrate. You'll come, of course you will.” She had seen herself ordering the lunch under the benign guardianship of the Maître d'hôtel; had watched herself welcoming her guests. She had imagined the relief with which she would pay off all the bills whose reappearance month by month had grown more and more disquieting, and the insolent pride with which she would walk into the same house two days afterwards to order on the strength of her restored credit article after new article. She had phrased and rephrased the letter to Madge Carroway with which she would return the wretched loan. Twenty minutes had passed in such happy reverie as her childhood had known when she had sat dreaming before a fire, “if I had a fairy wand. . .”

For twenty minutes it had been like that. Then
doubt had come. Suppose she were not to win. Suppose that thirty pounds were to be lost irrevocably. Probably she hadn't got thirty pounds in the bank at all. On Friday there would be the letter from the bank: “Dear Madam, your account appears to be overdrawn”—to lie beside all those other letters with their news of account rendered bills. And there would be another—a beastly little note from Madge “. . . of course, my dear, if you can't really manage it. . .” And it would be the tenth of June. Three weeks before the next instalment of her allowance would be due. Three weeks to be lived through somehow. Weeks that should be the best of the whole year for her, but that would have to be the worst because she would be penniless, because she would be able to afford nothing, because she would have to think in terms of every tube and bus fare, because she would have to refuse every invitation that would mean the making of any contribution on her behalf; every invitation that would involve her in even so much as a taxi fare across London. For three weeks life would be intolerable. “Why did I do it?” she thought. “Why did I do it?” She was hysterical with impatience by the time Mander returned.

“How long will it be before it starts?” she asked.

“Not long now,” he told her. “At the outside a quarter of an hour.”

It was almost time for them to go upstairs. In a minute or two the horses would be parading.

Silently she climbed to the top deck. There were innumerable questions that she longed to ask. About Mauritius. what races had she won? About the
jockey, was he to be trusted? But she bit them back. She was not going to let Mander see her nervousness. Afterwards, when it was all over, and she had won, then would be the time to tell him of all that she had been through. If she did, that was to say.

Oh, but of course she would, she was bound to win. Life couldn't be so cruel as to let her lose. It mattered so desperately to her. Much more, surely, than it did to all these other people. “If I win,” she vowed, “I'll never bet again, no, not ever; I swear I won't, I'll have learnt my lesson. I swear I won't, never again, not ever.”

When the horses galloped past before the grandstand she had scarcely the courage to look at them. “That's yours,” Mander said to her. “The blue and gold, No. 7.” Beseechingly she implored it “Oh, please win!” Over her shoulder she looked at the vast notice board. Mauritius had drawn No. 12. Was that good? she asked. Yes, fairly. In the middle, somewhere. The rain was beating heavily down the course. But she was scarcely conscious of its cold drive on her flushed cheeks. The horses were cantering past Tattenham Corner to the starting-point. Umbrellas were being lowered along the rails. Bookmakers were making their final appeal. Melanie's mouth was so dry that she could hardly move her tongue inside it. “I'll die,” she thought. “It's more than I can bear.” She looked at her watch. 2.55. In five minutes time they would be off. In ten minutes it would be all over. In ten minutes time her life would be brilliant sunshine or intensest gloom. “Why did I do it?” she thought. “Why did I do it?”

Mander offered her his glasses. She shook her head. “I can't see,” she said. “You tell me.” With her hands clasped tight upon the railings of the bus, she waited; waited for the cry “They're off” to break through the swelling shouts. 2.58, 2.59. Second by second the minute hand ticked round the clock. Three seconds to; two seconds to; one second to; the hour. One second after, two seconds after, three seconds after. . . half a minute; a minute; two minutes. “I can't stand any more,” she thought. “I can't. I can't! Why won't they start?” Two and a half minutes. Three minutes. Three and a half. “I'll scream,” she thought, “I'll have to, I can't hold it in. It's too much.” Her hands were crushing themselves against the railings. She fought against, struggled with, and conquered the desire to scream; and conquering it felt limp, drained, effortless, so that the cry “they're off!” came like an anticlimax. She was so tired, she shut her eyes. A minute and they would be round the bend. “Here they are,” Mander was saying, “look, look here!” But there was a mist before her eyes. She could not distinguish the colouring. “Gold Arrow wins. Gold Arrow. Gold Arrow,” the crowd were shouting. But she did not care who led. Who was second and third, and who was fourth? “Second? I can't see,” fell upon her ears; “Gold Arrow, Marian, Troubador; Gold Arrow, Marian,” the useless unfamiliar names. Her horse wasn't in the running, was back in the rear somewhere. Her thirty pounds had gone and with them her chance of enjoying her first real season. “Gold Arrow wins. Gold Arrow. Gold Arrow wins!” What did she care about Gold Arrow?

Unheedingly she listened, scarcely hearing, scarcely recognising through that babble of voices the word Mauritius. For a second she did not realise, and then eagerly she caught Mander's arm.

“Has it?” she cried, “is it Mauritius, really?”

“Yes, second,” he shouted. “I couldn't see before. He was stymied by Gold Arrow. He's dropping back, though. Marian's coming up.”

Second, but dropping back! If only the winning post could be moved closer, if only the course shortened “Marian, Marian!” the crowd, shouted. “Marian wins!” Marian was second now, overhauling Gold Arrow yard by yard and on the left three horses were creeping up. “For Heaven's sake,” Melanie pleaded, “for Heaven's sake. He's pulling it. I'm sure he is!” A second more and the horses would have swept below her. A second more; but she had not the strength to look. Her hand clasped tight on Mander's arm, her eyes shut close, she listened as one does over the wireless, to his gabbled commentary. ‘Those three coming up, Mauritius only a head in front, not more than that, if that. They're past now. I can't see.” There was a yell of “Gold Arrow wins!” The race was over, there was a deathly moment of suspense. The names were going up upon the board. “Gold Arrow. Marian.” Mander was reading out, then with a little laugh, “Mauritius.” And Melanie, not knowing whether she ought to cry or laugh, was holding on to his coat as though her entire soul were contracted into her finger joints.