Esther Waters Part 49

"Won't you come in; service is going on?"

Esther followed him. In the tent there were some benches, and on a platform a grey-bearded man with an anxious face spoke of sinners and redemption. Suddenly a harmonium began to play a hymn, and, standing side by side, Esther and Fred sang together. Prayer was so inherent in her that she felt no sense of incongruity, and had she been questioned she would have answered that it did not matter where we are, or what we are doing, we can always have G.o.d in our hearts.

Fred followed her out.

"You have not forgotten your religion, I hope?"

"No, I never could forget that."

"Then why do I find you in such company? You don't come here like us to find sinners."

"I haven't forgotten G.o.d, but I must do my duty to my husband. It would be like setting myself up against my husband's business, and you don't think I ought to do that? A wife that brings discord into the family is not a good wife, so I've often heard."

"You always thought more of your husband than of Christ, Esther."

"Each one must follow Christ as best he can! It would be wrong of me to set myself against my husband."

"So he married you?" Fred answered bitterly.

"Yes. You thought he'd desert me a second time; but he's been the best of husbands."

"I place little reliance on those who are not with Christ. His love for you is not of the Spirit. Let us not speak of him. I loved you very deeply, Esther. I would have brought you to Christ.... But perhaps you'll come to see us sometimes."

"I do not forget Christ. He's always with me, and I believe you did care for me. I was sorry to break it off, you know I was. It was not my fault."

"Esther, it was I who loved you."

"You mustn't talk like that. I'm a married woman."

"I mean no harm, Esther. I was only thinking of the past."

"You must forget all that... Good-bye; I'm glad to have seen you, and that we said a prayer together."

Fred didn't answer, and Esther moved away, wondering where she should find Sarah.

x.x.xIII

The crowd shouted. She looked where the others looked, but saw only the burning blue with the white stand marked upon it. It was crowded like the deck of a sinking vessel, and Esther wondered at the excitement, the cause of which was hidden from her. She wandered to the edge of the crowd until she came to a chalk road where horses and mules were tethered. A little higher up she entered the crowd again, and came suddenly upon a switchback railway. Full of laughing and screaming girls, it b.u.mped over a middle hill, and then rose slowly till it reached the last summit. It was shot back again into the midst of its fict.i.tious perils, and this mock voyaging was accomplished to the sound of music from a puppet orchestra. Bells and drums, a fife and a triangle, cymbals clashed mechanically, and a little soldier beat the time. Further on, under a striped awning, were the wooden horses. They were arranged so well that they rocked to and fro, imitating as nearly as possible the action of real horses. Esther watched the riders. A blue skirt looked like a riding habit, and a girl in salmon pink leaned back in her saddle just as if she had been taught how to ride. A girl in a grey jacket encouraged a girl in white who rode a grey horse.

But before Esther could make out for certain that the man in the blue Melton jacket was Bill Evans he had pa.s.sed out of sight, and she had to wait until his horse came round the second time. At that moment she caught sight of the red poppies in Sarah's hat.

The horses began to slacken speed. They went slower and slower, then stopped altogether. The riders began to dismount and Esther pressed through the bystanders, fearing she would not be able to overtake her friends.

"Oh, here you are," said Sarah. "I thought I never should find you again.

How hot it is!"

"Were you on in that ride? Let's have another, all three of us. These three horses."

Round and round they went, their steeds bobbing n.o.bly up and down to the sound of fifes, drums and cymbals. They pa.s.sed the winning-post many times; they had to pa.s.s it five times, and the horse that stopped nearest it won the prize. A long-drawn-out murmur, continuous as the sea, swelled up from the course--a murmur which at last pa.s.sed into words: "Here they come; blue wins, the favourite's beat." Esther paid little attention to these cries; she did not understand them; they reached her indistinctly and soon died away, absorbed in the strident music that accompanied the circling horses. These had now begun to slacken speed.... They went slower and slower. Sarah and Bill, who rode side by side, seemed like winning, but at the last moment they glided by the winning-post. Esther's steed stopped in time, and she was told to choose a china mug from a great heap.

"You've all the luck to-day," said Bill. "Hayfield, who was backed all the winter, broke down a month ago.... 2 to 1 against Fly-leaf, 4 to 1 against Signet-ring, 4 to 1 against Dewberry, 10 to 1 against Vanguard, the winner at 50 to 1 offered. Your husband must have won a little fortune. Never was there such a day for the bookies."

Esther said she was very glad, and was undecided which mug she should choose. At last she saw one on which "Jack" was written in gold letters.

They then visited the peep-shows, and especially liked St. James's Park with the Horse Guards out on parade; the Spanish bull-fight did not stir them, and Sarah couldn't find a single young man to her taste in the House of Commons. Among the performing birds they liked best a canary that climbed a ladder. Bill was attracted by the American strength-testers, and he gave an exhibition of his muscle, to Sarah's very great admiration.

They all had some s.h.i.+es at cocoa-nuts, and pa.s.sed by J. Bilton's great bowling saloon without visiting it. Once more the air was rent with the cries of "Here they come! Here they come!" Even the 'commodation men left their canvas shelters and pressed forward inquiring which had won. A moment after a score of pigeons floated and flew through the blue air and then departed in different directions, some making straight for London, others for the blue mysterious evening that had risen about the Downs--the sun-baked Downs strewn with waste paper and covered by tipsy men and women, a screaming and disordered animality.

"Well, so you've come back at last," said William. "The favourite was beaten. I suppose you know that a rank outsider won. But what about this gentleman?"

"Met these 'ere ladies on the 'ill an' been showing them over the course.

No offence, I hope, guv'nor?"

William did not answer, and Bill took leave of Sarah in a manner that told Esther that they had arranged to meet again.

"Where did you pick up that bloke?"

"He came up and spoke to us, and Esther stopped to speak to the parson."

"To the parson. What do you mean?"

The circ.u.mstance was explained, and William asked them what they thought of the racing.

"We didn't see no racing," said Sarah; "we was on the 'ill on the wooden 'orses. Esther's 'orse won. She got a mug; show the mug, Esther."

"So you saw no Derby after all?" said William.

"Saw no racin'!" said his neighbour; "ain't she won the cup?"

The joke was lost on the women, who only perceived that they were being laughed at.

"Come up here, Esther," said William; "stand on my box. The 'orses are just going up the course for the preliminary canter. And you, Sarah, take Teddy's place. Teddy, get down, and let the lady up."

"Yes, guv'nor. Come up 'ere, ma'am."

"And is those the 'orses?" said Sarah. "They do seem small."

The ringmen roared. "Not up to those on the 'ill, ma'am," said one. "Not such beautiful goers," said another.

There were two or three false starts, and then, looking through a mult.i.tude of hats, Esther saw five or six thin greyhound-looking horses.

They pa.s.sed like shadows, flitted by; and she was sorry for the poor chestnut that trotted in among the crowd.

This was the last race. Once more the favourite had been beaten; there were no bets to pay, and the bookmakers began to prepare for departure. It was the poor little clerks who were charged with the luggage. Teddy did not seem as if he would ever reach the top of the hill. With Esther and Sarah on either arm, William struggled with the crowd. It was hard to get through the block of carriages. Everywhere horses waited with their harness on, and Sarah was afraid of being bitten or kicked. A young aristocrat cursed them from the box-seat, and the groom blew a blast as the drag rolled away. It was like the instinct of departure which takes a vast herd at a certain moment. The great landscape, half country, half suburb, glinted beneath the rays of a setting sun; and through the white dust, and the drought of the warm roads, the brakes and carriages and every crazy vehicle rolled towards London; orange-sellers, tract-sellers, thieves, vagrants, gipsies, made for their various quarters--roadside inns, outhouses, hayricks, hedges, or the railway station. Down the long hill the vast crowd made its way, humble pedestrians and carriage folk, all together, as far as the cross-roads. At the "Spread Eagle" there would be stoppage for a parting drink, there the bookmakers would change their clothes, and there division would happen in the crowd--half for the railway station, half for the London road. It was there that the traditional sports of the road began. A drag, with a band of exquisites armed with pea-shooters, peppering on costers who were getting angry, and threatening to drive over the leaders. A brake with two poles erected, and hanging on a string quite a line of miniature chamber-pots. A horse, with his fore-legs clothed in a pair of lady's drawers. Naturally unconscious of the garment, the horse stepped along so absurdly that Esther and Sarah thought they'd choke with laughter.

At the station William halloaed to old John, whom he caught sight of on the platform. He had backed the winner--forty to one about Sultan. It was Ketley who had persuaded him to risk half a sovereign on the horse. Ketley was at the Derby; he had met him on the course, and Ketley had told him a wonderful story about a packet of Turkish Delight. The omen had come right this time, and Journeyman took a back seat.

"Say what you like," said William, "it is d.a.m.ned strange; and if anyone did find the way of reading them omens there would be an end of us bookmakers." He was only half in earnest, but he regretted he had not met Ketley. If he had only had a fiver on the horse--200 to 5!