Esther Waters Part 51

"I thought," said Esther, "that Sarah might remain here for a time."

"I can't have that fellow coming round my place."

"There's no fear of his coming after me. He don't want to see my ugly face again. Well, let him try to find some one who will do for him all I have done."

"Until she gets a situation," said Esther. "I think that'll be the best, for you to stop here until you get a situation."

"And what about a character?"

"You needn't say much about what you've been doing this last twelve months; if many questions are asked, you can say you've been stopping with us. But you mustn't see that brute again. If he ever comes into that 'ere bar, I'll give him a piece of my mind. I'd give him more than a piece of my mind if I was the man I was a twelvemonth ago." William coughed, and Esther looked at him anxiously.

x.x.xV

Lacking a parlour on the ground floor for the use of special customers, William had arranged a room upstairs where they could smoke and drink.

There were tables in front of the windows and chairs against the walls, and in the middle of the room a bagatelle board.

When William left off going to race-courses he had intended to refrain from taking money across the bar and to do all his betting business in this room.

He thought that it would be safer. But as his customers multiplied he found that he could not ask them all upstairs; it attracted more attention than to take the money quietly across the bar. Nevertheless the room upstairs had proved a success. A man spent more money if he had a room where he could sit quietly among his friends than he would seated on a high stool in a public bar, jostled and pushed about; so it had come to be considered a sort of club room; and a large part of the neighbourhood came there to read the papers, to hear and discuss the news. And specially useful it had proved to Journeyman and Stack. Neither was now in employment; they were now professional backers; and from daylight to dark they wandered from public-house to public-house, from tobacconist to barber's shop, in the search of tips, on the quest of stable information regarding the health of the horses and their trials. But the room upstairs at the "King's Head" was the centre of their operations. Stack was the indefatigable tipster, Journeyman was the scientific student of public form. His memory was prodigious, and it enabled him to note an advantage in the weights which would escape an ordinary observer. He often picked out horses which, if they did not actually win, nearly always stood at a short price in the betting before the race.

The "King's Head" was crowded during the dinner-hour. Barbers and their a.s.sistants, cabmen, scene-s.h.i.+fters, if there was an afternoon performance at the theatre, servants out of situation and servants escaped from their service for an hour, petty shopkeepers, the many who grow weary of the scant livelihood that work brings them, came there. Eleven o'clock! In another hour the bar and the room upstairs would be crowded. At present the room was empty, and Journeyman had taken advantage of the quiet time to do a bit of work at his handicap. All the racing of the last three years lay within his mind's range; he recalled at will every trifling selling race; hardly ever was he obliged to refer to the Racing Calendar.

Wanderer had beaten Brick at ten pounds. Snow Queen had beaten Shoemaker at four pounds, and Shoemaker had beaten Wanderer at seven pounds. The problem was further complicated by the suspicion that Brick could get a distance of ground better than Snow Queen. Journeyman was undecided. He stroked his short brown moustache with his thin, hairy hand, and gnawed the end of his pen. In this moment of barren reflection Stack came into the room.

"Still at yer 'andicap, I see," said Stack. "How does it work out?"

"Pretty well," said Journeyman. "But I don't think it will be one of my best; there is some pretty hard nuts to crack."

"Which are they?" said Stack. Journeyman brightened up, and he proceeded to lay before Stack's intelligence what he termed a "knotty point in collateral running."

Stack listened with attention, and thus encouraged, Journeyman proceeded to point out certain distributions of weight which he said seemed to him difficult to beat.

"Anyone what knows the running would say there wasn't a pin to choose between them at the weights. If this was the real 'andicap, I'd bet drinks all around that fifteen of these twenty would accept. And that's more than anyone will be able to say for Courtney's 'andicap. The weights will be out to-morrow; we shall see."

"What do you say to 'alf a pint," said Stack, "and we'll go steadily through your 'andicap? You've nothing to do for the next 'alf-hour."

Journeyman's dingy face lit up. When the potboy appeared in answer to the bell he was told to bring up two half-pints, and Journeyman read out the weights. Every now and then he stopped to explain his reasons for what might seem to be superficial, an unmerited severity, or an undue leniency.

It was not usual for Journeyman to meet with so sympathetic a listener; he had often been made to feel that his handicapping was unnecessary, and he now noticed, and with much pleasure, that Stack's attention seemed to increase rather than to diminish as he approached the end. When he had finished Stack said, "I see you've given six-seven to Ben Jonson. Tell me why you did that?"

"He was a good 'orse once; he's broken down and aged; he can't be trained, so six-seven seems just the kind of weight to throw him in at. You couldn't give him less, however old and broken down he may be. He was a good horse when he won the Great Ebor Grand Cup."

"Do you think if they brought him to the post as fit and well as he was the day he won the Ebor that he'd win?"

"What, fit and well as he was when he won the Great Ebor, and with six-seven on his back? He'd walk away with it."

"You don't think any of the three-year-olds would have a chance with him?

A Derby winner with seven stone on his back might beat him."

"Yes, but nothing short of that. Even then old Ben would make a race of it. A nailing good horse once. A little brown horse about fifteen two, as compact as a leg of Welsh mutton.... But there's no use in thinking of him. They've been trying for years to train him. Didn't they used to get the flesh off him in a Turkish bath? That was Fulton's notion. He used to say that it didn't matter 'ow you got the flesh off so long as you got it off. Every pound of flesh off the lungs is so much wind, he used to say.

But the Turkish bath trained horses came to the post limp as old rags. If a 'orse 'asn't the legs you can't train him. Every pound of flesh yer take off must put a pound 'o 'ealth on. They'll do no good with old Ben, unless they've found out a way of growing on him a pair of new forelegs. The old ones won't do for my money."

"But do you think that Courtney will take the same view of his capabilities as you do--do you think he'll let him off as easily as you have?"

"He can't give him much more.... The 'orse is bound to get in at seven stone, rather under than over."

"I'm glad to 'ear yer say so, for I know you've a headpiece, and 'as all the running in there." Stack tapped his forehead. "Now, I'd like to ask you if there's any three-year-olds that would be likely to interfere with him?"

"Derby and Leger winners will get from eight stone to eight stone ten, and three-year-olds ain't no good over the Cesarewitch course with more than eight on their backs."

The conversation paused. Surprised at Stack's silence, Journeyman said--

"Is there anything up? Have you heard anything particular about old Ben?"

Stack bent forward. "Yes, I've heard something, and I'm making inquiries."

"How did you hear it?"

Stack drew his chair a little closer. "I've been up at Chalk Farm, the 'Yarborough Arms'; you know, where the 'buses stop. Bob Barrett does a deal of business up there. He pays the landlord's rent for the use of the bar--Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sat.u.r.days is his days. Charley Grove bets there Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, but it is Bob that does the biggest part of the business. They say he's taken as much as twenty pounds in a morning. You know Bob, a great big man, eighteen stun if he's an ounce. He's a warm 'un, can put it on thick."

"I know him; he do tell fine stories about the girls; he has the pick of the neighbourhood, wears a low hat, no higher than that, with a big brim.

I know him. I've heard that he 'as moved up that way. Used at one time to keep a tobacconist's shop in Great Portland Street."

"That's him," said Stack. "I thought you'd heard of him."

"There ain't many about that I've not heard of. Not that I likes the man much. There was a girl I knew--she wouldn't hear his name mentioned. But he lays fair prices, and does, I believe, a big trade."

"'As a nice 'ome at Brixton, keeps a trap; his wife as pretty a woman as you could wish to lay eyes on. I've seen her with him at Kempton."

"You was up there this morning?"

"Yes."

"It wasn't Bob Barrett that gave you the tip?"

"Not likely." The men laughed, and then Stack said--

"You know Bill Evans? You've seen him here, always wore a blue Melton jacket and billyc.o.c.k hat; a dark, stout, good-looking fellow; generally had something to sell, or p.a.w.n-tickets that he would part with for a trifle."

"Yes, I know the fellow. We met him down at Epsom one Derby Day. Sarah Tucker, a friend of the missis, was dead gone on him."

"Yes, she went to live with him. There was a row, and now, I believe, they're together again; they was seen out walking. They're friends, anyhow. Bill has been away all the summer, tramping. A bad lot, but one of them sort often hears of a good thing."

"So it was from Bill Evans that you heard it."

"Yes, it was from Bill. He has just come up from Eastbourne, where he 'as been about on the Downs a great deal. I don't know if it was the horses he was after, but in the course of his proceedings he heard from a shepherd that Ben Jonson was doing seven hours' walking exercise a day. This seemed to have fetched Bill a bit. Seven hours a day walking exercise do seem a bit odd, and being at the same time after one of the servants in the training stable--as pretty a bit of goods as he ever set eyes on, so Bill says--he thought he'd make an inquiry or two about all this walking exercise. One of the lads in the stable is after the girl, too, so Bill found out very soon all he wanted to know. As you says, the 'orse is d.i.c.ky on 'is forelegs, that is the reason of all the walking exercise."