Читать книгу Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels - Bryce Charles - Страница 3

Mrs. Vanderstein and Barbara hurried over their dinner and were early in their places in Covent Garden. Mrs. Vanderstein always arrived before the orchestra had tuned up. She had, like many of her race, a great appreciation of music and did not like to miss a bar of the overture, even though she had already heard the opera that was being given so often that she knew it by heart.

She felt very much in a mood to enjoy herself that evening, and till the first act was over leant back in her chair with half-closed eyes, hardly moving at all, and absolutely absorbed in listening to the wonderful singers who were that night interpreting Puccini’s melodious work. Even the Royal box opposite barely distracted her attention for more than a few moments.

Barbara Turner was not musical, but she, too, was always pleased to go to the opera. She liked the sensation of luxury, which enveloped her there even more than elsewhere; she liked the feeling that the entertainment offered them was costing a huge amount of money, and therefore could only be witnessed by a privileged few. Although she laughed at Mrs. Vanderstein’s passion for Royalty, she shared her simple satisfaction in the knowledge that the box in which they were now sitting was sandwiched between that occupied by the Duke of Mellinborough on their left, and the one tenanted by Sir Ian Fyves, the sporting Scotch millionaire.

Barbara rejoiced in the exclusiveness obtainable by the rich, therein differing from some other people who depreciate the advantages of wealth on the grounds that the largest fortunes may be made and handled by the most vulgar, and that banking accounts are not in these days the exclusive property of the refined, or even of the intellectual.

Mrs. Vanderstein made no secret of the benefit to her health derived from hours spent in the closest proximity to the aristocracy, the air inhaled by a duchess being separated from that which filled her own lungs merely by the thinnest of partitions. She invariably occupied the chair on the left-hand side of the box, so that the space between her and her unseen neighbours might be thought of in terms of inches; and it cannot be denied that Barbara herself relished the thought of the company of the great who surrounded her, heedless though they might be of the pleasure they were providing. It was not really to be expected, besides, that the nearness of Sir Ian Fyves, whose horse had already so easily won the Derby the year before, and who was again the lucky owner of the favourite for the coming contest, should leave unmoved the daughter of Bill Turner, the trainer.

All Barbara’s childhood had been passed at Newmarket, and the talk of the racing men with whom her father associated had been the first to fall on her infantile ears. The horses in his charge had grown to be her chief interest in life, as they were that of every one she was brought in contact with; and at the age of ten she knew as much about them – their points, prowess, value, and chances – as any stable boy on the place. On a small but truculent pony she followed her father and his friends to the heath in the early mornings and watched the morning gallops with a critical eye; with the same edifying companions she pottered about the stableyard during most of the rest of the day, and only when bed-time came – and it came at eight o’clock, for on that one point her father was firm – was she reluctantly torn away.

All Mr. Vanderstein’s horses were trained by her father, and many a time the childish eyes followed them to victory.

In earlier days, before Barbara had made her bow upon the scene, Turner had been associated in various affairs of business with Mr. Vanderstein, then plain Mr. Moses Stein, familiarly known to his intimates of those days by the endearing nickname of Nosey Stein; sometimes in moments of rare affection, when some particularly brilliant coup had just been brought off, he was alluded to as Nosey Posey.

Mrs. Vanderstein, then Miss Ruth Hengersohn, had changed all this. The name of Stein was repugnant to her, though it seems a good enough sort of appellation in its way; Nosey or Nosey Posey she could only think of with a shudder; while the idea of being herself known as Mrs. Nosey filled her with a burning determination, which, as it cooled, hardened to the inflexible consistency of chilled steel.

Before their marriage took place, Mr. Stein, who always admiringly recognised, when he met it, a will more adamant than his own, had at great trouble, inconvenience, and expense changed his name for that of Vanderstein, by which he was afterwards known.

The enterprises, chiefly connected with the promotion of companies, in which this gentleman had, in his early, forgotten – and best forgotten – youth, the assistance and co-operation of Mr. William Turner, were in their nature precarious and not a source, unfortunately, of the profit foreseen by those who set out upon them.

At the conclusion of one of them, indeed, things took on a very unexpected complexion, assuming in the twinkling of an eye so disagreeable a hue, that the directors of the company, whose management was suddenly the centre of attraction and which was in danger of receiving a most unwelcome, if flattering, attention from the public prosecutor, thought it best to disappear with a rapidity and unobtrusiveness highly creditable to a modest desire for self-effacement at a moment when free advertisement was within the grasp of each of them.

Luckily for Mr. Stein, his name did not appear among those who sat on the board of this particular company and he was able to pursue his way in a retiring and profitable manner; but it was otherwise with his less fortunate friend, Bill Turner.

It was to the search for this worthy though too incautious person that the efforts of the authorities were principally directed; and it was only by returning once more, under an assumed name, to the racing circles which he had during a short interval forsaken for the city, and still further owing to the absence of the chief witness for the prosecution, whose whereabouts could not for a long time be ascertained, that Turner was able to escape the fate which ought assuredly to have been his.

He settled finally at Newmarket, and married the daughter of a neighbouring squire, who never spoke again to a child who could so far forget her father’s position and ignore his commands as to unite herself to the more than questionable William.

The poor lady, however, took her revenge on her relations, and her leave of a world in which she had found time to suffer some disillusions, on the day that saw Barbara ushered into the light; so that the little girl was left to grow up entirely in that odour of the stables which her father preferred, in his heart, to any more delicate perfume.

It was not until she was ten years old that Turner began to suffer from the attentions of blackmailers, but these, having once discovered him, saw in him a mine of gold which they fondly expected to prove inexhaustible. Such, however, was not the case. After a year’s persecution the wretched man found himself penniless, and on the advice of Vanderstein, the only one of his old pals who did not ignore him in his trouble, he left the country with precipitation and secrecy.

So little was his intention suspected that he eluded all further detection and bolted successfully to South America, where he remained untraced by undesirable acquaintances and finally drank himself to death after several years of the most gratifying obscurity.

Turner’s only regret at leaving England was that he could not take with him his little girl; but hampered by the company of a child escape would have been impossible, and he sorrowfully yielded to the representations of Vanderstein on that point.

The Jew promised to take charge of Barbara in the future, and assured Turner with every mark of solemnity that as long as he or his wife lived the girl should not lack a home. Turner, who knew that Vanderstein never ceased to chafe under a sense of obligations incurred in the early days of their struggles, placed every confidence in the words, and had no doubt that his friend would live up to his promises.

And Vanderstein did not fail to do so.

Barbara, whose grief at parting from her father was intense and pathetic, was comforted as best might be and sent to school at the select academy of the Misses Yorke Brown at Brighton. Here she received the best of educations in the company of about thirty other young ladies, the daughters of well-to-do middle class people. In their society she obtained a nodding acquaintance with algebra, history, science, and literature; with them she attended dancing classes, learnt a little French and German, and disported herself on the tennis court and hockey field. She roller-skated and played golf, became proficient in the art of swimming, and with a chosen and fortunate few rode daily on the downs.

At the end of six or seven years she had grown into a self-possessed, capable young woman, a little old for her years perhaps, as was obvious to those who knew her well, but to outward appearance still a mere child, easily amused at trifles, and with a rare capacity for enjoying life, which made her a delightful companion.

Her face had an innocent and helpless expression at variance with her real nature, which was eminently self-reliant and independent. She would never forgive her mother’s relations who had despised her father, and at any mention of them her large blue eyes would always flash resentfully.

Her relatives for their part made no effort to seek her out and were quite content to leave her to the Vandersteins’ tender mercies.

Before Barbara left school Mr. Vanderstein died, leaving in his will a provision to the effect that his widow was to continue the care of his friend’s daughter, either making her an annual allowance of £500 a year or taking her to live with her as friend and companion. There was a further bequest of £30,000 to Barbara, which was to become hers on Mrs. Vanderstein’s death.

This was not the only thing in the will which filled Mrs. Vanderstein with indignation.

She found to her disgust that half the fortune, which she had formed the habit of considering hers, was left to young Joe Sidney, the son of her husband’s sister. This lady had committed the horrid offence of marrying a Christian, and to her, during her lifetime, the orthodox and scandalised Moses never alluded. Her death occurred a year or two before his own, and after it Mr. Vanderstein had displayed a certain interest in his nephew, but not enough to prepare his wife for his preposterous action in regard to the division of his money. Indeed, he expressed in the will his wish that after her death it should all go to Joe, though he left the final decision on this point to her judgment.

Old Vanderstein had amassed considerably over half a million sterling during the latter and most prosperous portion of his career, so that his widow was not altogether the pauper she was fond of declaring herself; but in the first shock of seeing her income divide itself by two she decided to save the £500 provided for Barbara and to submit instead to the infliction of her presence.

She had never seen the girl, who had, indeed, been a subject of disagreement between her husband and herself, but she was so easy-going and good-natured at heart that a very short period of Barbara’s society had sufficed to change her prejudices and distrust into a warm affection, and she soon looked on her as she might have done on a younger sister.

There were occasions certainly when, if anything annoyed her, she would not refrain from pointing out to Barbara how much had been done for her and how exaggerated had been Mr. Vanderstein’s views in this direction.

“My dear husband,” she would exclaim, “would have ruined himself, if he had lived longer, by his own unbounded philanthropy. He was constitutionally unable to say ‘no’ to anyone, and goodness knows in what difficulties he would have landed himself if time had only been afforded him. How often he would admit to me that certain people had tried to borrow from him and that he had let them have what they wanted. In vain I begged him to be more firm. He would make me promises, but I would soon discover that he had been doing the same thing again. ‘My dear,’ he would reply to my reproaches, ‘I have really not the heart to refuse to help these poor young men.’”

Mr. Vanderstein did not bother his wife with details of his private affairs, holding that women have no concern with business; and he decidedly never thought it necessary to mention that he used a certain discretion in his benevolence, steeling himself against more supplications than she suspected.

It was true, however, that he never refused to lend money to such poor young men as were heirs to entailed estates or could offer other satisfactory security for the repayment of his kindness, and it was by these unobtrusive charities that his fortune was collected.

Mrs. Vanderstein’s prejudices against Joe Sidney had also decreased very rapidly when she became acquainted with that young man, as she did shortly after his mother’s death, and by the time this story begins – that is to say, three years after she herself had been left a widow – he had become a great favourite of hers, although there were still moments when she thought a little bitterly of the large sums he had deprived her of by the fact of his existence. However, she liked him well enough to let him know that it was her intention to comply with Mr. Vanderstein’s wishes in regard to the ultimate disposal of his fortune, and that her will constituted Sidney her sole legatee.

As she was only a few years older than himself and of a robust health, there was every likelihood that this provision would not affect his fortunes for many years to come, or even that she might survive him.