Читать книгу Petticoat Loose - Rita - Страница 3

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The "Ring" was shouting itself hoarse. The great race of the day was coming on. Anxious faces surveyed the beautiful, restless creatures held by indifferent grooms, and on whom so much depended.

A crowd of women and men had poured from the grandstand into the paddock, and the yells of the "bookies" and the buzzing murmurs of the bettors seemed to thrill the warm September air with a strange excitement. Last instructions were given to the jockeys, as they tried a stirrup or drew the reins in a firmer grip. One or two nodded with light-hearted recklessness. Not one glanced at sky or sunshine with any foreboding of what risk lay behind that frantic gallop—those furze-banks and hurdles—that wide water jump which was to tax the finishing power of horse and man. Not one. Not even Pat Rooney—reckless, maddest, and most dare-devil of all that reckless lot. He settled his orange and black cap on his chestnut curls, his blue eyes laughed at the anxious inquiring face beside him.

"It will be all right, sir, never fear. The horse isn't foaled yet that can beat Kilmorran. There, can't yer honour be aisy, for once? We'll win—or——"

A jerk at the rein—an impatient movement of the bright bay he was riding—cut short his words. He cantered on to take his place at the starting-post. To the left stretched the wide meadows crowded with the itinerant mob, the idle loafers, the motley mass of men, women, and children, never absent from an Irish racecourse.

Pat Rooney's eyes swept the crowd with a questioning glance. Suddenly his white teeth showed in a brilliant smile. The horse curvetted and reared as he waved one hand in greeting. A girl leaning against the dividing rails answered the smile and the hand-wave.

"He looks grand, doesn't he, Mickey?" she said, eagerly.

She spoke to a short, hunchbacked man by her side. A man with a sharp cut face and eager eyes, and a brow for ever crowned with gloom. The lightning gleams of the eyes were constantly subdued by the cloud on the broad, sun-tanned brow, beneath which they looked out on a churlish world. Nature had handicapped him at the start in life's race, and he could not forgive her, or be otherwise than resentful and bitter to a humanity that was better favoured than himself. To be pushed aside, ridiculed, condemned, does not tend to sweeten a nature already sensitive and ambitious and full of tender yearnings. Michael Croom had led a strange life. It looked to him like a patched and multi-colored fabric what time he gave himself up to the contemplation of the past. He had played so many parts, fallen on such vicissitudes of fortune, and he was so far down on the ladder that previous dreams of ascent looked the veriest mockery. He was now only the "handy man" of a travelling photographic show—a thing that hailed from the land of stars and stripes and was owned by a woman, and "run" by a woman, and had secured and attached him to itself by means of promises, and an occasional advance of salary when business was good. The owner of the show was an Americanised Irishwoman; a creature of shrewd intelligence, unlimited enterprise, and indifferent morality. She had a fair show of good looks, a loud voice and a violent temper. It was her niece who stood beside the hunchback and waved her hand to the handsome jockey.

"Oh, but he's fine to-day!" she went on. "He's bound to win, isn't he, Mickey? Why don't you answer? Ah, he's gone now like a flash! Is this a good place to watch them, Mickey?"

"Good enough," said the man, sulkily. "You'll see the finish. They go twice round the course."

"Do you mean to take the water jump twice?" gasped the girl, in sudden fright. "Oh, it's cruel, it's awful. They shouldn't be let."

A sardonic smile parted the hunchback's lips.

"Races are always cruel," he said. "Cruel on horse and man, on rider and owner. But what of that—isn't all sport cruel? Waste o' life, health, and money? 'A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death? A foul defacer of God's handiwork?'"

"Is that Richard III, again?" asked the girl with a faint smile. "Oh, Mickey, look. There are the two Englishmen who were photographed this morning. They see us. They're coming here. Now, do be civil, if you can."

"Why should I be civil?" he asked doggedly. "They're none too polite to me. And as for you, Brianna——"

He paused abruptly. The girl's hand was on his arm. He felt the electric thrill of that light touch through all his veins.

"They're off!" she cried, in an excited hysterical whisper, and he turned his eyes to the starting place, and then stood perfectly still, watching that curving line of colour as it swept along the course.

On they came, neck and neck in that first round, so evenly were they matched. On, and over the hurdles, the furze bank. A blanket could have covered the nine who were in the race. On, and over the water, while the spectators held their breath and the loud pants of the galloping horses echoed on a silence of suspense. On—still on—lost to sight now as the girl's straining eyes gazed into the green distance. The line broke, it became straggling; the terrible pace, the stiff leaps began to tell on straining muscle and panting hearts. The flash of colour ceased to blend into a harmonious whole. Green and white, orange and black, crimson, blue, yellow, violet, stood out in separate blots against the emerald background.

Three abreast now. Three—and one the orange and black of Kilmorran's jockey. A hoarse about broke from the crowd.

"Kilmorran wins. Go it, Pat Rooney. Shure, didn't I say Pat was the boy for my money!"

The girl's face turned white as death, and her hand gripped the arm of the hunchback with a force that hurt him.

Another leap. The horse rose like a bird. Then . . . . What was it? A swerve? A pressure from the jockey behind him? None could tell; but a figure fell to the ground beyond the hurdle, and the hoof of Kilmorran's rival crushed the orange and black cap, while Kilmorran himself, free and riderless, swept on and leaped the water-jump and passed the winning-post—alone.

"A jockey off." "What's happened?" "Is it kilt he is?" So the voices buzzed and clamoured, as the crowd broke, and men rushed in and bore off a stiff and bleeding figure that a moment before had been all life, and nerve and motion.

The blue sky held no cloud, the sunshine smiled, and cries of triumph and the smothered curses at loss and defeat arose sounded the requiem of a dying soul. With a gasp of agony Pat Rooney's blue eyes looked up through mists of pain and death to the blue heavens that now seemed so strangely, strangely near.

"Kilmorran's not beaten," he whispered. "Not—beaten."

Then the curtain of an endless night fell between him and the living world beyond.

* * * * * *

Brianna stood like a stone statue, her straining eyes fixed on that fatal spot.

"Faith, that was a bad fall," muttered the hunchback, as he turned to look at her white face. "Poor Pat. I'm thinking he's ridden his last race this time."

"What happened? Could you see?" asked an eager voice.

It came from one of the young Englishmen whom Brianna had remarked. They had been standing near her during the race, but she had been too absorbed to notice their proximity.

Michael Croom turned his frowning face towards them.

"Only a jockey thrown," he answered. "Maybe he's not much hurt. It's not his first spill, I know. I'll go and ask about him."

He turned abruptly away. The Englishman looked at Brianna's white face and staring eyes with a sense of wonder. They had made acquaintance that morning at the caravan. A few idle jests and compliments, a sense of her wonderful beauty and its wonderful unfitness to her surroundings, had impressed him. Now he was absolutely startled by the tragic sorrow of her eyes as they met his own.

"Is anything the matter? Are you ill?" he asked, and instinctively he drew nearer.

She began to tremble suddenly. Then she raised one hand to her head and pushed back the black sailor hat that hid her rich-hued hair. Her eyes seemed to dilate and then grow dewy with tears that would not fall. Her lips quivered like that of a grieved child. Grief lent her an aspect at once youthful and appealing.

Max Lorrimer gazed at her, and every pulse of young manhood stirred in sympathy with her beauty and grief.

"Tell me, my child," he said, tenderly. "Let me help you."

Then the tears fell in large heavy drops, and a great sob burst from her throat.

"Oh, Pat, Pat!" she cried. "Oh, my heart, my darlin'! Oh, what shall I do without you! No one to speak a kind word, no one to love me; and not a moment ago it seems that you waved your hand and I saw you smile—and now——"

She buried her face in her hands, and shook from head to foot.

"Don't grieve so," pleaded her would-be comforter. "He mayn't be killed, after all. Lots of jockeys are thrown, you know, and they only break a collar-bone, or a rib, or something. Perhaps Pat, as you call him, has done the same."

She shook her head. The heavy clusters of her hair fell about her brow and ears. She turned away from the handsome, eager young face, and gazed sadly at the distant course.

Already the accident was forgotten—already the swaying crowd of well-dressed women and men had descended from their various seats and were hastening to the enclosure where the exhausted riders and panting horses were standing, or dismounting. Kilmorran's owner, his face set in grim hard lines, was standing by his horse. The animal had won the race but won it disqualified by the absence of his jockey.

It was hard on Desmond Mayne, already up to his ears in debts and difficulties. It was hard on many others who had backed the favourite to the full extent of limited banking accounts. And it had been such a near thing! That point of aggravation was on every tongue.

A woman, well known to racing circles, raised the point as to whether the horse or the jockey ran the race. It certainly was the former who was entered, and on whom the odds were laid and the bets made. Therefore, she maintained with perverse feminine logic, that if the horse won it didn't matter about the jockey. The question of weight did not seem to trouble her argument or enter into it. She had lost a great deal more money than she could afford to lose, and the fate of the unfortunate jockey left her unmoved. Nowhere does the innate selfishness of human nature show itself more plainly than at a race meeting. Risk of life, money, honour, nay, death itself, are disregarded for the time being—swept ruthlessly aside in the excitement of that feverish moment on which so much is staked, so much is lost. The faces tell their own story. It is not always a pleasant one.

Max Lorrimer stood there silently by the side of the girl whose acquaintance he had only made that morning. His friend had strolled on. They had tickets for the stand, but races were no novelty, and they were "doing Ireland" in a fashion that held preference for the study of the Irishman in congenial surroundings. Hence their choice of the meadows that faced the enclosure and the stand, where the crowd indulged in humours of its own particular kind, and made it's own bets, and gave vent to its own fancies and expressed its own opinions with that delightful candour so dear to the Irish soul.

Voices were discussing the accident to Pat Rooney. He was well known, and a general favourite. As yet no one knew that his fall had cost him his life. The girl listened eagerly, drinking in hope from that rough good-humour and buoyancy that try so often to disarm sorrow.

Max Lorrimer encouraged her to be less despondent. Beauty in distress had a certain charm, but beauty buoyant in life and hope and witchery, pleased him a thousand times more. Besides, he wanted her to talk to him—to hear her history. That morning he had seen her sitting on the steps of the wooden "house on wheels" which its owner had informed him was just "the natest and complatest and cunningest of its kind" ever made. She had herself planned it, and had it built according to her designs. It was her hobby, her delight. In it she could laugh to scorn the question of "rint," or locality, the call of the tax-collector and the intrusion of rates, and their representatives. Her long sojourn in the States had impressed her with the glories of freedom, and when she returned to her native land she gave all who would listen the benefit of her opinions. It was on this visit that she discovered she possessed a relative in an orphan niece—a wild slip of a girl, beautiful and untutored, with little prospect in life before her, and yet a certain handiness and capability that might be turned to account.

Her aunt resolved to turn them to her account and that of the show. She annexed the girl, as she had annexed the hunchback. They worked, and she directed. She was imperious and iron-headed. She drove her slaves mercilessly. The lash of her tongue could sting and smart; but at times she was kind and reasonable enough, and the girl was fairly happy. The "show," as its owner, Sally Dunne, called it, was well-known throughout the country towns, racecourses and seaside resorts of Ireland. So was the girl, with her wild hair, her untidy garments, and her strange beauty.

"Shure, 'tis Sally Dunne's show," the people would say. And they would crowd round for a gossip and spend to the value of threepence or sixpence on the marvels of Instantaneous Photography. Mrs. Dunne would photograph, develop and frame them—all in the space of five minutes; at any time, or in any weather. She hung a large signboard outside the caravan, announcing herself as "The Marvellous American Female Photographiste. Patronised by Royalty and all the Celebrities of Europe and the United States." She had cases of "purchased" photographs affixed to her canvas studio, and professed to have taken them herself. She made a fair income, lived well, and did just what seemed good unto her, and Brianna made friends with the hunchback, listened to his stage experiences, washed and cooked, and looked after the dogs, and was content enough with the life. At all events, it was better than those early days of vagabondage and starvation on the coal quay—better than the oaths and blows and drunken squabbles, and the filth and squalor of her parents' cellar. She had change, movement, the free air, the sweet, fair country. Her uncultured mind took tone and colour from Nature and Michael Croom educated her in his own fashion.

All this, and more, she told the young Englishman as they stood leaning over the low railings, awaiting Mickey's return. He listened with a curious interest; her voice held such music, her face such varied expression, her eyes grew so dark and deep. He had succeeded in drawing her attention from the jockey, and he was pleased at his success.

Suddenly, however, she came to an abrupt stop.

A fresh race was coming off. The stand was once more filling, and, crossing the green stretch of grass, threading his way between rows of cars, crowds of jarveys, sweet-stuff stalls, apple women, dogs and beggar children, came the figure of the hunchback.

Max Lorrimer saw the girl's cheek whiten and her lips set themselves in a firm line. He guessed her story, and a thrill of pity stirred him. He moved a little aside and watched Michael Groom's approach.

The girl watched him also, her whole figure tense and strained and still. She uttered no sound, asked no question; only looked and looked with all her heart in her eyes.

"To be loved like that!" thought Max. "Why it would be almost worth while to die!"

Nearer came the ungainly figure. The strange face lifted itself.

A sharp breath, that was half a sob, cut the silence like a knife.

"I know—I know. You needn't tell me, Mickey. He's dead!"

Then she turned and went swiftly away, as the roar and tumult of the new race broke from a thousand throats.