Mr. Blake of Newmarket

Front matter

Just published, in One volume, imperial %vo., buckram sides, leather back, price 28_\ net. DRIVING FOR PLEASURE; or, the Harness Stable and its Appointments. By FRANCIS T. UNDERHILL. Illustrated with One Hundred and Twenty-Four Full-page Plates. CONTENTS. What Constitutes Good Form in Harness and Harnessing. Driving. Liveries, Horse Clothing, etc. The Stable. Suggestions to the Inexperienced Bits and Bitting. The Use of Bearing Reins. Carriages. Equipage. General Appointments Coaching. Four-in-hand. Tandem. Horses. Coachmen. In ' Driving for Pleasure ' the author's aim has been to supply, in a thorough and satisfactory manner, a book treating directly of sporting and non-sporting vehicles, of every description of harness, liveries and horse clothing, of stables and stable furnishing, and of driving.

Owners will find in Mr. Underbill's book a valuable guide to these subjects, which are profusely illustrated with full-page plates from original photographs The binding is a suitable combination of leather and buckram, with a simple side-cover block of a carriage whip, etc. Mr. Underhill is an authority of many years of driving, and has had wide experience as a judge at horse shows. With these ad vantages he has undertaken this work in the belief that a large number of owners would appreciate his efforts to give exact informa tion respecting the stables and equipages in accordance with the dictates of practical experience. London: WM. HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C. Novels by FLORA ANNIE STEEL. 6s. each. The Novel of the Indian Mutiny. 26th Thousand. ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. The Spectator. — ' We have read Mrs. Steel's book with ever increasing surprise and admiration — surprise at her insight into people with whom she can scarcely have been intimate, admiration for the genius which has enabled her to realize that wonderful welter of the East and West, which Delhi must have presented just before the Mutiny. ...

It is the most wonderful picture. We know that none who lived through the Mutiny will lay the book down without a gasp of admiration, and believe that the same emotion will be felt by thousands to whom the scenes depicted are but lurid phantas magoria.' FROM THE FIVE RIVERS. The Times. — ' Time was when these sketches of native Punjabi society would have been considered a curiosity in literature. They are sufficiently remarkable, even in these days, when interest in the " dumb millions " of India is thoroughly alive, and writers, great and small, vie in ministering to it. Mrs. Steel has evidently been brought into close contact with the domestic life of all classes, Hindu and Mahomedan, in city and village, and has steeped herself in their customs and superstitions. . . . Mrs. Steel's book is. of exceptional merit and freshness."

Chapter I. The Red Roses Of Ascot

The Duke of Suffolk came into the Savoy Restaurant and summoned the maitre d' hotel. ' I want,' he said, ' a table for six at once.' The maitre d'hotcl looked grave and apologetic as he explained that the room was quite full, and that there was no chance of a single place being vacant for another half-hour at least. ' But,' said his Grace irrationally, but hopefully, ' surely you can find us six places somewhere.' The maitre d'hotel loved a Duke, but totally refused to turn six people out of the room. Short of this, as he pointed out, it was impossible to find seats for his Grace and his friends. ' Look,' said the Duke, pointing down the room — ' look there ; what on earth is that ?' The table which he indicated was indeed a sufficiently curious sight. It was laid for ten, but only six persons were sitting at it.

Opposite the remain ing four places were placed chairs whose seats were piled high up with a great mass of red roses. Red roses, too, lay in big bunches on the table, and trailed among dessert dishes and electric light candelabra. The six people who were present, three men and three women, wore the same flower in their coats and dresses. In reply to the last question the maitre d'hotel looked a trifle bored, as though he had answered it some dozens of times before, and was loath to embark again on a long and fatiguing story. ' It is an Ascot-Cup-day dinner,' he said with a sigh, and in the tone of voice adopted by an Oxford guide detailing the beauties of the Bodleian. ' Three years ago the party there agreed that they would dine together on the Thursday in Ascot week every year. They would have the same table and the same place, and they would have it decorated with red roses.

And one of them — one of the ladies I expect it was — said that if any member of the party died or was absent, the others were to put a chair for him or her in the usual place, and pile it up with roses, as you see there. This is the third year, and three of the men are away, and one young lady died a few months ago.' ' They seem to be tolerably dull,' said the Duke. The party did not seem to be a very lively one. At the top of the table sat a man with purple cheeks, and wide white waistcoat, and a look of happiness on his face which became ecstatic at the appearance of quails in gravy flavoured by Tarragon vinegar and mushrooms. To his left sat a girl dressed in black lace, whose lowered eyes and trembling lips seemed to indicate indifference even to these subtly-blended flavours. On her left, again, were two empty chairs, THE RED ROSES OF ASCOT 3 and on the other side of them sat a man of nearly thirty, as silent and as moody as the girl herself.

Once or twice they had spoken to one another with forced gaiety and mirthless laughter ; and so powerful was the girl's imagination that, in looking at her companion, she bent slightly forward, as though the rose-filled chairs still held the young figure and childish, happy face of the person who had sat there last year. She had bent across like that many times last year, and the man, who had been passionately in love with the dead girl, and had been thankfully happy to have her next to him with her dress brush ing his arm, and with their feet touching one another in lucky wandering movements, had hated her for it then. Once, as he had bent over the menu with his late companion — blind enough, Heaven knows, to its contents — with her hair touching his forehead, he had found himself watched like this bythe other girl.

When he had taken up his sweetheart's fan to examine it, so that he might touch her hand in returning it, she had looked across at him again. As he sat there now, the desolation and loneliness of it all filled his mind till he could have cried like a child. The hum and chatter of voices round him, the movements to and fro of hurrying waiters, and the perfume of food and flowers, seemed a dull nebulous gulf fixed deep and impassable between himself and all human hope. He did not want to stay, and did not care to go. To ent poulet en casserole and melon ice seemed as good a way as any other of passing time in a land where his dead love would be seen and heard no more. ' For myself,' said the man at the head of the table, the colour of whose complexion was deepening i — till it was almost black, ' I cannot conceive how any one can deny that there is more simple unadulterated happiness to be found in eating than in any other occupation in the world.

I mean, of course, if a man has a good digestion and takes his exercise properly. Consider gambling ! You must either win or lose. If you win, well and good. But who the devil — I beg pardon — I mean who on earth could possibly lose and be happy over it ? Consider love ! If a man is in love ' — the speaker fairly snorted with contempt — ' I ask you, will anyone tell me a more infernal diabolical existence than he spends ?' ' It is a matter of compensation, I suppose,' said one of the ladies ; ' the good moments make up for the bad.' ' Good God, my dear madam !' said the first speaker, ' you couldn't seriously mean such a thing ; the man suffers torture for hours, and then for one moment he has a sight of his young lady, or they kiss one another, which is a nasty practice at the best. As a mere matter of time you must be abso lutely wrong ; five minutes of one thing could never make up for five hours of another.

Bosh! Humbug! No, no' (turning to the waiter), 'take it away; I want the salad. And bring more cayenne ; the pepper pots here are always empty.' The young man listened with weary acquiescence to this harangue, which came to an end just as the band began to play ' All Souls' Day.' It was a piece of music which, oddly enough, had been played that day last year, and as he heard the opening bars now, and caught sight of the startled look which his present companion turned to him across the empty chairs, his hands began to tremble, and he pushed his chair THE RED ROSES OF ASCOT 5 violently to one side. It caught the leg of the chair next to him, and the roses began to fall to the ground. Without much heeding those on the seat next to herself, the girl leant across, and just stopped the flowers on the next seat to it from slipping on to the floor.

The man flashed a grateful glance at her, and as she bent down again over her food, he puzzled over the look of tired and jealous pain which had been in her eyes. The rich, husky voice at the head of the table was still denouncing fame, ambition, love, duty, self-sacrifice, faith, and hope — comparing them with the quails to the infinite advantage of the latter. As he listened, some forgotten words of the other girl came back to him with odd new meaning, and, considering them, he made a sudden resolution. For the rest of the dinner he talked a little excitedly to his companion on the other side of the roses, and the resolution grew. It was carried out after dinner at the bottom of the big staircase, where these two were alone for a minute ; and then, as the others came down, he jumped into a hansom and drove off.

But the girl stood leaning against the banisters, heedless for some moments of the voices which were speaking to her, and looking out on to the pavement with dewy, happy eyes, and a smile on her face. ' Yet he will probably,' she said to herself, ' be wild with himself to-morrow morning, and tell me as kindly as he can that he did not mean it. I think it was only because I saved her roses from falling off the chair. Of course, I must let him off.'

Chapter II. Mr

BLAKE. Summer evening stillness hung over long stretches of turf where tufts of speedwell and harebells lay hidden, and bindweed and wild trailing roses wound their long shoots among the purple stems of the dog wood. Soft breaths of wind rustled by, scattering the faint scent of clover and musk thistles, and bringing the last notes of roosting birds. Shadows had blotted out all openings and arches and path ways in the distant woods, leaving only an outer wall of trees to catch the sunset light which paled and glowed over Newmarket Heath. A man stood in the middle of this solitary plain ; he was whistling and beating time with his stick on the ground, and looking absently at the piled-up mass of gold and purple clouds before him. His thoughts appeared to displease him, for he muttered to himself angrily, and, turning, walked rapidly homewards for a short distance.

Then he stopped again, and addressed the Stands on the July course. ' Confound that Savoy dinner !' he said. ' Helen was quite right. I did not mean to propose to her. So I am to take four months to think it over ! Truly, my young lady is a very practical and sensible person. Four months is just the right time — long enough to prevent one getting flurried, and short enough to prevent one getting worried. I am quite epigram matic. I really do like her ; I like her very much. Of course, it is different from Margaret — from Mar garet ' The smile died from his face, and there came there instead a look of such infinite longing love as transfigured it ; his eyes were turned to the glowing western sky as though he saw someone there, and his lips moved as though he were speaking to the far-off companion.

Reginald Blake was the only son of a man who had been known to all Newmarket as Squire Blake, and was popularly supposed to be a typical sports man of the old school. As, however, his contem poraries and fellow-sportsmen called him eccentric, debated his sanity, and for the most part strongly objected to his company, we may doubt the accuracy of this popular opinion, and give the old school the benefit of such doubt. The Squire was not exactly a credit to whatever school he did represent. To hear him swear was wonderful, but as he never opened his lips without swearing, it very shortly became monotonous ; to see him in a passion was something to be remembered, but as he only ex tricated himself from one fit of rage in order to fall more effectively into another, the sight, if memorable, soon became commonplace.

For years after his death you might hear stories about him : how if some luckless stable-boy lost a race by bad riding, the Squire would pull him out of the saddle and flog him heartily; how he would scream insults and abuse at even the greatest jockeys, till they refused to ride for him again, or strike his trainer in the face with a whip if he ventured to contradict him ; and how, riding out onto the training-grounds in the early morning, he would make everyone there give place to his horses and himself, with his purple scowling face and big riding-whip. He ruled Newmarket with that riding-whip. ' On my conscience,' said the Vicar, ' I should not be in the least surprised to have it laid about my own shoulders some Sunday if my sermon displeased him.' And if this had happened, it is certain that the congregation, who sat in awed silence listening to old Blake as he snored in his great curtained family pew, or woke up and noisily put coals on the fire, would have been far too much afraid to offer any resistance.

Yet, so great is mankind's power of humbugging itself that the crowd of stablemen and jockeys who stood one day round the Squire's grave were quite unhappy about his death, and murmured : ' We'll never see his like again ; there ain't many sportsmen left like him,' as if the fact were something to cause regret. Willingly, and at the suggestion of one of themselves, they subscribed their shillings and sixpences towards a memorial for him, and stood in reverential, admiring groups round the great tombstone which was put up over his grave ; though when ' Requiescat in Pace ' was translated to them, most of them had a hazy idea that it was Newmarket which was thus invited now to rest in peace. And so Squire Blake sleeps on, and shall hear no more the saddling-bell ring at Lincoln for the first race of the season, nor see the flag drop at Manchester for the start of the Final Plate, nor join the sage critics of some Derby favourite at exercise as he strides past the Turn of the Lands, and is lost in the early morning mist.

It is a wonder to think what this man, who had spent all his life and such measure of brains as God had given him in calculating which of six horses could gallop the fastest, will do with himself in that long hereafter. Reggie Blake had been absent from home for eighteen months after his father's death, spending most of his time in London and Paris. It was in Paris that he met Margaret Newby, and became engaged to her, no one realizing what the girl's flushed, transparent cheeks and thin, drooping figure portended, till a London physician spoke his fears to Blake. The end had come very rapidly, leaving no place for hope or suspense or farewell, and the young man, whose love had absorbed every other thought and feeling, had spent the autumn and winter wandering about Europe with a sensation that his life had been torn to shreds and flung away useless and ruined.

Early in the spring, Mr. Blake, hearing from his agent that affairs were not going well on his estate, was obliged to return to Newmarket, and so dropped back into his home life. Durrant, the agent, had not exaggerated matters when he said that the estate business was not going well. One of the tenants was bankrupt, another moving rapidly in the same direction ; two farms were vacant ; another was about to be taken by a young trainer, and turned at considerable expense (part of which the agent had agreed that Mr. Blake should pay) into a training establishment. The whole property, which in the best of years produced an income of about £4,000, was now yielding less than half that sum. Reggie had spent everything which had been paid into his account, and must now mortgage a farm or two to raise money for his share in the expenses of altering Norton Lodge.

He puzzled over the business, and not seeing that it was a natural result of his own neglect and Durrant's in competence, returned to London for June, leaving the agent in charge. It was about the end of June when he came back to Newmarket with his head full of Helen Lester's promises and requests ; and his eldest sister, hearing of the muddle into which the estate had fallen, had invited herself and three of her children to stay with him. Mrs. Fane was a hard-headed woman of business, some years older than her brother, the manager, for all practical pur poses, of her husband's coal mines in North Stafford shire, and, moreover, tolerably well acquainted with her brother's Newmarket property. She had hardly spent a week at Bury Lodge before tenants had offered themselves for the vacant farms, the semi bankrupt farmer had made a satisfactory settlement, and Durrant had given notice.

Reggie smiled to himself as he strolled homewards this evening, and wondered what she had been doing during the after noon. As he crossed the lawn in front of the house he saw her sitting writing in the library, and the three children at tea in another room. It struck him suddenly how pleasant the homely sight looked ; how full of home-content, and rest ; how superior to the aimless hurry and noise in which he had spent the past two years. It was very good to be at home. ' Well, Frances.' • Oh, here you are ! Where have you been ?' ' Nowhere particular ; roaming about generally. Anything interesting happened ?' Mrs. Fane blew out the candles on the writing table, and turned round to her brother with an un usually severe look on her face. ' Marsden has been here. He came to speak about The Elf, but I talked steadily about his son at the Norton stables.

I told him what I had heard from Mr. Rayner about Roger — that he is idling, drinking, and generally going, or gone, to the bad ; and that we do not mean to let him owe his share of the alterations without some security. Marsden blus tered, as usual — tried his high and mighty airs on me till I simply laughed in his face. Are you mad, Reggie, to let those two men have absolute control, one over your horses, the other over the most valuable part of the estate ? It is absurd ! I have made it quite clear to Marsden that we want security for his son's debts.' ' You must have riled him up pretty well.' ' Are you afraid of him for any reason ?' ' Rubbish, Frances ! I mean that a chap like that can always do you a bad turn.' ' Not unless you want to bet extravagantly.' Reggie's face darkened angrily at once, and Mrs. Fane, thinking uneasily that she had perhaps touched on some weak point which she had not yet noticed, was debating whether she should go on, when the entrance of the children furnished a diversion. ' Were the strawberries all right to-night, Miss Fane ?' The young lady so addressed had recently celebrated her eighth birthday, and was a personage whose sayings and doings were a constant theme of conversation among her friends and relatives.

Since she invariably replied to questions as to her name by saying, ' I am Miss Fane,' her family respectfully followed suit, and Miss Fane's philosophy, criticism, and dogmas were quoted far and wide, and Miss Fane's edicts, like the Queen's writ, ran through the neighbourhood. Her mother was the only person with a will as strong as her own, and, like two mighty nations conscious of each other's strength, Mrs. and Miss Fane avoided contests with one another. Once, nearly a year ago, they had come into open violent conflict, and a whipping for Miss Fane had been the result. ' Of course you can conquer me like that,' she said breathlessly, with quivering little nostrils and a few quickly -repressed sobs, 'because you and Nanna together are stronger than I am ; but I don't think much of such a conquer.

It is like the Duke of Marlborough at Malplaquet. Mr. Thackeray says that he did himself more harm than the French. We shall be enemies now for months and months and years, and you will find it very troublesome ;' after which Miss Fane retreated to her room in as good order as the French after the battle which she had quoted. Reconsidering the question, Mrs. Fane judged that she had made a mistake, and told her daughter so. ' I'm glad you told me that,' whispered Miss Fane. ' We shall be friends now, and not behave like Red Indians. I will do whatever you tell me if you have reasons. I dare say you often know better than me.' After this the little lady rarely received orders without a word or two of explanation, and the longer and more abstruse were the words in which she was addressed, the more readily would Miss Fane obey. ' The strawberries were very nice, thank you,' she said politely. ' I hope there are some more for your dinner, because we finished the whole dish.

Will you take us to the races to-morrow, Uncle Reggie ?' ' I shall be charmed. Will you ride ?' ' Yes, please. Are any of your horses running?' ' Southbourne is running in the Beaufort Stakes. Shall we back him, Miss Fane ?' ' Mother and I will look at him to-morrow and tell you. Uncle Reggie, who's the boy who came here from the stables with a message just after lunch ?' ' He's a new apprentice of Marsden's — a rather nice little chap. His name is Banks, and he's a cousin or relation of some sort of John Seaton.' ' The jockey ?' asked Mrs. Fane. ' Yes, of the jockey.' ' I hope John Seaton will look after his cousin pretty closely. What an extraordinary thing it is, when there are so many first-class trainers to choose among, that a boy's relations should send him to a man like that !' ' You're always down on Marsden, Frances,' said Blake, with an easy laugh.

Chapter III. The First July Meeting

James Marsden, tenant of Dullingham House stables, and trainer of some thirty race-horses entrusted to his care by the Duke of Suffolk, Lord Ardleigh, Mr. Blake, and one or two other patrons, was a man of five-and-fifty, taciturn, bad-tempered, and profoundly ignorant on all subjects in the world save one. In his knowledge of that one — horse racing — he stood pre-eminent ; admittedly first even in Newmarket. This or that rival might know as much of jockeyship, breeding, galloping, or what not, but as a master of all these and every kindred matter, he was first without question among his neighbours. No owner with theories of his own about placing and training his horses ever attempted twice to enforce them in Dullingham House stables ; there was a massive silence about Marsden's face and manner in such cases which was sufficient answer for all men.

No jockey fresh from a successful ' ramp ' ever tried to excuse himself to this trainer. ' Clumsy liar you are, certainly,' was his sole response to such explanations, ' and a rotten bad rider, too! One of my stable-boys 'd have managed the business better. I wish old Blake was back.' Marsden's first employer when a jockey and first patron as a trainer, Blake senior was a type to him of all that a racing-man should be, and in his contests with some wealthy and astute member of the jockey - ring, Marsden solaced himself with thoughts of how heartily Blake would have flogged him. The pressure of competition had already led Marsden into one or two shady transactions, and his character was not good, though nothing definite was alleged. ' Too clever to live ' was the popular opinion, and a certain Steward of the Jockey Club had been heard to add grimly : ' He is certainly getting too clever to live at Newmarket.' The man had gradually become separated from former friends, from the purely business folk who trained horses as straightforwardly and honestly as a banker or doctor does his work, and who form by far the larger proportion of Newmarket trainers.

They began to look askance on their companion, as the Stock Exchange looks on a man when someone has questioned his solvency. Yet Marsden flourished still. To suck all possible profit from roguery before hanging the rogue is the part of every sensible man. His stables were commonplace, and the trainer discouraged outside visitors. ' They are all cadging for tips,' he said, ' and their tricks, for the most part, aren't even new. One man is a rich uncle of one of the lads, and wants to know how he is getting on, and asks if the lad may take him round the stables. Another is a lecturer want ing information for a speech to defend the turf — he does want that information, too ! — and would like me to supply him with some facts about training in general, and the Lincoln Handicap in particular. Most of the others are journalists working for an " influential paper which they mayn't mention."

They carry on all right till they come to my Lincoln Handicap horse, or whatever it is, and then their eyes and questions give them away. One fellow actually came here calling himself my brother who went out to New Zealand twenty years ago — took me in, he did, for a whole mortal evening, and scraped me clean of every good thing I knew for the season. By the Lord, if my own son comes now, and asks a question, I look at him twice to see if it ain't a tout dressed up !' The trainer was walking moodily down High Street on Tuesday afternoon after the races. His horse ought to have won the Beaufort Stakes, and had been beaten. He had backed it, and induced his patrons to do the same, and was angry at the result ; in these circumstances, it was only natural that he should meet a series of persons whom he did not wish to meet.

Mrs. Fane came first ; she expressed a wish, very decisively worded, that Marsden would not encourage her brother to bet in such large sums, and the trainer rejoined wrathfully that he knew and cared nothing about the extent of Mr. Blake's betting — he merely did his business in telling that gentleman when one of his horses was going to run, and whether or not it had a good chance of winning. Mrs. Fane hardly pretended to listen to the explanation. The Vicar of St. George's followed. ' My friend John Seaton tells me,' he began, ' that a young cousin of his is coming to you. Very lucky for the lad, I'm sure. You will let him come to us at the Institute sometimes ?' ' He can do as he pleases out of working hours,' was the curt reply. ' How did young Antill ride this afternoon ? He was to ride something of yours, wasn't he ?' ' I never saw him bungle a race more idiotically — unless he was playing games,' said Marsden, rather pleased at the question, for Antill was a favourite protege of the Vicar's. The parson flushed angrily. ' I never heard the slightest accusation of dishonesty brought against Antill before,' he said. 'Your suggestion is rather ' ' I am suggesting nothing — merely saying that Antill rode either badly or dishonestly.