by Annie Haynes
“It is easy to say that when he wasn’t, isn’t it?” Anne Courtenay smiled. “Don’t put too much on, Harold. You can’t afford to lose, you know.”
“Lose! I tell you I can’t lose,” her brother returned hotly. His face was flushed, the hand that held his card was trembling. “Battledore must win. My bottom dollar’s on him. Minnie Medchester has mortgaged her dress allowance for a year to back him. Oh, Battledore’s a wonder colt.”
“What is a wonder colt – Battledore, I suppose?” a suave voice interposed at this juncture. “Mind what you are doing, Harold. Best hedge a bit. I hear Goldfoot is expected. Anyway, the stable is on him for all it’s worth.”
“So is Ranger’s on Battledore. Old Tim Ranger says it is all over bar the shouting. Oh, Battledore’s a cert. I have been telling Anne to put every penny she can scrape together on him.”
“I hope Miss Courtenay has not obeyed you,” Robert Saunderson said, his eyes, a little bloodshot though the day was still young, fixed on Anne Courtenay’s fair face. “It’s all very well, young man, but I have known so many of these hotpots come unstuck to put much faith in even Tim Ranger’s prophecies. I’d rather take a good outsider. Backing a long shot generally pays in the long run.”
“It won’t when Battledore is favourite,” Harold Courtenay returned obstinately. “He ran away with the Gold Cup. It will be the same.”
“H’m! Well, you are too young to remember Lawgiver. He was just such a Derby cert that he was guarded night and day and brought to the tapes with detectives before and behind, but he sauntered in a bad fifteenth.”
“Battledore won’t,” young Courtenay said confidently. “Wait a minute, Nan. There’s young Ranger. I must have a word with him.” He darted off.
Robert Saunderson looked after him with a curious smile. Saunderson was well known in racing circles and was usually present at all the big meetings. He was sometimes spoken of as a mystery man. Nobody knew exactly who he was or where he came from. But as a rich bachelor he had made his way into a certain section of London society. At the present moment he, as well as the Courtenays, was staying at Holford Hall with the Courtenays’ cousin, Lord Medchester.
Rumour had of late credited Lady Medchester with a very kindly feeling for Saunderson. Holford was within an easy driving distance of Doncaster, and the house-party to a man had come over on Lord Medchester’s coach and a supplementary car to see the St. Leger run. The Courtenays were the grandchildren of old General Courtenay, who had held a high command in India and had been known on the Afghan frontier as “Dare-devil Courtenay”. His only son, Harold and Anne’s father, had been killed in the Great War. The Victoria Cross had been awarded to him after his death, and was his father’s proudest possession. The young widow had not long survived her husband, and the two orphan children had been brought up by their grandfather.
The old man had spoilt and idolized them. The greatest disappointment of his life had been Harold’s breakdown in health and resultant delicacy, which had put the Army out of the question. General Courtenay was a poor man, having little but his pension, and the difficulty had been to find some work within Harold’s powers. The Church, the Army and the Bar were all rejected in turn. Young Courtenay had a pretty taste in literature and a certain facility with his pen, and for a time he had picked up a precarious living as a journalistic freelance. For the last year, however, he had been acting as secretary to Francis Melton, the member for North Loamshire.
Earlier in the year Anne Courtenay had become engaged to Michael Burford, Lord Medchester’s trainer. It was not the grand match she had been expected to make, but Burford was sufficiently well off, and the young couple were desperately in love.
There was no mistaking the admiration in Saunderson’s eyes as he looked down at Anne.
“You could not persuade the General to come to-day?”
Anne shook her head.
“No; it would have been too much for him. But he is quite happy talking over old times with his sister.”
“He was a great race-goer in his day, he tells me.”
“I believe he was an inveterate one. He still insists on having all the racing news read to him.”
Anne moved on decidedly as she spoke. She did not care for Robert Saunderson. She had done her best to keep out of his way since his coming to Holford. Unfortunately the dislike was not mutual. Saunderson’s admiration had been obvious from the first, and her coldness apparently only inflamed his passion. He followed her now.
“The Leger horses are in the paddock. What will Harold say if you don’t see Battledore?”
Anne quickened her steps. “I don’t know. But we shall see them all in a moment. And I must find my cousins.”
Saunderson kept up with her, forcing their way through the jostling crowd round the paddock.
“Lord Medchester’s filly ran away with the nursery plate, I hear. The favourite Severn Valley filly was not in it,” he began; then as she made no rejoinder he went on, “We shall see a tremendous difference here in a year or two, Miss Courtenay. There will be an aerodrome over there” – jerking his head to the right – “second to none in the country, I will wager. And a big, up-to-date tote will be installed near the stand. Altogether we shan’t know the Town Moor.”
“I heard they were projecting all sorts of improvements,” Anne assented. “But it will take a long time to get them finished and cost a great deal of money. Harold is frightfully keen on the tote, I know.”
“Ah, Harold!” Saunderson interposed. “I wanted to speak to you about Harold. I am rather anxious about him. I don’t like this friendship of his with the Stainers. He ought never to have introduced them to you. They’ve had the cheek to put up at the ‘Medchester Arms’ – want to get in touch with the training stables, I’ll bet! Stainer’s no good – never has been – he is a rotter, and the girl – well, the less said about her the better.”
Anne recalled the red-haired girl who had seemed so friendly with Harold just now, but she let no hint of the uneasiness she felt show in her face.
“I am sure Harold does not care for her. Of course she is very good-looking. But why do you trouble about Harold?”
Saunderson looked at her.
“Because he is your brother,” he said deliberately.
Anne’s eyes met his quietly.
“A very poor reason, it seems to me.”
“Then suppose I say, because I love you, Anne?” he said daringly.
Anne held up her head.
“I am engaged to Michael Burford.”
“To Burford, the trainer!” Saunderson said scoffingly.
“No; to Burford, the man,” she corrected.
A fierce light flashed into Saunderson’s eyes. A whirl of sound of cheering, of incoherent cries rose around them. The St. Leger horses were coming up to the post.
“Battledore! Battledore!” Harold’s choice was easily favourite. Masterman’s scarlet and green were very conspicuous. Under cover of the tumult Saunderson bent nearer Anne.
“Michael Burford. Pah! You shall never marry him. You shall marry me. I swear it.”
Anne’s colour rose, but she made no reply as she hurried back to the Medchester coach. Most of the party were already in their places, but Lady Medchester stood at the foot of the steps. She was a tall, showily-dressed woman, whose complexion and hair evidently owed a good deal to art. Her mouth was hard, and just now the thin lips were pressed closely together.
“I hope you have enjoyed your walk and seeing Battledore,” she said disagreeably.
Anne looked at her.
“I did not see Battledore.”
Lady Medchester laughed, but there was no merriment in her pale eyes.
“I can quite understand that. Oh, Mr. Saunderson” – turning to the man who had come up behind her young cousin – “will you show me –”
Anne did not wait for any more. She ran lightly up the steps. Her brother hurried after her.
“I believe one gets a better view from
the top of this coach than from the stand,” he said unsteadily.
Anne looked at him with pity, at his flushed face, at his trembling hands.
“Harold, if you –”
She had no time for more. Harold sprang on the seat. There was a mighty shout. “They’re off! They’re off!” Then a groan of disappointment as the horses were recalled. A false start – Battledore had broken the tapes. Bill Turner, his Australian jockey, quieted him down and brought him back to the post.
“Goldfoot was sweating all over in the paddock just now,” young Courtenay announced to nobody in particular. “He was all over the place, too, taking it out of himself. Doesn’t stand an earthly against Battledore – he’s a real natural stayer – isn’t a son of Sardinia, a Derby second and Greenlake the Oaks winner for nothing –”
His voice was drowned by a great roar as the horses flashed by, Battledore on the outside.
“Better than too near the rails,” Harold consoled himself. “The luck of the draw’s been against him, but he doesn’t want it. He’ll do, he’ll do!”
“Battledore! Battledore!” the crowd exulted.
But now another name was making itself heard – “Goldfoot! Goldfoot! Come on, Jim!” – “Goldfoot leads – No – Partner’s Pride! – No – Battledore! – Battledore!” Harold Courtenay yelled. “Come on, Bill! He’s winning, he’s winning! Partner’s Pride is nothing but a runner-up.’’
Followed a moment’s tense silence, then a mighty shout: “Goldfoot’s won! Well done, Jim Spencer! Well done!”
Anne dared not look at her brother’s face as the numbers went up.
“Goldfoot first,” a voice beside her said. “Proud Boy second, Partner’s Pride third. Battledore nowhere.”
Anne heard a faint sound beside her – between a moan and a sob. She turned sharply.
“Harold!”
Her brother was leaning back in his seat on the coach. His hands had dropped by his side, his face was ghastly white, even his lips were bloodless.
Anne touched him. “Harold!”
He gazed at her with dazed, uncomprehending eyes.
“Don’t look like that!” she said sharply. “Pull yourself together! It will be all right, Harold. I have a savings box, you know. You shall have it all.”
“All!” Harold laughed aloud in a wild, reckless fashion that made his sister wince and draw back hastily. “It means ruin, Anne!” he said hoarsely. “Ruin, irretrievable ruin. That’s all!”
The Dowager Lady Medchester was an old lady who knew her own mind, and was extremely generous in the matter of presenting pieces of it to other people. She and her brother, General Courtenay, were too much alike to get on really well together. Nevertheless, they thoroughly enjoyed a sparring match, and looked forward to their meetings in town and country. The house-party at Holford this year was an extra and both of them were bent on making the most of it.
This afternoon the old people were out for their daily drive, and in the smallest of the three drawing-rooms Anne Courtenay and her brother Harold stood facing one another, both of them pale and overwrought.
“Yes, of course we must find the money. My pearls will fetch something, and I can borrow –”
Anne was anxiously watching her brother’s white, drawn face.
He turned away and stood with his back to her, staring unseeingly out of the window.
“That isn’t the worst. I – I had to have the money, you understand? I was in debt. I put every penny I had on Battledore and – more.”
Anne stared at him, every drop of colour ebbing slowly from her cheeks.
“What do you mean, Harold? You put more – you are frightening me.”
“Can’t you see? I stood to make my fortune out of Battledore. If he’d won I should. I didn’t think he could lose, and money of Melton’s was passing through my hands. I put it on.”
“Harold!” Anne’s brown eyes were wide with horror. “You – you must put it back. I – I will get it somehow.”
“I have put it back. I had to. I don’t know whether Melton suspected, but he talked of going through his accounts, and it had to be paid into the bank.” The boy’s voice broke. “I went to a money-lender and he lent me money on a bill that didn’t mature till next May. He wouldn’t give it to me at first. I couldn’t wait – the money had to be replaced at once. The bill had to be backed – I knew it was no use asking Medchester, and the money-lender wouldn’t take Stainer – else Maurice would have got it for me like a shot.”
“I don’t like Maurice Stainer,” Anne interposed, “or his sister, either. He is no good to you, Harold.”
“Well, anyway, the old shark wouldn’t look at him and I couldn’t wait – or I should face exposure. I knew I could meet the bill all right if Battledore won. He – the money-lender – suggested I should get Saunderson’s name. I knew I couldn’t – Saunderson’s as close as a Jew, but I had to have the money somehow, and I was mad – mad! I wrote the name.”
The fear in Anne’s eyes deepened.
“You – you forged!”
A hoarse sob broke in her brother’s throat.
“I should have met it – I swear I should have met it, and it gave me six months to turn round in. But it is too late. He has found out – Saunderson. He has got the bill and he swears he will prosecute. He will not even hear me.”
“But he cannot – cannot prosecute! He is your friend.”
“He will,” Harold said hopelessly. “He is a good-for-nothing scoundrel and he will send me to gaol and blacken our name for ever – unless you –”
“Yes?” Anne’s voice was low; she put her hands up to her throat. “I don’t know what you mean. Unless what?”
“Unless you go to him, unless you plead with him.” Harold brought the words out as if they were forced from him. “He thinks more of you than anybody.”
Anne threw her head back. In a swift, hot flame the colour rushed over her face and neck and temples.
“Unless I ask him – that man? Do you know what that means? I – I hate him! I am afraid of him.”
“I know. I hate him. He is a damned brute, but – well, if I blew my brains out it would not save the shame, the disgrace –” Her brother broke off.
A momentary vision of General Courtenay’s fine old face rose before Anne, of his pathetic pride in his dead son’s Victoria Cross, in the Courtenay name. A sudden, fierce anger shook her. This careless boy should not cloud the end of that noble life with shame and bitter pain.
Harold slipped forward against the side of the window-frame.
“That’s the end.”
Anne watched him in unpitying silence. Then old memories came back to her – of their early childhood, of the handsome, gallant father who had been so proud of his little son, of the sweet, gentle mother who had dearly loved them both, but whose favourite had always been Harold. Her heart softened. She looked at her brother’s head, bent in humiliation. For the sake of her beloved dead, no less than for the living whose pride he was, Harold must be saved at whatever cost to herself.
She went over and touched his shoulder.
“I will do what I can,” she promised. “I will ask him; I will beg him. I will save you, Harold, somehow.”
CHAPTER 2
In her room at Holford Hall Anne Courtenay was twisting her hands together in agony. The Medchesters and their guests were amusing themselves downstairs in the drawing-room, the gramophone was playing noisy dance music. In the back drawing-room her grandfather and his sister were having their usual game of bezique. Anne had pleaded a headache and had gone to her room directly after dinner. The hands of the clock on the mantelpiece were creeping on to ten o’clock. In five minutes the hour would boom out from the old church on the hill. It was no use delaying, that would only make matters worse. She sprang up. Purposely to-night she had worn black. She threw a dark cloak round her, and picking up a pull-on black hat crushed it over her shingled hair. Then she unlocked a small wooden box on her dressing-table and took out a
piece of notepaper. Across it was scrawled in Robert Saunderson’s characteristic bold black writing: “To-night at the summer-house at ten o’clock.” That was all. There was neither beginning nor ending. Not one word to soften the words that were an ultimatum. Anne’s little, white teeth bit deeply into her upper lip as she read.
The summer-house stood in a clearing to the right of the Dutch garden. From it an excellent view of the moors could be obtained with the hazy, blue line of the northern hills in the distance. It was a favourite resort with Lady Medchester for the picnic teas which she favoured. That Anne Courtenay should be giving an assignation there at this time of night seemed to her to show the depths to which she had fallen. Saunderson had left the Medchesters the day after the St. Leger. He had turned a resolutely deaf ear to all Harold’s appeals, and his ultimatum remained the same. He would only treat with Anne. Anne herself must come to him, must plead with him. To her alone he would tell the only terms on which Harold could be saved.
Anne drew her cloak round her as she stole quietly down the stairs to a side door. There was a full moon, but the masses of fleecy cloud obscured the beams; little scuds of rain beat in Anne’s face as she let herself out. Through the open windows the laughter and the gaiety of her fellow-guests reached her ears. She crept silently by the side of the house into the shadow of one of the giant clumps of rhododendrons that dotted the lawn and bordered the expanse of grass between the house and the Dutch garden.
Anne looked like a wraith as she flitted from one bush to another and finally gained the low wall that overlooked the Dutch garden. A flight of steps led down to the garden and from there, through a hand gate at the side of the rosery, a path went straight to the summer-house.
It all, looked horribly dark and gloomy, Anne thought, as she closed the gate. She waited uncertainly for a minute. All around her she caught the faint multitudinous sounds of insect life that go on incessantly in even the quietest night. Already the leaves were beginning to fall. They lay thick upon the path and rustled under her feet; in the distance she caught the cry of some night-bird. Then nearer at hand there was a different sound. She stopped and cowered against a tree, listening. What was it? It could not be the cracking of a twig, footsteps among the withered leaves, the dead pine-needles that lay thick on the ground? It could not be anybody watching her – following her? Then a sudden awful sense of fear assailed her, a certainty that something evil was near her. For the time she was paralysed as she caught blindly at a low branch. She listened, shivering from head to foot. Yes, undoubtedly she could hear light footsteps, with something sinister, it seemed to her, about their very stealthiness. Yet, as the moon shone out from behind a passing cloud, there was nothing to be seen, no sign of any living thing or any movement. All was quiet, and as she stole softly to the summer-house, casting terrified glances from side to side, she did not see a figure standing up against the trunk of a tall pine near at hand, a face that peered forward, watching her every movement.