Sir!' She Said

by Alec Waugh

  “Now I don’t think if I were you,” Mander was saying, “that I should back a favourite or a near favourite. The odds aren’t good enough. And I don’t think that I should back any of the outsiders to win. The betting against their pulling it off’s too great. If I were you I should back Mauritius. It’s a good beast. You’ld get five to one on it.”

  Five to one. A hundred and twenty-five pounds. She had never had so much money in her life. It would settle every trouble that she had. A hundred and twenty-five pounds. And by half-past three that money might be in her bag without any effort on her part; just by sitting there; just by watching a horse go past.

  “That,” concluded Mander, closing the race-card with a snap, “is what I should do, Miss Terance, if I were you.”

  He spoke calmly, as though it were the most ordinary matter that they were discussing.

  “And probably I should,” she said, “if I had enough money with me.”

  “You could always borrow.”

  “I never borrow.”

  “You could cash a cheque then.”

  “I haven’t my cheque-book here.”

  “You could borrow a friend’s book and scratch the name of his bank out on it.”

  “Could anybody lend me one?”

  “I could.”

  “But would a bookmaker take a cheque?”

  “I doubt it, but your friend would.”

  His willingness to help her both thrilled and frightened Melanie. If he had said, “I dare you to put all your money on a horse,” she would have laughed at him. His indifference, however, as to whether she did or didn’t, goaded her.

  “Very well, then,” she said. “Get out your cheque-book.”

  He took a pocket cheque-book, tore out a cheque, handed her a fountain pen.

  “Shall I make it out to you?”

  He nodded. Over the middle line her pen hesitated. How much had she in her bank? Twenty-five pounds. She must have at least that. A cheque of thirty would probably get through. And, if she was going in for this at all, she had better go the whole way in. You could not put down an odd sum like twenty-seven. Resolutely she wrote the word thirty across the line.

  “There you are,” she said light-heartedly. “I’ll tell you when I’ve lost if it was worth the thrill.”

  As their eyes met, she saw in his a look that had not been there before. “He realises now,” she told herself, “that I’m not a baby that can be bluffed.”

  “I wonder what he’s thinking of me: really thinking?” she asked herself as she sat on the narrow bus seat waiting for his return.

  As it happened Mander was not thinking of her at all. As he had strolled along the grass track behind the buses he had been hailed by a familiar voice, and turning had faced Leon Carstairs.

  “Hullo,” he had said, “I didn’t know you were a racing man.”

  “I’m not,” Carstairs answered. “Some clients asked me to come. It’s business.”

  Mander laughed. “I wonder if any work is done in offices nowadays. Every one that I know does his on golf courses, in card-rooms, or at cocktail parties. How are things?”

  For a moment they discussed mutual friends and mutual interests. But Druce Mander’s thoughts, though he kept his end of the conversation moving, were abstracted. “Look here,” he said suddenly. “There was something I was thinking of writing to you about. As you are here, it might just as well be said. You know Clarkson and Greys, the tobacco people? Well, I’ve a large block of shares in that concern that I’ld be rather glad to be rid of. I don’t want them on the market; it’ld knock their value down. I want them to be sold by private treaty. They’re not in my name, but as I’m bound up in that world a fair amount, I don’t want to put the deal through my own house. People might be suspicious. I wonder if you’ld care to handle them?”

  “That’s terribly good of you.”

  “It’s not, at all. You’ll be doing me a kindness. The position’s this, you see.”

  He entered into explanations. By the time they were completed, the preliminaries for the big race had begun. “I’ll have to be her bookmaker for that race,” he thought.

  He returned to find Melanie in an electric mood. Her face was flushed. Her eyes were bright. She was answering at random the comments and questions of Todd and Paramount. She had passed during the last three-quarters of an hour through a century of moods. She had begun by picturing herself as the possessor of a hundred and fifty pounds. She had heard herself ringing up her friends. “Angel, I’ve made a packet at the Derby. I’m giving a lunch to celebrate. You’ll come, of course you will.” She had seen herself ordering the lunch under the benign guardianship of the Maître d’hôtel; had watched herself welcoming her guests. She had imagined the relief with which she would pay off all the bills whose reappearance month by month had grown more and more disquieting, and the insolent pride with which she would walk into the same house two days afterwards to order on the strength of her restored credit article after new article. She had phrased and rephrased the letter to Madge Carroway with which she would return the wretched loan. Twenty minutes had passed in such happy reverie as her childhood had known when she had sat dreaming before a fire, “if I had a fairy wand. . .”

  For twenty minutes it had been like that. Then doubt had come. Suppose she were not to win. Suppose that thirty pounds were to be lost irrevocably. Probably she hadn’t got thirty pounds in the bank at all. On Friday there would be the letter from the bank: “Dear Madam, your account appears to be overdrawn”—to lie beside all those other letters with their news of account rendered bills. And there would be another—a beastly little note from Madge “. . . of course, my dear, if you can’t really manage it. . .” And it would be the tenth of June. Three weeks before the next instalment of her allowance would be due. Three weeks to be lived through somehow. Weeks that should be the best of the whole year for her, but that would have to be the worst because she would be penniless, because she would be able to afford nothing, because she would have to think in terms of every tube and bus fare, because she would have to refuse every invitation that would mean the making of any contribution on her behalf; every invitation that would involve her in even so much as a taxi fare across London. For three weeks life would be intolerable. “Why did I do it?” she thought. “Why did I do it?” She was hysterical with impatience by the time Mander returned.

  “How long will it be before it starts?” she asked.

  “Not long now,” he told her. “At the outside a quarter of an hour.”

  It was almost time for them to go upstairs. In a minute or two the horses would be parading.

  Silently she climbed to the top deck. There were innumerable questions that she longed to ask. About Mauritius. what races had she won? About the jockey, was he to be trusted? But she bit them back. She was not going to let Mander see her nervousness. Afterwards, when it was all over, and she had won, then would be the time to tell him of all that she had been through. If she did, that was to say.

  Oh, but of course she would, she was bound to win. Life couldn’t be so cruel as to let her lose. It mattered so desperately to her. Much more, surely, than it did to all these other people. “If I win,” she vowed, “I’ll never bet again, no, not ever; I swear I won’t, I’ll have learnt my lesson. I swear I won’t, never again, not ever.”

  When the horses galloped past before the grandstand she had scarcely the courage to look at them. “That’s yours,” Mander said to her. “The blue and gold, No. 7.” Beseechingly she implored it “Oh, please win!” Over her shoulder she looked at the vast notice board. Mauritius had drawn No. 12. Was that good? she asked. Yes, fairly. In the middle, somewhere. The rain was beating heavily down the course. But she was scarcely conscious of its cold drive on her flushed cheeks. The horses were cantering past Tattenham Corner to the starting-point. Umbrellas were being lowered along the rails. Bookmakers were making their final appeal. Melanie’s mouth was so dry that she could hardly move her tongue inside it. �
�I’ll die,” she thought. “It’s more than I can bear.” She looked at her watch. 2.55. In five minutes time they would be off. In ten minutes it would be all over. In ten minutes time her life would be brilliant sunshine or intensest gloom. “Why did I do it?” she thought. “Why did I do it?”

  Mander offered her his glasses. She shook her head. “I can’t see,” she said. “You tell me.” With her hands clasped tight upon the railings of the bus, she waited; waited for the cry “They’re off” to break through the swelling shouts. 2.58, 2.59. Second by second the minute hand ticked round the clock. Three seconds to; two seconds to; one second to; the hour. One second after, two seconds after, three seconds after. . . half a minute; a minute; two minutes. “I can’t stand any more,” she thought. “I can’t. I can’t! Why won’t they start?” Two and a half minutes. Three minutes. Three and a half. “I’ll scream,” she thought, “I’ll have to, I can’t hold it in. It’s too much.” Her hands were crushing themselves against the railings. She fought against, struggled with, and conquered the desire to scream; and conquering it felt limp, drained, effortless, so that the cry “they’re off!” came like an anticlimax. She was so tired, she shut her eyes. A minute and they would be round the bend. “Here they are,” Mander was saying, “look, look here!” But there was a mist before her eyes. She could not distinguish the colouring. “Gold Arrow wins. Gold Arrow. Gold Arrow,” the crowd were shouting. But she did not care who led. Who was second and third, and who was fourth? “Second? I can’t see,” fell upon her ears; “Gold Arrow, Marian, Troubador; Gold Arrow, Marian,” the useless unfamiliar names. Her horse wasn’t in the running, was back in the rear somewhere. Her thirty pounds had gone and with them her chance of enjoying her first real season. “Gold Arrow wins. Gold Arrow. Gold Arrow wins!” What did she care about Gold Arrow?

  Unheedingly she listened, scarcely hearing, scarcely recognising through that babble of voices the word Mauritius. For a second she did not realise, and then eagerly she caught Mander’s arm.

  “Has it?” she cried, “is it Mauritius, really?”

  “Yes, second,” he shouted. “I couldn’t see before. He was stymied by Gold Arrow. He’s dropping back, though. Marian’s coming up.”

  Second, but dropping back! If only the winning post could be moved closer, if only the course shortened “Marian, Marian!” the crowd, shouted. “Marian wins!” Marian was second now, overhauling Gold Arrow yard by yard and on the left three horses were creeping up. “For Heaven’s sake,” Melanie pleaded, “for Heaven’s sake. He’s pulling it. I’m sure he is!” A second more and the horses would have swept below her. A second more; but she had not the strength to look. Her hand clasped tight on Mander’s arm, her eyes shut close, she listened as one does over the wireless, to his gabbled commentary. ‘Those three coming up, Mauritius only a head in front, not more than that, if that. They’re past now. I can’t see.” There was a yell of “Gold Arrow wins!” The race was over, there was a deathly moment of suspense. The names were going up upon the board. “Gold Arrow. Marian.” Mander was reading out, then with a little laugh, “Mauritius.” And Melanie, not knowing whether she ought to cry or laugh, was holding on to his coat as though her entire soul were contracted into her finger joints.

  Chapter VIII

  A Modern Mother

  The news of Gold Arrow’s victory was received with displeasure in the small underground hairdressing establishment in Duke Street, behind whose purple curtains Faith Terance had spent the greater part of the afternoon. The majority of the staff had backed Grand Nabob. There was a murmur of discontent when the news came through along the wire. The genial white-haired loquacious autocrat who presided over the men’s saloon endeavoured to be philosophic.

  ‘It’s like this, Master,” he said to the Indian Colonel whom he was dry-shampooing. “Once in about twenty years you get away with a whole packet and you feel so bucked with yourself for the next ten days that it makes up for the other nineteen years when you lose a pound or so and feel as sick as hell with yourself for an evening. Although you lose much more in the long run than you win, you get more thrill than disappointment.”

  The remainder of the staff were too young to be philosophic. They grumbled unrelievedly.

  Faith Terance, alone in the establishment, although she had lost a couple of pounds on Maiden’s Folly was unmoved by the result. It would have taken a good deal to move her at that moment. She was bored, unutterably, as she sat with a hair net round her head waiting for a water-wave to dry. She had spent already the best part of two hours in that chair. She had be en subjected to every process of which the resources of the shop were capable. Her cheeks and forehead had been covered with a grey paste that, as it dried, had stretched the skin across her bones till she had felt that her face would split if she were to smile. Then, after a damp sponge had been drawn healingly over her discomfort, there had been hot towels and cream and oil. An indiarubber sucker vibrant with electricity had tingled over her chin and temples; cool scissors had moved along her neck; adroit fingers had explored the roots of her shingled hair; a pretty self-assured young woman had spread pink varnish upon her nails. And as she sat turning the pages of a twice read Sketch, Faith Terance irritably enumerated the ways in which an afternoon might have been spent more amusingly.

  She might have gone to a matinée; or to the Nevinson Exhibition at the Leicester Galleries: at Tooth’s she had been told there was a very good John Armstrong and a couple of Matthew Smiths: Caligari was being shown at the Pavilion: the Hurricanes were playing the Tigers at Ranelagh; she might have gone out to tea with some one interesting: or she might have stayed at home and read a book. She might, in fact, have done almost anything except the thing she had.

  Beauty was a responsibility. It was pretty well a whole time job. Her whole day was centred round the preserving of it. There was the weighing machine in the bathroom, with the drastic diet of pineapples and lamb chops whenever the needle quivered behind the hundred and sixteenth pound. There were the morning exercises, the daily massaging of her skin and hair. There were the Turkish baths, the visits to hairdresser and manicurist. There was the steady refusal at lunch and dinner of dishes that, however palatable they might be, were fattening, the perpetual rising from the table a little hungry. Then there was that hour of siesta between five and six, which you had to have if you were going to keep late hours, unless you wanted to look like hell at midnight. Her entire life seemed to revolve round the business of maintaining her looks and figure. It occupied, she supposed, one way and another, about four hours of her day. There were times when she wondered if it was worth it.

  It was fun, of course, being described as the beautiful Mrs. Terance; and seeing full-page photographs of yourself in the illustrated weeklies. It was fun. But you scarcely got excited over something that had been happening to you for the quarter of a century. It was fun, too, being admired, and seeing that look of surprised delight come into men’s eyes when your eyes met theirs. But that side of life meant less and less to you as time advanced. And there were penalties attached. She was too practical, too experienced not to realise the nature of the appeal she made to men. What else could she seem to them but “fair game”? She, a woman in the early forties, married to a thoroughly middle-aged husband whom she might love but could scarcely be in love with; with only a few years of beauty left to her. She knew what was in men’s minds when they asked her to dine or dance with them: and she knew in advance the belligerent attitude they would assume when she did not fall into their arms the second time she was taken out by them: they would behave as though they had been cheated.

  She always had to be on her guard with them. They would never let her be herself. And really when it came to that she would have much rather that instead of telling her how beautiful and unique she was, they had talked to her of the things that had come to interest her more; the world and the world’s affairs. When you were young the interest you took in a man depended upon the interest that that man took in yo
u. But later on he became interesting to you for what he was intrinsically; for what he was doing; for what he stood for, for the part he played in the world’s action. But that side of themselves men would never show her. Because she was a woman, or rather because she was a lovely woman, they assumed that love was the only subject to be discussed with her. It was flattering when an important man who had to economise his leisure, who had to watch his minutes as other men watched their florins, devoted an entire evening to taking you out to dinner. But it was depressing to reflect afterwards that during the four hours he had spent with you he had said less of real interest than he would have to some indifferent stranger during the twenty-five casual minutes at a dinner-party that followed the departure of the women to the drawing-room. If only they would forget she was a woman. There were many penalties attached to beauty.

  She often wondered whether it was worth the trouble; asked herself whether women had not got more out of life sixty years back when they had let themselves grow old at thirty. She remembered her grandmother at fifty, with her knitting, her white bonnet, her black shawl and spectacles; remembering her sitting in the porch of her bungalow in Carmel looking out over the Pacific towards the grey Farra-lones. She had not wasted her time in beauty parlours; she had not spent half an hour every morning lying on her back waving her legs above her head; she had not regulated her health by a thermometer and a weight machine. She had eaten the food, read the books, seen the pictures, met the people, that she had wanted. She had had time to indulge those impersonal interests that oust gradually youth’s self-absorption. She was alert, quick-witted, well informed. Nor was she out of touch with youth. The afternoons were few when there was not some young man or other taking tea with her, confiding in her; telling her of his dreams, his love affairs, his troubles. There had been no need for her to be on her guard. She had been happy, serene, at peace, in harmony with her setting and herself. She had got more out of life, surely, had lived more vividly, more personally than her Georgian granddaughter was doing. Her grandmother had had her children, too; her children’s sympathy and confidence, in a way that the parents of this generation never had. How much did she matter to Julia and to Melanie? They were not dependent on her. The old days of parental authority were over. Fifty years ago you kept your daughter in cotton wool, till the time came to deliver the package, sealed and registered, to an appropriate husband. A daughter needed you then. To-day she didn’t. The modern daughter ran her own life: chose her friends: announcing her decisions and conclusions to her parents from time to time. Nor was there any real, compensating comradeship. Girls did not want mothers who would be mistaken for their sisters. They did not want parents who rode, danced, played tennis with them as their contemporaries. They resented the youthfulness of their parents. They did not want parents who would be in competition with them. They wanted parents who would be an admiring audience. They would far prefer them to be prematurely decrepit than agile in defiance of the almanac. Children wanted their parents to leave the stage free for them. “You have had your innings,” was their attitude, “it’s time we started ours.” People might talk, Faith Terance reflected, of the freedom, the advantages, the emancipation that the last quarter of a century had brought to women. But there was the other side to the picture.