The Queen's Cup Part 21

"It is of no use to think of that, until we know where she will be.

I don't see at present how it is to be done, but I know that there is always a way if one can think of it. You telegraph to me every day Poste Restante, Ostend, or wherever I am stopping. I will send you the name of the hotel I put up at directly I get there. You had better send someone down at once to Ryde to let you know what she is doing, and when she comes up to town; it is just on the cards that they may not come for a bit, but may go for a cruise in Mallett's yacht, as they did last autumn. Anyhow, let me know, and if I telegraph for you to come over, cross by the next boat.

"Likely enough I may run over myself as soon as I get the business there going all right; but of course I shall stay there if I can. I should get it done in half the time if I were present to push things on. Of course, you will run down and see how the horse is getting on, and pick up any information that you can, and let me know about it."

"I will put that into good hands, Carthew. It is better that I should stay here and watch things at Tattersall's; then I can keep you informed how things are looking every day, and be ready to start as soon as I get your telegram. But, of course, you won't do anything until after the race is run."

"No, I feel as safe as a man can as to Rosney, but even if he wins I shall carry my idea out. I have had enough of the turf, and burnt my fingers enough over it, and I shall be glad to settle down as a country gentleman again. If I lose I shall make a private sale of all my horses before I leave the course. That ought to bring me in another seven or eight thousand pounds for our trip."

Chapter 10.

"There is the Phantom getting under way," the skipper said, as his turn up and down the deck brought him close to Frank.

"So she is. I saw her owner go ash.o.r.e less than an hour ago."

"Yes; he came on board again five minutes ago. The men began to bustle about directly he got on deck. I do hope they won't put in again as long as we are here. The hands are as savage as bulls, and though they remembered what you told them, and there were no rows on sh.o.r.e last night, I shall be glad when we ain't in the same port with the Phantom, for I am sure that if two or three men of each crew were to drop in to the same pub, there would be a fight in no time. And really I could not blame them. It is not in human nature to lose a race like that without feeling very sore over it. I hope she is off. Anyhow, as we are going to Cowes this evening, it will be a day or two before the hands are likely to run against each other, and that will give them time to cool down a bit.

"There is one thing. I bet the Phantom won't enter against us at Cowes. If we were to give them a handsome beating there, it would show everyone that they would have had no chance of winning the Cup if it had not been for the accident."

"No, I don't suppose that we shall meet again this season, and indeed I don't know that I shall do any more racing myself, except that I shall feel it as a sort of duty to enter for the Squadron's open race.

"I think, by the course she is laying, that the Phantom is off to Southampton. Perhaps she is going to meet somebody there. Anyhow, she is not likely to be back until we have started for Cowes."

Frank sat for some time with the paper in his hand, but, although he glanced at it occasionally, his mind took in nothing of its contents. Again and again he watched the Phantom. Yes, she was certainly going to Southampton Water.

From what Bertha had said to him the evening before, he had received a strong hope that she would reject Carthew. Nothing was more probable than that he should have gone ash.o.r.e that morning, fresh from his victory, to put the question to her, and his speedy return and his order to make sail as soon as he got on deck certainly pointed to the fact that she had refused him.

A load of care seemed to be lifted from Frank's mind. From the first, when he had found that Carthew was a visitor at Lady Greendale's, he had been uncomfortable. He knew the man's persevering nature, and recognised his power of pleasing when he desired to do so. He was satisfied that, when he himself was refused, the reason Bertha gave him was, as far as she knew, the true one; but he had since thought that possibly she might then, although unsuspected by herself, have been to some extent under the spell of Carthew's influence. When she had declined two unexceptional offers, he had been almost convinced that Carthew, when the time came, would receive a more favourable answer. But he had watched them closely on the few occasions when he had seen them together in society, and, certain as he had felt at other times, he had come away somewhat puzzled, and said to himself:

"She is captivated by his manner, as any girl might be, but I doubt whether she loves him."

This impression, however, had always died out in a short time, and he had somehow come to accept the general opinion unquestioningly, that she would accept Carthew when he proposed. He had been prepared to face the alternative of either suffering her to marry a scoundrel, or of taking a step more repugnant to him, which would probably end by an entire breach of his friends.h.i.+p with the Greendales, that of telling them this story. He was therefore delighted to find that the difficulty had been solved by Bertha herself without his intervention, and felt absolutely grateful for the accident which had cost him the Queen's Cup, but had at the same time opened Bertha's eyes to the man's true character. Soon after two o'clock he went ash.o.r.e in the gig, and at the half hour Lady Greendale and Bertha came down.

"The Osprey looks like a bird shorn of its wings," he said, as he handed them into the boat; "and though the men have made everything as tidy as they could, the two missing spars quite spoil her appearance."

"That does not matter in the least, Frank," Lady Greendale said.

"We know how she looks when she is at her best. We shall enjoy a quiet sail in her just as much as if she were in apple-pie order."

"You look f.a.gged, Lady Greendale, though you are pretty well accustomed to gaiety in town."

Lady Greendale did indeed look worn and worried. For the last two or three days, Bertha's manner had puzzled her and caused her some vague anxiety. That morning the girl had come in from the garden and told her that she had just refused Mr. Carthew, and, although she had never been pleased at the idea of Bertha's marrying him, the refusal had come as a shock.

Personally she liked him. She believed him to be very well off, but she had expected Bertha to do much better, and she by no means approved of his fondness for the turf. She had been deeply disappointed at the girl's refusal of Lord Chilson, on whom she had quite set her mind. The second offer had also been a good one.

Still, she had reconciled herself to the thought of Bertha's marrying Carthew. His connection with the turf had certainly brought him into contact with a great many good men, he was to be met everywhere, and she could hardly wonder that Bertha should have been taken with his good looks and the brilliancy of his conversation. The refusal, then, came to her not only as an absolute surprise, but as a shock.

She considered that Bertha had certainly given him, as well as everyone else, reason to suppose that she intended to accept him.

Many of her intimate friends had spoken to her as if the affair was already a settled matter, and when it became known that Bertha had refused him, she would be set down as a flirt, and it would certainly injure her prospects of making the sort of match that she desired. She had said something of all this to the girl, and had only received the reply:

"I know what I am doing, mamma. I can understand that you thought I was going to marry him. I thought so myself, but something has happened that has opened my eyes, and I have every reason to be thankful that it has. I dare say you think that I have behaved very badly, and I am sorry; but I am sure that I am doing right now."

"What have you discovered, Bertha? I don't understand you at all."

"I don't suppose you do, mamma. I cannot tell you what it is. I told him that I would not tell anybody."

"But you don't seem to mind, Bertha; that is what puzzles me. A girl who has made up her mind to accept a man, and who finds out something that seems to her so bad that she rejects him, would naturally be distressed and upset. You seem to treat it as if it were a matter of no importance."

"I don't quite understand it myself, mamma. I suppose that my eyes have been opened altogether. At any rate, I feel that I have had a very narrow escape. I was certainly very much worried when I first learned about this, two days ago, and I was even distressed; but I think that I have got over the worry, and I am sure that I have quite got over the distress."

"Then you cannot have cared for him," Lady Greendale said, emphatically.

"That is just the conclusion that I have arrived at myself, mamma,"

Bertha said, calmly. "I certainly thought that I did, and now I feel sure that I was mistaken altogether."

Lady Greendale could say nothing further.

"I had better send off a note to Frank, my dear," she said, plaintively. "Of course you are not thinking of going out sailing after this."

"Indeed, I am, mamma. Why shouldn't we? Of course I am not going to say anything here of what has happened. If he chooses to talk about it he can, but I don't suppose that he will. It is just the end of the season, and we need not go back to town at all, and next spring everyone will have forgotten all about it. You know what people will say: 'I thought that Greendale girl was going to marry Carthew.

I suppose nothing has come of it. Did she refuse him I wonder, or did he change his mind?' And there will be an end of it. The end of the season wipes a sponge over everything. People start afresh, and, as somebody says--Tennyson, isn't it? or Longfellow?--they 'let the dead past bury its dead.'"

Lady Greendale lifted her hands in mild despair, put on her things, and went down to the boat with Bertha.

"I have brought a book, mamma," the latter said as they went down.

"I shall tell Frank about this, though I shall tell no one else. I always knew that he did not like Mr. Carthew. So you can amuse yourself reading while we are talking."

"You are a curious girl, Bertha," her mother said, resignedly. "I used to think that I understood you; now I feel that I don't understand you at all."

"I don't know that I understand myself, mamma, but I know enough of myself to see that I am not so wise as I thought I was, and somebody says that 'When you first discover you are a fool it is the first step towards being wise,' or something of the sort.

"There is Major Mallett standing at the landing, and there is the gig. I think that she is the prettiest boat here."

The mainsail was hoisted by the time they reached the side of the yacht, and the anchor hove short, so that in two or three minutes they were under way.

"She looks very nice," Lady Greendale said. "I thought that she would look much worse."

"You should have seen her yesterday, mamma, when we pa.s.sed her, with the jagged stumps of the topmast and bowsprit and all her ropes in disorder, the sails hanging down in the water and the wreckage alongside. I could have cried when I saw her. At any rate, she looks very neat and trim now.

"Where is the Phantom, Major Mallett?"

"She got under way at eleven o'clock, and has gone up to Southampton," he replied, quietly, but with a half-interrogatory glance towards her.

She gave a little nod, and took a chair a short distance from that in which Lady Greendale had seated herself.

"Has he gone for good?" Frank asked, as he sat down beside her.

"Of course he has," she said. "You don't suppose, after what I told you last night, that I was going to accept him."