CHAPTER VIII.—FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.

‘Now, Denzil, let us understand one another. I shall take it very kindly, dear boy, if you will do as I ask you in this matter. After all, it is no such extraordinary service that I crave at your hands. You have ridden a horse of mine, if my memory be good for anything, before to-day.’ The speaker, who, for the convenience of a more distinct articulation, had withdrawn the cigar from between his lips, leaned back in his easy-chair, as if to mark the effect of his words upon the visitor to whom he had addressed them. He was himself a gentleman of a portly presence and rubicund face, much taller and much heavier than his former friend and brother-officer. And whereas Jasper wore a civilian’s suit of speckled tweed, Captain Prodgers shewed by his gold-laced overalls and braided tunic that he was still in the army.

The famous Lancer regiment to which Jasper had once belonged having changed their quarters from Coventry to Exeter, Captain Denzil had called upon his old comrades. There had been a champagne luncheon in honour of the late commander of No. 6 Troop; and on leaving the mess-room, Jasper had gone with his former intimate Jack Prodgers, to smoke a quiet cigar in his, Jack’s room.

‘We’re old friends, sure enough,’ returned Jasper meditatively, as he watched the spiral wreaths of smoke curling upwards—‘and I do not like to be disobliging; but I can but repeat that I would rather not ride. My father would be vexed if I did.’

‘And you are a very good boy, as we know; quite a pattern of filial decorum!’ growled out the big man in the gold-laced overalls.

‘That style of argument has no weight with me, Jack,’ returned Jasper, with imperturbable good-humour. ‘I am no stripling, like one of your newly joined, pink-faced cornets, to be goaded by a sneer into acting contrary to my judgment. And I don’t mind owning that I am on my good behaviour at Carbery just now, and would rather not, please, do anything of which Sir Sykes would disapprove.’

‘It would be well worth your while,’ urged his host, striking his spurred heel into the ragged carpet; ‘worth any man’s while who was not, like young Mash the brewer, my new subaltern, born with a gold-spoon in his mouth. There are sixty-seven horses entered for the race, and we could share the stakes between us, if we win.’

‘Yes—if we win!’ returned Jasper with a laugh that was almost insolent. ‘I have pretty well made up my mind, though, to renounce the character of gentleman rider for some time to come.’

‘And quite right too; but there may be an exception—may there not—to so strict a rule?’ cheerfully replied the other captain, as he arose and busied himself in the concoction of some curious beverage, in which transparent ice and dry champagne, powdered sugar and sliced cucumber, strawberries and maraschino, were amalgamated into a harmonious whole. ‘I shan’t as yet take “No” for an answer, or give up the hope that you will stand by an old friend like myself in a matter which that old friend has very much at heart. With you in the saddle, I should feel victory certain.’

Confidence is strangely infectious. Jasper knew by the ring of his friend’s voice that he was very much in earnest, and began for the first time to consider that there must be some hidden reason for the cavalry officer’s unprecedented pertinacity.

Captain John Prodgers was in his own line a typical officer of a class to be found in more than one fashionable regiment. Living as he had always done amongst men of rank and fortune, he had thriven somehow by dint of better brains and readier assurance than fell to the lot of his companions. No one knew whence he came. His origin seemed to date from the gazetting of his commission, and indeed he might be presumed, like a sort of regimental Minerva, to have sprung booted and armed into existence. Nobody had known him as a boy, but the grandest doors in London opened to let him in. Related to nobody of Pall-Mall repute, he was ‘Jack Prodgers’ to a dozen of Lord Georges and Lord Alfreds. The earthen pot swam gaily down the stream along with those of double-gilt metal, and it was certainly not the former that had suffered from any casual collisions.

‘It certainly is queer,’ remarked Jasper, sipping his first glass of the newly brewed compound, ‘that sixty-seven horses should be entered for a quiet insignificant affair like our local steeplechase. Pebworth, it strikes me, must blush to find itself famous. I for one am quite at a loss to account for the sudden interest which we Devonshire folks appear to have inspired in what is generally a tame rustic contest.’

Jack Prodgers, as he slowly sipped the cool contents of his huge green glass, smiled with an affable pride in the possession of superior knowledge, which was not lost upon his friend.

‘You are not the only one, rely on it, Denzil, to make that remark,’ he said complacently. ‘Many a youngster who thinks he shews a precocious manliness by studying the sporting papers and talking of matters of which he knows as little as I do of Greek, is marvelling at the attention paid to a petty race at your father’s park-gates.—Look here,’ he added, handing to Jasper a newspaper carefully folded down: ‘you see in that paragraph the latest intelligence. Two of the finest horses in England—The Smasher and Brother to Highflyer—are positively to appear at Pebworth. They are the favourites of course. Nobody condescends to give a thought for the present to the humble chances of my Irish mare, whose name you may notice near the bottom of the list. Now, will you ride Norah Creina?’

‘She’ll never gallop with Brother to Highflyer,’ said Jasper decisively.

‘Umph! perhaps not,’ was her owner’s dry answer, and there was something in the tone which made Jasper arch his languid eyebrows.

‘I say Prodgers,’ said Jasper, after a pause for reflection, ‘what do you want me for in particular? I can ride, but so can others. Why not choose a heavy-weight jockey; or if you prefer it, some first-rate amateur like Sandiman or Lark, or Spurrier of the Hussars, men who make a living by putting their necks in jeopardy?’

‘Because a professional rider would betray my confidence,’ answered Prodgers frankly; ‘and as for your gentlemen riders, well, well! It is a fine line, imperceptible sometimes, that separates the amateur from the hired jockey. Spurrier is as honest as the day—that I admit; but then he is one of those impracticable men who disregard hints and will not be dictated to. I don’t exactly wish to be brilliantly beaten, and to draw a big cheque by way of payment for the beating. No. My hope is in yourself.’

‘I haven’t seen the mare, you know,’ said Jasper, hesitating.

‘She is not a beauty,’ replied Prodgers; ‘nor will you like her better for seeing her, as you can of course before you leave. A great ugly fiddle-headed animal she is, Jasper. The man who sold her to me at Kildare, candidly admitted that there was not a single good point about her. You will not be pleased with her heavy head, awkward joints, and straggling build. No wonder that the notion of her success is scouted. Will you ride Norah Creina?’

Jasper, himself no novice, was excessively perplexed. He had a high esteem for the shrewdness of his knowing friend, and he liked Prodgers too as much as it was in his nature to like any man. While still in the regiment and in the heyday of his brief prosperity, the elder captain had been kind to him, warning him against some at least of the snares that beset careless youth, and winning but very little of his money. And here was his former Mentor actually importunate in his solicitude that Jasper should ride a hideous and under-valued quadruped, on the defects of which its proprietor expatiated with incomprehensible delight.

‘The Irish mare is fast then?’ said Jasper, bewildered.

Prodgers smiled mysteriously. ‘Why, we’ve finished the cup,’ he said. ‘Here, Tomkins; get some more ice, and’——

‘No, no; thank you,’ said Jasper, rising with flushed cheeks. ‘I have had enough, and it is time for me to be moving. But before I go to the railway station, I will take a peep at this phenomenon of yours, Prodgers, if you please.’ The stable was visited accordingly; and Jasper, who had been prepared to see something ugly, found the reality to surpass his imagination.

‘Queer-looking creature, isn’t she? Lengthy as a crocodile, clumsy, and rough-coated in spite of grooming,’ remarked Prodgers. ‘I think I never saw a thoroughbred shew so few signs of breeding. Why, the white feet alone would disgust most judges of a horse.’

All this the owner of the Irish mare said in cheerful chuckling tones, rubbing his hands together the while, as if he spoke in jest. But Jasper Denzil, who knew enough of his friend to be aware that he was altogether incapable of an expensive joke, such as sending a worthless animal to the starting-post would be, and who was sufficiently experienced in horses to know how little can be known about them, began to entertain a profound distrust of his own judgment.

‘About fit, after all, for a railway omnibus,’ said Prodgers. ‘Here we are at the station. Your train, eh? We’ve just saved it.’

‘Well, I’ll ride for you, Jack,’ said Jasper as he took his seat.

‘All right, dear boy. I’ll send you a line about arrangements,’ was the answer.

And so the confederates parted.

Jasper Denzil’s heart was lighter as he drove briskly through the grand avenue at Carbery Chase (he had left his groom and tandem at Pebworth to await his return) than it had been of late. The stagnation of his recent life in the Devonshire manor-house had been agreeably disturbed. He seemed for a time to have again a share in what was to him the real world of thought and action—of no very elevated thoughts or noble actions, but such as suited him—and to be again something more than heir-apparent to a baronetcy and heir-presumptive to an estate.

‘I wonder now,’ muttered Jasper, as he brought his equipage at an easy swinging trot up the smooth road, ‘what is the peculiarity of yonder ugly animal, or why I, of all men, should be chosen out to ride her? The whole thing is a riddle. However, my father won’t so much object to my wearing the silk jacket once more, to oblige an old brother-officer.’

The captain alighted in excellent spirits. On his dressing-table, however, lay two or three letters, the sight of one of which, in its pale bluish envelope, checked the current of his complacency in full tide. A glance at the handwriting confirmed Jasper’s worst suspicions.

‘Wilkins it is!’ he said, taking it up between his finger and thumb, as a naturalist might handle a small snake the non-venomous character of which was as yet imperfectly ascertained.

Amongst the paraphernalia of Captain Denzil’s dressing-table, the ivory-backed brushes, the gold-stoppered jars and scent-bottles of red Bohemian glass, was a silver hunting-flask, the top of which being unscrewed became a silver drinking-cup. Jasper filled the cup twice and tossed off the cherry-brandy almost fiercely, as a hungry dog snaps up a morsel of meat. Then he opened the letter. This was short, and was signed ‘Enoch Wilkins, Solicitor.’ It is not, I am told, usual for solicitors-at-law to append ‘Solicitor’ to their names. But Mr Wilkins, whose clients were of a slippery and shifty sort, deemed it to his advantage to remind his correspondents of his profession.

The writer ‘begged to remind Captain Denzil’ that certain acceptances were now overdue, and could not, to the great regret of Mr Enoch Wilkins, be again renewed. This being the case, a prompt settlement of outstanding accounts became urgent; and Mr Wilkins, aware of the inconvenience and misunderstanding to which a correspondence by letter too often gave rise, desired a personal interview with Captain Jasper Denzil, and would therefore wait on him at Carbery Chase, or meet him, if preferred, at Pebworth or Exeter, on say July 28th, a day on which Mr Enoch Wilkins could absent himself from his London office. Finally, Mr Wilkins requested a reply from Captain Denzil as to the trysting-place that would best tally with the captain’s engagements.

‘July 28, eh?’ said Jasper thoughtfully. ‘Odd, isn’t it, that my legal friend should have chosen the very day of the steeplechase! Well! If Jack’s confidence is but justified by the result, I may come off victorious in one encounter, however I may do in the other.’

He then caught up a pen and proceeded to indite, painfully and slowly—as is the wont of so-called men of pleasure when compelled to write—an answer to the lawyer’s letter, wherein he declared his willingness to await Mr Wilkins at the De Vere Arms at Pebworth, at four in the afternoon of July 28.

Having sealed and addressed the envelope, Jasper tilted into the silver top of the flask what little of the cherry-brandy the latter still held, drank it off at a draught, and proceeded to dress for dinner; quite unaware that he was the unconscious instrument in the forging of another iron link in the dread chain from Fate’s own anvil.