George Fenn - Sir Hilton's Sin

“Then you really won’t come?”

“No, Jack, I can’t. It would break my wife’s heart if I did, and she really is very fond of me.”

“Very well; I won’t press you, old man. But, I say, you think La Sylphide will win?”

“It’s a dead cert. Have you anything on?”

“All I’m worth, dear boy. Have you?”

“I? Nonsense! I haven’t made a bet these two years.”

“Then now’s your time.”

“No, no: I’ve done with that sort of thing.”

“But, personally, you are not flush of money, are you?”

“I? Never was so short in my life.”

The doctor laughed. “Seize the chance, then, to make a thou’ or two.”

“Impossible.”

“Nonsense! You say yourself the mare’s sure to win.”

“Bar accidents, she must.”

“Then make your game.”

“No; I have no money.”

“Why, you said just now that her ladyship had placed four thou’ to your credit in her bank.”

“For my electioneering exes.”

“Bosh! To use. Put on the pot and make it boil. Why, man, you could clear enough on the strength of that coin lying idle to set you up for a couple of years.”

“Ye-e-es,” said Sir Hilton, who began biting at his nails. “Might, mightn’t I?”

“Of course. Why, you would be mad to miss the chance.”

“It does sound tempting.”

“Tempting? Of course. It isn’t as if there was any gambling in it.”

“Exactly. There would be no gambling in it?”

“Of course not. If it were some horse whose character you did not know, it would be different. But here you are – your own mare, whom you know down to the ground. Your own jockey, too. Look here, dear boy, La Sylphide can’t help winning. You’d be mad to miss this chance. I should say, go and see the run, but I give way to your scruples there; but when I see you chucking away a pile of money I begin to kick.”

Sir Hilton rose and walked up and down the room, as his old friend and companion continued talking, and ended by coming back to the table and bringing down his fist with a bang.

“Yes,” he cried, “it would be madness to miss the chance. By Jove! I’ll do it.”

“Bravo, old man!”

“I’ll put it in your hands, Jack. Get on for me all you can.”

“Up to what?”

“All I’ve got in the bank. Four thou’.”

“Do you mean it?”

“Of course.”

“Well done, old chap. That’s Hilt up to the hilt, like in the old times.”

“Pst! Someone coming,” said the baronet, dropping into a chair. “We didn’t hear the chaise. It’s my wife.”

Lady Lisle swept into the room, fresh from the pony-carriage, looking rather stern and haughty, her brows knitting at the sight of the breakfast things, and then rising a little as she saw the gallant-looking gentleman who rose and advanced to meet her.

“Dr Granton!”

“At your service, Lady Lisle. I was in the neighbourhood, and rode over to see my dear old friend, but I am just off. I congratulate you. How well he looks!”

“I am glad you think so. But – you have only just come. Will you not stay? My husband must have a good deal to say to you.”

“We could talk for hours, my dear madam, but I must be going on.”

“You will stay to lunch?”

“Impossible. Most important business in the neighbourhood. Hilton has been most hospitable and refreshed me, and I really must be off – eh, Hilt?”

“Certainly.”

“The fact is, Lady Lisle, it is a question of money matters. Business connection with a bank.”

Lady Lisle bowed, and looked relieved.

“If you must go, then, Dr Granton – ”

“I really must, my dear madam. No, no, Hilton, dear boy, don’t ring for the horse; I’ll go round by the stables and pick up my hack. Don’t you come. Good-morning, Lady Lisle. I hope you will let me call if I am again this way?”

“Certainly, Dr Granton. I am always happy to extend the hospitality of the Denes to my husband’s friends.”

“Thank you; of course. Once more, good-morning. Morning, Hilton, dear boy. Au revoir!”

He passed out, and the frown on Lady Lisle’s brow deepened. “I’m afraid, Hilton,” she said, “that Dr Granton’s business may have something to do with the races.”

“Eh? Indeed! Well, now you say so, I suppose it is possible.”

“You have not allowed him to tempt you into going, Hilton?”

“No, my dear,” said the baronet; “certainly not.”

He spoke out quickly and firmly, the glow of the virtuous who had resisted temptation warming his breast.

“Thank you, dear,” she said, laying her hand almost caressingly upon her lord’s shoulder. “It could only have meant gambling, risking money to win that of others. Hilton, my love, it is so vile and despicable.”

“Think so, Laura?” he said, with the cold chill of his wife’s words completely extinguishing the virtuous glow.

“Think so? Oh, yes, Hilton. You cannot imagine how happy you make me by the way you are casting behind you your old weaknesses, and are devoting yourself to Parliamentary study.”

“For which I fear I am very unfit,” said Sir Hilton; and he turned cold directly after at a horrible thought which seemed to stun him.

Suppose she should say, “Well, give it up,” and want to withdraw that balance at the bank! “What an idiot I was to say that!” he thought. But relief – partial relief – came the next minute.

“That is your modesty, my dear,” said Lady Lisle. “I flatter myself that I know your capabilities better than you know them yourself. Hilton, I shall devote myself to the task of being your Parliamentary secretary, and I mean that you shall shine.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said the unhappy man, sadly, as he thought of the daring venture he had set in commission, and began to repent as he walked to the window and looked out.

“I ought not to have risked that money, though. Suppose the mare lost,” he mused. “Bah! I know her too well. There isn’t a horse can touch her in the straight, and it will regularly set me up. I shan’t have to go begging for a cheque, and then have ‘What for, darling?’ ringing in my ears. Hang it all! It makes a man feel so small. Why, the very servants pity me – I know they do. And as for that old scoundrel Trimmer – oh, if I could only give him something, even if it were only a wife to keep him short!”

“Suppose – ” he thought again, and could get no farther than that one word, which, like the nucleus of a comet, sent out behind or before it a tail of enormous proportions – a sort of gaseous mist of horrible probabilities concerning that four thousand pounds.

“If I could get a message to him and stop it all,” he muttered, as he watched Jane rapidly clear the table of the tardy breakfast things.

“Yes, my love, Parliament must be the goal of your ambition,” said Lady Lisle, with her eyes brightening, as soon as they were alone. “If I had been a man how I should have gloried in addressing the House!”

“Ah! there’s a deal of talk goes on there, my dear,” replied Sir Hilton.

“And what talk, Hilton! What a study! The proper study of mankind is man. How much better than devoting all your attention to dogs and horses!”

“‘How noble a beast is the horse,’ dear, it said in my first reading-book.”

“Absurd, my love. Pray don’t think of horses any more.”

Sir Hilton winced, and then watched his lady as she moved in a dignified way to the fireplace to rearrange her headgear.

“Going out again, my dear?” said Sir Hilton, for want of something better to say.

“Yes, love. I have ordered the carriage round, to drive over to Hanby.”