England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Social classes -- England -- Fiction
Clarehaven began his career on the turf with a sobriety which contrasted
with his extravagance at cards. He bought the stable of Mr. Tufton,
senior, and, leaving it in the cautious hands of old William Cobbett at
Newmarket, was content during his first season to compete in a few minor
handicaps and selling-plates. Such betting as he did was, on the whole,
lucky; he found himself toward the end of the season with a margin of
profit; and triumphantly he announced to Dorothy that he was going to
invest in some really first-class yearlings at Tattersall's and
Doncaster. She did not dissuade him, because she had had a talk with
honest old William Cobbett, who had assured her that his lordship was
willing to listen to his advice, and that if he would be guided by him
there was no reason why his lordship should not win some of the great
classic races the year after next, fortune being favorable. He spoke of
the black, white, and purple of Clarehaven as of colors once famous upon
famous courses, and implied that Saturday afternoons at Windsor or
Lingfield Park were hardly worthy of the time-honored combination.
Dorothy could not help agreeing with the trainer; throughout this first
season there had been a great deal too much of Captain Keith and Mrs.
Foster-ffrench, too much of a theatrical garden-party about those
Saturday afternoons, and although this year Tony had been lucky, another
year he might be unlucky and fritter away his money and his reputation
in the company of people who saw no difference between the green baize
of a card-table and the green turf of a racecourse. Several people had
talked of the fourth earl's great deeds upon the turf during the
'seventies; she, still susceptible to intimations of grandeur, viewed
with dismay these degenerate week-ends and encouraged Tony to aim
higher. If he would not speak in the House of Lords, he might at least
win the Derby; and if he won the Derby, surely his lust for gambling
would be satiated and he might retire to Clare to raise blood-stock. The
idea of owning some mighty horse, the paragon of Ormonde or Eclipse or
Flying Childers, obsessed her; she pictured ten years hence a small boy
attired in Gainsborough blue, proudly mounted upon a race-horse that
should be the sire and grandsire and great-grandsire of a hundred
classic winners. She became poetical, so keen was her ambition, so vivid
her hope; this mighty horse should be called Moonbeam, should be a ray
from the full moon of Clare to illuminate them all--Anthony--herself,
that son, who might almost be called Endymion. Why not? Disraeli had
called one of his heroes Endymion. Affected? Yes, but Endymion Viscount
Clare! Why should Endymion for a boy be more affected than Diana for a
girl? And why not Diana, too? Lady Diana Clare! They might be twins. Why
not? Mrs. Beadon had produced twins, Olive had produced twins. Moonshine
suffused Dorothy's castle in Spain, and moonstruck she paced the
battlements.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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