Ghost

by Louise Welsh

  “Oh! Will you? And is father not lucky?”

  “Very unlucky, I should say,” she said bitterly.

  The boy watched her with unsure eyes.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Nobody ever knows why one person is lucky and another unlucky.”

  “Don’t they? Nobody at all? Does nobody know?”

  “Perhaps God. But He never tells.”

  “He ought to, then. And are’nt you lucky either, mother?”

  “I can’t be, it I married an unlucky husband.”

  “But by yourself, aren’t you?”

  “I used to think I was, before I married. Now I think I am very unlucky indeed.”

  “Why?”

  “Well – never mind! Perhaps I’m not really,” she said.

  The child looked at her to see if she meant it. But he saw, by the lines of her mouth, that she was only trying to hide something from him.

  “Well, anyhow,” he said stoutly, “I’m a lucky person.”

  “Why?” said his mother, with a sudden laugh.

  He stared at her. He didn’t even know why he had said it.

  “God told me,” he asserted, brazening it out.

  “I hope He did, dear!”, she said, again with a laugh, but rather bitter.

  “He did, mother!”

  “Excellent!” said the mother, using one of her husband’s exclamations.

  The boy saw she did not believe him; or rather, that she paid no attention to his assertion. This angered him somewhere, and made him want to compel her attention.

  He went off by himself, vaguely, in a childish way, seeking for the clue to “luck”. Absorbed, taking no heed of other people, he went about with a sort of stealth, seeking inwardly for luck. He wanted luck, he wanted it, he wanted it. When the two girls were playing dolls in the nursery, he would sit on his big rocking-horse, charging madly into space, with a frenzy that made the little girls peer at him uneasily. Wildly the horse careered, the waving dark hair of the boy tossed, his eyes had a strange glare in them. The little girls dared not speak to him.

  When he had ridden to the end of his mad little journey, he climbed down and stood in front of his rocking-horse, staring fixedly into its lowered face. Its red mouth was slightly open, its big eye was wide and glassy-bright.

  “Now!” he would silently command the snorting steed. “Now take me to where there is luck! Now take me!”

  And he would slash the horse on the neck with the little whip he had asked Uncle Oscar for. He knew the horse could take him to where there was luck, if only he forced it. So he would mount again and start on his furious ride, hoping at last to get there.

  “You’ll break your horse, Paul!” said the nurse.

  “He’s always riding like that! I wish he’d leave off!” said his elder sister Joan.

  But he only glared down on them in silence. Nurse gave him up. She could make nothing of him. Anyhow, he was growing beyond her.

  One day his mother and his Uncle Oscar came in when he was on one of his furious rides. He did not speak to them.

  “Hallo, you young jockey! Riding a winner?” said his uncle.

  “Aren’t you growing too big for a rocking-horse? You’re not a very little boy any longer, you know,” said his mother.

  But Paul only gave a blue glare from his big, rather close-set eyes. He would speak to nobody when he was in full tilt. His mother watched him with an anxious expression on her face.

  At last he suddenly stopped forcing his horse into the mechanical gallop and slid down.

  “Well, I got there!” he announced fiercely, his blue eyes still flaring, and his sturdy long legs straddling apart.

  “Where did you get to?” asked his mother.

  “Where I wanted to go,” he flared back at her.

  “That’s right, son!” said Uncle Oscar. “Don’t you stop till you get there. What’s the horse’s name?”

  “He doesn’t have a name,” said the boy.

  “Get’s on without all right?” asked the uncle.

  “Well, he has different names. He was called Sansovino last week.”

  “Sansovino, eh? Won the Ascot. How did you know this name?”

  “He always talks about horse-races with Bassett,” said Joan.

  The uncle was delighted to find that his small nephew was posted with all the racing news. Bassett, the young gardener, who had been wounded in the left foot in the war and had got his present job through Oscar Cresswell, whose batman he had been, was a perfect blade of the “turf”. He lived in the racing events, and the small boy lived with him.

  Oscar Cresswell got it all from Bassett.

  “Master Paul comes and asks me, so I can’t do more than tell him, sir,” said Bassett, his face terribly serious, as if he were speaking of religious matters.

  “And does he ever put anything on a horse he fancies?”

  “Well – I don’t want to give him away – he’s a young sport, a fine sport, sir. Would you mind asking him himself? He sort of takes a pleasure in it, and perhaps he’d feel I was giving him away, sir, if you don’t mind.

  Bassett was serious as a church.

  The uncle went back to his nephew and took him off for a ride in the car.

  “Say, Paul, old man, do you ever put anything on a horse?” the uncle asked.

  The boy watched the handsome man closely.

  “Why, do you think I oughtn’t to?” he parried.

  “Not a bit of it! I thought perhaps you might give me a tip for the Lincoln.”

  The car sped on into the country, going down to Uncle Oscar’s place in Hampshire.

  “Honour bright?” said the nephew.

  “Honour bright, son!” said the uncle.

  “Well, then, Daffodil.”

  “Daffodil! I doubt it, sonny. What about Mirza?”

  “I only know the winner,” said the boy. “That’s Daffodil.”

  “Daffodil, eh?”

  There was a pause. Daffodil was an obscure horse comparatively.

  “Uncle!”

  “Yes, son?”

  “You won’t let it go any further, will you? I promised Bassett.”

  “Bassett be damned, old man! What’s he got to do with it?”

  “We’re partners. We’ve been partners from the first. Uncle, he lent me my first five shillings, which I lost. I promised him, honour bright, it was only between me and him; only you gave me that ten-shilling note I started winning with, so I thought you were lucky. You won’t let it go any further, will you?”

  The boy gazed at his uncle from those big, hot, blue eyes, set rather close together. The uncle stirred and laughed uneasily.

  “Right you are, son! I’ll keep your tip private. How much are you putting on him?”

  “All except twenty pounds,” said the boy. “I keep that in reserve.”

  The uncle thought it a good joke.

  “You keep twenty pounds in reserve, do you, you young romancer? What are you betting, then?”

  “I’m betting three hundred,” said the boy gravely. “But it’s between you and me, Uncle Oscar! Honour bright?”

  “It’s between you and me all right, you young Nat Gould,” he said, laughing. “But where’s your three hundred?”

  “Bassett keeps it for me. We’re partners.”

  “You are, are you! And what is Bassett putting on Daffodil?”

  “He won’t go quite as high as I do, I expect. Perhaps he’ll go a hundred and fifty.”

  “What, pennies?” laughed the uncle.

  “Pounds,” said the child, with a surprised look at his uncle. “Bassett keeps a bigger reserve than I do.”

  Between wonder and amusement Uncle Oscar was silent. He pursued the matter no further, but he determined to take his nephew with him to the Lincoln races.

  “Now, son,” he said, “I’m putting twenty on Mirza, and I’ll put five on for you on any horse you fancy. What’s your pick?”

  “Daffodil, uncle.”
r />   “No, not the fiver on Daffodil!”

  “I should if it was my own fiver,” said the child.

  “Good! Good! Right you are! A fiver for me and a fiver for you on Daffodil.”

  The child had never been to a race-meeting before, and his eyes were blue fire. He pursed his mouth tight and watched. A Frenchman just in front had put his money on Lancelot. Wild with excitement, he flayed his arms up and down, yelling “Lancelot! Lancelot!” in his French accent.

  Daffodil came in first, Lancelot second, Mirza third. The child, flushed and with eyes blazing, was curiously serene. His uncle brought him four five-pound notes, four to one.

  “What am I to do with these?” he cried, waving them before the boys eyes.

  “I suppose we’ll talk to Bassett,” said the boy. “I expect I have fifteen hundred now; and twenty in reserve; and this twenty.”

  His uncle studied him for some moments.

  “Look here, son!” he said. “You’re not serious about Bassett and that fifteen hundred, are you?”

  “Yes, I am. But it’s between you and me, uncle. Honour bright?”

  “Honour bright all right, son! But I must talk to Bassett.”

  “If you’d like to be a partner, uncle, with Bassett and me, we could all be partners. Only, you’d have to promise, honour bright, uncle, not to let it go beyond us three. Bassett and I are lucky, and you must be lucky, because it was your ten shillings I started winning with…”

  Uncle Oscar took both Bassett and Paul into Richmond Park for an afternoon, and there they talked.

  “It’s like this, you see, sir,” Bassett said. “Master Paul would get me talking about racing events, spinning yarns, you know, sir. And he was always keen on knowing if I’d made or if I’d lost. It’s about a year since, now, that I put five shillings on Blush of Dawn for him: and we lost. Then the luck turned, with that ten shillings he had from you: that we put on Singhalese. And since that time, it’s been pretty steady, all things considering. What do you say, Master Paul?”

  “We’re all right when we’re sure,” said Paul. “It’s when we’re not quite sure that we go down.”

  “Oh, but we’re careful then,” said Bassett.

  “But when are you sure?” smiled Uncle Oscar.

  “It’s Master Paul, sir,” said Bassett in a secret, religious voice. “It’s as if he had it from heaven. Like Daffodil, now, for the Lincoln. That was as sure as eggs.”

  “Did you put anything on Daffodil?” asked Oscar Cresswell.

  “Yes, sir, I made my bit.”

  “And my nephew?”

  Bassett was obstinately silent, looking at Paul.

  “I made twelve hundred, didn’t I, Bassett? I told uncle I was putting three hundred on Daffodil.”

  “That’s right,” said Bassett, nodding.

  “But where’s the money?” asked the uncle.

  “I keep it safe locked up, sir. Master Paul he can have it any minute he likes to ask for it.”

  “What, fifteen hundred pounds?”

  “And twenty! And forty, that is, with the twenty he made on the course.”

  “It’s amazing!” said the uncle.

  “If Master Paul offers you to be partners, sir, I would, if I were you: if you’ll excuse me,” said Bassett.

  Oscar Cresswell thought about it.

  “I’ll see the money,” he said.

  They drove home again, and, sure enough, Bassett came round to the garden-house with fifteen hundred pounds in notes. The twenty pounds reserve was left with Joe Glee, in the Turf Commission deposit.

  “You see, it’s all right, uncle, when I’m sure! Then we go strong, for all we’re worth, don’t we, Bassett?”

  “We do that, Master Paul.”

  “And when are you sure?” said the uncle, laughing.

  “Oh, well, sometimes I’m absolutely sure, like about Daffodil,” said the boy; “and sometimes I have an idea; and sometimes I haven’t even an idea, have I, Bassett? Then we’re careful, because we mostly go down.”

  “You do, do you! And when you’re sure, like about Daffodil, what makes you sure, sonny?”

  “Oh, well, I don’t know,” said the boy uneasily. “I’m sure, you know, uncle; that’s all.”

  “It’s as if he had it from heaven, sir,” Bassett reiterated.

  “I should say so!” said the uncle.

  But he became a partner. And when the Leger was coming on Paul was “sure” about Lively Spark, which was a quite inconsiderable horse. The boy insisted on putting a thousand on the horse, Bassett went for five hundred, and Oscar Cresswell two hundred. Lively Spark came in first, and the betting had been ten to one against him. Paul had made ten thousand.

  “You see,” he said. “I was absolutely sure of him.”

  Even Oscar Cresswell had cleared two thousand.

  “Look here, son,” he said, “this sort of thing makes me nervous.”

  “It needn’t, uncle! Perhaps I shan’t be sure again for a long time.”

  “But what are you going to do with your money?” asked the uncle.

  “Of course,” said the boy, “I started it for mother. She said she had no luck, because father is unlucky, so I thought if I was lucky, it might stop whispering.”

  “What might stop whispering?”

  “Our house. I hate our house for whispering.”

  “What does it whisper?”

  “Why – why” – the boy fidgeted – “why, I don’t know. But it’s always short of money, you know, uncle.”

  “I know it, son, I know it.”

  “You know people send mother writs, don’t you, uncle?”

  “I’m afraid I do,” said the uncle.

  “And then the house whispers, like people laughing at you behind your back. It’s awful, that is! I thought if I was lucky -”

  “You might stop it,” added the uncle.

  The boy watched him with big blue eyes, that had an uncanny cold fire in them, and he said never a word.

  “Well, then!” said the uncle. “What are we doing?”

  “I shouldn’t like mother to know I was lucky,” said the boy.

  “Why not, son?”

  “She’d stop me.”

  “I don’t think she would.”

  “Oh!” – and the boy writhed in an odd way – “I don’t want her to know, uncle.”

  “All right, son! We’ll manage it without her knowing.”

  They managed it very easily. Paul, at the other’s suggestion, handed over five thousand pounds to his uncle, who deposited it with the family lawyer, who was then to inform Paul’s mother that a relative had put five thousand pounds into his hands, which sum was to be paid out a thousand pounds at a time, on the mother’s birthday, for the next five years.

  “So she’ll have a birthday present of a thousand pounds for five successive years,” said Uncle Oscar. “I hope it won’t make it all the harder for her later.”

  Paul’s mother had her birthday in November. The house had been ‘whispering’ worse than ever lately, and, even in spite of his luck, Paul could not bear up against it. He was very anxious to see the effect of the birthday letter, telling his mother about the thousand pounds.

  When there were no visitors, Paul now took his meals with his parents, as he was beyond the nursery control. His mother went into town nearly every day. She had discovered that she had an odd knack of sketching furs and dress materials, so she worked secretly in the studio of a friend who was the chief “artist” for the leading drapers. She drew the figures of ladies in furs and ladies in silk and sequins for the newspaper advertisements. This young woman artist earned several thousand pounds a year, but Paul’s mother only made several hundreds, and she was again dissatisfied. She so wanted to be first in something, and she did not succeed, even in making sketches for drapery advertisements.

  She was down to breakfast on the morning of her birthday. Paul watched her face as she read her letters. He knew the lawyer’s letter. As his mother read it,
her face hardened and became more expressionless. Then a cold, determined look came on her mouth. She hid the letter under the pile of others, and said not a word about it.

  “Didn’t you have anything nice in the post for your birthday, mother?” said Paul.

  “Quite moderately nice,” she said, her voice cold and hard and absent.

  She went away to town without saying more.

  But in the afternoon Uncle Oscar appeared. He said Paul’s mother had had a long interview with the lawyer, asking if the whole five thousand could not be advanced at once, as she was in debt.

  “What do you think, uncle?” said the boy.

  “I leave it to you, son.”

  “Oh, let her have it, then! We can get some more with the other,” said the boy.

  “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, laddie!” said Uncle Oscar.

  “But I’m sure to know for the Grand National; or the Lincolnshire; or else the Derby. I’m sure to know for one of them,” said Paul.

  So Uncle Oscar signed the agreement, and Paul’s mother touched the whole five thousand. Then something very curious happened. The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening. There were certain new furnishings, and Paul had a tutor. He was really going to Eton, his father’s school, in the following autumn. There were flowers in the winter, and a blossoming of the luxury Paul’s mother had been used to. And yet the voices in the house, behind the sprays of mimosa and almond-blossom, and from under the piles of iridescent cushions, simply trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy: “There must be more money! Oh-h-h; there must be more money. Oh, now, now-w! Now-w-w – there must be more money! – more than ever! More than ever!”

  It frightened Paul terribly. He studied away at his Latin and Greek with his tutor. But his intense hours were spent with Bassett. The Grand National had gone by: he had not “known”, and had lost a hundred pounds. Summer was at hand. He was in agony for the Lincoln. But even for the Lincoln he didn’t “know”, and he lost fifty pounds. He became wild-eyed and strange, as if something were going to explode in him.

  “Let it alone, son! Don’t you bother about it!” urged Uncle Oscar. But it was as if the boy couldn’t really hear what his uncle was saying.