The afternoon wore on, and he saw nothing of his daughter. It was as if she suspected his design of watching over her. There was the ‘horse of the century’ running in the Gold Cup, and he positively mustn’t miss that – they said. So again Soames was led to the ring where the horses were moving round.
‘That the animal?’ he said, pointing to a tall mare, whom, by reason of two white ankles, he was able to distinguish from the others. Nobody answered him, and he perceived that he was separated from Winifred and the Cardigans by three persons, all looking at him with a certain curiosity.
‘Here he comes!’ said one of them. Soames turned his head. Oh! So this was the horse of the century, was it? – this bay fellow – same colour as the pair they used to drive in the Park Lane barouche. His father always had bays, because old Jolyon had browns, and Nicholas blacks, and Swithin greys, and Roger – he didn’t remember what Roger used to have – something a bit eccentric – piebalds, he shouldn’t wonder. Sometimes they would talk about horses, or, rather, about what they had given for them: Swithin had been a judge, or so he said – Soames had never believed it, he had never believed in Swithin at all. But he could perfectly well remember George being run away with by his pony in the Row, and pitched into a flower-bed – no one had ever been able to explain how; just like George, with his taste for the grotesque! He himself had never taken any interest in horses. Irene, of course, had loved riding – she would! She had never had any after she married him…. A voice said:
‘Well, what do you think of him, Uncle Soames?’
Val, with his confounded grin; Jack Cardigan, too, and a thin, brown-faced man with a nose and chin. Soames said guardedly:
‘Nice enough nag.’
If they thought they were going to get a rise out of him!
‘Think he’ll stay, Val? It’s the deuce of a journey.’
‘He’ll stay all right.’
‘Got nothing to beat,’ said the thin brown man.
‘The Frenchman, Greenwater.’
‘No class, Captain Cardigan. He’s not all the horse they think him, but he can’t lose today.’
‘Well, I hope to God he beats the Frenchman; we want a cup or two left in the country.’
Something responded within Soames’s breast If it was against a Frenchman, he would do his best to help.
‘Put me five pounds on him,’ he said suddenly to Jack Cardigan.
‘Good for you, Uncle Soames. He’ll start about evens. See his head and his forehead and the way he’s let down – lots of heart room. Not quite so good behind the saddle, but a great horse, I think.’
‘Which is the Frenchman?’ asked Soames. ‘That! Oh! Ah! I don’t like him. I want to see this race.’
Jack Cardigan gripped his arm – the fellow’s fingers were like iron.
‘You come along with me!’ he said. Soames went, was put up higher than he had been yet, given Imogen’s glasses – a present from himself – and left there. He was surprised to find how well and far he could see. What a lot of cars, and what a lot of people! ‘The national pastime’ – didn’t they call it? Here came the horses walking past, each led by a man. Well I They were pretty creatures, no doubt! An English horse against a French horse – that gave the thing some meaning. He was glad Annette was still with her mother in France, otherwise she’d have been here with him. Now they were cantering past. Soames made a real effort to tell one from the other, but except for their numbers, they were so confoundedly alike. ‘No,’ he said to himself, ‘I’ll just watch those two, and that tall horse’ – its name had appealed to him, Pons Asinorum. Rather painfully he got the colours of the three by heart and fixed his glasses on the wheeling group out there at the starting-point. As soon as they were off, however, all he could see was that one horse was in front of the others. Why had he gone to the trouble of learning the colours? On and on and on he watched them, worried because he could make nothing of it, and everybody else seemed making a good deal. Now they were round into the straight. “The favourite’s coming up!’ ‘Look at the Frenchman!’ Soames could see the colours now. Those two! His hand shook a little and he dropped his glasses. Here they came – a regular ding-dong I Dash it – he wasn’t – England wasn’t! Yes, by George ! No!
Yes! Entirely without approval his heart was beating painfully. ‘Absurd!’ he thought. “The Frenchman!’ ‘No! the favourite wins! He wins!’ Almost opposite the horse was shooting out. Good horse! Hooray! England for ever! Soames covered his mouth just in time to prevent the words escaping. Somebody said something to him. He paid no attention; and, carefully putting Imogen’s glasses into their case, took off his grey hat and looked into it. There was nothing there except a faint discoloration of the buff leather where he had perspired.