Jacob's Ladder

“Come and dine with me, by all means,” Jacob invited, “but I have a few acquaintances here, and if I want any more no doubt I shall be able to pick them up.”

The young man looked at his watch.

“I have an appointment at table number five and a louis to go on number fourteen, in a few minutes,” he declared. “So long.”

Jacob took out his card for the Rooms and the Sporting Club, lunched leisurely with an acquaintance whom he had met on the train coming down, made a few purchases, gambled mildly, with some success, and had just changed and descended for his cocktail before dinner at the Paris when Felixstowe strolled in. He smote Jacob on the back and ordered delectable drinks.

“Your money has the right touch, old bean,” he declared. “It’s the sort that worms its way to glory. I can assure you my little bit went through the croupier’s hands like water. Yours – God bless you, old dear! We’ll drink fizz to-night. To think that if I hadn’t met you I might have been trying the vin ordinaire on my way back!”

“Do I gather that you won?” Jacob asked.

“Thirteen hundred of the best, my pocket Crœsus,” was the jubilant reply. “To-morrow you shall have your pony back – not to-night. Your money brings me luck, Jacob. It’s the stuff I’ve been looking for.”

They made their way into the dining-room, where Felixstowe was greeted by many acquaintances. A bewildering confection in black and white claimed his attention. He rejoined Jacob a moment later with a proposition.

“Couple of little fairies there who’d like to hitch on, Jacob,” he suggested. “Betty Tomlinson’s one, little girl I used to know at the Gaiety. Got a flat in Paris now. The other little thing is an American in the same line of business.”

Jacob shook his head.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d rather not.”

“The hand that pays the reckoning rules the roost,” Felixstowe paraphrased cheerfully. “Wait till I hand ’em the mit. Tell Louis to put a magnum on the ice.”

“Look here, young fellow,” Jacob observed, when his young friend made his joyous return, “just how old are you?”

“Twenty-four,” Lord Felixstowe confided. “And if it’s the wine you are thinking about, don’t you worry. We’ve got it in our blood and we thrive on it. We doubled this little allowance each, the night after we won the regimental polo cup, and I made a hundred and seven against Yorkshire the following day. You should see the governor – a sallow, lean-looking man, without an ounce of colour. He’d drink you under the table before he’d begun to hiccough… You’re not much of a lad for the fillies, what?”

“I find the variety here a little exotic,” Jacob confessed.

“You like the homemade article, eh? Not sure that you ain’t right. Gad, I’m glad I met you!”

Jacob, who might have been dining alone, reciprocated the sentiment as they solemnly toasted one another.

“Look here, old thing,” the young man insisted, “we’re pals. You’ve crossed the Rubicon, so to speak – tipped up the ready at the right moment and started me on the road to fortune. We’ll drop the ‘Mr.’ and the ‘Lord’-ing. Felix and Jacob, eh? Good! My love, Jacob. Come along with me into the Rooms and see me touch up those Johnnies to-night.”

Jacob shook his head.

“I prefer the Club,” he said, “and if you take my advice, you’ll put a thousand in your pocketbook and have a flutter with the three hundred.”

“Jacob,” the young man declared, “I feel to-night as though Jove had looked down from Olympus and winked the other eye at me. You get me? I feel in luck, steeped in the magic of it; couldn’t do wrong, couldn’t pick a loser if I tried. Seven times in eleven spins of the wheel number fourteen came up this afternoon, and to-night I can see number twenty-nine just the same way. Number five table, Jacob, that I’m going to hit. The croupier who’ll be on at ten o’clock has a sort of double squint. I’ll send him to the vaults, sure as this Pommery is about the best tipple I ever drank… Aren’t you going to have a flutter yourself?”

“Gambling doesn’t appeal very much to me,” Jacob admitted.

The young man who desired to be called Felix sighed.

“Doesn’t gamble,” he mused, “drinks moderately, and likes his fairies good. Jacob dear, I must introduce you some day to the home circle. You were certainly made for domesticity. Did you tell Cook’s man about yourself when you booked for Monte Carlo?”

“I told him that I’d heard it was a good place for winter golf,” Jacob replied, smiling. “If you’ve finished talking nonsense, perhaps you will bring your mighty intellect to bear upon the question of liqueur brandies.”

“Are you feeling at all festive?” Felixstowe enquired.

“Absolutely,” Jacob answered.

“Then consult Louis and leave it to him. You know what Pierpont Morgan called Monte Carlo? – ‘the bleeding place for millionaires.’ Louis will see you through it.”

The dinner came to a close in a little burst of glory, Louis himself bringing them a dust-encrusted bottle, whilst a satellite placed before them two glasses which looked like the insides of chandeliers.

“The right stuff,” Lord Felixstowe declared approvingly. “Trust Louis.”

“Who trusts no one, my lord,” the maître d’hotel jested, with a bow.

“You won’t even leave the bottle?” his youthful client implored.

“Not even for the son of my valued patron, Monsieur le Marquis,” Louis replied, bearing it off, smiling.

“I go like a giant to my task,” the young man declared, as he bade Jacob au revoir. “Prepare for great news.”…

Jacob spent a pleasant and a harmless evening wandering about the Sporting Club, winning and losing a few five-louis plaques, and sitting for a while outside the Café de Paris. He went to bed early, with a view to a golf match on the morrow, and was wakened by a dead weight upon his shins. He sat up and found Felixstowe sitting on the bed, regarding him sorrowfully.

“Hullo!” Jacob exclaimed. “Where are the spoils?”

The young man opened his lips and spoke illuminating words concerning Monte Carlo, gambling generally, number five table in the Rooms, and the squint-eyed croupier particularly. In conclusion, he referred to himself in terms, if possible, even more lurid. By the time he had finished, Jacob was thoroughly awake.

“Lend me ten louis, old chap, for the journey,” his nocturnal visitor begged. “You’ll have to wait for your pony.”

“Take it off the dressing table,” Jacob replied. “What’s the hurry?”

“I’m off in three hours’ time. Catching the early morning train.”

Jacob hesitated for a moment.

“Look here, Felix,” he suggested, “if you’d like to have another go at them – ”

Felixstowe shook his head.

“I’m not built that way,” he interrupted. “I’ve given them best this time. You see,” he went on, “it’s a mug’s game, after all, and meant for mugs. I shall wait and pick up my little bit where the grey matter talks, what?”

“I see,” Jacob replied. “Perhaps you are right. Sorry to lose you, though.”

“I’ll look you up in town,” the young man promised.

CHAPTER XV

Jacob lingered for a month in Monte Carlo. While he found little to attract him in the gambling or the social side of the place, the glorious climate, the perpetual sunshine, the fine air of La Turbie, and a pleasing succession of golf victories helped him to pass the time pleasantly. He spent a week at Cannes on the way back, making wonderful progress in his tennis, and from there he hired a motor-car and spent a fortnight at Aix. He reached London early in May, to find Dauncey unchanged and his own affairs prosperous. During all this time he had had no word of or from Sybil Bultiwell. He went almost directly to his cottage at Marlingden, where he found Mrs. Harris eagerly awaiting his arrival, and over the supper table, Dauncey and he and a rejuvenated Nora talked over that evening when the two men had arrived home in the motor-car, laden with strange packages and overflowing with their marvellous news.

“Life has been so wonderful ever since,” Nora murmured. “Dick looks ten years younger, and I feel it. The children you can see for yourself. I wonder,” she went on a little timidly, as she realised her host’s peculiar aversion to expressed gratitude, “I wonder whether you ever realise, Jacob, what it means to have taken two people from a struggle which was becoming misery and to have made them utterly and completely happy.”…

Jacob thought of her words as he lingered for an hour in his little sitting-room that night. His own memory travelled backwards. He realised the joy which he had felt at paying his debts, the even greater joy of saving the Daunceys from despair. He thought again of the small pleasures which his affluence had brought, the sense of complacency, almost of dignity, which it had engendered. There were many men, he knew, who thought him the most fortunate amongst all their acquaintance. And was he, he wondered? He looked across at the light in the Daunceys’ bedroom and saw it extinguished. He looked back with a sigh to his empty room. He had read many books since the days of his prosperity, but books had never meant very much to him. He realised, in those moments of introspection, his weakness and his failure. His inclinations were all intensely human. He loved kind words, happy faces, flowers and children. He was one of those for whom the joys and gaieties of the demimonde were a farce, to whom the delights of the opposite sex could only present themselves in the form of one person and in one manner. He was full of sentiments, full of easily offended prejudices. Fate had placed in his hands the power to command a life which might have been as varied as grand opera, and all that he desired was the life which Dauncey had found and was living.

Upstairs were the Harrises, sleeping together in comfort and happiness, the creatures of his bounty, his grateful and faithful servants. And he knew well how both of those two across the way, whom he envied, blessed his name. It was a happiness to think of them, and yet an impersonal happiness. He longed humanly for the other and more direct kind.

Dauncey found cause for some anxiety in Jacob’s demeanour during the course of the next few weeks.

“You know, Jacob,” he said, “in one way I never saw you look so well in your life. That bronze you got in the south of France is most becoming, and, if you’ll forgive my saying so, you seem to have gained poise lately, to have lost that slight self-consciousness with which you looked out upon life just at first. And yet you don’t look as I’d like to see you. I haven’t even heard you laugh as you used to.”

Jacob nodded.

“I’m all right, Dick,” he assured his friend. “Fact is, I think I am suffering from a surfeit of good things. Everything in the world’s lying ready to my hands, and I don’t quite know which way to turn.”

“Did you hear anything of Miss Bultiwell while you were abroad?” Dauncey asked a little abruptly.

“Not a word,” Jacob replied. “Her last letter to me seemed to end things pretty effectually.”

Dauncey spoke words under his breath which were real and blasphemous.

“Can’t you put her out of your thoughts, old chap?”

“I think I have, and yet the place where she was is empty. And, Dick,” Jacob went on, “I don’t know where or how to fill it. You see, I’ve crowds of acquaintances, but no friends except you and Nora. One or two rich city people ask me to their houses, and the whole of Bohemia, I suppose, is open to me. I never see any women belonging to my city friends who appeal in the least to my imagination, and there’s something wrong about the other world, so far as I am concerned. We are not out for the same thing.”

“I think I understand,” Dauncey said quietly.

“I expect you do,” Jacob continued. “You ought to, because you’re exactly where I want to be. I want a wife who is just good and sweet and affectionate. She needn’t be clever, she needn’t be well-born, and she need know no more about Society than I do. I want her just to make a home and give me children. And, Dick, with all that million of mine I don’t know where to look for her.”

“She’ll come,” Dauncey declared encouragingly. “She is sure to come. You are young and you’ll keep young. You live like a man, of course, but it’s a sober, self-respecting life. You’ve heaps of time. And that reminds me. Could you join us in a little celebration to-night? My wife has a cousin from the country staying with her, and I have promised to take them out to dine and to a show.”

“I have nothing to do,” Jacob replied. “I shall be delighted.”

It was a little too obvious. Nora’s cousin from the country, a very nice and estimable person in her way, was not equal to the occasion. She wore her ill-fitting clothes without grace or confidence. She giggled repeatedly, and her eyes seldom left Jacob’s, as though all the time she were bidding for his approval. She was just well enough looking and no more, the sort of woman who would have looked almost pretty on her wedding day, a little dowdy most of the time during the next five years, and either a drudge or a nuisance afterwards, according to her circumstances. Jacob was very polite and very glad when the evening was over. His host wrung his hand as they parted.

“Not my fault, old chap,” he whispered. “Nora would try it. She hadn’t seen Margaret for three or four years.”

“That’s all right, Dick,” Jacob answered, with unconvincing cheerfulness. “Very pleasant time.”

Jacob had endured a cheap dinner at a popular restaurant and circle seats at a music hall with uncomplaining good humour, but the evening, if anything, had increased his depression. He wandered into one of the clubs of which he was a member, only to find there was not a soul there whom he had ever seen before in his life. He came out within half an hour, but a spirit of unrest had seized him. Instead of going up to his rooms, he wandered into the foyer of the great hotel, in the private part of which his suite was situated, and watched the people coming out from supper. Again, as he sat alone, he was conscious of that feeling of isolation. Every man seemed to be accompanied by a woman who for the moment, at any rate, was content to give her whole attention to the task of entertaining her companion. There were little parties, older people some of them, but always with that connecting link of friendship and good-fellowship. Jacob sat grimly back in the shadows and watched. Perhaps it would have been better, he thought, if he had remained a poor traveller. He would have found some little, hardly used, teashop waitress, or perhaps the daughter of one of his customers, or a little shopgirl whom he had hustled in the Tube, – some one whose life might have touched his and brought into it the genial flavour of companionship. As it was —

“If it isn’t Mr. Pratt!”

He started. One of the very smartest of the little crowd who flowed around him had paused before his chair. He rose to his feet.

“Lady Powers!” he exclaimed.

“Ancient history,” she confided. “I have been married weeks – it seems ages. This is my husband – Mr. Frank Lloyd.”

Jacob found himself shaking hands with a vacuous-looking youth who turned away again almost immediately to speak to some acquaintances.

“You don’t bear me any ill-will, Mr. Pratt?”

“None except that broken dinner engagement,” he replied.

“I wrote to you,” she reminded him. “I did not dare to come after the way those others had behaved.”

He sighed. “All the same I was disappointed.”

She made a little grimace. Her husband was bidding farewell to his friends. She leaned towards him confidentially.

“Perhaps if I had,” she whispered, “there would have been no Mr. Frank Lloyd.”…

Back to his chair and solitude. Jacob made his way presently through the darkened rooms and passages to his own apartments, where a servant was waiting for him, the evening papers were laid out, whisky and soda and sandwiches were on the sideboard. His valet relieved him of his dresscoat and smoothed the smoking jacket around him.

“Anything more I can do for you to-night, sir?”

Jacob looked around the empty room, looked at his luxurious single easy-chair, at all the resources of comfort provided for him, and shook his head.

“Nothing, Richards,” he answered shortly. “Good night!”

“Good night, sir!”

Jacob subsided into the easy-chair, filled his pipe mechanically, lit and smoked it mechanically, knocked out the ashes when he had finished it, turned out the lights and passed into his bedroom, undressed and went to bed, still without any interest or thought for what he was doing. When he found himself still awake in a couple of hours’ time, he took himself to task fiercely.

“This is liver,” he muttered. “I shall now relax, take twelve deep breaths, and sleep.”

Which he did.

CHAPTER XVI

Spring came, and Jacob found the monotony of life relieved by a leisurely motor trip through the south of England, during which he stopped to play golf occasionally at various well-known courses. He returned to London in June, and on the second day of Ascot he came across Felixstowe, for the first time since their meeting in Monte Carlo. The young man’s greeting was breezy and devoid of any embarrassment. The little matter of the pony did not appear to trouble him.

“Jacob, old heart!” he exclaimed, leaning on his malacca cane and pushing his silk hat a little farther back on his head. “God bless you, my bloated capitalist! Three times have I rung up your office in vain. Where have you been to, these days?”

“Getting about as usual,” was the modest reply. “In the country, as a matter of fact, for the last few weeks.”

The young man considered his friend’s attire and nodded approvingly.

“Quite the Ascot touch,” he observed. “You can’t get the perfect sweep of the coat with your figure, but on the whole your man’s done you proud. Here alone?”

“Quite alone.”

“Tell you what, then, I’ll introduce you to my people. Best leg forward, old buck.”

Jacob followed his guide back through the tunnel, into the stand, up the stairs, and into a box on the second tier. The introduction was informal.

“Mother, want to introduce a pal – Mr. Jacob Pratt – Marchioness of Delchester – my sister, Lady Mary – dad. Now you know the family. What’s doing up here?”

The Marchioness, a handsome, thin-faced lady of advanced middle age, whose Ascot toilette was protected from the possible exigencies of the climate by an all-enclosing dust coat, held out her hand feebly and murmured a word of greeting. The Marquis, a tall, spare person, with aquiline nose and almost hawklike features, welcomed him with a shade of dubiousness. Jacob felt a little thrill, however, as he bowed over Lady Mary’s fingers. Her eyes were blue, and though her complexion was fairer and her manner more gracious, there was something in the curve of her lips which reminded him of Sybil.

“Do tell me, do you know anything for the next race, Mr. Pratt?” she asked. “I had such a rotten day yesterday.”

“I’m not a racing man,” Jacob replied, “but I was told that Gerrard’s Cross was a good thing.”

There was a general consultation of racing cards. The Marquis studied the starting board through his glasses.

“Gerrard’s Cross is a starter,” he announced, “ridden by Brown, colours brown and green. Belongs to Exminster, I see. Nine to one they seem to be offering in the ring.”

“I want a sovereign on,” Lady Mary decided. “Hurry, Jack!”

“Nothing doing, child of my heart,” the young man sighed. “Cleaned out my pocketbook last race.”

The young lady turned to her parents, who both seemed suddenly absorbed in the crowd below.

“Bother!” she exclaimed. “And the numbers are up already!”

“Will you allow me?” Jacob ventured, producing his pocketbook and handing a five-pound note to Felixstowe. “You’ll have to hurry.”

Lady Mary smiled at him sweetly and abandoned a furtive attempt to open her bag.

“Do you go to many race meetings, Mr. Pratt?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Very few,” he answered. “As a matter of fact, this is my first Ascot.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“Are you an American, then, or Colonial?”

“No, I am English, but it is only during the last year or so that I have had any time or money to spare for amusements of this sort.”

“How interesting!” she murmured a little vaguely. “Now tell me, have they started? We must watch.”

The race was a good one. In the last stretch, Gerrard’s Cross came away and won easily by three lengths. There was a scene of measured enthusiasm in the little box.

“Your horse has won, my dear,” the Marquis informed his daughter, lowering his glasses. “I congratulate you.”

The Marchioness indicated her approval by a more or less genial smile. Lady Mary’s blue eyes danced with pleasure.

“You dear person, Mr. Pratt!” she exclaimed. “This is my first winner, and I did want one so badly. I wonder what price Jack will get.”

The young man returned presently with a bundle of notes in his hand.

“Nines I got,” he announced. “Here’s your fiver, Jacob. Forty-five of the best for you, Mary. Lucky old dear!”

The girl grasped the notes joyfully.

“But surely these aren’t all mine? I said one pound. Some of this must belong to Mr. Pratt?”

Jacob shook his head, interrupting Felixstowe’s reluctant confirmation.

“Not at all,” he protested politely. “As a matter of fact, I have won a great deal of money myself on the race. I gave your brother a five-pound note because I could not find a smaller one. So much the better for you.”

The girl gave a little sigh of content. Jacob, turning around, was suddenly aware of a look of relief on the part of her distinguished father and mother. The latter smiled approvingly at Jacob, who was preparing to take his leave.

“You must come and call some afternoon, Mr. Pratt,” she said graciously. “We shall be glad to see you in Belgrave Square.”

“I shall be very pleased,” Jacob replied.

“And thank you,” Lady Mary whispered.

Jacob had made his farewells; he had almost reached the door. Felixstowe, leaning towards his mother, whispered behind his hand, “Millionaire! Rolling in it!”

The Marchioness was a woman of rare presence of mind. She addressed the departing guest quite softly, with no signs of flurry, but with a new note of graciousness. Jacob paused upon the threshold.

“Mr. Pratt,” she invited, “won’t you come and dine with us one evening? I know how men hate afternoon calls. Next Thursday night, at eight o’clock?”

“Do come,” Lady Mary begged, still grasping her notes.

“Very glad to see you, Mr. Pratt,” the Marquis added, with a little bow which was a model of deportment.

Felixstowe walked down the wooden stairs with his departing guest, who had murmured his grateful acceptance.

“You’ve hit it up all right with the old folks at home,” he confided. “Between you and me, that forty-five quid is about the only ready there is in the house. Bet you they’re snaffling it at the present moment. What a life it must be to have plenty of the dibs, Jacob! So long, old bean. See you Thursday. Hullo, what’s that?”

The two men looked back up the wooden staircase. Lady Mary was slowly descending towards them.

“I am to be taken for a walk,” she announced sedately, “on the lawn, if possible. And if either of you feel inclined to save the life of a young girl, perhaps you will give her something cool to drink.”

Jacob hesitated for a moment, but Lady Mary’s smile so obviously included him that he ventured to remain. They crossed the lawn and found an empty table within hearing of the band. Jacob ordered strawberries and cream, ice cream and champagne cup with reckless prodigality. The girl laughed softly.

“How deliciously greedy it all sounds,” she murmured, “and how much nicer this is than that stuffy box! – Jack!”

Felixstowe, however, was on his feet, waving to some one in the distance.

“There’s Nat Pooley!” he exclaimed. “Knows every winner to a cert. I’ve been looking for him all day. Look after my sister, Pratt, old thing.”

He dived into the crowd and disappeared. Lady Mary smiled at her companion.

“I am foist upon you, Mr. Pratt,” she said.

“I am very much the gainer,” he assured her. “I was feeling unusually lonely when I met your brother.”

“Well, I’ve had rather a stuffy time of it myself,” she acknowledged. “You see, I have on a new dress, and mother was afraid it was going to rain. And then Jack deserted us, and there was no one for me to come out with. How do you like my frock, Mr. Pratt?”