Esther Waters | Page 6

Silver Braid, the brown horse, the one that the Demon is riding;
the chestnut is Bayleaf, Ginger is riding him: he won the City and
Suburban. Oh, we did have a fine time then, for we all had a bit on. The
betting was twenty to one, and I won twelve and six pence. Grover won
thirty shillings. They say that John--that's the butler--won a little
fortune; but he is so close no one knows what he has on. Cook wouldn't
have anything on; she says that betting is the curse of servants--you
know what is said, that it was through betting that Mrs. Latch's husband
got into trouble. He was steward here, you know, in the late squire's
time."
Then Margaret told all she had heard on the subject. The late Mr. Latch
had been a confidential steward, and large sums of money were
constantly passing through his hands for which he was never asked for
any exact account. Contrary to all expectation, Marksman was beaten
for the Chester Cup, and the squire's property was placed under the
charge of a receiver. Under the new management things were gone into
more closely, and it was then discovered that Mr. Latch's accounts were
incapable of satisfactory explanation. The defeat of Marksman had hit
Mr. Latch as hard as it had hit the squire, and to pay his debts of honour
he had to take from the money placed in his charge, confidently hoping
to return it in a few months. The squire's misfortunes anticipated the
realization of his intentions; proceedings were threatened, but were
withdrawn when Mrs. Latch came forward with all her savings and
volunteered to forego her wages for a term of years. Old Latch died

soon after, some lucky bets set the squire on his legs again, the matter
was half forgotten, and in the next generation it became the legend of
the Latch family. But to Mrs. Latch it was an incurable grief, and to
remove her son from influences which, in her opinion, had caused his
father's death, Mrs. Latch had always refused Mr. Barfield's offers to do
something for William. It was against her will that he had been taught
to ride; but to her great joy he soon grew out of all possibility of
becoming a jockey. She had then placed him in an office in Brighton;
but the young man's height and shape marked him out for livery, and
Mrs. Latch was pained when Mr. Barfield proposed it. "Why cannot
they leave me my son?" she cried; for it seemed to her that in that
hateful cloth, buttons and cockade, he would be no more her son, and
she could not forget what the Latches had been long ago.
"I believe there's going to be a trial this morning," said Margaret;
"Silver Braid was stripped--you noticed that--and Ginger always rides
in the trials."
"I don't know what a trial is," said Esther. "They are not carriage-horses,
are they? They look too slight."
"Carriage-horses, you ninny! Where have you been to all this
while--can't you see that they are race-horses?"
Esther hung down her head and murmured something which Margaret
didn't catch.
"To tell the truth, I didn't know much about them when I came, but then
one never hears anything else here. And that reminds me--it is as much
as your place is worth to breathe one syllable about them horses; you
must know nothing when you are asked. That's what Jim Story got
sacked for--saying in the 'Red Lion' that Valentine pulled up lame. We
don't know how it came to the Gaffer's ears. I believe that it was Mr.
Leopold that told; he finds out everything. But I was telling you how I
learnt about the race-horses. It was from Jim Story--Jim was my
pal--Sarah is after William, you know, the fellow who brought you into
the kitchen last night. Jim could never talk about anything but the 'osses.
We'd go every night and sit in the wood-shed, that's to say if it was wet;
if it was fine we'd walk in the drove-way. I'd have married Jim, I know
I should, if he hadn't been sent away. That's the worst of being a servant.
They sent Jim away just as if he was a dog. It was wrong of him to say
the horse pulled up lame; I admit that, but they needn't have sent him

away as they did."
Esther was absorbed in the consideration of her own perilous position.
Would they send her away at the end of the week, or that very
afternoon? Would they give her a week's wages, or would they turn her
out destitute to find her way back to London as best she might? What
should she do if they turned her out-of-doors that