The Rocking Horse Winner

by D. H. Lawrence

There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, but she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had lovely children, but she felt they had been forced on her and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up something wrong in herself. Yet what she must cover up she never knew. Nevertheless, when her children were present, she always felt the centre of her heart go hard. This troubled her and in her way she was more gentle and anxious for her children, as if she loved them very much. Only she knew that at the centre of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody. Everybody else said of her: "She is such a good mother. She adores her children." Only she and her children knew it was not true. They read it in each other's eyes.

There were a boy and two little girls. They lived in a pleasant house, with a garden and they had discreet servants and felt superior to anyone in the neighbourhood.

Although they lived in style, they always felt an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money. The mother had a small income and the father had a small income, but not nearly enough for the social position which they had to keep up. The father went into town to some office. But though he had good prospects, they never materialised. There was always a shortage of money though the style was always kept up.

At last the mother said: "I will see if I can't make something." But she did not know where to begin. She tried this or that thing but could not find anything. The failure made deep lines in her face. Her children were growing up, they would have to go to school. There must be more money, there must be more money. The father, who always had very expensive tastes, seemed as if he never could do anything worth doing. And the mother, who had a great belief in herself, did not succeed any better and her tastes were just as expensive.

And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time though nobody said it aloud. They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart doll's house, a voice would start whispering: "There must be more money! There must be more money!" And the children would stop playing to listen for a moment. They would look into each other's eyes to see if they had all heard. And each one saw in the eyes of the other two that they too had heard. "There must be more money! There must be more money!"

It came whispering from the rocking-horse and even the horse, with his wooden head, heard it. The big doll, sitting so pink and smiling in her new pram, could hear it quite plainly.

Yet nobody ever said it aloud. The whisper was everywhere and therefore no-one spoke it. Just as no-one ever says: 'We are breathing!' although breath is coming and going all the time.

"Mother," said the boy Paul one day, "why don't we keep a car of our own? Why do we always use Uncle's or a taxi?"

"Because we're the poor members of the family," said the mother.

"But why are we, mother?"

"Well - I suppose," she said slowly and bitterly, "it's because your father has no luck."

The boy was silent for some time.

"Is luck money, mother?" he asked, rather timidly.

"No, Paul. Not quite. It's what causes you to have money. If you're lucky, you have money. That's why it's better to be born lucky than rich. If you're rich, you may lose your money. But if you're lucky, you'll always get more."

"Oh! Will you? And isn't Father 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 aren't you lucky either, mother?"

"I can't be. I married an unlucky husband."

"But by yourself, aren't you?"

"I used to think I was, before I married. Now I think I'm 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 bravely, "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 said.

"I hope He did, dear!", she said, again with a laugh.

"He did, mother!"

"Excellent!" said the mother.

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

He went off by himself, vaguely, in a childish way, looking for the clue to 'luck'. Paying no attention to other people, he went about looking 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, riding madly into space, with a frenzy that made the little girls look at him uneasily. 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 at its face. Its red mouth was slightly open, its big eyes were wide and glassy-bright.

"Now!" he would silently command his horse. "Now take me to where there is luck! Now take me!"

And he would hit 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 he forced it. So he would get on it 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 stop!" said his elder sister Joan.

But he only glared down on them in silence. The servant could make nothing of him. Anyhow, he was growing too big for 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.

"Hello, you young jockey! Riding a winner?" said his uncle.

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

But Paul only gave a blue glare from his big eyes. He would speak to nobody when he was riding. His mother watched him with an anxious expression on her face.

At last he suddenly stopped forcing his horse and got down.

"Well, I got there!" he announced fiercely, his blue eyes still wide and his strong long legs 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 stop till you get there. What's the horse's name?"

"He doesn't have a name," said the boy.

"Gets on without one 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 that name?"

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

The uncle was delighted to find that his small nephew knew all the racing news. Bassett, the young gardener, who was wounded in the left foot in the war and had got his present job through Oscar Cresswell, almost lived at the races, and the small boy lived with him.

Oscar Cresswell got it all from Bassett.

"Master Paul comes and asks me, so I have to 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 likes?"

"Well - I don't want to give him away, sir. Would you mind asking him? Perhaps he'd feel I was giving him away, sir, if you don't mind.

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

"Say, Paul, do you ever put anything on a horse?" the uncle asked.

The boy watched the handsome man closely.

"Why, do you think I shouldn't?" he parried.

"Not at all! I thought perhaps you might give me a tip for the Lincoln race."

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

"Well, then, Daffodil."

"Daffodil! I doubt it, son. 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.

"Uncle!"

"Yes, son?"

"You won't tell anyone else, will you? I promised Bassett. We're partners. We've been partners from the first. Uncle, he lent me my first five shillings, which I lost. I promised him, 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 tell anyone, will you?"

The boy gazed at his uncle from those big, hot, blue eyes. The uncle 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? What are you betting then?"

"I'm betting three hundred," said the boy gravely. "But it's between you and me, Uncle Oscar!"

"It's between you and me all right," 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."

Uncle Oscar was silent. He asked no more, but he decided 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 for you on any horse you like. What's your pick?"

"Daffodil, Uncle."

"No, not five on Daffodil!"

"I should if it was my own five pounds," said the child.

"Good! Good! Five for me and five for you on Daffodil."

The child had never been to a race-meeting before, and his eyes were blue fire. A Frenchman just in front had put his money on Lancelot. Wild with excitement, he waved his arms up and down, shouting "Lancelot!, Lancelot!" in his French accent.

Daffodil came in first, Lancelot second, Mirza third. The child, 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."

"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, uncle, not to let it go outside 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 the park for an afternoon, and there they talked.

"It's like this, you see, sir," Bassett said. "Master Paul would get me talking about races, telling stories, you know, sir. And he was always keen on knowing if I'd made money 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 the ten shillings he had from you: that we put on Singhalese. And since that time, it's been pretty steady. 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 lose."

"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."

"Did you put anything on Daffodil?" asked Oscar Cresswell.

"Yes, sir, I made a 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 safely locked up, sir. Master Paul 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.

"You see, it's all right, uncle, when I'm sure!"

"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 got an idea, have I, Bassett? Then we're careful, because we mostly lose."

"You do, do you! And when you're sure, like about Daffodil, what makes you sure, son?"

"Oh, well, I don't know," said the boy uneasily. "I'm sure, uncle; that's all."

"It's as if he had it from heaven, sir," Bassett reiterated.

"I don't think so!" said the uncle.

But he became a partner. And when the Great Race was coming, Paul was 'sure' about Lively Spark, which was an unknown 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 made 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 bills, 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 a cold fire in them, and he never said a word.

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

"I wouldn'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 moved 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 the next five years," said Uncle Oscar. "I hope it won't make it 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 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 a talent for sketching furs and dress materials, so she worked secretly in the studio of a friend who was the chief 'artist' for the leading clothes shops. She drew ladies in furs 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 advertisements.

She was at 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 expressionless. Then a cold, determined look came on her mouth. She hid the letter under the others, and did not say a word about it.

"Didn't you have anything nice in the post for your birthday, mother?" said Paul.

"Quite 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. I'm sure to know for the Grand National. I'm sure to know for one of the races," said Paul.

So Uncle Oscar signed the agreement, and Paul's mother got the whole five thousand. Then something very odd happened. The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like 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, the following autumn. There were flowers in the winter and the luxury Paul's mother had been used to. And yet the voices in the house, behind the flowers simply screamed: "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 his Latin and Greek with his tutor. But his most concentrated 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 Race. 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.

"Leave it alone, son! Don't bother about it!" said Uncle Oscar. But it was as if the boy couldn't really hear what his uncle was saying.

"I've got to know for the Derby Race! I've got to know for the Derby Race!" the child repeated, his big blue eyes blazing with a sort of madness.

His mother noticed how upset he was.

"You'd better go to the seaside. Wouldn't you like to go now to the seaside, instead of waiting? I think you'd better," she said, looking down at him anxiously, her heart oddly heavy because of him.

But the child lifted his blue eyes.

"I couldn't possibly go before the Derby, mother!" he said. "I couldn't possibly!"

"Why not?" she said, her voice becoming heavy when she was opposed. "Why not? You can still go from the seaside to see the Derby with your Uncle Oscar, if that that's what you wish. No need for you to wait here. Besides, I think you care too much about these races. It's a bad sign. My family has been a gambling family, and you won't know till you grow up how much damage it has done. But it has done damage. I shall have to send Bassett away and ask Uncle Oscar not to talk about racing to you, unless you promise to be reasonable about it. Go away to the seaside and forget it!"

"I'll do what you like, mother, so long as you don't send me away till after the Derby," the boy said.

"Send you away from where? Just from this house?"

"Yes," he said, gazing at her.

"You odd child. What makes you care about this house so much, suddenly? I never knew you loved it."

He gazed at her without speaking. He had a secret within a secret, something he had not told even Bassett or his Uncle Oscar.

But his mother, after standing undecided and a little bit sullen for some moments, said: "Very well, then! Don't go to the seaside till after the Derby, if you don't want to. But promise me you won't think so much about horse-racing!"

"Oh no," said the boy casually. "I won't think much about them, mother. You needn't worry. I wouldn't worry, mother, if I were you."

"If you were me and I were you," said his mother, "I wonder what we should do!"

"But you know you needn't worry, mother, don't you?" the boy repeated.

"I should be very glad to know it," she said wearily.

"Oh, well, you can, you know. I mean, you ought to know you needn't worry," he insisted.

"Ought I? Then I'll see about it," she said.

Paul's secret of secrets was his wooden horse, the one which had no name. Since he was free of a nurse, he had had his rocking-horse in his own bedroom at the top of the house.

"Surely you're too big for a rocking-horse!" his mother had complained.

"Well, you see, mother, till I can have a real horse, I like to have some sort of animal about," had been his sweet answer.

"Do you feel he keeps you company?" she laughed.

"Oh yes! He's very good, he always keeps me company, when I'm there," said Paul.

So the horse, rather shabby, stood in the boy's bedroom.

The Derby was drawing near, and the boy grew more and more tense. He hardly heard what was spoken to him, he was very frail. His mother had sudden strange uneasiness about him. Sometimes, for half an hour, she would feel anxious about him. She wanted to rush to him at once and know he was safe.

Two nights before the Derby, she was at a big party in town, when her anxiety about her boy, her first-born, gripped her heart till she could hardly speak. She fought with the feeling for she believed in common sense. But it was too strong. She had to leave the dance and go downstairs to telephone to the country. The servant was startled at being rung up in the night.

"Are the children all right, Miss Wilmot?"

"Oh yes, they are all right."

"Master Paul? Is he all right?"

"He went to bed fine. Shall I run up and look at him?"

"No," said Paul's mother reluctantly. "No! Don't. It's all right. Don't wait. We'll be home fairly soon." She did not want her son to think he was not trusted.

It was about one o'clock when Paul's mother and father drove up to their house. Everything was still. Paul's mother went to her room and took off her white fur coat. She had told her servant not to wait up for her. She heard her husband downstairs, mixing a whisky and soda.

And then, because of the strange anxiety in her heart, she crept upstairs to her son's room. Noiselessly she went along the hall. Was there a faint noise? What was it?

She stood outside his door, listening. There was a strange, heavy and yet not loud noise. Her heart stopped. It was a soundless noise, yet powerful. Something huge in violent silent motion. What was it? She ought to know. She felt that she knew the noise. She knew what it was.

Yet she couldn't say what it was. And on and on it went, like madness.

Softly, she turned the door-handle.

The room was dark. Yet in the space near the window, she heard and saw something moving to and fro. She gazed in fear and amazement. Then suddenly she switched on the light, and saw her son, in his green pyjamas, madly moving on the rocking-horse. The blaze of light suddenly lit him up, as he rode the wooden horse, and lit her up, as she stood in the doorway.

"Paul!" she cried. "Whatever are you doing?"

"It's Malabar!" he screamed in a powerful, strange voice. "It's Malabar!"

His eyes blazed at her for one strange second, as he stopped pushing his wooden horse. Then he fell with a crash to the ground, and she, all her tormented motherhood rushing on her, hurried to pick him up.

But he was unconscious, and unconscious he remained, with some fever. He talked and his mother sat stonily by his side.

"Malabar! It's Malabar! Bassett, Bassett, I know! It's Malabar!"

So the child cried, trying to get up and ride the rocking-horse that gave him his inspiration.

"What does he mean by Malabar?" the heart-frozen mother asked her brother Oscar.

"It's one of the horses running for the Derby," was the answer.

And, in spite of himself, Oscar Cresswell spoke to Bassett and put a thousand on Malabar: at fourteen to one.

The third day of the illness was critical: they were waiting for a change. The boy, with his rather long, curly hair, was moving on the pillow. He neither slept nor regained consciousness, and his eyes were like blue stones. His mother sat, feeling her heart had gone, turned actually into a stone.

In the evening Oscar Cresswell did not come, but Bassett sent a message, saying could he come up for one moment, just one moment? Paul's mother was very angry at the disturbance, but on second thoughts she agreed. The boy was the same. Perhaps Bassett might bring him to consciousness.

The gardener, a shortish fellow with a little brown moustache and sharp little brown eyes, tiptoed into the room, touched his imaginary cap to Paul's mother, and crept to the bedside, staring with smallish eyes at the dying child.

"Master Paul!" he whispered. "Master Paul! Malabar came in first all right, a clean win. I did as you told me. You've made over seventy thousand pounds, you have; you've got over eighty thousand. Malabar came in all right, Master Paul."

"Malabar! Malabar! Did I say Malabar, mother? Did I say Malabar? Do you think I'm lucky, mother? I knew Malabar, didn't I? Over eighty thousand pounds! I call that lucky, don't you, mother? Over eighty thousand pounds! I knew, didn't I know I knew? Malabar came in all right. If I ride my horse till I'm sure, then I tell you, Bassett, you can go as high as you like. Did you go for all you were worth, Bassett?"

"I went a thousand on it, Master Paul."

"I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I'm absolutely sure - oh, absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky!"

"No, you never did," said his mother.

But the boy died in the night.

And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brother's voice saying to her, "My God, Hester, you've won eighty-odd thousand and lost a poor son. But, poor boy, poor boy, he's best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner."