“He did, but surely you are risking, if not your life, your limbs in training inexperienced horses over them?”
“They have to learn some time,” Aldora replied, “and actually the fences are made lower until they gain experience and confidence.”
The Duke was aware that she was conversing with him reluctantly, but, because they were talking about horses, he felt that she must reply truthfully to his question.
After a moment he said,
“I would like to try my own horse over them, but quite frankly, as he is not fully trained and has never jumped anything to my knowledge that is half the height, I am rather reluctant to risk it.”
He was really talking to himself and, as he finished speaking, he expected Aldora to jeer at him for being a coward.
That was what he might anticipate from her, he thought, but to his surprise she said,
“Of course you must not risk your neck or your stallion’s until he has had more experience, but if you would like to try Red Rufus he takes them perfectly and I intend to enter him next year at Liverpool.”
She did not wait for the Duke to agree, but gave the order to one of the stable boys.
A few minutes later he brought to the Duke’s side a large chestnut, which he saw at a glance was not a particularly showy animal, but had the length of leg that would make him a good jumper.
He had not spoken to Aldora while they were waiting, but merely sat looking at the fences, appraising them and calculating exactly the manner in which he should take his mount over each one of them.
When he was in the saddle on Red Rufus, he realised that Aldora had been right in saying that the horse was experienced and completely at home.
He sailed over the jumps with an inch or two to spare in each case and leapt the water-jump with ease.
The whole performance gave the Duke a feeling of exhilaration and he had to admit delight.
Never could he remember taking such high jumps or so many of them in quick succession.
As he trotted back towards Aldora, who was waiting for him, he knew that however abominable she might be he had to be grateful to her for an unusual experience.
“Thank you,” he said. “And again I must congratulate you. I feel sure that Red Rufus will come up to all your expectations.”
“Only if I am fortunate enough to be there,” she replied.
The Duke remounted his own stallion and knew that she was referring once again to her absurd idea that her mother intended him to be her husband.
Because the knowledge annoyed him, he merely lifted his hat and rode away in the direction he had intended to go in the first place.
‘She may be mad in some respects,’ he told himself, ‘but she can certainly ride better than any woman I have ever seen!’
*
There were no ladies at breakfast when the Duke returned to the house and the conversation was entirely on what horses should be backed during the day.
The Duke was already confident that he would win the Stewards’ Cup, but, as he had no wish to shorten the odds against his horse any further, he said very little.
Only when the ladies, looking extremely beautiful in their elegant gowns and carrying small sunshades to protect their complexions, came down the stairs to where the coaches that would carry them to the Racecourse were waiting, did he realise that it would be his duty to see that Fenella backed all the winners.
She was looking exceedingly lovely, wearing again her favourite blue, but her hat was trimmed with pink roses and her sunshade was also decorated with them.
The expression in her eyes told the Duke that she was very much in love with him and that already their love affair had passed the preliminary stage of an exciting flirtation and had embarked on what could, as he knew only too well from the past, become if he was not careful a stormy sea of deep and tempestuous emotion.
Last night had been such a familiar pleasure that he had not thought about it while he was riding.
Now he remembered with a sudden irritation that, even in the most passionate moments of his love-making with Fenella, at the back of his mind he had been uncomfortably aware of Aldora’s condemnation.
He tried to force himself not to think about it and yet in some manner that he could not control, as Fenella looked at him with what he knew all too well was an unmistakable expression of love, he found himself thinking of Aldora.
He saw now to his discomfort that she was one of the party in the same coach as himself.
It was some consolation that she sat as far away from him as it was possible to be and made no attempt to speak to him.
At the same time he found it difficult not to be aware that she was present and knew that if he met her eyes they would be hating him in the same way as they had last night.
It was only when this morning she was talking about horses that she had spoken to him naturally, but coldly and impersonally as if he was a complete stranger.
‘She is spoiling the whole party for me!’ he told himself.
He did not ask himself how one young and uninteresting girl should be capable of such a remarkable feat.
*
There were three miles of twisting dusty lanes before they reached the gates of Goodwood Park and finally drew up in front of the house where there was a large marquee.
The horses were stamping their feet and twitching their tails to avoid the flies under the trees and the Duke saw a green landau with four bays, the postilions in red and white striped jackets.
There were coachmen in similar liveries waiting to convey the Duke of Richmond’s party to the stands.
However the Berkhampton party arrived first and were welcomed by footmen in white and red liveries turned up with silver and turned down with yellow.
They brought drinks for those who needed them and arranged cushions behind the seats of each of the ladies who sat elegantly looking like bouquets of flowers.
Everything at Goodwood was planned to make it seem just a private party taking place in the private park and the Duke found himself agreeing with some of the more effusive newspapers that carried a sporting page.
But he was so interested in the racing and the horses taking part that he invariably found that women, however beautiful, were somewhat of an encumbrance at a Race Meeting.
He was well aware that Fenella, although she was very anxious to please him, knew little or nothing about horses, and was only interested so long as it concerned himself.
This was a characteristic of almost every woman with whom he had had an affaire de coeur, so it did not surprise him.
At the same time he noticed that Aldora, although he was certain that it was highly unconventional, was talking to the jockeys before and after the races and spent her time inspecting the horses in the paddock rather than gossiping in the stands.
As he happened to bump into her in a doorway just before one of the races, he asked, almost as if he could not help himself,
“Have you had any luck?”
“First and second in every race so far!” she replied. “But then I am a red flag to the bookies, as you are a red flag to me!”
He saw her dimples before with her parting shot she hurried away from him.
He thought once again that she should be given a good spanking, kept in the schoolroom and not allowed to associate with grown-ups.
Because he felt a little piqued he sat down beside Fenella as they waited for the horses to go to the Starting Post.
He tried to tell her a little about his own horse, which he was quite certain would win the race and which he had trained himself.
But before he could begin she started to tell him how much he meant to her and to make it very clear that the only conversation that really interested her was one that concerned them both and their feelings towards each other.
The Duke was compelled almost rudely to rise to his feet in the middle of what might have been called a ‘declaration of love’ as the horses were off.
The going w
as rough, but the horses taking part in the race were all exceptionally well trained and, although the Duke was almost certain that he would be the winner, it was a very close finish.
In fact, as they passed the post, he thought that it was a dead heat only to learn with a sense of elation that his horse had won by a nose.
It was one of the most exciting races he had watched for some time.
However there was a distinctly bored note in Fenella’s voice as she asked when it was over,
“Did you win?”
“We are waiting for the judges’ decision,” the Duke said sharply.
He watched her take a tiny mirror from her reticule and he was aware that, like so many other women, she was not interested in the racing, only in the man to whom the horses belonged.
When he reached the gate onto the course, it was to find that amongst the crowd clustered there was Aldora.
She was chatting in what he thought was a far too familiar manner to some disreputable-looking racing characters, who gave a cheer as he appeared, saying,
“Thank you, thank you! We might have known Your Grace’d not fail us!”
“I suppose they backed the winner,” the Duke remarked to Aldora.
“Of course they did!” she replied. “I had a look at Hercules before the race started and I told them that he would win, even though it was a close shave!”
“We be ever so grateful to your Ladyship,” one of the men said. “But then you never fails us. What do you fancy for the next race?”
It annoyed the Duke in a way that surprised him that Aldora should talk of the horses in the next race as if she was familiar with every one of them.
Then she said,
“I cannot tell you for certain until the last moment, but on form it should be Gordon.”
“We’re not interested in form,” one of the men said. “What we wants to know is what you thinks clairvoyant-like. That’s what brings ’ome the bacon!”
As the man said the world ‘clairvoyant’, the Duke looked at Aldora sharply.
He could hardly believe that she was talking gypsy nonsense to these men.
He thought once again that it was extremely reprehensible that she should be wandering about the course instead of sitting in the box beside her mother as she should be doing.
Then, as he was about to tell her so, he decided that it was not his business and the less he had to do with such a tiresome girl the better.
However he noticed that she did not come back to the box to watch the race until all the horses had gone up to the start.
He also thought that he could see her still talking to her disreputable friends long after he had taken his place by Fenella.
Aldora was sitting at the back of the box and he wondered whether it was because she was not particularly interested in seeing what happened in this race.
Then, just as the starter gave the ‘off’ and the horses surged forward, he was aware that Aldora had climbed onto a chair so that she could see over the heads of those in front.
Again he thought it reprehensible behaviour for a young lady, but the Marchioness did not appear to notice what her daughter was doing.
Only when the horses came down the straight and a complete outsider came galloping home a length ahead of the rest of the field did the Duke hear a cheer behind him and know that it came from Aldora.
He could hardly believe that she had been able to tip the winner of this race!
When later he went round to the paddock, he found himself against his better judgement going up to her as she was watching the horses parading for the fourth race and asking,
“Were you lucky last time? I can hardly believe you were!”
She did not look at him, but continued to watch the horses parading past her intently, as she replied,
“Yes, I knew at the last minute that Golden Sunset would win!”
“How did you know?”
There was silence.
Then after a moment the Duke said,
“I asked you a question! How did you know?”
She looked up at him and her voice was quite sincere as she replied,
“I cannot explain it, but it is something I do know and I am seldom wrong!”
“Are you really saying that you can prognosticate clairvoyantly, as your friends said, what is going to be the winner of a race?”
“Only when I have seen the horses and been close to them!”
Aldora spoke as if she was hardly attending to the question and the Duke said sharply,
“Explain it to me, I don’t understand!”
“There is nothing to understand,” Aldora replied. “Either one has what the gypsies call ‘The Eye’ or one has not.”
“And it is something you have?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose it is something I don’t possess!”
She turned her face to look at him as if for the first time and he saw that her eyes, although they were grey, had little flecks of gold in them as if the sunshine had become imprisoned there.
She looked at him for a long moment and he had the strange feeling that she was looking into him rather than at him.
Then she said,
“Because you know a lot about horses and they mean so much to you, it might be possible for you to develop it. But as you do not believe, I think it is very unlikely.”
“Believe what?” the Duke asked.
Unexpectedly Aldora smiled and he saw her dimples.
“That, Your Grace,” she said mockingly, “you must find out for yourself!”
She walked away as if she had dismissed him from her mind.
The Duke found himself thinking that never in his experience had any woman ended a conversation so abruptly or left him when he wanted to go on talking to her.
He did not see Aldora again until after the last race when she came hurrying up to the coach when everybody else was already in it and ready to leave.
As she reached it, she turned round to wave to what appeared to be a large number of her friends.
The Duke heard them cheer her and some of the men waved their hats.
As she sat down in the coach, it moved off and the Duke found himself wondering what the Marchioness thought of her daughter’s behaviour.
Surprisingly she did not seem perturbed or even interested.
*
That night there were thirty guests to join the house party after dinner.
The Duke was not surprised to find that there was a large ballroom attached to the house at the back and an excellent orchestra had come from London.
Fenella was entranced at the thought of being able to dance with him.
“It is something I have longed to do ever since I first saw you,” she purred.
“I can hold you in my arms without having to be on a ballroom floor,” he replied.
“I want both,” she answered, “and I know you dance as you do everything else – divinely!”
There was a little pause before the last three words and an unmistakable innuendo in her voice.
The Duke accepted such compliments as his right and it struck him that, while he had so many talents, it was rather annoying that he did not have ‘The Eye’, as Aldora called it.
He was sure it was all nonsense and he did not believe in magic powers or supernatural happenings of any sort.
And yet it was extraordinary that Aldora should have tipped Golden Sunset, which had started, he discovered later, at forty to one against.
‘There must be some crookery about it,’ he told himself suspiciously.
And yet, if there were, how could a well brought up young debutante, who should be sheltered and cosseted, know anything about it?
As a member of the Jockey Club, he was well aware of the irregular practices that took place on most Racecourses and which were difficult to discern and impossible to prevent.
But he could not believe that any lady could have any knowledge of them.
If however it was some
perceptive instinct that told Aldora what the winners would be, it could doubtless prove a very lucrative gift as obviously some of her dubious admirers on the racecourse had discovered.
“Forty to one!” he murmured to himself.
Then he remembered that nearly every member of the house party had backed the favourite and lost money.
When he saw Aldora at dinner, he saw that once again she was beautifully dressed and her mother had certainly made the best of her looks.
Tonight she was wearing a very pale green gown, the colour of the buds of spring and there was a wreath of leaves on her fair hair.
It somehow gave her an elfin look which made the Duke think that she seemed part of the trees under which he had first met her and that she was more at home out of doors than she was in a ballroom.
He did not know why this thought came to him, except that he could still see her in his mind’s eye taking the immensely high fences she had jumped that morning.
In some way he could not explain she lifted her horse over them as if she gave it wings.
‘I do not want to think about the girl,’ the Duke told himself.
Then he was aware that, as she waltzed around the room with a handsome young Officer in the Brigade of Guards, she was laughing spontaneously and it was a genuine sound that again belonged to the woods or the garden.
When they had finished dancing, Fenella drew him through one of the open windows onto the lawn outside.
Just as he had seen last night before he went to her room, the stars filled the sky, but the moon was bigger than it had been then.
As they walked away from the house and Fenella drew nearer to him, he knew that she was wanting his kisses and as soon as they reached the shadows she would throw herself into his arms.
It passed through his mind that like so many women she was moving too quickly. She should be waiting for his advances and make it more exciting by pretending to be a little reluctant, rather than overeager.
It was then as they reached the other side of a yew hedge that Fenella stopped still and with the moonlight on her face, looked up at him.
“Oh, darling!” she said in a voice that seemed as caressing as if she touched him, “it has been a long, long day before we could be together!”
The Storms Of Love Page 4