The Merest Loss

by Steven Neil

  Seated around a table are Jean Mocquard, Tom Olliver, Nathaniel Strode and Jem Mason. It is a pleasant surprise. He takes them in. Jean looks much as he has always done, although a walking stick assists his stiffening movement. Tom is wiry and youthful still, only slightly round-shouldered and stooped. Nathaniel oozes a languid, effortless charm, sinking back into his seat, with an arm draped along the back of the seat beside him. Jem has the upright swagger, but, facially, he looks drawn, with exaggerated crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and sunken cheeks. Martin regards “Oncle” Jean and Tom as his most trusted friends. Strode is a new acquaintance, but they have already shared several agreeable lunches and Martin is drawn to Strode’s sharp brain and ready wit. Of course, he knows that Jem’s attendance forms part of the grand plan to bring Jem and Harriet back together.

  The way Tom and Martin have it, by the time the plan is achieved Jem and Martin will also be friends. After that, well, they will just have to see how matters unfold. In the meantime, here sit the two men, linked to the same woman, who may or may not be father and son and who have ploughed separate furrows throughout their lives, Harriet making such a fine job of protecting her son from the outside world and such a success of keeping her relationship with Jem a secret that they barely knew of each other’s existence until Martin came looking. If Jem thought of Martin at all, it was as Francis Mountjoy-Martin’s son. It never crossed his mind to question it. Now, brought together as co-conspirators, they enjoy each other’s company. They discuss horses, hunting, books (both share a love of Smith-Surtees), theatre, music and tailors – the similarities of view are uncanny. And when Jem looks at himself in the large wall mirror as he crosses the restaurant and thirty minutes later watches Martin do the same, even he cannot miss what everyone else sees.

  ***

  At the beginning of September, Tom invites Martin to call at Wroughton to finalise the details of the race they are aiming at for Ely. Tom has news to impart.

  ‘Count Frederic Lagrange has let it be known that his filly, Fille de l’Air, is unbeatable at Doncaster for the Champagne Stakes.’

  ‘Best avoided then. Do we have an alternative?’

  ‘On the contrary. Ely is flying. The Count will accommodate any match bet we care to propose and lay us generous odds. The bet will be struck in Paris with his agent. Jem’s man there will look after the commission. We can take our profit without even troubling the bookmakers here – though, of course, we’ll do that as well.’

  ‘You are confident?’

  ‘Never more.’

  ***

  The day dawns at Doncaster. The racecourse is just outside the town on the old Town Moor. The race is over seven furlongs; the going is good but not firm and there are only four runners. The weather looks set fair and Tommy Aldcroft is booked to ride. Ely’s work before the race, on the gallops above Wroughton, is nothing short of sparkling and the commissions are in place. Tom travels Ely to Doncaster the day before, with his head lad, Harry O’Brien. He tells Harry to sleep in the box with Ely and to let no one else near him.

  ***

  In the morning, at breakfast, Martin meets Tom at the Mount Pleasant hotel for a briefing on the day ahead.

  ‘We’ll walk the course before racing,’ says Tom. ‘Whatever happens, we’ll track the French filly. I am sure she’ll come up the stand rails. She slightly favours her off fore lead and if she comes off a straight line she’ll move right-handed. We’ll come on her near side.’

  Martin is impressed. It is the attention to detail that makes Tom the trainer he is. Nothing is left to chance. By the time the horses line up at the start, Martin is bursting with confidence. There is confidence, though, in another quarter and the buzz around the track all day is that Count Lagrange’s Fille de l’Air has been “catching pigeons” on the gallops. At the off, Lagrange’s filly is made evens favourite; Linda, ridden by Tom Chaloner and coming off a brilliant win at York last time, is 5/4; and Ely, despite the commissions, still trades at 10/1. Rouge Crosse is any price.

  When the flag falls, all the horses break evenly. Fille de l’Air makes the early running, with Linda just behind. Ely and Rouge Crosse sit at the back of the field. They go a steady pace and none of the jockeys shows their hand. At the four-furlong marker, Martin looks across to Tom, seeking encouragement, but Tom’s face is impassive. All the jockeys hold position until Chaloner, on Linda, decides to kick for home with two furlongs to go. Rouge Crosse drops away quickly and Fille de l’Air and Ely move readily in behind Linda. The winner can only come from these three horses as they go clear. Entering the final furlong, Fille de l’Air breezes past and her jockey, Watkins, moves his mount onto the rails, takes a look over his shoulder and sees Ely three lengths down and making no impression. The crowd roars as the favourite quickens away.

  ‘We’re beat,’ says Martin.

  ***

  At Beauregard next day, Harriet waits at the window of the small drawing room, doodling on a notepad and jumping each time she hears the sound of wheels on gravel, hoping the afternoon mail carriage will bring a copy of The Sporting Life with the vital result. Tom offers a private messenger or a telegraph, but she refuses.

  ‘I will only believe it when I see it in print,’ she says.

  The Sporting Life, Wednesday 17th September 1863

  ELY TAKES THE AIR

  A shock result at Doncaster in the Champagne Stakes yesterday, when the colt, Ely, in only his second racecourse appearance, floored the well-backed favourite Fille de l’Air by a comfortable two lengths under a confident Thomas Aldcroft. The favourite looked sure to win, when sent clear entering the final furlong, but Ely showed a remarkable turn of foot to collar the leader with one hundred yards to run and win going away. Fille de l’Air was widely touted as the best two-year-old of the year and already supported for the Guineas and the Oaks next year. Her owner, Count Frederic Lagrange, would not hear of defeat before the race. If reports are to be believed, Ely landed somewhere in the order of thirty thousand pounds in bets here and in France, with a large part arising from a direct match wager between the Count and Ely’s owner, William Cartwright. It is thought to be one of the biggest gambles ever landed. It was Tom Olliver’s greatest success since relocating from Newmarket to Wroughton and it looks like he will be as good a trainer as he was a jockey, having won the Grand National three times in his riding days.

  ***

  That is not the half of it. Jean Mocquard finds himself the owner of a splendid townhouse, near the beach, in the new resort of Deauville. Princess Mathilde displays an ostentatious, diamond brooch, styled in the shape of a rose, on her décolletage. Matters of taste are, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Even Nathaniel Strode, not best known for taking risks, buys his fiancée an unexpected gift: a five-carat, yellow diamond, gold ring.

  A celebration seems in order. Of course, William Cartwright organises a party at Wroughton for Tom and all the stable staff and jockeys involved, but Tom and Martin have another, more intimate soiree in mind and arrangements are made to hold the event at the Château de Beauregard a few days later. Jean Mocquard and his wife, Marie-Anne, Nathaniel Strode and his fiancée, Eleanor, Lavinia, Mellie, Tom, Martin, Jem and Harriet are all in attendance. Only Princess Mathilde and guest are absent. The Princess does, however, send a rather large quantity of champagne by way of an apology. It is a relaxed affair. Tom admits he is more relieved than anything. Anyone in racing knows that it is one thing to plan a coup like theirs, but quite another to pull it off. However confident Tom was, beforehand, he admits only now that his nerves were shot by the day of the race.

  ‘You did a good job of covering that up,’ says Martin.

  ‘Never in doubt,’ says Jem. ‘Tommy Aldcroft told me he always knew he was going to win.’

  The champagne and canapés are served in the dining room at midday, but the weather proves unseasonably warm and a last-minute dec
ision is made to take lunch in the orchard. Trestles are brought out, linen is draped over them and assorted chairs are assembled. Flagons of wine and vases of flowers from the rose garden are placed on the tables. The wine flows. There is a toast to Tom, then another and another. Speeches are made. There is a toast to William Cartwright; another to Tommy Aldcroft; another to Ely. More wine flows. More speeches are made. As the debris from the meal is cleared away, three musicians from the village arrive and start up some Breton jigs. There is dancing, after a fashion.

  Late in the afternoon and with a hazy heat still in the sun, the ten revellers splinter into smaller groups. In the distance, they hear the faint sound of the musicians, leading staff who live out in an impromptu parade back to the village. Nearby, bees hum happily in the flower borders and hedgerows. Jean sleeps soundly in a wicker chair. Mellie and Lavinia lie in adjacent hammocks and tell each other stories about their very different lives since schooldays. Marie-Anne, Nathaniel and Eleanor speak fluently in French to one another. Jem and Harriet walk arm in arm into the meadow beyond and disappear from view. Martin and Tom look on, pleased with their work.

  ‘We did it,’ says Tom.

  ‘We did. Thank you.’

  ***

  In October, Jem and Harriet check into the Hotel Bristol in Paris for a few days. They attend Bizet’s new opera, The Pearl Fishers, at the Theatre Lyrique on Place du Chatelet. The following day, they walk in the parks, stroll the boulevards and stop in cafés for coffee and cognac. In the afternoon, they buy each other expensive presents in the boutiques on the rue du Bac. They dine at Maison Dorée.

  ‘Look at us,’ Harriet says. ‘We are almost like a couple.’

  Thirty-Two

  In the Final Furlong

  La Celle-Saint-Cloud and Paris, France

  London and Ascot, England

  1864

  2 Ferry Lane

  Norwich

  Dear Eliza

  I hardly know what to say. Martin visited us this morning and what a pleasant young person he is. It would have been wonderful if you had been with him, but we are used to your absence now and have grown accustomed to it. Please don’t concern yourself on our account. Your poor dear parents have little time left and we are just grateful for any small mercies that come our way.

  Anyway, Martin was the perfect gentleman and I suppose he has learned all these fine manners from growing up with princes. He is on some search or other. He was very vague about the details and what he did say quite bewildered your poor father and me, but I’m sure he will resolve things as he seems a very clever young man. I’ve no idea where he acquired his intelligence, although, of course, he inherits his looks from you.

  I suppose it would be quite pointless of me to ask when you might visit us, but I will, nonetheless. Please let me know when you are next in England. Your poor father and I dream of the day you might be with us again.

  Mama

  ***

  Château de Beauregard

  La Celle-Saint-Cloud

  Dearest Mama

  Thank you for your lovely letter. It was a joy to hear from you. Martin is making his own way in life now and is very much his own man. I am very proud of him, as you might imagine. I know you are very disparaging about Tom Olliver, but he has been the most marvellous friend and advisor to Martin and I cannot thank him enough. As you know, Martin has reached his twenty-first year and will be striking out independently from now on. I am sorry that I have no plans to be in England soon. I very much hoped that you would join me here, but, of course, it is your choice to stay where you are. Mellie is a tremendous comfort to me and we spend a great deal of time talking about the old days.

  God bless you.

  Your loving daughter.

  Eliza

  ***

  At the Château de Beauregard, Jem is a regular visitor. He and Harriet are still taking things slowly, as if they must go through the phases of courtship all over again. It is Jem who eventually moves things along, arriving one day with a more than usually serious look about him. He seems preoccupied, nervous even. It becomes clear that he has a script prepared.

  ‘No more excuses. No more arguments. No more games. I am here for good, if you will have me. The fault has been mine. You have always been true. I know that now.’

  ‘I want you to be sure,’ she says. ‘There is no going back. We have one chance.’

  ‘I know it. I am sure.’

  ‘Should I see this as a proposal on your part?’

  ***

  Martin spends the summer in England. He judges that he will best serve progress by keeping a low profile and letting things take their course. For the first time, he enjoys the English “summer season”. In late May, he visits Epsom for the Derby with Tom. Ely is judged slightly short of a gallop after bruising a knee and doesn’t take his place in the field – Tom deciding he will be better suited by Ascot. It is a sunny, shimmering day and a swelling multitude, including the Prince of Wales, makes their way to the track. Every carriage, cab, trap, dogcart and van is pressed into service to take racegoers along the dusty road over Banstead Downs, while thousands more people spill out of the trains arriving every ten or twenty minutes from London. Here is a seething mass of humanity, intent on seeing the best horses from the best possible vantage points. All across the scene, there are flags, tents, booths, fairground rides, parked vehicles and crowds of spectators. Endless crowds. Hampers of all shapes and sizes spill out picnics. A great noise swirls around the racecourse: costermongers pitch their wares; gypsy women hawk lucky heather; bookmakers shout out the odds. The hubbub rises to a roar and echoes through the grandstands, as the big race approaches.

  Before the race, Tom and Martin both pick out Blair Athol, a tall, flaxen chestnut colt with a broad white blaze – bred, owned and trained by William l’Anson from Malton, Yorkshire. Despite his appearance and the knowledge that his dam is the great race mare Blink Bonny, who won the Derby seven years earlier, they are put off by the fact he is having his first ever run and he is unfancied at 20/1 on the bookmakers’ lists. The race is delayed by several false starts and when the runners eventually break Blair Athol is slow into his stride and is towards the back of the field in the early stages. His jockey, James Snowden, rides a patient race, steadily making ground and moving in behind the leaders at Tattenham Corner. In a move that reminds them of Ely’s win in the Champagne Stakes, the favourite, General Peel, goes clear entering the final furlong and appears the likely winner, until a confident Snowden, in the blue and gold colours, produces Blair Athol with a late challenge and sprints away to win easily by two lengths from General Peel, with Scottish Chief third.

  ‘That’s a lesson learned. Never be put off your own judgement,’ says Tom.

  ‘Agreed. If there is a better horse in training, I haven’t seen him. Even Ely would not have lived with him today. This is a horse worth following.’

  The two men are greatly amused when the newspapers carry a story about their old adversaries, Count Lagrange and Fille de l’Air, winners of the Oaks.

  The Times, Monday 30th May 1864

  OAKS SCANDAL AT EPSOM

  The Count Lagrange’s Fille de l’Air had an easy victory at Epsom. She won the Oaks in a walk and the numerous visitors on Ladies Day witnessed an unusual scene of excitement, uproar and violence. The mare, it will be remembered, was heavily backed for the “Two Thousand” at Newmarket, but was supposed to have been “pulled” according to orders and consequently the ease with which she, directly afterwards, carried off the French Oaks and Epsom ditto caused such a strong feeling among British sportsmen that the Count deemed it prudent to beat a hasty retreat to native land; it required all the practical energy of hired pugilists to protect the French quadruped, her jockey and trainer from Lynch’s law on Epsom downs. Whether the English racing world is more honest and straightfo
rward than Bonaparte’s aristocracy may be open to argument, but that the Queens’s lieges don’t like to be “done” by the polite Mossoo was roughly testified at Epsom. We have been assiduous in teaching our neighbours the high arts of horse racing, cricket and other sciences and they prove apt scholars, but if all be true which we hear of Monsieur le Comte and his stud, we must deplore the fact of French noblemen so speedily acquiring the dirty habits of English vagabondism on the turf.

  ***

  At Royal Ascot, the fine weather continues. Martin acts as unofficial assistant trainer to Tom for the week. He finds Ascot rather genteel by comparison with Epsom, but this, as Tom points out, may be more to do with the fact that he confines his movements to the saddling boxes, the parade ring and the Royal Enclosure. Smartly attired, in black silk top hat and morning coat, he moves in elevated circles. Out on the heath, there is no escape from the noise and the crowds, as if the whole of the metropolis has gone racing.

  Ely wins the Prince of Wales Stakes, again beating Fille de l’Air, and “the Syndicate”, comprising Tom, Martin, Strode, Mocquard, Princess Mathilde, Lavinia Lampard and Jem, make another successful foray into the betting market. The Prince of Wales himself makes the presentation. Martin is invited to the Royal Box after racing and joins the guests at Windsor Castle later in the evening. Queen Victoria, who forgoes the races on account of a twenty-hour journey from Balmoral the previous day, is sufficiently rested to make an appearance. Martin is mystified when Her Majesty asks him how the parterre garden at Beauregard is looking and requests that he convey her regards to his mother. In the same week, Blair Athol wins the Triennial Stakes and the Syndicate is again fully invested. Tom and Martin work well together. Before the week is out, Tom suggests a joint business venture, working with horses in England and France.