TICKET TO RIDE
by
Caroline Akrill
First published 1983 by Arlington Books
This ebook edition 2015
Copyright © Caroline Akrill 1983, 2015
The right of Caroline Akrill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of the eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction.
The author would like to stress that that no character in this book relates to any person living or dead and that all incidents are entirely imaginary.
Other books by Caroline Akrill
Non-fiction:
Not Quite a Horsewoman
Showing the Ridden Pony
Fiction:
Eventer’s Dream
A Hoof in the Door
Make Me a Star
Stars Don’t Cry
Catch a Falling Star
Dedication:
For Christine and Peter, and for Kenneth,
To remind them of our
Riding School Days
CONTENTS
1. Last Straws
2. No Fond Farewell
3. Miracles Cannot be Wrought
4. To Horse!
5. A Little Miracle
6. Once More, With Feeling
7. Where Own Horse Welcomed
8. Washday
9. Such An Excellent Store
10. Their Own Familiar Fields
11. Hard Going
12. Questions and Answers
13. Selection Day
14. No Substitute
15. Junior Trials
1
Last Straws
It was certainly Nigella’s fault. By her reasoning, if every horse lasted a further week before being shod, and the blacksmith came every nine weeks instead of every eight, the resulting five visits a year instead of six would mean an annual saving of one hundred and sixty pounds.
This, then, was the result of it. Standing on the edge of a greasy bank, exposed to the vilest of East Anglian weather, lashed by rain, buffeted by winds; hands, thighs and face aching with cold; feet totally numb, the frostbitten toes probably snapping off one by one even as I stood.
“How far is the horsebox?” I asked.
Henrietta looked at me. Her cheeks burned red. Her hair, escaped from its coil, plastered the shoulders of her sodden habit. Her eyes, raised from the front hoof of the black horse, from the thin, twisted shoe which, despite manful efforts, she had failed to remove, were overflowing with vexation.
“How far is the box?” she repeated in a distracted voice. She dropped the hoof abruptly and took the black horse by the rein. He, after a few uneasy seconds spent pawing the air in order to ascertain that his leg was still attached to him, hopped anxiously at her side, his eyes rolling and the steam rising from his shoulders, as Henrietta set off along the ridge of the bank stretching endlessly into the miserable, mud-filled horizon.
I took hold of Nelson, who had stood like a rock throughout the emergency, his one good eye straining after hounds, the water dribbling off his chin, and his saddle black like old washleather, and squelched after them. At least, I told myself, this is the last time, the very last time. I am leaving tomorrow.
We walked, it seemed, for ever, but finally we reached a lane, and at the end of the lane, a pub. Henrietta handed me the black horse and vanished inside. After a goodly interval she reappeared bearing two small glasses. The contents of one of them almost blew my head off. The landlord of the pub, in a green apron, watched from the doorway with some anxiety.
“I haven’t paid him,” Henrietta gasped. “I don’t seem to have any cash.”
I searched my pockets without much hope and to my relief came across a five pound note, folded small, and tucked away in more affluent times for such an occasion as this. I handed it to Henrietta who, without a word of acknowledgment, handed it to the landlord. This is the last five pound note, I told myself, that I will ever hand to Henrietta; but it might have been that anyway, since it was the last five pound note I had.
A hammer was produced, and a pair of pliers, and with the help of these we managed to remove what remained of the black horse’s impoverished shoe. Bar cloths were offered, saddles were rubbed, we remounted and rode on in discomfort, clopping along the flooded lanes, through villages where the thatches poured and the guttering overflowed and every passing vehicle sent up a further douche of icy water.
There will be no more of this, I told myself, I am done with hunting. I felt myself done with many things, the Fanes included. But even now, as I looked through the slanting rain at Henrietta riding ahead, at the long and beautiful hair matted to the good blue habit, cut a little tighter in the waist and fuller in the skirt than was quite proper today, I wondered if my resolution would hold when the time came and if I would be able to leave quite so easily. Yet, I must leave, I said to myself, there is no future for me with the Fanes.
Every joint in my body had set into a frozen ache by the time I realized, by the welter of orchestration as what shoes our horses retained rattled, clinked, and scraped on the concrete, that we had reached the sugar beet collection point where we had left the horsebox.
I struggled out of the saddle, my knees buckling under me as I hit the ground, and fumbled, agonized and blue-fingered, with straps and keepers and bandages.
We drove home with the heater on full and the windscreen pouring with condensation, to be received by a totally unrepentant Nigella who blamed the wet, the clay, and the sticky plough for our misfortune, and actually intimated that we had done her a personal disservice by managing to lose a shoe.
“I don’t suppose you thought to bring it back with you?” she enquired, as if it might have been possible to wrench out the nails, hammer it flat, and reattach it to the black horse’s foot.
By calling upon reserves of self-control I didn’t know I had, I managed to endure all this without comment. It doesn’t matter, I consoled myself, even though I had told Nigella it was a needless indulgence to take the horses out when there were no clients to escort; even though I had gone reluctantly, for Henrietta’s sake. It really doesn’t matter at all, because this is the last time I will have to put up with Nigella’s misguided economies and her capricious penny-pinching. From tomorrow, it will be goodbye to all that.
Henrietta and I squelched through the kitchen. There was no need to remove our boots because the Fane residence boasted no carpets to speak of. In the icy vastness of the hall, the ornate plaster ceiling was mottled and patched with damp and the cavernous stone fireplaces were heaped with the same dead ash that had lain there eighteen months ago when I had first arrived as a hopeful young stable employee.
Now I trailed after Henrietta up the dusty, bare staircase and opened the door of my cheerless bedroom. My suitcase, already half-packed, lay on the faded tapestry bedcover. Outside the tall, ill-fitting windows, the rain continued to pour down and the countryside was relentlessly grey. The room, with its monstrous carved wardrobe and coffin chest, was freezing, and its single decoration, a yellowing canvas of an angry Elizabethan lady clutching an orb to her flattened chest, her bald-lidded eyes following my every movement with venomous distrust, made it even less welcoming.
In the antiquated bathroom I fought the geyser and was rewarded with three inches of tepid water in which to soak my aching bones. I sat disconsolately in the stained bathtub trying to work up a lather with a hopeless sliver of soap and I thought about my future.
Tomorrow I would be leaving the Fanes to take up my place on an all-expenses-paid eventing scholarship and in comparison with the discomforts I had endured at Havers Hall, I would be living in the lap of luxury. I imagined myself housed in a centrally-heated chalet, wallowing in a bath whose shining taps gave forth an endless supply of hot water, taking my place in a dining hall to be served with regular, properly presented meals. The thought of it momentarily banished any qualms I had about leaving the Fanes to cope with their financially precarious livery business, and as I rubbed myself dry on a balding towel, I told myself that all I had to do before I left was to wring six months’ unpaid wages out of them at supper. In the light of past experience, I knew this would not be easy.
“Wages?” Nigella said innocently when I mentioned it. “Did we agree to pay you wages? I rather thought your board and lodging and the keep of your horse covered that.”
She handed me a plate of frighteningly greasy stew concocted out of the leg of a casualty ewe deemed too good for hounds by the Midvale and Westbury Hunt and distributed as largesse to prospective puppy walkers ‘for the freezer’. The Fanes didn’t have a freezer.
“When I agreed to stay for the hunting season,” I reminded her, “you agreed to keep Legend and to pay me twenty pounds a month. ‘Pocket money wages’ you called it. I’m not asking for a fortune, it’s only five pounds a week.”
“It may not be a fortune to you,” Henrietta said in a grumpy voice, “but it adds up to quite a lot. We’re already overdrawn at the bank and there are stacks of bills to be paid.” She removed a well-chewed piece of mutton from her mouth and placed it on the side of her plate with a grimace of disgust. “This ewe,” she said, “must have been run over the very second before it was due to die of old age.”
“Now look here,” I said crossly, determined not to let her change the subject, “you’ll have to pay up because I’m absolutely broke. I gave you my last pound note this morning, and I can’t possibly go away on a month’s course without a penny in my pocket.”
Nigella carefully studied the piece of meat impaled on the end of her fork. “I rather suspect the mutton may have been too fresh,” she decided. “I think we should have hung it for a few days before we cooked it.”
“And I think we should discuss my wages,” I said firmly.
“We are discussing them,” Henrietta countered, “it’s just that it’s not awfully convenient at the moment. We’re a little financially embarrassed.”
I stared at her in exasperation. “It’s never convenient,” I said, “and you’re always financially embarrassed. I’ve put off asking for as long as I possibly could, but it never gets any better, does it? People don’t work for nothing,” I told her, “they can’t afford to, and besides, what’s going to happen when you replace me? Whoever you get will expect to be paid a wage.”
There was an awkward little silence.
“So you have definitely decided, Elaine,” Nigella said, “not to come back after the course?”
“Nigella,” I said, “you know I won’t be coming back; we discussed it. I told you weeks ago.”
“Well, yes,” she agreed, “but I rather hoped you might change your mind.” She stared down into her stew and looked despondent. She was wearing a fearsome mohair jersey, its matted bulk filled with hayseeds, horse hairs, flakes of bran, and other, less easily identifiable things.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. How could I? Even if I wanted to, how could I go on any longer like this, without any wages, without any prospects? Surely even Nigella could see that it was impossible. “I’m going to advertise for a job in Horse & Hound. If you like, I’ll write an advertisement for the vacancy as well and send it off at the same time.” It seemed the least I could do.
“Er… no,” Nigella said, “not yet, we’d rather not.” She became suddenly very interested in her stew.
“We might not even bother to get anyone else,” Henrietta remarked in a casual tone. “We may find we can manage on our own. After all, it isn’t that difficult.”
Remembering the state the yard had been in when I had arrived, I was astounded by this piece of ill-founded optimism. I turned to Henrietta, determined to make her retract it. “You seemed to find it difficult enough before I came,” I snapped, “you didn’t seem to find it particularly easy to manage then.”
“What Henrietta actually means,” Nigella said in a conciliatory tone, “is that we probably won’t be looking for a replacement right away. We’ll keep the job open for you in case you want to come back.”
“That’s very nice of you,” I said, “but unnecessary.”
“After all,” she continued, “you don’t know what the course is going to be like. You might hate it. You might be homesick.”
I wondered how she could possibly imagine that anyone could be homesick for a place like Havers Hall. I couldn’t think of a single person who would want to live in it. Only the Fanes appeared not to notice its appalling discomforts; the Fanes and the rats, who scuttled nightly in the rafters above my head. Nevertheless, I was touched to think that they wanted to keep my job open in case I was unhappy on the course, even though they would be greatly inconvenienced by it. I opened my mouth to insist that they find a replacement at once, but was interrupted by Lady Jennifer, who darted into the kitchen clad in ancient tweed and a crumpled Burberry, trailing a faded Hermes scarf with a darn in it, and looking anguished.
“Elaine,” she trilled, “I’m so frightfully sorry not to be present on your last evening, but I was hopelessly delayed with the Meals-on-Wheels, and I’m already desperately late for the Village Amenities Committee. I shall have to fly this very second.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, “honestly, I didn’t expect it.” I had grown very attached to Lady Jennifer and I knew I was going to miss her a lot. Now, she fled across the kitchen towards her latest good cause, pausing only to grip my shoulder affectionately with her bony fingers.
“You’ve been the most marvellous help to us, Elaine,” she trilled, “a tower of strength. I can’t imagine how we shall possibly manage to survive without you. I feel sure the new girl won’t fit in nearly as well.” She knotted the headscarf under her pointed chin and made for the back door with her mackintosh flying out behind her. The door banged shut.
I turned back to the Fanes in disbelief. Nigella gave her fullest attention to her plate, but Henrietta met my eyes warily.
“New girl?” I said.
Henrietta shrugged. “Oh,” she said vaguely, “Mummy means whatever new girl we end up with, I suppose.”
It was a lie and I knew it. “You’ve got a replacement for me already,” I said accusingly, “you couldn’t even wait until I was off the premises!”
Nigella sighed. She put down her fork. By this time everyone’s stew was cold and beastly. “Elaine,” she said, “we had to do something.”
“But only a minute ago you said you would keep my job open for me in case I wanted to come back,” I said incredulously. “You knew all the time that you had a replacement waiting!”
“We didn’t want to mention it,” Nigella said, “in case you were offended.”
“Well, I am offended,” I said, “I’m very offended. I’ve never been so offended in my life, and I think you’ve been incredibly underhand about it!”
“What did you expect us to do?” Henrietta demanded angrily. “Wait for you to make up your mind and then be left without anyone? Because we would have been left without anyone, wouldn’t we? Since you have had your scholarship course to look forward to, you haven’t cared what happens to us!”
I stared at her, shocked. “I do care,” I said, “I don’t know how you can suggest such a thing.”
“If you cared,” Henrietta blazed, “you would be coming back after the course, Elaine, but you decided not to. And now you’re jealous because we’ve found someone to take your place – that’s how much you care!”
I stared down at the lumps of mutton rising out of th
e glistening white globules of congealed fat on my plate. It was true. I was jealous. I hated the thought of someone replacing me, someone else doing all the things that I had done, getting to know and love the horses that I had known.
“Elaine,” Nigella said cautiously, “it isn’t that we wanted to replace you. We had to. It was your choice, after all, to stay or to leave.”
I could hardly deny it. “But you could have told me,” I said, “we could have discussed it together. You didn’t have to be so secretive about it.”
“She seems a good sort, anyway,” Henrietta said in a hearty voice. “She’s got some good ideas – she’s going to take summer grass liveries and give riding lessons to the locals.”
“But I told you to do that,” I objected, “I thought of it ages ago. I made all sorts of suggestions.”
“Oh yes,” Henrietta said in a peevish tone, “you made suggestions …”
“We had lots of replies to our advertisement,” Nigella said quickly, “fifteen altogether.”
No wonder she hadn’t wanted me to write one out. “If you wouldn’t mind,” I said, “I would rather not hear about it.”
“We interviewed them last week,” Henrietta said smugly, “the day you were out with Nick Forster.”
“And I suppose you promised them a regular wage,” I said, “even though you haven’t paid me for the last six months.”
“You needn’t worry about your wages, Elaine,” Nigella assured me, “Honestly. We’ll bring them to the training centre when we come to see you. It isn’t as if you won’t see us again; we’ll still be keeping in touch.”
This was the first I had heard of it. “Will we?” I asked, surprised.
“You don’t think we would just abandon you?” She dipped a crust of bread gingerly into the fatty gravy on her plate. “Not after all we have been through together?”
“And anyway,” Henrietta said sharply, “there’s Legend to consider. We still have an interest in him.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. “An interest?” I said.
Ticket to Ride (Eventing Trilogy Book 3) Page 1