Viv held out her hands obediently, palms uppermost.
“Turn them over, Miss Tintoft,” the chief said impatiently, slapping his boot with his stick to indicate he was in no mood to be trifled with. “You know perfectly well what I want to see.”
Viv turned over her hands. I saw with relief that the talons were no longer purple.
“Ah,” said the chief with satisfaction. “I see that the varnish has been removed; all that remains now is for the nails to be trimmed.” To everyone’s astonishment he put a hand into the pocket of his impeccably-cut tweed jacket and produced a pair of scissors. “Will you do it or shall I?” he enquired.
Viv stared at him, aghast. She couldn’t have looked any more horrified if he had suggested amputation of the fingers. “I’m not having them cut!” she yelped. “It took me years to grow these!”
“Nevertheless, Miss Tintoft,” the chief said in a deadly voice, “either you cut them or I shall. Alternatively, you may prefer to leave the training centre; but I assure you that you will not mount a horse in this establishment with fingernails resembling those of a Chinese mandarin.”
There was a tense silence as they faced each other, but at the end of it Viv sighed deeply and took the scissors. One by one the talons fell and vanished into the tan. The chief pocketed the scissors with a thin smile of satisfaction.
“Ride! TO HORSE!” he bellowed.
5
A Little Miracle
“Check your girths!”
“Take your reins!”
“Prepare to mount!
“Ride – MOUNT!”
With the chief’s instructions ringing in our ears like machine gun fire, we progressed into our saddles in a succession of jerks, like badly manipulated puppets. It was two years since I had received any formal instruction and I had been rather dreading this; afraid I would have forgotten all that I had learned.
“Leading file, prepare to lead off on the right rein!” bellowed the chief.
We all looked round anxiously and I saw with relief that I wasn’t the only one to hesitate. Typically, Annemarie was the first to move forward, electing herself to the position of leading file.
“Ride – pre-pare to walk!”
“Ride – WALK!”
Somehow we managed to achieve an orderly procession and the chief began to work us gently at the walk and trot through turns, circles and transitions, making no comment, but taking in every ill-timed movement of our hands and legs, every falter in our horses’ strides with his gimlet eye.
In between concentrating on my own performance and trying to keep Legend on the track – he would have much preferred to give the kicking boards, with their painted letters, a wider berth, and I realized that he had probably never been ridden indoors in his life before – I studied the other scholarship students to see what sort of competition I was up against for a place in the team for the junior trial.
Annemarie, as one would expect from someone who had studied at the Reitschule, was a highly disciplined and faultlessly correct rider who clearly expected and extracted the same exact discipline from her little bay horse. If there was a criticism to be made it was that she seemed rather too stiff, a little too unyielding, and I noticed that for much of the time the bay gelding was slightly overbent with his chin tucked into his neck. I knew, even without seeing them perform, that they would be formidable competition for the dressage and the show-jumping, both of which demanded precision and total accuracy, but I was not so sure how they would fare across country when scope, speed, and initiative all had a part to play.
Alice had gained her early riding experience in a dealer’s yard, and you could tell by the way she rode her huge, handsome, iron grey, The Talisman, that she was fearless. She had told us appalling stories of how she used to display the prowess of the equine merchandise by jumping them over some spiked iron railings into a municipal park. This had rarely failed to impress potential buyers and if any horse injured itself, it was shunted round the back of the premises and sold off cheaply to the trade as damaged stock. Obviously this sort of training had developed a natural tact, an ability to get the best performance out of any horse, and I reckoned that Alice and The Talisman would be hot stuff across country, but I looked at Aice’s long, loose, style of riding, and I wondered about the dressage.
Selina’s plain, three-quarter bred gelding was totally redeemed by the beauty of his colour, a hot, bright, deep chestnut, with not a white hair to be seen. His name was Flame Thrower and he looked a wise, sensible, bold horse, who reminded me very much of a horse that Hans Gelderhol had been eventing at the time I was in his yard training for my Horsemaster’s Certificate. The resemblance was so striking that I made a mental note to ask Selina how he was bred, to find out if they were related. Selina was a good rider, who had obviously been very well taught; on top of everything else she seemed to have going for her, I found this rather irksome.
Viv rode just in front of me on her own chestnut, a long-striding, powerful horse called Balthazar, who walked with a swinging stride and carried his tail gaily. Viv rode him in a relaxed and stylish manner and they were so well matched that they were a pleasure to watch. In fact all of the scholarship students rode well and were a pleasure to watch, apart from Mandy, but then Mandy and her pretty bay horse, Fox Me, were something else.
How Mandy had ever managed to qualify for the scholarship course, or even achieve sixth place at the two-day event, seemed a mystery, because to watch her floundering aimlessly round the school, cutting the corners, staring wild-eyed at the chief whenever he barked out a command, falling further and further behind the ride until she suddenly realized and legged Fox Me on so urgently that he arrived abruptly with his nose bumping into Legend’s tail, it was clear that she was a total stranger to formal riding instruction.
All this became eventually too much for the chief to endure and he was obliged to halt the ride and enquire waspishly if this was a special performance, or if she always rode like an Irish tinker. Mandy stared at him in terror, not knowing whether it was meant to be a compliment or not. The chief then proceeded to give her a lecture on the co-ordination of hand, leg and seat in order to produce a balanced, working pace which would enable her to keep up with the ride.
I was sure that most of this was lost on Mandy and I mentally crossed her off the list of possibles for the junior trial, feeling sure that her sixth place at the two-day event could have been nothing but a fluke. It was heartening to count up and realize that as there were five of us left, I could count on being reserve at least, provided the final student did not turn up. I was in need of this sort of comfort because Legend, irritated by the jostling of Fox Me, and not enjoying his taste of indoor life in the least, was not on top form.
The enclosed arena had put a constraint on him and I could feel that his paces were not as fluent and free as they usually were. It was also diffficult to keep his attention as the slightest noise, a stirrup iron scraping along the kicking boards, or a bird fluttering in the rafters above, made him tense. When someone ran up the steps and along the gallery, which extended for the entire length of the building, he bunched up and bounced like a rubber ball into the centre of the school, momentarily displacing the chief from his central position.
“Control, Miss Elliot, control,” he said in an irritated voice. “This is an assessment period, not El Rodeo.”
I coaxed Legend back on to the track, feeling humilated. I knew that I must be making a very poor impression, second only in awfulness to Mandy. It even struck me that were the Fanes present to compare our performance with that of the others, they would probably decide on the spot that I was not a fit person to ride the horse in which they so tenaciously claimed an interest.
Troubled with such thoughts, I fell into line with the others as the chief set up two jumps, one at either end of the school, in order to assess our show-jumping prowess. It was at this particular moment that one of the sliding doors opened, causing Legend yet more anxiety, and a tall,
lean, young man entered the school, leading a startling roan horse with white stockings extending to above every knee, a broad blaze between its wall eyes, and its tail carried as high as a banner.
We all stared. If the chief had considered Mandy’s riding like that of an Irish tinker, then surely he was now faced with one in the flesh. The new arrival wore a faded brown riding hat with the ventilator button missing, a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled above slim, brown elbows, a red neckerchief, and skin-tight jodhpurs worn with short, beige, elastic-sided suede boots.
The chief straightened up with the cup and pin he had been attaching to the jump stand still in his hands. He threw up his chin. “Entry to the indoor school is expressly forbidden whilst there is a lesson in progress,” he snapped. “There is a notice posted on the door – I suggest you consult it.”
“But I’m supposed to be taking part in this lesson,” the young man protested in an impeccable voice which signified an expensively privileged education. “I’m on the scholarship course; my name’s Phillip Hastings.”
The chief looked fit to explode. “Then, Mr Hastings,” he said, “you will also be aware that you were supposed to arrive prior to six o’clock yesterday evening!”
“I got the day wrong, I’m afraid,” Phillip Hastings had the grace to look somewhat shamefaced. “I thought it was today the course started. I actually thought I was early.”
The chief closed his eyes for a moment and heaved a deep sigh of resignation. “Mr Hastings,” he said, “be good enough to remove that object from around your throat and this afternoon, ten minutes prior to the cross-country assessment, kindly present yourself for my inspection at the office correctly attired for formal instruction, wearing a collar and tie, a jacket, and long riding boots.”
The rest of us watched with interest whilst the chief made a rapid assessment of Phillip and the amazing roan horse as he drilled them round the partly constructed show-jumps. It was galling to see at once that there was another scholarship candidate who was sickeningly good, and that the roan horse, despite its eccentric and somewhat off-putting appearance, was fluent, obedient, and expertly schooled.
“He’s one for the team, anyway,” Viv whispered, “I’d lay a bet on it.” Forcing myself to agree with her in a matter-of-fact voice, I felt my heart sink like a lead weight in my chest.
Lunch, with Alice in charge of the catering, was not a success. Alice’s idea of cookery was a fried egg slapped on to a piece of hard, blackened toast, and even this was not achieved without a lot of bad-tempered banging about and a haze of smoke, which hung above our heads as we waited uneasily at the table.
Selina, who had somehow managed to finish the assessment period looking as cool as a cucumber with not even the slightest of marks on her beautiful breeches, looked aggrieved as Alice thumped down the plates in front of us.
“Are all of the eggs broken?” she enquired.
They were, because Alice had not been able to find a spatula and had lifted them out of the pan with a dessert spoon. She had even managed to drop one of them on to the kitchen floor, but I only discovered this later when I happened to slip on the patch of grease it left behind.
Phillip, who didn’t seem to object to the squalid interior and hideous surroundings of the Duke of Newcastle in the least, ate his egg without complaint. He told us that his father, who was insisting that Phillip went to university to study Law, had refused to finance his eventing on the grounds that it would interfere with his studies, but had been foiled by Phillip gaining a place on the scholarship course. If he could get a place in the team for the junior trial and be short-listed for the Junior Olympics, he hoped to use it as a lever to persuade his father that he was good enough to make a career out of eventing. “But if I don’t do it this time,” he told us, “I’m sunk, because I’m due to take up my place at Magdalene in September.”
I couldn’t help wondering what the Fellows of Magdalene would think of Phillip, because when he had removed his shabby riding hat, we discovered that he had dyed his forelock platinum blonde to which he had added purple streaks.
Viv, who had described to us how she had pasted her own hair with powdered bleach and hydrogen peroxide, and had sat for hours with her head wrapped in aluminium foil like a Christmas turkey before applying a henna rinse to achieve the present flaming orange colour, was quite jealous.
“What did you use?” she wanted to know. “How long did it take?”
“Heavens, I didn’t do it myself,” Phillip said, shocked by the thought. “I had it done professionally at André Bernard.”
Annemarie succumbed to a choking fit at this piece of information and had to retire to the kitchen for a draught of cold water.
To finish the meal, Alice presented us with mugs of strong, thick coffee.
“What’s this,” Selina wanted to know, “gravy?”
“If you don’t like it,” Alice said truculently, “make your own.”
“I shall do that,” Selina said and, rising from her chair, she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen and returned shortly afterwards bearing recognizable coffee in a china cup and saucer. “I took the precaution of bringing my own,” she explained. We couldn’t help but be impressed. You had to hand it to Selina, she had thought of everything.
We rode out to the cross-country course after lunch, tweaking up our girths and checking that each other’s bridle straps were tucked into their keepers. Phillip was now formally attired after being inspected and approved by the chief; I was wearing a shirt and tie; Selina had encased Mandy’s floppy hair in one of her own nets; Annemarie was without her gold studs; and even Alice had cobbled a button on to her jacket and altered her boot straps, although whether or not she would see the nurse about her spots was open to conjecture.
We worked our horses in on the long sweep of grass that led into the first fence of the cross-country course. It was heaven to be riding outdoors again, and Legend obviously thought so as well because he seemed to be quite his usual eager self, flipping out his toes at the trot and bouncing off into canter, shaking his glossy bay neck and making his mane fly. Slowly, my confidence began to return.
The chief, who was concerned not to overtax our horses, most of whom had hardly settled in after their long journey the previous afternoon, gave us five fairly straightforward fences to jump for our assessment, comprising the first two and the final three obstacles of the full cross-country course. They consisted of a plain post and rail; a tiger trap – a triangle of dry pine poles which made a hollow noise when you tapped it; a sheep pen of wattle fencing; a bank of tractor tyres – wide ones on the bottom, narrowing to smaller car-sized tyres on the top, and ridged with a telegraph pole; and finally, a modest square-trimmed hedge. None of the fences was over three feet in height, although the tiger trap and the tyre fences had bases which stretched to five feet as we discovered when we were allowed, two at a time, with the others minding our horses, to walk the course.
Annemarie went first, achieving a clear and correct, if rather tight-fisted round, and Phillip followed, his roan displaying, as we had known it would, an effortless ability to clear the fences in a relaxed manner, which I saw by my stopwatch was also deceptively fast. I felt sure that Magdalene College had lost a law student, as Phillip seemed a certainty for the junior trial and even the Olympic short-list.
Selina went next on Flame Thrower and theirs was a cool, professional performance, lacking only the drive and urgency of the real thing. Viv and Balthazar started off at a powerful canter which increased in speed as they went, too fast, into the sheep pen and Balthazar took the second wattle fence with his back legs, detaching it from its roped moorings. This meant a delay for Alice and The Talisman, who had been circling round the starting point. Viv cantered back to us with a rueful grin and a nonchalent lift of her shoulders.
“She’ll never make the team with that attitude,” Annemarie commented, “she didn’t even bother to judge her strides. She just left it to the horse; she couldn’t ca
re less. She wouldn’t have lasted five minutes at the Reitschule.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” Viv interspersed from behind somewhat unexpectedly, as Alice and The Talisman thundered past us on their way to the first fence. “Well, we shall see, won’t we, when the team is announced, whether the Reitschule has done you any good or not!”
As it was my turn next, I removed myself hastily from what promised to develop into a lively argument, and took Legend away to warm up. As we circled round, I saw The Talisman flatten the second half of the sheep pen and caught a glimpse of the chief’s agonized expression as he went forward to strap it yet again. I could see that combination fences were going to be troublesome for The Talisman and Balthazar, both bold, strong, free-striding horses with a common disregard for anything less substantial than a telegraph pole.
When the chief raised his arm as a signal for me to start, I cantered Legend strongly towards the post and rails, he jumped it easily and leapt onwards, his eyes already fixed on the tiger trap. He extended into it and flew over and we turned towards the sheep pen. I steadied him, sitting down hard in the saddle, determined not to go into it too fast, because Legend, although not as big as either Balthazar or The Talisman, could produce a huge raking stride where necessary, and I had already paced out the pen and decided that two shorter strides would be preferable to negotiate the second half with absolute accuracy. So I held him back, releasing him for the first half, but not so much that I couldn’t get the two canter strides inside to meet the wattle fence perfectly. We sailed out and on over the tractor tyres and the clipped hedge in triumph, and as we cantered back to the others, I slapped Legend’s neck gratefully, feeling him vindicated from the morning’s disastrous performance.
“Come back, Miss Elliot,” shouted the chief, “and give me one stride at the sheep pen!”
I turned Legend back and my feeling of exhilharation died as we approached the pen again, knowing that of all the students who had gone so far, none had been asked to take the fence again. I pushed Legend on hard and he responded magnificently, thrusting forward with his powerful hocks, his front legs flying. He soared up and over the first wattle, took one flying stride in between and rose over the second like a bird. Well, I thought, as we trotted round the tractor tyres without a backward glance, if the chief had wanted one stride, we had certainly given him one. He didn’t call us back a second time.
Ticket to Ride (Eventing Trilogy Book 3) Page 5