She paused. “Yes,” she said shortly, “maybe.”
“And I’m sorry you’re leaving,” I said, “I’m really sorry.”
“So am I,” she whispered as she slipped out of the door. “If I’d known I wasn’t staying, I wouldn’t have cut my nails.”
I lay back on my lumpy pillow and I heard the Duke of Newcastle’s back door click shut behind her. I lay awake for a long time thinking of the slight girl with the orange hair driving along the dark, empty roads, and the man with the silk tie and the pale green Rolls Royce who, although he knew many things, had never learned that money, ambition, or even love, were no substitute for freedom, understanding and respect.
“Step into the office for a moment, Miss Elliot,” said the chief as he marched along the walkway in front of the stable where I was strapping Legend.
I replaced Legend’s rug and roller and hurried after him, dropping my grooming kit box outside the stable door and kicking over the bottom latch.
The chief took up his position behind his desk and ledged his beautiful boots, out of habit toes up heels down, on the brass footrail. He took off his tweed cap and laid it on top of a pile of memoranda.
“Have you any money?” he asked.
I stared at him in astonishment. “Not very much,” I admitted, “about forty pounds.”
“Any savings? Any private income?”
“No,” I said, “nothing at all.”
“What about your father,” he demanded, “is he rich?”
“No,” I said, “I’m afraid not.” I was beginning to feel rather alarmed.
“You do realize,” said the chief, “that eventing is a very expensive sport?”
“Oh yes,” I assured him, “I do.”
“And that most people, if they don’t happen to have well-heeled connections, need a sponsor in order to meet their expenses.”
“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t for the life of me see what he was getting at.
“Then how are you, Miss Elliot, on your fifty pounds a week, less stoppages, going to afford it?”
“Well,” I said carefully, “my horse won’t cost me anything to keep…”
“You’ll have to keep him shod,” the chief pointed out, “you have to provide his equipment, clothing for yourself, registration fees, entry fees, petrol, veterinary fees. Even leg washes and worming powders,” he said, “cost money.”
I couldn’t think of a reply to any of this.
“Have you ever heard of the Horse Trials Support Group?” he asked.
I said I thought I had, but then again, I couldn’t be sure.
“It comes under the umbrella of the BHS,” he said, “and every so often, when funds allow them to do so, they offer their support to potential top class event riders with promising horses in order that they may continue to event – usually riders with a good deal of winning form and experience behind them.”
I wondered what he was going to suggest. I hadn’t a good deal of winning form and experience behind me.
“I have already had a preliminary talk with the chairman,” said the chief, “and I put forward a suggestion that they might consider giving you some assistance in the form of a modest grant.”
“A grant? For me? To help with Legend?” It seemed hardly possible.
“Of course,” he said, “it is by no means certain that they will agree…”
I still couldn’t grasp it. “Do you mean they would give me money?”
“Miss Elliot,” the chief said in a testy voice, “a grant usually consists of money, and in the case of a grant from the Horse Trials Support Group, it is usually a contribution, a percentage of travelling and competition expenses.”
“But they’ll never give money to me,” I said, “they’ve never even heard of me.”
“That may well be true,” he agreed, “nevertheless, they are going to brief a member of the selection board for the Junior Olympics who will be officiating at the junior trial, and as a result of his report, they may decide that you are worthy of consideration, and you may be allowed to put your case before a special committee.”
I stared at him in amazement, and already my mind was churning with possibilities; alarming, incredible possibilities.
“I will?”
“You might,” the chief replied in a dry tone, “if you perform well at the junior trial.”
I reeled out of the office, hardly daring to contemplate the viability of the plan already forming in my mind. If the grant from the Horse Trials Support Group was big enough, why couldn’t it be utilized to bail the Fanes out of their present difficulty?
“Gordon Bennett,” Alice commented morosely, as with an appalling succession of crashing blows, Annemarie and Balthazar demolished the triple combination, leaving the coloured poles scattered around the jumping arena as if they were no more than matchsticks. “She’ll have to be put in reserve. If we have to have her in the team, we’ll be sunk.”
Viv’s abrupt removal from the scholarship course had caused something of a furore the following morning, when the letter she had pushed under the office door for the attention of the chief had been discovered. Mr Tintoft had been summoned, and he had arrived without delay, spending almost an hour with the chief, but at the end of it, Balthazar had been formally offered to Annemarie, and the chief had announced that Miss Tintoft had resigned from the course for ‘family reasons’.
Now though, we were left with the problem of putting together Annemarie and Balthazar with less than a week to go before the junior trial.
Due to her high-powered instruction in Germany, Annemarie was an excellent, correct, disciplined rider, but compared to the average English rider, she appeared to be rather stiff, unyielding, and unsympathetic. She had schooled her own part-bred Hanoverian horse herself, and he was accustomed to her style of riding, but Balthazar, being a much longer-striding, free-moving horse and accustomed to Viv’s more relaxed approach, was not, and he resented it.
There had been difficulties aplenty over the cross-country course, but now, in the confines of the show-jumping arena, it seemed to be even worse. The chief had devoted most of his time to trying to overcome their problems; but as there was not enough time to reschool the horse to respond to Annemarie’s expectations, it had to be the other way round; Annemarie had to adapt herself to Balthazar. She was trying very hard, but it was not easy for either of them.
We, who were the rest of the team for the junior trial, sat on our horses and watched from outside the arena, biting our glove ends as Balthazar fought against Annemarie on his approach to the fences, throwing up his head, hollowing his back, and dropping his hind legs on to the poles. Timber scattered, wings rocked, the powerful hooves flew, as Annemarie over-collected the chestnut horse, chopping his flowing stride, upsetting his natural balance and bungling his take-offs. The chief held his hands over his ears as the sound of falling timber went on all around him, and yelled at her to relax, to give more rein, to try somehow, anyhow, to achieve some rapport with the big, confused gelding. To give Annemarie her due, she improved a little at every session, and she never uttered one word of complaint, but in the short time left to us it became clear that Alice was right. If we had to call on Annemarie and Balthazar for the team, our chances of success would be virtually non-existent.
A few days before the junior trial, the chief staged a mock trial of his own. We rode the dressage test we were to ride on the day, we went round the show-jumps, and we finished by riding the whole of the cross-country course. The results were hardly encouraging.
Somehow we all managed to produce abysmal dressage tests; even Phillip, who was never less than consistent, got a poor mark. Legend blew up completely, shied at the markers he had seen every day for the past three weeks, refused to settle, and got the worst mark of all. Mandy lost her way three times, blundering along hopelessly, until the chief was forced to intervene with directions. The Talisman refused to walk and did all the walking movements at a jog trot, and the best score was achieved
by Annemarie and Balthazar which, while it gave a much-needed boost to their morale, was pretty depresing for everyone else.
We scraped round the show-jumps, with two clears; Phillip and Mandy. Legend took a pole off the double, The Talisman managed to knock the brush fence over, which is practically impossible to do, and Annemarie and Balthazar knocked down every other fence.
Things were hardly any better when it came to the cross-country. Legend was still far too exuberant, despite the fact that I had doubled his riding-in time. Almost immediately, he got into trouble at the uphill double, pulling away from me at the approach and landing too far in, screwing himself up and over the second part by a miracle, but losing me over his shoulder in the process. I was unhurt, but over-cautious after that, and we finished with three penalties.
Phillip, who seemed to be jinxed, fell into the lake when the amazing roan lost its footing unexpectedly on the approach to the telegraph pole and vanished in a cloud of spray, reappearing on the other side of the obstacle trotting energetically towards the bank, with Phillip floundering after him. This made for a nightmare round as far as Phillip was concerned – sopping wet clothes, slippery reins, a saddle like a waterchute and, to cap it all, a severe attack of stomach cramp, which the chief supposed to be brought on by nerves.
Mandy and Fox Me flew round in their customary charmed manner, but due to lack of brainpower missed out two fences entirely which meant instant elimination from the cross-country phase. Finally, Alice suffered a crashing fall off The Talisman when he unexpectedly applied his brakes at the zig-zag rails. She galloped through the finish with her her face awash with blood – it turned out to be only a nosebleed, but it was very nerve-wracking all the same. The round accomplished by Annemarie and Balthazar was a battle from start to finish and appallingly slow, but at least they didn’t hit a single fence which was an improvement on previous rounds.
After this disastrous showing, we rode back to the yard feeling stunned. The chief, surprisingly, didn’t appear to be unduly concerned, and when we returned to the Duke of Newcastle, after attending to our horses, we found that Selina, who had had a field day with her camera during the mock trial, and whose suitcases were already packed against her removal the next morning, had cooked a farewell celebratory supper.
It was at the precise moment that she was walking into the room bearing aloft a cracked casserole dish, preceded by a delicious aroma of casseroled chicken with herbs, cream, and white wine, that Phillip, who had been spasmodically bowed over by his stomch cramp, suddenly slumped on to the table, and fell sideways, and in slow-motion, into a senseless heap on the linoleum.
Less than an hour later he was wheeled into the operating theatre to have his appendix removed.
15
Junior Trials
“Gordon Bennett,” Alice remarked, staring down into a chasm the width and length of which would have accommodated a family saloon car, situated below some hefty timber rails. “I don’t know why they didn’t go the whole hog and line it with broken bottles.” I knew how she felt. It was a tough cross-country course for the junior trial.
We had marched around it with the chief the previous evening, and now, in the early morning before we began to prepare for the dressage, we walked round it more slowly on our own. Two miles of varied terrain and eighteen difficult fences under a sky which, if gathering clouds were anything to go by, promised the added complication of rain. I had never doubted Legend’s ability to tackle any course so far, but now I thought of the obstacles I had seen: the table, the blind drop, the Normandy Bank, the coffin, the birch rails set on the edge of a fast-running stream with a watery landing, and the gaping trakhener, and I trembled.
Annemarie stared at the fences with her lips pressed into a tight line. If she was frightened, she wasn’t going to admit it. Mandy was pale, but then she was always pale, and as there was nothing left of her nails to bite, and her hair was enclosed in a hairnet at all times on the instructions of the chief, she gnawed her knuckles instead. Only Alice showed no outward sign of nervousness and, as a concession to appearances at the trial, she had purchased some spotcover makeup. Unfortunately it was a pasty pink, and the combination of the makeup, the angry eruption of the spots, her own sallow skin, and her mustard yellow team sweatshirt was pretty dire.
The team sweatshirts were a not altogether welcome suprise because they were casual dress uniform for the trial and turned us into walking advertisements for our sponsor. Across our chests we carried the slogan HISSEY’S PICKLES LEAD THE FIELD, and below it a pickled onion and a gherkin wore jolly smiles and silly little riding hats. The general effect was distressing, but as they had been presented to us with great ceremony by Felix Hissey himself, we could hardly refuse to wear them. Only Alice gloried in hers, mainly to annoy the chief, who winced every time he saw us wearing them.
We walked on, pacing our distances, checking landings and take-offs for the going, working out the shortest route between fences, deciding which line to take over fences which offered alternatives, wading into the stream to test the bed for stones, holes and firmness, calculating speeds, strides, and the effect of uphill and downhill gradients. None of us had very much to say. How different it would have been, I thought wistfully, if it had been Viv, Selina and Phillip in the team; then it would have been almost enjoyable – and more important, then we would have had a chance.
The dresage was scheduled to begin at nine, and my courage suffered another setback when I discovered that I had been drawn first. After all that had gone before; the horrendous mock trial, and Phillip’s appendicitis, it seemed the final straw. “Oh well,” I told Legend, as we set out at a quarter to eight under a sky of unrelenting grey cloud, “Somebody had to be first, and at least it will soon be over and done with.”
Under the chief’s critical eye, we had all schooled our horses thoroughly and diligently the previous day, and as soon as I put Legend to work I could feel that it had paid off. He was no longer bursting out of his skin, he was alert, responsive and sensible.
At eight thirty I rode back to the temporary stabling to change. I stripped off the Hissey sweatshirt and the jeans I had worn to protect my breeches, tied my stock, buffed up my boots, put on my good navy coat and brushed my hat. The rest of the team, supervised by the chief, unfamiliar in a suit and a bowler hat, busied themselves with Legend, oiling his hooves, brushing out his tail, wiping the bits of the double bridle which had been purchased by means of the Fanes’ training fund. Just before mounting I skimmed through the printed test for the last time to refresh my memory.
With less than fifteen minutes to go, more riders were now working their horses steadily in the exercising area. Knots of people could be seen gathering outside the little grandstand at one end of the arena, and the judges were strolling across the grass towards their caravan. Amongst them, I knew, were the selectors for the Junior Olympics, and one of them had a special interest in me. We may not have a chance as a team, I told myself desperately, but I must do well, I must, for everyone’s sake.
I worked Legend gently behind the arena, waiting for the starting steward to give me the signal which would allow us a few valuable minutes inside the boards before the test began. I could think of nothing but the importance of performing a good test in front of the people inside the judges’ caravan. Nothing else mattered. I knew that Legend had never been on such top form – the month of instruction and fitness training had made an enormous difference to us both, and if we couldn’t do it today, we probably never would.
The signal came, we trotted forward into the arena, and as we did so the clouds suddenly parted and everywhere was bathed in sunshine. The white boards sparkled, the black letters danced, and shimmering auburn highlights appeared on Legend’s silken neck. Sometimes you just know when a dressage test is going to go well.
We stood at the scoreboards, holding our breath as the scorer mounted the ladder. My score went up first. It was sixty-four. It seemed to be a good score, but everything now depend
ed on the general standard. The next score went up. Seventy. Then the next, sixty-eight. And the next. One hundred and five. Yes, it was a good one and I felt myself sag at the knees with relief. Alice’s was the next score and it was quite a way down the board. When she had seen her drawn number she had not been too dismayed because she was not at all superstitious, but, “Wouldn’t you just believe it,” she had commented in an acid voice, “thirteen.” The score which appeared opposite her name was a respectable seventy-one.
Annemarie, who had produced a surprisingly fluent test, marred only by Balthazar’s occasional shows of irritated head-shaking and tail-swishing, was given sixty-nine, and Mandy, whose test had been threatened by one black moment when she had hesitated, unsure of the next movement when circling back on to the track at sitting trot, and had been saved by Fox Me who slipped into canter as they hit the letter, thus anticipating at a most fortuitous moment and reminding her of what came next, was given a seventy-nine. By the end of the score posting, I was fourth individual overall, and the Hissey Training Scholarship Team were lying third out of nine teams.
It was an unbelievably marvellous beginning, and it had an instant effect on our damaged morale. Alice let out a mighty whoop of joy, Mandy continued to stare up at the boards as if she had seen a heavenly vision, and Annemarie smiled for the first time in two weeks. As for me, I stopped thinking of myself as an individual, and remembered that we were supposed to be a team; we were a team – and it was high time that we began to think, act, and ride like a team. A chance to ride for the scholarship team in the junior trial had been the one thing that all of us had wanted. Well, we were here, we were lying third after the first phase, and now we would go out there and fight.
“We can do it,” I told the others, “I’m sure we can do it.”
“Not before I have taken my photograph, if you wouldn’t mind!” Selina, sportingly clad in a quilted anorak and culottes, was already engaged in journalistic operations, removing anxious competitors and their supporters from her path in her most charmingly authoritative manner. “I’m really so sorry- Would you excuse me? Will you move a little to the right, Mandy? Could you look up at the scoreboards for me? Would it be possible for you to look a little more worried, Elaine? – Oh my goodness,” she said in a pained voice, “where did you get those terrible sweatshirts?”
Ticket to Ride (Eventing Trilogy Book 3) Page 13