by Jilly Cooper
Niall, in his dog collar, who’d been terribly moved by Woody’s testimony and by the fact he’d never known Woody’s real name was Wilfred, then took the stand:
‘Mrs Bancroft’s caring nursing saved Mrs Wilkinson, but the whole of Willowwood in fact has rallied to her cause. Mrs Wilkinson has become a little local celebrity, and would miss the attention dreadfully if she were forced to go back to her original owner and the anonymity of a racing yard.’
Dora then leapt to her feet:
‘Dora Belvedon, sofa surfer. I can’t bear the thought of Mrs Wilkinson in a strange yard shaking hands and never getting rewarded with a Polo again.’
She gave a sob, and the judge told her, quite gently, to sit down and not interrupt.
‘It seems Mrs Wilkinson is a very popular horse.’
However, there was no getting away from the fact that Etta should have reported finding Mrs Wilkinson to the authorities, who might have been notified of her loss by Harvey-Holden’s staff, who could equally have restored her to health. Had Etta and her friends possibly realized what a good horse Mrs Wilkinson was, queried Cecil, and therefore not reported finding her?
As the day dragged on, growing hotter, Etta found herself increasingly detesting Harvey-Holden. The more terrible the cruelty revealed, the less his dead, rat-like features and his serpentine eyes seemed to react. His breath was so sour – even divided by the table, it nearly asphyxiated her. The case, however, seemed to be going his way when it was adjourned until the following morning.
39
H-H was so certain he was going to win that he pushed off to Royal Ascot next day to work the boxes and chat up potential owners. Judy Tobias, however, did turn up, wobbling in this time in white, like a vast blancmange, still writing copiously in her mauve notebook.
Etta, who’d changed into the old denim dress she’d retrieved from the charity shop because the periwinkle blue didn’t seem to be bringing them any luck, discovered the temperature had dropped and she couldn’t stop shivering. She felt very cast down that Dora hadn’t bothered to show up, nor had the Major and Debbie. Joey and Woody still brandished Tilda’s poster outside the court, but wondered if the willows would soon be weeping for Mrs Wilkinson.
In court, even Alan was looking worried. Marti Gluckstein resembled an eagle who’s mislaid a fat rabbit, as Cecil Stroud launched triumphantly into his final summing-up.
I’m going to lose her, thought Etta in anguish.
But suddenly there was a kerfuffle and cries of ‘Court’s sitting, sir,’ and a tall dark man stalked in like an army with banners. How attractive he is, thought Etta, then realized it was Valent Edwards. He was wearing a brown suede jacket, chinos and a blue check shirt. Putting a reassuring hand on Etta’s shoulder, he apologized to the judge for barging in.
He then, by sheer force of personality, turned the case as he described the terror and desperate state of Mrs Wilkinson the first time he’d seen her, about a fortnight after Etta had rescued her. Bonny Richards had been ironing out his Yorkshire accent but it slipped back as his passion grew.
‘I have never seen an animal so scared of humans. She was the most pathetic sight, blinded in one eye, collapsing on the ground, crashing round my office … The one person she troosted was Mrs Bancroft and it was her luv that saved that horse. If Mr Harvey-Holden luved her so much, why didn’t he recognize her when he saw her out hunting? Or Mr Murchieson, who had owned her, recognize her when she won the point-to-point?
‘If you come outside, you’ll see how she’s blossomed.’
Everyone surged out into the sunshine, where they discovered Joey’s trailer and a grinning Dora. Next moment out clattered Mrs Wilkinson and Chisolm. Giving a great throaty whicker, Mrs Wilkinson bustled across the courtyard to get to Etta, nudging her delightedly, followed by a skipping, bleating Chisolm. Mrs Wilkinson then turned to her Willowwood friends, greeting them with equal pleasure.
Everyone cheered, except Jude the Obese, who complained the whole thing was a stitch-up. Judge Wilkes, however, beamed and asked to be introduced to Mrs Wilkinson, who shook hands with him until he was butted by a jealous Chisolm.
Back in court, the judge enquired as to the whereabouts of Harvey-Holden, only to be told by his wife that he’d been called away to tend a very sick animal.
‘Probably Shade Murchieson,’ quipped Alan.
The judge then asked Etta whether, as a pensioner, she could afford to keep a racehorse. Whereupon Valent stepped in again and said there was so much goodwill and affection for Mrs Wilkinson in Willowwood that if Mrs Bancroft needed help, he felt sure everyone would oblige. ‘Mrs Wilkinson has become the Village Horse.’
This was greeted by a roar of agreement. Judge Wilkes then summed up: ‘This dispute is about a horse. We do not know who perpetrated these dreadful crimes on Mrs Wilkinson.’
‘He didn’t call her Usurper,’ hissed Dora, ‘that’s promising.’
‘So I am unable to make a deprivation order, in addition to putting a ban on him or her ever keeping a horse again. But it is within my power to decide to whom I give this horse. The fact that she is a very valuable mare is of no consequence when one considers the evidence that she would no longer be with us today if it hadn’t been for the quick thinking and loving care of Mrs Etta Bancroft. I therefore give the mare, Mrs Wilkinson, formerly known as Usurper, to Mrs Bancroft.’
Cheers rocked the court.
‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ sobbed a joyful Etta, who hugged everyone else but found herself too shy to hug Valent.
After she’d wiped her tears away, she and Valent and Mrs Wilkinson posed for the photographers, marshalled by Dora.
‘I don’t understand how on earth you got Mrs Wilkinson to load,’ stammered Etta. ‘No one else has.’
‘I told her to get in and not be silly,’ said Valent with a smirk. He was in an excellent mood. He’d recently put ten million into a hedge fund providing bulldozers to China, which had risen by 600 per cent in the last fortnight, making him 60 million.
Hearing a furious squawk behind him, he turned to find Chisolm gobbling up the last of Jude the Obese’s mauve notebook.
‘That was invaluable evidence!’
‘I thought your side believed in destroying records,’ said Valent icily.
‘Valent’s only done it to dispel his Tin-Man-without-a-Heart image,’ snarled Shade when he heard the result. ‘From now on we’re going to bury the bastard, and Mrs Bancroft and fucking Rupert Campbell-Black.’
40
In a daze of happiness, Etta read reports of the case the following morning. VALENT TO THE RESCUE, shouted the Mail under a lovely picture of Valent, Chisolm and Mrs Wilkinson. Etta was also surrounded by gardening books, plotting ways in which she could surreptitiously enhance Valent’s garden as a thank-you present. Outside, the fields were alight with pink campion, dog daisies and foxgloves.
‘Should I make him a wild flower garden?’ she asked Chisolm, who, having finished up Etta’s bowl of cornflakes, was sitting on the sofa, eating her own picture in the Sun.
Demanding attention, as she peered over the fence and round Etta’s conifer hedge, was Mrs Wilkinson.
‘You’re mine, mine, mine,’ cried Etta, as she rushed out waving a carrot.
But she had reckoned without Martin, who was determined to repossess his mother. She was needed as a nanny, Granny Playbridge having retreated in tatters after a stint of Poppy and Drummond. The weeds were soaring in Harvest Home’s garden. The cricket season was under way, he had hit a fine six through Tilda Flood’s window, and he needed Etta to do the teas.
He therefore rolled up at the bungalow and weighed in: ‘You must sell Mrs Wilkinson at once, Mother.’
‘I can’t,’ gasped Etta, ‘the judge awarded her to me to look after.’
Chisolm bleated in agreement.
‘Get that goat out of here! If you sold her, you’d be self-sufficient, could afford a decent car and the improvements you wanted on this place – and frankly y
ou wouldn’t be a drain on Carrie and me any more. It’s been a struggle.’
‘Cooee, cooee.’ He was joined by Romy, lovely as June in a deep rose-red dress – the effect of warmth somewhat diminished by the cold look she gave Mrs Wilkinson’s silver point-to-point cup and Etta’s winning owner’s glass bowl.
Didn’t Etta realize that since Martin had nobly left the City to raise money for the Sampson Bancroft Memorial Fund, she and he had suffered a considerable loss of income?
Martin had also discovered Sampson hadn’t been quite so loved that people felt compelled to give generously. Some had been extremely rude. They therefore wanted Etta to pay back the £50,000 they’d forked out for the bungalow, which she could if she cashed in on all the publicity and sold Mrs Wilkinson well and at once.
Etta’s heart sank. She also felt honour bound to pay back Woody, Joey, Jase and Charlie Radcliffe for their endless free help, and what about Rupert?
Reading her thoughts, Martin returned to the attack:
‘Rupert can only have bankrolled your court case because he’s expecting you to sell Mrs Wilkinson to him.’
‘What about Chisolm?’ quavered Etta.
‘Oh, she’d lead a far more worthwhile life sustaining a family in Africa,’ said Romy. ‘Shoo, shoo, out of here.’
In answer, Chisolm raised a cloven hoof and scattered currants over the kitchen floor.
After they’d gone, a despairing Etta rang Alan, who suggested she leased Mrs Wilkinson to a syndicate. ‘They’d pay her training fees and insurance and share out any winnings.’
But if Martin and Carrie stopped her tiny allowance, she’d have only her state pension to live on and couldn’t pay anyone back.
It was a stiflingly hot evening. She could hear the roar of Farmer Fred’s tedder as he tossed and turned the newly cut hay, baling it into shining silver cotton reels. The shaven fields gleamed like a platinum blonde in a nightclub, the air was heavy with the voluptuous scent of honeysuckle, elder and wild rose. Such a night to be in love, thought Etta, but not with a horse that was going to be taken away.
She sought comfort in the orchard, where Chisolm and Mrs Wilkinson ransacked her pockets for Polos. She must find a way to keep them. As her eyes strayed to the dark house nearby, still spiky with scaffolding, her thoughts turned to Valent. She put her hand on the shoulder he had touched in court, pressing her cheek against the hand, feeling weak with longing for him to take care of her, Wilkie and Chisolm.
But he had Bonny Richards and had done enough. To comfort her mistress, Mrs Wilkinson hooked her head over Etta’s shoulder and drew her against her warm grey breastbone.
‘Something will turn up.’
After a sleepless night, when she had tossed like Farmer Fred’s hay, Etta was interrupted at seven thirty in the morning by a call from Alan.
‘Let’s have a meeting in the Fox to see if the village is prepared to form a syndicate.’
‘Might they?’
‘We can only try. I’ll get on the telephone.’
41
To Etta’s amazement, twelve hours later she was in the garden of the Fox, breathing in a heady scent of pink rambler roses and damp earth from a recent shower. With a large jug of pre-ordered Pimm’s, she filled up the glasses of the Major, Debbie, Pocock, Painswick, Alban, Jase, Joey, Woody, very brown from working stripped to the waist at Badger’s Court, Shagger, Tilda, Dora, Trixie, who’d bunked off from school and was keeping shtum because she didn’t want her father to see her new tongue stud, Niall the vicar, and Chris and Chrissie, who’d left Jenny the barmaid manning the shop because most of the drinkers were in the garden. Araminta and Cadbury panted under the walnut tree.
Etta had bought the first round. She wanted to, and Alan had suggested it was a good idea to look rich.
He was just kicking off, asking everyone to drink a toast to Etta winning the court case, when Phoebe and Toby, who were gripped with pre-Wimbledon fervour, scuttled in in tennis gear.
‘Sorry sorry sorry, just been finishing a needle match,’ cried Phoebe. ‘Ooh, Pimm’s, how refreshing, yes please, just what we need.’
Alan, whose irritation was only betrayed by a hiss through the teeth and drumming fingers on the table, waited until they were sorted and seated to announce: ‘Etta and I have invited you here this evening to discuss the possibility of forming a syndicate to put Mrs Wilkinson into training.’
He looked round the garden at his daughter texting, at Tilda marking SATS papers, at Phoebe whispering to Shagger, at Dora beaming in approval.
‘What we need,’ he continued, ‘is ten people each to take a three thousand pound share. That’s assuming Mrs Wilkinson is worth thirty thousand – in fact she’s worth a great deal more, bearing in mind her pedigree and her astonishing performance at the point-to-point, so you’d be getting a fantastic bargain. But we want to make this not beyond people’s pockets, so we can keep Mrs Wilkinson in Willowwood.’
At the prospect of forking out so much, everyone was doing sums. Alban, who’d been in the pub since six, was confidently looking forward to confirmation of a £250,000-a-year role heading a quango. Debbie was wondering whether having the most colourful garden in Willowwood was quite enough. She and the Major had enjoyed the court case and the point-to-point so much, it had given them something to talk about at mealtimes. Tilda yawned. She’d been up at six that morning, making up beds for Shagger’s holiday lets. She couldn’t afford to join the syndicate, but she was depressed by the SATS Level 4 essays she was marking. They were so colourless, dull and unimaginative, from children stuck behind computers all day, when there was so much beauty in the world. People needed adventure.
Chris and Chrissie had just discovered their latest stab at IVF hadn’t worked. Chris felt his wife needed cheering out of her despair … Joey, Jase and Woody had been in at the start and loved Mrs Wilkinson. Niall loved Woody and would seize any opportunity to be near him.
‘As well as the initial three thousand,’ explained Alan blithely, ‘we’d each have to put in a hundred and eighty-five pounds a month. That’s to pay twenty-two thousand a year to a trainer for the gallops, feed, vets, entries, jockeys and transport.’
‘Same as Bagley school fees,’ volunteered Trixie.
‘If I take care of the insurance,’ asked Shagger, refilling his and Toby’s glasses from Etta’s Pimm’s jug, ‘can I have my share free?’
‘I have to be straight with you,’ said Alan, ignoring him. ‘Eighty per cent of owners never have a win.’ Then, looking around: ‘But if we do win, the jockey gets 10 per cent of the winnings, the trainer 10 per cent, and the owners a socking great 80 per cent. We won’t make a fortune, but as we take off to race meetings round the country, we’ll have one hell of a ball.’ The scent from the garden was getting stronger as a gold full moon with a halo rose out of the trees to watch the fun.
‘Also you don’t all have to have an equal share,’ Alan rallied the doubters. ‘If you feel three thousand is too much, you can split it between two or three.’
Gathering up a second jug waiting on a side table, smiling shyly, Etta began to fill up everyone’s glasses.
If I joined this syndicate, thought Alban, the Major and Pocock, I could get closer to this sweet woman.
There was a long pause and even longer faces as everyone redid the sums and decided it was one hell of a commitment. They could hear the roar of Farmer Fred’s combines and the pat of tennis balls. Then Miss Painswick put down her knitting and announced that ‘Bagley Hall gave me a good pension. I’ve got a few savings. I’m very attached to Mrs Wilkinson and I’d like to be part of her future.’
‘Oh Joyce.’ Etta grabbed her hand.
‘Oh well done, Miss Painswick,’ said Dora, ‘Hengist would be proud of you. I’d like to have a share but I’m not sure I can afford a hundred and eighty-five pounds. I’ve got “A” Levels next year, so I won’t have time to flog so many stories.’
‘I’ll take a half-share with you, Dora,’ said Trixie, st
opping texting in her excitement.
‘With what?’ demanded Alan.
‘You’ll help me, Dad. You won’t have to pay school fees any more if I go to Larkminster High.’
Pocock, who would soon be working extra time for Corinna and Seth, then said he’d take a half-share with Miss Painswick.
‘Good for you, we’ll chip in too,’ said Chris. A horse would take Chrissie’s mind off the baby. ‘We can’t sell Mrs Wilkinson to some ’orrible owner who might not cherish her. She belongs to Willowwood.’
Jase, Woody and Joey, though they were committed to Not for Crowe and Family Dog, agreed to take a fourth share.
‘Just over sixty pounds a monf,’ said Joey, who was yet to tell Mop Idol about a third horse he’d bought with his point-to-point winnings.
Debbie glanced at the Major, who polished his spectacles and nodded.
‘Father and I have always wanted a Mercedes when we retired,’ said Debbie, ‘but we’d rather have a racehorse!’
‘Oh, come on, Toby. We’re both working, and if the Cunliffes are joining …’ pleaded Phoebe. Then, turning to Alban: ‘And you come in too, Uncle Alban. And you and Tilda could take a share, Shagger.’
‘I suppose we could manage it,’ said Tilda, hiding her blushing face in another turgid essay. Anything to provide an ongoing link with Shagger. She’d just have to take on more coaching.
‘Even with Etta, that’s only nine shares,’ said Shagger crushingly. ‘We haven’t got enough people.’
‘Yes, you have,’ said a deep, husky voice and in walked a tall, dark, very suntanned man in a black shirt and jeans, who was followed by an equally beautiful sleek black greyhound. As everyone surged forward to kiss him or shake his hand, except Phoebe, who scuttled off to the Ladies to take the shine off her flushed post-tennis face, Etta realized it was Seth Bainton.