“She hasn’t got much of a chance,” Pink Dungarees retorted. “Not working for the Fanes; where the devil are they anyway?” She glared round the yard as if she expected to catch them hiding somewhere.
“The Fanes are out exercising,” I said crossly. “They won’t be back for at least an hour. So I suggest that you either tell me what you want, or go and wait somewhere for them to come back.” I turned back into the stable, picked up the metal grid and jammed it back over the drain. I had wasted enough time. I picked up the stiff brush and began to sweep the drain clots towards the door.
“Now look here, Miss Busy Bee,” Brenda said angrily. “I’ll tell you what I want! What I want is a bit of service! A bit of value for money, that’s what I want!”
I stopped sweeping. “Value for what money?” I said.
“You’re not explaining yourself very well, Bren,” the white-faced girl said anxiously. “She doesn’t know who we are.”
“We,” Brenda pronounced, pursing her rosebud lips, “are livery clients. And what is more, we are not satisfied, and if something is not done about it, we are leaving.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” I said hastily. I put the brush down. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might be dealing with livery clients. The livery clients I had encountered at the training centre hadn’t looked anything like Doreen and Brenda. They had been sober, middle-class sort of people who came into the yard dressed in tweed jackets and breeches and sometimes slipped the students fifty pence for saddling their horses. I cursed myself for being so off-hand. After promising the Fanes more livery clients, the last thing I wanted on my first morning was to have to tell them they had two less. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize. If you tell me what’s wrong, I’ll do my best to put it right.”
“You can get the bloody blacksmith to my horse, for a start,” Brenda said. “The creature’s had a shoe off for a week and he’s footsore. How can I get the beast fit without a decent set of shoes?”
“I’ll organize it,” I said. “Leave it to me. If I can, I’ll get him here tomorrow.”
“And where’s the mineral supplement?” she said. “Ordered and paid for three weeks ago and still not arrived.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’ll find out.”
“My pony is supposed to have damped hay,” Doreen said in her timid voice. “He’s got a cough. He’s supposed to have paste spread on his tongue twice a day. I don’t think they remember.”
“I’ll remember,” I promised. “I’ll give him the paste. I’ll dunk his hay.”
“We’ll give it one more week, Busy Bee,” Doreen said threateningly. “If things don’t look up, we’re off.”
“I quite understand,” I said.
There was a lot of snorting and muttering and slamming of stable doors after this, but eventually Pink Dungarees left, with Doreen scuttling along behind.
The next interruption wasn’t long coming. I had just poured a bucket of water down the drain and was listening to the satisfying gurgle as it cleared, when there was a scraping noise at the door and two delighted faces appeared in the crack. The two faces were swiftly joined by four more. It was the young entry.
I was not at all pleased to see them. Apart from already having suffered one set-back in the form of Big Brenda, I knew that there was no way I could get the hounds back to the kennels as Lady Jennifer had taken off earlier in the shooting brake, it being her day of duty at the Oxfam shop. I rattled the bucket at them, hoping to frighten them away.
“Home,” I commanded them sternly. “GO HOME.”
But the young entry were overjoyed to be addressed in such a welcoming manner. They tried to fight their way in through the partly opened door only succeeding in trapping their shoulders and necks to the accompaniment of howls, yelps and choking noises. When I kicked at the door to free them, they burst into the stable and leapt at me in an ecstasy of lickings and slobberings. Their coats were wet and black and sticky where they had been rolling in the fields of burned stubble.
I was desperately trying to stay on my feet, fending them off with the bucket, when I heard galloping hooves on the drive. I dropped the bucket and rushed outside with the young entry bounding at my heels, expecting to see an escapee. The Comet perhaps, or the old bay mare. It was Forster.
He was in his scarlet, mounted on a rangy liver chestnut whose coat was running with sweat. His boots were spattered with mud and his white breeches were streaked with black. He was in a blazing temper.
“Damn you Ladybird, you useless cur,” he raged as soon as he set eyes on the young entry. “And you, Landlord! Hike back there you bloody little fiends, or I’ll break your miserable necks for you!”
He kicked his horse towards them, cracking his whip. The young entry cringed away and dived behind me for protection. I backed away from the plunging hooves, treading on paws and sterns as I went, setting up a succession of agonized yelpings.
“Don’t you dare hit them,” I shouted. “If you touch them with that whip, I’ll report you to the RSPCA for cruelty!”
Forster gave a bark of laughter. I stood my ground, feeling foolish because of the young entry peering anxiously round and through my legs. “If they were well treated at the kennels,” I said defensively, “they wouldn’t keep coming back here.”
Forster yanked the liver chestnut to a standstill. “They keep coming back,” he said angrily, “because they were ruined by your crazy employers. They slept on the beds and gobbled scraps in the kitchen like lap dogs. These are supposed to be working hounds, not curs!” He threw a booted leg over the horse’s neck and jumped down onto the cobbles. The liver chestnut dropped its head thankfully and let out a long, gusting sigh from its distended nostrils. “How would you feel,” Forster said, “If you had been up since four, had a hard morning’s cubbing, and then had to do a six mile detour because half the pack decided to go visiting?”
“I suppose I might feel a bit peeved,” I said, keeping my eyes on the plaited leather thong with its muddy red lash flickering on the end like a serpent’s tongue.
“Peeved,” Forster said in disgust, “is not the word I would use to describe it.” He coiled up his whip, and as if by magic the young entry crept out from behind my legs and prostrated themselves at his feet, grovelling and fawning in the most sycophantic manner possible. One of them actually started to lick his boots.
I was exasperated by this fickle behaviour and I was also uncomfortably aware that I was still splattered with dried sludge from the black horse’s stable. Normally, it wouldn’t have mattered, but for some reason it mattered now.
“I suggest you take your toadying curs off back to the kennels,” I said crossly. “You’re not the only one with a job to do.” I started to walk off, but Forster got hold of my elbow.
“Hold on a minute,” he said. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. I was angry.”
“Obviously,” I said.
“They don’t hate me, you know,” he said, gesturing at the young entry, sprawling contentedly at his feet. “They have to learn discipline. If they don’t, they can’t hunt, and if they can’t hunt, they to be destroyed. It’s as simple as that.”
“It isn’t simple,” I said. “It’s heartless.”
“They’re not pets,” he said. “You couldn’t keep a foxhound as a pet. They’re hunters and scavengers by nature. They’re not a domestic strain.” One of the young entry laid its head on his knee and gazed up at him with adoration in its eyes. “So how’s the job?” he asked.
“The job’s OK,” I said. “If you’re really interested.”
“If I wasn’t interested,” he said, “I wouldn’t have asked.”
“So now you’ve asked,” I said, “and I’ve told you. So perhaps you’ll let go of my arm.”
“I’ll consider it,” he said.
We stood and stared at each other. I told myself that he was arrogant and conceited and heartless, and that I hated him. But he was in his scarlet, with his hounds at
his feet. He was muddy and tired, and there was blood on his face where a bramble had jagged him. And the mocking, sneering façade was gone. So my eyes dropped first, and I felt the colour rush to my cheeks. I could see how very, very easy it would be to fall for Forster. Not me though. Definitely not me.
“Elaine,” he said, letting go of my arm. “Why are you so determined to make a fool of yourself?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said faintly.
“The Fanes are the laughing stock of the county,” he said. “Surely you realize that.”
"Even if I do," I looked up at him wearily, "a job is a job."
“But you don’t have to do this job,” he said. “I can get you a much better one.”
“Another job? Why would you bother?" I was surprised..
“One of our subscribers, Felix Hissey, needs a groom. His girl’s leaving. She’s got,” he hesitated, “well …personal problems.”
“Felix Hissey?” I said. “You mean Felix Hissey, the Pickle King?” I had heard of Felix Hissey. His company sponsored the two largest Three Day Events in the country. Not only that, but they awarded two annual scholarships so that promising young event riders and their horses could train with the National Coach. A job with someone like Felix Hissey was the golden opportunity I had been waiting for. Suddenly I was all ears. I wondered if this was Forster’s idea of a joke. But he looked perfectly serious.
“He’s a good employer,” he said, mistaking my silence for lack of enthusiasm. “It’s a well paid job. There’s also a very nice flat.”
“How soon does he need someone?” I tried hard to sound casual.
“By the end of the month. He hasn’t advertised yet. Good jobs are hard to come by in the horse world and when he does there’ll be hundreds after it. If you want to get in first, you’ll have to be quick.”
“But the end of the month is only two weeks away!” I said.
“Two weeks too long, I’d have thought,” Forster thrust his foot into the liver chestnut’s stirrup and swung himself into the saddle. At once the young entry were on their feet, sterns waving, ready to be off. Things were beginning to move rather too fast for me.
“But I’ve only just taken this job,” I said in dismay. “I only started this morning!”
Forster shrugged. “So what? Hissey was out with us this morning and he’ll be out again on Thursday. Do you want me to put in a word for you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, agonized. “I need time to think about it.”
The liver chestnut sidled towards the clock arch, wanting to leave. Forster kicked it in the ribs. It obliged him by standing still and chucking its head up and down. “Listen Elaine,” he said impatiently. “You’ve no prospects here. You haven’t a hope in hell of earning a decent wage. If you pass up this opportunity you’re a fool.”
“I know,” I said. “It isn’t that I don’t want to take it. I do. But it’s so sudden. I can’t just walk out, not just like that. They are depending on me to turn this place round. If I left now I should feel a cheat.”
“The Fanes are not averse to a bit of cheating themselves,” Forster said. He cuffed the liver chestnut’s neck with his coiled whip. It stopped chucking its head and arched its neck, opened its mouth, and rattled the bit against its teeth.
“It isn’t the Fanes I’m thinking of,” I said miserably. “It’s the horses.”
I couldn’t expect Forster to understand this. I only had to think of Nelson with his one eye and his hollow flanks, and the old bay mare with her gallant air and her dusty, threadbare coat, to feel a pull at my heart. And who would treat the black horse’s thrush and school The Comet, if I didn’t? And across the yard, Doreen’s pony coughed and coughed and Brenda’s cob with its pink piggy nose and white eyelashes rested a footsore hind leg.
“You’ll have to give me time to decide,” I said. “I have to think things out.”
“I’ll ring you,” Forster said, “on Wednesday night.” He raised his whip in a salute and loosed the reins. The liver chestnut plunged across the yard. “By the way,” he added, “you’re very pretty, even with all that muck on your face.” He disappeared under the clock arch and the young entry gambolled obediently after him without so much as a backward glance.
I went into the tack room and I looked in the little spotted mirror on the wall. I couldn’t see anything pretty. I saw my mother’s bone pale hair, but whereas hers had always been lightly permed and set into a distinctive style, mine hung straight to just below my ears and because I had cut it myself, it was a bit lopsided. My too-pale skin was decorated with black splodges from the drains and my father’s eyes stared back at me, grey and wide and rather vacant. Compared to the robust and colourful Fanes, I looked washed out and faded: I looked like a ghost. No, I saw nothing pretty in the tack room mirror.
Hooves sounded and the Fanes clattered in from exercise, pink-cheeked and breathless, with cascades of wind-blown hair. “We’ve just passed the young entry on the lane,” Nigella gasped. “It was jolly bad luck that you were here by yourself. I bet Nick Forster was hopping.”
“I hope you didn’t let him get away with it anyway,” Henrietta said, sliding down the bad tempered chestnut’s shoulder. “I hope you gave as good as you got. It isn’t as if it’s our fault.”
I took The Comet by his withered rein. “He wasn’t all that angry,” I said. “In fact, he was rather nice about it.”
“Oh,” Henrietta exclaimed in a knowing manner. “Was he!”
“I think we ought to warn you,” Nigella said anxiously, “that he’s not all that nice to know. He’s got a terrible reputation.”
“He’s had an affair with half the county,” Henrietta said, “including Mrs Lydia Lane, whose husband threatened to shoot him.”
“And they do say,” Nigella continued, “that he drinks rather more than he should.”
“The Hissey groom was keen on him for ages,” Henrietta said. “You wouldn’t believe how badly he treated her. In the end, he was so insufferably awful to her at the Hunt Ball that she packed her cases and walked out.”
“I see,” I said. That explained why Forster had appeared so concerned about getting me a better job; it hadn’t been done out of kindness, but because Felix Hissey had been left in the lurch, and Forster was responsible for it. I took the old bay mare by her bridle.
“I hope you don’t think we are being prissy,” Nigella said. “We’re only telling you for your own good.”
“After all,” Henrietta added, “It’s better to know these things. It’s as well to have them pointed out.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
I led The Comet and the old bay mare back to their stables. I had been up long before anyone else, and their beds were laid thick and clean and sweet, with banked up sides, scrubbed pails of clean water, and piles of newly shaken hay. The horses showed no surprise or gratification at their increased comfort, accepting it as their due. The satisfaction should have been mine. But somehow it wasn’t. And it was all Forster’s fault.
After that, the day went from bad to worse. Whilst the Fanes were out with the second lot of horses, I decided to ring the blacksmith. There was a dingy little room next to the kitchen which served as an office; if a wobbly table heaped with yellowing newspapers and copies of Horse and Hound dating back to the year dot, could be termed an office.
The office housed the telephone, and in my efforts to locate the local telephone directory, I pulled open the drawer in the table. It was stuffed with invoices. I might have closed it again if I hadn’t noticed that one of them was from the blacksmith, and had his telephone number on the top. When I pulled it out, I noticed that it also had a little green sticker on the bottom saying YOUR CHEQUE WOULD OBLIGE. The next one I pulled out was of a more recent date and it had a different sort of sticker on it, a round one proclaiming THIS ACCOUNT IS OVERDUE in angry red letters. The next one was bigger altogether. It occupied a larger space and was edged in black. It threatened lega
l action if the account was not settled within ten days. The invoice was dated two weeks ago.
I sank down into a chair and looked through the invoices. There were dozens and dozens of them, not only from the blacksmith, but from the saddler, from the vet, from local farmers who had supplied hay and straw, and from the corn merchant. Some of them were almost a year old and none of them was receipted. They were all unpaid.
I knew now why the blacksmith hadn’t been called, why the corn bins were empty and why the mineral supplement hadn’t arrived. How could you call a blacksmith who was taking legal action to recover payment for past services? How could you place an order with a corn merchant who regretted that he must refuse any further credit and cease all further deliveries until the outstanding invoices were cleared?
I don’t know how long I sat in that dismal little room, telling myself what a complete and utter fool, what a blind and crass idiot I had been. Asking myself how I had imagined, even for a minute, that by my own inept and inexperienced hand, I could salvage such an appallingly hopeless business.
My father had always numbered over-confidence and misplaced optimism amongst my prime failings. These defects, being completely alien to his own nature, he considered to be a character weakness inherited from my mother, a born optimist, who had left home for a man fifteen years her junior when I was ten. In view of this, it was hardly surprising that he should feel that pessimism and modesty were more solid attributes. Nevertheless, it didn’t help to speculate how much he was going to enjoy being proved right again. How he would relish the opportunity of being able to say “I told you so. Haven’t I always told you that there is no future in horses.”
Even Hans would have to smile to see me now. Just as he had smiled when I had outlined to him the plans I had made for my career, so tidily and confidently expounded, so forlornly and improvidently arranged. He had listened to me carefully, with his blond head slightly on one side, and one long, beautifully polished boot ledged in the bottom rail of the paddock fence. And when I had finished, he had sighed.
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