Eventer's Dream

by Caroline Akrill

  Nothing happened for ages and just as I had decided that nothing ever would, and even the bad-tempered chestnut had lost interest and was chewing a twig, I heard the Huntsman’s voice. There were some rustlings and cracklings and a, “Leu in there, try over,” followed by a yelp. Then a hound spoke inside the copse and almost immediately another joined in. The bad-tempered chestnut stiffened to attention, his ears pointed forward like a terrier.

  A few seconds later there was a holloa, a shrill, spine-tingling scream along the ride, and almost simultaneously Forster steamed past, galloping purposefully, with a couple of hounds at his horse’s heels. After a moment’s hesitation I followed. Flying round the edge of the copse, the bad-tempered chestnut and I suddenly came across the black horse blocking the ride with Henrietta standing in her stirrups, holding her hat in the air.

  “Don’t come any further,” she shouted. “Don’t cross the line!”

  The bad-tempered chestnut applied his brakes and skidded to a halt. The black horse, knowing there was to be a run, was in an agony of impatience, plunging and dancing all over the ride and frothing at the mouth. It was all Henrietta could do to hold him with one hand. Suddenly there was a staccato burst on the horn and the entire pack flashed across the ride between us. The Huntsman crashed after them, cheering them on. The black horse leapt in the air and carried Henrietta after them even before she had time to cram her hat back on to her head.

  The bad-tempered chestnut followed at a more cautious pace. I wanted to be sure that hounds were all out of the copse and that the Hunt Staff had got away first. I didn’t want to find myself galloping in the middle of the pack and in front of the Master on my first day out.

  By the time we had negotiated the headland of the plough, the rest of our party had joined us and hounds were strung out two fields ahead. It was marvellous to be riding across country again. The bad-tempered chestnut didn’t have much scope because he was a small, compact horse with a naturally short stride; but he was very game. He tackled everything that came his way. He slithered down and scrambled up the sides of ditches the bigger horses took in one massive flying leap; he shrugged his way through brambles and undergrowth the thin-skinned blood horses baulked at; and he laboured manfully over the plough. Whenever we hit grass or stubble, he showed a surprising turn of speed. Galloping along with the wind stinging my face, the chestnut neck stretched in front of me, and the regular thud of hooves beneath me, I felt alive again for the first time since I had left the training centre.

  Another dozen or so riders joined the field as the morning wore on. Hounds had begun to slow down and were swinging in a wide circle when I looked at my watch and realised that it was time to leave. Punctuality was one of my father’s strong points and I knew he wouldn’t be even a minute late. I pushed the bad-tempered chestnut on slightly to catch up with Nigella, who was riding slightly in front. Doreen and the old bay mare were well behind but I could see the black horse and The Comet almost two fields ahead, practically level with the Master. Mr McLoughlin was by no means being run away with; his reins were lying loose upon The Comet’s neck, his seat was waving in the air, and he was having the ride of his life; worth every penny of the twenty pounds I intended to charge him.

  “Can’t you stay a little longer?” Nigella gasped, when we were stirrup to stirrup and I had shouted that I was about to leave. She added something about having to turn for home anyway and having to watch The Comet, but I lost most of it in the rattle of hooves as we dropped off a bank into a narrow lane. The lane seemed a good place to make the break, so I pulled up and set off for home. The bad-tempered chestnut was as reluctant as I was to leave when hounds were running. He clamped his tail to his rump, fixed his ears back and sulked.

  Along the lane we came upon the tall, thin man struggling to load the bay horse into his trailer. The horse was rearing and rolling its eyes and the man was shouting and hitting it with the end of the headcollar rope. I dismounted and stood behind the horse, slapping its hindquarters and making encouraging noises and the bad-tempered chestnut did what he could by snaking out his head and snapping his teeth, and eventually the bay horse went up the ramp. As I fastened the breeching, the tall, thin man told me that the bay horse was only on trial, and that, by jove, it was off back the first thing in the morning; he couldn’t wait to see the last of it. I was relieved to hear it because the bay horse was far too high couraged for him, it deserved better than the tall, thin man; and I knew that he would be a different person on a more suitable horse. He wasn’t cruel, only frightened; but fright can make even a timid man into a tyrant where horses are concerned.

  By the time I had mounted up again and reached the Hall, it was a quarter past eleven and my father was due to arrive at half-past. I rubbed down the bad-tempered chestnut, rugged him up and left him warm and dry with his mash and his hay and dashed up to the house. There was just time to jump in and out of a luke-warm bath, which was the best the hot water system could achieve, to drag on some clean clothes and to clatter downstairs where I found Lady Jennifer laying out the iced fancies and the custard creams in her own little sitting room.

  The sitting room was the only furnished reception room in the house and it was enhanced by Henrietta’s Vile secretaire. Lady Jennifer was all prepared for tea with an electric kettle sitting on the hearth, together with a teapot with the silver plate rubbed off, and some china cups and plates of assorted design. A single bar electric fire only just failed to banish the chill from the air. It was not quite gracious living, but I was touched and grateful. I only hoped my father would be.

  At exactly half past eleven we were hovering by the front door and we heard the sound of a car on the drive. I felt incredibly nervous. I was almost glad that my father had chosen a hunting day to visit. At least, with the Fane sisters out of the way, the setting was serene. And Lady Jennifer, as she swept down the stone steps in her ancient tweeds with her hair pinned into an untidy bun, looked the picture of impoverished gentry.

  The immaculate Morris Minor came to a careful halt and my father got out and gave me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. I was just beginning to introduce him to Lady Jennifer when there was a wild shriek from somewhere in the park.

  As we turned towards it, we heard thundering hooves and a riderless horse came into view with reins and stirrups flying. The horse was The Comet and he was heading for the stables at full speed. Lady Jennifer barely had time to grip my arm with her bony fingers, when three couple of hounds, sopping wet from the river, burst through the remains of the yew hedge and hurled themselves upon us with yelps of joy. My father, with admirable presence of mind, opened the door of the Morris Minor to take refuge, but before he could set foot inside, one of the young entry beat him to it and seated itself proudly upon the driver’s seat, awaiting the inevitable transport back to the kennels.

  All this happened in an instant and it was followed up by the arrival of the old bay mare with Doreen aboard, hatless, her hair flopping over her eyes and her cheeks pink with exertion. They cleared the yew hedge in fine style and almost landed on top of us.

  “We tried to turn them,” Doreen shrieked. “But Mr McLoughlin hit a tree!” She hauled furiously at the old bay mare to prevent herself being conveyed back to the yard and kicked her wildly in the ribs. “He’s lying in the park! Felled like an ox and as dead as a doorknob!”

  Lady Jennifer, who throughout this recital had been crying, “Oh! Oh!” in dismay, now turned deathly pale and set off at a run for the park gate, dragging my father with her. I jumped up behind Doreen, but the old bay mare refused to jump back over the hedge with an extra passenger and after a few nerve-wracking tries, we abandoned the idea and made for the gate as well.

  In the event, Mr McLoughlin was not dead. He had risen from the spot where he had been felled by an overhanging bough whilst grappling with The Comet’s iron will, and he was tottering towards us. His bowler hat was broken, there was blood flowing from his brow, and his breeches were streaked with grass stains. A
s Lady Jennifer loosed hold of my father and rushed to support him, the hunt swept past us like the Charge of the Light Brigade on the trail of the old dog fox who was heading for the certain safety of the plantation. With the ground vibrating under our feet, we made for the park railings where, just as we were engaged in heaving Mr McLoughlin over the top, more galloping hooves, whip crackings, and some colourful old English language heralded the arrival of William, red hot with temper over the desertion of his hounds.

  All this was like a nightmare. Worse than a nightmare. When we got back to the Morris Minor it was packed with hounds. The upholstery was soaked and steam was coming out of the open door. Noses were pressed expectantly against the windows. The Comet, who had returned to his stable only to find the lower door closed against him, paced up and down the drive looking anxious. He had broken his reins.

  Somehow I managed to push the young entry out of the car. They took one sideways look at William’s whip, tucked their sterns between their legs and fled across the park towards the plantation.

  My father and I faced each other across the ruined upholstery. His tie was askew and his good suit was patched with damp. Mr McLoughlin’s blood was on his cheek and his hair was standing up in a crest. To one side of us, Lady Jennifer was supporting the injured party, who appeared to be deliberating as to whether he should remount The Comet. Doreen and the old bay mare were engaged in a private battle, churning up the gravel.

  My father, who prided himself on being articulate and erudite, could find no words to suit the occasion. When he did speak it was in a voice stupefied by the passage of events.

  “Elaine,” he said faintly. “My dear child.”

  8

  Eventer’s Dream

  Mr McLoughin was persuaded not to remount, which was a great relief to everyone. He seemed to feel that he might lose his nerve if he didn’t get back into the saddle right away, but Lady Jennifer assured him that this was nothing but an old wives’ tale, and Doreen was allowed to lead The Comet and the old bay mare back to the stables.

  When the friend of a friend had been conveyed to a bathroom to be cleaned off, and a sticking plaster had been applied to his head, he got out his wallet.

  “No, no,” Lady Jennifer cried, aghast. “Put it away! We wouldn’t dream of charging you for such a ghastly experience. We couldn’t bear to take any fee whatsoever!”

  This foiled my plan somewhat, because I had been quite prepared to charge him twenty pounds, having decided that falls and minor injuries were an integral part of the chase. But Mr McLoughlin was not to be put off, insisting that I took not two, but three ten pound notes, and maintaining that until he had left the field to assist Doreen to turn the wayward hounds, he had been more than satisfied with The Comet. In fact, the horse had given him the best ride he had ever had.

  We were all deeply impressed by this show of open-handed sportsmanship. Lady Jennifer, in particular, was quite overcome and fussed over Mr McLoughlin, offering him tea and brushing his jacket, and setting him on his way with promises of even better sport on the day of the opening meet. “And not a mention of payment,” she warned him. “We shall be delighted to mount you, absolutely free of charge.” Even I nodded agreement to this, secure in the knowledge that Mr McLoughlin’s sense of fair play would never allow it.

  After Mr McLoughlin had departed, and to my utter amazement, not only did my father stay for tea and sit on the sofa nibbling an iced fancy of a particularly poisonous shade of green, but he and Lady Jennifer got on like a house on fire. The expected interrogations regarding wages and other matters related to gainful employment failed to occur and in no time at all they were both sitting on the sofa, sipping gin of dubious origin and giggling in a remarkably silly manner, whilst my father’s jacket steamed in front of the electric fire. My father was still in a good humour when he drove away an hour or so later, seated on a split Equivite bag for the better protection of his person. He had invited Lady Jennifer to lunch the following week.

  In due course Nigella and Henrietta returned, still boiling with excitement over the fabulous sport they had seen and totally unaware that anything untoward had happened to their client. When I related all that had taken place, Henrietta was vastly amused, but Nigella got into rather a state, maintaining that it was her fault for failing to watch The Comet who invariably took off when his head was turned for home. She was appalled to hear of Mr McLoughlin’s injury and of the desecration of the Morris Minor and even the sight of the three ten pound notes failed to banish her remorse.

  By the time we had finished in the stables, Nigella had worked herself up into a fever of anguish which Henrietta said was quite a regular occurrence due to over excitement after hunting, being a question of genetics and an inherited trait which had occasioned some of the Fane ancestors to have completely lost their marbles. This was hardly a comfort to Nigella who, far from being her calm and careful self, went around the yard as if demented, spilling the corn and dressing the horses in the wrong rugs, with her eyes unnaturally bright and two red spots burning on her cheeks.

  When we finally repaired to the kitchen there was a letter waiting for us on the table. It was from Thunder and Lightning Limited, and it informed us that we could expect the three hunters to arrive two days prior to the opening meet. They had noted our terms with pleasure and found them to be extremely reasonable.

  All this was too much for Nigella who, when Henrietta had read the letter aloud, placed her head on the kitchen table and sobbed and sobbed.

  I felt a bit weak at the knees myself.

  Two days later, we were out exercising when we passed some horses in a dealer’s field. There was nothing unusual in this as we passed the field practically every time we rode out. It was usually peopled with a few nondescript animals and a flock of geese who sometimes opened their wings and hissed at us, making the horses shy. Today the geese were on the far side of the field amongst some rank clumps of grass, and they didn’t bother us, but amongst the plain and pottery dealer’s stock, there was a magnificent bay horse.

  “Heavens,” Nigella exclaimed. “Just look at that in Harry Sabin’s field!” And we stopped to have a look.

  The horse was a threequarter-bred gelding of about sixteen-two and he was absolutely beautiful. He was a rich, dark, whole colour with black points, and when he trotted across the field to investigate our horses, he moved like a dream.

  “He certainly is some horse,” Henrietta said admiringly. “You don’t see too many with his sort of quality.”

  “You don’t see too many with his sort of quality in Harry Sabin’s field,” Nigella said. “I wonder how he came by it?” She leaned forward over the old bay mare’s bony shoulder and tickled the bay gelding under his chin. “He’s very friendly.”

  The bay gelding stretched out its neck enquiringly towards the old bay mare. He wasn’t clipped, and his thick coat had a soft, satiny gloss. The old bay mare squealed and tossed her mane like a four-year-old.

  “There has to be something wrong with it,” Henrietta decided. “There has to be a snag somewhere; otherwise Harry Sabin wouldn’t have it. He doesn’t deal in high class animals like this.” She stood up in her stirrups and peered over the hedge at the horse’s lower limbs, as if she expected to discover some appalling deformity.

  I stood in the lane with Nelson and the bad-tempered chestnut and I thought that the bay horse looked familiar. I had seen him somewhere before.

  “It might not be something you can see,” Nigella pointed out. “It could be gone in the wind or have an irregular heartbeat. It could be a crib-biter.”

  “It’s the tall, thin man’s horse,” I told them. “The one Henrietta was going to offer him fifty pounds for.”

  We all stared at the bay horse.

  “So it is,” Nigella said, astonished.

  “Let’s go and ask Harry Sabin how much he wants for it,” Henrietta said. “It might be cheap.”

  We rode down a track which led into a dirt yard. There were a few ram
shackle buildings and a scruffy cottage with its thatch patched with corrugated iron. There were some chickens scratching in the dirt and a blue-eyed, cream pony was wandering loose, like a dog. A wiry, weathered little man in a brown warehouse coat was tinkering about under the bonnet of a cattle wagon.

  “Harry!” Nigella called. “How much is the bay gelding?”

  Harry Sabin looked up from his tinkering in a leisurely sort of manner. “Now, Miss Fane, which bay gelding would you be talking about?” he enquired.

  “You know which one we mean, Harry,” Henrietta said. “The one in the top field.”

  ”Ah,” Harry Sabin said in an enlightened tone. “That bay gelding.”

  “How much is it?” Nigella said.

  Harry Sabin straightened up slowly and put down his spanner. “That bay gelding,” he said ruminatively, “come very expensive.”

  “Come off it, Harry,” Henrietta said impatiently. “How expensive?” The black horse, who was being led beside The Comet, began to dig a hole in the dirt with one of his front hooves. Henrietta jerked his headcollar rope and he stopped for a few seconds and then began again with the other foot.

  “Why would you be interested in the bay gelding, Miss Fane?” Harry Sabin asked, narrowing his foxy eyes and squinting up at Henrietta. “Is it that you haven’t enough mouths to feed already?”

  “All right,” Henrietta said, annoyed. “If that’s how you feel. I wasn’t going to buy it anyway.” She turned The Comet towards the lane.

  “Harry,” Nigella pleaded. “Just give us a price; a rough idea of what he’s worth.”

  The blue-eyed, cream pony ambled round the back of the bad-tempered chestnut, who shuffled his quarters round, hoping to get a shot at it. I felt a bit impatient with the Fanes. They couldn’t afford to buy the bay gelding. They were just wasting Harry Sabin’s time, and he knew it. He softened though, as people often did, for Nigella.