Even the Fanes were taken aback by the revelation that “the Lads” hadn’t felt it was necessary to select their own hunters; and that any bad ones would be exchanged as if they were no more than a pound of apples. I felt that such a cavalier attitude could spell trouble in store, and I was rendered even more uneasy when I remembered that “The Lads” had not felt it necessary to send anyone to inspect our yard before they had accepted our livery terms. I was heartily glad that we were to be spared the presence of Thunder and Lightning Limited at the opening meet.
When Chick Hayes had sped off towards the Norwich gig in a Bedford van which had come along behind, the beautiful horsebox was left in solitary splendour in the centre of the yard. The lanterns reflected in the paintwork like orange globes and the Fanes and I stood and stared at it, mesmerized, like children round a Christmas tree.
“Well,” I said eventually. “I suppose we had better get the horses out.”
I began to unbolt the ramp. The Fanes, after a moment’s hesitation, came to help. The ramp swung down smoothly to reveal three horses, a bay, a chestnut and a blue roan, staring at us over partitions padded with real hide. I had seen luxury horseboxes before, but even the box which Hans Gelderhol used to transport his event horses had been nothing like this. The paintwork was sparkling, unblemished white, the padding was soft black leather, the floors were fitted with anti-slip matting, and the inside of the box was lit like a film set.
Nigella unbolted the breast bar and untied the bay, who stepped down the ramp in an unhurried, mannerly way, pausing at the foot to look round at his new surroundings. He was a quality blood horse with a sensible, kind expression. He wore a black mohair rug piped in red with a jag of lightning in the corner instead of initials. He had matching kneecaps and tailguard, red bandages and a nut brown anticast roller and head collar with solid brass fittings.
“Wow,” Henrietta breathed, taking it all in. “Wow.”
“Now this really is my idea of a high class livery,” Nigella said, delighted. “If we can attract clients with horses like these, we are made. Our problems are over.”
“From what I have seen and heard of “The Lads”,” I reminded them, “our problems might only just be beginning.”
We stabled the horses and changed their mohair rugs for lined and piped jute night rugs with pure new wool under-blankets. Then we fed them and began to unload the saddlery from the groom’s compartment in the horsebox. It was all top quality German workmanship with stainless steel bits, stirrup irons and buckles. In the homely light of a lantern suspended from the centre beam, we stowed the fine saddlery in our shabby tack room and folded the beautiful rugs carefully on the centre table. When it was all finished we stood back and drank it all in; the silvery gleam of the metalwork, the soft glow of fine supple leather, the luxury of the rugs with their scarlet piping, the glitter of the brass fitted headcollars.
“One day,” Henrietta said, “all our saddlery will be like this.” And her eyes were hungry in the lantern light.
Nigella said nothing, and I knew that she was thinking what I was thinking. That if it didn’t work out; if it turned out to be wrong and all this richness was taken away again, how terribly hard it would be to bear. That after all our struggles, after all the moth-eaten rugs, the patched and threadbare blankets, the old and withered leather, the rusted and pitted metalwork, to be able to feast our eyes on such fabulously extravagant things was food for the soul. So we stood looking but not saying, for a long time, whilst the stable cat purred around our ankles.
After all that, I almost forgot to ring the vet. I left the Fanes investigating the baby cooker and the fridge and the buttoned hide seating in the living compartment of the horsebox, and fled up to the Hall to get the report on Harry Sabin’s bay gelding.
I was only just in time because the vet had finished his surgery and was in the act of going out of the door in his hat and coat when the telephone rang. He was pleased to inform me that the bay gelding had a completely clean bill of health which would cost me fifteen pounds. Yes, he was sound in every way and as far as he could tell, eminently suitable for a tough competitive sport such as eventing. There was just one thing that he felt bound to mention. That when he had been galloped to test his wind, and to assess how quickly his heartbeat and respiration returned to normal after exertion, he had put in a buck, the violence of which had almost launched Harry Sabin’s lad into outer space.
12
Flight of The Comet
On the morning of the opening meet the Fanes appeared in beautifully cut, navy blue habits with scarlet waistcoats. Their wild hair was wild no longer, it was coiled and netted below silk hats. They wore veils over their faces. They looked absolutely beautiful. I stared at them in amazement, quite unable to speak.
“We thought you would like it,” Nigella said. “We did it as a surprise. We don’t actually have any proper hunt coats and breeches and things. The habits belong to Mummy. They are almost antique.”
“We have to live up to our high class image, after all,” Henrietta said. “Although if we break our necks, it will probably be your fault. We haven’t ridden sideways for ages.”
They tripped off across the cobbles to heave down the side-saddles which reposed under canvas covers on the topmost brackets of the tack room, leaving me to organize the rest of our party.
There were seven horses going from the yard. Mr McLoughlin, not surprisingly, had expressed a desire not to be reunited with The Comet. Nigella determined to ride him herself, which allowed him the use of the mare-who-sometimes-slipped-a-stifle. Henrietta was taking the black horse, Brenda was taking her pink-nosed cob, Doreen was taking her pony, and a friend of hers was hiring the bad-tempered chestnut. This had left me with the scintillating choice between the old bay mare and Nelson.
I was a bit worried about the old bay mare because when I had ridden her out to exercise a few days previously, I had thought she was off-colour. The Fanes had dismissed this as a figment of my imagination, especially in view of the fact that I had taken her temperature which had been completely normal, 100.5 after two minutes. But since then I had noticed that she hadn’t been finishing up her feeds, and although I couldn’t find anything specific to put my finger on, I was uneasy about taking her hunting. So it had to be Nelson.
Taking Nelson actually suited my plans perfectly. The fact that he wasn’t hunting fit and was only up to half a day provided me with an excuse to leave early. I planned to take him slowly, keeping to the rear of the field, so that I could slip away undetected at one o’clock and be waiting for Felix Hissey when he returned to his box at two.
We set off down the drive in a little cavalcade led by Brenda’s cob, slapping down his soup-plate feet in a purposeful manner, his Persil-white tail swinging above his thickset hocks.
“We’re going to be late, Busy Bee,” Brenda grumbled. “It’ll take half an hour to get there and all the free booze will have gone.”
But the Fanes were unconcerned about being late and we progressed at a leisurely pace. The lanes were jammed with horseboxes and trailers and I felt my heart speed up under my hunting shirt as we passed the navy blue Lambourne not far from the Hall gates. We were overtaken by throngs of latecomers hammering along towards the meet. Children cantered past us along the grass verges with their ponies already in a lather, and now and again we drew aside for a solitary scarlet-coated subscriber, loping along at a ground-covering trot, striking sparks from the lane.
The opening meet, traditionally held on the first day of November, is an important social event in the hunt calendar and I was anxious that we should create a good impression. I was satisfied that the horses looked as good as was possible in the short time that had been available. We had all worked hard on them and the Fanes, after a characteristic objection to plaiting up (“We never plait manes,” Nigella said. “We find it a waste of time.”) relented after they had watched me plait Doreen’s pony. Henrietta, who had never hitherto plaited anything other than her own tan
gle of hair, proved a dab hand, moving from stable to stable with her damp sponge and comb, needles and thread, plaiting up the horses with incredible speed and neatness, singing in her clear, high voice, a plaiting song composed on the spot.
“Silver needles and golden manes,
Cold in the stable, ice on the lanes,
Silver needles and golden manes,
Seven hunt plaits for the Galloping Fanes.”
When we got to the village green where the meet was taking place, it was murder. Brenda and Doreen battled their way through the crowds towards the pub car park where the tail end of the punch was being distributed.
The rest of us waited well away from the scrum, in the centre of which I caught the occasional glimpse of Forster in his blue velvet cap, his dark hair curling over the collar of his scarlet coat; he looked out of temper; and William, hot and flustered with the effort of keeping hounds together, had a face the colour of a radish.
I looked around at the scarlet-coated subscribers, wondering which of them was Felix Hissey. I hadn’t the remotest idea what he looked like. There must have been five or six hundred mounted followers at the meet, not to mention all the foot people. I couldn’t imagine how we were going to get any hunting at all, but Nigella said that the Huntsman would draw all the worst coverts first, in the hope that those members of the field who had only come out to be seen and photographed would become discouraged and go home.
The Galloping Fanes in their stunning outfits attracted a lot of attention at the meet. They smiled obligingly for the photographers who seemed to be under the impression that they were visitors from the Quorn. They certainly looked very grand, but I was a little worried about how Nigella would fare on The Comet without a leg on each side.
Nigella’s prediction came true in that we had drawn three coverts before we got a run, by which time the field had thinned to about two hundred. This was still bad enough because there was a melee in every gateway and a queue of adamant refusers at every jumpable place. To get any sort of ride at all I had to take my own line. This seemed a good idea until I got my first taste of Nelson’s jumping system.
Nelson’s missing eye made no difference to him on the flat whatsoever but his method of tackling an obstacle was unconventional to say the least. He galloped towards it with great enthusiasm, holding his head low and cocked slightly to one side, giving me the impression of rushing through space with nothing in front. But as he neared the obstacle he gradually began to slow up, until by the time he had reached it he was almost at a standstill. Then suddenly, just as I had decided that he had refused, he sprang over it like a cat and took off at the speed of light towards the next ditch.
This, together with the fact that I was still sore from my collision with the bay gelding's saddle arch and unable to concentrate on hunting due to my forthcoming meeting with Felix Hissey, didn’t add up to a very enjoyable morning, and it was with a feeling of relief that I looked at my watch and saw that it was after one o’clock. Time to leave.
Hounds were in the vicinity of home as Nelson and I traversed the lanes. Groups of people were already engaged in loading up their boxes, or leaning against their cars and horseboxes, smoking or gossiping or eating sandwiches. With Nelson’s stitched up eye socket and his bobbing ears in front of me, and the hollow clop of his boxy feet below me, I practised what I would say when I met Felix Hissey, and the more I practised, the more nervous I felt. I knew I had to convince him that the bay gelding and I had a great future, that we were a solid investment, but when it came to finding the right words it was not so easy. Whichever way I put it, I was still asking him to part with fifteen hundred pounds, probably more, which was pretty bare-faced cheek. I could hardly blame him if he saw me off with a flea in my ear, but I should have to risk that. I wanted the bay gelding more than I had ever wanted anything, and Felix Hissey was my only hope. I had to try to talk him into it.
Nelson bounced over a heap of rust red bricks which was all that remained of the demesne wall and trotted over the spongy old turf. As I was on the far side of the park, I decided to ride along the river bank until I came to the bridge where the lane crossed the river and where, not more than five hundred yards away, I had seen the navy blue Lambourne horsebox parked earlier in the day. I was just consoling myself with the thought that at least my plans had not been jinxed by the Fanes, when I became aware of thundering hooves somewhere in the distance behind me.
I turned round in my saddle, half expecting to see the young entry with William or Forster at their heels. I saw The Comet instead. There was a steady relentlessness about his coming and as he came nearer, I saw that Nigella was shouting and hauling uselessly at the reins. She had completely lost control.
I pulled up Nelson, cursing the Fanes for their gift of turning up when they weren’t wanted, thinking that now I had the additional worry of shaking off Nigella before I got to see Felix Hissey. I was sure that The Comet would stop when he got to us but The Comet did no such thing. He swept past without faltering in his stride with Nigella clinging on, her face taut with horror. It took me a few seconds to realize why. It was because the only thing that separated The Comet from his stable was the river.
I clapped my heels into Nelson’s astonished sides and he leapt into a gallop. His neck stretched out and the clods flew but it was useless to try to catch The Comet. I could see the river looming closer by the second, but the sight of it did nothing to daunt the runaway. He galloped furiously and unwaveringly towards the bank and he launched himself into the air. I heard Nigella’s terrified scream as they appeared to hang in space and the next moment there was a tremendous splash as they hit the water. They vanished from sight and their backwash flooded the banks.
As Nelson skidded onto the bank, I threw myself out of the saddle and stared helplessly into the river. I had no idea of what I should do. After a few seconds I saw The Comet’s head emerge a little way down stream, but Nigella didn’t come up at all. I stripped off my jacket and struggled to free myself from my boots. Nelson, quite oblivious to the emergency, dropped his head and began to graze.
I was just about to jump into the water when I heard a faint noise from the opposite bank and first Nigella’s arm and then her head appeared under a willow. At the same instant I saw Henrietta galloping towards us on the opposite bank, followed by Mr McLoughlin on the mare-who-sometimes-slipped-a-stifle. Screaming to them that Nigella was in the river, I jumped on to Nelson in my stockinged feet and made for the bridge.
When I arrived on the opposite bank, Nigella was being hauled to the water’s edge on the thong of Mr McLoughlin’s hunting whip. We leaned over and dragged her out of the river, and we sat her, heaving and choking and blue with cold, upon a stump. Water streamed from her beautiful habit and her hair was plastered to her shoulders.
“The Comet,” she gasped as soon as she was able to speak. “He’s drowned!”
“Never,” cried Mr McLoughlin valiantly. He pointed to The Comet’s bobbing head. The horse was swimming strongly away from us, straight up the middle of the river.
“Oh,” Nigella cried. “The horrible brute.” She burst into agonized sobs.
Henrietta and I set off after The Comet along the bank, hoping to tempt him out with the promise of equine company. But The Comet was having none of it. We followed him across the park, over the lane, and for almost a mile until the river had widened into mud flats fringed with reed. There, amongst rotting barges and watched by two majestic swans, The Comet hit the shallows and waded out, only slightly obstructed by the side-saddle, which had settled itself beneath his belly.
Henrietta led him home with his sides heaving like a bellows. His saddlery was stuck with reeds, and steam rose from his every part. Henrietta herself was not the elegant sight she had once been.
I followed on Nelson, trying to ignore the curious looks we collected from the occupants of Land Rovers and horseboxes returning from the hunt. I was grieved to know that I looked just as odd, hatless and bootless and jacketle
ss, with a hole in the elbow of my yellow hunting shirt and the ends of my stock flying in the breeze.
“We shall have to sell The Comet after this,” Henrietta said grimly. “He’ll have to go. We can’t possibly keep him any longer. He will kill someone in the end.” And as a navy blue Lambourne horsebox inched past us in the lane and I hid my face to preclude any future recognition, she added, as one who is struck with an extremely sensible idea, “Perhaps we can send him to Warners with Harry Sabin’s bay gelding.”
13
A Raison d’Etre
All I could think about now was getting to see Felix Hissey. I knew that it was no earthly use waiting until the next hunting day because we had to take the Thunder and Lightning liveries out and I would never find an excuse to shake off the Fanes. So I watched and waited for my chance, and on Monday afternoon it came. A lorry trundled down the drive to collect the jumble.
After we had loaded the junk and tied a tarpaulin over it, the Fanes and Lady Jennifer squashed into the cab beside the driver to organize the unpacking at the village hall. Within five minutes of their departure, I was speeding along in the shooting brake, on my way to the pickle factory in Bury St Edmunds.
The pickle factory was in the old part of the town behind a Georgian terrace. Above the gates there was a wrought iron arch in the centre of which there was a sign in the shape of a round-faced, red-cheeked man with a jolly smile and a crown studded with silverskin onions and chilli peppers. I drove into the yard and was directed towards the office by a white-coated man unloading cauliflowers from a lorry.
Eventer's Dream Page 10