Eventer's Dream

by Caroline Akrill

  “I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “It didn’t occur to me.”

  “It didn’t occur to you to warn me that it had a buck like a jerboa either,” the Pickle King expostulated.

  I wasn’t sure what a jerboa was, but at that moment I felt the bay gelding slip irretrievably from my grasp. “Mr Hissey,” I said, “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “I might have expected it from that lugubrious fool, Harry Sabin,” he said in disgust. “But not from you, Miss Would-Be-Event-Rider, I expected better things from you.”

  “Mr Hissey,” I said, ashamed, “what can I say?”

  “You can start by saying when you intend to begin working in the yard,” he said. “I can’t do a thing with this damned leg – which, I might add, Miss Would-Be-Event-Rider, could have been avoided if you had seen fit to give me prior warning.”

  I couldn’t argue. It was true that I had been negligent, and because of it I had lost the bay gelding; and even without the bay gelding I would have to come to Winter Place. It was my penance. “I expect I could leave the Fanes on a fortnight’s notice,” I said.

  “And how am I supposed to look after my horses during this fortnight?” the Pickle King enquired peevishly. “With this leg, and without a groom?”

  “I’ll come twice a day,” I said humbly. “I’ll cut out their corn and turn them out in the daytime in their New Zealand rugs. I’ll give them two small soft feeds morning and night and plenty of hay. I shall have to let them down, there’s no point in trying to keep them fit. You won’t be riding again for at least six weeks.”

  “Six weeks,” the Pickle King said resentfully. “The season will be over!”

  “It won’t,” I assured him. “You will be hunting again before Christmas.”

  “Christmas,” he said in an explosive tone. “Pah!” He lapsed into a miserable silence.

  “Mr Hissey,” I said. “Would you like me to see to the horses before I go?” It seemed the least I could do.

  “Yes,” he said grudgingly. “Thank you … and get Mrs Short to show you the flat … you’ll get forty pounds a week all found and the use of the pick-up … one day a week off in half days during the hunting season and two full months off with pay in the summer …”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You’re very generous.” I had never felt more unhappy in the whole of my life.

  “Oh,” he added. “And there’s the money.” He pointed to a fat manila envelope on the desk.

  “Money?” I said stupidly. “What money?”

  “The money for Harry Sabin’s bay gelding,” he said. “I’ve never ridden a better horse in my life.”

  “Nigella,” I said. “I’m leaving in a fortnight.”

  Nigella looked up from the Horse and Rider she was reading. “Oh Elaine,” she sighed. “Not again!”

  “I mean it this time,” I said. “I’ve written out my notice. I’ve got another job.” I told her about Felix Hissey and the bay gelding.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. “How could you do this to us? We thought you were happy here.”

  “I have been,” I said. “I honestly have been. I feel terrible about it; but I have my future to think of, and this is the only way.”

  “Why didn’t you talk to us about it?” she wondered. “You didn’t mention the bay gelding; why didn’t you tell us? Why did it have to be a secret?”

  “If I had told you,” I said, “If we had discussed it, you couldn’t have done anything, and Henrietta … well, Henrietta would have interfered.”

  “Yes,” Nigella agreed. “She would.” We fell silent, thinking about Henrietta. “I shall have to tell her,” she decided. “She won’t like it, and I expect she will make your last two weeks as difficult as possible, but I can’t not tell her, can I?”

  “No,” I said. “You can’t.”

  “I had hoped,” Nigella said, getting up from the table, “that you would stay with us for years and years.” She went out of the door rather quickly, but not before I had seen that her eyes were bright with tears.

  “Elaine,” Lady Jennifer said. “As you are not hunting tomorrow, could you possibly help me with the jumble sale?”

  “Oh dear,” I said. “Must I?” I had planned to collect the bay gelding and take him to Winter Place; but Lady Jennifer was not to be put off.

  “I’m so frightfully short of helpers,” she sighed. “I just don’t know how I shall manage; and it isn’t as if I would need you all day, it doesn’t begin until two o’clock.”

  I sighed inwardly. I knew it would take me all morning to finish my work in the stables, and added to that I had to get to Winter Place to look after the cobs as well. If I helped Lady Jennifer with her awful jumble sale, I would have to put off collecting the bay gelding until Sunday. It was a nuisance, but I was fond of Lady Jennifer and I didn’t want to refuse.

  “Of course I’ll help,” I said. “I’ll be delighted.”

  Mucking out alone in the deserted yard when everyone had left for the Saturday meet I told myself that I should be feeling elated, that surely I must be one of the luckiest people alive. At last I had landed a good job with a fair living wage and regular time off; I had never received a penny from the Fanes, and they still owed me the pound I had loaned them in the underground car park. I hadn’t had a single day off in the month I had worked for them. Was it only a month? It seemed a lot longer than that.

  I told myself that not only had I landed a good job, but that I also had the bay gelding, I had the potential event horse I had dreamed of, and yet I still couldn’t shake off a feeling of blankness; there was a sort of hollow void where the elation should have been. I wondered if perhaps now that it had actually come to it, I was getting cold feet about the task ahead, if it was nerves that were anaesthetizing the bit of me that should have been bursting with joy. Perhaps I should have stayed with Hans Gelderhol when he had offered to take me on in his yard. He would have given me a few pounds a week and I could have become one of his acolytes. The acolytes had a few doubtful privileges, but sponsored event horses were not among them. Hans Gelderhol had said that I was ‘promising’, but what did that mean? It meant that I had a lot to learn, and professional training was expensive; everything to do with eventing was expensive; eventing was a rich person’s sport, whichever way you looked at it. Well, thank heavens for Felix Hissey. Felix Hissey was a rich man. I thought of Felix Hissey sitting with his foot up, whilst everyone else was at the Saturday meet, and I was ashamed.

  Preoccupied with all this, I led The Comet out in his New Zealand rug and loosed him into the park. There was a Harrods van in the drive. I wondered if Lady Jennifer knew it was there and I decided that she did, because the front door was standing open.

  I lit the boiler in the feed room and put in the barley and the linseed and the water to cook very gently so that it would be ready to make into a mash when the horses came in from hunting. I filled hay nets and water buckets, I tidied the tack room and I swept the yard and I wondered why I felt flattened. Did everyone who suddenly found themselves in possession of everything they had ever wanted feel flattened? I didn’t know. I went to get changed for the jumble sale.

  On our way to the village hall, we met Henrietta, riding home on the black horse. It was only half past one, so I knew that something must be wrong.

  “He’s a bit lame,” she explained, “so I thought I had better bring him back.”

  My heart sank. The horses were going down like ninepins. Now there were only two hirelings left out of six, and one of those had only one eye. I couldn’t imagine how the Fanes were going to get through the season. I jumped out of the shooting brake to look at the black horse’s legs. I knew it couldn’t be thrush causing the lameness because his feet were now completely clean and sound.

  Henrietta had said nothing at all about my notice and I had found this hard to understand because I had expected a scene. “There’s really no need to fuss,” she said in an irritated tone, as I ran my hands down his legs and felt h
is hooves for heat. “He’s probably just stepped on a flint or something. I’ll look at him properly when I get him home.”

  “I can’t find anything wrong with him,” I said, puzzled. “If you could trot him up the lane for a little way, I might be able to see where the trouble is.”

  “Elaine!” Lady Jennifer shrilled anxiously. “We must not delay a moment longer, or we shall be terribly late!”

  “You’d better go,” Henrietta said hastily.

  I jumped back into the shooting brake, still watching the black horse for any clue to his unsoundness. Henrietta rode him towards the Hall. He broke into an anxious trot, impatient for his stable and his supper. He trotted remarkably well for a lame horse.

  Outside the village hall, a queue of determined looking women had formed. When the doors were opened they raced for the stalls and everything seemed to fly into the air at once. I had no idea that a jumble sale was such hard work. We worked flat out all afternoon and our tins of silver overflowed.

  “You won’t be expected to lift a finger in the stables this evening,” Lady Jennifer promised. “The girls will do everything. You look absolutely exhausted. I can’t begin to tell you what a marvellous help you have been.”

  At the end of the sale, when Lady Jennifer had collected all the tins and was seated at a trestle table counting the piles of silver, surrounded by a bevy of jubilant ladies, I wandered outside to get some fresh air. It was beginning to get dark as I walked slowly down to the village green, nursing my inexplicable emptiness. I stood on the grass remembering the morning of the opening meet, and like an echo, I heard the sound of the hunt returning to the kennels.

  I moved into the shadow of a tree and I watched them pass by in the fading light. The horses clopped past the shadowy cottages on lengthened reins and hounds ambled beside them with lowered sterns. The young entry must have been there, although I wouldn’t have known which they were, Forster was there, and William, and the Huntsman, with the horn tucked between the buttons of his coat. And following them home came Brenda on her pink-nosed cob, and Doreen on her pony, and further behind still came Nigella on Nelson and Mr McLoughlin on the bad-tempered chestnut. They all looked very contented and companionable, and the lights pricked out from the cottages around the green, and nobody saw me, under the tree.

  17

  Another Legend

  “Harry!” I called. “Harry Sabin! Are you there?”

  The dirt yard was deserted. There was nobody tinkering with the cattle wagon. I wondered if I was too early, if Harry Sabin was still in bed. I had set off at six-thirty before anyone at the Hall had been up, in order to feed and muck out the cobs, and make the spare box ready for the bay gelding at Winter Place. Then, with the manila envelope in my pocket, I had driven the shooting brake to Harry Sabin’s yard, hoping to ride the bay gelding to his new home, and still be back at the Hall in time to help with morning stables. I shouted again.

  This time the door of the scruffy patch-roofed cottage opened and Harry Sabin shuffled out in his carpet slippers.

  “Harry,” I said. “I’m sorry to be so early, but I’ve brought you the money.”

  “Now, young lady,” he said cautiously, rubbing his unshaven chin. “Which money is that?”

  “You know perfectly well,” I said. “It’s the money for the bay gelding. You wanted it in cash. Before Monday.”

  “Ah,” he said in an uncomfortable tone. “The bay gelding.”

  “Harry,” I said. “The bay gelding is here?” Some part of my insides tied themselves into a nasty little knot. The bay gelding wasn’t in the stable with the slip rail because it was now occupied by a big grey horse. Neither had he been visible in the top field with the dealer’s stock. I pulled the manila envelope out of my pocket and my heart began to beat heavily under my jersey. “We made a bargain, Harry,” I said. “Fifteen hundred pounds in cash. You said you would give me until Monday. You promised.”

  “Well, now,” Harry Sabin said, embarrassed. “That’s a little bit difficult, that is.”

  “What’s difficult about it, Harry,” I asked. “Where is the bay gelding?”

  Harry Sabin looked down at his greasy carpet slippers. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his warehouse coat. He shrugged his wiry shoulders and he looked at me with his foxy brown eyes. “That’s a little hard to say, Miss,” he admitted.

  “Oh, Harry,” I said, agonized. “You’ve sold him, haven’t you? After we had made a bargain; after you had given me time to find the money!” I couldn’t believe he could have done such a thing. “Oh Harry,” I groaned. “And it isn’t even Monday yet!”

  “I never thought you’d get the money,” he muttered. “And that’s the truth of it.”

  “But Felix Hissey put up the money,” I said in despair. “Felix Hissey came to try him. He was going to be my sponsor, surely you knew!”

  “Felix Hissey never said nothing to me,” Harry Sabin said. “Neither did you for that matter, and Felix Hissey got his leg broke. That didn’t look as if he’d be interested after that. That didn’t look promising.”

  “Where did you sell him to?” I demanded. “Who bought him?” I had wild ideas of going after them, trying to buy him back.

  “I didn’t ask no questions,” Harry Sabin said. “The wagon had London plates on it.”

  I could see it was no use. “How much did they give you?” I asked him bitterly. “As a matter of interest, how much did they pay?”

  “Sixteen hundred,” he said, adding in a disparaging tone, “That was a better offer than yours, anyhow.”

  It seemed incredibly, unbelievably unjust that I should have lost the bay gelding for a hundred pounds; when a hundred pounds, or two, or even three, would have been nothing, absolutely nothing, to Felix Hissey.

  “Did they pay you in cash?” I said, catching at a straw. If they hadn’t, I wondered if I might be able to trace them through their bank.

  “I told you,” Harry Sabin said sullenly. “I don’t take no cheques.”

  It was hopeless. I walked slowly back across the yard to the shooting brake. I was completely stunned. Numb. I might have driven away without another word, but as I passed the ramshackle building, the grey horse nickered to me and I recognized The Comet’s familiar greeting.” The Comet!

  “Harry!” I yelled. “What the devil is The Comet doing in your stable?”

  “He’s going to Warners,” he said defensively. “Instead of the bay gelding.”

  “Oh no,” I shouted. “He is NOT!” Suddenly, I could hardly see straight. I turned round on Harry Sabin and pushed him aside. I grabbed the bridle out of the shooting brake and flung away the slip rail. I yanked the bridle on to The Comet, who was so astonished that he had his mouth open even before I got the browband past his nose. I was livid. My anger exploded into flashes of bright, bloody red. I was boiling with anger, and my fury was directed against Harry Sabin, the people who had deprived me of the bay gelding, the Fanes. Everybody. I dragged The Comet out of the stable and vaulted on to his back.

  “Harry Sabin,” I hissed. “You are a bent, slippery, double-tongued rogue!” I clapped my heels into The Comet’s sides and he flew out of the yard in a cloud of dirt. Down the track and out on to the lane The Comet flew, round the corner and across the verge and along the tarmac. Faster and faster went The Comet, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t have stopped him and I didn’t even try. Up the Hall drive The Comet thundered, swerving under the clock arch and skidding to a halt on the cobbles.

  Henrietta was crossing the yard with a hay net. “Goodness,” she said in a calm voice. “You’ve brought The Comet back. Whatever for?”

  “Whatever for!” I shouted. “Whatever for? Because he was going to Warners, that’s what for!”

  “I thought you knew,” Henrietta said. “I was sure I had mentioned it.” She frowned.

  “You can’t send a horse like The Comet to a sale,” I cried. “He’s dangerous! He’s a bolter! If you declare it, he’ll go for meat! If you don’t
they’ll find out and they’ll sue you; then they’ll shoot him anyway!”

  Henrietta shrugged. “He’s no use to us,” she said. “What else can we do with him?”

  “You can sell him to me,” I said furiously. “I’ll buy him.”

  Nigella appeared. “Buy The Comet?” she said, astonished. “Why should you want to buy The Comet?”

  “And anyway,” Henrietta enquired, “how will you pay?”

  This was the last straw. “I’ll pay with the wages I should have had from you!” I cried. “With what I should have been paid for sorting out your messy yard! For caring for your crocked up horses! I’ll pay for The Comet with the money you owe me!” I howled.

  “Will it be enough?” Nigella said cautiously. “You have only been here a month.”

  “If it isn’t enough,” I told her furiously, “I shall make it up somehow.”

  “Since you are buying The Comet,” Henrietta said coolly, “he had better stay. Perhaps you should put him in his old stable.”

  I slid off The Comet. My legs almost gave way as I hit the cobbles; they seemed to be made of jelly. The Comet clopped beside me across the yard. I was trembling all over. I told myself that this was the end. I had had enough of the Fanes. I couldn’t stand them for a minute longer; they were driving me insane. I would take The Comet to Winter Place. I would pack my case and I would ride there; The Comet and I would go together. I wouldn’t even stay to work my notice. We would go today. This morning. Now.

  I opened the door of The Comet’s stable. It was already occupied. By Harry Sabin’s bay gelding.

  My whole world went round and round. I thought I must be going mad. I clutched The Comet for support.

  “We knew you would be pleased,” Nigella said. “At least, we hoped you would be.”

  “Although you rather spoiled things,” Henrietta said severely. “We didn’t expect you to leave so early. There was to have been a proper presentation; with Mummy and Doreen and Brenda; and even Mr McLoughlin was going to come.”