I went into the stable. I felt the bay gelding’s satiny neck and I touched his mane. It was true. He was real. He was standing in The Comet’s stable.
“How …” I stuttered. “How … did you find the money?”
“Henrietta sold her secretaire,” Nigella said. “It was the only way. It was the only thing we had left.”
“It was nothing,” Henrietta said diffidently. “People don’t really have dowries any more. It’s a pretty old-fashioned idea.”
“But Henrietta,” I said weakly. “You loved your secretaire.”
She shrugged. “It was only a piece of furniture, after all.”
Suddenly it all began to fall into place; the Harrods van, the black horse’s invisible lameness, Lady Jennifer insisting that I should help at the jumble sale, the Thunder and Lightning horsebox with its London plates; even Harry Sabin must have known.
“You were all in the plot!” I exclaimed. “You all schemed against me!”
“Not against you,” Nigella corrected. “For you.”
“And you schemed as well,” Henrietta pointed out. “When it came to getting what you wanted, you schemed more than anybody.”
I couldn’t argue; but the Fanes, through their interference, had put me in a very difficult position.
“I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate what you have done,” I said, agonized. “But the situation isn’t as simple as it looks. I have to take Felix Hissey’s job, because he has broken a leg and he can’t look after his horses. I promised!”
“You must do as you wish, of course,” Nigella said. “But when Mummy went to see Mr Hissey yesterday morning, he was very understanding. He said that he wouldn’t hold you to your side of the bargain if, in return, we agreed to livery his horses free until Christmas.”
“And to be perfectly honest,” Henrietta said, “it suits us very well, because we are extremely short of horses.”
“You don’t look all that pleased,” Nigella said anxiously. “I hope you don’t think we have gone too far. We only did it because we didn’t want you to leave. We thought you didn’t really want to leave either; that all you really wanted was the bay gelding.”
“And now that you’ve got the bay gelding,” Henrietta added with a touch of her customary malice, “perhaps you would be good enough to take The Comet back to Harry Sabin.”
“The Comet isn’t going back to Harry Sabin,” I said heatedly. “He isn’t going to Warners!”
“Oh no,” Henrietta said. “I forgot. You were going to buy him with the money we owe you.”
I stared at her in exasperation. I couldn’t tell by her expression whether she was joking or not. I was bewildered by the sudden turn of events. The Fanes had turned my life upside down and inside out, and I didn’t know if they had done it to please me, or to suit their own convenience. I just couldn’t work it out. I was dumbfounded.
“Do have a ride,” Nigella said. “I’ll go and get some tack.” She returned with a Thunder and Lightning saddle and bridle and she put them on the bay gelding. “Please notice,” she said, as she led him into the yard, “that we’ve had him shod.” His shoes were buffed and polished, curiously bright.
“By a stroke of luck,” Henrietta said, “his feet were the same size as the old bay mare’s.”
I was beginning to feel rather ill. The morning had assumed an unreal quality. Nigella legged me into the saddle and we progressed out of the yard, towards the park.
“We’ve even given him a name,” Henrietta informed me. “We were going to call him Little Legend, after the old bay mare; but as he isn’t so little, we decided to call him Another instead.”
“Another?” I said. Even in my dazed state of mind, it seemed an odd name for a horse.
“Another Legend,” Nigella explained. “It seemed a good name for an eventer. You must admit, it does have a nice ring to it.”
I had to admit that it did. The Fanes dragged open the park gate. Then they perched on some sagging rails and looked expectant.
“We can’t wait to see you in action,” Nigella said admiringly. “He really is magnificent. He’s every bit as beautiful as the bay mare. We never thought,” she added wonderingly, “that we would ever own an eventer.”
“He’ll be a marvellous advertisement for the yard,” Henrietta said. “We might get more event horses as liveries. He could open up a whole new world for us.”
“But he isn’t an event horse yet,” I pointed out. “He might not even make it. Preparation takes years and it is very expensive. I don’t think you realize quite how much it is going to cost. We shall need saddlery and show jumps, we shall need to build a cross country course and mark out a dressage arena. There will be professional training to pay for, and entry fees and transport. An event horse costs a fortune to produce.” The prospect of being sponsored by the Fanes in their precarious financial position was terrifying. “How shall we possibly afford it?” I asked them. “Without Felix Hissey to pay the bills?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Nigella said comfortingly. “I expect we shall manage somehow; we always have.”
“But how?” I wanted to know. “How?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But we’ve got the horse, and that’s a start.”
“And we’ve got a business,” Henrietta reminded me. “More or less. Such as it is.”
“So do ride for us,” Nigella pleaded. “We’re just dying to see how he goes.”
I turned the bay gelding away from the fence and trotted him across the park. I was too stupefied to appreciate how he bent his glossy neck, how the light wind lifted his silky mane, and how he threw out his toes for the sheer joy of being alive. I was too shaken by the traumas of the morning to realize that I didn’t have to go to Winter Place, that I had my eventing prospect, and that life with the Fanes would never be dull, never be lonely.
I was too preoccupied with the difficulties that lay ahead. Hans Gelderhol had prophesied disappointment and frustration, he had warned that I would be bruised and struggling; but he had not promised me failure and I knew I must cling to that.
Like learning about riding, he had told me, life will be bumpy at first. All these dreams, these fine ideals, they will be damaged; it is in the way of things. If you are ever to succeed, you must be steadfast. You must hold very, very tight to your dream.
Well, it had been bumpy all right, and there would be more and bigger bumps to come. But as I rode across the old turf on Another Legend, owned and sponsored by the Honorable Nigella and Henrietta Fane of Havers Hall, High Suffolk, I was holding very tight to my dream.
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Don’t forget to look out for the sequel
A Hoof in the Door
Eventer's Dream Page 14