“What did I say?” asked Ray. He was genuinely taken aback.
“All that foul prison talk tonight.”
“Hey, I just answered Lennie’s questions. I think you’d better leave.” He looked over at Mario, who was still sitting in the chair. “And you too. I didn’t ask either of you to come here.”
Mario rose from the chair with dignity, and picked up his bottle of wine. Ray stepped aside to let him pass. Lars still dominated the center of the room. He was so big that he couldn’t help appearing menacing. Whether by coincidence or intention, Ray was standing beside the table where the kitchen carving knife he had used to open his boxes of painting supplies still lay.
“You don’t belong here,” Lars said again.
I stepped between the two men and, taking Lars by the elbow, escorted him out of Ray’s studio to the front door, where Mario was waiting on the porch. They resumed their quarrel immediately, and the sound of their angry words penetrated the cottage as they walked back toward the Big House.
CHAPTER VII
◊
“Fucking fags,” Ray said.
This was uncalled for and offensive. Mario and Lars were decent enough fellows, as far as I was concerned.
“Not fags, Ray. They’re gay.”
This response hung in the air for a moment. Then for some reason it became funny, and we both laughed. I dropped into the chair where Mario had been sitting, then noted the smell of oil paint that now permeated the room. Several new canvases were turned toward the wall.
“I don’t have anything against gays,” said Ray. “Some of them know a lot about art.”
We laughed again, although I felt guilty about my complicity in this bigotry. I was about to tell him that I was uncomfortable with this talk when he cut me off. “But I’m not one of them,” he said.
He looked at me sitting there in my jockey shorts and his eyes narrowed. I was suddenly self-conscious.
“Never have been,” he said. He passed his fingers over the flat blade of the carving knife, inspecting it carefully.
“Me either,” I said.
“I’m not sure what I am.”
I didn’t know how to interpret this remark but wasn’t about to ask him to explain. As he put the knife down, he flicked the blade lightly with his nail-tip, making a slight “ping.”
“Solingen,” he said. Then he straightened up, apparently distressed.
“Is what Lars said true? That I talk foul around Nora? She hasn’t heard me say ‘fags’ or anything like that, has she?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I was thinking maybe that’s why she doesn’t like me.”
“Hell, Ray, that can’t be it. You’d never said two words in front of her until tonight.”
“So you agree that she doesn’t like me? I bet that prick Lars has been poisoning her mind.”
“I don’t think so, Ray. She’s just reserved.”
Relief lit his eyes.
“But still,” he said, after a moment, “Lars had better watch his mouth. I don’t like people talking about me.” He glanced around the room. “I wish Mario had left that wine.”
“I’m glad he didn’t,” I said. “We’re going riding in the morning.”
“I don’t know how to ride, Bradley. I said that because I wanted the chance to go with you and Nora. My foster father kept horses, but I only rode them a few times. They didn’t like me.”
“It’s obvious you can’t ride,” I said.
“How can you tell?”
“If you don’t know how to ride, you think the horse ‘doesn’t like you’ because you can’t get it to do anything. Then it heads back to the barn at a canter. For the rest of your life, everyone gets to hear about how some horse named Taffy had a personal grudge and ran away with you on her back.”
“So Nora will know I can’t ride?”
“Absolutely.”
“What should I do?”
“Stay home.”
“No, I’ve got a better idea. You teach me. I’ve always been a quick learner with physical stuff.”
This was true. His kendo had progressed much faster than mine or Lennie’s.
“I can’t teach you to ride in one night, especially since we don’t have a horse, but if you listen I might be able to get you through the morning,” I said.
“How?”
“Well, the first thing is, when we get to the stable tomorrow, don’t ask questions. You’ll sound dumb.”
“Like you at kendo.”
“Exactly.” I didn’t miss a beat. “You don’t want that. And don’t start petting the horse on the nose. Even if Nora does, you don’t. Beginners always pet the horse on the nose first thing, but they don’t know how to do it right.”
“There’s a right and a wrong way to pet a horse on the nose? This is more complicated than I thought.”
“We haven’t started.”
“You’re bullshitting me, right?”
“Do you want to learn this stuff by tomorrow, or do you want to keep asking stupid questions?”
He regarded me levelly. “Okay. I’ll shut up. You talk.”
“Okay. At the stable, watch what I do and copy me. I’ll tell you what you need to know as we go along. Nora will think I’m a big talker, giving unasked-for advice.”
“Do you think we can make her believe I know about horses?
“No. It’s impossible.” I smiled at him. “But we can try.”
Ray and I stayed in his studio for another hour while I prepped him on the terminology, technique, and etiquette of grooming a horse, saddling it, and taking a ride across country, English style. Finally I had to get some sleep, but Ray still wasn’t tired and had gone outside to smoke a cigar that Lennie had given him. When I came into the kitchen at sunrise he was already sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal.
Fifteen minutes later, as we were walking east toward the North Stable, I said to him, “Remember, do whatever I tell you.”
“I can figure it out.”
As we rounded the last bend on the Circle in our approach to the stable, I saw the Wagoneer in the parking area and spotted Nora standing near the barn’s entrance. Set into a clearing perhaps a quarter mile from the Big House, her North Stable faced westward toward the Circle’s pea-gravel drive. The barn’s basic construction was a solid rectangle of board and batten, painted the traditional white with dark green trim, and planted firmly on a solid-looking brick foundation.
As we grew nearer, an open sliding door revealed a wide concrete aisle with thick black rubber mats that ran down the center of the barn to another facing door, also open, through which ambient morning light shone softly. On the right side of the aisle were four big box stalls and a wash rack, and on the left a tack room and four more stalls. As I moved into the entranceway to greet Nora, I smelled new cut hay, and looked up to see a hayloft stacked with this year’s cuttings. I noted with approval that the fragrant square bales were secured with the old-style yellow bailing twine rather than the newish plastic straps.
I’d inhabited many fine hunter/jumper stables in my youth. This one lived up to the highest standard, and Nora was very much at home. The leather riding chaps around her legs made her appear taller than usual, and her thick, black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Two curls escaped or, perhaps, had been purposely left unbound, forming wispy tendrils that framed the sides of her perfect, pale face.
Maybe not quite so perfect, I thought.
In the morning sunlight I noticed the sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks and, to my surprise, a just-discernible crookedness at the bridge of the nose, as if it had been broken and then fixed, long ago. I’d always considered her nose one of the best of her many fine features, and I looked at her again. There was a little mole, which her mother had no doubt always called a “beauty mark,” near the site of the slight blemish.
She was businesslike in her greeting. We followed her into the pine-paneled tack room, where the saddles and bridles were kept
. In keeping with custom, only the “good” horse show ribbons—first and seconds, or championships or reserve championships—were displayed on the walls. I looked to see if there were any from Upperville, but before I could finish my survey Nora had taken three lead shanks from a peg and handed one to me and another to Ray.
“Yours are the two geldings in the side paddock there,” she said, pointing. “My mare is around back.”
She looked me up and down.
“You take the Thoroughbred. Ray can ride the warm-blood cross.”
“Fine,” I said.
She’d already begun to walk behind the barn, the lead shank hanging around her neck, but she stopped and asked, “You do both know how to ride? Right?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Absolutely.”
“Of course we do,” said Ray.
Our two geldings were both bays, both more than sixteen hands tall, but I recognized the warm-blood immediately because he was heavier-boned. We caught them easily and led them into the barn where we cross-tied them in the aisle, behind Point de Vue, Nora’s black Thoroughbred. She already was rubbing her mare’s back with a curry comb and brush, removing a patch of caked mud. There were more brushes in a wooden brush box on the side of the aisle, and Ray watched me closely as I set to work, then followed my example.
Nora’s horses had impeccable ground manners, and Ray didn’t ask for help in saddling the bay warm-blood, who stood patiently for him. We all led our mounts into the stable yard, and I covertly checked the tightness of his girth, which was fine. Nora wasn’t particularly impressed with our grand performance, but there was no reason she should be. For Nora, saddling up was as routine as brushing her teeth.
There was an immense low-cut tree stump in the yard, probably from an ancient oak, and she brought her mare alongside it, took a step up onto the stump, and swung herself into the saddle. I did the same with my gelding. I hadn’t been on a horse in years, but I settled into the saddle comfortably, gathered up the reins, and moved off. Once you’ve learned, you never forget how to ride.
Ray had been studying us both and did a commendable job of imitation, but once he was mounted, he leaned too far back in the saddle and the tightened reins put pressure on the light snaffle bit. The horse reared up slightly, shaking his head anxiously.
“Get off his mouth!” Nora said. Ray relaxed the reins, and the horse instantly stopped. “He has a soft mouth,” she said, looking at Ray. “He doesn’t need much hand at all.”
Ray glanced at me, and I gave him a nod of the head. This was a signal we’d rehearsed last night. It meant push your heels down in the stirrups, bend slightly forward at the waist, form a straight line with each arm from elbow to reins to the bit between the horse’s teeth, keep the reins gathered up short, but don’t pull on the horse’s mouth.
He ran through the mental checklist like a pilot before takeoff. His posture on the horse improved, but almost immediately his heels rose in the stirrups, and his reins lengthened dangerously. I nodded my head again, more vigorously, and he ran the checklist for a second time.
“I thought we’d ride to Harkaway,” Nora said. “I spent a lot of time there when I was younger, but the place changed hands last year after Mr. Crompton died.”
“Sounds okay to me,” Ray said.
I caught his eye and nodded. He quickly ran through his checklist. Nora looked at Ray and then at me.
“We’ll take it slowly,” she said.
We set off to the northeast, skirting the edge of a hayfield on a path toward an opening in the woods about a hundred yards away. Ray followed, and I took up the rear. As we drew near the tree line, I saw that it was bordered by a four-rail fence with a red metal farm gate across an entrance into the woods. Behind the gate, the trail continued.
There was a section of level ground adjacent to the gate where the top rail had been removed and the fence had been paneled. A space had been cleared in the undergrowth on the other side. The turf was torn up on our side, and it was clear that, to save the bother of opening the gate, the usual route was to jump the fence.
Although I hadn’t ridden in years, I was confident I could handle the jump if necessary, but I was worried for Ray. Nora rode up to the gate and, without dismounting, leaned over and unlatched it so we didn’t need to make the jump.
“These are nice horses,” I said to her as we passed through.
“Thank you, Bradley.” She stroked her black mare on the neck. “These are my babies,” she said.
She closed the gate, and we rode at a walk down the path, leaving the main trail and heading to the left at a fork. I assumed this was the route to Harkaway.
Nora said, “You’re on Woodsaw, Bradley, and you’re . . .” She indicated Ray with a nod of her head. “. . . on Mr. Constant.” She looked at me. “You have a good seat, Bradley, and good hands. You’ve ridden a lot, haven’t you?”
I saw Ray running through his mental checklist. She cast a sidelong glance at him but didn’t say anything else.
“I used to foxhunt,” I said, “and show hunters and jumpers with Mrs. Randolphe in Upperville. Before that, in New England, with Valerian Victor-Goddard.”
“Ah,” she said. “With Vallie. The poor dear.”
Vallie, who had been my first trainer in New England, had died an untimely death five years ago. Someone had beaten him lifeless in a parking lot near the Meadowlands Racetrack early one morning. I’d had read about it in the newspaper and attended the funeral in Longmeadow.
“I used to show too,” she said. “And I still love to hunt. But it’s more difficult every year. The country’s getting all chopped to pieces. Development everywhere.”
I murmured agreement. The trail was wide enough for two horses to travel abreast, and I rode alongside her so we could chat.
The trail crossed a narrow stream, and Nora said, “Give them their heads.”
We let our reins relax, and the horses picked their way carefully across the shallow water. The woods were thinning out, and through the trees ahead I caught glimpses of open pasture. It felt right to be on a horse again.
My mother had encouraged my early passion for horses and contributed to my success in horse shows, first in New England and then, when I was attending college, in the heart of Virginia’s foxhunting country. She financed some of the expense from her modest inheritance, and I covered the rest with small amounts earned training and showing horses for others during my high school and college years. I loved jumping big Thoroughbreds over enormous barriers in competition—especially when mother was among the spectators, watching.
The pedigree of my equestrian education outshone my academic and social background and, over time, I’d learned to use it subtly. Many of my wealthy collector clients and potential clients were also involved in the horse world. Eventually, the subject of high-priced horses would come up on its own.
Nora Hirsh was a perfect example of that crossover between the art and horse worlds, not that she was a potential client. But she was almost as involved with her horses as she was with Lennie’s art.
“Did you know Lars and Mario had another nasty fight last night?” Nora asked, interrupting my thoughts. “They came back to the Big House after midnight, drunk.”
I was going to tell her they’d been to our house earlier, in the same condition, but Ray interrupted.
“There are bones scattered all through the brush here, Nora.”
“I know about that, Ray,” she said. “It’s nothing. Give Mr. Constant his head and let him catch up. He hates to be left behind.”
Ray relaxed the reins, and his horse moved quickly toward us. When he caught up, his bay gelding immediately stepped into the rhythm of the other horses’ walk, but Ray was now alongside Nora, and I was bringing up the rear.
“What are all those bones?” he asked.
“A year ago I was riding through, and there was the most horrible stench. There were buzzards everywhere and they weren’t even afraid of me.”
She’d risen
slightly in the stirrups and turned at the waist to include me in the conversation.
“I saw it was a big dead animal, but I couldn’t bear to get near it, so I asked Claude Rhodes to come over. He checked and said it was a deer.”
“Looks like a lot of bones for a deer,” said Ray.
“Mr. Rhodes was positive,” said Nora. “He’s worked here forever. He’d never let something be dead on the farm and not find out for sure what it was. The buzzards must have torn up the carcass and scattered the bones everywhere.”
The woods were definitely thinning now. We were approaching Harkaway from the back of the property and its barns were coming into sight.
“This is the most beautiful old farm,” said Nora. “I wonder what the new people are going to do with it. I’ve been out of the loop lately and haven’t heard the local gossip.”
“I lived on a farm too, when I was a kid in Virginia,” said Ray.
“Oh?” said Nora. I knew she had gone to Foxcroft, a girls’ boarding school near Middleburg, Virginia.
“Yeah,” he continued, turning to include me. “My foster father was a foxhunter too, Bradley. On horses, like you were saying.”
“You had a foster father who was a foxhunter?” asked Nora. “With whom did he hunt?”
He’d been doing fine. Why did he have to push his luck? There was absolutely no way he could talk foxhunting with Nora Van Leuyden Hirsh.
“With a club called Deep River Hunt, outside of Richmond.”
“Your foster father hunted with Deep River?” Nora asked, with obvious surprise.
“Yeah, but he drowned when he tried to save a foxhunting dog that fell through some ice on a pond.”
“Hound,” said Nora, reflexively. “Never foxhunting dog, always hound.”
“To save a hound,” Ray corrected himself.
“Your foster father wasn’t Templeton Williams, was he?”
“Yes!” said Ray. “He was Temple Williams! Did you know him?”
“Not exactly. Everyone knew him. He was the Master of Deep River. And National President of the Masters of Fox Hounds Association. His brother-in-law—what was his name?—was headmaster of Episcopal, forever and ever. My cousin went there. Monroe! That was the headmaster’s name. Monroe Ward.”
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