by Dick Francis
Maynard deliberated for a lengthy time with pursed lips, shakes of the head and busy eyes, but in the end he bowed stiffly to the sweetly-smiling princess, replaced his hat carefully and stalked disappointedly away.
Greatly relieved, I watched the princess join a bunch of her friends while Dusty, with visible disapproval, replaced the sweat-sheet and told the lad holding Cascade’s bridle to lead him off to the stables. Cascade went tiredly, head low, all stamina spent. Sorry, I thought, sorry, old son. Blame it on Litsi.
The princess, I thought gratefully as I peeled off her colours to change into others for the next race, had withstood Maynard’s persuasions and kept her reservations private. She knew how things stood between Maynard and myself because Bobby had told her one day back in November, and although she had never referred to it since, she had clearly not forgotten. I would have to do more than half kill her horse, it seemed, before she would deliver me to my enemy.
I rode the next race acutely conscious of him on the stands: two scampering miles over hurdles, finishing fourth. After that, I changed back into the princess’s colours and returned to the parade ring for the day’s main event, a three-mile steeplechase regarded as a trial race for the Grand National.
Unusually, the princess wasn’t already in the ring waiting, and I stood alone for a while watching her sturdy Cotopaxi being led round by his lad. Like many of her horses, he bore the name of a mountain, and in his case it fitted aptly, as he was big, gaunt and craggy, a liver chestnut with splashes of grey on his quarters like dirty snow. At eight years old, he was coming satisfactorily to full uncompromising strength, and for once I really believed I might at last win the big one in a month’s time.
I’d won almost every race in the calendar, except the Grand National. I’d been second, third, and fourth, but never first. Cotopaxi had it in him to change that, given the luck.
Dusty came across to disrupt the pleasant daydream. ‘Where’s the princess?’ he said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘She’d never miss old Paxi.’ Small, elderly, weather-beaten and habitually suspicious, he looked at me accusingly, as if I’d heard something I wasn’t telling.
Dusty depended on me professionally, as I on him, but we’d never come to liking. He was apt to remind me that, champion jockey or not, I wouldn’t get so many winners if it weren’t for the hard work of the stable lads, naturally including himself. His manner to me teetered sometimes on the edge of rudeness, never quite tumbling over, and I put up with it equably because he was in fact good at his job, and right about the lads, and besides that I hadn’t much choice. Since Wykeham had stopped coming to the races, the horses’ welfare away from home depended entirely upon Dusty, and the welfare of the horses was very basically my concern.
‘Cascade,’ Dusty said, glowering, ‘can hardly put one foot in front of the other.’
‘He’s not lame,’ I said mildly.
‘He’ll take weeks to get over it.’
I didn’t answer. I looked around for the princess, who still hadn’t appeared. I’d wanted particularly to hear what Maynard had said to her, but it looked as if I would have to wait. And it was extraordinary that she hadn’t come into the ring. Almost all owners liked to be in the parade ring before a race, and for the princess especially it was an unvarying routine. Moreover, she was particularly proud and fond of Cotopaxi and had been talking all winter about his chances in the National.
The minutes ticked away, the signal was given for jockeys to mount, and Dusty gave me his usual adroit leg-up into the saddle. I rode out onto the course hoping nothing serious had happened, and had time, cantering down to the start, to look up to where the princess’s private box was located, high on the stands, expecting anyway to see her there, watching with her friends.
The balcony was however deserted, and I felt the first twinge of real concern. If she’d had to leave the racecourse suddenly, I was sure she would have sent me a message, and I hadn’t been exactly hard to find, standing there in the paddock. Messages, though, could go astray, and as messages went, ‘tell Kit Fielding that Princess Casilia is going home’ wouldn’t have rated as emergency material.
I went on down to the start thinking that no doubt I would find out in time, and hoping that there hadn’t been sudden bad news about the frail old chairbound husband she travelled home to every evening.
Cotopaxi, unlike Cascade, was positively bombarding me with information, mostly to the effect that he was feeling good, he didn’t mind the cold weather, and he was glad to be back on a racecourse for the first time since Christmas. January had been snowy and the first part of February freezing, and keen racers like Cotopaxi got easily bored by long spells in the stables.
Wykeham, unlike most of the daily press, didn’t expect Cotopaxi to win at Newbury.
‘He’s not fully fit,’ he’d said on the telephone the previous evening. ‘He won’t be wound up tight until Grand National day. Look after him, now, Kit, won’t you?’
I’d said I would, and after Cascade, I’d doubly meant it. Look after Cotopaxi, look out for Maynard Allardeck, bury Prince Litsi under the turf. Cotopaxi and I went round circumspectly, collectedly, setting ourselves right at every fence, jumping them all cleanly, enjoying the precision and wasting no time. I did enough stick-waving to give an impression of riding a flat-out finish, and we finished in undisgraced third place, close enough to the winner to be encouraging. A good work-out for Cotopaxi, a reassurance for Wykeham and a tremor of promise for the princess.
She hadn’t been on her balcony during the race and she didn’t appear in the unsaddling enclosure. Dusty muttered obscurely about her absence and I asked around in the weighing room for any message from her, with no results. I changed again to ride in the fifth race, and after that, in street clothes, decided to go up to her box anyway, as I did at the end of every racing afternoon, to see if the waitress who served there might know what had happened.
The princess rented a private box at several racecourses and had had them all decorated alike with colours of cream, coffee and peach. In each was a dining table with chairs for lunch, with, beyond, glass doors to the viewing balcony. She entertained groups of friends regularly, but on that day even the friends had vanished.
I knocked briefly on the box door and, without waiting for any answer, turned the handle and walked in.
The table as usual had been pushed back against a wall after lunch to allow more space, and was familiarly set with the paraphernalia of tea: small sandwiches, small cakes, cups and saucers, alcohol to hand, boxes of cigars. That day, they were all untouched, and there was no waitress pouring, offering me tea with lemon and a smile.
I had expected the box to be otherwise empty, but it wasn’t.
The princess was in there, sitting down.
Near her, silent, stood a man I didn’t know. Not one of her usual friends. A man of not much more than my own age, slender, dark haired, with a strong nose and jaw.
‘Princess …’ I said, taking a step into the room.
She turned her head. She was still wearing the sable coat and the Russian hat, although she usually removed outdoor clothes in her box. Her eyes looked at me without expression, glazed and vacant, wide, blue and unfocused.
Shock, I thought.
‘Princess,’ I said again, concerned for her.
The man spoke. His voice matched his nose and jaw, positive, noticeable, full of strength.
‘Go away,’ he said.
TWO
I went.
I certainly didn’t want to intrude uninvited into any private troubles in the princess’s life, and it was that feeling that remained with me to ground level. I had been too long accustomed to our arm’s length relationship to think her affairs any of my business, except to the extent that she was Danielle’s uncle’s wife.
By the time I was walking out to my car, I wished I hadn’t left as precipitously without at least asking if I could help. There had been an urgent warning quality in th
e stranger’s peremptory voice which had seemed to me at first to be merely protective of the princess, but in retrospect I wasn’t so sure.
Nothing would be lost, I thought, if I waited for her to come down to return home, which she must surely do in the end, and made sure she was all right. If the stranger was still with her, if he was as dismissive as before, if she was looking to him for support, then at least I would let her know I would have assisted if she’d needed it.
I went through the paddock gate to the car park where her chauffeur, Thomas, was routinely waiting for her in her Rolls Royce.
Thomas and I said hello to each other most days in car parks, he, a phlegmatic Londoner, placidly reading books and paying no attention to the sport going on around him. Large and dependable, he had been driving the princess for years, and knew her life and movements as well as anyone in her family.
He saw me coming and gave me a small wave. Normally, after I’d left her box, she would follow fairly soon, my appearance acting as a signal to Thomas to start the engine and warm the car.
I walked across to him, and he lowered a window to talk.
‘Is she ready?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘There’s a man with her …’ I paused. ‘Do you know a fairly young man, dark haired, thin, prominent nose and chin?’
He pondered and said no one sprang to mind, and why was it worrying me.
‘She didn’t watch one of her horses race.’
Thomas sat up straighter. ‘She’d never not watch’
‘No. Well, she didn’t.’
‘That’s bad.’
‘Yes, I’d think so.’
I told Thomas I would go back to make sure she was OK and left him looking as concerned as I felt myself.
The last race was over, the crowds leaving fast. I stood near the gate where I couldn’t miss the princess when she came, and scanned faces. Many I knew, many knew me. I said goodnight fifty times and watched in vain for the fur hat.
The crowd died to a trickle and the trickle to twos and threes. I began to wander slowly back towards the stands, thinking in indecision that perhaps I would go up again to her box.
I’d almost reached the doorway to the private stand when she came out. Even from twenty feet I could see the glaze in her eyes, and she was walking as if she couldn’t feel the ground, her feet rising too high and going down hard at each step.
She was alone, and in no state to be.
‘Princess,’ I said, going fast to her side. ‘Let me help.’
She looked at me unseeingly, swaying. I put an arm firmly round her waist, which I would never have done in ordinary circumstances, and felt her stiffen, as if to deny her need for support.
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she said, shakily.
‘Yes … well, hold my arm.’ I let go of her waist and offered my arm for her to hold on to, which, after a flicker of hesitation, she accepted.
Her face was pale under the fur hat and there were trembles in her body. I walked with her slowly towards the gate, and through it, and across to where Thomas waited. He was out of the car, looking anxious, opening a rear door at our approach.
‘Thank you,’ the princess said faintly, climbing in. ‘Thank you, Kit.’
She sank into the rear seat, dislodging her hat on the way and apathetically watching it roll to the floor.
She peeled off her gloves and put one hand to her head, covering her eyes. ‘I think I …’ She swallowed, pausing. ‘Do we have any water, Thomas?’
‘Yes, madam,’ he said with alacrity, and went round to the boot to fetch the small refreshment box he habitually took along. Sloe, gin, champagne, and sparkling mineral water, the princess’s favourites, were always to hand.
I stood by the car’s open door, unsure how much help she would consider receiving. I knew all about her pride, her self-control, and her self-expectations. She wouldn’t want anyone to think her weak.
Thomas gave her some mineral water in a cut-glass tumbler with ice tinkling, no mean feat. She took two or three small sips and sat staring vaguely into space.
‘Princess,’ I said diffidently, ‘would it perhaps be of any use if I travelled with you to London?’
She turned her eyes my way and a sort of shudder shook her, rattling the ice.
‘Yes,’ she said with clear relief. ‘I need someone to …’ She stopped, not finding the words.
Someone to prevent her breaking down, I guessed. Not a shoulder to cry on but a reason for not crying.
Thomas, approving the arrangement, said to me prosaically, ‘What about your car?’
‘It’s in the jockeys’ car park. I’ll put it back by the racecourse stables. It’ll be all right there.’
He nodded, and we made a brief stop on our way out of the racecourse for me to move the Mercedes to a safe spot and tell the stable manager I’d be back for it later. The princess seemed not to notice any of these arrangements but continued staring vaguely at thoughts I couldn’t imagine, and it wasn’t until we were well on the way to London in the early dusk that she finally stirred and absent-mindedly handed me the glass with the remains of bubbles and melted ice as a kind of preliminary to talking.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘to have given you trouble.’
‘But you haven’t.’
‘I have had,’ she went on carefully, ‘a bad shock. And I cannot explain …’ She stopped and shook her head, making hopeless gestures with her hands. It seemed to me all the same that she had come to a point where assistance of some sort might be welcomed.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ I said neutrally.
‘I’m not sure how much I can ask.’
‘A great deal,’ I said bluntly.
The first signs of a smile crept back into her eyes, but faded again rapidly. ‘I’ve been thinking …’ she said. ‘When we reach London, will you come into the house and wait while I talk to my husband?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘You can spare the time? Perhaps … a few hours?’
‘Any amount,’ I assured her wryly. Danielle had gone to Leonardo and time was a drag without her. I stifled in myself the acute lurch of unhappiness and wondered just what sort of shock the princess had suffered. Nothing, it seemed now, to do with Monsieur de Brescou’s health. Something perhaps worse.
While it grew totally dark outside, we travelled another long way in silence, with the princess staring again into space and sighing, and me wondering what to do about the tumbler.
As if reading my thoughts, Thomas suddenly said, ‘There’s a glass-holder, Mr Fielding, located in the door below the ashtray,’ and I realised he’d noticed my dilemma via the rear-view mirror.
‘Thank you, Thomas,’ I said to the mirror, and met his amused eyes. ‘Very thoughtful.’
I hooked out what proved to be a chrome ring like a toothmug holder, and let it embrace the glass. The princess, oblivious, went on staring at uncomfortable visions.
‘Thomas,’ she said at length, ‘please will you see if Mrs Jenkins is still in the house? If she is, would you ask her to see if Mr Gerald Greening would be free to come round this evening?’
‘Yes, madam,’ Thomas said, and pressed buttons on the car’s telephone, glancing down in fractions while he drove.
Mrs Jenkins worked for the princess and M. de Brescou as secretary and all-round personal assistant and was young, newly married and palely waiflike. She worked only weekdays and left promptly at five o’clock, which a glance at my watch put at only a few minutes ahead. Thomas caught her apparently on the doorstep and passed on the message, to the princess’s satisfaction. She didn’t say who Gerald Greening was, but went quietly back to her grim thoughts.
By the time we reached Eaton Square, she had physically recovered completely, and mentally to a great extent. She still looked pale and strained, though, and took Thomas’s strong hand to help her from the ear. I followed her onto the pavement, and she stood for a moment looking at Thomas and myself, as we stood there lit by t
he street-lamps.
‘Well,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘thank you both.’
Thomas looked as always as if he would willingly die for her besides driving her carefully to and from the races, but more mundanely at that moment walked across the pavement and with his bunch of keys opened the princess’s front door.
She and I went in, leaving Thomas to drive away, and together walked up the wide staircase to the first floor. The ground floor of the big old house consisted of offices, a guest suite, a library and a breakfast room. It was upstairs that the princess and her husband chiefly lived, with drawing room, sitting room and dining room on the first floor and bedrooms on three floors above. Staff lived in the semi-basement, and there was an efficient lift from top to bottom, installed in modern times to accommodate M. de Brescou’s wheelchair.
‘Will you wait in the sitting room?’ she said. ‘Help yourself to a drink. If you’d like tea, ring down to Dawson …’ The social phrases came out automatically, but her eyes were vague, and she was looking very tired.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said.
‘I’m afraid I may be a long time.’
‘I’ll be here.’
She nodded and went up the next broad flight of stairs to the floor above, where she and her husband each had a private suite of rooms, and where Roland de Brescou spent most of his time. I had never been up there, but Danielle had described his rooms as a mini-hospital, with besides his bedroom and sitting room, a physiotherapy room and a room for a male nurse.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I’d asked.
‘Some frightful virus. I don’t know exactly what, but not polio. His legs just stopped working, years ago. They don’t say much about it, and you know what they’re like, it feels intrusive to ask.’
I went into the sitting room, which had become familiar territory, and phoned down to Dawson, the rather august butler, asking for tea.
‘Certainly, sir,’ he said austerely. ‘Is Princess Casilia with you?’