A Steeplechase For Love

by Barbara Cartland

  As she went Helsa thought that under her breath she was, if not swearing, then making sounds to herself which were very close to it.

  Helsa listened to the music for some time and then she decided that she would be wise to retire to bed.

  She had put everything ready for Lady Basset and had been told not to wait up for her and so she therefore felt free to go to her own room.

  However, on the way there she paused to peep over the banisters on the first floor and saw that Robinson was still in the hall, giving the night-footman instructions as to the orchestra’s requirements when they returned to their own rooms.

  Then as he finished, he glanced up and saw Helsa.

  “Be you going to bed, Miss Helsa?” he asked.

  Helsa nodded.

  “Thank you for opening the windows, Robinson. I loved listening to the music, but it has been a long day and I am a little tired.”

  “Not as tired as they’ll all be when they turns in. I’d forgotten to inform you, Miss Helsa, that her Ladyship expects they’ll be late and she don’t want to be called until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “Ten o’clock! Oh, splendid! That means I can go home and ride Golden Arrow.”

  Helsa had forgotten for the moment that she was supposed to be Mary and as she finished speaking she gave a little murmur and put her fingers to her lips.

  “It’s all right,” Robinson replied. “No one’s heard you. If you do that, you’ll be quite safe and if you asks me there’ll be a lot of tired heads and feet tomorrow!”

  Helsa laughed and then she went up the stairs to the nursery.

  She climbed into her bed, but did not go to sleep for some time.

  She was wondering, although it was no business of hers, whether the Duke had gone back to dance with Lady Basset – or perhaps he had been allowed to dance with one of the pretty dancers who had been hired for the evening.

  When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed that she was riding the Duke’s stallion, Masterpiece, and he was carrying her so effortlessly over the highest jumps that she felt she was flying through the air.

  *

  She had deliberately left the curtains undrawn over the windows and so the sun woke her just after six o’clock.

  It was what she had hoped would happen.

  She jumped swiftly out of her bed and put on her riding habit – she had brought it with her to The Hall just in case she was lucky enough to be able to sneak in a ride in between her duties.

  Then she hurried downstairs.

  The house was as quiet as a graveyard.

  The night-footman was fast asleep in his padded chair in the hall.

  She let herself out of the front door instead of going round the back and then ran through the Park disturbing the stags lying under the trees.

  When she reached the Vicarage, she could see that her father’s curtains were drawn back over his bedroom windows, and she felt sure that by this time he would have left to take Communion at one of his Parishes.

  When she looked into the stables, she saw that his horse and cart had gone.

  Golden Arrow was in his stall just as George had promised he would be and he was very pleased to see her and Helsa patted him and made a fuss of him before she put on his bridle and saddle.

  He nuzzled against her and she sensed that he was as excited as she was at going for a ride.

  They set off going through the garden into the Park and then on to the flat ground. She never wore a hat when she was riding on the estate as she so loved the feeling of the breeze in her hair.

  Helsa gave Golden Arrow his head until they were out of sight of The Hall and then they reached the special wood on the estate that she loved more than all the others.

  It was a wood of white elms that had been planted many years ago and Helsa believed that it was the most beautiful of all the woods on the estate.

  She had no idea that, as she galloped over the fields towards it, that she had been seen by someone riding down from the stables.

  He was following her at a distance, but keeping her in sight.

  The Duke felt certain that her golden hair was the sign he was seeking, but would be impossible to ever find again.

  He was following her, thinking that he had never in his life seen a woman ride better.

  She had such an unmistakable elegance about her that she might have been one of the smart riders in Rotten Row, but even they could never compare with her prowess.

  Then, as Helsa disappeared into a nearby wood, he increased his speed.

  He was afraid she might vanish as she had done the first time he had encountered her.

  Inside the wood Helsa was moving more slowly.

  With the silvery leaves over her head and the moss beneath Golden Arrow’s hooves, she felt that she was once again in a fairyland, which had been hers ever since she had been a child.

  She believed that there were fairies in the garden and amongst the trees and bushes in the shrubbery, and she had at times been quite certain she had seen them twinkling in the sunshine.

  Often she had told herself different stories as to what they were doing and why they were there.

  It was her mother who had read to her first about fairies when she was very small, and on Sundays the fairy tales became religious and somehow she always connected them in her mind with angels.

  They aroused in her what she felt when she saw the stars shining down at night onto the magical world below.

  It was to the trees in the wood that she confided her troubles and all her difficulties and somehow, because they too were part of her fairyland, they always reassured her.

  Everything would certainly work out right in the end, they would tell her – and she must not be frightened.

  Now as she rode through the wood she was sending up a prayer of thankfulness that everything at The Hall had gone smoothly up to this moment.

  Almost as if it was a gift from Heaven itself, Lady Basset had rented The Hall and it had made things so much easier for them financially.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, God,’ Helsa was saying in her heart.

  She rode on to her favourite place in the centre of the wood. It was a little pool of sparkling water of which there were many in the woods.

  But this was a particularly precious one.

  She had been quite sure, when she had first been old enough to reach it from The Hall, that water nymphs lived there in the dark water and the kingcups and the irises growing round the pool were all part of the water nymphs themselves.

  She pulled up Golden Arrow and bent her head to gaze into the water.

  Then she suddenly became aware that a horse was approaching and she was not alone in the wood.

  At first she was annoyed that anyone should disturb her.

  And as the horse drew closer, she saw that the Duke was the rider.

  She smiled as he approached her.

  “I thought it must be you,” he began, “when I saw your horse in the distance. But I had no idea you could ride so brilliantly.”

  “Allow me to introduce you to someone you have not met before, Your Grace. His name is Golden Arrow and although he is not as magnificent as your Masterpiece, I love him almost more than anyone else in the world.”

  The Duke grinned.

  “How could anyone be so lucky or ask for more?”

  Helsa turned towards the pool.

  “This is a very special place, and let me tell Your Grace that you are very fortunate to be here.”

  “That is just what I was thinking myself,” the Duke replied. “But tell me why it is so special.”

  “I come here if ever I am a little unhappy and the water nymphs talk to me and tell me everything will be all right in the end.”

  “Why should it ever be anything else where you are concerned, Helsa?” She did not answer and after a moment the Duke enquired,

  “Tell me what is troubling you, Helsa. I am good at answering puzzles and finding a way out of a maze.”

&nbs
p; “I guessed you would be like that, You Grace. At the same time I am sure you have enough troubles of your own without mine.”

  “I would like you to trust me – ” She turned to gaze at him.

  “I am sure that a great number of people do trust you and that you never disappoint them. But unfortunately my problem is one I have to solve for myself. Therefore only the water nymphs will listen to me and sometimes, although not always, they tell me what to do.”

  Helsa was talking as if in a dream, which somehow always seemed to come to her naturally whenever she was in this part of the wood.

  She had no idea that the Duke was thinking that she was completely different from any woman he had ever met and almost too glorious to be real.

  There was in fact something quite unreal about her that he could not put into words.

  Then he dismounted and fixed Masterpiece’s reins firmly to the saddle.

  Without his saying anything, but almost as if he had given her an order, Helsa did the same and she knew that Golden Arrow would not move far away from her.

  She left the horse and walked to where on one side of the clearing there was a pile of tree trunks that had been cut down a long time ago, but had been left piled on each other and they made an excellent seat as she had so often found before.

  When she sat down, the Duke joined her.

  “Do you come here very often?” he asked her.

  “I have come here ever since I was old enough to ride alone. To me this is a place which has a magic I have never found anywhere else.”

  “I can guess that you have never been in love,” the Duke remarked unexpectedly.

  “Not in the way you mean,” Helsa replied. “But I love a great number of people. My father, Golden Arrow and my mother, who died some time ago. But when I am here, she seems to be so close to me – ”

  She was speaking once again as if in a dream and it made the Duke realise that she was not thinking of him as a man, and he was probably someone who was to her a part of her enchanted wood and the many elves and goblins it undoubtedly housed.

  He looked at her and was then aware that she was not looking at him but at the pool.

  She was not just enchanting and ethereally beautiful but so very different from any of the other women he had spent so much of his time with – he had known so well from the brightness of their eyes and the movement of their lips that it was impossible for them to think of anyone or anything else but him. But this strange and heavenly creature was not in the least bit concerned with him personally – only with the world beyond the world she was living in at the moment.

  The Duke had travelled a great deal.

  He thought that only in India, Nepal or Tibet had he found very few people who, while still of this world, were momentarily in their minds and souls in another.

  There was silence for quite some minutes.

  Then Helsa said,

  “If you have anything at all that troubles you, ask the elves who are listening to us at this moment to help you, Your Grace. They have never failed me yet.”

  She gave a little sigh.

  “I suppose we should be going back, but please do not tell anyone at The Hall where you have been.”

  “I know quite well that you would not want them running into this wood to see what you see. Not that they would see it, anyway.” “I knew you would understand, Your Grace.” “Why should you think that?” “I don’t know,” she answered. “But the first time I saw you I thought there was something in your voice and your eyes that made you stand out from the others.

  “I do think, Your Grace, you are seeking something that you have not yet found – something that always eludes you, although you cannot think why it should.”

  The Duke was still.

  He was listening, but he did not speak.

  “Something tells me,” Helsa went on, “that you will always win, though sometimes it will be difficult. But you must never give up.”

  The Duke was too surprised to make any reply.

  Almost as if she had forgotten his very existence, Helsa then rose from the woodpile and walked to her horse.

  It was only as she actually reached Golden Arrow that the Duke joined her.

  Picking her up, he lifted her onto the saddle.

  She took up the reins and turned towards the path that led out of the wood.

  She did not speak nor did she seem to be waiting for him.

  The Duke mounted Masterpiece and followed her.

  Only when they were out of the wood itself did he draw up beside Helsa.

  “Where are you going now?” he asked her gently.

  “I shall take Golden Arrow home and then I will come back to The Hall. It is nearly time for breakfast and please don’t tell anyone you have seen me.”

  “I promise I will not do so,” affirmed the Duke.

  She gave him a little smile and then rode away.

  He stood for a few moments watching her until she disappeared under the trees into the Park.

  Then slowly he rode back to the stables at The Hall.

  He was thinking that it was the strangest morning he had ever spent.

  Helsa was so totally unlike any woman he had ever encountered.

  CHAPTER SIX

  As Monday morning arrived, Helsa could feel the excitement vibrating through the house.

  At last they were to run the steeplechase.

  Everyone felt that if they hurried they would speed up the moment for it to start.

  When her breakfast was brought upstairs, it was put swiftly down on the table and the footman vanished before she could say ‘thank you’.

  Like all the other young men in the house, he was determined to be in the paddock when Watson started the race.

  As Lady Basset was to be there as well, Helsa had made her own plans.

  She was thankful that by the time the guests in the house had left for the stables or the paddock, she had not been given another duty.

  Fortunately she knew a better place to see it from than they did.

  The maids were busy tidying Lady Basset’s room and all Helsa had to do was to put away the jewellery her Ladyship had worn the night before.

  Then she ran along the passage to the West wing.

  Everything was silent as everyone was either riding in or watching the steeplechase.

  She climbed up to the top floor and then again up the smaller steps that led to the tower – She could see the start clearly from the windows of the tower, but today she was determined to go right up to the roof.

  She knew that from there she would have a better view than from anywhere on the ground.

  She climbed, as she had so often as a child, onto the firm end of the old bed and reached up towards the skylight.

  She pushed it open and was relieved that it had not become solid over the years and then squeezed herself out onto the roof of the tower.

  No one could have a better view than from here and she thought that she could actually see the boundary of the estate in the distance.

  She could see all the woods the riders would pass through. In some of them there were steep stony paths on which they would have to tread more slowly and carefully than anywhere else.

  There was no need for Helsa to stand and anyway she might have been seen. So she sat down and she could then see everyone in the paddock quite clearly through the bars of the parapet.

  Lady Basset was there and it was no surprise that she was talking eagerly to the Duke, who was mounted on Masterpiece.

  Helsa could not help but wonder if poor Samson, who had been left behind, realised what he was missing.

  The young gentlemen staying in the house were all mounted on their own horses and she was forced to admit that they were all outstanding animals.

  Watson was getting them all into line and telling them – what they already knew – exactly the route they had to take.

  Actually the course had all been clearly marked out with coloured ribbons and from what Helsa
had overheard, it would be almost impossible for anyone to go wrong.

  It was a very long course, the longest she thought, that had ever been held on the Irvin estate.

  Then Watson turned to the riders, gave the starting signal and they were off.

  The great steeplechase had at last begun and there were more than twenty horses participating in the race. The Duke was looking resplendent in his bright red jacket and black top hat and Helsa thought that the horses brought by the neighbours had a poor chance of finishing the course.

  She watched them intently as they galloped across the first field – and then the second.

  The Duke was already well out in front, but Helsa could see that he was pulling in Masterpiece and not letting him tire himself out too soon.

  She could observe from her outstanding view that Watson had made the course a very hard one and she was more than ever convinced that only half the competitors would finish the race.

  She saw Lady Basset, having seen the start of the race, hurry across the paddock and into the house. One or two people attempted to speak to her, but she waved them on one side.

  Helsa wondered why she was in such a hurry.

  She hoped it was not because she thought she might watch the steeplechase from the tower too and even so she was not likely to climb up onto the roof – and because she was larger than her, she would never be able squeeze her body through the skylight.

  So Helsa concentrated on the steeplechase.

  She was trying to see, although it was sometimes difficult, if the Duke was still in front of the other riders.

  ‘I do want Masterpiece to win,’ she thought. ‘If it was not for the Duke, the steeplechase would not be taking place at all.’

  She only wished her father could watch it too, but she was sure he would be busy in one of his three Parishes.

  ‘I will tell him about it afterwards,’ she promised herself.

  Then suddenly to her surprise she heard the door into the room below open.

  “Your Ladyship will see perfectly well from ’ere,” she heard a man’s rough voice saying.

  Helsa tensed.

  It was obvious that Lady Basset had been brought up here to the tower by someone whose voice she did not recognise to enjoy a really good view of the steeplechase.