Victorine

  Victorine did not know what to do, or where, exactly, to search for Fool Fred. She had never seen the legendary mare who had catapulted Fitz Lovejoy over her head and run away, she knew only that she was “in pasture” which meant nothing to her. Fool Fred, lover of horses, who “consorted with horses,” who was a horse himself he had said, never mentioned the mare to her.

  As she stood, hesitating which path to take, she heard a shot. Her blood turned cold. “Fool Fred!” she cried and she ran towards one of the barns; the sharp sound had come from right over her shoulder.

  “What,” she said as she went into the stables. A young man she recognized as the veterinarian from the village, and he had been a sergeant in the army, stood over the still form of the beautiful chestnut mare, a pistol hanging from his right hand, his head bowed. The profile of the mare’s small head and arching neck was half buried in clean straw and her lovely legs with dainty hooves were gathered up as if in a full gallop, her long tail, matted with burrs, curved upwards where it had been broken for the shows she had been ridden in, but she was thin, almost emaciated. Her ribbon days were well over.

  The sergeant looked at Victorine, he was crying.

  “I’m sorry,” said Victorine tenderly.

  The sergeant wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “In the army,” he said, “I had to shoot the old horses when we moved camp. . . . Forty, I had to shoot once,” he said, staring at her miserably. “They look at you.”

  Victorine noticed that a black handkerchief had been tied over the mare’s eyes; the sergeant stooped and removed it; he gently patted the mare’s neck. “So long,” he said, “sweetheart.”

  Victorine began to cry for the dear horse she had never seen before and in a kind of communion with the good sergeant. The sergeant patted her shoulder just as gently as he had patted the mare’s neck. “She was old,” he said, “she is better now.”

  “Where . . . where is Fool Fred?” said Victorine, also brushing away the tears with the back of her hand, although she had a clean handkerchief in her pocket.

  “The young lad?”

  “Yes.”

  “They took him away.”

  “Took him away?” Victorine’s heart missed a beat.

  “They thought it would upset him,” he nodded at the mare and looked at the pistol in his hand.

  “How long?” whispered Victorine.

  “I don’t know . . . well, it’s over,” he put the pistol away. He looked at Victorine, “You’re Victorine L’Hommedieu, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said the sergeant, touching his cap and bringing his heels together.

  “Me too,” said Victorine. She smiled at him, he was so nice.

  •

  Victorine was to see the white stallion once more. She came upon the pretty scene unexpectedly. Fool Fred and the shining apparition faced each other, and stood in profile to Victorine who remained still, scarcely daring to breathe. The smell of heavenly hay reached her and she breathed it deeply in. The sun was setting behind the white stallion, but he left no shadow, no long shadow advanced towards Victorine as it should in Nature, and she noted it wonderingly, she was observing of natural phenomena, the rules of Nature that there are no exceptions to prove. Two young saplings beside him cast their shadows. “Fool Fred forgot the white stallion’s shadow,” she said to herself, but she looked again. Neither had Fool Fred a shadow! Well, then, who had forgot Fool Fred’s shadow! Who had produced Fool Fred? Who had neglected his shadow? She thought hard of shadows, painted them, in her mind, along the uneven ground, just right, it wasn’t easy, but the vision of the beautiful boy and the lovely stallion stood alone, shadow-less, brilliant, gossamer, in a thrilling disobedience to Nature; and Victorine, incredulous, turned and quietly left them.

  •

  Victorine came upon Lydia and Costello walking hand in hand, their shadows just the right size, preceding them. They included her in their tender looks.

  And Dennis came bounding down the path with pink cheeks and earthy hands, his shadow bouncing and sliding beside him.

  “The calf! The calf!” he yelled. “She’s out, she’s out, the calf is out. Come quick and see the calf that’s out!” He grabbed Victorine by the hand and pulled her along to see Nanny’s latest production; and you could hear Lydia singing, “ ‘Spring is here, I hear,’ ” as if she were far away, as if a ventriloquist did it, it was pretty.

  THE END