by Amanda Wills
She was pushing open the double doors to the playing field when she heard her name being called. Groaning inwardly, she quickened her pace.
Norah caught up with her outside the tennis courts.
‘Kristy, didn’t you hear me? I was calling and calling.’
Kristy stared at the tarmac. It was slick with rain.
‘I thought it was you, walking straight past the library door. William said it couldn’t be, but I was right. Did you forget I’d called a meeting?’
‘No.’
Norah frowned. ‘So why didn’t you come?’
‘No point,’ Kristy mumbled.
‘What d’you mean, there’s no point? We’re supposed to be discussing costumes and who’s going to make what. We’ve only got a couple of weeks before the centenary, remember.’
‘How could I forget?’ Kristy finally looked up. Something about Norah’s earnest face, her perfectly-knotted tie and her navy enamel prefect badge made her snap.
‘There isn’t going to be a quadrille. Not with me in, anyway. Unless you want me to ride one of William’s brooms,’ she laughed mirthlessly.
Norah looked alarmed. ‘I don’t understand. Why can’t you ride Cassius?’
‘Because he’s gone, Norah. Back to his old owner. Karen let her take him yesterday.’
Norah’s eyes were wide. ‘That’s terrible!’
‘I know.’ Kristy swallowed the lump in her throat.
‘But he’s the star of the show. The one they all come to see.’
Anger flared deep in the pit of Kristy’s stomach. ‘Wait, is that all you’re worried about? That you’ve lost your star attraction?’
Norah backtracked. ‘Of course not! I didn’t mean it like that. It’s a shock, that’s all. Poor you.’ She went to link arms with Kristy but Kristy shook her head and pushed roughly past her.
‘I don’t want your pity. And you can stick your stupid quadrille, too. If Arabella Hayward hadn’t seen Cassius in the paper she wouldn’t have come back for him in the first place.’
As soon as she said this Kristy knew it was true. Arabella was one of those people who craved other people’s trophies, like magpies coveting shiny trinkets. She hadn’t wanted to know when an eye infection had stolen Cassius’s sight. But his five minutes of fame had made him desirable again. Once the shine had worn off and she had become bored of him would she abandon him a second time?
And if she did, would Kristy ever be able to find him again?
12
Annie
Kristy trudged to the stables under pewter-grey skies that matched her mood perfectly. After leaving Norah open-mouthed outside the tennis courts, she’d stalked off to the furthest corner of the playing fields to spend the rest of the lunch-hour brooding about Cassius.
As she made her way to the humanities block for double history she’d almost collided with Miss Raven. Expecting to be reprimanded for daydreaming again, Kristy had been surprised when the head teacher had smiled benevolently.
‘How’s my star quadrille rider?’
A dull flush had crawled up Kristy’s neck, as itchy as a rash. She cleared her throat. ‘Good, thanks,’ she croaked. ‘Better go. I’m late for Mr Peterson.’
She should have come clean and told Miss Raven there and then her quadrille team was one short. Why hadn’t she? Because a tiny part of her was still hoping it was all a bad dream and when she walked into the yard after school Cassius would be watching her over his stable door. Or that now Emma was back from hospital she would magically sort the mess out and order Arabella Hayward to bring him home where he rightfully belonged.
As it turned out, Emma had other things on her mind.
She was standing in the middle of the yard, her left arm in a sling and her right hand clutching her head in exasperation.
‘That’s hay, not straw! Hay is for eating, straw is for bedding. Can’t you tell the difference?’ she barked.
A slim girl of about nineteen with a cloud of curly hair the colour of ripened corn popped her head over the door of Viking’s stable. She giggled nervously.
‘Oops. I’m always getting them muddled up. Miss Miller says I drive her demented.’
Emma harrumphed and muttered something under her breath. It sounded like, ‘I’ll give her demented.’
Kristy coughed politely and Emma swung round.
‘You’re here. Thank goodness.’ Her face softened. ‘Let me introduce you to Annie and then you and I need to talk. Annie, this is Kristy, my head groom. She knows Mill Farm inside out. Check with her before you do anything, please. Understand?’
The blonde girl nodded. ‘Sure. Absolutely.’ Her accent was pure cut-glass.
‘Kristy, this is Annie. She works at Coldblow but Karen has kindly lent her to me while I’m out of action.’ Emma pulled a face and despite her black mood Kristy stifled the urge to laugh. It was clear Annie was more of a hindrance than a help.
‘Annie, perhaps you could fill the water buckets? Kristy and I have a lot to catch up on.’
‘Sure, absolutely, Miss Miller.’
‘My sister may insist on you calling her Miss Miller but please call me Emma. We don’t stand on ceremony around here.’
Annie nodded vigorously, picked up Viking’s water bucket and set off for the tap at the other side of the yard.
‘It’s probably easier to use the hose. Saves your back,’ said Kristy kindly.
Annie smacked the palm of her hand against her forehead. ‘Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Clever old you.’
‘No problem.’
Kristy followed Emma into the tack room, trying not to look at Cassius’s empty saddle rack, and perched on the edge of the sofa.
‘Hot chocolate?’ Emma asked.
Kristy sprang to her feet. ‘You sit down. I’ll do it.’
Emma sank gratefully into the armchair. Kristy flicked the kettle on and spooned coffee into one mug and chocolate powder into the other.
‘Karen told me about Cassius. I owe you an apology. I should have filled in the paperwork. I’m so sorry,’ she said.
Kristy looked at Emma properly. Her face was leached of colour apart from dark bruise-like smudges under her eyes. Every time she shifted in her seat she winced in pain.
‘I don’t blame you,’ Kristy said softly. She had spent a sleepless night directing her anger at everyone from Norah to Karen, but it wasn’t fair to blame them. She sighed. ‘If anything it’s my fault. I should never have agreed to the interviews. I was so proud of him. I wanted to show him off. But you know what they say about pride.’
‘You think Arabella saw him in the paper?’
‘I’m sure of it. When he needed her most she disappeared off the face of the earth. The minute he’s headline news she turns up out of the blue, wanting him back.’
Emma nodded. ‘Makes sense. I had a call from her fiancé the day after the story appeared. I told him Cassius wasn’t here but he insisted on coming anyway. So I hid Cassius in the kitchen and pretended to be out.’
Which explained how Cassius had managed to squeeze into the kitchen despite the locked back door, Kristy thought. ‘So he didn’t escape by himself after all.’
‘No. I gave him a helping hand. He thought I’d gone mad. You should have seen the look he gave me.’
They shared a sad smile.
‘I hoped they’d lose interest but the fiancé is obviously more lovestruck and tenacious than I gave him credit for. And absolutely rolling in money.’ Emma waved his cheque in the air. ‘He gave me more than Bella actually owed. I’ll pay you, Sofia and the twins back your winnings, of course.’
‘You can keep my share. I don’t want it.’
‘And I’ll start paying you proper wages again, now Cassius has gone.’
Kristy shook her head. Didn’t Emma get it? The money meant nothing to her. She realised her boss was talking again.
‘ - I know my sister has her faults, but she said she had my best interests at heart, and for once I believe he
r. That money couldn’t have come at a better time. It means I can pay Annie while I’m out of action.’
‘So Annie is one of Karen’s grooms? It’s nice of her to lend her to you.’
Emma grimaced. ‘Nice? I’m doing Karen a favour. The girl is a complete airhead. She makes Sofia look organised. You’re going to have to help me keep an eye on her.’
‘She’s a bit posh, isn’t she? To be working in a stables, I mean.’
‘She may have been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but when it came to handing out brains she was last in the queue. She has absolutely no common sense.’ Emma rolled her eyes.
‘She seems nice, though.’
‘You’re right, she is. She’s just driving me to distraction. But she does what she’s told. So I suppose I should count myself lucky to have her.’
‘Do you think he’ll be alright?’ said Kristy suddenly.
‘Cassius?’
Kristy nodded, swallowing the lump that had reappeared in her throat.
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine. Bella’s impulsive and flaky but she was never cruel. She just blows hot and cold, that’s all. One of those people who launches into a new hobby feet first and after a few months loses interest and moves onto the next thing.’
‘She sounds like my cousin,’ said Kristy. ‘Last year it was tennis so my auntie bought her a really expensive racket and paid for hours and hours of private lessons. Now she’s decided she doesn’t like tennis, she wants to do triathlons. So she needs a racing bike and a wetsuit. Her mum and dad spend a fortune on all this stuff that ends up gathering dust in their garage.’
‘All the gear and no idea,’ agreed Emma. ‘That sounds like Bella. When her parents first bought Cassius she spent every waking minute up here. She had the best tack, the nicest rugs and the most expensive riding gear. All funded by the Bank of Mum and Dad. She had weekly lessons with Karen at Coldblow, and they don’t come cheap. She was obsessed. Then gradually she started coming every other day, and then a couple of times a week, and then once a week - if you were lucky. Cassius lost fitness so when she did bother to turn up and ride he wasn’t the well-schooled horse she was used to.’
‘Not his fault,’ said Kristy.
‘Absolutely not his fault,’ agreed Emma. ‘When his eye became infected she stopped coming at all. I heard on the grapevine she’d fallen out with her parents and they’d stopped her allowance. She’s never done a day’s work in her life, so of course she couldn’t pay the livery fees. She’s obviously found another source of income -’
‘ - the absolutely loaded fiancé,’ supplied Kristy. ‘And after seeing Cassius looking so good in the paper she decided she wanted him back. And her rich boyfriend was only too happy to oblige. It’s not fair.’
Emma patted her knee. ‘Unfortunately, life isn’t fair. We just have to deal with it as best we can.’
‘That’s what Dad said,’ said Kristy in a small voice.
‘Then your dad is a very wise man.’
Kristy gripped her mug tightly. ‘It doesn’t make it any easier though, does it?’
13
Quadrille Practice
Kristy found evening stables strangely therapeutic. She’d assumed being at Mill Farm without Cassius would be too distressing. But the hard work involved in looking after twelve horses kept her physically and mentally busy. There was no time to wallow in self-pity. Not when there were stables to muck out, water buckets to fill and feeds to mix.
Annie was pushing a laden wheelbarrow over to the muck heap when she saw Kristy and waved. As she did the barrow hit a pothole and tipped over, emptying its entire contents in an untidy heap on the concrete.
Annie knelt down and began scrabbling the dirty straw back into the barrow with her hands. She looked around nervously. ‘Where’s Miss Miller?’
‘In the house,’ said Kristy.
Annie exhaled loudly. ‘Thank goodness!’
‘Why?’ said Kristy, puzzled. ‘Emma wouldn’t mind. It’s not like you did it on purpose. And you’re clearing it up, aren’t you?’
‘Miss Miller, I mean the other Miss Miller, would have had a meltdown. She says I’m the clumsiest, most scatterbrained, hopeless groom she has ever had the misfortune to meet. But the crosser she gets with me, the more mistakes I make, I can’t seem to help it.’
Annie picked up the last of the straw and Kristy wheeled it over to the muck heap. After spending the last few days as Karen’s skivvy she felt a sudden camaraderie with Annie.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, emptying the barrow in the furthest corner of the muck heap. ‘Emma is nothing like Karen. She doesn’t mind if the yard’s not perfectly swept or if the forks and brooms aren’t lined up in height order. As long as the horses are happy she’s happy.’
Annie looked doubtful. ‘She seemed rather agitated earlier.’
‘I think she’s still in a lot of pain from her broken arm. Come on, let’s muck out the ponies together. I can show you how I do it,’ said Kristy.
Annie wasn’t lazy, she was just easily distracted and a bit accident-prone, Kristy decided an hour later, once they’d worked their way along the line of stables.
‘What made you work at Coldblow, Annie? If you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Oh, well, all of my friends have tootled off to university. But that’s not really my thing. I’m not the sharpest tool in the box, you see. But Daddy said it was important I do something useful, so I thought, horses! And Mummy used to hunt with Karen, so she had a word and here I am. Or should I say there I was?’ She giggled self-consciously. ‘Oh, you know what I mean.’
‘Do you hunt?’ said Kristy, intrigued.
Annie shuddered. ‘Absolutely not. It’s like totally disgusting.’
‘But it’s illegal to hunt foxes in the UK any more, isn’t it?’
‘It is. But foxes still get caught and completely murdered, Kristy,’ she said earnestly. ‘These days I am totally into animal rights. I’m even a vegetarian. Apart from bacon sandwiches, obvs.’
‘Ha ha, very funny,’ chuckled Kristy.
Annie’s eyes widened. ‘I wasn’t joking. I absolutely adore bacon. It’s to die for. I could never give it up.’
‘Right,’ said Kristy. Annie really was something else. But she couldn’t help warming to her. ‘We’d better get the horses in.’
Kristy handed Annie Viking’s headcollar and hoped she wasn’t as hopeless at handling horses as she was at stable management. But she needn’t have worried. Annie walked up to the big bay gelding, talking all the time. She ran a hand along his neck and whispered something in his ear. Kristy watched in amazement as Viking dropped his head low so she could fix his headcollar and then followed her meekly out of the field.
‘He seems to like you,’ said Kristy. ‘He can be tricky with new people.’
‘All horses are like this with me. I seem to have a bit of a gift for it. Daddy calls me the Horse Whisperer,’ said Annie.
Kristy studied her face for signs of conceit or jocularity, but her expression was serious and utterly without guile.
‘I think that’s why Miss Miller puts up with me,’ Annie admitted.
One by one they brought the horses in. The minute Annie had blown softly into their noses, scratched them behind their ears or rubbed their withers they were all putty in her hands, even Norah’s pony Silver, who had a tendency to nip if he thought he could get away with it.
‘Who lives there?’ asked Annie, as they walked past Cassius’s empty stable.
‘No-one,’ said Kristy shortly.
‘Hey, did I say something wrong?’
Kristy silently remonstrated with herself. It wasn’t Annie’s fault Cassius had gone. She made herself smile. ‘Of course you didn’t,’ she said.
She checked her watch. It was almost six. Sofia and the twins would be arriving soon, ready for their quadrille practice. She still wasn’t sure she could face them. She handed Annie a broom and ducked into the feed room.
‘Can you
sweep the yard while I mix the feeds?’
‘Sure, absolutely,’ said Annie.
‘And if anyone asks, I’m not here.’
Annie looked puzzled. ‘So who’s going to mix the feeds?’
‘I am,’ said Kristy patiently. ‘Just pretend you haven’t seen me.’
‘But you’re standing right in front of me.’ Annie’s face cleared and she slapped a palm against her forehead. ‘Oh, I get it. You don’t want someone to know you’re here.’
Kristy nodded as a car door clunked shut. ‘And there they are. So I’ve gone home, OK?’
Annie gave a mock salute and giggled. ‘Message received and understood.’
Kristy squeezed behind the feed room door, ducking to avoid a dusty cobweb. She listened as Annie introduced herself to Sofia and the twins.
‘Where’s Kristy?’ Norah barked.
‘Oh, um, she’s definitely not in the feed room,’ said Annie.
Kristy raised her eyes. Annie really was hopeless.
‘Actually I think she might have gone home. Is there anything I can help you with?’
‘Have you wet Silver’s hay?’ Norah asked imperiously. ‘He’s allergic to dust. I’m sure Kristy must have mentioned it.’
Kristy remembered the day she met Norah for the first time. She had been just as bossy. Still was in fact.
Their voices faded as they crossed the yard, probably to check if Silver’s hay had been properly soaked. Kristy edged out from behind the door and eased open the lid of the feed bin. If she started mixing the horses’ feeds now she could take them out while Sofia and the twins were in the school practising their routine.
She was just scooping chaff into Jigsaw’s bucket when Sofia marched in.
‘You are here!’ she said. ‘I thought Annie looked a bit shifty. Are you trying to avoid us?’
Kristy flushed. ‘Sorry.’
‘You are silly. We’re your friends, Kristy. We’re on your side. Ever since Norah told me what happened I’ve been so worried about you. I’m so, so sorry.’ Sofia looked close to tears. Kristy felt her own eyes smart.