“I didn’t expect to be driving,” Nigella confessed truthfully. “Our driver got bumped in the show-jumping,” she waved an arm vaguely in my direction. “Elaine usually drives.”
“And is the vehicle insured for you to drive, miss?” the officer enquired. “It is insured, I trust?”
“Of course it’s insured,” Henrietta snapped. She knew perfectly well that it wasn’t; that Thunder and Lightning Limited only ever insured it for the hunting season.
I really couldn’t stand any more of this. I lay back in my seat and closed my eyes, overcome by giddiness, and wondering if there was room for me to pass out. I could see us all in court for driving a vehicle without a licence while it was not taxed and insured, and furthermore, I could see us losing our best livery clients, whose regular weekly cheques carried us through the winter. If we lost them we would be entirely ruined. Legend would have to be sold and I would be out of a job. I should have to go home to my father and begin again, searching through the Situations Vacant in Horse and Hound. I let out a loud groan at the thought of it. The officer put his face to the windscreen and stared at me through the glass.
“She’s broken her arm,” Henrietta lied, “and quite possibly sustained internal injuries as well. We’re taking her to hospital.”
The officer’s expression changed from one of alarm to one of fury. “Then why the bloody hell didn’t you say so in the first place?” he demanded angrily. He stepped back into the traffic and waved us on furiously, anxious not to delay us a moment longer in case he was left with a corpse on his hands.
I must have looked almost as bad as I felt.
10
Where are the Horses?
“We weren’t quite fair,” Henrietta said, “we didn’t realize you were really ill; we thought it was just nerves.” She sat down on the faded tapestry bedcover.
“And we agree with you about the corn,” Nigella said, “Legend is over the top. We’ve had to cut his ration by half, he’s bucked us both off; Henrietta twice.” She looked at me, shamefaced.
I wasn’t going to say I told you so. I sighed and gave them a weak smile instead. I had been in bed for a week battling with a particular virulent dose of ’flu. I was in no real hurry to get better; there didn’t seem much to get better for.
“We’ve brought you a present,” Nigella said. She laid a brown paper package on the bedclothes, where I could reach it. “We hope you like it.”
“In fact,” Henrietta said, recovering some of her spirit and looking smug, “we know you will.”
In spite of myself, I was touched by this unexpected show of concern and generosity. “You shouldn’t have,” I told them, “you can’t possibly afford it.”
“Oh, it didn’t cost a lot,” Nigella said, “at least, not compared with what it’s actually worth.”
I pulled myself up on to one elbow in order to investigate the bargain. I peeled off the paper. Underneath was a navy blue Guernsey sweater. Mine.
“But it’s my own sweater,” I said, “my Guernsey!”
“We thought you would be rather pleased to have it back,” Nigella said, “so we spent the last of the Training Fund to redeem it. We thought you deserved it.”
At the mention of the Training Fund, any pleasure I had felt in seeing my good Guernsey again immediately evaporated.
“We won’t be needing the Training Fund any more,” Henrietta went on, “not since we’ve had this.” She handed me an envelope. It was addressed to me, but the Fanes had opened it nevertheless. I was too weary to make a fuss. I pulled out the piece of paper it contained and opened it out. It was headed The Hissey Training Scholarship for Potential Event Riders, and the message was brief and to the point.
The examiners are pleased to inform you
that you have been short-listed for the
above, and are hereby invited to further
participate in a two-day event on June 20th,
the details of which are enclosed separately.
I simply couldn’t believe it. I read it over and over again. “We’ve done it!” I shrieked, “We’re on the short-list!” I jumped up in bed, and reeled back against the pillows as my head started to thump and the Fanes blurred in front of my eyes.
“Yes,” Nigella said in a pleased voice. “You are. But then,” she added, “I always knew you would be.”
“But I can’t understand why,” I said, “when there were so many others who did better!”
“The dressage was obviously more important than we thought,” Henrietta said. “And, after all, it was potential they were judging, not necessarily performance, they obviously believe you both could do very much better, with the professional training and everything.”
“So if you would care to recover,” Nigella said, “we can start training for the two-day event.”
With only a fortnight before the two-day event, there was no time to waste. Two days later I was out in the yard, and the day after that I got back on Legend and took him out to do some road work. My wrist wasn’t up to anything more ambitious yet, but the swelling had gone down, and strapped up by Nigella in a crepe tail bandage, it felt comfortable and I was able to use my hand within reason.
Legend and I trotted along the quiet lanes between wide acres of ripening corn. The banks and verges were thick with primroses and the countryside looked fresh and green. Now and then we passed an isolated pink-washed timber-framed cottage with a couple of terriers yapping at the garden gate, or a fat cat asleep on the window-ledge. It was all very lovely and peaceful; even the inevitable wind was tamed today, reduced to a fresh breeze which made pleasant what might otherwise have been a day too hot for riding.
I rode along feeling pleased with everything. We had been very lucky so far. We had been lucky at the point-to-point, lucky at the horse show, and as it had turned out, even lucky at the combined training competition. I saw no reason why the same luck should not carry us through the two-day event. If it did, Legend and I would have at least a foot in the door of the eventing world. It would be marvellous. Lost in satisfactory thoughts such as this, Legend and I turned off the lane onto the bridleway that meandered round the back of the kennels. We didn’t see Forster until we almost fell over him.
“Hello, Elaine,” he grinned up at me, “imagine seeing you!”
“Yes,” I said coolly, “imagine.” I wouldn’t have stopped for anything, but before I could ride on by, he had caught Legend by the rein.
I stared at him angrily, my idyllic ride rudely interrupted. I had almost forgotten Forster in the last few weeks and I didn’t want to be reminded now. “Let go of my rein,” I said. “I’m busy.”
“You don’t look very busy,” he replied, “you look as if you’re having a nice, relaxing ride. I like your hair loose like that, it looks very pretty.” He smiled at me, all white teeth and black hair and blue eyes and suntan. He was wearing jeans and an open-necked shirt with a heavy silver chain around his neck. I could happily have throttled him with it.
“What are you doing here anyway,” I demanded indignantly, “lurking in the bushes and jumping out on people. Anyone would think you were a Peeping Tom.”
“I’m not lurking in the bushes or jumping out on people at all,” he said. “I’ve just been re-hanging a gate. It’s called summer maintenance, it’s part of my job.”
I looked at the gate behind him and saw that this was clearly true.
“So, you’re on the short-list,” he commented. He let go of Legend’s rein, but he didn’t move any further away.
“Yes,” I said, surprised. “How did you know?”
“You forget,” Forster said, “I know Felix Hissey quite well. I’ll probably be with him at the two-day event. Perhaps I’ll be allowed to buy you a drink?”
“You and me and Janie Richardson?” I said. “Wouldn’t three be rather a crowd?”
He grinned.
“Well,” I said crossly, “wouldn’t it?”
“I do believe you’re jealous,” he said.<
br />
I denied it.
“You can come out with me tonight, if you’d like,” he said. “I could pick you up at eight.” He made it sound as if he would be doing me a favour.
“No thanks,” I said. “Ask Janie Richardson.”
“I already have,” he said. “I’m picking her up at seven-thirty.”
“Oh!” I said, infuriated, “you pig!” As I swung my foot at him angrily, Forster grabbed my ankle and pulled me out of the saddle. Legend walked off up the bridleway. I went to run after him but Forster pulled me back, pinned me against the gate, and clamped his mouth over mine. Then, before I had time to recover my senses, he was strolling off across the field towards the white-washed buildings of the kennels with his hands in his pockets.
All this left me speechless. I picked up the nearest chunk of baked clay and hurled it after him. I’m not usually a good shot, but it hit him squarely on the back of his head. I didn’t wait to see what would happen next. I ran down the bridleway to capture Legend, feeling that at least I’d made my point.
Later in the day, I was sitting on the tack room table staring at a photograph in Training the Event Horse. The photograph showed Genesis, in his handmade saddle, performing a half-pass at the Olympic Games. I looked at the grey horse carefully, pondering the angles of his head, the set of his neck, and the shape of his powerful, dappled hindquarters. Lala Thornapple must have been about forty-five when the photograph had been taken. She still looked young and slim and completely in unison with the horse; her legs firmly against his sides, and the reins running through her skilled, strong fingers.
Doreen came whistling into the yard on her bicycle to begin her evening stint, setting fair the stables for the horses who were still brought in at night. I hadn’t realized it was so late. I put down the book and went to help. There were only three horses to bring in.
Legend was one, and The Comet, and Nelson. The last two were utilized as company for Legend when he was doing roadwork, and as transport and grandstand seats for the Fanes when we were schooling over the jumps and cross-country fences in the park.
I had collected the headcollars and was on my way out of the yard when Henrietta appeared in a striped apron to tell me I was wanted on the telephone. “He wouldn’t say who he was,” she said in a disapproving tone, “but if you ask me, it’s Nick Forster.”
I walked back across the yard and called to Doreen to bring the horses in from the park.
“Don’t let Doreen bring them up,” Henrietta objected, “you know what a fool she is, she’ll never be able to catch them.”
“Ow,” Doreen squawked, indignantly, “I will then!”
“All the same,” Henrietta said despondently, as Doreen went off hung with headcollars and armed with a corn scoop, “I bet she won’t.”
I followed Henrietta into the kitchen. It was full of steam. Lady Jennifer was leaning over a bubbling jam kettle on the Aga, staring at the contents in anguish. Nigella was topping and tailing gooseberries in the sink. Lady Jennifer’s latest project was a produce stall in the local market square in aid of the Red Cross. The Red Cross jam didn’t appear to be doing very well; little saucers with drips of brown liquid on them were dotted all over the kitchen.
“I’m having the most ghastly time with this batch, Elaine,” Lady Jennifer sighed, “it’s an appallingly bad set, and it’s been boiling for hours; it’s frightfully concentrated, and the most revolting colour.” It also smelled burned, but I hadn’t the heart to say so. I went into the office and picked up the telephone receiver.
“Elaine,” Forster’s voice said, “I’ve got a lump on the back of my head the size of a grapefruit, and I’m thinking I might sue.”
“Do,” I said, “and I’ll sue as well, possibly for assault.”
Henrietta who had followed me into the office, looked up, startled.
“I’m not really all that interested in Janie Richardson,” Forster said, “she’s doing all the chasing, not me.”
“But you are taking her out tonight,” I said. “It wasn’t a joke, was it?”
He didn’t deny it.
“Look,” I said impatiently, “what do you want? It isn’t very convenient to talk at the moment; I’m just about to fetch the horses in.” I rather wished Henrietta would go away, but neither of the Fane sisters had any qualms about opening other people’s letters or listening in to their private conversations.
“Since you ask so nicely,” Forster said, “I want to ask if you’ll come out for a drink on Friday night.”
A germ of an idea began to take shape inside my head. I still had to get even with Forster. I didn’t want to sound too keen. “I might,” I said, in a non-committal sort of way, “I’ll think about it.”
“Think about it now,” he said, “I want to know.”
“All right,” I said, “I will.”
“I’ll call for you at eight,” Forster said.
“Will there be two of us?” I enquired, “or three?”
The line went dead.
“Do taste this, Elaine,” Lady Jennifer said. She looked hot and bothered with her hair escaping from a scarf and blobs of jam all over her blouse, which meant it had to be washed again; it had already been laundered so many times that it was impossible to tell what its original colour had been. Henrietta and Nigella were now arranging jam jars in lines on the kitchen table.
“Would you like to go out on Friday night?” I asked them. “I’ve been asked out by Nick Forster, and I thought it might be rather jolly if we all went.”
“What a simply marvellous idea,” Lady Jennifer trilled. “It will be infinitely more fun, and so very sensible to go out in a crowd instead of a twosome; how terribly nice of you to suggest it, Elaine.” She held out the jam spoon in an encouraging manner.
“Hrmm,” Henrietta said suspiciously. She licked her fingers and grimaced at the taste. “Does Forster know? Would he mind?” As she had been listening to our telephone conversation she knew perfectly well that he didn’t know, and that he would mind very much indeed.
“Why should he mind?” I said innocently.
Henrietta gave me a conspiratorial grin.
“We’d love to come,” Nigella said, “if you’re quite sure we won’t be in the way; we’ve had enough of gooseberries, one way or another.”
I tasted the jam.
“I think you’ve forgotten to put the sugar in it,” I said.
Outside in the yard I expected to see three heads hanging over the stable doors in anticipation of the evening feed. There were none. I sighed as I realized that Henrietta had been proved right and Doreen hadn’t been able to catch the horses. I had provided myself with a spare headcollar and half a bucket of corn, when I heard galloping hooves on the drive. Almost at once, Nelson appeared under the clock arch, scrabbling his boxy feet on the cobbles in a desperate effort to keep himself upright, and there was Doreen clinging to his mane with her eyes panic-stricken and her face like chalk.
“The horses,” she screeched, “we’ve got to save the horses!” She yanked at the headcollar rope in the nick of time to prevent herself from being decapitated as Nelson made for the safety of his stable.
“What on earth do you mean?” I shouted at her. “Where are the horses?”
“They all pushed out of the gate when I was getting on Nelson!” she shrieked. “It wasn’t my fault, Elaine. Honest!” She struggled wildly with the one-eyed bay, pulling his nose round to her boot, flailing at his ribs, and setting him in motion like a demented spinning top. “They’ve all galloped away down the road! All of them have gone, your Legend and The Comet, and the chestnut and the bay mare, and they’ll all be run over by cars and break all their legs, and oh! Henrietta Fane’s going to kill me!” At this her voice rose to such a bawl of hysteria that it brought the Fanes tumbling out of the kitchen door, still clutching their sugar packets.
I ran for the shooting brake.
11
Luck of a Kind
The park gate leaning op
en and the headcollars strewn across the drive bore witness to the flight of the horses.
“Stop! We must look in the park!” Nigella cried, “they may have come back!”
“Never!” Henrietta shouted. “They wouldn’t come back! Go on, Elaine! Go on!”
I dithered helplessly at the end of the drive, not knowing which way to go.
“Left!” Henrietta commanded.
“No,” Nigella shrieked, “right, look! There are hoof marks on the verge!”
We bucketed along the lane, looking fruitlessly in gateways and across the fields of corn, our eyes raking the landscape for any sight of the horses, our ears alert for any sound that might give a clue to their whereabouts. Doreen took no part in this, she just leaned her head in the bucket of corn and wept and whimpered on about cars and broken legs, and was no use to anyone; yet she had refused to stay behind, and Lady Jennifer had been left to cope with Nelson, whilst the Red Cross jam boiled away unattended on the Aga.
With my nose practically resting on the windscreen I followed the hoof marks on the verge and the half-moon bruise marks on the tarmac. I didn’t dare to think too much about what we were going to find along the way. I knew that apart from a seasonal policy to cover our hunter liveries and the people who rode our hirelings, we had no insurance whatsoever, and that the consequences of any accident, both in loss or damage to the horses, or in compensation claims from any other parties involved, could be catastrophic.
Henrietta and Nigella bounced up and down on the back seat in a fever of anxiety and impatience which grew even more frenzied as we neared the main road.
“If they’ve strayed on to the A12,” Nigella moaned, clasping her hands over the back of my seat in an attitude of prayer, “God help us all!”
Doreen’s wails increased in crescendo. Henrietta reached out and cuffed her into a silence broken only by an occasional strangled sob into the bucket. The hoof prints led us to the junction where the lane met the main road. As I indicated to turn out on to the dual-carriageway, first to the left then to the right, in a welter of indecision, two things happened. The first was that the horses passed by. Led by The Comet they galloped across our vision with their necks stretched and their tails streaming and their hooves ringing out on the road. They looked neither to the left nor to the right, driven on like wild horses in a stampede by a line of nose-to-tail traffic following remorselessly on their heels.
A Hoof in the Door (Eventing Trilogy Book 2) Page 8