by K. M. Grant
‘It’s not your fault, Daisy,’ Rose said quickly. ‘Accidents happen with horses.’ Her lips were set.
‘I’m going to have a look,’ Daisy said, searching in vain for her crutches.
In the event, they all went to look. Skelton had left The One tied up in the yard. The rope was unnecessary since by now the horse could hardly move. He seemed puzzled by the fat bulge on his once shapely leg and sniffed it with pained amazement. It was, he knew, in some way associated with Skelton and he jibbed hard every time the groom approached him. ‘He doesn’t like me because I’ve had the hosepipe on him,’ Skelton said, patting the horse on the neck. ‘But without cold water, believe me, it would be worse for him.’ There were puddles everywhere. The hosepipe lay coiled under the tap.
Daisy was completely dazed. There was the knee. There was no mistaking the injury. She, who had set herself up as The One’s friend, The One’s trainer even, had caused his racing life to end before it had even begun. ‘It’s a pity the ice house has fallen into disrepair,’ she heard Skelton tell Rose. ‘We could do with ice now.’ Rose, standing with Lily, with Garth hovering and Clover and Columbine standing mute together, could only nod.
Charles, like Daisy, was too stunned to speak. To have fate conspire against him like this – again – just when he really had resolved to turn his own and his children’s lives around! It was intolerable! It was iniquitous! Why was he so punished? He lurched round and staggered into Skelton’s house. He would have a glass. He would have a bottle. He would drink a case. Truly, drink was the only security left to him.
Rose and Lily moved closer to the horse’s head. His long ears flopped. His eyes were mournful. ‘Can’t something be done?’ Lily had never really thought of the race except as a kind of dream. It was the horse’s pain she was unable to bear.
‘He needs more than Skelton’s hosepipe. He needs a vet,’ Garth said, bending down.
‘We can’t pay a vet,’ said Daisy flatly. She did not know what to do with herself. ‘I’d sell myself if I was worth anything.’
‘Arthur Rose would come if Rose asked,’ said Clover or Columbine, trying to be helpful.
‘It would be quite wrong to ask,’ Rose countered sharply. ‘It would be taking complete advantage.’
‘But you could,’ Clover or Columbine persisted. ‘I mean, surely if The One was dying, if he was lying on the ground groaning, if he had a gaping wound and his blood was gushing . . .’
Daisy gave a hiccupping sob.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ cried Lily, the white canary that had lately joined her doves fluttering in her hands. ‘Don’t say such things!’
The twins looked at each other. Nothing they suggested was ever right.
‘Skelton said cold water was the best cure,’ said Rose, scowling at them. ‘Come on, Daisy. We’ll help you. Turn on the hosepipe.’ Rose felt it important that Daisy should be doing something, not just staring. She pulled her up and gave her a push. Daisy was dumb as she limped to the tap, and it was Rose who held the pipe against The One’s leg as the colt first tried to back away from the gush, and then, hobbled by his lameness and appreciating the coolness of the water, stood miserably still. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Rose said to him, trying not to mind that her feet were soaking. ‘Look, Daisy. This really does help.’
Daisy took the hosepipe from her. She still could not speak. Eventually, Rose turned off the tap. ‘I think that’s enough for now. Let’s get him back into his stable,’ she said. Moving The One was a struggle. He did not want to put any weight on his leg, and huffed and puffed his dismay. Afterwards, Daisy, having silently tidied the straw and touched the horse’s nose in mute apology, stumbled in tears to the Resting Place. Ignoring the cold, she lay face down on the flat stone. Rose, lingering on the drawbridge, watched her sister’s shaking shoulders for a while, then spun on her heel, went inside and fetched her bonnet.
Inside Skelton’s house, Charles was slumped at the kitchen table. He had thrown off his coat and his legs were spread, the soles of his boots flapping where they had worn through. Skelton flicked a speck of dust from his own boots, then brought out a bottle and a glass. ‘Here,’ he said.
Charles watched him tip out a generous measure. ‘Every time I try to stop with this stuff, something makes it impossible,’ he complained, half to Skelton and half to himself. ‘It’s as if there’s a conspiracy against me. There is a conspiracy against me.’ He downed the tot and held out the glass. Skelton poured another and one for himself at the same time. ‘A restorative,’ he said. Charles downed the second glass before Skelton had taken so much as a sip. ‘I can’t drink all your brandy,’ Charles said, drinking a third glass a little more slowly.
‘Don’t you worry about me,’ Skelton said silkily. Then he simply waited. After the fourth tot, Charles began to talk. He tried to speak of Gryffed; he failed. He tried to speak of Hartslove; he failed. After a fifth tot, he gave up trying to speak of home. Instead, he spoke of the war in the Crimea; of the maggot-ridden wounded and the worm-ridden dead; of the stench of fear and the foolishness of bravery. ‘Why was I not killed, Skelton?’ he asked again and again. ‘So many others were – better men than me.’ Skelton lost count of the number of times Charles reached for the bottle. ‘A man in my regiment had his head blown off and I came through with barely a scratch. How, Skelton? Was I a coward? Did I always keep myself out of danger? Do you know what I dream every night?’ Skelton shook his head. ‘I dream that I’m running away whilst my men are being mown down like poppies.’ He leaned unsteadily forward. ‘Did I run away?’ He seemed to think that Skelton might know the answer. When no answer came, he supplied one himself. ‘If I didn’t, how come they died and I’m back here? Tell me that.’ He picked up the bottle. Nearly empty.
Skelton swirled his brandy around. ‘Who knows why anything turns out as it does,’ he said, and, getting up, he produced another bottle, uncorked it and threw the cork away. He pushed the bottle towards Charles, who filled his glass almost to the top. Skelton pretended to top up his own glass also. ‘The war must have been terrible,’ he said, leaving his glass on the table. ‘Tell me more.’
Words tumbled out, at first surprisingly clearly, but half an hour later less so, and half an hour later still Charles’s speech was slurred to a continuous mumble and his eyes were so red and bleary he could hardly see through them.
Watching every tiny change, Skelton finally raised his glass. Now was the time. ‘To dashed hopes,’ he said.
‘Dashed hopes?’
‘The One,’ Skelton said. ‘He could have made everything better.’
‘Oh yes. The One.’ Charles slopped his brandy. ‘Poor Daisy. Poor, poor The One.’
‘And poor you, sir.’
‘Not poor me. Everything my fault. Suppose hopes entirely dashed?’
‘I’m afraid they are with this The One,’ Skelton said.
Charles suddenly banged his glass down and spilled the lot. ‘Bruise,’ he said. ‘Just bruise – surely – go down – good as new – Daisy – not fair – Garth – young – not fair – not right.’
‘I agree! I agree!’ Skelton gave an understanding smile. ‘But even if it was just a bruise, I’m afraid everything’s too late now. I mean, the horse is already behind – not even a jockey on yet and no race as a two-year-old.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a great shame.’
‘No hope?’
Skelton shrugged regretfully.
Charles put his head in his hands. ‘No hope at all.’ After a long while, he made a giant effort to raise his head, though it felt far too heavy to lift. ‘If there’s really no hope – horse – go. Can’t afford, see? Can’t afford. Rose – clothes – husband – awful mess.’
Skelton licked his lips. His mouth was suddenly dry. He picked at his words as a cat picks at the innards of a mouse. ‘A pity if he were to go, Sir Charles. Last horse here and all that.’
‘Yes – pity – but we’re ruined. Him – last horse. Me – last de Granville at Hartslove
. Thrown everything away, see. Everything.’
‘Don’t say that, Sir Charles.’
‘Why not? It’s the truth. Wife tried to tell me. Horses and bottle . . .’ He stared balefully at his reflection in the brandy.
Skelton shifted. He did not want Charles to be reminded of what Lady de Granville had said about the bottle. ‘I have a little money . . .’ he began.
‘Silly Skelton,’ interrupted Charles. ‘Couldn’t have enough.’
‘As I say, Sir Charles,’ Skelton continued, smooth as the amber liquid in his glass, ‘I have a little money put by. Enough to keep the castle and the horse going until’ – he paused – ‘until Derby Day.’
Charles’s shoulders were shaking, and at first Skelton thought he was crying. He was wrong. Charles was laughing the pitiless, sick laugh of the drunk. ‘Derby Day!’ He downed another shot. ‘You’ve enough to keep us going until Derby Day though we’re not going to the Derby now. You’d give me money!’
Skelton grinned. ‘Seems silly, I know.’ He sighed. ‘But I’m serious. I have got money put by, and I don’t like to think of the old place in strange hands. I’m very fond of it, see. Don’t forget I’ve lived here man and boy.’
‘Course you have, Skelton, course you have.’ Charles fumbled at Skelton’s forearm. Skelton did not object. ‘You’ll be out of a job. Reference. Least I can do.’
‘I don’t want a reference, I want to help,’ Skelton said, pretending to take another drink.
‘Can’t take help from you. Servant and all that.’
Skelton tapped his head as though an idea had just come to him. ‘Here’s a notion, Sir Charles. What happens if rather than just taking my money, we strike a bargain? Would that make you feel better?’
‘Bargain? Bargain?’ said Charles. Skelton’s voice was undulating like the sea. ‘Water,’ Charles said.
Skelton brought a jug. ‘Thing is, Sir Charles, I’d happily give you the money, but if you’re too proud to take it, you could give me something in return.’
Charles slurped the water straight from the jug. ‘Nothing to give. Bailiffs want the lot.’
‘Well,’ said Skelton, ‘let me see.’ He waited, then slapped his palm on the table. Charles jerked. ‘I’ve got it, Sir Charles.’
‘Got it?’
Skelton removed the brandy. Charles must not collapse. Not yet. ‘I’ll give you my savings, and if The One wins the Derby, you give me the horse, the winnings and Hartslove.’ Just as Skelton had hoped, Charles laughed as though this were the funniest thing he had ever heard. Skelton laughed too. ‘Shall we do that, Sir Charles? Shall we?’
‘Oh, Skelton! The One win the Derby? Why, the horse couldn’t walk from the back of his stable to the front, let alone gallop first past a winning post! You’d be signing away your savings for nothing.’
‘Of course I would! But it would be a good joke, eh?’ Skelton got up and walked round and round the table.
‘A good joke?’ Charles was trying to follow Skelton. His head was beginning to spin.
‘Aye! A good joke! Shall we have a final good joke, Sir Charles? You and me? Master and servant?’
‘I don’t know –’
‘See here!’ Skelton whisked out a piece of paper. ‘You could even write our contract down! Nonsense, of course, but all part of the jape.’
Charles tried, and failed, to stand up. Skelton caught him. ‘You need looking after, Sir Charles,’ Skelton said, adding cleverly, ‘and Miss Daisy loves that horse. Let old Skelton help, and make yourself feel better about it by allowing me my little joke.’
Charles was eyeing the brandy again. Skelton held the bottle just out of reach. ‘What do you say, Sir Charles?’
‘Joke,’ Charles said faintly.
‘Aye, cheer yourself up with a good joke!’ Skelton flourished the paper. ‘You write our little contract down here, and then you sign it and I’ll sign it, and nobody else need know.’ He shook the bottle so that a tiny drop of brandy trickled from the neck right down the side and dripped on to the table.
Charles was mesmerised. ‘But I’d have to leave the “for sale” sign up, you know. Bailiffs come else. And this – just a joke. Horse can’t sprint. Can’t walk.’
‘The “for sale” sign stays.’ Skelton had seen the state of the departing buyers. He had no worries on that score. With a theatrical flourish, he produced a pen. ‘Now, Sir Charles, you can write out the contract just as you like.’
Charles took the pen and in a dazed fashion began to write, his lips moving though no sound came out. He did not finish so much as just stop, and when it was clear he was not going to write any more Skelton seized the paper and read it. The contract rambled a bit. However, it was clear enough, and Skelton’s main worry – that Charles’s writing would show just how drunk he was – turned out to be needless. The writing was surprisingly steady and firm. The contract would stand up in court. There was just one thing left. ‘We’ll both need to sign it, Sir Charles.’
‘Oh yes. But mustn’t sign without reading. Lawyer man once told me.’
‘Quite right, Sir Charles, quite right. But you needn’t read it again. You wrote it!’
‘So I did.’
Skelton signed and handed the pen back to Charles. Charles hesitated. ‘I don’t – I don’t – horse can’t walk – last past finishing post, not first –’
Skelton knew better than to press too hard. He put the pen down and held up the bottle. Charles looked at the pen. He looked at the paper. He looked at the bottle. Skelton poured another glass. The nectar glinted. Charles picked up the pen and signed. At once, Skelton took the paper and gave Charles the glass. Furtively slipping the contract into his pocket, the groom poured another glass for himself, and this time, after he had clinked his own glass against Charles’s, he downed the whole thing in one.
11
Rose walked into the town. She had never done so before. It only struck her now that she had, in fact, seldom been into the town at all. The journey took her nearly three hours. She was never frightened amidst the wilderness of the moors, but the town frightened her. As she climbed out of the Hartslove valley and dropped into the murky depths of its nearest neighbour, it seemed quite different from the town she thought she remembered. She was certain that when she last came it had been a town of few carriages, with one main square and one or two streets of shops that her mother would have called ‘respectable’ and Mrs Snipper would have called ‘Respectful’. There was not much ‘respectful’ about the place now. From a mile out, the sides of the road were a spit of hovels from which shoeless children played in the dead air hanging above the sulky canal. Along the towpath, thick-necked horses pulled heavy barges, their drivers idly cursing. On the edge of the town, a factory as big as Hartslove had been constructed entirely of smoke-blackened bricks, and from its roof three slim chimneys thrust themselves into the sky like dirty fingers. Rust clung to the factory’s spiked iron railings and narrow, grimy windows offered no view either in or out. Rose knew the factory must make cotton since cotton fibres whitened the gutter, but you would never have guessed that a cloth so pretty could come out of a building so grim.
Men in khaki overalls passed her. They grinned and winked, their clogs clacking on the pavement. After them came a dozen or so navvies, muscles bulging and picks over their shoulders, heading for the site of the new railway station. They whistled. Rose hurried, wishing she had brought a shawl as well as a bonnet. She worried that her shoes were so filthy and her skin so tainted with smoke that she was bound to fail in her mission. She passed another factory just as the bell rang for the dinner break. Small doors in the red brick flew open, and in a great thunderclap of noise a gaggle of girls her own age rushed towards the gate. Their numbers forced Rose to stop and she was glad to give way. To work in such a place must be a miserable servitude from which the bell signalled temporary escape. Only the girls did not look either in servitude or miserable as they jostled and bantered and joked, swinging brightly coloured skirts
and tossing off scarves to shake out curled hair. Rose could not understand it at first. Then it struck her. Why should these girls be miserable? They had no fear of the future: they were the future, and if you are the future, you are also filled with the sheer joy of the present. Instead of pitying them, she began to envy their boisterous independence. Their futures might involve the factory, but they did not rely on hauntings and horses. She pushed through them, both glad and humiliated that her unfashionable, unflattering clothes meant they did not even notice her.
Having asked directions, in a better part of town she found Mr Snaffler’s black-painted door with its chiselled bronze plate. She rang the bell at once, praying that Mr Snaffler would answer the door himself, though she knew this was unlikely. Snaffler would not stoop to that. He was in, though. The veterinary cart, its plate matching the door, was outside. She braced herself to speak to a servant who would look her up and down and despise her. In the event, nobody answered the door. Instead Arthur Rose came up behind her and was mortified when he made her jump. ‘I’m so very sorry,’ he said, jumping himself. ‘I coughed but you mustn’t have heard me.’ He was suspended so uncomfortably between his pleasure at seeing her and his concern at the peculiarity of her coming to call that he forgot to remove his hat. ‘Is it Mr Snaffler you want?’ He could hardly believe that, but then it was just as impossible that she would want to see him.
Though Rose had rehearsed a dozen times what she was going to say, she was now completely off balance. ‘It’s The One,’ she garbled, then stopped.
‘Go on,’ Arthur said.
‘He’s hurt his knee and—’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Arthur interrupted.
‘You don’t need to be sorry about that too,’ Rose said, looking straight at him for the first time. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘No,’ said Arthur, ‘I mean I’m sorry to have kept you on the doorstep. I think you’ve walked here?’ She gave a tiny nod. ‘You need to sit. You need tea. You need to dry your shoes.’ He opened the door. ‘Won’t you come in?’