The Last Baronet

by Caroline Akrill

  ‘Only she said no.’

  ‘She said yes.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ Rupert was still trying to get his head around the fact that Len would actually consider leaving The Close, his conservatory, and his wife’s beloved garden; that he was ready to move on.

  ‘There’s something you need to know.’

  ‘And that is?’ Rupert’s tone implied that already he suspected that this would not end well.

  ‘Anna asked me if I would renovate the gatehouse. She wants to live there.’

  ‘Makes sense, I suppose. At least she can get away from the kitchen. She will need her own space.’

  ‘Ah, that’s the point. The space isn’t just for Anna. She’s bringing someone to live with her. I’m sorry Rupert; I had to tell you.’

  ‘I already know. Nicola told me.’ Rupert stroked Sadie’s soft head, feeling the hard bone of her skull beneath his fingers. If he lived to be a hundred he would never understand why Anna had chosen not to tell him there was someone else. True to her word, Nicola had told him what she had found out. That Anna had a relationship and that it was not over. And it bloody well hurt. God, how it hurt. Why hadn’t she told him? Surely he had a right to know? And now he had burned his boats with Nicola, and he was angry with Anna, angry with himself, angry with the world. But sorry for Len; for spoiling his plans.

  ‘I’ve already written out my notice,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay until after Christmas; until she finds another manager. I won’t leave her in the lurch. But I’m really sorry, Dad. I’m sorry that it should end like this after all the work, all our plans, all your plans. I can’t stay though. I don’t want to be a part of it any more, not… not if…’ He put his head in his hands. It took all the self control he could muster not to give way to the grief he felt. ‘I’m sorry Dad. I’m so bloody fucking well sorry.’

  ‘I’m sorry too. But it isn’t your fault. Anna should have told you. You shouldn’t have had to hear it from other people. I’m surprised at her; disappointed. What about Nicola?’

  ‘Nicola isn’t…’ Rupert couldn’t bring himself to say important because it would not have been fair and it was not what he meant. ‘It was never going to be serious between Nicola and me.’

  In Len’s day, people didn’t sleep together if it wasn’t serious. Well, perhaps this was for the best. Rupert’s affair, if affair was what it was, had not made the situation any easier; nor had it made his son happy. Rupert looked strained and wretched. He had lost weight. To get away, to start afresh, was the best thing he could do in the circumstances.

  ‘There’s no reason for you to change your plans, Dad. You still have the apartments to build. And you could still do up the gardener’s cottage, if you wanted to.’

  ‘Without you here? Seeing Anna with somebody else when it should have been you?’ Len looked at his son wearily. ‘I’d not have the heart for it.’

  TWENTY SIX

  Due to the paucity of top class equitation establishments within reasonable motoring distance of home, Tony had been obliged to patronise a distinctly unsmart local riding school staffed by young women in anoraks and sweat-encrusted rubber boots who, if presented with a hunting stock, would probably imagine it was something to be applied to the top of a horse’s tail in the manner of a bandage.

  It was clear from the moment he walked into the scruffy, straw-strewn yard, resplendent in the Full Melton Hunt Coat, the shiny box calf boots, and the skullcap with the black silk cover as worn by Prince Charles, that they were not accustomed to dealing with the hunting fraternity.

  Instead of the smooth-running thoroughbred he was expecting, his mount (when they had managed to drag it out of its stable) had been black and white like a cow with a corrugated pink nose and a wall eye. It regarded him with suspicion but to its credit, had remained stationary until Tony had mounted, which had been no easy matter due, as he had explained to the pink-faced girl holding the horse by the bridle, to the fact that his boots had yet to be broken in around the ankles. The piebald creature (surely the most unprepossessing animal ever presented to someone whose apparel had been almost personally selected by Baily) was both small and wide. Nevertheless, having gained the saddle, Tony felt perilously high off the ground and most unexpectedly insecure.

  Tony had purchased from Amazon a book optimistically entitled Learn to Ride in a Weekend, and thus considered himself well acquainted with the theory of horsemanship, but when he squeezed the animal with his legs and eased the reins in the manner prescribed by the author to encourage his mount to move off at a walk, the brute merely lifted its tail and farted. The pink-faced girl, whose hair was a dried blonde haystack showing black at the roots, was obliged to take the pony by the rein and lead him into the scruffy manége as if Tony had been an absolute beginner or a child. Tony could not fail to notice that although her features had been composed into an expression of serious intent, her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably.

  It was not at all how he had imagined it. Booking a course of lessons over the telephone without a preliminary inspection of the premises had obviously been a terrible mistake. Tony began to feel a rising panic. He wondered how he could make his escape. He wouldn’t learn anything about the art of horsemanship here. He felt horribly out of place and uncomfortably aware that he was grotesquely overdressed for such a low grade establishment. As the pony moved off, he grabbed the front arch of the saddle, feeling he was about to fall off at any moment. He felt ridiculous; humiliated.

  The manége contained several rusty oil drums, a few scuffed show jumps and his instructress; an overweight girl whose stretch joddie things were so impossibly tight that her legs looked as though they had been inflated with a bicycle pump. Her grubby sweat shirt was topped with a quilted waistcoat so lacerated that it looked as if she had been attacked by a wild beast. She was eating cold baked beans straight from the tin. ‘Sorry,’ she said, waving a spoon in the manner of a greeting. ‘No time for lunch and missed breakfast this morning.’ She crammed a couple more large spoonfuls into her mouth before abandoning the tin on one of the posts surrounding the manége.

  Tony opened his mouth to plead an unexpected engagement, but before she had even swallowed the last of the beans, she had addressed herself to correcting his position in the saddle, arranging his person without the least reticence regarding the handling of his bottom and his thighs, moving them around with a firmness and authority which was both surprising and alarming. When his body was rearranged to her satisfaction, she clipped a lungeing rein to the pony’s cumbersome noseband and produced a whip of frightening length and suppleness.

  Tony realised he had left it too late to escape. He told himself that if he could survive the first lesson, he could cancel the rest of the course. He would just have to make the best of it. It was only an hour, after all. Afterwards, he would find a better class of establishment; one where he would be treated with respect.

  Unsportingly, they had shaved off the pony’s mane (Baily would not have approved of that) replacing it with an insubstantial neckstrap. Even more unsportingly, his pneumatic instructress removed Tony’s boots from the stirrups (where he had positioned his feet with care; toes up, heels down as shown in the diagram in the opening chapter of Learn to Ride in a Weekend) and crossed both stirrups and leathers in front of the saddle, leaving his legs completely unsupported. This was an unexpected and frightening development. Tony clutched at the reins and the neckstrap in dismay feeling himself horribly unstable and very much at a disadvantage.

  Pointing the whip at the piebald’s shoulder, his instructress encouraged the pony to walk in a large circle around her. Tony hated every rolling, gyratory moment of it. It was worse than being on a yacht in a rough sea (Tony had tried yachting and had been catastrophically seasick). He had assumed that riding a horse was largely a matter of balance, and as he had (at one time or another) become nearly proficient at skiing, windsurfing and roller bladeing (to name just a few of the activities which he had only just failed to master
), he had expectations of having a fairly easy ride. But even at a walk, Tony found that the ride was not easy. In fact, a few minutes in the saddle were sufficient to demonstrate to Tony that leaning to ride was not only horribly uncomfortable but also most horribly difficult, even more horribly difficult that he had been led to believe by Learn to Ride in a Weekend which, to be fair, had not actually promised that learning to ride in a weekend was either easy or actually possible.

  ‘Now, Mr Pommey, let go of your reins and fold your arms.’

  ‘Pomeroy. The name’s Pomeroy. I can’t let go of the reins. I’ll fall off.’ Was the woman mad? Tony gripped the reins tighter. He felt horribly unsafe. To think he had imagined himself galloping after the hunt, flying over five bar gates. The idea was ludicrous.

  ‘Of course you won’t fall off. The reins aren’t there to hold onto. You use the reins to communicate with the horse. The reins won’t keep you in the saddle.’

  ‘Well, I won’t stay on without them. I can’t let go. I don’t feel safe.’ Tony wished she would put down the whip. Was she going to poke him with it? Was the woman a dominatrix?

  ‘Try. Just try, Mr Pommey. Try. You’re all tensed up. Try to relax into the saddle. Let your body absorb the movement. Let the horse do the work. All you have to do is sit there. That’s better. Now, take just one hand off the reins.’

  All you have to do is sit there. Tony thought the idea absurd. At least on the yacht he had been fitted with a lifeline. And novice trapeze artists always had a safety net. (It had not occurred to Tony to try walking the high wire, possibly because he suffered from vertigo). All he could see beneath his boots was the ground which, being cinders, did not promise a cushioned landing. Tony averted his gaze and looked between the pony’s ears as recommended by Learn to Ride in a Weekend. Unwillingly, he took one hand off the reins. It did not make an appreciable difference to his stability. He removed the other, letting the reins fall on the cow-like animal’s shaved neck. Miraculously, he found that he could indeed fold his arms and, to his surprise, he did not fall off.

  ‘Well done. Now relax your legs, Mr Pommey, and don’t let your knees creep up the saddle. Keep your legs long and relaxed. Look straight ahead. Let your seat and your waist absorb the movement. Think about the rhythm of the gait. The walk is four-time. Count with me. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Feel the rhythm. Relax into it.’

  After a few minutes the instructions began to speed up. ‘Now put your hands on top of your head, Mr Pommey. Now fold your arms behind your back. Now lean down and touch your left toe with your right hand. Now the right toe with the left hand.’

  ‘Are these gymnastics really necessary?’ Tony was feeling very hot and bothered in the Full Melton Hunt Coat. It was still very stiff and it was difficult to move his arms. ‘I’m only going hunting, you know. I’m not going to join a circus.’

  ‘If it wasn’t necessary I wouldn’t be asking. You need to develop an independent seat. You have to get your balance. Shall we try a trot?’

  ‘I don’t know. Can I have my reins and stirrups back?’

  ‘Not yet. Hold onto the neckstrap and relax your whole body. It’ll be a bit bumpy.’

  Bumpy wasn’t the word for it. Rib-rattling was more like it. Tony grabbed the front arch of the saddle and hung on for grim death. Almost at once he felt himself slipping to one side in a terrifyingly perilous manner.

  ‘Let your legs hang long and loose. Your knees are tightening up again. Relax. Relax. Legs long and loose, Mr Pommey! Don’t let your knees creep up the flaps! Relax down into the saddle! Straighten those knees!’

  ‘I can’t! I’m falling off!’ Tony had slipped further to one side and reached the point of no return. He hit the ground with a resounding thump and lay on the cinders, shocked and winded. He wondered if he had broken something. Tentatively he moved his arms and legs, relieved to find that his limbs seemed to work normally. The piebald pony, schooled to revolve at a steady gait whatever the eventuality, had continued on the circle and now found its path obstructed. Tony, thinking he was about to be trampled, let out a yelp of alarm, but the animal stopped dead with its face inches from his person. It regarded him with its wall eye, looking rather surprised, as if it had no idea how he had got there. His instructress appeared at his side and helped him up in a casually unconcerned manner. Ineffectually, she dusted down the Full Hunt Coat. ‘Are you OK, Mr Pommey?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ Tony had rarely felt so ridiculously undignified. ‘And the name’s Pomeroy. Look here, I don’t think I’m going to be very good at this. I don’t think I want to carry on. I think I’ll call it a day.’ Tony could no longer picture himself as a hunting man, galloping after hounds, flying over five bar gates. Faced with the reality he realised it had been nothing more than an unrealistic pipedream. Yet another folly in the wake of numerous other follies. He was never going to master the art of horsemanship. He was going to have to cancel everything; the lessons; the hire of the horse for the Boxing Day meet. There was no doubt about it. So what if he would be letting down not only the hallowed institution of Baily but also the venerable sales assistant of Bespoke? (He tried not to think of the astronomical price he had paid for his hunting clothes). All for a pipedream. All for a folly. ‘Throwing in the towel already?’ His instructress’s eyes widened. ‘Don’t be daft, Mr Pommey, you were doing really well.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Tony said. ‘A minute ago you had to pick me up off the ground.’

  ‘So what does a fall matter? Look, Mr Pommey, if you want to learn to ride well enough not to disgrace yourself at the hunt, we can do it, honestly we can. I wouldn’t say we could if we couldn’t. But you really have to want to do it – I mean really want to.’

  Tony looked at her. Was she serious? Did this unprepossessing girl working in this unbelievably down-at-heel establishment, eating a lunch of baked beans out of a tin, really think she could make a rider out of such unpromising material? Perhaps she did. And anyway, what did he have to lose? ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I didn’t think riding would be so difficult. But I suppose I do want to – if you think I can do it.’

  ‘Then let’s go for it, shall we? Look, shall we take that heavy coat off? I think you’d do a lot better without it.’

  They removed the coat and hung it on the post and rail next to the tin of beans.

  ‘That’s better. Now let’s get you back in the saddle.’ She grabbed hold of his ankle and gave him an energetic leg up. ‘We’ll work on the walk for a bit and do a few more exercises until you get your confidence back.’

  So off they went again. ‘Remember to relax, Mr Pommey. Let your legs hang loose.’

  ‘Tony. My name’s Tony.’

  ‘And mine’s Janine. And he’s The Pied Piper; Piper for short. He’s not much to look at but he’s steady and he’s kind. He’ll teach you the basics. I can’t promise we’ll get you riding over fences in just ten lessons, but we’ll have a jolly good shot at the rest. Fox hunt is it?’

  ‘Harriers.’

  ‘That’s a stroke of luck. Harriers just chase round in circles don’t they? Not much jumping with harriers.’

  Even Baily had not thought to mention that. Tony patted the piebald’s neck. ‘Hello Piper.’ One furry ear flipped backwards in acknowledgement. Suddenly everything felt better.

  ‘Are you ready to have another bash at trot, Tony?’

  ‘I’ll give it a go.’

  ‘Good man. Lean into it then. Ready? Tr-ot Piper!’

  Piper lurched forward.

  ‘Now don’t hang onto the front of the saddle as if your life depends on it because it doesn’t. You don’t need to do it. I want you to get used to the gait and slowly let go of the saddle. The trot’s two-time. Count with me: one, two. One, two. That’s better but you’re still trying too hard, Tony. Relax. The horse is doing the work. Just go with it. Watch those knees, they’re rising up again. Now loosen your grip. Do it gradually. Let go a finger at a time. Go on Tony, you can do
it!’

  Bumpity, bumpity bump. It was agonising. But, amazingly, after a few more revolutions, he was down to one finger on the front of the saddle. One loose finger.

  ‘Now you’re forgetting the knees again. They’re starting to creep up. If you let your knees stiffen and creep up the saddle you’ll fall off again. Relax your legs and keep them long. Pretend you have weights attached to your feet.’

  ‘That’s better! Well, done, Tony! Well done! Walk, Piper, walk now boy. Stand. Good boy. We’ll have a breather, then we’ll have another go on the other rein; that just means going the other way round, so you and the horse don’t get one-sided. After that we’ll give you some stirrups and reins back and we’ll try a few stops and starts.’

  After another half hour they made their way back to the yard, Tony riding Piper off the rein with a confidence he would have considered impossible an hour ago.

  ‘Next time we’ll try to get you posting at the trot,’ Janine promised. ‘Once you can post you’ll be a lot more comfortable. It does get easier, I promise. We had a rocky start but you’ve done well today, Tony.’

  You’ve done well today, Tony. Tony grinned as he drove out of the car park. He had done well, Janine had said so, and he believed her. Despite his initial discomfort and scepticism he had done well, and in the end he had enjoyed it. He felt a wave of affection for the piebald pony; for Piper. After all, he was the perfect learning vehicle and one would hardly learn to drive in a Ferrari, would one? And nobody would ever see him in beginner mode; not the family (from whom all of this was a closely guarded secret); and certainly not anyone from Baily. He went back to the office, changed back into his pinstripes and shiny shoes, and threw himself into his afternoon schedule of appointments and paperwork with a gusto born of anticipated success.