“When I challenged him, he told me that Star was not good enough to be put in the sale with his own horses, but I knew actually it was because he wished to – punish me because I am Papa’s daughter.”
“It seems a strange reason,” the Earl remarked.
“Papa was everything Uncle Walter is not!” Cledra replied. “To begin with he was a real sportsman, kind, understanding and – always ready to help other people. He was a soldier until that became too expensive for him and then he and Mama went to live very quietly in the country. But because everybody who met Papa loved him, he became very popular and – that annoyed Uncle Walter.”
Cledra paused and the Earl realised that because she was speaking of her father who had so recently died, she was fighting valiantly against the tears that made her eyes glisten, but which she would not let fall,
“Besides which,” she went on, “Papa and Mama were invited to stay with many of the people who would not ask Uncle Walter because they did not like him. They went to balls and were guests at house parties and Race Meetings and because Papa was such good company and because he was fond of him a friend of his made him a member of White’s.”
The Earl thought that this, if nothing else, would have rankled with Sir Walter who was unacceptable in the smartest and most distinguished Club in St. James’s.
After what had been said at dinner, he found himself beginning to believe Cledra’s story. Then he thought that, like all women, she was probably exaggerating.
Yet she looked very young and pathetic and was apparently alone in a hostile world in which her only relative disliked her.
After a moment he said slowly,
“What you are asking me to do is to buy Star from you and send the money to two people whom you feel your uncle should have pensioned off after your father’s death.”
“W-would you do that? Would you – really?”
There was a sudden little lilt in Cledra’s voice that had not been there before and her eyes were shining.
“I suppose it is possible for me to do so,” the Earl said, “but I think that your uncle would consider it a strange way for me to behave.”
Cledra gave a cry that seemed to echo round the room.
“Uncle Walter must never know that you have bought Star – or where he is.”
“Do you think that he might take his revenge upon me?” the Earl asked mockingly.
“Oh, no – not on you – but on Star. Last year there was a horse that – died and – ”
Cledra stopped suddenly.
“I-I am sorry – I should not have – said that.”
“I think that, having started something so momentous, it would be extremely irritating if you did not finish what you were about to say.”
“It would be – better for you not – to know.”
“But I insist!”
The Earl spoke in a way that would have made it hard for a man, let alone a woman, not to obey him and after a moment Cledra said uncomfortably, as if she was regretting that she had ever brought up the subject,
“Do you remember the Craven Handicap at the Spring Meeting?” she began hesitatingly.
“Yes,” the Earl replied.
“It was won – if you remember – by Lord Ludlow with his horse called – Jessop.”
The Earl nodded.
“It beat Uncle Walter’s horse by a nose.”
“Yes, I do recall the race.”
“Uncle Walter was very angry. He disliked Lord Ludlow anyway – and, apparently because he only had a few horses and Uncle Walter has a great many, Lord Ludlow rather crowed over him after the race.”
“What happened?” the Earl asked.
“Uncle Walter was very very angry that evening and the next day – Jessop was found – dead in his – stall.”
The Earl looked at her before he said with a note of incredulity in his voice,
“Are you seriously suggesting that your uncle was responsible for the death of that horse?”
Because he spoke scathingly the colour rose in Cledra’s pale cheeks and she looked away from him.
“P-perhaps I should not – have told you – but I overheard by mistake something that he – said to one of the men who works for him – and I know too where he keeps the – poison that was – used in Jessop’s water.”
It seemed incredible and yet once again the Earl was aware that Cledra was speaking with a sincerity that he could not doubt.
Before he could say anything further she added,
“That would happen to Star – I know it would – and I was going to ask if you buy him from me that you should take him away from here as quickly as – possible and – register him under a different name.”
“I find it very hard to credit what you are saying to me,” the Earl declared. “You don’t think because Star means so much to you that you are perhaps exaggerating the danger he is in?”
“I swear to you that I have not exaggerated or said anything that is not true and I know that, if Uncle Walter becomes aware that I have sold Star to you, he will die or suffer in some – horrible way that I cannot – bear to think about.”
“It seems incredible!” the Earl remarked beneath his breath.
“There have been a number of other incidents since I have been living with my uncle in Newmarket but I don’t wish to speak about them,” Cledra said. “I am concerned only with saving Star and obtaining the money somehow to the two people whom Mama and Papa trusted and who have worked for us ever since I can remember.”
The Earl thought that apart from Cledra’s story about the death of Jessop the fact that he had left two old servants unprovided for confirmed everything that he had heard about Walter Melford and justified the instinctive dislike that he had always had for him.
While he was thinking it over, he was aware that Cledra was watching his face and the anxiety and fear in her eyes was so expressive that he felt almost as if she was kneeling in front of him and praying that he would do what she asked.
“Would you think,” he asked, “that six hundred guineas is a fair price for your horse?”
Cledra gave a little cry.
“You will really give as much as that for him? Oh, thank you – thank you. And thank you for saying you will – have him. I know he will be – safe with you.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“Papa admired you enormously. He used to follow your successes on the Racecourses and say, ‘Poynton has won again. I am so glad, he is a great sportsman and has an unsurpassed knowledge of horses’.”
“Thank you,” the Earl said with a faint touch of amusement in his voice. “That is the sort of compliment I like to hear.”
“Papa was not saying it to you, he was simply stating a fact.”
The Earl acknowledged the distinction with a smile and Cledra went on,
“I knew that you were the only person I could really trust with – Star. He is so gentle and so intelligent. He will do anything I ask of him and Papa and I taught him not with a whip – but with – love.”
Her voice was very moving and, because what she felt and what she was saying came from her heart, it vibrated in her voice.
“You will miss him,” the Earl murmured.
He then saw the expression of pain that crossed her face.
“I shall be – h-happy because he is with – you,” she said in a low voice.
The Earl walked towards his desk.
“If you will give me the names of the people who are to receive three hundred guineas each,” he said, “I will instruct my secretary to despatch it to them tomorrow morning.”
Cledra put her hand into the pocket of her jacket.
“I have it written down together with Star’s pedigree. But I am wondering how it could be explained to Martha and Jackson that their money has to be put into a Bank, otherwise it might be stolen.”
“I think it would be much simpler,” the Earl answered, “for them to go on my roll of pensioners and receive their
money every week.”
“Would you – really, my Lord?”
“It would not be difficult. I quite understand your anxiety that an old person living alone should not have so much money, which would be a temptation to thieves.”
“You are very – understanding.”
“I will also instruct one of my senior estate clerks to visit them every so often,” the Earl offered, “to see that their cottages are in good repair.”
There were tears in Cledra’s eyes as she said,
“What can I say? How can I – thank you? I have lain awake night after night – worrying as to whether Martha – whom Mama loved – was ill or Jackson was starving because he was too old to find work.”
“Well, now you can stop worrying. Leave everything to me and try to enjoy yourself.”
Cledra did not speak and he had the feeling that it would be impossible for her to do so as long as she lived with her uncle.
Because he did not wish to be involved any more than he was already, the Earl rose from his desk to say,
“Everything is now settled to your satisfaction, but how do you intend to return to your uncle’s house?”
“I will walk,” Cledra replied. “It is not more than two miles.”
“I will send you in one of my carriages.”
She shook her head.
“Somebody might see me and Uncle Walter must never, never – know where – Star has – gone.”
“He will be quite safe with me,” the Earl stated confidently. “As you have asked me to do, I will change his name and tomorrow he will go to my estate in Hertfordshire where he will, I promise you, be well looked after.”
“I know that and thank you – thank you for being so very – wonderful.”
There was such a depth of gratitude in the way Cledra spoke that for the moment the Earl’s hard eyes seemed to soften.
He put out his hand.
“Goodbye, Miss Melford, and, as my guests are waiting for me, you will understand if I don’t escort you to the door. I expect too that before you leave you would like to go to the stables and say ‘goodbye’ to your stallion.”
As he took her hand in his, he found that it was very cold and quivering in a way that told him how deeply moved she was by everything that had happened.
Then, when he would have turned away and left her, she bent her head and he felt her lips against his hand.
*
Leaving the stables where she had found Star in a comfortable stall, Cledra felt as if she had left behind the only being in her life that she had to love.
She could not prevent herself from crying as she had kissed Star and he nuzzled against her affectionately.
She knew that he would miss her, but for her the future was empty and dark with misery without even those moments of happiness when she could be with Star and know that he loved her as she loved him.
Ever since her father and mother had been killed and she had come to live with her uncle at Newmarket she had been surrounded by indifference and even hatred.
Both attitudes had eaten into her very soul so that she felt that there were times when she must lose her very identity and no longer be herself.
Because her uncle had no wish for her to meet his friends or even for them to be aware that she was related to him, he had never taken her to London where he had a large house.
Instead she had travelled from Essex to Newmarket to find that his servants were as she might have expected, subservient and frightened of him, but arrogant, aggressive and unpleasant when he was not there.
Because they resented her intrusion, they gave her the minimum service when she was alone and soon learnt that, as her uncle despised her, they could despise her too.
The only way that she could escape from a house that seemed always dark and without sunlight was by riding her own horse.
When her uncle had sold up everything that her father and mother had possessed and not allowed her to keep any of the treasures that she could not prove were her own, the only thing she had left besides her clothes was Star.
She had come with him to Newmarket and at least he had been comfortable in a stable that housed her uncle’s horses, although she had never cared for the grooms who looked after them.
She soon learnt the reason why her uncle was dissatisfied with his racehorses.
It was, as Eddie Lowther had shrewdly guessed, because he was not accepted as a member of the Jockey Club and therefore always felt inferior on every Racecourse.
There were plenty of other owners who were only too willing, because he was so wealthy, to be friendly with him, but Sir Walter was ambitious.
He had expected, because he had made himself a great fortune, to be able to buy the best of everything, including the membership of fashionable Clubs.
He was therefore infuriated when he found that it was impossible.
He had made his money in various reprehensible ways including, Cledra’s father had once told her, by cheating several foolish and trustful young men out of their inheritance before they were old enough to understand what he was doing.
He had also been engaged in various nefarious deals on the Stock Exchange and when he gambled it was always on a certainty, which was not considered a sporting gesture.
But while he was rich and his brother was poor, George and his wife were friends with people who would not speak to Walter Melford and stayed in houses that would not have allowed him in even through the servants’ entrance.
Cledra had often heard her father say laughingly to her mother,
“We may be poor, darling, but we are rich in friendship and, of course, love.”
He had kissed his wife as he spoke who had replied in her daughter’s hearing,
“If love counts, then I am richer than the Queen of Sheba and very very much happier!”
Her father had laughed and Cledra had felt that the whole house where they lived was always filled with sunshine and their happiness radiated out to everyone who knew them.
It was only when her parents died that she understood how much Sir Walter had loathed his younger brother simply because he was jealous of him.
She soon learnt that the years of frustration could somehow be recompensed if he could torture her and feel that he was getting his own back because she was her father’s daughter.
At first he only jeered at her, sneered at her father’s poverty and disparaged her mother.
Then when she defied him and defended them he had first slapped her and then beat her.
She knew the first time he did so that he had enjoyed it and would do it again.
Any excuse after that made him bring out the wiry little whip that he used on his horses and his dogs and she went in terror lest he should beat Star.
It was not difficult for him to learn that to Cledra his treatment of her horse was far more painful than any physical punishment on her.
Once or twice when he had ordered that the horse should not be fed for twenty-four hours, he delighted in watching her suffering as he reiterated that periods of starvation were good for both men and beast.
“But animals don’t – understand why they are – treated in that way, Uncle Walter,” Cledra had said tremulously.
“Then your horse will learn, my dear, and doubtless will be grateful when tomorrow or the next day his feeding is resumed.”
That night, when she thought that her uncle was asleep, Cledra had attempted to go downstairs intending to creep to the stables to feed Star herself.
But Sir Walter was lying in wait for her and, having beaten her, he locked her in her room and she heard him laughing as he went down the passage.
She told herself then not only that she hated him but he was mad. But it was difficult to know what she could do about it and how she could escape.
There was no one she could turn to for assistance because, even if she ran away to her parents’ friends in Essex, she was quite certain that, as her uncle was legally her Guardian, he would fetch her back
and be within the law in doing so.
It was only when she heard him arranging to sell Star to the innkeeper, whose name was a byword in Newmarket for the way that he ill-treated his horses that she knew that somehow she must save the animal she loved.
How could she live knowing that he was being whipped and badly treated?
She thought first that the only way she could free him would be to kill him, but she knew that when the moment came she would not be able to pull the trigger.
It was then, almost like a light in the darkness, she thought of the Earl.
Because he was such a renowned sportsman, she thought that he would understand as no one else would how it was impossible to let her horse suffer.
It was her uncle who had inadvertently told her that the Earl was coming to the sale.
“That stuck-up swine, Poynton,” he had fumed, talking more to himself than to her, “who will not know me when we meet on the Racecourse, but he will turn up at my sale, make no mistake about that.”
Cledra had drawn in her breath.
“Do you mean he will come to Newmarket especially for the sale?” she had asked.
“He will come to Newmarket for the Race Meeting, you idiot!” Sir Walter had snarled. “That is when I am going to have my sale. I am not a fool, for I know that all the top owners at Newmarket will be unable to resist a sale of the finest horseflesh any of them are likely to see.”
Cledra wanted to argue that the Earl’s horses must be finer than her uncle’s since he always won the races when Sir Walter ran against him.
But she knew that such a remark like that would only make her uncle beat her and she therefore remained silent.
“I will make sure that there is plenty of champagne. That always makes the bids go higher,” Sir Walter commented, “and I will serve the best dishes my chef can provide. Make no mistake, if I have to give up racing, then I will give it up in style!”
“Why must you give it up?” Cledra asked.
“If you want the truth, because I am fed up with Poynton always passing the Winning Post ahead of me,” her uncle shouted. “Curse him, but he has the Devil’s own luck! I will not watch any more of my money disappearing down an inexhaustible drain and be sniggered at by snobs who will not make me a member of the Jockey Club.”
Winged Victory Page 2
