I ran round the back of the box and pulled frantically at the ramp handles. The thought of having to go back to Havers Hall and beg the Fanes to take me back was simply terrifying. I unloaded Legend, folded his rug over his shoulders and slapped the saddle on top of it. I did up the buckles of his bridle with trembling fingers, put his headcollar over it and knotted the rope around his neck.
Nick legged me into the saddle with obvious reluctance and handed me my suitcase. “I suppose you will remember to send someone out to find me?” he said crossly. “You won’t just leave me here to rot?” He held on to Legend’s bridle as I struggled to position the suitcase on the pommel and still remain in control. Legend arched his neck and pranced over the tarmac. He hadn’t a clue what it was all about, but he was ready just the same.
“I will,” I promised, “I’ll stop at the first telephone box I see, and thanks Nick, for everything.” I blew him a hasty kiss. In the circumstances it was the best I could do.
I left him standing in the lane; handsome, dark-eyed, and surly. “Damn and blast the bloody Fanes,” he called after me, “when or if I ever get back, I’ll shoot the pair of them.”
I had to laugh. It was such a relief to be in the saddle and on my way, and to hear him curse the Fanes and know he was on my side again.
“Make sure you get my wages first!” I shouted back above the urgent rattle of Legend’s hooves.
3
Miracles Cannot be Wrought
The main stable yard appeared to be deserted. I led Legend in the direction of a sign which said Office and Reception. He had been perfectly equal to the six mile trot, but the woollen rug and the travelling bandages had caused him to become overheated. Now his forelock was plastered to his face and a gentle steam rose from every part. Polished equine heads, busily chewing hay, popped over stable doors at the sound of his hooves. I was feeling hot and flustered myself and I was relieved that there was no-one to witness our unconventional arrival. On the other hand, I was rather anxious in case I should find no one to receive us at all.
Reception was empty and locked. I knocked on the door of the office.
“Come in!” a voice barked.
I opened the door cautiously. The chief sat behind a desk heaped with papers, memo pads, carbon papers, two telephones, and a kilner jar half-full of aspirin.
“I said, come in,” he said impatiently.
“I can’t,” I told him, “I’ve got a horse with me.” I showed him the end of Legend’s rein to prove it.
He frowned. “You are late, Miss Elliot,” he said in a terse voice. “You were advised to be here by six. You were all notified; everyone received a memorandum.”
This was not a promising start. “The horsebox broke down,” I explained. “There was a puncture and I had to ride the last bit. I’m very sorry.”
He waved me away in an irritated manner. “Get someone to show you where to put the horse and then report back to me.”
“There isn’t anybody,” I said forlornly. “I’ve looked.”
The chief sighed and came out from behind the papers. He wore old-fashioned breeches with crisply-pressed wings and the most beautiful brown leather boots, so close fitting and so neat that I couldn’t imagine how he had ever managed to get them past his ankles.
I backed Legend away from the door to allow him safe passage and fell in behind as he strode away down one of the endless lines of immaculate loose boxes. Legend, who was probably missing his supper, dragged behind unwillingly, scraping his toes along the concrete. The chief finally halted and threw back the bolts of a half door.
“In there,” he commanded.
I dragged Legend inside. With the sweat drying in crinkles on his shoulders, his plastered forelock, and his ears set firmly back, he had never looked more unimpressive and, disloyally, I wished he would buck up a bit and prance around in front of the chief. Instead he knocked over my suitcase as he made for the haynet.
I could see at a glance that the training centre was very hot on stable management; the loose box was spacious and spotless, the windows behind the bars sparkled, the bed was laid with banked-up sides, the manger had been freshly scrubbed and the water bucket filled to the brim. Only one thing struck a discordant note and that was the sound of music – very loud, strident music – emanating from somewhere further down the block. Obviously it struck a discordant note with the chief as well, because he looked furious.
“One moment, Miss Elliot,” he said grimly, and hurried away towards the source of the discord. After a moment’s hesitation, and not wanting to miss anything, I followed hot on his heels, leaving Legend struggling to chew a mouthful of hay with his bridle on.
As the music increased to a crescendo, the chief suddenly put on a spurt and flung open a stable door in a surprise attack. Inside the stable a slight girl in a red track suit was grooming a chestnut. When she saw the chief she reached out and snapped off a cassette player which was sitting on the window-ledge.
The chief looked as though he might blow a fuse himself. “Musical entertainment is not permitted in the stables, Miss Tintoft,” he rapped. “This is a school of equitation, not a discothèque.”
Miss Tintoft opened her mascara-edged eyes very wide and tucked her spiky orange hair behind her ears. “Well, I didn’t know that,” she said indignantly. “Still, I’ve only been here a couple of hours, I can’t be expected to know everything, can I?”
“And neither,” the chief added in an enraged tone, “are students allowed to wear coloured nail polish on these premises!”
Miss Tintoft put her purple talons behind her back and shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I’ve lost my remover,” she said innocently. “I can’t find it anywhere.”
Even from behind I could sense that the chief didn’t believe it. “You will hear more of this tomorrow, Miss Tintoft,” he barked. “In the meantime, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the training regulations. I feel sure you were issued with a copy.” He turned on his heel and saw me. “Kindly attend to your horse and report to the office immediately, Miss Elliot,” he commanded.
I ran.
With Legend properly rugged and fed, and my suitcase at my feet, I sat on the edge of a wooden chair in the office. The chief looked at me sternly over the papers. In my lap I now had quite a few papers of my own. Memoranda guidelines, registration forms, rules and regulations.
“This scholarship should not be regarded as a holiday jaunt, Miss Elliot,” said the chief, “it is work.” He frowned at me severely, as if he doubted I knew the meaning of the word.
“I know,” I said. “I’m prepared to work.”
“There is no guarantee of anything at the end of the course,” he warned. “Miracles cannot be wrought within one calendar month. True, there will be a team of four members and one reserve chosen from among you to attend the junior trial, but there will be other teams, better teams, more experienced teams, riding against you.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “I realize that.”
“Every member of every team will be hoping to catch the eye of the selectors, praying that they will be short-listed to represent their country at the Junior Olympics; but there is nothing, Miss Elliot, nothing,” he emphasized fiercely,” to intimate that you have the remotest chance of being shortlisted at all.”
“No,” I said in a suitably humbled tone, “of course not.”
“However,” the chief continued, “if you work hard, if you prove that you have the talent, the aptitude and the dedication; if you prove yourself entirely reliable and capable, you just might.”
“Well, yes,” I said surprised, “I suppose I might.”
“This establishment,” said the chief, indicating with a vague gesture somewhere beyond the pile of papers, “is the finest training centre in the country; it has the highest standards, the highest percentage of examination passes, the most highly qualified staff; it enjoys an international reputation.”
I nodded to let him know he was preaching to the converted.<
br />
“In order to maintain our standards, Miss Elliot,” the chief continued, fixing me with a steely eye, “we like to choose our students with care. We do not take anybody, we accept only the talented, only the dedicated; we take only the cream of the cream.”
I wondered if Miss Tintoft was an example of the cream of the cream, but the chief soon left me in no doubt that she was not.
“This is the first time we have played host to the Hissey Training Scholarship for Potential Event Riders,” he said. “It is the first time we have taken in students who have not been hand picked for suitability, therefore it is in the nature of an experiment. If there are to be further training scholarships here, then this must prove successful. I trust that you and your fellow students will do your utmost to make it so.” His tone indicated that from what he had seen so far this was not at all likely. “Miss Tintoft will conduct you to your quarters,” he added. He shuffled some papers impatiently, and I got up, concluding that having been suitably chastened, I had now been dismissed.
I was outside the door when I was suddenly struck by something I had forgotten. I knocked on the door again.
“Come in!” bellowed the chief.
“I wonder if I could possibly use one of your telephones?” I asked him. “My friend’s still waiting six miles away with two punctured tyres.”
For the education of horse and rider the facilities at the training centre were impressive; even my first brief impression confirmed that the chief had made no idle boast when he had proclaimed it the finest in the country. I followed Miss Tintoft, who said I should call her Viv, across yards where not a wisp of straw lay unswept, where the paintwork sparkled, where the gravel was raked into swirls, where pitchforks, brushes, and springboks were lined up with military precision.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Viv commented in a disparaging manner. “Wouldn’t you think they’d have better things to do than make patterns in the gravel. Typical of the chief, that is.” She walked across the next patch to show she wasn’t going to be intimidated by any of it, leaving a line of footprints through the stones.
I kept my own feet on the concrete walkway. After my traumatic experiences with the Fanes and their tumbledown yard, I found the professional, meticulous efficiency of the centre very encouraging. I was sure that a month of top class instruction in such an establishment would greatly benefit my eventing career, and I was elated to think that I wouldn’t have to pay for any of it. I could hardly believe my luck.
I couldn’t wait to see the student accommodation, but disillusionment was literally just around the corner. Behind the immaculate yards where the horses stood knee-deep in straw, the training centre suffered an abrupt change of character. It presented a vista of ugly prefabricated buildings left over from the Second World War, set amidst a landscape of mountainous, steaming muckheaps. There was a pungent smell of manure.
“Great, isn’t it?” Viv said cheerfully. “Myself, I’d prefer to sleep with the horses.”
She led me across to one of the buildings. It was grey and squat and depressing, and its name, emblazoned across the lintel, was NEWCASTLE. I thought it strange that a student hostel should be named after a northern city until Viv explained: “Duke of, not city of.” She pushed open the door. “They’re all named after famous riding instructors; there’s a Berenger, a Fillis and a Solleysell and the newest one’s called Podhajsky; it’s not a memorial I’d care for.”
I could see what she meant because the inside of Newcastle was worse than the outside. It didn’t help that we walked headlong into an argument. A small, stocky girl with blonde hair and a hostile expression was berating the other occupants in no uncertain manner. She brandished an iron saucepan and her cheeks were flushed with anger.
“I have not come all the way from Germany to be a cook!” she shouted. “I came here to train for eventing and nobody said anything to me about cooking!”
As I just happened to be the nearest, she handed me the saucepan. “Now,” she said with angry satisfaction, “you can be the cook.”
I stood on the worn linoleum, with my suitcase in one hand and the saucepan in the other. “I think there must be some mistake,” I said. “I’m not the cook, I’m a scholarship student.” The other people in the shabby little room seemed unconcerned.
“She hasn’t come all the way from Germany at all,” a girl, whose lank hair flopped all over her face, said in a confiding tone. “I know for a fact she lives in Halesowen.”
The blonde girl overheard. “That is not the point,” she snapped. “When I was at the Reitschule we were not expected to cook as well as ride.”
“Not to mention washing and cleaning,” someone else said morosely.
“I wonder why she didn’t stay at the Reitschule,” the floppy girl said in a low voice, “if it was so much better there.”
The blonde girl didn’t rise to this. She threw herself into a vacant armchair. The springs had gone and she hit the bottom with a muffled thud. “Ha!” she exclaimed savagely, “even the chairs are broke!”
I turned to Viv in dismay. “Do we have to do eventing and cookery?” I asked her. I was bewildered and felt sure that it couldn’t be so. There had been no mention of cookery in any of the chief’s paperwork.
“We haven’t got to learn cookery,” Viv said in an exasperated voice, “we’ve just got to do our own. It’s quite normal, all the working pupils have to cook their own meals as well, it isn’t as if it’s only us.”
I should have known this from my own days as a working pupil, but somehow I had expected scholarship students to receive slightly better treatment. Furthermore, I hadn’t expected to be housed in a nasty little prefab with damp-furred walls and a one-bar electric fire. If anything, it was almost as bad as Havers Hall. “This is an awful place,” I said, “surely they must be able to offer us better accommodation than this.”
Viv shrugged. She clearly considered that we were all making a fuss over nothing. “Where did you expect to be accommodated?” she enquired. “The Ritz?”
“The thing that makes me wild,” a tall girl with spots and a greasy fringe said in an annoyed tone, “is that the chief dishes out all these memos, but he doesn’t bother to tell us we have to do our own cooking and washing. Nobody does, they just leave us to find out for ourselves. If you ask me, it’s a diabolical liberty and we ought to complain.”
The blonde girl gave a scornful snort. “Who is going to care if you do complain?” she wanted to know. “Because you will not get any sympathy from the chief, I can tell you that. I can just imagine what he would say. ‘This is an equestrian training centre, Miss Merryman. Not a five-star hotel.’ – That is all the sympathy you will get from him.”
In spite of all the stressful circumstances I had to smile; I could so easily imagine the chief saying it.
“Now, at the Reitschule,” the blonde girl went on, “they treat their students like human beings. We had very decent accommodation with central heating and tiled shower rooms There was even a self-service cafeteria, and the whole place was clean and spotless.”
Already I could see that the Reitschule might become rather tedious.
“But as we’re not at the Reitschule, I suppose we’d better sort out a work rota, otherwise some people,” Viv looked pointedly at the blonde girl as she said this, “won’t do a tap.” She searched through the pockets of her tracksuit and came up with a ballpoint pen. “Has anyone got any paper?”
Everyone looked blank except the tall girl who got up and unpinned a browning Points of the Horse chart from the wall. She laid it face down on the stained Formica table. “Here,” she said amiably, “write it out on this.”
Viv yanked out two tubular-framed chairs from beneath the table, pushed one in my direction, sat down on the other herself and began to rule swift freehand lines across the back of the chart.
Whilst everyone awaited the outcome of the rota, I looked around cautiously at my fellow students. I had only seen them once before, and then briefly,
at the two-day event where the chief had been officiating, and where the successful scholarship candidates had been finally chosen. Then, they had just been anonymous competitors and rivals, uniformly black-coated for the dressage and show-jumping, or helmeted for the cross-country. It had not actually occurred to me that they might not be well-heeled, eventing types at all, but just ordinary, run-of-the-mill people like myself, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. But then, I reflected ruefully, well-heeled, eventing types could afford to pay for their own training, they didn’t have to try for scholarships given for publicity purposes by commercial enterprises.
“I don’t know how I’ll manage when it’s my turn to cook,” the girl with floppy hair, whose name turned out to be Mandy, said in an anxious voice. She leaned over Viv’s shoulder and twisted a lump of hair nervously round a finger with the nail bitten to the quick. “I can’t even boil water, and I’ll never manage the cleaning either; I’ve never touched a washing machine, and I had an auntie who was electrocuted by a vacuum cleaner.”
The tall girl gave a loud honk of laughter.
“You won’t get electrocuted here,” Viv told her, “unless you’re thinking of plugging in the dustpan and brush.” She got up from the table and pinned the rota on to the wall. We all gathered round to look at it.
There were only seven scholarship students altogether, although only five of us had arrived so far. There seemed to be some doubt about one of the missing students as Alice, the tall girl with spots, had heard she had broken a leg out hunting, but as this couldn’t be confirmed she had been added to the rota anyway in the hope that the information had been false. Over the twenty-eight days we were each allocated four days of cooking, plus one stint of washing, which meant that if we agreed to make our own beds and to make a conscious effort to keep the Duke of Newcastle tidy, we each cooked one day a week and did one shared stint of washing. Put like this it didn’t sound so bad, and even Annemarie, from the Reitschule and Halesowen, had to agree that it was fair.
Ticket to Ride (Eventing Trilogy Book 3) Page 3
