Ticket to Ride (Eventing Trilogy Book 3)

by Caroline Akrill

  I continued to sit on the bed with the breeches on my lap, feeling stunned, but Annemarie folded up and fell across her bed in a paroxysm of helpless, hysterical laughter. I suppose that even at the Reitschule, it would have been considered a pretty good joke.

  The chief stood by the Range Rover watching us work in our horses, beating an impatient tattoo on his boot as Alice sweated over a heap of papers on the tailboard, sorting out the draw for our starting order, and working out the times.

  We were wearing our jerseys, our cross-country hats and safety harness, we had been given number cloths, and our stopwatches were strapped to our wrists. Our horses had studs screwed into their shoes to give them extra grip, their bandages were sewn on, their legs smeared with Vaseline to assist them to slip instead of scrape over the fixed fences in the event of a mistake. All this made it as nerve-wracking as the real thing.

  The chief supervised us individually as we gave our horses a sharp gallop to clear their wind, and sent us to Alice to collect our times, set to start at ten minute intervals. I had never given Legend his pipe-opener so close to starting before, and now I could see it was a mistake because he got excited and began to plunge about in an agony of impatience, knowing exactly what lay ahead and desperate to get on with it. I knew that event horses often became so wound up before the start of the cross-country phase that they jibbed out of sheer nerves at the last minute, napping, rearing and running backwards, losing valuable seconds after their starting time and often needing three people, one either side and one behind, to get them to approach the start at all. I didn’t want Legend to get the habit, so I took him well away from Alice and her stopwatch, and with one eye on my times, written on my wrist with Viv’s ballpoint, worked him steadily into a calmer frame of mind.

  Vic and Balthazar went first, thundering away in a purposeful manner towards the first fence. Phillip set off ten minutes later, the roan horse’s tail flying, and his white stockings flashing in the sunshine. Annemarie followed, looking tense and determined, and I was next.

  As my starting time approached, I worked Legend nearer and nearer to Alice, slowing to a working trot and finally to a walk, so that as Alice bagan our countdown we were walking towards her, drew level, and cantered away on the exact second.

  “Neat work Elaine!” Alice bellowed, and Legend, realizing that we were off, gave a leap of joy.

  It was a glorious morning, sunny and fresh, with a deep blue sky and a keen little breeze. The trees were coming into leaf, and the parkland over which the cross-country course was set was awash with a froth of white and yellow daffodils. The afternoon spent with Nick had helped me to resolve to put the Fanes and their affairs behind me, and to concentrate my energies exclusively towards Legend and my eventing career. The early morning running and the extra hours spent in the saddle were already having a beneficial effect on my health and fitness, and I felt confident and happy as we thudded across the turf. I was ready for anything.

  Legend cleared the first fence easily, galloped over the tiger trap almost without noticing it, and had gained so much superfluous speed out of sheer joie de vivre, that I was forced to sit down hard in the saddle and fight to steady him as we flew downhill towards the telegraph pole in the middle of the shimmering lake. Showers of sparkling droplets flew into the air as we hit the water and cantered strongly towards the pole with more than enough impulsion to satisfy the chief, who was currently nowhere to be seen. Legend jumped the pole, landed with a tremendous splash, crossed the shallows in a succession of high-spirited leaps and bounds, gained the bank and pounded onwards toward the uphill double where The Talisman had cut his fetlock. As before, he cleared it easily, taking four effortless strides in between the fences and sailing cleanly out over the second part.

  Things began to go awry after that because, perhaps made over-confident by past success, we took off too close to the brush where the Fanes had sheltered and scraped over the top in a hail of twigs, and followed this by making an appalling mess of the zig-zag rails.

  There were four separate parts to the zig-zag, all set at different angles and varying distances and I somehow managed to misjudge Legend’s stride and speed, placing him either too close or too far away from every rail, whilst he, calling upon every last ounce of athletic ability in his body, got over somehow, but not without a hammer blow to his front or hind shins each time, and a devastating peck on his final landing.

  I didn’t deserve to be still in the saddle by the end of it, but I was, just, and I struggled back over the pommel from halfway down his shoulder as he recovered his balance and trotted on, but with a peculiar, halting gait. I pulled him up and looked down, feeling sick with fright, to see what damage he had done to himself and saw the cause of it – yards of trailing bandage unwinding itself from his near fore; my stitching had come undone.

  I jumped to the ground, feeling shaken, and not helped by the fact that Legend was still eager to continue and was in no mood to stand still whilst I retrieved the lost bandage, repositioned the gamgee tissue, and wound up the crepe again, blessing the fact that I hadn’t cut off the tapes and still had some method of securing it. Legend pranced and fidgeted as I fumbled with the tapes, knotting them several times for security, and the precious seconds ticked away. To make matters worse, a distant flash of reflected light told me that the chief was standing by the Range Rover with his binoculars trained upon us.

  I cursed him as I clambered back into the saddle, knowing that I would be in deep trouble later and would probably have to spend hours sewing up bandages to prove I was capable of doing it properly. We cantered on. Legend, to my relief, appeared to be perfectly sound.

  The next two fences, approached cautiously, with due regard to stride, speed, height and distance, we jumped clear, and now we entered a natural hollow, where a succession of narrow drop fences had been cut like giant steps out of the hillside. Perched on the very edge of each step was a timber jump made of railway sleepers, increasing in height as one descended and the steps themselves also widened on the descent, so that it needed a clever, scopey horse to negotiate it.

  Legend, his bay head lowered to evaluate each step as it appeared below us, plummeted down the first, landed, rose again immediately over the first sleeper, plummeted again, took a stride, soared upwards, dropped down to land on the step below, took two strides, leapt, and as I struggled to remain in balance, dropped and landed safely at the bottom.

  I clapped his neck as we cantered on, hoping that the chief had been watching our copybook descent. He hadn’t, because when I looked up, I saw that he and Annemarie were engaged in energetic pursuit of the little part-bred Hanoverian who was playing a spirited game of catch-as-catch-can between the next two jumps. He had clearly deposited Annemarie, who had a grass stain on the seat of her breeches, at the steps which, because of his lack of scope, had become his personal bogey.

  With a feeling of resignation, I reined in Legend and stopped my watch as Annemarie and the chief, both clearly infuriated, made alternate swoops at the little bay, and Selina appeared at the top of the steps to begin her descent. Mandy, I felt sure, would not be far behind and I knew that by this time Alice’s timekeeping would be in a hopeless muddle and the chief would end the moning practically deranged with fury.

  Selina appeared beside me, looking, I thought, rather pale after Flame Thrower’s descent of the steps. She stopped her watch and observed the chase which was still going on ahead of us.

  “Do you think we should assist?” she enquired.

  “No,” I said, “I don’t think so.”

  Selina watched the chief stalking the little bay, who with a guile born of many similar occasions, waited until he was within a hair’s breadth of his rein before throwing up his head and trotting out of reach.

  “No,” she said with a little smile, “I don’t think so, either.”

  The door of the Duke of Newcastle opened and Phillip came in with the morning’s post; an airmail letter from Germany for Annemarie, two type
written envelopes for Selina, and a parcel for me, untidily wrapped, tied with orange baler twine, and addressed in Nigella’s wandering hand.

  Inside the parcel I found a vast, shapeless, blue jersey with red sleeves. Nigella had worn it when she had won a point-to-point in the days when we were shamelessly pothunting in aid of Legend’s training fund. It was lucky for me, she had written, so perhaps it will be lucky for you, Elaine. I laid it on my bed and remembered when we had bought it from Help the Aged on Lady Jennifer’s duty day. We had had to buy two jerseys, one blue and one red, and had cobbled the sleeves of one on to the other to achieve something like racing colours. It was hideous and so enormous that I could never wear it, but I was made to feel a little emotional by the thought which had prompted her to send it, especially as she had pinned to it the rest of the ten pound notes to make up the balance of my wages.

  We wondered, Elaine, Nigella’s letter continued, if we could possibly come and see you on your next free afternoon. We really need to talk to you and hope you will agree…

  I could have refused. After all, I had decided to forget the Fanes completely and concentrate on my career. But, what difference will it make, I asked myself, to see them one last time? And suppose they’ve changed their minds and decided to relinquish their claim to a share in Legend? How much more satisfactory it would be to leave them on affectionate terms.

  I went to find Selina and asked if I could borrow two of her envelopes.

  She frowned. “I will give you two envelopes, Elaine,” she said, “because I hardly expect them to be returned, but if you are likely to require any more, you can buy perfectly good Basildon Bond at the village store.”

  I took the envelopes, scribbled a note to Nigella telling them to come the following Monday afternoon, hunted out the garage bill, put it in the other envelope, and tucked eight ten pound notes and one five pound note in with it. Then I sealed them both. At least my side of the slate was clean. Now it was up to the Fanes.

  10

  Their Own Familiar Fields

  Monday turned out to be rather dramatic, one way and another. Because the weather had been so perfect, we had all been for a long, blissfully leisured hack on Sunday evening, and so we spent part of the morning cleaning our tack. I went to collect the headcollars, which were kept in the yard store for convenience, and slipped over to the office to see if there was any post because I had been rather expecting a letter from Nick. Instead I got a short note from my father hoping I was enjoying the course, informing me that he would be coming to the junior trial with Lady Jennifer, and enclosing five pounds. He, at least, was confident that I would make the team.

  I wandered through the car park, hung with headcollars, marvelling at the amount of correspondence Selina received every day, and stopped in my tracks to admire a beautiful pale green Rolls Royce, which crunched silently across the gravel and came to a halt just in front of me. A small, portly man in a dark suit and a silk tie emerged from the driver’s seat.

  “Hello,” he said in a cheerful voice, “are you a student?”

  I replied that I was and I wasn’t, and I explained about the scholarship course.

  “In that case,” he said, “perhaps you would be kind enough to hunt out my daughter for me. I believe she’s on the scholarship course as well.”

  He smiled at me in an encouraging manner. He seemed very pleasant, very well-spoken; but possibly, I thought, a man of steel; a person not to be trifled with. I went.

  I hadn’t even asked who his daughter was, but I put together the authoritative manner and the Rolls Royce, and I concluded that the only scholarship student who could possibly be his daughter was Selina.

  I found her soaping the underside of her saddle, wearing a pink nylon overall to protect her navy blue track suit. She looked surprised when I said her father was waiting to see her.

  “I thought he was in Montreal this week,” she said in a perplexed tone, as she removed her overall, patted her already immaculate hair, and followed me out into the yard. She looked even more surprised when they came face to face. Her visitor looked rather taken aback as well.

  Selina opened her eyes wide with astonishment. “Why,” she exclaimed, “it’s Mr Tintoft, isn’t it?” She turned to me looking rather distressed. “This isn’t my father, Elaine, it’s Mr Tintoft, head of the departmental stores.”

  There didn’t seem anything I could say to this. I just stared at them both and wondered what was happening.

  Mr Tintoft was staring at Selina with an outraged expression on his face. “And you, young lady, are Jane Lejeune, unless I am very much mistaken,” he said in a furious voice. “You and I already have one score to settle, and now look set for another, if you are here for the purpose I suspect.”

  Selina summoned up her most imperious manner and held up a restraining hand. “Mr Tintoft, I think you are mistaking me for someone else,” she said firmly, “I don’t actually know you at all, we have never been introduced, and I only recognized your face from the newspapers.”

  “And I recognize your face from the newspapers,” Mr Tintoft retorted in a heated voice, “and if you’ve come here, sailing under false colours, the way you sailed into my stores…”

  “I can assure you, Mr Tintoft,” Selina cut in sharply, “that you are totally mistaken, totally,” she emphasized, “and if you imagine that my being here has anything at all to do with your daughter, I can assure you again, that it is positively untrue.” She turned to me for confirmation. “Elaine,” she commanded, “tell Mr Tintoft who I am.”

  “Selina,” I told him, “Selina Gibbons.”

  “And why am I here?”

  “Training for eventing,” I said, “trying for a place at the junior trial.”

  Mr Tintoft stifled a bark of incredulous laughter. “And just how old is a junior these days?” he enquired.

  “Under twenty-one,” Selina said, and the corners of her mouth quivered.

  Mr Tintoft stared at her for a moment and then his shoulders began to shake with suppressed mirth. He turned to me, still standing beside them, taking it all in and not understanding a word. “I think, if you wouldn’t mind, you had better fetch me Vivienne,” he said.

  I left them giggling together like a couple of first-formers and went to find Viv. She was soaping a bridle in the tackroom. Her dungarees were splashed with water and there was a smear of glycerine saddle soap across her cheek.

  “Viv,” I said, “your father’s here.”

  She stared at me and her face went very pale. “What for?” she whispered. “What does he want?”

  “I don’t know,” I said helplessly, “I expect he’ll tell you that.”

  She dropped the whole bridle into the scum-covered water and it hit the bottom with a dismal clunk. “Hell, Elaine,” she said, “oh hell.” She sounded as if she might burst into tears.

  There was nothing I could do or say, but: “Oh, Viv,” I said, remembering, “you said he sold sandals along the Mile End Road.”

  She looked up at me, tight-lipped. “So it’s Knightsbridge,” she said, “what’s the difference?”

  “There’s a lot of difference,” I said.

  She looked down at the scummy water and then unexpectedly spat into it. “Well you can stuff the bloody difference,” she snapped viciously and, racing out of the tack room, she slammed the door so hard that a tin of louse powder jumped off the shelf.

  Viv didn’t appear for lunch, she stayed in her cell with her transistor turned on full blast. Selina’s expression didn’t encourage questions and I didn’t ask any. Mandy was the only other person present, but as she had her life support machine clamped over her ears, she was not much company. I felt rather glad that the Fanes were coming because at least I would have someone to talk to.

  Henrietta and Nigella arrived at three, looking fearsome. Nigella wore a calf-length cotton skirt whose hem dipped everywhere and a yellowing shawl with a long fringe which might have been cashmere and once very fine, but now was just dub
ious. Henrietta wore Nigella’s mohair jersey, her own purple mini-skirt which showed a lot of thigh clad in mustard yellow tights, and her terrible leg warmers. Their wild and beautiful hair looked as though it hadn’t been combed for a week, although Nigella had made some attempt to tidy hers by securing it at the back of her neck with a buckled D-piece from the bit rings of a pelham bridle.

  We paid a courtesy call on Legend, and then walked through the park, admiring the daffodils, with the sun warming our backs. The Fanes seemed subdued and I guessed that something was troubling them. I knew that they would only tell me about it in their own time and so we talked about the course and the other students, and how Legend was performing, and what I thought our chances were of getting into the team for the junior trial.

  “And what about you,” I said eventually, “How’s the new girl?”

  There was a pause, during which we stopped walking and Henrietta removed one of her scuffed, pink stiletto-heeled shoes in order to examine the heel, which had worn down far below its tip.

  “The thing is,” Nigella said in an uncomfortable voice, “that we’re in rather deep trouble at the moment.”

  “It’s true, Elaine, honestly,” Henrietta added as if, for some reason, I might disbelieve it. She replaced her shoe, and as in all moments of stress, fell to picking at the cuff of the mohair jersey.

  “What sort of trouble?” I asked.

  “Oh,” Nigella said, a note of inevitability in her voice, “it’s financial.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “I suppose it would be.” After all, every one of their problems stemmed from lack of finance, one way or another.