Ticket to Ride (Eventing Trilogy Book 3)

by Caroline Akrill

  Thinking about all this, I gradually became aware of approaching voices, angry voices, on the other side of the copse, and as they got nearer, I recognized them as belonging to Annemarie and Viv who had met up while hacking in the park.

  “Your horse stopped at the combination,” Annemarie was saying in a scornful voice, “at least my horse does not refuse. You do not get anywhere in eventing if your horse is a coward.”

  “Balthazar didn’t stop,” Viv said in a furious voice, “he ran out. He ran out because I let him run out, it was my fault. Your horse knocked the last rail off the triple because he couldn’t make the spread, he may never refuse, but he still can’t do it, he hasn’t the scope. Balthazar can do it, he’s physically capable of it. Your horse isn’t and that’s what counts in eventing!”

  In the silence which followed I held my breath.

  “What did you say?”Annemarie asked in a hard little voice.

  “I said,” Viv repeated with a weary sigh, obviously already wishing she hadn’t, “that your horse can’t cope with spreads. He tries, he’s bold enough, and brave enough, but he just hasn’t got the reach. Bloody hell, Anemarie, you ride him, you ought to know.”

  “No,” Annmarie shouted, “I do not know! You are wrong! He can do it, he can, and I will prove it! I will show you!”

  There was all of a sudden a scattering of gravel from the drive which bordered the paddock, and Annemarie and her little bay hurtled through the gap and charged towards the marked out arena with its painted fences. Annemarie’s hat, which she must have removed because of the heat, bounced away across the grass like a rugby ball.

  “Come back, you fool!” Viv yelled in an agonized voice. “You know you’re not allowed to jump without supervision, you haven’t got your hat on either!”

  But Annemarie was not listening. I watched, horrified, as she steered her horse towards the triple, minus support bandages, minus even a preliminary balancing canter, and pushed him hard at it with her legs. Any other horse would have refused, point blank, to tackle it, but the little bay part-bred Hanoverian, trained to a high standard of discipline by the Reitschule, summoned his lion-like courage, steadied, lengthened, gathered himself, took off, and powered by his own determination and Annemarie’s willpower, flew upwards and cleared the poles. Then he landed with a sickeningly jarring impact on his front legs, buckled to his knees, and sent Annemarie hurtling over his ears, to land head-first on the baked, iron-hard ground.

  The little bay horse managed to struggle to his feet, but Annemarie didn’t. She just lay where she had landed as Viv on Balthazar, and I, dropping Legend’s headcollar rope, tore across the parched grass towards her.

  12

  Questions and Answers

  I stayed, staring helplessly down at Annemarie, whilst Viv galloped to the yards to bring assistance. I tried desperately to remember the first aid I had learned for my Horsemaster’s Certificate but all I could think of was that I should loosen any tight clothing, especially at the neck. I couldn’t get to Annemarie’s neck because she was lying face downwards and I dared not try to move her. I was sure she must be dead and I felt sick at the thought; sick and dizzy, and very, very frightened.

  The chief’s Range Rover had arrived and he was pulling a stretcher out of the back, when suddenly, terrifyingly, Annemarie rose from the ground into a sitting position and stared at me. “What happened?” she demanded.

  “Lie down at once, Miss Maddox,” the chief barked, “you must remain perfectly still.”

  Annemarie lay down again obediently with her boots together and her hands pressed to her sides like a toy soldier. “Where is my horse,”she hissed to me, “is he all right?”

  I didn’t want to answer this, because I knew perfectly well that he wasn’t all right. “He’s with Legend,” I said, “he hasn’t gone far. I’ll catch him in a minute.”

  Annemarie nodded, satisfied. The chief, helped by an ashen-faced Viv, rolled her gently on to the stretcher. While they were doing so, I ran to pick up Annemarie’s hat and laid it on her chest, like a crusader’s shield, hoping that the chief would just think it had fallen off before she hit the ground. She would be in trouble, I knew, for jumping without supervision, and there would be punishment enough when she saw what had happened to her little bay horse, because I realized, as I walked towards the two horses in the shade of the copse, that something heartbreakingly awful had happened to him when he had landed.

  Legend was still pulling grass greedily, but the little bay was just standing with his head lowered, patches of sweat forming on his neck, his nose pinched with pain, and his two front legs already beginning to fill. I had been afraid that he might have broken something, but as I picked up the end of his broken rein and took Legend by his halter rope, the brave little horse moved forward slowly and reluctantly. Together we made painful progress into the yard and I was able to shout to one of the working pupils to go and ask reception to call out the vet as an emergency.

  While Annemarie was transported to hospital to have her head X-rayed for possible skull fracture, the vet was in the stable with her horse; feeling, probing, injecting with anti-inflammatory and pain-killing drugs, and giving instructions for the use of diuretics, cold pressure bandages on the injured legs and support bandages on the hind legs. Extra thick bedding was laid, an extra blanket was provided, and at the end of it the little bay stood with bulky dressings strapped to his front legs, trying to rest one after the other, too uncomfortable to attempt to lie down, his mash untouched, his haynet ignored. There was nothing broken, the vet said, nothing that time wouldn’t heal, and in six months, eight perhaps, or ten, he would be almost as good as new. Of course, tendons which had been so badly sprained might never be quite as strong again, but with careful treatment there was no reason why he shouldn’t make a full recovery, provided that one faced the fact that he was unlikely to event again.

  Viv had gone to the hospital with Annemarie and I stayed in the yard at lunchtime, unable to face the inquests and speculation I knew would be taking place inside the Duke of Newcastle. I strapped away gloomily at Legend as he pulled at his haynet and for the first time since I had first set my heart on an eventing career, I considered the moral aspect of testing a horse to the limits of its ability, when the consequences could be something like this – or even worse.

  I knew that Annemarie had done a stupid thing out of anger, hurt pride and deep, burning ambition, and I was sure that in the same situation, I wouldn’t have reacted in the same way, and yet, goaded almost beyond endurance, could I be that sure? I realized that we were still only on the bottom rung of the eventing ladder, and that further up, the wastage in horses was high; they broke their bones, their tendons were irreparably ruptured, their hearts gave out. It was all very well for a human to test his own abilities almost to breaking point, but was it fair to form a partnership where one half of the combination had no voice and had no way of saying, ‘stop now, I’ve had enough’.

  Troubled by these and similar thoughts, I went to look again at the little bay horse with his hugely swollen, hot, painful legs, and his heart-wrenchingly miserable expression, and I felt a hopeless anger because there was nothing I could do. There was not a glimmer of hope, not a crumb of comfort that I could offer. And I knew that the pathetic creature I was looking at could have been any horse, it could have been my horse, and unless I was very, very fortunate, one day it would be.

  After the initial shock of Annemarie’s accident had worn off, the other scholarship students soon recovered their spirits, but I didn’t, and Viv was still upset by what had happened as we set off round the perimeter of the cross-country course on our early morning run the following day.

  “What will happen to Annemarie?” I wondered. “Will they send her home?” By a miracle, the X-rays had shown no injury to her skull at all, although the hospital had insisted on keeping her for a few days under observation. She was, as Viv said ruefully, and not without a touch of reluctant admiration, a tough nut in mor
e ways than one.

  “How can they send her home?” Viv said. “She’d have to go back to Germany, and what would happen to her horse then? He’s not fit to travel anywhere. No, the chief will have to keep her here. He’ll probably end up giving her a job on one of the yards.”

  “She won’t think much of that,” I said, “not after the Reitschule.”

  Viv allowed herself a little grin as we pounded around the lake and began to run up the rise. “I doubt if we’ll hear very much about the Reitschule in future.”

  “But we’ll never hear the last about her losing her place in the team,” I panted. Annemarie had not yet been told how severely her horse was injured, and we all knew what a devastating shock it would be for her. None of us were looking forward to the day she came back from hospital.

  “I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it,” Viv told me, “she might still get to ride in the team after all.”

  I looked at her in astonishment as we laboured up to the top of the rise. “How?” I gasped.

  Viv made no reply to this. She just patted the side of her nose in an admonitory gesture and, gaining her second wind, sprinted off down the hill.

  The following morning I received the first replies to my advertisement. I took them into the bathroom and locked the door in order to gain some privacy because Selina was in the bedroom, doing some surprisingly early typing.

  Two of the letters I tore up at once and flushed down the lavatory; the first being from a small suburban riding school who offered keep for my own horse – we presume he lives out, they said, and caravan accommodation, plus a wage of eight pounds and fifty pence for a six-day week. The hours were 8am until 8pm, with an hour for lunch and two ten-minute coffee breaks.

  The second was from an active, retired gentleman who required an attractive and lively female companion for horse-related activities – photograph essential. I dismissed this as being highly suspect.

  The third letter I just couldn’t believe. It was the perfect solution to all my problems. It offered a wage of fifty pounds a week, plus accomodation for my own horse, use of a cross-country course, indoor school and BSJA regulation jumps for training purposes, a horsebox was available if required, time off for competitions was negotiable, hostel accommodation would be provided for myself (with other staff), and I could start whenever suitably convenient. I didn’t even have to attend for an interview.

  I sat on the side of the bath feeling rather shaken. I had been worried that nothing would come of the advertisement, that at the end of the course, there would be no prospect in view. If this had happened, I would have had to turn Legend away for the summer, paying rent for grazing, whilst I found other work, as a shop-assistant perhaps, or a waitress; that, or sell Legend and go back to the Fanes, either of which would have made me exceedingly miserable.

  But the more I looked at the letter, beautifully typewritten on headed notepaper with the logos of the BHS and the ABRS on either side, the more worried I became. In the end I had almost convinced myself that it wasn’t genuine; that someone had played an unkind practical joke; that it was altogether too perfect a solution to be true.

  There was only one thing to be done. I had to go and find out.

  I unlocked the bathroom door, ran out of the back door of the Duke of Newcastle, past the steaming muckheaps, across the yards, dodging horses, pupils, and staff, and arrived, panting, at the office. I opened the door.

  The chief regarded me with irritation from behind his desk. “There is a notice outside requesting people to knock before entering,” he snapped, “this is a private office, Miss Elliot, not a public right of way.”

  “And I want to be sure that this is a genuine letter,” I said, “not just someone’s idea of a joke.” I placed the reply to my advertisement on top of his memorandum pad.

  He looked at it. “Ah,” he said. “That.”

  “So you do know about it,” I asked him, “you have seen it before?”

  “Of course I’ve seen it before,” the chief looked at me as if I might easily be out of my mind. “I wrote it.” He pointed to the signature. “I even signed it, but if you still doubt it, I can show you the copy.”

  “I don’t want to see the copy,” I said hastily, “I just want to know if you are serious. Do you really mean it?”

  “Of course I mean it,” he barked, “why else would I have written it?”

  I sat down abruptly on the little wooden chair. “But how did you know it was me?” I asked him, “when I advertised under a box number?”

  “Miss Elliot,” the chief said patiently, “there is a system in existence which has evolved in order to prevent embarrassment to both parties when an advertisement carries a box number. Normally you place your reply in an outer envelope listing the people to whom your reply should not be forwarded. In your case I listed the only person to whom my reply should be forwarded.”

  I stared at him, impressed. “But how did you know I was going to advertise anyway?”

  He sighed. “Haven’t you realized yet, how quickly word travels? Your friend Nicholas Forster is a good friend of Mr Felix Hissey, who is sponsoring your scholarship course, and is in constant touch with me to keep abreast of your progress.”

  “My progress?”

  “Not just your progress, Miss Elliot,” the chief said impatiently, “everyone’s progress.”

  “Well, yes,” I said, “of course, but I still don’t really understand why you should want me to work here, unless you’re offering me a job out of the kindness of your heart, out of charity, becasuse you know I’m in a difficult position.”

  “I don’t offer people jobs out of the kindness of my heart,” the chief snapped, “only if I consider I can put their talents to good use.”

  “But what talents have I got?” I wondered. “I’m not trained to teach, and I know you don’t think much of my riding ability.”

  The chief threw up his chin in an enquiring manner. “What makes you think that, Miss Elliot?”

  “Because you’re always picking on me during instruction,” I said, “making me repeat things, because I never seem to be able to please you.”

  The chief rested his chin in his hands and regarded me thoughtfully. “Has it never occurred to you that I might be spending more time on you because you are the most promising student on the course?” he said.

  I couldn’t believe it. “No,” I said, “no, never.”

  “Good,” he said in a satisfied voice. He handed me the reply to my advertisement. “You may be needing this. You may be requiring to reply to it.”

  “Yes,” I said with conviction, “I shall certainly need to reply.”

  “If your reply is in the affirmative, Miss Elliot,” said the chief, eyeing me sternly, “you will be required to train for the Assistant Instructor’s Certificate and progress upwards until you hold a full BHSI qualification. You could then specialize in preparing students for three-day eventing, if you so desired.”

  “I suppose I could,” I said, “if I so desired.”

  “And do you so desire?” the chief wanted to know.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “I’ve never even considered it.”

  “Then go away, Miss Elliot,” he commanded. “Consider it.”

  I got up from the chair. There was one last question I wanted to ask. “Why did you go to the trouble of answering my advertisement, when you could have just called me into the office and offered me the job face to face?”

  The chief looked up at me and he very nearly smiled. “I like to have everything in writing, Miss Elliot,” he said, “efficient, orderly documentation is the key to the smooth running of every establishment.”

  I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude and affection for this brusque, far-seeing, kind-hearted man. “Oh!” I exclaimed, “I’m so terribly grateful.”

  He picked up a few papers, as if they had suddenly demanded his instant attention.

  “Be sure to close the door on your way out, Miss Elliot,” he said.


  13

  Selection Day

  We filed into the lecture hall on selection day, feeling tense. Annemarie was not with us. The chief had broken the news to her as gently as he was able and, as we had known she would, she had taken it very badly. She had stayed on her bed with her face to the wall, refusing to eat or to speak for a day and a night, after which she had got up and taken over the nursing of her little bay horse with justifiably contrite devotion. Everyone agreed that Annemarie had needed a lesson, but in paying the price of blind ambition, it had been tragic that her horse had suffered most.

  The chief was already installed behind the lecture stand when we arrived, straightening his papers impatiently. “Hat off, Mr Hastings,” he snapped, as Phillip took his seat wearing the sailcloth cap he habitually wore in front of the chief, “this is a team selection announcement, not La Tour de France.”

  Phillip removed his cap somewhat reluctantly to reveal his platinum and purple forelock, now showing quarter of an inch of dark regrowth. The chief threw up his chin in a startled manner, leaned forward to ascertain that it wasn’t a trick, or a wig, and decided to ignore it. He rustled his papers officiously. “Hrmmmm,” he said.

  I took my seat feeling reasonably confident. After my interview with the chief, I fully expected to be included in the team, together with Phillip and Selina, whom I considered to be the other two certainties. As to who would make up the rest of the team, I honestly didn’t know.

  Mandy and Fox Me were incredibly consistent if one looked at them entirely from the performance point of view; but everything depended on whether the chief would go for results alone, because Mandy was by no means a top class event rider in the making. She would be hopeless if she was separated from the pretty bay horse.