Ticket to Ride (Eventing Trilogy Book 3)

by Caroline Akrill

  Balthazar was a splendid horse; big, brave, scopey and capable of producing a good dressage test. And whilst Viv had been well taught and was a good rider, it was true to say that every mistake Balthazar made could be directly attributed to her inattention. Viv had everything going for her, she had the ideal horse, the ability, the opportunity, but somehow her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t have the temperament or the dedication for a tough competitive sport like eventing. She resented the discipline, rules irked her, routine bored her, attention to detail made her impatient. Nevertheless, in spite of all this, Viv and Balthazar could not be discounted.

  As for Alice, she was certainly dedicated, but in her own inimitable way. She was tough, and she was determined, and she had a horse of a like mind in The Talisman. One got the impression that, even if the chief decided not to choose them for the team, they would make their own way up the eventing ladder in the end. Perhaps this was a sign that he would choose them. I didn’t know.

  I looked along the row at their faces. Mandy looked absolutely petrified; Alice wore her see-if-I-care-anyway expression and rather a lot of green acne ointment, and Viv’s face was totally blank. Two of them will be disappointed I thought, but as it happened, I was wrong.

  “In a few seconds’ time I shall read out the names of the team members for the junior trial,” the chief barked. “There will be five names, comprising four team members and a reserve. The identity of the reserve will not be revealed until just before the trial. The reason for this is that the choice of the final team may not be wholly dependent upon ability. Many things will have to be considered; emotional stability, fitness, accident.” He looked at us severely over the lecture stand as if he suspected we might not agree that this was fair.

  He picked up the top sheet of paper. “The team for the junior trial is as follows,” he announced. “Elaine Elliot, Phillip Hastings, Alice Merryman, Vivienne Tintoft, Amanda Willis.”

  Everyone whose name had been included let out a long sigh of relief, and then, as it occurred to us whose name had been omitted, our necks swivelled towards the person sitting on the end of the row, and we all stared at Selina. Selina smiled back at us in a serene manner.

  The chief marched out from behind his lecture stand. He handed a pile of memoranda to Selina. “Be kind enough to hand these out, Miss er…” he said, “and perhaps you should take this opportunity to explain yourself to your fellow students.” He favoured us with a curt nod and strode off as if he had a train to catch. The door banged shut behind him.

  Selina stood up and began to hand out the memoranda giving each of us the benefit of her bright, schoolmistressy smile.

  “For a start,” she informed us, “I’m not Selina Gibbons at all. Selina was unfortunate enough to break a leg whilst out hunting with the Cottesmore and was unable to take her place. I was allowed to come instead, and my name is Jane Lejeune.” She paused expectantly, awaiting some reaction to this piece of information, but we were all too taken aback to do or say anything.

  Viv recovered first. “Wait a minute,” she said, “you’re not that Jane Lejeune, the one who does all sorts of different things and then writes about it in the Sunday Times? You’re not the one who took a job as trainee sales-assistant at my old man’s biggest store and wrote about all the fiddles!”

  Selina inclined her head in a modest little gesture of acknowledgment. “I’m afraid so,” she said.

  Viv collapsed back in her seat. “Blimey,” she exclaimed in an awed tone, “it’s a wonder the old man didn’t have the hide off you.” She looked at Selina with a new respect.

  I suppose I should have guessed, after all, I had been there when Selina had been unmasked by Mr Tintoft. I had heard it all, but then the name Jane Lejeune had meant nothing to me because I had never read the Sunday Times, the only newspaper the Fanes ever took was Horse & Hound.

  “Do you mean you’re not really a student?” I said, mystified. “Do you mean you don’t want to event at all?”

  “Certainly not,” Selina said firmly, “I already have a very promising career in journalism.”

  Now that she had admitted it, I wondered why I hadn’t suspected something like this before. There had been clues enough – the typewriter, the endless correspondence, the curiosity, the professional camera under her bed, the lengthy telephone calls.

  “You’re not going to write about us though, surely?” Phillip said in an incredulous voice. “Who would be interested if you did? Wouldn’t it have been better to have infiltrated the eventing world at the top?”

  “Not at all, Phillip,” Selina said, with a gracious smile. “I could hardly have held my own at the top, and the famous faces are already very well documented. But who knows about the people struggling to get a foothold on the bottom rung of the ladder? Who knows the discomfort, the sweat, the heartache, the agony suffered by the hidden people of eventing?” She beamed at him winningly. “I think people are going to be most interested.”

  I could see her point, but Mandy’s mouth sagged. “You don’t mean we’re going to be in the papers – not the Sundays,” she said aghast, “I don’t know what my dad will say when he knows.”

  “Only with your permission, of course,” Selina said hastily, “and naturally, if you would prefer, I can change your names and you would remain quite anonymous.”

  “And it is the Sunday Times,” Phillip pointed out, “it isn’t as if it’s the News of the World.” He seemed rather delighted with the idea.

  “Well, I suppose if it isn’t in the News of the World,” Mandy said doubtfully, “it might be all right, because my dad might not even see it.”

  Alice, who had sat silently throughout all these revelations, and now had her grounds for disliking Selina removed in one fell swoop, came to life. “You certainly fooled me,” she said grudgingly, “you could pass for a potential eventer any day.”

  This was praise indeed from someone like Alice, and Selina preened. “I did have a marvellous horse though,” she admitted, “and hours of expert coaching before I came; but I was rather good, wasn’t I?”

  “But now you’re not in the team,” Alice went on, “what about the horse? Because if he’s going spare, you could lend him to Annemarie, then at least she’d have something to ride for the rest of the course.”

  It seemed a splendid idea. “But I’m afraid it can’t be done,” Selina said with regret, “the horse I rode isn’t Flame Thrower at all, he’s an intermediate event horse and he belongs to Hans Gelderhol. He’s being collected tomorow to go back into training for Burghley.”

  “So it was the horse I remembered,” I exclaimed, “and I had assumed he might just be related!” Altogether, I seemed to have been rather dim-witted about the whole affair.

  “I must admit to feeling a qualm when I discovered that you had trained with Hans Gelderhol,” Selina admitted, “especially when you mentioned the similarity to the horse he had been eventing at the time.”

  “No wonder you were so good,” Alice said, with a smart return to her previous acerbic form, “riding an intermediate event horse.”

  Selina chose to ignore this remark. “Well, now that there is absolutely no need for secrecy,” she said in a satisfied tone, “I shall spend the rest of the weekend taking photographs.” She beamed round at us, tore the chief’s latest memorandum into tiny pieces, tossed them into the air in a gesture of smug finality, and left the lecture hall before the pieces had even reached the ground.

  We, who were left, looked at one another, dumbfounded.

  “Wouldn’t you just believe it,” Alice trumpeted, “the Sunday Times!”

  Later that day I rang Nick at the kennels to give him the good news. “That’s fantastic,” he said, “not that I had any doubts anyway, I knew you’d do it.”

  “Would you do something for me?” I asked him. “Would you call in and see the Fanes before you take the hound draft and tell them for me?” I wanted them to know, but I wasn’t at all anxious to speak to Henrietta or Nigella again,
not until after the trial. I had enough to occupy my mind as it was.

  “I was going to tell you about the Fanes,” he said, “I don’t know if you’ve heard from them recently, but I dropped by the other day and it seems that wonder woman’s left.”

  “I know,” I said, “they came to tell me.”

  “So you probably already know,” he said, “that they’re selling up.”

  I didn’t believe it. “They can’t be,” I said, “I knew they had problems, but the bank has given them a fortnight to put things right – I know it’s true because Lady Jennifer told me herself.” But even as I said it my elation started to ebb away and a familiar sinking feeling began in my chest.

  “I don’t know about that,” Nick said, “but there’s a For Sale notice at the bottom of the drive, and when I arrived the girls were loading pictures into the shooting brake.”

  I remembered the dusty, darkened oil paintings lining the staircase and the galleried landings. The best had long since been taken away, leaving bare, oblong patches on the walls. I knew the ones that were left were hardly worth selling; they were just rather poor portraits of Fane ancestors painted by unknown artists. Everything of value had already gone from Havers Hall; Henrietta had sold her Vile secretaire in order to pay for Legend, and I myself had carried a valuable Cantonese vase up the escalators to Harrods Fine Art department so that we could pay off the saddler, the corn merchant, the blacksmith…

  “Nick,” I said, “they can’t have decided already, they can’t have given up hope, not just like that.”

  “I think they must have decided,” he said, “they’ve already told us to…” he tailed off, not wanting to continue.

  There was a silence.

  “Oh no,” I whispered, “they haven’t… they couldn’t… Oh Nick, not the horses.”

  “No,” he admitted, “not yet, they’re not – they’re a bit…”

  I knew what he was trying to say; that after a hard season’s hunting they were all too thin. A few months out at grass at this time of year would make all the difference, especially now there was no need to shut off half the park for the winter.

  “Elaine… are you still there?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’m still here.”

  “They told me – Henrietta told me, that they asked you to give up Legend.”

  “They did, and I almost considered it, but Lady Jennifer wrote to me, she said that I shouldn’t.” In her letter, I thought, she had made light of their difficulties, she had said it was only a temporary setback, and they had a fortnight’s grace and were optimistic that something would turn up. She had probably told me this knowing all the time that nothing would turn up, having already instructed the Estate Agents to call. Such an action was typical of someone who devoted her life to the welfare of others, without giving a thought to her own perilous circumstances.

  “I’m glad you didn’t consider it,” Nick said in a grim voice, “whatever their problems are, you must never consider giving up Legend, he’s your future.”

  “But what about their future?” I asked him miserably. “The horses haven’t any future at all, and I don’t think I shall be able to bear it.”

  “Would you be able to bear it any better if they were sold at auction?” he wanted to know. “Would you have preferred the Fanes to do that? Because I’m surprised they didn’t. They would have got meat money for them, after all; so that must be something to be thankful for.”

  I tried to feel thankful. I knew that being humanely destroyed in their own familiar fields was far preferable to being sold on the open market; to being loaded onto one of the hellships which transported meat cattle on the hoof to the continent, then being docked and herded into huge container lorries and driven for days without food or water, to be finally butchered in some foreign abattoir. I knew I would have sold Legend, I would have sold my soul, I would have died before I could let that happen. Yes, I knew it was better, but I couldn’t feel thankful, it was too unbearably, heartbreakingly sad for that.

  “I thought we might have been able to find homes for them,” I said, “I thouht there might be some way…”

  “Look, Elaine,” Nick said, “I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “If you hadn’t,” I told him, “I would never have forgiven you.”

  “But as I have told you, you must make me a promise.”

  I knew what that would be. After all, I had already promised Lady Jennifer the same thing.

  “You mustn’t think about it, worry about it, until after the junior trial,” he said, “the house won’t sell, just like that. It’ll take months, perhaps years to find a buyer. And the horses are safe for two months at least. Nothing’s going to happen yet, nothing,” he emphasized, “is going to change before the junior trial. Promise me Elaine, that you won’t try to do anything, that you won’t let it spoil your chances next week – promise.”

  “I promise,” I said. After all, what else could I say.

  “And after the trial,” he said, “we’ll worry about it then; we’ll talk about it, and if there’s a way, if there’s anything at all we can do, we’ll do it.”

  “All right,” I agreed.

  “But we won’t part with Legend,” he assured me, “whatever we may decide, it won’t be that.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and miserable though I was, I was grateful and gladdened that he cared enough about the Fanes even to want to discuss their problems, when not so very long ago, he had despised them.

  “By the way,” Nick said, “did you get any replies to your advertisement?”

  “The chief replied,” I told him, “he offered me a job. I can stay here and work on the yards as a member of the junior staff.”

  “And will you stay?” he asked.

  “It looks as though there won’t be any alternative,” I said.

  14

  No Substitute

  I woke because someone was shaking me. I sat up in bed feeling alarmed. I knew it couldn’t be Selina because stertorous breathing was coming from the other bed. After an energetic afternoon with her camera, she was dead to the world.

  “Elaine!” Viv’s voice hissed urgently. “Bloody hell, I thought you’d never wake up!”

  “Viv,” I whipered anxiously, “what’s wrong? Are you ill or something?” In the moonlight filtering through the Duke of Newcastle’s ineffective curtains, I could now make out the shape of her, kneeling beside my bed.

  “I’ve come to say goodbye,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve decided to take off. Now. Tonight.”

  “Take off?” I struggled up into a sitting position, hardly able to take it in because I was still half asleep. “What on earth do you mean? You can’t be leaving, not now. Not in the middle of the night!”

  “Sssssh,” Viv hissed urgently, “don’t go and wake her,” she nodded towards the dark hump in the next bed, “she’s all I need!”

  “But why are you going?” I still couldn’t believe it. “What about Balthazar – are you taking him?” For one minute I could see her, muffling his hoofs with the Duke of Newcastle’s threadbare towels, in order to lead him silently out of the yards.

  “No, I’m leaving him,” Viv said, “for Annemarie.”

  “For Annemarie?” I stared at her, stupefied.

  “Look Elaine,” she said, “I would have gone before, I’m not really into all this eventing, you know I’m not. I just sort of slipped into it, and after what happened to Annemarie’s horse – well, I know it isn’t for me, but I wanted to hang on to be sure I’d got a place in the team, and now I know I have, I can leave. It’s as simple as that.”

  “You’d leave Balthazar for Annemarie,” I said, appalled, “after what she did to her own horse?”

  “That was partly my fault anyway,” Viv said, “and Balthazar’s more the horse for someone as ambitious as Annemarie than ever that poor little bay was. She’ll find a different problem when she rides Balthazar, and it won’t be pushing him to the limit of
his capabilities, it’ll be letting him go as much as he wants to. I’ve no worries about him, he can look after himself.”

  I could see that this might be true, but; “I wouldn’t do it,” I told her, “I wouldn’t let anyone else ride Legend.”

  “But then,” Viv said, “not everyone’s as selfish as you are.”

  There wasn’t time to feel offended. “Where will you go?” I asked her. “Will you go back to your gran?”

  “Well I shan’t go back to the old man,” she said bitterly. “He really had plans for me, I can tell you. Six months with this top eventing coach, six months there, a string of event horses – I’d probably even have ended up at the Reitschule. No, I’ve had enough of eventing, thanks Elaine; you’re welcome to it.”

  Although I knew in my heart that she was right to leave, I didn’t want her to go now, not alone, in the middle of the night. It was dangerous. Anything could happen to an unaccompanied young girl. “You’re not to go now,” I said, grabbing her arm, “wait until the morning, wait until daylight. I’m not going to let you go. I’m going to wake the others.”

  “Elaine,” said Viv in a voice of deadly earnestness, “if you even so much as open your mouth, I’ll knock you out cold with the lamp.”

  “Viv!” I was aghast, more so because I knew she meant it.

  “There’s nothing you can do to stop me,” she said, “I’ve made up my mind, and if I’d realized you were going to be so awkward about it, I wouldn’t have bothered waking you.”

  “Oh Viv,” I said sadly, “what will you do now?”

  “Well,” she said, considering it, “to tell the truth I’ve always thought I might like to have a go at acting, you know. I might audition for RADA or LAMDA, or somewhere like that; it’s hard to get in, I know, but I might just make it, and that’s something Mr Fixit really can’t interfere with.”

  But he’ll try, I thought, he’ll really try. She got up and made her way silently to the door.

  “Viv,” I said, “he only interferes because he loves you.”