Riders

by Jilly Cooper

  “You haven’t got anything stronger, have you?” she asked Tory.

  Humbly, Tory passed her a stick of Erace.

  “Oh, how marvelous; that’s amazingly kind. You were on Rupert’s other side at dinner, weren’t you?” she added, wincing as she blotted out the red oval of tooth marks. “Isn’t he a sod? I’ve just emptied a bucket of ice over him for biting me.”

  She handed back the Erace to Tory and combed her platinum blond hair more seductively over one eye. “He and Billy are taking me to Tramps now; why don’t you come too? David Bailey’s going to be there. Rupe wants him to photograph me.”

  And when Tory refused, insisting she was going home now because she had a headache, she only just persuaded Melanie not to make Rupert give her a lift home.

  Unfortunately, Tory found a taxi all too easily. When she got back to the flat, which Molly Maxwell had borrowed from a friend for the summer, it was only eleven-thirty. She found her mother and the colonel on the sofa. The colonel was wearing a lot more lipstick than her mother.

  Tory went to her room and as quietly as possible cried herself to sleep. She woke, as she had on the last four mornings, with a terrible sense of unease—that her mother would find out about Africa.

  She came home in the evening to babysit and went up to her room to change and have a bath. It was still ludicrously hot.

  “Don’t use all the water,” called out her mother. Through the crack in the door Tory could see her lying on her peach chintz counterpane, rigid under a face pack.

  Tory was undressed down to her bra and panties, and hoping, as she’d hardly eaten since her evening with Jake, that she might have lost a bit of weight, when she heard the telephone ring and her mother answering it in a self-consciously seductive voice: “Hello.” Then, more matter-of-fact, “Oh hello, Mrs. Wilton, how are you?”

  There was a long pause, then Molly said, “No, it couldn’t possibly be her. Tory’s terrified of horses. Maxwell’s quite a common name, you know. Well, just wait while I shut the door.”

  Tory felt as though icy water was being dripped slowly down her spine. She was tempted to climb out of the window down the clematis; instead she got into bed, pulled the duvet over her head, and started to shake.

  Five minutes later her mother barged in, ripping the bedclothes off the bed. She was still wearing her face pack like some malignant mime of catastrophe. At first she was so angry she couldn’t get the words out.

  “Did you or did you not ring up Bobby Cotterel on Sunday and buy Africa?” she sputtered.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” mumbled Tory.

  “Don’t lie to me; who put you up to it?”

  “No one. It’s my money. Why shouldn’t I buy a horse if I want to?”

  “And I can’t afford to buy little Fen a little pony.” Molly spat out the “little.” “Get up, you fat lump.” She reached forward and tugged Tory to her feet by her hair.

  “It was that little swine, Jake Lovell, wasn’t it?”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “ ’Course it was.” Molly Maxwell was shaking Tory by the shoulders until she thought her head would snap off. “He’s obsessed with that horse, spends all his time on it. But he won’t much longer,” she added, her eyes suddenly lighting up with venom. “Mrs. Wilton’s just given him the sack.”

  “Oh, no,” said Tory, aghast. “It was nothing to do with him. I rang Bobby Cotterel. I did everything myself.”

  “Why?” hissed Molly, powder from her drying, cracking face pack drifting down to the floor. “You’ve got a crush on that boy. I saw you mooning over him on Saturday at the show. That’s why you’ve been such a colossal flop at all those dances, not trying with all those suitable young men, because you’ve got hot pants for some common stable boy. Well, you won’t get him by buying him expensive presents.”

  Tory couldn’t bear to look at her mother anymore, the hideous contrast with the twitching, disintegrating white face and the angry red turkey neck. She gazed down at her mother’s feet, noticing the newly painted scarlet nails, cotton wool keeping each toe apart.

  “He’s a friend,’ she sobbed. “Nothing more.”

  “Well, he’s not having Africa. He’s going back.”

  “He’s a she and she’s not.”

  “Sir William and Colonel Gordon are both prepared to top your offer. I’m going around to see Bobby Cotterel to make him tear up that check.”

  Molly pictured herself, in a new dress, rather low cut, driving up to Bobby Cotterel’s house and pleading with him.

  “My daughter’s not responsible for her actions.”

  And Bobby Cotterel, who she suspected was between marriages, would pour her a stiff drink and comfortingly say, “Tell me all about it, preferably over dinner.”

  She was brought back from her reverie by Tory sobbing. “It’s my money and I can do what I like with it.”

  “And how are you going to look after a horse?” hissed Molly. “It can’t live in the potting shed, and now Jake Lovell’s lost his job, he’ll be moving on.”

  Tory was in such despair she hardly heard her mother’s tirade about all the expense and trouble she’d gone to to give Tory a season until, catching sight of her face which resembled a dried-up riverbed, in the mirror, Molly realized she had better get her pack off. Tugging open the door, she found Fen, who’d been listening avidly at the keyhole and nearly fell into the room on top of her. Fen gave a giggle and, waving in time with a half-eaten frozen lolly, started singing: “My mother said that I never should play with the gypsies in the wood.”

  “Shut up,” screeched Molly. “It’s your fault too for always hanging round the stables. You’re not going down there tonight. Go to your room, do your homework, and don’t talk to Tory. I must ring Bernard. I can’t possibly go out and play bridge after all this.”

  “Want to bet?” said Fen, as her mother went into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Immediately they heard the ping of the telephone, followed at intervals by other pings.

  Molly couldn’t get through to Bobby Cotterel but, if she couldn’t get him to tear up the check, there was always the possibility of reselling Africa to Sir William or Malise.

  That had possibilities, too, she reflected. She’d like to meet Sir William again and for Malise Gordon she still had the hankering of the summarily rejected. She saw herself with less makeup and a higher neckline than for Bobby Cotterel, and Malise’s hawklike face softening, as he took her hand, saying: “When I first met you at Bilborough, I thought you were just a lovely face.”

  After all, Colonel Carter hadn’t popped the question; it would be good to make him jealous.

  As Tory predicted, the colonel talked her mother into going out for dinner.

  “Bernard’s friends have gone to a lot of trouble cooking and they’d be so disappointed if we cried off at the last moment,” she told Tory coldly, as if she was making a supreme effort to go out. Not that she’d enjoy a second of it, with all this worry (as well as Bernard’s friends’ cooking) on her plate.

  Tory was still sitting on her bed, in her bra and panties, as if turned to stone.

  “Do you hear me, Tory? I’m putting you on your honor not to talk to Fen and not to telephone anyone or put a foot outside the house while I’m away.”

  She said it three times, but she wasn’t sure it had registered.

  Jake sat in the tackroom, chain-smoking, and watching the moon peering in through the window. Round and pink, with turned-down eyes in an anxious chubby face, it reminded him of Tory. Poor kid, he hoped that cow of a mother wasn’t giving her too bad a time. He’d like to have got in touch with her to find out the score, but he didn’t dare ring the house. Africa was much better; he’d turned her out for a few hours and just laid down thick clean straw in her loose box next to the tackroom. He was just going to fetch her when he heard a step outside, and Tory came timidly through the door. Christ, she looked all blotchy like a swede that’s been beaten up by the frost. The next minute,
she was sobbing in his arms.

  “I’m so sorry I got you sacked.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I was going to leave anyway. Plenty more fishwives in the sea.”

  “But you haven’t anywhere to go.”

  “Mrs. Wilton can’t chuck me out till she’s found someone else; she’s too idle, and it’s too late to put an ad in Horse and Hound this week, so I’ve got a bit of time. Did your mother give you a hard time?”

  Tory nodded. “She’s determined to give Africa back, or sell her.”

  She was shaking so violently, Jake sat her down on the rickety chair and made her a strong cup of coffee with four tablespoons of sugar. She didn’t normally take sugar, but she found the sweetness comforting.

  Jake lounged against the food bin, watching her.

  “Look,” he said, dropping his half-smoked cigarette down the sink, “why did you buy me that horse?”

  Tory lowered her eyes. “Because I like you,” she whispered.

  Jake took her hands, which felt damp and chilled.

  “How much?” he said gently.

  Tory glanced up. He was so beautiful with his thin watchful face and his glinting earrings.

  “Oh, so very much,” she said.

  And suddenly, like a horse that’s been locked up in a stable for a long time and sees the door opening onto a huge field of clover, the idea that he’d been battling against all week overwhelmed him. A rich wife, that’s what he needed. Not very rich, but enough to buy him a few horses and give him a start, so he could get to the top and wipe that self-satisfied smile off Rupert Campbell-Black’s face.

  And rather in the way a swimmer holds his nose and plunges into the water and finds it pleasantly warm, his arms were suddenly full of Tory. She was kissing him, sucking at him like a great vacuum cleaner—Christ, she’d pull his teeth out soon—and her arms had him in a vise and the huge friendly breasts were pressing against him.

  “Oh, Jake, oh, Jake.”

  Without fumbling, he undid the buttons of her dress and switched off the light, and they were on the bed of deep clean straw, with the light of the moon now filtering in through the skylight. He unfastened her bra and the splendid breasts overflowed, soft and sweet-swelling, like a river bursting its dam.

  For a small, slight man, Jake was sexually well endowed, but he spent enough time fingering a spot which Tory afterwards discovered was her clitoris, and she was so slippery with longing that she hardly felt any pain after that first sharp thrust inside her. She’d always heard it was awful the first time, but despite the scratching of the straw on her bare back she felt only ecstasy.

  “Now I know why it’s called a loose box,” said Jake, extracting himself and wiping her with a handful of hay from the rack.

  “Any minute Africa’ll wander in and say, who’s been sleeping in my bed,” said Tory with a giggle.

  “Not much sleeping,” said Jake.

  He rested his head on her breasts. Actually she was much less fat without her clothes on; rather splendid, in fact.

  “I didn’t hurt you too much?”

  “No, no. It was lovely.”

  “And you do like me?” he said.

  Tory nodded in the dark, then kissed him passionately, adoringly uncritical, like a dog greeting a returning master.

  “Enough to marry me?”

  Tory gasped, and stopped kissing him.

  “I know I can make big money out of horses, once I get started,” Jake said. “I just need a break.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Tory in excitement. “I’ve got £5,000 a year.” Admittedly a lot of that had gone on Africa and been given to her mother for new clothes and the cocktail party. But if she married Jake, she wouldn’t have to go to her own cocktail party or to any more dances.

  Five thousand a year, thought Jake. That must mean at least £100,000 in the bank. If only he could get his hands on that, they could buy a place and a dozen horses.

  “We’ve got to find somewhere to live,” he said. “There’s no point in getting anywhere too small. We need stables and at least fourteen acres; the house needn’t be big.”

  “I could paint it,” said Tory.

  “And I could build the jumps,” said Jake.

  She could feel him hot with excitement beside her.

  “The only trouble is that I’ve only got about £1,500 in the bank at the moment. That won’t buy us a house, and everything else is tied up in trust till I’m twenty-one.”

  Back came the black gloom, the pit, the despair; the stable door was locked and bolted on him again. It wasn’t going to be any good after all. Jake slumped back on the straw.

  Then he realized that Tory was full of plans to break the trust.

  “The capital’s mine. After all, Daddy left it to me. It’s just sitting there, and there’s a whole lot more to come when Granny dies.”

  It was as though she was talking about having a good crop of runner beans in the garden and another crop coming up in a few months.

  “I can’t just take your money,” he said.

  “Of course you can,” she said. “I’m only crying because I’m so happy. We’ll go and talk to Granny Maxwell. She’ll help us.”

  They tried to keep their visit to Granny Maxwell secret. Tory arranged to go and see her the following Saturday. Alison, the stable girl, would lend them her car to drive up to Warwickshire. Molly, however, distrusting Tory’s almost too passive acquiescence, guessed something was up and intercepted a letter from Tory to Jake which fell out of Fen’s pocket on the way to the stables.

  The letter spoke of them marrying, as well as the visit to Granny Maxwell, and the scenes that followed were terrible. Molly’s hysteria knew no bounds. How could Tory be ungrateful and stupid enough to throw herself away on this penniless, illegitimate nobody? In fact, Molly suddenly realized that she would no longer have her daughter as an unpaid babysitter, cook, cleaner, shopper, and errand runner. She would have no one on whom to vent her rage, to grumble to and about, no one so easy to cadge money off. She was in danger of losing her whipping boy and she didn’t like it one bit.

  She dispatched a reluctant Colonel Carter to have a blimp-to-man talk with Jake. But, as Jake saw the colonel as that monster who’d nearly destroyed Africa, the meeting wasn’t a success. “Dumb insolence” were the colonel’s words for it. “Fellow just gazed out of the window and read the paper upside down. Anyway, how can you expect a chap who wears earrings and hair over his collar to see reason?” Molly felt the colonel had failed her. Malise Gordon would have had much more success.

  In the face of Tory’s intransigence, Molly buried her pride and rang Granny Maxwell, her ex-mother-

  in-law, whom she’d always hated and suspected of plotting against her.

  “Yes, I can see he doesn’t sound very suitable,” said Granny Maxwell, “but I prefer to judge for myself. Tory is bringing him down to meet me on Saturday.”

  And Molly, for once curbing the fountain of invective surging up inside her, felt silenced and snubbed.

  Fen, although horrified at dropping the letter, was thoroughly overexcited by the whole thing.

  “I wish I was old enough to marry him. You are lucky, Tory. Have you mated with him yet? I can’t think why Mummy minds so much about his being intermediate.”

  The heatwave continued, making the long drive up to Warwickshire sweaty and unpleasant. The sun blazed down on the top of the car, until Tory longed to escape down some woodland glade or picnic in a field by a winding river. The white chestnut candles lit up the valley, the bluebells making an exquisite contrast to the saffron of the young oaks. Cow parsley rampaged along every verge, but Jake was not interested in scenery. He seemed to find Alison’s car difficult to drive and kept grinding the gears and stopping in fits and starts. Probably hasn’t had much practice, thought Tory, watching his bitten-nail hands clenching the wheel. He answered all her questions in monosyllables, so she fell silent. She was dreading the meeting with her grandmother, who could be very rude and d
ifficult. She couldn’t see Jake getting on with her if he was in this mood. And if she won’t help us, thought Tory in panic, perhaps he won’t want to marry me after all. Then again, what did she know about this strange taciturn young man with whom she was hoping to spend the rest of her life? At least she’d shed nine pounds since she met him, and now could get easily into a size sixteen skirt.

  Dozing, then waking up, she realized they’d just gone through Cirencester. She looked at the map. “Aren’t we a little off course?”

  “No,” said Jake curtly, putting his foot on the accelerator.

  Climbing to the top of a very steep hill, he pulled into the side of the road, saying: “Get out for a minute.”

  They had a magical view across the valley to where a golden-gray manor house lay dreaming against its pillow of beech woods. In front was lush, stream-laced parkland dotted with big bell-shaped trees, under which horses sought the shade, swishing their tails against the flies. To the left, a good deal of building and excavations were going on. But here, one large flat field had been left unplowed; on it every kind of colored jump was set up. Jake studied the place at length through binoculars.

  “Where are we?” asked Tory. The last signpost had been buried in cow parsley.

  “Penscombe.” Jake suddenly looked drawn, a muscle was flickering in his cheek. “Rupert Campbell-Black’s place.”

  Going back to the car, he scooped all the rubbish off the floor and from the ashtrays, which brimmed with cigarette butts, and tipped it over the wall into Rupert’s land. One of the workmen, looking across, shook his fist at their departing car.

  “Serves him right,” said Tory with a giggle. But when she looked at Jake she saw he was not smiling.

  Tory’s grandmother lived sixty-five miles on in an equally beautiful but more sheltered position. Gabled and russet, the house peered out from its unkempt mane of Virginia creeper like a Yorkshire terrier.

  A troupe of pekes and pugs came yapping round the side to welcome them. Despite the beauty of the day, they found Granny Maxwell sitting in the drawing room, watching racing on the television. She was also trying to read Horse and Hound, Somerville and Ross, and a gardening book at the same time, with three pairs of spectacles hanging round her neck like trapezes. She had a strong face, broad-browed, hook-nosed, the peaty-brown eyes glittering imperiously beneath their black brows, the wrinkles deeply etched round the wide mouth. On her head she wore a gray-green curly wig, slightly askew and held on with sticky tape.