The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  So security at Claremore was tightened up even more after the review, in line with Mattie’s and Dexter’s recommendations. As a result during the run-up to the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park in England there were no alarms or excursions, nor did the big horse miss the anticipated week’s work subsequent to the bang he had sustained in his box, since the setback was nowhere near as serious as had been first thought. In fact The Nightingale was out of his box and perfectly sound after only three days, trotting after five, and had his first good canter at the end of the following week. In his first two years as a racehorse he had been inclined to be stuffy early on in his work, which was why Cassie liked to have as much time as possible in which to get him ready, yet it was obvious from the way the horse quickened at the end of seven furlongs up the all-weather gallop when Cassie worked him at the start of the week of the big race that those days were long gone and that rather than set The Nightingale back, the three days’ enforced box rest had probably done him the power of good.

  ‘If anything he seems even more relaxed than ever, Dex,’ she said to her jockey after they had loaded the animal back in the horsebox before returning to the yard. ‘Is that how he felt to you?’

  ‘He’s just brilliant, Cassie,’ Dexter replied with a happy smile. ‘If anything he’s even more laid back this year, with the consequence that he doesn’t waste a drop of gas. You just press the button and he goes. God help the opposition’s all I say!’

  ‘I haven’t run through all the form of the others yet, at least not closely,’ Cassie said, climbing up into the cab of the horsebox beside him. ‘I know there were twelve in at the forfeit stage, and that Nightie, Hokey Cokey, Whizz who ran second to Nightie in the Derby and the French horses Mot Cambron and Esplanade are the only four-year-olds.’

  ‘Mot Cambron I’d say is the real danger,’ Dexter replied, picking up the day’s edition of the Sporting Life from the seat beside him. ‘We have Esplanade well beaten on Arc form, but Mot Cambron who missed the Arc broke the track record for a mile and two at Chantilly in his first run this season. Beat a pretty useful field, too, and he hasn’t been beaten yet. His trainer Pierre Duchamps thinks he has a very real chance.’

  ‘Mot Chambron’s a front runner, right?’

  ‘So far he’s made all in each of his races. And he always finds some at the end as well, so he’s not just an out and out galloper.’

  ‘Don’t let him out of your sights, then.’

  ‘I don’t intend to. We can’t discount Whizz altogether either. I saw him when he trotted up in the GalaPrint Stakes at Kempton two weeks ago and he’s altogether bigger and much stronger than he was at Epsom. It’ll be a proper race, all right. Now let’s see what they have to say about it in the Life. There’s a preview of the race on page four.’

  ‘There’s also some news on the front page,’ Cassie said, noticing one of the lead stories and bending the page so that she could read it. ‘It says Mot Cambron has been sold. “Record Price for Horse in Training”.’

  Dexter folded the paper back so that they could both read the item on the front page. Which they did, in silence.

  ‘Jeez,’ Dexter whispered, just the way he had when Cassie had first met him as a boy of sixteen. ‘Will she stop at nothing to try to get even?’

  ‘It seems not,’ Cassie said with a heartfelt sigh, as they both sat studying the large colour photograph of Leonora Lovett Andrew holding the bridle of her latest purchase.

  Josephine had insisted that the family all meet in London for lunch at the Dorchester on the day before the race, even though she well knew how much her mother liked to spend the time alone in her hotel on such occasions.

  ‘There really is a good reason, I promise,’ she had told Cassie on the telephone, barely able to keep the excitement out of her voice. ‘I really wouldn’t bother you otherwise, but we won’t have a chance to talk on the day of the race itself, and then afterwards when Nightie has won—’

  ‘If Nightie has won—’ Cassie interrupted.

  ‘When Nightie has duly trotted up we won’t have time then either. I mean not just the three of us. So let’s just have a quiet lunch somewhere because I really do have to see you.’

  ‘Of course I’ll meet you for lunch,’ Cassie agreed. ‘But even so, sweetheart, surely you can give me some idea of what it is now? You know me and suspense. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘I’d much rather tell you face to face,’ Josephine replied. ‘You know what the phone’s like. Some things just can’t be said on the phone.’

  ‘Since you said she sounded excited, maybe she’s landed the part of a lifetime,’ Mattie suggested on the flight over. ‘Perhaps Tinseltown has finally called.’

  ‘That she would have told me on the telephone, Mattie,’ Cassie replied. ‘I think it’s a man. I think Josephine’s fallen in love.’

  ‘God, not with an actor, I hope. I don’t mind my sister acting but I do not want some sort of luvvie as a brother-in-law, thank you.’

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily have to be wedding bells. I just said your sister has probably fallen in love.’

  ‘God,’ Mattie sighed theatrically. ‘If you’d been summoned to have lunch every time my dippy sister had fallen in love you would be in serious trouble with your figure.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ Cassie smiled but then turned away to look out of the aircraft window at the Irish Sea sparkling far below them. Even though Josephine was now in her mid-twenties, Cassie had never given any real thought to the prospect of her daughter’s getting married. She seemed so wedded to her career and so happy being footloose and fancy free that somehow Cassie had imagined that was the state in which her daughter would happily remain. Whenever she was home and she was sitting in the kitchen talking to Cassie as Cassie helped Erin prepare a special supper in her honour the talk had always been about her acting career, and how impossible it would be really to settle down with anyone while she was still making her way. It would not be fair on either partner, on the man because Josephine might well be constantly away filming or on tour, or on her because she might feel guilty about pursuing a career which took her away from home. As far as the theatre went, she had decided she would give it until she was thirty and if she had not made it by then she would, as she put it, consider any halfway decent proposal that then came her way which according to her was what most of her friends were doing. None of them was getting married young. With people living to a greater age there seemed no longer to be the need to start thinking about marriage and raising a family the moment a girl stopped being a teenager.

  But then out of the blue had come this summons to lunch.

  All I can hope, Cassie thought to herself as the sea below them gave way to the mountains of North Wales, is that he is just a little like Tyrone.

  Mark Carter-James was nothing like Tyrone. Whereas Tyrone had been tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed and well built, this young man was small and as thin as a marathon runner with straw blond hair and oddly enough for someone with his hair colour, bright green, catlike eyes. Josephine, who took after her father rather than her mother, was tall and willowy, five foot eight inches compared to Mark Carter-James’ five foot six, yet what he lacked in height he made up for in good looks, having a retroussé nose, high cheek bones and a double line of thick dark blond eyelashes which would have been the envy of most female fashion models. He was also impeccably dressed in an expensive hand-tailored charcoal grey suit and what looked also like handmade shirt and shoes, and his manners were as polished as his appearance. As soon as she set eyes on him and without beginning to know why, Cassie hated him.

  ‘Please forgive the intrusion on what I understand was to be a family affair, Mrs Rosse,’ he said after being introduced to Cassie by Josephine, ‘but I was afraid this might be my only real chance of meeting you. I simply had to take this opportunity of coming to say how very much I admire you for what you have done. To have owned The Nightingale would be exciting enough, but to have not only trained him to his remarkable v
ictories but actually bred him as well smacks of pure genius.’

  ‘More of good fortune, I’d say,’ Cassie countered with a polite smile.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Mark replied, also smiling. ‘On the contrary.’

  ‘Am I right in assuming that Robert Carter-James is your father?’ Cassie wondered. ‘Or at least that I have your family right?’

  ‘Right first time, Mrs Rosse,’ Mark agreed, blinking slowly as he smiled. ‘The Mad Major is indeed my father, but now really my intrusion on this occasion simply will not do. Having achieved my ambition – to meet Josephine’s illustrious mother – I really should be toddling along.’

  ‘Can’t you stay to lunch?’ Josephine asked him. ‘You wouldn’t mind if Mark stayed to lunch, would you, Mums? I know I should have let you know in advance, but that would have sort of spoiled it somehow.’

  ‘Of course Mark must stay to lunch,’ Cassie said, watching the eye contact between her daughter and the angelic-looking young man. ‘If he is able to, he is more than welcome.’

  ‘Well, I’d love to, Mrs Rosse,’ Mark replied. ‘And in all fairness to Josephine, she didn’t actually know I was going to be in London today. But of course, I should love to stay to lunch. Thank you.’

  ‘Then that’s that,’ Cassie said. ‘Mattie – go tell Maurice we shall now be four for lunch and not three, would you?’

  From the look in Mattie’s eyes as he ambled off to find the maître d’ it was obvious to Cassie that her son was as unimpressed with Mark Carter-James as she was.

  Not that either of them could find any good reason to have taken such an obvious dislike to Josephine’s latest suitor. Mark Carter-James did nothing wrong over lunch. He was an excellent conversationalist as well as beautifully mannered, and Josephine – to whom he seemed to show just the right amount of teasing affection – was obviously besotted with him. Even his social credentials fitted perfectly, since he was the eldest son of one of the most prominent English racehorse owners and an accomplished amateur jockey himself. Furthermore from his conversation with Josephine it was obvious that he was no Newmarket philistine, for he seemed to take as great an interest in the theatre as he did in racing and bloodstock.

  But above all it was The Nightingale and his triumphs which seemed to occupy him most. More precisely, it was Cassie’s achievements to which he kept returning at every permissible opportunity.

  ‘You’re very flattering, Mark,’ Cassie said at one point. ‘But I doubt whether your family shares your admiration of my achievement. Certainly not your father. Your father has said in public on many occasions that he thinks women have no place professionally on a racecourse.’

  ‘As anyone who knows him will tell you, you really shouldn’t take my father seriously, Mrs Rosse,’ Mark replied with a smile. ‘A lot of the time when he makes such utterances he has his tongue firmly in his cheek. He rather enjoys, as they say, winding people up.’

  ‘I never quite get the impression he’s doing that when he talks about keeping women out of the Jockey Club.’

  ‘That is because my father loves women, Mrs Rosse, but doesn’t think much of the Jockey Club. Perhaps that explains it?’

  Cassie smiled. ‘That’s very neat. Even so I don’t quite buy it.’

  ‘He can be most appallingly tactless on occasions, I do admit. And he has banged on an awful lot about women trainers which I suppose is a generation thing really. I don’t actually think he was pointing his gun at you, but if he has ever said anything to upset you then may I apologize on his behalf? Having seen what you have achieved with The Nightingale I doubt very much if he would say the same things now.’

  ‘Of course he wouldn’t, Mark,’ Josephine said quickly, putting a hand on his. ‘The moment your father meets my mother he’ll fall madly in love with her. Everyone does.’

  ‘Of course he will,’ Mark agreed, crinkling his eyes as he smiled.

  ‘I have already met Mark’s father,’ Cassie reminded her daughter.

  ‘I meant again,’ Josephine replied, smiling shyly.

  ‘Am I likely to do that in the near future?’

  ‘You’d better ask Mark that, Mums.’

  As if to try to put off the moment he knew was coming, Mattie signalled to the wine waiter and asked him to bring another bottle. But Mark simply smiled patiently and waited his moment.

  ‘I’m not sure this is the time or even the place, Mrs Rosse,’ he said. ‘But then as far as your daughter goes perhaps the only time and the only place would be a moonlit midnight at the Taj Mahal. As you may well have guessed by now, Josephine and I would like to get married.’

  ‘I hadn’t quite guessed,’ Cassie said. ‘But I think maybe that was the way I was thinking.’

  ‘I’m sure you were, Mrs Rosse,’ Mark agreed. ‘But the point is that although Josephine is over eighteen years of age—’ Mark continued.

  ‘Just,’ Mattie added with a teasing smile at his sister.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Mark laughed, leaning back and running his fingers through his hair. ‘But what I was going on to say was while we do not actually have to seek your formal permission, we would none the less of course very much like to have your blessing.’

  ‘Supposing you don’t get it?’ Mattie suddenly asked bluntly. Then, catching his sister’s hurt look, he added rather lamely, ‘Joke.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mark said. ‘But even if it wasn’t, Mattie, and even if horror of horrors your mother did not approve of me, it wouldn’t actually alter our intentions. Maybe that answers your question.’

  ‘Sure,’ Mattie said more to himself than anyone, before taking a good draught of wine. ‘It certainly does.’

  As the waiter poured them all some more wine and Josephine took the opportunity of this distraction to whisper something to Mark, Cassie glanced across at her son to find a pair of dark eyes glaring back directly at her.

  ‘Now then, Mark,’ Cassie said, having frowned back at her son in warning for him not to go any further. ‘I don’t know how much you know or don’t know about me, but as far as my daughter is concerned, and my son for that matter, if they have made their minds up about something then I try not to stand in their way.’

  ‘Good,’ Mark said without discernible interest. ‘Good.’

  ‘We talk about it, of course, but then the three of us always talk everything out, always have done. So while of course technically you don’t need my approval if you are both determined on getting married anyway—’

  ‘Forgive me for interrupting you,’ Mark said, looking suddenly serious. ‘But in hindsight I can’t have put that very well. Look, I would absolutely hate it if you thought I meant that if you withheld your approval we would simply go ahead and marry come what may, because that is not what I meant at all. What I was trying to say was that even if you disapproved of our marrying we would still wish to get married simply because Josephine and I are very much in love. What I should have added was that knowing how much your daughter both loves and respects you, Mrs Rosse, I would not want her to marry me until she has won your blessing.’

  ‘Thank you, that’s very gallant,’ Cassie replied, still wondering why she doubted his sincerity. ‘I appreciate that. Just as I hope you appreciate that I would like some time alone with my daughter to catch up on events. We haven’t seen each other since Christmas, you see, and well you know what mothers are.’

  ‘And daughters,’ Mattie added, looking round at his sister.

  ‘Alas, I don’t have any sisters,’ Mark said, raising both his eyebrows and putting the flat of both hands on the table. ‘My parents got divorced when I was five, after my younger brother was born, but that doesn’t stop me understanding that you both will obviously want to talk. And I—’ he added, glancing at his gold Rolex, ‘I must go, if you will excuse me. I have an appointment out of town and you know what the traffic is like on Friday. Thank you so much for a perfectly delicious lunch and the chance of meeting you and your son – and I shall look forward to seeing you al
l tomorrow at Sandown Park.’

  ‘I’ll come with you to the door,’ Josephine said, getting up as Mark did and taking his arm as they walked out of the dining room. Cassie and Mattie watched them go before Mattie turned back with ill-concealed disgust.

  ‘Jeez,’ Mattie said hopelessly. ‘What has she got herself into now?’

  ‘Obviously you find Mr Carter-James wanting.’ Cassie signalled the waiter for some more coffee. ‘He seems perfectly charming and very well mannered.’

  ‘If you ask me he’s got murderer’s eyes,’ Mattie growled. ‘And he’s just so smooth. You didn’t really like him, did you?’

  ‘We don’t really know anything about him,’ Cassie said, allowing the waiter to pour her some more coffee.

  ‘You think Jo does? She can only just have met him. Otherwise I would have heard. I’m going to have to have a serious talk with my sister.’

  ‘Easy does it, Mattie. I mean it,’ Cassie said, trying to defuse the moment. ‘First impressions aren’t always the best. Maybe beneath all those perfect manners the problem was the young man was really feeling very nervous.’

  ‘That guy was de-nerved at birth, believe me. What does Jo think she’s doing?’

  ‘Let’s ask her when she comes back,’ Cassie suggested, putting Mattie’s reaction down to fraternal possessiveness. ‘In the meantime, let’s go through the race.’

  While they waited for Josephine to rejoin them, the two of them discussed the various merits and demerits of the eleven horses which had stood their ground against The Nightingale. Both were glad that for once their horse had not frightened off all the opposition and that therefore this particular running of the Eclipse had every chance of living up to its illustrious reputation. Mattie thought that perhaps the fact The Nightingale had only had one not very strenuous run so far might have encouraged the other owners and trainers to take their chances against him, an opinion with which Cassie entirely agreed, adding that the rumour circulating that the knock their horse had sustained had actually set him further back in his work than Cassie had claimed had also given hope to the opposition.