by Lou Kuenzler
“Bearing reins?” A look of panic flashed into James’s eyes. “Squire Gordon did not approve of bearing reins, sir. We believe Ginger might have been forced to use them before, but never Beauty.”
“What are bearing reins?” I asked.
“They force the horse to hold its head up high,” explained James. “But it means they put a terrible strain on the horses’ backs and necks when they pull a carriage up hill.”
“It is the fashion,” said Mr York crisply. “Her Ladyship insists on the very tightest rein.” He shrugged. “You shouldn’t even be round here, lad. Get up to the house and let us settle the horses.”
He began to shoo me away.
“What do you mean? Am I not to work in the stables too?” I said.
“Lady Westop does not like her pageboys to get dirty. You will only be needed when the carriage is going out for a drive and then you will be sent for,” said Mr York.
“But … please, let me help with the horses,” I begged. “I’ll sleep in a stall with Black Beauty if there isn’t room for me anywhere else. I don’t mind. I’d like that.”
“You will sleep in the house,” said Mr York firmly. “Joe really is a wonderful stable lad,” said James.
Beauty turned his head towards me, sensing my panic.
But it was no good. Mr York had begun to unharness him.
“I am sorry. You are a pageboy now,” he said. “Lady Westop has her rules and she must be obeyed.”
Chapter Twenty-six
I was shown to a small airless room, no bigger than a coffin, in the servants’ wing. There was no draught and no spiders like there had been in the loft at Birtwick, but there was no window either, except for a tiny slit like the slash of a whip, too high up to look out of.
I missed the sound of the horses and the chatter of the twins – even if Wilf’s feet did smell like rotten cheese. I wondered how they were getting on. Little Flora too. I thought of the mistress and master, all that long way away in a foreign land. Most of all, I thought about James and Ginger and Beauty and how they were settling into the stables. I wished I could be down there with them.
At least I’m here, I told myself, as I tossed and turned all night. At least I am close to Beauty.
The next morning I dressed myself in the white tights and red breeches that had been laid out for me, as well as a frilly white shirt and a scarlet jacket with twelve gold buttons. I felt like a toy soldier.
“What should I do?” I asked the butler, a stiff cold-eyed man called Mr Graves, when I had finished my breakfast. The other servants bustled around me with brushes and buckets and mops. “Where should I go until the carriage is needed?”
“Follow me,” said Mr Graves, hurrying upstairs with a note on a silver tray. He stopped in the grand entrance hall. Two footmen stood silently on either side of the big front door.
“Stand there.” The butler pointed to a spot on the black and white magpie-coloured tiles. “Do not fidget and do not step outside the square.” He tapped one white tile with his foot. “When the carriage comes to the front of the house, you must go outside and sit up on the box seat, nice and still.”
“That’s it?” I gasped. “I have to stand here all day? And then I sit on the carriage like an ornament on a shelf?”
“Yes. That’s it,” said Mr Graves. And he was gone.
The two footmen stood as still as statues staring straight ahead. I tried to pass the time by counting the black and white tiles. Three hundred and seventy two. Then I tried to remember the dates of all the kings and queens of England and all of Henry the Eighth’s six wives – although I think I got Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves the wrong way round. Then I closed my eyes and imagined I was riding Beauty. We were galloping across the common at Birtwick, then trotting past the watermill … just for fun, we leapt the stream.
“Psst!” The footman was hissing at me. “It’s forbidden to fall asleep,” he whispered.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just closing my eyes.”
“Shh!” The other footman wagged his finger. “No closing your eyes.”
So that was it, I had to stand there with my eyes wide open, staring straight ahead. The worst of it was, there was a grandfather clock right in front of me that chimed every quarter of an hour.
“Do you think the mistress will call for the carriage soon?” I whispered at eleven o’clock.
“No chance.” The first footman shook his head. “Her Ladyship does not get out of bed until noon.”
“Then why have I been standing here since eight o’clock this morning?” I asked.
“Shhh!” The footmen hissed at me in unison like geese.
We were each given twenty minutes break for lunch. First one footman, then the other. Then me.
Then it was back to standing still as the afternoon ticked slowly by. How I longed for a horse to brush or a harness to scrub. I would have mucked out twenty stables rather than stand there another minute.
At last, at quarter to three, I heard the sound of horses’ hooves outside and another footman appeared in the hall.
“The carriage is summoned,” he said.
I leapt forward, flung open the door even before the footmen could get there and bolted down the steps.
Beauty whinnied with delight. He tried to lift his neck to look round at me. But something was stopping him. A thick leather strap ran from the ring of his bit, up along the side of his head and was clipped tight to the harness on his back.
“A bearing rein,” I said in horror. “He can’t even look at me properly.”
“I know,” James said with a sigh. “I have fastened them as loose as I dare.”
Ginger was fretting terribly, rolling her eyes and stamping her feet.
“Poor things, it must be worse than a whalebone corset,” I cried.
“Quick!” James sat up straight and I dashed to the side of the carriage as the front door opened behind me.
The countess rustled down the steps.
“You,” she said clicking her fingers at James. “Peter…”
“Apologies… It’s, er, James … James Howard, madam,” he said, climbing down from the top of the carriage.
“Nonsense. The last boy was Peter and I shall call you Peter. I have no time to learn new names.”
“As you wish.” James bowed his head, but not before I saw his grey eyes flash.
I think Lady Magpie saw it too. She smiled with satisfaction as if she had scored a point in a game of cards.
She did not ask my name or even look in my direction.
“Peter, you must put these horses’ heads higher,” she said to James. “They are not fit to be seen.”
“I beg your pardon, My Lady,” said James very respectfully. “But these horses have never been reined up before. If the bearing rein must be used at all, I think it would be better to introduce it slowly. That way, at least, the horses can get used to it.”
“You think so, do you, Peter?” Lady Magpie glared at him with her beady little eyes.
“Yes, Your Ladyship.” James did not flinch. “I do think it would be best.”
“Well nobody asked you to think, did they, Peter? Your job is to drive my horses in whatever way I see fit,” Lady Magpie snapped. “Kindly tighten those reins right away. At least three holes. I wish to visit my sister-in-law at Eastleigh and her horses are always reined high.”
Biting his lip, James went round to Beauty’s head and began to fiddle with the strap. I stepped back as the two footmen rushed forward to open the carriage door and help Lady Magpie inside.
“It is bad enough the horses do not match,” she continued as she climbed in. “The very least I can ask is that they be presented with some sense of style.”
“As you wish, Your Ladyship,” said James through gritted teeth. I watched as he pulled the reins a little tighter, but by only one hole.
I stepped forward so that Beauty could see me out of the corner of his eye. He would know I was here at least. He rolled his e
yes and looked at me imploringly but there was nothing I could do. I wasn’t even a stable boy anymore – I was a toy solider in a stupid costume.
The footmen stood on the back of the carriage and then James and I climbed up to the box seat on top. I had no job at all except to sit in my scarlet suit. When we had worn our livery to drive to the White Lion with Squire Gordon and the mistress it had seemed like dressing up for a bit of fun. But this was a terrible sort of showing off on a much grander scale. We were only going five miles down the country roads.
Unfortunately, four of those five miles were uphill.
Poor Beauty. Poor Ginger. Now I began to understand how truly terrible the bearing reins were. Instead of stretching their heads forward to help pull the weight of the heavy carriage up the steep slopes, they were forced to keep their heads up high and pull with all the strain on their backs. It would be like me carrying a load of bricks with my arms held straight in the air above my shoulders, never being allowed to bend my elbows to help take the strain.
“It’ll be bad coming back downhill too,” whispered James. “The horses can’t see their feet.”
Each day was the same. I would stand silently in the hall for hours and then, usually some time around three, the carriage would be summoned.
Each day, Lady Magpie would demand the bearing reins were tightened as far as they would go. James would always silently disobey, tightening the reins by just one hole. Even so, poor Ginger laid her ears flat against her head and kicked and wriggled in the shafts. Her mouth frothed and she stumbled terribly – twice falling on her knees so that James and I had to jump down from the carriage and help her up again.
Beauty stayed calm and dignified, never showing how much strain the reins must have put on him. But even he could not hide the way his neck quivered and his poor mouth frothed as the terrible tight bit jabbed him.
“I can’t stand this, James,” I whispered as we heaved up the hill again for the fifth time that week. Lady Magpie had finally had her way that morning, and the horses’ heads were pulled up as high as they would go.
“Don’t worry, Joe.” James forced himself to smile. “At least it can’t get any worse. There are no more holes in the bearing reins.”
But James was wrong.
“Higher, Peter!” cried Lady Magpie the next day, as she approached the carriage. “Are you never going to get those horses’ heads up as I ask?”
“They are as high as they can go, My Lady,” said James gently. “The reins have no more holes.”
“Then you must call York,” she ordered. “We will just have to make more holes.”
James did not move. His face was dark and mutinous. There was a horrible pause and then Lady Magpie gave a cruel little smile.
“York! Where are you?” she called, shouting towards the stable. “Bring a leather punch, right away.”
“No!” I gasped. I couldn’t bear it a moment longer. I dashed forward, flinging myself between her and Beauty. “Stop it!” I cried, ignoring the look of astonishment on her beaky face. “Just leave those poor horses alone!”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“What did you say?” Lady Magpie glared at me. She was almost quivering with fury.
“I said, leave those poor horses alone. It is terrible to pull their heads up so high.” My legs were trembling. But nothing could have stopped me now. Not even James, whose eyes were pleading with me to be quiet.
“It’s stupid and cruel, Lady Westop,” I snapped. “If you’re so keen to look smart, then tie your own head up with a rein. See how that feels.”
Thwack.
She swooped so fast I did not see it coming. She had grabbed the long coachman’s whip from the side of the carriage and lashed it against my face.
“How dare you speak to me like that,” she cried as I fell to the ground. “You are nothing, do you hear me? Nothing. Not even the dirt on my shoe.”
All the time she was talking, she was still beating me, bringing the lash of the whip sharply down. It stung my arms and shoulders, ripping through the thin tights on my legs as I curled into a ball and buried my face.
“Please, My Lady!” From the corner of my eye I could see James grasping her arm. “Please stop!”
I saw Beauty rear up. His ears were laid flat against his head and he was turning his neck and trying desperately to bite her. But he could not reach. He wanted to protect me but the bearing rein was too tight.
Thwack!
The whip stung my cheek like a hornet.
“Please.” James was talking to her soothingly, as he would a difficult horse, but I could hear a note of terror in his voice. “You must stop.”
And as suddenly as she had begun, she did stop, tossing the whip down on top of me. “I am ready to go for my drive now,” she said, turning to James as if nothing at all had happened. She lifted her skirts and stepped over me to get to the carriage.
“You,” she said, glaring down at me from her seat, “you will go to the servants’ quarters, fetch your things and leave. By the time I return, it will be as if you were never here.”
“No… Don’t send me away. Please.” I sat up, my face and shoulders throbbing. Blood trickled down my cheek from my ear. I had to stay at Earlshall, I had to be with Beauty.
“My Lady – please reconsider,” said James. “There is nowhere for Joe to go, not without references. Could you do that for him at least?”
“He can rot in the workhouse for all I care.” She drew herself up and eyed him haughtily. “And if you say another word, you will be joining him.”
James opened his mouth but I caught his eye and lifted a shaky finger to my lips. There was no point in us both losing our jobs, not when Beauty and Ginger would need us more than ever. How could I have been so stupid? I felt sick to my stomach.
“Leave those smart livery clothes; I do not want you taking them,” said Lady Magpie, looking down at me one last time. “I should have known better than to hire a redhead. You may be a pretty little thing, boy, but you have a temper like the devil.”
“Please, My Lady.” I scrambled to my feet. “I will never be rude to you again—”
“Silence!” she snapped, and she slammed the door of the carriage before the startled footman could even move to assist her.
“You fool, Joe. You’ve been no help to Beauty. Not like this.” James’s face was pale and a muscle in his cheek was pumping as he picked up the whip from the ground and climbed into the driving seat. “Walk on!” he said loudly.
But, although Ginger took a step, Beauty would not move. He would not leave me. He scraped his hoof furiously on the ground and tried to turn his head.
“Walk on,” said James again. Then he lifted the whip, something I had never seen him do.
“Go, Beauty!” I cried. “Go on!”
Then I stumbled away around the side of the house. Anything rather than see Beauty hurt any more than he already had been. Especially not because of me.
I washed my face in the water trough until the stinging in my cheek stopped. But I felt numb all over.
Even when Mr York shouted and told me I was an insolent young fool, I couldn’t really think about what I had done.
I went upstairs to my narrow room, took off the scarlet livery and got dressed again in my own simple, ragged clothes. Billy’s clothes. Joe Green’s clothes – the boy I had worked so hard to become. Was that all over now? Had I thrown it all away? Where would I go? What would I do? My mind was whirring. But I knew one thing; Beauty and I would not be separated. I would find a way.
As I was turning to leave the tiny room, the bright red livery caught my eye. I had laid it on the bed; the scarlet pageboy’s jacket, the bright red breeches and the white tights – ripped in places by the whip… The whole ridiculous solider suit.
Lady Magpie had been so firm that I should leave it behind.
“She can have the stupid thing,” I muttered. “She’s welcome to it!”
But as I went to close the door behind me,
I stopped.
I dug inside the small cloth bag where I kept my few belongings – a comb, a clean handkerchief, Flora’s book of fairy tales that she had insisted I keep. And the pair of big sharp scissors I carried everywhere to make sure I kept my hair cropped short.
Snip! Snip! Snip!
The tights fell first like snow.
I kept on cutting.
In a matter of moments, the breeches and jacket were nothing more than tattered shreds littering the floor.
My hands were still shaking as I stared down at the mess. There was no turning back. No apology I could make. Nanny Clay had always said my temper would get me into trouble. Now it had.
Strangely, although I was trembling, I felt very calm inside. Calm and clear-headed.
The only person whose temper was worse than mine was Lady Magpie. With all her cruel fury, she had set me free from Earlshall Park.
I would not leave here without Beauty. I would set him free too.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Stop!”
It was the middle of the night and I had been hiding in the fields waiting for this moment all day. But I had barely slipped Beauty’s bridle over his head when James stepped out of the shadows.
“You little fool,” he whispered. “I knew that you would do something like this. I knew you would try to steal Black Beauty.”
“And I shall.” I glared at him, my fingers still working on the buckles of Beauty’s bridle. “How can you even think I would leave him here? If you had any sense, you’d come too.”
Suddenly my heart was thudding faster. Not with fear but with excitement.
“That’s it! We’ll all go … you, me, Beauty, Ginger. All four of us. We can be together,” I cried.
James leant back against the manger and didn’t speak for a minute. When he did, his voice was low. “You haven’t been telling the truth, have you?” he said. “You’re not who you say you are, Joe Green.”
He looked me up and down in the darkness of the stable. I felt a sudden rush of relief. So he had guessed my secret at last. It didn’t matter now anyway. Not if I was going to take Beauty and run away.
