Eventer's Dream

by Caroline Akrill

  They were just contemplating the alarming possibility of letting the liveries out as hirelings when their owners were otherwise engaged, when there was a determined thumping at the front door. I went to answer it.

  It was William. He stood in the portico, shuffling his feet and looking as if he would vastly prefer to be somewhere else. He was sorry to have made such a row, he said, but he had knocked a couple of times before and nobody had heard. I said it was perfectly all right and would he like to come in.

  “No,” he said awkwardly. “I won’t come in, if that’s all right with you. It's very kind of you to ask, but I’d prefer not.”

  I wondered if he had come to see Henrietta, and had lost his nerve, or if he was the bearer of a message from Forster who had not spoken to me since the incident in the lane, or if it was the lingering odour of B.O. and mothballs that had caused him to turn red to the gills with embarrassment.

  But it was none of these things.

  “We were sorry about the old mare,” he said. “She’s been a good horse in her time. We thought you might like to have these.” He pushed a brown paper bag into my hands and made off down the steps before I could even say thank you.

  Inside the bag, scrubbed and burnished, were the old bay mare’s shoes.

  15

  A Very Good Day’s Hunting

  “Whatever ‘The Lads’ happen to be like,” Henrietta said, “we must make sure that they enjoy themselves. Our livelihood depends upon it.”

  We all agreed that we would do our best, but on Thursday morning it was bitterly cold and raining hard.

  “They won’t come,” Nigella decided. “They are sure to be fair weather riders. I wouldn’t send my worst enemy hunting on a day like this.” But we plaited up just in case, and at ten fifteen a white Mercedes drew into the yard.

  ‘The Lads’ were a lot smaller, younger and punier than they had looked on the television, but they were friendly and optimistic and they were looking forward to their day with the Hunt, rain or no rain.

  “Heavens,” Nigella exclaimed when she was introduced to them. “I thought you were bald!”

  Johnny Jones leaned towards her and unpeeled one of his sideburns. “We are,” he said. “This is a wig.”

  “Oh please,” Nigella said, dismayed. “Don’t take it off.”

  “It’s only ’is ’ead,” Sammy Pike said reassuringly. “It ain’t indecent exposure.”

  When ‘The Lads’ were introduced to their horses, they all wanted the blue roan. Things got so heated that Nigella was forced to take charge and allocate the horses size by size. So Johnny Jones got the blue roan because he was the smallest and puniest, Solly Chell got the chestnut, and Sammy Pike, because he was the tallest, got the tallest horse, which was the bay.

  Whilst ‘The Lads’ changed into their hunting clothes we tacked up their horses and loaded them into the horsebox and as soon as we had pointed them in the direction of the meet, we began to fly round getting ourselves and our own horses ready. We knew it was essential that we turned out; we had to keep an eye on our livelihood. It was still pouring with rain.

  It was not a day on which to feel responsible for someone else’s enjoyment. The Fanes and I missed the meet because we had to hack there, but it didn’t matter, the first two coverts were blank anyway. The weather had worsened by the time we arrived at the third draw; a wind-lashed thicket perched on the top of a hill and exposed to the full force of the elements. There was a vicious east wind coming off the sea which gave an icy edge to the squalling rain. Henrietta said we were standing on the highest part of Suffolk and that there was nothing on the same level between us and Russia. I didn't know if this was true or not, but it certainly felt like it, and I decided that this day would be the end, the absolute finish, of the Thunder and Lightning liveries.

  ‘The Lads’ stood in a miserable huddle with their coat collars up and their backs to the battering wind. Their faces were blue, their expensive hunting clothes were soaked, and water dribbled off their hats and their horse's chins. Nigella and I placed ourselves a little way off and shivered. I could feel water beginning to seep down my neck and my thighs were numb. The mare-who-sometimes-slipped-a-stifle and the bad-tempered chestnut stood with wretchedly bowed heads, whilst Henrietta and the black horse squelched ceaselessly up and down. It was utterly dreadful. Then, like a miracle, we heard the Gone Away.

  In the flurry of the first few minutes, struggling to regain our circulation, we could see that ‘The Lads’ were no horsemen. They sat with loose reins and flapping legs and they had no idea how to control their horses at all. It was clear that this would lead to disaster because the country was treacherous. The stubble fields of the autumn were almost all gone, replaced by wide acres of deep, sticky plough criss-crossed by greasy tracks studded with loose flints. The yawning banked ditches which divided the land were not improved by the rain; their sides were slimy with exposed clay, and their dug out gullies gushed with yellow water.

  As the Field dived after the Master, the Fanes and I held back, ready to pick up the pieces of our livelihood. We were certain that they would come to grief; it wasn’t a day, or a country, for riders without experience.

  “They’ll be killed,” Henrietta gasped in a despairing voice. She sat down hard and fought the black horse gamely with slippery reins, her sodden apron flapping against his ribs. “Think of their insurance company! Think of our seventy-five pounds a week!”

  But it was the horses I was thinking about, foreseeing sprains and strains and broken limbs, and at the third ditch we came upon the blue roan, upside down and stuck fast, kicking like a turtle.

  “Oh, glory,” Nigella moaned. “Where’s Johnny Jones?”

  We scanned the grey and buffeted headland, expecting to see him lying injured, but Johnny Jones was not in sight. Then, from the depths of the ditch, we heard an inarticulate noise.

  “He’s here!” Henrietta shouted. “He’s under the horse!” Panic-stricken, she leapt off the black horse, slid down the side of the ditch, and began to tug helplessly at the blue roan’s reins. The tail end of the Field, near blinded by rain, flew past, splattering her with mud.

  “No! No!” Nigella cried. “You’ll never move her like that! We shall have to use stirrup leathers!”

  I dragged the leathers off the mare-who-sometimes-slipped-a-stifle’s saddle and yanked off the irons. As I threw the leathers to Nigella, the black horse, unable to bear the sight of the departing hunt without protest stood on his hind legs, dragging the bunch of slippery reins from my grasp. I dived for his head and in an instant the mare-who-sometimes-slipped-a-stifle and the bad-tempered chestnut realized that they were free and trotted off smartly in the wake of the tail-enders.

  “Let them go!” Henrietta yelled, as I lifted my foot to the black horse’s stirrup to be after them. “Don’t leave us! Johnny Jones may be injured; you may have to ride for help!”

  Somehow the Fanes managed to get the leathers under the blue roan’s withers whilst I held on to the black horse who plunged about like something demented.

  “Now,” Henrietta commanded, her face shining with rain and red with exertion, and her habit trailing in the mud. “PULL!”

  They pulled. The blue roan pressed her head forward and flailed her legs mightily. She rolled over onto one side. Then, with a heave and a grunt, she was up the bank and standing safely on the headland. Johnny Jones lay flattened into the mud at the bottom of the ditch, saved by the hollow of the gully. He sat up and poured water out of his boots. “If this is hunting in Suffolk,” he said, “you can keep it.”

  “Nonsense,” Henrietta said briskly. “You’re having a lovely time.” She helped him up the bank and legged him back on to the blue roan.

  A woman in a bowler hat rode up to us, leading a chestnut horse. “Excuse me,” she said. “Is this one of yours?”

  “No,” Nigella said firmly, wringing ditch water out of the bottom of her apron. “It isn’t,” and then, “Wait a moment,” she said. �
�I believe it is.” It wasn’t the bad-tempered chestnut, it was the chestnut livery.

  “All this isn’t really happening,” said Henrietta grimly, as she took hold of the black horse’s rein as a preliminary to the search for Solly Chell. “It’s just a nightmare. I shall wake up in a minute.”

  I threaded the irons on to the leathers, put them over my shoulders and mounted the chestnut livery. Johnny Jones was a speck in the distance.

  “What about me,” Nigella enquired. “I haven’t got a horse.” Henrietta legged her up behind me on the chestnut livery and we set off along the headland. The black horse progressed across the plough in a series of giant leaps and the chestnut livery cantered at a sedate pace with his double burden. The wind whipped our clothes and slashed our faces with icy rain. “I think this day might turn out to be the worst of my life,” said Nigella.

  Two fields on we came upon Sammy Pike and the bay horse wandering up and down a banked ditch in a dazed manner, looking for a way to cross. Across his cheekbone there was a bloody gash and a rapidly gathering bruise. He told us that he had been galloping behind someone when their horse had thrown up a flint.

  “Well, if you must gallop on someone’s tail,” Henrietta said, “remember to keep your head down.”

  Nigella wondered if the cut should have a stitch but Sammy Pike said no fear.

  “But you’ll have a scar,” Nigella said anxiously.

  “Yeah,” Sammy Pike said, pleased. “I’ve always wanted a scar on me face.”

  “Heavens,” Nigella said in a low voice. “There’s no way of understanding some people.”

  Henrietta was demonstrating to Sammy Pike the correct way to approach the banked ditch. “When it’s dry you have a choice between scrambling down it, or flying it. But when it’s wet there’s no choice, you simply have to fly it. You must approach it at a controlled gallop because you need plenty of impulsion to get up the bank and to take you over the top. If you approach it too slowly, your horse will never make it, and if his back legs slip into the ditch, throw yourself clear so that he doesn’t roll on top of you. Come on, I’ll give you a lead.”

  She trotted the black horse away from the ditch and turned him towards it. “And don’t ride on my tail,” she shouted to Sammy Pike, “because if I don’t make it, you will land on top of me!”

  The black horse galloped at the ditch like the old hand he was, leapt up the bank and flew over the top with his tail and Henrietta’s hair, which had escaped from its coil, streaming out behind them. Sammy Pike, his eyes lit with excitement, urged the bay after them. He had no idea how to control a horse at a gallop with his slack seat and flapping arms, but the bay bounded up the bank and flung itself heroically across the gap, landing with several yards to spare.

  “I hope you realise what a super horse that is,” Henrietta said severely, as she dispatched him in the approximate direction of the hunt.

  Nigella and I and the chestnut livery made our way along the top of the bank until we came to a tractor crossing. We traversed the headland of a vast plough field and breasted a long rise of stubble without any sign of Solly Chell or the bad-tempered chestnut, but when we reached the top of the rise, we saw a small crowd gathered round a horse in the lane below.

  A woman with a child on a leading rein trotted up the rise towards us. “I wouldn’t go any nearer unless you must,” she called. “It’s a broken leg. They’ve sent for the humane killer.” She pointed to a small white van bucketing across the lower stubble towards the lane.

  “Henrietta,” Nigella said in a horrified voice. “The horse in the lane looks like our bay mare!”

  Henrietta’s face stiffened. She lifted her whip hand. The black horse shot forward and flew helter-skelter down the rise. He stretched out his neck and raced the white van towards the knot of people in the lane.

  The chestnut livery, sensing the urgency of the situation, leapt after him. He galloped down the rise as fast as his legs would carry him and Nigella and I clung on grimly, slipping further and further sideways. “Don’t shoot the mare! Don’t shoot her!” Nigella screamed. “She hasn’t broken a leg, she’s just slipped a stifle!”

  With a determined effort of willpower, we managed to stay on the chestnut livery until we saw that Henrietta had arrived in the lane, seconds before the Terrier Man climbed out of the van with the killer in his hands.

  “Don’t you dare shot this mare,” she cried dramatically. “She’s ours!”

  Nigella and I hit the stubble together, still clutching each other like Siamese twins. The onlookers gasped, unused to such goings-on, but the Terrier Man was unimpressed.

  “She ain’t no good to you now, Miss,” he said dismally to Henrietta. “Her leg’s broke.”

  Nigella and I picked ourselves up from the stubble. The bay mare’s hind leg hung uselessly from her hip. When she moved, she hopped on three legs. I had never seen a slipped stifle, but it looked broken to me.

  “You can see for y’self,” the Terrier Man said gloomily. “It’s definitely broke.”

  “Nonsense,” Henrietta said. “Put that gun away. You know you’re not supposed to shoot any animal without a veterinary opinion.”

  “I don’t need a vet to tell me it's leg’s broke,” the Terrier Man said stubbornly.

  Nigella untangled herself from the stirrup leathers and picked up the mud-caked end of her apron. She walked into the lane and without a word, took the bay mare by the reins and began to lead her away. The mare hopped obligingly after her. By the time they had covered a hundred yards, she was already putting the injured leg to the ground, although she was still hopelessly lame.

  “There you are,” Henrietta said in a satisfied voice. “I told you it wasn’t broken.” She turned the black horse and rode off down the lane after Nigella.

  The Terrier Man shrugged his shoulders and plodded morosely back to his van where his charges could be heard yapping and scrabbling in their cages. The crowd of foot-followers began to break up, and I mounted the chestnut livery and followed the Fanes, thinking that I would probably never experience anything like this if I went to work for Felix Hissey, and wondering if I should be glad or sorry.

  When we arrived at the Thunder and Lightning horsebox, we found Johnny Jones and Sammy Pike ensconced cheerfully in the cab with a half-empty bottle of Scotch between them. Far from having had a disastrous day, they had thoroughly enjoyed it and couldn’t wait to come out again. We all accepted a drink, being in need of something to revive us, and got a bit giggly, especially when we opened the back of the box to hospitalise the bay mare, and saw the liveries’ legs had been bandaged so loosely that they had concertina’d round their ankles like schoolboys’ socks. By the time we had rebandaged the horses, Nigella had gone into one of her flat spins and was being eaten up with anxiety over drink and driving and the safety of the horses, whereupon Johnny Jones assured her that it was perfectly all right because Solly Chell did all the driving and he never touched a drop. This only made matters worse because Nigella reminded us that for all we knew, Solly Chell might be lying unconscious, half-drowned in a ditch somewhere, not only that, but we were a horse short, and what did we intend to do about it. Didn’t we realise that it was getting dark, and shouldn’t somebody call the police …

  The situation was finally saved by the sound of hoofbeats on the lane which heralded the arrival of Solly Chell mounted on the bad-tempered chestnut, still bursting with the exhilaration of the chase. He had fallen from his horse when it had veered away from a refuser at a ditch, and he had captured the bad-tempered chestnut as it had trotted by. He had no idea that he had started out on one horse and ended the day on another.

  16

  King in a Pickle

  Nelson and I toiled up the immaculate pea-gravelled drive lined with reproduction street lamps, towards Winter Place. I had tried to telephone Felix Hissey at the factory but I had been unable to speak to him; he was at home, they had said, indisposed.

  I needed to see him because he hadn’
t been out hunting the previous day, and I wouldn’t see him at the Saturday meet because I wasn’t going; there wasn’t a horse for me to ride. In a week we had lost the old-bay-mare, the mare-who-sometimes-slipped-a-stifle was out of action, probably for the rest of the season, and The Comet had been declared unsafe. This left us with only three hunters, and we had Mr McLoughlin to mount. The season had only just begun and already we were short of horses.

  Winter Place was a large, foursquare neo-Georgian house built of red Suffolk brick with a lot of long white-painted windows. It was very smart and very silent. Nelson and I crunched our way round the back and into the stable yard. There were four garages and three loose boxes. I wondered how much I would enjoy working in this tiny, spotless yard, and if I would be lonely. Felix Hissey’s two cobby hunters regarded us with astonishment; they didn’t seem accustomed to visitors at Winter Place.

  I put Nelson in the empty stable and stroked the noses of the cobs. All through my school years, at the training centre, and even at the Fanes, I had worked with people of my own age. I didn’t know solitude and I was bothered by it. I was even more bothered when I met the cross, grey-haired housekeeper, who set her mouth in a grim line and said she would ask if Mr Hissey was prepared to see me.

  I told myself firmly that the bay gelding would make up for all this and I followed the grim housekeeper through a hall lined with hunting prints, into a small room lined with books. Felix Hissey was lying in an armchair with his foot propped up in front of him. It was encased in plaster of Paris from the knee downwards.

  The Pickle King glowered.

  “Oh no,” I said weakly. “You didn’t …”

  “You don’t think, Miss Would-Be-Event-Rider,” he snapped, "that I would contemplate the purchase of a horse I hadn’t ridden?”