He went with them to the buffet, and even asked the butler, who looked more like a bishop, to take special care of them.
The butler carved beef paper-thin and delicate rolls of ham, and helped them to pile their plates with chicken, salad, pastry shells filled with creamy shrimp, something in aspic, pickles, olives. He invited them to come back for more, and when he had turned away to open bottles, Steve managed to sneak a plate of food and two glasses of champagne out to the far corner of the terrace, so that Slugger and Ron could reach up for them later.
Chapter 24
AFTER THE ICE cream and little coloured cakes, Mr Wheeler stood at the top step of the portico, leaning on his stick, and made a short speech about the Moonlight Steeplechase.
‘I stole the idea,’ he said, ‘from those famous Cavalry officers of some hundred and fifty years ago, who were sitting round after dinner one night, drinking brandy and wondering what kind of lunacy they could think up to pass the time.
‘They all had good horses in the stables, and as the moon was bright, they set out to race each other across country for the tall church steeple which stood up miles away in the moonlight. Using a steeple for a landmark gave us the name Steeplechase, as you know.’
He beamed down on his audience, who nodded and murmured, whether they knew or not, to show that they did. The Master of Foxhounds said, ‘Jolly good luck to ’em,’ and Mr Nicholson belched a champagne bubble and said, ‘Hear, hear.’
‘With white nightshirts over their Mess uniforms, and white nightcaps over the brandy fumes in their heads, they rode straight and reckless, taking everything in their path, over, under or through. Tonight, we have the more civilised course over my land, but the young riders will take it just as hard and straight and courageously as those first Midnight Steeplechasers.’
‘For a hundred pounds, who wouldn’t?’ muttered Mrs Nicholson, the same shape all the way down from her square shoulders to her hips in a dress like a sack. She looked at Steve and Dora. ‘I know you, don’t I?’ and turned away, not caring whether she did or not.
Mr Wheeler was announcing that since the young riders were the most important guests tonight, he would introduce them all to the rest of ‘this brilliant company’.
He called out the names, and they stood up in their colours, Callie blushing furiously, caught with a piece of cake in her mouth. ‘Cathleen Sheppard on Barnacle Bill.’
Dora cheered, and Mrs Nicholson turned round and gave her a look.
‘Betty Hatch riding My Pal’ – applause. ‘John Deacon,’ the tall boy with the glasses (‘How old is he?’ from Mrs Nicholson), ‘riding Challenger’ – applause. ‘Linda Murphy with Lassie’ – applause, loud from her own family. ‘Chip Nicholson riding Strawberry Sunday’ – applause, and a whistle from her father, made socially bold by champagne.
Chip stood up unsmiling, disowning him, chunky and workmanlike in good boots and white breeches and a red and white striped racing shirt.
‘John So-and-so on Geronimo. Joan This-and-that on Black Velvet … Jim Bunker…Where are you, Jim?’
A slight figure idled across the grass, pale-faced under the flares, swishing a thistle with his whip, flop of hair over his narrow forehead.
‘Just in time. Good boy. Jim Bunker, everybody, just in time.’
‘My mother got her zip fastener stuck,’ Jim said unconcernedly.
Laughter.
Poor Mrs Bunker, arriving so flustered and late in her red dress with the sequin top, the laughter met her as she came up the steps, Mr Bunker close behind, as if to stop her from turning tail and running.
But Mr Wheeler, who was terribly nice to everybody, came down from the portico and greeted them warmly, and took them to get food and wine. She must have broken the zip. The back of her dress was sewn up with big stitches, perhaps by her husband. Poor Mrs Bunker. Her night of glory.
But there was still Grey Lady.
All the ponies were to parade in a circle of turf marked off below the terrace. Steve got the grey pony out of the horse box, while Slugger put Dora’s saddle on Barney.
Jim ran up, carrying his saddle, dropped it on the ground, and flung his arms round Maggie’s neck.
‘Don’t make a fuss,’ Steve told him. ‘We don’t want the Nicholsons to know she’s here till the last minute.’
He saddled her up behind the box, while Slugger took Barney and walked round with the other grooms and stable girls and big sisters and mothers of the riders. Barney looked his best: mane neatly plaited, tail plaited at the top because there had been no time to pull it; heels and head and ears trimmed; white star and hind socks washed and rubbed with chalk, gleaming in the moonlight. Slugger plodded with his head down, because that was the way he always walked, but he wore a grin of pride.
Callie stood in the middle with the other riders, riding cap jammed down tight, biting her lip, arms folded over the blue and gold silks.
‘I wish the Colonel could see them.’ Dora nudged Steve.
You could tell which family owned which pony, they each watched their own. Only the Nicholsons were shrewdly assessing the field.
There were twenty-eight of them. The roan had not come in yet, and Ron had been told to bring Grey Lady in last. He passed behind Steve and Dora with his mouth full and a glass in his hand.
‘Where’s Maggie?’
‘Tied to the back of the box for a moment while I got the supper you left me.’ He wiped a hand across his lips. ‘Ta.’
‘Bring her in now.’
Strawberry Sunday had joined the parade, with Ron’s lanky friend leading her. Then Ron brought in Grey Lady, on her toes, jogging, reaching at the bit like a little race horse.
Dora and Steve watched the Nicholsons. If they were shocked, they did not show it. They stared at the grey as they stared at the other ponies, with a dealer’s eye, shrewd, calculating, not giving away admiration or contempt.
The television MFH, who was in charge of the race, gave the order to mount. The riders joined their ponies among the trees at the edge of the floodlit strip of grass that swept down to the first jump.
Dora, more nervous than Callie, gave her last minute instructions to which she did not listen. ‘Don’t push him at the start. Take the bank turn wide, give him room to stand back. Remember there’s a ditch on the other side of the cut-and-laid. Watch that little chestnut – he kicks.’
Chip was up on the roan, point-to-point saddle, stirrups very short, rubber racing reins.
‘Is that the same bay pony?’ Under the pulled-down peak of her cap, her face was deadpan, like her parents. The jeer was in her voice.
‘Looks a lot better, doesn’t he?’ Callie said, naïve and friendly, but Chip had moved on.
Dora saw Jim go over to Grey Lady among the people and ponies by the trees. There was a flurry of excitement. Someone shouted. She ran, and pushed through the crowd. Grey Lady’s saddle had slipped round, and Jim was lying on the ground, whimpering and holding his wrist.
‘Who did up the girth?’
‘Don’t look at me.’ Ron, with his headband and his Peace symbol, was holding the nervous grey pony.
‘I did. I know it was tight.’ Steve was kneeling by the boy on the ground, but was pushed aside by a sobbing woman in a spangly red dress who flung herself on her son.
‘My boy, my boy! I knew something like this would happen.’
Although the whole thing had been her idea: buying the pony, teaching Jim to ride, entering the Steeplechase.
‘It’s all right, Mum.’ Jim stopped whimpering and sat up.
‘He put out his hand as he fell,’ Steve said. ‘The wrist is either broken or badly sprained. There’s a doctor here. Someone’s gone to fetch him.’
‘It’s all your fault,’ Mrs Bunker said hysterically, on her knees in the tight dress, trying to get her arms round Jim, who was trying to keep her away from his hurt wrist. ‘Who asked you to bring the pony here?’
This was so fantastically unfair that Steve did not answer. He g
ot up, took Grey Lady from Ron, and went with Dora out of the crowd, as the doctor came to Jim.
‘I know that girth was tight, Dora.’
‘Ron left Maggie to get his supper.’
‘And his pal was late bringing the roan in.’
‘Because he was loosening the girth?’
‘By God,’ Steve said bitterly. ‘By God, I hate to see them get away with it. This pony could have won.’
He hunched his shoulders, looped Maggie’s reins over his arm, and slouched towards the horse box, swinging Jim’s riding cap by the elastic.
News of the accident had spread among the riders, who were collecting for the start. Callie trotted back, her eyes dark with anxiety in a white face.
‘They said it’s Jim.’
Dora nodded. ‘He’s all right. But he can’t ride the pony.’
‘Oh, poor Maggie.’ Callie thought of horses first. ‘Poor Jim – oh, Dora, the prize money – poor Amigo!’
‘Listen, Callie.’ It all came into Dora’s head at once, just as if it was written down in a book and she was reading it. ‘Grey Lady can win. You ride her, Jim can pretend he’s given her to you before they take him to hospital. Mr Wheeler won’t mind, because of the accident.’
‘But you wanted me so much to ride Barney.’
‘That doesn’t matter now. Winning matters.’
‘I can’t. Maggie’s too fast. I can’t ride to win.’
‘You can. You must. Think of Amigo, Callie, we can’t let the Nicholsons get away with this.’
‘They did it?’
‘I think so. Are you going to let them win?’
‘Steve!’ Callie shouted, her voice shrill with excitement. ‘Bring Maggie back!’
Chapter 25
‘A BAD START,’ the television personality called out in his voice that was familiar in the homes of almost everyone there. ‘But it’s going to be a good race. The moon is up. The ponies are fit. The riders are shaken, but not unstrung.’ Only one girl, who was a mass of nerves anyway, had got off after what happened to Jim, and refused to get back on. ‘Five minutes, everybody, to get settled down again. Five minutes till line up.’
Callie was on Grey Lady. ‘Jog her round,’ Steve said. ‘Get the feel of her.’
‘I know her.’ Callie gathered up her reins, confident now and not afraid. ‘Sorry, Barnacle. He would have liked to run, Dora.’
‘He’s going to.’ Once more the book of ideas was open in her mind. ‘Hold him a minute, Steve.’
She ran to the horse box, pulled on her jeans, stuffed the short yellow dress into them, kicked off her sandals and trod into her old shoes. Steve was still holding Jim’s riding cap. Dora grabbed it and shoved it on her small head, tipping it down over her face.
‘Who’s that child in the yellow shirt?’ someone asked as she joined the others, letting down her stirrups as she went. Dora did not hear the answer. But they thought she was a child. All right, Barney. You shall have your race.
The television star was holding up a flag, while he tried to get the twenty-nine ponies into some sort of line.
‘Back the brown pony, bring up the little chestnut, come on, that boy in the green shirt. Look out, no barging. Yellow girl on the bay, get on the end there. All right, all right, everybody—’
At the end of the line of stamping, jostling ponies, Barney was wildly excited. His days of lawlessness came back to him. He trampled, grabbing at the bit. Dora shortened her reins. He reared up slightly, pulling, and just when she thought she could not hold him, the flag came down and he plunged forward in the galloping surge of ponies.
Whatever instructions had been given to anybody not to go flat out at the start of the race were forgotten, or impossible to obey. Big ones, small ones, Welsh, New Forest, cobby ones, they all went full tilt down the floodlit stretch of the park, and by some miracle were over the strong brush jump and pounding towards the post and rails.
Someone refused and swerved into someone else, who swore like a grown-up – Sir Arthur’s youngest. Dora had to pull Barney sideways. He got too close to the rails and had to cat jump, landing short and losing ground. Dora gathered him together and he settled down to gallop his own steady pace in the middle of the field. Grey Lady and Strawberry Sunday had pulled out ahead. Some of the smaller ponies were already falling behind.
Wide at the turn into the bank, Dora had told Callie, and she told it to herself now as they came to the corner of the copse where the lights of the parked cars illuminated the grey and the roan with haloes for a moment as they reached the top of the bank together, and dropped down with a switch of their tails.
To get up the steep bank, you had to take off from the stony road, not put in a stride on the grass. Dora swung into the light, saw people standing by the cars, a man on the roof with a film camera – one stride into the road, and then she gave Barney a kick that propelled him from his strong quarters to the top of the wide bank. He changed legs and jumped out into the drop, wide and safe.
Beside him, a pony stumbled and fell. Its rider pitched forward, and one of the people scrambled up the bank with a shout. Don’t look back. Never mind the others. It was a dangerous race, but even if they all fell, Dora and Barney must keep going, their own line and their own pace. That was how she had planned it with Callie.
As each jump came up – the cut-and-laid, the narrow brush, the hedge with the guard rail, the little ditch – Dora only had time to see that Callie was over, and then it was she and Barney. He took off too soon at the cut-and-laid, dropping a leg in the ditch. He was bumped at the brush, stirrups clashing, by the tall boy, who turned his head and shouted at Dora, although it was his fault, glasses spattered with mud. He stood back beautifully from the guard rail, clearing the hedge by miles. He tried to stop at the dry ditch, because the moonlight looked like water in it, which he hated, but Dora forced him over by strength of will as well as legs, and he jumped straight into the air, much too high, and landed stiff-legged, with Dora hanging on to his mane, because she knew he would jump it like that.
Several ponies seemed to have dropped out, or else they were far behind. Dora was in a middle bunch, Grey Lady and the roan and about half a dozen others were ahead. Jumping well, Barney gained ground at the fences, but lost it in the fields between. But the pace was fast, and the others were slowing too. Dora passed the Hatch girl, floundering across a ridge and furrow, and someone else on a long-tailed black, who ran out at the low wall. Barney was still going steadily, but he was tired. Anything might happen at Beecher’s Brook.
It was the last fence but two of the Steeplechase course. It came after the final turn towards the home stretch, a stream with sticky banks, which ran across a corner of the park, in view of the spectators at the top of the slope.
After the brook, there was a hurdle jump, then a low rail between two trees, nothing much. But Broadlands’ Beecher’s Brook had floored many ponies who were galloping home to win, and Dora, as she cantered across stubble, hopped a double rail into the park and saw the water gleaming, thought that it would floor her too.
Callie and Chip were still yards ahead of anyone else. Grey Lady did not mind water, and if the roan jumped badly here, as most ponies would, Callie could pull ahead and Chip might not catch her.
Headlights of cars gilded the surface of the running brook. Grey Lady went fast at it, and almost stumbled in the soft footing. Callie checked her for the take off, and she was in the air when the roan came sideways into her and they fell together on the other side, floundering in the marshy ground.
Dora saw Grey Lady struggle up. She must get to Callie. Barney stopped in a bunch of ponies, trampling the sticky ground suspiciously. Barney, you must! Dora held tight for the enormous jump that he would make over the hated water, and almost fell off when he suddenly dropped his head, and charged through the water into the mud on the other side. The dreaded brook was only a few inches deep here, and he was clever enough to know it.
And there was Callie standing up, hatless,
filthy, waving to show she was all right, waving Dora on, as the other ponies splashed and floundered over the brook behind her.
Someone was alongside her at the hurdles, and hit them with a rattle. She was alone over the low rail. Barney pecked, recovered, and plodded into the floodlights, to pass the white post at the top of the slope in barely a canter between the cheering, whistling crowd.
Barney stopped of his own accord. A riderless pony crashed into him, and the rest of them pulled up in a tangle.
Slugger was running bandy-legged, his mouth open in a shout. ‘Barney!’ Crumpled newspaper flew out as he tore off his cap to wave it.
‘Dora!’ Steve jumped down from the balustrade of the terrace, and as Dora dropped off Barney, he flung his arms round her in a hug that nearly broke her ribs.
‘You won.’ He held her off and grinned at her before he turned and ran down the slope to Callie.
Chapter 26
A LOT OF people were running. Callie was walking forward with Grey Lady. Chip was sitting on the muddy bank, and Strawberry Sunday stood with her head low, one foreleg dangling.
‘My God, it’s broken!’ someone called, and Dora saw the Nicholsons’ lanky boy, Ron’s friend, throw down a cigarette and run towards the brook.
She left Barney in the crowd and broke away from the congratulations and the flashbulbs, and walked to where he had dropped the cigarette. It was still smouldering. Dora trod it out, then bent and picked it up, looked at the white filter, and put it in her pocket.
‘Who is it? Who won?’
Mr Wheeler, field glasses round his neck, limped down from the terrace steps.
‘Run down to the brook,’ he told a boy, ‘and tell me what’s happened there.’
The crowd separated. As Mr Wheeler reached out to shake her hand, Dora took off her cap and shook out her short hair.
‘Dora?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m too old to be in the race, but I didn’t mean to win.’
‘It was a great race anyway,’ Mr Wheeler began, but parents and riders were clamouring at him with protest and argument.
Dora at Follyfoot Page 11
