The death of his son affected Jack Cobb severely. At first he couldn’t bear to think about it. Then he began to talk to a few persons. With a handful of his intimates he wondered and speculated on where he had gone wrong. Perhaps he shouldn’t have given Stanley the horse in the first place. The feeling of guilt that he entertained seemed to overwhelm him.
Then within a matter of weeks more bad news came: the failure of the Baltimore brokerage firm of Cobb and Stevenson. Overexpansion, a break in the stock market, and general business conditions were responsible. Jack Cobb had made a fortune and lost it. The big house at Cobb’s Mill was on the market, as well as the stables and all the horses except Quicksilver.
Folks were positive he would spring back. Give him time, everyone said, and he’ll be on top again. What they did not know was that since Stan’s death he no longer had any interest in making money. His heart was elsewhere.
Jack Cobb’s last night in the house was a warm summer evening. He sat alone smoking in the big living room, so empty and desolate now, so full of thoughts and memories for him. A house dismantled is a house forlorn. From a room in that house his wife had gone for good; in this same room he and Stanley had their last conversation and conflict before the boy was drafted. Each piece of furniture had been tagged, the bookshelves were empty, the books packed in cardboard boxes labeled for the public library. The portrait of Dusty Miller over the fireplace was gone, leaving a faded oblong upon the wall. The cups and trophies had vanished, the home where Jack Cobb had lived so many years, gutted, the contents given away or made ready for the auction to be held the next day.
He glanced about the room, everything so meaningful to him, so full of memories of the past. Now he felt his life bent in two and was glad to be alone. Suddenly the telephone rang. Slowly and reluctantly he answered. His old friend Truxton Bingham, who lived down the road, wanted to run over.
Jack Cobb heard himself say mechanically, “Do come over, Trux. Be glad to see you.”
Fifteen minutes later he heard the whirr of car wheels on the crushed stone driveway, the sound of brakes, and the slam of the door. Big Truxton bustled into the room, embracing Jack affectionately. He took a quick, sharp glance around the bare, empty room and fell into a chair, the same chair Stan had slumped in when confessing his “separation” from college.
How fast life moves at times, Jack Cobb thought. Several months before he had been a well-to-do broker with a son who was taking honors at college and was the best young rider in Maryland. Now he was nobody.
Jack Cobb and Truxton Bingham were old friends. They had hunted together, raced together, brought up families side by side. They didn’t need to say much, and for a while they sat smoking in silence. Finally Trux put out his cigarette and came to the point of his visit.
“Look, Jack, we’ve been talking things over in the firm, and we all want you to know there’s a spot for you as a limited partner at our shop. That is, of course, if you’d care to come over.”
Jack Cobb was moved by this offer in his time of trouble. Who wouldn’t be? He passed his hand nervously over his forehead, showing his feelings. “I’m touched, Truxton, deeply touched. At a time like this it helps to have your confidence. Please thank the boys for me, but the fact is that for the moment, anyhow, I’m through with business.”
His friend looked up quickly with a puzzled expression on his face. Jack Cobb retiring? He was only fifty-four; what would he live on? The horses and stable were to be auctioned off, but most of the money from the sale would be owed to the firm of Cobb and Stevenson.
“You mean you’re retiring?” Truxton asked tentatively.
Jack managed a smile. “Not exactly. I’ve hardly saved enough from the wreck for that. No, I have a project in mind I haven’t talked to anyone about, but I’d be grateful for your advice since you know the English racing so well. Briefly, Trux, I want to take Quicksilver to the Grand National.”
His friend opened his mouth, then whistled. The mere thought staggered him. Truxton well understood the reasoning, for to win the National with Stan’s horse would be a tribute to the boy. But the idea was impossible. Taking a horse to Aintree without plenty of money can’t be done.
Jack Cobb broke in. “I know what you’re thinking. To win the Maryland Hunt and the Grand National has only been done once before, hasn’t it? Harry Morgan, back in… back in… ’66, wasn’t it?”
“Nope, ’65 I think.”
Cobb waved his hand. “I realize the difficulties, but nevertheless I intend to try. There won’t be much money, because almost everything I own will go into paying the firm’s debts.”
“I quite appreciate that, and I wonder if you’ve considered everything, Jack. You realize you’ll have to train the horse in England too? No matter how good a jumper he is, a horse accustomed to our rails and split fences is seldom much good over those brush and water jumps. I tell you they’re rough.”
“No need to tell me. I’ve seen them.” Jack Cobb knew the whole idea sounded absurd and quixotic to his friend. “Point is, Trux, this was one of Stan’s last wishes. Before the Maryland Hunt he talked about it.”
“Oh, I see,” said his friend. “I see. That does make a difference. Then you’re determined, are you?”
“Absolutely. My idea is to stay the winter with some competent but little-known trainer, a man who runs a small stable and is willing to gamble a bit. In fact, it’s all a gamble. I’d work out there through the winter and hope the trainer can find me a jockey.”
His friend leaned forward. “A grand idea, but the odds are heavily against you, Jack.”
“I realize that.”
“You’ve no idea how the horse will take to English turf or the winter climate.”
“I’m well aware of all you say. But Quicksilver is young, he has power, and if we can find a good rider, if he’s well trained by a real trainer, his chance is as good as anyone’s. The Grand National is a race full of luck.”
“Then more power to you.” A wild idea all right, but the more he thought about it the more it appealed to Truxton Bingham. “O.K., if you’re set on this, I think maybe I know the man for you. He’s a chap a bit over thirty-five, son of a top-class trainer, and he’s starting out for himself with only a few horses. I met him last summer and visited his place on the South Downs. What was the name of that town? Stapleton, Stapleford? Something like that.”
Jack Cobb instantly sat up straight. His face was animated for the first time that evening. “Be a good friend, Trux, write him for me, will you please? He sounds like just the sort of trainer I’m looking for.”
Truxton shook his head. “I’ll call him. That’s far better. My first reaction was against the whole plan, but you’ve convinced me it’s worth a try.”
Then, promising to get in touch with the trainer the next day, he left, waving off Cobb’s thanks.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jack, as soon as I’ve talked to this man. Chester Robinson is his name.” Once again Jack was sitting alone in his dismantled living room.
Four
HE LEFT THE small train at a tiny station surrounded by rose boughs and flowers abloom. The train beep-beeped and moved on. He looked around. Nobody. Then a figure appeared at his elbow, hand extended.
“Good evening, sir. I’m Henderson, the head lad.” That outstretched hand seemed to say, “I’m a good fellow, and so are you. Let’s make the best of things.”
Jack Cobb grasped the hand and reached down for his bags. The groom was quicker and got to them first. He seemed about fifty, spare, lean, with a tough, weather-beaten face and the walk of a person who has spent much of his life on horseback. He wore a well-cut pair of jodhpurs, polished boots, a sports jacket with a shirt and necktie. On his head was an ancient derby with a wide brim, dating back forty years.
“Mr. Chester sends his regrets, sir. ’E has a client this evening to look over a gelding.” And with that he led the way outside to a small parked car. An Austin, it was so tiny and the roof so low that
the head groom had to remove his hat to sit at the wheel. Wedging Jack’s two large bags into the rear seat was equally difficult. The car moved out, and they left the station yard and the village behind. The late afternoon sunshine was pleasant, the air warm and filled with the scents and smells of the countryside.
Although they were not on a main highway, Jack immediately noticed the traffic, a stream of trucks, small cars, and buses all going at about thirty miles an hour in single line. The next thing that attracted his attention were the gently sloping hills down to the sea in the distance. The Downs, so the groom announced. The car soon edged along narrow lanes, past thatch-roofed cottages, brick entrance gates to apparently large estates, and through little villages until at last after twenty minutes they came to a road bordered by high hedges. Turning into a lane only wide enough for one car, they twisted past a small cottage and came to a large, yellow-brick Victorian mansion. At the side was a stable with a dozen box stalls, the horses’ heads protruding from each one. Before the house stood a young, tallish man talking to a couple, quite obviously clients. As the Austin rolled to a stop, the young man disengaged himself and came over to Jack Cobb, who was trying to get out of the car.
“Very nice to see you, sir. Welcome to the Hall. Sorry not to be able to meet you at the station, but these people phoned and came down rather unexpectedly. I shall be at your service shortly. Mrs. Robinson wants you to have a drink and dinner with us this evening. Henderson!”
“Yes, sir.” Cobb could have sworn that the groom clicked to attention.
“Take Mr. Cobb and his bags over to Mrs. Briggs. That’s where you’ll be staying. Wait for him, Henderson, and bring him back here.”
“Right, sir.” They climbed back into the tiny Austin, and Cobb learned that Quicksilver had not arrived, but was due the next day directly from Heathrow Airport in London.
Henderson drew up beside a small brick cottage, half smothered in ivy, jumped from the seat behind the wheel, and, hauling the bags out, knocked on a highly polished brass knocker attached to the door.
“Mrs. Briggs! Mrs. Briggs! The gentleman from Emerica.”
The door opened suddenly, so suddenly that someone could have been standing there and probably had been. A stoutish woman in a spotless white apron that covered her entire frontispiece stood there with a surprised look on her face. “My goodness, Mr. Henderson, you did give me a start. Have you been waiting long?”
She seemed flustered. Evidently expecting a red Indian in war paint, thought Jack Cobb.
“Come right in, sir. Come in, please. This way.” Once inside she turned suddenly on him. “Have you had your tea yet? No? Ah, you won’t be wanting any. Well….” There was a note of regret in her tone as if to suggest that after all what could one expect from people who came from America? “It is a bit hot this afternoon.” She threw open a door. “Now this is your quarters here. Nice and quiet with full morning sun. You’ll be having your meals on that table there. With a private bath.” She threw open a side door disclosing a toilet, a washbasin, and an ancient tin bathtub.
“I do hope this will be satisfactory.” Her tone implied that if the accommodations were not, he was a fussy man, typically American.
As she paused in the flow of words, Jack Cobb intervened. “It’s fine. What’ll be the price of this, Mrs. Briggs?”
She responded quickly and without any hesitation. “Sir, the way prices do be going up, I shall have to charge you fourteen pounds a week. That’s for the room, two meals, plus an extra one-and-six for the morning tea. You’ll be wanting morning tea, I suppose?”
She glanced at him tentatively in a way that made Jack Cobb suspect she was overcharging him. He did a quick sum in his head. The whole thing came to about thirty-seven dollars a week, precisely what he had expected. The place was cheerless, with a grate about as large as a transistor radio, and he would surely be cold in winter. Still, there was no choice. He did not care to bargain, and he nodded.
She seemed relieved. “No doubt, sir, since you have a horse at the Hall, you’ll ride out with Mr. Henderson each morning. What time will you be having your morning tea?”
At this point the head lad, who had been hovering in the rear, spoke up. “We try to push off for the first ride at seven thirty, sir, seven thirty sharp, that is. Better say a half after six, Mrs. Briggs. That’ll give him plenty of time for dressing. He’ll need his tea when we get that chilly winter wind off the sea.”
Mrs. Briggs returned to the attack. “Daresay you’ll ride and have your breakfast with the lads at the Hall afterward?”
Both men assented, and Henderson suggested that Jack join them on the first ride tomorrow even though Quicksilver had not arrived yet. Then he waited while Jack changed his clothes for dinner.
Later that evening, after an excellent meal with the hospitable Robinsons, Jack sat down in his quarters to go over his finances for about the tenth time within the fortnight. The room and meals would come to about a hundred and fifty a month. The cost of training Quicksilver was about the same per week, making a total of seven hundred and fifty dollars a month. Obviously things were precarious. His slender budget would not last more than six or seven months. The horse would simply have to win that year for his own survival. The odds, as Truxton Bingham had remarked that last, lonely evening in Jack’s living room, were heavily against him.
When Mrs. Briggs knocked on the door the next morning with a lukewarm, muddy drink in a cup, he hastily swallowed it, dressed, and set out for the Hall. “The lanes are difficult the first time if you’re not watchful, sir. First left, then by the thatched cottage. That’ll be the Widow Stanleigh. Take the second right, you’ll have a view of the water. Next right, and straight ahead for the Hall.”
Unfortunately, Mrs. Briggs’s directions were confusing, and he soon became lost. A man going past on a bicycle set him straight after he had mucked around for twenty minutes. At last came the view of the Channel, distant and misty through the trees in the morning sun. In a minute he made out the big yellow brick house. He strode on quickly, glanced at his watch, and discovered with some dismay that he was a few minutes late.
There, as he came around to the stables, stood the head lad in clean but worn jodhpurs, a sports coat with a necktie on, plus a cap instead of his derby. The horses were milling around, being mounted by the stable lads.
“Good morning, Mr. Cobb,” said the head lad. “You’re ten minutes late, sir. Now then, kindly mount that gray mare over there by the stable wall.”
Confused, and a bit irritated by the groom’s rebuke, Jack Cobb walked over, patted the horse’s flank, shoved his left foot into the stirrups, and, helped by a stable lad who was holding the animal, got into the saddle. At the far end of the yard the horses were already walking around impatiently in single file. Cobb settled into the saddle, took the reins, clicked with his teeth, gave a sharp kick, and yanked the mare to the right.
Perhaps that tug on the bit and the sudden kick by a stranger were too much. Whatever the reason, the next minute he was on the ground, rolling over on the grass-covered cobblestones. His wind was completely knocked out. He could hardly breathe, and his right shoulder pained him acutely. Through the pain he could distinguish the subdued murmur of the stable lads. All heads were turned on him.
Furious with himself, with the lads, with the head groom, he stumbled to his feet, went up to the horse, put his foot in the iron, seized the reins, and, still panting from pain and annoyance, pulled himself into the saddle. As he fell into line and the procession moved toward the sea, the titters up ahead were audible.
Five
THE STABLEBOYS, OR “the lads,” as they were called around the Hall, greatly interested Jack Cobb. There were sixteen or seventeen of them, including the traveling head lad, who was in charge of the horses when they went off by motor horse box to race meetings. Each lad was responsible for two horses, riding out first one and then the other as they were exercised every morning on the Downs. The lads worked hard, starting at
six thirty in the morning and ending perhaps at seven thirty in the evening. In between there was a long afternoon break, except when they went away to a distant race meeting.
Several girls were included in the group. They wore pants and windbreakers like the boys and had the same weather-beaten, horsey look. Every bit as effective and diligent as the boys, they were chiefly distinguishable by the fact that in bad weather they wore scarves tied around their heads.
Everyone at the Hall was friendly and cooperative, save one person. He was George Atherton, the contract jockey attached to the stable. When he met Cobb, he merely grunted and turned away. Chester Robinson explained that he had a bad ulcer. “It acts up on him sometimes, and one has to make allowances.” This Cobb was quite willing to do.
Unlike some trainers, Chester Robinson owned several motor horse boxes for taking horses to race meetings. However, to meet Quicksilver at Heathrow, he had arranged with the Lambourn Horse Box Company to collect him. This company cleared him through customs for travel in the United Kingdom. It was late morning when Quicksilver arrived at the Hall, and a cluster of lads, including Robinson and the head lad, gathered to see the horse that had won the Maryland Hunt Cup and now hoped to run in the Grand National.
The box driver unlocked the door and let down the ramp. Inside was Quicksilver, trembling. He looked as though he had not traveled well, and Robinson and the head lad could not persuade him down for several minutes.
“He’ll want water first off,” said Chester, addressing a lad named Ginger with red hair, who was assigned to Jack Cobb. “Likely he’s somewhat upset by the journey.”
Quickly Ginger brought Quicksilver a pail of rainwater, which was the only kind the horses were permitted to drink at the Hall. After several minutes of walking him around, and some quiet affectionate words in a low tone from Cobb, the trembling ceased. Jack then led him to the stall prepared for him.
The trainer, on looking him over, suggested that they let him rest for the first day. “I can see the journey has worried him. In the morning he can go out with the first lot and have a couple of canters. We must go slow with him until he finds his legs and gets used to us. Basically, he seems to me to be in good shape. That’s a grand horse you have there, Mr. Cobb. No doubt about it.”
Grand National Page 2
