Gay Cavalier

by Alex Stuart

  "Look, Deirdre, we'll say I have a 'thing' about that mare, if you like. A sort of instinct. And I'm not the only one. Your head man's not happy about her either."

  "Paddy?" Deirdre exclaimed. It was true that Paddy had expressed doubts concerning Marigold, but she was astonished and a little hurt to learn that he had expressed them to Alan Carmichael. That smacked of disloyalty. "Did Paddy say anything to you about her?"

  Alan shook his head and again cursed himself for his clumsiness. "Not to me but to my groom. I gather they've been getting together lately—your Paddy's been advising us about treatment for a show jumper I'm looking after. He told Oxbarrow that he didn't think you ought to go on riding Marigold. In fact, from what Oxbarrow said, I got the idea that Paddy wanted to rough her off for the rest of the season. It never occurred to me that you'd race her, Deirdre."

  "Oh," said Deirdre flatly, "I wish Paddy had told me. He didn't."

  "He told Sean."

  Deirdre flushed. Sean hadn't mentioned it. And Paddy, knowing that she felt responsible for Marigold, had probably deemed it wiser not to approach her direct. He had implicit faith in Sean's knowledge and judgment. Only, in this case, Sean must have decided that Paddy was wrong, because surely, if he'd had any doubts at all, he would have told her? And he'd said nothing, except—yes, he had told her that he intended to watch Marigold carefully in the trial this afternoon. Only now he wouldn't be here to watch the trial…

  Deirdre drew herself up. The decision about Marigold was hers. She was running the Stud. It was she who had to ride the mare. And there were two schools of thought about the way to deal most effectively with loss of nerve, in horse or rider, following a crash. To make the wrong decision, in Marigold's case, was to ruin her, and Marigold was valuable, besides being the apple of Dennis Sheridan's eye. Whilst she hesitated, Dwight lost patience and called out peremptorily: "Say, Deirdre, Dan and I are going on over to the yard. The horses are ready. You coming?"

  "I—" She noticed him then, turned to look at him.

  "Yes, Dwight, of course. You go on, I'm just coming."

  "If you're just coming," Dwight returned, "then I'll wait for you." He held his ground, jaw jutting ominously, and Deirdre, guiltily aware that she had shown him scant courtesy, excused herself to Alan.

  "I'll have to go, I'm awfully sorry." There was a catch in her voice and she was wretchedly unhappy. Something had gone wrong between Alan and herself, something that a word could put right, if only she could find the word. But he was looking at her as if she were a stranger, almost as if they had quarrelled, and she knew that she had offended him. He said distantly:

  "I'll have to go soon myself or the Agricultural Advisory Officer will beat me to it. Thank you, Deirdre, for lunch. And"—he extended his hand—"if you should hear from Sean, let me know, won't you?"

  "Yes, I—will." The touch of his hand set her pulses racing and the blood rushing to her cheeks. "Oh, Alan, I —that is—"

  His hand tightened about hers and suddenly he wasn't a stranger any more, he was smiling down at her and again there was that soft light in his eyes that said more than any words.

  "Deirdre, we can't leave things as they are."

  "No," she admitted, biting her lower lip in a vain attempt to still its trembling, "no. But—"

  He released her hand. "If you can possibly get out of your engagement this evening, I do very much want to see you. Give me a ring, in any case. And please—reconsider my offer of Moonbeam for that race. Will you?"

  She nodded, hoping that Dwight was out of earshot. With Alan a pace behind her, she went to join him at the door and introduced them to each other.

  "How do you do, sir?" Dwight acknowledged the introduction with exaggerated respect, snapping to attention and punctiliously "sirring" Alan in a manner deliberately calculated to suggest a vast gulf of rank and years between them.

  Dwight was angry. The significance of the tête-à-tête he had witnessed had not escaped him. He recalled, jealously, the fact that Deirdre had danced with this tall, stiff Britisher several times the previous evening. And now he was here, having evidently lunched with her: worse, if his ears had not deceived him, Colonel Almighty Carmichael was trying to persuade Deirdre to break her date with him tonight. Which, the young pilot told himself pugnaciously, she could do—but only over his dead body.

  Up till that moment, Dwight had regarded Deirdre as his own exclusive property: she was his girl, who attracted and enchanted him and about whom he was, happily and light-heartedly, and in his own parlance, "crazy." He had had girls before but until now hadn't seriously considered marrying any of them. He hadn't thought about marriage, which was one of those things, at his age, that a guy didn't really want to think about. But, looking from Deirdre's flushed face to Alan Carmichael's lean, determined one, he decided, then and there, that he was going to marry Deirdre. She was sweet, she was lovely and she was fun to go about with. He admired her prowess on a horse and her courage. Furthermore, she was his and he would brook no rival.

  He took her arm possessively. "Hey, Deirdre, let's go huh? It'll be dark before we start. And I've fixed a swell place for us to have dinner this evening. Out along the Melford road, kind of a roadhouse, where they've got a dance band and a crooner. Some of the guys from the squadron were over and they said it was fun. You'd like that, wouldn't you? And if we didn't want to go to the movies after all, well, we shouldn't have to—we could dance instead."

  Deirdre couldn't see Alan's face but she heard his swiftly indrawn breath. Dwight flashed him a triumphant glance.

  "You know the place, Colonel? It's called the Chinese Lantern or some screwy name like that. Isn't anything Chinese about it, though. But maybe you don't do an awful lot of dancing?"

  "No," Alan agreed, "I don't." He felt positively grey-haired.

  They reached his car and he jerked the door open. His hand wasn't steady but he controlled it. Fool, he told himself, fool! Why should she tell you who she was going out with, why should it occur to her to tell you? And why, in the name of all that was wonderful, imagine that she would want to break her engagement to go dancing with young Nelson, at a roadhouse you'd never heard of and wouldn't have taken her to if you had? Simply in order that you should take her out, to some dull place like the George, and tell her, in stiff, stumbling words—at intervals of lecturing her about her horses—that you loved her? Why?

  And yet he had imagined it. He'd been so sure she would that he'd been rehearsing what he would say to her, planning what form his proposal should take…

  Alan bade them both farewell, suffered Dwight to close the car door on him and watched them walk off together towards the yard—where their horses were being led out in readiness for them—before he remembered that Deirdre had told him she was going to ride Marigold. And he knew that if fifty Agricultural Advisory Officers had to be left cooling their heels in his cowshed, he couldn't leave here until he'd seen the trial.

  He started his engine and swung the car in a tight circle, to bring it round facing the paddock. The practice fences —a miniature jumping course—had been set up on the far side. To reach them, the riders would cross the paddock, but he himself, in his car, would have to go round via the back drive. It would take him three or four minutes, perhaps, but it would be quicker—and less obvious—than if he were to cross the paddock on foot.

  By the time Alan had parked his car close to the screen of trees which bordered the drive, Dan Haines and Fergus O'Ryan were cantering across the paddock towards him. Both sat their horses with the graceful, easy competence of professionals. By contrast, Dwight, a few yards behind them, looked awkward and ill at ease and very obviously inexperienced. He was riding a big, leggy bay, with three white socks, which he seemed to have some difficulty in holding.

  There was no sign of Deirdre, and Alan found himself hoping that, because of what he had said, she had decided to forego the gallop. But his hopes were shattered when he saw her hurrying after the others on the showy, unmistakable lit
tle chestnut that he so mistrusted. He watched her with anxious, narrowed eyes. Like the men, she was wearing a turtle-necked sweater, with breeches and boots, but hers was yellow and it stood out vividly against the green of the grass as she arched her slim body over Marigold's neck, talking to the mare as she eased her up in order to close the paddock gate behind her.

  Fergus O'Ryan called out something to her and Alan saw her nod in response. Marigold was playing up but Deirdre handled the mare beautifully, closing the gate with a quick, practised jerk of her right hand, so that it fell into place with a little click. But for some reason the catch failed to hold, and the gate swung back, catching Marigold a glancing blow on the nose.

  Full on the nose… the mare had made no attempt to avoid the blow, she hadn't lifted her head when she saw the gate swinging towards her. It was as if she hadn't seen it. Alan tensed… and leapt from the car.

  From behind him, a voice breathed suddenly: "Holy Saints preserve us, did you see that, Colonel?" and he turned to find himself looking into Paddy's startled eyes.

  "Yes," he answered grimly, "I did. We'll have to stop her, Paddy. Yell, man, yell!"

  They both shouted at the pitch of their lungs as they ran but they were too far away. They had covered less than a dozen yards when Paddy said, his voice agonized: "They've started. We'll never stop them now, sorr."

  Alan ran on despairingly, his eyes fixed on the distant gleam of a yellow sweater.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Alan came to a standstill by the paddock fence and here Paddy, breathing hard, caught up with him.

  " 'Twill be all right, sorr, if Miss Deirdre doesn't take the lead. The mare will follow the others."

  "You think so?" Alan's voice wasn't steady.

  "I do, sorr, for she's not totally blind, I'd swear to that. As heaven's my witness, Colonel, I'd no idea, not till I saw that gate hit her, so I had not. Sure, I'd the vet to her the day before yesterday."

  "And he didn't suspect anything was wrong with her sight either?"

  Miserably, Paddy shook his head. "He did not, sorr. None of us did. I'd a notion there was something wrong but I couldn't tell what. And the mare couldn't tell us."

  Alan didn't reproach him. Blindness in horses, he knew, could arise from much the same causes as blindness in human beings, could be as gradual and as insidious. Marigold's might be of very recent origin and probably was: but now she was a danger to herself and to anyone who rode her. And Deirdre—Deirdre was riding her… In a moment they would come into view and he would know the worst, would know if his guess and Paddy's had been the right one. He strained his eyes for a glimpse of the yellow sweater. Paddy saw them first. He said thankfully: "They're coming now, sorr. And 'tis Lieutenant Nelson in the lead—Marigold's behind him."

  "Thank God," Alan managed, "oh, thank God!"

  As the four horses thundered towards the first fence, Dwight Nelson was conscious of a sense of wild, heady elation. The blood sang in his ears—sang a song as primitive as his own emotions—and his heart pounded in time with the beat of his horse's flying hooves.

  This was intoxicating, it was a challenge. It had flying beat every time. He had been warned to keep well behind the others, to let Deirdre take the lead the first time round, with Dan and Fergus tucked in a length or so to the rear, ready for Fergus to make his run on Petitioner at their second circuit. But he forgot his instructions in his excitement. He'd show them, he told himself exultantly, the little boy, the despised amateur, would show them. Yes, sir! The heck with letting a girl take the lead…

  Gay Cavalier was a seven-year-old, with several winning races to his credit, and when he felt his rider's heels touch his sides he responded eagerly, like the good horse he was. They flew the first fence ahead of Deirdre on Marigold, and Dwight ignored her cry of: "Dwight—steady! You're going much too fast!"

  Marigold rose to the fence, her nose almost touching Cavalier' flanks as the bay horse, unchecked by his excited rider, swung across her, and she pecked badly on landing, so that Deirdre was forced to drop back. But the mare recovered herself and raced on, with Dan Haines on Martin's Luck close beside her.

  Fergus, on the outside, continued imperturbably. He was on a magnificent jumper and he was used to being hustled by young know-it-alls at the first couple of fences. He merely registered the fact that, when he came to make his run, it would be advisable to give the American a wide berth—if he was still in the saddle when they approached the fences for the second time. It didn't look as if he would be, the way he was going now…

  Dwight, all unaware of the consternation he had caused, galloped on, glorying in the smooth power of the horse he rode and in the effortless ease with which Gay Cavalier forged ahead.

  At his heels came Marigold, jumping faultlessly now because the big bay horse, which was her stable companion, was there to guide her and she didn't have to peer uncertainly for the obstacles which instinct told her lay in her path but which, due to the impairment of vision no one had suspected, appeared to her as a misty blur, impossible to negotiate. For much of the time Marigold saw quite normally, and even now she could see the dark bulk of Cavalier's hindquarters looming up in front of her, reassuringly solid, and she followed gallantly on, obedient to the gentle pressure of Deirdre's hands on her neck.

  But Deirdre, to whom the accident with the gate had suggested no more than that her mount was excited, now sensed that something was wrong. Marigold had never jumped better in her life and yet, for some reason she could not have explained, Deirdre knew that all was not well with the little mare. She decided to pull up. It wouldn't matter, since Dwight was twenty yards ahead, making all the pace anyone could possibly want, and Fergus and Dan were well over to her right, still going very easily. To go on and risk Marigold was unthinkable and—whilst her fears might be unjustified—it was better, for the mare's sake, to be sure than sorry.

  "Steady, Marigold—easy, girl!"

  At the sound of her voice, Marigold's ears pricked and, obediently, she started to ease up, just as Dwight, reaching the next fence, turned his head to fling Deirdre a triumphant grin.

  He saw her halt and, without thinking what he was doing, made to pull up too. But he was going a great deal too fast. Gay Cavalier wasn't collected, he'd been given his head until that moment and the sudden, unexpected tug on his reins put him off his stride. He faltered and, receiving no guidance from his rider, got in too close to the fence before he took off, so that, in order to clear it, he had to check and jump it at an angle.

  A more experienced rider than Dwight might have avoided disaster and would certainly have remembered the horses behind him, but Dwight, intent only on keeping his seat, snatched awkwardly at the reins for support and Gay Cavalier, in mid-air, found his head jerked sideways and up. He landed on his knees, staggered a few paces and then got up, with Dwight clinging desperately with both hands to the saddle. He slid from it into soft mud an instant later, landing awkwardly on his right shoulder, just as Fergus O'Ryan came sailing over behind him. Petitioner leapt sideways to avoid his prostrate body and collided violently with the riderless Cavalier. Both horses came down heavily and rolled over, in a melee of waving legs, with Fergus somewhere beneath them.

  The horses picked themselves up, to canter off uninjured, their reins trailing. But Fergus lay still and silent where he had fallen, and Dwight bit back a sob as he dragged himself painfully over to the jockey's side. "Fergus—hey, Fergus, are you all right? Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, I never meant—speak to me, Fergus, like a good guy speak to me!"

  Fergus opened his eyes to squint up at him in dazed bewilderment. Then he spat disgustedly. "Speak to you? Sure, I'll speak to you—I've plenty to say. And for a start I'll tell you that you should never have been let out of the mad-house they keep you in, so you should not! Why, you crazy, half-baked young imbecile, you're not fit to be trusted on a horse! Did you think you were in your flying machine then? Ach, you're needing your head examined, you…"

  He went on for some time, s
eldom repeating himself, and Dwight listened without a word of protest. This was the second time, during his short acquaintance with the Sheridan Stud, that he had heard an Irishman lose his temper, but, aware that he had deserved Fergus's ire, he didn't argue. To hear him speak at all, to know he was alive, was all that mattered to Dwight at that moment…

  "I'm sorry," he said at last, "I'm darned sorry. I guess I must have been crazy, I—"

  As suddenly as it had flared up, Fergus's rage abated.

  "Ach, forget it, boy, and give me your hand. Sure, there's no great harm done, after all. Let's get along and see to the horses, shall we? You—" His eyes narrowed, as Dwight helped him to his feet. "Sure, you're as white as a ghost yourself! Are you hurt, then?"

  "No," answered Dwight, from between clenched teeth, "I'm fine. Except I think I've busted my collarbone. But—"

  As Deirdre and Dan Haines reached them, he collapsed, with dramatic suddenness, at their feet.

  Fergus swore as he dropped to his knees beside Dwight.

  "The young eejut," he said, "he's fainted! And wasn't he after shaking hands with me, and him with his right collarbone broken? Sure, the boy's as crazy as they're made —but, by the blessed Saint Patrick, he has the right stuff in him, so he has! The stuff to win wars and races—and a woman's heart as well. Eh, Miss Deirdre? What do you think?"

  Deirdre's thoughts were chaotic. As she slipped from the saddle to go to Dwight, she closed her burning, tear-bright eyes for a moment, shielded by Marigold's shoulder. Dwight was hurt, and poor, gallant little Marigold might be losing her sight. It had proved a disastrous afternoon. And it was largely her fault. She shouldn't have allowed Dwight to ride… and why, oh why, hadn't she realized what was wrong with Marigold, why hadn't she suspected?

  Paddy, a few. moments ago, had told her that no one could have known. But that was small consolation. If she had taken Alan's advice, this wouldn't have happened. None of it would have happened, none of it…