From then onwards we tried every ploy we could think of. We showed her in hand, slipping her into the breed classes at local shows where she would behave with the utmost decorum, after which we put on a saddle and tried to ride her into the same ring, but she would have none of it. We tried to fake the show ring atmosphere at home, by collecting as many riders and equines as we could muster and setting up a ring, but she was not deceived, she entered it like a lamb. Eventually, and with great reluctance, we were forced to resort to the stick and rattle technique. This consisted of taking her to a local show and regardless of the indignation of bystanders, meting out a punishment at the moment of disobedience. Sandy rode her forward from the collecting ring and as soon as she hesitated he hit her hard on both sides of her flanks with a thin, elongated schooling whip, and at the same time I used the rattle, a small tin box the size of a matchbox filled with pebbles. As she went into the ring, he spoke to her kindly and rode her once round and out again. We repeated this several times, the lightning application of the long whip, and the rattle of the tin being used simultaneously, and every time the mare, horrified, entered the ring. On about the seventh occasion, we dispensed with the whip and just rattled the tin. It worked like a charm. As a corrective schooling aid, the stick and rattle is a cheat, being no solution to what is usually a psychological problem, but time was short for us and as the mare was not going to be asked to enter the ring under saddle again once the precious few tricolour ribbons had been obtained, it hardly seemed to matter that we would not achieve a lasting result.
When the Ladies’ Hunter Class was called into the ring at the show where I was to exhibit her, I set her nose in the wake of another horse, rattled the box in my pocket in a warning manner, and the mare entered the ring as sweetly as a dove. She performed perfectly, was called in to head the line and gave the riding judge a delightful ride. A new rider would hold her interest for long enough to negotiate one or two circuits of the ring, and she was rewarded with the red rosette. Her owners were delighted. It hardly mattered that I was defeated in the championship by Sandy who was riding a middleweight, and had to be content with the reserve, because even that had not been expected. Everyone was happy.
The crowning incident however, occurred in the late afternoon, just as we were entering the ring for the Grand Parade followed by the presentation of prizes. Most exhibitors loathe the tradition of the Grand Parade, usually staged at four-thirty in the afternoon as a main ring spectacle to revive the interest of a flagging crowd, but for the prize winners it is a necessary event. At major shows the provision of many rings allows for the judging of several classes at the same time, but the packed schedule still demands that judging begins at eight in the morning and as the horse breeding and exhibition classes are only of interest to a minority, these are held first, before the arrival of the general public, who in the main prefer events of a more spectacular, competitive nature; show-jumping and scurry driving, punctuated by displays of sheep dogs, mounted police, or marching bands.
The variety of exhibits from the Ensdale yard; the ponies, ridden and in-hand, the hacks and the hunters, meant that we had a full day anyway, and did not feel too badly about being requested to stay to parade, but a situation can arise whereby an exhibit can win its class in the early hours of the morning, and have to remain on the ground until after the parade, often six o’clock in the evening, before facing a long journey home. Small wonder then, that in the past, many exhibitors have not felt it worth their while to stay, especially as the parade can be an upsetting ordeal for youngstock and children. But most canny shows add a clause to the conditions of entry to say that should an exhibit fail to appear in the parade, their prize money will be withheld. It is hard on the exhibitor but essential to the success of the parade, in order to avoid a dismal procession with most of the winning animals absent, and the august personage of the show president standing beside a collection of magnificent, but uncollected trophies.
Such a clause was carried in the schedule of the show we were at; the queue of prizewinners wending its laborious way towards the main ring was interminable. The showground was packed solid with a bank holiday crowd as Sandy, riding his hunter champion, and myself on the chestnut mare took our allotted places in the crocodile, which made painfully slow progress between an alleyway of people wedged ten deep towards the flags which were the only indication of the whereabouts of the main ring, and the row of dignitaries awaiting us in the grandstand. Hooked onto the bridle of the chestnut mare was a handsome tiered rosette with a glittering centre and gold blocked lettering proclaiming Reserve Champion on its fluttering tricolour tail.
It was unbearably hot and rather unfortunate that I happened to be wearing more clothing than was usual. The mare was exhibited under side-saddle which was to her advantage because she was not overly compact, and had a long, rangy stride, but the habit I was wearing had been tailored to Charity Ensdale’s specific instructions, and was cut with an old-fashioned, distinctly feminine elegance, having a narrower waist, a more tapered sleeve, and a longer, heavier apron to ensure that it hung impeccably, and did not fly about during the gallop. This, combined with the fact that I was still obliged to wear my breeches and boots underneath, and was also encumbered with a shirt and stock knotted at my throat, plus a waistcoat and a silk hat with a veil, meant I was really rather uncomfortable, stifled by the heat, and not even able to wipe the perspiration from my brow.
Sandy rode ahead, grumbling about the narrowing gap allowed us by the press of the crowd, and the dangerous proximity of small children clutching candy floss and balloons. A small army of stewards tried vainly to widen the gap, but it was hopeless, the crowd simply moved back as soon as they moved on. In his black coat, with his confident, capable seat on the gleaming middleweight, Sandy was barely recognisable as the farm hand who had dropped galvanised sheets and shaken rick covers purposely to annoy Francesca and myself. Even the spiky hair had been tamed into a conventional haircut so that he should not disgrace the bowler hat. The middleweight pranced and sidled, his neck already showing dark patches of sweat. The chestnut mare followed quietly enough, only her flickering ears betraying a ruffling of her habitual composure. I found it unendurable. The mingled smells from the crowd, the bruised grass, the animals, the hot dog and the frying doughnut booths sickened me, and I wanted only for it to be over and for us to be driving back to the stud in the cool of the evening with the windows of the horsebox wound down to their fullest extent, and the horses and ponies pulling contentedly at their hay nets behind us.
Oliver, I thought enviously, would already be back at his yard. With three other of the Count’s disciples, he had taken part in a display of free-style dressage to music earlier in the day. Early that morning when Sandy and I had been lunging our horses before the first of our classes, he had ridden past us on his way to the area designated for riding-in and had nodded to Sandy and grinned at me. He had been wearing white cotton breeches and a black silk shirt, and he was mounted on a black horse with white bandages. It had been noticeable that people literally stopped what they were doing for a moment in order to watch him as he rode past.
“I’d give an arm and a leg to see that sodding brother of yours look as hot and bothered as I feel,” Sandy had called across to me as our horses cantered past each other, arching their necks, causing a slack to appear in the elastic-ended side reins which were attached to the rollers, swishing their still-bandaged tails. One might expect that the constantly circling animal would cause the person doing the lunging to become dizzy, but somehow it never does.
Unfortunately the free-style dressage display and my Ladies’ Hunter Class had taken place at the same time in different rings, but when Sandy had seen me safely inside the rails, after he had discharged his duties as groom for the class, helping to strip the saddle off the mare and to rub up her coat before I ran her up in hand for the Judge’s inspection, I had managed to persuade him to go over and watch what remained of the display so that I might hear a
bout it after the class.
He returned to the horsebox lines soon after I had dealt with the mare, untacking her, wiping her down briefly with a damp sponge, leaving her to relax in an anti-sweat rug, with access to chilled water and a haynet.
“I wish I could say he was lousy,” he had said, “but the fact is that he’s bloody brilliant. He was so bloody brilliant that it was a pain in the arse to have to watch him. If I didn’t know him for the swine he is, I couldn’t have bloody well stood it at all.”
I had already dispensed with the apron, the hat and the veil. Now I threw the jacket and the waistcoat and the stock across the bench seat in the living compartment of the horsebox, and I changed into jeans. In the shade of the box, with the main tensions of the day now behind us, we had sprawled on the grass, drinking orange juice by the gallon, laughing because Sandy hated to admit that Oliver was brilliant.
But later, in the suffocating heat as our part of the Grand Parade crossed the perimeter of the collecting ring, when I put my hand, clad in its thin leather glove, into the pocket of the jacket to feel for the reassuring shape of the tin box, it was not there. I realised that it must have fallen out when I had thrown the jacket so carelessly across the bench seat, and rolled away unnoticed, out of sight.
Despite the heat, I felt a cold chill sweep over me. We were now almost at the entrance to the main ring with the middleweight in front, and another horse immediately behind, the crowd straining for a glimpse on either side. There was no possible way to escape. I jammed the mare’s head after the tail of Sandy’s horse and prayed that in all the noise and excitement, the mare would have no idea where the collecting ring ended and the main ring started. But for the interference of a well-meaning official, I might have got away with it.
The official stepped out and, exactly at the entrance, he took the mare by the bridle, effectively halting her progress.
“Just a minute, if you wouldn’t mind, Miss,” he said, “give those poor beggars in the middle time to get themselves sorted, otherwise we’re going to have one hell of a pile-up here.”
To have been apprehended just at that particular moment was more than a disaster, because naturally when the official loosed the rein to enable the mare to enter the ring, she dug in her hooves and refused to move. As I struggled to urge her forward with my single, blunted spur, and my uselessly short whip, Sandy looked back and, seeing my predicament, mouthed silently: “Use the bloody rattle!”
“I can’t,” I mouthed back desperately, “I haven’t got it!”
The official steward, having tried and abandoned the idea of dragging the mare into the ring, and determined to keep everyone moving at any cost, then walked round the back of the mare and, oblivious to any personal danger, clapped her soundly on the rump with his clipboard. The mare, unable to move in any direction apart from the way she was resolved not to go, rose up immediately and unexpectedly on her hind legs. For a moment her hooves flailed above the crowd, who tried to fall back only to find that due to the press from behind, they could not. A horse will not purposely strike anyone when panicked but the grey mare was perilously near to doing so because she had been unbalanced by the sidesaddle. In the fraction of a second available to me, I managed to twist her head round to the front, but in doing so, I unbalanced her completely. With a hideous crash she fell over backwards.
I remember little after that apart from a confused babble of shouts and screams, but I am told that the mare scrambled up again almost at once, and that, by a miracle, I had been thrown to one side into the crowd, with the stirrup and leather, released from the saddle by a mercifully oiled and efficient safety mechanism, still attached to my foot. Vaguely, I do remember being set upon my feet, but must have fallen again directly, because when I opened my eyes I was lying on a bunk in the white vinyl-padded interior of a horsebox looking up into the concerned, aristocratic features of Count Von Der Drehler.
“Do not concern yourself, my dear Kathryn, no bones have been broken,” he assured me. “It is a mild concussion only, we are convinced of that. You are not in the least damaged, and neither is the mare.”
“Is Oliver here?” I had not expected the Count and his entourage to be still on the showground, and would have attempted to sit up, but the Count restrained me. Over a partition, the heads of two coal black horses looked on in an interested way.
“In all probability, Oliver is at this moment exercising the sharp edge of his tongue on your gentleman friend with the unfortunate red hair. I expect there will have been a little altercation, but you must relax now, and try not to think about it.”
Try not to think about it! The last thing in the world I wanted was another confrontation between Oliver and Sandy, and I groaned aloud at the prospect. Staring helplessly up at the Count, who had a bright pink scarf wrapped around his lean neck, and a matching rosebud in the lapel of his waisted linen jacket, I said,
“He can’t be allowed to blame Sandy for this! It wasn’t his fault. If anyone was to blame, it was me!”
Before the Count could fashion a consoling reply to this, Oliver walked into the horsebox. Determinedly, I struggled up into a sitting position. “Oliver, where have you been?” I demanded.
The Count excused himself somewhat hastily and withdrew. Oliver smiled. Displaying all of his easy charm, he sat down on the end of the bunk and made solicitous enquiries about my welfare.
“Don’t try to avoid the question,” I warned him, “I want to know exactly where you have been.”
Oliver stretched out a hand and collected one of mine, pulling it towards him, staring down at it thoughtfully. Impatient for his reply, I was forced to stare crossly at the top of his head. His golden hair was lighter at the ends and dark at the roots. If I had not known him, I would have thought it was bleached, but of course, I knew that it was not.
“I have been to tell Headman that you will not be going back to the Ensdale yard,” Oliver said.
I had expected this much. Angrily, I snatched my hand away.
“And I suppose you blamed him for what happened today,” I said accusingly, “even though what happened was entirely due to my own negligence!”
“I did not blame anyone,” Oliver said in a calm voice, “I told him his horses were dangerous, which I believe to be the truth, but I can assure you there was no unpleasantness. I explained the situation and I am sure that he understood.”
“Oh, I bet he did!” Incensed, I swung my legs off the bunk and made to grab for my boots. A wave of giddiness threatened to overcome me. I tried to ignore it.
“No! Listen to me!” In one swift movement, Oliver had thrown my boots to the other side of the horsebox and pinned me back to the bunk by my shoulders. The coal black horses pulled back on their ropes and rolled their eyes, looking anxious. “I have something to tell you Kathryn,” Oliver said, “and you will listen to me, you will hear me, because I shall make you.”
“Now look here, Oliver,” I said heatedly, “I am not going to leave my job just because you say so, because it isn’t up to you to decide. When I want to leave, if I want to leave, I shall make the decision myself, and I shall give them fair warning. I am certainly not going to walk out at a minute’s notice because of something that would never have happened but for my own carelessness!”
I half rose up, but was forced to lie back again almost immediately. I felt hot and weak, and totally infuriated by Oliver’s presumptuous interference.
“I shall go back,” I told him, “whatever you say.”
“But you will hear me first,” he insisted. “Listen to me, Kathryn, Eugene … Count Von Der Drehler, has a vacancy in his yard. The position would suit you perfectly and I know you would enjoy it. The whole place is quite beautiful. In the manège there are flowers and long mirrors, and in the yard there are doves and tumbling pigeons, and in the centre there is a fountain.”
I stared up at him. I tried to imagine it.
“Kathryn, you do not need to work with Headman and his rough horses any longer,
you can come with us, you can come now, today, and we will be together again. It will be better.”
I looked into my brother’s beautiful face, and I thought of the nappy horses, the bolters, the rearers, the ones who were savage in the stable, and the ones whose buck could launch a man into space. There was really no decision to be made. It had been taken out of my hands.
“Well, Kathryn,” Oliver looked at me. “Will you come?”
I smiled up at him weakly. “You know I’ll come,” I said.
But I could not leave without saying goodbye to Charity Ensdale and to Sandy. Charity Ensdale made it easy for me. Typically, she brushed away my apologies, dismissing any thought I might have that I was letting her down. She had been very grateful for my hard work and loyalty, she said, especially at the difficult time when she had lost Oliver, and she would have none of my apologies. Instead, she wished me happiness in my job with the Count and affirmed that I could not be leaving to go to a better employer. She said, and I believed her, that there were no hard feelings over my departure, that there would always be affection between us.
Sandy was not so easy. I found him in the back of the horsebox, unplaiting the middleweight. He looked at me briefly with an expression I did not recognise, then turned back to the mane, snipping at the thread which secured the round, hard plaits, with a pair of sharp scissors.
“I expect you know why I’m here,” I said, “I couldn’t leave without seeing you, without thanking you. I have enjoyed working with you. I just wanted you to know that.”
Flying Changes Page 12
