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HartsLove

Page 12

by K. M. Grant


  To all this, Charles was a ghostly spectator, kept as such by Skelton who always made sure there was an uncorked bottle of brandy or wine beside his open window. If Charles could be kept completely drunk until Derby Day, he would barely remember the ‘joke’. Skelton also made certain that it was he who reported to Charles on the horse’s progress, and he was careful how he did it. ‘Ah, Sir Charles,’ he sighed, ‘what special children you have. Though they know the horse is really finished, they still cluster round him. They want to make him feel wanted.’ A strategic pause. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve made an arrangement with the young vet that he should tend to the horse, and perhaps even pronounce him recovered – just to allow the children a little hope, do you see? I mean, without hope, what has poor Miss Daisy got left in her life? Best allow the girl her dreams. Can’t do any harm.’ Charles nodded and took another drink. Skelton was a good man to be bothered about the children, and he was obviously paying the vet from his own pocket. ‘Thank you, Skelton,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a pleasure, Sir Charles,’ Skelton replied.

  On the first day of April, the waiting was over. ‘Arthur’s going to get The One to trot today,’ said Daisy at breakfast. Nobody said, ‘On April Fool’s Day?’ but everybody was thinking it.

  ‘Pa should be there,’ Daisy said. They all avoided each other’s eyes. Somebody would have to tell him, because their father no longer came to meals, and when he did they wished he would not: they found him pitiful and they did not want to pity him. ‘Who’ll fetch him?’

  ‘Pa’s lost interest,’ Rose said in the end.

  ‘Pa’s not well,’ said Lily loyally.

  ‘Pa’s drunk from morning until night,’ Garth said bluntly. ‘I don’t know where he gets the drink from. Does anybody?’

  ‘The cellar?’ said Rose

  ‘The cellar’s empty.’

  The conversation stuttered to a halt. Nobody volunteered.

  After breakfast, Daisy found her crutches waiting for her by the front door. She went straight to the stables. The One greeted her with a whinny. It was raining, so Daisy kept him inside. For about the hundred and fiftieth time, she put the saddle on and tightened the girth. The One took no notice. He was watching Garth, who was now perched on the top of the door. Daisy bent and touched The One’s knee. ‘Do you think he’s really better? I just can’t tell.’

  Garth dropped into the stable. ‘He seems fine to me.’

  Skelton appeared. The One snorted and laid back his ears. ‘Young vet been?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Daisy said.

  ‘I’m quite sure the horse is better,’ Skelton said crisply. ‘It wasn’t that much of a blow.’

  ‘That’s not what you said at the time,’ Garth pointed out.

  ‘I said what I thought,’ Skelton replied without missing a beat.

  ‘And you really think he’s better?’ Daisy asked.

  Skelton shrugged. ‘Got my fingers crossed, like you,’ he said. He was not lying.

  The day dragged. By the time Arthur came, Skelton was back in his house and the rain had settled to a steady downpour. Arthur was flustered. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, vaulting off his cob, his hat brim dripping. ‘Mr Snaffler kept me back to try to save a lady’s canary. Shall we get The One out?’

  Daisy nodded. She had been waiting all day, yet now that Arthur was here she suddenly wished he was not. She began to gabble. ‘Was it the lady’s favourite pet? It must be hard to make a canary better.’

  Arthur gave an unusually waspish laugh. ‘It’s more that the owner’s a favourite client,’ he said. ‘The bird can’t be saved, but the lady’s paying good money to find that out.’ He was angry, Daisy could see. Her heart sank. She found it difficult to fasten the head-collar buckle. ‘You should put your horse in the barn,’ she said. ‘He won’t like getting wet.’

  Arthur shook his head. ‘I can’t stay long. Mr Snaffler thinks I’ve gone to the apothecary for something.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to come back another time?’ Daisy suggested quickly.

  Arthur came into the stable and took off his hat. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I said I’d make my decision today and that’s what I shall do. Let’s see now.’ He patted The One and bent over the knee.

  Daisy moved away. Garth stood with her.

  Skelton reappeared. ‘So, what’s what?’ he barked.

  Arthur ran his fingers very slowly from The One’s shoulder, right over his knee and down to his fetlock. Lastly, he picked up the foot and flexed the knee joint, feeling and listening to everything his hands were telling him. He pulled the leg forward, making it stick out straight. ‘Is he walking any better?’

  ‘He’s not limping,’ Daisy said, ‘though we haven’t let him go far.’

  Arthur put the foot down. ‘Open the door,’ he said to Skelton. Skelton opened it. Arthur began to strip off The One’s rug. ‘Goodness,’ he said with some admiration. ‘He looks a picture.’ Daisy hardly heard. ‘Now,’ Arthur said, ‘take him out and run to the far gate so that he has to trot beside you.’

  ‘Trot straight away?’ Daisy was disconcerted. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He needs a proper test,’ said Arthur gently.

  ‘No – I mean yes – I mean –’ Daisy gestured at her legs. ‘I mean I can’t trot.’

  Arthur could have kicked himself. Garth took hold of the rope. ‘I can.’

  Passing Skelton, The One shied, then sauntered along shaking raindrops out of his forelock. Sauntering was no good. ‘He needs to trot,’ Arthur said.

  ‘Get on!’ came a great shout from Skelton. He could not disguise his anxiety. ‘Get on, horse, and show us what you’re made of.’ He cracked an old lash.

  The One’s head flew up. For a moment, Garth was off his feet, dangling on the end of the rope, then he was running and The One was trotting, though not properly, and they were at the far side of the yard. The rain streamed down. The cobbles were awash. The One whipped round and trotted back in a more orderly fashion.

  Arthur, soaked through, had his hands on his hips. ‘Go again,’ he said.

  Garth pushed The One round. The horse did not want to go again. He did not like the rain. He wanted Daisy and he wanted to be back inside his stable. ‘Get on with you!’ cried Skelton and cracked the lash.

  The One baulked and set off at a hand canter. Garth was again swept off his feet. ‘Slowly,’ Arthur and Daisy cried together. ‘Slowly!’

  All Daisy could see was history repeating itself. ‘Please, oh please, The One! Go slowly! Garth! Don’t let go!’

  The One returned. Arthur was not yet satisfied. ‘Once more,’ he said.

  Garth set off again, and this time The One trotted, flinging his legs out as though he were a dancer. When he got to the gate, he turned smartly round and not even God could have prevented him from trotting, at speed, straight back into his stable. Arthur followed him in and closed the door. ‘Well, I never,’ he said.

  ‘It’s bad news, isn’t it?’ Daisy said. She sat down heavily. ‘He’s not right.’

  ‘My dear Miss Daisy –’ Arthur was beaming – ‘he’s sound! At least, so far as I can see.’ He heard Daisy choke.

  ‘You made him go three times.’

  ‘I always make horses go three times,’ Arthur said. ‘That’s the best way to be sure. Now, as you know, a mended knee is always weaker than a knee that’s never been broken, but as I’ve said before, this injury was strange, so we can be very hopeful.’

  ‘We can ride him?’

  Arthur grinned at both Daisy and Garth. ‘You can ride him.’ He pulled his sodden hat back on. ‘Build up the pace slowly, though, and don’t gallop too soon. Now I must rush.’ He was back on his cob before his smile became sadder. His work here was ended. He wondered if Rose would be waiting by the gate in this rain. He was halfway down the drive before he heard somebody calling. Daisy was swinging on her crutches, her skirt dragging. She caught his stirrup and he could see that her dream was thoroughly alive again. He almost said,
‘Hope is one thing, but dreams are something else,’ but she spoke first. ‘When we’re in the winners’ enclosure, promise you’ll be there too.’

  ‘Miss Daisy—’ Arthur began.

  ‘Just say you’ll be there.’ She shook the rain off. She was laughing.

  He had never heard her laugh before. ‘If The One wins, you’ll have important people to speak to.’

  ‘Who could be more important than you?’ Daisy’s whole face was alight. ‘You’ve made The One better!’

  She was irresistible. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said. She let go and swung back up the drive.

  He found Rose half drowned. ‘Well?’ she asked, knotting her hands.

  ‘It’s my last visit,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ She did not have to explain the guilty disappointment in her voice. They began to walk, and though the rain never ceased they walked slower and slower so that by the time Arthur returned to the surgery, the canary was dead and buried and Mr Snaffler was so angry he cut a shilling from Arthur’s wages.

  14

  ‘I can’t! I can’t!’

  It was four days later. The rain had stopped at last and Garth, Daisy and The One were at the Resting Place in the haze of a promising dawn. The One was saddled and bridled and attached to Daisy by a long rope. She had been teaching the horse to walk and trot at her command, and now, since Garth had made it impossible for Daisy to refuse him without a permanent breach between them, something Daisy knew she could not bear, not for anything, it was time for Garth to get on. For nearly an hour he had been perched on the top of one of the tombstones. It was impossible, it was intolerable, yet it was horribly, shamingly true that despite the acrobatics, despite the Cannibal, despite the gun, at the last moment before mounting, he found his mouth still filling with fear and, worse, his legs refusing to spring. He could not mount. His fear drained all his strength. Sweat ran down his back.

  ‘I’ve got him,’ urged Daisy. ‘He can’t go anywhere.’ She was having a hard job holding The One. The horse was jittery and excited at no longer being cooped up in the yard. He could smell the wind. His legs itched to stretch. ‘Just lean over the saddle so that he can feel your weight,’ Daisy instructed. ‘You don’t have to put a leg over.’

  Garth took a deep breath. ‘OK. Bring him close again.’

  Daisy brought The One close, murmuring all the time. ‘You talk to him,’ she said to Garth. ‘He knows your voice.’

  Garth tried to speak and failed. The horse he knew so well from the ground was a foreign beast from this higher angle. Garth’s terrors taunted him. You’ll never conquer us, coward boy! Not even when you’re dead! His skin was grey as the dawn.

  Daisy brought the horse closer. She saw how Garth was. Soothing the horse, she walked him away again. ‘Calm, The One,’ she said, ‘just be calm.’ He still nudged and jogged, unable to understand what Daisy wanted of him. She let him out on the long rein and allowed him to put his head down. The sight of him grazing might be reassuring to Garth, but The One did not want to graze; he longed to be moving and Daisy found herself dragged about.

  Garth set his face. ‘I’ll try again.’

  Daisy nodded. ‘Just a quick slither over his back, then off again. That’ll be enough for today.’ It would not be enough. Both she and Garth knew that. They had thirty-eight days to prepare the horse for something that normally took at least a year’s steady work. She gathered the rope and walked The One back to the tombstone. ‘Now,’ she said. Garth took a breath and prepared. He was going to do it. He really was. He bunched up, ready to spring. The One shook himself. Garth’s mouth filled again and his stomach turned. The horse was huge. Should he choose to misbehave, he was uncontrollable. Garth would fall off and break his back and be even more crippled than Daisy. Silly! Silly! Garth shouted silently. Millions of people rode every day without harm. Most of them were not brave at all. And he was brave. He was braver than most. He could do it. He would do it. He got halfway across the saddle, then The One jinxed at something in the chestnut tree and Garth crashed on to the grass. You see! Uncontrollable! Garth knew then that he was lost. He longed to explain to Daisy – My fear’s like a pit! Don’t you see? I keep thinking I’ve leaped over it, but I never make it to the other side. He said nothing.

  Daisy kept all expression out of her voice. ‘You’ll manage tomorrow.’ They walked back to the stables.

  ‘Success?’ asked Skelton. He knew the answer because he had been watching. He was desperate to interfere but Daisy did not want him anywhere near and he could not risk her complaining to Charles. Charles must be kept away from the horse, lest even in his drunken state he smelled a rat. Only if Daisy herself asked could Skelton help. Surely, surely she would have to soon?

  ‘Success,’ lied Daisy, though she knew perfectly well that Skelton had seen everything. She was surprised when he did not contradict her. Perhaps Skelton was learning to be nicer. It was not impossible.

  The next day Garth still did not manage, and after three failed attempts ran back to the castle, sick with humiliation and self-loathing. Daisy started after him, dragging The One behind her. ‘Go away!’ Garth’s cry was half strangled. ‘Go away!’

  With tears of pity and frustration rolling down her cheeks, Daisy took The One back to the Resting Place. Why did Garth feel he must ride? She did not care if he did or he didn’t. She only cared that he was so unhappy and that time was ticking away. She leaned against the chestnut tree. The One fidgeted, grew bored and began to pull at the newly forming buds. After a while, Daisy moved to one of the tombstones. Thirty-seven days until the Two Thousand Guineas. If The One did not run in that, he could not run in the Derby. During this thirty-seven days, then, not only must the horse be ridden and his pace worked up to a gallop, they also had to get him to Newmarket, where the Two Thousand Guineas would take place. That was nearly two hundred miles. If they walked The One twenty miles a day, the journey would take ten days not including any rest along the way. That left twenty-seven days of preparation. She faced the inevitable with a sinking heart: she would have to ask Skelton for help.

  She whispered The One’s name. He blew on her hair. The stirrups were down, the saddle empty. Daisy gazed at it. She gazed and gazed. She had not been on a horse since her accident. Everybody said it was too dangerous. It was also completely impractical. Yet the saddle was so empty, so inviting. No. Stupid. They could not afford another accident. Yet, yet. The saddle glinted. She hauled herself on to the tombstone. The One stood like a rock. She would just lean over the saddle. Where was the harm in that? Even from the height of the tombstone, the horse’s back was too high for her. To lean across she would have to jump, and that she could not do. She was going to climb down. But there was the stirrup, gleaming. She only had to put her foot in it and she would have a step. She touched it with her toe. The One remained still. Perhaps my foot won’t fit into the stirrup, Daisy thought. After all, callipers are broader than a boot. Her foot slid in. All she had to do was push up and she would be able to lean over the saddle. Just a little push. But if she pushed off from the tombstone, she would be suspended in the air with nothing solid to lean on except the horse. She slid her foot out. She took a jagged breath. The One shifted. ‘If you move even one inch I shall fall,’ she said. The One flicked his ears. He was standing four square. Daisy’s foot crept back into the stirrup. Without allowing herself to think any more, she pushed. Now she was stranded, so there was nothing else to do but bend over the saddle, stomach hard against the slippery leather. She felt like a sack of potatoes, face down, her head dangling somewhere near the offside stirrup, her hair all flopped over and tickling her nose. Unused to the weight, The One braced and remained still only because he saw something interesting in the chestnut tree’s branches. From above, Snipe was a silent observer.

  Daisy had no hold of the reins. She was not well balanced. There was nothing to stop The One from galloping or even jumping the fence at the bottom of the park if he chose. She did not know whether to breathe or n
ot. The One walked off. The stirrup began to bang against her head. It hurt, and her foolishness hit her as hard as the steel. She scrunched her eyes shut so that she could not see the ground. She had no idea how she would stay on. Was it better to fall on to her crippled legs or her head? Her heart thumped in her ears. Soon The One would trot. Worse than anything else, she had let go of the rope. He was going to stand on it and lame himself again. She wished, uselessly and frantically, that she was back on the tombstone.

  The One carried on walking, and through the thumping in her ears Daisy heard a whispering. At first she thought it was The One’s hooves on the grass. Then there was a word. ‘Steady,’ the whisperer repeated, just that one word again and again in a sing-song. ‘Steady.’

  Daisy nearly opened her eyes but in a sudden flash chose to believe that the ghostly crusaders were taking charge. That was it. They were helping her. She scrunched her eyes more tightly shut to believe harder.

  The One swung his shoulders. The weight on his back was odd, yet so long as the whisperer was by his side and he could walk freely, he did not feel inclined to buck or jib. Daisy felt pressure on her right leg. Somebody was shifting it. Now her leg was over the saddle. She was astride, though still bent over. The One began to jog. Daisy’s leg was held firm. She shook her hair back but never peeped. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she silently implored the whisperer.

  They would have made a strange sight, had anybody been watching: Daisy, hunched in the saddle; The One, ears half back and half forward; a thin, foxy figure, almost invisible, whispering. Nobody was watching though. Garth was searching for the pistol in the moat; Skelton was spring whitewashing the stables; Daisy’s sisters were helping Mrs Snipper; Charles was lying, mouth open, on his bed.

  When they had traversed the Resting Place four or five times, Snipe hooked the long rein over the stone and Daisy felt herself lifted down. She leaned against the tombstone, very shaky, her hair sticking to her cheeks and the insides of the tops of her legs stung raw from the unaccustomed friction. Only when the whispering stopped did she open her eyes. Her crutches were resting on the flat stone. The One was grazing again. There were no ghosts in sight.

 

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