formal garden, Dandelion was now imitating an untamed bronco, galloping about, snorting, showing the whites of his eyes, with a large carrot sticking out of his mouth like a cigar.
Every time Jake or Fen got close he whisked out of range, snatching bites to eat.
“He looks like the Hamlet advertisement,” said Fen, quite hysterical with giggles.
By the time Jake had caught him, abuse — from Lady Dorothy, Mrs. Wilton, and Mrs. Thomson — was cascading over his head like Niagara.
At last it was time to go home. Africa had been checked by the vet, who said she was suffering a bad sprain, no more, and should be rested. Malise Gordon then hurried home himself because he was going to the theater. Fen had come second in the potato race and was in a state of ecstasy. Miss Bilborough had a date with one of Colonel Carter’s men. Dudley Diplock had been asked for his autograph three times, but had not been thanked for doing the commentary.
Back at Brook Farm Riding School, a still dizzy Jake was sorting out the ponies.
“Hear you’re in the doghouse,” said Alison, the Irish girl who helped out at weekends. “Old Ma Wilton’s hopping. I knew she’d catch you out sooner or later.”
Jake didn’t answer; he was putting a poultice on Africa. He’d already rubbed one of his gypsy medicines (ointment made from marshmallow flowers) gently into her leg. He was finally sweeping up at about nine-thirty, when Mrs. Wilton turned up. Her faced looked unappetizingly magenta in the naked lightbulb of the tackroom and he could smell whisky on her breath.
“I want to talk to you, Jake,” she said, speaking slowly to show she was quite sober. “Do you realize you’ve ruined the reputation of Brook Farm Riding School?”
“What reputation?” said Jake. “You can’t descend from the basement.”
“Don’t be cheeky. No need to answer back.”
Jake swept up the straw on the floor. Phrases like “absolute shambles,” “endangering best horse in the yard,” and “duty to our young pupils” flowed over his head. His face had taken on an almost Asiatic aloofness.
Why can’t he ever show any contrition? thought Mrs. Wilton. If he apologized just once it would make a difference.
The diatribe continued: “Taking advantage,” “wonder who’s employing whom,” “use my house as an hotel,” “after all I’ve done for you.” Jake mimicked her under his breath.
Oh, God, she was getting very close now; he hoped she wasn’t going to start anything.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Jake,” she went on. “I really trusted you, gave you some responsibility and you just kick me in the teeth. Yet I still feel
“No, I don’t,” Jake said flatly. “Deep down it’s much worse.”
Mrs. Wilton caught her breath. Next minute, vindictiveness was warming her blood. She played her trump card. “You’d better get Africa’s leg better; she won’t be with us much longer.”
Jake looked up, eyes narrowed.
That jolted him, she thought.
“Sir William’s just rung. I thought he was going to raise hell about Lady Dorothy’s garden, but he only wanted to know how Africa was and if we’d be interested in selling. He wants her for his youngest son to hunt next season. She might do very well with a decent rider on her back.”
Turning, she walked unsteadily out of the tackroom. Jake felt suddenly exhausted, near to tears, overwhelmed with black despair.
Going out of the tackroom, he walked down past the loose boxes until he came to Africa. Even though she was feeding, she left her manger and hobbled over to him, whickering with joy, nuzzling at his pockets. He put his arms round her neck and she laid her head against his cheek. Soppy old thing; she’d stay like that for hours, breathing softly while he scratched her behind the ears.
In his mind, he jumped that beautiful first round again, reliving that wonderful, amazing last jump. What a star she was; he couldn’t give her up, and he knew more than ever that the only thing he could ever be in this world was a show jumper. Working for Mrs. Wilton for over a year, he was constantly aware of time running past, time wasted. He had left the orphanage at eighteen and spent two years in a racing stable. It was there he made the discovery that difficult horses became easy when he rode them, and that he could communicate with them as he never could with people. Even having his first girl, and subsequently others, wasn’t nearly as exciting as that sudden breakthrough when a horse that had been written off as hopeless became responsive under his touch. Finally there was the joy, over the past months, of discovering Africa and slowly realizing how good she was. It was worth putting up with the horrible little girls and their frightful mothers. No mother had ever protected and fussed over him like they did, he thought bitterly.
And now he’d blown it; it was only a matter of time before Mrs. Wilton sacked him. He supposed he could get another job as a groom, but not as a rider. Africa nuzzled him gently.
I’m still here, she seemed to say.
“But not for much longer,” sighed Jake, “although I’ll fight like a bugger to keep you.”
Tory Maxwell lay on her bed, bitterly ashamed of herself for eating three helpings of strawberries and cream. She looked around her extremely tidy bedroom and wished she had a photograph of Jake. The scent of lilac and lilies of the valley kept drifting in from outside, as insistently he kept drifting into her thoughts. Not that he had noticed her. His eyes had flickered over her as a man flips past the woman’s fashion page in his daily paper, knowing it has nothing to interest him.
Her mother had gone out with that monstrous murderer, Colonel Carter. After what he’d done to Jake, Tory couldn’t bring herself even to talk to him. How
Looking in the mirror, she tried on a different colored lipstick and put her hands over the sides of her round face. If she were thinner, she might just be pretty. Out of the window, against a brilliant, drained sapphire sky, she could see the sliver of a pale new moon, followed by a little star. Just like me following Jake, she thought.
“Oh, please,” she prayed, “give me Jake Lovell, and then I could buy him all the horses he wants.”
Colonel Carter and Mrs. Maxwell were on their third gin and tonic in the bar of the Grand Hotel, Guildford. They had pulled Malise and Jake to shreds, had a good bitch about Sir William and Lady Dorothy, and were in a mood of great mutual self-congratulation about having found each other.
“You’re looking particularly lovely tonight,” said Colonel Carter.
He always says that, thought Molly, but then perhaps it’s true. She caught sight of her glossy reflection in the rose-tinted bar mirror. What should she wear to get married in? Perhaps oyster silk with a matching hat; it couldn’t be the same thing she wore to Tory’s party.
In future the colonel could cope with all her bills.
In the corner, the pianist, who had unnaturally vermilion hair, was playing “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
“Just a little lamb that’s lost in the wood,” sang the colonel.
It was nice to take an attractive woman out again. He had always been unfaithful to Jennifer, his wife, but it had been a shock when she died. She’d done everything for him.
“I was very lonely when Jennifer died,” he said.
“I was very lonely when Alastair died,” said Molly. No reason to add that she and Alastair had been divorced for six years before he was killed in that car crash. It was so much more romantic to be a widow than a divorcee.
The waiter presented them with a huge menu, which they studied with too much attention (Colonel Carter in particular noting the prices) for people in love.
“I’m glad I stood up to that bastard, Gordon,” he said.
“I wish I knew where I’d gone wrong with Tory,” said Molly Maxwell.
In the bedroom down the passage from Tory’s lay Fen. She’d been sent to bed in disgrace for cheeking Colonel Carter about frightening Africa with his twenty-five pounders. Her bed was full of biscuit crumbs and she was reading
“Make me the greatest show jumper in the world,” she wished.
