Riders

satisfaction of knowing she was being fancied.

“Lavinia!” A handsome dark boy, white teeth gleaming in his suntanned face, pulled up his huge chestnut horse beside her.

“Christopher. Hello. I thought you were in Marbella.”

“Just got back.”

“Come and have a dwink.” She couldn’t say her Rs. “Mummy’s parked the car by the collecting wing.”

“Love to.” He rode on.

Bloody upper classes, thought Jake, all making so much bloody noise. He was fed up with wearing a cheap riding coat and thirdhand boots that were already killing him. He wanted a horse box, and a groom whisking out different horses like a conjurer producing colored handkerchiefs, and a tackroom wall papered with red rosettes, and a beautiful pink and white girl asking him respectfully how many strides there were between the gate and the rustic poles.

A shrill piping voice brought him back to earth.

“I’ve bought you an ice cream,” said Fenella Maxwell. “You ought to keep up your strength. Oh, look, they’re bringing out the jumps for the junior jumping. I know I’m going to let Dandelion down. Mummy and Tory’ll miss it if they don’t stop stuffing themselves.”

Inside Bilborough Hall, Tory Maxwell, Fenella’s elder sister, looked up at a large Rubens, in which a huge pink fleshy Venus was being pursued by half the satyr population of Ancient Greece, while adoring cherubs arranged her rippling pearl-strewn hair. She’s much fatter than me, thought Tory wistfully. Why wasn’t I born in the seventeenth century?

She had huge gray eyes and long, straight, light brown hair, which her mother insisted she wore drawn back off her forehead and temples and tied in a bow on the crown of her head. A style which made her round, pleading, peony red face look bigger than ever. She was tallish and big-boned, with a huge bust that bounced up and down as she walked. However she stood on the scales, she weighed eleven stone.

She’d just got the curse, which made her feel even fatter, and, however many layers of Erace she put on, a large red spot on her chin glowed through like a lighthouse. She was getting hotter and hotter, but she couldn’t take off the jacket of her red suit because the skirt was fastened precariously by a safety pin. Her ankles had swelled and, having kicked off her tight shoes, she wondered if she’d ever be able to get back into them again. She wondered if she’d ever been more miserable in her life. Then, with a stab of pain, she remembered last night’s dance and decided she was comparatively blessed.

During the weekdays she was at a finishing school in London, learning to cook, to type, and to arrange flowers by ramming bits of rhubarb into chicken mesh. By night she practiced the art of wallflower arrangement, going to drinks’ parties and dances, and trying to appear as though she belonged to one of those chattering, laughing groups of debs and their admirers. Occasionally, hostesses took pity on her and brought up wilting, reluctant young men who talked politely or danced one dance, then drifted away.

The more miserable she got, the more she ate. But never at dances, never in front of her mother. She would wait for everyone to go out or to bed, then wolf three bowls of cornflakes swimming in heavy cream. Yesterday, she’d eaten a whole box of chocolates, which had been given to her mother by an admirer, and then had to rush out to the shops to buy another box to replace it before her mother got back.

Why couldn’t she be like Fen, and have something like horses to be interested in passionately and keep her nose out of the trough? Why did she have to stay inside on this lovely day when she wanted to be outside, picnicking with Fen and Jake? At the thought of Jake, dark-faced and unpredictable, whom she had never spoken to, her stomach felt weak, her mouth dry. Oh Jake! At night she wrote him long passionate letters which she always tore up. Small men were supposed to like big girls; look at D. H. Lawrence and Stanley Spencer. Perhaps having no parents, and being brought up in a children’s home, he might be looking for a mother figure, but he didn’t seem to be showing any signs so far.

Tory’s mother, Molly Maxwell, had enjoyed her lunch enormously. She was delighted to be asked. Colonel Carter, who had accompanied her, had enjoyed himself, too. It had been fun being able to introduce him to Sir William, and they’d got on well talking about the war. She combed her hair surreptitiously; Gerald had done it beautifully this week. Why was Tory hanging round like a wet blanket? Sir William’s sons were there. All of them Old Etonians, nice looking and so suitable, and Tory hadn’t addressed a word to any of them all through lunch, just sitting like a pig, and taking a second helping of pudding when she thought her mother wasn’t looking.

“Poor Molly,” she could imagine people saying, “poor Molly to be saddled with such a lump.”

“No, I won’t have any more wine, thank you, Sir William.” She didn’t want to get red in the face. Her new, silk-lined dress and jacket in periwinkle blue was most becoming. This afternoon she’d probably take the jacket off; her arms were still slender and already turning brown.

She was really enjoying Tory doing the season. “Jennifer’s Diary,” this week, had described her as the chic and most attractive mother of Tory Maxwell. At least one deb’s delight and several fathers had declared themselves madly in love with her. And now Colonel Carter was getting really keen and sending roses twice a week.

To top everything, last night she had heard two young bloods discussing Tory.

“Wonder if it would be worth marrying her for her money,” said the first.

“I’d certainly marry her for her mummy,” said the second. “Molly Maxwell is absolutely gorgeous.”

Molly thought that was too amusing for words.

Molly was a bit short of cash at the moment. Her rather stolid husband had paid her a great deal of alimony, but when he inconveniently died, he had left all his money, unaccountably, in trust for Tory. That was another grudge; what did Tory want with an income of ?5,000 a year?

Tory looked across at her mother. I’m the fruit of her womb, and I hate her, hate her, hate her, she thought, for her ankles slender as a gazelle’s, and her flexible high insteps, and thin Knights-bridge legs, and her painted malicious face, and her shrill clipped voice, not unlike Fen’s! Look at Sir William bending over her.

“No, really,” Molly was saying, “is it by Ferneley? How fascinating. No, do tell me.”

And that dreadful Colonel Carter, Colonel Bogus more likely, handsome as an aging movie star, matinee-idling about, a cliche of chauvinism, his large yellow teeth gleaming amicably beneath his graying mustache, as he blamed even the weather on the Socialists.

“No, my younger daughter Fen’s riding,” Molly was saying to Sir William. “She’s absolutely horse-mad; up first thing mucking out, never get her to wear a dress. Oh, I see you take The Tatler, too; not for the articles really; but it’s such fun to see which of one’s chums are in this week.”

“No, not my only child,” Tory could hear her mother going on. “There’s Tory over there; yes, she’s more like her father…Yes, just eighteen…Well, how kind of you to say so. I suppose I was rather young when I got married.”

“Mustn’t monopolize you,” said Sir William, getting up from his chair and noticing Colonel Carter hovering. “Come and sit down, Carter; can’t say I blame you.”

Next moment, Sir William was hurrying across the room to welcome the two judges, Malise Gordon and Miss Squires, who, on a tight schedule, had only time for a quick bite. Malise Gordon, having accepted a weak whisky and soda, refused to follow it with any wine. He took a small helping of salmon but no potatoes, not because he was worried about getting fat, but because he liked to practice asceticism. An ex-Cavalry officer, much medaled after a good war, Colonel Gordon not only farmed but also judged at shows all around the country during the summer, and was kept busy in the winter as the local master of fox hounds. He was inclined to apply army discipline to the hunting field to great effect and told people exactly what he thought of them if they talked at the covert side, rode over seeds, or left gates open. In addition to these activities, he played the flute, restored pictures in his spare time, and wrote poetry and books on military history. Just turned fifty, he was tall and lean with a handsome, hawklike face, high cheekbones, and dark hair hardly touched with gray.

That is easily the most attractive man in the room, thought Molly Maxwell, eyeing him speculatively as she accepted Colonel Carter’s heavy pleasantries, and let her laugh tinkle again and again round the room. Malise Gordon was now talking to Sir William’s wife, Lady Dorothy. What an old frump, thought Molly Maxwell. That dreadful fawn cardigan with marks on it and lace-up shoes and the sort of baggy tweed skirt you’d feed the chickens in.

As an excuse to be introduced to Malise, Molly got up and, wandering over to Lady Dorothy, thanked her for a delicious lunch.