“What’s the use of saying sorry? Sailor’s just eaten Revenge’s food. You’re bloody useless.”
Fen lost her temper. “I hate you; you’re a slave driver.”
Dropping
“Come back,” howled Jake. “That horse is valuable.”
“I don’t care,” screamed Fen, picking up Revenge as he stumbled over a rocky piece of ground, galloping on and on until she’d put four or five miles between herself and the Mill House.
As she passed a cairn of rocks, she realized how dark it had got. Then, suddenly, like a blanket, the mist came down. Tugging Revenge around, she retraced her steps. She came to a fork in the pathway. There was boggy ground to the right. She turned left, the path turned upwards and upwards. It must lead somewhere. Then she went rigid with horror as she realized they were on the edge of a ravine and had nearly tumbled over. She gave a sob of terror as she realized she was totally lost. Gradually the enormity of her crime hit her. Revenge didn’t even belong to Jake; he was Colonel Carter’s and potentially the best horse in the yard, clipped and out in the cold in the middle of winter.
“I don’t know what to do,” she cried, flinging her arms round the horse’s neck, shuddering uncontrollably in her thin, mist-soaked jersey. “Oh, God and Rev, please help me.”
For a few seconds Revenge snatched at the short grass. Then he sniffed the wind and set off purposefully. Fen tried to check him, terrified of more ravines, but he was quite determined. They came to marshy ground. Fen, petrified of getting bogged down, could feel his hoofs sinking in, and hear the sucking sound as he pulled them out. She jumped as tall rushes brushed against her legs. Now he was splashing through a little stream. On he plodded, avoiding rocks and boulders, checking carefully for holes. Fen tucked her frozen hands in his blond mane, clinging to him for warmth, letting him carry her. He couldn’t know the way; he’d never been that far from home. They’d never find it.
The mist seemed to be clearing. She could see trees below, and, oh God, surely that was the same cairn of rocks? They were going round in a circle.
She gave a sob of despair as Revenge turned and started picking his way delicately down a steep hill. It seemed to go on forever; any minute she’d fall off him and tumble crashing to the bottom. Then suddenly the mist seemed to slide away and dimly she could see lights ahead.
Jake, back at the Mill House, was frantic. He’d been out on one of the novices, scouring the countryside for Fen, shouting, calling, finding nothing. No sound had come back through the thick blanket of fog. Every time he saw a car snaking along the road, he waited for a squeal of brakes and terrible screams.
He came home again. There was no news.
“Bloody stupid girl. Christ, why did she do it?”
Tory took a deep breath. “You’re too tough with her, Jakey. She’s only thirteen.”
“No time to be superstitious,” snarled Jake, and rode off into the night.
Tory sighed and went back into the house. It was nearly nine o’clock. Darklis was crying, woken up no doubt by Isa, who was worried about Fen. She had just settled them, when from the yard she heard Africa give her deep whinny. All the other horses immediately rushed to their half-doors, peering out at the clouds rolling back on a beautiful starlit night. The dry leaves circled and rustled, whipped by the wind. The horses turned to prowl around in the straw, then came back to the door and listened again, each knuckering more excitedly.
Suddenly Tory heard hoofbeats. Africa sent out a joyful neigh into the darkness. The other horses whinnied, snorting and pawing at their doors. Revenge didn’t whinny back; his task wasn’t over yet. Five minutes later he walked into the yard.
Tory ran out. “Oh, thank God you’re home.”
Fen burst into tears. “Rev did it. He bought me back. I’m so sorry, so terribly terribly sorry.”
Rushing out of the tackroom, Tanya caught her as she fell off the horse. “You’re frozen, pet. There, don’t cry. You’re safe.”
“Rev did it,” mumbled Fen.
Revenge didn’t want a hero’s welcome. He stumped past the other horses without a glance, making disapproving noises about stupid teenagers who got lost and made him late for supper. He smelt of mist, sweat, and exhaustion, and went straight to his box and, with a long groan, folded up and began to roll, his feet shadowboxing the air.
“Where’s Jake?” muttered Fen, through frantically chattering teeth.
“Out looking for you. Go in and have a bath.”
Even after a bath she was still cold. She put on her nightgown and three jerseys over it, looking around her little room. The green-sprigged Laura Ashley wallpaper, put up especially by Tory, was already covered in posters of Billy Lloyd-Foxe and Ludwig von Schellenberg. The shelves brimmed over with every horse book imaginable, and her collapsing Pullein-Thompson novels. Every shelf was crowded with china horses which took Tory so long to dust. On her dressing table was the hedgehog which Jake had made her from teasels for her last birthday. They had been so good to her and she’d kicked them in the teeth.
Jake would be quite right to pack her back to her mother and the colonel. She picked up Lester, her battered teddy bear, named after Lester Piggott, cuddling him for comfort. Her heart sank even further at the sound of horse’s hoofs on the bridge, muffled by the willows — Jake coming home.
He’d be insane with rage. He had a five o’clock start in the morning. His best horse had been sabotaged. Looking through a crack in the curtain she saw him slide off the big black gelding, hand him to Tanya, and go into Revenge’s box. Leading him out, he examined his legs, making Tory walk him up and down.
Fen trembled, terrified he’d find something wrong. But he merely nodded curtly and turned towards the house. Fen crept away from the curtain. Next moment she heard him coming up the stairs, and the boards creaking outside her room. I’m not going to cry, she thought desperately, he’s bored by tears.
“I’m so sorry,” she stammered.
“I should think so,” he said bleakly. “Of all the bloody irresponsible things to do. You could have killed yourself and the horse.”
“I didn’t think.” She hung her head.
“Time you started. Can’t afford passengers.”
“Please don’t send me back.” A tear splashed onto her hands. If she had looked up she would have seen his face soften.
It would make her swollen-headed if he told her that the only reason he was so harsh with her was because he knew how good she could be. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s all right, no harm done. Rev’s okay Must like it here. After all, he came home.”
Fen looked up, eyes streaming. “He did; he was so clever. I was completely lost. He brought me home like Lassie.” There was a pause.
“When d’you break up?”
“The eighteenth.”
“Well, you can leave two days early and come to Olympia with me.”
She gazed at him unbelievingly.
For a minute she couldn’t speak, then she flung her arms round Jake’s neck. “Oh, Jakey, thank you,” she sobbed, “I love you so much.”
Helen had honestly intended to go to the Olympia show. She still had some Christmas shopping to do. She’d catch up on a few matinees in the afternoons and spend the evenings watching Rupert. Friends who’d gone skiing had lent them a penthouse flat, overlooking Holland Park, just a few minutes from Olympia. She was touched and a little ashamed by Rupert’s delight that she would be with him. It was the first show she’d been to for ages. She’d been so sick with the baby and felt so tired, and after a tidal wave of Rupert’s female fans sent her flying and nearly trampled her to death at the Royal International back in July, she’d decided to give shows a miss.
Rupert had been competing abroad for much of the last five months, and during the separations she’d been very lonely and spent many restless nights worrying she might miscarry or the baby might be deformed. She took her pregnancy very seriously, eating the right food, resting, going religiously to prenatal classes, and giving up drink completely. So those jolly reunions after Billy and Rupert came back from successful shows, when even Helen got mildly tight, were things of the past.
