dog up.’
As Lysander and Jack slid out into the hall, they found Taggie clutching her head.
‘Oh dear, oh dear.’
‘Hi.’ Lysander kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Oh wow, I don’t blame the tractor-driver.’
‘Rupert’s under a lot of pressure,’ said Taggie defensively. ‘He’s worried about the war. Having been in the Army, he feels he ought to be out there, and he’s worried about business; the Saudis and Kuwaitis own a lot of his horses.’
‘Lovely house,’ said Lysander, admiring the yellow flagstones, the tapestries and the huge oil of a rotund black Labrador.
‘When it’s quiet,’ said Taggie.
The screaming was escalating.
‘Don’t you touch me. I’ll ring Esther Rantzen and get you for child battering. I’ve had to live through one lousy newspaper scandal after another. No wonder I’m disturbed. Ashley says I ought to be in therapy.’
‘You ought to be in a chastity belt,’ yelled Rupert. ‘You’ve always had everything you wanted.’
‘So’ve you — mostly women.’
‘Not since Taggie, and you know it.’
‘She doesn’t trust you an inch. That’s why she tags (ha, bloody ha) along to everything. Never lets you out of her sight. I used to see something of you before you married her.’
Putting her hands over her ears, Taggie ran back to the kitchen.
‘Shut up!’ Rupert was shaking Tabitha like a rat. ‘You’ve gone too far this time. You can go and live with your mother. And I’ll sell Frankie, Sorrel
This was the red-hot poker on Tabitha’s back.
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she sobbed hysterically. ‘I’ll report you to the RSPCA and the NS what’s it. You promised Biscuit could end her days here! You promised!’ She was banging her fists frantically against Rupert’s chest.
‘If you ever see that hairy little wimp again, and you don’t go back to Bagley Hall tonight, Biscuit’ll be in a can, or shipped abroad for horse meat.’
Rupert had always insisted on an office with two doors, so he could escape from importuning women in the old days and now from tiresome owners.
‘Bastard!’ Tabitha ran screaming through the door leading upstairs.
Lysander jumped guiltily and fell into the office as Rupert opened the second door. His face was expressionless, but there was a glint in his eyes.
‘Where were we?’ he said amiably. ‘Oh yes, you wanted to race ride for me.’
Picking up the telephone, he dialled the yard.
‘Dizzy darling, can you tack up Meutrier?’
Lysander could hear Dizzy’s squawk of disapproval down the telephone, but he was too excited about proving himself to notice.
Horses, their blazes and stars gleaming in the dusk, hung out of their boxes whickering in delight as the grooms put scoops of oats and nuts in each manger. Meutrier, a beautiful chestnut, showing a crescent of white below both eyes, came out with a clatter, not amused at having to postpone his supper.
‘Hang on, he’s as quick as lightning,’ muttered Dizzy in defiance of her boss, ‘and his mouth’s gone, and he’s got a horrific stop.’
‘No-one asked your opinion,’ snapped Rupert, as he gave Lysander a leg up.
‘I ride long,’ said Lysander, gathering up his reins.
‘Not on my horses, you don’t.’ Rupert tugged up the stirrups until Lysander’s long thighs were level with Meutrier’s back.
‘Goodbye, world,’ giggled Lysander.
Like a jewelled hairnet he could see the lights of Penscombe tangling with the bare trees.
‘This is a beautiful horse, Rupert,’ he said as he rode off.
‘Why d’you put him on Meutrier?’ asked Dizzy furiously. ‘He’s a sweet boy.’
‘And needs hacking down to size.’
Having bawled her head off in her room, incensed that not even Taggie, whom she really adored, had come up to comfort her, Tabitha stopped crying. She couldn’t go back to Bagley Hall. She’d never see Ashley again and feel the tickle of his beard. She wished he washed more, but he despised deodorants, thinking the skin ought to be allowed to breathe.
Looking out of the window, she saw her father and Dizzy walking towards the all-weather track that ran for a mile and a half over Rupert’s rolling fields. They were following a rider on — Christ, it was Meutrier. No other horse walked with that fluid grace or that innocence. Tab picked up her binoculars. She couldn’t identify who was on his back, but he rode wonderfully. She’d never seen anyone move so naturally with a horse. For Meutrier, it must have been like dancing with Fred Astaire.
In gratitude the big vicious chestnut put in a terrifying buck. The rider grabbed his mane but didn’t shift in the saddle, then he swung the horse towards the floodlit track, and he was off, hurtling towards the first fence. Meutrier’s ears were flat to the head. He was taking off too near. Meutrier was going to stop. Tab gripped her binoculars in horror. The rider would be killed going at that speed. Then amazingly Meutrier put in a terrific cat jump and sailed over.
Kicking his feet out of the stirrups, stretching his legs, the rider was over the next fence, his body folding beautifully, as he disappeared over the brow of the hill.
Down by the finish, Dizzy forgot the cold and the racing snowflakes and gave a cry of relief as Lysander appeared round the corner. Coming up to the last fence, he dropped his reins and folded his arms, laughing as Meutrier hoisted himself upwards and cleared the birch twigs by a foot. As Lysander pulled up, for a second Rupert’s antagonism, overdrafts, unemployment, even the loss of Kitty were forgotten.
‘This is the most wonderful horse I’ve ever ridden. I’m sure he’d stay twice the distance. I’d give anything to ride him at Cheltenham.’
At that moment Taggie came slipping and sliding down the snowy path. She hadn’t even bothered to put on a jacket.
‘Rupert, you didn’t put Lysander on Meutrier? He was going back tomorrow.’
‘Well, he may not now,’ said Rupert.
His rage had subsided, but, not prepared to be conciliatory, he stalked ahead of them back to the house.
Lysander was sitting at the scrubbed kitchen table eating miraculously light cheese-straws hot from the oven when Tabitha slid round the door like a cat, took one incredulous look at him and shot out again. Then, as Taggie handed him a glass of whisky and settled herself on the window-seat opposite, Tabitha’s amazed face reappeared outside the window.
He couldn’t be real, thought Tabitha, he couldn’t. Such thick brown curls, such a wonderful curving mouth pulled upwards by the short upper lip and such big, kind, laughing eyes.
‘Oooooooh,’ she wailed.
‘Has anyone seen
‘Hi, darling,’ said Taggie. ‘Help yourself to a drink.’
‘Thanks.’ Tab reached for a sherry glass and filled it up with Coke so it spilled over and over as she gazed at Lysander.
‘Come and sit down,’ Taggie patted the seat beside her.
‘Sorry,’ muttered Tabitha, sliding in beside her stepmother, and putting her chin on Taggie’s shoulder. ‘Didn’t mean it.’
‘I know you didn’t.’ Taggie hugged her. ‘You two haven’t been introduced, have you?’
‘Not properly,’ said Lysander. ‘You look just like your father. D’you ride as well as he does?’
‘Urn.’ Tab had gone crimson and opened her mouth and shut it, when Rupert marched in, dangling the cordless telephone between finger and thumb.
‘It’s Ashley,’ he said softly.
There was a long, tense pause.
‘Tell him I’m not here,’ stammered Tabitha. ‘That I’ve gone back to school, make up something. Arthur’s
