There was in what she said some deep truth that connected her with the mares. But Jury blamed himself for stating it so clumsily that she’d misunderstood. “On the contrary, I think the horses were absolutely the reason. By ‘connections’ and ‘reasons,’ I mean, how is it that you feel such compassion that you stayed when you could have left, and why were you willing to put yourself at risk again and again by going back, when you could simply have stopped? That first time, you could have taken Aqueduct and just ridden off. But you went back. Every time you went back it was more dangerous. You even went back to your room, your bed.”
“After the fourth mare I waited. So I needed to stay with the mares I had and take care of them. It was nearly three weeks between stealing the fourth one and the fifth, then the sixth. And after that, I just stayed in the barn. It was on Granddad’s property and we once used it, but not anymore.”
“You couldn’t have been far from there all along. How far was it?”
“I’m not sure; driving, I think it would be less than two miles.”
“And you didn’t know this Hobbs woman? I mean, before.”
She shook her head. “The farms are so far apart that unless you do business with one-” She shrugged and studied the rug again; it seemed to be the repository for their unspoken, perhaps unbidden, thoughts. “Being that close, all of this time…”
“But you still feel guilty.”
“Yes.” She looked up. “For the ones I left behind.”
Jury looked at her across this small sea of gray rug, at the pattern of barely distinguishable waves, by some illusion washing toward her, lapping at her feet. He felt a cold knot in his stomach, as if he had waded out into freezing water to reach her, but couldn’t. “The ones you left,” he said. For some people there was always something more to do, something more to save. “Did you think you could get all of those mares out?”
She nodded. “Maybe, at first. If I was clever enough. Brave enough.” Her smile was weak, as if she should never have expected to be either.
Astonished, Jury just looked at her. What she had already done was not enough to show her that she was both brave and clever. He hardly knew what to say in the face of such self- abnegation. He reverted to practical questions.
“This fellow who abducted you-would you know him if you saw him again?”
“I don’t think so, not to see him. Maybe if I felt him-”
She stopped so suddenly, Jury was suspicious. He thought of her former hesitation. “Nell, what else happened?” He knew the moment she looked at him and then didn’t look at him. Rather, she looked everywhere in the room, except at him. “This fellow, the one who abducted you, did he do anything else?”
She bent her head as if she couldn’t get it down far enough, far enough away from him. “It wasn’t him.”
Jury waited.
“Another one. Another man, but I only saw his face once, and not well. That’s because he came at night and made sure the room was always dark. He made me lie on my stomach and went at me that way. I never saw anything except his hands on either side of my face.” As if her listener might need this demonstrated, she put her own hands by her face, palms flat and turned inward. “Just his hands.” She seemed not to know what to do with them now.
Jury leaned over and took her hands in his. “This is part of the reason you feel you can’t go back.”
She was crying as she nodded. She said, “I didn’t fight it after the second time. To fight him off meant only that it would last longer.”
Jury moved to the sofa and put his arms around her. “None of this was your fault, Nell. None of it.”
“But you won’t tell anyone. Please don’t tell anyone. Vernon would kill him if he ever saw him.”
“No, I won’t.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her where she still had her face buried in his chest. She reached out a hand, took it. Interesting she’d chosen Vernon, and not her father or grandfather, to kill the bastard. Jury thought:
She had apparently made herself presentable enough to sit back. “If Mum hadn’t died-”
The
Was it the shutout, Jury wondered, that had evoked in her this love of creatures that could communicate only through signs and gestures? Was it herself she saw in these helpless mares and because of that was determined to do what her mother never could? Nor, when it came to it, her father or even her grandfather, though they were far better than her mother. They had at least stuck.
Nell went on. “She was a terrific horsewoman, Mum. Maybe that’s where I got the ability.”
That and a few other things, thought Jury, looking at the rug again. Loneliness, and an abiding rootlessness, an incurable homesickness. When Mum went, she took home with her.
“Mr. Jury.”
His head snapped up.
“What’re you thinking? I mean, you look so sad.”
“Oh. I was just remembering my own childhood. My own mum. I didn’t have a horse.”
“That’s too bad. You should’ve.”
He smiled. It was as if humankind were divided between the horse owners and the horseless, as if horses could take the place of missing parents.
Her expression was completely serious and concerned. “You’re going to Ryder Stud tomorrow?”
Her face clouded over a little. “Yes.” Then she surprised him by saying, “You could go with us. Would you?”
“Well… yes, if you want. I’d be glad to.”
They both turned at the sound of the door’s opening. Vernon came in with a large carryall that clinked.
“Sorry it took so long.”
“That Oddbins chap must have been giving you a detailed account of the slopes of Burgundy and Muligny.”
“Nope. I just ran into a pal of mine and we had a drink.” He set the bag on the floor beside the drinks cabinet.
Jury didn’t believe Vernon had met a pal. He had stayed away for this half hour to give Nell room to talk more freely.
“You both look like you could use a drink.” He held up a bottle of whiskey and one of red wine. “Okay? Interested?” They nodded and Vernon set about fixing the drinks.
“Tell me about the place,” said Jury.
“It was ordinary enough. Not as much land as we have.
The mares were kept in stalls some distance from the main building.” She described the barns, the narrow stalls, the way the urine was collected, the way the mares were tethered so they couldn’t move more than a few inches. All of this as if limning a picture he’d better not forget. But she said
