“And now you’ve found me.”
“Hells’ bells… ah, excuse me, ma’am,” and a look from his employer made the lanky rawboned hostler touch his hat in the almost lost gesture of courtesy.
“Miss Dunn, my head stableman, Jerry MacCrate.”
“How do, miss. Bartells is at the steward’s office, boss. I know you wanted to see him. I’ve been combing the barns for you. And you know who I saw in G-Barn?”
“Yes, a black jumper named Orfeo.”
“Huh? That wasn’t…” The man was so astonished that I almost laughed outright.
“That was Orfeo, Jerry, no matter whom he resembles.” Rafe Clery’s voice was not raised one decibel, but his order was received, loud and clear. He rose, shoving silver under his sandwich plate. “You’re jumping the mare in Ladies’ Hunter Hack?”
I nodded.
“And Orfeo tomorrow?” He grinned a little absently. “See you.”
Then he strode away, the lanky groom following, obscuring his employer’s slighter figure. I watched as the two went across the paper-carton-littered grass toward the steward’s field office. No, Rafe Clery didn’t swagger or strut. He walked in quick strides, and Jerry MacCrate matched his step to his boss’s.
“You finished, miss?”
I was startled from my observations by a party of five hot and tired people, hopefully glancing at my table. Hastily I rose. If they hadn’t come, I’d’ve scooped up the unfinished sandwich from my host’s plate. Dice could have had turkey for dinner. He must be tired of mice. But I couldn’t with ten eyes watching me, so I regretfully departed. If you’re hungry, you shouldn’t be so proud, I told myself. But I was. And that’s all there is to it.
2
I didn’t mean to, but I kept thinking about Mr. Rafe (Ralph? Surely not Rafael?) Clery for the rest of the morning, even while I was grooming and saddling Phi Bete for the afternoon class. I didn’t see him in the stands when I went to observe some of the other classes. My jaundice toward the judges changed, for I had to admit that they weren’t all that wrong in their other decisions. In fact, they chose my candidates with the one exception of the Roman-nosed bay in the Five-Gaited Class. It was obvious, to me, that the horse had been treated. He was sweating heavily as he lifted his legs with pain-driven height, and his nostrils flared redly. The other mounts were sweating, too, and they were working for those precise artificial gaits, but if you know the signs, you can tell the difference. And his rider? I don’t trust people who can keep a smile plastered on their faces round after round, but then, I don’t trust people who doctor horses.
I remember Dad the day Mrs. du Maurier (no relation to the writers) acquired the five-gaited bay gelding who had won out over her own entry in the Garden back in the early fifties. I was too young then to realize that people would deliberately mistreat an animal to win anything as paltry as a blue ribbon. (I was very young, for I didn’t know that money and prestige accompanied the blue ribbons and: silver trophies. I honestly thought the horses wanted to win. The ones Daddy trained always looked so pleased with themselves in the winner’s circles.)
Mrs. du Maurier had had a house full of guests, but Dad had marched up to the house and insisted that she come down to the paddock where he’d put the “pore
crayture.” I was weeping, I remember, for the salt of my tears is indelibly linked with that memory. Children see past sham, and I knew she was as shocked as Daddy by the bay’s condition.
“My God,” she’d said in her funny rough voice, so distracting to issue from a soft feminine face. “I’d no idea when I bought him, Russell. I’ve known Charlie Hackett for years.”
“May be, ma’am, but what’ll I do with this poor wreck, for I’m telling you flat out, I’ll not show him for you, fire me if you wish, but I’ll ride no crippled, blistered crayture.”
Regardless of her elegant dress, Mrs. du Maurier bent to lift the trembling, scarred fetlocks, traced the black calluses of recent lacerations plainly visible.
“Jesus God!” she muttered, her face grim. “Ease the poor brute if you can, Russell. Turn him out to pasture. I’ll take this up with Hackett. Don’t you just know I will. And I’ll get my price back, too.”
“You’ll not be giving the bay back to him, ma’am?”
Mrs. du Maurier gave father one of her famous stares.
“I should think you’d know me well enough not to have to ask, Russell.” And she’d gone back to her party.
I used to ride the bay later on, but never in a show. By then he no longer snapped his feet high because they hurt but because he felt good.
Mrs. du Maurier had been no such enigma as Rafe Clery, and yet there was some subtle resemblance of manners between them. A certain assurance, knowledgeability, an almost detached confidence of bearing and charm. And Mrs. du Maurier had smiled a lot with her eyes, too. She’d been a good, kind woman who had her share of troubles (even I knew about Mr. du Maurier’s drinking and wenching, although I don’t think he’d ever have forced an employee’s daughter… I mustn’t think about that), and Agnes du Maurier had kept her humor and her perspective despite all the sordid incidents, and come out on top. Yes, she and Rafe Clery were curiously alike… and there was no reason to it. Because he certainly wasn’t a Kentuckian, though there was a hint of the softened vowels, the occasionally slurred consonant.
I wondered what accounted for those odd touches of
bitterness, the shadow of defensiveness about that young man. Only… he wasn’t all that young. Now that I thought back, I realized there’d been lines around his eyes. His face was so mobile, they didn’t show often. Korea? No, that would make him almost forty. Somehow I didn’t want Rafe Clery to be forty. Then I chided myself sternly. He looked boyish, but that was partly due to his size… or lack of it. I’m wrong there, too. He didn’t give the slightest impression of a lack of anything.
I heard the PA system calling the Ladies’ Hunter Hack, and hastily led Phi Bete out of the sweltering stable. My other shirt was soaked already, and I didn’t have the jacket on yet. Oh, Lord, what a way to make a living.
I could mount Phi Bete without a block, though she’s a good sixteen hands in the shoulder. The saddle seemed a little loose as I settled myself and flicked out the off-side stirrup iron. Everything was stretching in this heat. Well, I’d let the saddle “sit” on our way to the ring, and then tighten the girth just before the class filed in.. There was almost a full brigade of entries for this class. It’s always popular, because the jumps are nominal, and anyone with any pretension to the title of equestrienne must have one hunter hack. There were, however, some damned improbable beasts, all shined up and mounted by all types, from teen-agers to beefy matrons. Under the regulation hard-top hat, they were indistinguishable except for body size.
Some of the horses were fidgeting, backing, filling, tails switching, ears back as the entries crowded the gate. I kept Phi Bete back. I couldn’t risk her being kicked. Nevertheless, even though I was wary, the sudden fracas boiled over on us before I could react. Phi Bete reared to avoid the flashing hooves of a short-coupled chestnut who bucked and kicked out of the melee, rider hanging gamely about its neck. Phi Bete reared again, somehow backing up on her hind legs and swerving to the right. I could feel the saddle go, and on reflex action, got my feet free of the stirrups. As the mare came down, I let her momentum throw me onto her neck as the saddle slid to one side, to be trampled by the other horses surging around.
I sat there on Phi Bete’s bare back, looking numbly at the saddle. I could see that the girth had parted. And heavy-duty girth webbing doesn’t snap like that. It can’t. Not when you don’t have a spare. The class was moving in now. And all I could do was stare at the useless saddle in the dust.