“Distressing, certainly,” said Darcourt. They were moving on toward strawberry shortcake, made with tasteless imported strawberries, but that was what Little Charlie wanted, and Darcourt was trying to prime the pump of her memory. “Was your father fond of animals, do you recall?”
“Couldn’t say,” said Little Charlie, busy with her spoon. “It was pretty much all King and Country with him, as I was told it. But don’t imagine that because I said I might have bought that stallion I’m really keen on Shetlands. Of course they sell well to people with children, because they look so sweet. But they’re a deceiving kind of pony, you know. Such a short step. Keep a child too long on a Shetland and you may have spoiled her forever as a rider. What she needs as soon as she’s big enough is a good Welsh, with a strain of Arab. They’re the ones with style and action! They’re my bread-and-butter. Not for polo, mind you. There it’s Exmoor and Dartmoor, and I breed a lot of those. In fact—this is telling tales out of school but what the hell!—I sold an Exmoor stallion to His Royal Highnesss stable a couple of years ago, and HRH said—I was told this very much in confidence—he’d never seen a finer little stallion.”
“I won’t tell a soul. Now, about your father—”
“He was a four-year-old and just coming into his best. For Gods sake, I said to HRH’s man, don’t push him too hard. Give him time and he’ll get you twenty-five to forty first-class foals every year until he s twenty. But if you push him now—Well, you’ll never believe this, but I’ve seen a fine stallion forced to serve as many as three hundred mares a season, and after five years he’s just plain knackered! Like people. Quality, not quantity, is the root of the whole thing. Of course they can soldier on. They’re wonderfully willing, you know. But its the sperm. The sperm count in an overworked stallion goes down and down, and though he may look like Don Juan he’s just Weary Willie. As Stella says—she’s very broad-spoken, sometimes—his willy is willing but the trollybobs are weak. So that’s it. Never, never be greedy with your stallion!”
“I promise you I never will. But now I really think we ought to talk about your father.”
“Of course. Sorry, sorry, sorry. The ruling passion. I do rattle on. Stella says so. Well, as to Daddy, I never saw him.”
“Never?”
“Not to remember. I suppose he saw me, when I was a tiny. But not after I’d begun to notice. But he cared for me. That’s to say he sent money regularly to look after me, and all the farriery was left to my grandmother. Prudence Glasson, you know. The whole gang were related, in various distant degrees. You see, my mummy was Ismay Glasson, and her father was Roderick Glasson, who was kin to Daddy from another point of the compass. I wouldn’t have bred them that way if it had been my stud, but that’s all past and done with. My very first pony, when I was four—a sweet Shetland—had a ticket on his bridle, ‘For Little Charlie from Daddy’.”
“You remember your mother, of course?”
“No, not a bit. You see—this is the family skeleton—Mummy was a bolter. Not long after I was born she just took off, and left me to Daddy and my grandparents. Mind you, I think she was a sort of high-minded bolter; she went to Spain to fight in the war and I always assumed she was killed there, but nobody ever gave me any details. She was by way of being a beauty, but from pictures I’d say she was a bit overbred; nervous and high-strung, and likely to bite, and bolt, and jib, and do all those things.”
“Really? That’s very helpful. I tried to see your uncle, Sir Roderick, in London at the Foreign Office, to ask a few questions about your mother, but it was impossible to make an appointment.”
“Oh, Uncle Roddy would never see you, or tell you anything if he did. He’s the original Stuffed Shirt. I’ve given up all hope of seeing him, not that I’m keen. But don’t run away with the idea that I had a neglected or unhappy childhood. It was absolutely marvellous, even though St. Columb’s was running down all the time I was growing up. I believe Daddy poured a lot of money into the family place—God knows why—but my grandfather was a hopeless estate manager. Our money from Daddy was watched rather carefully by a solicitor, so it didn’t go down the drain, and it still doesn’t, let me assure you. My little stud is built on that, and since I met Stella—you’d adore Stella, though she is a bit frank-spoken and you are a parson, after all—I’ve been as happy as a lark.”
“So you really know nothing about your father? In your letter to the Cornishes here you rather suggested that he had some Secret Service connection.”
“That was hinted at, but not much was said. Not much was known, I suppose. But you see Daddy’s father, Sir Francis, was in that, and very deep, I believe, and how far Daddy followed in his footsteps I really don’t know. It was the spy connection that kept Daddy from coming to see me, or so it was said.”
“Spy? Do you think he was really a spy?”
“It’s not a word Gran would ever hear used. If they’re British intelligence agents they certainly aren’t spies, she said. Only foreigners are spies. But you know how kids are. I used to joke about him being a spy, to raise the temperature a little. You know, the way kids do. They always told me to be very secret about it but I don’t suppose it matters now.”
“And did you know that your father was a painter, and a remarkable connoisseur, and had a reputation as an expert on pictures?”
“Never heard a word about that. Though I was knocked endways to find out he’d left a huge fortune! I did think of asking the Cornishes if they’d like to use some of it to finance some really super breeding—you know, the very best of the best. But then I thought, shut up, Charlie; that’s greedy, and Daddy has treated you very well. So shut up! And I have.—Oh, crumbs, I must be off! Heavy afternoon ahead of me. Thanks for the super lunch. I shan’t be seeing you again, shall I? Or Arthur and Maria, either. I fly on Friday. They’re a super pair. Especially Maria. By the way, you’re a great family friend, I believe; have you heard anything about her being in foal?”
“In foal? Oh, I see what you mean. No. Have you?”
“No. But I have the breeder’s eye, you know. Right away there’s something about a mare that tells the tale. If the stallion’s clicked, I mean.—And now I must dash!”
As well as a stout woman may, she dashed.
2
Arthur wept. He had not done so since his parents died in a motor accident when he was fourteen; he was stricken by the grief that overcame him as he sat in Darcourt’s study, a cluttered, booky room, into which a little watery November sun made its way cautiously, as if doubtful of its welcome. He wept. His shoulders shook. It seemed to him that he howled, although Darcourt, standing by the window, looking out into the college quadrangle, heard only deep-fetched sobs. Tears poured from his eyes, and salt downpourings of mucus streamed from his nose. One handkerchief was sodden and the second—Arthur always carried two—and the second was rapidly becoming useless. Darcourt was not the sort of man who has boxes of tissues in his study. It seemed to Arthur that his paroxysm would never end; new desolation heaved up into his heart as quickly as he wept out the old. But at last he sank back in his chair blear-eyed, red-nosed, and conscious that his fine tie had a smear of snot on it.
“Got a handkerchief?” he said.
Darcourt threw him one. “Feel better now, do you?”
“I feel like a cuckold.”
“Ah, yes. A cuckold. Or as Dr. Dahl-Soot pronounces it, cookold. You’ll have to get used to it.”
“You’re a bloody unsympathetic friend. And a bloody unresponsive priest, Simon.”