HartsLove (16 page)

‘It's bad news, isn't it?' Daisy said. She sat down heavily. ‘He's not right.'

‘My dear Miss Daisy –' Arthur was beaming – ‘he's sound! At least, so far as I can see.' He heard Daisy choke.

‘You made him go three times.'

‘I always make horses go three times,' Arthur said. ‘That's the best way to be sure. Now, as you know, a mended knee is always weaker than a knee that's never been broken, but as I've said before, this injury was strange, so we can be very hopeful.'

‘We can ride him?'

Arthur grinned at both Daisy and Garth. ‘You can ride him.' He pulled his sodden hat back on. ‘Build up the pace slowly, though, and don't gallop too soon. Now I must rush.' He was back on his cob before his smile became sadder. His work here was ended. He wondered if Rose would be waiting by the gate in this rain. He was halfway down the drive before he heard somebody calling. Daisy was swinging on her crutches, her skirt dragging. She caught his stirrup and he could see that her dream was thoroughly alive again. He almost said, ‘Hope is one thing, but dreams are something else,' but she spoke first. ‘When we're in the winners' enclosure, promise you'll be there too.'

‘Miss Daisy—' Arthur began.

‘Just say you'll be there.' She shook the rain off. She was laughing.

He had never heard her laugh before. ‘If The One wins, you'll have important people to speak to.'

‘Who could be more important than you?' Daisy's whole face was alight. ‘You've made The One better!'

She was irresistible. ‘I'll be there,' he said. She let go and swung back up the drive.

He found Rose half drowned. ‘Well?' she asked, knotting her hands.

‘It's my last visit,' he said.

‘Oh.' She did not have to explain the guilty disappointment in her voice. They began to walk, and though the rain never ceased they walked slower and slower so that by the time Arthur returned to the surgery, the canary was dead and buried and Mr Snaffler was so angry he cut a shilling from Arthur's wages.

‘I can't! I can't!'

It was four days later. The rain had stopped at last and Garth, Daisy and The One were at the Resting Place in the haze of a promising dawn. The One was saddled and bridled and attached to Daisy by a long rope. She had been teaching the horse to walk and trot at her command, and now, since Garth had made it impossible for Daisy to refuse him without a permanent breach between them, something Daisy knew she could not bear, not for anything, it was time for Garth to get on. For nearly an hour he had been perched on the top of one of the tombstones. It was impossible, it was intolerable, yet it was horribly, shamingly true that despite the acrobatics, despite the Cannibal,
despite the gun
, at the last moment before mounting, he found his mouth still filling with fear and, worse, his legs refusing to spring. He could not mount. His fear drained all his strength. Sweat ran down his back.

‘I've got him,' urged Daisy. ‘He can't go anywhere.' She was having a hard job holding The One. The horse was jittery and excited at no longer being cooped up in the yard. He could smell the wind. His legs itched to stretch. ‘Just lean over the saddle so that he can feel your weight,' Daisy instructed. ‘You don't have to put a leg over.'

Garth took a deep breath. ‘OK. Bring him close again.'

Daisy brought The One close, murmuring all the time. ‘You talk to him,' she said to Garth. ‘He knows your voice.'

Garth tried to speak and failed. The horse he knew so well from the ground was a foreign beast from this higher angle. Garth's terrors taunted him.
You'll never conquer us, coward boy! Not even when you're dead!
His skin was grey as the dawn.

Daisy brought the horse closer. She saw how Garth was. Soothing the horse, she walked him away again. ‘Calm, The One,' she said, ‘just be calm.' He still nudged and jogged, unable to understand what Daisy wanted of him. She let him out on the long rein and allowed him to put his head down. The sight of him grazing might be reassuring to Garth, but The One did not want to graze; he longed to be moving and Daisy found herself dragged about.

Garth set his face. ‘I'll try again.'

Daisy nodded. ‘Just a quick slither over his back, then off again. That'll be enough for today.' It would not be enough. Both she and Garth knew that. They had thirty-eight days to prepare the horse for something that normally
took at least a year's steady work. She gathered the rope and walked The One back to the tombstone. ‘Now,' she said. Garth took a breath and prepared. He was going to do it. He really was. He bunched up, ready to spring. The One shook himself. Garth's mouth filled again and his stomach turned. The horse was huge. Should he choose to misbehave, he was uncontrollable. Garth would fall off and break his back and be even more crippled than Daisy.
Silly! Silly!
Garth shouted silently. Millions of people rode every day without harm. Most of them were not brave at all. And he was brave. He was braver than most. He could do it. He would do it. He got halfway across the saddle, then The One jinxed at something in the chestnut tree and Garth crashed on to the grass.
You see! Uncontrollable!
Garth knew then that he was lost. He longed to explain to Daisy –
My fear's like a pit! Don't you see? I keep thinking I've leaped over it, but I never make it to the other side
. He said nothing.

Daisy kept all expression out of her voice. ‘You'll manage tomorrow.' They walked back to the stables.

‘Success?' asked Skelton. He knew the answer because he had been watching. He was desperate to interfere but Daisy did not want him anywhere near and he could not risk her complaining to Charles. Charles must be kept away from the horse, lest even in his drunken state he smelled a rat. Only if Daisy herself asked could Skelton help. Surely, surely she would have to soon?

‘Success,' lied Daisy, though she knew perfectly well
that Skelton had seen everything. She was surprised when he did not contradict her. Perhaps Skelton was learning to be nicer. It was not impossible.

The next day Garth still did not manage, and after three failed attempts ran back to the castle, sick with humiliation and self-loathing. Daisy started after him, dragging The One behind her. ‘Go away!' Garth's cry was half strangled. ‘Go away!'

With tears of pity and frustration rolling down her cheeks, Daisy took The One back to the Resting Place. Why did Garth feel he must ride? She did not care if he did or he didn't. She only cared that he was so unhappy and that time was ticking away. She leaned against the chestnut tree. The One fidgeted, grew bored and began to pull at the newly forming buds. After a while, Daisy moved to one of the tombstones. Thirty-seven days until the Two Thousand Guineas. If The One did not run in that, he could not run in the Derby. During this thirty-seven days, then, not only must the horse be ridden and his pace worked up to a gallop, they also had to get him to Newmarket, where the Two Thousand Guineas would take place. That was nearly two hundred miles. If they walked The One twenty miles a day, the journey would take ten days not including any rest along the way. That left twenty-seven days of preparation. She faced the inevitable with a sinking heart: she would have to ask Skelton for help.

She whispered The One's name. He blew on her hair.
The stirrups were down, the saddle empty. Daisy gazed at it. She gazed and gazed. She had not been on a horse since her accident. Everybody said it was too dangerous. It was also completely impractical. Yet the saddle was so empty, so inviting. No. Stupid. They could not afford another accident. Yet, yet. The saddle glinted. She hauled herself on to the tombstone. The One stood like a rock. She would just lean over the saddle. Where was the harm in that? Even from the height of the tombstone, the horse's back was too high for her. To lean across she would have to jump, and that she could not do. She was going to climb down. But there was the stirrup, gleaming. She only had to put her foot in it and she would have a step. She touched it with her toe. The One remained still.
Perhaps my foot won't fit into the stirrup
, Daisy thought.
After all, callipers are broader than a boot
. Her foot slid in. All she had to do was push up and she would be able to lean over the saddle. Just a little push. But if she pushed off from the tombstone, she would be suspended in the air with nothing solid to lean on except the horse. She slid her foot out. She took a jagged breath. The One shifted. ‘If you move even one inch I shall fall,' she said. The One flicked his ears. He was standing four square. Daisy's foot crept back into the stirrup. Without allowing herself to think any more, she pushed. Now she was stranded, so there was nothing else to do but bend over the saddle, stomach hard against the slippery leather. She felt like a sack of potatoes, face down, her head dangling
somewhere near the offside stirrup, her hair all flopped over and tickling her nose. Unused to the weight, The One braced and remained still only because he saw something interesting in the chestnut tree's branches. From above, Snipe was a silent observer.

Daisy had no hold of the reins. She was not well balanced. There was nothing to stop The One from galloping or even jumping the fence at the bottom of the park if he chose. She did not know whether to breathe or not. The One walked off. The stirrup began to bang against her head. It hurt, and her foolishness hit her as hard as the steel. She scrunched her eyes shut so that she could not see the ground. She had no idea how she would stay on. Was it better to fall on to her crippled legs or her head? Her heart thumped in her ears. Soon The One would trot. Worse than anything else, she had let go of the rope. He was going to stand on it and lame himself again. She wished, uselessly and frantically, that she was back on the tombstone.

The One carried on walking, and through the thumping in her ears Daisy heard a whispering. At first she thought it was The One's hooves on the grass. Then there was a word. ‘Steady,' the whisperer repeated, just that one word again and again in a sing-song. ‘Steady.'

Daisy nearly opened her eyes but in a sudden flash chose to believe that the ghostly crusaders were taking charge. That was it. They were helping her. She scrunched her eyes more tightly shut to believe harder.

The One swung his shoulders. The weight on his back was odd, yet so long as the whisperer was by his side and he could walk freely, he did not feel inclined to buck or jib. Daisy felt pressure on her right leg. Somebody was shifting it. Now her leg was over the saddle. She was astride, though still bent over. The One began to jog. Daisy's leg was held firm. She shook her hair back but never peeped. ‘Don't leave me,' she silently implored the whisperer.

They would have made a strange sight, had anybody been watching: Daisy, hunched in the saddle; The One, ears half back and half forward; a thin, foxy figure, almost invisible, whispering. Nobody was watching though. Garth was searching for the pistol in the moat; Skelton was spring whitewashing the stables; Daisy's sisters were helping Mrs Snipper; Charles was lying, mouth open, on his bed.

When they had traversed the Resting Place four or five times, Snipe hooked the long rein over the stone and Daisy felt herself lifted down. She leaned against the tombstone, very shaky, her hair sticking to her cheeks and the insides of the tops of her legs stung raw from the unaccustomed friction. Only when the whispering stopped did she open her eyes. Her crutches were resting on the flat stone. The One was grazing again. There were no ghosts in sight.

Daisy gazed at the saddle. She could hardly believe she had sat in it. She buried her head in The One's shoulder. After a while, she took the rope and picked up her crutches. Underneath them was a jar marked Lilypetal Jelly. She
opened it, smelled it and showed it to The One. He wanted to eat it. She shook her head. ‘It's not for you,' she said. ‘It's another present for Lily.' She put the lid back on. ‘It must have been the ghost who loves her that's just helped me.' She would not doubt it for a second. ‘Thank you!' she whispered. Carrying the jar carefully back up the field, she hid it under the lip of the drawbridge.

At the stables, she found Skelton up a ladder. ‘Master Garth manage this time, did he, then, missy?' Skelton asked. He was certain of another failed day. Now Daisy would beg for his help, and he had his answer all prepared.

‘The One's been ridden,' Daisy said without a smile.

Skelton drew a sharp breath and narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean, he's backed.'

‘But I saw Master Garth going up to the castle,' Skelton burst out. ‘I saw him.' Daisy took the horse into the stable. Skelton came down the ladder and followed her in. Daisy must be lying. He could not let this go on any longer. His whole future depended on that horse. It was getting harder to be cautious. He gripped his hands together. ‘So Master Garth'll gallop him this week? Time's not on our side.' He could not stop his voice rising slightly.

‘I know that,' Daisy agreed. She had no idea how she and The One would gallop, but she would not discuss it with Skelton. She took up the curry comb.

Angry, the groom pressed her more. She did not answer.
Eventually he went up to the loft and began forking the hay. In his mind's eye, he could still see the horse galloping along the fence the day he had escaped. The speed! It was extraordinary! The horse had a chance, a real chance. He stabbed his pitchfork deep. And every day, because of these stupid, stubborn children, the chance was diminishing. Yet they would not thwart him. He stabbed his pitchfork deeper. This time next year he
would have
his own horses in these stables, his own carriage in the empty coach-house and somebody else to do the whitewashing. He threw the pitchfork down and clamped his pipe between his teeth. He knew he must be calm. ‘Remember,' he told himself sternly, ‘the girl wants the horse to win as much as you do.' He stamped on a spider. ‘She'll come for help in the end. Of course she will. She'll have no choice.' He kicked at the hay. Yes, she would come to him. He must just be patient. He put his pipe away, picked up the pitchfork and glanced out of the loft door. From up here, he could see the Hartslove pennant gently slapping the flagpole. He began to imagine what pennant he would fly when he was lord of this manor. A brilliant idea struck him. He would appropriate the de Granville flag and fly it as his own. Sir Charles would not like that. None of them would. He ran his eye over the castle's silhouette. Actually, once he owned the place, perhaps he would not live in it. Perhaps he would sell it as an institution. He spat. Perhaps he would sell it as a school for bad boys, the kind of school in which he had grown
up and whose scars he still bore on the backs of his legs. It would be sweet revenge to be the benefactor, enthroned in the big chair on speech days with the boys forced to bow and thank him for their torture. He'd be The One then. Oh yes. He'd be The One, and he would never let anybody forget it.