The Bride's Farewell (21 page)

T
he stables felt more serene than anyone could remember. Horses trotted out smartly and rarely turned up lame. Reins slipped smoothly through gloved fingers, leaving no mark. And when the sisters mounted the stairs to their little room each night, the barn below glowed with something no one could quite name.

As time wore on, however, John Kirby began to notice something in the quality of Pell’s work that disturbed him. She was entirely present, he noted, when she looked at a horse, testing a shoulder for stiffness or a saddle for comfort. But for the rest of the time she seemed distracted, absent. He could detect a void in the very outline of her.

When she had worked for him for two months, he called her into his office.

“Sit down,” he said, and noted that she trembled. “You needn’t worry, I have no complaint of you.” He handed her an envelope containing her first months’ pay.

“It would be a great satisfaction to me if you would stay at Highfields.” He spoke slowly, watching her. “Your gifts are indisputable, and you have shown the most perfect attention to every detail of your duties.”

He paused.

“But I have noticed lately—”

Her face froze and she stopped him. “I cannot give up hope of finding my brother. But unless you have information on where he might be—” She met his eyes, and her expression softened. “Please do not distress yourself on my behalf. You have helped us too much already.”

He nodded, reluctant to leave the matter, but she stood abruptly and returned to her work, with her pay and the security of more months ahead. She tried not to think of Bean.

John Kirby went home that night to his cottage on the estate and sat down to dinner with his wife and son as he always did. He loved them tonight as he always loved them, and it was a sense of his own luck in life, and hardly any other feelings, that gave him an idea.

A sale had been announced on a farm ten miles away. John Kirby knew the estate and the quality of the horses, and besides, Highfields was two horses down and the master required a new hunter. He traveled out early in the day, on his own. Of the animals for sale, a sturdy eight-year-old Irish cob caught his eye.

“Never puts a foot wrong,” the farmer told Kirby. “He’ll carry fourteen stone, but I’d trust him as a lady’s mount or to carry a child. Does what he’s asked, and always jumps clean.”

Kirby liked the look of him, found him calm and good-natured, and worth more than the thirty guineas asked. Though the hunter satisfied him and justified the trip, he strolled down the aisle of the old barn, searching for something else. When his eye settled on a fourteen-year-old gray mare, strong and sound with a fine head, he knew instantly that he’d found what he sought. In his head he proposed a good price for the two and, without explaining that the money for the mare was his own, he left with both horses in hand.

Pell ran out, as usual, to meet him and examine his latest acquisitions, and Kirby held his breath.

“He’ll do,” she crooned, ducking down to feel the hunter’s knees. Then she turned to John Kirby and frowned, running her hand along the mare’s neck, from her poll down to the long, sloping withers. “But we don’t need another mare. Nice as she is.”

For an instant his confidence wavered, but the next moment Pell was beaming at him. “And yet . . . she’s a beauty. I can see why you lost your heart.”

“She’s for you,” he said.

Pell stared at him.

“Aye.” He laughed. “You’ll need a good horse if you’re determined to roam the countryside searching for your brother.”

“For me?” She was like a child and could not hide her joy. But in an instant her expression turned grave. “I cannot accept such a gift.”

“You must,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “For I’ll not have her back.”

She met his eyes for a long moment, and then suddenly, as if the wind had shifted, relinquished her dignity and threw her arms about him in a transport of happiness. He embraced her lightly, like a child.

“What is her name?” whispered Pell, too affected, almost, to speak.

“It was given her by the farmer,” John Kirby answered. “Owing to the way she takes a fence. She’s called Birdie.”

Pell almost cried out. But immediately an expression of resolve settled on her features. It was bad luck to change the name of a horse, but she was finished with luck. “Never mind,” she said. “I shall call her Gray.”

Thirty-eight

T
he following week, John Kirby had an order to send three horses and a groom to Milbrook, a grand estate in the next valley, where the master had been invited to join the hunt. It wasn’t an unusual request, and Kirby sent Pell in his stead, for she had often heard of Lord Hayward’s magnificent stables and was anxious to see them for herself. She rode Gray, led the hunters, and took Frannie with her for company on a dun gelding named Marly. Dicken trotted along behind.

At Milbrook, in the splendid tack room with its mahogany and brass fittings, the grooms sat together awaiting the call for fresh mounts. Pell could barely sit still, and had spent the morning wandering up and down the long aisles of the barn, admiring as impressive a collection of horses as she’d ever hoped to see.

When the call came at last, the grooms set out into the field, hoping the changeover to fresh horses might occur with a minimal loss of ground. If they planned properly there would be a few moments of flurry, accompanied by shouted instructions for girths and stirrup leathers to be mended, strained backs to be rubbed with liniment, and loose shoes seen to by the farrier. The excitement multiplied when a group of riders came in together, which was when a hoof inevitably came down on a groom’s foot, a flask spilled, and tempers flared. Today, a big chestnut kicked out as a pony swung too close, catching a groom in the chest and causing a commotion. Everything had to stop for the injured man, and the hunt had already galloped a quarter mile across the next field by the time the riders set off again. Waiting with the injured man to be taken away, Pell felt thoroughly rattled.

It took more than an hour to strip an exhausted animal of tack, walk it dry, groom, feed, water and bed it down. After that, there might be a lull of another hour or two before the order came to set off home again. Waiting to return to Highfields, Pell exchanged talk of rides and riders with the other grooms. Across the room, along one wall, a series of small framed watercolors caught her attention. There were more than fifty of them, hung in rows, each a perfect small jewel of a portrait in the manner of Stubbs.

“It’s the eldest daughter of Lord Hayward paints them,” a groom told her. “Fine likenesses, too.”

“Aren’t they lovely,” Pell murmured, pointing to one or another of the horses they’d seen out in the field. Frannie examined each critically, thinking, That hock’s too long as she’s drawn it, or, The look in that eye isn’t quite right.

Each portrait revealed some individual touch. Willow had been painted in midair over a big brush hedge. A tasseled, hooded falcon sat on a branch above Fez, a red Arab with a high crest and tail. Pell lingered over each picture, until, as she neared the end, she started back with a little cry.

“What have you seen?” asked Frannie.

“Look,” she said, peering closer, trembling, and Frannie’s mouth opened wide in wonder. It was Jack, and she would have recognized him even if the artist had not dabbed the black mark the size of a penny on his left flank. “Please tell me,” she begged the assembled company, her voice quivering with excitement, “does anyone know him? Does he belong here?”

“He’s one of mine,” said the groom just behind Pell. “Out today with the field. He passed by just as we arrived.”

Pell stood utterly still.

“His mistress is just sixteen,” continued the boy, “and as graceful a rider as you’ll find in three counties. But it’s an odd story. Lord Hayward bought the animal from a councilman—said he found the horse, just like that, wandering the countryside. Sent word out and waited for someone to claim him, with no luck. The luck was his, I’d say. A horse like that, with no owner? There’s something else to that story. In any case,
she
believes it was providence, and is utterly devoted to the beast, mad for hunting, and the horse just the same, and if there’s a gate or a hedge to be jumped . . .” The groom’s words flowed over her, a river of noise, babbling away as her own thoughts raced elsewhere.

In her mind’s eye, Pell could see the culmination of her search, the reunion she so dearly desired, and she rejoiced at the thought of how soon they might be together. And then, without her sanctioning them, her thoughts went on to picture Jack’s life of comfort and good food and affection, the young girl’s happiness. She further imagined the moment she would make her claim, inform the girl, point out the mark on her horse’s flank, recount her story, and plead for what still belonged to her while the girl wept in dismay and Lord Hayward stared, stony-faced, and ordered her off the premises or proposed to take the claim to the local magistrate for a proper judicial hearing.

In a state of agitation, Pell paced up and down, filled with fear and hope in equal measure. What would she do, or say? It wouldn’t be long before the riders began to drift in. Heart pounding, she rehearsed conversations in her head, practiced different outcomes, wrung her hands, and, when half an hour had passed, watched as a flushed and smiling girl with smooth chestnut hair led Jack in. Pell cast about and, seeing that Jack’s groom was momentarily busy with another horse, stepped up beside her. “Shall I take him for you?” she asked softly.

“Thank you,” said the girl, and sighed. “What a perfect day. We galloped all the way to Milton Bend and back again. You should have seen the size of the gates we cleared, and a stone wall that frightened me so completely I shut my eyes! And then, would you believe it? The hounds made the kill just three miles from here.” She ran an affectionate hand down Jack’s neck and handed the reins to Pell, who accepted them in a kind of trance. Jack greeted her as if they had been apart only hours, with a shake of the head and an affectionate nudge. To Pell he looked bigger, sleeker. Good feed and grooming, she thought.

“He’s very beautiful,” she murmured.

The girl looked at Pell and beamed. “Yes, isn’t he?”

Pell led Jack to the box with his new name on the door, unbuckled his throatlatch and girth, and handed bridle and saddle to his groom, who had arrived at last, looking somewhat lathered himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s always five horses at once and only so much a man can do.”

She nodded and stepped back, watching Jack, who stood with eyes half closed as his groom sponged him down. Pell recognized the expression of near-bliss, could feel the groom’s hands on her horse’s knees and shoulders as if they were her own. The thought that he pined for her was laughable.

She stood and watched him until her presence was required for one of her own horses, and then she walked away and left him to his new life.

After that, everything changed. Her restlessness increased, infecting everything she did or said. She lay awake at night and moved through each day hollow-eyed with exhaustion. Everyone at Highfields seemed real to her except herself. Even her words came to her at the wrong pitch, as if they had traveled too slowly and dragged themselves through mud along the way. All of the strength she possessed went to pushing against ordinary events, surviving on everyone else’s exhalations of air. She lived now only for the possibility that, somewhere, Bean might still be alive.

Her work suffered. Only she noticed at first, but eventually John Kirby saw that something must be done. He asked to speak to her and she tendered her resignation at once, forestalling his carefully rehearsed questions. There were tears in her eyes as she spoke. “I feel as if I shall never be able to repay you.”

“Then stay.”

Speaking almost in a whisper, she replied, “I cannot.”

He sighed. “Perhaps when you’ve found him you will return.”

“Perhaps.”

For a long time neither spoke. “Where will you go? How will you live?”

She shrugged. And then looked up at him, her eyes clear. “I will manage,” she said, and knew it to be true, because she always did.

And so John Kirby accepted her request, as he had accepted all her requests. It made him sad to think of what she would do, and of his life without her.

In the night, Frannie crawled up close to Pell’s ear and whispered in a voice tight with emotion, “I don’t want to leave here. Midas needs me.”

“We cannot stay.”

“But why?”

“We must find Bean.”

Frannie thought for a moment. “Couldn’t you find him?” She spoke slowly. “Couldn’t you find him and . . . bring him back?”

Pell shook her head. They could not return here.

She could not.

 

John Kirby would not hear of keeping Gray. But he would employ Frannie, and gladly, until such a time as Pell sent for her or she herself returned.