Dead Man Riding (8 page)

‘That's the barn they burnt. It was empty because we hadn't got the hay in at the time, but they didn't know that, the devils.'

It was up near the road. We must have passed it in the dark without seeing it. A few blackened timbers stuck up at odd angles and the grass all round it was burnt brown. We looked for a while then he opened a wide farm gate to the left of the track and we went into a broad meadow that sloped up to the road on one side, down to a curving line of willows and alders on the other. From where we were standing you could hear a river but not see it and I guessed it was hidden in the trees. I found out later from the map that it was a tributary of the Waver that ran down to the Solway Firth. There were some pockets of mist down by the river. When the Old Man stood by the gate and whistled, heads and necks of horses came out of the mist and the little herd came galloping uphill to us. They were mostly mares, three bays and two greys, with a couple of youngsters.

‘Two year olds,' he said. ‘Sid's first sons.'

‘Sid?'

‘Seawave Supreme. Sid's his stable name. He's one in a lifetime, that horse. Best stallion I've ever bred.'

‘Why Seawave?'

I hoped he might confirm at first hand the story Nathan had passed on, about bringing the original mares and stallion from Arabia.

‘You want to know? Come with me and I'll show you.'

He stroked the necks of the nearest mares then pushed them gently aside so that we could get back through the gate. We went back down to the house and when we went through the gateway to the yard we found Robin letting out the hens. He said ‘Good morning, sair' to the Old Man and gave me a diffident little bob of the head. The two Afghan hounds were sniffing around and came up to the Old Man to have their long heads caressed.

‘Morning, Robin. We'll be needing the wagonette. When you've finished in the stables, will you go and get Bobbin. He'll be down by the river as usual.'

Robin just nodded and walked away through a gap in the wall next to the cart shed.

‘Robin's not very talkative with human beings,' the Old Man said, ‘but he understands horses better than anyone you'll ever meet. Came over on the boat from Ireland a couple of years ago and stayed.'

He followed Robin through the opening by the cart shed. It opened into another enclosed yard larger and more prosperous looking than the one by the house. It was paved in sandstone with a water trough and pump in the middle, loose boxes around three sides and a two-storey brick building backing on to the other yard. He opened the door of the building and let me into one of the finest tack rooms I'd ever seen. The walls were newly distempered, with saddles and bridles ranged on supports and hooks along them, all supple and newly cleaned. Gleaming window panes let in the light and gave an uninterrupted view of the stable yard. There was none of the casual muddle of the house. Everything was bright and orderly as a cavalry stables.

‘That's it,' the Old Man said.

He was looking at the wall at the end of the room. It had no saddles and bridles on it, just one huge painting. It was an oil more than ten feet high, almost filling the wall, and showed a group of Arab horses galloping along a beach with white crashing surf in the background.

‘Who painted it?'

‘Can't remember. Got some young chap to do it for me, but I told him what to put in. Like the poem.'

There was a gilt-edged panel under the picture, with lines of poetry inscribed on it. The Old Man started reading.

‘With flowing tail, and flying mane,

Wide nostrils never stretch'd by pain,

Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein,

And feet that iron never shod,

And flanks unscarr'd by spur or rod,

A thousand horse, the wild, the free,

Like waves that follow o'er the sea.'

Long before he got to the end I realised that he was reciting from memory, not reading. He repeated the last two lines, his eyes on my face. ‘Seawave, you see. Free as a wave on the sea. Know who wrote that?'

‘Byron. It's from
Mazeppa
.' A fierce tale about a young man who made love to another man's wife and in revenge was tied to the back of a wild horse to be galloped to death.

‘That's right,
Mazeppa.
Greatest poem in the English language.'

I could tell it wasn't an occasion to indulge in literary discussion and he'd said it the way he recited the lines, like a matter of religious faith. He stood in silence, staring at the picture then suddenly turned to me.

‘I'm taking Sid on a ride to the sea, any day now. Want to come with me?'

‘Yes.'

‘As long as there won't be any trouble about it. Had enough trouble. Which one of them do you belong to?'

‘I beg your pardon?' I stared at him wondering what he meant. College, political party?

‘Which one of the men? If you get all that straight at the start, saves trouble later.'

I suppose I just stood there, gaping at him. He grinned.

‘I should hope my nephew's taken the pretty one and the man with the laugh's got his eye on the little one. Can't make out you and the other two, though.'

There was no need to draw myself up to my full height because I was already taller than he was.

‘I can assure you for the three of us that we're not in the ownership of any man and we never will be.'

‘Of course you will. You all seem healthy nice-looking girls. You've got a bit of a temper by the look of it, but some men like that. You'll marry all right.'

‘If
we decide to marry we shall enter into a free relationship of equals. The idea of a wife being subservient, let alone
owned,
as you put it, is downright disgusting.'

I could tell he was enjoying himself, that he'd wanted to provoke an argument, and that made me more angry.

‘It's a law of nature, girl. You saw Sid. He's the only stallion here and the mares are his mares. If another stallion came and tried to take them, they'd fight and tear out one another's throats with their teeth till one of them gave in and probably dragged himself away to die.'

‘So you're implying that men and women are no better than horses?'

‘Wouldn't dream of it. Most of us aren't nearly as good. Have you ever seen a human being as much of a real nobleman as my Sid?'

‘I wonder if his mares think so. But I don't suppose they have much choice in the matter.'

‘They don't need choice. They're happy.'

‘Don't women need choices, then?'

‘No. Doesn't make them any happier and only causes a lot of trouble and confusion.'

‘So that's why we don't need votes, I suppose.'

‘Nobody needs votes. Whatever side you vote for you end up with meddling idiots.'

‘If parliament gives women the vote, perhaps we won't keep getting idiots elected.'

‘Give? They'll never just give it to you. If you want anything, you just have to go and take it. If you all wanted it enough, you'd have had it by now.'

It's always seemed odd to me that this remark, from an old man I thought was certainly misguided and quite probably mad, turned out to have more influence on the next twenty years of my life than all the sober good sense I'd heard from my friends and teachers. I'd grown up with the idea that because the logical case for giving us the vote had been made over and over again, it was only a matter of time before it would happen. Only it hadn't happened and it was beginning to dawn on me that something more than asking politely might have to be done about it. So what he'd said stung me more than he deserved. I don't know what I'd have answered because at that moment a little door through from the cart shed opened. We turned round and there was Dulcie Berryman, more or less conventionally dressed this time in blue serge skirt and jacket and blue cotton blouse. The only odd note was that her feet were in leather Turkish slippers much too big for her. She shuffled towards us.

‘Robin's asking when you want the wagonette round.'

‘When they've had their breakfast. Are they up yet?'

‘Some of them.'

The Old Man had turned back to look at his picture of the horses, rather wistfully, and she went to stand beside him.

‘There's nobbut tea and clapbread and butter,' she said.

‘No eggs?'

‘Nobbut three. The hens are out of kelter.'

‘Clapbread and butter then.'

There was something curiously intimate about the little conversation, more like two friends than employer to housekeeper. Then I noticed the Old Man's right hand. Slowly but quite deliberately it was caressing Dulcie's serge-covered haunch much as he'd stroked the neck of the horse in the meadow. She showed no sign of resenting it any more than the horse had. It was a casual almost automatic gesture, as if he'd done it many times, and yet I was sure it was connected with our discussion. It meant ownership and he meant me to see it. When he turned and looked at me over his shoulder I was quite sure of it. I said something, I don't know what, and blundered out through the little door, embarrassed and angry, through the cart shed and back to the yard by the house. Then, as luck would have it, the first person I saw was Meredith just when I was feeling at my least intelligent and philosophic.

‘Good morning, Miss Bray. Is anything wrong?'

He'd been standing in the middle of the yard staring up at the house and looked as fresh and tidy as if he'd just come from his college bathroom, close shaven with a jaunty black felt hat on his head, which he raised to me. There was something ironic in the gesture – conventional manners in a mad situation.

‘No, nothing thank you.' I was still hot with confusion and embarrassment and didn't want to talk about it to anybody, least of all him.

‘Did you all sleep well?'

This was altogether too ironic. ‘No, we didn't, and I don't suppose any of you did either.'

‘No. At least it gave us a chance to come to some tentative conclusions.'

‘You mean on whether the Old Man really has killed somebody?'

‘Oh no, nothing like as precipitate as that. The main question at issue was go or stay.'

‘I thought Alan and Kit had decided.'

‘Under some pressure, in an emotional situation. It seemed my duty to put the other argument.'

‘As a tutor?'

‘Not quite, but I have some duty to protect them, don't you think?'

‘So you advised Alan to leave the Old Man to sort things out for himself?' Although I was angry with the Old Man I felt a twinge of conscience about that. I remembered how he'd cried in front of us all.

‘I didn't advise him of anything. I just wanted to be sure he was thinking clearly.'

‘And the result?'

‘He's staying. You're looking pleased about that.'

‘Am I? I suppose I'd have thought less of him if he hadn't.'

‘So would I – logical or not.'

‘So he's staying and Kit's staying.'

‘We're all staying.'

‘You too? You won't get your book finished with all this going on.'

‘There are some things more important than books. This kind of opportunity isn't likely to come more than once or twice in a lifetime.'

‘Opportunity?'

‘We've all been talking about philosophy, particularly moral philosophy, which means choices. It's not often that you get a chance to put it into practice.'

‘So we're all in a kind of philosophical laboratory, are we?'

‘You disapprove?'

‘No. I know you like experimenting with people.' Again, I was amazed at what I found myself saying to this man on such a short acquaintance.

‘That makes it sound a very clinical process, as if I were outside it.'

‘What happened to that scout's son – the one you coached?'

For a split second he looked surprised, then laughed. ‘We keep in touch. He has a good job with a solicitor, if that reassures you.'

Did I look as if I needed reassuring? While we were talking, Robin had come through the arch from the stable yard, leading a big dark bay cob. He tied it to a ring outside the cart shed and started manoeuvring out the wagonette.

‘You'll need to get ready for the journey back,' Meredith said. ‘We shall come to the station to see you off.'

‘We're not going.' He looked startled, I thought. ‘We had our own discussion last night and came to the same conclusion.'

‘So you're determined to be moral experimenters as well?'

‘I suppose so.' I certainly wasn't going to tell him about Imogen's thunderbolt.

If he had been startled, he recovered quickly. ‘Then you must join our college. In the hay barn after breakfast.'

‘There's nothing left of the barn.'

‘There's another one at the top of a field by the wood. I've just been to look at it.'

‘Nell.' Imogen's voice. She came out of the house and saw us. ‘Where have you been? We thought something else must have happened.'

Meredith raised his hat again and walked away.

‘Nothing's happened,' I told her. Except a silver horse and a stroking hand and a maverick philosopher bent on experiment. ‘Nothing.'

*   *   *

In the end the wagonette did go to the station with Robin driving it, but only to collect our luggage. By then we'd all had our breakfast in the kitchen and were in the yard to see it drive off. As it went away up the drive, Meredith looked at Alan and waited. It struck me that all the men except Meredith seemed worse for wear, with bags under their eyes and crumpled collars. Kit's left arm was in a sling. When I asked how it was he told me Meredith had dressed and rebandaged it. The skin was still inflamed from the Old Man's application of carbolic, but the wounds were clean and all the shot pellets out. Midge and I probably didn't look any better than the men and although Imogen would still be elegant after a night in a dog kennel she was paler than usual. I'd been curious to see how she'd behave with Alan at breakfast. After the passionate declaration the night before, I was worried that she might do something unthinkable like running up to him and putting her arms round him. I'd underrated her there, thank goodness. She poured tea and buttered oatbread quite calmly and, if anything, was more distant and formal with him than usual. Anyway that problem would have to keep while we sorted out more immediate ones.