The Iron Stallions (9 page)

Josh sipped at his drink, suddenly wary. He’d been warned more than once of his uncle’s sharp tactics.

‘The house,’ Robert said.

‘This house?’ Josh feigned stupidity but he knew what Robert was referring to.

‘Not this house, you young idiot,’ Robert said. ‘This isn’t worth a lot, is it, after all?’

‘It suits us, Uncle. It’s a bit shabby but that’s because there isn’t a lot of money to spare for repairs. There’s only mother’s pension. Father didn’t leave much.’

‘Your grandfather was a field marshal, boy.’ Robert gestured irritably with his glass so that the whisky slopped on to his trousers. ‘He owned Braxby Manor and all the land that goes with it, to say nothing of the Home Farm and those cottages the Ackroyds live in. Now look, I’m in business up to here.’ Robert gestured with his hand on top of his head. ‘I know the value of things. Let me handle them.’

‘They’re not mine to turn over,’ Josh said. ‘Not till Granny dies.’

Robert gestured. ‘I’ll give you three thousand pounds for those cottages,’ he said briskly. ‘That would help quite a lot in the army. No young officer can manage without a private income.’

‘I’d have to think about it, sir,’ Josh said warily. ‘I’d have to talk to Granny.’

‘You do that, boy. You’ve always been her favourite. There was always too much damn favouritism in this family. Your father always came before me, in spite of me being the heir. Get her to get the old man’s will from the solicitors and let my man, Sleete, have a look at it.’

‘We couldn’t tamper with a will, sir.’

Robert looked up. ‘That’s what you think, my lad. There are a lot of things Sleete can do. He’s got twice the gumption of that old ass, Wainwright, the Old Man employed, and when somebody’s due to inherit money, there are ways of enabling them to draw on it if they’re suffering hardship.’

‘I’m not suffering hardship.’

Robert snorted.
‘Any
young officer trying to live on his pay’s suffering hardship,’ he said.

When Robert had gone, Josh sat down and considered his suggestion.

‘You ass,’ Chloe said when she appeared. ‘You’re so stupid it’s beginning to show. Aren’t you aware yet that this is the age of the motor car? People don’t have to live on top of their work any more. Uncle Robert drives fifteen miles every day to his office. So does Claude. And there are dozens more like him. They live in the country nowadays not in a Bradford suburb. If he offered you three thousand quid for the cottages he probably thinks he can sell them for
twenty
thousand.’

‘The Ackroyds live in them.’

‘You know what he’d do about that, don’t you? He’d have them out in no time. Then he’d do them up and put them on the market, and before you knew what was happening Braxby would be full of tired businessmen and Braxby would be a suburb of Bradford.’

Josh looked up and grinned. ‘You know, Chloe, old thing,’ he said, ‘I think Uncle Robert’s a bit of a shit and you’re cleverer than you look. Thanks for the lecture. How about a drink?’

The weather was icy cold, and a wet November sky hung heavily over Brackdale. The old man working in the ditch lifted his head just in time to see a big dog-fox appear. He was in no panic and moving easily, and as he slipped into the ditch and began running along it with his feet in the water, the old man grinned. This one, he thought, had grown cunning through playing the game too often. He rested his muscles as he watched the fox slip through the hawthorn hedge, then break cover and streak away across the adjoining pasture.

The hounds appeared soon afterwards, pouring forward in a long black, white and tan stream, making a noise full of urgency that stirred the old man. Behind them the field was strung across half a mile of stubble in the valley below.

As the pack crashed through the hawthorn hedge, they checked for a while, then one of the older animals, a scarred old thruster, picked up the scent again and gave tongue. The novices swung round, like grains of dry sand caught by the wind, and followed, yelping with excitement. As the horses came thundering up the slope, the old man scuttled for the shelter of a bunch of trees and waited there, watching, the rank smell of the fox still in his nostrils.

As the horn brayed, the leading horse thundered towards the ditch and the hedge. It was almost on top of the old man now, its wind noisy in its throat, its breath on the cold air like steam. There was a gate handy but the rider was too excited to be interested and went for the hedge like a steam engine running amok. As he sailed over, the low branch of one of the elms removed his hat in a shower of twigs, then he was thundering after the fox. Other riders took the fence, soaring over close to the old man, but those behind bunched together looking for the gate, while eager late-comers snarled at them to get out of the way. Sweating horses, foam on their necks, their eyes bulging with excitement, swung and swirled, and one of them slipped in the mud and went down. The horse behind, just gathering itself for the jump, went at the hedge half-heartedly, pecked at the other side and also went down.

Impatient riders dragged at the reins and, as they vanished, Josh scrambled to his knees and began to slap the mud from his clothes. His horse was trembling, its eyes wild, and he went to it, taking the reins and patting its neck. As he turned to the rider whose fallen horse had brought him down, the man, swearing and lashing at his horse, was about to mount.

‘Steady on, Josh called. ‘Your animal’s lame!’

It was Robert and he swung round. ‘Mind your own damn’ business!’ he snapped. Then he recognised Josh and calmed down. ‘Oh, it’s you! What was that you said?’

‘I said your horse’s been lamed. It’s got a gash on its leg.’

Robert walked round the animal then, scowling, he gathered the reins and lit a cigarette. Securing the horse to the fence, he stood smoking for a while, not looking at Josh. There had been little love lost between them since Josh had turned down his offer.

‘Where’s that damned groom?’ he growled. ‘He ought to be up with my second horse.’

Josh swung himself to the saddle and urged his mount to a walk. It was shivering and nervous and he decided it was wiser to let it get over its fall. He passed Robert without speaking. Robert only hunted because it was the thing to do and allowed him to be considered part of county society. The hounds were at the top of the next rise now and seemed to have lost the scent. The Braxby pack had never been considered beautiful but they were lean and fast and if they’d lost the fox, they were never going to find him again before dark. Josh decided to call it a day and turned his horse’s head towards home.

After a while, the mist came down and it grew colder. Indifferent, he allowed the horse to move at its own pace. It had calmed down now and was peacefully tired, two little columns of smoke coming from its nostrils as it plodded along, head down. In the west the sky was stained red.

After a while the horse began to limp and Josh dismounted to lead it. As he neared a village, he saw people in cars, on cycles and on foot heading towards the pub. He felt thirsty enough to want a drink but it seemed wiser to get his horse safely bedded down.

‘Josh! Josh Goff!’

The voice was a woman’s and he turned. Immediately, he recognised the speaker. She was standing with a group near a car. She looked no different from when he’d last seen her, dark and slim and intense-looking, her eyes enormous, her teeth white in her face as she gave him her lopsided smile.

`Josh! Oh, Josh, how nice to see you!’

There was a genuine warmth in her voice that made him remember the indifference she’d pretended when they’d said goodbye in Charlottesville. He’d thought then that it was forced; now he knew it was, and suddenly, impulsively, he wished Ailsa weren’t waiting for him at home.

‘Lou! How are you? What are you doing here?’

‘I’m staying with friends.’ She gestured at the group by the car.

‘Lou–’ Josh’s voice cracked ‘–I can’t believe it!’ He was unbelievably glad to see her. It was years since they’d last met but it was as if they’d parted only the day before. ‘What are you doing in England?’

She smiled. ‘I’m working for a living. I’ve got a newspaper job because I speak French and German and have contacts over here.’

‘But what about your family?’ Josh couldn’t take his eyes off her and had quite forgotten the horse steaming quietly alongside him.

Her face clouded. ‘My father’s dead,’ she said. ‘His business folded. In 1929. Everything folded in 1929. He lost all his money and had to retire. My mother’s still in Charlottesville but circumstances have changed a little. I had to get out and work. Fortunately, we had some friends who found me a job with the Washington Post and I came over here six months ago. I’m married now.’

He felt his heart sink. For a moment, because he hadn’t believed it could be so, he was silent, then he realised his silence was ill-mannered and tried to make up for it.

‘Who is he?’ he asked. ‘Anybody I know?’

‘No, Josh. He’s a Navy man. Your navy, as it happens, not ours.

‘That’s unexpected.’

She gave him a strange, sad look and shook her head. ‘Not really, Josh,’ she said. There was a moment’s pause then she went on quickly, almost too quickly. ‘He was an attaché in Washington when we met but he’s back here now and due for a staff job in Singapore. I expect I’ll go with him. You must come and have a meal with us.’

Josh was aware of a depressing sadness coming over him. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’d like that.’ But he knew he could never sit across a table from her, knowing she was sharing her life with another man. He pulled himself together. ‘I’d better be getting on,’ he said. ‘My old horse’s lame and he’ll be getting cold if I don’t get a blanket over him. Be seeing you, Lou.’

He gave a little tug at the reins and, as the horse moved forward, nudging him with its shoulder, she called out to him again.

‘Are
you
married, Josh?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Haven’t the rank yet. Got to wait.’

Then he was gone, walking slowly through the blue dusk, a mud-stained figure with a battered hat, his face suddenly bleak.

That night, when his mother and Chloe had gone to bed, he sat with Ailsa on the settee in front of the fire listening to the wireless. The news was gloomy. When it wasn’t touching on the depression that seemed to grip the whole of Europe, it was dealing with Hitler and the bullying of the Jews in Germany. Josh wondered what Konstantin felt about it all. The conditions imposed on defeated Germany after the war by France to destroy her once and for all were building up to destroy France instead, because Hitler had never hidden the fact that, once in power, it was his intention to regain Germany’s lost territories – if necessary, by force.

After a while, Ailsa announced she was going to bed. He saw her to the stairs and gave her a peck on the cheek.

As he sat in front of the fire again, Louise came into his mind once more. It had come as a shock to learn she was married. It also came as a shock to realise he’d never quite put her out of his mind, especially since the time they’d spent together had been so short. But he’d never quite stopped thinking about her, and he was more hurt than he’d expected to find she’d not thought of him.

Abruptly, he rose to his feet and went up the stairs. As he passed Ailsa’s door, he scratched at it with his fingernail. It opened at once and she peered round it as if she’d been expecting him.

‘Can I come in?’

She opened it without waiting for an explanation.

‘I want you, Ailsa,’ he said.

She gave a little laugh. ‘You know, old thing, I had an idea you were feeling a bit like that. Woman’s intuition, I suppose you’d call it. What’s it all about?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m a bit fed up.’

‘You do flatter a girl!’

He managed a smile. ‘No, it’s not that. It’s that time just goes by and we’re both getting older and there’s always that stupid ruling about subalterns not marrying until they’re almost middle-aged.’

‘It won’t stop Toby bedding Chloe if he gets the chance.’

‘Toby has more money than I have.’

‘I’m not exactly short of the necessary myself and marriage’s supposed to be a partnership. If a woman can live on a man’s income, why can’t a man live on a woman’s?’

‘It just isn’t done.’

She gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Everything’s being done these days. Life’s changed. We’re not Victorians any more. There was a war, if you remember, and it looks to me as if there might well be another. It’s changed values a bit. Why not leave the army?’

Josh gave her a shocked look. ‘I couldn’t do that!’

‘Your Uncle Robert did.’

‘Uncle Robert’s a bit different from the rest of us. Besides–’ Josh shrugged ‘–I don’t want to.’

She kissed him gently and his arms went round her, feeling her body warm and soft through the thin satin of her nightdress.

‘It’s getting you down, isn’t it, Josh?’

‘A bit.’

‘Well, have a break; get me down instead.’

‘Ailsa–!’

‘Oh, shut up, Josh! You’ve got too much conscience, and for a light cavalryman you’re not showing much initiative. I thought they were supposed to be able to spot an opportunity and seize it instinctively. I can’t think of anything more instinctive than this.’

Tugging at his jacket, she wrenched it off and, flinging it across the bedroom, started unfastening his shirt. As she threw back the bedclothes, he climbed in alongside her and felt her fingers soft and warm on his body.

‘I don’t make a habit of this, you know, Josh. You’re the first.’

‘So’re you.’

She gave a little giggle. ‘By the feel of you, though, you’ll be a terror when you get going.’

They made love fiercely, and lay back in the pillows, flushed and exhausted.

‘Let’s get engaged,’ Ailsa whispered. ‘Then we can do it officially. Or semi-officially, anyway.’

‘It might be a long time before we can marry,’ Josh pointed out. ‘I have to get the Colonel’s consent.’

‘That stupid regiment of yours! Oh, well, if conditional love takes too much time, at least the circumstances seem just right for the other kind.’