HartsLove (12 page)

‘Oh yes. The One.' Charles slopped his brandy. ‘Poor Daisy. Poor, poor The One.'

‘And poor you, sir.'

‘Not poor me. Everything my fault. Suppose hopes entirely dashed?'

‘I'm afraid they are with this The One,' Skelton said.

Charles suddenly banged his glass down and spilled the lot. ‘Bruise,' he said. ‘Just bruise – surely – go down – good as new – Daisy – not fair – Garth – young – not fair – not
right
.'

‘I agree! I agree!' Skelton gave an understanding smile. ‘But even if it was just a bruise, I'm afraid everything's too late now. I mean, the horse is already behind – not even a jockey on yet and no race as a two-year-old.' He shook his head. ‘It's a great shame.'

‘No hope?'

Skelton shrugged regretfully.

Charles put his head in his hands. ‘No hope at all.'
After a long while, he made a giant effort to raise his head, though it felt far too heavy to lift. ‘If there's really no hope – horse – go. Can't afford, see? Can't afford. Rose – clothes – husband – awful mess.'

Skelton licked his lips. His mouth was suddenly dry. He picked at his words as a cat picks at the innards of a mouse. ‘A pity if he were to go, Sir Charles. Last horse here and all that.'

‘Yes – pity – but we're ruined. Him – last horse. Me – last de Granville at Hartslove. Thrown everything away, see. Everything.'

‘Don't say that, Sir Charles.'

‘Why not? It's the truth. Wife tried to tell me. Horses and bottle . . .' He stared balefully at his reflection in the brandy.

Skelton shifted. He did not want Charles to be reminded of what Lady de Granville had said about the bottle. ‘I have a little money . . .' he began.

‘Silly Skelton,' interrupted Charles. ‘Couldn't have enough.'

‘As I say, Sir Charles,' Skelton continued, smooth as the amber liquid in his glass, ‘I have a little money put by. Enough to keep the castle and the horse going until' – he paused – ‘until Derby Day.'

Charles's shoulders were shaking, and at first Skelton thought he was crying. He was wrong. Charles was laughing the pitiless, sick laugh of the drunk. ‘Derby Day!'
He downed another shot. ‘You've enough to keep us going until Derby Day though we're not going to the Derby now.
You
'd give
me
money!'

Skelton grinned. ‘
Seems
silly, I know.' He sighed. ‘But I'm serious. I have got money put by, and I don't like to think of the old place in strange hands. I'm very fond of it, see. Don't forget I've lived here man and boy.'

‘Course you have, Skelton, course you have.' Charles fumbled at Skelton's forearm. Skelton did not object. ‘You'll be out of a job. Reference. Least I can do.'

‘I don't want a reference, I want to help,' Skelton said, pretending to take another drink.

‘Can't take help from you. Servant and all that.'

Skelton tapped his head as though an idea had just come to him. ‘Here's a notion, Sir Charles. What happens if rather than just taking my money, we strike a bargain? Would that make you feel better?'

‘Bargain? Bargain?' said Charles. Skelton's voice was undulating like the sea. ‘Water,' Charles said.

Skelton brought a jug. ‘Thing is, Sir Charles, I'd happily give you the money, but if you're too proud to take it, you could give me something in return.'

Charles slurped the water straight from the jug. ‘Nothing to give. Bailiffs want the lot.'

‘Well,' said Skelton, ‘let me see.' He waited, then slapped his palm on the table. Charles jerked. ‘I've got it, Sir Charles.'

‘Got it?'

Skelton removed the brandy. Charles must not collapse. Not yet. ‘I'll give you my savings, and if The One wins the Derby, you give me the horse, the winnings and Hartslove.' Just as Skelton had hoped, Charles laughed as though this were the funniest thing he had ever heard. Skelton laughed too. ‘Shall we do that, Sir Charles? Shall we?'

‘Oh, Skelton! The One win the Derby? Why, the horse couldn't walk from the back of his stable to the front, let alone gallop first past a winning post! You'd be signing away your savings for nothing.'

‘Of course I would! But it would be a good joke, eh?' Skelton got up and walked round and round the table.

‘A good joke?' Charles was trying to follow Skelton. His head was beginning to spin.

‘Aye! A good joke! Shall we have a final good joke, Sir Charles? You and me? Master and servant?'

‘I don't know –'

‘See here!' Skelton whisked out a piece of paper. ‘You could even write our contract down! Nonsense, of course, but all part of the jape.'

Charles tried, and failed, to stand up. Skelton caught him. ‘You need looking after, Sir Charles,' Skelton said, adding cleverly, ‘and Miss Daisy loves that horse. Let old Skelton help, and make yourself feel better about it by allowing me my little joke.'

Charles was eyeing the brandy again. Skelton held the bottle just out of reach. ‘What do you say, Sir Charles?'

‘Joke,' Charles said faintly.

‘Aye, cheer yourself up with a good joke!' Skelton flourished the paper. ‘You write our little contract down here, and then you sign it and I'll sign it, and nobody else need know.' He shook the bottle so that a tiny drop of brandy trickled from the neck right down the side and dripped on to the table.

Charles was mesmerised. ‘But I'd have to leave the “for sale” sign up, you know. Bailiffs come else. And this – just a joke. Horse can't sprint. Can't walk.'

‘The “for sale” sign stays.' Skelton had seen the state of the departing buyers. He had no worries on that score. With a theatrical flourish, he produced a pen. ‘Now, Sir Charles, you can write out the contract just as you like.'

Charles took the pen and in a dazed fashion began to write, his lips moving though no sound came out. He did not finish so much as just stop, and when it was clear he was not going to write any more Skelton seized the paper and read it. The contract rambled a bit. However, it was clear enough, and Skelton's main worry – that Charles's writing would show just how drunk he was – turned out to be needless. The writing was surprisingly steady and firm. The contract would stand up in court. There was just one thing left. ‘We'll both need to sign it, Sir Charles.'

‘Oh yes. But mustn't sign without reading. Lawyer man once told me.'

‘Quite right, Sir Charles, quite right. But you needn't read it again. You wrote it!'

‘So I did.'

Skelton signed and handed the pen back to Charles. Charles hesitated. ‘I don't – I don't – horse can't walk – last past finishing post, not first –'

Skelton knew better than to press too hard. He put the pen down and held up the bottle. Charles looked at the pen. He looked at the paper. He looked at the bottle. Skelton poured another glass. The nectar glinted. Charles picked up the pen and signed. At once, Skelton took the paper and gave Charles the glass. Furtively slipping the contract into his pocket, the groom poured another glass for himself, and this time, after he had clinked his own glass against Charles's, he downed the whole thing in one.

Rose walked into the town. She had never done so before. It only struck her now that she had, in fact, seldom been into the town at all. The journey took her nearly three hours. She was never frightened amidst the wilderness of the moors, but the town frightened her. As she climbed out of the Hartslove valley and dropped into the murky depths of its nearest neighbour, it seemed quite different from the town she thought she remembered. She was certain that when she last came it had been a town of few carriages, with one main square and one or two streets of shops that her mother would have called ‘respectable' and Mrs Snipper would have called ‘Respectful'. There was not much ‘respectful' about the place now. From a mile out, the sides of the road were a spit of hovels from which shoeless children played in the dead air hanging above the sulky canal. Along the towpath, thick-necked horses pulled heavy barges, their drivers idly cursing. On the edge of the
town, a factory as big as Hartslove had been constructed entirely of smoke-blackened bricks, and from its roof three slim chimneys thrust themselves into the sky like dirty fingers. Rust clung to the factory's spiked iron railings and narrow, grimy windows offered no view either in or out. Rose knew the factory must make cotton since cotton fibres whitened the gutter, but you would never have guessed that a cloth so pretty could come out of a building so grim.

Men in khaki overalls passed her. They grinned and winked, their clogs clacking on the pavement. After them came a dozen or so navvies, muscles bulging and picks over their shoulders, heading for the site of the new railway station. They whistled. Rose hurried, wishing she had brought a shawl as well as a bonnet. She worried that her shoes were so filthy and her skin so tainted with smoke that she was bound to fail in her mission. She passed another factory just as the bell rang for the dinner break. Small doors in the red brick flew open, and in a great thunderclap of noise a gaggle of girls her own age rushed towards the gate. Their numbers forced Rose to stop and she was glad to give way. To work in such a place must be a miserable servitude from which the bell signalled temporary escape. Only the girls did not look either in servitude or miserable as they jostled and bantered and joked, swinging brightly coloured skirts and tossing off scarves to shake out curled hair. Rose could not understand
it at first. Then it struck her. Why should these girls be miserable? They had no fear of the future: they
were
the future, and if you
are
the future, you are also filled with the sheer joy of the present. Instead of pitying them, she began to envy their boisterous independence. Their futures might involve the factory, but they did not rely on hauntings and horses. She pushed through them, both glad and humiliated that her unfashionable, unflattering clothes meant they did not even notice her.

Having asked directions, in a better part of town she found Mr Snaffler's black-painted door with its chiselled bronze plate. She rang the bell at once, praying that Mr Snaffler would answer the door himself, though she knew this was unlikely. Snaffler would not stoop to that. He was in, though. The veterinary cart, its plate matching the door, was outside. She braced herself to speak to a servant who would look her up and down and despise her. In the event, nobody answered the door. Instead Arthur Rose came up behind her and was mortified when he made her jump. ‘I'm so very sorry,' he said, jumping himself. ‘I coughed but you mustn't have heard me.' He was suspended so uncomfortably between his pleasure at seeing her and his concern at the peculiarity of her coming to call that he forgot to remove his hat. ‘Is it Mr Snaffler you want?' He could hardly believe that, but then it was just as impossible that she would want to see him.

Though Rose had rehearsed a dozen times what she was
going to say, she was now completely off balance. ‘It's The One,' she garbled, then stopped.

‘Go on,' Arthur said.

‘He's hurt his knee and—'

‘I'm so sorry,' Arthur interrupted.

‘You don't need to be sorry about that too,' Rose said, looking straight at him for the first time. ‘It wasn't your fault.'

‘No,' said Arthur, ‘I mean I'm sorry to have kept you on the doorstep. I think you've walked here?' She gave a tiny nod. ‘You need to sit. You need tea. You need to dry your shoes.' He opened the door. ‘Won't you come in?'

Rose swallowed. ‘Mr Snaffler . . .

‘Is out,' Arthur said.

‘But the cart?'

‘
He
goes in a carriage.' Now Arthur smiled and his heart sang when Rose smiled back.

The hallway was filled with creatures, pinned and skinned or stuffed, including three small terriers, their mouths open in an eternal, silent yap. In the corner was propped a ruined stag's head, waiting to be thrown out. ‘Oh,' said Rose, feeling slightly sick. ‘What a strange advertisement for a vet. Like a doctor filling his hall with corpses.'

Arthur hurried her through. He hated the hall almost as much as he hated Mr Snaffler. He settled Rose in the parlour, then disappeared to bring tea, ignoring Rose's protests that she did not need any. Only when he had lit
the fire although it was really very warm, and brought a footstool although her feet were not sore, did she manage to convince him that she needed nothing more. Still, it took some time before he managed to perch on the edge of a chair. ‘Now,' he said, picking up his own tea then putting it down then picking it up again, ‘The One. You say he's hurt his knee.'

Rose held on to her teacup. ‘He tripped on his rope,' she said. ‘His knee's swollen. He can't walk. Lily's crying because he's in pain. Daisy's – well, Daisy's collapsed on the stone at the Resting Place.'

‘The Resting Place?'

Rose did not feel this was the time to explain. ‘I know he's not really The One, but Daisy thinks he is, and Pa does too, although he doesn't know what he thinks at the moment, and if The One's lame, it will make Pa . . .' She tailed off. It was disloyal to talk of her father's drinking. ‘It will make Pa sad,' she said finally.

‘You want Mr Snaffler to come and look?'

This was the moment Rose had dreaded all the way here. If Mr Snaffler himself was not here, she still needed to say what she came to say. ‘Yes,' she said, her voice rigid, ‘and though I can't pay with money I can pay in other ways.'

‘You mean exchange his services for a rabbit pie or something?' asked Arthur. ‘I'm afraid Snaffler doesn't like that kind of thing. He's strictly a money man.'

‘No,' said Rose, ‘that's not what I mean. Mr Snaffler
once offered to marry me. I've come to tell him I'll do it.'