IV
The races were to be on Wednesday. After exercising our minds on the problem how best to convey Cockbird to the course by two o’clock on that afternoon, we decided against his spending the previous night in Downfield. I suggested that he would probably sleep better in his own stable, which struck me at the time as being improperly expressed, though it was necessary that he should lie down and shut his eyes like everybody else who has something important to do next day. In this connection I should like to mention an odd fact, which is that when I dream about horses, as I often do, they usually talk like human beings, although the things they say, as in most dreams, are only confused fantasias on ordinary speech.
Anyhow, it was arranged that Dixon should ride Cockbird to Dumbridge on Wednesday morning, box him to Downfield, put him up at Whatman’s “Hunting and Livery Stables” for two or three hours, and then jog him quietly out to the course, which was about four miles from Downfield. In the meantime I was to ride Harkaway to Dumbridge (I felt that this ride would be better for me than if I drove in the dogcart), catch a later train, and find my way out to the course as best I could. The bag holding my coat, boots, cap, spurs, and weight-cloth would go by the carrier. (I mention these details because they did seem so vastly important at the time.)
Cockbird’s night’s rest was, I imagine, normal, and it didn’t occur to me to speculate about Dixon’s. My own slumbers were what I should then have considered inadequate; that is to say, I lay awake for a couple of hours and then slept like a top until Miriam called me at eight.
I came down to breakfast reticent and self-conscious. Patient Miriam’s anxiety that I should eat a good breakfast wasn’t well received, and Aunt Evelyn’s forced cheerfulness made me feel as if I were going to be hanged in the afternoon. She had never made any reference to the possibility of her going to see the Races. I have no doubt that she was as sensitive to the precarious outcome of the adventure as I was. For me the whole day, until my race started, was pervaded by the sinking sensation which is commonly called being in a blue funk. But when the stable-boy (his face clearly showing his awareness that he was at close quarters with momentous happenings) had led Harkaway out of the stable, and I had mounted and was trotting through the village, I was conscious of being as fit as I’d ever been in my life, and of being in some way harmonious with the mild, half-clouded April morning which contained me.
The morning tasted good; but it had only one meaning: it was the morning of the point-to-points. To have understood the gusto of that physical experience would have been to destroy the illusion which we call youth and immaturity—that unforeseeing actuality which retrospection can transmute into a lucid and orderly emotion. The April morning, as I see it now, symbolized a stage which I had then reached in my earthly pilgrimage.
But whatever “bright shoots of everlastingness” my body may have felt, my ordinary mind manifested itself only by instructing me to feel in my coat pocket for the half-sheet of notepaper on which I had written “This is to certify that Mr. G. Sherston’s bay gelding Cockbird has been fairly and regularly hunted with the Ringwell Hounds;” to which the M. F. H. had appended his signature, adding the figures of the current hunting season, which I had carelessly omitted. This document had to be shown at the scales, although when I actually got there the Clerk of the Scales forgot to ask me for it. When I was making sure that it was still in my pocket I was still under the misapprehension that unless I could produce it in the weighing tent I should be disqualified from riding in my race.
In the middle of the village I met John Homeward and his van. He was setting out on his monotonous expedition to the county town, and I stopped for a few words with him. His benevolent bearded face made me feel more confident, and so did his gruff voice when he took a stumpy clay pipe out of his mouth to wish me luck.
“I’ve asked Tom to put half a crown on for me,” he said; “it’ll be a great day for Butley if you win!” His blunt nod, as I left him sitting under the shadow of his hooded van, was a send-off which stiffened my faltering ambition to prove myself worthy of being the owner of Cockbird.
Remembering how I’d bicycled off to the Ringwell Meeting twelve months before, I thought how flabbergasted I should have been if I’d been told that I should be riding in a race there next year. And in spite of that persistent sinking sensation, I was thankful that, at any rate, I had got as far as “having a bump round.” For whatever might happen, I was much superior to any of the spectators. Taking my cap off to two elderly ladies, the Miss Pattons, who passed me on their tricycles with bobs and smiles, I wondered whether it was going to rain. Perhaps the sun came out to show that it was going to be a fine afternoon. When I was on the main road I passed Joey, the lizard-faced stone-breaker, who looked up from his flint-hammering to salute me with a grin.
The sun was still shining when I got to the course; but it was now less easy to believe that I had engaged myself to contribute to the entertainment which was attracting such a crowd of cheerful country folk. I felt extraneous and forlorn. Everyone else seemed intent on having as good a time as possible on such a lovely afternoon. I had come briskly out from Downfield on a two-horse charabanc which was waiting outside the station. The journey cost half a crown. Several of my fellow passengers were “bookies” and their clerks, with their name-boards and giant umbrellas; their jocosities accentuated the crudity of the impact on my mind made by the realistic atmosphere of racing. I did my best to feel as much like a “gentleman-rider” as I could, and to forget that I was making my first appearance in a race.
The air smelt of trodden turf as I lugged my bag (loaded with fourteen one-pound lead weights) into the dressing-room, which was in a farm building under some elms on the crest of the rising ground which overlooked the sparsely flagged course. After dumping the bag in a corner of the dry-mud floored barn, I went out to look for Cockbird and Dixon. They were nowhere to be seen, so I returned to the dressing-room, reminding myself that Dixon had said he wouldn’t bring “our horse” out there any earlier than he was obliged to, since it would only excite him; I also realized that I should get “rattled” myself unless I kept quiet and reserved my energies for three o’clock.
The first race was run at two, and mine was the third event on the card, so I bought that absorbing document and perched myself on an old corn-bin to peruse it. “Riders are requested to return their number-cloths to the Clerk of the Scales immediately after each race.” I had forgotten that number-cloths existed, so that was news to me. “These Steeplechases are held subject to National Hunt Rules as to corrupt and fraudulent practices.” A moment’s reflection convinced me that I need not worry about that admonition; it was sufficiently obvious that I had a clean sheet under National Hunt Rules, though it flattered me to feel that I was at last within their jurisdiction.
After these preliminaries I looked inside the card, at the entries. Good heavens, there were fourteen in my race! Several of the names I didn’t know. Captain Silcock’s “Crumpet.” Mr. F. Duckwith’s “Grasshopper.” Those must be the soldiers who hunted from Downfield. Mr. G. Bagwell’s “Kilgrubbin III.” That might be—yes, of course it was—the fat little man on the weedy chestnut, who was always refusing small timber out hunting. Not much danger from him as long as I kept well out of his way at the first fence; and probably he, and several of the others, wouldn’t go to the post after all. My own name looked nice.
A blue-jowled man in a yellow waistcoat hurried in, exclaiming, “Can anybody lend me a weight-cloth?” I glanced at my bag and resolved that nothing would induce me to lend him mine (which had yet to receive its baptismal instalment of sweat). Several riders were now preparing for the first race, but no one took any notice of me until ginger-haired Roger Pomfret came in. He had been inspecting the fences, and he wiped his fleshy red face with his sleeve as he sat down and started rummaging in his bag. Tentatively I asked him what he thought of the course. I was quite glad to see someone I knew, though I’d have preferred to see someone else. He chucked me a surly nod, which he supplemented with—“Course? I don’t mind telling you, this something course would break the heart of a blank buffalo. It’s nothing but twists and turns, and there isn’t a something fence you could go fast at without risking your something neck, and a nice hope I’ve got on that blank sketchy jumper of Brandwick’s!”
Before I could think of an answer his boon companion in blasphemy, Bill Jaggett, came in (embellished with a brown billycock hat and black and white check breeches). Jaggett began chaffing him about the something unhealthy ride he was going to have in the Heavy Weights. “I’ll lay you a tenner to a fiver you don’t get round without falling,” he guffawed. Pomfret took the bet and called him a pimply faced bastard into the bargain.
I thought I might as well get dressed up: when I had pulled my boots on and was very deliberately tucking the straps in with a boot-hook, Stephen strolled in; he was already wearing his faded pink cap, and the same elongated and anxious countenance which I’d seen a year ago. No doubt my own face matched his. When we’d reassured one another about the superlative fitness of our horses he asked if I’d had any lunch, and as I hadn’t he produced a bar of chocolate and an orange, which I was glad to get. Stephen was always thoughtful of other people.
The shouts of the bookies were now loudening outside in the sunlight, and when I’d slipped on my raincoat we went out to see what we could of the Lightweight Race.
The first two races were little more than the clamour and commotion of a passing procession. The “Open Race” was the main excitement of the afternoon; it was run “in colours,” and there were about a dozen dashing competitors, several of them well-known winners in such events.
But everything connected with this contest reached me as though from a long way off, since I was half-stupefied by yawning nervousness. They appeared to be accomplishing something incredible by galloping round the course. I had got to do it myself in half an hour; and what was worse, Dixon was relying on me to put up a creditable performance. He even expected me to give the others “a shaking-up.” Stephen had ceased to be any moral support at all; in spite of his success last year he was nearly as nervous as I was, and when the field for the Open Race had filed out of the hurdle-guarded enclosure, which did duty as the paddock, he disappeared in the direction of Jerry and I was left to face the future alone.
Also, as far as I knew, my horse hadn’t yet arrived, and it was with a new species of alarm that I searched for him after I had seen the race start; the Paddock and its environs now looked unfriendly and forsaken.
I discovered my confederates in a quiet corner under a hayrick. They seemed a discreet and unassuming pair, but Dixon greeted me with an invigorative grin. “I kept him away from the course as long as I could,” he said confidentially; “he’s as quiet as a sheep, but he knows what he’s here for; he’s staled twice since we got here.” He told me that Mr. Gaffikin was about and had been looking for me. “He says our horse stands a jolly good chance with the going as good as it is.”
I said there was one place, in and out of a lane, where I’d have to be careful.
We then escorted Cockbird to the Paddock; by the time we were there and I’d fetched my weight-cloth, the Open Race was over and the spectators were trooping back again. Among them was Mr. Gaffikin, who hailed me companionably with “Hullo, old chap; jolly sporting of you to be having a ride!” and thereafter took complete charge of me in a most considerate manner, going with me to the weighing tent with the weight-cloth over his arm, while I, of course, carried my saddle.
The winner of the Open Race was weighing in when we arrived, and I stepped diffidently on to the machine immediately after his glorified and perspiring vacation of the seat. Mr. Gaffikin doled out a few leads for me to slip into the leather pouches on the dark blue cloth until I tipped the scale at fourteen stone. The Clerk of the Scales, an unsmiling person with a large sallow face—he was a corn-merchant—verified my name on the card and handed me my number-cloth and armlet; my number was seven: under less exacting conditions I might have wondered whether it was a lucky number, but I was pushed out of the way by Pomfret. Arthur Brandwick (in a grey bowler) was at his elbow, talking nineteen to the dozen; I caught a glimpse of Stephen’s serious face; Colonel Hesmon was with him, behaving exactly the same as last year, except that, having already “given the boy the horse,” he could no longer say that he was going to do so if he won the race.
While Dixon was putting the last testing touches to Cockbird’s straps and buckles, the little Colonel came across to assure me that if Jerry didn’t win there was no one he’d rather see first past the judge’s wagon than me. He added that he’d taken a lot of trouble in choosing the Cup—“very nice goblet shape—got it from Stegman & Wilks—excellent old firm in the City.” But his eye wandered away from Cockbird; his sympathies were evidently strongly implicated in Jerry, who was as unperturbed as if he were being put into a brougham to fetch someone from the station.
Near him, Nigel Croplady was fussing round his horse, with quite a crowd round him.
The terrific “Boots” Brownrigg was puffing a cigarette with apparent unconcern; his black cap was well over his eyes and both hands were plunged in the pockets of a short blue overcoat; from one of the pockets protruded a short cutting whip. His boots were perfection. Spare built and middle sized, he looked absolutely undefeatable; and if he had any doubts about his own abilities he concealed them well.
Stifling another yawn, I did my best to imitate his demeanour. The bookies were bawling “Two to one bar one.” Cockbird, stimulated by publicity, now began to give himself the airs of a real restive racehorse, chucking his head about, flattening his ears, and capering sideways in a manner which caused the onlookers to skip hastily out of range of his heels.
“I say, that’s a classy looking quad!” exclaimed a youth who appeared to have purchased the Paddock. He consulted his card, and I overheard his companion, as they turned away, saying something about “his jockey looking a bit green.” “We’d better back Nigel’s horse. They say he’ll win for a cert.”
For want of anything else to do at this critical moment I asked Dixon whether he’d put Homeward’s half-crown on. He said, “Yes, sir; Mr. Gaffikin’s man has just done it for me, and I’ve got a bit on for myself. It’s a good thing; they’re laying five to one about him. Mr. Stephen’s horse is at two’s.”
Mr. Gaffikin chimed in with “Mikado’s a hot favorite. Two to one on, all along the line!” Mikado was Croplady’s horse.
Mr. Gaffikin then tied the strings of my cap in a very tight bow; a bell jangled and a stentorian voice shouted, “Now then, gentlemen, I’m going down to the post.” The blue sky suddenly went white; my heart bumped; I felt dazed and breathless. Then Mr. Gaffikin’s remote voice said, “Let me give you a leg-up, old chap”; I grabbed hold of the reins, lifted an awkward foot, and was lifted airily on the slippery saddle: Cockbird gave one prance and then stood still; Dixon was holding him firmly by the head. Pressing my knees into the saddle I overheard Mr. Gaffikin’s ultimate advice. “Don’t go in front unless you can help it; but keep well with ’em.” They both wished me luck and released me to my destiny.
I felt as if I’d never been on Cockbird’s back before; everything around me appeared unreal and disconnected from all my previous experience. As I followed Stephen out of the Paddock in a sort of equestrian trance, I caught sight of his father’s face, pale and fixed in its most strenuous expression; his eyes followed his son, on whose departure he was too intent to be able to take in anyone else. We filed through a gate under some trees: “Gentleman George” was standing by the gate; he stared up at me as I passed. “That’s the ’oss for my money,” was all that he said, but his measured tone somehow brought me to my senses, and I was able to look about me when we got down to the starting place.
But even then I was much more a passenger than a resolute rider with his wits about him to “pinch” a good start. There were seven others. I kept close to Stephen. We lined up uneasily; while the starter (on his dumpy grey cob) was instructing us to keep the red flags on the right and the white flags on the left (which we already knew) I noticed Pomfret, (on a well-bred, excitable brown) and Brownrigg (Croplady’s bright chestnut looking very compact) already stealing forward on the side furthest from him.
When he said “Go” I went with the others, albeit with no sense of initiative. The galloping hoofs sounded strange. But Cockbird felt strong under me and he flicked over the first fence with level and unbroken stride; he was such a big jumper and so quick over his fences that I had to pull him back after each one in order to keep level with Jerry, who was going his best pace all the way. One of the soldiers (in a top-hat) was making the running with Brownrigg and Pomfret close behind him. At the awkward fifth fence (the one on a bank) Pomfret’s horse jumped sideways and blundered as he landed; this caused Pomfret to address him in uncomplimentary language, and at the next obstacle (another awkward one) he ran out to the left, taking one of the soldiers with him. This, to my intense relief, was the last I saw of him. I took it at a place where a hole had been knocked in it in the previous races. The next thing I remember was the brook, which had seemed wide and intimidating when I was on foot and had now attracted a small gathering of spectators. But water-jumps are deceptive things and Cockbird shot over this one beautifully: (Stephen told me afterwards that he’d “never seen a horse throw such an enormous leap”). We went on up a long slope of firm pastureland, and I now became aware of my responsibility; my arms were aching and my fingers were numb and I found it increasingly difficult to avoid taking the lead, for after jumping a couple more fences and crossing a field of light ploughland we soared over a hedge with a big drop and began to go down the other side of the hill. Jerry was outpaced and I was level with Mikado and the Cavalry soldier who had been cutting out the work. As Stephen dropped behind he said, “Go on, George; you’ve got ’em stone-cold.”
We were now more than three parts of the way round, and there was a sharp turn left-handed where we entered on the last half-mile of the course. I lost several lengths here by taking a wide sweep round the white flag, which Brownrigg almost touched with his left boot. At the next fence the soldier went head over heels, so it was just as well for me that I was a few lengths behind him. He and his horse were still rolling about on the ground when I landed well clear of them. Brownrigg looked round and then went steadily on across a level and rather wet field which compelled me to take my last pull at Cockbird. Getting on to better ground, I remembered Mr. Gaffikin’s advice, and let my horse go after him. When I had drawn up to him it was obvious that Cockbird and Mikado were the only ones left in it. I was alone with the formidable Brownrigg. The difference between us was that he was quite self-contained and I was palpitating with excitement.
We were side by side: approaching the fourth fence from the finish he hit his horse and went ahead; this caused Cockbird to quicken his pace and make his first mistake in the race by going too fast at the fence. He hit it hard and pecked badly; Brownrigg, of course, had steadied Mikado for the jump after the quite legitimate little piece of strategy which so nearly caused me to “come unstuck.” Nearly, but not quite. For after my arrival at Cockbird’s ears his recovery tipped me halfway back again and he cantered on across the next field with me clinging round his neck. At one moment I was almost in front of his chest. I said to myself, “I won’t fall off,” as I gradually worked my way back into the saddle. My horse was honestly following Mikado, and my fate depended on whether I could get into the saddle before we arrived at the next fence. This I just succeeded in doing, and we got over somehow. I then regained my stirrups and set off in urgent pursuit.
After that really remarkable recovery of mine, life became lyrical, beatified, ecstatic, or anything else you care to call it. To put it tersely, I just galloped past Brownrigg, sailed over the last two fences, and won by ten lengths. Stephen came in a bad third. I also remember seeing Roger Pomfret ride up to Jaggett in the Paddock and inform him in a most aggressive voice that he’d got to “something well pay up and look pleasant.”
Needless to say that Dixon’s was the first face I was aware of; his eager look and the way he said, “Well done,” were beyond all doubt the quintessence of what my victory meant for me. All else was irrelevant at that moment, even Stephen’s unselfish exultation and Mr. Gaffikin’s loquacious enthusiasm. As for Cockbird, no words could ever express what we felt about him. He had become the equine equivalent of Divinity.
Excited as I was, an inward voice cautioned me to control my volubility. So when I had weighed in and returned with my saddle to find a cluster of knowing ones casting an eye over the winner, I just waited soberly until Dixon had rubbed him down, mounted, and ridden serenely out of sight. The Colonel was on the spot to congratulate me on my “nailing good performance” and, better still, to give Dixon his due for having got Cockbird so fit. Those few lofty minutes when he was making much of his horse were Dixon’s reward for all the trouble he had taken since Cockbird had been in his charge. He had needed no such incentive, but he asked for nothing more. While he was on his way back to Downfield he may also have thought to himself how he had made me into a good enough rider to have got round the course without a catastrophe. (He had yet to hear full details of the race—including my peculiar acrobatics toward the end, which had been witnessed by no one except the rider of Mikado, who had been kind enough to tell Croplady that he never saw such a thing in his life, which was, I hoped, intended as a compliment.)
When I had watched Dixon’s departure I found that public interest was being focused on the Yeomanry Team-Race. I was glad to slip away by myself: a few fields out in the country I relaxed my legs on a five-barred gate and contemplated my achievement with as much mental detachment as I could muster. Even in those days I had an instinct for getting the full flavour of an experience. Perhaps I was fortunate in not yet having become aware that the winner of the last race is forgotten as soon as the next one starts.
Forty minutes later I had claimed my cup. (There was no ceremony of presentation.) Having crammed the ebony pedestal into my kit-bag I came out into the Paddock with the cup in my other hand. It was convenient to carry, for it had handles to it.
Good-natured Arthur Brandwick came up and offered me a lift back to Downfield. While he was patting me on the back I caught sight of a figure which seemed somehow familiar. A loose-built ruddy faced young sportsman was talking to a couple of jovial whiskered farmers; he sat on a shooting-stick with his thin neatly gaitered legs straightened; a brown felt hat was tipped well over his blunt nose, for the five o’clock sun was glaring full in his eyes. I wondered who it was he reminded me of. Brandwick answered my unspoken question.
“D’you twig who that is?” I shook my head. “Well, take another good look at him. It’s our new Master, and a hell of a good lad he is, from all I’ve heard. Up till a month ago everyone thought the country’d have to be hunted by a Committee next season. There was something fishy about every one of the coves who’d applied for the Mastership. And then this chap wrote and offered to hunt the hounds himself and put up fifteen hundred a year if we guaranteed him another two thousand. Hardly a soul knew about it till today. We’re lucky to get him. He’s been hunting a good rough country in Ireland the last two seasons and showing rare sport. He’s run across for a couple of days to have a look at us.” As we walked away the new Master turned his head and favoured us with a slow and rather blank stare.
“What did you say his name was?” I asked, when we were out of earshot. Brandwick informed me that his name was Milden—Denis Milden—and I knew that I’d known it all the time, though I hadn’t set eyes on him since I was eleven years old.
Aquamarine and celestial were the shoals of sunset as I hacked pensively home from Dumbridge. The Colonel’s Cup clinked and joggled against my saddle. Time was irrelevant. But I was back at Butley by eight o’clock, and Cockbird, who had returned by an earlier train, was safe and sound; a little uneasily he wandered around his loose-box, rustling the deep straw, but always going back to the manger for another mouthful of clover-hay. Dixon serenely digested triumph with his tea; presently he would go out to the Rose and Crown to hand Homeward his multiplied half-crown and overawe the gossips with his glory.
Absolved and acquiescent was the twilight as I went quietly across the lawn and in at the garden door to the drawing-room. Aunt Evelyn’s armchair scrooped on the beeswaxed floor as she pushed it back and stood up with her bottle of smelling-salts in her hand. For the first time since my success I really felt like a hero. And Miriam served the dinner with the tired face of a saint that seemed lit with foreknowledge of her ultimate reward. But at that time I didn’t know what her goodness meant.
At the end of our evening, when they had gone upstairs with my highly coloured history of the day in their heads, I strolled out into the garden; for quite a long time I stared at the friendly lights that twinkled from the railway-station and along the dark Weald. I had brought something home with me as well as the Cup. There was this new idea of Denis Milden as Master. For I hadn’t forgotten him, and my persistent studying of Horse and Hound and The Hunting Directory had kept me acquainted with his career as an amateur huntsman since he had left Oxford. A dog barked and a train went along the Weald … the last train to London, I thought. …
Going back to the drawing-room, I lit a pair of candles which made their miniature gold reflections on the shining surface of the massive Cup. I couldn’t keep my eyes away from it. I looked round the shadowed room on which all my childhood and adolescence had converged, but everything led back to the talisman; while I gazed and gazed on its lustre I said to myself, aloud, “It can’t be true that it’s really there on the table!” The photograph of Watts’s Love and Death was there on the wall; but it meant no more to me than the strangeness of the stars which I had seen without question, out in the quiet spring night. I was secure in a cosy little universe of my own, and it had rewarded me with the Colonel’s Cup. My last thought before I fell asleep was, “Next season I’ll come out in a pink coat.”