“But how is this!” she exclaimed. “Your brothers all mad for sport — intimates of Mr. Chute at the Vyne — and you will not undertake to ride? I have just such a little hunter in my stables even now as should tempt you, Miss Austen. You must walk down with me to visit Nutmeg.”
“With pleasure,” I assented, “provided you do not compel me to mount. I will stand outside the box and admire your Nutmeg all you wish.”
“That will do for a start. Take some of the sugar from the table — we must not arrive empty-handed.”
The scheme of a walk being generally broached, and the Prowting girls — no riders themselves — being eager to admire the cunning little hunter, a rather larger party set out for the stables than originally planned. Lady Imogen monopolised Henry with her desire to be made known to the Master of the Vyne, and admitted to all the revels of the local hunt; from her playful words it seemed she intended to be established at Stonings by autumn.
“I have long been allowed to hunt with the Quorn,” she informed Henry, “and must own that I prefer the Melton country; but what is that to the delights of one’s neighbours, and the intimacy of a local pack? I shall not disdain it. Perhaps my father may go so far as to look in once or twice. He is a punishing rider to hounds!”
Mr. Thrace placed himself beside Catherine Prowting, and talked to her of the Prince Regent. “It is a fearful crush at Carlton House, but nothing compared to the present scene in Brighton, where the Prince is established for the summer months. And the Pavilion itself is so exquisitely curious — it is a treat akin to Astley’s Amphitheatre, to be bidden in attendance!”
“I have never visited Astley’s Amphitheatre,” Catherine returned hesitantly, “and Papa is most adamant in his opposition to Brighton. Watering places he regards as insipid, and dens of vice.”
“As a man of the world, he must fear the effect of your beauty on the town,” Thrace observed with gallantry. “You should be carried off within a day of descending upon Brighton, Miss Prowting!”
There were half a dozen horses turned out in the loose boxes; among them I recognised the powerful grey Mr. Thrace had ridden in Chawton. Lady Imogen called for her groom — a spare figure with a weathered face and sharp eyes rather like a monkey’s — and said, “Lead out Nutmeg, Robley; I will have my girl admired.”
The groom entered the box, and led the mare into the stable yard, so that all the gentlemen might examine her lines and comment upon her excellence as a hunter.
“You paid all of six hundred guineas for her, Lady Imogen?”
Mr. Thrace enquired with an air of surprise. “Very showy, I grant you — and yet she is too long in the back. You will gladly take five pence for her from anybody who will offer it, after your first hard outing, I’ll be bound.”
“Say that again if you dare!” the Earl’s daughter flashed.
“Say that again, Thrace — and I’ll whip you myself! I was riding with the Quorn when you were still a raw schoolboy. She is as neat a filly to go as any you’ve seen! Admit it!”
“She is too long in the back, ” the gentleman repeated, and turned away.
Lady Imogen was white with fury. The insult to her horse — the insult to her own powers of judgement and her experience in the field — piqued her as Thrace’s milder pretensions to mastery could not. Her hands clenched convulsively, her breast heaved with a powerful emotion — and I feared she might hurl herself on her putative half-brother if Major Spence’s firm hand had not restrained her.
“Too long, perhaps, for a rider like yourself, Thrace,” the steward said mildly, “and I should not like to test her either — but in Lady Imogen’s hands, she will be the sweetest of goers.”
Thrace smiled. His suggestion of contempt only enflamed Lady Imogen further.
“Fetch your grey!” she cried. “Fetch your grey, and let us see who is the better judge of horseflesh!”
“But you are not dressed to ride, my lady,” the groom Robley protested.
“What is that to me? I am among friends, not parading in Hyde Park. Pray saddle Nutmeg.”
“Hold the horse, Robley,” Thrace said with sudden choler.
“I will fetch the saddle.”
He disappeared into the tack room, while the rest of us looked on in suspense. Henry sidled over to me.
“Her ladyship is in a rare temper,” he said, “and for my part, I should say the right is all Thrace’s. The mare is assuredly too long in the back.”
“But he need not have thrown the fact in her face,” I returned softly. “It is almost as tho’ he would incite her to betray herself. He wished her to appear unbecoming before her guests.”
“Even so — this will be a spectacle worth recounting at my club! The Earl of Holbrook’s heirs disputing their rights over open ground!”
At that moment, Mr. Thrace reappeared with a small leather saddle in his hands. “Here, Robley — saddle the mare while I fetch Rob Roy.”
He led out the grey, who looked fresh and handsome as ever; tossed his own saddle over the hunter’s back with a practised hand, and placed his boot in the stirrup.
“Have a care, Julian,” Spence muttered. “She will work herself into a passion.”
“Let the course be set,” Mr. Thrace declared, “as the span of sweep between the stable yard and the main gate, a distance of nearly a mile. Are we agreed?”
“Agreed,” Lady Imogen declared. “But what will you wager, Thrace? What is the price of your honour? — The sum of your losses at faro? For I know you cannot settle that debt.”
Her seat was graceful and easy, her gloved hands light on the reins. The dreadful pallor of anger had fled, to be replaced by the high colour of excitement.
“Are you so dubious of victory, Lady Imogen? Why not wager something we both hold dear? Let us say—” Thrace hesitated, as tho’ measuring his odds. “Let us compete for Stonings.”
The look of elation drained from her ladyship’s face. “That is not mine to stake, Thrace, as you very well know. Nor yours to demand.”
“If you would already concede defeat—”
“Very well!” she cried. “Stonings it is! And may the best judge of horseflesh win!”
Chapter 18
Neck or Nothing
8 July 1809, cont.
“Lady Imogen—” Charles Spence raised his hand to her bridle. “I beg of you—”
“Let me go, Charles,” she retorted cuttingly. “I am not a green girl to be led by your rein. Will you call the start?”
Nutmeg wheeled before he could answer. As Lady Imogen leaned forward and cantered towards the entrance to the yard in considerable style, I thought the little mare looked skittish — as tho’ she might prove difficult to manage. The natural result, I must suppose, of a mount offered too little exercise in such a season.
Mr. Thrace was already waiting, his grey prancing beside the mare. Major Spence limped towards the mounted pair.
“Race if you must, but call off this foolish wager,” he begged.
“I am determined, Charles,” Lady Imogen replied.
His hand moved abruptly as tho’ he might have forbidden all gallops this morning; but at Lady Imogen’s impatient twitch of her mount’s head, Spence stepped back from the contenders without another word. He raised his right arm, then let it fall. The two horses sprang forward in a cloud of dust.
“It’s always neck or nothing with her ladyship,” Robley observed cryptically to anyone who might listen. “It don’t do to put a fence in her way — she’ll throw her heart over, every time.”
The Major was still standing at the entry to the yard, his attention fixed on the careening pair. I moved to join him, the others only a little behind me.
“Who is winning, Henry?” I demanded. My eyes have never been strong, and the horses had achieved such a distance that I could no longer discern which was forwarder.