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.
“I believe it is Thrace. No — Lady Imogen has pulled to the fore!”
“We ought to have placed a man at the gate,” Spence said tensely. “—To observe the outcome.”
“But Thrace is a man of honour,” my brother objected. “He shall certainly own the truth, once he knows it!”
“With such a prize as Stonings in view?” Spence demanded bitterly; and then he stepped forward, as tho’ torn from his position.
“Good God!” he cried. “She is thrown!”
He began to run down the sweep with painful ineptitude on his injured leg, but Henry was the faster. He passed Major Spence while the rest of us were still collecting our faculties and exclaiming over the fate of Lady Imogen — and in a matter of moments, could be seen halfway down the sweep. He came to a halt by the crumpled figure; I discerned him to lift her in his arms.
Mr. Thrace had wheeled his tearing mount and galloped back towards the little mare. Nutmeg had skittered away from the sweep as tho’ shying from the burden she left behind. As Henry staggered towards us, I was dimly aware of Mr. Thrace coursing alongside Lady Imogen’s mount, and leaning forward to grasp the mare’s bridle.
“Spence!” Henry shouted. “You must send for a doctor!”
“Is she gravely hurt?” the steward cried, and lurched forward to meet my brother. I was only seconds behind him, Catherine Prowting at my back.
Charles Spence bent over the face of his beloved, his own white with shock. His fingers fumbled at her pulse, felt for sense in her neck — and then abruptly he stepped backwards.
“The doctor,” he said numbly. “What can a doctor hope to do here? She is already dead.”
I do not think, in those first moments of tragedy, that Charles Spence could trust himself to speak. He merely reached for the limp form of the Earl’s daughter, and my brother placed her gently in the steward’s arms. Ann Prowting took one look at Lady Imogen’s insensible features — the brutal angle of the head where it rested on the Major, so suggestive of a broken neck — and gave way to a fit of strong hysterics. Thin, high-pitched screaming akin to the hiss of steam escaping a teakettle — until Catherine firmly slapped her sister’s cheeks, and led the sobbing figure back towards the house.
“My lady!” cried the groom, Robley, his monkey eyes staring. “My lady Imogen! Enough of your pranks! Don’t be giving an old man what’s served you faithful a heart attack!”
“We must carry her into the house,” Henry said, “and send for a doctor. She must be seen, Spence — tho’ all hope is gone.”
The steward nodded vaguely, as if unsure of his ground; and at that moment Mr. Thrace pulled up on his lathered grey, Nutmeg’s rein in his left hand.