He waited.
“I have two children, sisters. I am all they have left in the world. They would have to accompany me.”
John Kirby watched her carefully, watched the color rise on her neck. “I see,” he said.
Tears pressed at her eyes.
“I must think about this.”
She nodded. A long silence fell. She knew that he was thinking of a way to say no, and prepared herself to hear it, squeezing her eyes shut against his words.
“You would have to work hard.”
She looked up.
“And keep the dog out of trouble.”
In the moments that followed, Pell felt tempted to beg and plead and swear commitment, but she said nothing. Despite what it cost her, she merely nodded, and waited.
“Well,” said John Kirby at last, a willing loser in the game of nerves, “I require a reliable boy who’ll work all day, and half the night if it’s called for, who’s good at his job and can handle the horses with problems as well as the others, who won’t oversleep or drink or cause trouble, who doesn’t require much in the way of pay—at first, in any case.”
Pell listened carefully.
He continued. “I have a child of my own and sympathy for your troubles. The children can stay, but—”
“They can work!” Pell half rose and spoke quickly. “They’re hard workers, and accustomed to horses.”
John Kirby nodded gravely. “So I will take you on, all of you, for two months, as a trial.” The expression on her face made him smile. “Now come and have a look at the place,” he said, and stood, leading her up to the room above the hayloft, which was snug and comfortable, a world away from the stinking hole in Osborne’s dairy. When they encountered another of the grooms, she greeted him soberly, and John Kirby watched her. “You’re not attracted to trouble, are you?”
Pell stared back at him, defiant.
“I didn’t say you were, but it’s as well to check.”
Twenty-four horses were stabled below, and he introduced each to her with a précis of relevant details: who in the household rode or drove which, what sort of feed each required, what exercise. All were housed in large, airy boxes, twelve on each side of the aisle. Iron hayracks held green hay that wasn’t dusty, and the straw underfoot looked deep and clean. The feed room smelled of bran and maize and oats, the tack room of leather and beeswax. In each of these places, Pell radiated such an intensity of contentment that John Kirby could feel it simply by standing beside her.
Privately, he felt pleased with his latest employee, with her quiet manner and graceful figure. Despite the unexpectedness of her.
Thirty-six
Pell collected Frannie and Ellen from the inn and moved them all to Highfields, to the room in the hayloft above the barn. On the way, she stopped at a house with a great crowd of children playing games in front and offered their mother the brand-new pinafores she’d made for the girls in exchange for outgrown breeches and shirts. It was an odd request, and if the newness of the wool had been less alluring the woman might have refused on that basis. But in the end she relented, and Pell dressed the girls in worn breeches and shirts, so they would not draw attention to themselves around a stable. She cut their hair short, which neither child much resented, and together they looked like skinny boys with big eyes and open expressions.
The welcome John Kirby offered was bemused. Instead of the pretty little girls he’d imagined, Pell arrived with two ragtag creatures—three, if you counted the dog—that might have been boys or girls or anything in between. He frowned, and wondered what sort of witchcraft Pell practiced to have persuaded him to take them all on, in addition to the hound. But he had already discovered that he had no stomach for refusing her, and, in any case, something in her expression defeated his intent.
There are men who will on no account trust their horses to a female groom, but John Kirby was not one of them. He consulted Pell when it came to the handling of a horse that balked, or bit, and although she never offered an opinion before it was required, she would tell him quickly and without hesitation what she thought. Often, the horses he found troublesome presented no challenge to her; she could refit a saddle to stop this one napping, talk a hunter into going clean over hedges, stop a chewer from chewing or a bolter from bolting—merely by changing what it ate, or how it was tacked, or shod, or ridden, or spoken to.
On arrival, she put Frannie at once to grooming and left her to work her way down one side of the row. Ellen was deathly frightened of horses, and nothing Pell could say would change her mind. Horses had delivered the bones to Andover each morning, the stinking wagon unloaded and then reloaded with the daily dead.
So Pell set her to cleaning tack, showing her how first to use a soft cloth across the surface of the soap with a bit of water, rubbing it into the old leather and wiping down the result. Ellen rubbed hard, removing sweat and wax and dirt until the harnesses shone like new. Next, she buffed saddles, one after another, swooping across them with long smooth strokes of stiff boar and soft badger brushes until the leather shone with a rich mahogany glow and her thin arms ached. Harness brasses needed careful rubbing with vinegar to clean, and iron bits were rubbed and polished like silver. And when John Kirby’s son toddled into the barn in search of his father Ellen lured him out from under the perilous hind feet of the horses and sat him next to her in the tack room, talking and telling him stories until his mother came to fetch him home.
Relieved of grooming, Pell went to work. She applied oil to forty-eight pairs of hooves, closed off the mouse holes in the feed bins, scrubbed every manger clean, and, at the end of each day, piled them high with new hay, swept the wide oak floorboards clean, and refilled every bucket with fresh water. With the three sisters employed sunup to sundown, it wasn’t long before every corner gleamed bright as day.
While Ellen could not bear to be near a horse, Frannie could not be kept away. Within a week of their arrival, she began to rise at dawn, standing on a box to heave the heavy saddles onto horses whose withers she could not reach. She galloped the ones that required exercise, nearly invisible in the flow of a mane, while Kirby watched with trepidation. Only the sweet perfection of balance and voice kept Frannie safe, for she was not strong enough to exert force against an animal weighing nearly a tonne. Kirby could barely bring himself to look, so certain was he of disaster, but Pell stood beside him in a trance of admiration, reliving her own days of being fearless and free.
The three sisters worked for the privilege of having work and of being together, with only Pell’s pay as a reward. And still John Kirby worried, and wondered if he’d done the right thing. But even he had to admit that the work was done, and done better than before, and that it cost him no more than it had before, and perhaps it was his tidy mind that added up the figures and couldn’t come to any sum that didn’t favor himself.
The two little girls with chopped-up hair and angel faces charmed the entire household: one with a calf’s soft eyes, the other an agile, grinning imp. Even the most dangerous horses settled for Frannie, who was the master’s favorite. And who could blame his attachment to the pretty boy-girl with flashing brown eyes and the same voice as her sister for calming a nervous beast?
Ellen watched everyone and knew everything, and if a tool or a farthing or a bootjack went astray you had only to ask her where it might be and how it got there. With everyone else occupied, she stood a little apart and saw the patterns in life; she was happiest with everything in its proper place, and every person, too.
One morning John Kirby arrived early to find Frannie mounted high on Midas, a tall bay thoroughbred of excellent breeding with an unpleasant habit of seeking to remove—by whatever means possible—any rider who settled on his back. In hopes of saving the life of the person foolhardy enough to mount him, he was always ridden with a complete arsenal of restraints. Despite this, his temper expressed itself in a spinning shimmy with such vertical intent that he was constantly in danger of toppling over backward upo
n his rider. If, for some reason, this failed to unseat the annoyance, he would accelerate to a gallop, drop his head between his forelegs, and somersault forward. So he was suicidal as well as angry, and Pell agreed with John Kirby that he should be sold at once.
She agreed, that is, until it came to her attention that Frannie had been riding him each morning with nothing but a headstall to guide him, galloping and whispering in his ear the entire time, then sitting back and settling him into a walk smooth as cream.
“He doesn’t like the curb,” she told Pell. “It hurts his mouth.”
And that was that.
When night fell, the sisters slept together on one straw mattress. Pell promised that she would never again leave them, but a kind of panic flared whenever she was out of their sight. Ellen, especially, woke howling for Sally and Mam at night, unable to settle until Pell pulled her close on one side and Dicken stretched out along the other. Frannie dreamed of Midas and it quietened the echo of crackling fire and cracking bones, but Ellen smelled smoke and the stench of burned flesh every time she closed her eyes, and refused to be comforted.
It would be untrue to suggest that John Kirby never imagined his own wife gone and himself embracing Pell, taking on the two little girls for his own. But it went against his better sense (and he had no shortage of better sense) to fall under the thrall of a young woman with so complicated and unconventional a past, and so he did not.
Thirty-seven
The stables felt more serene than anyone could remember. Horses trotted out smartly and rarely turned up lame. Reins slipped smoothly through gloved fingers, leaving no mark. And when the sisters mounted the stairs to their little room each night, the barn below glowed with something no one could quite name.
As time wore on, however, John Kirby began to notice something in the quality of Pell’s work that disturbed him. She was entirely present, he noted, when she looked at a horse, testing a shoulder for stiffness or a saddle for comfort. But for the rest of the time she seemed distracted, absent. He could detect a void in the very outline of her.
When she had worked for him for two months, he called her into his office.
“Sit down,” he said, and noted that she trembled. “You needn’t worry, I have no complaint of you.” He handed her an envelope containing her first months’ pay.
“It would be a great satisfaction to me if you would stay at Highfields.” He spoke slowly, watching her. “Your gifts are indisputable, and you have shown the most perfect attention to every detail of your duties.”
He paused.
“But I have noticed lately—”
Her face froze and she stopped him. “I cannot give up hope of finding my brother. But unless you have information on where he might be—” She met his eyes, and her expression softened. “Please do not distress yourself on my behalf. You have helped us too much already.”
He nodded, reluctant to leave the matter, but she stood abruptly and returned to her work, with her pay and the security of more months ahead. She tried not to think of Bean.
John Kirby went home that night to his cottage on the estate and sat down to dinner with his wife and son as he always did. He loved them tonight as he always loved them, and it was a sense of his own luck in life, and hardly any other feelings, that gave him an idea.
A sale had been announced on a farm ten miles away. John Kirby knew the estate and the quality of the horses, and besides, Highfields was two horses down and the master required a new hunter. He traveled out early in the day, on his own. Of the animals for sale, a sturdy eight-year-old Irish cob caught his eye.
“Never puts a foot wrong,” the farmer told Kirby. “He’ll carry fourteen stone, but I’d trust him as a lady’s mount or to carry a child. Does what he’s asked, and always jumps clean.”
Kirby liked the look of him, found him calm and good-natured, and worth more than the thirty guineas asked. Though the hunter satisfied him and justified the trip, he strolled down the aisle of the old barn, searching for something else. When his eye settled on a fourteen-year-old gray mare, strong and sound with a fine head, he knew instantly that he’d found what he sought. In his head he proposed a good price for the two and, without explaining that the money for the mare was his own, he left with both horses in hand.
Pell ran out, as usual, to meet him and examine his latest acquisitions, and Kirby held his breath.
“He’ll do,” she crooned, ducking down to feel the hunter’s knees. Then she turned to John Kirby and frowned, running her hand along the mare’s neck, from her poll down to the long, sloping withers. “But we don’t need another mare. Nice as she is.”
For an instant his confidence wavered, but the next moment Pell was beaming at him. “And yet . . . she’s a beauty. I can see why you lost your heart.”
“She’s for you,” he said.
Pell stared at him.
“Aye.” He laughed. “You’ll need a good horse if you’re determined to roam the countryside searching for your brother.”
“For me?” She was like a child and could not hide her joy. But in an instant her expression turned grave. “I cannot accept such a gift.”
“You must,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “For I’ll not have her back.”
She met his eyes for a long moment, and then suddenly, as if the wind had shifted, relinquished her dignity and threw her arms about him in a transport of happiness. He embraced her lightly, like a child.
“What is her name?” whispered Pell, too affected, almost, to speak.
“It was given her by the farmer,” John Kirby answered. “Owing to the way she takes a fence. She’s called Birdie.”
Pell almost cried out. But immediately an expression of resolve settled on her features. It was bad luck to change the name of a horse, but she was finished with luck. “Never mind,” she said. “I shall call her Gray.”
Thirty-eight
The following week, John Kirby had an order to send three horses and a groom to Milbrook, a grand estate in the next valley, where the master had been invited to join the hunt. It wasn’t an unusual request, and Kirby sent Pell in his stead, for she had often heard of Lord Hayward’s magnificent stables and was anxious to see them for herself. She rode Gray, led the hunters, and took Frannie with her for company on a dun gelding named Marly. Dicken trotted along behind.
At Milbrook, in the splendid tack room with its mahogany and brass fittings, the grooms sat together awaiting the call for fresh mounts. Pell could barely sit still, and had spent the morning wandering up and down the long aisles of the barn, admiring as impressive a collection of horses as she’d ever hoped to see.
When the call came at last, the grooms set out into the field, hoping the changeover to fresh horses might occur with a minimal loss of ground. If they planned properly there would be a few moments of flurry, accompanied by shouted instructions for girths and stirrup leathers to be mended, strained backs to be rubbed with liniment, and loose shoes seen to by the farrier. The excitement multiplied when a group of riders came in together, which was when a hoof inevitably came down on a groom’s foot, a flask spilled, and tempers flared. Today, a big chestnut kicked out as a pony swung too close, catching a groom in the chest and causing a commotion. Everything had to stop for the injured man, and the hunt had already galloped a quarter mile across the next field by the time the riders set off again. Waiting with the injured man to be taken away, Pell felt thoroughly rattled.
It took more than an hour to strip an exhausted animal of tack, walk it dry, groom, feed, water and bed it down. After that, there might be a lull of another hour or two before the order came to set off home again. Waiting to return to Highfields, Pell exchanged talk of rides and riders with the other grooms. Across the room, along one wall, a series of small framed watercolors caught her attention. There were more than fifty of them, hung in rows, each a perfect small jewel of a portrait in the manner of Stubbs.
“It’s the eldest daughter of Lord Hayward paints them,??
? a groom told her. “Fine likenesses, too.”
“Aren’t they lovely,” Pell murmured, pointing to one or another of the horses they’d seen out in the field. Frannie examined each critically, thinking, That hock’s too long as she’s drawn it, or, The look in that eye isn’t quite right.
Each portrait revealed some individual touch. Willow had been painted in midair over a big brush hedge. A tasseled, hooded falcon sat on a branch above Fez, a red Arab with a high crest and tail. Pell lingered over each picture, until, as she neared the end, she started back with a little cry.
“What have you seen?” asked Frannie.
“Look,” she said, peering closer, trembling, and Frannie’s mouth opened wide in wonder. It was Jack, and she would have recognized him even if the artist had not dabbed the black mark the size of a penny on his left flank. “Please tell me,” she begged the assembled company, her voice quivering with excitement, “does anyone know him? Does he belong here?”
“He’s one of mine,” said the groom just behind Pell. “Out today with the field. He passed by just as we arrived.”
Pell stood utterly still.
“His mistress is just sixteen,” continued the boy, “and as graceful a rider as you’ll find in three counties. But it’s an odd story. Lord Hayward bought the animal from a councilman—said he found the horse, just like that, wandering the countryside. Sent word out and waited for someone to claim him, with no luck. The luck was his, I’d say. A horse like that, with no owner? There’s something else to that story. In any case, she believes it was providence, and is utterly devoted to the beast, mad for hunting, and the horse just the same, and if there’s a gate or a hedge to be jumped . . .” The groom’s words flowed over her, a river of noise, babbling away as her own thoughts raced elsewhere.
In her mind’s eye, Pell could see the culmination of her search, the reunion she so dearly desired, and she rejoiced at the thought of how soon they might be together. And then, without her sanctioning them, her thoughts went on to picture Jack’s life of comfort and good food and affection, the young girl’s happiness. She further imagined the moment she would make her claim, inform the girl, point out the mark on her horse’s flank, recount her story, and plead for what still belonged to her while the girl wept in dismay and Lord Hayward stared, stony-faced, and ordered her off the premises or proposed to take the claim to the local magistrate for a proper judicial hearing.