Chapter Twenty-five

As we trotted along the country roads, I was so pleased to be with Beauty that I wanted to sing. But I was afraid my high singing voice – so different from the gruff mumblings I used as Joe the groom – would give me away for sure. Instead I whistled a happy tune – it was something I had got very good at since pretending to be a boy. I glanced over at James, hoping he’d join in, but I saw he was biting his lip and looking as grey as the clouds that had gathered above our heads.

“Are you all right?” I asked. “Aren’t you pleased to have a new job? It’s a promotion. And with Ginger and Beauty too?”

“Of course I’m pleased.” James stared straight ahead.

“If you’re nervous about being an under-groom, don’t be,” I said. “Mr Manly always said you’d be a coachman before you were twenty and. . .”

“No. It’s not that. I know I can do a good job with the horses,” said James.

“Then what?”

“I’ve just heard things, that’s all.” James shrugged. “About the kind of stable they run at Earlshall Park. And the mistress. She likes things done very differently than we’re used to at Birtwick.”

“Well,” I said brightly. “Change can be a good thing.”

I should know, I thought as I began to whistle again. I’d had more changes than an actor on the stage in the last six months. And it has all turned out much better than I could ever have hoped. There was no reason to think this next adventure should be any different.

It was afternoon when we finally arrived at Earlshall. Ginger shied as we turned through a gate with big stone dogs snarling down at us.

“Steady,” said James, but she was still spooked and Beauty laid his ears flat.

A dim drizzle started as we trotted up the sweeping drive. It was the sort of thin, steady rain that washed all the colour out of the world and got right down inside the neck of my shirt. Even Beauty’s shiny black coat looked sooty and dull and Ginger’s bright chestnut fur seemed muddy-brown.

I hunched my shoulders and wiped the rain from my eyes as the buildings came into view. Earlshall Park was so huge it made Birtwick look like a dolls’ house. It was four times bigger than even Summer’s Place. But there was nothing pretty about it. It was grey and square like a fortress with big stone pillars at the front.

We were about to turn the carriage down the side of the house towards the stable block, when the huge front door was flung open by a footman wearing white stockings and scarlet breeches.

“Halt!” he cried. “Lady Westop wishes to examine the new horses.”

“Right you are.” James drew us to a halt and I jumped down from the top of the carriage to hold the horses’ heads.

The footman stood on the steps in the rain. He carried a rolled-up umbrella but it was clearly for the countess and soon his well-oiled black hair had begun to drip. James was dripping too, perched on top of the carriage. I could hide between Ginger and Beauty a little, but as the drizzle turned to rain, I was soon sopping wet as well.

I glanced at the stable clock. It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

Beauty and Ginger hung their heads and shivered. Still we waited.

Half past two. I couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Excuse me!” I called across to the footman. “Do you think Lady Westop has changed her mind? Shall we take the horses to the stables and get them dry?”

“Shh!” James and the footman both hushed me at once.

“What?” I whispered at James. “It’s pointless us just standing here if she’s not coming.”

“She will come,” said the footman, staring straight ahead and not even blinking although rain was running down his face.

“When?” I groaned.

“When she is ready.” The footman sneezed.

The poor man was getting a chill. But I could tell it was hopeless. Nobody would dare to move until Lady Westop finally came out. Even if that was tomorrow morning. . .

I tried not to watch the hands on the clock.

Three. . . Quarter past three. . . The rain stopped but we were damp and chilly. It wasn’t summer any more and the late September wind was cold.

Ginger was jostling and fretting with her bit. Beauty had gone to sleep, I think. His head was resting on my shoulder.

At four o’clock it began to rain again.

Half past four. Two and a half hours we had been standing there. All of us – the footman, James and I, and the horses – were silent with exhaustion.

The door swung open.

There was a rustling sound of silk. A tall thin woman with a nose like a bird’s beak appeared on the top of the steps. Her dress was white and she was wearing a black ostrich feather hat. It made her look like a magpie.

“One for sorrow,” I whispered under my breath, remembering how Nanny Clay always touched her head if she saw one of the black-and-white birds on its own, saying it was a sign of bad luck.

The footman dashed forward, raising the umbrella even though it had stopped raining again now and there was even a little late afternoon sun.

“These are the horses?” Lady Westop was still standing on the steps. I had no idea if she was talking to me or the footman or James.

“Yes, my lady.” We all answered at once.

“There is no need to shout!” she snapped.

Still not leaving the steps, she lifted a little pair of eye-glasses on a gold chain around her neck and peered through them.

“But they do not match!”

Nobody answered her for a moment.

“I say, they do not match!” she repeated. “One horse is chestnut and one is black.”

James cleared his throat.

“They are both fifteen and a half hands high and very well suited to each other in the carriage,” he said. “They are forward-going with a lovely rhythm. Squire Gordon always said. . .”

“Enough!” cried Lady Magpie (as I had decided to call her). “I have no need to hear the views of a shabby country squire communicated to me by a stable boy who looks like a drowned rat.” She held up her hand. James shrivelled into silence.

“These horses are a different colour!” she said, as if the rest of us were blind. “It will not do.” Then she turned back into the house. The footman scuttled after her and the door closed behind them.

“That’s it?” I said, as James climbed down from the carriage. “We have waited for hours in the rain just to be told that Ginger is chestnut and Beauty is black?”

“What she means is that they are not fashionable,” explained James despondently. “All the really smart carriages are pulled by two bays or two chestnuts or two black horses – a perfect matching pair.”

“She barely even looked at them. She didn’t even say how beautiful they are!” I cried.

I patted both horses as we led the carriage round to the stable yard at last.

“Don’t you listen to that sour old magpie,” I whispered in Beauty’s ear. “You and Ginger are perfect.”

Earshall’s head groom stepped out of his office as we pulled into the stable yard.

“James Howard?” he said.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr York. And this is Joe Green,” said James. “We are very grateful to you for taking us both on. And these are the two new horses from Birtwick.”

“Fine beasts. Especially the black one.” Mr York looked inside Ginger and Beauty’s mouths. “What did Her Ladyship make of them?”

“She said they do not match,” reported James.

“Ah!” Mr York nodded. “She will not like them harnessed like this either. She will want them in bearing reins.”

“Bearing reins?” A look of panic flashed into James’s eyes. “Squire Gordon did not approve of bearing reins, sir. We believe Ginger might have been forced to use them before, but never Beauty.”

“What are bearing reins?” I asked.

“They force the horse to hold its head up high,” explained James. “But it means they put a terrible strain on the horses’ backs and necks when they pull a carriage up hill.”

“It is the fashion,” said Mr York crisply. “Her Ladyship insists on the very tightest rein.” He shrugged. “You shouldn’t even be round here, lad. Get up to the house and let us settle the horses.”

He began to shoo me away.

“What do you mean? Am I not to work in the stables too?” I said.

“Lady Westop does not like her pageboys to get dirty. You will only be needed when the carriage is going out for a drive and then you will be sent for,” said Mr York.

“But . . . please, let me help with the horses,” I begged. “I’ll sleep in a stall with Black Beauty if there isn’t room for me anywhere else. I don’t mind. I’d like that.”

“You will sleep in the house,” said Mr York firmly. “Joe really is a wonderful stable lad,” said James.

Beauty turned his head towards me, sensing my panic.

But it was no good. Mr York had begun to unharness him.

“I am sorry. You are a pageboy now,” he said. “Lady Westop has her rules and she must be obeyed.”