“Our maternal ancestor, George Villiers, the first duke of Buckingham, was appointed Master of the Horse to James I in 1616.” Tom chatted with Fitz, who sat on a chair, his leg propped up before him, his foot on a stool and three cats artfully draped around his body.
Cig and Margaret buzzed back and forth from the summer kitchen to the dinner table. Marie, normally a good worker, was so enchanted with Fitz’s bravery and the romance of it that she lingered to stare at him.
Tom continued, “That’s when we English began to study bloodlines and families instead of just looking at a stallion and a mare and saying, Try it.’”
“Crossing the Barb, that’s the answer,” Fitz, contented to discuss horses, said.
“Of course.” Tom gesticulated. “But who can afford it? Half the great dukes of England can’t import a stallion, and it must be a stallion for the Infidels won’t part with a mare. We could never bring one here. It would cost a king’s ransom.”
“Then we’ll have to capture a king.” Fitz laughed.
“Marie, Marie, we could use a hand here,” Margaret called to her.
“Yes, ma’am.” The small but round woman reluctantly headed toward the kitchen.
Later, after dinner, Cig and Tom finished the outside chores. Fitz complained about being useless. When they gathered together before the fire they talked of the upcoming century.
“1700. It sounds important.” Margaret giggled.
“How can a number sound important?” Tom teased her.
“Put a pound sign in front of it,” Fitz suggested.
“Seventeen hundred pounds.” Cig whistled. “Sounds good to me.”
A Chill ran down her spine, though, when she thought of the year 1700. They were poised on the cusp of one of the greatest centuries in European and American history. America would free herself from Britain. Napoleon would be born in Corsica. The French would devour themselves in a revolution whose horrible legacy would leave a stain for a hundred years to come. Slaves would revolt in Haiti. Mozart would live briefly. His music would prove eternal. Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe would walk the earth as would Sheridan, Goldsmith, Congreve, and Gibbon. Choderlos de Laclos would scandalize all of Europe with Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Science would yield results so amazing that life would change beyond recognition. Three cheers for Isaac Newton!
She thought of those things, but what was closer to her heart was the knowledge that the foundation of equine grandeur was being laid on both sides of the Atlantic. The efforts of men and women in the colonies would produce Herod, Eclipse, and Matchem from which would eventually spring Man O’ War, Citation, Whirlaway, Count Fleet, Sea Biscuit, and later Nashua, Swaps, Native Dancer, Northern Dancer, Alydar, Affirmed, Mr. Prospector, Secretariat, and so many other names that crowded into her head. There was Kalarama Rex for Saddlebreds along with Rex Peavine, King’s Genius, Black Squirrel, Stonewall King, the perfection of Wing Commander, MyMy, Daydream, Skywatch, Imperator, Man on the Town, Harlem Globetrotter, will Shriver, Belissima, and Valley View Supreme. The Standardbred trotters would go from Hambletonian to Greyhound to Dan Patch to Bret Hanover.
She studied the faces in the flickering firelight and knew they would play their part,
Maybe there is no pattern to history, she thought. Maybe we make it up to suit ourselves. Maybe we can’t stand the fact that some of us are born into good times and some of us into bad and it’s all chance. Some of us are gifted and some of us are dumb as a sack of hammers. But we each have a chance to do something.
Maybe I needed to come back to realize that. I must live every moment. It’s my choice. Maybe someday, three hundred years later, someone will look back and find my name on a tombstone or in a family record and say, “She played her part, now I better play mine”—and so I will.
As she chatted and laughed she wanted to memorize each feature, each nuance of voice. She loved these people.