10 lb Penalty - Dick Francis [69]
I was handed from department to department and shown around, and in an undemanding interview at the end was asked for my age and references. I went away in disappointment: they had been polite and kind but had asked none of the piercing questions I would have expected if they’d had a job to offer.
Back at Exeter, living in rooms halfway between the university and Stallworthy’s yard, I began dispiritedly to send job applications to a list of industries. Weatherbys had seemed my natural home: too bad they didn’t see me as their child.
They did, however, follow up on the references I’d given them: my tutor at the university and Stallworthy himself.
The gruff old trainer told me he’d said my character and behavior were satisfactory. Thanks a lot, I thought. Jim laughed. “He doesn’t want you to leave and take Sarah’s Future with you. It’s a wonder he didn’t call you a loudmouthed troublemaker!”
There was a letter from my tutor:
Dear Benedict,
I enclose a photocopy of a reference I have sent
to an institution called Weatherbys, that has
something to do with horse racing, I believe.
His testimonial in full read:
Benedict Juliard is likely to have gained a creditable degree in Mathematics with Accounting, though not a brilliant one. He took very little part in student activities during his three years at University, as it seems he was exclusively interested in horses. There are no adverse reports of his character and behavior.
Shit, I thought. Oh, well.
Much to my astonishment, I also received a letter from Sir Vivian Durridge:
My dear Benedict,
I am delighted to have seen over the past three years that you have had the opportunity to ride successfully as an amateur on your father’s horse, Sarah’s Future. I am sure that he has told you he enlisted my help in making you face- the fact that you were not cut out for rising to the top three in the steeplechase jockeys’ list. Looking back, I see that I was unnecessarily brutal in accusing you of drug taking, as I knew perfectly well at the time that with your sort of character you did not, but on that particular morning it seemed to me—and I regret it—that it was the only thing that would disturb you so badly that you would do as your father wanted, which was to go to university.
I have now heard from a friend of mine at Weatherbys that you have applied to them for a job. I enclose a photocopy of a letter I have written to them, and I hope that in some way this may straighten things between us.
Yours sincerely,
Vivian Durridge
His enclosure read:
To whom it may concern:
Benedict Juliard rode my horses as a sixteen-and seventeen-year-old amateur jockey. I found him completely trustworthy in every respect and would give him my unqualified endorsement in any position he applied for.
I sat down, the pages shaking in my hands. Vivian Durridge was about the last person I would ever have applied to for a thumbs-up.
I had vaguely been looking for a safe place to keep my birth certificate, so as not to lose it while I moved from lodgings to lodgings. I knew I wouldn’t lose the marriage photographs so I decided to put my birth certificate behind my father and Polly, and as I’d been doing that when Vivian Durridge’s remarkable letter arrived, I folded his pages into the frame, too.
Three days later the mail brought an envelope bearing the Weatherbys logo, a miniature representation of a stallion standing under an oak tree, from a painting by George Stubbs.
I was cravenly afraid of opening it. It would begin We regret ...
Well, it had to be faced.
I opened the envelope, and the letter began We are pleased ...
Pleased.
That evening my father telephoned. “Is it true you’ve got yourself a job at Weatherbys?”
“Yes. How do you know?”
“Why didn’t you ask for my help?”
“I didn’t think of it.”
“I despair of you, Ben.” He didn’t, though, sound particularly