Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [73]
She had rationalised her desire to own another horse as just an increase in her interest in racing, and also she had rationalised her eagerness for the Yorkshire journey as merely impatience to see what Clement had described as ‘an exciting bargain at twenty thousand, one to do you justice, my dear Angela.’
She could just afford it, she thought, if she didn’t go on a cruise this summer, and if she spent less on clothes. She did not at any point admit to herself that what she was buying at such cost was a few scattered hours out of Derek Roberts’ life.
Going north from Watford, he said: ‘Mrs Hart, did Mr Scott tell you much about this horse?’
‘He said you’d tell me. And call me Angela.’
‘Er…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Angela…’ He glanced at her as she sat beside him, plump and relaxed and happy. It couldn’t be true, he thought. People like Mrs Hart didn’t suffer from infatuations. She was far too old: fifty… an unimaginable age to him at twenty-four. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and felt ashamed (but only slightly) of what he was about to do.
‘Mr Scott thinks the horse has terrific potential. Only six years old. Won a hurdle race last year…’ He went on with the sales talk, skilfully weaving in the few actual facts which she could verify from form books if she wanted to, and putting a delicately rosy slant on everything else. ‘Of course, the frost and snow has kept him off the racecourse during the winter, but I’ll tell you, just between ourselves… er, Angela… that Mr Scott thinks he might even enter him for the Whitbread. He might even be in that class.’
Angela listened entranced. The Whitbread Gold Cup, scheduled for six weeks ahead, was the last big race of the jumping season. To have a horse fit to run in it, and to have Derek Roberts ride it, seemed to her a pinnacle in her racing life that she had never envisaged. Her horizons, her joy, expanded like flowers.
‘Oh, how lovely,’ she said ecstatically; and Derek Roberts (almost) winced.
‘Mr Scott wondered if you’d like me to do a bit of bargaining for you,’ he said. ‘To get the price down a bit.’
‘Dear Clement is so thoughtful.’ She gave Derek a slightly anxious smile. ‘Don’t bargain so hard I lose the horse, though, will you?’
He promised not to.
‘What is it called?’ she asked and he told her: ‘Magic’
Magic was stabled in the sort of yard which should have warned Angela to beware, but she’d heard often enough that in Ireland champions had been bought out of pigsties, and caution was nowhere in her mind. Dear Clement would naturally not buy her a bad horse, and with Derek himself with her to advise… She looked trustingly at the nondescript bay gelding produced for her inspection and saw only her dreams – not the mud underfoot, not the rotten wood round the stable doors, not the cracked leather of the horse’s tack.
She saw Magic being walked up and down the weedy stable-yard and she saw him being trotted a bit on a leading rein in a small dock-ridden paddock; and she didn’t see the dismay Derek couldn’t keep out of his face.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, her eyes still shining in spite of all.
‘Good strong shoulder,’ he said judiciously. ‘Needs a bit of feeding to improve his condition, perhaps.’
‘But do you like him?’
He nodded decisively. ‘Just the job.’
‘I’ll have him, then.’ She said it without the slightest hesitation and he stamped on the qualms which pricked like teeth.
She waited in the car while Derek bargained with Magic’s owner, watching the two men as they stood together in the stable-yard, shaking their heads, spreading their arms, shrugging, and starting again. Finally, to her relief, they touched hands on it, and Derek came to tell her that she could have the horse for nineteen thousand if she liked.
‘Think it over,’ he said, making it sound as if she needn’t.
She shook her head. ‘I’ve decided. I really have. Shall I give the man a cheque?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Mr