The Nightingale Sings

  About the Book

  When Cassie Rosse becomes the first woman to train an English Derby winner, with her home-bred horse The Nightingale, she knows that she shares this success with her dead love, Tyrone. For it was to his Irish family home of Claremore that he brought Cassie as a young bride, and it is from Claremore that Cassie has at last stormed home to win a place in the history books.

  But life will never be simple for Cassie, a woman who stands alone in what is essentially a man’s world. Unable to escape from the long shadows cast by the early death of her husband, yet torn between two extraordinary but very different men, Cassie’s integrity and her indomitable will to win trigger a set of circumstances which quickly turn a brilliant triumph into a nightmare. Suddenly it seems that nothing can reverse the downward spiral of events surrounding her famous horse and its future and Cassie is forced to battle hard to keep Claremore, and with it her past with Tyrone and everything that makes her life worthwhile.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  The Arc

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Interim

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Race

  Postscript

  About the Author

  Also by Charlotte Bingham

  Copyright

  TO THE LOVING MEMORY OF JANE DUFOSEE

  She never made headlines. She made cakes and picnics, groomed horses, and bandaged knees, and when she was laid to rest the little country church was filled to overflowing with her friends. It is to her memory, and those women like her, that this book is dedicated on behalf of the author and her beloved partner, Terence Brady.

  Hardway House, 1996

  Cover the things that move you,

  They glide by.

  Cover the things that give you joy,

  They are nigh.

  Prologue

  When Cassie first was at Claremore, perhaps to drown the sighing of the winter winds and the rains slapping at the ill-fitting old windows, as well as no doubt to turn her mind away from the flaking paintwork and the patches of damp on the walls, Tyrone would sit his young bride on the floor in front of a log fire in the huge but sparsely furnished drawing room and recount some of the old Irish legends, assuming as he did so the sing-song kind of voice used by the traditional itinerant story-tellers who had still been regularly spinning their yarns in the corners of snugs all around Ireland when Tyrone himself was but a gossoon. One of these tales was the famous Legend of Ossian.

  ‘Many is the valley in Ireland that would claim the legend of Ossian for its own, in spite of the fact that this is a tale with a most unhappy ending,’ Tyrone would relate. ‘For the story goes that after some great period of time Ossian, who had long ago departed for the Land of the Ever Young with his wife Niamh, conceived the desire to see his greatest friend Fionn once more and so, impatient for his friend’s company after so many years, set off to meet him. It must have been a fine morning for he sang as he rode, all the while greatly looking forward to the time ahead, and, as may well be imagined, once in the saddle and with the warmth of the sun on his back it was hardly surprising that he soon put from his mind the warnings of his loving wife that he was never in any circumstance to set his foot on Fionn’s alien soil, for to do so would surely bring an end to all their joy.

  ‘Now it would seem that all was well until Ossian came across a group of men struggling to move a rock. Being possessed of a good and loving nature our hero at once stooped down from his horse to help them and in so doing the band on his saddle broke causing him to fall to the ground, whereupon all the years he had spent with Niamh in the Land of the Ever Young caught up with him and at once he became a wretched and feeble old man.’

  Each time she had heard the story Cassie had thought it too sad, but Tyrone would have none of it. ‘Not at all,’ he would assure her. ‘The legend of Ossian is a most interesting story. It is a moral story and one for all time, the point being not that Ossian left Niamh and the Land of the Ever Young to see his friend Fionn, but what caused Ossian to forget his wife’s warnings that he thought himself able to lean out of his saddle and in doing so risk everything. It would have to be nothing more nor less than that old serpent guilt that caused his downfall. For Ossian, do you not see, was convinced that he could help others and stay in the saddle. After all no-one asked him to stop and help them, did they? Not one. Devil the man. No, I would say undoubtedly that his folly was due to the guilt of his great happiness with Niamh that led him to make his fatal error. So when I am gone before you, which being somewhat older than you one day I most probably will be, remember that like Ossian the greatest force of our own destruction is the guilt that lies within us.’

  So the time passed and when Tyrone was tragically gathered to his ancestors much sooner than he had expected, Cassie was left to ride alone through the Valley of Life. Unsurprisingly then that long after her beloved Tyrone had been taken from her she forgot his words of warning, just as Ossian had forgotten the warnings of his own beloved Niamh when he too had begun to feel the warmth of the sun once more on his back. Not that Cassie would ever forget her husband’s great love, nor his dashing looks or enchanting ways – all Cassie forgot was the moral of the famous legend. Like Ossian in so doing she also leaned too far out of her saddle and at that moment it seemed that she too would be destined to fall to the ground with her happiness lost and gone for ever.

  The Arc

  LONGCHAMPS

  Paris, France.

  October.

  For one terrible heartstopping moment he thought he had got it wrong. The gap that he had been waiting for had opened and then just as suddenly closed leaving him with absolutely no way through. He could of course pull out and go round, that he knew well enough, and because his fellow was so very fast and quick-footed he knew it would still leave him in with a whisper, particularly since he had not yet asked his fellow the question and he could feel there was plenty of fuel left in the tank. But what had been five hundred metres a second ago was now a fast diminishing three hundred so, if he did choose to switch to the outside, by the time he extricated himself the leaders would be all but home.

  So he waited. And he prayed.

  Three strides later and the one right in front of him tired and suddenly rolled away from the rails, leaving the opening for which he had been petitioning the gods, not much of a gap to be sure, barely enough in fact to let them through, but it was now their only choice, now it was do or die. As long as the one in front
rolled a little further away from the rails the gap would be big enough, but even when the gap was big enough it would have to keep rolling and start to run in a straight line, otherwise, should it begin to roll back onto his fellow, instead of an untroubled passage through there would be a barging match. If that was the case, then even if Dex did prevail he knew he’d lose the race at the inevitable enquiry.

  You did not come up on the inside to make your run unless there was the room.

  The rules were perfectly clear.

  The rider of any horse who has been guilty of reckless, careless or improper riding shall be guilty of an offence. And when a horse or its rider causes interference or commits such an offence it may either be placed behind the horse or horses with which it has interfered, or be placed last of all.

  Or even disqualified altogether.

  But that was the chance Dexter had to take, because by now the leaders had passed the distance marker and all he had left were not minutes but seconds. But then as he saw the gap widen and hold rather than close back on him and shut him in, all at once he knew that those few precious seconds had just turned into all the time in the world. It would now simply take what it always took, just one shake of the reins, and the day would be won. One easy, confident go-on-go-get-’em shake, that was all. So with a none too secret smile Dex shook the reins just once, then sat down into his horse and pumped on for the post.

  In response to his shout of unbridled joy as the big black horse accelerated away under him, once more The Nightingale flew home.

  As the field turned into the home straight Cassie’s heart sank as she lost sight of her horse completely, swallowed up in a sea of horses. More even than at Ascot she knew how vital it was if a horse was to have a winning chance for it to be in the first half dozen turning into the straight, particularly since the jockeys had gone no great gallop for the first mile, as this was so often the way the richest race in Europe was run. Instead of being a true test of stamina and speed the contest often became simply a sudden and full-blooded sprint to the line once the field swept round that final bend. For any horse boxed in tightly on the rails or forced to fight its way out of the pack to switch to the outside in order to make its run the race was as good as lost, since by the time it saw daylight the leaders would already be going hell for leather for home.

  Yet that is exactly how it was on this glorious sun-drenched October afternoon at Longchamps. The odds-on favourite to win Europe’s richest race seemed lost in the mêlée and as the horse all but disappeared from the sight of the vast crowd a sigh of dismay arose from the whole British and Irish contingent as it seemed their hero was about to lose his unbeaten record. On the other hand the home crowd began to roar with delight as they saw Esplanade, their own dual Two Thousand Guineas and Derby winner and the clear second favourite in the betting, shooting into what appeared to be a two- to three-length lead at the two furlong pole.

  While The Nightingale still seemed inextricably buried somewhere in the mêlée behind the leader.

  Passing the distance marker the course commentator was calling Esplanade home, his rider having poached what had to be an unassailable lead on the rest of the field. But then with less than two hundred yards of the great race left to run, as the beaten animals began to fall back off the pace, all at once Cassie caught sight of her horse once more and could hardly believe her eyes. Dexter Bryant had him in third place against the rails beside an obviously beaten horse and was sitting as still as a church mouse. The big black horse was simply cruising. In fact so easily was The Nightingale going that even though the horse was still three lengths down on Esplanade, Dexter Bryant had the time to take a quick look around him to see if there was any danger other than the two remaining horses in front.

  Then with one shake of the reins the race was over. Despite the last ditch efforts of its jockey Dexter could see the horse which was lying second on his outside was no threat because it was treading water so all he had to catch and beat was the leader. With hindsight Esplanade’s jockey was to say never for a moment could he have imagined that he was to be caught so near to home, particularly since his own horse showed absolutely no signs of stopping. So well was Esplanade still going that in any other year the horse would have prevailed, but although at the post mortem the jockey was to swear he sensed nothing coming at him the crowd did. They saw the danger as out of the pursuing pack The Nightingale burst as if from a giant catapult. The tumultuous cheering of the crowd turned in a moment into one massive, anguished gasp as the handsome black Irish colt hit top gear and swallowed up Esplanade. It took just a few strides and the French horse’s three-length lead had gone. In fact so fast was The Nightingale flying that there was never even a moment when the two horses were racing neck and neck. The Nightingale simply strode by Esplanade to go first half a length up then a whole length, racing by the French horse so quickly in fact that by the time Dexter eased him up passing the winning post the margin of victory was nearly two lengths.

  The moment the big Irish colt flew past the post Dexter stood up in his irons to stroke the horse’s massive neck and tweak one of his big floppy ears. While he did so, the roars of the entire crowd swelled in volume as every racegoer present realized what they had witnessed. So mighty was their appreciation that they kept up their cheers until Dexter, having pulled The Nightingale up at the top of the straight, brought him back in front of the packed stands in the company of the course photographers before steering the famous horse through crowds of delirious well-wishers and admirers into the comparative safety of the unsaddling enclosure to be greeted by his owner, breeder and trainer, Cassie Rosse.

  As Dexter hopped down from the back of what everyone present knew must surely now be one of the greatest horses ever seen on a racecourse, he was kissed by Cassie’s delighted daughter Josephine and hugged around the shoulders by her son Mattie. As to trainer and jockey, however, they just smiled at each other. Both of them had journeyed hard and far to reach this point in their lives and now they were here there was really nothing to be said. Instead they turned their attentions to the big black horse who had just won the richest race in Europe with such contemptuous ease.

  Cassie reached up to tug at one of her beloved colt’s ears and to stroke his fine neck.

  As she did so someone came up behind her and murmured a warning in her ear.

  ‘Mind you don’t go getting too successful now.’

  Cassie turned round to see to whom the voice belonged, but there was no-one there, and all at once it seemed to her the autumn air suddenly blew cold.

  One

  Ireland.

  24 December.

  For ever afterwards Cassie would remain convinced that Leonora had worn her old white and blue trimmed Chanel suit in order to remind Cassie that the past would never go away, and that in that past she too had loved Tyrone, for it was the very suit she had worn when the newly married Cassie had first brought Tyrone to Leonora’s house at Derry Na Loch, the day when Leonora herself had fallen in love with Cassie’s now long-dead husband.

  That was not all she would remember the day for, because as a newly appointed Oriental butler had opened the doors of Derry Na Loch Cassie knew at once her visit was a mistake. Before she even stepped into the marbled hallway she could hear Tyrone’s voice scolding her in the mock tired tone he employed when he most wanted to get her attention.

  How many times have I told you, Mrs Rosse? Isn’t it always when we say yes and we mean no that we most learn to regret it?

  You’re right as always, Ty, Cassie thought, staring around her at the over-ornately furnished drawing room, full of carefully chosen and expensive artefacts, those curious mementoes which the rich seem to love accumulating. She looked too at the collection of new and somewhat overbright paintings that now hung on the silk-papered walls, and at the vast, expensively upholstered sofas on one of which sat four tiny white papillon dogs. Everything was immaculate and luxurious yet from the room Cassie felt nothing but coldness.


  Isn’t it always when we say yes and we mean no that we most learn to regret it?

  The thought kept running round and round in her head while she felt herself wishing she might simply turn on her heels and bolt, just the way she had often felt as a child when finding herself at some party she had been dreading. Why she had said yes to Leonora’s invitation which she had fully intended to refuse was now beyond her. Initially she had resisted Leonora’s pleadings that they must meet up again and bury the hatchet because for once, oddly enough, Cassie found she was right out of clemency. Leonora had tried to steal her husband, and when she had failed in that she had tried to pretend to Cassie not only that she had been innocent of any such manoeuvre but also that Tyrone was the father of their adopted son Mattie by the same young woman who had put the child up for adoption. Finally she had tried to sabotage The Nightingale’s chances of winning the Epsom Derby in favour of her own horse, a coup which, had it proved successful, because of the side bet agreed between Cassie and herself would have given her possession of the entire property of Claremore. Little wonder therefore that since her horse’s famous victory on Epsom Downs until now Cassie had never revisited Derry Na Loch nor once met its owner again, yet here she was not only standing in her bitterest enemy’s drawing room but being kept idly waiting as was Leonora’s perennial wont.

  Finally, after a full ten minutes had elapsed, the door opened and Mrs Charles C. Lovett Andrew, née Leonora Von Wagner, sauntered in.

  ‘Darlin’,’ she drawled, affecting an Irish brogue which failed entirely to mask her own Newport accent. ‘Do for God’s sake sit down somewhere. You look as if you were back at the Academy waiting to see Miss Truefitt.’ She laughed and herself sat down in a huge, deeply upholstered armchair. Her toy dogs as one immediately got down from their own sofa and tried to jump up on her knee, but their mistress was not having it. ‘Get down, will you?’ she commanded, brushing the little butterfly dogs away from her. ‘You shouldn’t even damn’ well be in here.’ Then she smiled at Cassie without a flicker of warmth in her eyes before slowly looking her up and down as if about to interview her.