To Hear a Nightingale Page 13

  ‘Can we go riding now?’ Cassie asked Leonora, trying, but for once not succeeding, to hide the excitement in her voice.

  Leonora stared at her, already visibly bored.

  ‘You can if you want,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to sunbathe. Christ, I hate horses!’

  Leonora started to wander off out under the arch.

  ‘I can’t go riding by myself!’ Cassie called after her. ‘I wouldn’t know where to go!’

  ‘Dex’ll show you!’ Leonora answered back over her shoulder.

  Cassie stood alone in the yard, looking at all the magnificent heads, most of which were staring curiously back at her. She then walked to the nearest box and started to inspect each of the horses individually. What did Leonora mean, she hated horses? Did this mean that she didn’t ride at all? And if she didn’t, who did? Her mother was hardly ever here, she had no brothers or sisters, and her grandfather apparently walked on sticks. Cassie frowned as she stroked the head of a dark brown horse called Adventurer, running her hand finally down to his soft nose.

  ‘Careful,’ a voice said behind her. ‘That one’s not unknown to bite.’

  Cassie wheeled round. She had been so immersed in her thoughts, she hadn’t heard anyone approach.

  ‘I’m Dexter,’ said the serious young man standing now in front of her, touching his cap. ‘The assistant groom.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Cassie replied, holding out her hand.

  Dexter frowned at her for a moment, as if she was crazy, then quickly shook Cassie’s hand.

  ‘Wasn’t that Miss Von Wagner calling a moment ago?’ he asked her, dropping her hand as if he’d been scalded. ‘I was down the end row, trying to get Rebel to stop windsucking.’

  ‘Really?’ Cassie said. ‘Which one is Rebel?’

  The boy pointed to a box facing them, where a horse was gripping the top of his door with his teeth and gulping in air.

  ‘I don’t know why he does it,’ he said. ‘Boredom, I guess.’

  ‘Probably,’ said Cassie, making her way across to the horse. ‘Or a mineral deficiency.’

  The young groom followed her.

  ‘You know something about horses then?’ he asked.

  ‘A little,’ Cassie nodded. ‘Not as much as you, I’m sure.’

  And she turned to smile at him, and noticed what he looked like for the first time, because the boy was looking back at her quite intensely, from under the deep peak of his cap. He couldn’t have been that much older than Cassie, say seventeen to her own fifteen years. But apart from Dick, one of Mary-Jo’s brothers, he was the handsomest boy Cassie had ever seen, with his bright hazel eyes and his slightly turned-up nose. He also had the same look of determination in those hazel eyes which Cassie knew now burned in hers.

  ‘I don’t know much about horses, Miss,’ he answered after a moment. ‘But I’m learning. I know how to ride ’em though.’

  He dropped his eyes, then bent down, to remove some hay Rebel had dropped over the top of his door.

  ‘Miss Von Wagner said you might take me out riding,’ Cassie ventured.

  The boy looked up quickly, almost as if Cassie had startled him by her remark.

  ‘Sure,’ he replied, as calmly as he could. ‘Any time you say.’

  ‘What about now?’ Cassie asked. ‘Unless you’re too busy.’

  Dex shook his head, trying not to stare at Cassie.

  ‘Now would be fine, Miss,’ he answered. ‘I normally exercise at this time as it happens.’

  ‘Great,’ said Cassie. ‘I’ll go and change.’

  She started to leave the yard, then stopped and turned back.

  ‘What can I ride?’ she asked.

  ‘How good are you, Miss?’ the boy asked.

  ‘I’m OK,’ Cassie replied. ‘I’ve been riding since I was seven.’

  The boy turned towards the tack room.

  ‘You can ride Missie,’ he said. ‘That’s not her proper name. She’s really called Funny Monkey. Missie’s just her stable name.’

  Cassie thanked him, and went. Dexter watched her go, for longer than he should.

  Dexter may have been taken with the way Cassie looked, but he was no less taken with the way Miss Von Wagner’s friend rode. Miss McGann had a natural sympathy with the filly he’d chosen for her and rode her as if the reins were made of silk. They hardly talked at all that first ride; Cassie was too shy to do so, and Dexter too aware of his place. But whenever they could, they stole glances at each other, when each thought the other wasn’t looking.

  Cassie was pretty impressed too with the way her companion rode. He was on a big bay called Windjammer, and when he hopped up on him in the yard, Cassie thought he’d overhorsed himself, maybe in an attempt to show off. The big bay jogged nervously around as Dexter tightened the girths, and half reared with him as he leaned forward to adjust the horse’s neckstrap. But once on the move, there was no doubt who was boss. Dexter rode him firmly and with just the right amount of authority, so that within minutes of working their horses in, Windjammer was down on the bit, and listening to everything his rider was telling him.

  They rode steadily, neither trying to impress the other, both simply concentrating on getting the very best out of their mounts. Dexter asked her halfway out on the ride if she could jump, and when Cassie told him she could, suggested they jump some fallen trees. Which they both did easily. Then they turned and walked their horses home, letting them down in a deeply contented silence.

  Back in the yard Dexter took Cassie’s horse from her.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Cassie said. ‘I’ll put her away. If that’s OK.’

  Dexter looked a little apprehensive for a moment, as if Leonora was going to appear from out of the lengthening shadows to upbraid him. But seeing no one around, he nodded to Cassie and handed her back the reins.

  Leonora appeared when Cassie was walking back to the tack room, carrying her saddle and bridle.

  ‘What the hell are you doing that for?’ she enquired angrily. ‘Why do you think we have grooms? Dexter!’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Cassie said, walking past her. ‘I asked if I could do it.’

  Leonora followed her into the tack room, where Cassie found three other boys all cleaning harness, under the supervision of an older man, who was the head groom.

  The head groom looked up as Cassie struggled through the door with her tack.

  ‘I’ll take that for you, Miss,’ he said hurriedly, seeing Leonora close behind.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Cassie answered politely. ‘Just tell me which is Missie’s peg.’

  There was an awkward silence, while the head groom looked at Leonora out of the corner of his eye.

  ‘Miller will put that stuff away for you,’ Leonora said tetchily, trying to take the tack from Cassie.

  ‘I said it’s OK, Leonora,’ Cassie replied, hanging on to it.

  Miller indicated a peg and rack on the wall, and Cassie hung up the tack. Dexter came in with his, and received a dirty look from Leonora, but to his relief nothing further.

  ‘You haven’t forgotten we’re going for a drive, have you?’ Leonora asked Cassie as they walked out of the yard.

  ‘No,’ Cassie said. ‘It won’t take me a moment to change.’

  Then she ran into the house ahead of Leonora, and up the staircase into their bedroom, where she showered and changed – and for the first time in her life after she had been out riding found herself thinking about something else besides the horse.

  Cassie was falling in love. At first, when she realised what was happening to her, she was frightened, and for two days running cancelled her carefully arranged afternoon hacks. Instead she swam up and down the pool, while Leonora lay sunbathing beside it, smoking and learning to drink gin and tonic. Then exhausted, she would lie on the opposite side of the pool, to escape from Leonora’s cigarette smoke and try her best to think of other things – anything rather than Dexter Bryant. But it was quite hopeless. Even periods concentrated solely on remembering th
e great times at Mary-Jo’s paled beside what was happening to her now, and she felt ashamed that she was in some way betraying the memory of her very best friend ever.

  Occasionally Leonora, trailing one hand in the pool water, would ask half drunkenly why she wasn’t riding that afternoon, and Cassie would simply reply that she didn’t feel like it. Leonora would giggle and make some obscene comment in return, and then fall back into a gin- and sun-induced slumber. Cassie would ignore her and try once more to remember precise details of the horse rides she had been on with Mary-Jo.

  But it was to no avail. From where she was lying by the pool she could see Dexter riding the horses out from the yard in the company of the other boys, and she knew how deeply she had been smitten when she found herself looking not at any of the horses in the string but just at the boy leading them. So soon she was back every afternoon riding Missie, jumping her more adventurously, and learning all about her young and very serious-minded companion.

  ‘Do you really think you’ll be a jockey?’ Cassie asked him one afternoon, as they turned for home. ‘I mean, don’t you actually have to be very small to be one?’

  ‘My cousin Don stopped growing when he was my age,’ Dexter answered. ‘I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.’

  ‘But your mother doesn’t want you to be a jockey?’ Cassie recapped.

  ‘Jeeze, Miss McGann,’ Dexter told her. ‘There’s only one thing my mom wants and that’s for me to be President!’

  Cassie laughed, and so did Dexter. As they laughed they turned and looked at each other.

  ‘Couldn’t you call me Cassie when we’re out riding?’ she asked.

  Dexter hesitated, then nodded.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Sure I can.’

  Then he grinned delightedly and to celebrate jumped his horse across a broad stream through which they had always previously waded. Cassie gathered her horse up and followed suit, wanting suddenly for some quite inexplicable reason to burst into song.

  As they approached the yard, Leonora was sitting on the paddock rail, smoking a cigarette. She called Cassie to stop as they came abreast of her.

  ‘Grandfather’s coming home,’ she announced, tossing her half-smoked cigarette on to the path and hopping down from the rail. ‘You’ll have to come in now and change.’

  Cassie reined Missie back.

  ‘I’ll just put Missie away first,’ she said.

  ‘No you won’t,’ replied Leonora, catching hold of the bridle. ‘Grandfather’s one person you cannot be late for.’

  Cassie dismounted and handed Dexter the reins.

  ‘Thanks, Dexter,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s perfectly all right, Miss,’ Dexter answered, but held the look he was giving Cassie a fraction of a second too long for Leonora’s eagle eye.

  ‘I never realised how sexy Dexter was before,’ said Leonora as she lay in the bath, examining her fast-growing breasts. ‘I don’t suppose you find him sexy though, do you, Cassie?’

  Cassie was busy cleaning her teeth. She looked up at Leonora in the mirror and reddened.

  ‘He’s a very nice boy,’ Cassie replied. ‘And a jolly good rider.’

  ‘He’s a very nice boy!’ Leonora mocked. ‘And a jolly good rider!’

  She started slowly to soap her long legs, which she held up one at a time out of the water.

  ‘But I wonder if he’s ever done it!’ she laughed.

  Cassie dried her face and picked up her underclothes.

  ‘Is that all you ever think about? Whether or not people have done it?’

  ‘Sure,’ Leonora replied. ‘That’s all I’m really interested in.’

  ‘Well I’m not,’ Cassie said tartly. ‘There are other things far more important than whether or not someone’s done “it”.’

  ‘I’d like to know what,’ Leonora asked from the bath.

  ‘It’d be a waste of time telling you,’ Cassie answered before striding out of the bathroom.

  ‘Don’t throw bouquets at me!

  Don’t please my folks too much!’

  Leonora sang from behind her as she went.

  ‘Don’t laugh at my jokes too much –

  People will say we’re in love!’

  Cassie, struggling to put on her underclothes, noticed that she was visibly colouring all over.

  Leonora let the bath water out, and came through into the bedroom, dripping water all over the white carpet. Her hair too was soaking wet, and as she passed Cassie she shook it out, soaking Cassie’s clean underthings.

  ‘You can’t really be in love with a groom,’ she stated categorically as she bent down and examined her face in the mirror. ‘You could do it with one but you couldn’t possibly fall in love with one.’

  Cassie looked at Leonora’s backside, sticking out invitingly at her as Leonora leant over the dressing table, and for once in her life giving in totally to temptation, kicked it as hard as she could. Leonora leapt upright, and turned round to Cassie, rubbing the place where Cassie’s bare foot had landed.

  ‘What in hell did you want to do that for?’ she cried.

  ‘For being such a disgusting little snob,’ Cassie answered. ‘I only wish I’d done it before.’

  She went and fetched herself some dry underclothes, and started to get dressed all over again. As she put on her brassiere, she noticed Leonora staring at her contemptuously as she sat brushing her hair.

  ‘You still haven’t got very big breasts, have you?’ she said.

  ‘They’re quite big enough for the moment,’ Cassie answered, as she sat on the bed pulling on her stockings.

  ‘Your legs aren’t that great either,’ concluded Leonora.

  ‘At least I don’t have your mind,’ Cassie said. ‘It must be really dreadful having your mind.’

  Cassie looked back up at Leonora, who was watching her. Leonora suddenly threw back her head and laughed.

  ‘Christ, you’re great, Cassie!’ she roared. ‘Christ, you make me laugh!’

  Then she turned back to her mirror and started to brush out her hair, still laughing, but, Cassie thought, knowing Leonora, probably privately thinking of something else altogether.

  The butler showed Cassie into the drawing room, where she and Leonora were to wait for Leonora’s grandfather. Leonora had sent Cassie down ahead of her, because she couldn’t make up her mind what to wear: apparently her grandfather liked to see her really dressed up. She had helped choose Cassie’s outfit for the evening, insisting she wear a dress which Leonora lent her, since according to Leonora all of Cassie’s were far too plain and drab for the occasion. She had also helped her to make up her face. Cassie had protested, since she never wore make-up, except for the merest suggestion of lipstick, and that was only to humour Leonora. But Leonora was insistent. Her grandfather might be old, but he still liked his girls pretty.

  Cassie stood in the drawing room and looked around her. It was a room she hadn’t been in before, as there had been no call. It was enormous, and filled with foreign furniture and vast impersonal paintings; and it was also stiflingly hot, since all the windows were shut tight and a huge log fire was burning in the large stone fireplace.

  Cassie stood there, uncomfortably warm, even in her borrowed sleeveless dress. She looked at herself in a big gilt mirror and tried to pull the deeply plunging neckline of the dress higher up over her breasts. They may not according to Leonora be very big yet, but they were quite big enough for Cassie to be embarrassed by the amount of them displayed by her décolletage. As she was doing so, the door suddenly opened, and Leonora’s grandfather appeared; a large man bent over almost double on two walking sticks, accompanied by his butler who held him securely by one elbow. Behind, bringing up the rear, was Leonora, demurely dressed in a baby-blue long-sleeved silk frock which was buttoned right up to her neck, with a sash at the waist, and net underskirts. She had tied her long blonde hair up and back and held it in place with matching blue ribbons. On her scrubbed pink face there wasn’t a trace of ma
ke-up. She smiled sweetly at Cassie, looking for all the world like an innocent child of twelve, instead of a pubescent scheming teenager of fifteen. She was also acting the innocent too, helping her grandfather over to his big wing chair right by the fire and covering his knees with a rug, before sitting on the arm of the chair and holding his hand. Cassie stood going redder and redder, while wishing the ground beneath her would open and swallow her up.

  ‘Leonora, you’re an angel,’ her grandfather said as she fetched him his whisky the butler had poured. ‘If only all children were as good as you.’

  Leonora kissed her grandfather on top of his white head, looking up at the same time with a malicious eye to Cassie.

  ‘Tell your young friend to come over here,’ he ordered his granddaughter. ‘I want to see if she’s as sweet as you. Though I very much doubt it.’

  Cassie stood before Mr Von Wagner Senior as he slowly raised his head and looked at her.

  ‘How do you do, sir?’ she said. The old man, still astonishingly handsome despite the crippling nature of whatever disease had reduced him to such a state, simply stared at Cassie and said nothing in reply. Then his head dropped to his chest again, as Leonora, with a smug smile, held his whisky glass to his lips and helped him drink.

  After dinner, during which she entertained her grandfather with outrageous lies about how well she was doing at the Academy, Leonora helped take her grandfather to the library where she sat at the piano and played some simplified classics really quite passably. The old man addressed not one word to Cassie the entire evening, although there was nothing wrong with his conversation. Indeed, once he had had his two whiskies before dinner, he became quite loquacious, particularly on the decline of morals in modern America among the young. This was a subject very dear to his heart, for which he blamed Hollywood and the sale of cheap literature wholesale. Leonora, who did nothing but go to X-rated movies and read lurid paperback novels, agreed with his every word.