The Dark Horse Read online

  There was an embarrassed silence. Then Mother Morag said, ‘We have to put people in ours.’

  ‘And they don’t have electric fans nor are fed five times a day,’ Sister Ignatius could not restrain herself. ‘They are only people, not racehorses.’

  ‘Sister, please,’ but John said, ‘I see, and I beg your pardon.’ He had turned to go and was almost at the door when Mother Morag called him back. ‘Mr Quillan.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I understand your wife is a Catholic.’

  ‘Yes.’ He was ready to be defensive but, ‘We were wondering,’ said Mother Morag, ‘as St Thomas’s is quite far, wondering whether she would care to come here, to our chapel, for Mass. We are so close.’

  The silence was so long she thought she had offended him, then, ‘This is the first time in this city of upstarts that anyone has called Dahlia my wife, or asked her to come anywhere,’ and John said, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘The children too, of course.’

  The ‘shutter’ came down at once. ‘That wouldn’t do.’ John had a tribe of children who were a by-word in Calcutta. Dahlia, sweet and warm, loved babies but had no control over children, ‘and babies grow into children, unfortunately,’ said John. His were as good looking as he, or as pretty and peach-skinned as their mother with her great dark eyes and silky lashes, but they were untamed, went barefoot, wore what they liked, and did what they liked. They could talk good English when they wanted – oddly enough they followed John’s unconscious perfection, not Dahlia’s chi-chi – but preferred to chatter in Hindu or Bengali. They ran away from every school they were sent to, ‘Sensible children,’ was all John said – he seemed curiously helpless over them. ‘Well, remember they are tainted with the Eurasian,’ said Sister Ignatius – in the thirties that was a real taint – ‘Even here,’ she said – the Sisters of Poverty had Eurasian as well as Indian Sisters – ‘amongst ourselves of course it makes no difference, but among our old people!’ The most indigent Indian, the poorest white, kept himself apart and Mother Morag thought that John’s habitual bitterness, his mordant humour and defensiveness was not for himself, nor for Dahlia – he had too much tenderness for her – but for his children whom he called the ‘bandar-log’ – the monkey people.

  ‘Why wouldn’t it do?’

  ‘Dahlia tried to take them to Mass but they wouldn’t dress properly.’

  Mother Morag could guess how shamed Dahlia would have been – many of her own people went to St Thomas’s. It was a church parade but, ‘We don’t mind how people are dressed,’ said Mother Morag, ‘as long as they come. Bring them.’

  He looked so startled – and was it softened? – that she wondered if what she had said had somehow offended him and then wondered again if, perhaps, this was the first time he had thought of his ‘bandars’ as people. She did not know but, after that conversation, every month, without a word or a note, John Quillan sent his own farrier to shoe Solomon – without charge.

  ‘I really must go and thank Mr Quillan,’ said Mother Morag. ‘These are the third set of shoes.’

  ‘Well, take the umbrella,’ said Sister Ignatius. ‘It’s still hot in the sun.’ It was not a true umbrella, but a sun-umbrella, too big to be called a parasol, of holland, lined with green, that the Convent had once been given, and Mother Morag was grateful for its shade as she walked up the road.

  John lived in what had once been the country home of some eighteenth-century nabob, a graciously built house, which had been named Scattergold Hall because seldom had so much money been spent on a house and so quickly wasted. The town had caught up with it and it was surrounded, as was the Convent, by slums. Most of its once vast garden was now taken up by the stables, but there was still a tumble of flowers and tangled creepers, bougainvillaeas, tacomas, roses, jasmine; still massed flowery shrubs, lofty trees; still fountains, though broken, and empty pools. The house was of stucco with shuttered windows, some of the shutters now hanging askew. Pillars adorned and supported its wide verandahs and the porch had the height and width to take an elephant and howdah; broken brick had replaced the smooth gravel on the paths and carriage sweep, and geese, muscovy ducks and disreputable cocks and hens scratched and dusted themselves in a sea of red powder. There were rabbit hutches, pens for bantams and for guinea-pigs. ‘Papa gave us five and we have forty-two now,’ one of the bandars told Mother Morag. ‘We pretend we are shepherds driving our flocks.’ They drove them on what had once been the lawn.

  The house smelled of cooking, particularly curry, and of a strange mixture of horses and flowers. Dahlia was no housekeeper; toys, saucers of food for animals, bowls of sweets and nuts, fans, her favourite magazines, snaffle-bits – polished and silver, that John was trying out – long whips and short whips, children’s kicked-off shoes, discarded topees, littered the rooms which Dahlia had furnished with comfortable chairs and sofas covered in a medley of brilliant chintzes, brass-topped tables, dhurries or Indian cotton carpets, ‘that can come to no harm,’ she said which, at least, was sensible – babies and animals relieved themselves anywhere. There were lamps with shades, fringed and tasselled; vases of paper flowers which she obviously prized far more than the pots of violets, lilies, carnations or chrysanthemums the gardeners set along the verandah; but for all the chaos Scattergold Hall was a happy place and many more people would have been glad to come if John had let them.

  Mother Morag found him on the drive; Gog and Magog had let her in without demur, the Sikh gateman saluted her, and she was able to thank John in the name of the Sisters and of Solomon for the shoeing.

  ‘Oh, that!’ said John.

  ‘Yes, that. Not only generous but imaginative,’ and Mother Morag said, ‘As I am here, may I call on Mrs Quillan?’

  ‘Mrs Quillan?’ The name seemed to give him almost a shock. Then, ‘Of course,’ he had said. ‘Dahlia will be delighted,’ and took her into the house. ‘I don’t suppose,’ Captain Mack, the veterinary surgeon, told Mother Morag afterwards, ‘that an English lady had ever been in that house before.’

  ‘I’m not exactly an English lady,’ said Mother Morag. ‘I’m a Sister,’ and that was how Dahlia, in her simplicity, welcomed her except, ‘If I had known you were coming I should have dressed, m’n?’ but the ‘m’n’ was said laughingly.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t. I feel more at home.’ Dahlia wore heel-less embroidered slippers and a loose wrapper that gave a plentiful view of her warm peach and brown skin; her hair was loose on her shoulders. Mother Morag guessed that Dahlia dressed for an occasion could be a disaster but fortunately Dahlia had no ambitions except to make every creature, two-legged or four-legged, who came into her orbit, happy and comfortable, from the John she adored, through babies, children, horses, pet lambs, cats, mynah birds, Gog and Magog of course but, just as much, the pariah bitch who at that moment was having puppies under the verandah table, and she said to Mother Morag, ‘This iss verree nice,’ – a chi-chi accent is usually shrill, Dahlia’s was soft. ‘And here, too, just in time, is our good friend, dear Captain Mack.’

  The bitch under the verandah table was being helped, or hindered, by four of the bandar-log squatting down beside her. They were worried. ‘Mumma, it’s hurting her. It’s hurting her terribly.’

  ‘She’ll soon be better. See, Sandy has come, m’n.’ Dahlia soothed them and, to Mother Morag, ‘Captain Mack is a verree good friend to us.’

  ‘And to us,’ said Mother Morag.

  The big red-haired freckled Scotsman was the official veterinary surgeon to the Turf Club, but he would turn out for a suffering pariah bitch as he would have to one of the Quillan, or any owner’s, valuable blood horses, ‘and as he does often for us,’ said Mother Morag. For the Sisters it was the heartbreaking problem of dogs and cats. Not many of the old men and women, Indian, Eurasian, European, who came to the Sisters had pets, the struggle for their own survival had been too hard to allow that, but there were a few and, ‘I’m sorry we can’t have your Moti,’ – ‘Moti’ meant a pearl
– ‘or Toby or Dinkie,’ Mother Morag had to tell them. ‘We once had a poor bedraggled peacock,’ she said. ‘Bunny took him, and we have mynah birds. Fortunately we can take birds.’

  ‘But we’re not an animal shelter.’ Sister Ignatius believed that if there had to be something painful, it was better if it were dealt with quickly, which often meant brusquely.

  ‘But, Sister, I have had him for ten years. Couldn’t you? For me? Mother, Sister, please. He would be just one.’

  ‘He wouldn’t. He would soon be one of twenty.’

  Mother Morag would try and explain. ‘You see, if we have one, we have to have all. I’m sorry,’ – but it was Captain Mack who tactfully took Moti or Toby or Dinkie away and usually did not send in a bill. Now he hid his surprise at seeing Mother Morag and only said, ‘Out of the way, scamps, and let me have a look,’ as he knelt down beside the table.

  John showed Mother Morag round the stables, ‘which is a real treat,’ and her face glowed. Gog and Magog dutifully rose to attend them, but first the children tugged at her habit, caught her hand, propelled her by the elbows to come and see their ponies, their own and others. The bandar-log were useful in schooling ponies, ‘belonging to other and better children,’ John said severely.

  ‘Who can’t ride and ruin their lovely little animals.’ The eldest bandar boy spoke so exactly like his father that Mother Morag could not help laughing, but she could see that this was serious; Quillans were always serious about horses and the children all rode, ‘like angels – or devils,’ said John.

  It was the first time she had heard pride in his voice.

  In contrast with the untidy ill-kempt house the stables were impeccable; the stalls, shaded by a verandah, ran round three sides of a square. Mr Leventine had lent John the money to build the concrete block that filled the fourth side, a range of twenty up-to-date loose boxes, with water laid on, fans and ventilators, but still with verandahs and, John had insisted, roofed with old tiles – there were plenty from old outbuildings that had fallen down. ‘Must have cost near half a lakh of rupees,’ said Bunny.

  ‘At six per cent.’ The bank rate was three or four. ‘But they wouldn’t have given it to me without collateral, so six.’

  ‘Six! Leventine charged you six per cent! I told you he was a bounder.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said John. ‘He knew I had to have the money and he’s nobody’s fool. That, if you want to know, is me, but at least there’s no hurry about paying it back.’

  The old stalls and verandahs were floored with brick; each, too, had an electric fan and, over the open fronts, guarded by wooden rails, hung rolled up khus-khus, thick grass matting blinds which were let down in hot weather and sprayed with water for added coolness. Each horse had its head collar hung beside the stall, its name above it. Mother Morag read them as she walked along: Ace of Spades: Rigoletto: Flaming Star: Flashlight – ‘Those two are Lady Mehta’s,’ said John – Ontario Queen: Belisarius: The Gangster – ‘He’s the Nawab’s newest buy.’ The bedding had been put down for the night and across the front of each stall the grooms had made a thick plait of straw to prevent wisps coming out. The horses were tied outside ready for the evening grooming.

  A track of tan ran round the square’s central lawn which was green and smooth; Mother Morag could guess it was watered every day. There were white-painted benches and chairs under its trees because it was here the owners gathered to watch the evening parade when the horses, groomed to perfection, were exercised round and round. ‘Exercised and scrutinised,’ said John. Now his foreman, the Jemadar, attended him and Mother Morag as they went from horse to horse and handed her, as the guest, appropriate tidbits for each, and heads came round and necks strained to catch them. One or two horses laid back their ears, showing the whites of their eyes, but John saw Mother Morag was not afraid. ‘There are always one or two bad seeds,’ she said; besides, the groom was always standing by to give a sharp slap of reproof. ‘Ari bap! Shaitan!’ John’s Matilda did not wait for them to come close, but started whickering at the sound of his footsteps. ‘Give her a banana,’ said John. ‘She’ll peel it herself.’

  ‘What a beauty!’ Mother Morag patted the satin neck. ‘Mr Quillan, she’s outstanding.’

  ‘Was. I had her in the regiment.’ Warmed by her delight, he unguardedly gave that fact away. ‘Not for racing, of course, for polo, but she’s fourteen now.’ He ran his hand across her neck in a caress and again she saw the signet ring on his little finger, its worn crest. ‘Yes, we could do with some of your quality, couldn’t we, old girl?’ John said to Matilda. ‘Makes the rest look work-a-day squibs.’

  ‘Squibs! You have some splendid horses here, but I’m intrigued,’ said Mother Morag. ‘Polo, then training racehorses. There’s such a difference. How did you come to know… ?’ She stopped. ‘I’m sorry. One shouldn’t be curious, but horses run away with you in more senses than one.’

  John Quillan was one of the few men she had met who could look down on her and now he looked almost with fellowship and, ‘How did I come to know?’ he said. ‘I can’t remember a time when I didn’t. My grandfather, when he retired from the Army, did a little breeding and training at Mulcahy, our home in Ireland.’

  Mulcahy! He is one of those Quillans. Of course! I ought to have guessed, thought Mother Morag, and wondered if John had meant to tell her that. ‘My father did the same, only more so, and my brother decided to do it in a big way. Then… ’ The easiness went and he said abruptly, ‘Came a time when I had to do something – rather quickly; couldn’t – didn’t,’ he corrected himself, ‘go home. There was a trainer here, an old Englishman called Findlay with a small stable. He was good. As a matter of fact I had a horse with him, just for fun. When it wasn’t fun – the old man was past it and needed a manager. He took me on, for a pittance, but I was fond of him. He died the following year and, well, I inherited and built it up more or less.’

  ‘More or less! Bunny says you have win after win.’

  ‘Not the big ones.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They still won’t give me the cream.’

  ‘Why?’ The hazel eyes were so direct that he had to answer.

  ‘Me, I suppose. So – no golden pots.’ He shrugged, but Mother Morag knew how much they meant: the Wellesley Plate: King Emperor’s Cup: the Cooch Behar Cup and, crown of the season, the Viceroy’s Cup, run on Boxing Day, and she laid her hand on John Quillan’s sleeve; it was her left hand and, on its third finger, was her own ring, the plain golden band without crest or insignia, the sign of her wedding to Christ and the Church. ‘No golden pots.’

  ‘There will be, one day,’ said Mother Morag.

  That evening Mother Morag had seldom felt as tired, perhaps because the visit to the Quillan stables had stirred up old memories, but the containers that night had seemed unusually heavy, greasier than ever, more smelly; also she could not get John Quillan out of her mind. ‘There will be, one day,’ she had prophesied.

  ‘Dear Mother,’ he had smiled at her – for a hard sardonic man, John Quillan’s smile was extraordinarily sweet. ‘Dear Mother. Always hopeful.’

  ‘Isn’t that the purpose of my calling?’ she had asked, and now, at her window, resting her tired arms on the sill, she wondered what was the quality that made someone, human or animal, one in ten thousand, or in a hundred thousand, stand out, not only because they were extraordinarily gifted, others are that, but because they seemed born with something extra, a magnetism that holds the public eye – and the public love. Suddenly she seemed to smell broom in flower, golden broom, wet grass and horses sweating, to hear larks shrilling. Mother Morag was far from Calcutta; she had fallen asleep and what she had said was not, ‘There will be, one day,’ but, ‘One day there will be One.’

  II

  That smell of broom in flower and wet grass filled the air as Michael Traherne rode with Peter Hay on the Dilbury Downs, and they heard the larks. Peter had spent the night with Michael and Annette and now the two men ro
de up over the tussocky grass, sparkling where it was brushed with dew in the sunlight.

  Work was finished for the morning and, as they came up on to the high rolling uplands, far down the rough track they could see the lads putting the sheets back on the horses ready for the two-mile walk back to the stables in the village down below, whose roofs and church tower could be seen through the trees.

  Michael was on his new young mare, a brilliant chestnut and still, each time she went out, as nervous as a dancer on her first night. Peter had settled for the stable cob. ‘I like them better when I’m off than on them,’ he had confessed.

  They had come by a short cut, over the shoulder of the hill, the cob thumping along at a slow canter, the mare collected to match him until she shied at a rabbit, slewed round until Michael brought her back, held in perfect balance and flexing to the plain snaffle in tribute to his expert hand.