Part 19 (2/2)

”I do not know. I have never tried. I have never been in the river. It was always a.s.sumed that I would catch cold.” Amy looks out over the land, back toward the buildings-the houses, the stables, the barns, all laid out neat and tidy.

The dog Millie has followed us out here and is happily dancin' about, chasin' the small birds that burst out of the high gra.s.ses. Prolly tryin' to herd them, too.

”You know, Jacky,” says Amy after a while, ”one of the reasons I did not tell you of the extent of Dovecote is that it is all, in a very real way, an illusion.”

I don't say anything. I don't have to. She will get to it.

”My father, Colonel John Trevelyne, a hero of the Revolution, who was at Valley Forge and Yorktown and who was decorated by General Was.h.i.+ngton himself, has an affliction. He is a gambler, and he is going to gamble away every bit of this. He has been doing it, little by little, but now he is going to bet it all.” She pauses. ”All. On the Sheik, that horse that is arriving today.”

”But, why?” I asks, all mystified. ”Why would anyone risk all this on a bet?”

”I do not know why, but it has been getting worse and worse. I think he misses the excitement of the war, or, oh, excitement of any kind. Gambling brings the element of risk back into his life.”

”So you're gonna be poor, just like me, someday,” I says, and I ain't sayin' it to be mean, just to lend some comfort. ”But don't worry, we'll get along. Remember, we're the Fabulous Musical Singing Valentine Sisters, and we will make our way in the world!” I says to jolly her up a bit. ”Ta-da!” I sings, but it's weak and I knows it's weak and it don't wash. She seems so sad and downhearted. It's easy to see why she's been so gloomy all along. It's a shame, all this lost for a bit of a tingle.

Amy sits up straight. ”Look. He comes. The Sheik of Araby, the Pride of Dovecote,” she says with no small bitterness. ”And the likely agent of its downfall.”

I turn and look and see a group of hors.e.m.e.n coming along the same road we came down yesterday when first I came to Dovecote. There are four men, two on either side of the huge black horse between them. The black horse does not have a rider, only a blanket. They pull up in the stable yard and dismount.

”Father bought him for a huge amount of money in the spring. Then the stallion was brought to Boston by s.h.i.+p, which cost even more money, money that my father has raised by mortgaging our land,” says Amy. ”The Sheik is a British Thoroughbred with Arabian blood, and he is supposed to be as fast as the wind. There will be a race and bets will be made and my father will cover those bets and if the horse loses, the farm is gone.”

The horse his ownself is kickin' up quite a fuss down there-it's takin' two men hangin' on the reins to hold him. He rears up, dragging them forward so that they are in danger of his flailing hooves. He tosses his head back and forth and whinnies. Screams, really. He is some horse.

”When will this all happen?” I asks.

”In the early summer. During racing season, if Father has not already lost everything at the cards and dice before then,” says Amy. ”Come, Sister, let us go see this Sheik of Araby.”

We turn our horses' heads and ride down to the stable, with Millie joyously leading a rather silent pair of sisters.

When we come into the yard, there is a crowd standin' about admirin' the beast. He's got a big body and a long neck and a small, finely shaped head-no common hammerhead he, even I can tell that. As he moves, I can see the big muscles bunching and sliding around under his glistening hide. The stallion is all black except for a white blaze of a star on his forehead, between the black eyes that roll about all wild, showing their whites and making him look hot and fierce and not to be taken lightly.

It's not hard to see the difference between this creature and my poor little Gretchie, who don't like him at all and who ducks her head and s.h.i.+es away, not wanting to get close. Don't you mind him, Gretchie, let's have your little walk. I slides off her back and walks her about a bit so she can cool, and when I can stick my hand in her chest and not find it all sweaty, I leads her back to her stall and sets her up with some oats and combs her down a bit. Then I goes back out to look at the Sheik more close.

They're taking him to his stall now, or at least they're trying, him still puttin' up a fuss and resistin' their efforts to calm him down, him all snortin' and blowin' and generally bein' difficult.

But they finally succeed and there he is, all tucked in, with his head poked out of a little window into the stable yard. There's a cry and a curse as a man behind him in the stall gets a kick, but then things quiet down and the horse seems to calm.

From a barrel of apples tucked beneath an overhang, I takes one and goes over to his Sheiks.h.i.+p. There's a stool by where his head sticks out and I gets up on it next to him and puts my hand on his neck. I feel the hard muscles move under my hand as he swings his great head around to fix me with his eye. He don't look pleased.

”Nice horsie,” I says, givin' him my best smile. ”Here, have an apple.”

”Jacky, be careful,” I hears Amy warn from behind me. Careful of what?

I holds out the apple and he pulls back his lips over his huge teeth and he bites me.

”d.a.m.n you!” I cries, clasping my bitten hand to my breast. ”You bit me!” And without thinkin' I takes that same hand and swats him across the nose with it.

”Miss! Please! You can't treat him so!” pleads the head hostler. ”He's too-”

”You miserable piece of...” I growls, and then launches into a string of sailor's curses that cause the stable hands to wince and cover the ears of the younger onlookers. I don't remember much of what I said 'cause of my shock and pain in bein' bit, but I'm afraid I took the Lord's name in vain a few times in wis.h.i.+ng the d.a.m.ned nag to the lowest levels of h.e.l.l, and I think I might have said a few bad things about his mother.

The Sheik looks confused and abashed-it's plain he ain't used to bein' treated this way. He ain't near so fierce lookin' now.

I jump to the ground and pick up the spurned apple and hop back up to confront the horse again. ”Now, horse,” I says, ”let's try it again. Have an apple, and if you bite me again, I will smack you again. And, remember, this is Cheapside Jacky talking to you, horse.” I offer the apple on my open palm.

The horse looks at the apple and then looks nervously up at my other hand raised and ready to strike him on the nose should he be so bold as to try another a.s.sault on my poor hand. He looks back down at the apple and then, very gently, the Sheik of Araby takes the apple.

”That's better,” I say, reaching back and combing his mane through my fingers. ”We will get along.”

Chapter 21.

”Amy.”

”Yes, Jacky.”

I put my face down on the hay and look over at her. It is raining on this Sunday, our third day at Dovecote, and, after having gone to church, we are lying above in the stable hayloft where it is warm and dry and redolent with the smell of the horses. Faithful Millie lies down below at the foot of the ladder, whimpering because she can't come up.

There is a small piece of board missing on the side of the barn and we lie side by side looking out across the autumnal fields. The fields set up quite a pleasing pattern as they roll down to the sea, and the rain has brought a blush of green back to the earth. The rain has also kept us here another day, which is all right with me.

I'm thinking back on Jaimy and what he wants me to be and on Mistress and on my demotion and I asks, ”Am I crude, Amy? Others have said I am, which is why I'm asking.”

She waits a little too long in replying.

”I knew it,” I says, and flips over on my back. ”I am crude and common and awful and I'll never be a lady. I shall go down and slop the hogs as that is my station in life and I should be glad of it and not try to get above myself.”

Amy looks at me for a while, thinking. ”It is not so much that you are crude, as it is that you are ... impulsive ... simple ... straightforward ... and maybe a bit too direct and plainspoken for our society. In a charming way, of course,” she adds quickly and puts her hand on my arm to show I ain't to take offense. ”An unpolished gem, as it were.”

”Oh?” I gets up on one elbow to face her direct. ”And what do I do wrong that makes me all those things?”

She considers the question, and, at length, she plunges forward. ”When you hurt, Jacky, you cry. When you are unhappy, you whine. When you are mad, you curse, and when you are threatened, you resort to violence. You talk with your mouth full and lean over your plate. You dash madly about when an impulse takes you, and you never walk when you can run. You say the first thing that comes to your mind, and the profanity, like with the Sheik yesterday, oh, Jacky, you have just got to stop that.”

As if recognizing his name spoken, the stallion wickers and snorts down below. ”You hush up, horse,” I orders, ”or I'll see you salted down in a barrel and served up to poor sailors who'll curse you for your toughness and lack of flavor, I will.” I have already cajoled my way onto the back of the Sheik-the stable hands are finding me hard to deny, 'cause of my persistence.

She pauses to take a breath and then goes on. ”And that way you have of grinning with your mouth open, looking like a vixen that has just killed a poor goose and is reveling in the blood that drips from her jaws, well ... There, you're doing it right now. Stop it. Please.”

”Shall I make that prissy little Clarissa smile?” I screw my lips up into a prune shape and cross my eyes.

I can see she is warming to her task in spite of my clowning. ”And your references to your personal things: It is not your petticoats, nor your s.h.i.+fts, definitely not your underpants, it is your linen. As in, 'I must have my linen cleaned,' not, as you would have it, 'Oi've got to scrub out me drawers!'”

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