Chapter XXVIII: The Epic of the Horse

Rensslaer had taken half-a-dozen tickets for the Royal day, and any special shows that he thought would appeal to Gay. Tom Bulteel had liberally provided for the Harness classes, Carlton had concentrated on the Trotting, Chris on the jumping, which came last in the evening, so that the united tickets practically covered everything worth seeing at Olympia.

The little party, Gay, Effie, and Tom Bulteel (save when the latter were at Epsom), Lossie, Chris, and Carlton, took the Show easily, like a picnic, saw most of the good things, and missed those not so good, though when the jumping was on, Chris remained glued to his seat, deaf, blind, and oblivious to all around him, save what was passing in the arena.

The Professor had been invited, but declined--to the immense relief of everybody, as his squeals might have astounded the neighbours during the high jumping. Gay found it delightful not to have to be told after squeezing in (as happened to many other of her friends), that their cards admitted them to the building only, and seats must be booked inside, of which there were none to be booked.

The stables amused her immensely. She thought it must have astonished the cart horses to find themselves ensconced between draperies of crimson and gold, others in a delicate shade of pearly blue, with huge baskets of flowers floating over their heads, or in bowers of hothouse blooms, and upholstered in green and white--the whole scheme changed to a royal blue on the day of the King's visit. The woodwork of Rensslaer's boxes was plainly but handsomely covered in cloth, while each horse's name and its record appeared over its stall in an ornamental gilt frame.

Several of the Continental army officers in their bright uniforms strolled between the arena and the stables, chatting and keeping an eye on their splendid mounts, and Gay noted approvingly that these men seemed to be the personal friends of their horses. The tall, clean-limbed animals, although they treated the stablemen with contempt, pricked up their ears, and thrust their proudly-poised heads over the stall doors, every time one of the well-known uniforms came near.

It was a quaint sight to see the women in their delicate summer gowns walking past the stalls over the dusty asphalt floors, and peering into the horse-boxes, for an extraordinary number of women were present, every one of whom had apparently put on her costliest clothes for the occasion.

The fact that the Epsom Meeting was not over, appeared to have no effect on the attendance, for faces well-known in the world of sport were to be seen--it was an "indoor Ascot"--Ascot Cup Day so far as the dresses were concerned, mingled with the paddock on Derby Day, with its multiplicity of languages--Ascot with magnificent horses, and instead of racing on the flat, jumping, trotting, and tandem driving.

The gowns showed fairly well in the Ambassadors and other boxes, but Lossie justly complained that it was like a too dense wood, where you can't admire the foliage for the trees, and that every woman requires a special clearing to herself to be shown off properly, which she certainly had not here.

Yet Lossie herself easily made her presence felt in the immediate vicinity, and drew many an envious glance on her exquisite harmony in blue, and bluer eyes, though Gay's frock of white worked muslin, with a great cluster of crimson roses at her girlish breast, appealed to both Carlton and Chris far more.

But as usual in the quartette made by the young people, it was to Lossie that Carlton fell, and very content and lovely the girl looked as she sat beside him, while on his part, he did not find it difficult to make himself pleasant to her, even if Gay apparently had forgotten her quarrel with Chris, laughed, and was happy. The two criticised everything, and discussed with zest the charming _coup d'œil_ presented, which was vivid, and full of interest, life and colour.

Overhead, the rays of the sun streamed through the glass roof, and were caught by the festoons and panels, ornamented with the flags and heraldry that emphasised the international nature of the show; roses in long, drooping curves connected the chief parts of the ornamentation, so that there was not one bare, unsightly piece of woodwork in all the vast building to offend the eye, and beneath, the Belgian landscape gardeners had worked marvels, creating a veritable fairyland of delight.

May trees in full blossom, a fresh green lawn, flower-beds, shrubs, everything possible to banish the show-ring, if scarcely to suggest the paddock or hunting-field, had been done, and beyond a ring banked with marguerites and scarlet geraniums, rose row upon row, English, French, Belgian, and American women, tiny splashes of colour that mostly represented the hopes and fears, impending pride or disappointment in the horsemen who competed for their countries' honour.

The pink hunting-coats or uniforms of the riders, the picturesque dress of the attendants, and the sleek, shining horses, all blended into a picture perfectly harmonious in tone, while the black coats of the little group of tall, well-bred men in the arena who acted as judges, somehow struck a note of distinction in the midst of the uniforms, and the gay kaleidoscopic surroundings.

Horse shows in England are apt to be too leisurely entertainments--this was too rapid for many spectators, for the expedition with which everything was carried out in the ring, was a revelation in expert management. Seeing that in one jumping class there were a hundred and twenty entries, it was clear that only by the full-tilt methods of the old tournament, could the events be carried through in time, so when one competition was over, a blast on the coach-horn, and, hey presto! the great doors at the end of the hall flew open, and in swept the next competitors, and jumping or other apparatus vanished as if by magic. There was a neatness and despatch about the whole affair that made the show go as quickly as a well-arranged theatrical performance, though the noise caused by the joint efforts of Lord Lonsdale's band, and the liveried youth in the ring occasionally provoked some amusement.

The vivacity of the scene was undeniable, but Gay, like many others, experienced the greatest difficulty in identifying any particular competition when two or more classes were in the ring, and when afterwards she tried to remember the right sequence of the things that most delighted her, she was not able to, so rapidly had they succeeded each other. She remembered vividly Rensslaer's beautiful little Peter and Mary, under eleven hands, and to her one of the prettiest sights was when a tiny Shetland pony only seventeen inches high, took a prize in a class with big horses, quality, not quantity, winning, the attendant having to kneel down to pin the rosette on the tiny creature.

The tandem teams that moved like clockwork delighted her, and she shared Chris's admiration for the Stansfield Cottin Battak ponies, that bred in Sumatra, with handsome heads set on high-crested necks, full of spirit, and simply balls of muscle, had all the fire and beauty conferred by the Arab strain, together with the hardness and endurance of the Battak breed, the description "miniature Arabs, with more bone than their ancestors" fitting them exactly.

She loved the magnificent team of Suffolk Punches that appeared precisely as they do in the field, in harness adopted from all time by Suffolk agriculturists, drawing an old-fashioned Suffolk wagon, while the fact that they were led by men in smock frocks instead of being driven, and thus perfectly in character, and representative of "Old England," appealed strongly to the public, who cheered them to the echo.

With perfect simplicity the Suffolk farm hands demonstrated how heavy horses harnessed in twos, may be made to wheel in mazy figures by just talking to them. In true old country style, the man walking beside the leading animal, shouted in broad Suffolk his commands to him, "t'other waa," and "th' iver waa" (my way), the man walking beside the third horse repeating the commands, and at every order, round came the four in perfect style, not a hand on their harness to steady or lead them, wheeling their great wagon in wonderful evolutions, amid thunders of applause that would not be silenced.

From the horse-lover's point of view, the horses for mail and other phaetons was a noteworthy event, and closely watched by Tom Bulteel.

A most stirring competition of the nation was seen in the pairs. Mr. Vanderbilt entered three teams; Rensslaer drove his own horses, and the French appointments, for which 50 per cent. of the marks are given, were extremely smart. Such a show of pairs, or anything like it, had never been collected in any ring; indeed, said the experts, never had so perfect a class been brought together, and the work of the judges was herculean. The excitement was intense as the twenty-two were reduced to a select eight, including two of Rensslaer's, two of Mr. Vanderbilt's, and one of Mr. Bates'.

Lossie ever after viewed Rensslaer with more respect as the owner of the superb pair of carriage horses, named after a couple of popular sporting peers, that never appeared without creating a furore of admiration--she would above all things have liked them for her own, and Carlton to sit with her behind them.

He on his part viewed them with indifference, but gave unstinted praise to the class for American Trotters with records of 2.30 or better; fleet as Atlanta, slenderly beautiful as greyhounds, they were a revelation to him of what a horse could look and be, and he and Gay laughed heartily as they compared them with the quadrupeds that in all seriousness they had called Trotters, and he understood better now Rensslaer's prejudice against the sport as practised in England.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Chris, "he _can_ drive!" as Rensslaer, for some time last of the competitors, crept up to the front, Storm Cloud beating them by the way he went round the very small turns at top speed, passing Sensation, and thus forcing the other to a break, and afterwards, when he had won, being driven round at full speed with his checker-rein, and over-draw bit taken off, so as to show what manners he had.

This was the same horse that displayed great speed in a pair in the parade before the King, being the only pair capable of taking their turns fast.

Yes, Gay decided _that_ was her favourite day, when the sweetest and loveliest lady in all the land, sat with the King in the Royal box, and frankly showed her love for horses by the delight she evinced in their performances, and the frequent applause she gave them, laughing as heartily as Gay did, at the humours of the donkeys in the coster's show.

As if in answer to Tom Bulteel's pertinent remark that the saddle classes could not be satisfactorily judged, unless the judges took a turn in the saddle, one of them, himself a consummate horseman, rode the chargers in turn to judge of their capacities, and the public applauded loudly when he mounted Rensslaer's bay roan gelding, a charger so perfectly trained in the pretty action and deportment of the _Haute École_, that it performed a step-dance with all the precision possible in a creature with four legs.

Gay declared that horses, like children, have an inborn tendency to dance to the sound of music--_not_ horses trained to the _Haute École_ either--and that in their grace and tapering limbs, they made her think of some exquisite exponents of the ballet, as compared with the unwieldy bodies and heavy legs of ordinary clumsy human beings.

It interested Gay to watch these men, the keenest judges of horse-flesh, and riding and driving in the world, who chatted quietly, nodded appreciatively now and then, criticised, admired, condemned, evincing no concern when a frightened horse scattered them to right and left. She was greatly amused at a big, striding bay horse named "Teetotaler" that, though built on galloping lines, proved himself inferior to "Whisky," who made short work of his opponent in the 15 stone class; then there was a Belgian horse named "Timber-topper" that thoroughly lived up to his name.

Tom Bulteel found much to admire in the horse and gig class, a purely American affair, that being rather a novelty in this country, was greatly approved, but laughed heartily when, in a four-in-hand class, the coachman had to have assistance to turn his leaders in the ring. He naturally took keen interest in the park teams, which, supported by the Four-in-hand and Coaching Clubs, by private individuals and professionals, ensured the judging being watched with the closest attention. Then there were Mr. Vanderbilt's famous team of greys, which he drove himself, though it was only by a shade that he wrested the prize from the well-known browns of the Old Brighton Coach--an English turn-out that gradually absorbed most of the audience's attention, and whose driver, though he lost the blue rosette, was greeted with loud and prolonged applause.

"Where is your motor-car now?" cried Gay triumphantly to Lossie. "Talk of a chauffeur indeed--as if his finest, most daring and sustained feat, could rival the sympathetic dexterity shown a hundred times here by English and American whips!"

"Just as no rivalry between mechanical contrivances can hold a candle to the struggle among the field of beautiful high-bred horses, sweeping over the turf towards the winning-post," said Chris, "for in the mechanical contrivance, the driver is the only sentient element, in horse-racing there is both horse and jockey to reckon with, and the animal enters into the spirit of the contest just as keenly as his rider."

Inconsistent Gay frowned, and turned her head away, devoting herself to Tom Bulteel, who did not want her. He was intently watching the class for a quick change of four-in-hands, marks being given for the speed and swiftness with which the harnessing and unharnessing was managed, as well as for the eight horses and the horsemanship, and some extraordinarily smart work was being done, which he fully appreciated.

Effie, watching the game, sighed, for Gay's spirits and temper varied with every succeeding hour, the "class" witnessed, being the barometer by which her emotions were set. When there was only driving, and Chris's attention entirely given to her, she sparkled, and was happy; when jumping was on, and he became absolutely engrossed in his favourite passion, leaning forward, his soul in his eyes, and his eyes where his body panted to be, Gay existed no more for him than that vast circle of spectators of which he formed a part, and her brightness was eclipsed. Then Carlton scored--he had not watched Gay and her attitude towards Chris during the progress of the Show for nothing, and each day saw his hopes rise higher, Lossie's fell.

To Effie, who was a shrewd observer, this was something more than a great Horse Show, it was the picturesque _mise en scène_ for the playing out of the comedy (or tragedy) of four lives, and of which she, and unhappy Lossie clearly foresaw the end.... Chris and wilful Gay were throwing away their happiness with both hands, and much as she loved them both, she was powerless to prevent it.