The Dark Horse Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜More or less! Bunny says you have win after win.’
    â€˜Not the big ones.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜They still won’t give me the cream.’
    â€˜Why?’ The hazel eyes were so direct that he had to answer.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜There will be, one day,’ said Mother Morag.
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    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.
    â€˜Dear Mother,’ he had smiled at her – for a hard sardonic man, John Quillan’s smile was extraordinarily sweet. ‘Dear Mother. Always hopeful.’
    â€˜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