139. Riding In The Sky - The Eternal Collection , livre ebook

AUTHOR’S NOTE
I had never heard of the Pretty Horse-Breakers until I did the research for my novel of this name.
They were a phenomenon of the 1860s and the fairest of them was Catherine Walters, known as
‘Skittles’.
Very talented and a fantastic rider with a natural gaiety she was born in humble circumstances
in Liverpool. On coming to London she worked for a fashionable livery stable in Bruton Mews
adjoining Berkeley Square.
A year later she became the mistress of the Marquis of Hartington, heir to the seventh Duke of
Devonshire, who gave her a house in Mayfair and two thousand pounds a year for life.
She eclipsed even the Achilles statue in Hyde Park as the centre of attention – she halted the
traffic in Hyde Park and her clothes and hats were copied even by Society women.
Like all the Pretty Horse-Breakers, she could sail over a high jump as if she had wings. For a one
hundred pound bet she jumped a high railing in Hyde Park and also an eighteen foot water jump at
the National Hunt Steeplechase at Market Harborough, when she was larking about on the course
after the racing had finished and three other riders had failed.Chapter one 1874
“Filipa! Filipa!”
Sir Mark Seymour’s voice seemed to ring through the empty house and, after a pause to listen,
he shouted again,
“Filipa!”
“I am coming!”
The voice that answered him was sweet and very musical and a moment later Filipa appeared at
the top of the ancient stairway.
“Oh, there you are!” her brother answered.
She started to run down towards him.
“Mark! I was not expecting you! Why are you here? What a lovely surprise!”
“I want to speak to you, Filipa,” he said as he kissed her.
He spoke in such a serious tone that she looked at him enquiringly.
They walked across the hall in silence and went into the drawing room, which overlooked the
untended but still beautiful garden.
Mark closed the door behind him and Filipa said nervously,
“What is it? Oh, Mark, you have not come to sell anything else?”
“No, not this time,” he replied and she gave a deep sigh of relief.
When her father had died, her brother had succeeded to the Baronetcy.
He had continually returned home to find something that he could sell that would pay for his
amusements in London.
Filipa loved her brother and wanted him to enjoy himself.
She tried not to mind when the Queen Anne mirrors that she had known and loved from
childhood were lifted off the walls.
The massive Georgian silver tea service that was kept for large parties disappeared.
Then pieces of her mother’s jewellery, which were more sentimental than valuable, were taken
away to London.
Now she sat down on a sofa that badly needed recovering and looked at her brother with
questioning eyes.
He was exceedingly smart and was in fact a very handsome young man.
She could understand that at twenty-one it was very exciting to be one of the extravagant smart
social set in London.
The men spent their time gambling in White’s Club and buying horses at Tattersalls.
They attended the balls and Receptions that were given every night by the great London
hostesses.
Sometimes Filipa would think a little wistfully that, if her mother had been alive, she too would
have been in London.
But she had already learnt from Mark that it would have been in a very different social set from
the one he frequented.
“What are the debutantes this year like?” she asked him, knowing that she should be taking her
place among them.
“I have no idea,” he answered. “I never see a debutante if I can help it. My friends and I
concentrate on the sophisticated beauties and I can tell you there are plenty of them!”
Filipa felt rather sorry for the debutantes.
At the same time, as there was no money to launch her into the Social world, it would have been
foolish to worry her head over them.
Instead she was quite content to look after the ancient Manor House where she had been born.
It had been in the Seymour family for three hundred years and she was happy riding the horses
that her father had bought before he died.
He, too, had been extravagant where horseflesh was concerned and she had always thought ittypical that she had been christened ‘Filipa’, which in Ancient Greek meant ‘a lover of horses’.
Of course she loved them and it was fortunate that she did because at the moment they were her
only companions.
Sometimes their neighbours invited her to parties.
But after her mother and then her father had died, while Mark went to London, they found an
extra girl an encumbrance rather than an asset.
Moreover, as she was so exceedingly pretty, her contemporaries were jealous of her.
She therefore, and no one seemed to worry about it, lived a very lonely and restricted life at The
Manor, except when Mark came home.
Her relatives did not worry about her.
They thought that she was quite suitably chaperoned by Miss Richmond, who had been her
Governess for the last ten years.
She was a Bishop’s daughter, which qualified her to be accepted as a chaperone.
Miss Richmond was an intelligent woman, but she was nearly seventy and spent a great deal of
time either in bed or else closeted in her own sitting room.
Filipa was left to talk to her dogs, two Dalmatians that had belonged to her father.
She also talked to the horses, which appeared to understand everything she said to them.
Now it was exciting because Mark had come back when she was least expecting him.
She wondered a little frantically if there was anything in the house that he would consider worth
eating.
She was sure, however, that old Mrs. Smeaton, who had been with the family for twenty-five
years and adored Mark, would find something palatable.
She therefore composed herself to hear what he had to tell her.
At the same time she was praying that it would not be anything upsetting.
It seemed for a moment as if Mark was in some difficulty to find the words to begin.
Then he said,
“You have not heard that Kilne is holding a special horse rally at Kilne Hall tomorrow?”
“Do you mean the Marquis of Kilne, whom you have often talked about?” Filipa enquired.
“Yes, of course I do! And you must be aware that Kilne Hall is only about ten miles from here.”
“Yes, I know that,” Filipa said. “But I have never been there because the Marquis’s mother did
not call on Mama and I think Papa had a row with the previous Marquis in the hunting field.”
“Yes, yes, I know all that!” Mark said impatiently. “But Kilne is a member of White’s and he has
been kind enough to ask me to take part in an unusual race, which in a way will be almost a pageant.”
“I don’t understand what you are saying,” Filipa protested. “It sounds a trifle mad!”
Mark laughed.
“Kilne always has original ideas, and his latest has certainly got all St. James’s talking.”
“Explain it,” Filipa begged.
“Well, Kilne decided,” Mark answered, and his sister thought that he was choosing his words
rather carefully, “that it would be amusing for his stick-necked neighbours in the country to see how
well the ‘Pretty Horse-Breakers’ ride and how attractive they look.”
“The ‘Pretty Horse-Breakers?” Filipa repeated. “Who are they?”
Mark glanced round the room before he replied,
“They are not anyone you would have heard about even though they are written up in the
newspapers.”
“What do they do?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” Mark replied. “They break in horses at the fashionable
livery stables.”
“I suppose somebody has to do it,” Filipa said in a practical tone of voice.
“Of course and there are women of every sort and class to break in horses for the young ladies
who like to trit-trot in Hyde Park.”
“I thought they rode so well!” Filipa remarked.
Mark laughed.
“You would be surprised how badly a large number of them do ride! I was talking to thedaughter of the Marquis of Hull a few days ago in Rotten Row.”
He paused a moment and then went on,
“You have never seen anyone more ham-fisted and heavy in the saddle!”
“That is surprising,” Filipa exclaimed, “but go on.”
“Kilne announced about three weeks ago that he intended to organise a horse rally to which we
could bring our own horses to compete in various classes.”
He stopped speaking and then added,
“There would also, as I have said, be a race in which the competitors would be dressed up.”
“It sounds fascinating,” Filipa said. “I do wish I could see it.”
She spoke a little wistfully, knowing that it was something that would never happen.
Mark had made it very clear that, since his smart friends would not be interested in visiting The
Manor, they would therefore remain, as far as she was concerned, only names.
There was a pause after she had spoken and then Mark said,
“That is just what I was going to talk to you about.”
“About seeing the horse rally? Oh, Mark, you don’t mean that I could be invi