Paige Robin: Death At Epsom Downs

From Patrick’s point of view, the bond was a natural one. He saw in the horse an unruly spirit much like his own and loved him for it, and the horse, as far as he was able, returned him a certain affection. Seeing this, Mr. Angus had made him the horse’s traveling lad, responsible for helping Pinkie with his care during the railway trip to Epsom and for leading him through the Derby crowd to the starting post. It was enough to make a stable lad’s head swim.

But Patrick was not an ordinary lad. Some two years before, he had found himself one of the players in a grand adventure at Rottingdean, a village on the south coast of England, through which he had been introduced to His Royal Highness and two other gentlemen, Lord Charles Sheridan and Mr. Rudyard Kipling. In gratitude for his services, the Prince had granted Patrick a stipend sufficient to guarantee his education, and at Mr. Kipling’s suggestion, he had gone off to school at Westward Ho!, on Bideford Bay, in Devonshire. Lady Charles herself had taken him to the school and had even shed a few tears when she kissed him and said goodbye.

Westward Ho! was an unconventional school, and as long as the boys paid the requisite attention to their studies and attended chapel with some regularity, they were free to bathe in the Atlantic beyond Pebble Ridge and wander the Devonshire countryside. But while Patrick was gifted with a shrewd intelligence and a maturity far beyond his years, he was hardly a discliplined scholar, and whatever academic enthusiasm he might have felt was poisoned by an odious master who took a sadistic pleasure in inflicting corporal punishment upon those in his charge. Patrick and his friends Turkey Bates and Jake Shanks sought sanctuary in the furze thickets above the cliff. There, smoking pipes and reading aloud from Surtees’s racing novels, they plotted to run away and become apprentice jockeys. It was a scheme dear to Patrick’s heart, for he loved horses more than anything else in the world-more than books, certainly, or games, or the prospect of taking the Army examination and embarking on a military career.

But those lazy golden days in the furze came to an abrupt end, and so did Patrick’s education. Turkey drowned one September day in the sea, and a fortnight later Jake was sent home to India because his father had failed to pay his tuition and board.

His friends gone, his heart broken, Patrick paid even less attention to his studies, and the master’s floggings consequently grew less restrained. The boy tried to hang on, if only to please Lady Charles, who wrote him the most marvelous letters and promised that he could spend the holidays with her and Lord Charles at Bishop’s Keep. But a month after Turkey ’s death and Jake’s departure, and a day after the most severe beating yet, Patrick could endure it no longer. He left without saying goodbye, without even writing to Lady Charles, whose kindness he could never repay. How could he confess that he had failed? How could he tell her that he wasn’t worthy of her concern, or her love?

Leaving Devonshire, the boy struck out eastward across the Downs to Rottingdean and to Harry Tudwell, in whose stable he had once worked. Harry set him to doing morning and evening stables and exercising the string on the Downs, and at midwinter, impressed by the boy’s understanding of horses and his firm determination to ride, he prevailed on his old friend Angus Duncan at the Grange House Stable to take Patrick on as stable lad and apprentice jockey. That was how he had come to be here on this day, at this race of all races, the Blue Ribbon of the Turf, the Derby Stakes, with the horse he loved.

Following the men, Patrick led Gladiator into the paddock near the start, where they were joined by Captain Dick Doyle, Lord Reginald’s racing manager and quite the fattest man Patrick had ever seen, and Johnny Bell, the jockey, who rode often for the stable and usually in Lord Hunt’s rose-and-green colors. Johnny was a pleasant, even-tempered young man, warm-hearted and kindly toward the stable lads and with none of the arrogance displayed by other winning jockeys. Over the past few months, Patrick had come to love him dearly, in part for his gentle way with both horses and boys and in part because Johnny somehow reminded him of his lost friend Turkey.

Now, Johnny Bell came to Gladiator, running his hand along the sweating flank. “How is he?” he asked Patrick, speaking low.

“Nervy,” Patrick replied, feeling the horse trembling against him as Pinkie attempted to throw on the saddle. Gladiator half reared, and as Patrick struggled to gentle him down, he added, in a breathless warning, “Wilder even than the day he got loose on the heath.” Johnny had been there that day, and had seen what happened.

“Don’t like the looks of him,” Johnny said, stroking the quivering flank, and Patrick heard the nervousness in his voice. But quite apart from the condition of the horse, it was no surprise that Johnny was nervous. It was his first Derby too, and Patrick knew how desperately he wanted to do well.

Patrick was considering telling Johnny about the business with the bottle, when they were joined by Lord Hunt and Captain Doyle. “He should run well today,” the captain remarked with a jovial confidence, pushing his betting book into the pocket of his frock coat and adjusting his waistcoat around his enormous girth. To Johnny, he said, “You have your instructions, my boy?”

Johnny cast an apprehensive eye at the horse, who was clearly unhappy with his saddle. “Don’t go for an early lead,” he muttered, “but keep in touch with the front runners. After Tattenham Corner and into the straight, show him the whip and come hard on the outside.”

“And keep clear,” Lord Hunt warned. With a glance at the horse, he hunched his shoulders and added, unnecessarily, “He’s spirited today.”

Maniacal was a better description, Patrick thought, for Gladiator was behaving as though the very devil was in him. He glanced uneasily at Johnny. His friend was not the strongest of the two or three jockeys who rode for the stable. He was known to be at his best with novice or reluctant runners, handling them lightly and expertly, knowing instinctively when and how to bring them on. Patrick wondered uneasily how he would fare with Gladiator, who seemed to be growing wilder by the moment.

“The more spirit, the better,” Captain Doyle said emphatically. “He stands at 66 to 1.” He grinned at Lord Hunt. “Shades of last year’s dark-horse Derby, eh, my lord? Jeddah at 100 to 1. Those with something on that horse went home wealthy.” From Captain Doyle’s sly look, Patrick felt that he must have gone home wealthy too. He wondered how much the captain had bet on Gladiator.

Brightening, Lord Hunt clapped the jockey on the shoulder. “Bring him home the winner, Johnny, and I’ll see there’s a handsome present for you.”

Nervously, Johnny touched his cap. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

“Right,” said the captain, and he and Lord Hunt left hurriedly for the stands, making a detour through the crowded betting ring for a last-minute wager.

The field was collecting and the starter called the preliminary warning. Patrick held Gladiator’s head while Mr. Angus gave Johnny a leg up. The horse reared angrily, snorting and pawing the air, and Patrick leaped out from under the flashing hoofs. But Johnny had found his seat and managed to keep it, and after a moment he seemed to be in control. But the start was not propitious. It took ten minutes and several false starts to get the runners to the line and pointed in the right direction, but finally the flag came down and they were off. The starting bell tolled, the men shouted, and Patrick watched, his heart in his mouth, as the horses grew smaller in the distance.

He could not have guessed that the end of it all would be much worse than the beginning. Gladiator would disgrace himself, and his friend Johnny Bell would die without knowing who won the Derby.