Даниэла Стил - Royal

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By the time Annie was twelve, she had won ribbons at every horse show Jonathan entered her in. She was much more interested in speed than in the precise maneuvers of dressage or jumping competitions.

And at thirteen, she and her father had several serious arguments, and he had banned her from the stables for a week, after she snuck out with John Markham’s wildest new stallion, not even fully broken yet, and rode him hell for leather across the fields. Her father noticed the horse was missing a short time after she’d taken him, and he’d gone looking for her. What he’d seen was heart-stopping. He was sure she’d broken some kind of speed record, but she could easily have broken her neck or lamed a horse who over his lifetime might prove to be worth millions. He had brought her back looking chastened and mollified. She begged every day to be allowed to come back to the stables, and he had stuck to the week restriction to teach her a lesson. To his knowledge, she never did it again, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Annie was smart as a whip, and in love with horses, the faster the better.

At fifteen, to complicate matters further, she saw a horse race on television. Instead of aspiring to be a horse trainer or a stable hand, she announced that she wanted to be a jockey when she grew up. The televised horse race had convinced her. She was the right size, but the wrong gender, her stepfather informed her. Women were not allowed to be jockeys. Horseracing was a man’s sport, and he told her it was much too dangerous. It was 1959, and the idea of women jockeys was unheard of. Jonathan told her that females were allowed to compete in some amateur events, but in his opinion they would never be allowed to race in professional ones.

“I want you to grow up to be a lady,” her father told her, “not an amateur jockey at sleazy, second-rate events. I love what I do, but you have to aspire to more than just being master of the stables, a job no one is ever going to give a woman anyway. Your mother wants more for you too.” Lucy had been a housemaid, and more recently housekeeper for the Markhams, but she had greater ambitions for the daughter she always referred to as her “princess.” Oddly enough, Annie looked like one when she wasn’t riding at full speed. She had a natural grace and elegance and a strangely aristocratic look to her in spite of her small size.

“All I want to do is what you do, Papa. Train horses and work with you, unless I can be a jockey one day.”

“You can’t,” he repeated. And Lucy wanted her to be more than a mere housekeeper. A teacher, a nurse, any respectable profession for a woman, and eventually a wife and mother. Annie told her that her aspirations were pathetic. And the only thing that interested her was anything involving horses. Nothing had changed.

At eighteen the battle raged on, when Jonathan insisted she go away to school and further her education. She’d attended the village school. She’d never been interested in her studies, only in horses. But she lost the battle and went away to university to please him and her mother. Her grades were less than stellar and Jonathan eventually discovered that she had lied about her age and ridden in several minor amateur horse races as a jockey. He went to visit her at school to discuss it with her, and all she wanted was to drop out and come home to work with him in the Markhams’ stables. She’d been hanging around the local stables and the only friends she’d made were there, which her parents considered unsuitable. She had no interest in pursuing school.

Despite mediocre grades, she managed to graduate in three years under duress, and in the end, came home to work as an apprentice stable master and trainer. John Markham commented frequently to Jonathan about how talented she was.

“It doesn’t matter what we do, I can’t keep her away from horses,” Jonathan told his boss, sounding discouraged. Markham laughed at him. He had his own problems with six spoiled wild children by then, and an expensive wife.

“Maybe you should stop trying to keep her away from horses,” John Markham said with a wry smile. “Give her her head and see what she does with it.”

“She wants to be a female jockey, which isn’t even legal. She’ll break her neck and my heart one of these days.” He worried about her. In contrast, the twins, who were fifteen by then, had showed very little interest in horses. They took after their mother. Blake wanted to be a banker and Rupert wanted to go to vet school, which was at least closer to his father’s interests. Jonathan hadn’t been able to get Annie interested in veterinary school either. All she wanted was speed, although she admitted that one day she might be interested in horse breeding, though not yet. She followed the bloodlines of several stables, including the queen’s, which was her only interest in the royal family, unlike her mother, who was obsessed with everything about them, from what they wore to the kind of tea they drank.

“Kids do what they want to in the end. So do wives,” John Markham said before he drove off to London in his new Ferrari. He was as obsessed with speed as Annie, but it was more appropriate for him than for a twenty-one-year-old girl.

But a month later, they had other things on their minds. Lucy suddenly fell ill with severe stomach problems, and lost a shocking amount of weight. She lost fifteen pounds in a month, and Jonathan took her for tests at the local hospital, and then to see a specialist in London, at the Markhams’ suggestion. They were worried about her too.

The tests were inconclusive at first, and the diagnosis vague. She lost another ten pounds, and looked like a shadow of her former self when the doctors finally told them she had stomach cancer. It had metastasized to her liver and her lymph system, and the prognosis was not good. Jonathan was in shock when they told them. They suggested exploratory surgery, but as soon as they opened her up, they closed her up again. The cancer had spread too far and too quickly. There was nothing they could do. It didn’t seem possible. She was thirty-nine years old, and the twins were only fifteen. What would they do without their mother, and Jonathan without his wife?

They administered a round of chemotherapy followed by radiation to slow things down. And after the treatment, she seemed better for a while, and they gave her morphine for the pain. Jonathan wanted to cling to her to keep her with him. He had loved her for twenty years and couldn’t imagine his life without her. He was desperately in love with her. She was such a good person, and a decent woman, and her illness and suffering were so unfair. She still went to work, directed the Markhams’ housecleaning staff, and supervised household repairs. She could only manage a half-day now, and some days she couldn’t go to work at all. They had nurses come to the house when she needed them, and the nights were hard when she was in a lot of pain. Jonathan gave Annie more responsibility in the stables so he could spend more time at home with his wife, and nurse her himself. At other times, Annie stayed home with her so Jonathan could work. She sat with her mother for hours, watching TV with her, and prepared meals she thought she’d like. She didn’t want to lose her mother either and was afraid she would. She took care of her brothers, did the family laundry, and tried to do as much as she could. To thank her, Lucy took a small box out of a drawer one afternoon and put a gold bracelet on her wrist, with a gold heart dangling from it. Annie remembered her mother wearing it many years ago.

“I want you to have it,” Lucy said in a tired voice, and Annie smiled.

“I love it.” She kissed her mother and went to check on her brothers.

The Markhams were very understanding, and heartbroken for them. Everyone on the estate was aware of how sick she was. Whenever Lucy was at home, she sat staring at the TV. She had her favorite shows, and particularly one about the royals. She watched it one night and Jonathan could see that she was in pain. He was tempted to have a drink himself to calm his nerves, but he wanted to be alert for her, in case she needed him in the night. She had trouble sleeping, and he often stayed awake all night to keep a watchful eye on her, and give her morphine when she needed it.