Barbara Cartland - 273. The Elusive Earl

Eclipse made his first appearance on a Racecourse in the ‘Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Plate’ at Epsom in 1769. His breath-taking performance made everyone with a knowledge of horseflesh realise that here was a phenomenon that would stand out for all time in the history of racing.

The Earl of Helstone as a boy had heard his father talk of Eclipse and of his win being recorded by the famous words ‘Eclipse first, the rest nowhere’.

He had a strong feeling that Delos or one of the other horses in his stable, might prove to be what he sought. But one could never be sure until the animal had run in a number of the great races on the flat.

‘Perhaps to own an ‘Eclipse’ or a horse to equal him,’ the Earl told himself now, ‘would be the most satisfactory ambition that a man could ask of life.’

He looked up at a picture over the mantelpiece. It was a portrait of Eclipse painted by George Stubbs.

The dark chestnut colour of the horse was set off by a white blaze and white stocking on his off hind leg. He was a big horse by the standard of his time, standing fifteen hands three inches.

He had a great length from hip to hock, a short and powerful forearm and long sloping shoulders.

These qualities had given him his tremendous stride, which, when combined with a fiery aggressive temperament, won for him an indelible place in the annals of the turf.

Lord Yaxley followed his friend’s eyes and commented,

“I grant you Delos made a spectacular finish today. Do you think he can win the Derby?”

“I have not yet made up my mind if I will enter him,” the Earl responded.

“You will be pressed to do so,” Lord Yaxley said.

“I assure that you I shall follow my own judgement in the matter,” the Earl answered. “Nobody yet has been successful in pressing me to do anything I did not wish to do.”

His friend, looking at him across the hearth, decided that this was most certainly true.

He knew better than anyone else how determined and unyielding the Earl could be once he had made up his mind.

He was extremely fond of him and they had indeed been friends ever since they had been children in their perambulators.

They had been to the same school, served in the same Regiment and strangely enough they had inherited their titles and estates in the same year.

But, while the Earl was immeasurably richer and more important on a Social scale than Lord Yaxley, who was comfortably well off and there were few prestigious families in Great Britain who would not have welcomed him as a son-in-law.

“To win the Derby would be a satisfaction that I do not think could be achieved by any other race,” Lord Yaxley said.

“I agree with you,” the Earl remarked. “But if I don’t enter Delos, there is always Zeus or Pericles.”

“The trouble is you have too many plums in the pudding!” Lord Yaxley smiled.

“Still gunning for me, eh, Willoughby?”

The Earl rose to his feet to walk across the comfortably furnished room.

“And after the Derby, I suppose I try for the Gold Cup at Ascot and after Ascot the St. Leger?”

“Why not?” Lord Yaxley enquired.

“The same old round,” the Earl remarked. “You are right, Willoughby, I am beginning to find it a dead bore. I think I will go abroad.”

“Abroad?” Lord Yaxley expostulated, sitting up in his chair. “What on earth for? And surely not during the Season?”

“I think it is the Season that I find so extremely dull,” the Earl remarked. “Those endless balls and parties. The invitations pouring in. The chatter, the gossip and the scandal. I have done it so many times before. My God! It is a headache.”

“You are spoilt, Osric, just spoilt,” Lord Yaxley exclaimed. “Why, there is not a man in the whole country who would not give his right arm to be standing in your shoes.”

“I wish I could think of something that I was prepared to sacrifice my right arm for,” the Earl replied.

Lord Yaxley was silent for a moment, his eyes on his friend’s face.

Then he asked him quietly,

“Something in particular is making you blue-devilled?”

The Earl did not reply, but sat in front of the fireplace, looking into the flames.

“It is Genevieve, is it not?” Lord Yaxley quizzed him after a moment.

“Partly,” the Earl admitted.

“What can she have done?”

“As a matter of fact if you want to know the truth,” the Earl said, “she tells me that she is having a baby!”

Lord Yaxley looked at him in astonishment and then he said sharply,

“It is not true!”

The Earl turned from his contemplation of the fire to look at his friend.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean what I say,” Lord Yaxley answered. “It is a lie, because Genevieve had told my youngest sister a long time ago that, owing to a fall whilst out hunting when she was a girl, the doctors have said it is impossible for her to bear a child.”

He paused and then he added,

“That was one of the reasons why I was so afraid that you might marry her. It is not my business, of course, and I do not want to interfere, but I would have told you before you took her up the aisle.”

The Earl sat back again in the armchair.

“Are you sure of this, Willoughby?”

“Dead certain. My sister, who was at the same school as Genevieve, told me about the accident at the time. When she married Rodney, he was longing for her to give him a son. According to my sister they consulted half-a-dozen doctors, but there was nothing that could be done about it.”

There was silence for a moment and then he added,

“If you ask me, Genevieve is determined to get you by hook or by crook and the whole story is a concoction in the hope that you will behave like a gentleman.”

The Earl rose to his feet.

“Thank you, Willoughby. You have indeed taken a load off my mind. And now I think we should retire to bed. If we are going to watch the gallops, we must leave the house at six o’clock promptly.”

“Well, all I can say is that I am glad I did not drink deep!” Lord Yaxley remarked as they walked towards the door.

He knew that the Earl had no desire to discuss the subject of Lady Genevieve further.

At the same time Lord Yaxley was glad that the Earl had raised the subject first and he had been able to give him without embarrassment the information that had been hovering on his lips for a long time.

Close though they were, Lord Yaxley was indeed aware that the Earl could be extremely reserved where his love affairs were concerned and he well knew as they walked up the stairs towards their bedrooms that only in exceptional circumstances would he have admitted, as he had tonight, what was troubling him.

‘Blast Genevieve!’ Lord Yaxley said to himself as they parted on the landing and went to their respective bedrooms.

He was certain that it was the thought of being forced to marry the delectable widow that had spoilt the Earl’s enjoyment of winning the race this afternoon and made him more than usually remote and difficult.

But with or without the problem of Genevieve, Lord Yaxley had been aware for some time that the Earl was bored with the social round and his own proverbial luck, which made everything he touched turn to gold.

‘Osric is right!’ he told himself as he got into bed. ‘What he needs is a war or a similar challenge to give him an incentive.’

It was all the fault of having too much money, Lord Yaxley decided.

The Earl was so unbelievably rich that there was really nothing that he could not buy.

Horses, women, possessions, they all required little effort on his part. Perhaps it was a surfeit of success that had made the Earl grow cynical and, even to his best friends, there was now a hardness about him that was increasingly perceptible.