“Jessie, do you know what a mistress is?”
“She’s someone you mount whenever you want to.”
“Horses mount. Humans have sex. Do you know what sex is all about?”
“I suppose it’s a lot like the stallions and the mares, regardless of what you say. All very loud and messy and painful.”
“Painful?”
“The mares are always screaming and thrashing around, and the stallions bite their necks and rumps. But they keep doing it, so I suppose it must please them. Sweet Susie was eager for any stallion available, even poor old Benjie. When we were racing away from those men, I told Benjie to promise Sweet Susie that he’d give her anything she wanted just as long as she ran as fast as she could. She did run fast, James.”
“Jessie, I can’t believe this conversation. Now, I want you to go to Balboney’s. I’ll join you in just a few minutes, all right?”
“All right. Oh, James, I like Mrs. Maxwell. She’s ever so pretty and she laughs a lot. She’s always been very nice to me. She always bets on me, too.”
“I know, she told me. You’re right. She is very nice. Wait for me, Jessie.”
She watched him make his way through the drays, the horses, the carriages, and the beer wagon to get to the other side of the street. She watched him greet Mrs. Maxwell and saw the lady smile up at him, her gloved hand on his forearm. He leaned down to hear what she was saying. Mrs. Maxwell was very small, barely coming to James’s shoulder. Jessie turned away, twisting the handle of her parasol with such violence that it split apart. “Well, damn,” she said, and walked to Balboney’s Ice Cream Emporium on Baltimore Street.
Jessie was eating a vanilla ice cream out of a small blue bowl when James strode into the shop not five minutes later. He sat opposite her, ordered himself an ice cream, and said, “Connie says hello. She also said my taste is improving. I told her she needed spectacles. She said I should ask you nicely to give me some pointers on racing.”
“I could give you lots of pointers, James, but I doubt you’d listen. You’d box my ears even if I managed to make gentle suggestions, wouldn’t you? Besides, you don’t really need all that many pointers. The fact is, you’re just too big to ride in races. I’m sorry for you, it’s too bad, but you’re just going to have to face up to it. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to swagger around the way you do if you were a real jockey who weighed one hundred pounds. How’s Redcoat? Will he be able to ride at the Axminster Races Saturday?”
“No, it’s me again. Redcoat’s leg won’t be healed properly for another couple of months, at least. I’ve been training Peter, but the lad’s not ready yet. You’d eat him alive. The male jockeys would toss him off his horse’s back and into a ditch without even breaking stride. No, he needs more time so I can make him mean. You’ve got me as an opponent on Saturday, Jessie. Are you going to ride Rialto?”
“No, he has a sore hock. I don’t know what happened, but I suspect his stable lad wasn’t all that careful with him. No, since it’s quarter-horse racing, I’ll be on Jigg and Bonny Black. They can run faster than the wind for that quarter mile. How about you?”
“Tinpin. He’ll beat you this time, Jessie. You haven’t got a chance. I’ve been speaking to him privately all week, offering him bribes, telling him that you’re just a twit female and that if he lets you beat him again, he’ll have to retire in ignominy. He’s ready. He’ll be out for blood.”
“Just you stay away from me, James. No pushing me into a tree or a ditch. Do ride Console, too. He’s got more heart than any horse I’ve ever seen.”
He shouldn’t be surprised. He said slowly, “You’re right. Console is a bit too long in the back, but he does have heart. I’m always afraid that if I race him for longer than a quarter mile, his heart will bur
st because he’ll push himself so hard.”
“You wouldn’t push him. That’s why you’re an excellent horseman. Not as good as my father or I, but you’re good nonetheless. Now, I’ve been thinking about this, James. I’ve decided that Connie Maxwell isn’t really your mistress.”
“You’re quite right. She’s a friend and I like her and she likes me and we enjoy each other. A man pays a woman to be a mistress. Connie is independent. She can order me out of her life whenever she tires of me. Now, Jessie, you’re unmarried, a virgin, and this sort of talk isn’t right. It wouldn’t fluster Glenda, but with you, no, it’s just not right. Eat your ice cream.”
“I am. It’s delicious. I’d like another one.”
“Just don’t ask me to carry you around anymore.”
“You think I’m fat?”
“For God’s sake, Jessie, you’re as skinny as that table leg. I’m just jesting with you.”
“Nelda and her husband, Bramen, came to dinner last night. He’s fat, James, and he eats like Friar Tuck, who’s in stud now and can eat like a pig if he wants to. I don’t think Nelda likes him very much.”
“Friar Tuck or her husband?”
Jessie took another bite of her ice cream. “Nelda doesn’t like horses at all, so I guess it’s both. Glenda told her about how she was going to marry you by the end of the summer. She said she’d be a beautiful September bride. She said you would be ready by then. Mama agreed with her. She said that you would be over your grieving, if in fact you were still grieving, which she doubted because you were a man and men evidently don’t grieve. Grieving about what, James?”
He said in a voice as remote as that faraway desert in Africa, “I was married. My wife died in childbirth. That was three years ago. I told you I wasn’t going to marry your sister. Why don’t you weave that into your dinner conversation this evening? I don’t wish to be rude to her, Jessie, but I have no intention of marrying her.”
“Do you like me?”
“No, not particularly. You’re a pest. At least you’re a good horsewoman. Don’t get that punctured look. All right, I like you sometimes. I see you’re finished. Do you want another ice cream?”