“What, Oliver? Oh, my English cousins. They’ve got a lot on their plate just now, what with the Duchess birthing her second child, another little boy, just three months ago. They named him Charles James. I’m his godfather. He’s dark-haired like his father but he’s got his mother’s deep blue eyes. Come to think of it, Marcus has deep blue eyes and his mother has dark hair too.”
“Duchess. I’ve always thought that was an odd name.”
“Her husband named her that when she was nine years old and he was all of fourteen. She was very contained even then, you see, very collected and calm in any crisis. She still is, except around Marcus. He glories in being offensive and does it particularly well around her. It drives her mad. It occasionally even drives her voice up an octave, though only rarely.”
“She writes ditties, didn’t you say? Even though she’s rich and a countess?”
“Yes, she’s quite good.”
“That’s a man’s job.”
James looked taken aback. “I suppose so. I never really considered that before. It’s just a natural part of her, a talent she has that everyone takes for granted—at least they do now.”
“Just the way my Jessie is talented with horses,” Oliver said. “A lot of folk just take her talent for granted.” He shoved James back into his office. “We’ve still got a bit more of your claret to drink.”
“No, there’s just a sip left in my glass,” James said sadly. “What earthly good could cucumbers do?”
Sober John covered Sweet Susie two mornings later. Oslow oversaw the lads in their handling of both the stallion and the mare, who’d been in heat now for a good week.
“Aye, it’s time,” Oslow had said. “I’ve checked her over and it’s time. Sober John’s ready.”
The breeding shed was large, clean, and attached to the stable. Each of the five lads knew what he was to do. They wrapped Sober John’s hooves in soft cotton to protect Sweet Susie. As for her, she was held gently while Oslow guided Sober John to his task. Sober John was excited at her scent and nipped her hard on her rump. For a moment there was chaos, but just for a moment. One of the lads wasn’t all that experienced, and Sweet Susie got away from him. Then the lads got Sober John to focus on his duty, which he proceeded to perform with great enthusiasm.
Oslow himself led a trembling Sober John back to his stall, telling him what a grand fellow he was, how he would have an extra share of oats to go with his hay. Keeping weight on the stallions was a problem during mating. Sober John would also have an extra tub of alfalfa.
As for Sweet Susie, James patted her sweating neck as he slowly led her to the paddock to cool down in the shade of three massive oak trees. She was blowing hard and still a bit unsteady on her hooves. He gave her three buckets of fresh water, brushed her down until she blew complacently into his palm. Allen Belmonde had brought her finally, grudgingly paying James the stud fee. Allen had bought a small racing stable just south of Baltimore after he’d married Alice. He’d wanted to marry Ursula at one time, but she hadn’t been interested in him. James suspected her dowry wasn’t big enough for Allen, anyway. Their mother had been interested, though, in having Allen Belmonde for a son-in-law and that had led to arguments that had led to neighbors giving James impudent grins during the following days.
He hoped that Sweet Susie would foal a winner for Belmonde. It would build Sober John’s reputation and that of Marathon. James gave Sweet Susie a carrot, patted her rump, and said, “This is your second time with Sober John. I just know it in my gut that you’re in foal. Eleven months, my girl,” he said, going to the paddock gate, “then you’ll be a mother.” Since it would be her first foal, James knew they’d have to watch her closely as her time drew near early the next year.
He walked back toward the house, a big red-brick Georgian surrounded by apple, plum, and cherry trees coming into full bloom in the front and a once-beautiful rose garden on the west side. Thomas, his butler, tended a huge vegetable garden in the back of the house.
James had bought the house three years previously from Boomer Bankes, who’d been caught embezzling from a public water fund. Included in the deal were two dozen slaves whom James had promptly freed. All of them had stayed on with him. He’d spent his money building new cabins for all his married people and had added a large dormitory at the top of the stable for all the stable lads. He provided seed for gardens and good lumber for furniture. After he’d finished, he’d had no money left. The putrid green wallpaper in the drawing room of his home still made him bilious, the floors were ugly and scarred, and the horsehair wadding was poking out of several of the settees and chairs. The kitchen was older than the Ellison flour mills on the Patapsco River, but Old Bess knew how to coax everything to work. The privy had reeked so badly that anyone having to walk near it gagged. He’d had everyone wrap kerchiefs around their faces and they’d dug the old privy under half a dozen feet of earth and built a new one, liming it until no one had to hold his nose within ten feet of it, even if there wasn’t an upwind breeze.
Then he’d renamed the farm Marathon, showing off his Latin and Greek education, his cousin Marcus had said, cuffing him, adding that he didn’t know the Colonists even knew such things. During the past year James had spent more and more time in Baltimore. Upon occasion he considered selling his stud in Yorkshire, but then he’d just shake his head at himself. He loved Candlethorpe, loved England, and loved his English relatives. No
, he wouldn’t give up either of his homes.
He came around the east side of the stable, automatically checking off tasks he had already done that morning and thinking about what he had to do throughout the afternoon. He came to a halt at the sound of Oslow’s voice, low and deep, a voice that mesmerized anyone who heard it. James’s ears immediately perked up.
“Aye, Diomed won a three-year-old sweepstakes in England, at Epsom, way back in 1780. But then he just faded away, didn’t win another race, didn’t do a bloody thing. They put him to stud, but there he was a failure, too. He lost all fertility. He came over here in 1800, bought on speculation, you know. And you know what happened, Miss Jessie? It was our good old American air and American food and our American mares that worked magic in that old horse. His fertility returned and he covered just about every mare in every state. Aye, if Diomed were a man he’d be a bloody Casanova. Diomed is the forefather of the American racehorse. He stands alone, I say. He’ll stand alone forever, you mark my words, Miss Jessie.”
“Oh my, Oslow. I remember when he died, I was just a little girl, way back in—When was it?”
“In 1808. A grand old man he was. More folk mourned his passing in old colony land than they did George Washington’s.”
She laughed—a pure, sweet, long laugh, nearly as long as those skinny legs of hers.
James came around the side of the stable to see Oslow sitting on a barrel, Jessie sitting at his feet, her legs crossed, a straw in her mouth. An old hat was set back on her head and her thick red hair was coming out of its pins, straggling down beside her face. She was dressed as disreputably as any of his stable lads on wash day, her wool pants so old they bagged out at the knees and hugged her ankles. It seemed to him, though, that the freckles over her nose were lighter. Her lips weren’t chapped, either.
“So,” he said, “what was that stuff you were using, Jessie? I thought I smelled cucumber.”
“What stuff?” Oslow asked, nodding to James.
James just shook his head. “So you were telling her about Diomed.”
“I wasn’t using any stuff. I just like to eat cucumbers. Did you ever see Diomed, James?”
“Once, when I was a little boy. My father took my brother and me to the racecourse and he was there, a grand old man, just as Oslow said, standing there like a king, and all of us went and bowed. It was quite a show. You’re telling me that you carry cucumbers around and eat them?”