The Silver Falcon Read Free

him rotten, and when he inherited her money he took off. He’s dragged my name in the dirt. Drink, women, gambling; never a day’s work. You talk about having children. One was enough for me. Forget it, sweetheart. The last person in the world I want standing round my bed is Richard.’
    He smiled at her; he looked drawn and very tired. ‘Now you put it out of your head. Put a call through to Tim and tell him to come on up here. I want a report on the horses.’
    â€˜It’ll tire you out,’ she protested. ‘He can come in tomorrow.’
    â€˜I want him tonight,’ her husband said. ‘Make the call, sweetheart. And don’t fuss over me. If I’m dying, I’m going to do it in my own damned way.’
    Tim Ryan arrived some twenty minutes later; she went downstairs, leaving them together. Charles liked to talk over the day’s progress without any interruption. She went back to the study and waited for Tim to come down. He had been one of her first friends when she came to Beaumont. He was in his thirties, and he had held the post of racing manager to the Schriber stable for almost five years.
    She lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly; she felt a sense of profound unreality. It seemed impossible that the conversation with Andrew had taken place. The room was full of her husband’s presence; his armchair loomed opposite to her, a chair where no one else ever sat, even when he wasn’t in the room. The picture above the fireplace was his Christmas present to her, a magnificent Stubbs of a grey stallion. He had bought it because he said it reminded him of his colt, the Silver Falcon. The wall of silver trophies glittered in the lamplight; he refused to lock them away in spite of the insurance company’s protests. What the hell was the good of keeping something in the bank; they were made to look at and to remember their significance. Life, as he said forcefully, was for living. The capacity to extract the maximum out of every moment, good or bad, was part of his magnetism; she had never met anyone like him in England or even in the States, where personal dynamism was far more common. And now that singular spirit was going to be extinguished. A matter of a few weeks, two months at the most; that was the verdict. Christmas. She closed her eyes, fighting the tears. Christmas at Beaumont was the highlight of their year; Charles loved entertaining, and he kept open house for the week before and over the holiday. There were presents for every member of the staff and a huge Christmas tree which they decorated themselves. Neighbours dropped in to see them in a constant stream, bringing presents, children and friends. It had been the greatest imaginable contrast to the austere university festivities of her own home. The polite sherry parties and compulsory attendances at the glorious services were no preparation for the roaring hospitality of Beaumont, presided over by Charles. Their first Christmas, soon after their marriage, he had given her a mink coat wrapped up in a gigantic tinsel cracker. In three years he had given her more furs and jewellery, the Stubbs painting, a custom-made Rolls-Royce and a dress allowance that she couldn’t begin to spend. But he knew every item in the household accounts and nobody got away with overcharging him a cent. It seemed to please him to spoil and indulge her as if she were more like a daughter than a wife; and then the mood would change and he would be a man, wanting her urgently in his bed.
    When they first married, Isabel had tried to become as much a partner as a wife; her attempts to share his early life had been skilfully frustrated, her questions turned aside. The subject of his first wife was never mentioned. Remembering his reaction to her the one time she asked him about Frances, chilled her even now. He was a very private man in some ways, as secretive and resentful of intrusion as he was open-handed and extroverted in the