The Silver Falcon Read Free Page B

stay,’ he said.
    The next weeks went by very quickly. It seemed to Isabel and everyone in the house and on the stud that the days of Charles Schriber’s life were flying past. Nothing changed outwardly. The great occasion was the morning Tim Ryan kept his promise and brought the Silver Falcon up to the front of Beaumont in a horse box. Isabel, Rogers the coloured butler, and the nurse lifted Charles out of bed and into a wheelchair. He was brought to the window, and the colt was unloaded and walked up and down below where he could see it.
    Everyone from the youngest stable lad, to Geoffrey Oliver the stud manager, turned up to see it, and when the horse walked down the ramp, and Charles was seen at the window, there was a spontaneous cheer.
    Isabel was beside him; he caught hold of her in his excitement and his grip was surprisingly strong.
    â€˜Look at him – doesn’t he look great! Look at that walk – and the quarters he’s got on him! He’s better than ever, my darling. He’ll murder them.…’ He had looked at her, and his haggard face was flushed with excitement; the flash of fire was in his sunken eyes. For a moment, watching his horse circle below him, Charles Schriber seemed ready to hold death at bay. Then the coughing began, rending him in a brutal spasm that robbed him of all strength. He had been taken back to bed, exhausted and almost too weak to speak. It was a whisper as Isabel bent over him, terrified by the effect of the outburst.
    â€˜He’ll win … even if I can’t live to see him … he’ll win the Derby for me.…’ He had lost consciousness then, and when Andrew Graham was sent for he said that there had been a serious deterioration. He hadn’t blamed Tim or Isabel; he asked, in his slow, measured way, what had brought on the attack and then looked at both of them.
    â€˜He wanted to see him,’ Isabel had heard herself excusing what they had done. ‘He fretted about the colt. Tim and I thought it would make him happy.’
    â€˜I’m sure you had the best of motives,’ Andrew said. ‘But you should have asked me. The excitement has been too much for him. I hate to say this –’ he was looking at Isabel as he spoke – ‘but you may have hastened his end.’
    Since she told Tim about Charles’s illness they had drawn very close. He seemed to understand and to respect her grief. She transferred some of her dependence upon her dying husband to the young and healthy man who seemed so eager to support her. And he loved Charles; Isabel never doubted that. And because she trusted him and had learned to rely on him, she said something when Andrew had gone that she had hardly said to herself.
    â€˜It was cruel of him to say that! He knows I wouldn’t do anything to shorten Charles’s time by a single second and yet he tried to blame me.’ She looked up at him. ‘He’s never liked me. He’s hidden it in front of Charles but I can feel it!’
    â€˜Don’t take any notice,’ Tim said. ‘He’s just emotional himself and taking it out on you. Forget it. If you ask me, he’s too involved with Charles to doctor him. You should have called in someone else. He was damned near breaking down when he came in today.’
    She had sounded more bitter than she realized.
    â€˜Call someone else – you don’t know Charles! He and Andrew are like twins – he’s always calling here. They play golf together, they go off to town together, they shut themselves up in the study for hours. I’ve always felt that Andrew criticized me. He makes me feel I’ve got to justify myself; whatever I do where Charles is concerned, it’s somehow wrong. I’m too young, I don’t understand, it’s always done this way – Charles wouldn’t like it! He goes on, sounding so damned reasonable and trying to be kind, when I feel underneath he