***Chapter 38***
***1960***
They were inseparable, The Old Man and the little girl. Old Jim, they called him now. The stable folk had long ago learnt that his name was Jimmy but they always called him Jim. It seemed to give a dignity somehow to one so much older than they, for the staff at Hepplethwaite’s Riding Stables were generally very young.
His constant companion nowadays, Dora, a little girl with hazel eyes full of dreams, and brown hair like autumn, glinting as it did with red, gold and chestnut when caught by sunlight, was a natural with the horses although she was never allowed to ride. It was “her parents’ strictest instructions in case she ever hurt herself”, Old Jim explained sadly, and when it seemed, as if often did, that Dora was about to throw a tantrum because of her “parents’ strictest instructions” Old Jim only had to quell her with a look.
“They only want what’s best for you, Daz,” he reminded her. “And remember the Ten Commandments, The Lord tells us Honour thy Father and thy Mother.”
And Daz, as he nicknamed her, would gracefully swallow her disappointment, not because she thought her parents knew best, nor even because she thought The Lord knew best, oh, no, but simply because she adored Old Jim and thought
he knew best.
Dora was a funny little soul. Like many other small girls, she dreamed of being a princess but, unlike other small girls, her dream was not to meet a handsome rich prince and live happily ever after.
“When I grow up, I’m going to marry a very poor prince and we’ll keep lots of horses in the very poor palace,” she confided gravely one day to Paul, one of the stable hands, to his great amusement though, to his credit, he managed to keep a straight face.
At Hepplethwaite’s, nobody knew quite what to make of the pretty little miss with the cut-glass accent and refined manners, who could whisper to the horses and have them understand, who wore the most expensive outfits, yet wished enviously that she could “wear hand-me-downs and be like Lucy” (twelve-year-old Lucy came from a large, desperately poor family and earned her weekly riding lessons by mucking out and running regular errands) and who, despite her obvious wealth, at only five years old, already abhorred the trappings of wealth. Old Jim, with his Yorkshire brogue, weatherbeaten face and rough hands, was from working class stock like themselves, but Dora remained an enigma.
And so, as people will when the full facts are unknown to them, they created their own story, and, as people do, came to believe it to be the true version of events. Because she called him by his first name, they decided Old Jim, who had once mentioned being a widower, must have married someone who already had a grown-up family and the youngster must be the granddaughter, perhaps even great-granddaughter, of his late wife. One of the step-children or their offspring had done very well for themselves too, they further embellished their wonderfully imaginative tale, and wanted Dora to have the very best of education and opportunities that poverty had denied them.
Dora would have been a great disappointment to her nouveau rich parents, however, for her aspirations were alarmingly low. When asked the age-old question what she wanted to be or do when she grew up, besides being a very poor princess, she inevitably answered cleaner or housekeeper or maid or simply to “drive a car”.
Yorkshire colloquiallisms and London slang words, sounding so out of place among her carefully enunciated vowels, slipped easily into her childish chatter although, whenever they did, she would clap her hand over her mouth in sudden realisation and exclaim, eyes dancing with delighted mischief, “Mummy and Daddy say I must NEVER talk so - oh, but it’s much more fun!”
Then she would smile a huge smile at Old Jim, a smile that grew broader and broader and spilled over into giggles the more he shook his head in stern disapproval until, in the end, he couldn’t help but smile himself.
But at other times her laughter would give way instead to a heartfelt sigh and she would catch hold of his hand and say wistfully, “But, Jimmy, it feels REAL to talk this way. I wish I always could.”
Jimmy never went riding again, not in all the time he regularly called to Hepplethwaite’s. At first, it had been because it seemed disloyal to Beauty’s memory but, a little later, and just when he was considering whether or not he should, he returned home one day to be greeted by the surreal sight of an extremely anxious Prudence and Arthur, the pair almost running down the driveway towards him, Arthur holding on to his hat, and Prudence trying to give the appearance that she was in no hurry whatsoever and just happened to be waddling at an unusually fast pace.
It had been back in the very early days of his visits some four or five years ago when, out on a brisk walk, his solitary footsteps crunched into the pure white snow had led him to a glorious winter scene.
A beautiful bay horse, cosily clad in warm, striped hand-woven blanket, stared curiously out at him for a moment from the comfort of its stable, the blue-grey fog of its breath rising on the icy air, and then whinnied a cheerful greeting to the stranger…