Stars In My Heart

CHAPTER ONE 1876Gisela pushed open the door of the saddler’s shop. Although she had been there often enough, she always felt a sense of embarrassment and shyness in having to go into what seemed a peculiarly masculine domain. It was invariably the same, that strange sinking feeling in her heart and the hesitation that made her long to find some excuse for putting off the moment when she must cross the threshold and encounter the curious eyes of possibly half a dozen strangers. Old Fred Tyler, the saddler, knew her well enough and she was certainly not afraid of him. She had come there on errands for her father since she was old enough to walk. Reins to be mended, a girth to be repaired, a saddle-strap to be replaced. There was never an occasion when she was about to take the trap to Towcester when her father, the Squire, did not make the same remark, “Going to Towcester? I have something you can take to Tyler for repair.” But Fred Tyler was not only a saddler, he was, it seemed to Gisela, the centre and the meeting ground for all the gossip that went on in the County. Invariably there would be a group of men standing in front of the roaring log fire that occupied one wall of the shop. Men in boots and breeches, bespattered with mud and wearing with their pink coats the coloured collars that denoted whether they were members of the Pytchley, the Bicester or the Duke of Grafton’s Hunt. Their hands deep in their pockets, they would be roaring with laughter or swilling a pint of ale in the deep pewter pots that Fred Tyler’s boy had fetched from the neighbouring inn. It seemed to Gisela that, when she entered the shop, their laughter would stop abruptly. There would come a sudden silence as the gentlemen round the fire eyed her speculatively. Then, when she had left, their laughter would ring out again, echoing in her ears long after she had left the shop. She would long to know what Fred Tyler said about her, for often enough before the door had closed behind her she would hear the question, “Who is she?” What did he say? Was it simple? Like, “her be Squire Musgrave’s daughter.” That would be an easy explanation. Or did he go into details, adding, “Her be Squire Musgrave’s daughter by his first wife, that fancy foreign woman what died some ten years ago, before he married that Lady Harriet.” “Good God! Has Harriet Musgrave got a stepdaughter? She won’t care for that. Women aren’t Harriet’s partiality.” There would be gales of laughter at that, laughter that would make Gisela tremble and hurry her steps a little quicker along the cobbled street. But perhaps she was exaggerating. Perhaps, as she had been told often enough when she was a child, she was letting her imagination run away with her. Perhaps the gentlemen round the fireplace were not in the slightest interested in her or who she might be. And, indeed, why should they be? She looked insignificant and shabby enough in her old threadbare brown dress, which had been darned and repaired until there was nothing more that she could do to it. Her bonnet too was sadly out of fashion. Why should they look at her, slinking nervously into the shop on some paltry errand that the groom could easily have executed if her father had seen fit to spare him? ‘Why am I such a coward?’ Gisela asked. And told herself that it was only because she was confined by the walls of a house that she must suffer from this sense of inferiority. It was so different when she was riding. Then she felt the equal of any man and the superior to most. She knew that she could outride them – she knew that, however shabby her habit might be, she need not be ashamed of her seat or of her hands. ‘I am not afraid! I am not afraid!’ she said to herself now and walked into the shop. It was not so bad as she had anticipated. There were only two men in front of the fire today and she knew them both by sight. They were farmers, one from Northampton way, the other from the South of the County, an elderly man who had once caught her horse for her after she had taken a toss over a particularly bad fence. She smiled at him shyly as she crossed the wooden floor and he raised his hat as Fred Tyler came from behind the wooden counter, rubbing his hands on his leather apron. Fred Tyler looked almost like a bit of his own saddlery. It was impossible to imagine him except with a background of saddles and bridles, reins and girths, whips and traces. His skin was the colour of leather and his back was bowed with long hours of bending over his work. There was a twinkle in his eye and a sly humour on his tongue that made him the character that he was, so that men of all classes and all types called to see old Fred whenever they were in Towcester. “Good mornin’, missie! And what can I do for you?” “Good morning, Fred! The Squire asked me to bring you this rein. He says it’s rough beneath his fingers.” Gisela handed it to the old man as she spoke. He took it from her, examining the length of it and tut-tutting between his teeth as he found a broken stitch. “Tell the Squire it’ll be repaired – he shall have it within four and twenty hours.” “There was something else he asked me to tell you – ” Gisela began. It was at that moment that the door of the shop was thrown open. “Saddler!” a peremptory voice called out. It was a servant who stood there, but a very superior and resplendent servant, wearing breeches and boots that were polished so that they seemed almost to reflect like mirrors, a livery coat adorned with crested buttons, a yellow and black striped waistcoat and cockaded top hat, which sat on his head at such a jaunty angle that it was almost an impertinence in itself. “Hallo there, saddler!” this apparition called again in a voice that echoed and re-echoed round the small shop. “Would you be wantin’ me?” Fred Tyler asked, going forward slowly. “Who else, if you’re the saddler?” was the reply. “His Lordship wishes to speak to you. Outside with you and be quick about it. We don’t want to hang about in this benighted hole all day.” There was a moment’s silence. The farmers in front of the fireplace had stopped talking and were staring at the flunkey. Gisela was staring too and for a moment it seemed as if Fred Tyler hesitated. He was used to gentry who treated him, if not with respect, at least with a certain amount of politeness. Perhaps for a moment he felt a certain resentment, an impulse to revolt against such scurvy treatment. But tradition was too strong for him. “I be a-comin’ to his Lordship,” he said and hurried through the open door, which slammed noisily behind him. Gisela waited patiently. At the same time she felt herself shiver as if the March winds had driven away the warmth of the shop. The new year of 1876 had come in with bitter cold and deep snow. February had been damp and foggy and now March was filled with blustery winds driving across the countryside uprooting the trees and bringing the chimney pots tumbling down into the streets. It seemed as if the winter had been unusually long and Gisela had a sudden longing for the spring sunshine, for the first daffodils and then the long warm days of summer. Content in her own thoughts she did not at first hear what the two farmers were saying and then gradually the sense of their conversation percolated her consciousness. “Her took that big fence down by the brook just like a bird, her did,” the older man was saying. “I tell you, Jim, I’ve n’er seen the like of it all me born days.” “I know, I’ve seen her with my own eyes,” the younger man remarked. “There’ve been women enough in the Duke’s country who could ride – and as well as any man. But she seems part of the horse.” “That’s it, boy! That’s just what I were a-sayin’,” the other farmer agreed. “Her seems a part of the horse. I thought we could teach these foreigners summat, but maybe there’s a bit as we can learn.” Gisela wondered who they were talking about. She had not been hunting these past ten days because one of her father’s mares had sprained a fetlock and he had wanted all the horses for himself. Obviously someone new had appeared in the hunting field. She felt curious and at the same time envious. It was agony for her not to be able to ride, to be kept at home to listen to the scoldings of her stepmother and to be made to help with all the most invidious tasks in the household that no one else would do, when she might be galloping across the fields, leaping the hedges, being in for the kill. She drew a deep breath at the very thought. At that moment the door opened. “If you’ll step this way, my Lord, I’ll show your Lordship the bridle I’d in mind. ’Tis the very latest design and the same pattern as one I made for His Grace. And yet I’ve improved on it, if I may be permitted to say so.” Fred Tyler hobbled across the floor and was followed by a gentleman. Gisela moved quickly so as to be out of his way, squeezing herself almost apologetically against the wall on the opposite side to that of the fireplace, a wall that, being overhung with saddles, was in the deepest shadow. Not that the gentleman entering the shop was likely to pay the slightest attention to her. He walked slowly, but with an arrogance and a pride that made him dominate and overshadow everything and everyone else. He was very tall, hatless, his dark hair shining in the firelight. He had square shoulders beneath his blue whipcord coat and an exquisitely tied cravat, which threw into prominence the squareness of his jaw. He betrayed not by the flicker of an eye his awareness that there were other occupants of the shop. He ignored the two farmers standing awkwardly and silently by the fire and Gisela shrinking into insignificance at the end of the counter. Long thin fingers, which seemed somehow more capable than they looked, examined the bridles that Fred Tyler heaped eagerly upon the counter. “Too heavy,” he said firmly. “But I assure you, my Lord – ” “Too heavy,” he repeated. “Show me another.” There was something sharp in his voice when he spoke the second time. It was obvious that he was a man who could not be argued with, who expected and intended to have his own way. “Now this, my Lord, is the finest I’ve ever made,” Fred Tyler continued. There was silence while his Lordship examined it. “That will do.” He turned without another word and went from the shop. He seemed so tall, it was almost as if his head touched the ceiling. The whole shop was full of him, his breadth, his importance, his air of authority. He reached the door. Surely, Gisela thought, he must bow his head to pass through it? He is too tall – he must abandon his arrogant carriage, which seemed to challenge the world or stun himself against the heavy oak beam above the doorway. She waited. He passed through the door, which Fred Tyler obsequiously opened for him, with a tenth of an inch to spare. Gisela did not know why, but she drew a deep breath. He was gone and there was only his impudent servant to say, “Bring it out to the coach, saddler, and quick about it.” She watched Fred Tyler, wrapping up the bridle, cursing beneath his breath at the awkwardness of the parcel, hurrying, panting, almost falling over himself to get to the door rapidly. It was then that Gisela felt she could wait no longer. Something in what she had witnessed revolted her. She felt both angry and rebellious and yet could not explain her feelings even to herself. She had seen the overbearing ways of the Nobility often enough, both in the hunting field and in the town. Yet there was something about the man who had just entered the shop that aroused a confusion of feelings she had never known before.