The Stallion Man

by Judith Glover

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

Frank Morgan: hot-blooded, part gypsy and as renowned for his virility as the great shire horses he owns. Rachael: the beautiful and unfulfilled woman who arrests his wandering eye. Seduced by his charms, she is torn between duty to her husband and a growing affection for a trusted friend. During the long summer months of 1852, the tension mounts leading to a climax and a tragedy that will mark all of their lives. The Stallion Man is a classic tale of romance and tragedy in rural Victorian Sussex, first in the acclaimed Sussex Quartet.

Release date: May 21, 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 334

Sample

In the churchyard someone was laughing.

Rachael glanced down through one of the high arched windows illuminating the gallery of All Souls Church and saw a dark-haired man, playfully pulling a woman behind him along the overgrown path. For a moment she watched them, then remembered herself and gave her attention once more to the Reverend Esmond Bates, delivering the morning sermon from the pulpit.

The clear March light through the stained glass irradiated the curate’s handsome features as he addressed himself to the back of the congregation, and from her solitary place in the gallery above Rachael wryly observed an expression almost of rapture on the faces of several of the female parishioners as they followed his dramatic oration.

Two years ago, she, too, had sat among the pews in the nave gazing up at that tall, slim figure in cassock and pleated surplice, secretly wondering how great a sin it was to nurture such carnal thoughts about Mr Bates when her mind should be turned to the service and worship of God. Now, as she looked at him standing so nobly in the pulpit, she no longer entertained dreams and secret fantasies. The magic of his voice had lost its power even to hold her attention from a stranger’s laughter in the churchyard.

She glanced away again, out through the window beside her. As recently as the end of the 1840s the church had undergone repairs, but funds had run low by the time it came to reglaze the gallery windows. In place of the leaded lights they had had to make do with panes of clear glass, affording those who sat there a view of the old part of All Souls burial ground.

The graves here were mostly Georgian, imposing monuments to the many prosperous families already established in Lewes a century ago: massive flat-topped table tombs surrounded by iron railings and inscribed with the names of generations of Sussex yeomen and merchants. For some years this part had been neglected in favour of the new cemetery, regarded as more fashionably suited to the new Victorian era; and grass now grew rankly between unpruned bushes, railings were broken down or missing altogether, and many of the tombs were overgrown with lichen and ivy, their proud inscriptions obliterated and forgotten.

The man whose laughter had distracted Rachael’s attention was still in sight. He had moved away from the path and was now standing close to his companion, a young woman partly hidden by the sweeping branches of an evergreen. He was looking towards the church, smiling, teeth gleaming under heavy moustaches, eyes beneath level black brows half-closed in pleasure. Rachael had never seen him before. He was dressed in the hard-wearing clothing of a farm worker, and would be in his early thirties.

She watched him catch the young woman by the waist and press her to him, kissing her eagerly on the mouth while his hand moved to the back of her uncovered head and released her hair from the confines of its pins, freeing it about her shoulders. The woman attempted to pull away, moving her head this way and that to escape his kisses, but he held her fast in his arms, the black curly head bent into the curve of her neck.

Rachael felt the colour flooding into her cheeks. Quickly, embarrassed lest someone should catch her watching, she turned towards the pulpit, and realised that the preacher had come to the end of his sermon. His head, too, was bent, but silently in prayer. She collected herself and picked up her hymn book from the rail in front of her.

Esmond Bates cleared his throat.

“Now let us sing together hymn number 545: ‘Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God’.”

The congregation rose shuffling and coughing to its feet as the old organ wheezed into the opening bars of music.

Rachael sang with them; but after a while she found herself unable to resist the temptation to glance down into the churchyard again. The couple were still there, she saw, but they had moved a little way off into the overgrowth of bushes, the woman leaning up against a flat-topped tomb. Her companion was pressed against her, his hands on either side of her hips gripping the slab so that she was imprisoned within his arms. She was no longer struggling. He seemed to be whispering in her ear; and in a while her own arms came slowly up about his waist and held him to her.

A small pulse began to throb in Rachael’s throat as she stared, fascinated, unable to tear her gaze from what was taking place.

The black-haired man lifted the woman backwards so that she lay across the lid of the old tomb, half-screened by bushes. There was a glimpse of the pale flesh of her thigh as he raised the long skirts and pushed them up around her waist, and after a moment he leaned himself forward so that the upper part of his muscular body covered hers.

She stretched her arms out above her, languorously almost; and then her head began to twist from side to side, the loose hair catching amongst the tendrils of ivy, her mouth opening on a soundless cry.

Rachael’s eyes burned. She had witnessed other couples openly making love, but never like this. Those others had been poor undernourished creatures, befuddled men and wanton women reeling out of public houses in the lower parts of the hilly town. But this pair were young and vigorous, their appetites fired not by drink but by a healthy pleasure of the senses. In her dreams Rachael had once dared to hope that this would be how she and her husband might be together, passionate and uninhibited; and for the first few months of their marriage she had tried, artlessly, to draw response from him to her own half-awakened needs.

He had not reacted as her innocent fantasies had led her to imagine any husband would; and not at all in the same way as the man out in the churchyard. It puzzled and distressed her. She knew that she was attractive, and she would have thought desirable. Her husband was older than she, but he was little more than forty and she had heard of men well into their sixties who had fathered children.

But she had never tried to discuss the subject. He disliked any talk of intimate matters.

Rachael realised suddenly that the hands holding her hymn book were trembling and her throat had gone so dry that she could scarcely find voice for the amen. The congregation rustled to its knees for prayer. Replacing the book on the rail as she got down, she became aware that the minister was watching her from below, and even from this distance she caught something of the censure in his pale eyes.

She drew a deep, uneven breath and forced herself to smile down at him. It would not do for her to seem distracted from her husband’s service.

The Reverend Esmond Bates saw his wife’s smile before her face was hidden by the black bonnet as she bent her head. He had noticed her gazing through the window, obviously caught up by whatever it was she watched out there instead of attending to the solemnity of worship. A small frown marked the high, white forehead as he began to read the prayer for the Queen’s Majesty.

“O Lord our heavenly father, high and mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only ruler of princes, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; most heartily we beseech thee with thy favour to behold our most gracious sovereign lady, Queen Victoria; and so replenish her with the grace of thy Holy Spirit that she may always incline to thy will and walk in thy way …”

When the service was over, Rachael came down from the gallery to wait for her husband at the rear of the nave, exchanging greetings with the congregation as they filed out into the porch. Her youth prohibited some of the older people from paying her more than brief acknowledgment; and two or three of the women scarcely more than glanced at her as they went by. She suspected that their unfriendliness stemmed from resentment that she, of all the spinsters in All Souls parish, had been chosen by the curate for his wife.

But there were many more who stopped to exchange a word or two with the quiet, gravely beautiful girl before leaving the church. Rachael had a soft, slightly husky voice that was warm and sympathetic and a natural manner that made each person she spoke to feel that they had been especially singled out for her attention; and her caring attitude was much appreciated by the infirm and needy of the parish. The vicar’s wife, Mrs Bethway, came a very poor second in their esteem, a woman whose curt tone and severe expression reflected all too faithfully her nature.

Rachael turned as her husband approached. He made a distinguished figure, as well as handsome, the black of the frock-coat and trousers contrasting with the fairness of his smooth hair; but he did not return her smile.

“The service went well, Esmond.” She took his arm. “I think your sermon was much appreciated.”

Esmond Bates glanced about him. There was no one left inside the church now, apart from one of the sidesmen, an assistant churchwarden, at the other end; and he did not bother to lower his voice as he answered, “It is the more to be regretted, then, that you yourself should find it less than absorbing.”

Her cheeks coloured at the rebuke and her hand fell back. “But I did.”

“Really? A great pity we could not afford the stained glass. Those clear windows are so conducive to distraction. Perhaps it would help your concentration if in future you sat among the congregation here below.”

“But Mrs Bethway sits in the gallery. Why shouldn’t I, in her absence?”

“You know the vicar’s wife keeps a register of parishioners attending. Since it would not do for her to be seen counting them out at the door like so many sheep, she does it discreetly from above. She does not choose to seat herself there in order to be diverted at moments of tedium by anything down in the churchyard. What was it, by the way?”

Rachael bit her lip. He would be horrified if she told him.

“Forgive me, Esmond. I didn’t realise. If I’ve offended you, I’m truly sorry for it.”

Her husband placed a hand lightly on her shoulder, a gesture of conciliation. “Very well. Now if you wish to walk on a little, I will catch up with you along the path. There is something I still have to attend to before I leave.”

She nodded and moved away.’

Once beyond the church porch she paused, though, enjoying the clean freshness of the air after the stuffy smell of old stone and wood. The warmth of early spring sunlight was pleasant on her shoulders through the black woollen shawl. She tilted back her head and closed her eyes; but the scene she had witnessed was still so vivid in her mind that after a moment curiosity overcame her, and looking around to find herself alone, she left the path and walked quickly over to the corner of the tower where a wicket gate led into the old churchyard.

The place seemed deserted. The dark-haired man and his companion must have seen the people coming out of church, and gone.

Just as she was turning away again, Rachael’s attention was arrested by something moving on the far side of a tangle of sweetbriar. She hesitated; and a figure slowly came into view. It was the young woman. Rachael’s eyes widened as she recognised Charlotte Smith, who had only recently taken up work as nursery minder at the dame school in Frog Lane.

She came on at a leisurely pace across the rough grass, her head bent, her hands up to fasten back her hair, a straw bonnet swinging by its ribbon from her wrist. The hem of her skirts was heavy with damp and the dark material was marked in places with golden smears of lichen.

“Oh!”

She looked up, startled to find someone there. Then, seeing only the curate’s wife, she gave a little laugh. “It’s you, Mrs Bates.”

Rachael returned the greeting and waited for her to pass through the gate. Already in those few moments of surprise she had decided to say nothing of what she had seen during the service. It was too private a thing to be spoken of; it would only cause embarrassment.

The two fell into step and moved on a little way together.

“You’ve been walking in the long grass?” Rachael asked lightly. “Your skirts are quite damp.”

“Oh—why, so they are.” Charlotte’s eyes flickered downwards to the tell-tale stains. “I hadn’t noticed.” She paused, casting her mind round for some excuse, then went on hurriedly, “It was so close inside the church … I come out halfway through the service to get some air. The walk freshened me. I wanted to be by myself, and nobody goes into that part nowadays, do they?”

“None who should. But I believe undesirable men sometimes get in. Do take care, Miss Smith. It’s rather lonely there and if you came to harm you might not be able to make anyone hear.”

Charlotte smiled. She adjusted her bonnet and said, “Thank you, ma’am. I must remember that in future.” Then, seeing the Reverend Bates emerging from the porch, she turned away and began to walk rapidly along the path.

By the time the curate and his wife had reached the lychgate at the further end she was already out of sight.

The shadow of the black stallion fell across the mouth of the barn, touching the face of the young woman concealed just within. She shivered suddenly and drew herself further back among the bales of straw, where dusty shafts of sunlight pierced the dimness and glinted on the red of her hair.

Dinah Flynn had no words to explain what it was about the great horse that filled her with such primitive awe; but his closeness and the rank smell of his sweat sent a prickle of fear through her, heightened by the sense of his excitement as he caught the warm in-season odour of the mare being led in across the yard.

“Easy now, Regent … slow, boy.”

The man leading the stallion spoke softly. Hearing him, the woman edged cautiously forward again, her long skirts dragging in the straw underfoot, moving almost furtively to the barn door where she stood half-hidden in shadow, following his confident handling of the restless black Shire. Her eyes rarely left his face.

She had watched the pair of them before, in other yards on other farms, and each time had been struck by the physical likeness of the leader to his stallion. The same deep-chested muscular body, the same swarthiness, the same impression of compact strength. Not only the physical likeness, either. There was also the shared resentment of any kind of restraint; and the potent, impatient attraction to the opposite sex.

The stallion whinnied harshly and began to plunge against the restraining halter to reach the mare on the other side of the barrier—the trying bar—set across the middle of the yard. Alarmed by the sounds and the pungent smell, she tried to pull free of the two farm men at her head, the whites of her eyes glistening as the stallion was finally led round behind her.

It was a noisy business. In a while he rose up into the air, forelegs curving, and after several attempts came down heavily on her back. The woman watching from the shadows marvelled, as she always did, that any creature could carry his thrusting weight on her hindquarters without being forced to the ground.

In one swift, practised movement the stallion leader guided the shaft towards the mare. It was necessary when time was short and there were others still waiting to be covered by the Shire. He watched dispassionately for a time, dark eyes narrowed under strong brows; then he grinned at the two men steadying the mare’s head. They grinned back, but there was respect in their expression as well.

“Is the water ready?” he asked. “We’ll be needing it in a minute.”

Above him, the stallion grunted twice, then reared up away from his mate, forehooves striking noisily against the cobbles as he came down.

“Quick, now—seal her off!”

Avoiding the spent stallion, the more agile of the two handlers snatched up the pail of water set ready by the yard wall and dashed the contents over the mare’s swollen share, the sudden cold douche causing her to clamp her muscles and effectively, if crudely, sealing in the stallion seed.

“There. That’s done.”

The leader wiped the palms of his hands across the front of his corduroy breeches and pushed back a curling strand of dark hair from his eyes. He motioned to one of the men.

“You can lead him off now. Don’t look so blasted nervous, man! He’s as tame as a chick afterwards.” He tossed the halter rein over. “Here. Let him rest quiet for a bit. He’s earned it.”

The sharp air sounded to the heavy breathing of the horses and the scrape of hooves as they were led from the yard; then the noises died away and there was a silence, broken only by the buzz of flies around the midden and the distant clucking of hens. The stallion leader pushed himself casually away from the trying bar and went over towards the barn, smiling to himself.

“Dinah?” he called.

There was a swift movement and the red-haired woman came from behind the door and into his arms.

“Silly girl,” he murmured against her hair. “Hiding yourself away. One of these days I shan’t be able to find you.”

“Mebbe one o’ these days you won’t be looking for me, Frank.” She flung back her head and stared up into his amused face. “You’re late coming this month. I’ve waited near a week. What kept you?”

It was almost an accusation.

Instead of replying, he kissed her hard on the mouth. He had discovered long ago that kisses answered women better than any words, however tenderly spoken. After a moment or two he released her and said, “Well now, beauty, what’s the news in Weatherfield? Anything happening while I’ve not been here?”

When she did not answer at once he looked at her. Her eyes were lowered.

“What is it, Dinah?”

“Don’t be angry wi’ me. I—I’m breeding again.”

His smiled slipped to a grimace as he looked down at her body. Slowly he said, “Aye. So I see. When?”

“End o’ May, I reckon. Frank …” She faltered, but found fresh courage and began again. “Frank, why won’t you marry me? I’ll be in real trouble this time if you don’t. They say there’s a new parson coming to the village. What if he reckons to send me to Heathbury workhouse? I could never bear that, you know I couldn’t.”

He took her hands and held them firmly within his own. “Nobody’s going to send you to the workhouse. Why should they? You don’t cost the parish nothing.”

“Mebbe not. But who’s to know what might become o’ me wi’ this new man here? Mebbe he won’t be the kind to look the other way, not like old Yardley. He’s only got to call me out in church for loose living and the parish overseer would have me out o’ Weatherfield faster’n I could run.”

Frank Morgan shook his head, but she persisted.

“There was a girl only the other week over at Shatterford. They church-named her a wanton and whore when her second chance-born come. And d’you know what they did beside? They took both her babies off her and gi’ them to the foundling home …”

Her voice broke suddenly and she put a hand to her mouth.

“… poor creature … they put her in the workhouse … so she killed herself. Took a bit o’ broken glass and she cut her own throat. Oh God, I don’t want anything like that happening to me. Frank—Frank, you must marry me now. Please, you’ve got to do it. I don’t want to lose my babies … Not the workhouse, not that place. Anything but that.”

The stallion leader released the hands clinging desperately to his shoulders and pushed her gently from him, holding her there while he spoke, his tone as soft as when he had soothed his horse.

“Now, Dinah, let’s have no more talk like that. You needn’t fear, it’ll never happen. It’s only those without means to support themselves who get sent off to the workhouse. And I’ll always see you’re all right for money, you know that. They can’t touch you so long as you’re not a charge on the parish. As for us marrying—now you know it’d be no life for you as a wife. It’s the truth, and you needn’t look at me like that. How many times have we had this over? You’ve said it yourself. It’d be no life at all for a woman to be following the stallion circuit, going from one farm to another year in, year out. Besides,”—he glanced at her body—“babies need a roof above ’em, a home to grow in. You be thankful you have one here with your mother.”

Dinah lowered her head and examined her ringless fingers, twisting them fretfully. “Aye, lucky my mam was never wed neither, I suppose, else I’d have been without a place to turn to when little Frankie come. Even so, Frank, that’s no reason for you to use me so ill—”

She caught her lips between her teeth. Then, suddenly, flung herself away from him.

“You don’t care for me, Frank Morgan—you never did! It was all words, words, till you got what you wanted from me You’re so free wi’ your money, aren’t you—yet you won’t even pay out three farthings for the scrap o’ paper the marriage licence is on!” She clenched her fist against her swelling belly. “So how many does this ’un make, then? How many other women give you the same news this season?”

Frank Morgan stared into her flushed, angry face, the eyes bright with unshed tears; but he made no reply. Could not. Until he had travelled back through the villages on last season’s stallion round he would not know the answer. Instead, he reached out and drew her wordlessly towards him, pressing her head into his shoulder and feeling the shudder of her weeping.

Not that Morgan had fathered many bastards. He had always taken care, using a trick learned years ago from a stallion leader up in the Midlands, and could generally take his pleasure without causing mischief. Which was just as well, since most of his partners, in common with their more respectable sisters, were woefully ignorant of any means whereby pregnancy could be avoided.

His profession seemed to make him irresistible to the ladies. It was the thrill of the danger, he supposed, coupled with the sheer animal attraction of the trade. Wherever he went in the country, leading his great black stallion from yard to yard to cover the mares for prime young stock, he could be sure of a welcoming bed.

He liked the married kind of female best. Experience had taught him that they were less demanding, less ready to lose their hearts; and, more to his advantage, provided ready-made families for the swarthy little cuckoos he might chance to leave in their nests—all boys (he prided himself that he had never once sired a daughter) and so healthy and vigorous that the proxy fathers, even if they suspected anything, seemed content to allow practicality and pride to stifle their misgivings.

Frank Morgan had started working with stud horses when he was just ten years of age (it was the year George the Fourth died) and that was over twenty summers ago. He had had a lot of women in that time, but never one he had cared for as much as he did Dinah Flynn. Dinah, she was different. She had been his one failing. Several times, usually when he was away in some other part of the country, lonely for her and in his cups, he had thought of marrying her. But he had inherited a strong sense of independence along with his mother’s gipsy blood and tended to laugh at himself for such sentimentality once the drink wore off.

In any case, it had not been the same since their son, little Frankie, was born. Dinah had started to cling too much, as women do when they love and fear they are not loved enough in return; wanting to follow him about the countryside on the stallion round, questioning him about where he had been, complaining when he stayed away too long, demanding his attention and affection. He was beginning to tire of her.

He gave a half-sigh of regret and held her closer against him, pitying her in spite of his thoughts.

“I am sorry,” he said, discomforted by her tears. “But you know the way it is. I could no more stay true to you than—well, than Regent could to that mare just now. It isn’t in my nature. So what kind of a marriage would that be for us, eh?”

She raised her tear-streaked face. “I know, Frank … I know how it has to be wi’ you … but I do love you.”

“Hush, there now. I’ll be back soon, you’ll see. And I’ll not leave you short of money for little Frankie and the new baby.”

Her voice was low. “Just so long as you do come back.”

He pinched her cheek and grinned. “Don’t I always?”

All the fighting spirit seemed suddenly to have drained from her. In barely more than a whisper she said, “I have to get back. They’ll be starting the evening milking and I’ll be missed.”

“George Bashford won’t mind, surely? He’s a fair master.”

Dinah shrugged and turned away. And without another word or a backward glance she went quickly from him across the yard and out through the gate leading on to the hill path.

Morgan watched her go. A fly buzzed around the sweat streaking his brow and he brushed at it impatiently, his eyes never leaving the woman as long as he could see her. There was something about the proud set of the head, the strong back, the sway of the hips that reminded him of a girl he had had in Lewes this last month. The memory brought a smile to the firm mouth beneath the black moustache. What was her name? He thought for a moment. No, he couldn’t remember. Not that it mattered. They were all so many women to him, so many soft compliant bodies and warm lips for him to enjoy.

That girl in Lewes had been like the rest. He had met her in the market square while they were watching a muzzled old bear dance at the end of a chain. They had started to talk; he suggested some refreshment. Later, as they walked together along a lane, she had laughed and taken his arm.

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life,” he said. They always liked to hear that.

Afterwards, when they had finished their lovemaking in some nearby churchyard, he had promised to meet her again the following day, swearing that the hours would drag unbearably until he could be with her again. But when the appointed time came, he had been well away along the road to Buckfield, idly wondering whether she would be standing there, waiting for him in the churchyard. She was a fool if she was, to trust a man so.

Frank Morgan had no conscience about the women he had used and abandoned in this fashion. He reckoned he owed them nothing. There had never been one yet who had found him less than the most skilful and satisfying of lovers. He prided himself on a virility to match his stallion’s; but he was no brutal ravisher, interested only in his own enjoyment. He knew that by giving a woman as much pleasure as he took from her, he would always be fondly remembered. He had yet to meet one who could resist his advances for long. The day that happened, he told himself sometimes, would be the day they could shovel him into the cold earth, where men and women stayed quiet in their own beds.

It had been the same with his father, Seth Morgan. Seth had been one of the finest stallion leaders of his time; also one of the best barefist boxers, remembered throughout the country as readily when men talked of prize fighting as when they did of horses.

He had been a rare one for the ladies; until he fought a match with Gipsy Jack Lee. He had lost that fight and lost his heart as well, to Lee’s sister, a black-haired, black-eyed beauty who had ignored all his overtures and made his existence a hell, so that he finally made the greatest sacrifice a footloose ladies’ man could make, and married her.

Frank Morgan had only the haziest recollection of his father. He had been little more than three years old when Seth had taken a bad punch in a fight. He had lingered on for a week without ever regaining consciousness. His gipsy wife had grieved for a while; but she was a woman who could not sleep long in an empty bed, and after a time Frank found himself with a stepfather.

They hated each other from the start, more so as the boy grew older and better able to stand up for himself. Finally, when he was ten, his mother had sent him away into the care of one of Seth’s old partners and he had learned to work with horses like his father, and grew to be a stallion man himself.

The only real security and affection he had known in his young life was during this period, in country stables and inn yards, from rough, coarse-mouthed horsemen; and his later attitude towards the weaker sex was strongly coloured by the experience of these formative years. There was no scope to respond to feelings he had never had the chance to discover: tenderness, gentleness, love. His compassion was reserved for the horses in his charge, and as he grew older he came to believe that these were the only living creatures a man might rely on never to betray him.

The hovering fly settled on Frank Morgan’s cheek. He slapped at it absentmindedly, his thought turning to what Dinah had said just now, about a new man moving into the rectory at Weatherfield.

Where there were clergymen there were generally wives, and very often daughters. Plain and pious and prim most of them were, too, as though the embracing of religious belief poisoned their natures to all other forms of embrace; but from time to time he had known the pulpit to produce a Jezebel from among its Susannas. Morgan was no respecter of class and held no man his superior, especially members of the clergy, a profession he had little time for. If there was a pretty face up at the rectory it might be amusing to find out whether it knew how to smile at a man.

The fly alighted on him