matter?'
`I've just put Mattie down,' said Phil Bagley in a tight voice, as he emerged from Mattie's box. `I'm terribly sorry.'
`Oh, God,' said Chessie, not knowing what to say, but feeling passionate relief that no-one would bother where she'd been. `For a terrible moment I thought it was Will.'
Shooting her a look of pure hatred, Ricky walked past her into the night. In the kitchen she found Will patting the plump shoulder of a frantically sobbing Louisa.
`Mummy,' he turned in delight, `Louisa crying. Did you bring me a present?'
`Delicious sweeties,' said Chessie, producing a handful of Rubens' Retreat's petits fours out of her bag.
`Ugh,' said Will spitting a marzipan banana out all over the floor.
Ricky didn't come back all night. Chessie thought he must have gone to his father's, until the telephone woke her at eight o'clock next morning.
`Herbert here,' barked a voice. Trust the old bugger not to apologize for ringing so early, or after so long. `Can I speak to Ricky?'
`He's not here.'
`Well, tell him I've just heard about Mattie. Bloody shame. I'm very sorry.'
It must have cost Herbert a lot to ring, but Chessie decided not to pass on the message. She didn't want
him back in their lives, hanging around, restricting her freedom. Looking out of the window, she saw Ricky was back and with a couple of men from the village, was digging a grave in the orchard, where generations of dogs and stable cats had been buried. The two Labradors, tails wagging, were trying to join in, frantically scrabbling the earth with their paws. Wayne, Ricky's second favourite pony, a custard-yellow gelding with lop ears who'd been devoted to Mattie, stood by the paddock gate, neighing hysterically.
Keen to escape such a house of mourning, longing to be alone to think about Bart, Chessie drove into Rutminster on the pretext of doing the weekend shopping. Out of curiosity, on the way home, she stopped off at a jeweller to get Bart's necklace valued. The bumpy, veined, arthritic hands trembled slightly as they examined the stones.
`Very, very nice,' said the jeweller in reverent tones. `I'd be surprised if you'd get much change out of Ł100,000, might be even higher. Pretty stones, for a pretty lady,' he added with a smile at Chessie's gasp of amazement.
Chessie was so stunned she went straight out and committed the cardinal indiscretion of ringing Bart at home from a call box.
`Pretend I'm a wrong number. Look, I'm sorry I was so horribly ungrateful. I'd no idea those diamonds were real.'
`Like my love for you,' said Bart softly. `I can't talk now,' and hung up.
`Did you bring me a present?' said Will when she got home.
Joyfully Chessie gathered him up, and swung him round till he screamed with laughter.
`I've got a hunch,' she murmured. `I may have got you a new Daddy.'
Bart rang her later. `Can you talk?'
`I could talk when I was eighteen months,' said Chessie, `but I'm precocious.'
Out of the window, she could see Louisa wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, as she planted primroses round Mattie's grave.`Mattie had to be put down,' she told Bart.
`I'm sorry - she was a helluva horse. How's Ricky taking it?'
`Bottling it up as usual.'
`Any repercussions last night?'
`Ricky was too shell-shocked even to realize I'd been away. I forgot to ask yesterday. Are you still going to drop him?'
`I guess I'm going to drop Ricky and Grace,' said Bart.
The polo community were flabbergasted when Bart didn't come to Deauville and allowed the team that he was forking out so much for to play without him. His place was taken by an underhandicapped Australian who interchanged so dazzlingly with Ricky that the Alderton Flyers clinched the French Championships after a very close fight against David Waterlane and