The Horse You Came in On Read Online Free Page B

causing an enormous diamond to spark into life. “They lived together, and died together.”
    â€œDied together?” asked Wiggins, his pencil poised over his notebook.
    â€œYes, Sergeant. On the cricket ground.”
    â€œWhat?” said Wiggins, astounded.
    There was too much opportunity for a risible response here, and Jury bit his lip and refused to look at Wiggins, although the sergeant’s capacity for comic reactions was not notable.
    â€œBobby was batsman, you see, and he had a tricky heart. Fanny was constantly after him to give up his damned sports—the cricket, the polo, the hunt, even—but Bobby wouldn’t hear of it. Trying to keep up with my husband, who was absolutely expert at sport.”
    â€œSo how . . . ?”
    â€œBobby had a bad heart, and so, giving one furious bat, he simply keeled over. Then my husband, seeing him go down, dropped the ball and dashed to his rescue. And he tripped.” Lady Cray took a long swallowof champagne. “Ran straight into the wicket! Can you imagine such a freak accident? He fell and hit his head. I was always telling those boys that they’d do better to choose sports that weren’t so damned dangerous. I can tell you, both of us—Fanny and I—were heartbroken. Fanny was deathly ill herself; I wondered then if she had a heart condition.” Her eyes glittered, and she took another long drink from her glass. “But to tell the truth, it might have been just as well they died that way. Dickie would have had a very hard time of it without Bobby. It was funny, really, to watch Bobby try and keep up with my husband. Dickie was Master of Foxhounds, and Bobby could hardly ride.” She sighed. “Accident prone, both of them. There were accidents at polo, at billiards, at the Chichester boat race. Fanny and I knew they’d come to it in the end.”
    The way she rendered the antic histories of the two husbands was to pace before the fireplace, backlit by the jumping flames, brandishing her tulip champagne glass like a dagger so that “come to’t in the end” was absolutely Jacobean. Then Lady Cray heaved a sigh and said, “And of course, with both of them pegging out right there at the match, well, we’d certainly got something in common. We did get along quite well, in spite of her unabashed envy of my title. The Hamiltons had a great deal of money, much more than I, but she loved the British aristocracy. I think she was always in search of her pedigree, corresponding with professors at Oxford and Cambridge and one, even, in America. I don’t know why; it wasn’t the DAR that interested Fanny, it was Burke’s Peerage . I tried to console her by saying the title wasn’t, after all, anything I’d ever earned —I mean, it isn’t exactly the Victoria Cross, is it? We hardly ever earn them, do we? It’s all an accident of birth or marriage, unless you’re in the theater, or something like that. Like Olivier or Peggy Ashcroft—I expect they did earn theirs. Americans love nothing so much as a title, wouldn’t you agree?”
    Thinking of Melrose Plant’s aunt, Jury had to.
    â€œIt was certainly so in Fanny’s case. Oh, Bobby didn’t care for a title; it was cricket he loved.” She hooted. “But there it is again. Cricket! The aristocracy and cricket. Well, it doesn’t even have to be a peerage—any lowly baronetcy will do. As long as it isn’t Irish, of course!”
    Jury laughed.
    â€œThe British peerage! Sometimes I believe Americans think that’s England in a nutshell. I remember when I first met them, it was at Lord’s during the second innings. Fanny was a friend of one of the people I was with; we’d taken a hamper along—you know, cold chicken and white wine—and were having a lovely picnic in the mound stand. She was fascinated that I was ‘Lady’ Cray and almost