IT WAS FOUR O’CLOCK and the heat of the day was still unabated. In the ring, a desert of friable dun-coloured grass, save for the rich dark patches of peat spread before and after each gaily painted fence, there was no escape from the sun; since early morning it had burned down with unremitting fierceness, reducing the judges, the competitors and the horses to a limp and irritable exhaustion. In the enclosure what shade there was, cast by the white bulk of the refreshment tent, had been sought avidly by the wilting spectators. All through the long hot day they had jostled their deck chairs contentiously, for keeping a place in this dark oasis of shade, as the sun moved round, had become far more important to most of them than anything which went on in the ring.
    Theodora Thistleton had remained comparatively unaffected by the heat, but she was infuriated by the poor performances of her horses and the secretaries, recognising the signs of rising anger, sat one on either side of her in uneasy silence. As the prize winners, rosetted and applauded, cantered from the ring, Molly Steer, her nervousness increased by the knowledge that her deodorant had ceased to be effective, blundered into speech.
    ‘Oh, the sound of those poor animals’ hooves on that ground; the jar must be dreadful—’
    ‘Hoofs,’ snapped Theodora Thistleton, ‘and if either of  you mention the state of the ground again I shall go mad.’
    ‘Oh, I am sorry, Miss Thistleton.’ Molly Steer’s large, anxious face flushed red and her pale weak eyes blinked behind the green diamante-decorated spectacles. So unkind, she thought. Joy does nothing to help; we just sit and sit in this dreadful uncomfortable silence. But Theodora Thistleton was already getting to her feet and straightening her tall gaunt figure, clothed in a depressing dress of brown silk, vaguely patterned with green leaves. A beige chiffon scarf tried, vainly, to conceal the long scraggy neck and a brown pudding basin of a straw hat topped the severe and elongated face with its huge tombstone teeth and angry grey-green eyes. Behind her back the secretaries mouthed at each other. ‘It’s not my turn,’ hissed Molly Steer, ‘I went with her last time,’ and she tried to look as though she intended to stay firmly in her seat, but Joy Hemming, fair, faded and starveling, merely mouthed back, ‘Not me,’ and sat tight.
    Theodora Thistleton was already threading her way through the deck chairs; at any moment she would realise that she was unaccompanied. As usual, Molly Steer gave way first; blinking, swallowing and stumbling over the rows of feet, she followed her employer.
    It was typical of Theodora Thistleton’s attitude towards her staff that she let the plump, sweating and obviously suffering Molly follow her across the show-ground and then, when she reached the first row of horse­boxes, she turned and said, ‘I shan’t want you; I’m going to have a few words with Christina; you’d better go back.’
    ‘Yes, Miss Thistleton,’ Molly answered meekly, but her heart raged. So unkind, thought her mind, limited by its meagre vocabulary, but her heart raged without the need to transform emotion to words. And then, an unaccustomed feeling of mutiny sweeping over her, she sat down on the grass and took off her shoes.
    Christina Scott knew what to expect. For seven shows in a row she had failed to win T.T. a rosette and everyone, she reflected, knew what the old money-bag was like over winning; she had to have her bit of ribbon—or else. After each of the six previous shows the old girl had been progressively more unpleasant and the behaviour of the secretaries—always a yardstick by which you could judge your standing in T.T.’s establishment—had become less and less subservient.
    Seven shows, thought Christina Scott as she fortified herself for the coming interview with a nip from a bottle tucked away in the boot of her car. Seven shows. Well, my luck’s out, that’s all. And with T.T. breathing down my neck and making sarcastic remarks I’m losing my self-confidence. I’m too careful; I’m over shortening as I come into my fences; I can feel it, but I can’t stop myself and the more I worry the worse it gets. I’ve lost the knack or something, but if only she’d leave me alone and those cats of secretaries would stop their moronic criticisms. She knew what everyone must be saying behind her back, certainly in the collecting rings and horse-box parks and probably in the enclosures and before the television screens as well: ‘Christina’s lost her nerve.’ ‘Christina’s on the bottle.’ One had heard that sort of thing said so often about people who’d started on the slide down from the top, one had even said it oneself. But that’s not what’s happened to me; this is only a temporary thing, Christina reassured herself. I’ve just struck a rough patch; it’s impossible to win all the time with the competition as it is today. And then as T.T.’s gaunt and somehow forbidding figure came in sight she slammed the car boot shut and went forward to meet her.
    ‘Sorry, Miss Thistleton, no luck again. We have struck a bad patch this time.’ She smiled, the wry, sporting smile with which she had been taught to face defeat. The sight of this smile on Christina’s square, rather self-satisfied face was too much for Theodora Thistleton; with a sensa­tion of relief she loosed the anger which had been build­ing up in her all day.
    ‘So you think it’s bad luck, do you?’ she stormed. ‘I don’t, I know it’s your bad riding. I’ve told you to let them go on more, but of course you know best. Seven shows and not a single prize. And everyone knows what I’ve paid for those horses. All right, Miss Scott, if you can’t win on my horses I’ll find someone who can.’
    Christina showed no sign of emotion at this attack. Her eyes continued to gaze at T.T. with their usual cool directness, her brown, almost swarthy skin neither flushed nor blenched. ‘Of course, I don’t think that that little girl groom of yours, Brenda, is giving them nearly enough work,’ she said calmly.
    ‘So that’s it now, is it? First it was the fences, then it was the hard ground, then the horses were wrongly fed and now you have the impertinence to suggest that
they’re not exercised. Well, I’m not giving you a chance to try that theory out, I’ve had enough of being a laughing stock, you’ve had your last ride on my horses;
I’m not going to be humiliated in this way. I shall make other arrange­ments from today. And, if you take my advice you’ll find something else to do for a living, because you’re only spoiling good horses and making an exhibition of your­self.’ With this T.T. strode away across the showground, her long back still rigid with righteous indignation. Christina looked after her for a moment or two and then opened the boot of the car and helped herself with shak­ing hands to another nip from the bottle. She doesn’t really mean it, she told herself, trying to stem the tide of rising panic. Oh God! I’m finished if she does. No one’s offered me a ride for weeks. They used to beg me to jump their animals, she thought bitterly. Now I haven’t even the hope of a decent Grade C horse to fall back on. There’s the disgrace of it too. T.T.’ll tell everyone that she kicked me out. Pity and sympathy, thought Christina with the revulsion of one who has always commanded admiration and respect.