Then, muttering to the Bishop: ‘How on earth do we disperse this lot?’
‘Perhaps we could see just the video, which is after all a celebration,’ suggested the Bishop, ‘and the children can sing their song and wave hello rather than goodbye.’
‘Then end with a few prayers?’ asked Niall.
‘And those invited can repair to Willowwood,’ murmured the Bishop, who hadn’t had any lunch, ‘where I hear there are some excellent refreshments.’
‘What about my reading?’ demanded Corinna furiously.
What about my £200,000 cheque? thought a shaken Martin. Which would be more advantageous, to comfort Jude or Bonny?
Rafiq was still ecstatically kissing Tommy, so Amber grabbed hold of Mrs Wilkinson.
‘Where’s Etta?’ demanded Valent, his ruddy face for once paler than Rafiq’s. Ignoring Bonny’s cries of ‘Valent, Valent,’ he ran down the steps of the pulpit.
‘Etta couldn’t handle the service,’ Amber told him. ‘Oh Wilkie, I’m so pleased to see you again.’ Then, turning to Rogue: ‘Look, darling, isn’t she gorgeous?’
‘I’m not leaving any of you in charge of a national treasure,’ snapped Valent. ‘I’m taking my horse home.’
147
The sun was setting, firing the trees, turning Marius’s horses a glowing pink. Etta started to cry again at their carefree happiness. Covered in mud, their shaggy manes held rakishly off their foreheads by burrs, they once more weaved in and out of the willows, as she had once so deliriously weaved in and out of Valent’s rustic poles.
So many willows still weeping for Beau Regard and Gwendolyn, who poor Sir Francis had lost, as she herself had lost Mrs Wilkinson and Valent. How had Sir Francis carried on living? wondered Etta. As if in sympathy, a dark whale of cloud had drifted in front of the sun. The horses had stopped to drink from the pond, then, as if deciding on a last race, they re-formed and, snorting with excitement, set off again.
Calling for Priceless, who’d as usual pushed off rabbiting, Etta set out wearily for home. Then she froze, cried out in terror and crossed herself before clutching an overhanging willow branch for support, because the pack had been joined in the twilight by a ghost horse with a pure white face. Was it Beau Regard back from the dead? Could it be the ghost of Mrs Wilkinson?
Etta’s heart was hammering louder than the hooves on the parched ground as the other horses raced on, then they too double-took in amazement, slithering to a halt, whinnying, squealing with joy and bewilderment, circling the newcomer, whickering, nuzzling, nudging and nipping her for staying away. An overjoyed Count Romeo laid his dark head on her shoulder. Sir Cuthbert kept butting her, making sure she was real.
Then, ecstatically, they all took off again, round the pond, swishing through the willow curtains, but the little ghost horse led the pack. At her hurtling approach, Etta caught her breath and clutched the willow branch again, because the ghost horse had an iron-grey body, a white face with one big, wise, dark eye and a pink tongue lolling out.
Etta longed to call out, but no sound came. It must be a double, some cruel trick of similarity.
‘Wilkie,’ she croaked.
The ghost horse stopped in her tracks, then squealing in irritation as Count Romeo and Not for Crowe collided into the back of her, she peered through the pale green waterfall of leaves, searching everywhere. From whence had come that beloved voice?
‘Wilkie’ – it was a strangled whisper – but Mrs Wilkinson heard and, thrusting aside the branches, charged over to Etta, nearly sending her flying, whickering again and again, nudging her joyfully, nosing in her pockets for Polos, holding out one foot and then another, until Etta, who could only raise half a Bonio, tugged at a clump of grass for a reward.
She really was Mrs Wilkinson. There was the microchip scar and the scar above the closed right eye – battle scars now she was home from the wars. Flinging her arms round Wilkie’s neck, she breathed in her lovely, distinctive, newly cut hay smell.
‘Where have you been, darling, where have you come from?’
Then as her stroking fingers crept over Mrs Wilkinson’s face to check that she really was no ghost, they encountered a letter tied with a brown shoelace to her head collar. With frantically trembling hands, Etta ripped it off. Child- and OAP-proof, she thought as she wrestled with the knot and finally smoothed out the paper.
‘Darling Etta,’ she read incredulously, ‘I’ve never stopped loving you. Dearest lady love, please welcome me home. Yours ever, Valent.’