Nightwork

Coombs, a booted, ruddy-faced, sly-looking, tiny old man with a gravelly outdoor voice, had pointed out our horse to us. He looked like every other brownish horse to me, with wild rolling eyes and what seemed to me dangerously thin legs. 'He's coming along nicely, the colt, nicely,' Coombs said. Then we all had to duck behind some trees as one of the other horses started running backward toward us, almost as fast as if it had been going forward. 'They're a little nervy these cold mornings,' Coombs said indulgently. "That one's only a wee two-year-old filly. Playful at that age.'

The exercise boy finally got the creature under control and we could come out from behind the trees. 'How are the splints, Jack?' Fabian asked. The connoisseur of paintings and sculpture who had led me around the Louvre and who had discoursed on Manet to the critic the night before was gone now, replaced by a knowing horseman, expert on the fine points and obscure ailments of the equine race.

'Ah, I wouldn't worry, man,' Coombs said. 'He's coming along something splendid.'

'When will he be ready to run?' I said, the first words I had uttered since I had been introduced to the trainer. 'I mean in a regular race?'

"Ah, man,' Coombs wagged his head ambiguously. 'Ah, man, that's another question altogether, isn't it? You wouldn't want to push the colt, now, would ye? You can see he's not totally hardened yet, can ye not?' He had the damndest Irish-English way of talking for a man whose family had lived in France since the Empress Josephine.

'He does look as though another couple of weeks of work wouldn't do him any harm,' Fabian said.

'He still seems to be favoring his off foreleg a bit,' Lily said.

'Ah, ye noticed, ma'am.' Coombs beamed at her. 'It's more psychological than anything else, you understand. After the firing.'

'Yes,' Lily said. 'I've seen it before.'

'Ah, and a pleasure it is not to be having to hold the hand of an anxious owner.' Coombs beamed more widely.

'Could you give us an estimate?' I asked stubbornly, remembering the six thousand dollars invested in Rêve de Minuit. 'Two weeks, three weeks, a month?'

'Ah, man,' Coombs said, head wagging again, 'I don't like to be pinned down. It's not my way to raise an owner's hopes and then have to disappoint the good man.'

'Still, you could make a guess,' I persisted.

Coombs looked at me steadily, his little gray eyes, set in a thousand wrinkles, suddenly winter-cold. 'Ay, I could guess. But I won't. He'll tell me when he's ready to run.' He smiled jovially, the ice in his eyes melting instantaneously. 'Well, we've seen enough for the morning, wouldn't ye say? Now let's go and have a bite of breakfast. Ma'am...' Gallantly, he offered Lily his arm and led the way out of the forest with her.

'You've got to be careful with these fellows, Douglas,' Fabian said in a low voice as we followed along a path through the woods. 'They can be touchy. He's one of the best in the business. We're lucky to have him. You've got to let these old boys make the pace themselves.'

'It's our horse, isn't it? Our six thousand bucks?'

'I wouldn't talk like that where he could hear you, old man. Ah, it's going to be a lovely day.' We were out of the forest by now and the sun was breaking through the mist,' shining on the coats of the horses that were ambling in slow strings back toward the barns. 'Doesn't this lift your heart?' Fabian said, throwing his arms wide in an expansive gesture. 'This ancient, glorious countryside in the fresh sunshine, these beautiful, delicate animals...'

'Delicate is the word,' I said ungraciously.

'I am full of confidence,' Fabian said firmly. 'What's more, I will make a prediction. Before we're through, we'll make our mark on the sport. And not with only one six-thousand-dollar reject. Wait until you come to Chantilly and see twenty horses working out and know they're all yours. Wait until you're sitting in an owner's box at Longchamps and see your colors parade by before a race.... Wait until...'

'I'll wait,' I said sourly. 'Happily,' but although I carefully kept from showing it, I, too, felt the attraction of the place and the horses and the canny old trainer. I couldn't go along With Fabian's manic optimism, but I felt the power of his dream.