All the while, Miss Hartwright remained at the door, silent. He suspected she was holding her breath. A wild pony was less dangerous than a wild horse, but a well-placed kick from one could still do significant damage.
“Easy, Betty,” Neville murmured again. “You’re all right.” He stopped at her shoulder. It was up to her now. If she wanted the mash, she’d have to turn her head to take it.
He’d been through this with her every day since she arrived. She knew what she must do, and as each day passed, she became a little more willing to do it.
Today was no different.
After several minutes of cringing away from him, she finally worked up the courage to face him. A few limping steps, and another flare of her nostrils, and then she was lipping the rim of the bucket.
Neville clipped it to a metal hook on the wall. Betty thrust her head inside to eat her mash.
“I can brush her while she eats,” Neville said. “And check her…her bandage. If you’ll pass me that box?”
Miss Hartwright retrieved the wooden box of brushes. A roll of cotton gauze, and a small bottle of liniment were tucked inside of it. She smiled as she handed it to him. “You’ve charmed her, utterly.”
He took the box, his bare fingers brushing hers. The brief contact sent a jolt of heat through his belly. “It’s nothing.”
“Indeed it is. You have a way with animals, Mr. Cross. I admire it very much.”
He didn’t know quite what to say to that. He’d always been good with animals. But since his accident, being with them had become even more meaningful to him.
Since his accident.
He still thought of it as if it had happened recently. But it was decades now. In truth, he scarcely recalled what his life had been like before.
“It’s easier with them,” he replied at last. “They don’t expect me to…to talk.”
“But you do speak to them.”
He shrugged. “Nonsense words.”
“I like a bit of nonsense. So does she. Don’t you, Betty?” Miss Hartwright crooned. “What a handsome girl you are.”
Neville’s mouth twitched. Gauze and liniment in hand, he crouched down beside Betty’s front leg. She gave one half-hearted stamp of her hoof. After that, she was too consumed with eating her mash to pay him much mind.
“You said there weren’t many of them left. Do you know how many?”
“On Dartmoor?” He slowly removed the old gauze from Betty’s leg. “Hundreds, probably.”
“So few? I wonder if they’re in danger of going extinct? Like the creatures Mr. Darwin writes about in his book.”
He shot her a questioning look.
“Charles Darwin. The naturalist. He calls it natural selection. It’s nature’s way of winnowing out the weak creatures and fostering the bloodlines of the strong.”
Neville massaged liniment into Betty’s leg. “The ponies are strong enough. It’s the people who won’t…who won’t leave them alone.”
“Do you believe they’ll die out?”
“Not if something’s done to help them.”
“Such as what?”
“Such as…” Neville faltered. He had ideas, of course. A surfeit of them. But there was nothing he could do directly. Not while remaining at Greyfriar’s Abbey.
What the ponies required was an advocate. Someone who could help to protect them, and replenish their numbers. It’s what he hoped Mr. Atkyns had been doing in Tavistock. The bar man at the King’s Arms had said as much.
Old Atkyns is keen on preserving the breed. You should speak with him.
But Mr. Atkyns hadn’t responded to Neville’s letter. Not yet.
“I don’t know.” He rolled a fresh bandage over Betty’s leg. “But the ponies need…someone.”
Miss Hartwright folded her arms on the top of the door, resting her chin on her hands. “Has it occurred to you that that someone might be you?”
It had occurred to Neville. And it occurred to him again the following afternoon when he received Mr. Atkyns’s letter. Only it wasn’t from Mr. Atkyns.
It was from his widow.
“He’s dead,” Neville said blankly, the letter held open in his hand.
Tom glanced up from his chair near the fire. “Who?”
He was in the library along with Justin, Alex, Mr. Hayes, and Mr. Boothroyd. They’d gathered there for brandy and cigars while the ladies occupied themselves in the drawing room.
Jenny’s former manservant, Ahmad Malek, had come down from London for the day. Now a dressmaker of growing renown, he’d made the trip specially to perform the final alterations on Jenny’s and Lady Helena’s Christmas gowns.
“Erasmus Atkyns,” Neville replied. “He died last month.”
“Who the devil is Erasmus Atkyns?” Justin asked. “Not that vicar in Tavistock?”
Neville nodded. “His widow has written. He’s… His property is…”
Tom stood and came to join him. “Do you mind if I have a look?”
Neville handed him the letter, waiting while Tom read through it. The other men resumed their conversation. Something about the feasibility of improving the cliff road. A tedious subject, and one that Justin had been rather keen on since first learning of his impending fatherhood.
“When the heavy rains come, the road washes out, and we’re isolated here for days at a time,” he was explaining to Mr. Hayes. “It won’t do when there are children in residence. If one should become ill or injured, there would be no way to summon the village doctor or the surgeon.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t removed to town for the winter,” Alex said. “With your wife expecting, it seems only sensible. You’ll want her under a doctor’s care.”
“She won’t go,” Justin replied grimly. “She insists on remaining here for Christmas. Besides which, she has a well-founded mistrust of doctors. Our child’s to be delivered by a village midwife.”
Neville was only half listening. He couldn’t focus on anything fully at the moment. The news of Mr. Atkyns’s death had thrown his thoughts into chaos. Sensing his distress, Paul and Jonesy milled about nearby, too concerned for him to lie down.
“Mrs. Atkyns is very civil,” Tom murmured as he read. “But it seems her husband was in some financial difficulties. He must have been for them to be having the estate sale so soon after the funeral.” He looked up from the letter. “Will you go?”