THE WHITE STAR
a Fetlock Holmes Story
© Elizabeth Jane Andreoli 1994-1997
first published in GOING NATIVE magazine 1994-1996
It had been some months since I had seen my friend Fetlock Holmes. My good lady mare and the pleasures of life at stud were sufficient to absorb all my attention. Holmes remained at our old quarters, still deeply attracted by the study of crime. From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings. There was the strange affair of the Sunderland dope ring and the mysterious summons to assist in a matter of great delicacy involving a compromised Horse Guard of His Majesty, but beyond such matters as might be known by any member of the common herd I knew little of my former companion.
One summer night a pleasant gallop lead me past the well-remembered stable, and I was seized with a desire to see him again and spend a brief time in nostalgic batchelorhood. I smote upon the door and cantered in.
"Holmes! - - - Oh, my dear fellow - - - Madam, I must humbly beg your pardon!"
I knew not where to look and endeavoured to remove myself as precipitately as I had entered.
"Madame De Courcy, may I present my friend and colleague, Dr. Withers."
The familiar voice bore no signs of embarrassment. His manner was not effusive, but he was pleased, I think, to see me.
"Withers, dear chap. Before you join us be so good as to send for more oats. Madame has travelled far and has a strange tale to impart."
I did as I was bid.
With a wild countenance and a rolling eye, the elegant mare stepped forward. The lamp cast exotic shadows along her lovely bones, but her shapely flanks bore the unmistakable signs of an ill and brutal coupling, and she was great with foal.
"My tale is one of love and betrayal. I know not what succour you noble gentlemen can give me, since I have brought my tragedy upon myself, and perforce must bear the evil consequences."
"Madame!" I cried, greatly moved.
"Nay, pity me not. It is not for myself but for my unborn foal that I crave your assistance. My tale is of two stallions, cousins only, but as alike as brothers. Apart from the mark of the White Star, to see one is to see the portrait of the other. Ah - but there the likeness ends, for one is nobility itself and the other a picture of perfidy and evil. By a strange reversal, perverse Nature has played a cruel trick. My noble love is bred from common stock while the stallion to whom I am bound - whose hooves and teeth have marked me to my dying day, and to whose heir I should give birth, is the last survivor of a rare and ancient bloodline."
"Pray Madame, come to the point," interjected Holmes.
"A double tragedy looms, Mr. Holmes, for I am to lose both lover and foal. Yes - you have guessed aright. To my shame, the foal I carry is not the offspring of my lord and master. When it is born without the white star he will know, and his revenge will be terrible - - - terrible!"
She swayed and would have swooned had not Holmes dashed water at her head.
"As for my lover - - - " she continued in a faint and trembling voice, "- - - he is to be gelded."
Holmes swayed and would have swooned had I not dashed water at his head.
"So you see I am damned. Damned, Mr. Holmes. Doomed to a life of cruelty and wretchedness."
She broke down into frenzied sobs, and I offered what comfort I could while Holmes stood silent with his eyes closed in an attitude which might seem listless to a stranger, but which I knew betokened the most intense absorption.
"Your story has been explicit, Madame," he said at last. "However, there is one question of the utmost importance that I must ask. On what part of his body does your sire bear the white star?"
With astonishment the lady replied: "He bears the mark upon his forehead - but why?"
"Excellent!" cried Holmes. "Withers, may I ask you to conduct this lady to the guest stables. When you have done so, return immediately. We have work to do."
My task completed, I returned, and was aghast to find an unprincipled hack of loathsome appearance audaciously feasting upon Holmes’ oats and making free with his precious collection of girth straps.
"Evenin’ guv," mumbled the wretched animal. "good fodder yer got ‘ere ‘an no mistake."
Enraged by his insolence I made to throw him out.
"I ain’t leavin’!" sneered the hack. "Got business with old Fetlock ‘Olmes, ain’t I!"
"Mr. Holmes," I replied with asperity, "would never stoop so low as to enter into commerce with one such as you. Now on your way, or by God I shall kick you through that door!"
The hack began to laugh, and as he did so, a most extraordinary transformation was wrought in his unkempt features.
"Great heavens! Holmes!"
"Yes Withers! Do you recognise me now?"
"Remarkable! Incredible! How do you do it, old chap!"
Waving aside my incredulous protestations, Holmes looked at me with a curious intensity.
"Withers, we must prevent a great wrong from being done, and we have but little time. It may involve breaking the law. Are you with me?"
"I am."
"Then let us make haste. There is no time to lose."
He packed laudanum, sugar lumps and hoof-black into a nose-bag.
"Whatever befalls me tonight, Withers, you must not interfere. Do you understand?"
With great foreboding and a heavy heart, I agreed to his conditions, and we set off to the spacious stables where Madame De Courcy’s sire dwelt in luxury.
I remained hidden while Holmes in his disguise, clattered into the courtyard in an audacious display of ill-bred importunity.
"Got any ‘ay for a pore ol’ ‘orse eh? ‘Ave yer missus?" he cried, hoarsely. "Ain’t ‘ad me oats since Gawd knows w’en. Come on me lords an’ ladies! Spare a mite of ‘ay! See ‘ow me bones is pokin’ out somefing cruel. ‘Ave pity on a pore ol’ ‘orse!"
Stable doors flew open on all sides. All save one. Holmes ranted and raved and cavorted, while I slipped behind the throng to release the quiet stallion tethered in the far stall. Quickly I bit through his bonds and gave him Holmes’ message:
"Fly at once to the high moors, sire where your lady will join you on the morrow."
"Thank you," he murmured. "You shall be rewarded." Then he was gone as swiftly as a hawk.
Meanwhile Holes, like a street hawker was fawning before an arrogant pony that bore the infamous mark of the White Star.
"All I wants is some ‘ay," he wheedled. "Look see, yer ‘onour. I can pay. There’s sugar lumps in this ere bag. All them lumps for a bit of ‘onest ‘ay!"
With a contemptuous sneer, the stallion thrust his head into the bag and gorged himself on the sugar.
"You shall get no hay. Let this be a lesson to you not to meddle in vulgar trade with your superiors. Now - begone!"
With a lash of his hoof, he drove Holmes through the gates and slammed them shut.
Some hours later when we were once more secure at home with a warming dose of Hudson’s bran set before us, I confessed that I was baffled by the strange events of the day.
"Elementary, my dear chap. Madame De Courcy’s lover runs free upon the moor, and when the men arrive on the morrow with gelding irons, they will find a stallion of amiable disposition wandering loose in the stable yard with no white star to distinguish him from his absent cousin. His own greed and arrogance betrayed him, for when he stole sugar from a poor beggar, he was smearing his birthmark with good hoof-black, and drugging his senses with laudanum!" Holmes displayed the ruined nosebag, coated on the inside with blacking.
"Holmes, what have you done!" I cried, deeply shocked. "Do you not recall that this stallion was the last of an ancient bloodline?"
"Ancient families have been known to breed false," replied Holmes. "Think, Withers, think. The ponies we saw in that yard were as alike to each other as badgers in a set, were they not?"
"Indeed they were."
"Then, pray, how is it that the one who bears a white star upon his forehead - the one place where such a mark is least likely to be a scar - is in bearing and temperament so different from the rest? Could it be that he is the alien, foreign fruit of a chance misalliance? Do not worry, my friend. The bloodline lives on, and the true heir will soon be born."
"But Holmes - - - to be gelded - - -"
Holmes was silent for a while.
"Think you," he said at last, "of the marks on the lady’s flanks. I believe we have served the course of natural justice, Withers. Now, canter off home, my friend, where your own oats await you."
Modified:25/7/97
Created:25/7/97