Restless Mistress

Suzanne was alone in the king-sized bed which filled only a small
section of the king-sized bedroom; there were several more such
bedrooms in the ancient hall, but none were occupied. So why did she
toss so fretfully in her shallow sleep?

She had been born into an old aristocratic family which suffered from
one of the common genetic defects of these inbred people, namely that
most of the male heirs turned out to be terminally stupid. Many managed
to undo their predecessors' nurturing of the estate in a short space of
time; her father was one such, prone to making investment decisions
according to the advisor's sartorial sense and not according to any
financial sense. The hall would surely have had to be sold to meet his
debts had he not taken his expensive but ill-equipped yacht out to sea
in the face of a tropical storm and sent both himself and his wife to
an untimely watery demise. Suzanne, an only child, had been doing her
A-levels at an exclusive ladies college at the time; counsellors
advised her to grieve (but not for too long), to put the sale of the
hall into the hands of the family solicitor and, after a decent period,
to take up a university place and to purchase a nice modern flat in
London with the proceeds.

Instead she did none of those things but, at the age of eighteen,
returned to her tottering rural birthright and worked out whatever
grief she felt in putting the family affairs in order. Even so it had
been touch and go; the insurance payout from the policies which her
prudent mother had taken out didn't altogether offset the death duties
payable, but she reasoned that she did not require the large numbers of
staff her father had employed, so out went the cook, butler,
parlourmaid, secretary and a host of other retainers; she kept on a
part-time gardener and stable girl, hiring in tradesmen as and when she
needed them. The services of the financial advisor were likewise no
longer required as she found that she could obtain much sounder advice
for the simply outlay of the cost of a Sunday newspaper. Though the
expenses of such a large house and grounds were still quite high, she
found that she could live simply and make ends meet without turning the
place into a museum or theme park. So why, on a cool starry night in
early autumn, did she feel so hot and restless?

There had been men in her life, of course, for she was not unattractive
and had massive equity if little actual money. But they had proved a
disappointment; the men in her own social class were so vain, lazy and
avaricious and thought they could impress her with sports cars and
luxury trappings; they talked endlessly about such things but knew
nothing of either the arts or the sciences, and cared nothing about the
world beyond their tiny comfort zone.
She had dipped a little lower in the gene pool and had gone out
incognito with ordinary young men who worked in offices and factories
and lived in boxy houses on suburban estates; some of these were nice
enough and a few were passably-educated, but they had little charm or
wit and soon bored her with their fanaticism for football or bizarre
music, and none of them had been privileged enough to be invited to the
hall for purposes social or carnal. She had lost count of the number of
times she had spent pouring out the details of her latest failed suitor
into the perked ears of her horses before bidding them a very late
goodnight.

Fifteen years down the line Suzanne was now paying the price for her
pickiness; it seemed that all the men who were at least half-decent had
already been taken and were kept on a tight rein by their partners.
Suzanne could understand this; she valued her beloved horses and
wouldn't let them wander around unsupervised either. So her social
circle had begun to dwindle and she spent more and more time in the
stables where she would be rewarded by looking into the soft,
intelligent equine eyes; on nights such as this when she couldn't sleep
she would often take a favoured steed for a nocturnal ride around the
silent, darkened grounds to settle herself. So why, on this loveliest
of nights, did she wake bolt upright, put on her dressing gown and
tiptoe downstairs and out through the French windows?

By now the moon was out, its reflection fractured in the ripples on the
dark water of the lake; two coots began to squabble, sending the moon
shards dancing wildly to and fro. Somewhere in the distance a fox
howled and, for a few seconds, a car's headlights suddenly outlined the
oak trees on the boundary before rounding a bend, its intrusion fading
away into the darkness. A horse whinnied softly, perhaps sensing her
presence, although tonight she bypassed the tack room and the stables;
it was not a night for riding.

In the half-moon light she could discern the statues which her
classics-loving great-grandfather had commissioned long ago, nymphs and
dryads and noble-featured Greeks with unseeing eyes, all cast in
alabaster and softly gleaming under the stars; as a child she had been
slightly frightened by the wild pagan imagery, but tonight they seemed
benevolent, almost conspiratorial. On a slight ridge beyond the lake
stood a summer house; her grandmother had discovered that it was
approachable from behind a screen of bushes such that the far side
could not be seen from the hall, and she had confessed to Suzanne that
she had "dallied" there in her girlhood with young men whom her stern
father would have considered unsuitable, and although Suzanne was now
mistress of the house and free to do as she pleased she still crept
silently alongside the bushes with both fear and longing rising within
her.

She saw his head first of all; bearded, of course, and long curly hair
fell looping to his shoulders. His eyes sparkled with joy and wisdom,
and she knew for certain that he had been calling to her in her sleep.
He stepped from behind the bushes to greet her and she saw, and
scented, the slightly pungent steam which rose from his beautiful
chestnut flanks; a centaur in his prime, almost too beautiful to
behold, glistening in the silver moonlight. She gave a small gasp, not
now of fear but of wonder, and let the dressing gown fall slowly to her
feet.