I caught up with Caroline and my grandfather just as Mr. Darby opened the door to the horse barn wide enough for them to enter. A blast of arctic air greeted us.
“Damn,” Mr. Darby said. “She’s been in the barns again.”
The interior of this barn appeared to be painted completely black. All I could see were a few gleams where various bits of metal reflected the light from the door. Then Mr. Darby flipped the light switch and we could see again.
Half a dozen glossy black horse heads appeared over stall doors, and several of the animals whickered. Mr. Darby set down the bucket he’d been carrying, strode over to a thermostat on the wall, and adjusted the temperature.
“I gather the Frisian is not an arctic breed,” I said, shivering slightly.
“Keeps turning the thermostat down to what she likes,” Mr. Darby muttered. “She’ll give the poor things pneumonia one of these days. Grab a couple of those horse blankets, will you?”
Dr. Blake was scribbling in his notebook. I handed him Spike’s leash and went to fetch the horse blankets— thick, wool blankets in a subdued black and gray plaid.
“I gather they’re stabled here for safety, with so many strange people coming and going,” Dr. Blake said.
Mr. Darby was slipping inside the first stall.
“Actually, it’s more because of the weather today,” he said. “They catch cold easily.”
“Let’s hope tomorrow’s a sunny day, then,” Caroline said. “So the rose show attendees can see the horses running free in their pasture.”
“No chance of that,” Mr. Darby said. “She has me keep them indoors when it’s sunny, too. The sun could bleach out their coats. Hand me a blanket, would you?”
“Is that bad for the horses?” I asked, as I dutifully passed a horse blanket over the top of the stall door. “Like sunburn for a human?”
“Horses could care less,” he said. “Bad for her color scheme, though. They don’t bleach out to gray. They turn a sort of rusty red. She hates that.”
“Don’t you ever let them outside?” Dr. Blake asked. I could hear a note of outrage creeping into his voice, and shot him a warning look. We wouldn’t gain anything by accusing and antagonizing Mr. Darby.
“At night,” Mr. Darby said. “All night, if they like, as long as the weather’s not bad. It’s quite a sight to see them galloping up and down the pasture under a full moon.”
He finished fastening the blanket around the first horse, handed it a carrot from his pocket, and left the stall. I followed him to the next stall and handed over another horse blanket when asked. My grandfather was strolling down the line of stalls, peering into each one with an intentness that might have annoyed Mr. Darby if he’d noticed. Fortunately he was too busy blanketing the horses against the artificial winter Mrs. Winkleson had created. Spike scampered along at Dr. Blake’s heels, being rather better behaved than usual. Perhaps he was just entranced by all the fascinating new smells the barn had to offer. I was about to warn Dr. Blake not to let Spike roll in any manure, but then I realized that unless Spike got into a stall immediately after one of the horses had produced some, he probably wasn’t going to have the chance. The barn was cleaner than most of my house. Did Mr. Darby do it all, or did he have an army of stable boys hidden out of sight somewhere?
In spite of the presence of the horses, the barn seemed more of a show place than a place where animals really lived and breathed. Maybe it was the absence of the usual clutter of bridles, combs, buckets, pitchforks, horse medicines, and other equine paraphernalia. All those things were probably here, hidden behind the pristine, glossy-black doors of the cabinets built into the walls at intervals, but I was too busy to grab one of the black wrought-iron cabinet handles and see. Luckily, Caroline was trailing behind, poking into all of them.
“Domestic animals aren’t my specialty,” Dr. Blake said, as we were finishing up the last horse. “Is this business of keeping them indoors all day typical?”
“Typical?” Mr. Darby said. “No. Silly, but not unheard of. She’s not the only horse own er who worries more about frivolities like color than essentials, like proper feed and medical care. But at least she doesn’t nickel and dime me on what they need. As long as the horses are still coal black and beautiful, she could care less what she spends on them. I can get the best feed, have Dr. Rutledge out as often as they need him. When we found some jimson weed in their pasture, she let me call a service in to clear it up. She’s peculiar as all get-out, but not stingy.”