Cliquot: A Racing Story of Ideal Beauty

In Short

Set against the backdrop of Southern society and high-stakes racing, Kate Lee Ferguson's novel follows the entwined lives of Neil Emory, the enigmatic Gwendoline Gwinn, and a fiery racehorse named Cliquot. As Emory grapples with financial ruin, past entanglements, and an unhappy marriage, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to Gwendoline, whose family has fallen from wealth into genteel poverty. Against a backdrop of social calls, theatrical performances, and tense preparations for the turf, long-buried attachments and dangerous secrets resurface. The book has endured as a melodramatic snapshot of period romance, blending equestrian obsession with nineteenth-century emotional turbulence.

The Story

The narrative opens in a bustling, crowded social setting where Gwendoline Gwinn holds court with characteristic indolence, drawing the quiet fixation of Neil Emory and the more active attentions of young Clayton and the wealthy sugar planter Colonel Morris Coutell. Amid idle chatter and flirtations, Emory experiences a sudden, vivid mental flash of a dangerous race and a cry for his horse, Cliquot, to save him from ruin. This equestrian obsession mirrors his complicated personal life, marked by his distant wife, Cecile, and his uneasy interactions with a popular, darkly beautiful actress named Clovis, who desires Emory's name despite his poverty.

As the days progress, Gwendoline retreats to her family's modest parlor, where she mourns her family's lost fortunes and cherished relics, such as a portrait of a little gray poodle named Fluffy. She engages in guarded conversations with her mother, Mrs. Gwinn, who eagerly schemes to secure a match between Gwendoline and the affluent, aging Colonel Coutell. Meanwhile, Emory manages his legal affairs and anticipates a Monday morning that will decide his financial fate, only to receive a telegram with four shocking words: his wife is dead.

Parallel lives unfold on the edges of the city, where a blacksmith named Jess Peleg and his wife discuss the perilous clothing and prospects of the upcoming race. Peleg nurses a deep grief over his niece Alice, a young girl whom Gwendoline taught and befriended, who was led astray by a married race-rider. Gwendoline, recalling her childhood days on her father's estate and her old bond with a mare and colt she once rode, discovers through a strange twist of fate that Emory's newly purchased, high-spirited racehorse is actually her beloved former mount, Notos, renamed Cliquot. Inspired by a vivid dream of riding the animal to victory, she yearns to touch and guide the creature once more.

Emory navigates shifting alliances between the theater, where Clovis performs her final week, and the park, where Gwendoline rides with Colonel Coutell. As social tensions mount, Gwendoline's mother pushes her toward the colonel, ignoring her daughter's quiet sympathies for the husband her niece left behind. Secret messages and visits from a persistent admirer plague Gwendoline, despite the tearful warnings of her maid, Alice. The story builds toward the fateful race and the tangled revelations of the characters' true loyalties, leaving Emory standing in the twilight, poised between a shadowed past and a decisive tomorrow.

How It Unfolds

• The crowded salon — Neil Emory watches Gwendoline Gwinn hold court among admirers, sparking a dark premonition of a racehorse and a desperate wager.
• Memories of loss — Gwendoline rests in her family's modest parlor, gazing at a cherished portrait and mourning the lifestyle and pets of her vanished childhood.
• Shadowed entanglements — Emory navigates public appearances and private demands, receiving romantic pressures from the actress Clovis before a telegram announces his wife's death.
• The blacksmith's sorrow — Jess Peleg and his wife discuss the hazards of the upcoming race, reflecting on the ruin of Peleg's niece Alice by a reckless rider.
• The hidden identity — Gwendoline realizes that Emory's dangerous racehorse, Cliquot, is actually her childhood mount, sparking a bold desire to ride him herself.
• The approaching climax — Pressured by her mother toward a wealthy marriage with Colonel Coutell, Gwendoline receives secret messages while Emory prepares for the final showdown of the week.

The People

Central figures in the drama include Neil Emory, a constrained and financially strapped man whose heart is torn between social obligations, a distant marriage, and an intense, unspoken fixation on Gwendoline. He wants clarity and financial salvation, but stands hampered by his own secrets and the looming threat of ruin, ultimately emerging chastened and reflective.

Gwendoline Gwinn is a remarkably beautiful, indolent young woman who masks deep emotional turbulence behind an unbothered facade. She longs to reclaim the warmth and freedom of her lost youth and her connection to her former horse, with her family's poverty and her mother's ambitious matchmaking schemes standing squarely in her way.

Colonel Morris Coutell is a wealthy, silver-haired sugar planter of ancient lineage who courts Gwendoline with courtly grace, desiring to install her as mistress of his vast Southern estate.

Clovis is a darkly beautiful, talented actress of good family who desires social standing and Emory's name, adding a layer of theatrical competition to the romantic landscape.

Jess Peleg is a rough, honest blacksmith mourning the tragedy that befell his niece Alice, serving as a steadfast, working-class anchor to Gwendoline's past.

In Its Own Voice

A dark, stylish man was beside her, holding an ice.

This early moment establishes the idle, aristocratic social atmosphere in which Gwendoline and her admirers gather.

“Cliquot, Cliquot, my beautiful, win for me or I perish!”

This internal cry reveals the desperate financial and emotional weight Emory places upon his racehorse.

“Poor little Fluffy,” murmured the girl, “how he loved me--and they are all gone!”

This quiet reflection highlights Gwendoline's deep melancholy over the loss of her childhood estate and simpler days.

What It's Really About

The novel explores the heavy collision between aristocratic pretense and the harsh realities of financial ruin in the post-bellum South. It investigates the commodification of marriage, where young women are treated as pawns in social advancement, contrasted against a genuine, almost spiritual communion with nature and animals. Ferguson questions whether personal identity and freedom can survive within a rigid social hierarchy that values outward display above inner emotional truth. The unspoken devotion between Emory and Gwendoline serves as a silent critique of the superficial chatter that surrounds them, suggesting that true passion exists away from the glittering drawing room.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate nineteenth-century melodrama, Southern local color, and vintage equestrian fiction will find plenty to savor here. Reading it feels like unearthing a faded photograph album from a parlor in the deep South, filled with murmurs of silk dresses, clinking glasses, and the distant thunder of the racetrack. However, modern readers must approach it with patience, navigating period attitudes, dramatic pacing, and occasional passages of heavy dialect typical of late-nineteenth-century popular publishing. What ultimately stays with you is the haunting image of Gwendoline—indolent yet intense—and the nervous energy of a world caught between gentility and desperation.