National Velvet (11 page)

    
“Five,” said the old gentleman. “These are my little horses. I like little ones too.” He opened the gate of the first loose box and a slender chestnut turned slowly towards him. It had a fine, artistic head, like horses which snort in ancient battles in Greece.

    
“Shake hands, Sir Pericles,” said the old gentleman, and the little chestnut bent its knee and lifted a slender foreleg a few inches from the ground.

    
“But I've no sugar,” said the old gentleman. “You must do your tricks for love to-day.”

    
He closed the gate of the loose box.

    
In the next box was a grey mare.

    
“She was a polo pony,” he said. “Belonged to my son.” He still wore his hat, black waistcoat, and shirt-sleeves. He looked at the gardener's boy. “I need not have
bothered you,” he said. “Of course the grooms are up.” But the gardener's boy, not getting a direct order, followed them gently in the shadow of the stables.

    
The grey mare had the snowy grey coat of the brink of age. All the blue and dapple had gone out of her, and her eyes burnt black and kind in her white face. When she had sniffed the old gentleman she turned her back on him. She did not care for stable-talk.

    
In the next loose box was a small pony, slim and strong, like a miniature horse. He had a sour, suspicious pony face. There were two more loose boxes to come and after that a gap in the stables. Far down the corridor between the boxes Velvet could see where the big horses stood—hunters and carriage horses and cart horses.

    
The gardener's boy never stirred. The old gentleman seemed suddenly tired and still.

    
He moved and pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of his waistcoat. “Get me a chair,” he said very loud. But before the boy could move a groom came running swiftly with a stable chair.

    
The old gentleman sat down and wrote. Then he looked up.

    
“What's your name?” he said and looked at Velvet.

    
“Velvet Brown,” said Velvet.

    
“Velvet Brown,” he said and tapped his pencil on his blue cheek. Then wrote it down. “Sign at the bottom, boy,” he said to the gardener's boy, and the boy knelt down and wrote his name carefully. “Now you sign too,” he said to the groom.

    
The old gentleman rose and Velvet followed him out into the sunlight of the yard. “Take that paper,” he said to her, “and you stay there,” and he walked from her with his coat on his arm.

    
He blew himself to smithereens just round the corner. Velvet never went to look. The grooms came running.

    
The warm of the brick in the yard was all she had to hold on to. She sat on it and listened to the calls and exclamations. “Gone up to Heaven, Elisha,” she thought, and looked up into the sky. She would like to have seen him rising, sweet and sound and happy.

    
In the paper in her hand she read that all of his five horses belonged to her.

    
Taking the paper, avoiding the running and the calling of the household, she crept back through the garden to Miss Ada. When she got home she could not say what had happened, but cried and trembled and was put to bed and slept for hours under the golden screams of the canaries. At four o'clock Mally burst in and cried:

    
“They've drawn! They've drawn! We've got the piebald!”

    
“Whose ticket?” said Velvet faintly.

    
“Yours, oh, yours. Are you ill?”

    
“Mr. Cellini's dead,” whispered Velvet. “J
^ust
round the corner!”

    
Mally stood transfixed to the floor. “They're bringing the piebald home,” she said, staring. She could not be bothered by the death of Mr. Cellini.

    
Hearing a sound she ran to the window.

    
“It's here, it's down at the very door!” she called.

    
“Get mother,” said Velvet, who could not move because the room was swaying.

    
Velvet went to Mr. Cellini's funeral. As an heiress. She did not bury him in her heart till then. The nights before she had seen him only smashed, but living. Seen his face with its looks. Could a look be smashed? That night before the funeral, the horses in her dreams galloped downhill. By the head down, like rockets. But when she had been to his funeral and walked in her winter black tarpaulin mackintosh, among his relations, her eyes like sad lights in her head and her bony teeth, veiled in gold, like a war chief's trophy across her thin face, then she knew he was still and folded and she could turn to the horses.

    
Mr. Brown was quite agreeable to the horses. It was all in the local papers, and lovely pictures of the girls looking like three gazelles. And Velvet? Velvet looking like Dante when he was a little girl.

    
Mr. Brown saw it was good for trade. “You'll be wanting a field,” he said.

    
“But they've been kept in,” said Velvet.

    
“Keep them in you won't, my girl. And it's summer.”

    
“But next winter?” said Velvet.

    
“Next winter'll take care of itself.”

    
There were six horses now.

    
The strange piebald won at the Fair had been put that night by Mi into the Tablet Gully. In this narrow
valley there was a tablet to a dead man, but the name had gone. The tablet said he died gathering moss in the snow, overwhelmed in a snowstorm and fallen down a mountain.

    
In all the ninety miles of the Hullocks there was no moss; there was no snow; no mountains to fall down, but only the curving breasts of hillsides. Still the legend of the nameless man remained intact, and here the piebald grazed, flashing like black and ivory in the dapple of the valley. He was six miles from the village and he had not yet attempted to break lose. He could not see a chimney or a roof from where he cropped, or hear any sound but the sheep who filled his valley. The food was new to him, richer than in the high burnt-up fields above the village, and his attention was caught, and his nostalgia for the time assuaged.

    
Now that the excitement in the village had blown out Mr. Brown began, and well he might, to fuss about expense.

    
“A man who leaves a butcher's daughter five horses might leave her some money to keep them with,” he said.

    
“Why do you suppose he left them to you, Velvet?” asked Mally for the hundredth time.

    
Velvet looked at the table and said, “It was a joke he made with himself at the last minute.”

    
“Just leave her,” said Mrs. Brown calmly. “Don't keep on asking, Malvolia.”

    
It was the green summer dawn of the day the horses were due to arrive. Velvet woke up and she could hear the birds' feet walking up and down on the roof.

    
“Swi—ipe!” said one canary in a very loud voice, and all the sisters woke.

    
At breakfast Velvet sat back in her chair, a little yellow.

    
“Chew your toast well,” said Mrs. Brown, “and don't drink your milk. It'll lay loose.”

    
“Is it eleven or half past that they're coming?” asked Edwina.

    
“Don't talk about it,” said Mrs. Brown. “Leave the subject alone.” Velvet faintly chewed.

    
At nine she had a strong drink of peppermint, and some whitish powder of her mother's choosing. Sitting close to the kitchen stove she slowly recovered. Every now and then the sisters looked in at the door at her anxiously.

    
“Shall I ever grow out of it, mother?” asked Velvet once.

    
“Yes,” said Mrs. Brown, like a palmist, “when you're sixteen.”

    
The room, crammed with furniture, was faintly green as the light struck through the cactus window. The cactus pots were arranged on glass shelves. They were well cared for, of different sorts, and six of them were in peculiar flower. The street door was shut, the yard door was open. On one side of the room the mahogany sideboard stretched from wall to wall, with its bottles of vinegar, old decanters, a set of green wineglasses, salts,
peppers, Al and Demon sauces, and in the middle the Sheffield dish cover, 30 inches long, that covered the joint on Sundays. The Albert lamp, used at night in winter, stood on a table by itself. The dinner table, round, covered with a Paisley cloth, filled the centre of the room. The window on the street was blocked with cineraria. Motes of blue from the flowers floated on the belly of the dish cover.

    
Velvet held the shell-box of paper horses in her hand, like something to which she was being disloyal.

    
All the girls had on striped cotton frocks too big for their thin bodies. Edwina and Malvolia had belted theirs in with leather belts bought in the village, but the dresses of Meredith and Velvet hung loose on them.

    
“Half the village outside in the street” said Mr. Brown complacently, coming in with his pipe out of the sunlight. “Seems to have got round.”

    
“Not surprising,” said Mrs. Brown, “with three reporters coming here.”

    
“This family's cut out for the newspapers,” said Mr. Brown, putting his arm on her vast shoulder. Mrs. Brown said nothing.

    
“Got your strong knickers on?” said Mrs. Brown presently.

    
“Yes,” said Velvet.

    
“What's that for?” said Mr. Brown. “She's not going to ride this string of racers she's getting.”

    
“They're hacks. Little hacks,” said Velvet.

    
Mrs. Brown rose.

    
“See to Donald,” she said. “He's frittering his time.”

    
But at that moment, as they fidgeted, the door opened and Donald walked in, all buttoned up and shining and his brow as black as thunder.

    
“Who's buttoned you?” asked Mrs. Brown.

    
“Mi's buttoned me,” said Donald savagely.

    
“Huh!” said Mrs. Brown.

    
They measured each other.

    
“You forgot me,” said Donald.

    
Mrs. Brown said nothing. Donald strutted down the room and out into the yard.

    
“Seems upset,” said Mr. Brown.

    
Mi came in.

    
“I'll thank you not to button him again,” said Mrs. Brown.

    
“Any sign of the horses?” said Mr. Brown.

    
“Early yet,” said Mi, “but the whole village is waiting on the Green.”

    
“Most of 'em's outside,” said Mr. Brown, motioning to the flower-window with his pipe. The flower-window was black with faces. “Ask Mr. Croom in.”

    
Mi opened the door and spoke through the crack of it. Mr. Croom, the grocer, came in.

    
“Wonderful,” said Mr. Croom, “Velvet gettin' them horses.”

    
Mr. Brown got up and looked at his watch, which lay under a tumbler on the sideboard. “Getting on time,” he said, and Velvet, sitting at the stove, felt suddenly light and warm.

    
“Whur's the little chap?” said Mr. Croom. “Donald?”

    
“I'm here” said Donald through the half-open yard door.

    
“I got silver an' gold for you,” said Mr. Croom.

    
“More'n he deserves,” said Mrs. Brown.

    
Donald came in brightly with his sweet smile.

    
“Silver an' gold,” said Mr. Croom, holding out a net bag full of chocolate coins covered in silver and gold paper. “Foreign,” he said, “Dutch stuff. But Donald won't care.”

    
“Say thank you,” said Mr. Brown.

    
“Thank you,” said Donald, with his heart in his face. He took the bag and wandered away.