National Velvet (13 page)

    
“Get up again” said the head groom and held the pony tighter.

    
“Walk him, walk him,” said the groom warningly. “Trot before you canter or he'll buck!”

    
George stuck his head out in an ugly line, and Velvet tried gently to haul him in. The whites of his eyes gleamed and his nose curled. He snatched at the bit when he felt her pressure and stretched his neck impatiently. Velvet's lips could not tighten, there was too much gold; but her eyes shone. She twirled the ends of the long reins and caught him hard, first on one shoulder, then on the other.

    
“She'll be off!” said Edwina.

    
“Not she!” said Mi. “It's what he's asking for.”

    
George curved his neck and flirted archly with his bit, then trotted smartly back to the gate. Velvet dismounted and turned to Fancy, the cob.

    
Fancy was no faster than Miss Ada, and somewhat her build. He trotted round the field sedately.

    
“That's the lot,” said the groom. “The filly's not broke.”

    
“I must try George again,” said Velvet.

    
“You bin on the lot,” said Mrs. Brown. “Come home now.”

    
“But Merry and Mally . . .”

    
“The horses'll get all of a do,” said the head groom,
“if they get too many on 'em. Better let them graze now, and to-morrow they'll be more themselves.”

    
The horses were turned loose and the saddlery carried back to the slaughter-house, where it was straddled over iron hook-brackets among the sheep's bodies.

    
The head groom stayed to midday dinner. The two others went down to the inn. It was Irish stew, with dumplings and onions. As the groom ate, he gave Velvet advice on how to catch the horses. His hat with the crêpe on it was laid on the sideboard.

    
“They haven't been out since last summer, and they're sure to be a bit wild at first. But you want to be up there, sitting on the wall, and just feeding them and coaxing them for a bit before you try to catch them. Mrs. James, she's wily. Sir Pericles'll do anything in the world you tell him. He knows a lot and what he knows is all pure goodness. Mrs. James is what you might call worldly wise. The pony's just pure cuss. He'll jump his own height if you can ever get him to believe in you. You can use a bit of stick on him. He's suspicious of kindness. But never touch Sir Pericles with anything. He'll break his heart and go sour. Fancy, she's no temperament. The little one, Angelina, wants playing with an' fondling, like you might fondle this dog here.” Jacob grinned and bowed.

    
“Nice dog,” added the groom. Jacob trembled with expectation. But the groom, pulling a piece of gristle out of his mouth, only laid it on the edge of his plate.

    
“You haven't asked about food, Velvet,” said Edwina.
But Velvet, who couldn't manage dumplings and onions, looked more ready to be carried to bed.

    
“Food now,” said the groom. “But they're to be out to grass entirely? Well, well. . . . They'll just have to get accustomed to it. It's to be hoped they won't blow their bellies out the first day. But the grass is thin up there and that's a mercy. If they get colic you'll have to bring 'em in and sweat 'em and draught 'em. Whisky and rum together's the thing.”

    
“Half and half?” said Mi abruptly.

    
The groom looked at him. “You'll be taking 'em on, I daresay?” he said hopefully.

    
“Mi won't waste his time,” said Mr. Brown with authority. “The girls must learn what there is to learn.”

    
“Leave it, leave it,” said Mrs. Brown. “It'll settle itself.”

    
“My plate makes me retch,” whispered Velvet to her mother.

    
“Grumble, grumble, grumble,” said Mr. Brown, who had heard.

    
“Ho! I gotta huge,
huge
caterpillar in my greens!” said Donald, holding it up.

    
“It's dead!” said Mally. Velvet put her face in her hands.

    
Mrs. Brown rose and took a plate off the sideboard. “Put it there, Donald,” she said firmly, “and not another word about it.”

    
“Let me see it,” said Merry, leaning forward. Mr. Brown looked up, frowning. “There's manners about
caterpillars” he said sharply. “Put them aside and
say nothing.
”

    
“It's done me!” said Velvet through her hands. “Can I go?”

    
“Yes, you can go” said her mother. Mr. Brown looked up again. “No good keeping her,” said Mrs. Brown. “She'll vomit.”

“D
ONALD
yelling on the Green!” called Mrs. Brown from the scullery.

    
Mi, with a bridle on his knees, in the living room, rose and looked through the flower-window.

    
“Mally's got him up in front on Mrs. James” he said.

    
“S'e all right?”

    
“Can't see what's wrong with him. He's screaming awful.”

    
“Mally,” called Mrs. Brown, opening the front door. “Stop it. He's got a pin or something.”

    
Mrs. James was cantering jerkily round and round the Green at what Mally believed to be a show canter. Donald, sitting on the edge of the saddle in front of Mally, had his arms over her arms and his bare legs were sinking beneath her knees, preventing her grip. He was scarlet in the face, his mouth was open, and he was screaming. His head jerked madly up and down as Mrs. James bounded. With difficulty Mally pulled up.

    
“Can't get off,” called Mally (for Donald was half underneath her), then slid off in a heap with the child in her arms. Mrs. James sprang away in fear and trotted
into the yard. Donald, sobbing, began at once to search in the grass.

    
“Whatever's the matter, Donald?” said Mrs. Brown from the doorway.

    
“Lost my sixpence. My chocolate sixpence,” screamed Donald, hysterically turning over every tuft.

    
“Good God, is that all?” said Mally, rubbing her knee. She got up and went after Mrs. James.

    
“Lost his sixpence,” said Mrs. Brown to Mi, closing the door and returning to the scullery.

    
“Ain't lost his nerve,” said Mi, polishing the bit.

    
“Lot o' work we get out o' you, Mi!” said the butcher, coming in from the shed. “Place slimy with sheep stomach! Get on cleaning, do. Bits and leathers and irons and horses . . .” He disappeared again.

    
Mi grinned, put the bit on the sideboard and followed him. The little living room was dark and empty. Jacob parted the fringe of the sofa-covering with his beaded nose and stole out, dragging his hind-quarters after him with a yawn. He glanced round, grinned too, and leaped upon the sofa, turned round once or twice, scraped primevally with his foot and lay down.

    
Mi stuck his head back through the slaughter-shed door.

    
“Ha!” he said, and sprang for the sofa. Jacob was underneath again in a flash of white.

    
When the horses had been with the Browns a month, life readjusted itself and everything was easier than had been thought.

    
The horses had lost flesh a little in the dry, sea-blown field, and were very slightly out of condition. Mi knew it, but did not speak of it to Velvet. Velvet frowned and put her fingers into small hollows on the haunches, but said nothing. On the whole it was as well, for, corned-up as the horses had been when they arrived, the four girls would have had much more difficulty with them.

    
In the mornings they rode them in the field, and Mi, when he could sneak away, constructed jumps out of old packing cases, branches and bean poles, carrying up his precious hammer and nails. In the late afternoons they cantered over the Hullocks high up above the sea, preferably just before sunset. Mi watched them go off with a queer look in his eye, a look old Dan had worn when he saw Araminty Brown strike out from the brim of the land. There are men who like to make something out of women.

    
Velvet and Edwina usually rode Sir Pericles or Mrs. James. Mally liked her battles with George, and Meredith who never knew sufficiently what she was doing, was safest and happiest on Fancy.

    
“What shall we do when the summer's over?” said Velvet one evening to Edwina, as they rode along a chalk track on a ridge. “We can't keep Sir Pericles and Mrs. James out.”

    
“It'll be murder,” said Edwina.

    
“Mother'll do something with father,” said Velvet.

    
While they cantered in a stream Merry always formed the tail. She went with a loose rein and trusted God.
Fancy plodded along and minded his path. Merry liked the air whistling round her forehead, and the shifting clouds reflected on the Hullocks. She watched for partridge and thought of her canaries. The arrival of the horses had not disturbed her at all. The partridges rose and went skimming away sideways and downhill like falling arrowheads. The rooks tossed about in the sky like a tipcart of black paper in a whirlwind. The larks hung invisible and the hawk hung visible. But Meredith, glancing at them, knowing them, was reminded only of Arabelle, of Mountain Jim, of Butter and Dreadnought Susan. She was not romantic about wild birds. She liked her power over her little yellow flight at home.

    
“When we bring out Donald, what'll we start him on?” began Velvet. (This was a favourite theme.) Donald was to ride, youngest, in the under-eight. He was to ride well, for the sake of their honour, but capital might also be made of his youth and his silver hair. He was to ride home up the village, carrying the silver cup he had won as best-boy-rider in the under-eight. But what on? That was the everlasting question.

    
“George is the narrowest.”

    
“George would have him off in a second.”

    
“Do you suppose . . .” began Meredith, but nobody listened to her. Mating was her mania. She was certainly going to talk about mating.

    
They walked their horses slowly down the chalk road leading to the village and reached the field.

    
“Who's got the key? Meredith, you had the key.”

    
Meredith fumbled under her cotton frock. Not one of them had riding breeches.

    
“It was in my knicker pocket,” she said, turning her brown knickers almost inside but.

    
“You've lost it!” they all said instantly. Edwina got down and, undoing a bit of wire, took the gate off its hinges and opened it from the wrong side.

    
“I've got it!” said Mally suddenly, fishing in her knickers.

    
They rode up to a little lean-to allotment-shed with a padlock where they kept the saddlery and the rubbers. The horses were rubbed down and turned loose, and, wiring up the gate's hinge, the girls sauntered back along the road to the village.

    
“Let's see that schedule again,” said Mally.

    
Velvet drew it out of her pocket. They came to a stop and sat on a flint bridge over a stream. The setting sun picked out the flints like pieces of glass.