National Velvet (14 page)

    
“ ‘Novices jumping,' ” said Velvet, pointing to an item many times underlined. The whole programme was ready to drop to pieces.

    
“
Children's
Novice jumping,” corrected Edwina.

    
“Well, of course! Sir Pericles couldn't do anything else. It'll be three foot.”

    
“Three foot six, Mi says.”

    
“Are you sure?”

    
“Well, you know what he is. He never likes to be wrong.”

    
“Find out how he found out, anyway.”

    
“George can jump three foot six.”

    
“Easy, if he wants to,” said Mally.

    
“About money,” said Velvet. “We ought to look at it that way. There's more to be won in the jumping than in potatoes or bending. But there's most to be won in the hurdle races. Most of all. Pounds.”

    
“But we . . . You wouldn't do that?”

    
“I don't know,” said Velvet. “It isn't so awful. It's only low hurdles and a hustle.”

    
“Don't you remember the way some of them crashed last year?”

    
“There's no need to crasn like that,” said Velvet. “It's the men who crash, not the women.”

    
“Why is that?”

    
“I think they must be wilder,” said Velvet.

    
“They win more too,” said Mally.

    
“Sometimes women win,” said Velvet in her clear voice, lifting her boy's face just a little.

    
“Would they let you?”

    
“Oh, yes, in gymkhanas. It's the size of the horse that counts. It doesn't matter who rides. It's ‘Open.' It doesn't say ‘Adults.' See in this one? First prize
£3
.”

    
“We'll just have to borrow our entries, and pay them back out of prizes.”

    
“But if we don't get any prizes?”

    
Nobody answered.

    
“Who can we borrow from?”

    
“We haven't paid Mi yet for the tickets for the raffle. And there's sixpence owing on Mar's Bars and twopence on Crunchies.”

    
“Those are only shillings!” said Velvet impatiently.
“We are going to win pounds. We must just borrow again.”

    
“Couldn't we sell something?”

    
“We ought to sell Miss Ada,” said Meredith.

    
There was a silence like the silence of wasps before attack.

    
“I wasn't thinking!” said Meredith hurriedly.

    
“I should think not!” said Mally.

    
“But there's something in it,” said Edwina. “We've got too many horses. If we sold the piebald we'd have money to pay for all the other horses.”

    
“If anybody ever sells the piebald,” said Velvet slowly, “I might as well die.”

    
“Well, it's borrow or sell,” said Edwina. “Come along. We've got to feed them still.”

    
The sky green, the sun almost gone, they returned, buckets of oats mixed with chaff carried between them. They pulled branches of reeds and switched the horses off as they tried to steal each other's buckets. George ate with the whites gleaming in the corners of his eyes, and, as he finished, his ears went back. Then with a rush he stormed another bucket, and the evening rang with the clatter of iron shoes, girls' curses, and zinc buckets overturned. Mrs. James ate steadily and could lash out if interrupted. Sir Pericles was nervous and would rather not eat at all than be hurried. Fancy threw his bucket over, mixed his oats with earth. Angelina got the leavings. Unbroken, she was definitely out to grass and was only a crumb-picker, like a dog.

    
The stars came out as they watched the horses eat.

    
“Mrs. James, Mrs. James,” said Velvet suddenly, with love. And the mare laid her ears back at such nonsense.

    
“Why do you love her?” asked Meredith.

    
“She is like mother,” said Velvet.

    
“Oh. . . . How?”

    
“She is,” said Velvet. “Aren't they wild and lovely in this field at night! Look how their eyes shine! Look at Angelina's! Got kitten's eyes.”

    
“Come . . . up, Mrs. James!” said Mally, tugging.

    
“What's a matter?”

    
Mally had the mare's off-fore in her hands. “Shoe gone. I thought so. Now there'll be shoeing bills. Had you thought of that?”

    
“That's upkeep. Father'll pay,” said Edwina.

    
“Yes, but pay and pay, and there'll come an end. There's nothing coming in on these horses,” said Mally.

    
“At Pendean . . . at Pendean . . .” said Velvet, stammering and desperate all at once.

    
“You won't make a fortune anyway. And you may break your neck. Mother won't let you do it.”

    
“If I get the entry money, I'll enter. She won't know till I'm down at the starting post.”

    
“Come along,” said Edwina, holding the gate.

    
The horses who had finished hurried after them. They were shut out at the gate and hung their heads over into the dark.

    
“Cat in the ditch!” said Mally as they walked. They all saw the two fiery points among the dark weeds.

    
“Shush!” said Edwina, jumping suddenly to the brink of the ditch. The eyes winked and blew out.

    
“Cats' eyes shine like thieves' lamps,” said Velvet. “What's for supper?”

    
“I just bin wondering,” said Meredith.

    
“It's the two lobsters father brought!” said Mally suddenly. “Mother said she'd do 'em hot . . .” They ran, buckets clanking.

    
The spaniels, pressed against the door, yelped as Mally pushed them aside.

    
The living room smelt alive with hot lobster—a red, entrancing smell.

    
Edwina snatched a little parcel that had come by post from off the sideboard.

    
“What's that!” said Velvet and Mally instantly.

    
“Mine,” said Edwina. She shot up the stairway to the bedroom.

    
All three streamed after her.

    
“I wish to God I had a room of my own!” panted Edwina, turning on them at bay from the dressing table, the parcel in her hand. “I shan't . . . I won't undo it.”

    
“Hey!” called Mrs. Brown. “Father's come! Come on down. Never mind washing. It won't stand a minute.”

    
In a few seconds they were all grouped round the table as keen as the dogs outside.

    
Mi appeared from nowhere.

    
The lobster was borne in on a vast dish, surrounded by a bank of rice. It was chopped up, thickened with flour, buttered, and boiling hot.

    
“Where's that sherry?” said father, diving for the cupboard. “There was a drop.”

    
“You'll cool it down,” objected Mrs. Brown.

    
“Poof!” said father. “Where's the damn thing? Here it is . . .” He got the bottle and poured half a glass over the lobsters. “Turn it over then.”

    
Mrs. Brown took up a spoon and turned the steaming lobster in the sherry. The helpings were ladled out, a lot of rice and a fair share of lobster. They ate.

    
“God, it's good,” said Mally.

    
“You don't need to keep on saying God,” said Mr. Brown, with his mouth full. “Just be quiet.”

    
“Poor Donald,” said Velvet.

    
“Sleeping like an angel,” said Mi.

    
“Empty angel,” said Mally. “No lobster inside him.”

    
“Stir him up if he had!” said Mi. “My word . . .”

    
At the thought of Donald stirred up with lobster to worse excesses they fell still again and continued to eat.

    
“No dog eats shellfish,” said Mr. Brown sideways to Jacob, who was bowing at him.

    
“How d'you know?” asked Mally.

    
“Kind o' law,” said Mr. Brown. “My father always said it to his dogs.”

    
“Give him a bit an' see.”

    
“Can't spare any,” said Mr. Brown.

    
Jacob mooned under the table.

    
“Father, Mrs. James's lost a shoe,” said Velvet.

    
The storm broke swiftly over the supper table.

    
“Oats an' shoes an' soon there'll be bits o' saddlery . . . nothing to show for it . . . nothing but pleasure
and a lot o' girls being spoiled for school . . .” The storm blew in a wind of indignation and as it blew Velvet was conscious of her father's case. It was a good one. There was no benefit to him in the horses. The lovely creatures ate, and were sterile. They laboured not, and ate and ate, and lost their shoes. Velvet had no answers and no comfort to offer. And all her promises were child's promises and air until she could carry them out.

    
When supper was over and cleared, and father was standing in the street with his pipe, she pulled out the gymkhana schedule from the dresser drawer, and bent her urgent face over the yellow paper.

    
Mechanically her hand went up to rock the gold binder and lay it in her lap.

    
“You
would
choose to-night!” said Edwina, giving her a shove with her elbow.

    
Velvet stared at her.

    
“Get your plate in,” said Edwina. “You always do it when he's angry.”

    
Velvet stared at her still. A gust of loyalty to her father shook her heart. Edwina had a way of talking. . . . She eyed Edwina sideways. Edwina was rough, and she looked as fine as wire. Something about the beauty of the antelope face caught Velvet's attention. Suddenly she wondered if Edwina would save her if she were drowning. Then studied the schedule again.

    
“Seven two-and-sixes,” she said finally.

    
“Make it eight. That's a pound,” said Mally. “Wherever d'you suppose we're going to get that from?”

    
“Let's look again and see if there's anything we can leave out,” said Meredith.

    
“No point in doing that,” said Velvet. “It's just as difficult to borrow seventeen and six as a pound.”

    
“Queer idea,” said Mally.

    
“Why queer?”

    
“Thinking saving doesn't matter.”

    
“We got nothing,” said Velvet. “We got nothing, have we?”

    
“Nothing.”

    
“Then we might as well ask for what we want as ask for less.”

    
“Who you going to ask?”

    
“Don't know,” said Velvet. “I'll have to see. Let's work it through once more.”

    
There was a rustle by the door and she put her plate in.

    
“Let's go to Miss Ada.”

    
They filed out across the yard, and stood and sat by Miss Ada's manger.

    
Miss Ada stood droopingly and sour. She had not seen much of them lately.

    
“Give her something to brighten her up,” said Edwina. “She's looking a crime.”

    
Velvet pulled up her frock.

    
“You've always got sugar in your knickers,” said Mally. “How does mother let you have so much?”

    
“I buy it.”

    
“
Buy
it?”

    
“I promised Mr. Groom I'd pay after the gymkhana.” She fumbled. “Here's a bit.”

    
Miss Ada took it in her exasperated manner, and turned her back on them.

    
“ ‘Children's Bending,' “ read Velvet. “That's Mally. On George. ‘Children's Potato Race.' Me on Mrs. James. ‘Children (Novice) Jumping.' Me on Sir Pericles . . . and on the piebald.”

    
“The piebald!” The three voices snapped in the stall like whip-cracks. “The piebald! But you've never ridden him.”

    
“I shall have ridden him by then. Remember how he jumped the wall?”

    
“Yes, but . . .”

    
“I shall have ridden him. I'm going over to-morrow afternoon.”

    
“We'll all go. To-morrow afternoon,” said Meredith.