National Velvet (19 page)

    
But the Adults were seated on the smallest ponies they could ride. They looked like giants on dogs. Every grown-up was riding his sister's pony, and Mrs. James, galloping like a wild animal, nostrils blowing and eyes rolling, broke all the poles she could break. Edwina led her back without a word, disgusted and silent.

    
It began to rain. Merry put a sack round her shoulders and pulled out the
Canary Breeder's Annual
. Edwina left them and went towards the tent.

    
“She got any money?” said Mally, looking after her keenly.

    
“Can't have,” said Velvet. “She was broke yesterday.”

    
“P'raps she's got twopence for an Idris. Wish to God I had a crunchie,” muttered Mally.

    
“Kandy Korner's got a stall here,” said Merry, reading. “What's happening now?”

    
“It's the tea interval,” said Velvet gloomily. They had won nothing. They had made not a penny. They owed Mi thirty bob.

    
The rain slid, tapping, through the branches, and swept in windy puffs across the field.

    
It made a prison for them, it pressed them into a corner of life, a corner of the heart. They were hung up. Velvet was hung up in life. Where was she? A butcher's daughter, without money, in debt, under suzerainty, an amateur at her first trial of skill, destined that night to a bed of disappointment among the sleeping canaries. She did not think like that. But cared
only that the piebald had jumped one jump as she had dreamt he might jump, with power, with crashing confidence. He was ignorant but he had no stage nerves. Of her own powers she had no thought.

    
Staring out into the lines of rain, lightly she lifted her hands and placed them together in front of her, as though she held the leathers. So acute was the sensation of the piebald beneath her that she turned with surprise to see him standing under the dripping branches. A look of simplicity and adoration passed into her face, like the look of the mother of a child who has won honours. She had for him a future.

    
The rain came down in long knitting needles. Backwards and forwards blew the needles, as the wind puffed. Wet horses, wet mackintoshes, wet dogs, wet flapping of tents, and then as the storm was rent a lovely flushing of light in the raindrops. Wind blew the sky into hollows and rents.

    
“That Violet that Mi met, she's at Kandy Korner,” said Merry. “Serving with them for a week on appro.”

    
“We can't borrow from her if she's only on appro. She'll get into trouble.”

    
“Mi,” said Velvet, looking round the tree, “you round there? Is it dryer there?”

    
“No.”

    
“Your Violet's with Kandy Korner. Got a stall down here.”

    
Silence. Displeasure.

    
“You couldn't touch her for another twopence.”

    
“Not till I see daylight with that thirty bob.”

    
Edwina had gone off with one of the mackintoshes. The saddles were heaped under the other. Merry, Mally and Velvet flattened themselves, shivering, against the tree-trunk.

    
“There's mother!” said Velvet suddenly.

    
Across the field, swaying like a ship at sea, came the red and yellow meat van.

    
“She's brought tea!” said Merry.

    
“She'll thread my needle!” said Velvet.

    
Mally ran out into the open and waved. The van nosed and swayed towards them.

    
“Father's driving! If he stops . . . He'll never let you race, Velvet!”

    
“Stop him buying the programme if you can! Here, tear ours . . . give him the wrong half! Then he won't buy another.”

    
Velvet snatched up the programme and tore a little piece out with her thumb-nail. The van drew up under the tree. Mi opened the door and the giant bulk of Mrs. Brown descended backwards.

    
“We've done nothing, mother! Nothing at all!” said Mally.

    
“That's bad,” said Mrs. Brown. “Here's your tea.”

    
“I'm not stopping,” said Mr. Brown, from the wheel. “There's a sugar box in the back. Pull it out for your mother to sit on. You're wet through, the lot of you. You ought to come home.”

    
“Coats is soppy,” said Mrs. Brown. “How's your vests?”

    
“Dry,” said Velvet, edging away. “Dry's a bone.”

    
“You stay for one more race or whatever you call it,” said Mr. Brown, “an' then you'll take them hosses home. I'll be back to fetch mother.”

    
“But we've PAID . . .” began Velvet in horror. The self-starter whirred and he was gone.

    
“Does he mean it, mother?”

    
“You're dripping,” said Mrs. Brown, cutting up a Madeira cake. “Mi, come round here an' get some food.”

    
The cake grew wet even as they ate it.

    
“What's the next?” said mother. “Gimme the list.” She studied it for a moment.

    
“That's next, mother,” said Velvet, pointing.

    
“Was your name in it?” asked Mrs. Brown, looking at the hole.

    
“Yes . . . it was. 'Tis.”

    
There was a long pause and Mrs. Brown slowly stroked her chin. Mi looked down on her old felt hat in which a pool of rain was settling. Velvet ran one nail under the other and shot out a piece of earth.

    
“I'll thread your needle,” said Mrs. Brown at last.

    
Velvet looked into the heavy eyes and smiled. The eyes blinked with the violence and worship of the glance.

    
The voice of the Broadcaster came roughly through the wind and rain.

    
“Event Number Five,” said the Voice . . . “Competitors for Event Number Five . . . go to the Collecting Ring.”

    
Sir Pericles was saddled in a moment, and Mrs. Brown rose to her feet.

    
“Where'd I stand?” she asked.

    
“Mi'll take you. Mi! It's right far up there.”

    
Mrs. Brown walked like a great soldier up the field.

    
In Velvet's heat she was the only child. She rode out of the gate of the Collecting Ring with four others,—two livery-stable-men from Worthing, a grizzled woman with short hair and a hanging underlip, and a young man in checks on a hired horse with poverty streaks.

    
“I've plenty of chance,” she thought. “I'm lighter than any of them.” All the horses were dripping and began to steam with excitement.

    
“Be slippery at the corner there,” said one of the livery-stable-men.

    
They reached the starting post, and the sodden Starter came down towards them.

    
The faces, shining in the rain, looked back at him. The young man in the check suit lay up on the inside against the rail. The woman with the hanging lip scowled at him and edged her horse nearer. Velvet came next, and on the outside the two stable-men. The flag was raised. Before it could fall the young man made a false start. While he was getting back into position the grizzled woman took his place.

    
“Don't shove!” said the young man, but the woman made no reply. Up went the flag again and the bounding of Velvet's heart swept Sir Pericles forward.

    
“Get back . . . that child!” shouted the Starter.

    
Velvet swung Sir Pericles back behind the line and
brought him up. The flag fell again neatly as she got him square. She drove for the centre of the first hurdle. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the grizzled woman's horse run out. The young man in the checks she never saw again. Perhaps he never started. As she landed she saw a horse and man on the ground beside her. The heat was between Velvet and one livery-stable-man.

    
Sir Pericles, the little creature, brilliant and honest, never looked to right or left but stayed where Velvet drove him, straight at the middle of each hurdle. He fled along the grass, jumping as neatly as a cat, swung round the sharp, uphill corner towards the table where the sewers stood, Velvet kicking the stirrups free, neck and neck with the livery-man on a blue roan. The roan drew ahead. The sewers' table neared. Velvet flung herself off as they drew up; her feet ran in the air, then met the ground and ran beside the horse.

    
“What have you got off for?” said Mrs. Brown calmly, as she began to sew.

    
Velvet glanced with horror at her rival, leaning from his saddle while a tall girl sewed at his sleeve. “Oh . . .” she breathed. She had forgotten the instructions. She had had no need to dismount.

    
But Mrs. Brown's needle flashed in and out, while the blue roan fidgeted and danced, and the tall girl pivoted on her feet.

    
It was an easy win for Velvet. She was in the saddle, off, and had time to glance behind, before the roan had started. She heard his galloping feet behind her but
he never caught her up and Sir Pericles went steadily down the grassy slope, jumping his hurdles with willing care.

    
A burst of clapping and cheers went up.

    
“Stay in the field!” said a Steward. “Wait for the other heats to be run.” Velvet sat alone in the rain, in a cloud of steam from the excited horse. One by one the winners of the three heats joined her.

    
The first was a boy of about nineteen, with a crooked jaw. Steaming and shining and smiling he rode up to her on a brown horse with a hunter-build, long tail and mane.

    
“You did a good one!” he said to her.

    
“I'd only one to beat,” she said, “and even then it was the button that did it.”

    
“That's a beautiful little horse,” said the boy. “He's
neat!
.”

    
They turned to watch the finish of the next heat.

    
They were joined by a fat little man in a bowler hat, a dark grey riding coat and soaking white breeches. He took off his bowler as he rode towards them and mopped his shining bald head. His horse was a grey.

    
“What a horse . . .” he said as he rode up. “I hired him. Couldn't hold him fer a minute. Just went slap round as though he'd got a feed at the winning post. I'll never pull it off a second time, not unless he chooses to! Lands on his head too, every time. Not a bit of shoulder.”

    
“The saddle looks too big for him,” said the boy. “It's right up his neck. But he's a grana goer.”

    
“It's right up his neck, an' so'm I,” said the little man, dismounting. “It's the way he jumps. Next round I'll be down and off and rolling out of your light! Here's the last! It's Flora Banks!”

    
“Who's she?” said the boy.

    
“Tough nut from Bognor,” said the little man under his breath.

    
Flora Banks wore a yellow waistcoat, had a face like a wet apple and dripping grey hair. She rode astride on a bay horse that looked like a racer, lean and powerful and fully sixteen hands. Velvet's heart sank.

    
“My poor Flora,” said the little man calmly, bringing out a match, “you've got an overreach. You're out of it!”

    
The Tough Nut was off her bay in a second, flung her cigarette into the grass and knelt and took the bleeding forefoot tenderly in her hands. The big bay hung his head like a disappointed child. He was out of it. She led him, limping, away.

    
“Makes us three,” said the little man, mopping his head. “Two really. I can't last another round. You go it, little girl, an' get the fiver. Hi, they're calling us.”

    
Down went the three horses to the starting post, reins slipping in cold fingers, rain whirling in puffs. Velvet's breath would not sink evenly on the downward stroke. She shuddered as she breathed.

    
“Lay up against the rails, little girl,” said the bowler hat. “I'm so fast you can't beat me whatever you do, but I'm coming off. Where's that Starter? Goin' to
keep our hearts beating while he drinks his coffee? Hi, where's that Starter? The blighter's drinkin' coffee!”

    
The Starter burst out of a little tent wiping his mouth and ran through the raindrops that suddenly grew less. The miraculous sun broke all over the soaking field. The freshness was like a shout. Velvet shaded her eyes, for the start was into the west. Water, filled with light, shone down the grass. The flag was raised and fell.

    
The boy on the brown horse got a bad start. Velvet and the little man rose together at the first hurdle. Velvet had the inside and the grey lay behind her. At the second hurdle she heard him breathe, then lost him. At the slight curve before the third hurdle he had drawn up on her inside, between her and the rail. She had lost her advantage.