National Velvet (25 page)

M
ARCH
ran two-thirds of its days.

    
Mr. Larke, the chemist, called in to fetch his meat book. “I'm hair-washing,” called Mrs. Brown from the scullery. Mr. Larke stood in the scullery door critically.

    
“Two drops a' camomile is what you ought to add,” he said.

    
“Bleach 'em?”

    
“Bleach 'em.”

    
“Bleached enough already.”

    
“When I say 'bleach' I should say 'bring out the colour.' ”

    
“Vinegar's what I use,” said Mrs. Brown.

    
“So I can smell,” said Mr. Larke.

    
“I got your last week's book made up,” said Mrs. Brown, rinsing Edwina; “it's on the sideboard by the apples. Now Velvet. Edwina, you go and rub your head an' Mally'll give you a hand.”

    
Edwina came staggering back into the living-room, her head and face blindly wrapped in the bath towel
Mrs. Brown had popped over her. “My back aches,” she grumbled. “I wish I could wash my own.”

    
“Velvet!” called Mrs. Brown.

    
“I'm coming . . .”

    
When Velvet reached the scullery Mrs. Brown looked at her. “I won't risk it,” she said. “Might make you squeamish, bending. I'll brush it through with a wet brush an' you can sit by the fire an' comb it.”

    
“I'm taking the book then,” called Mr. Larke loudly. “It's a great day for you all. Anxious. I'm not a racing man myself but we've all got our eyes on you, Velvet. There's a bit of money on you in the village.”

    
“Thank you,” said Velvet, through the brushing.

    
“Say it louder,” said Mrs. Brown.

    
“Thank YOU,” shouted Velvet.

    
“Right,” said Mr. Larke. “Where you stopping?”

    
“Hotel,” shouted Mrs. Brown. “She's doing it slip-slap. (Why don't he go? Makes you testy all this popping in an' good-wishing.) . . .”

    
(“There he goes,” said Velvet. “I can feel the draught on my legs.”)

    
“I'm dry!” shouted Edwina. “Can I go?”

    
“You can't be dry. Come here an' let me feel.”

    
Edwina came in.

    
“Damp all roun' your glands,” said Mrs. Brown, feeling. “You don't go down the street like that.”

    
“Teddy's just . . .”

    
“Teddy kin wait.”

    
“He can't.”

    
“Anybody kin wait, Edwina,” said Mrs. Brown, brushing hard, “for a pretty girl.”

    
Edwina suddenly smiled all over her light-built face. She went back to the living-room.

    
“Isn't she getting grown-up,” said Velvet.

    
“You're all on the edge of it.”

    
“Not me.”

    
“There you are!” said Mrs. Brown, laying down the brush. “You fluff up with a bit of water.”

    
“It'll all be down again flat in an hour.”

    
“Greasy scalp,” said Mrs. Brown. “Get Meredith down for me. She's with the birds.”

    
It was the last evening before the start at dawn. Velvet and Mi were travelling to Aintree in the horsebox. The last evening meal. Donald was allowed to sit up. Taps came on the door as they ate and friendly voices called in. The whole village had of course long known that the piebald horse, won for a shilling, was going to be run in the Grand National. Velvet's Grand National. “Gran' National Velvet,” Mr. Groom called out to her in the street. “Good morning, Gran' National Velvet!” and two boys outside the sweet-shop had clapped their hands. “Got any tips for the National?” called the postman.

    
“The Piebald!” said Velvet with her shy look.

    
“Yes, they're going up to Liverpool to-morrow,” said Mrs. Brown at the door twenty times. “Mi an' Velvet are going in the horse-box.” She filled the doorway with her body and behind her shadow Velvet sat. It
was a soft March night between a pair of howling gales, a black, cold trough of peace, pierced with stars' Stars that above her mother's head as she stood in the open street doorway seemed like Christmas trees, slender, growing into the sky. The Albert lamp on Edwina's hair, her father's folded neck, her mother's majesty and silence, Donald's film face and dear, disgusting habits, the sideboard, heavy, loaded, bottles of ink, dish-covers, salmon tins, apples, vinegar bottles, Merry's bird-absorbed face, Mally's loyal and sharp eyes, Mi's grin, Mi's slouch, Mi's way of coming through the door, Mi's shadow, the lying Jacob, the bitch-seeking, pleasure-loving, self-indulgent Jacob, agreeable dog, sensitive, agreeable dog . . . these things (not in words), but in the burning warmth of the present, swelled her leave-taking heart. She had a wordless premonition that this was an egg into which it was impossible to re-enter. When the shell had burst, it was burst for ever. She felt this only as a dog howls for packing, mournful and simple and going, going, gone.

    
Going, going, gone, full of stars and cacti, and yellow canaries screaming in the morning.

    
“What d'you want, Velvet?”

    
“I'm getting my shell-box.”

    
In silence they watched her fetch her box and put it beside her plate.

    
Edwina laughed suddenly.

    
“Coo lummy, Velvet! Paper horses just before the Grand National!”

    
“Beastly pair o' words,” muttered father. “Get 'em from Teddy . . .”

    
“H'm . . . Teddy uses better words 'an that!”

    
(Warm bickering of family life. Fathers and daughters. . . .)

    
“Can I see wot's inside that box?” said Donald.

    
Velvet's face lightened. Donald should look at them to-night. He had never set his fingers on them before.

    
“Have you finished, Donald? Come an' sit on my lap.”

    
“I kin climb up. Don' you help me.” He walked up the bars of her chair like a ladder and bumped himself down on to her lap from the arm.

    
She opened the lid and a little shell fell off.

    
“You've dropped a shell!” (burstingly).

    
“I must stick it back.”

    
“Let me look!”

    
“Ssh, wait . . .” Velvet put her thin finger inside and hooked up a race-horse.

    
“Hullo! This is Grakle!” she said. “Who's been changing them round? Who's touched my box?”

    
“I did,” said Merry in a small voice, “I did, Velvet. I'm sorry.”

    
Velvet looked astonished. “I don't mind, Merry,” she said. “I didn't think you ever cared about them.”

    
“It was yesterday afternoon,” said Merry. “The canaries were so alive. You can't
do
anything with them. I took your horses out to exercise. I just took out the National winners and jumped a bush behind Peg's Farm.”

    
“Show me, show me,” hammered Donald, leaning over the box and poking his fingers inside.

    
Velvet put her hand over his fingers. “(In a second, Donald . . .) But I'm glad, Merry. I'd love you to take them out. Which ones did you take?”

    
“Tipperary Tim an' Sergeant Murphy and Manifesto. Doesn't Manifesto look lovely with his ears forward and the shine on his shoulder? He's a right-facing one. Where'd you cut him from?”

    
But Velvet bent her head suddenly over Donald. She had cut him from a library book down at the school-house.

    
“
Now
pull them out!” said Donald.

    
“All the National Winners are on top,” said Velvet, groping. “The ponies are underneath. There's a tiny . . . there's a Shetland. . . . Here it is. Look, Donald! Isn't he fat and like a kitten!”

    
“I like real horses,” said Donald, unmoved.

    
“Good, good boy,” said Mally.

    
“Oh, there's my darling Chestnut Fourteen-Two!” said Velvet, half mourning over them. “Oh, why haven't I looked at them for so long?”

    
“Can't do everything, Velvet,” said her father, twisting his chair round so that he could read better under the lamp. “You got your things packed up?”

    
“They're ready,” said mother, clearing away the last dish.

    
“I'm going to bed,” said Mi. “We're off at five. Won't do her no good to sit up.”

    
“She won't,” said Mrs. Brown. “She'll go in half an hour.”

    
“On top o' my food!” said Velvet indignantly.

    
“Food or no,” said mother.

    
“Plate all right?” said father.

    
“Sitting fine,” said Velvet, who knew this was a gesture of love.

    
“Let me see that Manifesto,” said Mi, standing in the doorway. Velvet picked the horse out.

    
“Won twice,” said Mi. “97 . . . an' 99.”

    
“How'd you know all that, Mi?” said Mr. Brown from his lamp and paper.

    
“Dunno,” said Mi. “There it is. What a shoulder . . . eh? What a horse . . . eh? Looks too clever to win.”

    
“Shouldn't they be clever?” said Edwina.

    
“Jumpin' thirty jumps when they can stan' still . . . !” said Mi. “He did that Course eight times. Greatest National horse ever was. Why he won it twice.”

    
“I can't understand you, Mi,” said Edwina. “You just said he wasn't clever.”

    
“ 'Tisn't everything to be clever,” said Mi, and disappeared to bed.

    
“How come Mi never to ride?” said Mr. Brown into his newspaper.

    
“Tell me some more,” said Donald.

    
“I wish we could all go to Liverpool,” said Mally.

    
“Cost too much,” said Mr. Brown. “Yer mother plumpin' her prize-money on Velvet, that's one thing! We can't spend no more–just in the air.”

    
“Bed for you, Donald,” said mother.

    
“Tell me one more horse 'fore I go.”

    
“There was once a horse called Moifaa,” gabbled Velvet, looking at her mother.

    
Mrs. Brown nodded. “Just to-night. Just a quick one.”

    
Donald swung round his eyes and hooked them upon Velvet's lips.

    
“Moifaa was sent from New Zealand in a ship.”

    
“Where's that?”

    
Velvet pointed to the floor with her finger. “Same as Australia. Down there. Th'other side.”

    
“M'm . . . M'm . . .” said Donald greedily, waiting.

    
“The horse was sent right round the world and the ship went down near Ireland.”

    
“How d'you know?” said Mally, listening like Donald.

    
“Mi told me. An' the ship went down an' the horse swam to an island off the coast, and the island had salt grass an' there was nothing to eat an' the horse walked up an' down the seashore looking out to sea an' neighing.

    
“An' what?”

    
“Screaming for help.”

    
“The horse did?”

    
“Yes. an' fishermen were fishing an' they rowed near an' saw him. A horse standing neighing on an island where there'd never bin a horse. Never bin a cow. Never bin anything. It gave 'em the creeps an' they went home.”