by K. M. Peyton
‘I’ll tell them in the morning,’ Sandy said.
It would all seem better in the light of day.
IN THE MORNING they overslept after their eventful night and when they went in for breakfast there was no-one there. Mary Fielding had gone shopping and Bill was out in the fields. Gertie was still in bed and Grandpa had gone for his tobacco. Ian was still asleep. They made their own breakfast and went back to the stables.
‘Don’t say anything to the others,’ Sandy said. ‘They mustn’t know before my parents.’
‘No.’
Polly and Tony arrived in their respective cars; Julia had gone for a ride early. As soon as she came back, Polly decided, they would all drive over to Aspen Farm to view the team-chase course.
It was a lovely spring day and Tony and Polly were in great spirits. Leo and Sandy could not help but be subdued after their night’s adventure, but it went unnoticed. Polly thought Leo was getting cold feet and made encouraging remarks about Empress of China’s reliability – no-one had ever mentioned it before, mainly because it wasn’t really apparent, but the chatter was welcome and Leo made clever, hopeful replies. Julia returned and put Faithful out in the field, and they all piled into Polly’s gruesome car. Tony wanted to drive his own, but they wouldn’t let him.
‘You’re in a team now, mate, and we all have to do everything together,’ Polly stated. ‘Nothing is for self, all is for the team.’
‘I just want to get there,’ Tony said mildly.
‘Trust me.’
Aspen Farm was some ten miles away, rather off the beaten track and so not a high-powered venue, more a fun course. This was why Polly had chosen it. The land was open and rolling, with clumps of woodland just coming into leaf, and narrow ditches gurgling with spring rainwater. They parked their car in the farmyard and, having asked permission, set out to survey their task. It was too soon for the course to be flagged, but Polly had ridden it before and knew the way.
Sandy was glad now she was out of it. She had enough to worry about without the added terrors of picturing herself out here on an uncontrollable Empress of China.
‘All this galloping grass!’ Leo wailed. ‘She’ll cart me for sure.’
‘Look,’ said Polly severely, ‘we’re all likely to get carted, save Julia. Charlie’s not done this in company before, and we none of us know what King of the Fireworks is like once he gets steam up. So it’s no good you looking for sympathy. The thing to remember is: we want to get round. We’re not trying to win. There’s nothing in the rules to say we’ve got to gallop flat out. We can trot if necessary. We must all try to keep under control, we must all help each other.’
She then spoilt this sensible harangue by saying, ‘It’s a super place if you do get out of control – miles and miles of grass. You’ve only got to go round in circles till the horse gets tired – no problems at all.’
Leo then thought she would probably drop off with exhaustion before they finished: it seemed miles. They set off from the start across a field towards a not-too-awful ditch with a telegraph pole lodged over the top. Over the first and it was right-handed across more grass towards a copse. In front of the copse was a stream made into a coffin jump – a bar in front of it and a bar on the far side, with room inside for the horse to take the stream as a separate jump. Once into the wood the course went down a peaty ride with jumps built at intervals – mostly stacks of fallen timber or fallen trees.
‘Slowly through here,’ Polly said. ‘Just a trot really. It’s no place to run amok.’
The jump out was large, up a bank and over.
‘But horses are always keen to get out of a wood,’ Polly said. ‘No problem.’
The problem followed at the next jump where they had to turn and jump into the wood again, which Polly said they wouldn’t like.
‘Perhaps you should take the lead here, Julia,’ Polly said. ‘Faithful is probably the most obedient.’
The second loop through the wood was short, with another jump out over a clipped hedge, quite easy, then a long gallop up a grass field like a prairie.
‘This will be the problem, keeping in control up here, after all that jumping in the wood. Whatever you do, keep a hold over this jump – don’t let them get away with you on landing, when they see this wonderful sea of grass.’
At the top of the field was the catch: the pen, with a slip-rail into it and a jump out, where all the members of the team had to stay inside the pen together before they started to jump out. The fastest had to wait for the slowest, or for the rider who had fallen off and was running up the field on its own legs.
By now even Tony was looking worried. Julia was the only one apparently unaffected by the task ahead.
‘I think you might be the key member,’ Polly said to her quietly. ‘The one who holds us all together.’
Sandy knew that Polly wasn’t completely confident of being in full charge herself. Sandy was the only one who had been to hunter trials with Polly and seen how hard her horse was to hold even when going round on his own. Going round with his mates was going to be a great lark.
After the pen there were several jumps across natural hedges and ditches, none too awful, and then a gruelling uphill finish which came back to the same place as the start. By the time they got back to this spot, Sandy was the only really cheerful member of the group. Instead of being jealous of Leo, she was radiantly happy that none of this was going to happen to her. Leo was white as a sheet, Tony unusually quiet, and Polly thoughtful. Julia was her usual enigmatic self.
Polly said, ‘The jumps are easy. It’s just a matter of being sensible.’
‘Not falling off,’ said Tony.
‘Not bolting,’ said Leo.
‘Not winning,’ said Julia.
‘Why not winning?’ said Tony.
‘Because if you win you’re out of the Novice and then you have to ride the Open course.’
‘I don’t think there’s much danger there,’ Polly said.
They drove home in a rather quiet mood. Polly said they would walk the course properly, working out tactics, later in the week, and Tony promised he would see about borrowing a horsebox big enough to load all the horses – he had rich friends. Polly would have to make two journeys if she used her decrepit trailer and borrowed a Land Rover.
When they got home they all, except Sandy, went out for a practice ride. Sandy knew she had to go and tell her parents about the visitor in the night, and her miseries came back. Her father was out, but her mother was getting the lunch. Gertie and Grandpa sat in their chairs by the fire. Gertie was knitting a dishcloth (Mary now had seven), and Grandpa was trying to find his pools coupon.
‘Mum.’ Sandy hovered over the table, her back to the old folk. Her mother was mashing potatoes to put on the shepherd’s pie. ‘Last night—’
Her mother’s gaze switched from her mashing and needled Sandy.
‘Somebody came.’
‘Don’t tell me!’ Her mother almost screamed.
‘We didn’t see! He ran away, because I put the light on and frightened him away. We never saw who it was!’
‘Oh, thank God for that!’
Sandy was horrified. It was all right for her, Sandy, to flunk out, but that her mother wanted to . . .
‘Mum, why—?’
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ her mother said. ‘I can sort it out. Does Leo know? Did she see?’
‘Yes, she was awake. But I spoilt it. Neither of us saw who it was.’
‘Don’t tell your father. Not anybody. Don’t let Leo say anything.’
‘No, she won’t.’ But why, she wanted to add? But her mother was tight-lipped, mashing like a dervish.
‘Just forget it, Sandy. It’s not your worry. It won’t happen again.’
‘But—’
‘Don’t talk about it!’
Mary Fielding spread the potato over the pie and put it in the oven. Then she went out.
Sandy felt turned upside down. She had thought her mother would call
the police and she would get into trouble for not seeing the vigil through. All that trouble they had gone to, and then to panic at the last moment . . . she had no great opinion of herself. She went to the hearth and sat down in front of the fire, her favourite place, before Gertie. She was unaware of Gertie and Grandpa at that moment. It was very quiet in the house, with just the click of Gertie’s knitting needles and Grandpa’s heavy breathing as background.
Then Gertie said, ‘Shall we tell her our little secret, Ted?’ Ted was Grandpa.
‘It won’t be no little secret if we tell her,’ Grandpa said.
‘She’ll keep it to herself, won’t you, lovie?’
‘Will I?’ Sandy looked up and saw Gertie’s toothless grin widening over the top of her grey dishcloth. She had long hairs sticking out of her chin. Yet she did the Charleston once at Brankhead Hall. Sandy blinked.
‘What is it?’
‘You won’t tell anyone? Not your mum or dad?’
‘No.’
‘When I go from here, I’m taking your grandad with me.’
For some reason – possibly because Grandpa had always been keen on saying that when he left Drakesend it would be in a box – Sandy thought Gertie was talking about dying.
‘What’s wrong with you? How can you take Grandpa?’ A suicide pact? ‘You’re not going to do that!’
‘Yes, we are. We’re going together.’
‘But—’
‘We’re going to get married.’
Sandy nearly passed out. She was speechless. Marriage was for young things: Glynn and Josie (although they hadn’t got round to it), even Polly and Tony . . . She looked up, her brain jumbled with shock, and saw that the bead-bright eyes over the grey knitting were full of sparks. There was no other way of describing it. They danced, and in their light Sandy saw that yes, Gertie had kicked her legs to the Charleston, her slender, pretty legs before the old brown stockings had covered them, and yes, that bony pale skull had been thick with curls and that gaping smile full of pearly teeth. The old spirit shone through. Sandy could see it, suddenly.
‘Just ’cause you look old, doesn’t mean to say you feel old,’ Gertie said. ‘You’ll remember that one day.’
Sandy felt a hundred and ten. Just because you look young, doesn’t mean to say you feel young. She got up and gave Gertie a kiss. It was instinctive. She had never kissed Gertie before and would have said she would rather die.
‘That’s great, Gertie.’
‘You’re not to say anything!’
‘No. It’s a secret.’
‘All in good time. That’s a good girl.’
Sandy drifted out to the stable. She wanted fresh air. Where had her mother gone? What was her mother up to, with that awful look on her face, while Gertie and Grandpa were courting in the kitchen? Her head reeled.
Jonas was coming up the drive on Queen Moon.
‘Hi, Sandy.’
Sandy’s senses zoomed to a new high. She felt a ridiculous, goofy smile breaking through, a fierce blush firing her hairline. Everything else was forgotten.
‘Jonas!’
‘I came to see you. I want to ask you something.’
‘Yes?’
Queen Moon came to a halt in front of her and Jonas slipped down. His gypsy smile was diffident, nervous.
‘You said – you said you would take her, if I went away.’
‘Queen Moon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Of course I will!’
He hesitated still, and Sandy raced in: ‘You needn’t pay, not if you can’t. She can go down in the field, no trouble.’
‘You mean that? It would be great.’
‘When are you going?’ Where? she wanted to scream. How long for? Why? Don’t go!
‘As soon as I get her fixed, I thought I’d go. I can’t live with my father any longer. I want to see if I can get on a trawler. Anything, really, for my keep. I don’t care. Away.’
‘Of course I’ll keep her for you. I’ll look after her. She’ll be fine here.’
‘She’ll like being out, a bit of grass.’
He held out the rope halter. Sandy took it.
She couldn’t bear it, seeing him, and now he was going. It had taken barely a minute.
‘You’re going now?’
‘I’ll go home and collect a few things, then I’ll be off, yes. I’ll get a lift up on the main road.’
‘If we put her in the field, I can walk along the sea-wall with you – a little way—’
‘OK.’
He seemed agreeable, not embarrassed. Sandy turned Queen Moon out with Blackie and her yearling. The grey mare fell to grazing immediately and took no notice of Blackie’s curiosity. There was no fighting or kicking. Sandy hung the halter on the gate.
‘It was the only thing troubling me, the mare,’ Jonas said. ‘She’ll be happy here.’
They walked together across the marsh fields towards the sea-wall, crossing the ditches which were full of wild marigolds and yellow aconites – the same ditches that the team-chasers had been practising on (funny, after all their practice, that there were hardly any plain ditches on the course they were going to ride). Sandy chattered on about the team to cover her nervous excitement, all the while feeling sick that he was going. The only good thing was having Queen Moon: he would come back to see her whenever – if ever – he came home, and Sandy knew she was included in the package. To see Queen Moon he would see her too. She kept stealing sideways glances at his loping figure beside her: he moved like a poacher, quietly and smoothly, and his voice was soft and secretive – he was like no-one else she knew. She told him about sleeping in the loft and the burglar coming again. He did not say anything and she remembered how, early on, he had been a prime suspect.
‘It’s horrid. I wish now—’ Her voice trailed. Did she really want to know? Her mother had acted very strangely.
‘Sometimes it’s better to let things be,’ Jonas said.
‘Not to know?’ Just what Duncan had said.
‘If I were you,’ Jonas said, ‘I’d forget it.’
‘You know who it is?’
Jonas did not reply. He shrugged his shoulders.
Sandy knew, then, where her mother had gone.
She stopped. ‘I’m going back,’ she said. ‘I can’t come all the way.’
‘OK.’ Jonas turned round and smiled.
The smile was all she had. She was going to hold on to it like grim death.
‘Good luck, with the job.’
‘If I get it.’
‘You’ll get what you want.’
‘And you.’
She turned and started to hurry back, before he saw her crying. It was all terrible. Far away, from the farm, she heard Queen Moon whinny. But Jonas walked on, not looking back.
‘It’s Glynn, isn’t it?’
Her mother swung round, with her sharp, anguished look. They were washing-up, and no-one else was in the kitchen.
‘He won’t do it any more! I’ve spoken to him, the stupid idiot! He’s promised. For God’s sake, Sandy, don’t say anything to a soul. We can get over it, we can forget it, as long as you don’t breathe a word.’
Sandy was astonished.
‘But what—’
‘He’s promised! It won’t happen again.’
‘Does Dad know?’
‘No. Nobody knows.’
‘They do! They don’t say!’ Sandy burst out, thinking of Duncan, of Jonas. ‘It’s not fair to have everyone suspected still, when you know who it is!’
‘Sandy, have some sense! What would happen – their relationship, the baby— He’s promised – he really has! He realizes what he would lose. He’s just a stupid boy, too young for responsibility. They should never have had the child – how stupid can you get? It’s all too much for him. But he’ll pull himself together now, get a proper job. It will be all right.’
Had Glynn promised all that, in the hour that the shepherd’s pie was browning? Sandy was shaken by her mother’s atti
tude. She remembered, when Glynn had first been introduced to the family, how worried her parents had been by his devil-may-care attitude to life. Yet she had thought him wonderful, as Josie had – such fun, such a happy laugh, his witty remarks and jokes . . . no wonder Josie had loved him! Her parents said he didn’t seem to have much ambition. ‘Oh, he can do anything with his hands!’ Josie exlaimed. Yes, it seemed, he could – lifting other people’s property. He had tried to steal Ian’s bike only the night before – his own friend’s property!
‘Mum, you can’t not tell! Tell Dad, at least.’
‘He’s got enough worries, it would break him! You know how he adores Josie. He’s tried really hard to get on good terms with Glynn and it has all been working – famously . . . ’ Mary Fielding’s voice gave way and she let out a hiccuping sob.
‘Oh, Mum, don’t!’
‘You mustn’t say anything, Sandy. Later, perhaps, but not just now. Give him another chance – give us all some breathing space. I will sort it out, I promise you.’
‘Mum, you can’t—’ But a glance at her mother’s face silenced her. Later perhaps. It did not all have to be resolved this minute, when her mother’s face looked like that, and she was crying. In a day or two she would see sense. She was overwrought, had been for ages, driven demented by Gertie and all the extra work. But Gertie was going soon, back to her cottage with Grandpa. If her mother knew that—
‘Mum, Gertie told me—’ Sandy stopped in mid-sentence, remembering that it was a secret.
‘Gertie doesn’t know? How can she?’ her mother snapped.
‘No, of course not. It was something else. But it doesn’t matter.’
Sandy longed to tell, but the sharp image of Gertie’s glee stopped her. She, Sandy, was a keeper of secrets – Gertie’s, Glynn’s, her mother’s. She wouldn’t be able to speak to anyone, for fear of blurting out something she shouldn’t. What could she tell Leo?
‘I’m not sleeping in the loft any more. I’m coming back home.’
Her mother needed looking after, not the yard.
A LARGE AND very grand horsebox drove into the yard. Tony got out, looking very spruce in his birthday-present jacket, snowy breeches and shining boots.