Patience gave me a hurt look. “Remember, Jackie’s my sister,” she said.
“You should squash her then,” I told her, but from the look on her face I gathered that it was me she would like to squash.
Of course I soon began to wish I hadn’t quarrelled with my cousins. Patience seemed inclined to go on with my lesson so she and I rode down to the 40 acre in silence. It was all very well for her, she was in the right, whereas I was accepting favours from someone to whom I had been rude; a horrid position to be in especially when I knew very well that the only reason I was quarrelling with them was because they all rode so much better than I did.
Patience stood in the middle of the forty acre and told me to ride round in a large circle. I rode round and Merlin was very obliging. After a time Patience said that I was to sit up; so I did my best and though I felt very stiff and ramrodish she seemed to approve. Then she told me to ride with longer reins and carry my hands nearer my stomach which made me feel as though I were riding Merlin by remote control, but again Patience said that I looked much better and could try trotting.
What with the sitting up and the long reins I felt most insecure and nearly fell off twice at the trot; I could feel myself bumping about worse than ever, but Patience was calling out: “Well done,” and “Jolly good” in encouraging tones. My lesson had become very dull by the time Prudence and Jackie appeared and both Merlin and I were beginning to feel giddy. Prudence soon joined Patience in the middle and began to instruct too. “Put your legs forward,” she advised, “that’s better, now sit back.”
“He does bump about so,” grumbled Patience.
“Try gripping with your knees, that’ll keep you down,” Prudence told me rather optimistically.
“He’s got such awful hands,” complained Jackie loudly. “I’m sorry for poor old Merlin, it’s lucky he’s got such a hard mouth.”
“Shut up, Jackie,” said Patience.
“But she’s quite right,” protested Prudence. “Try rounding your wrists more,” she called to me, “that’ll make your hands lighter.”
By the time I had tried to do all the things my cousins suggested I felt like a mixture of a plank and the centipede who counted his legs, but Patience and Prudence both seemed to think I had improved; I could tell by Jackie’s face what she thought and it wasn’t at all complimentary.
“You ought to come to a Pony Club rally when Colonel Darcy’s instructing,” she told me when I stopped riding round and joined them in the middle. “He’d make you sit up properly.”
“I always think he makes the boys give up,” said Patience.
“Well, they shouldn’t be such drips. Look at that great Felix Torr, he hasn’t even passed ‘C’ yet; it would be a good thing if he did give up.”
“Now, Jackie, we can’t all be good at the same things,” Patience told her in an elder-sisterly voice.
Prudence said, “Go on, Charles. Your lesson isn’t half over yet. You’ve got to ride without stirrups.”
“Without stirrups?” I repeated doubtfully, wondering whether I had the courage to refuse.
“Yes, go on; there’s nothing like it for getting you down in the saddle.”
I crossed my stirrups gingerly for I was wondering what the effect was going to be on my already aching leg. At the walk all went well, but at the trot I bounced about and nearly fell off several times before I could get organised enough to bring the long-suffering Merlin back into a walk. My leg was hurting madly, which made me more short tempered than ever and when my cousins began to cry, “Go on, Charles, go on. You’ll never get any better if you don’t,” I answered disagreeably that I would stay bad then and if they didn’t want me to ride Merlin they had only to say so. And taking back my stirrups I turned Merlin and rode to the farmyard.
By the time I had put Merlin in his box and unsaddled him, Patience and Prudence had appeared in the yard.
“Oh, Charles, do come back,” Patience began. “You know Jackie’s only a child, she doesn’t mean half she says.”
“We won’t make you ride without stirrups any more, honestly,” added Prudence.
I was already regretting my outburst, though not my decision to stop riding, so I just said, “I don’t want to ride any more now; I’m too tired.”
“Oh, dear! That’s the lesson. Is your leg hurting terribly? Shall I get you some aspirin or something? Honestly, do say, Charles. It won’t take me a sec.”
“Who wants aspirin?” asked Aunt Una’s voice and her head joined Patience’s at the loosebox door.
“Oh, Mummy, we made him have a lesson and ride without stirrups, and now his leg’s hurting. Shall I fetch some aspirin? He won’t say. Shall I get Daddy to run him home in the car?”
“Do stop fussing. I’m O.K.,” I told her.
“Whatever did you want to make him ride without stirrups for?” demanded Aunt Una. “You are a silly lot, all the poor boy wants to do is hack about the lanes, what does it matter how he rides?”
“And you’re as weak as water, Charles,” she continued, turning on me. “Why do you let a pack of girls boss you like that? You ought to have more sense, a great boy like you.”
I said, “Well, I decided that it was no go, that’s why I came in.” But there’s no need to try to explain anything to Aunt Una, she just doesn’t listen; when she’s delivered her broadside the whole thing is over as far as she’s concerned.
“I’m going to clean Merlin’s tack; it’s about time,” I told Prudence and Patience. “Aren’t you going to ride?”
“Yes, for goodness’ sake go and give those horses some exercise,” said Aunt Una, coming to life again. “They’re all as fat as pigs; there they stand, week after week, eating their heads off and doing absolutely nothing. How you think you’re going to hunt them at half term, I don’t know; we shall have the whole lot gone in the wind afterwards.”
“Oh, Mummy,” said Patience, rather sulkily, “I exercise Count and Trick every single day.”
“You don’t call meandering round the lanes exercise, do you?” I heard Aunt Una demand, as I escaped to the saddle room.
As I cleaned Merlin’s tack I thought over Aunt Una’s words. Did I just want to hack round the lanes? I asked myself, and the answer was no. I wanted to ride well, really well, better than Jackie. I decided that I must have proper riding lessons; I didn’t trust my cousins to teach me, and on the way home in the car I asked my parents whether I could have lessons at the riding school in Eastbridge after all. “Patience is trying to teach me,” I explained, “but she doesn’t seem to have the right effect, I feel as though I’m getting worse and worse as the lesson goes on.”
“Taking lessons from an amateur is always a waste of time,” said my father firmly.
And Mummy said, “Of course you can go to Eastbridge; it couldn’t be easier. We’ll telephone Miss Wentworth this evening. Everyone I’ve met, who goes there, says that she’s a very good instructress and really very nice.”
“And, if you like it, book twelve lessons and have them as close together as possible,” said my father. “You never learn to do anything by messing about once or twice a week.”
“What about clothes?” said Mummy suddenly. “Corduroys are all very well for Underhill Farm, but you’ll have to have some jodhs for Eastbridge.”
“Get a hard hat too, while you’re about it,” Daddy told her. “We shall only have further complications if he falls on his head without one.”
After tea I persuaded my mother to ring up the stables for me. “You can explain about my leg,” I told her and then I left the room hastily for I hate to hear my leg being explained. I went upstairs and did my exercises in an energetic and slightly triumphant manner for I felt that I had at least taken the first step towards becoming a good rider. “Monday afternoon at half-past two,” Mummy called upstairs to me when she had finished telephoning. “I told her that you were practically a beginner, I hope that’s right. It’s always so much better not to try to appear better than you ar
e.”
“Oh, yes,” I agreed, leaning over the banisters, “besides, I am a beginner; you ought to hear what Jackie thinks of me.”
“Your cousin Jackie is quite out of hand,” said Mummy. “In fact I can’t think what can have come over Aunt Una, she always kept the others well under control. Anyway, we’ll go into Eastbridge in the morning, buy the riding clothes and then lunch there. That’ll save coming all the way back.”
3
On Monday morning my exercises were done by eight o’clock and immediately after breakfast I found my mother’s basket, in case it attempted one of its last minute disappearing acts; then I began to suggest things for her shopping list.
“Flour,” I said, poking about in the kitchen cupboard. “I bet we need some more flour, and salt and sugar and marmalade.”
“Oh, Charles, we don’t,” said Mummy rather doubtfully. “I’m sure there’s tons of flour and I bought some marmalade yesterday. You’re not looking properly. The only things we need are rice and something for supper tonight.”
“We don’t need rice,” I objected, “we shall only have a rice pudding to use it up.”
“What on earth can we have for supper?” said Mummy in the distraught tones of housekeeping mothers.
“Bacon and eggs or steak and onions,” I suggested and then I asked: “Are you nearly ready to start?”
“No, not nearly,” she answered. “Besides, the shops will hardly be open yet and what on earth can we do when we’ve bought the riding clothes; that’s not going to take all morning.”
“It might,” I said, “if we had to go to several shops, and anyway, we could look in book shops.”
“For two and a half hours,” said Mummy scornfully. “You’d have a lot of energy left for riding after that. Besides, I haven’t nearly finished the housework yet.”
“Oh, I’ll do some housework,” I offered airily. “Shall I wash up?”
“No, Mrs. Barnes likes to do that, but you can Hoover if you like, only don’t wear yourself out.”
I Hoovered madly, but not very thoroughly until my mother said that we could start as soon as we had had our elevenses.
When at last she and Mrs. Barnes finished drinking tea, we drove straight to Dragners, the man’s shop which specialises in riding clothes. We soon found a pair of jodhs which fitted me, though their appearance was rather spoiled by my miserable left leg, but hats were more difficult. I looked simply terrible in bowlers: my ears stuck out, practically at right angles. Finally we agreed that as I wouldn’t be going hunting, for some time at any rate, I could have a crash cap and pass as a show jumping person. We did some dull shopping and then, after lunching off luscious steaks at the Bridge Grill Room, we drove to the Eastbridge Riding School. It was just on the outskirts of the town, where the modern houses ended and fields and farms began. “Quite nice hacking, I should imagine,” my mother remarked as we drove through a white gate to the stable yard. The looseboxes were in one range and stood on one side of the yard; there were eight of them and they were built in red brick and had white doors; however, I was more interested in the heads which looked out of the five occupied boxes. They were all nice intelligent heads. Not as well-bred-looking perhaps as my cousins’ three chestnuts, but neither were they the great heavy sleepy heads you see sometimes at riding schools.
Miss Wentworth came across the yard to meet us. She was quite glamorous-looking, which surprised me; her jodhs were very elegantly cut, if rather patched, and she wore a checked riding jacket. She shook us both by the hand.
“I’ll leave you now, Charles,” my mother said, as soon as we had introduced ourselves, “and I’ll come back in an hour.”
“But I can go home on the bus,” I objected. “You don’t want to wait.”
“I don’t mind waiting a bit,” she answered, “and I’d rather you didn’t bus today, you can tomorrow if you’ve enough energy left.”
“O.K.,” I said, giving way rather unwillingly.
“I thought you’d probably get on better with a pony,” Miss Wentworth told me as she led the way towards a loosebox, “so you’re going to ride Barnacle. He’s quite big—fourteen-two—but he’s nice and narrow.”
Barnacle was a bright bay with a star on his forehead and black points. Miss Wentworth led him out and let the near stirrup leather down several holes; this, combined with the fact that he was much smaller than Merlin, made my scramble up much less undignified than usual.
“We’ll begin in the school, because I want to see how you ride,” said Miss Wentworth, when we had adjusted the stirrups. “It isn’t a covered one, but it’s quite useful.”
I rode Barnacle round the school, which was fenced by high white railings, at a sedate walk. He was a little more lively than Merlin, but, as he felt far less vast to control, this pleased me. “Trot on,” said Miss Wentworth. I didn’t quite know how to ride. I wanted, naturally, to put up as good a performance as possible so I rode in a mixture of my own natural way and the way my cousins said I ought.
“Oh, dear!” said Miss Wentworth suddenly, and then: “Walk,” and “Halt.”
“Look,” she said, coming across the school to me, “I don’t know who’s been teaching you, but they haven’t done it very well. Have you ever been told how to sit?”
“Well,” I answered rather doubtfully, “my cousins told me to sit something like this,” and I pushed myself back in the saddle, stuck my legs forward, lengthened the reins and rounded my wrists.
“A sort of exaggerated show seat,” said Miss Wentworth.
“It feels awful,” I told her.
“I’m not surprised,” she said and then she looked at me critically and in silence for several moments before she asked, “What happens if you ride with longer stirrups?”
“It hurts,” I answered quickly, “or at least my left leg does.”
“That’s no use then,” she said to my relief. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll teach you to ride with a cross country seat first and then later on when your leg gets used to riding you can learn how to ride with a dressage seat as well. Don’t think that you can use the same length of stirrup for everything—you can’t, but you’ll find that you can let yours down gradually.
“Now, first of all, if you’re going to ride with short stirrups, you mustn’t sit back, or even down, in the saddle. Come right forward, that’s better, and now slide your lower leg back until you just can’t see your toe. Good. Shorten your reins, and don’t round your wrists, it makes your hands stiff and severe. Heels down. Look ahead. That’s excellent. Walk on round the school.”
Walking with the forward seat felt very peculiar, but trotting felt fine and Miss Wentworth seemed quite pleased. She tried to teach me something called the turn on the forehand, which mystified me completely; I always seemed to pushing with the wrong leg or feeling the wrong rein, but Barnacle didn’t bother, he knew what to do and did it, despite my inefficient aids.
I was sad when my lesson came to an end for I felt that I had improved and I wanted to go on and on and get better and better. However, I had to admit I was tired when I dismounted, and I couldn’t very well ride sooner than next day, which was what my mother and Miss Wentworth arranged. I had five riding lessons that week and then I didn’t ride on Saturday or Sunday because Miss Wentworth or Claire, as she had now told me to call her, explained that she would have all her regular week-end pupils and so wouldn’t be able to give me much attention.
I toyed with the idea of going over to Underhill Farm, for Aunt Una had telephoned to ask why I hadn’t been there. Fortunately she got Mummy, who told her that I had become so depressed by my hopelessness that we had decided that I must have proper riding lessons, but she was sure I would be over there again as soon as I had improved. However, when I suggested it to my parents, Daddy said that I had much better not.
“It isn’t fair on your riding instructor,” he said. “You haven’t been riding her way long enough for it to be a habit yet. You’ll undo a week’s work in
half an hour.”
“O.K.,” I said, “I don’t mind; I’m not particularly keen to go.” I wasn’t, at least not to go to Underhill Farm, but I wanted to ride terribly badly. I couldn’t think of any other way in which to amuse myself. I limped from room to room gazing out of the windows and wishing that it was Monday. In case you brand me a very feeble character for not being able to amuse myself, I shall point out, in my own defence, that I had spent the last nine months in stationary pursuits and now I was tired of everything but riding. In the end I went out to the garden, which was barely thawed from the morning’s frost, and planned where I would have the loosebox if ever I had a horse of my own. And, when the garden became too cold I wandered indoors and began to search the local papers for advertisements of horses for sale. I found one, in a lowly position between the goats and the pigs, but it was of a nine-year-old Shire mare, a good worker in all gears.
4
When long-awaited Monday came I started jumping. Not that I actually jumped anything, but I trotted over poles a few inches off the ground, or Cavaletti as Claire called them, following Barnacle’s lengthening stride with my hands and keeping my weight steadily over my stirrups.
I think that Claire had decided to let me begin jumping because I had at last mastered the turn on the forehand; suddenly everything had become clear to me; my aids co-ordinated, or whatever it was they were supposed to do, and Barnacle made wonderful turns whenever I asked him. I was better at cantering too, that is at the cross country or Italian canter for Claire had told me not to attempt the sitting canter until I could ride with longer stirrups. I caught the bus home in a very triumphant mood and spent most of the afternoon bullying my silly leg into doing its exercises.
Claire’s outdoor school was topped with a mixture of sawdust and sand and peat and it seemed to stay rideable even in frosty weather, so I was able to go on with my jumping lessons despite the hard weather which had set in.
Show Jumping Secret Page 2