I hate people who call you ‘dear’ the first time that they see you. How do they know that you are dear and not their future enemy?
‘He’s all right, thanks,’ I said coldly.
But all the same she left the other pony and came up to me, saying, ‘Shall I lead him?’
I said, ‘No, thank you. He’s only finishing some oats,’ but all the same she took hold of the bridle.
‘I’ll lead him a little way,’ she said brightly.
But at that moment the fat pony, which had been fidgetting, swerved round and trotted briskly back up the side road. The child gave a wail and the helpful lady let go of Cavalier and ran, shrieking out, ‘Hold on to the mane, Rosemary!’ I dug my heels into Cavalier and we made off at a fast trot and were soon round a corner and out of the sight of the interfering lady.
Soon we came to the white gates of the house where the rally was. It was a large house, and the avenue went through a park with a lake in it. There were a lot of children on ponies riding about and I went towards them.
A lady, who was standing with some others, said, ‘You’re the new member, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
She said, ‘Jean Leslie?’ and I said ‘Yes,’ and she said, ‘Well, we shall be starting in a minute. Here are the Cunninghams.’ And the cousins came cantering over the grass, looking very superior in their proper riding clothes and on their shiny ponies.
‘This is your cousin, isn’t it?’ said the lady. I found out afterwards that she was Miss Gosport, the Secretary.
Guy said, ‘Yes,’ and Miss Gosport said, ‘And that’s the pony you told me about. He’s rather poor still, isn’t he? But perhaps he’ll pick up when the grass comes. Can he jump?’
Before I could say anything, Guy said, ‘No. He hasn’t an idea. We tried him.’
I expect you will think that it was silly of me not to contradict him. I think that it was most awfully silly, but sometimes, when you are among strangers, who are talking to each other, you can’t say things, especially when they are very important and matter awfully. In fact, the more important they are, the more difficult it is to say them. You open your mouth to begin but you wait just too long and then somebody else says something and it is too late, and Daddy says those are the two saddest words in the English language. I don’t know if this ever happens to you – perhaps you are too sensible – but it often happens to me, especially at school when the mistress says, ‘Now this is a very difficult question and I wonder if anybody knows the answer?’ And I do know the answer, but just as I am going to say it, she says, disappointedly, ‘No, I thought you wouldn’t,’ and it is too late again, and at the end of the term my report says, ‘Has little ability.’
When Guy said that Cavalier couldn’t jump, Miss Gosport said, ‘Well, that’s a pity,’ and she said, ‘We’d better start now. There are a few more to come but it’s no use waiting for them.’ We all followed each other and rode round in a ring, first at a walk, then at a trot, and then at a canter. Cavalier didn’t understand what we were doing – how could he, when he had never done it before? – and there was a boy behind me who kept on saying, ‘Oh, do get on with your old cab horse.’ At last I said, ‘Cab horse yourself!’ and he said, ‘Well, anyhow, I don’t starve my pony.’ I couldn’t explain about Cavalier while we were riding round, so I said, ‘You’re not the manager of the Pony Club,’ and that squashed him.
The next thing that we had to do was to canter one by one round the outside of the circle. When my turn came, Cavalier wouldn’t canter; he kept swerving back towards the other ponies, and Miss Gosport made me fall out of the circle and go and stand by her and Rosemary, who had arrived and was being led about by her mother. The mother, whose name was Mrs Jones, came and chirped to Cavalier as if he was a canary, and said how thin he was and couldn’t I give him something fattening? I felt very miserable standing there by the feeble Rosemary while the other children were cantering gaily round and being told how good they were.
When the last one had finished, we all rode into a field where there were jumps arranged as they are at a show or a gymkhana. We all stood about and Miss Gosport called out people’s names and they went over the jumps. Cavalier and I stood next to the boy who had made the remark about the cab horse, but he didn’t speak to me, nor did any of the other children. But they talked to each other a lot, and I felt very left out, and wished I hadn’t come. I thought that they didn’t speak to me because they despised me for my thin pony and for not having a riding coat and for my strap shoes. Of course it was very silly of me and I hope that if, after reading this, any of you go to a Pony Club rally for the first time and nobody speaks to you, you will not make the same mistake as I did. As long as you are keen, people do not mind if you wear strap shoes or even your ordinary winter coat with fur on it. If they don’t speak to you it is not because they despise you but because they cannot think of anything to say.
Well, there I sat feeling miserable and despised, while the other children jumped, and I did hope that when the last one had finished Miss Gosport would tell me to have a try, but she didn’t. She turned round and said in a kind voice, ‘Well, I expect that one day you two little ones will be jumping like that. Won’t it be glorious?’ and I realised with horror that ‘you two little ones’ were me and Rosemary. My throat went tight as it does when you are going to cry, and I was afraid that I was, so I turned Cavalier round and without a word rode hastily from the scene of disaster.
I couldn’t see where I was going but I suppose that Cavalier knew the way, for, by the time that I had found my handkerchief, we were at the avenue gates. My handkerchief was the one that I had bought with my Christmas money. It had hunting scenes on it, and of course when I saw the people jumping five-barred gates on it, I started to cry again. So I put my handkerchief away and dried my eyes on my woolly gloves and I was only just in time, for, in a moment, I heard a shout behind me, and there were the cousins riding along the grass at the edge of the road.
Guy came up with me first. He said, ‘What’s the matter? You did leave in a hurry.’
‘I thought it was finished,’ I muttered.
‘Well, so it was,’ he said, ‘but you needn’t have gone tearing off like that. How did you like it?’
I said, ‘It was lovely.’
Martin and Camilla rode up then, and they both asked me how I had liked it. I said to both of them that it had been lovely.
Guy said, ‘You must come round one day and try jumping on our ponies.’
‘I don’t want Hesperus’s mouth jagged, thank you,’ said Camilla.
‘You jag it enough yourself,’ said Martin.
‘I don’t,’ said Camilla.
‘You do,’ said Martin.
‘You pig! You beast! I hate you!’ said Camilla.
This argument gave me time to say at last, ‘Cavalier can jump.’
‘Oh good,’ said Guy. ‘That’s splendid. You’ll be able to enter for all the gymkhanas.’
It was only afterwards that I realised that he meant this as a joke. He didn’t believe that Cavalier could jump, but thought I was just saying it because I was fond of my pony.
I said, ‘When are they?’
‘In the summer holidays,’ said Guy. ‘They send you a notice.’
I made him tell me how high the jumps were, and what they looked like, and he told me about the competitions. Then we came to the crossroads and the cousins went one way and I went the other. After a bit I met Mummy, who had walked with Sally and Shadow to meet me. She said, like the cousins, ‘Well, how did you like it?’
I said once again, ‘It was lovely.’
She began to ask me questions, which was very awkward, because I didn’t want her to know that I had been miserable. I answered, ‘I don’t know,’ to most of them and Mummy got annoyed and said that I didn’t seem to know anything. Luckily we were nearly home by then, so I changed the subject by asking what there was for lunch. Mummy said that there was ham and baked potatoes
and rhubarb afterwards, so I cheered up and began to forget about the Pony Club.
Before I put Cavalier into the orchard I gave him some oats so that he should forget too, and I am sure that he did, for as soon as I had let him go he dashed off like a three-year-old and rolled madly in his favourite corner under the apple trees.
V
OTHER Pony Club rallies had been arranged for the Christmas holidays, but first of all I had a cold and couldn’t go, and then there was a frost and the ground was too hard, and then it rained and I couldn’t go because I had no riding coat. I was glad, but I had to pretend that I wasn’t, and I found that it is quite as difficult to look disappointed when you are not as it is not to look disappointed when you are. Mummy was very sorry for me and did things like buying me acid drops and letting me have golden syrup instead of jam for tea, and I must say that I felt rather mean.
Owing to my cold and their colds I did not see the cousins again during the Christmas holidays, and soon they had all gone back to school again and I was going to Miss Pringle in the mornings and riding whenever it was fine in the afternoons. Spring began to come, and it was light after tea, and some crocuses came out in the garden and then some daffodils in the orchard, only the gander ate them, so they were soon gone. The hens began to lay at last and then I really did go round and collect eggs in a little basket, only the little basket was generally lost, so I collected them in my pockets and my hands. The goose, whose name was Edith, made a nest behind the orchard gate where the violets grew, and she laid seven eggs and sat on them, looking very sweet with the violets all round her. The gander, whose name was Harold, got very fierce, and he used to chase the dogs away from the nest, and Mrs Beazley too, when she went out to hang up washing or to twirl her mop.
About that time we got a letter from my sentimental aunt saying that she would like to come and stay. If you live in the country I daresay you have noticed that people always want to come and stay with your mother in the spring and summer when the weather is fine; no one ever suggests coming in January or November. I said, ‘Oh, please don’t have her,’ but Daddy and Mummy said that we must because there was no excuse that we could give, and because she had always been so kind. They said, had I forgotten all the lovely presents Aunt Daphne had given me? and certainly they had been very expensive presents, but none of them had been what I wanted. Aunts seldom realise that you would sooner have a sixpenny mouth organ than a three-guinea party frock.
Well, Mummy wrote back that Aunt Daphne could come, and we polished up the spare room, and I arranged a bowl of primroses and catkins for the dressing table, and she came. She came in a new car, and the first thing she said was that she would take me for a drive in it; she was one of those people who think it is a treat for you to be driven along a road in a stuffy old motor car. She left her suitcase at the cottage, and I had to go with her to show her the garage in the village, and we walked back together. We met Mr Perks, and she said she wondered how often he washed, and I said coldly that he was a friend. The next thing she said was that she was dying to see my pets. I hate people who call your animals ‘pets.’ None of ours were ‘pets.’ They were proper working animals like on a farm.
Well, we had lunch. Mummy had burnt the potatoes rather, and Aunt Daphne looked at them and said she never touched potatoes. For pudding there was jelly, which was one of the few puddings that Mummy and I could make, and she said that she didn’t touch jelly, but would like some bread and cheese. I looked in the larder, but, of course, there was no cheese, so she ate bread and butter, and we felt very uncomfortable. After lunch she tried to be unselfish and wanted to wash up, which would have annoyed Mrs Beazley dreadfully because she can’t abear strangers in her kitchen. Mummy argued with her, and at last she was persuaded not to, and I took her out into the orchard to look at my ‘pets.’
She wouldn’t come along at first but stood admiring the apple blossom. I had a carrot for Cavalier, and I went on ahead to give it to him. Suddenly I heard a crack and I turned round and saw that she had reached up and broken off a long bough of apple blossom.
I said, ‘Oh!’
‘What’s the matter?’ said Aunt Daphne.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it would have turned into apples.’
‘Oh, but it’s much more beautiful like this,’ she said, not at all squashed.
Cavalier had seen the carrot in my hand and he came up to me.
‘My dear,’ said Aunt Daphne, ‘what a poor old thin pony.’
I said nothing.
She said, ‘I hope you give him lots and lots of bran mashes.’
I said, ‘He has one every Sunday.’
‘I should give him one every day,’ said Aunt Daphne. ‘Let’s begin today, shall we? I’ll buy you the bran. I expect we can get it in the village.’ She is the sort of person who is always trying to rescue other people’s animals.
‘Thank you, but he mustn’t have bran mashes every day; it would make his bowels too loose,’ I said, like the horse book.
‘My dear Jean! Really!’ said Aunt Daphne.
She seemed to lose interest in Cavalier after that, so I showed her Edith, sitting among the violets.
‘Oh, how sweet,’ she said. ‘I must stroke her.’
I suppose it was wrong, but I let her trip away towards Edith. She was quite near the nest when Harold saw her.
He gave a loud squawk and flew through the air with his lovely grey wings spread and his yellow webbed feet dangling. He came to the ground a few yards away from Aunt Daphne and taxied like an aeroplane towards her. Then he seized the back of her skirt in his beak and started shaking it.
Aunt Daphne gave a shrill shriek and turned round to see what was happening. She bent down to push Harold away and he spread his wings and beat at her. By this time Edith was squawking too, and the hens were clucking and Aunt Daphne gave another shriek, so the noise was lovely.
I rushed up and said, ‘Get away, Harold!’ and he ran off towards Edith, stretching his neck and boasting. He is never in the least fierce with either me or Mummy.
Aunt Daphne was looking furious. Harold had hit her on the nose with the tip of his wing and her eyes were watering. She dabbed her eyes with her lace handkerchief and said, ‘That bird’s dangerous.’
I laughed at the idea of Harold being dangerous. Aunt Daphne thought that I was laughing at her and said, ‘Don’t be rude. There’s nothing to laugh at.’
Then Mummy came rushing out to see what had happened. When we had explained, she said that I was very stupid to let Aunt Daphne try to stroke Edith. I said, ‘I thought she knew all about animals.’
‘I have never had to do with geese,’ said Aunt Daphne haughtily. The fact was that she had never ‘had to do’ with any animals: she liked rescuing them, but I am sure that she had never mucked out a stable or cut open a crop-bound hen.
Mummy changed the subject by suggesting that she and Aunt Daphne should walk to the farm and I should ride with them, so I caught Cavalier and we all went off together. Aunt Daphne was very tiresome. She would keep stopping to look for flowers. She knew all their Latin names and tried to teach them to me, and Cavalier and I both got the fidgets waiting about for her. I think she really liked flowers better than animals. Of course, unless they are man-eating orchids from tropical forests, flowers don’t peck or kick you. On the other hand you can’t be sorry for them, and people like Aunt Daphne like to be sorry for things even if there is no need to be.
The rest of the day was dull, but the next day was exciting – at least, at the time it wasn’t exciting: it was awful. Even now I hate to wake up in the night and think of it.
I got up and had breakfast and went to Miss Pringle as usual. It was a fine day, and all the time that I was doing lessons Mary sat on the window ledge among the geraniums and Stanley sang in the shrill unmeaning voice of canaries. Aunt Daphne says that it is cruel to keep canaries in cages, and when I told her about Stanley she said that she was sorry for him, but I have seen a lot of Stanley and I am quit
e sure that he is happy. He is in fearfully good condition, which he wouldn’t be if he was miserable, and he hops about and sings his head off all day long. Sometimes when Miss Pringle was cross with me and I was miserable, I used to find him very unsympathetic.
Miss Pringle was in a very good temper that morning. I told her about Aunt Daphne and kept her off lessons for ever so long. My fractions actually came out right, and everything seemed as merry as possible, and I walked home singing ‘Old Faithful,’ and thinking of Cavalier. I was turning the last corner when I heard someone whistling, and then I saw Mummy walking very fast and distractedly along the road.
‘Oh, Jean,’ she said, ‘I suppose you haven’t seen Sally?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
Mummy forgot to be grown-up. She said, ‘That ass, Daphne, insisted on taking the dogs for a walk and she’s lost Sally.’
I went cold all over. I thought of traps and I thought of keepers with guns and I thought of rabbit holes and I thought of a puppy we had heard of that had simply run round and round in the woods and starved to death. I said, ‘Where did she walk to?’
‘I don’t believe the idiot knows,’ said Mummy. ‘As far as I can make out she went through the fields and down into Bottom Wood, and then she says she went through some more fields and into a wood where it says “Trespassers will be prosecuted.” She was picking some bluebells when she realised that Sally was missing, but she doesn’t seem to know just when she disappeared. Apparently she didn’t look for her much, but meandered on and came back by the highroad. I thought perhaps Sally had tracked her so I came to look.’
I said, ‘We’d better find the wood where she picked the bluebells. I’ll go on Cavalier.’
‘You must have some lunch first,’ said Mummy.
I said, ‘I don’t want to have lunch. I want to find Sally.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Mummy. ‘No search party ever goes out on an empty stomach. I shall look for Sally too, and your Aunt Daphne can jolly well amuse herself.’
A Pony for Jean Page 5