“No?” I looked at her in surprise. “Not even if it was black?”
“Not even if it was black,” she decided.
“Why on earth not?” I could not imagine anyone declining to buy themselves a beautiful horse if they had the money. It seemed the obvious thing to do.
“Because I would prefer to buy myself six ponies for the same price,” Francesca said.
“But what on earth would you do with six ponies?”
Francesca looked enigmatic, but was saved from having to reply by a voice behind us, “Don’t you think your brother suits the mare well?” We turned to see Charity Ensdale. She seemed very glamorous to us, in her expensive, understated clothes, with her face immaculately made-up, and her smooth, blonde hair. Especially since in the horse world, apart from racing and polo which are worlds apart, personal grooming tends to take second place to equine grooming, and personal egos are fed more by producing beautiful horses than by being beautiful.
“Oh, yes,” I said fervently, “I think he … I think they, look perfect.”
She smiled at us both, casually confident and friendly, but her eyes returned almost at once to the bay mare and Oliver.
“I think he could do very well for himself in the show ring. He isn’t a polished rider, but he has a certain style.”
“People aren’t usually very polished when they haven’t had any professional tuition,” Francesca said ungraciously.
Charity Ensdale threw her an amused look. “He’s a lot better than many people I could name who have had nothing but professional tuition.”
We watched in silence as the steward invited the exhibits to parade in a smaller circle around the judge. I thought he was sure to pick Oliver first, bound to, but I was wrong. He selected a girl on a chestnut horse to head the line. Charity Ensdale made no comment, but visibly relaxed as Oliver was chosen to stand in second place.
“Not bad for an unpolished rider,” Francesca commented. “Is that it? Have they decided?”
“Not yet, they all have to give an individual display.”
“All of them?” Francesca’s patience was already strained by the prospect of having to watch twelve horses perform individually. “What a bore.”
“You don’t have to watch them all,” Charity Ensdale pointed out, “Equitation is a bit like showing horses, it’s a long-winded business. If you are not actually involved it seems rather tedious. It isn’t good spectator sport.”
“Not like gymkhana games, you mean?” Francesca said innocently. “Even if you are a bit old for that sort of thing?”
I caught my breath, wishing Francesca would behave herself. I had never understood her suspicious nature, never shared her instinctive distrust of strangers. And if Oliver liked Charity Ensdale, then so did I, it was as simple as that.
“I think it’s thrilling,” I said, “and of course, we are involved; we are watching Oliver.”
“I rather think,” Charity Ensdale said thoughtfully, as the girl on the chestnut horse rode out to give her individual display, “that one day, quite a lot of people will be watching Oliver.”
We watched as the chestnut trotted away, cantered a figure eight, flew into a short gallop along the rails, slowed to a walk, halted in front of the Judge, reined back, walked forward into halt and stood four-square to allow the girl to salute. It was a smooth, mannerly, expertly ridden performance, and I could not see any way in which Oliver and the bay could improve on it. But second place is quite an achievement for a brand new partnership, I told myself consolingly, if they can just hold onto it.
We all tensed as Oliver rode out and halted the mare in front of the Judge. To our surprise, he reined her back four steps immediately, and instead of walking forward the same number of steps as is normal practice, he sent her straight into a trot, trotting slowly and sitting into the saddle until he reached the straight along the rails where he sent her into extension. It looked brilliant to me, but it was not what Charity Ensdale was expecting at all.
“What the hell does he think he’s doing?” she said angrily, “I didn’t tell him to do any of that?”
Oliver now cantered the first loop of a figure eight with a flying change to the next. Then he let the mare out into a short and spectacular burst of a gallop before timing his transitions down perfectly until he had brought the mare to halt in front of the Judge.
“You don’t actually tell Oliver to do anything,” Francesca said, “mostly, he decides for himself.”
“So I see.” Charity Ensdale watched as Oliver dropped the reins onto the polished bay neck, and took off his hat. “That’s the last time he rides any horse of mine in the ring. When he comes out, I’ll break his neck.”
Francesca looked across at me and grinned, delighted by the way things were going. But the Judge saw only four more individual displays before making his final selection. He did not hesitate. He brought up Oliver and the bay mare to head the line.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Charity Ensdale watched the presentation of awards with pursed lips, not knowing whether to feel annoyed by the cavalier way her instructions had been disregarded, or gratified by the result. As Oliver rode out to lead the lap of honour, she left us and walked over to the collecting ring.
From where we stood, with Simpson, at the rails, we watched as Oliver reined in the bay and leaned down in order to say something. To our astonishment, Charity Ensdale threw back her head and laughed.
“Look at that,” Francesca said in disgust, “So much for her breaking his neck! And you expect him to come back for the musical poles? What a hope!”
But he did come back, returning in his jodhpurs with the frayed strappings, without the jacket and the long boots, vaulting onto Simpson as the ponies began to filter into the ring for the last gymkhana event of the day.
“Did she ask you to ride for her again?” I asked him anxiously, “was she pleased?”
“She might have been.” He smiled down at my upturned face, mocking me, giving nothing away, not even asking me how I had fared in the bending, and as the music roared out over the public address system. He rode into the ring, lengthening leathers which had been shortened for me, reaching down to check the tightness of Simpson’s girth.
“She did ask him,” Francesca said darkly, “I know she did. She asked him and he said yes, and this is the last time he will ever ride in gymkhana games.”
“No,” I protested. “No, that can’t be true. He would have told us. He would have told me.”
But as I watched them, as I watched Oliver and Simpson, the way they whipped round the corner markers, the way their canter slowed to the crawl along the straight, the way they accelerated into the centre the very second the music stopped, both of them totally in tune, totally intent, in devastatingly unbeatable form, somehow I knew that Francesca was right, that it was true; that this part of our lives was over.
EIGHT
Francesca was right. After Bickerton we were finished with gymkhana games and our ponies, even Simpson, became beasts of burden only. We merely used them to transport us on our increasingly frequent journeys between the Vicarage and the Ensdale yard. I don’t recall that St. Luke voiced any objection to our almost perpetual absence. He was doubtless relieved to see us occupied during the long summer holidays and the light evenings when school was finished. Possibly it absolved him from responsibility in some part, because we were certainly an inconvenience to him; a further and unlooked-for encumbrance, albeit dutifully accepted, for one so single-mindedly dedicated to preserving the spiritual welfare of his twin parishes. Of course, St. Chad’s still had a congregation then, the village had not started to die. The primary school was still there, the bus service ran on the hour, there was a general store, a post office. Only two of the cottages beside the green had been bought by weekenders.
We might have been less of a burden for St. Luke had we taken an interest in pastoral activities, but like so many pony-orientated youngsters when allowed complete freedom, our outside interests wer
e minimal, our lives narrow, our activities confined to the saddle. And so we shunned the Youth Club, we scorned the tennis and the bell-ringing classes. Reluctantly, we made our token appearance in church on Sundays, and two afternoons a year we grudgingly made ourselves available to give pony rides at each separate church fête. What an unsatisfactory trio we were, and if St. Luke was unsuited to his role as paternal guardian, then how much more unsuitable were we to be his charges.
From the very beginning, Charity Ensdale set out to cultivate all three of us, although there was never any doubt that it was Oliver she wanted. In retrospect, it cannot have been easy for her, because Francesca and I were well aware of our position, that we were the package deal that went with Oliver, and Francesca especially, went out of her way to be difficult. For the first few weeks she refused to accompany us to the yard. She chose to stay behind at the Vicarage, avoiding us when we returned, speaking to us only when it was necessary, at pains not to appear in the least interested in how we had spent our day. Oliver made a point of discussing our activities at meal times, because then, with St. Luke present to preside over the meal left for us by the part-time housekeeper, there was no escape, and also because he knew Francesca would be listening even though she pretended not to be. He would describe the daily progress of the novice hack we were helping to prepare for a forthcoming show, or the bungling nervousness of a small child who was taking lessons in ringcraft before making her show debut on a pony that had cost her father ten thousand pounds.
St. Luke would take no part in these conversations. Mealtimes were utilised as an opportunity to make notes for his sermons, and these he scribbled onto small pieces of paper between forkfuls.
Doth not even nature itself teach you that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? See Corinth. 12
He had never been known to refer to these scribbled notes during the composition of his sermons, perhaps the action of writing it down helped to commit it to memory, and perhaps it did not, but in either case the pieces of paper gathered in little drifts on tables and shelves all over the Vicarage until, browning and curled at the edges, they were gathered up by the home help and thrown away like so many dead leaves. And so Francesca, with nothing to scribble herself and doing her best to ignore our conversation, was forced to demonstrate her indifference by clearing away the dishes in an uncharacteristically busy manner, deliberately thumping down the cheese-board or the fruit bowl in front of us, whilst St. Luke, frowning gently over his half-glasses would murmur, “Steady now, steady,” and Oliver, catching my eye, grinned.
As a result of this, one day when we were in the schooling paddock marking out a figure eight by means of a bucket of sawdust for the benefit of a particularly dense child who was unable to master the art of cantering regular sized loops, Francesca appeared, riding along the post and rail fence on Sinbad. I would have rushed across the grass to greet her, but Oliver prevented me, grabbing my wrist.
“Don’t make a fuss,” he said. “Don’t look at her. Leave her alone. Ignore her.”
So we watched covertly as she reined in at the gate, declining to enter, but making Sinbad wait for nearly twenty minutes, even though he fumed and fretted to be on his way, whilst she scrutinised our industry. We did not acknowledge her presence, neither did she acknowledge us, and nothing at all was said at supper, but the following morning, three of us, not two, set out for the Ensdale yard.
It was several months before Francesca allowed herself to become totally involved in the yard. At first she was openly disapproving, resentful, and moody – often she would ride away for no apparent reason and not return. She never allowed herself to relax with Charity Ensdale, treating her with a censorious mistrust that only gradually mellowed into a sort of wary respect as all three of us were drawn deeper and deeper into the fascinating new world the Ensdale Stud opened up for us.
Charity Ensdale specialised in breeding what we had always regarded as beautiful but rather useless show ponies. They were the kind of impossibly elegant, expensive-looking creatures glimpsed in the rings at shows in the early part of the day before the hoi polloi took over, garlanded with many-tiered rosettes, their immaculate blue-coated riders looking unbearably smug as they were presented with solid silver trophies, twenty times the size of the plated egg-cups that were handed to the gymkhana champions. We had no idea, as we disapproved of them, that already many of the best games ponies, even Simpson, owed their clean lines, their speed, and their courage to years of painstaking work by the studs in order to produce a new type of pony to satisfy the demanding and competitive child of the day.
The hybrid riding pony, we discovered, was first bred as a suitable mount for the game of polo, when it was found that the larger indigenous native ponies, although some were the right size, were neither fast enough nor agile enough for the game, and neither was the tall, spindly thoroughbred sensible or clever enough, or up to weight. The answer was to cross the best of the large natives with the small thoroughbred, thus gaining the grace, speed and courage of the thoroughbred, allied to the strength, sense, hardiness and size of the native.
Breeders producing the new hybrid pony, soon realised they had the perfect teenager’s mount. The polo pony became the modern riding pony, and the modern riding pony was the main output of the Ensdale Stud.
Whilst Oliver concentrated upon the hacks and hunters, almost entirely bought in as youngsters, or sent to the yard to be produced and exhibited in the ring for their owners, Francesca and I concentrated on the ponies.
From the unruly herds of two and three-year olds, the best were drawn in the autumn of each year to be produced as novices the following season. Francesca soon displayed a talent for making and breaking the youngsters, and also helped school them under saddle. For someone of her temperament, she displayed an enormous amount of patience with the ponies, and later, with the young riders we trained to show them under saddle. I never saw her punish a pony unjustly, or admonish it with an unnecessarily sharp word, she had endless sympathy for the young.
As for me, I concentrated on the conditioning, the feeding, and the presentation of the ponies, and never tired of the magic.
I loved to see how the rough, hairy, fat creatures who were brought into the stables began to shed their coats and their fat. How, as a result of judicious exercise and feeding, they changed shape and developed muscle where there had been none. I marvelled at the way linseed and rugs flattened and improved the coat, how it became hard and close and glossy. How quickly, starting with a few hairs tweaked out at every grooming session, wild thick manes and tails were tamed and the ponies learned to tolerate being bathed and strapped. How they were disciplined to stand whilst their tails were being washed, whilst every superfluous hair was trimmed out of the ears, from the nose, off the heels. How they adapted to having four steel shoes attached to their feet, and how confidence and personality developed hand-in-hand as they progressed from the lunge to the long-reins, to being backed and ridden.
As their debut neared, it was time to select the appropriate saddlery for the show ring, an extra inch might be necessary to the length of the saddle to shorten the back, or a shorter seated saddle might be needed to add the illusion of length to an over-compact animal. Fine, thin, dark bridlework was chosen to enhance the heads of the quality ponies in the exhibition classes, whilst thicker, more workmanlike leather was used to complement the plainer hunter types for the performance classes. Finally, the day would arrive when, rugged and bandaged, re-shod with lightweight aluminium plates, their manes sewn into round, hard plaits, they would be led up the ramp into the horse box and driven to the showground where they would walk into the ring to be judged for the first time. All this I loved, and the fact that the pony concerned had been produced for the showring as a saleable advertisement for the stud and was, more often than not, subsequently sold, was never the cause of more than fleeting regret, because there was always another fat, hairy creature waiting back at the yard with which to recommence the whole ama
zing, rewarding process.
Because we were so fascinated, so keen to learn, and so hard-working, Charity Ensdale relied on us more and more, and her husband, Charlie Ensdale, a sober, middle-aged farmer with little interest in horses, was seen increasingly less about the yard, clearly preferring to devote more time to his other farms in the area. This arrangement appeared to suit everyone, but there was one fly in the ointment, and that was Sandy Headman.
Sandy Headman had worked on Charlie Ensdale’s farms during the holidays for several years but as far as we knew, he had never been asked to help on the stud, nor had he been invited to ride – the possibility might never even have occurred to him, indeed who knows if he would have welcomed it, but as soon as Oliver began to appear regularly about the farms, hacking out the show horses, sometimes with Charity Ensdale, sometimes not, Sandy began to be troublesome.
Whilst he and Oliver had been in open competition in gymkhana games they had got on reasonably well. Oliver, although he had never made the slightest attempt to be ‘one of the lads’, had earned their respect, and Sandy Headman and others like him, who considered themselves to be hot stuff, deferred to him somewhat grudgingly. There was always a lot of good-tempered banter around the collecting rings and Oliver always gave as much as he received, managing to avoid generating any resentment. He was so rarely beaten that the challenge was, no longer to be presented with the red rosette, but to cross the line before Oliver Jasny. Now, however, Sandy Headman’s reluctant admiration turned to jealousy, and because he knew better than to antagonise him – Oliver was not, even then, the sort of person you crossed lightly, despite the way he looked – he took to baiting Francesca and myself.
Most of the time we went out of our way to avoid him, but there were occasions when it was impossible to anticipate when he would appear, driving past us too fast and too close on the farm roads, starting up farm machinery unexpectedly as we rode or walked past with our young ponies, sneering and laughing at us as we struggled to control and calm them, dropping corrugated tins, or shaking out polythene ricksheets in order to frighten deliberately and annoy. Eventually, because the ponies were becoming roadshy and nervous, we complained to Charity Ensdale who immediately contacted Charlie and asked him to put an end to it.
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