Christmas at High Rising: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC)

by Thirkell, Angela

  ‘Oh Mother,’ interrupted Tony, looking up from the Adrian, ‘can I? I have ridden at Lord Stoke’s. I have a kind of gift for riding and horses, so that I can’t fall off. Oh Mother, can I?’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to say yes,’ said Laura to Dr Ford, ‘though if you had any tact you wouldn’t have asked me in front of Tony. This will be far worse than bicycling. It isn’t only being thrown off and killed,’ she said in an abstracted voice, her eyes fixed on a vision of misfortunes to come, ‘but having his face kicked in by the horse’s hoofs, or being dragged for miles by a stirrup, or being rolled on and spending the rest of his life on a stretcher, besides ordinary falls and broken collar-bones.’

  But Laura’s objections were overridden by Dr Ford’s anxiety to help his protégé and Tony’s wish to show off as a rider for the benefit of Rose and Dora, so a plan was made to meet at the Vicarage next morning.

  No sooner had Dr Ford gone than Tony dashed upstairs leaving his fleet strewn about the floor, so that it was not Stoker’s fault when, coming in later with the tea-tray, she walked on the Adrian, crushing her to a shapeless wreck.

  ‘Oh Stoker,’ cried Laura, ‘you’ve trodden on Tony’s ship. What will he do?’

  ‘Won’t know nothing about it if you don’t go telling him,’ said Stoker, and bending with some difficulty she picked up the wreck and put it behind a box on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Out of sight out of mind as the saying is,’ she remarked, ‘and I’d be out of my mind if I was to worry about Master Tony’s fancies. Did you wish him to put them corduroys of his on for tea and Mrs Gould and the young ladies coming?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Laura, as Tony came into the room with a swaggering air. He was wearing his school football jersey, the corduroy breeches, khaki scout’s stockings and black shoes. Round his neck was a muffler, his hair was all on end, and he carried his best leather gloves with an air of abandon.

  ‘Go and take off those disreputable things at once, Tony,’ said his mother.

  ‘Oh, but Mother, if I’m going to ride tomorrow I must get used to my breeches. Breeches are quite different from knickerbockers, Mother. You have to sit quite differently.’

  In proof of which Tony sat down astride, facing the back of his chair, and looked at his mother with an expressionless stare. As Mrs Gould and the girls now arrived, Laura could not let loose her annoyance on Tony, who behaved like an angel during tea, not even boasting when the next day’s ride was discussed. He then volunteered to see the Gould family home and by supper-time had changed back into ordinary clothes. Laura, immersed again in her villain, forgot all about Tony’s misdeeds, which was exactly what he had hoped.

  Next morning, Tony, now strongly entrenched in his peculiar riding dress, arrived alone at the Vicarage. Laura sent the excuse of work, but as a matter of fact she had determined not to see her son thrown, kicked, dragged or mangled, preferring to imagine all these things by herself. Rose and Dora, very neat in jerseys and jodhpurs, were standing at the gate, while a little man in leggings led a small horse and a rough-coated pony up and down the lane.

  ‘That’s a decent horse,’ said Tony, pulling on his gloves in a devil-may-care way.

  ‘She’s a mare,’ said Dora. ‘Her name is Amber.’

  Tony’s face became blank.

  ‘So is the pony,’ added Dora, driving her victory home.

  ‘Ponies aren’t mares, they are just ponies,’ said Tony coldly.

  ‘All right,’ said Dora, ‘cats are dogs.’

  ‘Hush, Dora,’ said Mrs Gould. ‘Now, which of you is going to ride? Jenkins, which will you take first?’

  ‘The young ladies, mum,’ said the groom, touching his cap. ‘I can see this young gentleman is new to it, and the pony won’t be so fresh when the young ladies have been on her.’

  Tony’s face of chilly contempt passed unnoticed as Jenkins led the horses down the lane to the big Vicarage paddock where the gardener had put up a rough jump about three feet high.

  ‘You young ladies can both ride,’ said Jenkins.

  In a moment Rose was on the horse and Dora on the pony. Both little girls had ridden a good deal, owing to the kindness of Lord Stoke and other neighbours. Rose, usually timid and awkward, was another creature on horseback, entirely sure of herself, while Dora, with less style, was equally at home. Rose leading, the little girls trotted and cantered about the large field while Tony looked on, a sense of injustice swelling in his bosom. In all their games he had been the leader, humbly admired by his young friends; now they were suddenly exalted above him, belonging to the enviable world of horsemen. It was hard after he had dressed so dashingly for the part and boasted to Stoker quite unbearably the night before of what he was going to do, to find himself neglected and left out as a mere beginner. For the first time in his life he felt a pang of envy for Rose and Dora’s superior gifts, and a hard lump came into his throat, a lump which uncomfortably dissolved and rose in him, giving him a pricking feeling in his nose and making his eyes look a little pink.

  ‘It’s all right, sir,’ said Jenkins, mistaking Tony’s emotion, ‘the pony’s as quiet as a lamb.’

  Tony turned away and now luckily Rose came past at full tilt, and under cover of the noise of her horse’s hoofs, Tony was able to sniff loudly and satisfyingly, so that there was no need for him to use the spotted silk handkerchief which he had so proudly put into his breeches pocket that morning. After Rose had taken the jump several times in professional style, and Dora had bucketed over with her pony in a useful but inelegant way, the groom told them to dismount.

  ‘Better take those gloves off, sir,’ he said, as Rose and Dora led their horses up to the gate near which Tony was standing. ‘You’ll need your hands to hold the reins.’

  At this witticism, Dora guffawed loudly. Tony darted a baleful glance at her by which she was entirely unimpressed. Rose, feeling Tony’s discomfort, offered to take care of the gloves for him and drew Dora away.

  ‘Other side, sir,’ said Jenkins as Tony approached the pony on the off side.

  ‘I know,’ said Tony. ‘As a matter of fact, lots of people do get up on the right-hand side.’

  ‘Lots get down that way too,’ said Jenkins, but as Dora was not within earshot and Tony, one foot in the stirrup, his right leg clawing madly in the air in his efforts to get it over the pony’s back, did not hear him, the joke fell flat.

  ‘Haven’t ridden much before, have you, sir?’ asked Jenkins kindly as he arranged the stirrups.

  ‘Several times,’ said Tony. ‘I’m pretty good with horses, I went to the point to point races with Mrs Knox and I picked most of the winners. I don’t know how it is, but I seem to know about horses —’

  ‘Keep your elbows down, sir,’ said Jenkins, getting on to the mare.

  ‘— and they have an instinct for people that like them,’ continued Tony, riding uneasily to the pony’s short trot. ‘I bet this pony knows I’m–a–friend–of–horses.’

  The last words were jerked out of him, and he bit his tongue with such violence that his conversation was temporarily stemmed. When he and Jenkins got round the field again, they found an addition to the audience in the shape of George Knox, the biographer, and his wife, who were leaning over the gate talking to Rose and Dora.

  ‘Hullo, Mr Knox, hullo, Mrs Knox,’ cried Tony, ‘do you see me on the pony? I rode it all round the field at a trot. Some people don’t like trotting, but I do. I bet I could trot for about twenty miles, easily. Look at me, Mr Knox.’

  Intoxicated by an audience and the delightful smell of horses and leather, Tony uttered a loud shriek. The pony gave a start and plunged away across the field, carrying Tony, elbows in the air and feet well out, along with it in its course.

  ‘Oughtn’t you to go after him, Jenkins?’ asked Anne Knox anxiously. ‘He might fall off.’

  ‘I know his sort soon as I set eyes on the young gentleman,’ he said. ‘A young gentleman like that one never comes to no harm. He’ll never learn to
ride, not if he was to ride all his life, but he’ll stick to the horse somehow.’

  And sure enough, as he spoke, the pony turned round and came back with its jubilant rider.

  ‘Mr Knox,’ shouted Tony as soon as he was within hearing, ‘did you see me?’

  ‘Good God, boy,’ said George Knox, ‘who in possession of the sense of sight could help seeing you? Who that has seen you could forget? Mazeppa on the Margate sands. I trust I make myself clear,’ he said courteously to Jenkins.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the groom, who was accustomed to gentlemen and therefore unmoved by George Knox’s comparison.

  ‘Or Leech’s Mr Briggs,’ continued George Knox, ‘which perhaps makes my meaning more patent.’

  ‘You couldn’t exactly have a patent meaning, sir,’ said Tony pityingly. ‘You could have a patent invention. Unless of course it was something you said that other people didn’t understand unless they knew what it meant. There’s a chap at school who always says “Tunk” when you speak to him. It’s awfully funny, don’t you think, sir – Tunk? You could call Tunk a patent meaning,’ he continued, encouraged by the little girls’ giggles, ‘because it’s his own patent idea. If another chap says Tunk, he gets in an awful rage. Did you see me go off at full speed, Mrs Knox?’

  ‘Tunk?’ said George Knox. ‘Tunk? Anne, have I taken leave of my senses, or has that boy? What the devil does he mean by Tunk?’

  ‘It’s what the chap says at school,’ said Tony, speaking to every point of the compass as the pony fidgeted round in a circle. ‘He says Tunk whenever anyone speaks to him. One day Mr Prothero spoke to him, and he said Tunk, and Mr Prothero —’

  But Jenkins, who had borne with gentlefolk as long as he could, now interrupted to ask Tony if he would like to jump.

  ‘Does the pony like jumping?’ asked Tony rather anxiously.

  ‘That’s all right, sir. Nothing to be afraid of,’ was the groom’s unfeeling answer. ‘Take her at it easy, sir, and keep forward when she goes over and you’ll be all right.’

  ‘Go on, Tony,’ shrieked Rose and Dora.

  ‘Give me your whip, then,’ said Tony to Rose.

  ‘Wait till we see how you can jump, sir, and then we’ll see about a whip,’ said Jenkins. ‘Now, grip her with your knees and take her over.’

  The pony, a hardened animal, wearily tolerant of children, was kind enough to trot Tony up to the jump and take him over it. Yards of sky appeared between Tony and the saddle, but as Jenkins had predicted, nothing could permanently dislodge him. Slipping from side to side, stirrups flying, the luck of cheerful riders was with him, and he came trotting back to his friends.

  ‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ said George Knox in a loud voice as Tony approached with flapping elbows and a joyful pink face, ‘and I will in no wise consent to listen to what you are infallibly going to say, my boy, and indeed I propose to forestall you. I did see you approach the jump; I did see you rise like the phoenix from the saddle, perhaps an unjustifiable metaphor, for between a saddle and a funeral pyre the relationship is obscure, yet let it pass; I did see you, Gilpin-wise clinging to neck and mane till equilibrium resumed her sway; I do at this very moment see you returned, and will not admit, though hell itself should gape – and why, by the way, Anne, do our tragedians pronounce that word when occurring in the immortal tragedy of Hamlet as Garp? Do we see some analogy with the custom by which the clergy allude when in the sacred edifice, though never, so far as my recollection and experience serve me, outside it, to the common ancestor of the Jewish race as Arbraham? – I will not, I say, admit that you showed any spark of horsemanship, of the manège, of the haute école.’

  ‘I say, sir,’ said Tony, who had been waiting with deference for George Knox to finish whatever it was that he was saying, ‘did you see me take the jump? Did you see me go over, sir? I have a sympathy for ponies and I knew exactly —’

  ‘Good God, good God,’ shouted George Knox, ‘am I then a thing of naught, unheard, unhonoured?’

  ‘Tunk,’ said Dora, very impertinently, upon which all three children had wild giggles and Anne Knox, trying not to laugh, did her best to pacify her husband.

  ‘You can try the mare, sir,’ said Jenkins. ‘She’s an easier jumper than the pony.’

  ‘I’m much better on a real horse,’ said Tony, alighting heavily from the pony and valiantly tackling the mare. ‘Some people might think a horse more dangerous than a pony, but if you have an instinct for horses you are all right. Ponies are only for kids,’ he added, looking witheringly at Dora.

  ‘Tunk,’ said Dora.

  Tony gave his bridle rein a shake and cantered scornfully away. At this moment, Laura, who had found work quite impossible owing to the visions of a mangled and dying son which had obtruded themselves upon her mind, came down the lane. She was just in time to see Tony heading for the jump.

  ‘Is he all right, George?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Will he fall off, ought I to stop him, is it safe?’

  ‘Yes, no, no, yes,’ was George Knox’s answer.

  ‘What do you mean, George, by Yes, No?’

  ‘I was merely, my dear Laura, answering your unnecessary questions categorically. Tony is all right, he will not fall off, you ought not to stop him, it is —’

  ‘He has jumped it!’ Laura cried in a loud peacock scream, and then began to cry.

  ‘Cheer up, Laura,’ said Anne Knox. ‘Tony is perfectly safe.’

  It’s all right, mum,’ said Jenkins, used to mothers. ‘The young gentleman will never make a rider, not what you’d call a rider, but he’s got plenty of pluck.’

  On hearing this, Laura cheered up, and wiping her eyes was ready to greet her returning son.

  ‘Mother,’ said he in an offhand way, ‘she’s a decent little mare. She’s just about up to my weight. Mother, I shall call my new ship Amber instead of Adrian. The mare is Amber. Amber, Mother, after the mare. It’s a jolly good name, Amber.’

  ‘Oh Tony, I’m terribly sorry,’ said Laura, ‘but you left your ships about on the floor and Stoker trod on the Adrian.’

  Amber, impatient for the end of the lesson which she knew had to be nearly over, gave her head a jerk, pulled the reins from Tony’s hands, and began to crop the grass. Tony, overcome with surprise, fell lumpishly off and rolled on the ground.

  ‘What did I tell you, sir?’ said Jenkins, picking up Amber’s reins. ‘Grip her with your knees.’

  ‘A person can’t grip with corduroy breeches,’ said Tony, getting up. ‘If I had proper riding trousers I could stick on any horse. The Adrian is a rotten ship anyhow, Mother, because I painted her black and battleships ought to be grey. Come on, Rose and Dora.’

  While the grown-ups followed the three children back up the lane Tony could be heard laying down, from his deep experience, the rules of horsemanship to his friends. As they parted at the Vicarage gate, he pulled his mother’s arm.

  ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘can Rose and Dora come to tea this afternoon? They would like to see my ships. I shall make a new ship this afternoon and call it the Amber. Rose and Dora don’t know about battleships, so I thought it would be useful for them to learn. Can they come, Mother?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Laura.

  ‘Tunk,’ said Dora.

  ‘That’s absolute rubbish,’ said Tony. ‘If you had any sense you’d know that Tunk has a patent meaning that you can’t possibly understand.’

  And he walked away after his mother with the bowlegged gait that a lifetime spent among horses alone imparts.

  First published in Harper’s Bazaar, September 1935

  A Nice Day in Town

  ‘Hot water bottle if I can, elastic if they’ve got any, sponge-bag for Tony, umbrella re-covered, chocolate though it’s pretty hopeless, theatre tickets, brandy if any,’ said Mrs Morland, the well-known novelist, checking a list she had brought into the kitchen. ‘Anything else, Stoker?’

  Mrs Morland’s almost too faithful maid, whose good-humoured bulk had not been in the least dec
reased by the rationing of food, looked with kindly contempt at her mistress.

  ‘We could do with a pair of kippers,’ she said, ‘if you was to see any, and the bottom’s right out of the saucepan I do the chicken’s food in, but saucepans is something you’ll not get. Still, there’s no harm in trying as they say, and anyway you’ll have a nice day in town. Do you good to have a change. Which train are you going by?’

  ‘The 9.22, I suppose?’ said Mrs Morland. ‘I wish I could take the car, but it would be unpatriotic, besides not having the petrol. I suppose if one really wanted to help the Government one wouldn’t use one’s petrol ration at all.’

  ‘Silly, that’d be,’ said Stoker. ‘Same as when you gave the aluminium saucepans to the Government, and all the Government ever saw of them was the Council Lorry came from Southbridge to collect them off the dump and Mr Brown at the garage says he was over at Southbridge on business the next day and happening to pass the remark in the Red Lion that there must have been enough saucepans to make a dozen aeroplanes the young lady at the Red Lion said she knew for a fack that the Council drivers was all giving aluminium saucepans to their wives.’

  ‘So I’ll have breakfast at eight, Stoker,’ said Mrs Morland coldly, for in common with thousands of other housewives she had long and bitterly repented the impulse that had made her sacrifice three saucepans, a colander and a three-tiered steamer to her country, and had vowed never to give anything again except under compulsion.

  Before going to bed that night she rang up her old friend Anne Knox, who had been her secretary before she married the celebrated author George Knox, just to have a gossip, and was justly rewarded for using the telephone unnecessarily, for Mrs Knox with many apologies asked her if she could find time to go to the family house in Rutland Gate and find a French book of which her husband was in urgent need for his life of Henri IV, a task for which, being as he often remarked Catholic by birth, Presbyterian by marriage, and nothing by conviction, he felt himself to be eminently fitted.