Riding With The Lyntons

by Diana Pullein-Thompson

  Riding with the Lyntons

  by Diana Pullein-Thompson

  Illustrations by Sheila Rose

  © 1956

  Epona Publishing

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter One

  I shall never forget my first sight of Sparrow Cottage; the sun shone on the ancient tiles, green here and there with lichen and the passage of the years; a slanting beam of gold lay across the rough path which led through the untended garden to the neat white door; the small windows, pleasing and symmetrical, appeared to smile at the rolling landscape, which, wrapped in the soft greens and browns of autumn, climbed upwards all around to meet at last the blue skies of an Indian summer.

  Here, after London, the air was cool and clear; the world silent, apart from an occasional bleat from the sheep grazing the distant pastures or the sad moo of some lonely cow waiting to be milked. No reek of petrol, no unseemly blare of angry horns, no sound of bus or train or car reached the ill-cared for lane which led down into the valley to Sparrow Cottage. But the wide garden gate welcomed us and the oak close by was friendly – shelter from the wind and rain, shade from the sun, a tree to climb, to explore, I decided, noting footholds on the trunk, a useful fork and, high up, a haven of green amongst the leaves.

  And now my parents were talking. “You see we will be right away here. No one can get at us, and isn’t the view superb? Have you seen anything like it? Look at those hills, and that line of trees against the horizon!” Daddy was enthusiastic. He’s always enthusiastic about anything new; that’s one of the nicest things about him. He could hardly wait now to get the key in the door, to show us this dream cottage which he had found and which neither Mummy nor I had seen before, I remembered he had been equally excited about our last flat in London – the one we were now about to leave – and I couldn’t understand his enthusiasm then, but now of course I could more than share it.

  “And where’s the paddock for Lesley’s pony?” Mummy asked. “You know you promised there was one.”

  “Wait a minute, for heaven’s sake,” said Daddy, opening the door at last. “I can’t show you everything at once. Anyway, she can’t have a pony until I get my April royalties and see how well Forget Not Thy Cloak has done.”

  “But you promised,” I wailed. “You promised, Daddy. If it only depends on how well your last novel does. I shall never get a pony.”

  “You’re not very complimentary,” remarked Daddy.

  For a few seconds I was enveloped in gloom. I had been looking forward to that pony for months; the longing had gone hand in hand with my desire to live in the country; and now suddenly the prospect of having one seemed as uncertain as a fine day in midwinter.

  But the next moment my mind was distracted by the interior of the cottage. There was a long room with two windows and an open fireplace.

  “Here we shall eat, work and amuse ourselves,” said Daddy.

  “Let’s call it the living-room,” suggested Mummy. “I do hope we can fit all the books in. I suppose we could have a case built on either side of the fire.”

  The other rooms were simply tiny. My bedroom was the only attic, a low long place, roughly whitewashed, with a minute window looking out across those friendly hills towards the sea, which lay some thirty miles beyond. A romantic room, I thought, away from everyone, with only the four steep steps in the wooden staircase leading to it.

  “I hope you won’t feel too lonely up here, Lesley, but you can leave your door open at night,” said Mummy. “We shall have to get the decorators in to deal with your walls; they need plastering here and there and distempering all over.”

  “My only complaint is that I shan’t be able to hang my pictures,” I told her, looking at the eaves which came right down to the floor, and the slope of the walls.

  “Never mind, we’ll give you a bit of the passage,” said Daddy. “Come on, I’ll show you the paddock and the shed which I’ll turn into a stable for Lesley one of these days.”

  My hopes rose again. My life is like a see-saw; it rushes up and down from success to disaster, from joy to gloom, from hope to despair. But I suppose everyone’s life is the same to a greater or lesser degree, and, at least, mine is never dull.

  As I looked at the small sheltered paddock, my thoughts turned to the pony of my imagination – a breedy type, black as midnight, with bold eyes in a finely cut head; a five-year-old with all his career before him, highly strung, dauntless and kind. There was no one to tell me that such a pony would be entirely unsuitable for me, an inexperienced and too-reckless girl of eleven, to ride.

  “You couldn’t have anything better than this, not anywhere, could you, Lesley?” said Daddy, looking to see approval and enthusiasm on my face. “It’s so sheltered with that beautiful beech hedge and those oaks – the noblest tree of all – and, do you see, the water trough is just by the garden, so you’ll be able to fill it easily from the kitchen tap.”

  “Except when there’s a drought and the well’s empty,” said Mummy, a worried line creasing her high forehead. “That’s my only worry.”

  “But darling!” exclaimed Daddy. “How often is there a drought in this rain-soaked country? Once in a blue moon, and then we’ll manage somehow, or move out until the well fills again. Honestly, I shouldn’t waste any time worrying about that.”

  “And now the shed; we haven’t seen the shed,” I reminded them. “I love the paddock; it’s perfect. I can just see my pony waiting at the gate for his daily feed.”

  “You’ll be able to grow carrots for him in the garden,” said Mummy vaguely.

  We looked at the shed: it was brick and rather tumble-down with holes in the roof.

  “We’ll have to get the builders in to see to that,” Daddy told us. “But in April, with luck, I can afford it.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said. “Thank you. If only I could think of some way to earn money. If only I could paint or draw or something.” I remembered a girl at school who designed Christmas cards each year and made pounds. It seemed sad that I had so little talent myself, but perhaps I could earn something by honest toil, I decided.

  “And I forgot to tell you,” said Daddy, “about the wonderful friends for Lesley. You know that handsome grey house at the top of the lane? You must have seen it – the one with the white windows and that beautiful curving lawn, which you remarked on.”

  “Yes, I know. Go on,” said Mummy.

  “Well, I found out who lives there – a whole family with lots of children and ponies, all ages and all shapes and sizes. They’re called the Lyntons. I don’t know what their father does. I mean I can’t think how he can afford to live right out of the way down here. Perhaps he’s an artist, but then how can he earn enough money to bring up such a family?”

  “Perhaps his wife is an heiress,” laughed Mummy. “But I’m so glad you’ve found all that out, because I was a little worried about Lesley getting lonely down here.”

  “It’s wonderful,” I said. “I do, do hope they like me.”

  “Of course, they will like you, as long as you are agreeable and friendly,” said Mummy firmly. “Anyway, if they have ponies you’ll have lots i
n common, no doubt about that. You must get better at making friends.”

  “That’s just what I thought. When the old man at the Stag’s Head told me about the Lyntons. I could have cheered. They are our nearest neighbours, too. There’s the empty cottage beyond them, which was too expensive for us, and then the farm and the three cottages housing the farm labourers and their wives. I shall be able to write like mad down here, I feel it deep down in my bones,” said Daddy, gazing happily at the tranquil landscape.

  It seemed as though the future was filled with promise for all of us; friends and ponies for me; peace, quiet and beauty for Daddy’ and what for Mummy, I wondered suddenly? Well, just the country, I decided, for she had always hated London, the noise, the bustle, the cocktail parties; the necessity to dress properly every day – no faded cotton frocks, no ancient sandals, no darned pullovers were her daily wear in London; somehow she had always felt she must dress tidily in the great metropolis, and yet the habit was alien to her nature.

  “I’m going to keep some chickens,” she said now, “in that corner of the garden which is covered with nettles, just six Rhode Island Reds, five hens and a cock.”

  “And we must have a dog,” added Daddy. “I haven’t had one since I was eighteen and that’s years and years ago.”

  “A spaniel with floppy ears? Or a self-possessed poodle? Or a terrier?” I asked. “Do let’s get one soon.”

  “We must think very, very carefully,” Daddy told me. “Spaniels age rather quickly. Poodles are fashionable, and I don’t want to be fashionable, and terriers – well let’s think about it later. After all we can’t move in till December, don’t forget.”

  “Come on,” said Mummy, taking the key. “We shall have to start back now, or we won’t be in London before midnight. It’s a five-hour drive, you know.”

  “December seems years and years away, and April is even further. I don’t know how I shall bear my last term at school,” I said, giving a last glance at the white five-barred gate leading into the paddock.

  We walked single file up the winding lane, which was sadly overgrown with brambles. I loitered here and there, to my parents’ annoyance, to pick blackberries. At the top we clambered into the car, a pre-war affair, rather battered but fast and comfortable.

  Evening was in the air; the sunshine pale now; the hills drifting into slumber. Somewhere an owl, perched high in a nearby tree, hooted eerily of the dangers of the night. Softly the thick grass at the roadside squelched beneath our tyres, as our car slid forward – the sole machine within sight or earshot. And here was the Lyntons’ house: a charming grey place, with fields around and that superb sweep of lawn curving downwards to meet the rose-decked ha-ha, which parted the garden from lush meadowland beyond.

  Yes, there were ponies in the fields and stables in the yard, and somewhere I caught the glimpse of a child – a small boy with straw-coloured hair, wearing jeans and grasping a pitchfork in his hand. My friends of the future, I thought, lots of them, all shapes and sizes. They’ll help me choose a pony for myself. I shall have them all to tea. We shall play hide and seek and murders; we shall toboggan together in the snow; we’ll organise races for our dogs; and, if I hunt, we shall all hack to the meet together. The Lyntons would stop me missing the friends I was leaving behind in London – Mary, Susan, John.

  The car climbed up and up and up; until at last we had reached the crest of Letcombe Hill, and looking back we could see far down in the valley, a red dot wrapped now in the mists of evening, with two chimneys, with a wide garden gate and giant oak close by.

  “Look,” said Daddy. “There she is – Sparrow Cottage.”

  “Our home of the future, how tiny it seems,” laughed Mummy.

  “If only December would come now,” I said.

  And then we pushed onwards, driving into the night, driving back to civilisation, driving back to the smoke-grimed London which had been my home for so long.

  Chapter Two

  Because I had first seen Sparrow Cottage basking in the sunshine I somehow expected our return to be in fine weather and here I was mistaken.

  Rain swept in torrents across the hills down into our deserted valley; the raw cold of December crept into the marrow of our bones; the old oak creaked and groaned like a decrepit man on his last legs.

  We had garaged the car at the Stag’s Head, which was about two hundred yards down the road from the Lyntons’ house, and now we had to carry our suitcases and odds and ends down the lane. Luckily the removal van had come earlier and the men with it had managed to take most of the furniture to the cottage before the rain started. All the same they were cold and disgruntled.

  “No one told us we ‘ad quite such a long way to walk,” they complained. “Nor that the lane would be so dirty.”

  However, Mummy had brought a Primus and she made cups of tea for us all, and then our tempers began to mend, and we felt warmth returning to our limbs.

  “We’ll have a full well; that’s one thing,” said Daddy grinning at the rain – the only one of us completely undaunted by the weather.

  “There’s a leak in the front room,” remarked one of the removal men.

  “We’ll soon put a bucket or pail under that. We knew the roof wasn’t perfect,” Daddy told them. “I’m going to see how our dining-room table looks in there.”

  “I’m going to look at my bedroom again,” I said, bounding up the steep narrow staircase. “It’s the most exciting place in the whole cottage; and I’m going to have checked gingham curtains, and a checked bedspread and a rag mat.”

  “You are certainly going all cottagey,” Mummy called after me, “I suppose it’s the effect of too much London. But we mustn’t get precious down here. No poker work.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I shouted, tripping on the last step of the staircase and falling into my attic.

  My little wooden bed was there already, and my rush chair stood by the window. I looked out again across the rolling rural landscape; and wild and windy it was now with the rain sweeping in angry torrents over the hills, and the clouds dark and threatening. But it was an exciting scene for a Londoner to watch, and suddenly I felt absolutely certain that life in the country was going to be full of drama, that every day would have its thrills, that even the changes in the weather would be of absorbing interest to us.

  I sat down on my chair and thought about the pony I was to have in the spring; and then I realised that I should be helping my parents and I rushed downstairs again to find Daddy on his hands and knees in the kitchen, in great excitement, because he thought he had heard a cricket singing and was determined to locate it. Mummy was hanging a picture in the passage.

  “Better to get the furniture arranged before you start ‘anging them drawings, I should think?” said one of the removal men disapprovingly. “We always start everything the wrong way round,” said Mummy cheerfully.

  Moving in was great fun. We argued for hours about where each piece of furniture should be. We changed the pictures again and again. We spent ages deciding which pieces of crockery should hang on the kitchen dresser.

  And then I had the old shed to clean out for my pony – I couldn’t possibly bear to leave that till the spring – and afterwards I checked the fences in the paddock and then climbed the oak tree by the garden gate. It took me three-quarters of an hour to get to the top but when I was there I could see miles and miles, almost to the sea.

  Daddy and Mummy were full of plans for the garden. They decided to put down grass for a lawn and to plant daffodils amongst the fruit trees at the back.

  The second day it rained a good deal, too, and the leak in the roof was rather tiresome; at least the tap, tap of the water falling from it into the bucket below got on my parents’ nerves.

  “It’s that awful London life which has made us so much on edge,” Mummy said. “After a few weeks buried down here we shall be able to stand anything.”

  “Manual work gives one a sense of proportion,” Daddy told us, as he st
arted to dig the neglected garden.

  “No more cocktail parties. What a joy!” said Mummy.

  But I was beginning to grow a little bored with my own company. I wanted to talk to other children about my plans for a pony. I wanted to find out the best rides in the district. Some children I know like spending most of their time with grown-ups, but, although my parents are the best and nicest in the world, I was longing to rush around with someone younger and wilder.

  “I wonder when I shall meet the Lyntons?” I said on the third day. “How shall I get to know them, Mummy?”

  My mother was kneeling down – a small neat figure – rearranging the books.

  “I don’t know, darling,” she said. “Perhaps the parents will call on us. I believe people still do that kind of thing in the country. But you are bound to run into the children at the top of the lane one of these days.”

  “And then what shall I say? ‘Hallo, I’m the new person at Sparrow Cottage’ or ‘I like your ponies.’ I rehearsed.

  Just because it had become so important for me to meet the Lyntons, I had turned every possible opening for a conversation over in my mind, and they had all seemed silly in the end.

  “I shouldn’t worry,” Mummy told me, clambering to her feet, turning to face me, to look at me with her hazel eyes. “When you do meet them, you’ll say something without thinking at all. It is a mistake to imagine the future too much; nothing ever turns out quite as you expect it to. Now, why don’t you go and arrange your books on the top of your table in your room?”

  “All right, if you want me to,” I said, rather grumpily. She doesn’t understand, I thought, how much I want to meet the Lyntons, how tired I am of wandering round by myself or of helping my parents with their grown-up occupations, but how beastly of me to be dissatisfied already when I am in the country at long last, when I only have to wait till the spring and I shall have a pony of my own, when my parents are so keen that I should enjoy living down here in Sparrow Cottage.