All that Glitters, page 2
She never saw any movement in her view. The cattle were on the other side of the house and there was nothing in the steep field down to the river. Nothing on the other side either to disturb the softly rolling fields and woods. The river, wide and gentle, curled round the knoll their house stood on, made its lazy way past Miss Brocklebank’s cottage, round her fields and disappeared under the village bridge.
Like a picture postcard. Nice. Millie stood looking. However, for once something was moving down there. Millie blinked. A pony! Not one of theirs: it was whitish, greyish in patches, a faded piebald, standing on the edge of the river at the bottom of the field. Amazing! Millie, who longed to have a pony of her own, thought in her dozy waking moments that perhaps her prayers had been answered. It was abandoned, she thought. No one wants it!
I want it! She came sharply awake, determined. Catch it before her father sees it! Catch it before anyone sees it. It’s for me. It’s mine!
She scrambled into her clothes and ran downstairs. Her father was away across the road and her mother still dressing upstairs. She grabbed her dirty stable jacket and let herself out quietly. The morning was sharp and the grass heavy with dew. She hurried through her mother’s garden (nothing like Miss Brocklebank’s), squirmed under the barbed wire fence then ran and slithered down the hill, gasping with excitement. The pony was not disturbed by her appearance. It was grazing on the edge of the river and scarcely bothered to look up as Millie panted into view. It trailed a frayed rope which was fastened roughly round its neck; there was no headcollar. Travellers’ pony, Millie thought: both its colour and its condition suggested it. Although it was spring and the new grass full of goodness, it was thin, its ribs showing, and its coat still had lumps of shaggy winter hair unshed. It was far removed from a dream pony.
But Millie dismissed these initial observations in her excitement. If it had been a dream pony, anxious owners would be scouring the countryside. This one was likely abandoned and, if not, was hardly the sort its owners would take much trouble searching for, for at close quarters it was in really bad condition, its coat mangy, a bloody cut over one eye and a swollen off foreleg. It made no effort to avoid being caught. It just threw up its head from the grazing and looked without much curiosity at the approaching human being.
Millie took the frayed rope, her mind racing. She must take it to the stable yard and hide it there before anyone saw it. Not a difficult proposition as they only had to walk along by the river and up round Miss Brocklebank’s garden to get there. She set off and the pony came with her without too much persuasion, obviously used to doing as it was told.
Millie talked to it and laid her hand over its mud-caked mane. It was a colour known as blue and white, about thirteen hands high and – sadly – rather in the Barney mode: ill-bred and unhandsome. But, like Barney, it had (she could tell already) a nice nature and large, trusting eyes. What it had, from the look of it, to be trusting about, Millie could not guess. But she loved it immediately. As they walked along she thought of a name for it: Bluebell. It just came into her head without her trying and she accepted it, soppy as it was. Bluebell and Barney.
They were a pair. Millie was so happy she wanted to dance and sing. She did both as she made her way to the stables and Bluebell came obediently, no doubt wondering what sort of a mad person had taken him over.
The other ponies were still out in the field and the stable yard was deserted. Millie decided to put the pony into Dodo and Duffer’s box as it was the only one ready, and it was large and comfortable. Jake had filled in his hole as promised and there was plenty of fresh straw which Bluebell started to eat immediately. Millie fetched a large slice of hay and filled the water bucket to the top and cut off the rope loop.
‘There, aren’t you a lucky boy! Or girl?’ She hadn’t noticed which.
She looked and saw that it was male, which made Bluebell rather an unfortunate name, but her mind refused to change it.
‘Poor Bluebell.’
Much as she wanted to stay, Millie knew it would be wise to hurry home and pretend nothing had happened. Bluebell was a secret. Nobody must know, not yet. She remembered Jake had a secret too, and they were both in the same loose box. Suppose? Suppose …
She ran back up the hill, got her breath back, then walked into the kitchen calmly as if she had just come downstairs. No one noticed she had been out, her mother preoccupied with marmalade making and Jake with his hidden treasure.
When they left for school together, Millie told him about Bluebell. He wasn’t all that interested, except could she move him tonight as he wanted to have another go with his detector.
‘When you think about it, the stable yard is pretty old. There must have been a whole farm down there once, and Miss Brocklebank’s house is called Villa Cottage. It could well have Roman connotations. Before the road, it’s where the river is fordable … It all makes sense. It could be a Roman site.’
Millie agreed, although she felt very sceptical. But she could see that the possibilities were burning in Jake’s brainbox.
‘Pity Miss Brocklebank’s garden is where it is though,’ she said. ‘If your machine goes mad there you’ll never be able to dig for it.’
‘No. It’s a bummer.’
They caught the school bus, which stopped to pick them up at the bottom of their drive. Millie couldn’t wait to tell Imogen about her find and get back to the stables after school. Imogen, as was to be expected, was thrilled: the find was far more exciting than Jake’s snake.
‘I bet there’s nothing else there of value, just the usual old bit of trough or a horseshoe. I can’t wait to see Bluebell That’s a terrible name, by the way.’
But it was stuck.
‘No worse than Barney. Proper horses today have German names with letters and numbers on the end, like aeroplanes. It’s disgusting.’
‘Yes, for shows. But at home they’re called Harry and Tommy and things.’
As soon as school was over the two girls rushed off across the fields to the stable yard. They usually went home first and came back after tea, but Imogen couldn’t wait to see Bluebell and Millie was terrified someone might have taken him away.
But all was well. The pony was happily devouring what was left of his bedding and when Millie opened the door he looked up and she saw his nose quiver into a soft whicker of greeting.
‘Look, he loves me! Look, Imogen, isn’t he beautiful?’
Imogen looked and said, ‘No, not really,’ and laughed, but Millie could see she was thrilled too.
‘We’ll be able to ride together. If you can keep him, that is. His owners might turn up, or your father might not let you.’
But Millie was optimistic. ‘We’ll keep him hidden in here for a few days in case anyone comes looking down the river.’ She chose not to think about her father.
‘He might not look so bad when he’s cleaned up.’
‘Let’s come back after tea. And I’ll bring Barney in tonight to keep him company.’
It was a beautiful evening, and Friday, so no homework to bother with, and so Millie went leaping down the hill after tea to meet Imogen again. Jake wouldn’t be able to come, thank goodness, as he had been collared by one of the teachers to take part in making a film about global warming.
‘He knows about cameras and things,’ Millie explained to Imogen, ‘Not much about global warming though.’ But enough to keep him nicely out of their way. Imogen fetched Barney in from the field and put him in his loose-box and went to study Bluebell.
‘Blimey,’ she said.
‘What do you mean, blimey?’
‘Well, he’s not exactly red rosette material, is he?’
‘No more than is Barney and you chose him. This one just walked in.’
‘True.’
‘They make a good pair. Manky and all wrong, but the same size and shape.’
‘Bad shape.’
‘Yes, but nice.’
‘Wonky but nice.’
They then proceeded to get the giggles, easily done.
‘Bluebell! I ask you! Wonky would be a good name.’
‘Only if you change Barney to Manky.’
‘Manky and Wonky!’
‘Sounds like a circus act. We could teach them tricks!’
‘We could enter for that class at the Standing show, the one the Equestrian Centre always wins – you know, going round in circles together and trotting sideways and that stuff. The Manky and Wonky Quadrille.’
‘A quadrille is four, stupid.’
‘Duo, then.’
In spite of the jokes, Millie had a pang at remembering the beautiful ponies that won the Riding Quadrille, miniature thoroughbreds with elegantly arched necks and pointed toes, moving like clockwork, smooth as silk. Dream ponies. Bluebell stood before her hairy and bony, looking at her with expectant eyes. She put her arms round his neck and gave him a cuddle. He smelled lovely.
‘My dream pony!’
Imogen got out her grooming tools and they set to on Bluebell, one on each side, taking off the top dirt. He stood quietly, tied to the door of Barney’s box, so that he could talk to Barney if he wanted. Barney had introduced himself with some eye-rolling and snorting, but now they were friendly, their two plain heads nose to nose.
‘Really he needs a bath,’ Imogen said.
‘We’ll give him a bath tomorrow. I’ll just wash his mane and tail for now.’
The stables were in a row inside the barn. Once they had been stalls with the horses tied up, but now with bars fixed across the ends they had been turned into loose-boxes. The stalls had been quite generously sized, for large cart horses, so the boxes were a fair size. Even with Bluebell newly installed next to Barney and the Dartmoors, there were still six empty places. Miss Brocklebank had always been going to run a proper livery yard, but what with all the work in her garden she never seemed to have got round to it.
Imogen said,‘My ma says Miss Brocklebank’s got a niece coming to live with her. She heard in the newspaper shop.’
‘Poor niece! But mum’s always said Miss Brocklebank needs looking after. My mum will be pleased.’
‘As long as she doesn’t interfere down here.’
‘No, we don’t want that.’
‘She’s probably as dopey as Miss Brocklebank. If she’s volunteering to live with her she must be mad.’
‘Probably another gardener.’
What neither of them wanted to talk about was whether Millie’s father would allow her to keep Bluebell. Now the pony was clean and tidy and his thick tail was white instead of khakicoloured, he looked quite respectable, and his docile, trusting nature was endearing. He had made no attempt to bite or complain even when they had brushed his most ticklish place. Millie was falling in love fast.
After some thought Imogen said, ‘Even if your father doesn’t want you keep him, what will he do? He can’t just turn him out again.’
‘No he can’t. I think he was just abandoned. He escaped his tether and no one has been looking for him. Dad might let me keep him with the cows, at least, and then I’ll just have to think of something.’
‘Perhaps you should ask the police if he’s been reported missing.’
‘Yes, and suppose he has? I’m keeping quiet.’
‘They certainly didn’t look after him very well, whoever they were.’
Imogen was quite surprised by Millie’s spark of determination to flout the law. Millie was really quite boringly good. Imogen was by nature disobedient and scornful. She got into a lot of trouble at school but because she was so outstandingly clever the school went to great lengths to humour her. If as expected she won a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge without even trying they would take all the credit. Naturally she was not very popular. She took her friendship with Millie for granted, thrown together as they were in Miss Brocklebank’s stables, but occasionally, as now, it surprised her and she realised that Millie was really the only friend she had. An unfamiliar spark of loyalty prompted her to say, ‘If I hear anyone enquiring about a lost pony, I’ll put them off the scent. I’ll say we saw a pony on the other side of the main road, going away from the village.’
‘Yeah, good.’
‘It would be nice if we could ride together, after all.’
Having spruced up Bluebell, they mucked out the stables to put the ponies back. Jake’s idea of filling up the hole he had dug was pretty sketchy and Millie fetched a spade to improve the job. He had made quite an effort in a short time and Millie could not help thinking of his terrier-like impatience to find treasure … was it really likely that there was anything there? She pushed the spade hard down into the disturbed earth hoping to find a horseshoe and so put him out of his misery and brought it up carefully to examine the soil. Certainly no horseshoe, but she could see the fascination that possessed Jake as she sifted through the spadeful with her fingers. Treasure trove! Finders, keepers, she understood was the rule, only to be shared with the person who owned the land. Oh, to be filthy rich, what fun! No wonder Jake was so hypnotised by his toy’s conversation.
There was something small and hard in her handful. She picked it out, a coin, very small. Black. She supposed it was a farthing, although she had never seen one, only heard of them. A quarter of a penny. Her mother remembered her granny using them. They weren’t worth anything: bad luck, Jake! She put it in her pocket and shovelled the soil back, stamping it hard. Perhaps her farthing was something more ancient … she would give it to Jake when she got home, just in case. Better than nothing, anyhow. She put a straw bed down and led the patient Bluebell back into his home. He would have to be hidden indoors for a while. Later, when nobody had claimed him, she would turn him out with the others.
‘He likes being next to Barney. We’ll get the Creambuns to stable Duffer and Dodo at the other end. If Jake wants to go on with his digging, he can rig up a big box for them.’
‘I’ve just thought,’ Imogen said, ‘about riding him. How do you know he’s broken in? He might be too young.’
‘Yes, he might. Oh dear. How do you tell?’
‘By their teeth.’
‘How by their teeth?’
‘I dunno. It’s in books. I’ll look it up.’
Imogen went out for her bike and Millie turned up the hill for home. The day had been amazing: her head was zinging. Her own pony! She just knew no one was going to come looking. He had come to find her, her own Bluebell!
Her father had come in and was taking his boots off in the kitchen and her mother was getting his dinner out of the oven. Millie wasn’t going to say anything about the pony, not yet. Not until she had time to think things through, to think of a plan. Her mother might help her, if her father proved difficult.
But her mother was on to the other news of the day.
‘Miss Brocklebank’s got her niece coming to live with her. What a relief! She’s not safe in that house on her own. She leaves the gas on all the time and won’t throw her newspapers away. Her kitchen’s piled high with them.’
‘Not that spoilt brat from London, the one with all the money?’
‘Yes, I think so. The one that married very young, divorced a year later and came away with a fortune. What she’s going to make of Miss Brocklebank’s cottage, heaven alone knows.’
‘Well, they say Miss Brocklebank is very rich. I daresay now the old girl’s on her last legs Miss Golddigger is coming to suck up to her, get her snout in the trough.’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps she’s come to persuade her to move into a decent bungalow in the village. That would be the best thing. But she’ll never leave her garden, so that’s a non-starter.’
‘The whole place should be demolished. It’s a dump. And the land is worthless, given to flooding.’
Millie could see that it was no moment to raise the subject of Bluebell. Everything was rubbish. Her father was often like that.
‘Her garden is beautiful. She wins everything in the village show. Her leeks are always first, even when those men try their hardest to beat her.’
The leek patch was right against the stable wall where Jake was convinced the treasure trove lay. Millie thought, if she had problems, Jake’s were bigger. There was no way he could dig there.
Later, when he had come in and they were watching television together, she remembered the farthing, and went and fished it out of her jacket pocket.
‘There you are, treasure trove. A farthing.’
He took it.
‘It’s too thin for a farthing.’
‘What is it then?’
‘Dunno. I’ll go and give it a scrub.’
He left the television, so he must have been interested. Half an hour later he came back. He flumped down on the sofa and Millie could feel the electricity of excitement under the cushions.
‘It’s Roman!’ he said in a quivering voice.
‘Wow! Really?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. It’s got a Roman head on it, in a helmet.’
‘Wow!’
But afterwards all Millie could think of was Miss Brocklebank’s leeks.
Chapter 3
‘We must be nearly there. This is the village, Under Standing, and it’s the first right turn out of the village, over the bridge.’ Polly Power, driving her red Aston Martin (far too fast), spoke to her passenger, the glum young man beside her. He did not reply.
‘Look, if you don’t want to do this, say so,’ she said, with some asperity. ‘Throw it all in. Lose half a million bucks. I don’t care. She’s not asking much of you, your old granny, in exchange for all her money.’
The young man groaned.
‘We’ve had this conversation before. I agreed. End of story.’
