The Merrythoughts, page 10
“Oh, rats,” Susan said, suddenly turning shy again.
The foal was staggering about in the sun, all head and legs, sooty black, and not really very pretty. They had to take the vet’s word for it that it might prove to be a quality pony.
Arabella was secretly rather disappointed. It was going to be such years before it was a proper pony that could be ridden. It looked at the moment as if it would collapse if you touched it.
She stayed behind after the other three had gazed their fill and gone back to the jobs that were absorbing them, trying to be as pleased as she had expected to be before it was born.
Poppet seemed entirely unconcerned, moving slowly about grazing, just whickering gently over her shoulder if the foal got left behind. Arabella saw a burr on her flank that had escaped Jennifer’s notice, and though she was slightly frightened of the pony now that she was alone with her, without the expert Jennifer to supervise every move, she determined to get it off in case the foal came against it in her clumsy searchings for food.
The paddock was small enough for her to be able to corner the pony, and she held her shakingly by the mane while she tugged at the burr with her free hand. Then the foal staggered up to her, and she felt the touch of the tiny muzzle against her hand, and in that moment she became a real pony-lover, instead of an imaginary one. Poppet and Windfall were hers, her own particular legacy from Aunt Deb. James would go away to school and get interested in other things, but the love of ponies and horses was hers for ever.
Everything must turn out right now, all problems be sorted and solved, so that she could go on loving and caring for her ponies, one too old to be ridden and the other too young, but one with a past of honourable service behind her, and the other a hope for the future.
13
It was to be a great treat for the four children to be left on their own for a whole day, while the Merry Parents and Miss Baxter went up to London. Miss Baxter called the expedition Burning their Boats, since they were going for the purpose of letting the flat permanently to the Eisenheimers and bringing down the rest of their clothes before the autumn arrived with colder weather. But she seemed quite cheerful about it.
They went off first thing in the morning. It was a blazing hot day, and the children sat on at the breakfast table, arguing, it must be admitted, a trifle crossly as to who was to do the various necessary jobs. It was such a lovely day that Arabella and Susan wanted to be outside, and they saw no reason, and said so, why Jennifer and James should not take their turn at the housework.
“I like that,” James said. “Whenever it’s been wet you two were snug indoors, while we chopped wood and cut down all those beastly straggling bushes. And we never arranged it should be turn and turn about. We never tried to strike a bargain.”
While they sat there wrangling the hands of the clock moved round speedily, and it was well past ten o’clock when Jennifer, as the eldest, brought the other three to their senses by pointing out that the way they were going on they were wasting all the sun anyway and proposed the only sensible solution, that they should all turn to and polish off the housework between them, leaving what remained of the morning for outdoor occupations.
Susan was still hankering after a real exploration of the attics, but she was shouted down by the others, who said it was bound to rain again soon and they could do it then. “Let’s go and see Poppet and Windfall before we do anything,” Arabella said. “It will only take a few minutes, and they do look for us first thing in the morning. We’re far later than usual as it is.”
Jennifer agreed, and they cut up a couple of apples for Poppet and rubbed some bread into crumbs for her daughter.
“She really is getting pretty now—Windfall, I mean,” Arabella said dotingly, as she had been saying every day for the past fortnight. “I didn’t believe Mr. Handover at first, when he said she would be good-looking, but he was quite right.”
“He’s always right,” James said. He thought the vet combined every virtue, skill; and strength, and gentleness, and generosity. Had he not given Miss Baxter the puppy, which she loved so much she had insisted on taking it to London with her?
When they got to the paddock they found it occupied by Beechy and her calf, and of the two ponies there was no sign.
The children looked at each other aghast. The gate was carefully shut, and there was no sign that they could have broken through the fences at any point.
They looked in the stables and then in the big field, but there was no trace of them, and the halter they used for Poppet was not hanging on its accustomed nail.
“They’ve been stolen,” Arabella said frantically.
Jennifer kept her head. “Then why is Beechy there, and the calf. They were in the other field. No thief would have stopped to put them there, and in any case why should they? And a thief would have brought a halter along with him. He, or they, couldn’t count on finding one lying about.”
Arabella didn’t listen. “We must ring up the police.”
“We can’t,” James reminded her. “We haven’t got a telephone.”
Susan brought common sense to bear. “I bet this is something to do with Parker. This is an inside job. Is it market day?”
“I don’t know,” Arabella said despairingly.
“Quick, James, run to the house and look in the local paper. That will tell us. Your father was reading it last night. It must be still there—we haven’t lit the fire yet—we cooked breakfast on the oil stove, didn’t we, Arabella? Hurry, James,” Susan urged him.
James flew off, and in the meantime they went on looking about to see if they could get any clue. It had not rained for some time, so there was nothing to show if they had been led off or spirited away in a cattle truck. Then Jennifer, in the stables, called to the others to come. “Look at this,” she said, holding up a file. The sight meant nothing to Arabella, but Susan gave a gasp.
“The crook. He’s been filing Poppet’s teeth—to make her seem younger,” Susan explained to Arabella. “I know that’s what he’s done—taken them to market.”
“But they’re ours,” Arabella said. “It’s—it’s stealing.”
“Of course it is, but … ”
James came back breathless and said yes it was market day, and the day of the monthly sale of ponies.
“I reckon that settles it,” Jennifer said. “Stop crying, Arabella, for goodness’ sake. We’ve got to think, do you hear, and think fast. Is there a bicycle anywhere?”
“No,” said Arabella from behind her handkerchief. “Oh, dear, no telephone, no bicycle, and of course none of us can drive the car. It’s four miles away, the market. We couldn’t get there in time, if we ran all the way. Oh, dear, why did we waste all that time arguing about the work?”
“Too late to worry about that now,” Jennifer said crisply. “And in any case what could we do, if we did get there? No one would believe us children if we did say Parker had no right to sell them. And we’ve got no money—we couldn’t buy them ourselves. No, we must get someone to help. I suppose if he hadn’t known we’d be alone he wouldn’t have dared to do it.”
“Mr. Handover,” James said instantly. “He’ll save them.”
Jennifer asked where Mr. Handover lived, and they had to tell her miserably that he lived four miles away, on the outskirts of the market town itself.
“Could we stop a car and get a lift or at least send a message?” Susan suggested.
“It’s a long way to the main road. We never see any cars, except the tradesmen, and none of them come till the afternoon.”
“We mustn’t flap,” Jennifer said. “A car’s our only chance. Let’s go back to the house and get some money to telephone. There must be a telephone nearer than four miles. What about the next farm?” she asked suddenly. “Surely they’ll have a telephone. Let’s go there.”
“It’ll take some time,” Arabella pointed out. “We’d have to go round by the road, because there’s a bull in one of their fields, and we promised Mummy … The farmer said it wasn’t to be trusted.”
“I’m not afraid of a bull,” Jennifer said, untruthfully. “It is a chance. Quick—let’s go to the house and get enough money to telephone. Or the farmer himself might help. You said he’d had a row with Parker over the fences.”
When they neared the house they saw there was movement in the orchard. The trees were rustling, and for a joyful moment the children thought the ponies might be in there.
But the news had got round, as it so quickly does in country places, that the grown-ups had left the house for the day and that only the children were in charge, and two boys from the cottages scattered beyond the next farm had taken the opportunity to rob the apple trees.
One shouted a warning to the other when they saw the children and realised that they were outnumbered. They had come on bicycles, which were lying together at the nearest place of exit, and they made towards them as quickly as they could, dropping their spoils as they ran. Arabella called to them as compellingly as she could. “Don’t go. We want help. Oh, please don’t go. We don’t mind about the apples.”
They hesitated, looking at each other, and then came slowly back towards the group of children.
The four explained breathlessly what they thought had happened. “And we want to borrow your bicycles,” Jennifer and Susan said together. “We must get hold of Mr. Handover, the vet, and get him to help us.”
“We saw it,” the bigger of the two boys said. “Mr. Parker driving a lorry, first thing this morning. We reckoned he was taking sheep to market. Market’s four miles away,” he pointed out unnecessarily.
“We know it is. But the paper says the ponies won’t be sold till twelve. It’s quarter past eleven now. If we could find Mr. Handover in time he could stop ours being sold,” Arabella explained.
“You want to take our bikes, is that it?” the bigger boy demanded.
“Yes,” Jennifer said. “My friend and I could get there in time then.”
The boy spoke slowly. “If we let you have our bikes you’ll not tell on us?”
“Oh, no,” he was assured by all four voices at once.
He indicated James and Arabella. “You’re the television kids, you two, aren’t you?”
“Yes, the Merrythoughts. But now we’ve come to live here. Miss Merry was our great aunt,” Arabella explained impatiently.
“Well, if we let you have the bikes will we get our photo in the papers, Ginger and me?”
Arabella thought swiftly. The two boys were grubby, plain, uncouth, ragged. She saw the photograph in her mind’s eye. ‘The Merrythoughts on holiday. Everyone’s Friends.’
“Of course,” she said at once. “I promise.”
“O.K.” He turned to Jennifer. “You scram, and we’ll come after you, as best we can. That Parker—he’d squeeze a sixpence till it bled. We’ll hitch-hike and get there somehow. Come on, you kids.” He took out the apples he had managed to secrete in his pocket and laid them carefully on the grass and bade his friend Ginger do the same. Then he called after Jennifer, “There’s a call-box on the main road—a matter of two miles. You could phone Mr. Handover. Got any oof?”
“Goodness, I’m glad you reminded me. Anyone got fourpence on them?”
The boy Ginger produced four pennies and handed over. He even told Jennifer the number, explaining that his dad was a cowman up at the other farm and sometimes had to ring up the vet himself.
“Mr. Brazier goes out hunting, and at times my dad’s left on his own, see?”
Jennifer asked him if he thought Mr. Brazier could help them now, rush them to the market in his car.
“He’s gone to market himself,” she was told. “Went off first thing with some calves.”
“Could we telephone from there?”
“Out of order,” Ginger said. “I know, because my mum wanted to phone the grocer and it was as dead as mutton. Bit of bad luck, I reckon that is.”
“If you’ve got a tractor,” the older boy said, “I could drive that. I’d get stick from my dad, and if we met a policeman it would be just too bad. But likely your dad could square it.”
“Would you be safe?” Arabella asked doubtfully.
“Safe? I drives ourn all over the farm, when Mr. Brazier’s out hunting. It’s against the law, see, for me to drive it, seeing as I’m only fourteen. But I’m on, if you’re game. You kids and Ginger could hang on somehow. We’d get there all right. If we were copped it would only mean a couple of quid fine,” he said airily.
“We’ve got at least that in our post office savings,” James said quickly. “There is a tractor. It’s behind the stables. It’s new.”
The boy turned on his heel. “Let’s get cracking while you two girls take the bikes and try to get hold of the vet.” He grinned over his shoulder at Arabella. “That would make a proper picture you and us on a tractor. It could be called ‘A race against time’ or ‘a battle for life or death’.”
“Oh, he won’t sell them to the knackers, will he?” Arabella exclaimed, horrified.
“Might do, if he doesn’t get another bid. He won’t want to bring them back again, you can bet your bottom dollar. But we’ll get there, don’t you fret your fat, and there’ll be the four of us, see? We’ll do old Parker down, if it’s the last thing we do do.”
The tractor, being new, started up easily and was soon lurching out of the farm and into the lane, the three children clinging on as best they could. Arabella spared a thought of gratitude to Susan for the gift of her jeans, when she saw how bespattered with oil they were all likely to get.
The fourteen-year-old boy, who they discovered was called Nobby, drove with skill and calm, but they seemed to cover the ground terribly slowly. Arabella understood for the first time how people could beat horses if they were desperate for time, if they were running a race for life or death. She felt she would like to kick and spur and beat the tractor into going faster. Ginger sensed her feeling and shouted above the noise that there was a speed limit for tractors on the road. “Nobby’ll be in for enough trouble as it is, without being copped for speeding.”
Nobby yelled over his shoulder to know the time, and when Arabella shouted it back he did quicken speed. The wind tore through their hair, and they were jolted so that their bones seemed to be rattling, and any further conversation was out of the question.
Then as the first houses and shops appeared Nobby stopped the tractor and flung himself off. “Daren’t take it any further. We must run for it.”
They took deep breaths to get their wind and began to run, but Arabella was not as used to running as the boys, and her legs felt horribly wobbly after the jolting journey on the tractor.
Ginger held out a hand. “Hook on. I’ll get you there.”
They reached the market square as the town hall clock struck the hour.
14
The ponies were herded together in a cattle pen. They could see Poppet, wild-eyed with fear, the foal frantic to get closer to her, jostled unmercifully by a milling crowd of other ponies, some of them with foals at foot as well.
“Poppet—Poppet,” Arabella cried. They could see Parker, dressed in his best, talking to a couple of unpleasant looking men on the outskirts of the crowd, and they could see Jennifer and Susan arguing with someone who must be the auctioneer.
Nobby took charge. “You—what’s your name? James—go to your pony and stand by her head, as near as you can get, see? She’ll make her way to the rails when she sees you, most likely. Keep your hand on her, if you can. We’ll go and tackle Parker—the three of us,” he said grimly.
Parker stepped away from his companions. “What are you kids doing here?” his voice was quite smooth. “Come to buy a pony, perhaps. There’s a chestnut gelding that’d do you nicely.”
Nobby spoke. “These kids want their own ponies, that’s what we’ve come for. Maybe you made a mistake, Mr. Parker, thinking they was to be sold,” he said with elaborate politeness.
“Mistake?” His voice changed. “What makes you think these ponies belong to those kids? The mare’s mine, and stands to reason the foal is, too. I don’t make mistakes, young fellow. Miss Merry told me to have the pony put down and I didn’t, see? I reckon she’s mine, seeing I kept her alive.”
“She didn’t want the pony put down,” Arabella said frantically. “She was for us. She knew there were children coming. She wanted us to have her. I know she did.”
“Oh. That’s news to me. Was it mentioned in the will, may I ask?”
“It said the stock. Daddy said so.”
“Ah, but ponies aren’t stock. Stock’s sheep and cattle and pigs. No, Poppet’s mine. Of course,” he said craftily, “if you like to buy her now there’s nothing to stop you. I reckon she’ll fetch a matter of twenty-five pounds, she and the foal. Though you’d be better off with the chestnut to my way of thinking.”
“But the saddler said … ” Arabella was in tears again, tears of rage and helplessness.
“The saddler—what’s he got to do with it, I’d like to know?”
“He knew Aunt Deb. He said she told him she wanted us to have the pony, to look after her and—and love her.” Her voice faltered.
“Too bad the saddler isn’t here, and it’s only your word against mine.”
Arabella turned, desperate to find someone to help, and saw James half over the railing, his hand firmly in Poppet’s mane.
“Ginger, go to Jennifer. Ask her what happened—if they couldn’t find Mr. Handover.”
Jennifer came back with him. “He wasn’t there. It’s no good. The auctioneer won’t listen to us children. Parker said the ponies were his. He simply thinks we’re trying it on. I’m dreadfully sorry, Arabella. We did all we could. But we had a puncture and couldn’t go fast. His landlady said we’d just missed him.”
The auctioneer mounted his rostrum, and the crowd stirred into interest as a black pony was manhandled up in front of him and he opened the bidding.
“Seems we’ll just have to put up a fight,” Nobby muttered.
