Dark Horse, page 5
“Yes.”
“Who by?” he demanded.
“I went to a riding school, when we lived with our aunt.” She thought back to the dispirited trail once a week on a pony under-fed and bored, supervised by a young woman who was clearly only thinking how soon she could take the cavalcade home again and how long it would be before she had to take the next lot out.
Shamus snorted. “And you think because you don’t actually fall off you can ride. Don’t you?” he demanded.
“Not now,” she said humbly.
“Listen,” he said. “You said we were rivals with the ponies. I tell you, Tim could beat you riding your sister’s little ass. ’Twill be like taking pennies from a blind man’s cap, so it will. I’ll teach you to ride—then we can talk about rivals.”
Susannah gasped. “You’ll teach me to ride?”
“Why not? I taught Tim, when he was less than the age of your little sister. And I taught him not to think he knows it all—not like that Celandine, who doesn’t know ponies are made of flesh and blood.”
She said: “I didn’t know how much riding mattered in the show ring. I thought that because the pony cost so much I’d be bound to win on it.”
“Well, you’ve learnt the first lesson today, and don’t you forget it.” He turned to Charlotte. “Your Granny’d not object to doing business with me, I suppose? I’d not come to the front door ...”
Charlotte looked at him uncomfortably. “I don’t know,” she murmured.
“I’ll come cap in hand and say I want to turn an honest penny for once in my life, by teaching riding to children. How would that be?”
“It would be very—philanthropic,” Charlotte said.
“That’s a grand long word. I doubt if the young ones know what it means. Maybe I can translate it.” He turned to his brother. “It means that Miss Charlotte Hardcastle thinks I’m a fool.”
4
The interview with her grandmother, the post-mortem after they had reached home, was quite as bad as Susannah had expected it to be. Her grandmother was not angry, but more inclined to blame herself for having taken Susannah seriously when she said she knew how to ride. She blamed, too, Uncle Mark for ever having allowed the children to waste their time messing about and getting into bad habits on second-rate ponies. Ponies like theirs were all very well for farmers’ children, who were content to straggle along in the heel of the Hunt and spend the summer ragging about at gymkhanas, a word into which she put a wealth of scorn. She blamed herself for not suggesting, when the move was made, that all three ponies be passed on for what they would fetch. It had been sheer waste of money hiring a horse-box to bring them to a field where it was costing fifteen shillings a week to keep them.
Susannah agreed, with her head bent, to all that was said to her, too dispirited even to stand up for Cosy, though she was icily afraid that the measured sentences were the death-knell of all three ponies.
“Matthew is so much heavier, and he could only do it for this season, and I’ve got you this new outfit. It would be a pity—Susannah! Your jodhpurs …”
Susannah looked down at her leg. She hoped that the tell-tale circle would have dried by now, and the stain vanished, but perhaps Tim’s dirty handkerchief had done more harm than good. Deep down in some corner of her unhappy heart there was Tim’s kindness to remember, when she could get away to her bedroom, away from the voice that seemed as if it was never going to stop.
Her grandmother sighed wearily. “Take them off at once and give them to Stringer. Ask her—politely, remember, if she can do anything with them. There won’t be time to get them back from the cleaners before next Saturday.”
Next Saturday. Only a week before it would all happen all over again: the same crowds of staring people, the same lot of conceited, competent children all looking down their noses at the novice who had dared to come among them; there would be the same sort of hard-faced judge, the ring steward who made her feel she was just there to waste his time. There would be the same fuss before and the same misery after. It only needed, Susannah thought, crushed, for her grandmother to refer wistfully to the Italian holiday she might have had if she had not stayed at home to do her duty by her grandchildren.
Matthew, the favourite, who would, it had been more than hinted, have ridden the pony to victory, had he not been too heavy and would have been the possessor of a black coat, bowler hat and new jodhpurs, came in to say his grandmother was wanted on the telephone.
“Who is it, darling?” She was apt to shower endearments on the other children when one was temporarily out of favour.
“Mr O’Brien,” Matthew said stolidly.
“Mr Who? Oh, the horse-coper. What can he possibly want? Did he say, Matthew?”
“He just said could he speak to you.” Matthew’s voice was still stiff. He had been told what a pity it was he hadn’t been in a position to ride the pony, and he knew perfectly well that the same thing would have happened to him and that not even his favoured status as the only boy would have saved him from being told he had ruined his style and hands by riding a pony that, too old for a travelling circus, should be between the shafts of a milk-cart.
“Perhaps,” Mrs Aston-Pringle said, “he thinks we want to sell the pony. One knows that those sort of people are always on the look-out for a bargain. That’s how they keep going. That young man is supposed to school show jumpers for clients, but of course his money—if he has any money—it doesn’t look like it, I must say—he’s always disgracefully turned out and that boy looks a positive waif—comes from buying horses that have gone wrong or are unsound and patching them up and selling them to people with more money than sense.”
It was lucky it was only a local call, and that the pips were not clocking up shilling after shilling while Mrs Aston-Pringle speculated as to what it was all about.
Matthew, who of course knew what it was all about, continued to stand unhelpfully dumb, after fluttering an eyelid unseen at his sister as though to bid her to be of good cheer.
Eventually their grandmother went to solve the mystery by answering the telephone, and Matthew and Susannah could not help moving a little nearer to the open door to hear what was being said.
When Mrs Aston-Pringle wished to be offensive on the telephone she always pretended she could not hear, or understand, what was being said at the other end, and with Shamus O’Brien she could practically pretend he was a foreigner, with his Irish accent and out-of-the ordinary expressions. She did not get far with that technique now, and the listening children guessed that Seamus’s suggestion had taken her breath away. Just how remarkable a suggestion it was she could not possibly know, since no one had told her that the O’Briens, whom she thought so dishonest, had got a rival show pony of their own.
While thinking that the O’Briens were everything that was undesirable as neighbours, Mrs Aston-Pringle knew well enough that Shamus was a very competent horseman and that he had imparted a lot of his skill and knowledge to his younger brother. It was the fashion in the Hunt, which was mainly dominated by the Pinkneys and their friends, to say that the O’Briens were thrusters in the hunting field and it was a pity they had left their native land, but nobody could deny that they went extremely well, getting the best out of different horses that never seemed to end the season unfit, get into wire, or start an epidemic of coughing. Mrs Aston-Pringle often boasted that she was a business-woman, and she would not be able to help knowing that Shamus O’Brien’s services as an instructor would be worth almost any price he cared to name. And in this case there would be no danger that, once having had put into her head the idea that Susannah would profit from a course of riding lessons their grandmother would prefer to put her tuition into the hands of somebody recommended by Lady Pinkney. The latter might point to the lengthening row of rosettes on the wall of the grey pony’s loose box, to strengthen her argument that whoever taught Celandine was more than capable of teaching Susannah, but Mrs Aston-Pringle thought nothing less than the best good enough for her grandchildren. And in this case the best would not only probably be obtainable at a slightly cheaper rate, but she would feel able to dictate to Shamus O’ Brien, with his shabby clothes, derelict house, and dependent younger brother, more easily than to some well-established riding-school whose instructors had paper qualifications that gave them initials after their names.
From what they gathered next, Shamus had made some suggestion that gave their grandmother something to think about. They heard her say doubtfully that she must think whatever it was over. But then they heard what they were waiting for, which was a definite yes to his original proposal, and the suggestion of date, time and place. She said goodnight quite graciously, though she was unable to resist putting him in his place by addressing him as Mr O’Hara instead of Mr O’Brien.
She came back into the drawing-room and announced, as if it had been entirely her own idea, that she had decided Susannah was to have some riding lessons. She did not rub into Susannah that it was going to be expensive, and possibly a throwing of good money after what looked, at the moment, to be four hundred guineas to the bad.
When Charlotte joined them Mrs Aston-Pringle repeated, word for word, what she had already said to Matthew and Susannah, and added that the young man’s manners were a good deal up on his appearance.
The children watched their sister’s face to see if she would betray her feelings, but she agreed quietly that it was a good idea that Susannah should have riding lessons, and let her grandmother get away with referring to Shamus this time as that young O’Grady.
If it had ever entered Mrs Aston-Pringle’s head that her eldest grand-daughter might be what she called silly about Shamus O’Brien, instead of sensible about the sort of young man she would meet at the Pinkney parties, she would feel that if Charlotte were made to see him in the light of an employee, a slightly superior Casey, it would soon put paid to what she would go on to describe as undesirable nonsense.
“Now,” she said briskly, “I haven’t had time to tell you this yet—straighten that gloxinia, Charlotte, it’s wilting—the Pinkneys are getting up a private gymkhana, to raise money for the Wire Fund. This young man will be able to help. There’s always so much heavy work to be done, putting up jumps and so forth. Organising things on the actual day. The brother can help too. He must be quite a strong boy, in spite of being shockingly underfed. The Irish live off strong tea and potatoes and whiskey, of course. They have no stamina. I’ll ring up Lady Pinkney now and suggest it. Go and get me the number, Matthew darling, and we can relieve her mind. She was saying it would be far too much for the girls, and their groom has plenty to do.”
It seemed as if she had bought not only a course of riding lessons for Susannah, but the O’Briens’ spare time and energies as well. She would never have dreamt of offering Casey to go and help, because it would take him away from his duties at The Lawns at times that were sure to be inconvenient to his employer, but she would be able to endear herself to Lady Pinkney quite as much by allowing her to annex Shamus O’Brien when he was not actually required to teach Susannah.
This time Matthew carefully shut the door between the drawing-room and the hall which housed the telephone.
“Poor Shamus,” he said comprehensively.
Charlotte did not like the idea of seeing Shamus O’Brien ordered about by Primrose Pinkney and said so, and Susannah speculated how Celandine would set about belittling her to Tim. The Pinkneys did not care what they said, or who they said it about, and if they once got it into their heads that the Hardcastles felt in any way possessive about the O’Briens they would decide at once to make even those horse-coping outcasts their property.
“Oh, dear—” Susannah said— “one moment the O’Briens can hardly be mentioned, much less spoken to, and now, in about five minutes, they’ve become sort of chattels, if that’s the word I want. Flora will lend them to the Pinkneys for their gymkhana, as if they were a couple of hurdles, and the next thing will be Celandine sharing my riding lessons.”
“Heaven help her, then,” Matthew said. “Shamus would never mince his words to her, just because she’s a Pinkney. He doesn’t go in for Pinkney worship, like everyone else in this place. You ought to have heard all the things he was saying about her overriding her pony. If he thinks she’s got bad hands he won’t hesitate to tell her so. I hope for their sakes they get this gymkhana over before he gets the chance to tell Celandine what he thinks of her, because they won’t be on speaking terms after that.”
“I don’t trust Primrose an inch,” Charlotte said. “Of course she’d despise Shamus, because he’s shabby and poor and nobody knows him, but if she thought I was—was fond of him she’d make a joke of it and then she’d tell her mother, who would pass it on to Flora …” She left it to the others to imagine for themselves what would be said, and done, if that happened. “And then, after making certain I wouldn’t be allowed to see him again she would annex him herself, make him dance attendance on her, fetch and carry, come along as a spare man when there wasn’t anybody better.”
“I can’t imagine Shamus letting himself be dragged at Primrose’s chariot wheels,” Matthew told her.
“You can’t tell. People do feel sore and resentful and out of things when they’ve—they’ve come down in the world. He might be flattered.”
“Not he,” Matthew said sturdily.
But Charlotte would not be persuaded, since she had lived long enough overshadowed by the Pinkneys to believe them all-powerful.
Susannah said eventually: “It’s no good the Pinkneys counting on us for their beastly gymkhana. We’ve got nothing to ride.”
But there she was to be proved wrong. Their grandmother gave them a little longer to discuss the gymkhana and wish it lack of success, because the word private meant, they knew, that all the humbler children in the neighbourhood would be excluded and it would be just another Pinkney party for which, this time, the guests would have to pay. But when she came into the room again she said, after poking the offending gloxinias into an even more upright position: “I’ve been thinking it over—that young what’s his name did suggest it, and now of course there’s the gymkhana to be considered—we can’t let the Pinkneys down. You had better get those ponies of yours up for the rest of the holidays. It’s out of the question for Rhapsody to be ridden day in and day out. You must realise, Susannah dear, that you will probably have to go right back to the beginning again, with your riding. Far better use your own old pony for the ground work. And of course being banged about in a gymkhana couldn’t hurt them—I expect they’re used to it. And Matthew had better have that dear common old thing up as well and then either he or Charlotte can ride up there with you every day. I don’t care for you going about by yourself, as you know. There are always some very undesirable characters about in August—gypsies and so on.”
At the beginning of the day that had seemed so long to Susannah, the O’Brien brothers had practically ranked as gypsies, certainly as undesirable characters. The change in attitude towards them seemed like a miracle. But it was a miracle they were not sure they really liked, except for the joy of having their own ponies to ride again, and even that was tempered by the thought of Priscilla’s dismay at poor Miss Muffet being left solitary.
The O’Briens, with their yard full of horses, and their romantic, tumble-down house, the ready welcome to be found there, had represented a sort of day-dream world to which it was fun, and an adventure, to escape. Now that world was to be invaded and occupied, and they themselves had handed the keys over to the enemy.
5
The first warning shot in the battle against the Pinkneys was fired by Priscilla, who was believed by their grandmother to have her head in the clouds and her feet in the nursery. Her Shetland, used to rounding up and nipping her two companions, in the way of small ponies, would not stay in the field alone once they had been taken away, and as she could get over, through, or under any fence ever made, eventually made the farmer whose lodger she was bad-temperedly demand her instant removal. She was handed over to the Pinkneys for Jonquil to ride.
The Pinkneys did not seem to worry that Jonquil was heavy for Miss Moffet, that the pony was too elderly, and too fat after weeks of idleness, to be ridden furiously for hours on end one day and left entirely neglected the next. They did not worry, if they had noticed it, that the bridle they used did not fit and soon rubbed a sore place. Priscilla, bidden to a jolly tea in the nursery, told Jonquil exactly what she thought of her, with a lot of choice expressions culled from Casey, so that Jonquil fled howling to her mother, and then she rushed home, in tears of rage herself. Then she proceeded to bully her grandmother in a way her elder sisters and brother admired but could never hope to copy. Told gently but firmly it was impossible to have the pony back under her own eye, she refused to eat, dragging about with her eyes brimming over when anybody looked at her, with her face getting daily more wan, so that kindly friends would ask her where her roses had gone. She was told, in vain, how much better Ribot, the donkey, was, such a pet with his long furry ears and gay felt saddle. All the peasants in Italy rode about on donkeys and looked so picturesque, a statement which made her take time off from Miss Muffet’s plight to tell her grandmother the Italian peasants ought to be ashamed of themselves, great heavy lumps. She was assured that the pony was far happier being used than just spending her day eating and swishing away the flies, that the Pinkneys were now sorry about the sore place and putting soothing ointment on it.
When appeals had no effect she was threatened with early bed for the rest of the holidays, to which she replied grimly that she liked being in bed. She could forget, in sleep, that her pony was being ill-treated. She was told she couldn’t go to the gymkhana and said that she wouldn’t go anyway, not for a thousand pounds, if it meant seeing Jonquil overriding Miss Muffet. Only if her grandmother had threatened to deprive Matthew and Susannah of their ponies would she have capitulated, but that idea, mercifully, did not enter Mrs Aston Pringle’s head.
