The Pullein-Thompson Treasury of Horse and Pony Stories

by Christine Pullein-Thompson

  And then I was sitting up in bed, sweating, knowing that it wasn’t a dream any more, that there really was a pony outside, calling to me in the moonlight. My heart started to beat in an idiotic manner. It’s the ghost, I thought. Patricia wasn’t joking after all. There really is one!

  I stepped out of bed onto shaky feet, and a minute must have passed before I found the courage to draw back the curtain and look out.

  The moon was partly covered by a cloud, but I could see the pony clearly, standing alone in the long grass by the castle. He was looking up, his eyes searching for something or someone. He wore the sort of tack ponies wore long ago, including a saddle which was stained with something that looked like blood. His head was small, set on a fine arched neck, and he shook a long, blood-soaked mane before he trotted away like a dancer, without looking back.

  My teeth were chattering now. I was suddenly certain that I had seen the pony somewhere before. But where? And when? It was obvious he had existed years and years ago; so how could I know him? But the feeling remained, and I had difficulty in stopping myself from going down to him. I wanted to put my arms round his poor neck, to comfort him, to say – to say what? The words were there, some pet words in the back of my brain which belonged to him. I’m going mad, I thought. I don’t know the pony. I can’t. Tears were streaming down my face. I opened the window, but the pony had vanished. And now the first of the birds was singing, and dawn was breaking above the river.

  I returned to my bed. So Patricia wasn’t joking, I decided, putting on the light. There is a ghost. And I know him! Somehow, somewhere, we have met. But you know that is impossible, Isobel, you fool, I told myself. He belongs to the days of knights. He’s a palfrey. How could you, for pity’s sake? Where’s your sanity?

  But sanity and reason had nothing to do with it. It was beyond and above such things. I was attracted to him by something far stronger than either, and my brain seemed to be going round and round in a mad circle, saying, “I want to go to him, I want to go.” I felt as though I was floating across the room and out of the window, as though some great force was dragging me, something I had no hope of understanding, and I was crying, “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to…”

  Then Patricia was shaking me and saying, “It’s me, Isobel. Wake up!” And I didn’t know where the hours had gone, for morning had come and the room was full of sunlight.

  “Are you all right?” Patricia asked anxiously, peering into my face. “You look awful.”

  “As though I’ve seen a ghost, no doubt,” I said, trying to laugh.

  “Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s ten o’clock. We couldn’t wake you. I’ve been up here five times.”

  “He neighed twice,” I explained. “I saw him. He’s grey.”

  “That’s what he always does. I ignore him now, I think he’s a bore really. But, then, I’m not crazy about horses,” said Patricia, who was looking very healthy this morning. “You weren’t frightened, were you?”

  “Of course not,” I lied bravely, trying to ignore the horrors of the night. “I shall be able to tell everyone at school about it. None of them has ever seen a ghost.”

  “Well, get up then, lazy-bones,” cried Patricia. “We’re going sightseeing today.”

  Breakfast was still waiting for me in the dining room. Aunt Clara was reading a newspaper. She looked up at my approach. “I hear our ghost came again last night. I hope he didn’t worry you. He’s quite a friendly ghost really,” she said.

  “He’s super,” I answered breezily, helping myself to cornflakes. “What happened to him? Why does he come?”

  “It’s a long story and rather a sad one,” replied Aunt Clara. “I think it might upset you.”

  “I don’t mind,” I replied, though I could feel a lump rising in my throat already.

  “I’ll tell you one day, but not this morning,” answered Aunt Clara, returning to her newspaper. “It’s too sad for such a lovely day.”

  We looked round the local museum in the morning, and after a cold lunch Patricia taught me to row on the river. It was one of those golden summer days which, looking back, seemed to have no beginning and no end.

  I was not very successful at rowing. My restless night had left its mark. My arms felt weak and lifeless, and sometimes I felt as though I was a spectator looking at us both from a long way off. It was an eerie sensation. We were too late for tea when we returned to the house, and dinner was formal again, with Owly waiting on us. Aunt Clara stared at me with some consternation as I sat down.

  “Are you all right, Isobel?” she asked. “You don’t look very well to me. Did our ghost upset you last night? Would you like to have Patricia’s room? It’s on the other side of the house.”

  “No, thank you, I’m quite all right,” I replied quickly, though now Uncle George and Aunt Clara both seemed to be fading into the distance.

  “Oh dear, I do hope you’re not going to be ill,” exclaimed Aunt Clara, growing smaller and smaller every minute.

  “Get her a glass of water,” said Uncle George. “Hurry.”

  “I’m quite all right,” I said, as they came into focus again. “I don’t need water. It’s just that I keep hearing hoof beats and someone crying…”

  “Oh dear,” said Aunt Clara. “What are we going to do?”

  “Nothing. They’ve gone. I’m quite all right,” I answered, spooning soup into my mouth.

  The boys had gone out to a party. After dinner Patricia and I watched television in the small sitting room by the kitchen, which had once been the servants’ hall. Aunt Clara popped her head round the door from time to time to ask, “Are you all right, Isobel dear? Quite all right? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, thank you,” I answered each time. “I’m fine.” When we went to bed, she gave us each a cup of Ovaltine. Mine had two sugar lumps on the saucer and I put them in my dressing-gown pocket.

  “Are they for the ghost?” asked Patricia, watching me. “Because he won’t eat them. He fades away at the least sound. The boys tried to make friends with him years ago, but he just faded away into the shrubbery with one last desperate neigh. If you’re scared, come into my room. Wake me up. I shan’t mind. Promise.”

  “All right, I promise.” I wanted to be alone now, for I felt as though I had an important appointment which I must keep at all costs. “Goodnight,” I said. “Sleep well. See you tomorrow.”

  I opened my window and leaned out. Everything was still and beautiful – almost too beautiful for the heart to bear. There was hardly a ripple on the river, and the sky was darkening into night. It was easy to imagine the castle as it had been: full of people, with knights coming and going, and a great fire in the hall; horses being led away to stables, the clank of armour. I left the curtains undrawn and climbed into bed, and I must have fallen asleep immediately for right away I started to dream. I was riding a grey pony. I sat sideways in a long skirt with a groom following on a big horse. Everything was extremely vivid, not blurred nor muddled as dreams so often are. The trees were green with leaves and there were flowers everywhere. I had a feeling of intense happiness, as though suddenly all my dreams were coming true.

  I was humming a tune when the neigh rang out, and I sat up in bed instantly, because I had known all along that it would come, that my appointment was with the grey pony outside, whether I wanted it or not. I still wore my dressing-gown, and my legs carried me unasked out of the room and down the wide stairs. My hands knew how to draw back the bolts on the door into the garden. The grass was wet with dew and there was a smell of roses which I had not noticed before.

  The grey pony stood just where he had the night before, his ears pricked, his eyes searching for me, and then I was running, tripping over the lawn, wrenching open the iron gate. I no longer wore my pyjamas and dressing-gown, but a long skirt which reached to my ankles, a cloak and a hat with a feather in it.

  “Silver!” I cried. “Silver!” The pony whinnied, recognising me at once, and
all the misery left his eyes. He came towards me as a friend, his nostrils nickering. I held out my hand with the sugar in it.

  I felt his whiskers brush against my fingers, his breath on my hand. Then he gave a loud sigh, a sigh of pure contentment. The sort of sigh one might give when one had reached home after a long and arduous journey. And then, without warning, everything was changed; Silver was gone, and I was fighting for my life with a cloak over my head. I tried to scream, but no words would come, and I knew now without doubt that I was dying, falling into space, into nothingness, and I didn’t want to die. And then there was darkness, silent and absolute, and I knew this was the end…

  “He knew me,” I said.

  I felt as though I had been away for a long time and come back. Mum was sitting at the end of my bed, wearing her navy-blue suit. “She’s coming round!” she exclaimed.

  Aunt Clara was sitting in a chair. Sunshine streamed through the cracks in the drawn curtains.

  “How did you get here?” I asked, sitting up. “What’s the time? Is it Sunday or Monday?”

  “It’s Wednesday, darling,” cried Mum, bending forwards to kiss me.

  “Give her some water,” said Aunt Clara. “Here, take the glass.”

  “He knew me,” I announced again, without really meaning to, rather as a record keeps saying the same thing when the needle is stuck. I drank some water. It had ice in it.

  “There was blood on his neck. It wasn’t a dream, was it?” I asked. “It did really happen, didn’t it?”

  “Of course, darling,” replied Mum in a soothing voice, the sort of voice one might use to a very small child.

  “We found you lying by the castle,” added Aunt Clara. “Patricia was anxious, so she went outside to look.”

  “He was alive, because he took the sugar. Is it the same day?” I asked. “The morning after?”

  “No, you’ve been delirious for two days,” replied Mum. “I came to be with you. Don’t talk too much.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I answered.

  “It wasn’t your fault, darling.”

  “He hasn’t been back. I don’t think he will ever come back again,” said Aunt Clara.

  “He knew me. How did he know me?” I asked slowly. “He whinnied to me. He took the sugar.”

  Everything was suddenly crystal clear. “He took the sugar,” I repeated. “I know he did. I felt his whiskers.”

  “Don’t get excited,” said Mum.

  “We know he took the sugar,” Aunt Clara told me. “Patricia searched for it. She looked in your pockets, too.”

  “Rest, darling,” said Mum. “Lie back. Dr Perkins will be here again soon.”

  “I will get you something to eat,” said Aunt Clara, tiptoeing from the room.

  I felt weak, but happy too in a strange, exhausted way. I felt as though I had accomplished something of great importance. Silver’s all right, I thought. He’s found peace at last. And I’m going to be all right, too. I’m not even mad, and I can move all my limbs and open and shut my eyes and everything works!

  Dr Perkins was tall and dark. He took my pulse and temperature. He looked into my ears and eyes with a torch. He asked me to look in different directions and knocked my knees with a little hammer.

  “We could X-ray her skull,” he said, sounding a bit perplexed.

  “She seems quite well now – quite her usual self, in fact,” replied Mum.

  “A spontaneous recovery,” said Dr Perkins. “But keep her quiet for the next twenty-four hours. I will call again tomorrow, unless you’re worried.”

  Aunt Clara showed him out.

  “I’m all right,” I said. “Why can’t I get up? I’m sick of bed. I want to go outside.”

  “Well, you can’t,” said Mum. “Anyway, don’t you want to hear the story?”

  “What story?”

  “Silver’s, of course.”

  “How do you know it?” I was sitting up again now, tense with excitement.

  “It belongs to Isobel, too,” answered Mum. “Aunt Clara told me it yesterday when you were delirious. I think the two Isobels were fighting over your body, but thank goodness my Isobel won.”

  Aunt Clara had returned with a tray covered with cups and saucers and plates, bread and butter, jam, three kinds of cake and a pot of tea.

  “You tell her about Silver, Clara. You will tell it better than me,” said Mum, pouring tea.

  “Is she well enough?”

  Mum nodded. “The colour is back in her cheeks. You are feeling all right now, aren’t you, Isobel?”

  “Yes.” I took a piece of cake and waited, while downstairs in the hall a clock chimed four times. Patricia came into the room and sat down on a chair.

  “It all happened a long time ago,” began Aunt Clara, as though she was reading from a book, and I could see it all in my mind – the ruined castle, standing tall and brave, with turrets at each end, a landing-stage on the river, a flag flying.

  “The house wasn’t here, of course. Our ancestors lived in the castle – yours as well as ours, Isobel. The castle was big, with dungeons –”

  “And turrets at each end,” I interrupted.

  “Yes, I will show you a drawing of it later.”

  “And Isobel came on her grey pony, followed by a groom. And there were a great many trees. She came through a forest.”

  “How do you know?” asked Aunt Clara.

  “I just do,” I replied.

  “She had reared Silver from a foal. They were inseparable,” continued Aunt Clara. “She was expecting a baby, and her husband had inherited the castle. He was dead, but no one had told her.”

  “This is the awful part,” said Patricia.

  “He had died fighting in France. But she was expecting, and if the baby was a son, he would inherit the castle.”

  “So she was killed,” I cried. “She was happy because she thought she was going to live in the castle with her husband. She thought his relations would welcome her.”

  “But her uncle-in-law wasn’t like that,” said Aunt Clara. “He had her brutally murdered when she arrived on a dark September night, and they buried her and her servant where this house now stands.”

  “He was one of our ancestors,” said Patricia, biting her nails.

  “What about Silver?” I asked.

  “They drove him away, into the forest, but he kept coming back, so, in a fit of anger, they killed him. But he still came back each September, looking for Isobel.”

  “Until three nights ago,” said Mum.

  “What no one at the castle knew was that Isobel already had a baby girl, your great-great-great-grandmother,” said Aunt Clara.

  “You haven’t said nearly enough greats,” exclaimed Patricia.

  “And because of your relationship to her, you look like the first Isobel,” said Mum.

  “I don’t just look,” I answered, “I was her. I knew I had met Silver before, the moment I saw him. I’ve just been back through time. But he’s all right now. He’ll never come back.”

  Soon after that I fell asleep again, and a day later Mum and I left to join Dad in Romania. I have never returned to the house, but I write to Patricia from time to time, especially around September, and she assures me that Silver has never been back.

  Green with Envy

  Christine Pullein-Thompson

  Our horses were not good enough for the Highbury Horse Trials, so we went as spectators. The first thing my brother said on arrival was, “Oh look! Trust Fiona Tompkinson to be here.”

  We all disliked Fiona because she had everything we hadn’t: two expensive horses, perfect clothes, marvellous rugs and a trailer with two ramps. Sometimes, when her father wasn’t around, she had a groom as well. It was the same at Pony Club Camp: she had a fantastic fold-up bed, the best sleeping bag in the world, the very latest in grooming tools and perfect tack. She was good-looking too, with a straight nose and blue eyes, and her purse was always awash with money. In spite of this she was far from generous and not popul
ar with other pony clubbers.

  “She’s brought Jackpot, so she’ll probably win the junior event,” I said.

  Jackpot was a fifteen-two, half thoroughbred, bay gelding, and had cost five thousand pounds. As we walked the course together I think we were all green with envy. I know I was. When we returned to the main ring Fiona was lying second in the dressage section. Her father was fussing around her, looking incredibly rich in designer clothes, his grey hair perfectly arranged.

  “You never see her mother,” observed Paul.

  “She looks rather worn, not at all like her dad,” said Sharon, who is my best friend.

  Paul, who was eighteen, soon found a friend called Thomas, and they stood together discussing Fiona, sounding unkind and rather patronising.

  “I wish they would shut up. She always pats her horses and I’ve seen her crying at Pony Club Camp,” I said.

  “Oh sure. Great. She’s the most stuck-up person I’ve ever met. She never talks to anyone. We’re down there as far as she’s concerned,” replied Sharon, pointing at the ground.

  We watched Mr Tompkinson pull up Jackpot’s girth, then hold the offside stirrup as she mounted. Then he started to give her advice. Sharon and I hurried to the water jump.

  “Maybe she’ll fall in it,” said Sharon hopefully.

  But Fiona and Jackpot cleared the water jump like champions.

  “They’re going to win again. They’ll be jumping for England next year,” said Sharon.

  As we went in search of Paul, I imagined jumping the course on my grey pony, Capricorn, though I knew we would never have reached the water, being in a different league altogether. Fiona had dismounted near a row of trailers, and steam like mist was rising off Jackpot. She was staring at the trailer with her mouth half open. I stared too and for a moment I couldn’t take in what I saw – two police cars, four policemen and Mr Tompkinson, still without a hair out of place, being taken away in handcuffs. As she watched, Fiona’s face seemed to crumple like a half-baked cake going down. She didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stood with tears streaming down her face.