After dinner Wendy and I played the piano in the large drawing room which was hardly ever used. Angus talked to Mr and Mrs Miller in the library, which had leather-covered armchairs and a shelf full of books about riding. It was all very pleasant but seemed far removed from home and Sparrow Cottage.
“Mum and Dad must be still flying,” I said presently. “Isn’t it amazing?”
I shared Wendy’s room, which had windows on both sides with bright checked curtains, white furniture, and whitewood beds with checked covers. Angus was sleeping in the spare room, which was above the drawing room and had a white carpet and a magnificent white and gold bed. It wasn’t his sort of room; not a room for jeans and trainers at all.
Wendy and I talked for hours. She told me all about a boy she had known last year. He had written her long letters. “He was the best boyfriend I ever had,” she said. “I guess your brother is all right and he’s real cute, but he’s kinda slow, isn’t he?”
I agreed. “We’re all kinda slow back home,” I said with a laugh. “It’s something to do with the weather and being so shut in.” Wendy took me seriously, while I was laughing inside all the time.
“Yeah, it must make a difference,” she said. “All that rain …”
I slept at last and didn’t dream.
The sun was streaming into the room when I woke up and I thought straightaway, they’ll be home. They’ll be stepping out of a cat, unlocking the front door, and the trees will be in blossom. And I wished I was there too, standing in the soft English air with the trees all pink with blossom and the banks still yellow with the last of the primroses.
Wendy was still asleep, her red-brown hair spread across her pillow.
I got up and dressed and found Annie making waffles in the kitchen.
“You want yours now? You want to get out real quick?” she asked. I nodded, wondering how she understood.
I sat down at the plain wood table and she gave me a plate of waffles, crisp fried bacon and maple syrup.
“You wanta see your little horse?” she said.
Later I tacked up Frances and rode across the valley to Mountain Farm. Phantom had upset his water bucket and the house looked deserted, as though it knew already that we would never be back. The hammock swung empty on the lawn. The doors were locked and bolted. “I’m taking you over to the Millers’ place,” I told Phantom.
I led him out, and he tottered for a time. He’s never going to be sound again, I thought, and my heart seemed to be beating twice as fast. Then the stiffness wore off and he looked almost sound as I rode Frances and led him across the valley. I didn’t look back at Mountain Farm because its very emptiness seemed to reproach me, as though somehow it was all my fault.
Angus was waiting on the lawn in front of the house. “You might have waited. I wanted to come too. What about Pelican?” he shouted.
“I couldn’t wait,” I answered. “I had to see to Phantom. He had kicked over his water bucket. Where’s Wendy?”
“Getting up,” Angus replied.
The Millers’ stables were like old-fashioned English ones with wood partitions and doors with bars. But the wood was not varnished, the bars were unpainted, and the floors were beaten earth instead of brick. I put Phantom into one of them and he stood by the window at the back of the box trying to see out. I untacked Frances and put her back in the orchard. Beyond the orchard the last of the hay was being carted. Inside I found Wendy dressed for school.
“Of all the crabby arrangements,” she said. “Why should I go while you stay home?”
Mrs Miller drove her to school in her car with the hood down. Angus and I sat in the sun chewing grass and talking. Time hardly seemed to be passing. Peace seemed absolute; there was no point in doing anything.
“Phantom will be all right to fly in a couple of days,” I said. “Are we going to make the arrangements?”
“No, Mr Miller is going to do it,” replied Angus.
“You’ll have to tell him.”
“I wonder where Mum is.”
“Shopping, I expect.”
We took our shoes off and lay on our backs staring up into the sky.
“I shall miss this,” Angus said.
“Same here. You sort of expect the sun all the time here,” I answered.
“We’ll be wearing pullovers again,” Angus said, “and riding coats, and there won’t be scorching central heating.”
“But we’ll be free,” I answered. “We won’t feel like poor relations any more.” I stood up. “We’ll be in our own country. It will be our turn to show people around for a change.”
I walked to the stables and groomed Phantom. The boxes were mucked out straight on to a midden outside. Sometimes the midden reached nearly to the stable door, which the Millers always shut at night, so in summer, unless the windows were open, the boxes were stiflingly hot. Wendy insisted that the floors were good for the horses’ legs. “Much better than your crabby concrete ones,” she would say.
I gave Phantom some maize still on the cob and filled his rack with hay. I fetched him water and wandered up to the house, but it still wasn’t lunch time. Angus was lying in a hammock reading. Mrs Miller had gone to the bank. There seemed to be all the time in the world.
“I wish Mr Miller was here. I want to get everything fixed up,” I said.
“Dr Beecher has to give the okay. What’s the matter?” asked Angus. “Why don’t you read or something?”
“There’s nothing to read,” I replied. “All the horsey books here are out of date. They’re full of people with old-fashioned hunting seats and diagrams of bearing reins.”
“Can’t you read anything but horsey books?” asked Angus.
“Not at the moment,” I replied. Then, “Supposing Phantom doesn’t load,” I said. “What shall I do with him? It will be worse without Mum and Dad. I mean Dad can always get round people, but Mr Miller will probably say, ‘He’s nutty, Jean, he’ll never make good, not that darned horse, better put a bullet through his head.’” As I spoke I saw Phantom’s beautiful head in my mind’s eye and started to sniff. Angus put down his book. “For goodness sake,” he replied. “Stop fretting. I’ve told you, they’ll sedate him, so what the heck?”
“You’re talking American, not English at all, do you realise that?” I asked. “People will call you Yankee when you get home.”
I was being irritating on purpose and suddenly I knew why; there was another storm blowing up. The air was heavy and humid, and the cattle were leaving the valley for the shelter of the mountains. I wandered inside and watched Annie making rolls for lunch. She was singing softly and she kept smiling at me as she worked.
The storm broke while we were having lunch. Mr Miller was still out.
“I guess it’s a bit dull without the boys and Wendy, but she’ll be back soon,” Mrs Miller said.
Angus was in one of his chatty moods. He talked all through lunch, making Mrs Miller laugh, while the rain fell in drops as big as hailstones, drenching the valley in seconds.
Wendy returned from school later. “Gee, it just ain’t fair,” she shouted crossly. “Why should you stay home while I work myself nutty in that crabby school?”
Mr Miller was home by this time and we all went round to the stables together to look at Phantom.
“A call came through from your parents a few minutes ago,” Mr Miller told us. “They’re home and send their love.”
“Good,” said Angus. “Thank you.”
I imagined them sitting in our tiny hall and phoning while, as likely as not, rain fell through the trees outside. I wished I had been the one to answer the phone.
Mr Miller wanted to cut away Phantom’s bandages, but we persuaded him to leave them until tomorrow when Dr Beecher would be visiting.
“He looks okay, Jean,” he said. “I’ll book you on a plane next week. What’s today?”
“Thursday,” I answered, after a pause for reflection, for the days had become muddled and, in some strange way, unimportant.<
br />
“Monday then,” said Mr Miller, slamming the loose box door shut. “He’ll be fit enough then and I’ll sure be glad to see the back of him. Yes indeed, the trouble that horse has caused.”
“If he loads,” Wendy replied.
“He’ll load. They’ll see to that, else it will be the humane killer,” replied Mr Miller. “We sure don’t want him roaming the mountains again.” There was a red sun going down in a glorious pool of colour beyond Mountain Farm. The sky was red, gold and blue, the grass sparkling with raindrops.
“You sure won’t see anything like this in England,” Wendy said. I nodded in agreement.
Annie was waiting for us with dinner on the table. There were gleaming glasses and starched napkins in silver rings. The table was polished until you could see your face in it. The old mahogany chairs had seats covered with striped brocade.
The Millers are going to find Sparrow Cottage very small after this, I thought. Phil will hit his head on the beams and the chair in the hall will break under Mr Miller’s weight. But it will be lovely having them all the same. I will be able to show Wendy my books and Mermaid’s rosettes, and, if they come in September, the apples will be ripe. I saw myself taking them to the village shop; old Mrs Pratt peering at them through her spectacles, saying, “You’re not from these parts,” in her quavery, cracked voice.
The next day Angus and I rode up to the mountains. We crossed the gas line and stood at Signal Post where George Washington was supposed to have stood, and we stared into the distance seeing the Potomac river running like a thread through the landscape.
“Do you remember seeing all this for the first time?” Angus asked. “I’ve grown kinda fond of it, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “I want to remember every bit of it for ever, even the smell, but I don’t suppose I will. But one day I shall come back.”
“Same here,” said Angus, picking up his reins again.
We rode down to find Dr Beecher waiting for us in the yard.
“I’ve seen the little horse,” he told us as we dismounted. “He’s sure made a wonderful recovery. I should give him another day or two before you take him back home. I’ve given him another shot of penicillin, so he’ll be okay now. Put him out in the orchard this evening.”
“Thank you very much. Can he go without his bandages?” I asked.
“Sure. Just one other problem. What about the account?”
“The account?” I said stupidly.
“Sure, here it is. I thought you’d like it before you go back home.”
I opened the envelope Dr Beecher gave me. Inside I read: Two visits. Four injections, two hundred dollars, only it wasn’t written quite like that.
“Yes,” I said, “yes, of course,” while my mind took in two hundred dollars and reeled at the thought.
Angus looked over my shoulder and nudged me. “We’ve got some money inside,” he said. “Hang on.”
We paid Dr Beecher all we had and watched him drive away. “Wow, what a price!” I said. “We haven’t a penny for the journey now. And we still owe him money.”
“Exactly. That darned horse will be the ruin of us.” Angus was laughing. “Who cares anyway? We’ll manage.”
I wished I was more like him then, instead of always seeing ahead, working things out before I reached them, perpetually fearing the worst. Mum says we’re born one way or the other, but I think it’s more an attitude of mind and if you can train anything you ought to be able to train your own mind.
I couldn’t hold Phantom when I led him into the yard in the evening. He stood on his hind legs, snatching the headcollar rope from my hands, and careered away across the yard.
“Fool!” shouted Angus. “Idiot! Why didn’t you hold on?”
“I couldn’t,” I shouted. “I tried.”
Phantom tore round the yard in a mad frolic. Then he cleared the gate into the orchard in one quick leap and settled down to eat. I sighed with relief. “If only we can keep him safe till Monday,” I said.
“And in the plane too,” Angus replied.
The next day we rode again and Mr Miller told us that the flight was booked and Phantom would be flying with some brood mares on Monday evening. “It’s a chartered flight,” he said. “One of the mares can’t go, so he’ll be in a box by himself. I told them he was a heck of a horse. I just hope he behaves.”
I could think of nothing but the flight now. It seemed to dominate everything. I imagined a thousand things going wrong.
The Millers were wonderful. They took us swimming and to Charlottesville and to an outdoor concert. Pete and Phil came home on Sunday and we had a farewell dinner with wine, and an enormous rib roast, and fresh cornbread and gallons of ice cream, and salads of pineapple, mayonnaise, lettuce and cottage cheese. It was all very Virginian and I was suddenly overcome by the sadness of leaving. Virginia had never seemed so beautiful before, the Millers never nicer.
We were still up when the moon rose and the dark sky was filled with millions of stars like jewels on dark velvet.
“We’ll be over in July,” Pete told me. “It will be great to see you again.”
I didn’t want the day to end. I kept thinking, I may never come again, this could be my last evening in Virginia.
Wendy wanted to know what she should wear in England. “Skirts are real short, aren’t they?” she asked.
At last we retired to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. It seemed impossible that this time tomorrow we would be flying to England with Phantom. It seemed too impossible to come true.
Pete and Phil had gone back to their military academy. The air was full of sounds unheard in England. I opened one of the windows and leaned out, remembering again the first time I had seen Phantom galloping wild and alone across the moonlit valley. Somehow even then I had been certain that one day he would be mine.
8
Monday morning dawned fine.
“I’m coming with you. I’m not going to school,” cried Wendy, leaping out of bed. “I want to see Phantom load. Dad does too.”
I was dressing slowly, saying goodbye to everything, already feeling the heat of the sun through the windows. Angus was still asleep. Phantom had spent the night in the orchard and he was still there, scarred but sound, waiting by the gate. Mrs Miller helped us pack, putting everything in plastic bags with tissue paper between the folds. Tomorrow I shall be in England, I thought, and it still didn’t seem possible.
“Charlie rang your parents,” Mrs Miller told us. “And Charlie and Wendy are travelling with you to New York. The horse box is arriving after lunch.”
There was a funny feeling in my stomach, as if it were full of fluttering butterflies.
“We can’t possibly repay you for everything; you’ve been fantastic,” Angus said in a very grown-up way.
“We don’t want repaying for anything, it’s been a pleasure,” replied Mrs Miller.
Annie was making cookies for us to eat on the journey. I felt then that the Millers were the best friends we had ever had, our only real friends.
I caught Phantom and groomed him. Then Angus and I went round the other horses saying goodbye. I stood for ages with my arms round Frances’s neck, remembering the days and hours we had shared together. Then I said goodbye to Easter and Seashore and Pete’s bay mare, and Pelican and Phil’s new black hunter. Then I returned to Frances and said goodbye all over again. And all the while time was passing relentlessly and the worst part of the journey still lay ahead, waiting like some fearful ordeal to be overcome.
Lunch was hot dogs, followed by more ice cream. I wanted to ask Mr Miller for some money, but Angus said that we couldn’t ask for anything more. Where was my pride?
The day was at its hottest now, and Phantom was sweating in the stable. Wendy found some slightly moth-eaten bandages in the saddle room and gave them to me. I put them on Phantom’s forelegs. I was wearing jodhpurs and was far too hot. I was trying to look like a responsible person. Angus was dressed in grey trousers, a shirt and t
ie. Wendy wore jeans, moccasins and her favourite tee-shirt.
“It’ll be kinda funny without you around,” she said with a break in her voice.
“It will be funnier still to see you on our crabby little island,” Angus replied, and we all laughed because he made England sound like our own private property.
Now the horse box was arriving across the cattle-grid to the yard. Annie was standing on the steps outside the laundry room waving goodbye.
“We should have got her some chocolates,” muttered Angus.
“We’ll send her something super from England – a jumper or something,” I replied, and all the time I felt as though my heart was breaking, because I was leaving the dusty valley with the rock-hard ground and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance.
The driver of the horse box was letting down the ramp. He was a big, sweaty man in a grubby white shirt, which clung to his back in the heat, and light-coloured trousers.
“I’ll take him,” he said, looking at me.
I had led Phantom out by this time and he stood all flaxen and gold in the sunshine, bursting with health.
“He doesn’t like strangers, let the kid lead him up,” said Mr Miller, who had appeared dressed in riding-clothes with a cloth cap on his head.
But Phantom would not budge. His head seemed to go higher and higher as though he was trying to look behind him and say goodbye to his beloved mountains. Angus fetched a scoop of oats. Annie appeared with carrots. Mrs Miller brought sugar. The driver took him, jerking at his head and shouting, “Get up there. Someone get a rope,” he said presently. “Gee, he’s strong.”
They fetched a rope and put it round his buttocks and pulled, while I coaxed him with the scoop in front; but he threw himself backwards after a minute’s contemplation and everyone fled.
Phantom Horse 2: Phantom Horse Comes Home Page 6
