A HORSE CALLED SEPTEMBER

by Anne Digby

  'Anna!'

  Mary stepped forward into the dark shed, her face illuminated by a single shaft of moonlight. Anna turned, startled.

  'Of course I forgive you!'

  'Mary!' gasped Anna.

  Suddenly the two girls were clinging on to each other, as though their lives depended on it.

  'We'll be friends again?' begged Anna. 'We're staying in the area –Daddy's going to get a small farm, work it himself – how about you?'

  'Dad would never move far from Chestnut Farm,' said Mary. She felt weak with joy. At the last possible moment, when she was least expecting it, the miracle had happened. Anna had become herself again.

  'I've got to see you and September sometimes,' said Anna after a while. 'It's only now – now that I've sort of lost just about everything, I realize what things are important to me and what aren't. You're important, Mary. Those girls at Kilmingdean . . . I can't even remember half their names unless I sit down and think. Please say we'll meet sometimes. You're part of everything – childhood, growing up, Chestnut Farm. So's September. You two will be the only link I've left with ....' she choked a little over the words, 'with all the happy times.'

  'Of course we'll meet, Anna,' said Mary, wiping the back of her sleeve across her eyes. 'It's just the same for me. Exactly.'

  Together in silence they fed September; he nuzzled first one girl and then the other, as though he understood exactly what was going on.

  The next morning Mary glimpsed a magnificent white Range Rover bumping down the track past their cottage, heading towards the farmhouse.

  She ran out to the gate.

  'It must be someone interested in the farm already,' she said dolefully to old Matthew as he came by.

  The old man's eyes were bright.

  'That war the Duke, himself, in person,' he said. 'Now he be about the only man in Devonshire at the moment with the money.'

  'With the money?'

  'Aye, to buy her in one piece. Chestnut Farm won't be broke up if Duke of Silverstock buys she.'

  Even as Mary was pondering the implications of the old man's words she saw Mrs Dewar coming from the farmhouse, leading a well-built portly man this way. He was a distinguished figure in a blue tweed coat and rubber boots, his hair a silvery grey colour. She realized at once that he must be the Duke of Silverstock. She also sensed from the obvious disappointment on Mrs Dewar's face that old Matthew's surmise could not be correct.

  'That's Mr Wilkins' cottage,' she said wanly. 'He finished milking some time ago, I think you'll find him at home.'

  Mary scuttled back up the garden path, round to the back of the house and in through the kitchen door, where her father was listening to the nine o'clock news.

  'Dad!' she gasped. 'The Duke of – of Silverstock's coming. He wants to see you.'

  'Aye,' said her father. He walked across and turned off the radio and then went outside to meet his visitor. Mary followed at a safe distance.

  'Good morning, Mr Wilkins. I'd like to see your horse.'

  'Mary!' called her father. 'Bring September up here.'

  Mary ran down to the far end of the garden where September was grazing on rough grass. She rode him bareback to the cottage, her heart pounding and her lips suddenly dry.

  The Duke stared at the horse as they came up and a look of alarm crossed his face.

  'No. It was the black one I was interested in. You've not sold him, have you?'

  For a moment Mary felt alarmed and then she saw her father was smiling. He came across and smacked September's hind quarters as he spoke, and then gave Mary a hand down.

  'This is the black one, sir. The one that beat your Stardust. We had his coat dyed black, it's a long story and ye'll not be interested in it. This is how he should look. And the name's September, by the way.'

  'The colour of autumn leaves you see, sir,' said Mary shyly.

  'By George!' said the Duke. He looked the animal up and down in some excitement. 'I can see it now. A magnificent animal, if I may say so.'

  He turned to John Wilkins.

  'I want him in my stables. I'll offer you £10,000 for him—'

  'Ten—' began Mary, but was silenced by a sharp look from her father.

  'I want your daughter, too, Mr Wilkins. I'm prepared to offer her a five-year contract. She can work in the stables, look after the animal, ride him in competitions for me.'

  'But—' began Mary, she was so excited that the whole world seemed to be spinning round. 'I haven't—'

  'You haven't left school, yet. I know.' The Duke had done his homework. 'But it won't be long. Till then you can come weekends and school holidays. After that, there's a full-time job waiting for you.'

  'It – it's quite an offer, sir,' said John Wilkins, finding his voice. 'A grand offer.'

  'She can still live at home,' said the Duke. 'I understand you're on your own. Well, you wouldn't be losing your daughter, Mr Wilkins. The stables are within easy cycling distance from here.' He frowned, as he remembered something. 'You will be staying on here? I've heard the farm's been put on the market.'

  'Oh, we'll be staying here, sir,' said John Wilkins slowly. He gave Mary a look that was full of meaning. 'As a matter of fact, I don't think the farm is going to stay on the market very long.'

  Nor did it. To the incredulous joy of all the Dewars, above all to Anna's, John Wilkins stepped in and saved Chestnut Farm. Accepting the Duke's offer, he had enough money to pay off all Richard Dewar's most pressing debts. This he did in return for a working partnership with Dewar. So it was that the men became co-owners of Chestnut Farm and they knew that together, with determination, they could make it prosper once again.

  The friendship between Anna and Mary became even closer than it had been before, stronger for having been through the fire, and more durable because unseen barriers had been removed. It was now a friendship between equals in every sense of the word.

  'I think it will last all our lives, don't you?' said Anna, on the day they left school. 'I've still got the shell you gave me; I'll always keep it.'

  'And I your St Christopher,' said Mary solemnly. 'After all, I've got a lot of travelling to do. Haven't we both?'

  For as well as being friends, the girls were beginning to attract attention – as rivals. Both were to embark on full time careers as show-jumpers, and had already competed against each other in some important events.

  Anna had been allowed to keep King of Prussia and the athletic little horse – who had had to perform under an intolerable strain that day at lmchester – soon justified her faith in him. He was improving all the time, and more than paying for his keep in prize money.

  After a while, Mary even grew quite fond of the animal, who could not help his haughty expression after all, and recognized that Anna's devotion to him was as indisputable a fact of life as hers to September.

  September – her very own responsibility! Mary could never quite get over the joy of it. Leaving school and childhood behind had an ecstasy all of its own, for now she could work full-time at the stables. Instead of seeing September only at the weekends and in school holidays, she saw him every day, looking after his every need, in between show jumping.

  She saw less of her father these days, but she knew that he felt a deep happiness to be part owner of one of the most beautiful farms in Devon. His working day was longer than ever before, matched only by Richard Dewar's, but he looked years younger – and as fit as a fiddle on Mrs Dewar's excellent cooking.

  'We're building the farm up again, slowly,' he told Mary that summer, as they stood at the edge of a field of waving corn, looking at the wooded hills beyond. 'This'll all be yours one day, yours and Anna's.' There was a bright light in his eyes. 'That's a big responsibility for two fathers, ain't it?'

  Mary said nothing. She was thinking of that day when Anna had broken the news to her that she was going away to boarding school. She remembered the great fear that had gripped her, that nothing would ever be the same again on Chestnut Farm.

&nbs
p; Well, the changes had come; but they had not been changes for the worse, not by any means.

  'I think we're all happier now, Dad,' she said at last. 'Every single one of us.' Silently she added the thought: 'All thanks to a horse called September.'

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