I didn’t take in the last part of his sentence at that moment, although it came back to me later. I glanced at Robin’s legs and saw two very thin scratches.
“Coward! Sissy! Afraid of scratches,” I said, really losing my temper now, feeling something snap inside me.
“I shall tell Mummy what you’ve said,” Robin told me, swinging his legs derisively, a smile of triumph on his plump face.
“Oh, be your age!” I said, in exasperation.
“Nasty, silly tomboy. You shouldn’t lose your temper. That’s babyish,” said Robin.
At that moment we heard hoofbeats again, and they were coming from the direction of the farm.
“It must be the Lyntons,” I said, more agreeably. Somehow quarrelling with Robin didn’t matter; it wasn’t like quarrelling with the Lyntons. One could make it up again very quickly. His retorts did not cut deeply at all. I supposed vaguely that it was because I didn’t admire him or value his judgment.
“I’m going to be rude to them, if they dare to speak to me, I hate them,” said Robin with vehemence.
A few seconds later, Gillian, Annette and Donald came around the corner, riding Mercury, Cloudy and Firelight.
Gillian rode right up to us, and the other two rode on slowly.
“Have you seen Jangle?” asked Gillian, with her polite rather timid smile.
“Why should we tell you if we have? You’re a beastly rude family, I’m not going to help you. And your father’s been in prison. We know,” said Robin, before I had time to collect my wits and speak myself.
For about two seconds there was a horrified silence, then I opened my mouth and started, “Don’t take any notice he . . .” But I was too late. Gillian was already riding on; the clatter of Mercury’s hoofs on the hard road drowned my voice. The moment and the opportunity were lost.
“That’s settled them,” said Robin contentedly. I turned and looked at him and saw that his bulging blue eyes were actually bright with pleasure and triumph.
“I don’t see you’ve done anything clever at all. I think your remarks were beneath contempt, and why say we anyway? I don’t know about Mr Lynton having been in prison and I don’t care,” I said coldly.
“Well, he was, but his name wasn’t Lynton then. He changed it to that afterwards. He was accused of murder, mixed up in some scandal, Mummy says; he was nearly hanged. Every paper had his photograph on its front page.”
There was satisfaction in Robin’s voice, which made me furious.
“If he wasn’t guilty what have you got to crow about?” I asked. “It must be jolly rotten to be accused of a murder you haven’t done; and if you are grown up it’s dreadful to have your private life published in the press. I think you’re horrid, absolutely horrid.”
I felt furious. Vaguely I had hoped to make friends with the Lyntons again, through kind-hearted Gillian, if not through Jon, and now it seemed as though that hope had been destroyed for ever.
“He’s got property in South America and she’s rich, too. That’s where they got their money from,” Robin continued. “And look, I believe I’ve got a cutting in my pocket. Yes, here it is.”
He handed me a small piece of newspaper, dated September of the year before last. On it was a photograph of the Lynton’s father without a beard. He looked younger and more sensitive than he looked now in real life. Below the photograph was this: Mr Frank Ransome was arrested today and charged with the murder of John Selby, the actor, who was found shot through the left temple in his Chelsea flat on August 26th. Mr Ransome, forty-one, a stockbroker, is married to the eldest daughter of Basil Fielding, Mayfair Company Director. They have five children. Mr Ransome first met Mr Selby in 1942 when they were both serving on H.M.S. Warrior.
Here the paper was torn and so the rest of the statement was lost to us.
“It’s just by chance we found out. That piece of paper was wrapped round a bit of crockery when we moved house. We met Mr Lynton when we came to look at the cottage and then when Mummy unwrapped the crockery six weeks later, she recognised the face at once, even without the beard,” Robin explained.
“He must have been let off, or he wouldn’t be here now. You shouldn’t take advantage of people’s misfortunes,” I said, angrily, returning the bit of paper.
“Mummy remembered the whole case after that photograph had reminded her,” said Robin.
“Oh, shut up, let’s drop it,” I said, and then I bade him goodbye and, deep in thought, turned for home.
Chapter Eighteen
The next day Daddy went up to London, and the house seemed very quiet and empty without him.
The vet came again, gave Leary another injection and pronounced him a little better. I learned how to make a linseed mash.
I longed to groom my pony, to spend ages on his coat until it shone like ebony, but he needed rest and quiet, and so I tried not to visit him too often. I only gave him a quick brush every morning and picked out his neat black hoofs after I had mucked out his stable in the morning.
The next two days passed smoothly, Robin came to tea and enjoyed himself, because Mummy politely talked a great deal about music to him, and I refrained from taking him to see Leary and kept Magic under strict control. Afterwards Mummy said I had been rather unkind when describing Robin to her; he was really quite a nice and intelligent boy and it wasn’t his fault that he had an awful mother who spoilt him. “He’s much less of a bore about his music than you will be about Leary, unless you are careful,” she told me.
My pony’s health was improving rapidly and the only dark cloud on my horizon was my estrangement with the Lyntons, which seemed wider than ever.
Occasionally I saw Jon in the distance, but I never got within earshot, so I could not even shout “Hallo.” Mummy said the Lyntons were awful to bear such malice, but then she didn’t know the whole story. I had never told her quite how rude I had been. She is not really religious, but she said the Lyntons should not let the sun go down on their wrath, which I believe is a quotation from the Bible. Of course, it was precisely what I had done.
Then on the third day after Daddy had left for London I suddenly came face to face with Jon at the top of our lane. My heart missed a beat with surprise; as usual on such occasions my mind stood still. I was lost for words. For a brief second, I saw a smile of welcome on Jon’s face, in his friendly brown eyes, but the next moment his expression changed. It was as though he had suddenly remembered something. His face hardened; his smile faded; his jaw dropped.
Then he spoke in a voice devoid of emotion.
“You shouldn’t pry into people’s pasts and then jump to silly conclusions and hurl spiteful remarks around,” he said.
“I didn’t. Robin did,” I was glad to find words at my disposal again and to find my voice was calm and my mind clear.
“First you let Jingle out to be run over. Then you say horrible things, declaring that you never wish to ride Firelight again, and now you try to dig in our father’s past, which is worst of all,” said Jon. “Do you wonder that we don’t want to be friends with you anymore?” His voice was haughty; his manner stiff.
I felt my throat growing tight. Unless I was careful, I was going to cry.
“I didn’t dig in your father’s past,” I suddenly felt all the injustice of Jon’s last accusation. My voice rose, “How can you be so horrible? I didn’t ask Robin to tell me. I didn’t want to know. Anyway . . .” My voice was trembling now. I was horribly near tears. I hesitated.
“And now you are going to cry. Girls always cry in the end.” For a moment Jon’s face lost its hardness. His eyes looked into mine without a trace of anger or scorn, and then he turned abruptly on his heel and walked back in the direction he had come. I started after him. They all hate me now; they’ll never speak to me again. There’s been one misunderstanding after another. My thoughts filled with tragedy; a wave of misery swept over me. Above the green hedges I saw Jon’s fair head bobbing up and down, as he walked away along the road. Presently I went home; I
crept into Leary’s loose box and sitting on the floor started to howl; the tears falling like small drops of rain into the pale straw.
“They’ll never like me,” I wailed. “Oh, Leary, oh Leary; they’ll never like me. They hate me. They won’t believe me. Whatever I say they won’t believe me. Oh, Leary, I’m so miserable.”
I clambered to my feet and buried my face in my pony’s black mane, and he stood like a rock, as though he understood how miserable I was; and I kissed his warm black neck, and thought: I shouldn’t complain. I have you and I have Magic. But then I remembered Christmas Day, and the Lyntons telling me to shut my eyes while they put the puppy in my lap; and the memory brought a fresh wave of misery with it. How nice the Lyntons had been that day; how happy I had been. And now all that was over for ever. And it wasn’t all my fault, Fate had been against me; the car, on the big road, which hit Jingle had been against me; Robin and his spiteful remarks had been against me. The whole world seemed suddenly against me and I sat down in the straw and started to cry again.
“No one likes me,” I wailed. “No one,” forgetting my parents, forgetting my London friends, forgetting my school friends. “And I’m responsible for Jingle’s death.”
Leary eyed me uneasily and moved around his loose box; Mummy’s cock crowed in the ark henhouse, Twilight stole across our garden, turning the blue skies grey, softening the bright spring landscape, sending a little shiver through the trees sheltering our paddock. And twilight was swiftly followed by dusk, and dusk by nightfall. And then Mummy’s voice was calling from the cottage, “Lesley, where are you? It’s terribly late. I fell asleep and forgot the time.”
I shouted back that I would be indoors in a moment, and I washed my face in Leary’s bucket in an attempt to hide all trace of tears, and I fed my pony and saw that he was comfortable for the night.
When I went indoors Mummy must have seen I had been crying because a glance in the kitchen mirror showed my reddened eyelids, but she refrained from making any remark, and talked about the book she had been reading when she fell asleep. Then, as though hoping to cheer me up, she announced that we would go into Eggcombe on the morrow, and buy a saddle and bridle for Leary.
“We’ll try to get them on trial, so that we can be sure they fit properly before we actually buy them,” she said.
A good meal heartened me, and by bedtime I was beginning to think I had made a mountain out of a molehill; and I was beginning to think my luck must change again soon.
The next day we went into the saddler’s shop in Eggcombe and after much discussion brought back a very nice second-hand saddle with a high cantle and forward-cut flaps, and a snaffle bridle with a drop noseband. I had described Leary very fully to the saddler, explaining that he was 14.1 hands high, with rather a prominent wither and a good shoulder, with a small delicate head for his size and a little mouth. As a result, the egg-butt snaffle fitted nicely, and the saddle seemed all right, too. Leary was so much better that he was out in the paddock again now, and the vet said I could ride him slowly in a week’s time.
Thinking things over, I told myself I was strong enough to do without friends. I saw myself as a proud solitary figure, who could manage life alone. I thought; the Lyntons are not worth having, and I turned to the book I was writing, a novel set in London about a penniless artist. No one of course would want to publish my story, but I enjoyed writing it, and now I made my artist be deserted by his friends, be wronged, misunderstood and left alone. Only he was a much more pathetic figure than me. Somehow, I poured all my self-pity into him, and for a few days, I thought I had written some wonderful passages, heartrending, tragic and true-to-life.
I worked hard on my poetry too. I finished a long work entitled, Despair and Desolation, and a short poem called Oh Friends, False and Fickle. I spent long hours wandering around the countryside by myself, comparing myself foolishly with Shelley when he was ill-treated at Eton.
Mummy eyed me anxiously sometimes but made no comments on my solitary walks and long silences. We spent another day at the sea, but it wasn’t warm enough to bathe and we walked along the sands for a few miles and then came home again.
Daddy had telephoned several times from London – mostly with good news – and he now returned in high spirits and told us that he thought there might be a wonderful development soon, which would help us all, but he wasn’t going to be more explicit till things were more definite, as it would be so disappointing if the whole idea fell through after we had become excited about it.
Mummy asked what “things” meant, and Daddy said, well, arrangements he supposed, and then he started to sing a song from Rigoletto and followed that with a tragic song from La Traviata, so that we could question him no further.
Mummy had bought a chicken to celebrate Daddy’s return and we opened a bottle of white wine, and had a special dinner. We drank to Daddy’s success, to Leary, to Magic, to the English countryside and to ourselves, and when I went to bed I couldn’t sleep. My mind rushed around in circles, dashing from one subject to another, whirling from tragedy to triumph, from the past to the future and then all the way around again.
The cocks were crowing their welcome to the dawn and the cows were moving slowly across their pastures to the farm gates, when at last I drifted into slumber.
Chapter Nineteen
Next morning, I wakened to the sound of hoofs clattering up the lane.
I leapt from bed. I ran to my window with Magic at my heels I was just in time to see Jangle’s head as she reached the road at the top. I heard Jon’s voice but could not catch the words he was shouting, I saw Donald running across a field.
I’m not going to help them. I thought sullenly, I’m never going to try and help them again. It was a cold morning so I shut the window and crawled back into bed. I turned over on my side and went to sleep.
Mummy wakened me by ringing a Swiss cow-bell to let me know it was breakfast time. I leapt from bed again, remorseful that I had left her to get the breakfast by herself.
The sun was shining; gold tipped the young leaves of our oak tree. Daddy’s lawn gleamed green and lush. The world seemed full of bright colours and light hearts, and the birds sang incessantly.
Presently I was busy grooming Leary, whistling as I worked. The remains of his winter coat came out in tufts, dust flew out grey in the sunlight; his mane soon lay dark and shining on his coal black neck.
Soon my arms were aching but I was still dissatisfied because his croup was still dirty. I sat down and took a rest and Magic, hurt because I was giving Leary so much attention to the exclusion of herself, covered my face in kisses.
I started to work again and I was so absorbed that I did not hear Robin approaching, and his sudden:
“Hello, Lesley,” made me jump.
“Oh, it’s you,” I said turning around. “Good morning.”
“Has he got rid of his cold or whatever it was?” asked Robin politely.
“Yes, I shall be riding him very soon now, thanks. I’m terribly excited.”
“Did you see those two Lynton ponies this morning? They woke us up by dashing by with the Lyntons in hot pursuit. I can’t think why they don’t keep them in,” said Robin.
“Nor can I. But never mind, I’m tired of the Lyntons,” I told him.
“Good egg! We are agreed on that point then; that’s something,” said Robin.
His tone irritated me. I wasn’t sure why. “But I’m terribly sorry for their father. It was a terrific case, ‘V.C. in dock,’ and so on. My parents have remembered the whole thing. His name was Frank Ransome then, I think it was jolly bad luck and I can see why Gillian is sensitive about it, I don’t think you should throw it in their faces,” I said.
“Here endeth the first lesson,” mocked Robin.
“Oh, shut up!” I replied leading Leary back to the paddock.
As I turned my pony out, I noticed that a spar of the gate had broken. “Oh, bother, look at that,” I exclaimed.
“If you’ve got a hammer
and a couple of nails, I’ll mend it for you,” Robin offered.
To my surprise Robin was an efficient carpenter and the gate was soon in order again. I began to think he was not such an irritating person after all, and more competent than I had imagined.
“Any more jobs you want done?” he asked, straightening his back and looking with satisfaction at the mended spar.
“Not really. There’s only one thing I shall be doing soon. I’m going to make some jumps for Leary. You see that old wood stack? I thought I would take a couple of those bars and two posts and make some rails,” I told him.
“Okay. Let’s start. I’ll do it for you. I like carpentry,” Robin offered.
Daddy hasn’t many tools, but Robin went back and fetched some of his own which were evidently beautifully looked after. He seemed a new person to me this morning and, although he dodged Magic when she tried to sniff his legs, he didn’t actually complain.
By twelve o’clock we were busily erecting the jump in the paddock, hammering the posts in with an old iron mallet which we found in the nettles. Mummy asked Robin if he would stay to lunch and he accepted, so, while he finished the jump, I walked up the lane and told Mrs Downs, who said, “Thank you so much, my dear. It is very sweet of you to ask him. The poor little fellow gets quite lonely in the country sometimes.”
As I walked back, I thanked my stars that my parents didn’t talk of me in that way.
Lunch wasn’t the success I had expected. Robin started holding forth on music and somehow that annoyed Daddy, who became very short and rather snubbing with him.
But then Daddy can be difficult, and I had the feeling he was stuck with his work. I was grateful to Robin for making my jump and so I supported him and that irritated Daddy even more.
I was glad when Mummy said, “Well, I should go outside now and get on. It’s silly to hang around indoors when the sun is shining.”
Riding With The Lyntons Page 13
