Afraid to Ride Page 2

  Mr. Moore drove into the small yard of Miss Park’s riding school. On one side was the indoor school and on the other two sides rows of loose­ boxes. Two girls were already mounted on bay ponies and a boy was leading a black cob out of one of the boxes.

  “And how’s the toothache?” Mr. Moore asked, parking the car and smiling at his white-faced daughter. “Bit better eh?”

  Jill’s mouth was so dry with fear that she couldn’t answer. She nodded and fumbled with the door handle trying to open it. Now that she was actually here there was nothing else to do but get it over as quickly as possible. All the strength seemed to leave her hands and she couldn’t make the door open. Her father leant over and opened it for her.

  “I’ll wait here,” he said as Jill got out of the car. “We’ll go for an ice-cream at The Rondo, if you feel like it when you come back.”

  Jill hardly heard him. The Rondo sold Jill’s favourite ice-cream and normally a visit there was Jill’s favourite thing but now she couldn’t have cared less. She made a small, dry croaking sound in her throat and walked on across the yard.

  Mr. Moore stared out at the slim, tense figure of his daughter as she walked away from him. Part of him longed to call her back, to drive her off to The Rondo and buy her as many strawberry ices as she could eat, to tell her that she didn’t need to ride, to shield her from every possible danger, to protect her from anything that might harm her. But he knew it was impossible. She had to face up to the things she was afraid of, go out and meet them by herself. Resting his elbows on the wheel of the car, he pushed his splayed fingers through his hair and wished that Miss Pilkes had never been inspired to take her class riding.

  “Good morning Mr. Moore,” said a brisk voice at his side and Mr. Moore looked up to see Miss Park standing by the car. “So glad to see Jill back again. She’s still looking rather under the weather. What was wrong? Nothing too serious I hope?”

  Mr. Moore lowered the window. “Good morning Miss Park,” he said. “Don’t mention it to Jill unless she tells you herself, but she had rather a bad fright three weeks ago. Went with her class from school to ride at Mr. Morrison’s.”

  “Ron Morrison!” interrupted Miss Park. “Absolute rogue. Would have nothing to do with him!”

  “Seems to be from what I’ve heard. Jill’s pony reared and came down on top of her. She wasn’t hurt but her aches and pains on Saturday mornings since then have been excuses not to ride again.”

  “I am so sorry to hear this. Jill was coming along well. One of my most promising pupils. A sensitive rider, really thought about the pony she was riding. I’ll keep an eye on her today but if she really doesn’t want to ride again there’s not any point in forcing her.”

  “Oh, I quite agree. See how she makes out today. I know that really she’s desperately keen.”

  “Right,” said Miss Park. “Better go and get things moving. Don’t worry about Jill. She’ll be all right,” and Miss Park went off to organize the ride.

  “Jill, you take Bunty. You’ll find her in the second box on that side,” and Miss Park pointed to the loose box. “We’ve two ladies coming out with us today who haven’t ridden for some time so I thought we would all go for a nice, quiet hack round the lanes. Just the day for lazying along in the sun.”

  Jill set her hard hat firmly on her head and went to bring Bunty out into the yard. She knew Bunty well. She was a very staid, dependable brown mare of 14.2 hands. Her mane was hogged and her hairy fetlocks reached down to soup plate feet. Normally Jill would have been disappointed at having to ride old Bunty but this morning, if she had to ride, she could imagine no horse she would rather ride than Bunty.

  The brown mare clopped behind Jill as she led her into the yard and stood dozing while Jill struggled to tighten her girths. Her hands were shaking so much that she just couldn’t buckle the girth and in the end Miss Park had to come and do it for her.

  “Always been a bit stiff, those buckles,” said Miss Park. “Now up you go and I’ll check your stirrups for you.”

  Jill put her left foot into the stirrup and tried to mount but she could only hop feebly up and down. All her strength seemed to have gone, leaving her legs like pieces of chewed elastic.

  “Gosh Jill, you are stiff,” shouted Edna Vincent, a blonde girl who always rode at the same time as Jill on a Saturday morning.

  “Must be old age setting in,” yelled Ken MacDonald, looking down at Jill’s frantic attempts to mount Bunty from the superior height of Neptune’s back.

  “Get those heels down, Ken,” said Miss Park sharply. “Sticking up there like a pair of wings. Now Jill, just a minute and I’ll give you a leg up.”

  Jill bent her leg and Miss Park legged her up into the saddle. She waited until Jill had found her stirrups and then brought out Marigold, her own dun gelding and, mounting, led the ride out of the yard.

  Edna brought the bay pony she was riding up alongside Jill and rode at her side.

  “You’re looking terribly white, Jill,” Edna said. “Are you all right?”

  Dimly Jill heard Edna’s voice at her side. It seemed to be coming from a long way off, as if there was a thick mist swirling all around Jill. It muffled the sound of the ponies’ hoofs and Miss Park’s voice as she talked to the lady riding Fern. “If I shut my eyes,” Jill thought, “the mist will swallow me up too and I’ll fall again and all the ponies will walk on over me.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Edna’s voice again.

  “Ride, prepare to trot,” called back Miss Park. “Trot on.”

  “Oh no,” cried Jill. “No!” but Bunty, recognizing Miss Park’s signal was already trotting. In a sudden panic Jill pulled at Bunty’s reins, catching the pony in the mouth and making her stumble and peck.

  “Stop,” Jill screamed. “Stop. She’s going to fall on top of me again.”

  Miss Park slowed the ride down at once and trotted Marigold to Jill’s side.

  “Bunty nearly fell...” Jill began but the white mist seemed to be inside her own head, muffling her words.

  Miss Park sprang down from Marigold.

  “You’re all right,” she said grasping Jill’s arm. “I’ve got you. Try to put your head down.”

  “I can’t see,” Jill muttered. She felt herself slipping sideways in the saddle and Miss Park’s arm round her shoulders supporting her and then everything went black.

  When Jill came round she was sitting on the grass at the side of the lane with her head between her knees.

  “What happened?” she demanded, trying to lift her head.

  “You fainted,” said Miss Park’s voice. “Keep your head down for a minute and then you’ll be quite okay.”

  “Bunty nearly fell on me,” said Jill, remembering.

  “Oh, she did not,” exclaimed Edna. “She only tripped, only the least little bit.”

  “Now,” said Miss Park when Jill had got to her feet and assured them all that she had quite recovered. “We’ll go back to the stables and the rest of you can do some schooling in the indoor school. Jill, will you manage to ride back—we’ll only be walking—or would you rather lead Bunty?”

  There was a long moment of listening silence while all the ride waited for Jill’s answer.

  “If you promise just to walk I’ll ride back,” said Jill and as she spoke she felt a cold sweat of fear trickle down her back.

  “Brave girl,” said Miss Park as she helped Jill back on to Bunty.

  The ride made its way back to the stables at a slow walk. In the stable yard Miss Park told Jill to take Bunty back to her box and take her tack off while the others went into the indoor school and worked at walking and trotting in circles.

  Mr. Moore had been sitting enjoying the sunshine and was surprised to see the ride back so soon. While Jill was taking Bunty’s tack off, Miss Park told him that Jill had fainted, that she seemed to have recovered now but the only thing that seemed to have caused her to faint was the nervous strain of having to ride again.

  “I’m to blame,” said Mr. Moore. “I shouldn’t have made her do it when she didn’t want to.”

  “She got on again and rode back to the stables,” said Miss Park, “but I do think it would be better to forget about riding for the time being. Wait until she asks you if she can ride. Give her time. She’ll come round to it again in the end.”

  Jill got back into the car, sat down beside her father and burst into tears.

  “Please, please Daddy, don’t make me ride again. Please don’t.”

  “Miss Park told me what happened. I should have believed in your toothache and then this wouldn’t have happened. I thought if you had the chance to ride a quiet horse it might have helped you to get your nerve back. But no more riding, I promise you. Not until you want to ride again yourself. Now wipe your eyes and we’ll both go and have an ice-cream at The Rondo.”

  Sitting at the rainbow coloured table, dazzled by the psychedelic decorations of The Rondo, Jill ate her ice-cream and her father drank his coffee. But the crushed strawberries and pure cream ice-cream did not taste as good as usual.

  “Well I’ve got what I wanted,” Jill thought. “I need never go back to Miss Park’s, never go near another horse, never ever ride again.”

  But somehow as she ate her ice-cream Jill could only think of the Ramsays. “They wouldn’t have been so afraid,” she thought, and Jill saw them in her mind’s eye galloping their ponies bareback over the downs, jumping fearlessly at their local shows, charging on recklessly over stiff cross­-country courses or immaculately turned out, hacking to a meet.

  But it was too late now. She would never be able to ride like them. She was never going to ride again.

  3

  “WHAT ON EARTH is she doing now?” exclaimed Martin Ramsay impatiently. r />
  “She’s cutting out the plaits she put in Smug’s mane last night,” replied Jenifer Ramsay, her tone of voice conveying that after a lifetime spent being an elder sister to a complete and utter idiot she was prepared for anything.

  “She plaited Smug’s mane for a Hunter Trial?” Martin exclaimed incredulously.

  “Well, not quite. She plaited it last night to make it lie on one side today.”

  It was the morning of the Denver Hunt Pony Club Hunter Trials. Martin and Jenifer Ramsay stood waiting for Susan, their younger sister, to join them before they set off to hack the five miles to the Trials.

  Martin Ramsay was sixteen years old. He stood holding the rubber reins of his skewbald cob, Blubber, and impatiently tapped his crop against his gleaming black hunting boots. Jenifer was twelve and was already mounted on Gull, her dapple grey, part-Arab pony. Both Ramsays were tall and lean with tanned skin, dark brown eyes and a vivid, wide-awake expression.

  “Drat that kid,” Martin said, then yelled at the top of his voice, “Susan! Will you hurry up?”

  “I’m ready now. Stop fussing,” answered a muffled voice from the stables and Susan Ramsay emerged from the stable doorway leading Smug, their Exmoor pony, behind her.

  For a second there was a stunned silence then Martin and Jenifer burst into helpless laughter. Smug’s mane frothed down her neck in a mass of frizzy hair, and her wise, knowing eyes gazed out from under a bouffant forelock.

  “She’s had a home perm,” giggled Jenifer.

  “Oh, shut up,” said Susan furiously. “I only did what the book said. I spent ages last night putting in thousands of tiny plaits and I soaked them all and the book said that would make her mane lie down on one side.”

  “Your trouble is you read too many books,” said Martin, swinging himself up on to Blubber.

  Susan jammed her hard hat down on to her head and swarmed aboard Smug who was already trotting after the other ponies. “Never mind,” she thought, “wait till next year when I’m ten and I have my own pony.” Smug was an Exmoor pony who had taught all the Ramsay children to ride and although Susan loved her dearly she did feel that it would be nice to have a pony that was truly her own. “I’m nothing but a hand down,” Susan thought. “Everything I’m wearing except my pants belonged to Jen or Martin,” and she laughed suddenly, seeing herself as a scarecrow person.

  Both Blubber and Gull were fresh and fit but after a few shies and a buck or two from Gull they soon settled down to a steady hound jog. It was a perfect Spring day, exactly the right kind of day for Hunter Trials. The sky was high and blue, the sun was shining and there was a breeze to stop it becoming too hot later in the day. Everything was green and growing, life bursting out again after the tight, stored winter. A day that made you want to gallop and jump. A day on which you just had to ride.

  “They should have a Spring hunt on a day like this,” Jenifer thought. “Not to kill anything but everyone galloping mad and free through all this green,” and she imagined hounds larking and rolling about in the grass and all the staid Hunt members laughing and shouting for joy as they rode.

  “D’you think Willie Ross will have his new horse at the Trials?” Martin asked. “If he does he’s bound to win. Saw it out hunting and it was going like a bomb.”

  Martin’s voice brought Jenifer back to herself.

  “Might do,” she agreed. This was Martin’s first year in the Associates’ class which meant that he would have to take Blubber over a pretty stiff course. She was still competing in the Members’ class and Susan would ride over the smaller, modified course of Pony Club members under ten.

  “Wonder if they’re having the slide again?” Martin said.

  “And that super drop into the quarry,” remembered Jenifer.

  “The bit where you get out into the country and gallop on over the stone walls is the best. This year I’ll get going right out.”

  The Ramsays hadn’t done any real schooling for the Trials. Their ponies had been hunted all season and as the Ramsays knew the country like their own garden they often took their own line across country with the result that their ponies were quite used to jumping anything without a lead.

  They trotted through Fenmer, a sleepy village with one shop that sold everything, and uphill, following the road that led out into the country again to where the Trials were being held.

  Horseboxes and floats loaded with horses and ponies strained past them. Peter Davenport and Julie Moss caught up with them and rode behind Susan, making Smug pin back her ears and glower if she thought they were getting too close.

  And then suddenly with a turn of the road, the green hillside was alive with horses and ponies, the secretary’s white tent, a cubist swarm of parked floats and boxes and the fluttering green and red flags marking the course between the numbered jumps.

  Smug stuck her pint pot muzzle in the air and thundered a whinnying welcome to all the other ponies.

  “Be quiet,” said Susan. “You are quite conspicuous enough without making that din.”

  Again Smug sent forth her clarion greeting and stood rock solid listening to the answering neighs.

  “Get on,” muttered Susan, kicking Smug hard so that they shot through the gate like a bullet from a gun.

  They collected their numbers from the secretary’s tent, and three programmes for the Trials giving a list of entries for each class. There were nine entries for the Associates’ class and sixteen for the Members over ten years of age.

  “Willie Ross is riding,” Martin said studying the list of names. “And on Diz. Poor old Blubber, hasn’t much chance against a thoroughbred that cost over five hundred. Kay Hewitt on Tassie, that’s the girl who won it last year isn’t it?”

  Jenifer didn’t answer. Her eye ran down the list of entries in her own class. She knew them all. “I’ve got a good chance,” she thought. “None of them is as fast as Gull.” Last year she had been fourth with two knock downs. But this year perhaps... perhaps...

  “Multitudes in my lot,” said Susan. But it didn’t really matter. Smug had never been placed in any sort of competition in her life. In the hunting field or at home she would tackle any size of jump but a sixth sense warned her about competitions, shows, gymkhanas or trials of any sort and at all such events Smug did not jump.

  “Will you hold these two while we walk the course?” Martin asked Susan. “Yours doesn’t start till the members have finished.”

  The first obstacle was a nice timber jump set in a flat grassy stretch, clearly visible to all the spectators. Then the course led over chicken coops into a tree shaded lane, over logs, on between trees and over a stile. After the stile a right angled turn and over a ditch with a pole on the far side.

  “Would you look at that?” exclaimed Martin stopping in astonishment in front of a huge barricade of oil drums. “If you’re wrong at the ditch you haven’t a hope of clearing that lot.”

  “A big ’un,” agreed Jenifer. “It’s the size of a house.”

  After the oil drums, the course opened out over grass and stone walls.

  “I go up here,” said Jenifer, “and you go on that way.”

  “Probably just walls,” said Martin. “But I’d better walk round it. Just in case.”

  “Good job I did,” Martin said when he joined up with Jenifer again at the quarry. “One of those walls out there has a drop on the other side like a lift shaft.”

  “Fairish drop down here into the quarry and a double the minute you’re out of the quarry.”

  After the double there was another jump downhill followed by the slide, a last brush that looked as if it had escaped from a steeplechase and a flat gallop in to the finish. A very testing course.

  Martin and Jenifer grinned at each other.

  “Nice,” said Jenifer.

  “Great,” agreed Martin.

  Stewards with score sheets in their hands began to make their way to the jumps. The judges took their places near the finish and the two timekeepers checked their stop watches.