Afraid to Ride Page 3

  Martin rode Blubber in. The cob knew as well as his rider what was going to happen and Martin could feel his horse alive and tight beneath him, a mass of energy and muscle. Martin leant forward in his saddle and pulled Blubber’s ears through his fingers. “Do your best,” he whispered. “You’ll need to jump to clear those oil cans,” and Martin glanced at the streamlined force that was Diz, Willie Ross’s thoroughbred. “Jump your best,” he whispered again into his horse’s ear.

  Blubber and Martin were sixth to go. Martin waited, riding Blubber round in small circles on a loose rein, waiting for his turn. He saw Willie Ross and Diz soar like black lightning over the first obstacle and turn, out of sight, over the chicken coops into the lane. Kay Hewitt cleared the first obstacle in her usual workmanlike fashion and cantered away.

  Fiona Smith, riding an aged ’chaser, had three refusals at the first jump and was disqualified. Two more riders left the start, jumped and cantered out of sight and then it was Martin.

  The starter dropped her flag and Blubber was galloping towards the first jump at top speed.

  “Faster,” breathed Martin, “faster. Go on Blubber. Go on.”

  The cob thundered on, strong and willing, a bulk of horse that sprang effortlessly over the obstacles in the lane and on over the stile.

  “Right, turn right,” Martin said aloud, swinging Blubber round to face the ditch.

  Over the ditch went Blubber and pounded on to the stacked oil drums. With a thrust from his powerful quarters that sent Martin shooting out of the saddle Blubber had cleared the drums and went plunging on over the grass.

  Martin regained his seat and crouching forward rode Blubber on as hard as he could. It was over this grass that Diz would have had the advantage. If Blubber was to have any chance he must gallop like the hammers. “Faster, faster,” Martin cried.

  Great clods of turf flew from Blubber’s hoofs, the stone walls fell away behind them like walls in the hunt—that you were over before you even realized they existed. Even the drop wall that had seemed so enormous when Martin had been on his feet, was nothing.

  They plunged on towards the quarry. For a second Blubber hesitated at the edge and then tipped over, his hoofs churning up the soft slag. At the In and Out three horses were milling about refusing to jump.

  “Clear the course, there,” yelled a steward.

  “Get out of the way,” shouted Martin as he rode on at the jump without hesitating.

  Seeing his way blocked, Blubber checked but Martin sat down hard and forced him on. Just in time a bay pony moved away from the jump and Blubber bounced his way through the In and Out.

  As they galloped on downhill towards the slide, Martin was sure that one of the refusers had been Diz. Blubber bounced his way down the slide, soared over the last brush and they were through the finish. Martin swung himself to the ground wondering if they had gone fast enough, wondering if they had had any faults that he didn’t know about. Still filled with the exhilaration of the gallop, he loosened Blubber’s girths and clapping the cob’s damp neck, led him across to Jenifer.

  “You looked pretty fast,” she told him. “And you’re only the second one to finish. Kay Hewitt came in before you but you’re the only two to make it.”

  As Martin led Blubber round to cool him off, he realized that the Members’ class had started and saw that Jenifer and Gull were waiting to start. As he watched, he saw Gull canter away from the start with her reaching, fluid canter and rise effortlessly over the first jump, while Jenifer rode with the supple grace that made her riding look so effortless.

  Jenifer laughed aloud as she felt her pony rise and soar over the jump. There was something magic in the day, in its brightness. “They’d disqualify you if they could see your wings,” she whispered to Gull. “But they can’t see them,” and she rode on smiling.

  A few minutes later they were galloping through the finish.

  “How did it go?” Martin asked as Jenifer led Gull towards him.

  “She had wings. Flew over everything. Thought we were going to land in the middle of the In and Out after the quarry.”

  “Martin,” yelled Susan’s voice and Martin looked round to see Susan bucketing towards him. “Martin you’ve won. Blubber’s won!”

  “No!” exclaimed Martin.

  “You have. It’s pinned up outside the secretary’s tent. Easily the fastest time. Dear, darling Blubber, you are the fastest horse here today,” and Susan shovelled handfuls of Smarties into Blubber’s mouth.

  They all went down to see Martin’s name on the board.

  “Kay Hewitt was second,” said Jenifer.

  “I got stuck at that contraption coming out of the quarry,” said Willie Ross. “Must say your little cob put up a pretty good time. Just shows you can’t judge by appearances.”

  “Well done Martin,” said the Master, making Martin grin with pleasure.

  They were sitting on the hillside eating their sandwiches when the loudspeaker announced the results of the Members’ class.

  “Attention please,” crackled a voice. “Here are the results of the Members’ class. First, Jenifer Ramsay riding her own pony Gull...”

  Jenifer grinned joyfully. “It was all Gull. I didn’t do a thing.”

  “Cor,” laughed Martin. “We’ve never both been first at anything before.”

  “The parents will absolutely burst with pride,” said Susan. “Just wish there was a chance for Smug.”

  “That would spoil everything,” Martin told her. “It would mean the end of the world was upon us.”

  They rode home late that afternoon, reins loose on their ponies’ necks, feet dangling free of their stirrups.

  “Well I got her over the first jump,” said Susan. “And that’s more than either of you ever did. I was so mad at even the judge asking me if I’d permed her mane, I didn’t see the jump until Smug was on the other side of it.”

  “If you’d seen your face when you realized that Smug had actually jumped!” chuckled Martin.

  “Bet you Jill would have enjoyed today,” said Jenifer.

  “Don’t know. She didn’t seem a bit keen last time they stayed. Didn’t even go out to see the ponies,” said Martin.

  “Before that she did nothing but nag on until someone would go riding with her,” said Susan. “She’s not much good.”

  “I think she could be good,” disagreed Martin. “You ride the way people expect you to. Riding for us is naturally hunting and local things round about here. For some it’s naturally Badminton and for Jill it’s naturally pottering round at her precious Miss Park’s.”

  “Do you realize,” said Jenifer, “that in three days’ time we will be at Aunt Jo’s.”

  Aunt Jo, who wasn’t really an aunt but an old friend of their mother’s, owned the Denelaw Riding School and every Easter they went to stay with her. She was a really good riding instructress and Martin was quite sure that any riding ability which the Ramsays possessed was all due to Aunt Jo’s teaching.

  “Glory, glory, glory,” shouted Susan, and Martin wondered if this year Aunt Jo would allow him to ride Magic, her show jumper.

  “I’m really going to work at my riding while we’re there this year,” Jenifer vowed. “I’m really going to work hard.”

  But even Jenifer couldn’t have guessed just how hard they were all going to work this year.

  4

  MARTIN RAMSAY stood watching Blubber rolling in the field. It was the evening after the Hunter Trials and Martin had been down checking up on a scratch on Blubber’s leg.

  “You don’t need to rub your way through to Australia,” he shouted to Blubber. “You haven’t even been ridden. All I did was put a halter on you.”

  Blubber surged to his feet, shook himself violently, then started to graze.

  “And don’t get too fat while we’re away,” Martin told his pony as he turned away and, whistling loudly, he ran through the shrubbery and round the path to the back door.

  He burst into the kitchen. Jenifer was standing by the cooker stirring something in the frying pan and Susan was washing Smug’s red nylon girths in the sink.

  “Oh bliss,” exclaimed Martin. “Onions for supper.”

  “Shh!” warned Jenifer. “A.I. crisis in operation. Gormcester relations on intercom to both Ramsay seniors. I don’t know what it’s all about.”

  “They’ve been yakking for hours,” said Susan. “Was Blubber’s leg okay?”

  “Just a scratch,” said Martin.

  “Quarter of an hour,” corrected Jenifer.

  “That’s them finished,” said Susan. “I heard them put the phone down.”

  As their parents came into the kitchen all three Ramsays looked up.

  “What’s up?” asked Martin.

  “You were ages,” said Susan. “Was it Uncle David?”

  “Yes,” said their mother. “He wanted to know if Jill could come and stay with us for the next three weeks. He’s to go to Florida for his paper and if he can find somewhere for Jill to stay Aunt Margie can go with him. So of course we said Jill could come here and I explained about you all going to Aunt Jo’s.”

  “But Jill could come with us,” interrupted Jenifer.

  “Well I said that, and that I knew Jo would love to have her, and the most extraordinary story came out. You know the way Jill wouldn’t move out of the house when they were here at Christmas? Well, it turns out that a pony came down with her last summer and ever since then she’s been scared stiff of horses.”

  “Nerve completely gone,” said Mr. Ramsay.

  “That’s why we were so long on the phone. The poor child didn’t want to come to this horse-mad household in the first place but when she heard that it would mean going to stay at a riding school for three weeks she was even less enthusiastic. But in the end we got her to agree.”

  “She used to be so keen,” gasped Martin. “She was always begging for rides on the ponies when she was here.”

  “I promised that there would be no question of Jill having to ride,” went on Mrs. Ramsay. “But knowing Jo, I should think she’ll find a way of straightening things out for her. Rather silly of her mother to have let things get into such a mess. But then no one could call David’s wife a horse­lover!”

  “Jill will be on the train when you catch it at Brently. Be an earlier one than you usually catch but it suits the Moores better.”

  “And,” said their mother, “not a word about her fall. She’s very sensitive about the whole thing.”

  “A good job she doesn’t have to live with this family,” said Susan, and Mrs. Ramsay made a dash for the cooker, screaming that the onions were burning and had no one smelt them.

  The little country train chuffed sleepily through the green fields. Here and there a square church tower showed above a clump of trees, Jersey cows grazed in the lush grass and swallows flew high in the blue sky.

  The Ramsays and Jill had a compartment to themselves. They sat one in each corner with their luggage spread out between them just in case anyone else tried to come in. But since there were only two or three other people on the train there wasn’t really much danger of an invasion.

  Susan was trying to finish the last chapter of her pony book. She knew that once they arrived at Denelaw she wouldn’t have a minute to call her own and that if she didn’t reach the end now she probably wouldn’t find out what happened to Emma’s show pony until she was on her way home.

  Jenifer was watching for landmarks that would let her know they were nearly at Denelaw. First there was the River Colne, then the field with three great oak trees growing in the centre of it, then the ruined church. After the church it was time to collect luggage and wonder whether Aunt Jo would bring Politic, her black Labrador, with her when she came to meet them and whether she would come in the trap, driving the piebald, Panda, or whether she would come in her Land-Rover, crashing gears and taking corners on two wheels. Jenifer shivered with excitement and stared out of the train window for the first glimpse of the Colne.

  Martin, sitting opposite Jill, was thinking about Black Magic, Aunt Jo’s 16.2 show jumper. Aunt Jo had bought her as a yearling five years before and last autumn they had been third in the Fox­hunter at Wembley. No one except Aunt Jo had ever ridden Magic, but last year she had more or less promised Martin a ride on her this Easter. At least she didn’t actually say no, Martin thought, as he sat dreaming of jumping Magic, lifting over six foot fences.

  Jill sat curled in her corner listening to the clicketty-clack of the train wheels. “I’m not going to ride, I’m not going to ride, I’m not going to ride,” they sang. “You’ll have to ride. You’ll have to ride. You’ll have to ride.” Jill screwed her handkerchief into an even tighter ball and tried not to think about Mr. Morrison, about Ginger and about the plunging hoofs trampling round her head.

  “That’s the ruined church,” Jenifer shouted. “We’re nearly there.”

  Susan’s eyes darted over the last paragraphs of her book. Emma’s pony wouldn’t have to be sold after all! She slammed the book shut and jumped up.

  “This is the best moment of all,” she cried. “When it is all just beginning.”

  Martin started to organize luggage.

  “Did you have anything else besides your blue case?” he asked Jill. He was shocked by the tense fear that showed on his cousin’s face. Poor kid, he thought, and hoped that Aunt Jo would have a really quiet pony to help Jill get back her nerve.

  “No, just the blue case,” Jill said. She had stopped wishing for a miracle that would take her back to the safety of her own home. It was too late now for wishing to do any good.

  “Bet Aunt Jo comes in the trap,” said Jenifer, hanging out of the window.

  “Land-Rover,” said Susan. “Plus Politic.”

  The train groaned and clattered to a halt. The carriage door crashed open and they all spilled out on to the platform of Denelaw Station.

  “Make sure you’ve left nothing behind,” said Martin, checking the luggage.

  The train steamed slowly away, leaving the four children standing in an island of cases.

  “That’s jolly odd,” said Jenifer looking up and down the platform. “This must be the first time that Aunt Jo hasn’t been here to meet us.”

  “Not like Aunt Jo to be late for anything,” agreed Susan who had often had to listen to Aunt Jo’s forcibly expressed views on the importance of good time-keeping.

  “Hope nothing’s wrong,” said Martin. “Dad phoned her yesterday morning with all the details.”

  But there was no sign of Aunt Jo’s blue Land-Rover tearing along the dusty, country road or of the high-stepping Panda pulling the red and yellow trap.

  5

  “MISS FREW not turned up?” asked the stationmaster-cum-guard-cum-everything else of Denelaw Station.

  “No,” said Susan, thinking that anyone could see that Aunt Jo wasn’t there.

  “Strange. Don’t ever remember Miss Frew being late. Not ever for nothing,” said the stationmaster, pushing back his cap to scratch his head.

  “Looks as if we’ll have to walk,” added Martin.

  “No other way to reach the riding school,” agreed the stationmaster. “Not unless you wait till seven tonight. You’d get young Jim Stirling’s van then. He’s up for the day at Hallinton. Be pleased to take you, would Jim.”

  “But it’s only two now. We can’t sit here till seven!” exclaimed Jenifer.

  “No, we’ll walk,” said Martin, getting up from the station seat, where they had all been waiting. “But we’ll leave our cases and perhaps you could ask Jim to bring them along tonight. His father’s farm is just down the road from Aunt Jo’s.”

  “He’d be pleased to. Leave them in my office and I’ll tell him for you.”

  They all picked up their cases and followed the stationmaster into his office.

  “Put them down there,” he said, pointing to a space at the back of the room.

  Jill laid down her case, thinking that she wouldn’t have minded sitting on the platform for the rest of the afternoon. In fact, she would have been quite happy to spend the three weeks on the station platform.

  “You could phone up Miss Frew, if you fancy,” suggested the stationmaster.

  “Thanks,” said Martin. But when he phoned there was no reply, only the ringing of the phone in an evidently empty house.

  “No one there,” said Martin as he put the receiver back. “Maybe she’s got the day mixed up and wasn’t expecting us.”

  “Maybe!” mocked Jenifer.

  “Aunt Jo get the day mixed up?” laughed Susan.

  It took them an hour and a half to walk to Aunt Jo’s and by the time they saw her low, yellow stone house surrounded by stable buildings lying in front of it they were all feeling hot, cross and hungry.

  “Just our luck,” moaned Jenifer. “Not one thing passed to give us a lift.”

  “What did you expect, a double decker bus?” asked Susan nastily. She was sure she had a blister coming up on her right heel, and was limping.

  “Oh, stop squabbling,” snapped Martin, not knowing which was worse, his sisters’ squabbling, or Jill’s silence. “We’re here now, so belt up.”

  Aunt Jo’s house had a silent, withdrawn air. All the windows were shut and the heavy storm-door was locked.

  “Come on round the back,” said Martin. “No use banging on this door. She’d never hear us even if she was in.”

  They ran through the stable yard. Horses craned their necks over half doors and a flurry of whinnyings greeted their approach.

  “Oh, there’s Rowan,” cried Jenifer, and followed by Susan she dashed across to a black mare. Rowan was Jenifer’s favourite amongst Aunt Jo’s horses; the one she always rode while she was staying at Denelaw.

  “And Magic,” cried Martin, running over to speak to the great black horse who was kicking impatiently at her door.

  “Give over, Magic. You’ll have the door down. Oh, you are a wicked horse!” And Martin clapped her hard, sleek neck, ran his fingers through Magic’s mane and felt her warm breath tickling his neck.