Chapter 23

THEY WERE NOT much use, because they did not know much, but they were sweet and amiable girls, and kept saying that it was the happiest holiday they ever had.

They were never out of bed in time to do the morning feeds. They overturned wheelbarrows full of manure in the middle of the yard. They put horses into the wrong stables. They went barefoot and got their toes trodden on. They ran the lawn mower without oil. They left potatoes on the stove to boil dry. Lily dropped the wire cutters down behind bales of hay. Jane dropped her glasses into the pond and could hardly see. They left a gate unchained, and the Weaver, who was always chewing on things, flipped up the fastener and let himself and Stroller out into Mr Beckett’s clover.

Fortunately, Lily and Jane were out for a late moonlight walk with Slugger’s terrier. They could never bear to go to bed before midnight. That was why they could never get up.

The little fox terrier squeezed through a hedge and set up a frenzy of barking, which began to be answered by dogs from all round and far away, until it seemed that the whole hillside was awake.

When the terrier would not shut up or come back through the hedge, Lily and Jane ran down the road to the gate and found the Weaver and his friend gorging themselves on the ripe clover.

The girls sat on the gate in the moonlight and thought how nice it was to see the dear old horses enjoying such a succulent meal.

The terrier was still barking, and so were all the other dogs.

An upstairs light went on in Beckett’s farmhouse, and then a downstairs light.

‘I say,’ Lily said to Jane, ‘if this field doesn’t belong to the Colonel, perhaps we’d better try and move the horses.’

Jane had a belt. They tried to get it round the Weaver’s neck, but he always moved just a few steps away. They got it round Stroller, and tugged and entreated and slapped him gently on his broad rump, but his huge feet were planted firmly in the clover and he would not budge.

The belt broke. While Lily and Jane stood and watched the horses and talked about what they should do, they heard Slugger call to his dog from the other end of the field. The dog went to him, and when he saw the horses, he came wheezing up through the field.

‘What’s this, what’s this. Come up, you old fool. Get out of it.’

Although the girls had not been able to get a hand on the Weaver, Slugger went easily up to him, grabbed a handful of his mane and yanked him off towards the gate.

‘If them fool women would get behind that dray horse and throw a sod at him, he’d follow,’ he grumbled.

‘It seems a shame when he’s having such a good feed,’ Lily said.

‘Good feed? They never heard of grass staggers?’ Slugger asked the moon disgustedly.

He got the horses back into their own field before Mr Beckett came down the lane in his Land-Rover, with his two big dogs in the back, still barking. He saw the trampled clover and the hoof marks and started walking towards the Farm.

‘It was our fault,’ the girls told Slugger. ‘We’ll talk to him.’

‘Good luck to them.’ Slugger whistled his dog and hobbled off towards his cottage.

‘We’re so sorry.’ They ran panting up to Mr Beckett.

‘It was dreadful of us.’

‘We forgot to chain the gate, you see.’

‘It won’t happen again.’

‘Wasn’t it lucky they didn’t get grass stumbles?’

‘Grass staggers, Lily.’

‘They did love your clover though. It’s a beautiful crop,’ Lily said, as graciously as the Queen Mother congratulating a cottager on his tomatoes.

Mr Beckett, with Wellingtons and a raincoat over his pyjamas, stood scratching his bristly grey head as they bombarded him with friendly apologies. He did not know what to say. Even his dogs had stopped barking.

‘So please don’t be angry, because we’re dreadfully sorry we woke you up, but everything is all right now and there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘I told the Colonel, if his horses got on my land again—’

‘Oh, but look. They haven’t done any harm. The clover will all spring up again.’

‘—I’d shoot ’em.’

‘Oh, you can’t have meant that, surely.’ Lily beamed at him with her polished cheeks, and Jane, asked him to come back to the cottage for a cup of tea.

‘I’ve not seen you two before, have I?’ Mr Beckett looked at them suspiciously. ‘Are you related to the people here, or what?’

‘Oh no, we work at the stables. Grooms, we are.’

‘We take care of the horses.’

‘Oh my,’ Mr Beckett said. ‘The Colonel must be hard up for labour.’

He went back to his Land-Rover, cursed at the sleeping dogs and drove off.

Lily and Jane passionately wanted to ride, but when Dora let them try with the mule, Lily got on facing backwards, and then Willy headed Jane straight back into his stable and almost knocked her brains out on the doorway.

‘Oh Willy, that wasn’t very nice.’ Lily led him out again.

‘How could you have ridden every day at Pinecrest if you didn’t know how?’ Dora asked.

‘That was why we wanted to ride every day, silly. We were going to learn. Turn him, Jane! Don’t let him run back again. Pull the left strap, same as a bicycle.’

Dora let them fool about for a while with Willy. The long suffering mule either stood like a rock with one girl on his back and the other dancing backwards in front of him, holding out a lump of sugar, or made sharp rushes for his closed stable door, the feed shed, the hay barn, and finally out through the archway.

Jane shrieked like a train whistle. A man and a boy coming in from the road grabbed the reins and brought the mule back into the yard.

‘Going to a fire?’ The man laughed at Jane, showing all his teeth.

The lanky boy, with pimples and long greasy hair, stared insolently, sucking his teeth and looking Jane up and down.

‘I was going out for a ride, thank you.’ Jane dismounted with what would have been dignity if her knees had not buckled at contact with the ground, so that she had to clutch at the man’s arm.

‘Whoa there, Missy,’ he said.

She peered at him shortsightedly. ‘I know you, don’t I?’

‘Should do.’ It was Sidney Hammond, proprietor of the Pinecrest Hotel.

‘Well, er – excuse me. I’ve got to go.’ Lily had run to the house. Jane left Todd Hammond holding the mule and followed her. Dora had disappeared too when she saw who it was, in case they recognized her as the girl with the pink slacks and Passion Flowers.

She sent the Colonel out to them.

‘A pleasure, Brigadier,’ Sidney said, pleasantly enough, though his teeth were gritted, rather than grinning. ‘I see you’ve got two of my young ladies up here. I didn’t know you’d gone into the hotel business.’

‘Who—? Oh them. They’re working for me. They had a bit of bad luck, they – oh yes.’ The Colonel remembered.

‘Two rooms for two weeks,’ Mr Hammond said. ‘Plus all meals, not to mention what that kind will spend at the bar once they’re in holiday mood. That’s quite a little loss to me, you will agree.’

‘They wanted horses,’ the Colonel said. ‘It’s not my fault.’

‘And yet my memory tells me – correct me if I’m wrong – that not too long ago, you gave yourself a little tour of my stables.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes, that.’

‘It was nothing to do with me,’ the Colonel protested, but Sidney Hammond held up his hand.

‘Please, my dear Brigadier, we’ll let bygones be bygones. I’ll not hear another word.’

Which was a good thing, since the Colonel was quite embarrassed, and did not have another word to say.

Willy relieved the tension by snapping at Todd, who hit him on the muzzle. The mule spun round and kicked out, as the Toad jumped out of the way.

‘You’ve got to be careful with mules.’ The Colonel took hold of Willy.

‘Is that why you let those silly girls ride him?’ Sidney Hammond asked. ‘I hope you’ve got good Third Party Insurance, Brigadier, ha, ha.’

Miss America was in her stable because of midday flies, and when the Colonel had unsaddled Willy, he found Mr Hammond and Todd looking at her.

‘My mare looks a treat.’ He was smiling Sidney again. ‘I must say you’ve done a fine job with her.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I came to tell you I’ll be bringing my trailer up for her tomorrow.’

‘I thought you – I thought you’d given up your stable.’

‘In a business way, yes. With the money we spent on those horses, we couldn’t make it pay,’ said slippery Sidney, as if they had never had the conversation about the riding stable licence only five minutes ago. ‘But we still keep a few favourites for our own use. My boys are great riders. Beauty Queen will get plenty of work, don’t worry about that.’

‘That back of hers won’t stand any work at all,’ the Colonel said, ‘the way the scar tissue has lumped up. You put a saddle on it, it will break down again.’

‘Oh, I know. We just want her as a pet, and I’m going to lead my little grand-daughter about on her. “Grandpa,” she says. “Take me for a wide.” Of course, she thinks it’s riding, though all she does is sit there while I lead her round the path and her granny snaps her picture.’

It was a beautiful image, except that the Colonel was almost sure he had not got a grand-daughter.

‘It came to me what he was going to do,’ he said later at supper. ‘He was planning to get some horses in again, and get round the licence difficulty by raising the price of rooms to include riding, so that he wouldn’t actually be charging for the hire of a horse.’

‘Very clever,’ Steve said.

‘He is cunning. I wish he wasn’t so affable with it. I always find myself quite liking him, although I know he’s a rat.’

‘Rat, Toad, Louse. You should call the exterminators.’

‘I told him he could have the mare—’

‘Oh no!’

‘—when he paid the bill. She’s been here quite a time. If I charge full boarding fees, he can’t possibly pay.’

Everyone applauded him, and Lily said, ‘Colonel dear, you are clever!’ as if there might have been some doubt.