A Pony For Sale Read online

  A PONY FOR SALE

  by Diana Pullein-Thompson

  Illustrations by Sheila Rose

   1951

  Epona Publishing

  Dedicated to Favorita

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE - By Guy Beaumont

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  PART TWO - By Pip Cox

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  PART THREE - By Lydia Pike

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  PART FOUR - By Lettie Lonsdale

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  PART ONE

  By Guy Beaumont

  Chapter One

  “Telegram for Beaumont! Telegram for Beaumont!” For a moment the voice echoed down the corridors, before growing indistinct in the school quad and finally fading from earshot in the direction of the playing fields. I started. My name was Beaumont!

  I left the house-room at the double, raced down the Chestnut Walk and found Hatt, a little chap new that term, near the playing fields.

  “Oh, here you are! Mr Storwood told me to give you this. I hope nothing awful has happened,” he said.

  “Thanks.” Mr Storwood was my housemaster.

  I tore open the envelope; the telegram said: Sherry’s filly born today – brown with a star. Mummy.

  “Okay – good news. My mare’s had a foal,” I told Hatt.

  My mind turned to home; to the red brick manor-house with its musty creepers, the ancient weapons, the antlers and the lone fox’s mask hanging in the dark entrance hall and the polo sticks in the corner. To the dusty old stables, the saddle-room and the smell of varnish and leather. To the home fields and the horses in them – Guardsman, Bruno and Sherry.

  Brown with star meant the foal would be like Sherry, who had been one of the best ponies in the county, a brilliant hunter with perfect manners until lamed for life by a nasty fall on a tarmac road. But, having little imagination, I could not picture the foal at Sherry’s side, nor galloping in our green meadows, nor lying like a big dog in the lush June grass. I could not picture her at all and, half-term being over, I had to wait till the holidays to see her, which was very hard.

  Back in the house-room I told Whipple and Reed, two chaps with homes in the country, about my telegram. Whipple, who had a pony of his own, was interested but Reed only said: “Honestly, Beaumont, your horsiness is getting chronic. Put a gag on it, there’s a good fellow, or we’ll all turn looney.”

  I felt like throwing something at him, but instead I said: “You’re just wet,” and walked out of the room.

  Though I curbed mention of my foal in my conversation, I could not prevent myself thinking of her, for I was even keener on horses then than I am now, and I found my mind wandering during games and lessons. On the hot playing fields, I thought of point-to-points for it was my ambition to win one. Working in the lab, I planned my foal’s education and career.

  I renewed my subscription to Horse and Hound, which I read greedily, and wrote home for my books on breaking and schooling.

  With the help of Whipple, I decided that my foal should be named Martini. Her sire was called Rascal of Rapallo.

  At last the term, seeming longer than ever before, dragged to its end, which was celebrated in the usual way with parties, fights and feasts. And on a wet day in late July I was homeward bound in a special train, then dashing across London to Paddington in a taxi and then, as the clerks left their offices and the workmen left their factories and their yards, I reached our nearest town’s station. There was Daddy, in breeches, looking every bit the retired army officer, and outside, unchanged but for a few additional chips, was our battered brake. In the front seat sat Random, the old black Labrador that we had had since he was a puppy, who gave me the dignified welcome that befitted his age.

  The drive home was like all drives home at the beginning of holidays. I noticed the changes in the countryside, the progress of houses in the process of being built, the growth of young animals that I had seen at half-term.

  My father talked of the local horses. Old Shadwell’s mare had won at the Three Counties. George Lane’s grey had been put in the back line at Dryford. Pam Hill had taken a dramatic plunge into the open water at Little Sanfield. Peter Pope’s filly was chasing well and Colonel Nell’s Brave Boy was turning out a handful. I listened vaguely. I did not mind much about the successes and failures of these people. In those days I thought mostly of myself, my hopes and ambitions. Besides, I was not very interested in shows; I thought that hunting and point-to-pointing was more in my line.

  We turned up the unkempt drive shaded by trees, passed the home paddock where, enclosed by iron railings, Bruno and Guardsman grazed peacefully. Mummy, a tall figure with greying hair, was waiting. She had just returned from a dull and, in her opinion, unnecessary lecture on leisure in the village hall. It had been organised by the local branch of the Women’s Institute.

  “I would have been much better gardening; the rose border is choked with weeds,” she said as we hurried round the back of the house to see Sherry and Martini. Mummy had always been crazy on gardening, but she never manages to keep up with the weeds in our garden. Sometimes in the winter she nearly defeats them; the paths and borders are almost clear, but in the spring they return with all the energy of the young and by May they reign triumphant again in half the flower-beds.

  The rain had ceased; the land glistened in the pale evening sunlight; across the fields, beyond Frank Smith’s copse, the Church’s clock chimed six, and I looked down our long meadow and saw at the end of it the brown dot against a green hedgerow, which was Martini.

  “How like our horses; if ever you want them, they are always as far away as possible,” said Mummy.

  “They’ll come,” said Daddy.

  I called and Sherry, who was grazing beside Martini, threw up her head. Then I whistled and Martini got slowly to her feet and the two of them, the mare and the foal, trotted towards us across the meadow. Martini moved well, carrying her head and tail high and showing less knee action than her dam. She had the funny woolly coat that foals are always born with and a tiny well-cut head.

  “She’s hard to fault, Guy,” said Daddy. “Look at her deep girth – plenty of heart room there. She’ll stand a long day’s hunting all right – got wonderful legs and feet too.”

  “Are you pleased with her, Guy?” asked Mummy.

  “She’s smashing,” I replied. The war had ended nearly a year ago, but smashing was still overworked at my school. We all used it indiscriminately.

  Sherry and Martini stopped when they reached us, and Sherry searched my pockets for food, while Martini touched my feet and legs with her ridiculously small muzzle.

  I had never disliked school, nor felt wildly pleased at the prospect of leaving it. But I was very happy now to be back, the long summer holidays stretching before me, with Random and the horses, and later, cub-hunting. Of all my homecomings I remember this one the most clearly. Perhaps it was the happiest.

  Daddy had bought a tiny head-collar and put it on Martini.

  “Makes her look quite professional, like the foals in the paddocks by Newmarket,” said Mummy.

  “Now you are here, what about a leading lesson?” suggested Daddy.

  “Okay, if you can lead Sherry I’ll try to get Martini to follow
,” I said.

  “Well, I suppose I must change and do a bit to the herbaceous border before the sun goes down,” said Mummy, wandering away towards the house.

  At first Martini would not follow Sherry. She threw up her head, rolled her eyes till the whites showed and planted her four feet firmly on the ground, but when she saw her dam walking away so briskly and confidently she wavered, and a whinny from Sherry settled the matter. Martini plunged forward, dragging me behind her.

  After a few minutes we turned the mare and foal loose and paid a visit to Guardsman and Bruno. Guardsman was a black gelding of sixteen hands, two inches, with large kind eyes and a Roman nose. My father was only twelve stone, but Guardsman could have carried fifteen with ease. Bruno was a lightweight bay horse with black points and a thin white blaze; he was fast and a good mover and had won a few point-to-points in his younger days. They were both well-made with sound legs and feet. Daddy hunted them alternately, except during the Christmas holidays after Sherry’s unfortunate fall, when Bruno was put at my disposal. Sherry used to pull out hunting, but Bruno, although willing, was never quite up to the bit. He was very comfortable, though, and if you gave him a very loose rein and used your legs he would be well up to the front, jumping everything in a calm and easy style. He was never so friendly as Sherry, and now he hurried away as soon as he had eaten the carrot which I had given him.

  Daddy patted Guardsman, saying: “This is a good old fellow, Guy, you know – never saw him take Bradley’s brook last season, did you? Pity, he jumped like a six-year-old.”

  Eventually talking, I suspect, of the horse shows and sales that would take place during the next eight weeks, we hurried indoors for drinks before dinner. I remember that I was allowed a glass of sherry because I was now fourteen, which made the evening seem very special.

  “Tomorrow we’ll get those lazy old horses up and go for a hack, Guy,” said Daddy.

  “And give Martini another leading lesson,” I added.

  Chapter Two

  The summer holidays passed rapidly – as all holidays pass if you have much to do – and Martini’s hindquarters grew faster than her forehand, so that she looked very peculiar indeed. We taught her to lead well in hand behind Sherry and to allow us to pick up her feet and play with her mane and forelock and bandage her tail. When she was eight weeks old the farrier rasped her hoofs, which were neat and black and hard, for the first time. And shortly afterwards I returned to school and became crazy on Rugger.

  In the Christmas holidays Martini was stabled at night and on wet days, but received less attention from me than she had in the summer holidays, because I was busy hunting and helping Dick Warren, our huntsman, exercise hounds. But in the Easter holidays, we decided to enter her in a class for yearlings at a nearby show, so she had frequent leading lessons and was groomed daily. She had left her dam in March and was rather thin at this time, though her coat shone, and each day we gave her a feed of crushed oats which we bought from a friendly farmer. We could not claim rations because Sherry was only an ordinary pony.

  In preparation for the show, I taught her to trot out and to stand properly with her weight equally distributed on all four legs, and to stand still while I ran a hand down her neat tendons.

  Then, on a fine clear day in early May I rose at half past six, when the dew still glistened on the hedges and the birds sang their first cheery songs, and groomed Martini. Having slept in a rug and having been groomed regularly for some time, she did not need much brushing. Her dark-brown coat lay flat and shone like polished coffee beans. Her legs were black with no white socks, so I did not have to wash them. I felt light of heart when I left her eventually and returned to the house for breakfast of porridge, bacon and eggs and toast and marmalade – so essential a breakfast on a show morning.

  Martini’s class was scheduled to begin at ten o’clock, so it was necessary for us to make an early start. My parents were up and unusually cheerful when I went indoors. They were both coming to the show. They always took a great interest in Martini and were very fond of Sherry, whom Daddy had bought at a sale, while on leave during the war, for twenty pounds.

  At half past eight the horsebox arrived and surprised Guardsman and Bruno, so that they galloped round the paddock with their tails kinked high up over their backs.

  Martini was scared by the box at first, but presently we persuaded her to approach it and then to walk, step by step, up the ramp. She looked very tiny and frightened inside, and very smart in the brown and red day-rug, which Mummy had made her out of an old rug of Guardsman’s, and the small polished leather head-collar and white rope.

  “I think you’ve got a winner, Guy,” said Daddy, who is always unreasonably optimistic.

  “Poor little thing. She looks so pathetic,” said Mummy.

  Martini travelled well and we arrived at the show at half past nine, when the ground was almost bare of spectators and the air was filled with the shrill, hysterical neighs of youngsters parted from their dams or friends. Martini, usually quiet, became hysterical too and kicked the horsebox, and presently, when I led her out, she dragged me around and flung her head about in a wild and frightened manner. Our class was the first. The box driver came to my rescue and held Martini while I gave her a last brush over and oiled her feet. All my previous confidence had fled and I felt sure that she would behave badly in the ring. I saw some of Daddy’s acquaintances and friends, leading or riding superior, highly-bred horses. Martini looked very small and ponyish to me now and, as I led her to the collecting ring, people seemed merely to throw her a glance and then look away again as though saying to themselves; “Ah, she’s no good – no need to worry about her.”

  Daddy had lost some of his optimism too. He would only talk about Colonel Nell’s bay filly and Mrs Dayfield’s beautiful chestnut colt.

  Mummy hovered by the collecting ring, saying: “Oh, Guy, she looks sweet, only so tiny compared with the rest, so slender somehow,” at frequent intervals, which, since foals are supposed to have good bone and plenty of substance as well as quality, was not very comforting.

  At last we were told to go into the main ring. “Your filly’s not bad-looking, you know, but poor. Tried any boiled wheat?” asked Colonel Nell, leading the way with his bay.

  When people in the world of horses say poor they mean thin and inadequately fed and, now that Martini was amongst other ponies and horses of her own age, I realised that her quarters were not round enough, and that her neck looked too light. However, she walked gaily with an interested air and she was not by any means the thinnest in the class.

  The judges were two farmers who bred horses; one farmer was tall and fat and the other small and wiry. They only seemed to notice Martini when she was looking her worst, which made the last remnant of my previous hopes disappear. She was alternately wild and excited when she dragged at her rope, neighed frantically and swished her tail, and looked sad, tired and depressed, when she dawdled with her head very low as though it were too heavy for her body.

  I cannot tell you how many times we walked round that ring, but I remember that an age seemed to have passed when the judges eventually called in the first three horses: Colonel Nell’s bay, Mrs Dayfield’s chestnut and a little liver chestnut led by a girl of about thirteen. A long pause followed; the judges seemed unable to make up their minds and the atmosphere grew tense, Martini dawdled and the yearling in front of her bucked. Then the wiry farmer looked at Martini and spoke to his co-judge, who beckoned to a steward who called me into the line.

  You can imagine my surprise. When leaving home, I had half-expected Martini to be first or second – so many people had come to the Manor and admired her during the past ten months – but arriving at the show I had lost nearly all hope and had even pictured myself the last and most useless in the back row.

  Actually, the judges only made a front row, because, I presume there were only eight entries.

  They called in one more competitor as an individual, a brown colt with four white
socks, and the remaining three were brought in together.

  The judges told Colonel Nell to lead his bay out in hand, and Colonel Nell set us all a very good example by making his filly stand beautifully so that she looked her very best, and walked to the brush fence and trotted her back with the calm and confident air of an expert. Mrs Dayfield’s colt went well also, but the girl’s liver chestnut played up and nearly escaped. Presently it was my turn and, attempting to appear confident, I led Martini out of the line and halted her in front of the judges as the others had done. She drooped but, thanks to her earlier lessons, stood with her weight well distributed.

  Mummy, in a linen two-piece and Daddy, sportingly dressed with hacking jacket and buff waistcoat, waved from the ringside. I nodded and turned my gaze back to the judges, who were looking Martini up and down with the intent and critical expression that all judges try to wear.

  “Needs a bit more flesh on her,” said the thin judge as though Martini were a pig.

  “Trot her up,” said the other.