Dream of Fair Horses by Patricia Leitch

Author:Patricia Leitch [Leitch, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jane Badger Books

8

Mrs Ramsay kept two hunters for herself. Although she seldom hunted, it gave her something to talk about. They were Ricky, a raw-boned chestnut of 16 hands and Chenka, a dark brown mare of 15 hands. Sue hunted a skewbald pony called Davey Jones and Jonathan his black cob, Cuttle. As well as the four hunters, Sue’s bay and a 13.2 pony came in at night.

Mrs Ramsay employed Hatcher to look after the hunters. He had worked for the Ramsays for the past ten years. In the summer he did something else but every September he returned to live in the two rooms above the Ramsays’ tack-room.

‘Look on this place as my home,’ he told me on one of the rare occasions when he’d asked me up for a cup of tea.

He was a sparse, lantern-jawed man, who looked as if he was made out of leather. He seldom spoke, except to chirrup to the hunters when he worked about them, quick and neat in his movements.

When I went with Mr Ramsay to be introduced to Hatcher he looked at me with his black, beady eyes.

‘So long as she does what I tell her she can stay,’ he said. ‘So long as she’s not afraid of work.’

Mr Ramsay said he didn’t think I was.

‘That’s all right then,’ said Hatcher and went on filling hay nets.

‘You’ll learn a bit about horses working here,’ Mr Ramsay promised me and I did. I worked with Hatcher at the weekends, mucking out, grooming, tack cleaning and exercising; toiling on endlessly until I was so tired I could have curled up in the straw and slept. On Saturday mornings we hacked the hunters to the meets where the Ramsays would be waiting for us, and on Saturday evenings we sweated over weary, muddied horses and filthy tack. I hardly ever saw Sue or Jonathan about the stables. They didn’t seem to care what happened to their horses once they dismounted.

‘Best that way,’ said Hatcher. ‘Can’t be doing with interference. Don’t know nothing they don’t. Best kept out of the way.’

Every evening I rowed across the black lake to see Perdita. Sometimes she would be lying down asleep in the straw and wouldn’t bother to get up. I would sit down beside her while she pushed at my pockets knowing I always brought a titbit for her. She was like a huge woolly toy. As her winter coat grew she lost all her svelte lines, all her Arab’s arrogance and became cuddly and friendly. She seemed to have forgotten that she was destined to be a champion. She might have been any other child’s pony, with her muddied coat, long mane and tail, and bright inquisitive eye; much loved not because she was anything special but just because she was herself.

When I came home after seeing Perdita the lighted windows of Hallows Noon would welcome me in from the night and I would hug the thought to myself that this was to be our home for ever and ever, that for years and years we would all live here.

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