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Falling Hard Saddlehill Academy 3 1st Edition
Jessica Burkhart
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Falling Hard It s Raining Men 1st Edition Nichole Rose Rose Nichole
To all my readers—my Harts—thank you for sticking with me!
We’re Going Where?!
AS I RODE BEAU INTO the arena for practice, I couldn’t wait for Rebecca, my riding instructor, to get here. She had two big announcements to make, and guesses were already running wild as to what those could be.
With the way things were, I needed something to look forward to. It had been a couple of weeks since I’d confessed the Selly secret to everyone in Rebecca’s office. That secret? Oof. Last year, I’d accidentally written the wrong start time for a show class on a whiteboard, not catching my mistake. And as a result, Selly had missed her class and Rebecca had taken her out of the running for team captain because of it. Because of me.
Once she’d found out what I’d done, Selly had grabbed me in the stable and promised to ruin my life. If that hadn’t been enough, I’d barely seen my best friends because they were always busy. But all I could do was keep going and hope that things would settle down soon… if Selly didn’t take me out first.
The rest of my Interscholastic Pony League teammates—Keir, Selly, Nina, Emery, and Thea—trickled in on their horses. We all
competed in Area 1 for Foxbury, and Rebecca had grouped us by skill level.
Once my stepsister, Emery, had joined us this year, we’d been split into two smaller competition teams. Keir captained the first team, which was made up of Selly, Emery, and Keir. The second team was Thea, Nina, and me, with Thea as our team captain.
As we finished warming up, Rebecca walked into the arena and motioned for us to ride over to her. My teammates and I lined up our horses in front of her, the anticipation making me shi around in the saddle.
“Before we start the lesson, I have two announcements,” Rebecca said. “First, our next show date is finalized, and we have a lovely host stable.”
Everyone glanced at each other before looking at Rebecca. This was the news we’d been waiting for!
“We’ll be having a Haunted Halloween Classic,” Rebecca said. “Complete with a costume contest, decor, and scary-themed jumps. Of course, it’ll count for points, but it’s also about having fun and showing off your creativity.”
“Where?” Keir asked. “Here?”
“I heard someone say Millford Stables,” Nina said, excitement rising in her voice.
Rebecca shook her head. “Nope, not here, and not at Millford.” She grinned. “We’ll be going to Connecticut, to a little place called Canterwood Crest Academy.”
“WHAT?!” I shrieked.
Everyone broke out in excited cheers, and Thea reached over and squeezed my forearm so hard, I was sure she’d leave fingerprint-
shaped bruises.
“We’re going to Canterwood? For real? This isn’t a trick?” Selly asked.
“It’s too early in October for tricks,” Rebecca said. “We’ll be spending a few nights near their campus. They’re hosting a rider gettogether the night before the comp starts.”
“When?” I asked, barely breathing.
“The weekend before Halloween,” Rebecca said. “So, start planning your costumes!”
I grinned at Thea. This was the best treat ever!
“And my other announcement is about Sasha Silver and Heather Fox’s winter clinic,” Rebecca said. “I know many of you plan to apply, right?”
Everyone nodded.
“Great! The application requires a video showcasing your riding talent, so we’ll film those this week.”
This was almost too much to process! How were we supposed to focus on riding a er those announcements?
“All right. Let’s quickly run down today’s plan!” Rebecca snapped back into business mode. “We’re going to work on dressage, starting with looseness. I want to see so ening throughout your horses’ bodies, because I’ve noticed some horses are looking a little stiff. We’re going to do some transitions from a working walk to a slow trot, and then we’ll transition back to a walk. And once you start a new transition, I want you to make a figure eight. Clear?”
“Clear!” we confirmed.
“In a moment, you’ll walk your horses for ten strides, then transition to a slow trot,” Rebecca said. “You’ll trot for four or five
strides, then drop back to a walk and make a figure eight. Then repeat. We’ll do this for two rounds in this direction before switching to counterclockwise.”
I nodded. Beau and I could do this.
“This exercise should help your horses by making their transitions much more seamless,” Rebecca added. “Everyone spread out at a walk.”
I let Beau fall into line behind Chaos and Thea, and we went to the arena rail. Beau, nicely warmed up, moved smoothly and quietly while awaiting my next command.
“Starting now, count ten strides, then trot,” Rebecca called to us, “and the exercise will begin.”
In my head, I counted Beau’s strides as we walked down the rail. When I hit ten, I squeezed my legs against his sides and asked for a trot to start a figure eight. It took him a bit too long to respond, and it wasn’t as immediate as I would have liked, so I added more leg. This exercise is perfect for us, I thought.
A er five strides at a trot, I asked him to walk. He playfully tossed his head, tugging on the reins and trying to keep trotting. But I sat deeper in the saddle and let him know I meant what I’d asked for: it was time to walk.
Beau slowed, finally, and then we repeated the transitions exercise. This go-round, his responses were much faster, and I scratched his withers to let him know he’d done great.
Dressage was my weakest area. We competed in three-day eventing, so we did dressage, show jumping, and cross-country. I was a huge fan of jumping, and soaring into the air never became less of a thrill. Everything about jumping was exciting and pulse-pounding to
me, and while I’d thought about only concentrating on those areas, I knew myself and my riding. Beau and I needed the dressage work to help keep our working partnership at its strongest.
Three-day eventing pushed both of us to be our very best, from the delicate dance of dressage to the speed of show jumping to the boldness of cross-country. And those three phases blended to create one giant challenge. It was the best, most exciting thing I’d ever done.
My attention wandered, though, as I thought about the Canterwood show. The place where Sasha Silver and Lauren Towers took off.
“Abby!” Rebecca yelled. “How long have you been trotting?”
I snapped out of my daydream. Whoops. I was halfway down the arena and hadn’t been counting any strides. Cringing, I hurried to slow Beau to a walk as I burned from embarrassment at being called out.
“Pay attention, people,” Rebecca said. “I need you all to be focused on counting strides and making the transitions. Or we ’ re going to be here all day.”
Behind me, Selly snickered, but I kept my attention on Beau. We worked our way from a walk to a trot and back again.
We did the exercise going counterclockwise a few times before Rebecca called us over to line up in front of her.
“Let’s get right into pairs work,” Rebecca said. “Abby and Emery, we’ll put you together.” Rebecca smiled at Emery and me. “Then Nina and Keir, and Selly and Thea. You’re partners for the rest of the lesson.”
My stomach sank.
A er everything that had gone down, I didn’t want to work with Emery. A er all, she’d hid Nina’s identity as the Truth X. Poser from me. Nina had done so much damage. Clenching my teeth, I fought to keep an annoyed expression off my face. It was enough that we had lessons together, but being Emery’s actual partner? Ugh.
I knew without looking at my teammates that Thea and Selly couldn’t be happy about their pairing either. But Rebecca had warned Thea that one more mistake would cost her the spot as our team’s captain, so I was certain my best friend wasn’t going to complain about being partnered with Selly even if she wanted to.
“With your partner, spread out in the arena and find a spot for the two of you,” Rebecca said. “You’re going to coach each other through a couple of leg yields. Do this first at a walk, then a trot. I’ll be watching and offering support if you need it, but I want to see you and your partner give each other instruction. You need to talk about why you ’ re doing leg yields and what we can use them for. Got it?”
“Got it,” I mumbled.
Everyone else nodded.
Leg yields meant moving your horse forward and sideways and asking the horse to cross their inside legs in front of their outside legs. While doing this, the horse kept their body straight except for flexing at the poll, and the horse’s jaw pointed in the opposite direction.
“Grab your partner and get started,” Rebecca said.
I started Beau past Selly and her mare, Ember, and Selly caught my eye. “You look like you ’ re going to cry, Abby,” she whispered.
“I’m not.”
Selly smirked. “We’ll see.” She turned to Emery and gave her a little wave. “Have fun, Em!”
I clenched my teeth. I hated every second of this, but I was not going to give them the satisfaction. And I wasn’t giving Rebecca even the tiniest reason to call me out.
“Let’s go,” I said to Emery.
Her hazel eyes were wide as she looked from Selly to me before finally nodding. “Want to go over there?” She pointed to a spot on the rail a few yards down in the arena.
“Yep.” My tone was brisk and cool. We were going to smash these leg yields and get this over with as quickly as possible.
“Abby, please,” Emery said. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, and I get it, but we have to make this work in the arena. I don’t want to get in trouble.”
I glared at her. “Neither do I. And I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
“Fine,” Emery said. “Let’s get through this.”
Sister vs. Sister
IN SILENCE, WE RODE AWAY from the other teams so that everyone had enough space. Beau and Bliss, oblivious to what was going on between Emery and me, walked happily beside each other. For a second, I wished I could go back in time. Back before I’d been so burned by Emery. Back before my dad had married her mom. Back before I’d ever known she existed.
We reached our spot on the rail, and I halted Beau. Emery pulled up Bliss beside him. I took a deep breath. Just get through this, I told myself. I could go back to not speaking to Emery ever again the second this was done.
“So, why are we doing leg yields?” I asked, trying to keep the bite out of my tone.
“They’re supposed to help the rider with different aids,” Emery said. “They teach your horse to be responsive and understand what you ’ re asking for.”
I nodded. “They also help keep your horse supple and loose.”
“Thankfully, they’re not required on our dressage test.”
“Yet,” I said.
“Right. Yet. I’m not super good at them, but I know we need them to do more advanced moves. ”
It was a bit of a relief that they weren’t expected from us at this level. It gave me time to keep learning and perfecting the move before I had to do it in a competition, when stress levels were high.
“Want to go first?” I asked. “Maybe do a ten-meter half circle to set you up for it?”
“Sure, that sounds good.”
And without a second of hesitation, Emery urged Bliss forward, ahead of Beau and me. She walked Bliss down the rail, and at the corner, turned her in a half circle, then asked for a leg yield. Bliss hesitated for a second. I could almost see her thinking about what to do, but then she yielded to Emery’s cues and moved sideways and forward at the same time.
“Nice!” I called, unable to help myself. Plus, I knew Rebecca was watching, and I didn’t want her to catch me being unsupportive of Emery.
Emery smiled as she let Bliss out of the leg yield and walked her straight toward Beau and me. “Thanks!”
“Maybe you should do it at a trot now,” I suggested. “Bliss might be in the right headspace to try again. Then Beau and I can go. ”
“That works for me. ”
“Make sure you keep your shoulders square with hers,” I said.
Emery nodded. “Good tip. Thanks!”
She asked Bliss to trot, and they headed down the rail and started to make their ten-meter half circle. This time, as Emery asked Bliss to leg yield, she kept her shoulders in the correct position, and she
carried both hands slightly to the outside. This kept the bit even in Bliss’s mouth.
There was zero hesitation from Bliss this time. The mare moved quickly and easily in a beautiful leg yield, coming toward Beau and me while going sideways.
“You got it!” I called.
Out of the corner of my eye, Rebecca walked closer to watch Emery. Our instructor had a giant smile on her face as she scribbled something on her iPad.
A er a few strides, Emery relaxed and let Bliss trot straight forward. Her smile was as wide as Rebecca’s as she eased Bliss to a walk and then patted the mare ’ s glossy shoulder.
“Good job, girl!” Emery told her.
Bliss snorted, shaking her head and sending her forelock flying. The mare was proud of what she’d done.
“That was… really good,” I said.
“Thanks! I know Bliss has probably done it a thousand times with her old owner, but it’s still fairly new to me. She teaches me stuff all the time.”
“I know that feeling.”
Beau was very much like Bliss in that regard, although he was greener than she was. Still, he’d competed in the IPL before I’d gotten him, so he had come to me with some experience.
Now it was my turn.
I set Beau off at a brisk walk down the rail, and as he walked, I decided I wanted to try the leg yield without going into a circle first. We came to the corner, and I turned Beau around to face Emery and
Bliss. As we went back to the rail, I saw the confusion on Emery’s face.
It was time to go for it.
I put a little more weight on my inside seat bone and brought my outside leg back behind the girth. I could use it as a driving aid and a way to keep Beau’s haunches from swinging out.
Then I moved my inside le behind the girth and started to push Beau sideways and away from the rail.
I asked Beau to bend his head, just enough so I could see his inside nostril, and I held my breath.
He. Responded. Immediately.
Beau swung to the side, leg yielding as I’d asked, and I tried to keep my hands from shaking with excitement. We were doing a leg yield without coming out of a half circle first! We’d only done this once before!
I kept up the pressure with my inside leg to keep Beau moving forward and sideways for a few more strides before I let him straighten and walk forward.
Emery’s mouth was slightly open as she stared at us, her eyes wide.
“ABBY ST. CLAIR!” I whipped my head over my shoulder to see Rebecca, eyes glued to us. “That was beautiful!”
My heart thudded in my chest. I could count on one hand the number of times Rebecca had cheered at me like that during a lesson.
“Thank you!” I called back, grinning as I leaned down to pat Beau’s neck.
“That was so good,” Emery said when we reached her. “You didn’t even need the half circle.”
And for a split second, I almost forgot about what she’d done. And how I didn’t want to even look at her. I was so beyond excited. But then it all came rushing back.
“Thanks,” I said. “I was going to do the half circle too, but then I went for it and tried it this way. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting him to do it. I thought for sure we’d have to go back and try again.”
“Now you’ve got to do it at a trot,” Emery said.
“Everyone, pause!” Rebecca called. “Except Abby. I want you all to watch Abby and Beau for a minute.”
Six pairs of eyes watched us.
“We got this,” I whispered to Beau.
I turned him away from Emery and Bliss and then asked him to trot.
We made our turn at the corner of the arena, and once we were a few strides down, I asked him for a leg yield.
And Beau, my heart horse, the horse of my dreams, and my angel, did a flawless leg yield at a trot.
We were rocking this!
When I pulled him up, Rebecca led everyone in a round of applause. Everyone except for Nina and Selly, of course, who fakeclapped while looking as if they’d eaten a sour candy. But I didn’t care.
Beau and I had just done that!
I Don’t Like the Odds
AFTER MY LESSON YESTERDAY, I fell into bed early, all smiley from a great ride. But this morning anxiety woke me up, and I rolled over in bed, struggling to take a deep breath. It was barely five a.m., and across our room, Vivi was sound asleep.
Waking up breathless with anxiety crushing my chest was something I’d been dealing with since Mom le when I was seven. When I was younger, I was terrified that I’d wake up and find Dad gone too, and I’d be all alone. Sometimes I’d get up in the middle of the night and poke my head into my dad’s bedroom to make sure he was still there. It had gotten so bad for a while that I’d slept in the hallway outside his room, so I’d know if he le .
That’s when he’d taken me to a therapist, and I’d gotten help. Now I didn’t have as many panic attacks, but I still struggled with anxiety. I tried to remind myself that Dad and I were great, and he’d really been making an effort to be there for me a er the disaster that was my last show. But I hadn’t been worrying about him tonight—it was all about Vivi and Thea.
A er staring at the ceiling and getting more and more jittery, I threw back my covers and put on sweats. Maybe a run would help me clear my head.
I le the coziness of Amherst and stepped into the mildly chilly air, walking down the sidewalk toward the river. There was no one else out at this hour, and I relished the quiet of campus.
Once I was warmed up, I started jogging along the scenic path. But thoughts of Selly coming a er me kept swirling around in my brain. I picked up the pace and pushed myself, running until the only thing I could think about was breathing and listening to the sounds of my shoes on the pavement.
I hadn’t jogged in so long! A er school, I was either riding Beau or teaching Arden, the younger rider I’d been assigned by Rebecca. Working with her had eaten away any free time I’d had, but it had been part of the deal Rebecca had made with me, Selly, Nina, and Thea to allow us to stay on the riding team.
When I made it back to my room, I showered and got ready for school. The run had helped a bit, but sitting still felt impossible. I needed to lean on my friends and talk to them instead of keeping everything in.
But instead, I kept messing with my plants and watering them when they definitely didn’t need a drink. They were going to drown, for sure.
“I’m staying over at Pia’s tonight,” Vivi said. “I think I told you that already, though.”
“Oh,” I mumbled. She hadn’t told me. “Cool! Have fun.”
Pia was one of Vivi’s friends from theater class. Usually we didn’t sleep over in other houses except on the weekends. But it felt like
Vivi couldn’t wait to get out of our room.
She and Thea had sworn they’d both understood why I’d kept the Selly secret, and things were fine between us when we were actually spending time together. But that had been so rare over the last couple of weeks that I couldn’t help but worry that I’d done something else to make them not want to hang with me.
I wanted to ask Vivi if she was free this weekend, but it seemed like she was good without me. So I just gave her an awkward wave as she headed for the door.
“See you in class,” Vivi said. And before I could even reply, she was out the door.
“Yeah, see you in class,” I said to no one.
I turned my bunny ears cactus to get the sun on a different side, then glanced at my phone. I still had time to kill before I le for class.
With a sigh, I grabbed my iPad and plopped down on my bed. I typed in Sasha Silver’s website address and browsed the pages that had info on all her big wins, where she was going next, and photos of her with Charm and Sterling Silver. In a recent pic, she was bareback on Charm, grinning and holding Sterling’s lead line. Both horses looked toward the camera with pricked ears. They’d come such a long way since Sasha’s Canterwood Crest days.
Then I tapped on “Clinics and Workshops” and found what I was looking for.
Winter Clinic Hosted by Sasha Silver and Heather Fox, December 27–January 3
Come join Sasha and Heather for an unforgettable week of intensive riding and training. Improve your riding and horsemanship during this clinic with two decorated equestrians.
Applications are now open for a limited number of spots. Anyone wishing to apply must submit an audition video of their strengths as a rider as well as a letter about what they wish to accomplish here.
Last year there were over three thousand applicants, and we regret we could only offer spots to a dozen Interscholastic Pony League riders and ten adult riders. This year, we expect even more applications, but we will cap this clinic at those same numbers to allow for individual attention.
Guidelines for your video and letter are below. The deadline is November 1. Looking forward to seeing your audition!
—Sasha and Heather
My mouth went dry. Three thousand applicants? Those odds were… Not Good. Especially since I had a feeling that everyone at Foxbury would apply, and there were way better riders than me.
But that just meant my audition video had to sparkle—it had to show Sasha and Heather how much I wanted this. I turned off my iPad and stood, pushing my shoulders back.
“I’m letting go of everything that’s going on,” I told my plants, “and I’m going to make the best audition video that Sasha and Heather have ever seen. ”
That would give me something to focus on besides ping-ponging between wondering what was up with Vivi and Thea and freaking
out about Selly.
Slowly I gathered my notebooks and textbooks for class and slung my backpack over my shoulder.
I swiped my phone off my desk and texted Mila, the new girl at Foxbury. The cute new girl at Foxbury. We’d talked a lot a er that awful day in Rebecca’s office, and she’d been so supportive and understanding.
Abby: Are you applying to Sasha Silver and Heather Fox’s winter riding clinic?
She wrote me back right away.
Mila: Yesss! Are you?
Abby: Definitely! And yay, I hope we both get in!
Mila: Me too!
But as I looked at the texts from Mila, I couldn’t help but worry if I should even be her friend. My own best friends were being weird around me. What if Mila ended up being like that too?
Mila texted again: What are you up to?
That time, I le her on read.
And… Action!
ON WEDNESDAY, I WAS SO ready to ride Beau later. Working with him always helped me get out of my head.
Classes let out early for a teacher workshop, and I headed toward the cafeteria for lunch. Just across the quad, Thea and Vivi meandered down the sidewalk together. I figured they would go into the caf, but instead, they kept walking.
I hurried to catch up to them.
“Thea! Vivi!” I called.
They turned around, trading quick glances with each other.
“Want to get lunch together?” I asked. “I don’t feel like cafeteria food. Maybe McDonald’s?”
“We kind of already have lunch plans,” Thea said. She played with the hem of her shirt, scrunching the fabric with her fingers.
“Sorry, Abs,” Vivi said. “But we can have lunch together tomorrow!”
My face burned as I looked at them. They’d never not wanted me to have lunch with them. And plans? Like, plans for lunch together or with someone else? I had so many questions.
“Oh, no big deal,” I chirped. “I’ll see you later.”
Even though it was the biggest of deals.
“Definitely!” Vivi said, smiling at me like this was totally fine and normal before she and Thea went on their way.
Fine. I would walk to the McDonald’s right on the edge of campus and have the best solo lunch ever.
A er a tasty lunch of chicken nuggets and fries, I got ready for riding and headed to the stable. Seeing Beau always helped my mood, though, and the moment I threw my arms around his neck and breathed in his horsey scent, I felt a little better.
“Let’s get you groomed and ready,” I told him. “It’s lesson day.”
As I groomed him and tacked him up, I laughed to myself when I started to think about explaining what I was doing as I was doing it.
“I’ve been working with Arden so much that I almost wanted to talk myself through how to groom you,” I said to Beau. “Whoops.”
Beau dozed on and off while I got him ready, and a er I fastened the chin strap on my helmet, I led him outside. Rebecca had group texted us to meet in the biggest outdoor arena, which was closest to the stable.
Beau pricked his ears forward as we walked, tugging on the reins. As I turned him in the opposite direction, my eye caught on Mila climbing up on the fence to sit and watch our lesson.
Smiling, she waved at me, and I awkwardly waved back, then adjusted my reins. This was probably our last week before Mila joined our riding team, because her test was this weekend. I felt bad for not texting her back yesterday, but my head was spinning from trying to figure out what was going on with Thea and Vivi.
The rest of my team came into the arena, and I let out a small sigh of relief that I’d managed to warm up without having to talk to anyone. Rebecca walked into the arena, all smiles, as she waved for us to bring our horses in front of her.
“Good a ernoon, everyone!” she said. “As you know, you need an audition video to submit to the winter clinic that shows off a bit of your flatwork and a little of your jumping. That’s what we ’ re doing today and tomorrow with our lesson groups. ”
I grinned, unable to stop myself from looking at Thea with wide eyes.
“We’re filming today?” I asked.
“Yup,” Rebecca said. “Allie is free, so she’s kindly going to pop in and film each of you for a couple of minutes. She’ll upload the footage and send you the link whenever you ’ re ready.”
Allie was one of Foxbury’s other instructors.
Selly raised her hand, frowning. “I didn’t wear my good breeches, though,” she said a er Rebecca called on her. “I don’t want to look grubby on my tape.”
“You look fine.” Rebecca waved her hand in the air. “This isn’t a show. It’s practice. And you ’ re in practice clothes, along with everyone else.”
“I guess,” Selly said. But she swiped furiously at her breeches with one hand and smoothed her maroon T-shirt with the other. I understood where she was coming from, though. If I’d known we were going to film today, I would have brushed my hair before I’d le Saddlehill and maybe put on some lip gloss.
“First we’ll run through a trot/canter transition exercise,” Rebecca said, “and then we’ll jump. I want to see everyone riding their very
best. But try not to get nervous. Remember, this will not be anything new. It’s a regular riding lesson. You’re showing Sasha and Heather what you can do comfortably at your current riding level.”
I swallowed. Hard.
I’d watched Sasha compete for years and years. Heather, too. And I’d dreamed about Sasha watching me ride, thinking the opportunity to ride in front of her might never come. This winter clinic application would give me a chance to show her a few precious moments of my skills. But… what if she wasn’t impressed? The thought sent shivers up and down my arms. Maybe she will be impressed with you, I told myself. That was all I could hope for, honestly—for her to see me and Beau and think we were worthy of her time and energy.
Now I was glad Rebecca hadn’t given us a heads-up about today. If I’d known, I would have done nothing but panic. I pushed my shoulders back and tried to put on my game face.
“Ready?” Rebecca asked.
“Ready!” I said with everyone else.
Beau the Brat
REBECCA WALKED US THROUGH THE trot-canter-trot exercise we’d be doing, while Allie, with her phone in hand, came into the arena and stood ready to film us.
“Everyone spread out, and when you hit marker A, start making a large circle at a working trot,” Rebecca said. “I want to see nice forward motion from your horses!”
We were all down by C, so I started Beau at a working trot, and we followed Thea and Chaos toward A.
At A, I sat deep in the saddle and asked Beau for a canter on his right lead. He bounded into a smooth canter, and I maintained a safe distance between us and Chaos. I kept my right leg at the girth to make Beau’s right hind leg reach farther forward, bending as I held him on the le rein.
“More right rein, Abby!” Rebecca called.
I did as she asked, and Beau showed more right flexion at his poll. Whew!
“Your le leg needs to be behind the girth, Selly,” Rebecca said. “Ember is swinging too far le .”
I kept my eyes focused between Beau’s ears, trying not to listen to all the critiques my teammates were getting. The only thing I needed to focus on was Beau.
“When you hit A, bring them to a trot,” Rebecca said, “and circle again.”
As Beau cantered the last half of our circle, I made sure to apply forward pressure with both seat bones. All I wanted to do was make Beau shine!
At A, I did a half halt and stilled my seat, asking him for a trot. I kept my inside long and closed my hands on the reins.
Ahead of us, Thea had asked Chaos for a trot, but the gelding had charged past A still at a canter.
Beau wanted to keep pace with his buddy, and he tugged on the reins, tossing his head when I asked for a trot. But I stayed firm, my hands and seat telling him we were going to trot and not canter anymore. A few strides past A, he listened and slowed to a hurried trot. But still a trot!
“Good work, Abby,” Rebecca said from her spot in the middle of our circle. “You handled that well.”
I flashed her a smile of thanks. Allie joined Rebecca, peering at her phone as she filmed.
I tried not to let my thoughts run wild, but they became a constant thread of OMG, SASHA SILVER IS GOING TO SEE THIS!!! and OMG, HEATHER FOX WILL BE WATCHING!!!! With endless exclamation points, of course.
“A er you finish a circle at a trot,” Rebecca said, “trot down the rail to C and repeat the circle exercises, going in the same direction.”
While Beau and I completed our circle, I tried to push all the thoughts of the Canterwood graduates out of my head. I had to stay focused on what I was doing, or it would show in my audition, and I’d never get an invitation to the winter clinic. And that invite was something I wanted more than anything.
“Keir, get your lower leg under your seat and remember your other cues,” Rebecca advised. “Magic’s got a hollow back.”
I let Beau out of the circle and pointed him toward the rail so we could head down to C. As we headed for the rail, I caught a glimpse of Emery and Bliss. Emery was in the zone—lips pressed together, eyes focused between Bliss’s ears, and posture relaxed.
I tore my gaze away from her and tried to focus on my ride. But my mind wandered. Maybe Sasha and Heather would watch my audition and think Beau and I made a great team. In my imagination, it all played out in front of me: Sasha watching my submission, all smiles, sending me the fastest acceptance email ever and telling me she couldn’t wait to work with Beau and me. This was going to be the best audition she’d ever seen! I was going to NO!
Before I could react, Beau shied, ducked his head, and bucked playfully. He caught me so off guard, and I was so lost in my daydream, that my reaction time was too slow! Before I could even grab for his mane or try to sit it out, I flew out of the saddle and soared through the air before WHAM!
The breath got knocked right out of me as I slammed into the dirt, curled up so I didn’t land on an arm or leg. My le shoulder took the brunt of the fall, and I gasped as I tried to take a breath.
Ouch. I couldn’t believe this! I’d really fallen off right now?
“Abby!”
Rebecca’s voice floated toward me. I sat up, holding out one of my hands. “I’m—I’m okay!”
And I was okay, physically—I’d just had the wind knocked out of me. It wasn’t the first time I’d fallen—not even close. But it took everything in me not to burst into tears. Not because I was hurt, but because Allie was filming! I’d ruined my audition tape! There was no way I could send that to Sasha and Heather.
Beau stood a few feet away, head down and not looking at me. He felt bad already, I could tell. Tears blurred my vision, and I swiped them away. I didn’t want Selly, Nina, and Emery to see me cry. I especially didn’t want to think about Emery right now. On top of everything, she’d looked spectacular every time I’d sneaked a look in her direction. What if she got into the clinic too? Or… I froze in horror. What if she got a spot and I didn’t?
Rebecca hurried over as I stood on shaky legs and brushed the dirt off my breeches. The action gave me something to do, something to pull me out of my head and my panic over the audition.
“That was a hard fall,” she said, her worried eyes sweeping over me. “You sure you ’ re okay?”
“I’m fine.” I sniffled, holding back a sob as I glanced at Allie. “But —”
“Abby, don’t even worry about it!” Allie called, waving her free hand at me. “You can edit it right out. I got great footage of your flatwork before that.”
“See?” Rebecca said. She patted my forearm. “As long as you ’ re okay, let’s get you back on Beau.”
I managed a deep breath this time, nodding. “Okay.” Beau, head still down, trained a wary eye on me as I walked over to him. “You got that out of your system, huh? Ready to get back to work?”
He sniffed my hands, bobbing his head ever so slightly as if to say, Yes. Rebecca gave me a leg up, and I righted myself in the saddle. Now that I was up, the rest of my teammates who had kept their horses at the other end of the arena started heading my way.
I let Beau follow Nina’s gray gelding, Adore, and Selly and Ember wound up behind me. I wasn’t going to let it bother me, though, being sandwiched between those two. Instead, I would make sure every second of my audition sparkled from here on out.
No matter what.
I kept Beau at an even trot as he moved toward the C marker. But as we went into our large circle to the right, Ember’s hoo eats got closer and closer.
“Abby, come on!” Selly said to my back. “You’re going too slow.”
I wasn’t. At all.
I shook my head, keeping Beau at a steady working trot.
Behind us, Selly let Ember edge up to Beau, and I could sense how close they were.
“Go around, then,” I said through gritted teeth.
But she didn’t. Instead, Selly kept speeding up and slowing down, backing Ember on and off and crowding Beau. Rebecca was busy talking to Thea and currently too preoccupied to pay much attention to me and Selly.
Beau got a little grumpy and flattened his ears a bit as Ember continued to get way too close. He wasn’t a kicker, and Selly knew
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cot and have the kettle on the boil for you when you come back. Ugh! What a perishing evening!”
The vagabonds arm-in-arm set out toward the theatre, the north wind blowing fiercely up Starboard Alley across the Thames from Barking Flats—a searching wind, fierce and bitter.
The Dick Whittington company had been rehearsing hard during the previous week, and now two days before the production on Boxing Day it was seeming incredible that the management would ever have the impudence to demand the public’s money to see such a hopelessly inadequate performance.
“We’ve been in some bad shows, my dear,” Bram said to Nancy on their way to the theatre, “but I think this is the worst.”
“I’m too tired to know anything about it. But your songs will go all right, I’m sure.”
He shook his head doubtfully.
“Yes, but that fellow Sturt who plays the Dame is a naughty actor. He really is dire. I simply cannot get him to work in with me. That’s the worst of taking a fellow from the Halls. He hasn’t an elementary notion how to help other people. He can’t see that it takes two people to make a scene funny.”
“Never mind,” said Nancy, yawning. “It’ll all be splendid, I expect, on Wednesday. Oh, dear, I am tired. They’ve given you a good trapact in the Harlequinade.”
“Yes, that’s all right. But do you know, Nancy, it’s a queer thing, but I funk trap-acts. I’m never happy till I’ve gone through the last one.” He stopped short and struck his forehead. “Great Scott!”
“What is the matter?”
“We haven’t got anything for Letizia’s stocking?”
“Bram!”
“What time were we called again?”
“Six o’clock.”
“Look here,” he said, “you go round and collect some toys from a toyshop. I’ll make an excuse to Worsley if by any chance he wants the Fairy Queen at the beginning. But he won’t. He wants to get the shipwreck right. We shall probably be on that till nearly midnight.”
So Nancy left Bram at the stage-door and went on to do her shopping. The streets were crowded with people, and in spite of the cold wind everybody was looking cheerful. The shops, too, with their brightly lit windows all decorated with frosted cotton-wool and holly, exhaled that authentic Christmas glow, which touches all but hearts too long barren and heads too long empty. The man who sneers at Christmas is fair game for the Father of Lies.
Nancy revelled in the atmosphere, and for a while she allowed herself to drift with the throng—hearing in a dream the shrill excited cries of the children, the noise of toy instruments, the shouts of the salesmen offering turkeys and geese; smelling in a dream that peculiar odour of hung poultry mixed with crystallised fruit, oranges, and sawdust; and perceiving in a dream the accumulated emotion of people who were all thinking what they could buy for others, that strange and stirring emotion which long ago shepherds personified as a troop of angels crying, “Peace, good-will toward men.” She felt that she could have wandered happily along like this for hours, and she was filled with joy to think that in a short while she should be welcomed by some of these children as the Spirit of Good. The part of the Fairy Queen had never hitherto appealed to her; but now suddenly she was seized with a longing to wave her silver wand and vanquish the Demon King. She passed four ragged children who were staring at a heap of vivid sweets on the other side of a plateglass window She went into the shop and bought a bagful for each. It was wonderful to pass on and leave them standing there on the pavement in a rapture of slow degustation. But her time could not be spent in abandoning herself to these sudden impulses of sentimental self-indulgence. She entered a bazaar and filled her bag with small toys for Letizia’s stocking—a woolly lamb, a monkey-on-a-stick, a tin trumpet, a parti-coloured ball—all the time-honoured cargo of Santa Claus. She had already bought a case of pipes for Bram’s Christmas present. But now she was filled with ambition to give him some
specially chosen gift that would commemorate this cold Greenwich Yuletide. What should it be? She longed to find something that would prove to him more intimately than words all that he had meant to her these years of their married life, all that he would mean to her on and on through the years to come. Bram was such a dear. He worked so hard. He was never jealous. He had nothing of the actor’s vanity, and all the actor’s good nature. What present would express what she felt about his dearness? Ash-trays, cigarette-holders, walking-sticks —what availed they to tell him how deep was her love? Pocketbooks, card-cases, blotters—what eloquence did they possess? Then she saw on the counter a little silver key.
“Is this the key of anything?” she asked the shopman.
“No, miss, that is what they call a charm. We have a large assortment this season. This silver puppy-dog, for instance. You’d really be surprised to know what a quantity of these silver puppydogs we’ve sold. They’re worn on bracelets or watch-chains. Quite the go, miss, I can assure you.”
“No, I like this key better. Could you let me have a box for it?”
“Certainly, miss.”
“And I want to write something on a card and put it inside if you’d kindly seal it for me.”
“With pleasure, miss.”
Nancy leant over the counter and wrote, with a blush for her folly: This is the key of my heart. Keep it always, my darling.
The key and the card were put inside the box; and she hurried off to the theatre, laughing to herself in an absurdly delicious excitement at the thought of hiding it under Bram’s pillow to-night.
The dress rehearsal was not over till three o’clock on Christmas morning. The ladies and gentlemen of the company were all so tired when at last they were dismissed that when they came out of the theatre and found Greenwich white and silent under a heavy fall of snow, not even the comedians had any energy to be funny with snowballs.
“What time’s the call to-morrow, dear?” one of the chorus called back to a friend in a weary voice.
“There’s no call to-morrow, duck. It’s Christmas Day.”
“Gard, so it is!”
“Don’t forget the curtain goes up for the matinée on Boxing Day at half-past one, dear.”
“Right-o!”
“Queenie’s got her boy staying at the ‘Ship,’” the chorus girl explained to Nancy. “And she’s the limit for forgetting everything when he’s about. She’s potty on him. Merry Christmas, Miss O’Finn.”
“Merry Christmas to you.”
All the way back up the court, at the end of which was the stagedoor, the Christmas greetings of one to another floated thinly along the snowy air.
“A merry Christmas! A merry Christmas.”
Bram took Nancy’s arm, and they hurried away back as fast as they could to Starboard Alley, where they found Letizia safe in her cot, one of Mrs. Pottage’s stockings hanging like a coal-sack over the foot of it.
“You never told me which stocking to put out,” said the landlady. “So I hung up one of my own. Of course, I hung up one of hers as well, pore mite, but hers wouldn’t hold more than a couple of aciddrops. Mine is a little more convenient.”
“How kind of you to sit up for us, Mrs. Pottage,” the two vagabonds exclaimed.
“Oh, I’ve been thinking over old times. You know On and off the doze, as you might say. My friend Mrs. Bugbird didn’t hop it till past midnight. She generally comes in for a chat of a Monday evening, and being Christmas Eve she stayed on a bit extra. She’s a real comic, is Mrs. Bugbird; but she had to be a bit careful how she laughed to-night, because last week she ricked the plate of her teeth laughing over a story I told her. Yes, the soup’s lovely and hot. But I
did let the fire out in your sitting-room. So if you wouldn’t mind coming into my kitchen....”
“Was Letizia good?” the mother asked.
“She hasn’t moved an inch since I put her to bye-bye. I’ve popped up to look at her several times. In fact, Mrs. Bugbird and me both popped up, and Mrs. B. said a more sweetly pretty infant she never did wish to see. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Mrs. Bugbird,’ I said, ‘that’s something for you to say with the fourteen you’ve had.’ Fancy, fourteen! Tut-tuttut! Still if I’d accepted half my proposals, I’d have had more like forty by now.”
A canary stirred upon his perch and chirped.
“Hear that?” said Mrs. Pottage. “That blessed bird understands every word I say. Don’t you, my beauty? Now come along, drink up your soup, and do eat a little bit of the nice cold supper I’ve put out for you.”
While her lodgers were enjoying the cold roast beef, Mrs. Pottage examined the purchases made for Letizia’s stocking.
“Oh, dear, how they do get things up nowadays!” she exclaimed, holding at admiring arm’s length the monkey-on-a-stick. “Lifelike, isn’t it? You’ll want an orange and an apple, don’t forget. And I wouldn’t put in too many lollipops if I was you, or she won’t be able to eat any turkey. I got you a lovely little turkey. Nine pounds. Well, you don’t want to sit down to an elephant. I remember one Christmas I invited my sister to come up from Essex, and I thought she’d appreciate some turkey, so I told the fishmonger to send in a really nice dainty little one. Well, by mistake his boy brought round one that weighed thirty-two pounds and which had won the prize for the biggest turkey in Greenwich that year. In fact, it come round to me with a red and white rosette stuck in its how-d’ye-do as big as a sunflower. Well, it didn’t arrive till past eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve, and I was down at the ‘Nelson’s Head’ with my sister till closing time, and there it was waiting for us when we got back, tied onto the knocker. It gave me a bit of a start, because I’d had one or two for old sake’s sake, and I thought for the minute some pore fellow had
gone and suicided himself on my front door Well, there was nothing to be done but cook it, and my sister’s a small-made woman, and when we sat down to dinner with that turkey between us she might have been sitting one side of St. Paul’s and me the other. I give you my word that turkey lasted me for weeks. Well, the wish-bone was as big as a church window, and I could have hung my washing out on the drumsticks. It was a bird. Oh, dear, oh, dear! Well, I know when I threw the head out to the cat the pore beast had convulsions in the backyard, and as for the parson’s nose, well, as I said to my sister, the parson as had a nose like that must have been a Jewish rabbit. What a set out it was, to be sure! And my turkey which I ought to have had was sent up to a large family gathering in the Shooter’s Hill Road, and half the party never tasted turkey at all that Christmas.”
Mrs. Pottage continued in a strain of jovial reminiscence until her lodgers had finished supper, after which she wanted to accompany them upstairs to their room that she might help in the filling of Letizia’s stocking.
“The fact is,” she whispered hoarsely, “I put that stocking of mine out, because I’d bought a few odds and ends for her myself.”
She dived into the pockets of her voluminous skirt. “Here we are, a bouncing dog with a chube at the end of it to squeeze. She can’t swallow it unless she swallows the dog too, and I don’t think she’ll do that. The Story of the Three Bears, warranted untearable, which it isn’t, for I tore up two in the shop with my own hands just to show the young man he didn’t know what he was talking about. A toy violing. She won’t be able to play on it, but the varnish won’t hurt her. A drum —well, it was really that drum which decided me to use one of my own stockings. My calves have grown whopping. In fact, I’ve often said jokingly to Mrs. Bugbird that I ought to call them cows nowadays. That’s the lot, I think. Well, I shan’t wake you in the morning till you ring. Just one tinkle will be enough. There’s no need to turn it round as if you was playing a barrel organ, which is what the fellow who played the villain in His Life for Her did last November. He wound up all the wire somewhere inside the wall. A nice set out we had, and then he grumbled because I charged him in
the bill for the work the plumber did to get it right again. Well, good night, and a merry Christmas.”
When the sound of Mrs. Pottage’s hoarse whispering had departed, the little candlelit room glowed in the solemn hush of the great white world, of which it seemed to be the warm and beating heart. Mother and father bent low over the cot and listened to the faint breathing of Letizia, watching lovingly those dark tangled curls and red-rose cheeks. The father bent lower to touch them with his lips.
“No, no, don’t kiss her, boy,” said the mother “You might wake her, and she’ll be having such an exciting day to-morrow.”
Nancy blew out the candle on the table by the bed, and slipped her silver key beneath Bram’s pillow. A shaft of moonlight pierced the drawn curtains and struck the canopy of Letizia’s cot. The radiance vanished as gathering snow-clouds obscured the face of the moon. Nancy fell asleep to the sound of Bram’s watch carrying on a fairy conversation amid the echoes of Mrs. Pottage’s absurd stories.
CHAPTER IX
A MERRY CHRISTMAS
The snowy air had painted the ceiling of the room a lurid grey when Letizia woke her father and mother next morning. She was standing up in her cot, holding the footrails of the big bed with one hand and waving the toy dog in the other.
“Look, muvver, look at my dog? I’ve got a dog, muvver! Look, faver, I’ve got a dog! Look, I say! Look, look!”
Her parents had just focussed their sleepy eyes on the dog when it was flung on the floor, and the monkey was being waved in its place.
“Look, muvver, I’ve got a monkey! And he’s climbing up and down. Look, faver, look at my monkey. Oh, do look!”
The monkey’s triumph was brief, his degradation swift. The fickle mob had found another favourite.
“Oh, muvver, look at my baa-lamb. I’ve got a little baa-lamb, faver. Look at my pretty little woolly baa-lamb, faver,” she shouted imperiously.
But the lamb immediately followed his colleagues to the floor.
“And I’ve got a rub-a-dub-dub and a wheedle-wheedle and an apple and an orange. And I saw Santy Claus come down the chiminy, and had a most anormous beard you ever saw and he said, ‘How d’ye do, Tizia, will you give me a nice kiss?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’ and he gived me a kiss, and he put fousands and fousands of lovely fings into my stocking. Wasn’t Mrs. Porridge kind to give me her stocking because it was so anormous? And please can I come and get into bed with you and bring my trumpet?”
“Come along, darling,” invited Nancy, holding out her arms.
Letizia climbed very cautiously out of her cot and was lifted up on the bed and deposited between her father and mother, where she sat and blew her trumpet without a stop until her father picked up his pillow and pretended to smother her.
“Hullo,” Bram exclaimed, looking at the little box which was thus uncovered. “Here’s something of mother’s under father’s pillow.”
Nancy smiled and shook her head.
“No, boy, that’s yours.”
Bram smiled and shook his head.
“No, it’s yours. I put it under your pillow last night.”
“But, Bram, I put it under yours.”
By this time Letizia had disentangled herself from the pillow and was sounding another tucket, so that she had to be smothered all over again with Nancy’s pillow. And there was revealed another little box exactly like the first.
“Open it, muvver. Oh, do open it!” Letizia urged. “Perhaps there’s choc-chocs inside.”
“Strange,” Bram exclaimed. “What’s inside mine, I wonder?”
Nancy and he opened the two boxes. In each one was a silver key.
“Bram!”
“Nancy!”
“This is the key of my heart. Keep it always, my darling,” he read in an awed voice.
“With this key you unlocked my heart,” she read in equal awe.
They wished each other a merry Christmas, and with their eyes they vowed eternal love, those unlocked hearts too full for words, while Letizia blew such a resounding alarum on her trumpet that she fetched up Mrs. Pottage.
“Well now, fancy that! I heard her right downstairs in the kitchen. Well, it’s real Christmas weather, and no mistake. Good morning, my beauty, and how are you?”
This to Letizia.
“Mrs. Porridge, Santy Claus brought me a dog and a lamb and a monkey and a rub-a-dub-dub and a wheedle-wheedle and a trumpet and a book and an orange and an apple and some sweeties and fousands of fings. And he came down the chiminy, and I wasn’t a bit frightened.”
Mrs. Pottage shook her head in delighted admiration.
“Did he come down head first or feet first?”
“Bofe,” Letizia declared, after a moment’s pause.
“You can’t catch her out, can you? Why, she’s as cunning as King Pharaoh,” Mrs. Pottage chuckled, and with this she departed to fetch the morning tea.
Nancy was suddenly seized with a desire to go to Mass and take Letizia.
“I’ll come too,” Bram volunteered. “Now, don’t discourage me.”
It was true that Nancy always was inclined to discourage him from taking an interest in her religion. Not that she took such a very profound interest in it herself, to tell the truth. But she had a dread of people’s saying that she had forced her husband to become a Catholic. He did at intervals bring up the subject of being received; but there never seemed to be time to take any steps in the matter when they were on tour, and when they were resting it seemed a pity to worry their heads about religion. However, that morning Nancy did not discourage Bram from accompanying her and Letizia to Mass.
Letizia was very full of her visit to the Crib, when she saw Mrs. Pottage again.
“And I saw the baby Jesus in his nightygown, Mrs. Porridge.”
“You did?”
“Yes, and He was lying on His back and kicking His legs up in the air ever so high. And there was a moo-cow smelling Him.”
“No, darling,” her mother interrupted, “the moo-cow was praying to Him.”
“Well, he was smelling Him too.”
“You’d have to start walking the week before last to get in front of her,” said Mrs. Pottage.
There was a letter from Nancy’s father to greet with seasonable wishes, her and hers, and as a kind of Christmas present there was an extra flourish to his already florid signature. He had been engaged to play Sir Lucius O’Trigger in a production of The Rivals at a West End theatre, and he felt sure that this meant finally abandoning the provinces for London. There was, too, a letter from old Mrs. Fuller written by her companion.
Lebanon House Brigham. Dec. 23rd, 1894.
D B ,
I can no longer hold a pen, even to wish you a merry Christmas and a fortunate New Year, and as much to your Nancy and that unhappily named Letizia. Although I am indecently old—eighty-two—I ought still to be able to write, but I’ve had a slight stroke and I who once died to live now only live to die.
Your loving G .
Besides these two letters there were a few cards from friends, but not many, for it is difficult to keep up with people’s whereabouts on tour
The Christmas dinner was entirely a small family affair, but only the more intensely enjoyed for that very reason. Mrs. Pottage was invited in to dessert, and also Mrs. Pottage’s assistant, a crippled
girl, who was imported to help in the household work on occasions of ceremony. Quite what help Agatha Wilkinson was no one ever discovered, for she could only move with extreme slowness and difficulty on a pair of crutches. Perhaps her utility lay in being able to sit quietly in a corner of the kitchen and listen to Mrs. Pottage’s conversation, which increased in volubility, the more she had to do. There was a pineapple on the table, a slice of which the landlady emphatically declined.
“No, thanks, not for me. That’s a thing I only eat from the tin. Raw, I’d sooner eat a pinecomb any day. Would you like to try a slice, Aggie?”
Agatha was too shy to refuse when Bram put a slice on her plate, and Mrs. Pottage watched with obvious gratification her fearful attempts to manipulate it.
“Ah, I thought she wouldn’t like it. You needn’t eat any more, Aggie, if it puts your teeth on the edge. Yes, it’s my opinion if pineapples cost twopence apiece instead of ten shillings people might buy a few just to throw at strange cats. To scrape your boots on? Yes. To eat? No. That’s my opinion about pineapples.”
In the evening, when Letizia had been put to bed after a number of uproarious games in which Bram had surpassed even his own wonderful record as an animal impersonator, Mrs. Pottage came in as magnificent as a queen-dowager in black satin to ask if her lodgers would give her the pleasure of their company in the parlour.
“I’ve got a few friends coming in to celebrate Christmas. Mrs. Bugbird’s here, and two of my unintendeds—Mr. Hopkins, the chandler—well, I thought I’d ask him, though he’s no more addition to anything than a nought, which is what he looks like—and then there’s Mr. Watcher. Yes, Watcher’s a good name for him, for he watches me like a dog watches a bone. He and Mr. Hopkins can’t bear the sight of one another. Well, I daresay there’s a bit of jealousy in it, if it comes to that, just because I happened to refuse him before I refused Hopkins. His business is coal. Sells it, I mean. I don’t think even Watcher would have had the nerve to propose to me if he’d have actually been a coalman. Oh, dear, oh, dear, who does marry
coalmen, that’s what I ask myself. Or sweeps, if it comes to that? And then there’s Mr. and Mrs. Breadcutt, who’s an inspector of nuisances for the London County Council. So, if you’ll come in and join us, we shall be a very nice merry little party.”
Though they were feeling rather tired, Bram and Nancy accepted the invitation, because Mrs. Pottage had been so kind to them and they knew she would be terribly disappointed if they refused. However, they stipulated that she must not persuade them to stay very late on account of the matinée, to which, they reminded her, she had promised to take Letizia to-morrow.
“Oh, I hadn’t forgotten. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy a good pantomime. It’s a pity Mrs. Bugbird’s got to go and see her relations over in Putney, because that woman so loves a bit of fun and always laughs so hearty that she’d make any panto a success just by being there.”
Mrs. Bugbird, who was in the parlour when Bram and Nancy walked downstairs, was built on an altogether larger scale than Mrs. Pottage. The latter was plump and for her age still remarkably buxom; but she was not noticeably too fat. On the other hand, Mrs. Bugbird’s immense face crowned a really massive campanulate base. When she laughed, which was practically all the time, her little eyes kept bubbling up out of her cheeks and then apparently bursting as they were once more swallowed up by the rolls of fat. This likeness to bursting bubbles was accentuated by the drops of moisture that during her spasms of mirth kept trickling down Mrs. Bugbird’s cheeks, so that she had from time to time to wipe them away with an extensive red silk handkerchief on which was printed in bright yellow a view of the Pool of London.
A feature of Mrs. Pottage’s best parlour was one of those Victorian triple chairs, two of which were occupied by Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Watcher. This meant that they were practically sitting back to back, an attitude which did nothing to allay the rumour of their mutual lack of esteem. Sitting thus, with their polished bald heads, they looked like two boiled eggs in a china stand. No doubt, Mrs. Bugbird had perceived this ridiculous resemblance, for every time she threw a
glance in the direction of the two rivals her eyes bubbled in and out with the rapidity of soda-water. The outward appearance of Mr. Breadcutt, the inspector of nuisances, bore no signs of his profession; indeed he looked as tolerant and as genial a man as one might expect to meet in a month. Perhaps the nuisances were ferreted out by Mrs. Breadcutt, an angular woman with a pair of intelligent, pink-rimmed eyes, who sat up on the edge of her chair like an attentive bull-terrier. The party was completed by Agatha Wilkinson.
“Well, now we’re all here, what game shall we play?” Mrs. Pottage asked expansively.
“Kiss in the ring,” Mr. Breadcutt suggested without a moment’s hesitation. Whereupon Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Watcher both scowled, the one at the ceiling, the other at the floor, while Mrs. Bugbird rocked backward and forward in a convulsion of irrepressible mirth.
“George,” said Mrs. Breadcutt sharply.
“Yes, my dear?”
“Behave yourself, even if it is Christmas. You ought to know better at your age than suggest such a game in a little room like this.”
“That’s just why I did suggest it,” Mr. Breadcutt retorted. “I’d have a chance of catching Mrs. Pottage and helping myself to a good one.”
Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Watcher turned simultaneously at this outrageous admission to glare at the inspector of nuisances. Unfortunately Mr. Hopkins turned his head to the left and Mr. Watcher turned his head to the right, so that their eyes met, and instead of glaring at Mr. Breadcutt they glared at each other.
“Well, I’m going to call on Mr. Fuller for a song,” said Mrs. Pottage. She apologised later for thus dragging him into a performance on his night off. “But really,” she said, “I thought Hopkins and Watcher was going to fly at one another. They looked like a couple of boxing kangaroos.”
Bram obliged the flattered company with two or three songs which Nancy accompanied on the ancient piano, the noise of which was
the occasion of another apology by the hostess.
“More like teeth clicking than music, isn’t it? Well, it hasn’t really been used since the year dot excepting for a bookcase. It belonged to my dear old dad, and he only bought it to cover up a spot in the wall where the roof leaked. He couldn’t bear music, the dear old man. When he was over seventy, he nearly got fined for squirting a syringe full of the stuff he washed his greenhouse with into the big end of a cornet and which a blind man was playing outside his house. Of course, as he explained, he wasn’t to know the pore fellow was blind or he’d have spoke before he spouted. But I’m very fond of music, I am.”
And to prove her sincerity Mrs. Pottage sang Two Lovely Black Eyes, a performance which so utterly convulsed Mrs. Bugbird that she fell off her chair, and sat undulating on the floor for nearly five minutes, until the united efforts of the male guests got her back again, when in order to deal with the moisture induced by such excess of mirth, she had to produce her reserve handkerchief, on which was printed a gruesome picture of the execution of Mr. and Mrs. Manning.
Then Nancy sang to Bram’s accompaniment, after which Bram gave imitations of familiar animals to the intense pleasure of Mr Breadcutt, who slapped his leg and declared he was a blooming marvel.
“George!” snapped his wife.
“Yes, my dear?”
“Don’t swear!”
“Blooming isn’t swearing.”
“It’s as near as not to be worth an argument,” she said severely.
This caused Mr Breadcutt to wink at Mr Watcher, who thought he was winking at Mrs. Pottage and did not respond.
Then Mr. Hopkins tried to remember for the benefit of the company what he assured everybody was a capital game that he often used to play at social gatherings twenty years ago.
“We all sit round in a circle,” he began in a doleful voice “Wait a minute, what do you do next? Oh, yes,” he went on, as soon as he was sure that Mr. Watcher had been successfully isolated from Mrs. Pottage. “Now we all join hands.” Perhaps the emotion of finding her plump hand firmly imprisoned in his own was too much for the shipchandler, for he could not remember what was the next move. “Wait a minute,” he implored, holding Mrs. Pottage’s hand tighter than ever. “Don’t move, and I’ll remember in a jiffy. Oh, yes, I’ve got it! I knew I would! Somebody has to be in the middle of the circle. Mr. Watcher, perhaps you’d stand in the middle, will you?”
“Hadn’t you better stand in the middle yourself?” the coalmerchant replied. “You thought of this game. We aren’t guilty.”
“Don’t be so gruff, Watcher,” said Mrs. Pottage sternly. “You’ve been sitting like a skelington at the feast ever since you arrived. Wake up and be a man, do.”
Thus adjured Mr. Watcher unwillingly stood up in the middle of the circle.
“What’s he do now, Hopkins?” Mrs. Pottage asked.
“I’m trying to remember. Oh, yes, of course, I know. I know. I know! He’s blindfolded,” Mr. Hopkins exclaimed in a tone as near to being cock-a-whoop as his low-pitched funereal voice could achieve.
“Mrs. B., you’ve got a nice big handkerchief. Tie Watcher up, there’s a good soul,” the hostess ordered.
Mrs. Bugbird in a gurgle of suppressed laughter muffled the coalmerchant’s disagreeable countenance with her reserve handkerchief, from which his bald head emerged like one of those costly Easter eggs that repose on silk in the centre of confectioners’ shops.
“Now what does he do, Hopkins?”
“Just a minute, Mrs. Pottage. I’m stuck again. No, I’m not. I remember perfectly now. Turn him round three times.”
This was done, and there was another pause.
“Well, what next?” everybody asked impatiently
“That’s just what I’m bothered if I can remember,” said the chandler at last. “It’s on the tip of my tongue too ... but wait ... yes, no ... yes, I’ve got it ... he asks ... no, that’s wrong, he doesn’t ask anything, we ask him.... Now what the juice is it we do ask him?... Don’t say anything, because I’ll remember in a minute.... I’m bound to remember.... You see, it’s such a long time since I played this game that some of the rules....”
“Look here,” Mr. Watcher’s irate voice growled through the folds of the handkerchief, “if you think I’m going to stand here wrapped up like a Stilton cheese while you remember what game you played with Nore in the Ark, you’re blooming well mistaken. And that’s that.”
“If you’d only have a morsel of patience, Mr. Watcher. I can’t remember the whole of a big game all at once,” protested the chandler, still clinging desperately to Mrs. Pottage’s hand. “But I will remember it. It’s on the tip of my tongue, I tell you.”
“Well, what’s on the tip of my tongue to tell you,” shouted Mr. Watcher, “I wouldn’t like to tell anybody, not in front of ladies.” With which he pulled down the handkerchief round his neck and stood glaring at the other players with the expression of a fierce cowboy.
Mr. Breadcutt in order to quiet the coal-merchant proposed as a game familiar to everybody blind man’s buff.
“Not me you don’t blindfold again,” said Mr. Watcher. “And if Mr. Hopkins starts in to try I’ll blindfold him without a handkerchief.”
“Well, what about a snack of supper?” suggested the hostess, who felt that the situation required a diversion.
And her supper was such a success that before it was over the two rivals were confiding in each other various ways of getting the better of their common enemy, the purchaser.
When it was time to adjourn again to the parlour, Bram and Nancy begged to be excused from enjoying themselves any longer in Mrs. Pottage’s company in view of the hard day before them at the Theatre Royal.
“You’ve given us such a jolly Christmas, dear Mrs. Pottage,” said Bram.
“A lovely Christmas,” Nancy echoed.
“Well, I’m sure I’ve enjoyed myself, and Mrs. Bugbird said she’s never laughed so much in all her life as what she did when Mr. Fuller was imitating them animals. ‘Lifelike,’ she said they was, and she spent her girlhood on a farm, so that’s a bit of a compliment coming from her. Well, good night. Oh, dear, oh, dear, before we know where we are we shall be seeing in the New Year. I’m bound to say, what with one thing and another life’s full of fun.”
CHAPTER X
THE PANTOMIME
“Now listen, Letizia, you’re to be a very good little girl and do anything that Mrs. Pottage tells you without arguing,” Nancy admonished her small daughter before she left Starboard Alley next morning to dress for the matinée.
“Can I take my lamb what Santy Claus gave me to the pantomine?”
“Yes, I daresay Mrs. Pottage will let you.”
“And my dog? And my monkey? And my rub-a-dub-dub and my wheedle-wheedle and my....”
“No, darling, you can take the lamb, but the others must stay at home.”
“I aspeck they’ll cry,” Letizia prophesied solemnly. “Because they guessed they was going to the pantomine.”
“If she isn’t a regular masterpiece,” the landlady exclaimed. “Oh, dear, oh, dear! She’s got an answer for every blessed thing. Listen, my beauty, we’ll leave the rest of the menargerie to keep John company.”
John was the canary, and fortunately this solution commended itself to Letizia, who seemed more hopeful for the happiness of the toys that were going to be left behind.
There is no doubt that the presence of Mrs. Pottage and Letizia contributed largely to the success of the Theatre Royal pantomime that afternoon. No false shame deterred Letizia from making it quite clear to the audience that it was her own mother who bearded the Demon King Rat in his sulphurous abode.
“Stop, ere you any viler magic potions brew,
For I declare such wickedness you soon shall rue.”
“Muvver!” cried Letizia, clapping her hands in an ecstasy of welcome.
“Ush!” said a solemn and deeply interested woman sitting in the row behind.
“It is my muvver, I tell you,” said Letizia, standing up on the seat of the stall and turning round indignantly to address the woman over the back of it.
“Of course, it’s her mother,” Mrs. Pottage joined in even more indignantly. “Nice thing if a child can’t call out ‘mother’ in a free country without being hushed as if she was nobody’s child.”
The solemn woman took an orange out of a bag and sucked it in silent disapproval.
“No use for you to raise the least objection, Dick Whittington is under my protection,”
declared the Fairy Queen, waving her wand to the accompaniment of a white spot-light.
“In vain you seek to make my plans miscarry, For Dick his master’s daughter shall not marry,”
declared the Demon King Rat, waving his sceptre to the accompaniment of a red spot-light.
“That man’s bad,” Letizia announced gravely.
If the traditional scene of alternate defiance of each other by the powers of Good and Evil had lasted much longer, she might have made an attempt to reach the stage and fight at her mother’s side; but the Demon King Rat vanished down a trap and the Fairy Queen hurried off Left to make way for Cheapside.
“Why has faver got a red nose?” Letizia inquired, when Bram entered made up for Idle Jack. “I don’t like him to have a red nose.
