The Little White Horse Read online

  For a moment Maria thought that Sausage was another thing that one must have to attain perfection, but then a delicious smell told her that her cousin had descended suddenly from the spiritual plane to the material, where she guessed that he was really happier and more at home.

  Almost at the same moment the door from the parlour opened to admit Miss Heliotrope in her rustling bombasine skirts, her black shawl and white mob-cap, happy and smiling after an excellent night, most unusually free from the nightmares of indigestion, and the door from the kitchen opened to admit the old coachman carrying an enormous dish of steaming sausages.

  ‘Good morning, Digweed,’ said Sir Benjamin.

  ‘Morning, Sir; morning, ladies,’ said Digweed.

  Seeing him in daylight, without his hat, Maria immediately loved old Digweed. He had wide innocent blue eyes like a baby’s, a high wrinkled forehead and a completely bald head. His patched greatcoat had given place now to a mouse-coloured coat and waistcoat, with a big leather apron tied round his waist. The smile that he bestowed on Maria and Miss Heliotrope was sweet and loving, and he set the sausages on the table with a gesture that seemed imploring them to eat the lot.

  But they didn’t have only sausages for breakfast. Digweed brought in as well a huge home-cured ham, brown boiled eggs, coffee, tea, new-baked bread, honey, cream with a thick yellow crust on the top of it, freshly churned butter, and milk so new that it was still warm and frothing. So wide and delicious was the choice that Maria excelled herself in the way of appetite; and so did Wiggins, whose green dish had now been unpacked and was set before the hearth and filled with sausages by the generous hand of Sir Benjamin himself . . . Wrolf, it seemed, always had his meals in the kitchen, because he was partial to raw meat and was not a pretty feeder . . . Even Miss Heliotrope, encouraged by the freedom from nightmare, ventured on a brown boiled egg. As for Sir Benjamin, it was incredible what he ate, and the sight of the family appetite, combined with the sight of his girth, made Maria hesitate a moment over eating sausage as well as egg.

  ‘You need not fear, my dear,’ Sir Benjamin reassured her. ‘Only the sun Merryweathers run to fat. The moon Merryweathers can eat what they like and remain as slim and pale as a sickle moon.’

  Maria smiled broadly and took the sausage.

  ‘Where did the habit come from, Maria?’ demanded Miss Heliotrope suddenly.

  ‘I found it in my room,’ said Maria.

  ‘I think it would have been better to put on your gown, as usual, for your morning’s instruction,’ said Miss Heliotrope reprovingly. ‘That little parlour will make an excellent schoolroom, and we will set to work as soon as we have finished breakfast.’

  Maria looked up with eyes full of a desperate pleading, and found Sir Benjamin gazing at her habit in profound astonishment. He had not, it seemed, noticed it before. But he recovered himself and answered the pleading in her eyes.

  ‘You are too conscientious, Madam,’ he said to Miss Heliotrope. ‘You should allow yourself a morning of leisure, to settle into your new home and rest yourself after the fatigue of the journey. For this morning, Madam, I will take over the instruction of your pupil for you.’

  He spoke with the utmost courtesy but with the utmost firmness too, and Miss Heliotrope yielded at once. Indeed, she was glad to yield, for a quiet morning putting things to rights in her charming bedroom was exactly what she was longing for.

  ‘Now, Maria,’ said Sir Benjamin as soon as breakfast was over, ‘put on your hat, take a handful of sugar from the bowl, and come along . . . Wrolf . . . Wiggins . . . Come along.’ And then, bowing to Miss Heliotrope, ‘Goodbye, Madam, have no fear for your charge. She will be safe with me.’

  ‘I know that, Sir,’ said Miss Heliotrope, and actually watched her beloved Maria go out of the hall to she knew not what without a tremor, so great was her faith in Sir Benjamin.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Maria on a long note of ecstasy, as she stood with her guardian at the top of the flight of steps outside the front door and looked at what was waiting at the foot of them.

  3

  Digweed was waiting at the foot of them, holding the bridle of a fine strongly built chestnut cob and the leading-rein of a small, round, fat dapple-grey pony with very short legs, a long tail and mane, and a merry eye.

  ‘Atlas and Periwinkle,’ said Sir Benjamin, introducing them. ‘They are well named, I think. Atlas because he bears up heroically beneath my weight, and Periwinkle because the flower I named her after grows close to the earth and is called by country people Joy-of-the-ground. Periwinkle’s legs are uncommonly short, and she is old, and stout to boot, but she covers the ground with the greatest delight.’

  But Maria had not stopped to listen to him. She had raced down the steps and was holding out her handful of sugar to Periwinkle. As she felt the soft warm muzzle in her hand, a thrill of joy went through her. With her free hand she patted the little pony’s dappled neck and twined her fingers in the long grey mane that fell so untidily, yet so prettily, over the bright sparkling eyes. ‘Periwinkle! Joy-of-the-ground!’ she whispered, and then, the sugar being finished, she cocked her charming feathered hat on the side of her head, placed one hand in Digweed’s outstretched palm and her foot on the mounting-block that stood beside the steps, and swung herself into the saddle as though she had been doing it all her life . . . Digweed chuckled appreciatively, and Sir Benjamin, descending the steps, gave a great bellow of delighted laughter.

  ‘No need to teach a Merryweather how to ride, Digweed,’ he said. ‘I’ll not insult the little Mistress with the leading-rein. Take it away.’ And with a heave and a grunt he was up on the mounting-block and then upon Atlas’s broad patient back, and with Wrolf and Wiggins behind them they were trotting through the bright sunshine and the early spring loveliness of the formal garden, out through the door in the old battlemented walls, and away into the glory of the park.

  Maria never forgot that morning. It was not quite true that she did not need to be taught. Sir Benjamin had to teach her how to adjust herself to the rhythm of Periwinkle’s trotting feet, how to manage reins and crop, how to hold on when Periwinkle broke into a joyous canter over the sweet turf. But she learned in two hours what most girls of her age would only have learned in two weeks, for she was without fear, and after each tumble she was up again, dizzy and bruised yet laughing, and back in the saddle almost before Sir Benjamin had time to draw rein.

  He was hugely pleased with her. He noted that she had grit and skill, and that sense of oneness with her mount that makes the true horsewoman. Periwinkle was pleased too, co-operating in the riding lesson with all her power, and it was obvious that she had fallen as deeply in love with Maria as Maria with her.

  ‘Listen, my dear,’ said Sir Benjamin as they trotted homeward again, ‘you may go where you like in the valley, in the company of Wrolf or Periwinkle. You must not ramble about the countryside alone, but with them you may go where you will.’

  Maria looked up at her guardian with eyes wide with amazement and delight. At this date it was not considered proper for young ladies to go anywhere without a servant in attendance, a custom which had always irked the independent Maria.

  ‘You mean,’ she whispered, scarcely believing it, ‘that I may go to the village, to Merryweather Bay, and Paradise Hill, without asking your permission first?’

  ‘Not to Merryweather Bay,’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘There is just that one exception. I would rather you did not go to Merryweather Bay, and I’ll tell you why. The fishermen down there are a very rough lot. They are not on good terms with the village people, or with us at the manor. It’s a great nuisance, because they refuse to sell us their fish, and a little fresh fish would be welcome now and then. What fish we do get is bought in the market town beyond the hills, and is never really fresh. So avoid Merryweather Bay, my dear, but go anywhere else you like provided Wrolf or Periwinkle, or both, are with you.’

  ‘I don’t know what Miss Heliotrope will say about me going out with only the ani
mals,’ said Maria. ‘In London I wasn’t allowed to walk even to the other end of the street unattended.’

  ‘I will talk to her,’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘A Princess called to rule a kingdom must know it through and through, if she is to reign worthily. And how can she know it, if she is not given the freedom of it?’

  Maria gazed at him. This was the second time that he had spoken of Moonacre as hers. Did he mean that when he died she would be his heiress? But the thought of Sir Benjamin dying was so awful that she put the thought away from her and did not pursue it further. Nor did Sir Benjamin, for they were back in the garden again and riding round to the stables on the east side of the house.

  The Moonacre stable-yard was entered by a wide archway in the thick stone wall and was an enchanted place. Just inside the archway, as one entered it, stood a tall dovecot, and the cooing of the doves and the loveliness of their plumage made up a large part of the enchantment. And then it was cobbled with rounded softly coloured stones that looked like opals, with tufts of bright-green moss growing between them, and in the centre of it was a huge well with a stone wall all round it.

  Maria dismounted and ran eagerly to the well. Luxuriant ferns grew inside the wall, right down to the water-level, for a roof of weather-worn tiles supported on stone pillars made it all cool and dark inside. The shadowed water was so inky black that when Maria leaned over and looked down she could see herself reflected with a startling brilliance. It was ice-cold, too, as though the water welled up from unimaginable depths.

  ‘Is it very deep?’ she whispered with awe to Sir Benjamin, as he too dismounted and tossed his reins to Digweed, who had appeared to take Atlas and Periwinkle to their breakfast.

  ‘No one knows how deep it is,’ he answered. ‘The water has never been known to fail, even in the longest drought, and in the height of summer it is as cold as it is in January. On the hottest day we can always keep our milk and butter cool. Push aside the ferns, my dear, and see what is behind them.’

  Maria did so, and saw that just above the water-level stones had been removed from the wall to make little cupboards, and in them stood bowls of cream and milk and pats of butter folded in scalded muslin. She cried out in delight at the sight of these dark hidden shelves behind the ferns, and thought to herself what wonderful hiding-places they would make for other things besides butter and milk. If she had been a Merryweather lady living here in the days of wars and tumults she would, she thought, have hidden her jewels here.

  The stable-yard was bordered to the west by the house, and here another flight of stone steps led up to the back door, with another mounting-block at its foot, and doors to right and left that Sir Benjamin told Maria led to the storerooms and Digweed’s room.

  To the south, the stable-yard was bordered by the wall with the archway leading to the garden, to the north by the stables, and to the east by harness-rooms and coach-houses. A tunnel led through the buildings to the east and, looking through it, Maria saw the kitchen garden beyond. She had never explored a place like this before, and when Sir Benjamin took her into them, she was enchanted by the great coach-houses, where the shabby old carriage that had brought them from the station stood beside Sir Benjamin’s gig and a little old pony carriage almost falling to pieces with age. She liked the horse-boxes too, the mangers full of sweet-smelling hay, the harness-room, and the great hay-loft above the stables on the north side. Sir Benjamin showed her how to take off Periwinkle’s bridle and saddle and how to put them on again, so that she should not be dependent on Digweed, and he introduced her to the other occupants of the stables, the two fat carriage horses, Darby and Joan, Speedwell, the cream-coloured mare that drew the gig, and his great black hunter Hercules, old too, but still possessed of enormous strength and power; as any horse must needs be, to support the weight of Sir Benjamin.

  ‘Who used to ride and drive Periwinkle?’ asked Maria suddenly. The pony carriage had obviously not been used for years, but it must have been got for somebody, and Periwinkle had seemed quite used to having a lady on her back.

  ‘Eh?’ ejaculated Sir Benjamin, as though he hadn’t heard her, though he was not in the least hard of hearing, and then, abruptly: ‘Ah, look at those doves in the sunlight, my dear! Did you ever see such a pretty sight?’

  And, looking up at those white wings, gleaming like pure snow in the clear silver light of the West Country, Maria thought that, no, she had never seen anything more lovely; unless it had been those seagulls flying inland in the early morning.

  ‘Just time to take a look at the kitchen garden before we go in to dinner,’ said Sir Benjamin, and led the way through the archway.

  The kitchen garden was an enchanted place too. It was surrounded by old stone walls, those to north and east the battlemented walls, and against them grew fruit trees, plums and peaches, nectarines and apricots. A mulberry-tree, so old that its branches had had to be fastened up with chains, stood in the centre of the garden, with a bench beneath it, and all about it were the neat vegetable patches, with strawberry beds and raspberry canes, currant and gooseberry bushes, and beds of herbs, and between them all were narrow paved paths, hedged with box. There were rather a lot of weeds, but Sir Benjamin explained apologetically that he had no regular gardener. Digweed worked in the garden when he could, and so did Sir Benjamin himself, and so did the shepherd boy, but there was no one regular.

  ‘The shepherd boy?’ thought Maria. ‘I haven’t seen him yet.’ And suddenly she felt unreasonably excited because there was a shepherd boy. A door in the east wall led into an orchard, and Sir Benjamin unlocked it, so that Maria might peep through and see the gnarled old apple-trees covered with silver lichen, pear-trees and cherry-trees and medlars. In the tawny grass beneath the trees there were already a few drifts of snowdrops, and presently, Sir Benjamin told her, when she stood among the trees and looked up, she would scarcely be able to see the blue sky for the canopy of pink and white blossom over her head.

  Walking back through the kitchen garden towards the stable-yard again, Maria noticed a water-butt to the left of the tunnel and a little latticed window over it, and in the window were pots of beautiful geraniums, extra-large ones of deep salmon pink. In what window did they stand? The coach-houses to right and left of the tunnel had reached to the roof. There had been no lofts over them. Was there a little room over the tunnel? She would have asked Sir Benjamin, but at this moment he pulled out his great turnip watch and gave an exclamation of surprise.

  ‘God bless my soul!’ he cried. ‘Time has flown. Scarcely time to change for dinner.’

  The rest of the day passed quietly. Miss Heliotrope and Maria dined with Sir Benjamin, and afterwards they sat in the parlour, and Maria played and sang to her guardian, while Miss Heliotrope dozed in the winged armchair. And then Digweed brought in the tea-things, and Maria made tea for them all. And then Sir Benjamin went away on business of his own, and Miss Heliotrope and Maria read aloud and embroidered. And then it was time for supper. And then it was time for bed.

  It was not until she was in bed, and just dozing off, that it suddenly occurred to Maria that she had not seen the kitchen. Nor Zachariah the cat, who doubtless lived there.

  ‘In the morning,’ she said to herself. ‘In the morning, quite early before breakfast, I’ll go straight away and see the kitchen . . . And Zachariah.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  1

  BUT it so happened that the next morning she overslept herself and was awakened by the sound of the knocker on her little front door. Running to open it, she found Miss Heliotrope outside.

  ‘Maria,’ said Miss Heliotrope with some sternness, ‘it is the Lord’s Day. You will not put on your riding-habit this morning. You will put on your best lavender gown. I have already ascertained from Sir Benjamin that — as I expected — it is his habit to attend divine service upon a Sunday morning. We shall attend it with him.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Maria. And then added tentatively, ‘Perhaps I shall be able to go riding in the afternoon?�
��

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Heliotrope. ‘Tearing about on horseback on the Lord’s Day would be most unseemly. Now make haste, Maria, the aroma of sausage is already strong in the house.’

  Maria quickly washed herself in the warm water that, as before, had been put ready for her, dressed herself beside the fire that the mysterious good person had lit for her while she slept, and then looked about her for the lavender gown.

  But she did not have to look far. Upon the top of the chest, where she had found the habit yesterday, it was lying neatly folded, together with her best Sunday pelisse, and bonnet and muff of purple velvet, all trimmed with white swansdown, and her purple silk mittens. And beside the pile of clothes was a big black prayer-book fastened with a gold clasp, and on top of the prayer-book was a bunch of purple violets with the dew still upon them.

  Maria unfastened the gold clasp and peeped inside the prayer-book. It was evidently an old book, because the fly-leaf was yellowed with age. On it was written in delicate handwriting, L. M., and then the family motto. Maria smiled, and then blinked, because again she felt rather as though she wanted to cry. ‘I’ll say my prayers very nicely, L. M.,’ she promised. ‘I’ll say my prayers as well as I can out of your book.’ Then she slipped her Sunday gown over her head and fastened the bunch of violets in the front of it.

  Sir Benjamin, already dressed for church, was a sight to behold at breakfast. He wore the beautiful satin waistcoat embroidered with roses and carnations, the great ruby ring and the cravat of Honiton lace that he had worn to welcome her on the evening of her arrival, and his huge white cauliflower wig had evidently had a wash and a fresh dusting of powder the night before, for it was whiter than ever. But instead of riding-coat and breeches he wore a coat of mulberry velvet, and mulberry breeches fastened at the knee with silken tassels, and black shoes with silver buckles.