It was at this stage that Tony played what he evidently considered his ace. As he cantered along in front of the stand he got to his knees in the saddle and with a slight scramble stood up in it, straight and proud.
"Oh, God," said Eleanor reverently and with feeling.
A ripple of laughter went through the stand. But Tony had another shot in his locker. He slipped to his knees, grabbed the front edge of the saddle, and stood on his head, his thin spider-legs waving rather uncertainly in the air.
At that a gale of laughter and applause broke out, and Tony, much gratified, resumed his seat and urged his astonished pony, who had slowed to a trot, into a canter again.
That of course settled the matter very nicely for the judges, and Tony had the mortification of seeing the three rosettes handed to his rivals. But his mortification was nothing to the mortification he had already inflicted on his preceptress.
"I hope I don't see that child until I cool off," she said, "or I am liable to take an axe to him."
But Tony, having handed his pony over to Arthur, came blithely to the stands to find her.
"Tony, you little idiot," she said, "what made you do a thing like that?"
"I wanted to show how I could ride, Eleanor."
"And where did you learn to do those circus tricks?"
"I practised on the pony that mows the lawn. At school, you know. He has a much broader back than Muffet, and that's why I wasn't so steady to-day. I don't think these people appreciate good riding," he added, nodding his head at the offending judges.
Eleanor was speechless.
Brat presented him with a coin and told him to go and buy himself an ice.
"If I didn't want to see Jane ride," Eleanor said, "I would go and bury my shame in the ladies' room. I'm curdled with humiliation."
Jane, on Rajah, in her best riding things, was a pleasant sight. Brat had never seen her in anything but the shabby jodhpurs and shapeless jersey that she wore at home, and was surprised by this trim little figure.
"Jane has the best seat of all the Ashbys," Eleanor said affectionately, watching the serious and efficient Jane making Rajah change his leg to order. "That is her only rivaclass="underline" that tall girl on the grey."
The tall girl was fifteen and the grey very handsome, but the judges preferred Jane and Rajah. Jane might have lost for all the emotion she showed, but Ruth was rapturous.
"Good old Jane," Simon said, appearing beside them. "A veteran at nine."
"Oh, Simon, did you see!" Eleanor said, in agony again as she remembered.
"Cheer up, Nell," he said, dropping a commiserating hand on her shoulder. "It might have been worse."
"How could it be worse?"
"He didn't yodel," Simon said.
At that she began to laugh, and went on laughing. "Oh, I suppose it is very funny," she said, wiping her eyes, "and I expect I shall laugh over it for years, but at the moment I just wish I could be in Australia for the rest of the afternoon."
"Come on, Nell," he said. "It's time to collect the horses," and they went away together as Jane came to sit in the stand.
"This is the exciting class coming now. It isn't very much to win a Fifteen and Under," was her answer to Brat's congratulations. "Some day I'll be down there with them. With Aunt Bee, and Eleanor, and Simon, and Peggy, and Roger Clint, and all of them."
Yes, there was Roger Clint. Eleanor was riding the long-backed bay mare Scapa, and Roger Clint was standing next to her on a chestnut with four of the longest and whitest stockings Brat had ever seen. While the judges walked down the row he and Eleanor talked quietly together.
"Who do you think will be first?" Jane asked.
Brat took his eyes from Eleanor and Clint and forced himself to consider the entry. The judge had sent Bee out to canter Chevron, the chestnut he was going to race this afternoon, and she was coming down in front of the stands now. He had never seen Bee in formal riding clothes, and was surprised again, as he had been with Jane. It was a new, serious, rather intimidating Bee.
"Who do you think, Brat?" Jane said again.
"Timber, of course."
"Not Peggy's horse? The one Dick Pope had?"
"Riding Light? No. He may win the jumping, but not this."
And he was right. This was the judges' first sight of Timber and they were too much impressed to be seduced even by the looks and reputation of Riding Light.
And it was a popular verdict. As Simon cantered Timber down in front of the stands after accepting the rosette the applause broke into cheering.
"Isn't that the brute that killed old Felix?" a voice behind said. "They ought to shoot it instead of giving it prizes."
Second was Peggy on Riding Light, looking flushed and pleased; her father's extravagance had been justified. Third, rather unexpectedly, was Bee on Chevron.
"The Ashbys cleaning up as usual," the voice said, and was instantly shushed, and the proximity of the Ashbys presumably indicated.
It was when the Open Jumping Class began that the real excitement of the day was reached, and Bee came to sit in the stand and share it with them.
"Number One, please," said the loud-speaker, and Eleanor came into the ring on Scapa. Scapa was a careful and unemotional jumper, but could never be persuaded into standing away from her fences. By dint of patient schooling with a guard rail, Eleanor hoped that she had now persuaded her into better ways. And for half a round it worked, until Scapa noticed that there was no plaguey obstruction to beware of at the foot of these jumps, and began to go close in again, with the inevitable result. Nothing Eleanor could do would make her take off in time. She jumped "fit to hit the moon," but came down in the wrong place, and the little battens of white-painted wood came down with her.
"Poor Nell," said Bee. "After all her schooling."
Number Two and Number Three did not appear to have been schooled at all.
"Number Four, please," said the loud-speaker, and Riding Light appeared. Peggy's "new outfit" consisted of a dark snuff-coloured coat a little too tight in the waist, and a pair of buff breeches a little too pale in the buff, but she looked well on the brown horse and handled him beautifully. Or rather, she sat still and let Riding Light do his stuff. He was a finished jumper who took the obstacles in his stride, propelling himself into the air in a long effortless curve and tucking his hind feet after him like a cat. He went out having done a perfect round.
"Number Five, please," said the loud-speaker.
Number Five was Roger Clint's mount with the long white stockings. "Do you know what he calls it?" Bee said. "Operation Stockings."
"It's very ugly," Brat said. "Looks as if he had walked through a trough of whitewash."
"He can jump, though."
He could certainly jump, but he had phobia about water.
"Poor Roger," laughed Bee, watching Stockings refuse the water. "He has been jumping him backwards and forwards across the duck pond at home in the hope of curing him, and now he does this!"
Stockings continued to refuse, and Clint had to take him out, in a burst of sympathetic applause.
Numbers Six and Seven had one fault each.
Number Eight was Simon on Timber.
The black horse came into the ring exactly as he had come out of his box on the day Brat first saw him, pleased with himself and ready for homage. His excited, flickering ears pricked into attention as he caught sight of the jumps. Simon took him into a canter and moved down to the first one. Even from where he was sitting, Brat could feel the smoothness of that action. The smoothness that had astonished him that first day at Latchetts when he had ridden on the top of the down. Smoothly the black horse rose into the air and came down on the far side of the jump, and a murmur of admiration came from the crowd at the almost feline beauty of it. Brat, with the most wholehearted respect, watched Simon's body swing with the black horse's rise and fall as though he were part of it. It was right that Simon should ride it. He would never attain that perfection if he lived to be a hundred. A great silence settled on the crowd as one by one the jumps fled away behind Timber. It would be monstrous if this beauty were to fail or be faulted. It was so quiet when he faced the water jump that the voice of a paper-seller far away at the main gate was the only sound to be heard. And when he landed smoothly and neatly on the far bank, a great sigh went up from them. They had seen a perfect thing. They had not been cheated of it after all.