It was fun when I got her back, though. There are three gates to the cottage. In and out through them all I'd weave in a game of follow-my-leader – Annabel trotting behind me with her ears back in simulated pursuit and, when at last I took her to her paddock, butting me exuberantly on the bottom with her head as I bent to undo the gate-strap and nearly hoisting me over the fence.
The cats were in fine fettle, too. Solomon demonstrated his fitness by tormenting Sheba. Jumping on her, patting her proprietarily on the back legs like a boy bowling a hoop when she didn't move fast enough, and entering rooms not by creeping woefully round the door as he did when he was sick, but robustly, right in the middle with his tail raised. At feeding time he descended the step into the kitchen with the air of the principal boy in pantomime coming down the staircase they have for the finale. 'Enter the Fairy Prince' was undoubtedly Solomon's theme. Sheba played Juliet. In the spare-room wall overlooking our staircase there is a small glassless, rectangular window, put there in the old days to throw light on to the stairs and left there when we had the staircase straightened because we liked its quaintness. Hitherto unreachable, it didn't take Sheba long after the arrival of the piano to discover that she could now stand on the piano-top when closed, look through the window, and frighten the daylights out of anybody who happened to be coming up the staircase with a raucous Siamese wail.
The day Solomon tried, the piano-top was up and, when he landed on it, it shut with such a bang he frightened the daylights out of himself.
That is by the way, however. Sheba now evolved a game whereby every time Charles went upstairs she rushed up ahead of him, jumped on to the piano, put her head through the little window and bawled at him till he answered back. From this she progressed to not merely waiting for Charles to go upstairs but, at least a dozen times a night, standing by the door to the hall and demanding that he should.
So with Sheba being Juliet, Solomon doing pantomime entrances, Annabel happy as a lark spying on other people's suppers... everybody in fact, just for once, all shipshape and Bristol fashion... Wouldn't you bet that that was when, being us, we took up horse-riding again?
It was coincidence as well, of course. Ever since we went to Scotland there'd been some reason why we couldn't ride. Charles's back; me with a book to write; the cats being ill; Annabel, as we'd thought, in foal and we didn't want to upset her. It just so happened that when Mrs Howell said would we like to ride her Rory, just for once there was nothing to stop us.
She had two horses, Rory and Troy. Troy was her daughter's mount and when Stella was away at school Mrs Howell could be seen harassedly but determinedly exercising him, according to instructions, to keep him in trim for the holidays. Rory was the second horse, purchased as companion for Troy and for riding by Mrs Howell and Stella's friends when Stella herself was at home.
In buying Rory Mrs Howell, envisaging the periods between holidays and half-terms when he would be ridden very little, had stipulated a quiet horse which didn't need much exercise, and that, at the outset, was what she'd got. A thin black horse who'd been overworked and was only too glad, when he was introduced to the lush green pastures of the Moat House, to stay there, eating his fill of the clover, trailing his long black legs in the dew, and presumably talking to Troy – which was what he was there for – when Troy came back from riding and wanted company.
Time had wrought startling changes, however. A few months of rest and good feeding and Rory now looked what he was. A young, slender-legged part-Arab raring to go. Complimentary as this was to the Howells, it now meant that the sight of Mrs Howell frantically exercising Troy in between her other activities was often followed, an hour or two later, by the sight of her frantically exercising Rory as well. If we could ride him sometimes, she said, reining him breathlessly at our gate one day, it would help her out considerably.
Would we ride him? We jumped at the chance! Beautiful, black, long-legged – like Solomon only horse-sized, the thought flashed through my mind... Any time she liked, we assured her enthusiastically.
Like Solomon only horse-sized was right. Charles rode him like a centaur, but the first time I took him out alone we got no further than the Rose and Crown when he said he was going home.
It was his affection for Troy that did it. That was actually why I was out with him alone. With Troy he got all boisterous and tried to run races; he was better behaved on his own. So long, that was, as you didn't let him look behind and realise that Troy wasn't with him, which I'd unfortunately done and which was why we were now going in circles, he determined to go back and be with his friend while I, equally determined, strove to get him round the corner.
One must never let a horse have his way, of course, or from then on he'll be the master. I'd hardly say I had my way either since eventually I had to get off and ignominiously walk him round, but it was the best I could do in the circumstances. It was opening time. The regulars were beginning to arrive for their mid-day pints. Round the corner, I thought, I could remount in quiet seclusion.
Like heck I could. Round the corner I met Alan Duggan and Father Adams. 'Want any help?' called Alan gleefully. 'Hurt theeself?' hopefully roared Father Adams.
Aware that the consensus of opinion in the pub, once those two got there, would undoubtedly be that I'd fallen off, I walked dignifiedly on down the lane, selected a quiet spot and attempted to re-mount. At the Moat House I'd done it with a mounting-block. The snag out here in the lane was that I couldn't get my foot up to the blasted stirrup.
Always resourceful, I led Rory to the nearby bank, stood on it and attempted to get on from there. Rory, spotting a clump of grass at the top that he fancied, promptly mounted the bank with his forefeet himself, I couldn't get on him at that angle and, hearing footsteps coming up the hill, I hastily hauled him down and we nonchalantly resumed our stroll just as Fred Ferry hove to around the corner.
'Nice day', said Fred. It certainly was, I said. A little later I tried again.
Right, in my desperation, outside Miss Wellington's where I stood in the middle of the road, at last got my foot into the stirrup, hoisted myself with a tremendous heave and came down, undoubtedly to her complete stupefaction, not in Rory's saddle, but behind it.
As if that was my normal way of mounting I slipped unruffledly into the saddle, resumed my stirrups, prepared to trot along... It was no use. Rory said he didn't mind my walking with him but if I rode him he was going home to Troy, we started going in giddy circles in the road, and off I got once more...
Many a ride I had on him after that, and he became Charles's favourite horse. That, however, is another story. That first time I took him out is engraved like Calais on my heart.
Even when I'd walked him down to the Valley it wasn't the end of it. Annabel, aghast at my bringing home a horse, stood and ho-hooed her disapproval on the hillside, the cats appeared on the garden wall like grandstand spectators at Ascot, Charles said I must get on and ride him immediately or I'd never have control of him again.