Celandine (8 page)

‘He’s been used to the leading rein, but he’s not
been
ridden as yet,’ said her father as they entered the stables. ‘Robert? Are you there?’ He called for the head stableman.

Celandine had begged and begged for a pony of her own, and she couldn’t believe that she was about to get her wish at last. She stood between her father and mother as together they looked into the loose box.

‘His name’s Tobyjug,’ said her father. ‘Unless you want to change it, of course. Pretty little fellow, and a pretty penny he cost me, too.’

Celandine stared at the beautiful creature. His coat was creamy white – a long white mane and tail – and when he turned his head towards them she saw that he had wonderfully dark eyes that glistened in the dim light of the stable. She was overwhelmed.

‘Oh . . . he’s lovely! Mama, he’s gorgeous, don’t you think? Papa,
thank
you! I love him!’

‘Well, I hope you will.’ Her father’s voice was serious. ‘Because he comes with strict conditions attached, I’m afraid. Now then. I want to hear no more of these continuous bad reports of your behaviour, Celandine, either in the schoolroom or out of it. Miss Bell is an excellent governess, and she would be difficult to replace. Thos and Freddie both did very well with her, and so I’m sure that any trouble is entirely of your own making. It’s a wonder that the woman is still with us. Am I right, Lizzie?’

‘Yes, this is true, Celandine. I am worried that Miss Bell will not stay, if you do not better how you act. And so . . .’

‘And so this birthday present goes straight back to
the
dealer, unless you buck your ideas up, young lady. And I mean that. Any more of this nonsense and I’ll sell him on. Now do you understand?’

‘But I keep trying to tell you . . .’ Celandine decided not to argue. ‘Yes, Papa. I’ll try.’

‘Well, see that you do. Robert? You’d better come and show the girl how to look after a pony.’

Robert, who had been standing in the background, stepped forward. ‘Right you are, Mr Howard.’

‘Robert will be teaching you to ride, eventually, but that won’t be for a little while yet. Now don’t forget, he’s your pony, Celandine, and I expect you to take responsibility for him. That means feeding him, cleaning him and looking after his tack. Understood? Good. Lecture over, then. Happy birthday, my dear. Come along, Lizzie.’

Celandine was ecstatic, and stayed behind in the stables, long after her parents had departed. She had endless questions for Robert, but at the same time wanted to be alone with her wonderful new friend, Tobyjug. Robert chopped up a few pieces of carrot, made sure that Celandine knew how to offer the pony food from her palm rather than from between her fingers, and said, ‘I’ll leave ’ee to it then, miss. Just get to know ’un, for today. You’ll do better by theeself.’

The little animal was as shy of her as Celandine was of him, and for a while he kept to the far corner of the loose box, ears pricked, alert but facing away from her. Celandine’s arm began to ache from trying to coax him with bits of carrot, and she was reminded of the time when she had lain in the baby carriage,
holding
out a piece of cherry cake to an equally nervous creature.

‘
Cake
,’ she had whispered, then, ‘
cake . . . cake
 . . .’, and the little tree boy had come to her.

She did the same now, and whispered Tobyjug’s name. ‘
Tobyjug . . . toby-toby-toby. Come on, boy . . . gooood boy
 . . .’

The pony tossed his pretty white head and snorted, but then turned to look at her. Celandine continued to whisper to him, smiling all the while into those dark intelligent eyes. Eventually, with another little snort, the pony moved away from the far wall of the loose box and took a couple of wary paces towards her.

‘
Toby-toby-toby. Come on, boy . . . there’s a good boy
 . . .’

At last he stretched out his neck and brought his head closer to her waiting hand. Celandine felt the whiffle of his warm breath on her palm as he gently began to take the carrot, the tickle of his nose against her flattened fingers. He was hers.

He was her pony, Tobyjug. He belonged to her and to nobody else, and she needed nothing more than this – a beautiful friend to love and to care for.

Later, as Celandine closed the stable door behind her, the words ‘I’m really happy’, came into her head. And so she was – yet it was as though somebody else had spoken those words for her, or had called them out to her. She turned and looked across the sunlit yard, gazing up at the farmhouse until her eyes fell upon her own bedroom window. The window was open and – the strangest thing – there was a girl
standing
there, framed by the stone mullion, her face turned towards the paddocks. The girl’s hands rested upon the window sill. She was smiling at something, or someone. Celandine stood and looked on in astonishment. Who could this intruder be? And what on earth was she doing in her room? Those clothes, that hair . . . how very peculiar the girl looked.

Celandine moved forward, out of the shade of the stable buildings and into the sunshine – but then the brightness hurt her eyes and she could no longer see properly. She stepped back into the shade again. The girl at the window had gone. There was no longer anything there to see, yet the memory of her remained. The girl’s clothing had been very unusual, outlandish even. And her hair had also looked quite extraordinary – it was untidy, but somehow deliberately so. How little trouble it would be to care for hair such as that . . .

Celandine crossed the yard, took one last look up at her window, and then went into the farmhouse. She climbed the stairs, turned right at the top landing and walked towards her bedroom door, her footsteps clacking loudly on the bare wooden flooring. She turned the handle and gave the door a gentle push, allowing it to swing open by itself. The room was empty.

All the familiar sounds of field and farmyard drifted in through the open casement, comforting, normal. Celandine stood at her bedroom doorway for a few moments longer, then quietly went over to the window. She rested her hands on the sill, as she had
seen
the girl do, feeling the edge of the metal frame sharp against her soft palms as she gripped it tighter.

What had she seen at this window? A ghost? Something not real?

Celandine remained for a while, looking out over the peaceful landscape, not thinking exactly, just remembering. The image of the strange girl at her window was still clear in her mind. She had always supposed that it would be very frightening to see a ghost, or a spirit, or something that wasn’t really there, yet she found herself not to be frightened. Curious and confused, but not frightened.

And besides – she shifted her gaze back to the stables once more – now that she had Tobyjug, there were far more important things to think about.

Celandine could hardly wait for the days to begin, or bear them to come to a close. Every day for the next week, she was up before dawn – surprising even the kitchenmaid, Lettie, who was used to stumbling around, peep-eyed, with the world to herself at that hour – and she spent every spare moment that she could with Tobyjug. The animal was a delight to her, a creature deserving of all her love. Here at last was a reason to be joyful. She insisted upon caring for the pony entirely by herself, learning from Robert how to mix his feed, how to brush out his coat, how to adjust his bridle and leading rein.

She was impatient during her school lessons, more eager than ever for the leaden hours to pass, but now
there
was no question of risking the loss of her free time by misbehaving. She did everything to the very best of her ability, and gave Miss Bell as little reason as possible to criticize. Miss Bell seemed almost disappointed. She looked even more sour than usual at her pupil’s apparent cheerfulness.

‘Pride is a sin, Celandine. We should not forget that.’

But Celandine refused to allow her spirits to be dampened. She was happy.

And then all the joy that had unexpectedly come into her life was just as unexpectedly snatched away from her. In one cruel instant it all came to an end. Tobyjug died.

Celandine discovered the stiff little body stretched out upon the cold straw as she entered the stable one morning with the feed bucket. It was horrible. The pony’s eyes were open, dull and glazed in the breaking light, eyes that had been so alive and warm the night before. The tongue, black and stiff and dry, protruded from the open jaw. Celandine stood there stupidly, scarcely noticing the clang of the bucket that dropped from her helpless fingers.

‘Robert?’ It started out as a whisper, barely a sound at all, but then she heard herself shouting, her voice cracked and panicky. ‘Robert . . .? Robert! . . .
Robert!
’

The stable hands leaned over the wall of the loose box and murmured to each other as Robert knelt beside the body of Tobyjug. Robert took off his cap and crouched lower, sniffing cautiously at the pony’s
mouth.
He straightened up and sat back on his heels for a few moments, thinking about it. The stable hands were silent now. Robert leaned forward once more, this time to brush the backs of his fingers across the stiff protruding tongue. He brought his hand towards his nose and sniffed again. ‘Hmf.’ Robert pulled on his cap and looked up at Celandine. ‘I reckons he’ve been pois—’ The awful word was cut short as one of the yard boys burst into the stable, very red-faced and out of breath. ‘Beamer ain’t right, Robert! There be zummat the matter wi’ ’un! I can’t get ’un to stand up!’

Robert turned, his face twisted in astonishment. ‘
Beamer?
What the bl—’ Robert rose to his feet and hurried after the others.

Celandine was left alone, still staring at the body of Tobyjug. She couldn’t seem to move, or even blink. She was aware of the growing commotion in the yard outside, the shouted instructions of Hughes the foreman, the clatter of boots as a boy was sent running for the veterinary surgeon. She was aware of the men that were gathering further down the stable block, heard how their voices dwindled to respectful silence, and knew that her father must have arrived to see what the matter was. All their concern was for Beamer. The huge black shire was the farm’s leading team horse, and of far greater importance to them than a child’s pony. Tobyjug had been forgotten, and so had she. Beamer’s life mattered more.

Not to her, though. Nothing could ever matter more than this. Tobyjug was dead. Every creature on
the
farm, large or small, might now die and she wouldn’t care.

Eleven days. She had written it in her journal only last night. Tobyjug had been part of her life for just eleven days. And now he was . . . poisoned?
Poisoned
. The word floated around her head, a droning buzz, a sound with no meaning. Normally it was warm in here, warm with the living heat of her pony and the scent of fresh hay. Now a cold stillness settled upon her, and the air smelled sour. The buzzing noise in her head became an actual fly that sped across her vision, disappeared for a second, and then reappeared as a sudden dark speck on Tobyjug’s white cheek. Celandine watched as the fly meandered across the dull surface of the pony’s eye. Her own eyes blinked in horrified reaction and she juddered back into consciousness again. She could stay in here no longer.

Celandine left the stable and wandered out into the piercing sunlight. She shaded her eyes as a dark-coated figure dodged past her. The veterinary surgeon, just this minute arrived, though too late to be of any help to her. Celandine crossed the yard and entered the farmhouse, unnoticed, and speaking to no one. She climbed the stairs to her bedroom. It was Sunday. She automatically began to get herself ready for church.

By the next morning there had been word from the veterinary surgeon that rat poison was almost certainly the cause of Tobyjug’s death. Part of a mangled brown paper bag had been found in a hay bale. It was
thought
that the bag, which had contained poison pellets, might somehow have become caught up in the new baling machine. The veterinary surgeon was doubtful that this could have been a deliberate act. None could have known that this particular bale of hay would have been fed to Tobyjug and Beamer. It was unfortunate, but it was an accident. The better news was that Beamer had survived the critical hours of darkness. It looked as though he might recover after all.

Celandine rose late, after a miserable night, to face the jolting emptiness of her loss all over again. She couldn’t cry. Since Tobyjug’s death she had hardly made a sound, had barely managed to murmur in response to her mother’s few inadequate words of sympathy. She felt sick and shaky – but the shakiness was as of something trapped inside her, something that wanted to come out. The sickness made her stomach hurt as though it were she who had eaten poison.

She sat at the parlour window and watched the activity in the farmyard – all the useless, pointless routines that she had witnessed a thousand times before; the egg woman arriving on her bicycle, Young Wilfrid driving the dung cart around to the back of the stables, Mr Hughes counting the milk churns outside the dairy before hurrying on. Why did they? How could they, after what had happened?

‘Celandine –
here
you were. Always I am hunting you. To your lessons now – Miss Bell is waiting.’ Her mother stood beside her, hands clasped together, the
way
she always stood. Celandine didn’t answer at first. It took a real effort to turn away from the window.

‘Must I?’ she said.

‘Yes.’ Her mother spoke more gently than before. ‘You must. This is best, I think.’

Celandine’s heart sank lower still as she walked into the schoolroom and saw that the embroidery basket was ready and waiting for her, along with her sampler. How she hated the thing.
Hated
it. She had been working on the same ridiculous sampler for well over a year – so long that the once-white material had turned noticeably grey where the letters had been unpicked and re-worked so many times.
The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want
. But she
did
want, that was the trouble. She wanted so badly. She wanted Tobyjug to be alive and well. She wanted to be free of the terrible burning pain inside her. She wanted everything to be different.