The Uninvited Guests (27 page)

They made themselves respectable (she in the fresh dress she had been about to put on when he surprised her, and not the stinking old one) and ventured in agreeable companionship to the larder. They found the last of the bread, and sat on the floor gobbling it. To Florence it was like remembered bread; the faint salt, the stubborn crust and soft interior.

At last they rejoined the others, tearing bedding from the rooms, and if their recent intimacies were not evident to an incurious observer, John Buchanan and Florence Trieves were as unlike their recent selves as fresh green peas from their hoary pods.

Surrendering, then, all of them, to the lost night, the household ransacked every ordered, crisp, fresh thing that was left in that already plundered house.

Like a herd of rampant cattle they charged through the place, whisking up lace, damask, frothy cottons in their arms and depositing them, triumphantly, onto the sooty gallery, where makeshift heaps of broken wheels and carriage springs, sheep hurdles and dank old bales made beds. Beds fit for bodies to be laid out on.

Smudge, in her room, had no interest in the events beyond the scullery door. She had no desire to see the little beds on the gallery; she did not care for the shadowy souls that drifted about, displaced, with their bundles; she did not find it remarkable that even her mother had donned an apron and joined the redoubled efforts of the family to find places for them all to sleep; she was not remotely diverted by the fact that, attached to her normal house, was a vast illuminated cave, thronging with bodies, heaving with movement and reeking of decay. She cared only that, after some little time, the sounds of pounding feet through the house and the occasional cries of
bolsters!
or
curtains!
faded right away, and she was left in peace.

The New House was hers.

There were the familiar sounds of the off-kilter ticking clocks and musical creaks, and apart from the mess, things were just as usual in it. She and Lady were the only living souls – and, thought Smudge grimly,
one of them was on her way out.

She stood up from her wrinkled bed. She rolled up her sleeves with determination. She braced herself.

‘Lady!’ she said.

The pony looked up from the crust she had been nosing on the floor.

‘Enough is enough,’ said Smudge. ‘We’re going down and I don’t care.’

Boldly, she threw the door wide open. Fresh droppings subtly steamed.

There was nobody within sight or hearing of her room. This was her chance.

She took up the leading rope and took the pony out onto the landing, past all the bedrooms again, and the mullioned windows.

Outside, the rain-ragged magnolia flowers were invisible; inside, the flames of the oil lamps flickered and smoked.

They would leave the way they had come: she passed by the main stairs and headed towards the back landing. At the far end of the house, she hauled the door open, stepped over the cold droppings, kicked about by running feet as they plundered the linen cupboard.

She set her foot on the top step.

It was at this point that the thus far obliging pony put her head up, dug in her front feet, and halted.

Smudge stared silently up at Lady. Lady stared down, down the slippery wooden stair.

It was immediately obvious that there was no possibility whatsoever that the pony was going to descend. Further, Smudge could see that refusing to continue was the much preferable choice. A downward journey would be bound to end in the most grievous calamity imaginable: the headlong crash of frail two-legged girl and large, four-legged pony into a broken heap on the flags below.

Smudge began to quiver.

‘Back,’ she said, and Lady, knowing what was good for her, obeyed.

Perhaps realising the seriousness of her situation, or simply missing her stall and manger, the animal, who had been the soul of placidity all evening, at last began to get restless. A pony and a pet when at rest, she was unequivocally a horse when agitated. She stamped her feet and threw up her head, yanking the rope in Smudge’s small hand, alarming the child and herself until, smartly and heavily reversing, she banged her hock on the bathroom door and reared violently. Coming down, her hooves slithered on the floorboards and wrinkled the thin carpet horribly.

Smudge tried to calm her. What had been most welcome solitude only moments before now felt like desperate loneliness. She had no idea what to do. The pony was rolling her eyes at the terrifying sight of the landing before her, and Smudge was on the verge of panic herself.

She was further startled – and gave a yelp – as, on glancing towards her room, she saw Ernest Sutton standing stock still at the far end of the corridor. He had just gained the top of the scullery stairs. Lady, too, paused in her drama to look. Girl and pony faced auburn-haired young man in silence.

‘Forgive my appearance,’ he said; ‘I’ve been building a fire, you know, and making beds. I must look a sight, I think.’

This cool ignoring of Lady’s presence was comforting to Smudge.

‘I thought you were downstairs with us,’ he said. He did look very messy.

‘I’m not,’ said Smudge.

‘Evidently. I was just on my way for a muffler.’

Her heart was thumping. She was beginning to think he actually hadn’t noticed the pony – perhaps his vision was not as corrected as they had all thought – when he asked, mildly, ‘Are you on your way up or down?’

‘Down,’ said Smudge, ‘but Lady won’t go.’

‘Down the stairs?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I can’t say I blame her.’

‘Nor can I. Hooves.’

‘Impractical.’

‘Yes. I hadn’t realised,’ Smudge quavered, a lump rising in her throat.

‘Do you think I ought to fetch your sister?’ asked Ernest, to which she responded violently, ‘Oh no! Please! There’ll be the most dreadful to-do!’

Lady, startled by her excitement, jumped about again, dancing heavily on the slender floorboards. Ernest thought for a moment.

His first reaction to the sight of the child and the wretched animal had been to throw his arms in the air and shout, ‘Great heavens! A pony!’; he was glad he had curbed it. He could see both Smudge and Lady were bordering on hysteria.

‘Imogen,’ he said, and checked his watch (a reliable silver affair that was
always
itself). ‘It is the middle of the night. Well past it, in fact. This seems to me – regardless of the to-do – that this is the sort of problem we need to help you with. All of us.’

The stubborn child shook her head mutely. She was very tired and about to sob. He made an elegant change of tack.

‘Patience loves ponies,’ he remarked pleasantly.

‘Does she?’ replied Smudge, beguiled.

‘Her first was a dun named Toffee. She could persuade him to do almost anything.’

He waited, like a confident trout fisherman, for his reward.

‘You had better fetch them then,’ said she, at last.

‘At your service,’ he responded, but then, pausing, ‘Incidentally, why did you bring her into the house?’

‘To make her portrait. In my room.’

‘I see.’ He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.

Replacing them he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back directly. I promise.’

He went away down the stairs. Smudge looked about her, forlornly.

7

THE STARLIGHT BATH

In the Old House, the linen, blankets and other bedding were being stacked and moulded into cosy nests and mattresses. The passengers waited, hands stretching towards the fire, pale faces looking up, hopefully, towards the tilting gallery. When Ernest rushed in, shouting, ‘Good God, there’s a pony upstairs! Imogen is losing control of it!’ the family all dashed to the wobbly rail, aghast, while the passengers, in their fog of waiting, merely murmured, ‘Delays’, disgruntled.

‘Oh Lord, I suppose she wanted to make its portrait?’ said Clovis.

‘Apparently. She’s on the landing with it, near the door to the back stairs.’

Beds forgotten, and without an apology, the family ran down the blackened staircase, slipping and tumbling in their haste.

Exhausted stares lingered on them until they were lost from sight.

The group paused in the bright hall.

‘Perhaps I had better go up alone to start with?’ said Emerald, as they waited, breathless, at the foot of the main stairs. A snort and hoof-stamp from above reached their ears.

She went up, as the others stood about, with ‘Whatever shall we do with it?’ and ‘How will it come down?’ being the general gist of their conversation.

‘I didn’t mention to her,’ said Ernest, ‘that the artist Stubbs contented himself with stables as a setting for his equine portraits and demonstrably did quite well with them.’

‘She has the other animals’ pictures on her walls,’ said Clovis, by way of explaining his sister’s eccentricity; ‘it wouldn’t be the same.’

‘Forgive me,’ said Ernest.

‘Not at all,’ replied Clovis generously. ‘Smudge is quite mad by any normal reckoning, we’re just used to her.’

At the top of the main stairs Emerald paused, composed herself, and proceeded. Ernest was not a case for the insane asylum (although her sister very well might be) – Lady and the child were locked in silent battle on the landing. The pony had trodden heavily on Smudge’s toe and was now leaning, stubbornly, and gazing at a Venetian landscape, while Smudge, speechless with agony, attempted to shove her off. The pony had become deaf, apparently, and leaned ever more weightily on poor Smudge’s foot.

‘Oh heavens!’ cried Emerald, rushing to her aid. Between them they removed the hoof and Smudge hopped up and down, clasping her foot, with tears streaming down her face.

‘She didn’t mean to,’ she said, when she could breathe.

‘Rubbish; she’s a brute,’ said Emerald and smacked Lady hard on the chest. Lady recognised discipline when she came across it and did not retaliate, but clacked her teeth together in impotent resentment.

‘Now, however are we going to get her down?’ asked Emerald, and at that, Smudge began to cry again, helplessly.

‘I thought you’d know!’ she wailed.

‘Hush, hush; there, there.’ Emerald patted her shoulder while looking about for inspiration. ‘Let’s get her to the big stairs,’ she said.

At the top, the pony stared down at Charlotte, Florence, John, Patience, Ernest and Clovis and they all stared up at her.

‘Oh,
Imogen
,’ growled Charlotte, in operatic
sotto voce.

‘Sorry, Mother,’ said Smudge.

‘Strewth,’ said Clovis. ‘She looks bigger than usual.’

‘I’ve grown,’ said Smudge.

‘Not you, the pony!’

‘Well, she
is
almost fifteen hands; I’m always telling you.’

‘I suppose she won’t just come down?’ said Patience, ever the optimist, but the stairs were uncarpeted.

‘Not a chance,’ said Clovis cheerfully. ‘Perhaps we could put a sling on her and hang her out of the window?’

‘Put a sling on
you
, and
throw
you out!’ Smudge exploded, and he didn’t tease her further.

‘We can gather carpets and rugs and lay them down the stairs to make a ramp,’ said Ernest, and this, being an endeavour likely to succeed, was soon done.

The carpets appeared solid enough: a pony might be fooled into believing they provided a slope such as might be found in the natural landscape, but when she placed a hoof upon them they shifted enough to convince the already suspicious beast that she was being led into a trap, and was soon to be set upon by wolves. She teetered at the top of the Persian ramp for some moments before backing off until her rump was pressed against the wall.

‘No enthusiasm,’ said Clovis.

‘None,’ agreed Patience.

‘Oats,’ said Emerald.

‘I’ll go,’ said Clovis, and sprinted away to the stables.

Oats were brought. The pony sniffed them, advanced slightly, ate them, felt the shifting tapestry ground once more, and refused to go any further. More oats were offered, by hand or scattered on the rugs or, later, shaken in a bucket on the half-landing, but greed proved an insufficient prompt to courage.

‘I suppose if we hit her, she’ll never go down,’ said Florence, who did not like horses and was tempted to beat this one.

‘We could get a rope around her behind, and haul her,’ offered Emerald, and a rope was brought.

The rain had started again and Clovis was fairly drenched from his two journeys to the stables. While Ernest and Emerald drew the rope slowly around Lady’s bottom, Patience gave him her handkerchief for his face. Of all young women, only Patience could be relied upon to have a clean handkerchief on such a night.

Unfortunately, Lady took exception to the rope and knocked a picture from the wall in the ensuing tantrum. The glass shattered and scattered, causing Smudge to cry out in alarm.

The cat Lloyd and both spaniels had torn themselves from the bewitching Old House fire, and had come to watch. They sat looking on smugly from safe vantage points; stairs were child’s play to them. Even the new kitten Tenterhooks, with his three-inch legs, could have made the descent given time. He lay curled in the crook of Patience’s elbow and slept.

They were, all of them, by now beyond exhaustion, fraught with having to speak calmly and coaxingly to the accursed pony for so long, and not give vent to their frustration. The needs of the host of passengers tugged incessantly at them, like a hunger, a mental toothache, and they were divided between one world and another, neither wholly in the New House, with its earthly calamity, nor physically in the Old, with its other compulsions.

‘Could she just become a house-pony?’ asked Smudge sleepily. She had tucked herself into the corner on the half-landing, with her bruised foot, hoping the sight of her might encourage the pony down.

‘No, don’t be absurd,’ snapped Emerald, close to tears herself. She was struck by an idea. ‘We must take her down the stairs of the Old House! She’ll go down
them
, they are much less steep – and the treads are wider.’