Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [56]
The voice of Mrs Wannop--of course it was only mother! Twenty feet on high or so behind the kicking mare, with a good round face like a peony--said:
'Ah, you can jam my Val in a gate and hold her...but she gave you seven yards in twenty and beat you to the gate. That was her father's ambition!' She thought of them as children running races. She beamed down, round-faced and simple, on Tietjens from beside the driver, who had a black, slouch hat and the grey beard of St Peter.
'My dear boy!' she said, 'my dear boy; it's such a satisfaction to have you under my roof!'
The black horse reared on end, the patriarch sawing at its mouth. Mrs Wannop said unconcernedly: 'Stephen Joel! I haven't done talking.'
Tietjensns was gazing enragedly at the lower part of the horse's sweat-smeared stomach.
'You soon will have,' he said, 'with the girth in that state. Your neck will be broken.'
'Oh, I don't think so,' Mrs Wannop said. 'Joel only bought the turn-out yesterday.'
Tietjens addressed the driver with some ferocity:
'Here, get down, you,' he said. He held, himself, the head of the horse whose nostrils were wide with emotion: it rubbed its forehead almost immediately against his chest. He said: 'Yes! yes! There! there!' Its limbs lost their tautness. The aged driver scrambled down from the high seat, trying to come down at first forward and then backwards. Tietjens fired indignant orders at him:
'Lead the horse into the shade of that tree. Don't touch her bit: her mouth's sore. Where did you get this job lot? Ashford market: thirty pounds: it's worth more...But, blast you, don't you see you've got a thirteen hands pony's harness for a sixteen and a half hands horse. Let the bit out: three holes: it's cutting the animal's tongue in half...This animal's a rig. Do you know what a rig is? If you give it corn for a fortnight it will kick you and the cart and the stable to pieces in five minutes one day.' He led the conveyance, Mrs Wannop triumphantly complacent and all, into a patch of shade beneath elms.
'Loosen that bit, confound you,' he said to the driver. 'Ah! you're afraid.'
He loosened the bit himself, covering his fingers with greasy harness polish which he hated. Then he said:
'Can you hold her head or are you afraid of that too? You deserve to have her bite your hands off.' He addressed Miss Wannop: 'Can you?' She said: No! I'm afraid of horses. I can drive any sort of car: but I'm afraid of horses.' He said: 'Very proper!' He stood back and looked at the horse: it had dropped its head and lifted its near hind foot, resting the toe on the ground: an attitude of relaxation.
'She'll stand now!' he said. He undid the girth, bending down uncomfortably, perspiring and greasy: the girth-strap parted in his hand.
'It's true,' Mrs Wannop said. 'I'd have been dead in three minutes if you hadn't seen that. The cart would have gone over backwards...'
Tietjens took out a large, complicated, horn-handled knife like a schoolboy's. He selected a punch and pulled it open. He said to the driver:
'Have you got any cobbler's thread? Any string? Any copper wire? A rabbit wire, now? Come, you've got a rabbit wire or you're not a handy-man.'
The driver moved his slouch hat circularly in negation. This seemed to be Quality who summons you for poaching if you own to possessing rabbit wires.
Tietjens laid the girth along the shaft and punched into it with his punch.
'Woman's work!' he said to Mrs Wannop, 'but it'll take you home and last you six months as well...But I'll sell this whole lot for you to-morrow.'
Mrs Wannop sighed:
'I suppose it'll fetch a ten-pound note...' She said: 'I ought to have gone to market myself.'
No!' Tietjens answered: 'I'll get you fifty for it or I'm no Yorkshireman. This fellow hasn't been swindling you. He's got you deuced good value for money, but he doesn't know what's suited for ladies; a white pony and a basketwork chaise is what you want.'
'Oh, I like a bit of spirit,' Mrs Wannop said.
'Of course you do,' Tietjens answered: 'but this turnout's too much.'
He sighed a little and took out his surgical needle.