Free Good Behaviour by Maggie O'Farrell, Molly Keane Page B

our ponies stolidly refused to jump a small gorse fence we
     could have hopped over easily on our feet. Out through the wings they crashed willingly enough, and on to scrape us off beneath
     the low boughs of some tree in the park-like field where these exercises took place.
    Refusing defeat, he would make us catch the ponies and, when we had remounted, he would lunge them over the furze bushes on
     the end of a rope, a stable lad roaring at them to take off. How freely they jumped then, and how freely we flew over their
     heads; laughter from him followed and tears from us.
    Fears fit for a flogging morning or a hangman’s measuring session possessed us as he pursued our education and that ofour ponies. We adored Papa, and his hopeless disapproval paralysed any scrap of confidence or pleasure we had ever had in
     ourselves or our ponies.
    One terrible day, when I howled and refused to get up after a bone-shaking tumble, he looked at me with bitter disgust and
     disappointment, and said: ‘Don’t get up if you don’t want to, of course – lead your pony back to the yard.’ Humbled and thankful
     I did so, and on the way met Mrs Brock, who wiped my tears and mopped my bubbling nose, and encouraged me to get up again,
     leading my pony gently and inexpertly until I regained some contact with him.
    ‘Don’t lead him now,’ I said grandly. ‘Where were you going? I’ll come too.
No
, Fairy – get on with you.’
    ‘Fairy knows who’s boss,’ Mrs Brock said admiringly. Strengthened by her flattery, I drove in my heels and set about beastly
     Fairy.
    Not long after this sad morning Papa, riding a young horse alone (his patience exhausted and dulled by our frequent failures,
     he had for the time being given up instruction, our cowardice shamed and worried him too much), saw the surprising and, to
     him, delightful spectacle of Hubert and me racing our ponies into an obstacle without whips singing behind us, or tears pouring
     down our purple faces.
    The fence we faced was not one of those made up of nasty, upright little gorse bushes, but a round-lipped shallow ditch. The
     ditch ran through a screen of beech-trees and was now full of their dry leaves. On the landing side stood Mrs Brock, in one
     hand a carrot, a chocolate (Charbonnel AND Walker) in the other. Ponies and children raced each other for their rewards. Papa
     turned his horse and rode away, shaking his head. He could not understand, nor could he discuss thematter, but Mrs Brock’s absurd success in creating our confidence endowed her with an importance which, for him, far exceeded
     his unspoken gratitude over the restoration of his favourite old clothes.
    In those days one did not quite admit the possibility of cowardice even in young children. The tough were the ones who mattered;
     their courage was fitting and creditable. A cowardly child was a hidden sore, and a child driven to admit hatred of his pony
     was something of a leper in our society. It appeared to Papa that Mrs Brock had rescued our honour and his credit. Although
     unspoken, this consideration narrowed the gap between them.
    Her part of that autumn was utterly happy. Her influence over us and our ponies was recognised. She was asked to come and
     persuade us over more formidable fences than the plump-sided ditch. She and Papa walked together across the fields. Sometimes
     he helped her, with distant carefulness, over a gap or a boggy place. She didn’t speak. But the glow she radiated in the pleasure
     of his company seemed to include him as well. This happy familiarity was begun in innocence and was chaperoned, for a time
     closely, by our constant presence.
    During that September another and larger box from Charbonnel AND Walker was delivered to the schoolroom. Papa came in once
     or twice to make or alter arrangements about our riding; lesson times were adjusted to the hours when he was free to instruct
     us; so soon now he would be hunting four days in the week and shooting on the