Part 4 (1/2)
I tears into the helpless eggs and soon am patting my belly in satisfaction. ”Now, Miss Amy, I'm ready to meet those horses.”
On the way down the hallway Annie comes up to me and says, ”Beggin' your pardon, Miss, but Mistress wants to see you in her office. Now.”
Dread crawls up my soon-to-be-beaten legs and into my belly and makes my eggs sit less easy there than they was before. Somebody must have peached on me for being outside. d.a.m.n!
Clarissa sweeps past with a jaunty bonnet on her head, a riding crop under her arm, and a slight smile on her face.
I grimace at Amy and leave her side as we pa.s.s Mistress's office. The door is open and she is seated at her desk. I walk inside, bob, and put my toes on the white line and wait.
”Good morning, Mistress,” I manage to say. 1 hope my Look is all right. I case my eyes and stare over her head, expecting the worst.
”Good morning,” she says. ”Here.” And she hands me a letter. I recognize it as my own that I wrote to Jaimy yesterday and put in the mailbox outside her door. ”This letter is addressed to a man to whom you are not related. It is not seemly for you to be carrying on such a correspondence, and I will not send it on. I advise you to be more careful in your actions and comportment in the future.”
”But, Mistress, we are to be married as soon as I finish school. Surely-”
”Surely you remember what I said about talking back to me,” she says with a warning in her tone. ”Now. Do you have a formal engagement? Anything in writing?”
”No, Mistress, but I believe his intentions are true.”
”That's not enough. I direct you to put aside these girlish dreams and attend to your studies here. If you are successful in these studies, I a.s.sure you there will be a good match for you in the future. All my girls make good matches. Certainly better than casual alliances with sailors. You are dismissed, Miss Faber.”
”Mistress,” I says, knowin' I'm pus.h.i.+ng my luck here, ”but if I were to get a letter from this young man, would you-”
”I believe we are through discussing letters, Miss Faber, and we shall mention them no more,” says Mistress, with menace in her voice. ”Dismissed, Miss Faber.”
I dip and do an about-face and head out the door, glad not to be beaten, but still steamed. She answered my question, all right-ain't no way she's ever gonna pa.s.s on any of Jaimy's letters to me. I am glad I made my explorations this morning 'cause I will go out and I will mail my letter to Jaimy 'cause I don't want no other match but him. I just got to think about how to get that done.
Amy has waited for me, and together we go out the front door and around the corner and up the small road between the school and the church. As we leave the school building behind us, I look back and notice that the ends of the school are not the usual white clapboards but are instead completely brick, being like enormous chimneys. We leave the churchyard to our right, there is a meadow, and we come to the stables.
”Heinrich!”
”Ja, Papa.”
”Fraulein Faber hast not bin on eine horse before. Give her teachings.”
”Yes, Papa.”
I am standing there stupidly, once again judged hopelessly behind and backward. The other girls, including Amy, are taking their mounts from the handlers like they was born to it, mounting, and forming a circle around the inside of this huge circular barn that is floored in wet sawdust and roofed in soaring wood rafters and thick wood beams. Sort of like the hull of a s.h.i.+p from the inside, upside down. With a snap of Herr Hoffman's whip and a whoop! from some of the girls, they are off at a full gallop, round and around.
Not for me, however, as I must follow Heinrich into the stables.
The boy has his light brown hair tied loosely in the back with a black ribbon and he wears a dark green jacket with gray frogging on the front and tight, tight white breeches and knee-high s.h.i.+ny black boots. He has a light fuzz of hair on his upper lip and this is the first time I've been next to a boy and not under armed guard for about a month, and ... no, you stop that now. Concentrate on what he's tellin' you.
He goes into one of the stalls and comes out leading a horse.
”This is Gretchen, Miss Faber,” he says. ”She will be your horse while you are here.” He doesn't talk the way his father does. Must have been born here, or at least brought up here. ”She is a very nice little mare,” he goes on when he sees my look of fear.
It don't look that little to me.
It is of a light tan color with a white mane and tail. It has big brown eyes and it looks at me and I look at it. Horses to a street kid like me are big stupid lumbering things that'd crush an orphan as soon as look at 'em, but I reach out my hand and pat it on its hard slab of a forehead and it snorts in a friendly way.
Maybe we'll get along, I think, and I get the feeling she thinks the same.
The young man lets me and the beast get more acquainted while he fetches a saddle. ”You might want to put on one of those dusters, Miss. To protect your dress.” There is a row of light cotton cover-ups hung on pegs along the wall and I choose the smallest one and put it on. I b.u.t.ton up the front as he flings the saddle over the horse's back and cinches it up, and then he hands me the reins. I take them, trying to keep my hand from shakin'.
”Gather them together and reach up and grab the saddle right here and put your right foot here and up you go.” And I am in the saddle and looking down at the ground and thinking how much it would hurt to fall off and hit that ground.
”Heinrich,” I say, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice, ”wouldn't it be easier if I were to throw my leg to the other side of the horse?” Both my legs are now on one side of the horse and I'm feelin' right precarious.
”I'm sorry, Miss. It just isn't done,” says he. ”And please call me Henry, if you would. Now put your right limb about the pommel there.” That feels a bit better, now that the pommel thing in the front of the saddle is sort of holding my thigh above the knee. Henry adjusts the stirrup for my right leg till it feels right. ”Now take the reins-no, don't hold on to the saddle, and if it pleases you, Miss, sit back a bit so that your backbone is directly over hers. Please forgive my frank language, but it's the only way to say it.” I believe he is fl.u.s.tered over calling my backbone a backbone. ”Now let us go outside.”
We go out into the sun and Henry takes the horse by what he calls the bridle and he walks me and the horse around a bit and I get used to the smooth roll of the horse's muscles beneath mine and that's all right, a bit nice, really. Henry shows me how to pull on the reins to make it go right and then left and then stop.
Henry ain't content to let it go at that and just let me enjoy the warmth of the morning, oh no, he says, since I'm doing so well, we must now go to trotting. He has me take the horse to a small fenced-in spot and he puts a long thin line on the horse's bridle and stands back and says, ”Now, Miss Faber, firmly pull your heels up into her side and say, 'Hup!'”
I do it and the horse starts this jiggy way of going that about jars the teeth out of my head and I grab for the pommel of the saddle.
”No, no, Miss. You must never do that. It makes you look like ... an inexperienced rider.”
Makes me look like a scrub, you mean, I thinks, vowing never again to touch the saddle.
”Get into the rhythm of her motion. Let your ... back arch a little, back and forth.”
I try to do it and, little by little, by getting my back and my bottom into it, I start to get it.
”Very good posting, Miss. Very good. I think you are a natural rider.”
I glow under his praise and try even harder.
Henry holds the line so that the horse goes about in a circle around him, sort of a small version of the circle inside the barn, and round and round we go. ”Now lean forward and chuck her again with your heels!” and I do it and she slips into this easy, loping thing that's a lot easier on my tail and I get into the rhythm of that, too, and it feels so right and easy that my heart starts poundin' in me chest from the joy of it all.
Henry has me go from the canter to the trot to walk and back again and again till it's as easy as walking a spar and swinging down to the s.h.i.+p's deck on a futtock shroud.
When we are done, Henry has me dismount and walk Gretchen around the field to cool her off.