Marjorie Morningstar Read Online Free Page B

surprised Marjorie with his easy comfortable gait. She found
     her stirrups and rode to the trot as she had been taught. Her confidence came back
     and she relaxed a bit. They trotted past the Tavern on the Green. She saw a good-looking
     boy at a table on the terrace follow her with his eyes as she went by.
    Sandy Goldstone rode up beside her, reining in his big coffee-colored horse with a
     careless gesture. “Was that a joke about not riding well? You’re doing nobly.”
    She gave him a mysterious smile. “You’re not bad yourself.”
    “Spend a couple of months every year in Arizona. Guess I ought to be able to ride
     a horse… Margie, there’s no reason for me to hang back and police you, really, is
     there? This nag’s impatient.”
    “None at all, Sandy. Go ahead.”
    Sandy streaked away. The riding party passed through a dank muddy tunnel, and came
     out into a sun-flecked avenue of cherry trees, perfumed and cool. Marjorie was stunned
     by the charm of it. For the first time she perceived what horseback riding was about.
     She turned her eyes to the pink blossoms nodding under the blue sky in the breeze,
     and lost herself in pleasure.
    When they emerged into open sunlight she noticed that Prince Charming was falling
     behind the other horses. The blonde, next to last in the party, was glancing back
     over the widening gap with amusement. Marjorie clasped the saddle and kicked Prince
     Charming in the ribs. Nothing happened except that she lost her stirrup and had to
     clutch for it with her foot. Prince Charming, an old civil servant of a horse, continued
     to reel off the same number of yards per second.
    Far up the path the rest of the riders went round a bend and were hidden from view
     by green trees. “Giddyap!” Marjorie said. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? They’re
     beating you. Giddyap!” She made clicking noises and kicked both heels and shook the
     reins. Prince Charming ground along philosophically. They came to the bend and rounded
     it. There was a long straight stretch of black path ahead, completely empty except
     for a settling cloud of dust.
    The solitude did not have a good effect on either horse or rider. Marjorie stiffened.
     Prince Charming, without a rear view of other horses to draw him on, seemed to lose
     interest in his work. His trot slowed, became bumpy, and subsided into a walk. He
     began to look here and there. Marjorie said in her fiercest voice, “You get going
     now,” and spanked his neck with the reins. Prince Charming yawned. He wandered off
     the path, stopped and contemplated a clump of yellow forsythia with the look of a
     nature lover, and began to eat it. Tears of vexation came to Marjorie’s eyes. She
     beat the horse’s neck with her fist.
    She heard thudding hooves at about the same time Prince Charming did. The horse glanced
     around, took one more wrench at the forsythia, and ambled back on to the path, chewing.
     Sandy reined in, wheeled, and came beside her. “Having trouble?”
    “Some.”
    “Kick him.”
    “I’ve kicked him.”
    Sandy surveyed the horse, wrinkling his nose. “Never been out with this one before.
     Mostly I think kids ride him. Here, try this.” He passed his tan leather riding crop
     to Marjorie.
    He should have noticed the terrible flattening of the animal’s ears, but he was too
     busy looking at Marjorie’s flushed pretty face.
    “Thanks,” Marjorie said. She flourished the crop and smacked it clumsily on the horse’s
     flank. Prince Charming jumped, snorted, neighed; then he gathered himself up like
     a fist, and bounded away in a wild gallop, throwing up a boil of black dust all around
     Sandy.
    After the first crazy moment of the bolt Marjorie found herself clinging to the saddle
     with no idea of how she had managed to remain on the horse. The reins were dangling
     free, she had lost her stirrups, and there she was, thundering along the path like
     a jockey, with trees, grass, and other riders swimming by