//------------------------------// // Chapter Nine // Story: My Fair Pony // by 2K Chrome //------------------------------// At home, all the servants, who were as excited about Applestia as if she were their champion winning daughter, had waited up to hear if she had won. “We did it!” Jet cried out as he came into the house, and they came sleepily out onto the staircase, beaming down on him like frowsy cherubs. “I did it!” he proclaimed, swaggering on the black and white tiles of the hall, with his top hat and his silk-lined cloak. “She was the sensation of the evening. I fooled them all. I proved it can be done.” Everypony crowded into the study, and there was a great celebration, with congratulations and rejoicing and Fancypants dancing a jig, and the kitchenmaid, who was only fifteen, curled up in Fancypant’s deep armchair with her shoes off, snoring. Everypony kissed “the princess” and Upper Crust was so carried away by emotion that she actually kissed the professor and said huskily, “Bless you, sir.” “I am the great Pygmalion,” the professor chanted. “Behold, my living statue, my Galatea. Though I must give credit,” he admitted, happily generous, “where credit is due.” Oh well, Applestia thought, at last he’s getting round to it, and none too soon. “Let’s not forget,” he reminded Nutters and Upper Crust and Diamond Mint and the cook and the housemaid and the sleeping kitchenmaid, “let us not forget the one who has worked with me day in, day out, cheerful, helpful, the truest of companions through thick and thin…” Geez Jet Set, Applestia thought, don’t swell my head. “…my excellent friend, Fancypants! We did it!” “We did it, Jet!” “A victory song!” the Professor cried. “Applestia’s song!” Fancypants began to thump on the piano and everypony joined in: My old colt said, “Follow the van, And don’t dillydally on the way.” Off went the van wit me ‘ome packed in it…. Applestia slipped away while they were singing. …can’t trust a special like an old time copper When ya can’t find her way home! The raucous music followed her as she stumbled down the stairs in her tight skirt, and went along the basement passage to the butler's pantry. It was dark. Azure was asleep, but he took his head out from under his wing to chirp at her. She opened the cage, and took him out on her hoof. “Pretty Apple, pretty Apple.” He pecked at the diamond earrings, due to go back to the shop for it was already tomorrow. “Azure, Azure, Azure.” He was the same anyway. Everything else was spoiled and rotten, but birds and animals never let you down. “Applestia?” The opening door threw in a shaft of flickering gaslight from the passage. “What are you doing down here in the dark?” “Talking to my Azure.” The bird nibbled at her mane. “I saw you sneak away.” Uncle Nutters put his leg around her weary shoulders. “What's up, mate?” “I hate him.” She turned around. “I hate them both, conceited selfish beasts. ‘We did it Jet. We did it, Fancypants.’ Who did it? That’s what I want to know. Who did it?” “Why you, of course.” Nutterville struck a match and reached up on high to light the gas. In this kind of house, the folk upstairs had electric light. The folk downstairs still had gas. “That’s just it.” She looked down at his worried monkey face, creased with pity for her, and saw that he was the only one who cared. “They don’t care about me,” she said bitterly. “I’ve won their stupid bet for them. I’ve been through the tortures of hell these last six months, you know I have. I went through worse tonight, with that bearded spy. And what thanks do I get? Oh, Uncle Nutters, it’s all so beastly, whatever shall I do?” “Why don’t you chuck it?” he said. “You’ve had a taste of this life, and those kind of ponies.” He jerked his chin upward. “Why don’t you go back to your own folk?” “My dad? That mare?” She could not get her lips around the word stepmother, if it applied to Mrs. Highcastle. “You can’t go back. I found that out ages ago.” “He’ll drop you though.” Nutters was not disloyal to his boss, but honest. “He’s finished with you, you’ll see. You won his bet from him, that’s all he wanted from you. I remember there was a Pegasus who won six big races in a row. The stable’s darling he was. Pint of beer every day. Pure silk clothing. Best wheat straw. The biggest of mansions. The lot. Then he went lame, and couldn’t race again. He lost nearly everything through tactless spendings and no income, and he ended up drawing a junk cart. Just like what will happen to you, now that the professor is finished. “I can’t believe that,” Applestia said. “He can’t be as heartless at that.” “Ten minutes ago, you thought he could. ‘He doesn’t care,’ you said. I’ve known him longer than you, me old mate, and I’m afraid you might be right.” But Uncle Nutters was disillusioned by a hard life, first as a colt up at five to knock ice out of buckets, then as a jockey, drinking vinegar to lose weight, then as a butler, serving with food and drink. Life could not be as unfair as all that. The next morning, Applestia woke more cheerful, and knew that everything would be all right. There were telephone calls, invitations, flowers arriving for her. She was a smash hit in society, and this morning Jet would see her with fresh eyes, as a somepony in her own right. The only trouble was, he was not there to see her. He had breakfasted very early, and was shut in the study with a notice on the door saying, “Everypony but ME- Keep Out!” Applestia was hovering uncertainly outside, wondering whether she should knock, or wait till lunchtime, when she heard Scarling come into the hall, asking for her. She moved back, so that he would not see her at the top of the staircase, and when Nutterville came up with more roses, she said, “Tell him I’m out, or ill, or broken my leg. Get rid of him.” “He won’t be rid of. He’s been sitting on that doorstep since nine o’clock this morning. Only gets up to go and buy some flowers, and then he sits down again. Anypony who comes to the door has to step over him. It’s quite inconvenient.” “Tell him…” From behind the study door came a shout: “Applestia! Where the hay…. Applestia!” and she went in without a backward glance. Jet was crouched over the desk, with a jumble of papers and notebooks all round him, books and crumpled balls of papers on the floor, the wastebasket frothing over like beer, the drawer she kept so tidy half open, and spilling out old letters and torn magazine cuttings and loops of typewriter ribbon. “Where’s that story I cut out of the Times, about the deaf and dumb Appleloosan?” he grunted, without looking up at her. She went to the right file, found it at once, and gave it to him. He took it without thanks, and then, aware that she was still standing behind him, said irritably, “Run away, I’m working.” “I just…” She had rehearsed something to say to get his attention if she got the chance. “Later.” “I just wanted to ask you. Remember that wallpaper we saw with all the little rosebuds and the chintz material to match, and you said we might redecorate my room?” He grunted, writing. “Well, I thought, as everything went so well last night, perhaps I could…” “Not now, not now. Why do you bother me with such rubbish now?” “Are you busy?” she asked stupidly. “Busy! I’m writing the chronicle of my great experiment. I’m constructing the classic document that will be read with awe and wonder all over Equestria, and she asks me, ‘Are you busy?’”. “I only thought…” “Don’t you realize, girl?” He threw down his pen and leaned back, running a hoof through his soft untidy mane. “This is the most important thing in my whole life. What I‘ve done will make language history.” “What you’ve done! Horsefeathers!” “Horsefeathers, Applestia?” he repeated mildly. “Do I allow that word?” “It’s the only one to express how I feel.” She stood across the desk from him, feeling her face burn red and her skin prickle with rage. “If you’re angry because of the wallpaper,” he said blindly, “go out and order it. We’ve spent so much on you already, a bit more won’t matter.” “I didn't ask you to spend nothing. Anything. Take it all back. I don’t want it.” He raised an eyebrow calmly. “The diamonds have got to be sent back today anyway, since they were rented.” “And so was I! You gave my dad 150 bits for me, and don’t deny it. Rented for your experiment, that’s all I was, and now I’m no more use to you than that poor lame race Pegasus.” “What Pegasus? What in the world are you talking about?” “What happens to me now? Am I sent back, like the diamonds?” “You’re free to do what you want, of course. You always have been.” “That’s a lie, for a start.” Applestia laughed with mirth. “And what am I fit to do? I can’t go back. I can’t stay here. I don’t belong anywhere, thanks to you.” “I said you could stay here, if that’s what you want.” Jet took off the think-rimmed glasses he wore for work, and rubbed his eyes wearily. “I wouldn’t stay here if you were the King of Equestria,” Applestia said with great scorn. “If I were the King, the Queen wouldn’t let you.” He put on his glasses, picked up his pen, and bent over his papers again. “Because I'm pretty? Look at me!” She snatched up a notebook and threw it at his head. “You think I’m pretty?” “Not bad.” He rubbed his head, but did not look up. “I don’t see why you’re so fussed about your future. You can get Scarling, or some other well-born chinless wonder, to marry you, I’m sure.” “I’d rather be dead.” “Or we could set you up in a flower shop.” “Ooh… you devil! Buy me off, is that the idea?” She lunged around the desk and hit him, and he was angry now at last. Cursing, he jumped up and dodged around to keep the desk between them. “Wait till I get you… Pygmalion!” She laughed wildly, her hooves grabbing the air like claws. “Pig, more like. Pig, pig, pig!” “I was wrong,” he said trying to recover his temper, but still flushed and breathing fast. “I’m Frankenstein, not Pygmalion. It’s not Galatea I’ve made, but a little spitting monster.” “You made! You made! Oh…” she beat childishly on the desk with her hooves. ‘You’re the most hateful, conceited stallion I ever met!” She ran out of the room in tears, down the staircase, and out of the front door, banging it with a thunderous crash that she hoped would bring the house down. Scarling was still sitting on the doorstep. “Come on.” She called him like a pet dog, and marched off up the street. He caught her up as she crossed the main road and turned into the park. “What’s the matter Twinkling?” he said panting and blinking. “Has something upset you?” “Upset me!” She flung herself down on the cool sweet grass among the foals and nursemaids and doll prams and hoops and pet poodles. “I’m so angry, I could kill myself.” “You don’t have to do that,” he said hopefully. “You can marry me.” “What on? I’m not going to live off your mother. You’d have to get a job.” “A job?” He had put down a newspaper to sit on, careful of his elegant pale trousers. “What do you mean, a job?” She might have said the moon. “We could live cheaply enough, two rooms somewhere and I could get a job at the apple farm. Start my own business, after a bit, if we…” “But, my dear.” Scarling was beginning to look very shocked. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Two rooms… you’re joking. How could we entertain? And then there’s the Season, Wonderbolts, Whiteley’s…. It will have to be a very successful apple farm.” “Where I come from,” Applestia got up, “mares don’t work to support useless stallions.” Though that’s just what my poor mum did, she thought, running away across the grass. “Where are you going?” Scarling was gasping behind. “Back where I come from?” A carriage was standing outside the park gates. She jumped into it and slammed the door in poor Scarling’s face, open-mouthed to ask, “Where?” In Market Square, the early morning rush of buying and selling was over. The vans of the wholesalers and the big shops had gone. Only a few carts and some of the barrows that went out later to sell of the small stuff were standing about among the arches and worn stone pillars. The ponies wore nosebags and were blowing chaff among the trodden cabbage leaves on the cobbles. The porters and costermongers were lunching too, lounging around the stall that sold hot pies and muffins, with tin mugs of tea and the cigar ends they picked up outside the Opera House. As Applestia approached, picking her way carefully over the piles of vegetable rubbish, they looked at her without curiosity, for ladies and gents quite often took the short cut through the market from Strand to Longacre, or came poking about, absorbing the atmosphere of colorful Old Canterlot. “You looking for something, lady?” a stallion in a checked cap asked, as she hesitated a few yards from the pie stall. “Yes. Do you know somepony called…” The group of ponies shifted a little, and she saw that one of them was Willow. He had his leg around a stout filly with a greasy red face and mane that had not been washed for weeks. “Called what?” The stallion was Applestia’s old chum Bruce Mane. He did not recognize her with her mane piled up high and her pink and white linen dress, and of course her new voice. Willow did not recognize her either. She smiled at him, but he looked through her with that vacant blue stare. She could have spoken to him in her old voice, but that mare…. “Oh somepony I used to know,” she said vaguely. “I don’t think he’s here anymore.” “I don’t think anyone you’d know would be lunchin’ here, miss,” Bruce Mane said, and they all tittered. Willow pinched the greasy-faced filly and she squealed like a pig. “But thank you very much all the same,” Applestia said, and as she turned away, the mare tried a bad imitation, “Thank ya veddy much,” and squawked with mocking laughter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The house in Hoofton Road looked so different that Applestia walked past it, then came back when she saw the number on the grimy fanlight over the next door. Mrs. Highcastle’s house had come into money. The doors and window frames and the new window boxes stuck with artificial flowers were painted a curious shade of glistening violet. All the windows had new frilly white curtains, looping and swooping and tied with great satin bows. The iron railings above the basement steps were gilded, with silver tips. The little tarnished frame that used to hold cards with names of lodgers, some long gone, had been replaced by a dazzling brass plaque that said, “Mr. and Mrs. Little. Knock and Ring.” Applestia did both. It was necessary, to be heard over the noise of a Gramophone in the front room, and a lot of chatter and clatter from the kitchen at the back. A small hungry filly with a sore face and a green coat opened the door, and Applestia followed the noise into the front room, getting a glimpse down the passage of several overweight ponies stuffing their mouths around a loaded table in the kitchen, where it had once been like a treasure hunt to find a crust of bread. The front parlor, always empty before, and sheeted, as if the furniture were dead, now contained Mr. and Mrs. Little on uncomfortable brocade chairs, wearing their best clothes and listening to a Gramophone blaring out ragtime music through its wide green horn. “Good afternoon, miss,” sniffed Mrs. Highcastle. Applestia would cut out her tongue before she would address her, or even think of her as Mrs. Little. “How do ya do?” her father said unhappily, turning his whole body to look at her, since his neck was clamped in a collar made for a giraffe. It was not Mrs. Highcastle or her house that had come into money. It was Little Apple Cider. “Remember that Amareican millionaire?” he said mournfully. “You know what he done? He up and died and left me forty thousand bits.” “40,000 bits! You could live in a palace. He slid his eyes round to his wife, who was wearing plum-colored satin with a monkey fur collar and fur round the hem, although it was warm outside and baking in the parlor, whose windows were nailed up because of burglars. “She wants to stay here, so we can impress the neighbors.” “It’s…. it’s wonderful for you, Dad.” The record ground to a stop and Lyrica wound up the machine grimly and put on a tinny tango. “Not really. I was better off before,” Apple Cider said under the cover of the noise. “Now I’m respectable, it ain’t half so much fun. That’s what your precious Jet Set has done by messing about with millionaires.” “Not my Jet anymore.” “Kicked you out, eh? I said he would. Well, if he thinks I’m going to keep you, you just go right back and prove him wrong, because I ain’t. Got troubles enough of me own.” He leaned closer and whispered, although the tango was so loud you could not have heard an elephant trumpet. “She’s spending my bits like water. Got all her relations in the kitchen there, swilling and guzzling. And the worst of it is, girl, if I’d only known old Silver Snake was going to kick the bucket and leave me all this loot, I never need have married her!”