Good Behaviour by Maggie O'Farrell, Molly Keane

donkey-chaise. We found it, stored away in a corner of the cartshed; a broody
     turkey hen had her nest in it. We yoked a stallion ass called Biddy, and with him between the elegant, frail shafts, Hubert
     leading me in the carriage, we advanced up the drive towards the house where Papa was standing, morose on his crutches, enduring
     the long, sunny afternoon. The daychanged for him when Biddy, taken by some crazy notion, bit Hubert, kicked out the dashboard, whipped round, and bolted back
     towards the farmyard.
    ‘But he’s quite dangerous,’ Papa said, with some life in his voice when, much later, he caught up with us at the farmyard
     gate, where Biddy had stopped, to stand screaming for his wives.
    ‘Get out, Aroon, let me at him.’
    ‘Oh, Papa, should you?’
    ‘Shut up and get out, darling. And give me that stick.’ It was the end of our fun for the afternoon. Papa drove about till
     teatime, master-minding every roguery shown by Biddy, who had any stallion’s dangerous temper. So they were pretty well matched.
     ‘I couldn’t have the little bastard – sorry, darling – biting and kicking your children, could I?’
    ‘Why not?’ She smiled as she added: ‘All right – kill yourself. Make a good job of it.’ She went back to her painting or her
     gardening. She could always occupy his absences.
    Something from these contests with Biddy lessened Papa’s melancholy and revived him. There was a spice in the daily excursions
     because Biddy would not be tamed. His perversity was indestructible. ‘I’d be safer on one of your ponies,’ Papa said one day
     when we rescued him with the chaise upset in a ditch and Biddy on the ground. ‘If I had my wooden leg, I’d kick the little
     bastard to death.’ Papa spoke quite crossly as we helped him onto his foot again. ‘How am I supposed to get home? Both shafts
     broken and no crutches.’
    ‘Papa,’ Hubert said, ‘if you just sat up on Delia, I could lead her, and Aroon could hold you by your leg. Your bad leg.’
    He hesitated. Really. He was afraid – we smelt fear. We loved him for it. We waited for him to choose how he wouldget home. And he chose Delia. It was the start of a new joke. We took him riding every day, and we were the kindest, most
     understanding instructors. ‘Save me, save me,’ he would shout when he overbalanced, and, running by his side, we would catch
     the empty loop of trouser leg below his stump and yank him back into the saddle.
    ‘You’re all right, Papa. You’re going great. Well done. You’re wonderful.’ We brought him at last to the dry ditch going into
     the dry pond. We had all forgotten Mrs Brock; we never gave her a thought in those days – just a dead governess. ‘Come on,
     Papa, you’ll do it.’
    ‘I can’t, you know.’ He looked very unhappy.
    ‘Just let her walk in and out,’ Mrs Brock had said to us. ‘No nasty jumping.’ We said the same to him, and led Delia time
     and again through the wet beech leaves in the bottom of the ditch and up the plump track out of it, until he found the necessary
     dash to hit her, one-two, behind the saddle – he couldn’t kick without falling off – and jump the ditch in style.
    That was the beginning of our friendship with him, and with each other. The glory of this intimacy with Papa was our discovery
     and adventure. We had originated his recovery. We had changed him. We were even his superiors in the thing that mattered most
     in his life. Our own fears and nerves were close to us in time and gave us easy understanding of his helpless withdrawal from
     danger. We loved the same fears that had shamed him in us. We had forgotten Mrs Brock, but it was by her methods that we deceived
     and defeated fear. We were excitedly happy in our intimacy with him. The charm that was his second self embraced us for the
     first time. When he did well I wanted to touch him and caress him; so didHubert. But we compromised on laughter and long glances. The absolute