‘A child can’t take up that much.’
‘Love can.’
‘Then preserve me from it!’
‘But you already have it, haven’t you? Or is it—challenge? Oh, I’m sorry, Rena, I’m speaking out of turn.’
‘You are,’ said Rena, ‘but after all I started this. Frankly, Pippa, I don’t know much about—well, about what you just said, I-I mean—’
‘You mean love?’
‘Yes. You see ... well...’ Suddenly and unnecessarily Rena put her foot down on the accelerator and the car fairly leapt ahead, Davy, taken unawares, tumbling forward. Pippa caught him before any damage was done. Rena tossed, ‘Sorry.’ As Pippa righted Davy again she saw that Rena wore an oddly pinched look.
To bridge an awkward silence Pippa asked, ‘What am I to say to Uncle Preston if he questions me? He was very adamant that I didn’t go over to Crag’s.’
‘I doubt if he’ll ask you now he’s allowed outdoors again. My father is primarily a business man and he’ll be so anxious to check up whether Dom Hardy is still ministering his estate as it should be, that he hasn’t been giving more time to Ku than to Uplands, that he’ll probably forget all about it. That’s typical of Daddy. Pennies first. Which reminds me, you can be of use to our overseer, Pippa. Father will like that. So will I. At least it will keep you from Glen.’
‘Rena, I told you I have no wish to know this Doctor Burt.’
‘What about his knowing you?’
‘I can’t help that, and I’m sorry. If I could help it I’d—’
‘Yes, I suppose so. But he’ll certainly want you for data on Davy. Apart from giving it to him, Pippa, just don’t linger, will you? Just—just watch it.’
It seemed incredible to Pippa that Rena’s lovely red mouth could form these slangy threats. Only that somewhere somehow they rang false, she could have felt angry with her cousin.
‘How can I help Dom Hardy?’ she asked instead.
‘The Southern Highlands comprise the perfect stud for pigs, cows, horses,’ shrugged Rena, ‘and blessed events always call for help. If you consult Dom Hardy’s official calendar you’ll see quite a birth list ticked up.’ She paused. ‘Also, can you ride?’
‘How well would I be required to?’
‘He’ll tell you.’ Again the shrug. What an odd girl she was, hard, yet somehow defiantly, determinedly so. It puzzled Pippa.
When they reached the house Uncle Preston was out walking round the different sections, as his daughter had said he would, and when Pippa joined him he did not question her about Ku. Instead he kept up a grumble about his monetary affairs, the same grumble Pippa had heard before, mostly concerning his daughter and her blithe refusal to realize their present position.
She took the old man’s hand to help him over some uneven ground, noticing how thin it had become during his illness. ‘Down to your last million, Uncle,’ she teased.
‘You can laugh,’ he retorted, ‘but I’m genuinely concerned. For some time now the market in which I’m vitally involved has been ... But what’s the use of telling you?’
‘Often telling helps.’ But Pippa said it without much feeling. Always she had been poor, really poor, and looking around this beautiful estate she had to smile wryly at Uncle Preston’s idea of straitened circumstances.
The old man continued his grumbling. ‘How could Rena face up to it?’ he said.
‘But this place alone—’
‘Wouldn’t keep her in shoes. Rena has been used to everything, everything. That was why I was resigned about Crag for her after ... well, once I knew, once I could see that—’ As he had previously, Pippa recalled, Uncle Preston did not finish his thought. Returning to Crag again, he sighed regretfully: ‘There’s money there.’
‘Rena-money,’ smiled Pippa, and her uncle nodded.
‘I thought that least she would be right that way, then what does that minx do but play up again.’
‘The doctor?’
‘Yes.’
‘No doubt you’ve spoiled her, Uncle.’
‘No doubt,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘I wasn’t a young parent and she was an exceptionally beautiful girl. Yes, I spoiled her, Pippa. Still, it’s only recently she’s been like this. Always capricious, of course, but not like this. She used to lead me a merry dance, that was my Rena, but sometimes I think it was only after her fall off Bunting ...’
He had said something about this before, Pippa remembered. She asked: ‘Was she hurt?’
‘Never Rena, she’s a perfect horsewoman, even handles falls.’ He chuckled.
There was a silence, and Pippa broke it with the information that Rena had suggested that she help the overseer with the Uplands estate. As Rena had said, her father was pleased.
‘Yes,’ he nodded practically, ‘there’s enough idle hands at Uplands. Though I’ve no doubt that that wasn’t her reason, not Rena’s, she just wanted you out of the way when the doctor fellow calls.’
‘I have to see Doctor Burt some time, he’ll want information about Davy.’
‘Then you’d better look your worst,’ ho-ho’d Uncle Preston.
Feeling uncomfortable at the turn of the conversation, Pippa said there was no time like the present to offer her services to the overseer. She helped Uncle Preston to the patio, touched by his exhaustion after such a small expedition, then went to the back of the house and across the lawn to the stables.
Domrey Hardy was sitting in his office absorbed in estate affairs when she entered, but he looked up and smiled and cleared a chair for her.
She told him that it had been suggested that she help him.
‘Mr. Franklin back on the job again,’ he nodded.
‘No, actually it was Rena who told me, but Uncle Preston was quite pleased.’
‘Rena.’ Dom looked down at his papers again.
A silence grew. Pippa broke it at length by saying briskly: ‘I believe you have a string of happy events, Dom.’
‘That’s right.’ Dom came out of his absorption and was the alert overseer again. ‘Candytuft foals in a month. The piggery will be a nursery in several weeks. As for Velvet—’j
‘With a name like that Velvet must be the cow.’
‘Yes, and she’s predictably unpredictable in her timing. She could be right this minute, next week, next month. No official forty weeks for our girl, she shortens or lengthens the period to her own liking.’
‘Doesn’t a bull calf generally take longer?’
‘Yes. But I sometimes think rules were made to be broken by our Velvet. Also, going on previous confinements, she’s touchy. We have, of course, a good vet, but Velvet usually chooses a moment when a vet isn’t available.’
‘I might be able to help.’
‘The idea is attractive, but have you helped before?’
‘I lived in a country village and at least I was aware,’ Pippa replied.
She next brought up the subject of riding. ‘Rena said I might be of use there, and that you’d let me know.’
Dom had put the pen he had been doodling with back on the stand and he folded his arms on the desk. He was looking across at Pippa yet not looking at her somehow. ‘Determined, isn’t she?’ he said quietly.
‘What, Dom?’
‘You’re not to upstage her. That’s it, isn’t it. Oh, I’m sorry, Pippa, I’m talking rot.’ He tried to brush it aside, but Pippa persisted.
‘What is it, Dom?’ she asked again.
When he did not reply, she said: ‘It’s Rena, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you mean by upstage?’ Crag had said almost the same thing, she recalled, only he had expressed it: ‘Springing a trap that could have been yours.’
Wretchedly Dom said: ‘She’s determined not to have you around when Burt’s around, which means she’s determined on him, and when Rena’s determined ...’ He said it almost unemotionally, but Pippa saw that his knuckles in the big capable fanner hands were white from the tightness of his clenched fists.
At once he said again, ‘Sorry, Pippa. Sheer rot. Of course I can do with you. How well do you ride?’
‘How well is required?’ She had asked that of Rena and Rena had said that Dom Hardy would explain.
‘The Southern Highlands is the home of the pony clubs,’ he told her. ‘With a moderately bracing climate like we enjoy, how could it not be the perfect place? So we train for shows, for all the equestrian gatherings. We try to impart the usual accomplishments ... canters, trots, even dressage.’
‘Uplands’ horses?’
‘No, we accept outside pupils and train them for their owners. This, incidentally, is strictly my own business, Pippa, I pay Mr. Franklin for the exercise space and the stabling.’
‘But he seemed pleased I could help you.’
‘Well, some of the income goes back to him, so although it’s my part of the concern it’s to his advantage for it to prosper.’
She nodded, then remarked, ‘Uncle Preston says he’s in a bad financial position.’
Dom gave a short laugh at that and said nothing. He took Pippa out to a pretty cream pony which he said he was training for a client for the next Royal Show.
‘Rickaby needs exercise around your weight, Pippa. Care to try him?’
‘I haven’t any gear, not even a pair of slacks.’ She had brought none. They had not seemed necessary.
‘That’s all right, there’s plenty in the change room.’ He nodded back to the stables.
As he saddled the pony, Pippa returned to the stables, found the change room and changed. The clothes that were hung there were all very good. Rena’s? And had Rena ridden since her fall from Bunting?
She asked Dom this when she came back again. He was bent over the pony, but he straightened at once. ‘Did Rena tell you about that?’
‘No. Her father mentioned that she had had a fall.’ Pippa did not add that Uncle Preston had complained that his daughter had not been the same since. Instead she said, ‘These must be her clothes. They’re good.’
‘Then if they’re good they would be hers,’ he said abruptly. He came round to leg Pippa up. His face was un-revealing—intentionally so, Pippa thought.
It was a puzzling situation, but once she was on the pony’s back she forgot the puzzle. She always had loved riding, and in the village where they had lived it had not been such an expensive pleasure. Though ... smiling ... she had never ridden in a kit as well tailored as this.
She trotted round for a while, then, encouraged by the fact that months out of a saddle had not lessened her ability, she ventured down a track leading from the circle that Dom had flattened out from other exercising. What happened next was entirely her own fault. She should have realized that a ‘boarder’ here simply to learn the tricks, not present just for the fun of it and certainly not for exploration, would not comprehend the uneven ground as the track petered suddenly out, the bushes began to encroach, the trees crowd in, a dividing fence imprison. The gully creek was her final undoing. Ordinarily it would have been a charming spot, Pippa thought briefly, a place where tranquillity would be the keynote, no sound except the chirping of crickets, the song of a bird, the tinkle of the brook, but it was new and strange to the cream pony, and like all highly bred animals he was over-sensitive to unaccustomed things. Perhaps he saw a shape in the shadows that Pippa could not see, something that frightened him, for, rearing up, he turned and streaked, quite out of control now, away from the shadowy gully. Unfortunately the path the pony took was right beside the boundary fence. Several times Pippa brushed it quite roughly. She thought ruefully that Rena’s expensive gear would suffer. But at least, she thought, too, it was better that than the pony.
Now the animal was fairly flying, and though she had always enjoyed a brisk gallop, Pippa had never been good enough to cope with anything like this. She gave up trying to check Rickaby, show him who called the tune, her only thought now was to hold on. Hold on. Hold on, she said desperately as the pony fairly flew over the ground.
She could hear hooves digging in; she would not have thought the little light fellow could have made such a din. Then she saw something streak past her, a second horse, a much larger mount than her own, which would account for that noise. But she had no time to look properly, she was too concerned with her own inability to deal with the racing cream, too aware of the fellow’s knowledge, as horses always have such knowledge, that she had lost her touch.
‘Pull in!’ the voice called authoritatively. Even in her despair she recognized the voice as Crag Crag’s, and she called back pleadingly, ‘I can’t!’
‘Then hold on. I’m coming. And when I say Clear, clear your feet from the stirrups. But hang on, Pippa, he’ll rear.’
She obeyed mechanically, held on mechanically, freed herself when he called out as he turned his own mount and doubled back to reach over and grab her rein. As he shouted ‘Clear!’ the cream fellow rose on his hind legs and Pippa felt herself slipping, but her feet at least were free and she was able to be lifted out of the saddle and deposited in front of Crag, then, a few moments later, dropped to the ground.
‘Reckon,’ said a slow voice, ‘you’ll have to do better than that when you ride after a scrubber up at Falling Star.’ Crag Crag took out his pipe and began his packing act.
His unshakeable calmness usually irritated her, but now it gave her the time she needed to catch her breath. She did not pick him up over his assumption that she would be going to Falling Star, she was too grateful she had not fallen herself. She found a log and sat on it while he secured Rickaby.
‘Damn silly thing to do,’ he said, when he came back again, ‘these are strictly ring ponies, not ring-bark.’
‘Ring-bark?’
‘Well, you’ve nearly done that to yourself.’ He was looking at the jodhpurs that had received the impact of the boundary fence. They were torn, frayed and rubbed.
‘Rena’s,’ she said forlornly.
‘But the skin underneath is yours. Best you give it some attention, girl.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘If you are it’s more than you deserve to be. You should know these fellows are only spit and polish boys, not like—’
‘I know, not like the ones who carry you full gallop to flick a scrubber down and pin it by its tail.’
‘You remember!’ he said with delight.
‘Oh, you—you fool!’ Pippa replied. She got up and brushed herself. ‘I must get back. Dom will wonder where I am.’ It occurred to her that she must seem very churlish seeing that but for this man she might not be returning at all, so she added humbly, ‘I thank you very much.’
‘That’s all right.’ He grinned. ‘I was only thinking of the Franklins. It puts people out to have someone collapse on their grounds.’
‘You remember.’ It was Pippa’s turn. They both began to laugh.
‘Well,’ said Crag, ‘that’s better than crying, anyway. You better get up as you said. But soak in the bath tonight. Nothing like heat for a graze. Have you anything to apply?’
‘The clothes got the impact.’
‘You’ll find you got impact, too, beneath those clothes. Have the doctor look you over. No.’ A brief grin. ‘It’s Burt, isn’t it, so that would be out because of Rena. But see to yourself all the same.’
‘I will, and thank you again. By the way, how was it you were here to rescue me?’
‘You were rescued, isn’t that enough?’
‘Do you make a habit of going down gullies in case maidens come along on runaway horses, Mr. Crag?’
‘No, Miss Bromley’ ... he knew her name!—‘but I do go along the fences at times. It’s a bad habit I got into at Falling Star, where it’s deadly important.’
‘Why?’
‘Dingoes.’
‘But are there sheep at Falling Star?’ At least she knew that dingoes must be kept from sheep.
‘No, but it’s important that I keep the dingoes on my side for the southerners who do have sheep.’
�
��That’s considerate of you.’
‘I’ve plenty of consideration. Could you do with some?’ He was tapping the tobacco down now, and something about that deliberate finger made Pippa feel uncomfortable.
‘I’d better go.’
‘I’m not stopping you,’ he grinned.
‘Certainly you’re not.’
‘I wouldn’t be too certain,’ he proffered, and his laugh followed her as she grabbed Rickaby’s rein and led him back up the hill. What a man! she thought, as she had thought before.
Dom was not around. She was grateful for that, and unsaddled Rickaby at once and rubbed him down. In the change room she examined the jodhpurs and found them frayed and worn but still fit for use. However, she would have to tell Rena. As for herself, the skin was rubbed, as Crag had said, and she had no doubt she would tingle when she got into the hot bath he had advised, but she had come off fairly well.
As soon as she got to the house she sought out Rena and apologized about the riding kit.
‘It doesn’t matter, it was only old stuff I left there. You said you fell?’ Rena’s eyes were oddly narrowed.
‘Yes. My own fault. I shouldn’t have taken Rickaby down the gully.’
‘Then you weren’t with Dom Hardy when it happened?’
‘No.’
‘No one to pick you up?’
‘Yes. Mr. Crag happened to be examining the fence.’
‘And he picked you up?’
Something in Rena’s voice brought Pippa’s eyes flicking up to the girl’s blue eyes. They were beautiful eyes, large, heavily-lashed ... and just now bright with tears. Tears? Rena in tears?
But the next minute Pippa told herself she must have imagined it.
‘You want to be careful,’ Rena said flippantly, ‘when you fall. Sometimes it’s not just the ground that’s hard.’
‘What do you mean, Rena?’
‘Sometimes it’s...’ But Rena did not finish. She simply turned and left.
Pippa staring after her thought that as well as being lovely, Rena could be a very strange girl.
A Thousand Candles Page 5
