The Lady

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Very kind of her, I must say. ‘Be back in the saddle again as soon as possible,’ it says,” Isabel told her, sniffing as she handed her the card.

  Catriona looked at the handwriting, which was not the sort of script she’d imagined for Mrs. Healey. The words were formed in a very neat but cramped hand. Not half elegant enough to match up with Mrs. Healey’s appearance, Catriona thought, a trifle disappointed.

  “Well, I am going to talk to your father about you being back in the saddle at all, ever!”

  “Mummie . . . ” Catriona sat up in protest, and everything spun. She clasped her head, groaning.

  “I am not going to make a practice of visiting my daughter in hospital. I really do have some say in the rearing of my own— Whatever is the matter with you, Catriona? Sister! Sister? Oh, do come!”

  Catriona couldn’t tell the Sister why she had taken such a turn, but the result was that her mother tiptoed away to let her rest. Then she had to have her blood pressure taken, and the doctor arrived to flash a beam of light into her eyes and ask how often she had felt dizzy. Did her head ache? Spots before her eyes? Was her arm comfortable?

  She responded meekly and truthfully, and then they all left her bedside, closing the curtains about her bed so that she was free of the kind and curious glances of her wardmates. She tried to sleep then, because she did feel terribly listless. Although her head didn’t hurt, it felt hot and heavy on her neck, and she couldn’t really get comfortable. The Sister kept looking in on her. More lights were shone in her eyes and more blood pressures were taken. When supper came she couldn’t eat much of it, only the bread and butter and a bit of the creamed potato, which was of the instant sort that Bridie wouldn’t have allowed in her larder. But the person who collected the tray didn’t scold her for wasting food.

  She heard the other women receiving visitors and was hoping against hope that her father might come. She framed an apology about Blister a hundred times so that it would come out without being stammered, but he didn’t appear and she became increasingly fretful. He really was furious with her. How was she ever going to explain? And she couldn’t really recall exactly what had happened. All she could remember now was Jake being circled before the ditch, Mary behind her on the left, several other adults crossing the field toward the ditch, and then . . . nothing more until she felt the impact.

  She began to weep then, silently so as not to disturb the other women, and suddenly was so weak that she couldn’t reach up to brush the tears away. Blister had been so marvelous: an honest pony, sturdy, reliable, genuine. She pictured his heavy pony head over the door of his stable, the neat Connemara ears pricked forward, the pink-and-dark-gray splotches on his muzzle, his velvety lips laid back so he could nibble at the palm of her outstretched hand. She couldn’t remember a time when Blister hadn’t been there in the stable block. Other horses had come and gone, but Blister, and the Tulip, had always been there. Had the knacker come quickly to take Blister’s poor body from the ditch? She didn’t like to think of the pony lying there alone and cold all night.

  “Here, here, what’s this?” a brisk voice demanded.

  Through her tears, Catriona saw the Ward Sister approaching the bed.

  “My pony! I don’t want him lying out cold in the ditch!”

  The tears streamed down Catriona’s face, and then suddenly someone had brushed by the woman and was holding her in his arms.

  “There now, Catie,” Mick’s rough voice reassured her, “I saw to it myself. Didja think I wouldn’t? Didja think the captain wouldn’t? Now, don’t you fret, Catriona Carradyne. Not that it isn’t just what I’d expect of you, but sure we took care of it.”

  “Mr. Lenahan . . . ” the Ward Sister began.

  “You just leave us be, missus.” Mick’s face was suffused with red, almost masking the tiny broken capillaries in his wind-scored cheeks.

  It suddenly struck Catriona that she had never heard Mick speak so firmly in her life. And he was speaking up for her. She clung to him, more reassured by his attitude than anything he could, have said in comfort. And so her tears stopped.

  A clean handkerchief, but one that nevertheless smelled heavily of Old Spice after-shave and horses, mopped her cheeks and then was patted against her forehead. Having completed that necessary ministration, Mick settled back into the chair at the side of her little curtained cubicle. He cleared his throat.

  “I’ve only got a minute, Cat, because it’s near the end of visiting hours, but when I heard that your father wasn’t to go in because you’d turned queer, I thought maybe I’d better pop in. And I was right. You were grieving for the pony.”

  “Mother won’t let me ride again, Mick.”

  Mick’s eyes took on a challenging sparkle.

  “You didn’t ever believe her, didja, Cat? You’ve the best hands and seat of the lot, and once you get a bit of leg on you, there won’t be anything in the yard you can’t manage. As well as the captain, or I don’t know my bran and bridoons.” Mick gave his chin a decisive downward jerk. “You don’t worry about your mother. She’s a good churchgoing woman, but she don’t know about horses or riders, at all. Now”—Mick leaned forward, elbows on his knees—”as I understand it, you’ve got some stitches in your skull, but those things heal fast on a young body. And the break in your arm will be well mended before the Spring Show, so you’ll be back, riding fit, for the summer.”

  “But now Father doesn’t have anything for my cousin . . . .”

  Mick cocked his head, grinning. “Don’t worry about her, Cat. And don’t worry that you’ll not be mounted. You’ll see.”

  The gong sounding the end of visiting hours reverberated down the hall. Mick was up on his feet instantly, his reassuring grin gone and his expression very serious.

  “Don’t you fret anymore, Catriona alanna. The pony went down doing what he loved best. No blame to you.” Mick’s jaw tightened. Then, to her astonishment, he grinned. “You’ll see. All’ll come right.”

  “But my father’s angry with me!”

  “With you? Whyever would he be?”

  Mick had been about to add something else when the curtain was pulled aside and Ward Sister stood in the gap, her eyes on Catriona’s face.

  “Well, there’s a trifle more color in her face after all. You were the tonic she needed, Mr. Lenahan.”

  “Of course I was,” Mick replied. “I’ve known the girl since she was foaled.” Then, with a salute to Catriona, he walked off, a jaunty arrogant tilt to his sturdy shoulders.

  When Catriona returned to Cornanagh two days later on the Wednesday, she willingly allowed her mother to shepherd her quickly into the house. For the first time in her life, she didn’t make directly for the yard. She couldn’t bear to see Blister’s empty box, for random thoughts of the pony brought quick tears to her eyes. Passively she allowed her mother to guide her into the lounge and tuck her up on the small sofa in front of the fire. Clyde Cat joined her immediately, delighted with the opportunity. Her mother, Auntie Eithne, or Bridie checked constantly on her.

  Such solicitude, reminding her of her grandfather’s last days, made Catriona uneasy, so she welcomed Mary’s visit that afternoon with great relief. Mary was most satisfactorily impressed by the stitches in her scalp and the solidity of the plaster cast on her arm. And she took great pleasure in signing her name with a flourish, though the pen sputtered on the rough surface. The girls decided the splotches were artistic embellishments.

  “Honest, Trina, I thought you were a goner when that idjit crossed you and—and Blister,” Mary stammered, looking up quickly to see her friend’s reaction to the name.

  “I don’t remember what happened, Mary . . . .”

  “Well”—Mary settled down with enthusiasm for the account—”do you remember the field?”

  “I remember Jake being circled.”

  “Well, you had the right of way over the ditch because that stupid Mr. Camwell was only circling. But all of a sudden, he gives Jake an unmerciful crack wit
h his stick and jabs him with his spurs. I mean, the horse could do nothing except take off, with your man swinging out of his mouth. I’ll say this, Jake tried to correct himself, but there was no way he could have avoided colliding with you. Sort of sunfished. Jake did his best, he really did, but he must have caught you with his forelegs and then Blister with the hind ones. You went down with such a thud, everyone heard it. Blister just dropped.”

  Both girls looked away for a long moment, and Catriona felt the tears pricking her eyes again.

  “You should have heard your father going at Mr. Camwell! You really should have. What he didn’t say to that man . . . .” Mary’s voice was rich with satisfaction. “And did you know it was Mrs. Healey rode you off the field, and you dripping blood all down her and the mare. Me, I wouldn’t have thought the mare would’ve taken it all so calmly, but Mrs. Healey’s such a fine rider.”

  “She sent me flowers,” Catriona said, pointing to the little bouquet, still fresh in the florist’s plastic dish.

  “She’s not half as distant as she seems, looking so elegant all the time.”

  Catriona had to agree. “I hope the bloodstains come out all right.”

  “Oh, sure she’s got a maid to look after her clothes, and she’d know how to do that.”

  Bridie came in then with juice and biscuits, frowning until she was sure that a visitor was not too great a strain on the invalid.

  “Janey Mack! You’re getting the royal treatment, aren’t you?” Mary giggled.

  “It won’t last long,” Catriona replied cynically.

  “Enjoy it while it does!”

  “I suppose I should.”

  “Suppose?” Mary was aghast. “Catriona Mary Carradyne, you are the most contrary person I know. Ungrateful! Here you’re out of class—”

  “I’ve ruined my perfect attendance . . . .”

  “Catriona Mary, if you don’t stop talking nonsense, I’ll leave!” Mary leaned forward, putting her cool hand on Catriona’s cheek, peering at her critically. “Headache? Mother says you could have headaches for days after the knock you took.”

  “No, no headache,” Catriona replied irritably. And was instantly sorry.

  “That’s more like it,” Mary said with an exaggerated sigh of relief. “D’you know what Marty Byrne said when he heard?”

  “No, what?” Catriona was surprised that she figured in their bus driver’s conversation. “Tell me.”

  And Mary did, in such detail that both girls were startled when Mrs. Evans appeared in the doorway to collect her daughter. Almost on her heels Michael Carradyne arrived, still in his riding clothes. He spoke pleasantly to the Evanses, seeing them courteously to the outer door before he returned to the lounge. He came right up to Catriona, bending down to kiss her cheek and stroke her hair lightly before he sat down beside her.

  “Blister was a good pony, Catriona,” he said, regarding the tip of his boot earnestly. “We buried him in the ten-acre field.”

  “Buried him?” Catriona was astonished. Her father never buried horses: the carcasses went to the Hunt pack.

  “He was a small pony, and we’d that big hole in the hayfield where Barry took out the boulder . . . ” Michael Carradyne’s voice trailed off. He cleared his throat and began again more briskly. “The doctor says the stitches will come out in a few days, but it’s three weeks for the bones to knit. Then, if we strap your arm, you’ll be able to ride.”

  “But Mummie said . . . ” Then her father’s expression altered so sternly, she caught her breath.

  “I don’t believe for one moment that your fall or Blister’s death has put you off riding, but if it has, and I am forcing you to participate in an activity repugnant to you, now is the time to tell me.”

  Catriona knew that her mouth had dropped open in surprise at her father’s crisp speech. Then she couldn’t help grinning. He must have been quoting her mother’s exact words.

  “Mummie never understands about horses, does she?”

  Her father reached out to tousle her hair, but gently because of the bandage.

  “No, Trina, she doesn’t, but I had to clear the air. You be in the yard about three tomorrow. All right?”

  Actually Catriona couldn’t wait that long to get back into the yard. The next morning, thoroughly bored by the confines of the lounge, she took the first opportunity to sneak out of the house. Of course, she had had to wait until her mother and Auntie Eithne had gone shopping in Bray and Bridie was busy upstairs. Then she filled her lungs with the crisp fresh spring air, redolent with the stable odors she most enjoyed. She could hear Artie calling across the main yard and Mick’s rather caustic reply. She noticed that the double horsebox was gone from its bay in the garage. Her father had probably gone to collect a mare for the Tulip. She could hear him stamping in his stall, a rhythmic banging. Or maybe the captain was after a horse to be schooled. This was the time of year Cornanagh did a lot of breaking and backing.

  She paused long enough to wrench a handful of grass growing through the cobbles. The Tulip could get most obstreperous if he wasn’t offered something by a family visitor. She remembered being taken up by her grandfather onto the Tulip: a signal honor, and one she knew had never been given her brothers or Sybil. But then she’d never been afraid of the Tulip. She believed that he felt obliged to display and cut shapes, as he did now when he heard her step on the cobbles.

  Snort, snort, whuffle angrily, and he was a blacker shadow against the dim light of his big, padded box stall.

  “It’s me, Tulip. Catriona,” she said in the authoritative tone she knew he respected. “Here—” She pushed the grass through the bars of the door. They were immediately swiped away by the flick of a large pink tongue. The Tulip whuffled softly and stamped in a demand for more. With her eyes adapted to the dim light inside the stable, she could see the gleam of his eyes, wide set on his broad forehead. His forelock reached halfway down his aristocratic nose. He stamped again, impatiently. “Now, Tulip, you’ve had a treat. You mustn’t beg,” she said cajolingly. She didn’t want him making too much noise, or someone in the other yard would wonder what had upset him. If her father had gone for a mare, the Tulip should be kept calm.

  She held her hand up flat against the bars and felt the Tulip blow against it, identifying her smell. He licked at her palm, and she giggled because it tickled. He stamped again, whickering with more volume.

  “I’d better go, Tulip, but I wanted to check in with you.”

  He whuffled once more; she thought he sounded lonely, though there were five other horses in the coach house to keep him company.

  The moment she appeared in the yard, Artie dropped the body brush and came charging over to her, his thin face contorted with a glad welcome. He grabbed her hand and kept shaking it.

  “I sure have missed you. I sure have missed you.”

  “Only because he’s had to exercise the Prince,” Mick said.

  “Oh, no.” Catriona covered her mouth with her hand to keep from grinning. “Your legs must be touching his knees, even if you are light enough to ride him.”

  “That makes it all the easier for him to stop the pony,” said Mick. “Just has to drop his heels to the ground.”

  “Oh, Artie, is the Prince being very bad?”

  Artie straightened up at the suggestion. “Not a bit. That pony is smart enough to know who’s his rider, you know. He don’t mess with me any more than he does with you.”

  “Should you be out, Catie?” Mick asked.

  “No one said I couldn’t.” Then Mick gave her a stern glance. “Well, I just wanted to see . . . ” Her voice trailed off as her eyes fell on the open door of Blister’s empty stable. “I just couldn’t stay in the house one more minute. It’s stuffy!”

  “And your mother and Mrs. Eithne are gone to Bray as well? Isn’t Bridie minding you?”

  “She’s upstairs!”

  “Well, you get back into the warm. Concussion’s nothing to fool with,” Mick said gruffly.

  �
�It was the warm was giving me the headache. Has Dad gone for a mare?”

  Mick chuckled, laying a finger alongside his nose. “That’s for me to know and you to guess.”

  “Guessing will bring on the headache.” Catriona shot a look at Artie, who was grinning from ear to ear.

  “A mare or a gelding, I didn’t hear which. Now, go back into the house afore Bridie finds you missing and gives me the rough edge of her tongue.”

  Dutifully she went because she was all too conscious of Blister’s empty stall and couldn’t feel easy in the yard. She had fallen asleep when the clock struck three and the Austin hauled the double horsebox into the yard, followed by a second, stylish vehicle.

  As Mrs. Healey emerged from her Lancia, Mick and Artie converged on the horsebox.

  “I don’t understand why she isn’t out here,” the captain told Mrs. Healey.

  “She was, Captain, this morning,” Mick said. “As soon as she could sneak out. I sent her back in so’s she wouldn’t catch cold.”

  “No, Michael, I’ll go,” Mrs. Healey said with a smile as the captain began a purposeful advance. “Just through the door here?”

  “She’ll be in the lounge, Mrs. Healey,” the captain said. “Last door on the right facing the hall.”

  Mrs. Healey found Catriona fast asleep on the lounge, a lean marmalade cat curled up at her feet, a Pullein-Thompson book dangling from one lax hand, the schoolbooks stuffed any old way into their bag. Catriona’s face was slightly flushed, and Mrs. Healey looked down at the delicate countenance, wondering why she had never noticed the quality there, the fine bone structure, the promise of an unusual beauty. The child had seemed so frail in her arms when she’d carried her across the field to the road.

  It had been an unusual experience for Selina Healey to hold a child. She and David had not been blessed with children, which, considering how seldom David had time for connubial bliss, did not surprise her. Until that moment, she had been grateful for such indifference. But suddenly a wave of regret had rushed over her. And she had experienced a second dose of that rare sentiment when she had had to leave the child with the hospital emergency staff.