The Lady

by Anne McCaffrey

  Stirred by these unusual emotions, Selina Healey had not let the matter drop. The dead pony had been elderly but game, as ponies so often were. As her last pony still was. And then she recalled that neither that pony nor she herself were all that aged.

  Conker couldn’t be more than eighteen. He’d been bought for her at just three years old on her thirteenth birthday, a beautiful bright sorrel chesnut, 14.1 hands high, exceedingly well bred. She’d had three very good years out of him before her father had graduated her to a proper ladies’ hunter. There was no reason for Conker to continue eating his head off when he could be of use. Especially to a rider of Catriona’s standard. And a girl of Catriona’s courage. For Selina Healey had been impressed that Catriona’s first thought, despite her own injuries, had been for her pony.

  She had told the captain in a tone that brooked absolutely no refusal that Catriona was to have the use of Conker until she went into horses. She named time and place and ended the conversation with the stammering captain by hanging up the phone. Selina was well pleased with herself right now, thinking how much pleasure it would give Catriona to have Conker to ride. Then a cynical laugh started in her throat. So often the surprises you planned for people backfired in the most awkward fashion, such as her last dinner party. Her husband had not been pleased. Ah, well.

  Now Selina shook Catriona gently by the shoulder.

  “Wake up, it’s three o’clock, Catriona, your father wants you.”

  Catriona stirred. Then her drowsy mind registered an unfamiliar voice, and, startled, she shot to a sitting position, sending Clyde Cat flying in retreat.

  “Mrs. Healey!” She tried to untangle her feet from the rug. “I bled all over you, and yet you sent me the flowers . . . .” Catriona was torn between trying to stand up for an adult guest of Mrs. Healey’s consequence and making sure to mention all the various kindnesses.

  Laughing gently at Catriona’s confusion, Selina Healey helped her get free of the afghan.

  “The stains did come out, didn’t they? Mary said you’d have a maid who knows . . . ”

  “My dear child, that was the least of my concerns, I assure you.” Gently, Selina urged Catriona out of the room toward the yard. She could hardly wait to see the effect of her gift on this lovely child. “Now, wait. Which is yours?” Her hand went to the various outerwear hung on pegs by the door. When Catriona pointed, she took it down, and then they couldn’t get the cast into the sleeve, so Selina draped it over the left shoulder, all the time easing Catriona outside. She was hoping that the captain had not yet unloaded the pony, for she wanted to savor the scene to its fullest.

  As they reached the yard, she realized she need not have worried. The captain was waiting for them to appear. The ramp went down with a thump, and Conker squealed. Catriona’s eyes widened, and she cast one startled glance up at Mrs. Healey. There was a thud, a kick against the box that made it shake, a muffled curse from Artie, and then he led Conker out.

  “It occurred to me, Catriona, that it was silly to let Conker eat his head off in retirement simply because I’ve outgrown ponies. Your father has agreed to let you use him, and I’m sure you’ll be very good partners indeed.”

  Selina joined the captain and the two stable hands as they watched Catriona awkwardly strip the travel rug from Conker, who never took his eyes off her, turning his handsome head to check on her efforts. He submitted to her gentling hand, let her blow in his nostrils, and then lipped at a stray strand of her hair. He blew delicately into her hand at last, after sniffing the cast with a snort for the antiseptic smell. Then he stamped, snorted, and regarded the rest of his admirers.

  “Conker always did like an audience,” Selina murmured.

  “Oh, Mrs. Healey . . . Mrs. Healey . . . ” Catriona stared at her, wonder and utter delight shining from her face. “Mrs. Healey . . . ”

  Selina chuckled.

  “Surely you can do better than that,” Captain Carradyne said with a frown.

  “How could I ever thank her properly for Conker?” Catriona demanded, turning to the pony, who lifted his head proudly. “How could I, Daddy? There just aren’t words.”

  “Those will do quite well enough, I assure you, Catriona. Now, I think we’d better settle him in,” Mrs. Healey said briskly. “You get back indoors. And you must promise me not to ride until that arm is healed. Conker will need to be lunged a bit. He hasn’t worked a day in at least ten years.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Healey! And after me bleeding all over you, too!” Catriona burst into tears.

  Selina wanted badly to gather the child into her arms and experienced the most incredible surge of jealousy when Michael Carradyne did so.

  “Catriona!” he said.

  “Don’t scold, Captain. Her reaction is completely sincere and natural.”

  “Please come in, Mrs. Healey.”

  “No, I really must fly.”

  “You must stop for a cup of tea, at least,” Catriona said, mastering her emotions and remembering her manners.

  “I’ll take you up on that, Catriona, when you’re riding again and I can see what progress you and Conker are making as a team. All right?”

  Smiling courteously to the three men and Catriona, Selina Healey returned to her car and drove smartly out of the yard, wishing with all her heart that she could have stayed.

  8

  FIRST thing the next morning, even before Mick and Artie had arrived in the yard, Catriona watered, fed, and hayed Conker.

  “I want him to settle in quickly,” she said when they showed up.

  Artie grinned, but Mick gave a snort. “That pony settled in the moment he was fed,” he said. “Horrid little sod!”

  “He is not! He’s very well bred, Mick, and he has excellent stable manners. He doesn’t barge into you for his feed the way the Prince and the hunters do. And Temper!”

  “Get back inside, Cat, it’s freezing. Can’t have you catching your death! Then where will you be during the holidays?”

  Mick had a point, and Catriona dashed back to the house, planning to come out later to quarter Conker. However, when Isabel descended for her breakfast, she informed Catriona that they were going shopping for Easter clothes and would stop in at Grandmother Marshall’s for tea.

  “But, Mummie, I’ve missed so much school,” Catriona replied. She hated shopping with the same intensity Isabel adored it. And her grandmother was always critical of her youngest grandchild and the manners of the younger generation in general. “Easter holidays start next week. Couldn’t we go then?”

  “No, because the shops will be far too crowded. It’s high time you took some interest in your appearance. You’ll be thirteen in a matter of weeks.” Isabel glanced slyly at her husband, who was reviewing the post. He was ignoring the conversation, and she didn’t see the wink he gave his daughter. “I really should have enrolled you for Irish dancing lessons when I wanted to,” she continued. “You’d’ve done extremely well. You’re very agile. And it’s not too late for you to start.”

  “Oh, Mummie, have you ever looked at the dancers’ legs? They have calves like . . . like rugby players.”

  “But the costumes are so feminine. Eithne could make you a stunning one. You know how good she is with the needle.”

  Catriona winced, and Philip didn’t help by smothering a guffaw that earned him his mother’s darkest look. It was yet another betrayal from her adored son. For when she had tried to wean him to her cause, he had been outright incredulous and then scornful. “Trina’s the best rider of the lot of us, Mother. You’re wide of the mark if you think you can change her. Give over! You’ll never make it.”

  But his attitude only reinforced her determination. It was important that Catriona spend more time with her mother and learn the feminine side of life—with all its trials and tribulations. Isabel sniffed.

  The trip into town was not a success for either mother or daughter. Catriona had no preferences about clothing that was not for riding. Discussions over this style and that color
irritated her. If the dress or shirt or coat fit and served its purpose, she’d wear it. Generally one good dress sufficed her, being used for Mass, birthday parties, or the occasional family dinner.

  This time, Isabel bought not only the new Easter outfit for her daughter, but several other dresses, moaning over the awkward cast. Catriona was so annoyed by all the changing into and out of and back again that when it came time to try on shoes, she did not pay proper attention to the salesman and failed to get the right fitting.

  As expected, afternoon tea with Grandmother Marshall was a second trial.

  “Girls who devote too much time to horses and ponies begin to resemble them,” Grandmother Marshall pronounced, and bent a severe eye on Catriona, who choked on crumbs of the soda bread and butter she was trying to eat. “Catriona should join the Girl Guides. They do so much good work in the community. You really would enjoy the company of other girls, Catriona.”

  “I do, Grandmother.”

  “Oh?”

  “Mary Evans is my best friend . . . .”

  Isabel made a moue. “The father’s an estate agent in Delgany. Does rather well, in fact.”

  “Not what I had in mind for you, Catriona. You must make eligible connections among the girls in your school.”

  “Mary goes to the Dominican.”

  “Don’t be cheeky with me, young lady. I’m certain that the Delahayes live in Wicklow. They have a daughter Catriona’s age, don’t they, Isabel?”

  “No, Mother, Sinead Delahaye has six boys.”

  “Well, it can’t hurt to cultivate Selina Healey, Isabel. Do be sensible. It can’t last long, this infatuation of Catriona’s. She’s nearly twelve, isn’t she?”

  “She’ll be thirteen in April, Mother.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed to look at her. Well, let’s see if there’s any improvement when she’s properly dressed. You may change in my dressing room, Catriona.”

  Catriona had been hoping that her mother and grandmother would get involved with who married whom and where they now resided. Then she could have made surreptitious inroads on the nice cream buns Grandmother always served with tea. But she knew better than to protest, even if she was sweaty and awkward with the cast on her arm. Then her grandmother complained that her underwear was totally unacceptable, and she doubted if the child would ever develop any sort of a figure. Both women decided that riding was the cause of her backwardness.

  By the time the shopping expedition returned to Cornanagh, evening stables were over and the yard darkened for the night. Catriona felt cheated.

  Over the next few days, her mother continually had activities planned that took Catriona away from Cornanagh and Conker. She had to parade about in the new clothes and get her feet rubbed raw in the ill-fitting shoes. Her mother took her along to morning coffees with her Irish Countrywomen’s Association friends and afternoon teas with elderly relatives who didn’t remember Catriona any better than she did them.

  The only afternoon outing that Catriona half enjoyed was seeing Mrs. Healey on Tuesday at her superb Georgian home in Dalkey. For this occasion, Catriona’s best manners were easily assumed, and she soon realized that her mother’s conversational tidbits bored Mrs. Healey, who seemed to smile at Catriona almost conspiratorially.

  “And how is Conker settling in for you?” Selina Healey asked at last, turning her attention firmly in Catriona’s direction.

  “Father’s working him on the lunge, and he’s turned out for a few hours every day.”

  Selina Healey nodded, smiling. “He’s always been good at exercising himself. Don’t worry if he takes off and laps the field. I’ve seen him racing round and round like that, for the pure joy of it.”

  Catriona laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s just what he’s doing. I’ve seen him myself. And then he clears the gorse bushes and jumps down the bank and wheels and jumps up it.”

  “He’s got a super pop, Catriona. As you’ll discover as soon as your arm is out of plaster. A very scopy pony. I wonder, is there still time to enter him in the Spring Show?”

  “Oh, yes!” Catriona was pleased. “That is, if it’s all right with you, and my father agrees. Entries for jumping competitions don’t close until April twenty-seventh. I know because my father has to enter Sean Doherty on the Ballymore Prince.”

  “Would you be competing in the same class?”

  “No, Sean’s older’n me, and the Prince is in the fourteen-twos.”

  Isabel entered the conversation with effusive thanks for the use of such a valuable pony, then rose and said they had to be returning home. The Dohertys were good clients of her husband’s but were certainly not in the same social sphere as the Healeys, she thought. Not for want of Aisling Doherty’s trying. Selina, smiling kindly, caught Catriona’s eye as she walked them to the door.

  “Now, if you’d only act as natural and polite with everyone else,” Isabel began as they drove home, “you’d be an asset.”

  “Mrs. Healey understands horses,” Catriona said, knowing that was exactly the wrong justification to present her mother.

  “Yes, but Mrs. Healey knows far more than just horses, Catriona, and it shows in that magnificent house, which I hear she decorated herself. She is socially active, goes everywhere, her husband is an important man—an associate of Mr. Haughey who will be Taoiseach soon enough. And Selina Healey knows how to dress well. I’m sure that dress of hers is an Ib Jorgensen. There’s far more to Selina Healey than horses, my girl, and don’t you forget it.”

  Not for the first time did Isabel Carradyne resent the fact that they had to live in Wicklow County. Now, if only they lived in Dublin, near her parents, there would be evenings when fascinating people would gather in her mother’s lounge, people with keen interests in the world about them, in the theater, letters, politics. Nevertheless, it was time Catriona learned how to behave in society. And Isabel would say a special novena to the Virgin Mary to intercede for her and dissolve Catriona’s resistance.

  As soon as they reached the house, Catriona dutifully went to change out of her good clothes but accomplished this with such speed that Isabel didn’t have time to stop the child as she tore out to the yard and that wretched pony. Yes, wretched, even if it had been offered by someone as socially prominent as Selina Healey. Isabel gave a delicate sniff.

  Michael Carradyne had no reservations about the unexpected gift. Ponies were generally selfish little beasts, but Conker already recognized Catriona’s step and would be at the door whickering eagerly for her company. Michael was rather keen to see them working. If they could get the pony and Catriona fit, there was still time to put the pair in the Spring Show.

  Already she fed him, groomed him to a shine generally only Mick could achieve, took him to and from the field. Michael had watched from a distance as the pony displayed his paces and ability by jumping every gorse bush and obstacle in the big field, almost as if he were promising Catriona what they would soon be doing together. Then he returned to lay his muzzle on her shoulder, blowing softly into her hair while she giggled from the tickling.

  Conker also followed her about the yard without so much as a baling string about his neck. Michael had reprimanded her for that sort of carelessness.

  “Head collar and lead rope, Catriona Carradyne. We’ll have no sloppy manners in this yard.”

  Michael had decided to mend relations with Jack Garden. He recognized now that he had said things in anger to Garden that would have been better unsaid. But there it was! He’d lost his temper, probably any chance at the gelding, and possibly a good friend. Well, not “good,” precisely, for Jack Garden was more a drinking companion than a friend.

  Fortunately, Jack was well into the evening’s drinking when Michael reached the Willow Grove pub, and as Jack was a happy drinker, he was affability itself, accepting Michael’s apologies.

  “Sure the man was all wind and piss as far as horses. Hadn’t a bog’s notion about riding and didn’t have the sense to know it. These Yanks. Full of shit most
of the time. And you did me a favor.” Jack gave Michael a sly glance. “I’d’ve had to tick him off if you hadn’t. And that might have queered the deal we were doing. So I gave you the blame and took the credit!”

  “Did you now?” Michael quelled the surge of anger that Jack had turned the incident to his own advantage. But then, Garden was known to be quick.

  “How’s the little girl doing?”

  “Grand. She’ll be riding again in a couple of weeks’ time. Young bones heal quickly.”

  “I hear the Healey came up handsomely with a pony for her.”

  Michael nodded. “Very kind of Mrs. Healey. Totally unexpected.”

  “It’s a good pony?”

  “Very, and with Catriona on its back, likely to improve.”

  “Well, then, we’re friends so?” And Jack held out his hand. Michael took it, thinking that perhaps he hadn’t lost out in the matter of the gelding.

  Then Bob Kelly barged in, wanting to know what people were about, spending so much money on a stupidity like this Eurovision song contest, and involved half the lounge in a discussion that became so heated, Tom had to act the referee several times. It was near closing time before Michael had a chance to inquire, casually, if Jack had thought about selling the Chou Chin Chow gelding in the spring.

  “He’s small,” Jack said ruefully.

  “Some three-year-olds grow right up to five.”

  Jack shrugged.

  “I do have a buyer interested in that sort of breeding.” That was sufficiently noncommittal. From time to time, Michael bought horses for clients. “What sort of money are you asking?”

  “What sort of money has your client got?” Jack Garden had a horse trader’s gleam in his eye.

  Michael shrugged. “I was only asked to look out for Chou Chin Chows. Shall I bring them round?” In his mind he was turning over those of his acquaintances who might be asked to fall in with his scheme.