The Lady

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Actually, she is, but Michael, you just won’t understand. It isn’t just Catriona.” Eithne moved to block Michael’s way again. “Isabel is not well. She’s not yet recovered from the shock of Catriona’s accident.”

  “It was Catriona who was hurt. All Isabel had to do was visit the child in hospital. Surely that was not too strenuous a maternal duty for her?” He pushed past his sister-in-law. “Now excuse me. I have duties to perform.”

  “Michael, you just won’t understand!” Eithne cried after him.

  He gritted his teeth and walked on. He had yet to deal with evening stables.

  If he was frustrated, so was Eithne. Well, she thought, if she couldn’t get Michael to face the problem, she really would have to have a word with Dr. Standish. She didn’t believe for one moment that he knew how often Isabel had been renewing that prescription. The woman took far too many pills. She looked poorly, too. And she had always been so careful with her appearance. It shocked Eithne to see Isabel looking so unkempt, no longer having her hair done as the weekly ritual. Her skin was dry, sallow, and suddenly she was looking her age, without a snitch of grace in the alteration.

  More and more of the household management was devolving onto Eithne’s shoulders, too. She was more than happy to take charge, although she and Bridie didn’t get on all that famously together. But it was odd for Isabel to give up control.

  Eithne sighed deeply as she reentered the house and slowly unwound the afghan from her shoulders. She glanced up the stairs to Isabel’s room, sighed again, and opened the kitchen door. Bridie, soup ladle raised, was holding forth.

  “Now your mum’s not feeling well again, so don’t you be wasting my time with Conker this and Conker that and Mrs. Healey’s doings. You get in there and lay that table proper, like a girl should be doing.” Bridie glared over Catriona’s shoulder at Eithne, who was trying to signal her.

  “What’s wrong with Mummie?” Catriona asked anxiously.

  “Nothing serious, dear,” Eithne said at the same time Bridie answered in a dire tone:

  “It’s that time of life for a woman.”

  Catriona regarded her aunt in some perplexity. “She didn’t sound like herself this afternoon. She said—”

  “Just be a good girl and lay the table, Catriona.” Eithne took the girl by the shoulders and gave her a little shove, shooting a quelling glance at the cook. “Now, Bridie, let’s not saddle young shoulders with old problems.”

  Bridie snorted in disgust. “I’m only speaking the truth. And did you speak it to the captain?”

  Eithne sighed. “I did. I really did, but he’s just like any other man. He simply will not listen to the truth.”

  “Whyever should he? He’s got what he wants: a well-managed home, good food, his pleasures when he wants ’em. What he won’t understand is why they won’t continue as he expects.” Bridie emphasized every point by banging another pot lid. Eithne held her breath, hoping the meal would not suffer from Bridie’s agitation. “The captain is too busy with his effing horses to know that the missus is real sick.”

  “Bridie!”

  “And it’s the only lot a woman can expect in life, so it is. And the sooner young Catriona knows it, the better it’ll be for her. And that’s m’final word!” She clamped her lips shut over her teeth and glared accusingly at Eithne.

  “I’d better see that Catriona’s laying the table properly,” Eithne said in an apologetic tone, and retreated. She did in fact open the door into the dining room and heard Catriona humming to herself as she placed the cutlery. The child’s face was still glowing with happiness. Eithne sighed again. It was so unfair to foist adult worries on young shoulders. And didn’t she know from firsthand experience as a child in her miserly father’s dreary house? She could at least try to make her niece’s youth as carefree as possible. Why did Isabel have to be so awkward about the pony? Catriona had always been such a nice child, no problem really to anyone.

  10

  ISABEL Carradyne stayed in her room for several days. Then, on Saturday afternoon, she emerged and required Catriona to come with her to confession. On the short walk to St. Michael’s Catriona saw that her mother was terribly short of breath. Beads of perspiration stood out on her brow and upper lip.

  “Mummie, are you all right?” she asked.

  “There is nothing wrong with me that a dutiful daughter cannot cure.”

  Catriona lapsed into guilty silence, but by the time they reached the church, Isabel was having difficulty walking. When Catriona put out a hand to support her, her mother slapped it away.

  “You must pray for forgiveness, Catriona. Now! For your hope of salvation. Pray to the Virgin Mary to melt your obstinacy and unfeminine desires!”

  With relief Catriona noted that the church and confessional were empty, for her mother’s voice was overloud.

  “Pray!” Her mother pushed her into the nearest pew and to her knees. Then Isabel had to clutch at the next stall for balance before entering the confessional.

  Catriona made the sign of the cross and launched fervent prayers for her mother’s health. Then:

  “Holy Virgin, you might not know much about horses; you only got to ride a donkey now and then. But you must know by now just how much I love horses, and ponies, and how much horses mean to my family. Surely it’s not wrong for me to love them if my father does. And good people like Mick and Artie. And Mrs. Healey. How can there be any harm in horses? I want to be a good daughter, but not if I have to give up horses. Please make Mother see that.”

  Catriona usually waited much farther back, out of respect for the sanctity of confession. But from where Isabel had made her kneel, she could hear her mother droning on, answered with short bass bursts from Father John. How could her mother have so much to confess when she hadn’t even been out of the house all week?

  Suddenly her mother emerged and went directly to the altar, where she knelt abjectly. Catriona rose stiffly and entered the confessional.

  When she left it, she was confused and upset. Father John had never required more than five Hail Marys and five Our Fathers when she’d had far more venial sins to confess. Her mother had already left, and Catriona dutifully began her penance. She’d have more prayers to say this evening and every morning.

  She got back to the yard just in time to help with evening stables. When her father asked her what had taken her so long, she hesitated briefly. Well, she thought, one more little lie would not make much difference, so she said that she’d had to wait for confession. As soon as she could, she hunted out Auntie Eithne.

  “Did Mummie get home all right this afternoon?”

  “Yes, of course, she did, child. Why?”

  “She looked just awful walking to church . . . .”

  “She needs to get out more, that’s all, Catriona. To get out and about and stop that fasting. It’s made her light-headed. But don’t worry. It’ll all sort itself out soon.”

  Catriona let herself be reassured. Her mother’s wild words on Wednesday were not easy to forget, but, good Catholic child though she was, she could not believe that the Virgin Mary would have spoken to her mother about something as trivial as her riding horses. Catriona Mary Virginia Carradyne in County Wicklow was too unimportant to bother with when there were people in the north who really needed God’s help and the Virgin’s intercession.

  Until the show season started, Sundays were quiet days for the stables. Once they’d been skipped out, the horses watered, hayed, and fed, there wasn’t much to be done. Today her father told Catriona that she was to come with him to look at horses that afternoon. Mrs. Healey was coming, too.

  “First, though,” said her father, “let’s see if we can give Frolic’s foal another leading lesson. He gave Artie a real chase yesterday.”

  Tulip’s Son—as Michael had decided to name the little foal—showed astonishing strength as he first dragged Catriona after his dam, then propped both overlong front legs in total refusal to move at all. But this wasn’t the
first foal Catriona had put manners on, and gentle persuasion, as well as the nuts she had hidden in her hand, encouraged him to follow his dam quietly enough.

  When Mrs. Healey arrived, Catriona had to excuse herself and wash her sweaty hands and face. As she came back into the yard, her father and Mrs. Healey emerged from the coach house. The Tulip had been duly visited.

  She wished that her father’d thought to warn her that it was Jack Garden’s horse they were going to see. The initial encounter was a bit awkward for Catriona since she couldn’t help but associate Garden with Blister’s death. However, all the drills in proper social behavior proved useful, Catriona realized for the first time. She had only to make the proper responses to get through the difficulty.

  Catriona admired Mrs. Healey very much that afternoon. She knew so much about horses. She could appreciate conformation and made some acute comments that drew respectful glances from her father as well as Mr. Garden. How marvelous it would be, Catriona thought, if she could grow up to be like Mrs. Healey, poised, clever, and so pretty.

  The conversation between her father and Mrs. Healey on the way home puzzled Catriona, who was sitting in the backseat.

  “You’re after the Chou Chin Chow gelding?” Mrs. Healey asked.

  “Was it that obvious?”

  “You didn’t give yourself away, if that’s what you mean, but then I was paying more attention to you than Jack was.” Mrs. Healey gave a low chuckle, and her father joined in. “For the transition?”

  “I had that in mind, but the timing’s off.”

  “But not your horseman’s eye for a potentially useful animal?”

  “That’s it.”

  “If you cared for my opinion, I’d say buy. You’ve three years in which to school him properly, and that young lad of yours can show him.”

  “Philip’s too big already.”

  “I didn’t mean your son. I meant the lad in the yard. Artie?”

  “Artie? He’s all right exercising the hunters, Selina, but he’s got no give in his hands. He’d wreck a sensitive mouth.”

  “Then I’ll ride him for you. If you’d permit . . . ”

  “Permit?” Michael was astounded.

  “Actually, I did a lot of showing for my father before my marriage. I was quite good. I even have an assistant instructorship, though I think that the British Horse Society must have lowered their standards that year. Still, it was what my set was doing in their spare time.”

  “You trained at Burton Hall, didn’t you? You ride like a Mr. Mac graduate.”

  “Is it still that obvious?”

  “His training leaves an indelible mark.”

  “He was a dear! We all adored him.”

  Michael Carradyne chuckled at that. “And you learned to sit!”

  “Indeed I did. As well as a few horse coper’s ploys.”

  “My dear woman . . . ”

  “I’m not your dear anything, but I know a horse trader when I see one.” She laughed. “Oh, I don’t blame you. That gelding has a lot of presence and such natural balance! Have you seen him over poles yet?”

  Michael Carradyne grinned. “No, but I saw him flying the ditches.”

  “Buy him. Break him, and I’ll show him for you. A deal?” She pushed a gloved hand at Michael Carradyne.

  “You may regret it. I’m a hard ridemaster, aren’t I, Catriona?” And Catriona nodded vigorously, grinning from ear to ear.

  “It’s always the things we don’t do that we regret,” Selina Healey said in a low voice, almost to herself. “What are you planning to give for him?”

  “I’ll try three hundred.” When Mrs. Healey made a funny noise in her throat, he added, “but I’ll go to five if I have to. Though I shouldn’t. I intend to lean on Garden’s conscience.”

  “Are you sure he has one? All’s fair in war and horse trading.”

  “Exactly!”

  Tuesday afternoon her mother was waiting for Catriona and insisted that she say a rosary with her. Catriona tried to concentrate on the prayers, but her mother paused after each bead and stared so fixedly at her that she was unnerved. Especially as the one rosary was taking so much time and her father would be down in the yard waiting for her.

  Wednesday, when Catriona again arrived late in the yard, her father demanded an explanation.

  “Mother wanted me to say the rosary with her,” Catriona began, stumbling over the words.

  “Rosary indeed! There’s a time and place for prayer! Give the Prince a lap or two until I join you.” Face set, her father strode toward the house, slapping his stick against his boot leg.

  When her father, riding Teasle, met her on the Ride, his face was expressionless.

  “From now on, Catriona, you will come directly to the yard after school. Any prayers your mother wishes to say with you can wait until after dinner. Is that understood?”

  “Oh, yes, Daddy.”

  He gave her a sideways look, his taut expression relaxing. “Well, prayer is all very well, but the time must be appropriate. Let’s take that brat of a pony down the jumps. Keep your stick ready and don’t lose the contact. Sean is always dropping the pony before a jump. Small wonder he runs out.”

  The Prince did not run out on Catriona: she made very sure of that. Her father was well pleased, she knew, though he said nothing. It was his way when satisfied. One heard quickly enough when he wasn’t.

  At night, once her father left the house on more business concerning the Horse Board Bill, her mother came to Catriona’s room and began a session of ardent prayer, although the girl had not yet finished her school preparation. The prayers had to be ardent, for the room was cool, the floor hard, and Catriona had difficulty staying awake. The session ended only when the sound of the captain’s returning car could be heard.

  When Catriona’s sleepiness made her late for the school bus on Thursday and again on Friday, Owen accused her of reading too late to get enough sleep.

  “Is that true, Catriona?” her father demanded sternly.

  “No, Daddy, I’m not reading.”

  “Then what keeps you up so late?”

  “Praying,” Catriona finally responded, her head down and her voice so meek that her father angrily asked her to repeat her answer. “Praying,” she said.

  “God in heaven, what is wrong with the woman?” Her father threw down his napkin and flung out of the kitchen. They could hear him charging up the stairs and then angry but indistinguishable voices.

  “Now you’ve done it, missie,” Bridie said, giving Catriona a fierce nip on the arm.

  “What have I done?” Catriona demanded, tears coming to her eyes. “I told the truth.”

  “You’ve put the cat among the pigeons for sure, now. There’ll be no peace in this house.”

  “There isn’t much anyway,” Owen replied. “C’mon, Cat,” he added, rising. “I’ll take you down to school. It’s not your fault, but this is the last time I’m your taxi man.”

  “Who says it isn’t her fault?” Bridie demanded at the top of her voice. “A daughter is supposed to be the comfort and support of her mother in her trials. A daughter—”

  “Oh, stuff it, Bridie,” Owen said, disgusted. “This is the twentieth century.” And he hustled Catriona out of the kitchen, muttering under his breath about priest-ridden women.

  “How is it my fault, Owen?” Catriona demanded, close to tears.

  “It isn’t, Cat. It isn’t. If you ask me, Auntie Isabel’s gone soft in the head with all that Easter prayer and fasting.”

  If Catriona had thought the previous week’s penance stiff, Saturday’s was doubled. Again she had the treacherous thought that her mother had complained to Father John.

  During Sunday Mass, aware that Father John glared in her direction far too often, she tried to squinch down beside her mother and began to feel very queasy. She was nervous about the end of Mass, for Father John had been known to publicly charge a sinner on his way out of church. She couldn’t bear such an open humiliation. Fortuna
tely, neighbors stopped to exchange greetings with her mother. She mixed in with all their kids and avoided any confrontation.

  But walking home, the cramps in her stomach became severe enough to double her over. It was as if she’d eaten too many figs or fresh apricots, though she’d only had her usual porridge for breakfast. She got into the house and went straight to the loo, hoping to relieve herself. When she discovered blood on the paper, she sat paralyzed. That her mother’s prayers had been answered was her first wild thought, abruptly interrupted by a curt knock on the door.

  “Trina!” It was her sister, Sybil, who had been expected for Sunday dinner. “Don’t take all day in there!”

  “Oh, Sybil,” Catriona said in a horrified whisper, “I’m bleeding to death!”

  “Bleeding? Well, it’s about time you did!”

  Between reassurances and a wad of loo roll between Catriona’s legs, Sybil ushered her sister up to the privacy of her bedroom.

  “Mother vowed that she’d tell you all about menstruation, Trina. Don’t tell me she opted out on that one, too?” Sybil said with some exasperation. “Well, evidently her words of wisdom did not sink in. Now you change, and I’ll just get a pad from Auntie Eithne.”

  Sybil whirled out of the room, leaving Catriona not much wiser. Then she remembered that just before her last birthday, her mother had tried to explain something about becoming a woman and having to put up with a curse that was never to be referred to in public, let alone mixed company. It was part of a woman’s lot, Isabel had said. And, while disgusting, it was better to have the curse every month than not to have it because that meant more trouble than Catriona could imagine and ended with children being born.

  Then Auntie Eithne, her pretty face wreathed with smiles, came in with Sybil, carrying a small box and still looking jubilant, right behind her.

  “Oh, my dear child! And I shouldn’t call you ‘child’ anymore, now that you’re a woman,” Auntie Eithne began, hugging Catriona warmly and beaming at her as if she had done something immensely clever. “How happy we are for you! But I don’t think we’ll mention it to your mother just yet.” The smile on Auntie Eithne’s face dimmed a trifle, but she hugged Catriona all the more warmly. “Oh, what’s the matter? Do you have cramps?” For a belly spasm had wrenched a gasp from Catriona. “Go get an aspirin for her, Sybil, will you, there’s a good girl. And a hot-water bottle. Only don’t tell Bridie why. At least not yet. Now, dear, I don’t think Isabel quite explained it all last year, did she?”