The Lady

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Oh, Bridie! You must have been making it for weeks!” Catriona cried with delight, and hugged the diminutive cook after she had placed the cake on the table. “It’s . . . it’s . . . absolutely spectacular!” To which everyone else loudly agreed and her little nephew wanted to know couldn’t he please have a big piece because he’d eaten all his tea.

  “Well now,” Bridie began, smoothing her apron with a semblance of modesty, “I did put a bit of extra effort into it, being as how you’re thirteen now, Catriona Mary Virginia.” She paused, scowling a bit at the captain and then raising her eyes to the ceiling beneath her mistress’s bedroom. “What with all that’s been happening and you becoming a woman and all. Here!” she said hastily, seeing the grim expression on the captain’s face. “Cut it and see if all me work’s worth me time and effort.”

  She handed Catriona the old silver cake knife and matching spatula and gave her a little push toward the table. With an intent expression, Catriona made two neat incisions in the white perfection of icing, oohed appreciatively at the depth of the marzipan layer, and again at the double cream between three layers of light yellow sponge, and, while everyone held their breath, managed to transfer the slice to the plate that Eithne held under it.

  “That’s for Mother,” Catriona said with suitable gravity. “I’ll take it up to her in a minute.”

  Once she had served everyone else, she took the cake to her mother. She found Isabel asleep, her hands twined about a rosary that was identical to the one she had given her daughter. Catriona hesitated, wondering should she leave the cake or take it back for Bridie to keep. It would be a shame to let such a superior cake go stale. Finally she left it on the bedside table, moving aside the brown plastic bottle half-full of capsules.

  On Wednesday, as Catriona was riding leading file in the sand menage, Conker kicked a beer bottle that had been lobbed over the wall. The moment she heard the ominous crack of glass, Catriona pulled him up, but it was too late. She was off his back the next moment, yelling at Sean to turn to the center. Her father was equally quick, the first to lift the pony’s foot and assess the damage. A shard of glass was imbedded in the sole at the toe. Father and daughter exchanged glances.

  “Steady him, Trina,” Michael said, and jerked the thin shard out. Blood welled up instantly. “Sean, find Mick and have him ring the vet. Tell Artie to bring me gamgee and bandages. We’ve got to keep the wound as clean as possible.”

  When Sean clattered out of the menage on the Prince, Conker nickered and pulled at Catriona’s restraint. She soothed him so that he wouldn’t jerk his foot out of her father’s hand.

  “I should have checked,” said Michael. “I should have had Artie check. Those yahbos are always turfing bottles over the wall. Of all the times in the world, I should have been extra cautious right now.”

  “See, he knows to stand quiet,” Catriona said, stroking Conker’s neck as her other hand securely held the cheekpiece of the splendid new bridle.

  “You work and school, and do your damnedest, and what happens? The bloody horse goes lame just when he has to be sound! I don’t know why I stick to horses! I really don’t.”

  Catriona had never heard her father sound so bitter, so defeated.

  “There’ll be other shows, Dad. August isn’t that far away, and the pony classes in the Horse Show are much better than the spring ones. Anyway, a true Carradyne can’t stay away from horses. That’s what Grandfather always said.”

  Michael Carradyne looked up at his daughter’s earnest face. He gave a short, affectionate laugh. Just then Artie, with Sean on foot and Mick close behind them, came flying into the yard. Conker whickered nervously at the commotion and tried to pull his foreleg out of Michael’s hand.

  “Steady there!” The admonition was as much for the rush of assistance as for the startled pony. “Don’t you know better than to charge at an injured horse?” he demanded of Artie, who held out the gamgee and rolled bandage. Artie started to stammer, but then Mick brushed by him, bending to peer at the injury.

  “Sure, I’ve seen worse. It’s a long way from his heart. Vet’s coming. Caught him at the surgery.”

  Catriona surrendered her position to Mick and stood back beside Artie and the wide-eyed Sean as the two men applied first aid to the wound.

  “It’s all right, Artie,” she told him, noticing that his face was beet red with humiliation.

  “Will he be all right for the show, Catriona?” Sean asked in a subdued whisper.

  She shook her head.

  “Gosh, what’re you going to do, then?”

  “Watch you, Sean, and don’t you and the Prince dare put a foot wrong, you hear me?”

  The bandage secure, the two men began leading the crippled pony back to his stall.

  “C’mon, Artie, let’s get up all the glass,” said Catriona. “Sean, go get us a spring rake and the skip.”

  That task kept the others from seeing the tears streaming down her face. And she stuck to the search long after the others left, until she heard the throaty sound of the vet’s Merc as it shifted down for the turn at Kilquade Road.

  “I’ve seen worse,” Finbarr O’Sullivan said, smiling encouragingly. “When did he last have a tetanus jab?”

  Michael regarded Finbarr for a moment and then sighed. “Not since he got to this yard. I’ll give Mrs. Healey a shout.” He strode off toward the house.

  “Sure, I should have checked the menage myself this morning,” Mick said, shaking his head slowly. Then, when he saw Artie regarding him with a fearful expression, “No, lad, it’s no fault of yours. But with the Show only a few days off, we should have known something could happen. And hasn’t it just?”

  “It’ll take more than that slice to do this fella in,” the vet said soothingly as he began to fill a syringe from the upheld bottle. “D’you have any penicillin, Mick?”

  “No, sir, we used up the last we had when the brown mare had that cough.”

  Conker stood quietly while the vet gave him the first injection.

  “He’s not had tet in at least five years,” Michael said, reappearing. He slipped an arm about Catriona’s shoulders, smiling down at her reassuringly. “She understands, Trina. Don’t fret. But I think from now on, Artie, your first job every morning is to check the menage for bottles.” Artie flushed and scuffed his toe in the shavings. “I should have thought of doing it on a regular basis long before this,” Michael added ruefully. “Artie, off you go now and clear up that glass . . . .”

  “We already did that, Captain,” Artie said, his Adam’s apple bobbing in relief. “Cat and Sean and me.”

  “Thank you, and would you saddle Teasle up for me? I think Sean and I will go down the Ride today.” Then he turned expectantly to Finbarr.

  “He’ll be grand when that heals. Keep poulticing with the antiphlogistene. You know the drill, Michael. Ten cc’s of penicillin for the next five days. Call me if there’s any heat in the hoof or swelling in the leg. Though I don’t think there will be.” Finbarr closed up his medical case and, after shaking hands with the Captain, went on his way.

  Catriona watched while Mick stripped off Conker’s horseshoe, and once the antiphlogistene had been heated on the little stove in the feed room, she helped him apply the poultice. Conker was behaving beautifully, and he’d even allowed Mr. O’Sullivan to give him the injection without more than a hand on the head collar. Then they rugged him up, made him a deep bed of straw and a warm bran mash.

  It wasn’t until the necessary had been done to ensure the pony’s comfort that realization hit Catriona. She slid the bolts on the stable door and leaned against it, turning her head from Mick so he wouldn’t see her distress. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t be in the Spring Show. It wasn’t even that Mrs. Healey would be disappointed; she was a horsewoman and knew these stupid accidents could happen. It hurt Catriona because Conker had been injured, through no fault of his.

  “Go have a cup of tea, Catriona,” Mick suggested, his voice rough. He gave her
a little push toward the house. “With lots of sugar. Artie and me’ll finish up here. Sure it’s a long way from his heart.”

  “Thanks, Mick,” she said, and obeyed. She’d check Conker later this evening, to be sure he hadn’t shed the poultice or twisted his rug. And this evening, no matter what Bridie said, she’d bring him a treat. There were apples in the bowl in the lounge. Surely an injured pony could have one.

  As she stepped into the kitchen, Bridie began:

  “I told ya. I warned ya. And now you’ve been punished. Pray, Catriona Mary Carradyne, pray. Repent, and this trial will be taken from you. For God’s way is not to be gainsaid. His laws shall not be mocked. You have not honored your mother!”

  Catriona stared at Bridie a moment, then wheeled and slammed out of the kitchen, sobs tearing out of her. She pounded up the stairs with such a clatter that her aunt, who had been sitting with the invalid, came out to investigate. Catriona gave her one fearful glance and fled to the dubious safety of her room. She turned the key in the lock. She flung herself down on her bed, covered her head with her pillow, and abandoned herself to tears.

  She was aware, though she told herself she didn’t hear anything with her head under the pillow, that Auntie Eithne knocked, then pounded on the door, calling for admittance.

  Then the knocking began again.

  “Catriona Mary!” It was her mother’s voice. “You have reaped the only reward for your obstinacy. You must come to the Virgin Mary in humility and pray with me for the salvation of your immortal soul.”

  “Then why wasn’t the glass in my foot? Why should God punish an innocent pony?”

  “God is not to be mocked, Catriona Mary.”

  “You are the mocker, Mother, pretending to know what God does and wants and says. Go away.”

  “Open this door, Catriona Mary. Open this door to your mother so that I may pray for your immortal soul.”

  “No, no! No!” Catriona screamed. “No, no, no. Never!” Then she rammed the pillow over her head, pressing its sides down against her ears. In a voice loud enough to drown out her mother’s, Catriona began to recite the Hail Mary. When she realized what she had unconsciously chosen, she writhed on the bed and shouted out the multiplication tables. Then her mother stopped abruptly. Catriona paused. The suddenness of the silence unnerved her.

  She uncovered her left ear and listened. Then Bridie’s unmistakable keening broke the silence.

  “Stop that this instant, Bridie Doolin,” came the clear, angry voice of her Auntie Eithne. “Phone Doctor Standish. Which is what ought to have been done any time since Easter. Then get Mick or Barry or whoever’s about to help me.” There was a moment of silence, and then Auntie Eithne began in a different tone altogether. “Belle? Belle? Can you hear me? Isabel? Isabel?”

  Terrified, Catriona crept slowly to the door, unlocked, and opened it. Her mother was crumpled on the floor, her face a ghastly white. Auntie Eithne was chaffing one hand.

  “You’re a good girl, Catriona. Bring me your blankets and pillow. We’ll try to keep her warm. They always say that’s the first thing to do.”

  Catriona could not move. She could only stare at her mother’s limp figure. She had done this. She had been just as willful and awful a child as Bridie said she was.

  “Catriona Mary, don’t look so stricken. This is not your fault. Not even saints fast forever.”

  The contempt and disapproval in her aunt’s voice did more to reassure Catriona than her words. She darted for the blankets and pillows, half stripping the sheets in the process.

  “It’s all so very ridiculous,” Auntie Eithne said, more to herself than to Catriona, as they tucked the blankets about the still form. Then, “There, there, now, Trina dear, your mother’s simply not herself.” She patted Catriona’s shoulder and gave her a tender smile.

  Just then the courtyard door was yanked open, and both could hear the tramp of men coming to their assistance.

  “Eithne?” Michael cried, and he was first up the steps, followed by Mick and an ashen-faced Artie.

  “She just collapsed, Michael,” Eithne said. “Did you reach Doctor Standish, Bridie?”

  “Oh, the dear, the poor darling!” Bridie howled.

  Michael bent over his wife’s still body, feeling for the pulse with one hand as he pulled up an eyelid with the other. Then he rose and, leaning over the balustrade, told Bridie to stop her banshee wail and answer the question.

  “Yis, yis, he’s coming, and why wouldn’t he with the mistress dying on the cold floor!”

  “She’s not dying . . . .” His opinion, pronounced in such a firm voice, made Catriona reel with relief. Michael saw her reaction and drew his daughter to his side, smiling down at her with reassurance. “Not our day, is it, Trina? She’s just fainted. All the fasting and prayer caught up with her, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Exactly,” Eithne said. “If only I had ignored Belle and sent for the doctor long ago . . . ”

  “I ought to have insisted.”

  “If you had, Michael, she wouldn’t have seen him if she’d been at death’s door,” Eithne said tartly. “Now, let’s get her into bed. Doctor Standish may be coming, but who’s to say when.” As the three men lifted Isabel, Eithne leaned over the balustrade. “Bridie, you’d better wet the tea. We’ll all do better for a cup.”

  “Tea? At a time like this?”

  “At a time like this, tea is exactly what is needed.”

  12

  DR. Standish arrived promptly and set everyone’s worst fears to rest: Isabel Carradyne had only fainted, although her blood pressure and heart rate caused him such concern that he phoned for an ambulance to take her immediately to St. Gabriel’s in Cabinteely.

  “Isabel’s piety could be the death of her, Michael,” he said with a disapproving stare.

  With her bedroom door a trifle ajar, Catriona could see the landing and hear the conversation.

  When Michael merely shrugged, Eithne intervened nervously. “Doctor Standish, I’ve been wanting to call you for the past three weeks. Michael has begged me to get her to see reason.” She ignored her brother-in-law’s disavowing snort. “And then there’re those pills . . . .”

  “What pills?”

  With reluctance and embarrassment, Eithne handed him the brown plastic bottle Catriona had seen so often on her mother’s bedside locker. The doctor frowned as he read the label.

  “I prescribed them myself. Valium’s entirely suitable for a woman at Isabel’s time of life. It’s certainly not as harmful as this continual fasting.”

  Eithne twisted her handkerchief through her fingers. “But she’s been taking a lot of these lately. Surely that’s not good.”

  Dr. Standish patted Eithne on the arm reassuringly. “Not to worry, Eithne, though your concern does you credit. We’ll give her a thorough check-up in the hospital and sort it all out. I want to be sure extended fasting hasn’t done any damage. There isn’t a pick of flesh on her. I’m not against prayer, mind you,” he added hastily, “and fasting can be good for the flesh as well as the soul. I’ll ring you, Michael, as soon as I’ve studied the test results.”

  Catriona was weak with relief that she had not killed her mother.

  On the bus the next day, Catriona told Mary that her mother had been taken to hospital. Mary was properly sympathetic, which perversely only made Catriona feel worse. Especially as she then had to report Conker’s injury.

  “But that means you won’t have anything to ride in the Spring Show!”

  “ ‘Pride goeth before a fall,’ as Bridie would say.”

  “Catriona Mary, don’t be so stupid. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “In a way it was.” Catriona slumped in the seat, as Mary gave her a wide-eyed stare of disbelief.

  “How could it be? You didn’t litter the menage with bottles.”

  “Yes, but we know people throw things over the wall, and we should have been checking, especially right now, just in case!”

  “I don’t understand
you, Catriona Mary Carradyne. Do you want to feel guilty about it?” Mary had considerably more to add to that argument, and the result was that, by the time they got to Wicklow town, Catriona had been roused from her gloom, although her conscience continued to nag her. If she had not been so naughty, if she had opened the door, her mother would not have been so wrought, would not have fainted. But then, she argued with herself, Dr. Standish would not have been called, and her mother would have continued to fast.

  “For want of a shoe,” as her grandfather used to say about a chain of events, each leading into the next. Thinking about Grandfather was oddly comforting. So was the school routine that would take up the rest of this day.

  When she returned to Cornanagh, Auntie Eithne, still wearing a house coat, with a scarf over her hair, met her with the news that the doctor said her mother was only rundown, suffering from malnutrition.

  “And I couldn’t actually tell him how long she’d been fasting this time, but if we hadn’t caught her, it could have been disastrous. She was terribly dehydrated.” Catriona had never known that dehydration was a disease, but her aunt patted her shoulder, smiling with both relief and reassurance. “So she’ll be in hospital for a week or so, pet. And after she’s put on a bit of weight and is sleeping and resting normally, we’ll be able to visit her—maybe even by Sunday.”

  Catriona nodded and shrugged out of her jacket, taking an appreciative look around her.

  “The house smells nice and fresh and clean, Auntie Eithne,” Catriona said.

  “What a good child you are, Catriona.” Her aunt beamed. “A good airing on such a lovely fresh day does a world of good, I think. Now, you go up and get changed. Your father’s waiting for you.”

  “But Conker—” Catriona broke off and ran upstairs. After all, there were more horses to be cared for than her precious pony.

  What Auntie Eithne had forgotten to tell her was that Mrs. Healey had come the first thing that morning and stayed till noon.

  “She got into an old pair of Philip’s jods and wellies,” Artie told a delighted Catriona, “and helped Mick change the poultice, and she knows a thing or two about vet’rinary, she does. Then, because she was dressed for it”—Artie’s eyes widened with remembered delight—”she helped the captain with the Charlie Chan gelding. She laid across him an’ all. She’s done that afore, I’d say. Tomorrow she’s going to come back and help again.”