The Lady

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Gee, honey, I thought you’d never get here. Time’s a wasting, and we’ve a fair piece to go,” he said as he ushered her into the Cortina and settled himself in the driver’s seat. He contented himself with a brief pat on her leg, a familiarity that always struck Eithne as affectionate. Davis liked to touch things—furniture, china, people—as if to assure himself they were solid, not illusion.

  He was wearing the tweed jacket she had persuaded him to buy the previous autumn. It was a lovely mixture of heathery blues and grays that enhanced his Texan tan and his light blue eyes. Davis was nowhere near as handsome as her Owen had been, but his face had character; his irregular features also suggested a transparent honesty that was not assumed, though it often stood him in very good stead in his bargaining. He was only a few inches taller than she was and of stocky build, but he was quick and deft in his movements, never appearing clumsy or awkward.

  “How’re things, honey?” he asked solicitously, stealing a glance at her.

  “I honestly don’t think even Michael has recognized Belle’s death,” she said with a sigh. “He’s been so marvelous. Of course, it’s partly the horses: you have to carry on. You can’t just leave them to themselves, and Michael has several three-year-olds in to be backed.”

  “I sure would like to see an Irishman break a horse, Eithne,” he said with a sly grin.

  “Now, Davis, I’ve told you that I’ll invite you to Cornanagh as soon as I feel the time is right.”

  “That’d mean so much to me, Eithne honey. I don’t like this hole-in-the-wall nonsense. You know how much I love you.”

  “But I can’t leave Cornanagh now, not when everything’s so muddled up. It won’t be much longer—I promise.”

  Davis glanced at her, then nodded, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “So, brief me about Rathderry. If it was a James Hicks satinwood desk you saw, it’ll be a find. But will she know how valuable it is?”

  “Quite likely. Elizabeth Comyn had everything displayed to perfection in her house, with just the right accessories. And she served us tea in a lovely old Royal Doulton set.”

  “Then how come she’s so broke the creditors are selling it all up?”

  “You wouldn’t understand men like Desmond Comyn, Davis,” Eithne said, and she was glad he didn’t. “As long as he could live the way he wanted to and put off his creditors, he didn’t think beyond the present. And then he died of a heart attack, with no warning whatsoever. The paper said there wasn’t even a will . . . . You will give Elizabeth Comyn the best possible price you can, won’t you, Davis?”

  “Sure, sure, honey. What else do you remember she had in the living room? If we could get ol’ Brat Comstock one of those fancy sideboards he’s been yakking about . . . ”

  “Well, there is a massive one in the dining room. It was probably built in the house from the look of it. But I don’t know if that’s what Mr. Comstock has in mind.”

  Davis gave a snort. “I don’t think he’ll know until he sees it.”

  “Then you’ll simply have to make him believe that the Rathderry one is it. Really, won’t it impress him to know it had to be dismantled and shipped in sections? And that it was crafted under the eye of the master from timber seasoned especially and assembled in the very room in which it has stood for nearly three hundred years?”

  Davis chuckled and reached over to pat her thigh. “I swan, honey, you’ve picked up a real good spiel from listening to me, haven’t you?”

  21

  “WRETCHED hour to be hanging about an airport,” Michael Carradyne muttered as he paced outside the customs hall in Dublin Airport, awaiting the arrival of his niece’s flight from New York. It was nine-thirty of a Sunday morning, when any decent working man should be having a lie-in.

  Catriona regarded her father surreptitiously. He wasn’t usually bad-tempered, but yesterday Mr. Connolly had not been happy with Father’s opinion of his gray gelding and had removed him from Cornanagh. There’d been quite a few loud words in the yard. Then Temper had lived up to his name, shedding Artie casually three times before her father had yelled for Philip to get up. Philip had lasted longer, but then he, too, had come off. He had climbed right back on, of course, and somehow stayed in the saddle long enough to prove to Temper that he couldn’t just discard riders at will.

  Afterward, as their father led a sweaty but completely unrepentant Temper back to the yard, Philip grinned at her as she walked by on Orphan Annie. He gave the filly an appraising glance.

  “You wouldn’t know her for the wretched rack of bones that Johnny Cash brought here four weeks ago, would you?”

  Catriona beamed happily. Careful feeding and nursing had put pounds on the now graceful little filly, and her coat gleamed with health. She was so much improved that Michael had decided a little gentle exercise would firm up her muscles. She hadn’t actually been lamed, so she was sound enough to be ridden. Annie had cooperated, even to dipping her head to accept the light snaffle bit. Everyone agreed she was a real dote, and even Auntie Eithne was following her progress with keen interest.

  “The flight’s in, Trina,” her father announced, breaking into her thoughts. She looked up excitedly.

  The board was indeed blinking, and both father and daughter rushed to the window to see the plane as it taxied back up the runway. It seemed another age before the passengers started to emerge from the customs hall. Catriona tried to spot her cousin; she’d practically memorized Patricia’s Christmas photo.

  “Hi,” said a cheerful voice at her elbow. “I’ll bet you’re my cousin!” A luggage cart swung erratically into Catriona’s shins. “Whoops. This thing’s got no steering or brakes.”

  Catriona stared at the young woman who stood there, grinning from ear to ear. The ponytails were missing, and she was several inches taller than expected, but there was no mistaking the Carradyne grin and the dark blue eyes.

  “You—you’re so grown-up!” Catriona blurted out.

  “Hell, I’m an American,” Patricia replied, then grimaced and snapped the fingers of her one free hand. “Damn, I told Daddy that I’d watch my language. Don’t want to shock you, do I? Hey, isn’t that my uncle Mihall?” She pointed unerringly at the perplexed and searching figure of Michael Carradyne.

  Catriona nodded. “Yes, that’s my father.”

  “Gee, he’s like a slim version of my father. I know I’ll like him. Who’s he looking for?”

  “Well, the stewardess escorting you, I think.”

  “Stewardess?” Patricia burst out laughing. “I travel to boarding school all the time by myself. What trouble could I get into on a plane across the Atlantic, for heaven’s sake?”

  Catriona had to admit that she’d have taken her cousin for a much older girl, she was so poised and self-assured. And she wore the smartest trouser suit, with a scarf knotted casually at her throat. She had a navy-blue coat over her left arm, a big handbag over her shoulder, and several shopping bags hanging from her right hand. She shifted them now and turned expectantly toward her uncle.

  Catriona waved an arm to attract her father’s attention. He approached her, frowning impatiently at his daughter’s summons, then caught sight of her companion and stared in amazement.

  “Hi, Uncle Michael. I spotted Catriona . . . .”

  As Michael hesitated, trying to decide whether or not to embrace this self-possessed young woman, Patricia threw her free arm about him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’d know you anywhere,” she said. “You’re the spit of my dad . . . if he’d only lose some weight.” She hooked her free arm about Catriona. “And we could almost be sisters, couldn’t we?” She giggled. “I always wanted a sister. Anything would be an improvement on those brothers of mine.”

  “Is all this luggage yours?” Michael asked, eyeing the trolley. Patricia grinned. “Daddy had to cough up twenty bucks for overweight”—she pointed to a small metal trunk—“but I wouldn’t come without my boots, and I thought I’d better bring my own sad
dle because it fits me right. Daddy said I was silly because you’d have scads of tack, but if I was going to bring all the rest of my camp stuff, it seemed sillier not to bring my saddle, too.”

  In something of a daze, the two Irish Carradynes led their American relative out to the car park.

  Everything was fascinating to Patricia on the way across Dublin. She commented on the “funny-looking” houses, the “absolutely super” Georgian windows, the American embassy (“positively weirdo”), and the Royal Dublin Showgrounds (“Is that where you sold your horse, Uncle Michael?”). And she was properly impressed by the clear view of Dun Laoghaire as seen across Sandymount strand with the tide out. She had a hundred questions, and the answers given were often lost in the next spate of queries. Catriona almost exhausted herself trying to keep up with her. But her father chuckled several times at Patricia’s reception of well-known landmarks. “Groovy” was the ultimate accolade, to be uttered in breathy wonder.

  “Oh, I’m going to love it here!” she cried exuberantly at one point. “Oh, you’re so good to let me come.” And she threw her arms about Michael Carradyne’s neck and gave him a moist kiss on the cheek.

  “Easy now, girl. I’ve got to drive, you know,” her uncle exclaimed gruffly but with a laugh in his voice, and Catriona, sitting in the back, grinned to hear it.

  Patricia bounced about to kneel on the front seat and hung over its back to speak to Catriona again. “I brought a lot of things—you know, little things that Daddy said you might not have in Ireland. I gotta bottle of some great bourbon for you from Daddy, Uncle Mi— Can I call you Mike or Mihall? Uncle Michael sounds so formal, and it’s a mouthful.”

  “I’d prefer Mihall to Mike, Patricia.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, call me Pat. Patricia is so . . . so . . . icky.” Then she covered her mouth and made her eyes go wide. “Oooops! I promised Daddy that I’d moderate my language. Please don’t tell him that I goofed my first hour in Ireland.”

  To Catriona’s surprise, her father laughed.

  “How much farther is it to Cornanagh? Daddy has told me just everything about it. It sounds absolutely groovy! I mean, just living in a house that’s two hundred years old!”

  “Two hundred and seventy-two, to be accurate. The mews is older than that.”

  “Wow!” Pat’s eyes widened again, and she giggled. “That’s older than most of ’em in Boston or Hartford and the old wrecks near us that the state restored as tourist attractions— Oh, look! . . . ”

  It became almost as much a trip of discovery for Catriona, seeing old, familiar things take on a new allure through Patricia’s enthusiasm. Her cousin even “adored” Sugarloaf.

  “I’ve never seen such a perfect mountain. Wow!” She steepled her fingers into a cone shape. “Boy, are you lucky living in Ireland, Cat. Can I call you Cat? Then we’ll be Pat and Cat.” She roared with laughter at that. “I like it, I like it! Cat and Pat.”

  The enthusiasm and vitality of the new arrival infected Cornanagh. Even Bridie could not resist Patricia’s ebullience.

  “My dad told me all about the super suppers you’ve fed him, Bridie, and about your soda bread, and your puds, and how you gave him the best breakfasts he’s had since he left Ireland.” The compliments, delivered with sincerity, actually brought a flush of pleasure to Bridie’s face, and she flapped her apron about, a sure sign of embarrassment.

  Pat was sympathetic with Owen, who was sullen with hangover, and whipped him up what she said was a sovereign remedy for “overindulgence.” She vied with Philip in telling American versions of jokes, and some that were confided quietly in a corner had Philip covering his mouth against bursts of laughter. She won Mick over in the course of a few minutes because she had not only brought him a fancy hoof pick but proceeded to demonstrate its various uses with a skill born of considerable practice.

  After the initial introductions, Patricia wheedled a willing-enough Philip into lugging her metal box down to the stables. Thus the first personal item that the visitor unpacked at Cornanagh was her saddle, which she stowed carefully on the rack Mick indicated. He cast a judicious eye over it when she removed its waterproof cover and did not miss the proprietary way Patricia stroked it before she began an enthusiastic tour of the stable with Mick and her cousin.

  “My God,” she exclaimed at her first sight of the Tulip. “My God, what a lot of horse! I’m far too used to Standard Breds.”

  Before either Catriona or Mick could caution her about the Tulip’s little ways, she had extended her hand, palm up, and with grave dignity he delicately nibbled the sugar cube with which she was bribing him.

  “And you breed all your own horses from him?”

  “Most, not all,” Catriona replied, rather pleased with the Tulip’s effect on Pat.

  The whole tour was punctuated with exclamations and American expletives of amazement, yet Catriona heard nothing false in Patricia’s unstinting praise, and she noticed that her cousin had already gained Mick’s approval.

  “This is all so different from the place where I ride. I mean, Cornanagh is a real live working stable!” Then, with a shake of her shoulders, “This is going to be the neatest summer of my life.”

  With an unusual burst of spontaneous affection, Catriona flung her arms about her cousin. “Oh, it will, Pat. I know it will!”

  Only one odd note appeared to mar the success of the tour: Patricia was merely polite about Conker and the Prince. But she became quite excited about Orphan Annie and stroked the filly’s neck affectionately. “She’s lovely, even if she is the smallest horse you’ve got.”

  “She’s just on the 14.2 mark,” Catriona said, “so she’s a pony.”

  “Well, she looks like a horse,” Pat cried so vehemently that Catriona wondered what her cousin had against ponies.

  Patricia said all the right things when they got to the fields to inspect the horses let out for the day and the young stock. It was when she was watching the antics of Tulip’s Son and the other foals that she made her most endearing statement to Mick.

  “You know, I can sit on a horse and do most of the proper things to make one go, but I don’t know much about horses at all.”

  “Well, now, in that case, you’ve got the right attitude to learn,” Mick said, nodding his head in approval.

  The day went from peak to peak for Catriona. She and Patricia went to late Mass, and her cousin thought the church was “just marvie” and Father John the most impressive priest. They were late back for Sunday dinner, but Bridie said it didn’t matter: the roast wasn’t destroyed, and the pud would keep.

  Dinner was enlivened by Patricia’s enthusiasm over all she’d seen and the questions that indicated a genuine desire for enlightenment. At one point she remarked, “Oh, Gawd, Daddy doesn’t call me chatterbox for nothing, and I did swear on a stack that I’d behave myself. I guess I’m not, am I?” It was said with such ingratiating charm that everyone spoke at once to reassure her, even Owen.

  She insisted on helping with the washing-up, even though Auntie Eithne said that she and Catriona could do it. But Patricia was adamant.

  “If I’m family, and I am, then I do everything that Cat does. I’m not a freeloader, I can tell you that.”

  Once the chore was done, Auntie Eithne urged Catriona to help her cousin unpack. Catriona thought that perhaps her aunt had found Patricia a trifle wearing. She herself wondered if Pat ever wound down, and then she felt guilty for the thought.

  Pat unpacked the first of her cases and then decided that she had to try out the bunks. Catriona politely gave her first choice, as both beds were freshly made up.

  “I think it’ll be groovy sleeping way up here,” came the answer as Pat crawled up the ladder. “Hey; this is just great, Cat! Your house has such high ceilings. You could have put in three floors instead of just two and had space left over. Oh, bliss! The worst thing about airplanes is that you can’t get stretched out with your feet up.”

  Catriona was hanging Patricia’s clothes i
n the press, so she didn’t notice the silence from the upper bunk at first. Then came an audible, if delicate, snore.

  “Pat?” she called softly. If Patricia was really asleep, Catriona didn’t want to wake her. To be sure, she climbed up the ladder. There was her cousin, arms flung over her head, fast asleep.

  The next morning, because she could not expect to be excused from school even if she had a house guest, Catriona went off as quietly as possible, to let her cousin have a good long lie-in.

  It was hard to keep her mind on her schoolwork because she kept wondering if her father had already put Patricia up to ride or if she had been allowed to help Mick with such stable chores as she could manage. But the school day finally ended, and she flew down the Kilquade road to Cornanagh. To her delight, Patricia was swinging on the gate, waiting for her, and they fell into each other’s arms as if they’d been separated for years instead of a few hours.

  “I rode a pony, and I got thrown four times!” Patricia cried, grabbing Catriona’s book bag and dancing about her, swinging the bag wildly. It was only then that Catriona noticed the scrape on Patricia’s chin and another along her arm.

  “Which pony?” she asked, aghast.

  “Conker. But you see, I’ve never ridden a pony”—her tone was slightly derogatory—“in my life, and there just wasn’t enough under me to hang on to. I was mortified! And I didn’t even have any control because Uncle Mihall had me on a lunge and I had to ride with my arms folded for hours at the sitting trot. And I kept losing my balance, and whoops! There I was on the ground, staring up at Conker, and he, the beast, laughed at me!”

  “Conker wouldn’t do such a thing!”

  “Well, he did. Four times. Twice, I admit, while I was jumping him, and I wasn’t even allowed to hold the reins then because Uncle Mihall said I had to develop an independent seat. But at the end I made it over a grid without falling off!” She shook her head in awe. “Boy, your father’s the best instructor I’ve ever had. Really the only one, if you get right down to facts. Certainly the only one who knows what he’s doing. When I told him that I’d never even ridden a pony before, he practically dropped his teeth. So then I explained that I’d been riding show hunters and why I wanted so desperately to come to Ireland and learn how to ride properly. Your father said that if I really work at my position and hands, he thinks I’ll be able for Annie. I’m light, and she’s gentle. You don’t mind my riding your little horse, do you? It was the most super morning I’ve spent in simply years!”