The Lady

by Anne McCaffrey

  By this time they had entered the house and Catriona had changed out of her school clothes and into her riding things.

  “No, I don’t mind at all, Pat,” she replied. “She’s genuine and much too honest to pull a fast one on you.”

  Patricia hugged her and rattled on amiably. “Then we had lunch. Bridie made the most delicious soup, and I made a pig of myself on her brown bread. My God, how good the butter tastes over here! The stuff at home leaves an icky film on the roof of your mouth. I can see what Daddy means about Ireland.” The two girls started down the stairs. “And you’re to ride the Prince, and I’m supposed to watch because your father says I’ll learn as much watching you ride as I would riding myself. Are you that good?”

  Unable to reply to such a question, Catriona hurried down the stairs and toward the yard, Patricia trailing behind her.

  For once Catriona’s notable concentration on horseback failed her. She was acutely aware of Patricia standing in the corner, watching her—and even more keenly aware that she consciously wanted to impress her cousin with her equestrian ability. To compound matters, neither her father nor the Prince was in the best frame of mind. She could understand the pony: he often reacted to his rider’s mood. Her father’s irritability was harder to understand.

  “Catriona, will you concentrate? I expect that sort of thing from Sean, but not you! Now, settle him. Circle at the trot until he’s back on the bit. You Americans don’t use as much contact with your horse’s mouth as we do here, Patricia,” he added in a more conversational tone. “Notice how Trina keeps her leg just behind the girth: you ride with your leg more forward—out the front, we’d call it. All right, now, Trina. Turn him to the outside track. And don’t let him quicken. Notice how Trina leans forward from the hips and gives with her hands as she jumps so she doesn’t chuck the pony in the mouth. That’s right, Trina. On you go!”

  “Jumping! Gee, I never thought I’d be able to jump at all. You don’t get to do that in the States until you’re real advanced.”

  “Really?” Michael was surprised. “I don’t think Catriona remembers when she couldn’t. My father had her jumping on old Blister by the time she was five.”

  “No wonder she’s so good!”

  Catriona heard such a gratifying note of respect in her cousin’s voice that she almost dropped the contact; but for the warning kick she gave, the Prince would have tried to run out as she finished the course. She hunched her shoulders, anticipating her father’s reprimand.

  “Don’t slouch in the saddle, Trina. Head up, shoulders back, and I want a smooth transition into the walk. That’ll be all for the Prince, but I want you to give Annie a half hour’s exercise. And just a little trot.”

  He gave her a smile as she drew up beside him, slapping the Prince on the rump as she walked him out of the menage. Pat jogged beside them back to the yard, grinning up at her all the while.

  The next morning Catriona carried a note from her father to the Mother Superior, asking permission for Patricia to attend the Wednesday half day of classes. To Catriona’s delight, permission was duly granted. On Wednesday an excited Patricia was introduced to Mary Evans on the bus, and Mary was suitably awed by the American’s vivacity and friendliness. During the school sessions, Patricia was a model of propriety, but on the bus home she was her exuberant self again, asking hundreds of questions about school, work, and teachers.

  “You guys have to work a lot harder than we do,” she finally said, heaving a deep sigh. “I’m glad I only had to go one day. Boy, when I tell my gang, maybe they’ll stop griping. They never had it so good!”

  When they got to the house, the girls found that Bridie had made a special lunch. There were freshly baked ginger biscuits and a sponge cake for the dinner sweet, with a bowl of strawberries picked from the garden.

  “Mind you, it took me all morning what with the art’ritis in me knees paining me, but they’ve got to be picked. Mrs. Healey and that aunt of yours”—Bridie scowled so that Catriona knew Eithne was still not in her favor—“are in the lounge with your father. Now that you’re both here, Pat, you go tell them to come eat their lunch. Catriona, you can help me put it all on the table.”

  Fortunately she turned to get a platter from the fridge and didn’t see Patricia mouthing, “What’s up?” to Catriona, who simply motioned for her to go to the lounge.

  Catriona was bringing in the butter and salad cream when Selina Healey and her aunt bustled in with other bowls and platters.

  “Now, you just give your poor knees a rest, Bridie,” Selina was saying over her shoulder, and then she grinned conspiratorially at Eithne, Michael, and the girls.

  “Are you riding with us this afternoon, Selina?” Catriona asked.

  “I’ve been asked,” was the smiling reply, “and it’s such a beautiful day, I can’t refuse.”

  Michael turned to Catriona. “I think we’ll have to let Pat ride Conker out—with Selina’s permission, of course.” Selina inclined her head graciously and winked at Catriona. “He’s really the only choice for her at her present standard . . . .” Pat groaned, and Michael gave her a long look until she subsided with a meek, “Sorry.” “And I think she’d enjoy a hack after two lunge lessons from me.”

  “Shall I ride the Prince, then?” Catriona asked, her voice carefully neutral.

  “No, Sean’ll be riding him. I want you to hack Charlie out.”

  “Charlie!” Her brief surge of resentment at having someone else ride Conker vanished in delight. The adults smiled back at her.

  “Selina’s leading file on Flirty Lady, and I’ll be rear guard on Emmett. We’ll have a nice long hack.”

  “Down to the beach at Greystones?” asked Catriona. When he nodded, she asked, “Could Mary Evans come with us, too?”

  “I don’t see why not,” her father agreed, smiling.

  “And the Cornanagh Cavalry rides out again,” Selina said with a laugh.

  An hour later, everyone rode out of Cornanagh in keen anticipation of a fine hack. Selina Healey on Flirty Lady led with Mary just behind her on Champers; then came Pat on Conker; Sean, already acting the maggot on the Prince; Catriona, radiant with being on Charlie’s back again; and Michael Carradyne on the sturdy Emmett.

  As they trotted up the short hill toward McBride’s Lane and she experienced the smoothness of Charlie’s gait, Catriona sighed in sheer delight. Oh, he was heaven to ride: even better than Conker. She felt a twinge of disloyalty and glanced ahead to see how Pat was faring on her former favorite. She was rising easily to the trot—in fact, better than Sean, who seemed to get an extra bounce every other stride. They had to halt while Selina opened the gate to the lane, and as soon as the horses began to string out behind their leader, once again the Prince fussed to overtake Conker. Pat looked back nervously.

  “More contact, Sean,” her father called from behind her. “You’re not to pass the others out.”

  Then everything happened at once. Flirty Lady shied at the bullock, who put his head through the hedge on the left. Mary’s pony had more sense, but Conker, with an unfamiliar rider on his back, sidled away from the apparition. And that was all the excuse the Prince needed. He began to buck.

  “Sit back! Sit back!” her father cried as the boy leaned forward, trying to get the pony’s head up.

  Instinctively Catriona reined Charlie to the left as her father urged Emmett forward. Selina responded by pulling her mare across the track, and Mary Evans pushed her pony up the left-hand bank. The Prince, having pulled the reins from Sean’s grasp, stopped bucking long enough to scramble through the brush into the field, where, with another massive explosion, he pitched Sean right over his head, depositing him heavily on the ground. Freed, the pony sped up the hill, cutting a track through the new green of the field’s crop.

  “Get the pony, Selina!” cried Michael Carradyne, groaning as he saw the damage being done to the new growth. Even as he spoke, Selina was in pursuit, and though he permitted himself a moment’s admiration fo
r her quick-wittedness, he was more acutely aware of the boy, sprawled unmoving on the ground. “Here, Trina, hold Emmett. You all stay here!”

  Following the pony’s path through the undergrowth, he raced to Sean’s side, willing the boy to move. Then he saw the crooked angle of the right leg, although—thank heaven!—he could feel no injury to the spine as he ran careful hands down Sean’s back.

  He sent Catriona to Cornanagh to phone for the doctor and send Mick back with blankets. A few minutes later Selina returned with the recaptured pony.

  “Is he badly hurt?” she asked.

  “Broken leg at the least.”

  “Serves him right,” Selina said, “considering how he’s been acting ever since the Spring Show.”

  “You’d noticed?”

  Selina gave a snort. “Just as if he won that red ribbon all by himself.” Then she sighed. “Eventually his parents will have to recognize that the boy is, at best, only a passenger. Or one of these days he will do himself—or his mount—an even worse injury.”

  Sean had not recovered consciousness by the time the doctor arrived, but the boy’s color was better. When Dr. Standish found no evident spinal injury, Sean’s leg was jury-splinted for the trip to hospital. Once the boy was in the Austin, Michael turned to the politely waiting children.

  “Trina, up you get on the Prince and ride him! He’s not to put his nose out of line once. Pat, this hasn’t put you off?”

  “Oh, no, Uncle Mihall!”

  “Good girl. Mary, you’ll go on, won’t you? Show Mrs. Healey the rides through your land, why don’t you. Off with you now. Enjoy yourselves!”

  As he turned to climb into the Austin, Michael Carradyne was already planning how to turn this latest mishap to his advantage. If he handled the matter tactfully, he might contrive to secure Ballymore Prince for Pat to ride through the summer. She had a long way to go to be as good a rider as Catriona, but at least she was fourteen and eligible to ride the Prince in registered shows. She’d come off a time or two, the Prince being what he was, but she had plenty of nerve and considerably more incentive than Sean had ever had. He could improve her riding to the point where she’d be able to show the Prince so the Dohertys could still brag about their winning show pony.

  22

  “I’M sure that everything you say is true, Selina,” David said, and put his napkin to his lips, “but although I’m delighted you’ve found a suitable hobby, I regret that I cannot share your interest in horses.”

  Selina regarded her husband with a smile of spurious courtesy. Damn the man! she thought. If she had the grace to feign interest in all his financial and political observations, he could at least return the compliment.

  “I was simply making conversation, David, since evidently you cannot comment on your current activities.” He raised his eyebrows, mildly surprised. “Or hadn’t you noticed that you haven’t said a word to me throughout dinner? Perhaps it was the fault of the meal?”

  “No, my dear, dinner was excellent,” he said blandly, and gave her a reassuring smile. “It is true that I have been distracted.” Abruptly his expression altered to one of outraged frustration. “This damnable strike. How dare they! Don’t they know that it’s ruining the economy? The banks will bankrupt this country, and only a few of us care!”

  “Oh, dear, I had no idea that things were that bad.”

  “No, why should you,” David replied, “when I do my very best to keep sordid realities out of my home.”

  “And here I am, boring you with my trivial pursuits,” Selina said, dutifully playing out her long-established role. “Do please forgive me, David. But as your wife I want to assist you in every way, and you know I’m discreet. If talking it out would provide any relief . . . ?”

  David thawed visibly and, reaching across the broad table, patted her hand. “Now, then, what sort of a man would I be if I dumped my problems in my wife’s lap? As if you could help me.”

  Selina half closed her eyes. “I could listen sympathetically, David, provide you with a sounding board. Father always said—”

  David interrupted with an irritated wave of his hand. “You just continue to see to my physical comfort, and the rest will take care of itself.” Wiping his mouth on his napkin, he rose and stood behind her chair to pull it out for her.

  For a moment Selina could not believe her ears. Had the man no sensitivity at all? To discount her interests as trivial because he cared only for pounds, shillings, and pence . . . To dismiss her as incapable of sharing his concerns simply because she was his wife—a woman—qualified only to cater to his physical comfort . . . “Physical comfort”? indeed! She couldn’t remember when they had last had intercourse. And now the very thought of it was abhorrent to her.

  In that moment, Selina Healey hated her husband—and not simply for his insensitivity or his preoccupation with making money, but for his smug complacency and all the archaic conventions he represented.

  Struggling with her fury, Selina rose and, with the barest of nods for his courtesy, stalked from the room. She continued on to the front door, pausing only long enough to collect a light coat, her handbag, and the car keys. She had to get out of the house or she’d explode.

  She guided the Lancia out of the drive and through the tight little streets of Dalkey, onto Vico Road and south, along the sea road in Greystones, before she realized that she was heading for Cornanagh. And Michael.

  Abruptly she turned into the parking space by the railway bridge. She would not go any farther on a road that led inexorably to Cornanagh, she told herself. Not in this state of mind.

  She rested her head briefly on the steering wheel, gripping it until she could feel her nails dig into the heels of her hands. She tried to calm the agitation in her belly with deep breaths and stern self-chidings.

  There were only two other cars parked, dog owners walking their animals on the shingle. She got out of the car, felt the stiff sea breeze on her face, and, wrapping her coat tightly about her, walked under the bridge and out onto the sand, heading down the beach, away from dogs and their owners.

  I’m overreacting, she told herself sternly, trudging carefully along the rocky strand. One should only have crises de nerfs when appropriately garbed for long hikes. She sat down on a convenient large boulder, winding her coat about her against the chill of the breeze.

  I can’t possibly be in love with Michael Carradyne, she thought. True, he’s a fine man, and we always have so much to talk about. And I haven’t felt so alive and energetic in years. But he’s old enough to be my father! I must come to my senses, get my emotions under control. It’s only that David was being so abominably pompous tonight. And he is under a great deal of stress. I should be sympathetic and forbearing, like a good wife.

  “Hello there,” said a low voice, and she whirled around so quickly, she lost her balance on the rock. “What’s wrong, Selina?”

  Michael put out a hand to steady her, his expression concerned. “I saw your car.” He pointed vaguely over his shoulder. “I was down having a look at Joe Delahunt’s new stallion.”

  She stared up at him, thinking, Sometimes you don’t have a choice: some decisions are thrust upon you.

  Michael took note of the brooding look in her eyes. “If you’d rather be by yourself . . . ”

  “No,” she said, rising to her feet. “I’d much rather be with you.”

  A smile, charmingly hesitant at first, pulled at his mouth and made his eyes glow. One step closed the distance between them, and then he gathered her into his arms, smoothing her hair to rest his chin against her forehead. They stood that way for several moments before she tilted her head to meet his lips.

  They exchanged a long and very gentle kiss, neither asking nor answering. Then, with one arm about her shoulders, her body held tightly against him, Michael Carradyne turned her to walk with him down the beach.

  There were times when Catriona found her cousin’s incessant curiosity and loquaciousness wearing on the nerves. Being the younge
st in her family, she’d never had a constant companion and now occasionally found her loss of privacy a severe trial. But such moments were fleeting enough, and the periods before her lazy cousin woke up were still all hers.

  What she did resent, and knew no way of protesting, was Patricia’s assumption that Catriona share everything. Her cousin was forever asking what Cat was thinking, how she felt about this, that, and the other. Catriona was unaccustomed to sharing her thoughts—indeed, found it difficult to voice opinions on the myriad topics Patricia introduced. She didn’t really care what was happening in the North, except that she had been taught to believe murder for any reason was a mortal sin whether a Protestant was killed by a Catholic or vice versa. And she had no opinion at all about the arms trials, the bank strike, Elvis Presley, or the dissolution of the Beatles as a rock group.

  “Don’t you do anything else except watch the telly?” Patricia cried in frustration with her uncommunicative cousin one evening. “Don’t you ever go to the movies? Or dances? Gawd, even in boarding school we had dances!”

  “That’s not the Irish way,” Catriona replied a bit primly. That phrase had become her refuge.

  “And Daddy knew that when he sent me here.” Patricia’s bitter tone attracted Catriona’s attention, and she stared at her cousin in surprise. “Oh, don’t be an ass. I’m still a virgin, but I can’t wait to try it myself. When I’m a little older, of course. I don’t approve of promiscuity at fourteen. Not that that stops some of my classmates!” Catriona was aghast and far too shocked to make any response. Patricia stopped, caught by the expression on her cousin’s face. “Haven’t you any curiosity about sex?”