The One and Only

by Doris E. Smith

  ‘You are hurt.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ She steadied the machine. ‘Sorry again. I’ll be getting on.’

  ‘Not on that thing you won’t.’ A firm grip closed on the handlebars. ‘In any case, we’re just there.’

  ‘We?’ she looked at him distrustfully.

  ‘Safer with me, I think.’ He took custody of the bicycle. They walked a few yards in silence. ‘There’s no need for you to come out of your way,’ Maggie blurted without thought.

  ‘This is my way. There’s no other,’ she was told dourly. Granted, her comment had been silly. Need he have made it so obvious?

  ‘Have you got a key?’ she asked surprisedly as they reached the stables and he moved in front of her to the main entrance. Again a thoughtless question and again a blunt retort. ‘What does it look like?’

  By now Maggie didn’t care how important he was, or how rich. He was one stubborn unfriendly man—and rude. ‘Sorry I spoke,’ she snapped.

  ‘I knew you would be the first time I set eyes on you,’ Angus MacAllan remarked detachedly. ‘You’re obviously the type who speaks first and thinks afterwards. However,’ he added enigmatically, ‘there are worse faults. Now let’s see this horse.’

  In his box Braemar stood quietly under the rug.

  ‘He doesn’t look bad to me,’ Angus MacAllan observed.

  ‘I’ve told you. He isn’t—yet.’

  ‘Nor likely to be, I’d say.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that.’ She tested Braemar’s pulse rate. It was certainly no faster. ‘I know it could pass off, I only hope it does. It could also develop.’ She frowned.

  ‘He’s bandaged!’ her companion exclaimed.

  ‘For warmth.’ She’d be kinder to his stupid remarks than he’d been to hers.

  ‘I didn’t think it was for the Royal Show.’ The voice was soft. ‘You really do have a penchant for stating the obvious. I was asking a question. Did you bandage him?’

  ‘Of course. I’d have given him a drench if I’d had anyone to hold him. Easy, boy.’ She patted Braemar’s dark neck. ‘You’re no worse, anyway.’

  It had seemed too soon for the horse to respond, but touchingly the lean head dropped and nuzzled the collar of her anorak. Maggie fondled it warmly. Across the confines of the box Angus MacAllan’s green eyes were devoid of expression. ‘What about this drench?’ he asked unexpectedly. ‘Epsom salts, I suppose. Mac has some in the cupboard. And don’t be too long. I’ve a child at home too.’

  ‘You mean you’ll try to hold him?’ Maggie was taken aback, loath to refuse but equally loath to risk an accident.

  ‘I mean I will hold him,’ Angus MacAllan corrected smoothly. ‘But I can’t wait all night.’

  She had the feeling he was anticipating having to rescue her. If so, it was mutual. ‘Don’t rush him from behind,’ she ventured as she returned, drenching bottle in hand. ‘If he gets a fright he could kick you.’

  ‘He won’t. You carry on,’ the self-appointed groom retorted.

  Horseman he might not have been, he was also no fool. By the time Maggie had found a box on which to stand, a slick leverage of Braemar’s head collar had got the patient’s upper jaw open and ready.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, surprised.

  ‘All right. On you go.’

  It was a slow operation. The dose had to go down in drops with pauses so that the recipient could swallow. Maggie, watching Braemar’s gullet to see that all was well, was conscious all the time of the man at his head. Smears of dried mud decorated his light-coloured trousers and the fastidiously kept hand holding up the noseband had grazes along the knuckles. Not bad ones but, like the mudstains, embarrassing.

  The stables’ clear lighting which turned her own hair to a white gold also brought up brightness in his. It had much more red in it than she’d realised. His skin too was smooth and fresh and it was only in distance that his jaw had that sullen line. Seen like his it just wasn’t the same face. Regrettably, itself or not itself, it was now looking up at her, half smiling. Thinking what? she wondered furiously. He could hardly have failed to sense that she’d had him under a microscope. Fortunately the bottle was now empty.

  ‘Thank you, I’m very grateful,’ she said as they left the stables. ‘I think he’ll do now.’

  ‘In other words you think you fussed unduly?’

  ‘No, I do not!’ Her colour rose indignantly. ‘You forget my responsibility.’

  ‘I forget neither it nor your sex. Most women are overanxious. That’s why I felt at the outset it was a job for a man.’

  ‘That, and other reasons!’ Right from their first unfortunate meeting he had taken against her and had not changed.

  ‘If you say so.’ Again that gentle tone. A shooting glance from Maggie and the lips straightened. Was he teasing? Baiting? Or agreeing?

  ‘Thank you again for your assistance. I’ll get on now in case Kelly wakes.’ She half expected him to hold on to the bicycle as he had done before.

  He said merely: ‘I take it you found it inconvenient to come to dinner?’

  ‘Dinner?’ Maggie could not believe her ears.

  ‘Surely you didn’t forget that you and Kelly were to eat with us tonight?’

  ‘Did Miss MacAllan not speak to you?’ she faltered. ‘We thought she should come and eat at Wee House instead. There were things to discuss.’ It seemed like tale-bearing, but why should she put herself even more in the wrong? ‘Then she rang later and called it off.’

  ‘And told you you weren’t expected at Strathyre?’

  ‘Well no. She didn’t really say anything about that, not then, but I assumed she’d already given you my apologies.’

  ‘The best way to give an apology surely is in person. You of all people should know that Troy is not a particularly reliable witness.’

  Maggie did not miss the allusion or the stinging fact that the blame was not being laid where it justly belonged. ‘She must have forgotten,’ she mumbled awkwardly.

  ‘Very likely. No one ever expects Troy to remember anything,’ he said indulgently. ‘The things that buzz in her brain are too manifold for other people’s affairs. And she’d gone by the time I went looking for you.’

  ‘Gone? Isn’t she staying with her?’

  The eyes narrowed. ‘Would you expect her to? You know my housekeeper doesn’t live in.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware of that.’ Maggie’s cheeks burned with vexation. ‘And I’m sorry you had to knock and go away. I must have been down with Braemar.’

  ‘All right. I had a key,’ he threw out casually. ‘Mac’s. I left it on the table. You found it, no doubt?’

  ‘In Wee House?’ Silly question! She had picked up the key, it was in her pocket at that moment. What she had not realised was where it had come from. It was just not fair. He had seen one load of turmoil in Glencullen. For fate to hand him two in a row was outrageous luck. He would think her a slattern. ‘Sorry for the mess. I was in a rush,’ she began defensively. ‘I had to see Braemar and Kelly wouldn’t stay by herself.’

  The full lips buttoned at one corner. ‘Isn’t that what I’ve just been saying? You go at things like a bull at a gate. It’s not the way. If you want to make old bones—and a good stable—you must take your time. Look before you leap is my motto. It always pays.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Maggie cornered swiftly. ‘So does a stitch in time. By tomorrow morning Braemar could have been a very sick horse.’

  ‘Touché,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘But I’m talking for your good. It’s far better to be an owl, you know. Something about hears all, knows all... how does it go?’

  ‘I haven’t the least idea,’ Maggie said frostily. ‘And while I’m sure you mean well, Mr. MacAllan, it’s your cousin I work for and I take my instructions from her. Now if you’ll excuse me I must get on.’

  ‘Yes indeed.’ Agreement was unforced. ‘Away you go, then. I won’t keep you.’ He brought a fist like a sledgehammer down on the recalcitrant saddle and straightened it.
Maggie swung her leg over the crossbar and pedalled off.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Next morning the clear north sky was the blue of skimmed milk, red-barred in the east like a Big Top. Maggie was leaning from her window trying to pinpoint the course of the Dee when she saw Graham come across the drive. It was not, however, a social call. He laid hands on the old bicycle which she had left against the wall of Wee House and wheeled it magisterially away.

  Some minutes later Angus MacAllan in a dark suit and carrying a briefcase thrust out of Strathyre’s white door and reversed yesterday’s black saloon somewhat flamboyantly from the large double garage. He struck the horn and opened the passenger door. Graham sauntered down the steps with his hands in his pockets, was sent back to check that the hall door was properly closed and eventually got in beside his father. The car disappeared from view and Maggie’s spirits rose.

  She set breakfast on one of the ochre-coloured counters in the kitchen and enjoyed Kelly scraping the bottom of her red dish. Later they washed up and made the beds.

  ‘Should we not leave it and get on?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘No,’ Maggie told her shortly. ‘We’ve turned over a new leaf.’

  There was a lavender bloom on the sky behind Strathyre’s brown chimneys, but ahead it was sun-up. Kelly had Zebedee in her pocket. ‘I’m bringing him to say hallo!’ she confided, and ran on in front. It was days since she had looked so happy or finished up all her cereal.

  The drive to the stables was gated, the sky was periwinkle blue and the white weatherboarding on the steeple glistened. Kelly couldn’t wait to get the gate open. She climbed it and scampered on. Maggie reached the yard in time to hear the impossible.

  The door of the box housing Glenshee, one of Troy’s two bay geldings, was open and Kelly was reaching up to pat the occupant. That was a commonplace and it would also have been a commonplace if she had been talking to Glenshee. But she wasn’t. She was talking to a stocky man in riding breeches. When they’d moved to Fairley Hall, Maggie remembered, it had been weeks before they’d coaxed her into talking to Charles.

  ‘I have a magic horse,’ she was announcing now. ‘He can be any size he wants. This is his size for pockets.’

  The man said: ‘Is that a fact?’ and at that moment noticed Maggie. His face had an urchin liveliness though it was not young, his hair was sandy and receding; coming to meet her he walked with a slight stoop.

  ‘You’ll be Miss Campbell,’ he said directly. ‘I’m Rob McIntyre. I’d have been here yesterday, only I’d an awful wait for the van.’

  Nobody had mentioned a van, but there it was—to Maggie’s delighted eyes as large as life and more than welcome—a new-looking utility bearing the housemark of a training clock and steeple. Dirt had been getting into the engine, Rob explained, but it was all right now. ‘Will it do the trick, d’ye think?’ he ended astonishingly. ‘You’ll no’ need to wallop it anyway.’

  It took Maggie no time to realise that books could have been written about Rob McIntyre and less than no time to decide that his friendship would be something worth having.

  A wee bird, he stated, had told him about the bicycle. And about Braemar. Checking on my judgment, Maggie thought indignantly. This, however, had been well and truly vindicated. The patient was fine, Rob reported. ‘The pair on you made a first glass job of him,’ he added. ‘You’re more than your bonny face, lassie. I’ll gie ye credit.’ To take offence was impossible, the gaze was so straight and clear.

  Sentiment, however, had the same place as servility—down the drain.

  ‘I was relieved to hear you weren’t leaving with Mr. McKenzie.’ Some time later Maggie aired a sentence she’d had ready. ‘And I hope you and I will get on well together.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ her assistant returned sparingly. ‘You don’t chuck anything at me and I won’t chuck anything at you. Right?’

  She supposed you couldn’t say fairer and Rob did not just give value for money, his every hour was a ‘special offer’. Maggie knew the time he left off, she could never catch up on the time he began. No matter how early she went down to the stables he was always there ahead of her.

  On the Friday of their first week in Bieldside Derek telephoned. ‘Are you still speaking to me? I stood you up.’ The business which had taken him out of Edinburgh was now finished and he was back to base. ‘Lunch tomorrow?’ he suggested, and Maggie asked stupidly: ‘Where?’ He surely was not proposing to drive a hundred and eighteen miles to take her to lunch. She said so and it seemed he was. It made it quite awful that she had to refuse.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry—I’ve lessons all the morning and a class at three. It’s our peak day.’

  ‘Sunday, then?’

  The book was down in the office, but Maggie knew there was space around lunch hour. The long drive still bothered her, though, and again she said so.

  ‘Don’t you want to see me?’ he teased.

  ‘You know I do. I’ve heaps to tell you.’

  ‘Good,’ he said heartily. The best of Derek was his sincerity. He was really pleased and ready to be involved.

  ‘And I’m anxious to know what you think of Kelly. She...’

  ‘Oh yes, Kelly,’ his voice changed. ‘Yes, I’d forgotten Kelly. I suppose there’s no school friend she could go to?’

  It was a douche of cold water. No school friend, Maggie said firmly. Kelly, after all, had only started school yesterday.

  ‘Oh well, bring her,’ Derek conceded, and went on to arrange a meeting place in Aberdeen. Had she found her way to any of the hotels yet? Did she know Treetops in Springfield Road?

  ‘By the way, how did you get on with MacAllan?’ he asked casually before ringing off. ‘Did he talk at all?’

  ‘Enough.’ Maggie remembered the incredible impression she had somehow given the last time. At all costs it must not be repeated.

  That it was still a sensitive area was borne out by the sharpness of Derek’s: ‘Business or pleasure?’

  ‘Vegetable and mineral!’ She made it purposely light. ‘With a little animal. Some day he should write a guide book.’ That ought to please, she thought relievedly. It did not seem to.

  ‘I see,’ Derek said flatly. ‘You came off well, then. I thought he might have got on to MacAllans, which I understand he makes heavy weather of at times. Not so?’

  ‘Not at all.’ There had of course been that mention of Bonnie Tweeds, but not to her. That had been private between father and son. As a matter of fact she had tried not to listen.

  ‘Good show,’ Derek approved. ‘Just thought I’d ask.’ A certain lameness still persisted in his voice. I haven’t made it clear enough, Maggie thought worriedly, I’m still not saying the right thing. Perhaps Derek had wanted to hear that all the talk had been business, but either way it was too silly for words. She would have liked to dot a few more i’s for him, but at that moment he said: ‘Au revoir then till Sunday,’ and hung up.

  Saturday was as busy as she had expected and complicated by the fact that Braemar, though practically back to form, could not be worked. If Troy were determined to keep the stables she should either invest in more horses or take some on livery. As things stood at present they weren’t breaking even, an absurd result when you considered the capital outlay.

  ‘We’re not getting our sums right,’ she remarked to Rob. ‘And that’s what it’s all about these days, whether it’s MacAllans of Aberdeen or the sweet shop on the corner.’

  Rob, who was picking out Kincardine’s hoof, gave her no more than a grunt.

  ‘I don’t want someone else to say it first,’ Maggie continued. ‘That way I could lose my job.’

  ‘You’ll no’ do that,’ the groom said with comforting certainty. ‘She won’t sell.’

  ‘Mr. MacAllan’s hoping to persuade her.’

  ‘Ay, I’m sure,’ Rob agreed unflatteringly. ‘But he’ll be wastin’ his breath.’ He turned and spotted Kelly ‘walking’ Zebedee along the edge of a manger. ‘Will you take
that daft tyke out of here before I put my foot on it!’

  ‘It’s not a tyke,’ Kelly corrected. ‘It’s a horse...’

  ‘And yoursel’ along wi’ it!’ she was bade.

  Maggie did not blame Rob, but she knew he did not mean a word of it. He had a special look for Kelly when he thought nobody noticed him. Memory of this emboldened her. ‘A friend of mine from Edinburgh is coming up tomorrow and we’re having lunch together. I suppose you don’t know anyone who’d keep an eye on Kelly for about two hours.’

  Regrettably Rob did not.

  Maggie could see Derek’s point. He was coming a long way, they had much to discuss and a child’s presence would be a deterrent. However, it seemed unavoidable.

  She gave Kelly her bath early and washed her hair, ensconcing her in front of the fire to dry. Her own hair also needed shampooing. It was so blonde it needed this every few days and for the past four she’d been too late and too tired to face it. It was washed, combed and wound on large puce rollers when Kelly asked if she could put on a record. The record player with other bulky possessions had arrived from Dublin that morning.

  ‘Granddad’s record,’ she added enticingly.

  Little witch! She knew the sentimental tonnage involved. But the improvement in her had been so heartwarming that Maggie felt some spoiling was due.

  Duncan Campbell had loved his pipe bands. Now as they skirled bravely through the sitting-room backed by the roll of the drums, Kelly could not sit still. She marched about flinging her wrists. She was the drummer. Maggie was a piper, blowing out her cheeks, marching up and down; you’d see no better under the Royal windows at Balmoral.