The Lady Read online

  Eithne gave a bit of a sigh. Isabel Marshall Carradyne had once been a very pretty girl, and remnants of that beauty were still apparent in her fine features, but years of frustration and disappointment had etched lines from a thin, high-bridged nose to a now tight mouth.

  Catriona looked wistfully at the pudding dish. It was lemon sponge with her favorite custard sauce. She debated the wisdom of apologizing or waiting on Auntie Eithne’s persuasion.

  “Not enough of it really to keep, missus,” Bridie said with a covert wink at Catriona, who never knew when the capricious cook would side with her.

  “Oh, very well, then,” Isabel capitulated. “See you don’t keep Bridie waiting for you to clear. And mind, Catriona Mary, that you don’t gulp it down. Sometimes your manners are no better than a tinker’s.”

  Eithne Carradyne followed her sister-in-law into the lounge and smiled encouragingly at her niece before she closed the door.

  Later that evening, as Catriona was slipping into her room, she heard the Tulip’s strident call and peeked out her window into the courtyard. The lights were on, and she could see her father walking toward the old coach house, directly opposite the back of the house, where the stallion was stabled. She smiled to herself. Daddy was going to report to the Tulip, just as her grandfather had always done before crippling arthritis had tied him to his bed. First thing in the morning and last thing at night, the man of the house checked Cornanagh’s stallion.

  2

  March 1970

  “ARE you scribbling again, Catriona?” her mother asked, coming into her room with an armful of neatly folded clean clothes, which she deposited on the bed. She did not wait for an answer but came over to Catriona’s desk by the window and twitched the notebook toward her.

  “No, ma’am,” Catriona said meekly.

  “And what is all this about?” Isabel Carradyne picked up the book and read the lines already inscribed. My first conscious memory was a horse race. My grandfather took me to it. It was really a point-to-point race which the Bray Harriers hold every year in February or March. I remember clearly that it was very cold that day but not rainy. “What on earth are you doing, Catriona Mary?”

  “Miss Prendergast wants an essay of five hundred words about our first memories.”

  “Well, I should think you could find something more significant to write about than horses. Your brother Jack’s ordination, for instance.”

  “But that wasn’t my first memory, Mummie. I was five by then—and I remember my brother and all very well indeed,” she added to divert her mother.

  Isabel gave one of her sniffs but appeared mollified. “It was a wonder you didn’t come home with pneumonia from the horse race that day.” Isabel had started across the room and now turned, frowning. “How on earth could you remember that? You couldn’t have been more than three.”

  “It was February, so I was nearly four.”

  “Don’t be cheeky with me, miss.”

  “I’m not, Mummie, but I would have been four in April, wouldn’t I?”

  “You are altogether too bold, young lady.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And those clothes are to be put away neatly before you leave this room.” Isabel Carradyne shut the door with more firmness than required.

  “And Grandfather had a winner that day, too. The Tulip gelding.” Catriona added once she heard her mother going down the stairs. She kept her voice low, though the only other occupant of the room was Clyde Cat, basking on the deep windowsill in what was left of the afternoon sun. “Grandfather treated everyone at the Willow Grove! And the gelding was sold on to an English buyer.”

  But Catriona didn’t remember those last details on her own: she remembered because her mother was fond of mentioning Tyler Carradyne’s falls from grace and temperance. And the essay was supposed to be from her own memories, not hearsay.

  Her memory was especially vivid, comprising bright, but not warm, sunlight, and the sea sparkling beyond. She was up high—high enough above the ground to be on a level with the brush fence over which horses were pouring. She was not at all frightened by the fact that the horses seemed to be heading straight for her. She knew she was safe. She could also remember that her hands had been clumsy with cold despite her mittens (which she mustn’t lose because they were new) and that her cheeks had burned in the freezing wind of her vantage point.

  Noise was part of the memory, too: cheering, shouting, and the pounding of horses’ hooves on hard ground. Despite the movement about her, the memory was static, a moment of time frozen forever at the instant the horses cleared the brush, with the sun, the sea, the cold, the noise, all imprinted in that moment of suspension.

  When Catriona bent her head back to her notebook, she gasped, for her pencil had been moving of its own accord in the top margin, sketching the brush of the fence, the surge of straining horse heads and forelegs as they attacked the obstacle. She fumbled for the rubber in her pencil box to erase the errant sketch. Who was it had said a picture was worth a thousand words? If only Miss Prendergast weren’t so mean about sketches, she’d already have doubled her English preparation.

  Once the page was clean again, Catriona searched her mind for the exact words to describe that scene. Miss Prendergast was forever saying that one should use words precisely as well as grammatically. Determined to improve the vocabulary of her students, Miss Prendergast required each girl to learn twenty new words a month and be able to use them appropriately in sentences.

  Just then movement in the courtyard below caught Catriona’s eye: Mick was leading Frolic in, her dark brown colt foal, almost a month old now, skittering about in an excess of good spirits. Catriona half rose, not wishing to miss a moment. She laughed as she saw the little fellow pretend he didn’t see his dam being led to the left into the yard. He trotted about the court, pausing to nibble a tuft of grass by the car shed. Then he shied, nearly upsetting himself, and ran on spokey long legs to catch up with Mick and his dam.

  If Mick was bringing the mares and foals in, it was nearly time for evening stables. She closed her pad and stuffed it in her school bag. Wrenching off her uniform, she hauled on jeans and a heavy sweater. She was almost out the door when she saw the pile of clean laundry and, with a groan, hid it under the coverlet and then dumped her school bag on top of the lump. Padding downstairs in her stockinged feet, she located her wellingtons in the welter of boots by the door.

  “Don’t you leave this house, Catriona Mary Virginia,” cried Bridie, opening the door from the kitchen, “without your hat and your scarf.” Dinner odors, wafted out into the hall, spoke of a good meal and a spicy pudding for the sweet. Catriona obediently crammed the knitted cap on her head, wound the scarf about her neck, and shoved her feet into the clammy wellies.

  That aromatic promise was obliterated as she left the house, which was only slightly less chill than the outside. But spring was in the crisp air out here, redolent with the smells of moist earth, rotting manure, and the acridity of newly spread fertilizer. Her mother and her auntie Eithne might fastidiously pinch their nostrils against the “farm smell” as they made for the garage, but Catriona took a deep breath of the combined scents that meant Cornanagh to her and exhaled with pleasure. She skipped as she made her way across the court to the main stable block.

  This was the best time of day for the stables: when the horses were covered with their rugs for the night and eager for their dinners. The lights were on, and she could see the occupants of each stable as she went to the feed room in the corner. Mick and her brothers always complained that it was the most awkward position in the yard, for if you’d the hunters to feed in the courtyard, you’d a miserable walk of it on bitter or rainy nights as you struggled across the cobbles with the feed pots. When the horses had been kept only in the one yard, it had been convenient, but then Grandfather Tyler had turned the old cattle and pig byrnes into horse stables and the carriage house into luxurious quarters for the stallion and the hunter geldings.

&n
bsp; As Catriona went into Blister’s stable to pick out her pony’s feet and rug him up, she could hear the rumble of male voices in the feed room next door. She was relieved by the easy conversational tone. The day had been cold but clear, so all the hunters would have been exercised and the young horses schooled. That meant her father would be in a good mood.

  She ran her hands down Blister’s near foreleg, feeling along the cannon bone for the bucked shin that had kept them from hunting the past three weeks. The swelling and heat were long gone. Even the scabby bits where the leg had been blistered were healing. If her father really was in a good mood tonight, she’d ask him if she and Blister could go on Saturday’s hunt. It was at Willow Grove and would probably go up to Calary, which would mean more ditch and river than fly fences. And she’d promise to pull up if she felt any unevenness in Blister’s going. He was a Connemara, and, as Catriona had heard her grandfather say often, “the perfect example of his breed: a genuine animal, go until he drops, never let you down.”

  Blister had very good stable manners, not like Sean Doherty’s bay show pony in the next box. Blister knew which hoof to lift and he’d the most courteous habit of tilting the hind ones for you. She found his water bucket was full: Artie must have done it. Then she struggled to get the heavy old burlap rug spread over Blister’s white shoulders. They’d had to clip him out this winter because the sturdy old pony had coated so thickly that it took him forever to dry once he’d sweated up.

  “Getting on, Blister is,” Mick had said as he worked the clippers through the heavy fur down the pony’s neck. He paused for a moment, eyes on nothing as he did some mental calculations. “Your granddad bought that pony to teach your oldest brother to ride, so he’s at least thirty years old.” He clipped a few more moments, then switched off to give the head a chance to cool, running one hand affectionately down Blister’s heavy neck. “All six of you kids learned to ride on him. ’bout time you were promoted to something better.”

  “You mean it, Mick?” Catriona felt a surge of anticipation.

  “Now, don’t take me up wrong, Cat.” Mick’s cautionary tone brought her down to earth again. “You know your da’s opinion of ponies.” He jerked his head significantly in the general direction of Sean Doherty’s fractious mount.

  “But I ride the Prince much better than Sean does . . . .”

  Mick leaned down to whisper his next words, putting his finger before his lips. “You and me knows that, Cat, but it don’t do to say it in front of anybody else.”

  “But doesn’t my father . . . ”

  “Yes, he does, all right enough, and you’re why that flipping eejit manages to get the pony round a course. You’ve got more feel for an animal in your little toe than that spoiled fancy pants does in his whole body, but . . . ”

  “His father owns Ballymore Prince, and I don’t.” Catriona tried to suppress her sense of injustice, but she knew, as Mick did, that there was nothing to be done about it. She comforted herself with the knowledge that at least she had the chance to ride Ballymore Prince, and that it was her schooling that made the pony perform as well as he did . . . up until the moment the Prince realized that Sean, not Catriona, was on his back.

  Generally Sean managed to get out of the ring without being shed. Catriona didn’t like him in spite of the fact that she did feel sorry for him. He was scared of the Prince, but he was unable to stand up to his parents and tell them outright that he didn’t want to ride. The Dohertys were what Isabel Carradyne called jumped-up tinkers, building providers who had made their fortune in the housing boom after the Second World War. They lived in a large and magnificently overfurnished house in Foxrock, and their children were given all the advantages, which naturally, as Isabel had said acidly, included the Pony Club and an expensive and otherwise useless show pony for the one son, to bring glory to his parents with his prowess in the show ring.

  “What you need, Catie girl,” Mick said, turning the clippers onto Blister’s withers, “is enough length of leg to straddle the three-year-olds.”

  Catriona’s eyes widened at such a marvelous future.

  “You’ve more balance, a deeper seat, and better hands than even Philip has, if the captain would only look to see.”

  “He sees me on the Prince.”

  “He sees the bloody pony, not who’s riding it,” Mick said with considerable heat. “Put your mind to growing long legs, Catie girl, and we’ll drop the odd word in the captain’s ear. I don’t see many more seasons out of this old fella, so I don’t.”

  For a moment, Catriona had been torn by conflicting thoughts: the sheer joy of being astride, say, Wicket, whom she would ride to such a standard that her father would have to compliment her, and the agonizing knowledge that Blister would go to the knackers once she outgrew him. For she knew her father’s verdict for nonproductive animals. The pony was far too old to be sold on.

  She remembered that scene now as she tied the baling string on the front of Blister’s rug. It was old and so patched one didn’t know if any of the original burlap remained. The top of the rug, over the withers, had a sheepskin patch that was nearly bald from years of rubbing, and the sides were stiff with urine and manure, but it kept the pony warm enough. Blister nuzzled her, snuffling into her hands, and then gave her a push with his mottled pink-and-gray nose, urging her to collect his feed. Laughing, she pulled his forelock. He lifted his head against her pull, as if resenting the liberty, then whuffled again, softly, as she went to get his bucket.

  “Hooves picked out? Water bucket full? Rug on right?” Her father shot the habitual questions at her before she had put a foot into the warm feed room.

  “Yes, Daddy,” she replied.

  “Now, Captain dear, and when has she ever forgot a thing to do with pony or horse?” Mick demanded, bent over the buckets as he poured hot water on the bran. He winked at her. Ever since Mick had clipped Blister, he had been as good as his word, sliding in the occasional remark, the subtle praise to forward Catriona’s cause. “Philip, now, Owen, too, even Artie, might not have his mind on your orders, but Catriona always does.”

  Michael Carradyne regarded his daughter with a frown—not an angry one, Catriona was quick to perceive, but a thoughtful one: the way he’d look at a horse to check its well-being. Catriona held her breath a moment, wondering if Mick wasn’t laying it on a bit too thick.

  “She’s getting bigger, too, so she is. Longer in the leg. She’s riding a hole longer in the stirrup.” Mick had made marks on the feed room door to mark her growth, but if she was riding a hole longer in her stirrups, she hadn’t grown more than an inch above the initial mark Mick had made.

  Mick pushed a bucket at her with his foot. “That’s Blister’s, and this one’s the Prince’s.”

  “And you can help with Artie’s lot,” her father added. “He left early.”

  “Now, Mick, what’s all that in aid of?” she heard her father ask as she went out. She lost the answer as the thick door closed behind her, though she could hear Mick’s light tenor and her father’s short baritone reply.

  Then Blister was demanding her prompt delivery of his feed, stamping anxiously as she dumped his dinner in the manger.

  “If you didn’t gobble your hay so fast, it’d last you till teatime,” she told him, scraping the last of the warm bran and nuts from the bucket. He only had the one feed in the day, so he deserved to get every speck of it.

  Usually she stayed, communing with him while he ate. Tonight she left him with an affectionate tug on one daintily shaped, furry ear and went on to Ballymore Prince.

  Her father was halfway across the yard, pushing the barrow with the feeds for the horses in the courtyard. As soon as she reentered the feed room, Mick told off the buckets.

  “Emmett, Flirty Lady, Temper, Wicket, and the bay filly—and remember to watch Temper’s teeth.”

  “Oh, no fear.”

  Mick chuckled at her fervent assurance as she hefted the feed buckets. Temper’s teeth were legend in the main
yard. He’d had that name since the moment he was foaled, kicking at the caul. He had squealed with indignation when he found he couldn’t rise quickly to his stilty legs, and his wet hooves had scattered the deep straw of the foaling box in that first fit of temper. Frolic’s new colt was just as independent and active as Temper had been at the same age, but he was far more of a gentleman.

  Catriona fed Emmett and Flirty Lady, a fine hunter mare who was owned by the elegant, pretty Mrs. Healey and on livery at Cornanagh. Then Catriona ran back with the empty buckets to collect the other three feeds. Two buckets in one hand were awkward, but it saved her a third trip. With the sun well down now, the wind had got up, slicing coldly at her as she made her return journey.

  After Wicket, she opened the stall door into Temper’s stable. Actually, Catriona and Temper got on very well; he would even blow in her hand if he smelled the carrot or slice of swede that she often brought to bribe him to good manners.

  “It’s me, Temper, Catriona,” she said quietly. “It’s me, and I’ve your nice warm dinner.” The excitable four-year-old snorted angrily, striking out at the door. “Get back now.” She edged sideways into the stable, holding the bucket up, out, and in front of her, the first thing he’d go for. But she had a system: she gave him a quick dip into the mash and then, dropping the bucket away from his nose, could flip it into the manger and be out of the stable before he thought of any mischief. “There now! That’s better, isn’t it, lad?” He was already digging at the straw with an impatient foreleg in an ecstasy of eating.

  “Any trouble?” Mick asked, looking up from the buckets he was rinsing at the tap outside the feed room.

  “I never have any trouble with Temper.”

  “Some horses do better for girls, I gotta say that,” was Mick’s predictable response. “Even Seamus McGraw’s hired a few.”

  Catriona grinned. “Then, when I’m old enough, I’ll go work for Sam McGraw.”

  “Over your da’s dead body!”