Fortune's Lead

by Barbara Perkins

  ‘I suppose you came off that mare of yours again. Who saw to it for you? You’d better let me have a look at it.’

  That was a voice I recognized, as well: deep, rather scornful. Kevin Thurlanger. He went on, ‘If you can’t keep your seat, brat, you oughtn’t to go out—I’ve told you before about taking the big ones on that little mare!’

  ‘Oh, stop prosing!’ Esther said angrily. ‘You’ve been off enough times—oh yes, you have, what about the Bessemer Show? Thunder had you right over the top of the jump, and I could have cheered! Anyway, Pa’s new secretary did it up for me, so I don’t need your services, thanks! She learnt how to bandage by watching television, or something—’

  ‘If she did it, it’s probably filthy. She wouldn’t have the first clue. And incidentally, she’s going to have to go,’ Kevin Thurlanger said curtly, while I froze in my doorway with angry disbelief, the surprise of it keeping me still. Of all the high-handed nerve—!

  ‘Oh, why?’ Esther asked with interest. ‘I thought she was all right—I mean, she’s a bit—’

  I came out of the shadows fast: it was either that or returning to the kitchen until they had moved from the staircase, and I wanted a word with Mr. Kevin Thurlanger. I could see him now, half way up the stairs, with Esther in front of him. ‘Yes, do tell me why I’ve got to go, Mr. Thurlanger,’ I said icily to his back view. ‘I should be most interested!’

  He swung round at the sound of my voice. If I had hoped to disconcert him, I’d been optimistic: he stood there—around six foot two of him—looking as supercilious as he had at our first meeting, and regarding me with narrowed eyes. He looked, in fact, quite a proposition for anyone to take on—as broad-shouldered as a boxer, but a great deal handsomer, with one of those classic profiles reputed to make women swoon, and a very determined chin. I wasn’t swooning. ‘You were saying, Mr. Thurlanger?’ I repeated, in a voice which was growing icicles. ‘I don’t recall your uncle showing signs of regret—so far!—but no doubt he does everything you tell him!’

  ‘Essie, go back to your room. I’ll come and see to your arm later,’ Kevin Thurlanger said curtly over his shoulder to his cousin.

  ‘Not me, if you two are going to fight—’

  ‘This isn’t a game, brat. I have things to say to Miss—Armitage, isn’t it?’

  ‘Shah,’ Esther said helpfully, without moving.

  ‘Miss Armitage, as far as Mr. Thurlanger’s concerned,’ I said frigidly. ‘And you needn’t worry about Esther’s arm, Mr. Thurlanger—I can assure you it’s clean, not serious, and properly bandaged! A technique at which I’m quite competent, thank you!’

  ‘Wonderful what television’ll teach you nowadays,’ Esther said chattily. She sat down on the stairs, showing how determined she was not to depart. ‘Go on, Kev, let’s hear why Shah’s got to go. I thought meself you were being a bit bossy again—but I warned her we all are, in this house! Mottie said you wouldn’t like sharing your bathroom, but you can’t throw a girl of Pa’s out because of that!’

  I wasn’t sure that I liked the phrase ‘a girl of Pa’s’—but Esther had at least reminded me, just in time, that I wasn’t officially a trained nurse. I took a sharper hold on my temper, and glared at Kevin Thurlanger. It ought to have been effective; but rather than backing away, he came slowly down the stairs towards me. I became abruptly conscious that I was dressed, not in something thick, efficient-looking, and suitable for glaring at young men in, but a frilly (though fortunately not transparent) nylon dressing-gown. In fact, he had me at an unfair disadvantage—unless, of course, I threw my cup of cocoa at him...

  I was still deciding whether the effect would be good enough to be worth the waste of cocoa when there was an interruption. A door opened on the gallery above us, and Henry’s voice, sharp with displeasure, called all of us to order.

  ‘There seems to be a remarkable amount of noise going on. Esther, what are you doing out of bed? Ah, Shah, my dear, it’s you down there. Kevin, is it really necessary to wake everyone up when you come in?’ Looking up to see Henry gracing the gallery with his presence in an opulent-looking brocade dressing-gown, I noticed that Esther, on the stairs below him, hastily hunched her shoulder to conceal the betraying bandage showing below her pyjama sleeve. Kevin Thurlanger, to my pleasure, looked disconcerted. I was still feeling angry enough with him to be incapable of making explanations. The silence stretched for a second: then Henry spoke again, patiently, but in the unmistakable voice of authority.

  ‘Well, Kevin, do you intend to go on making a disturbance?’

  ‘I’m going into the kitchen to find myself something to eat,’ Kevin Thurlanger said shortly—and went. As he passed me, he managed to make me feel small without condescending to bestow me a glance. I almost tossed my head, and began to move up the stairs as Henry spoke again.

  ‘Esther, you’re on your way to your room, I suppose?’

  ‘I asked Shah if she’d mind getting me a hot drink. She’s going to come and talk to me while I drink it,’ Esther said, lying cheerfully and without a blink. As I reached her, she jumped up and slipped her bandaged arm through mine. Abruptly I was aware of the reason for the he: her bandage was now effectively concealed by my full sleeve. As we passed her father she said brightly, ‘ ’Night, Pa!’ and led me along with her, not before Henry had managed to give me a look of approval which made my conscience twinge again. And then we were inside Esther’s pretty bedroom, and she was giving me a grin full of complicity.

  ‘That worked,’ she said happily. ‘It’s all right, you can go again as soon as you like, but I’d never have got past him otherwise! Looks as if you’re going to be quite useful, so I shall tell Kev he can’t try and throw you out! But Pa won’t mind if you fight with Kev, and I shan’t either, so you can go right ahead. In fact it’ll be amusing—I rather wondered what he’d make of having you around!’

  What I would make of having Kevin Thurlanger around was something I found myself quite incapable of telling his cousin. I told myself it wasn’t my fault we had started off on the wrong foot—and tried to convince myself that I wasn’t in the least hurt by his immediate and high-handed dislike of me, as I took myself off to my room.

  When I heard him pass my door I was still brooding on people who led such spoiled and useless lives that they made an issue out of something as small as sharing a bathroom.

  CHAPTER IV

  Henry told me over breakfast that I was to get myself thoroughly settled in before I even began to consider anything that could be called work. When I protested that I wasn’t used to doing nothing, he merely twinkled at me and said in that case he was sure a holiday would do me good. I was discovering that it was impossible to argue with him: not only was he my employer, and extremely kind, but he also had behind the charm the air of one accustomed to being obeyed. I began to feel less surprised that his overbearing nephew had turned on his heel and departed last night; and that Esther had gone to such pains to conceal her minor injury. Esther might treat her father’s wishes with apparent casualness, but I suspected that she was careful to avoid a direct conflict of wills where possible because she knew her father a lot better than I did.

  I did win an admission from Henry that there was a typewriter in the first-floor study which I could eventually—at some time or another—use for addressing invitations—unless I preferred to do it by hand. (That my typing was of the one-finger variety didn’t seem to worry him at all). In the meantime, I was to amuse myself. I was left to do so while he went off with his light brisk step on business of his own. Neither Esther nor Kevin had been seen at breakfast (I decided Kevin was idle as well as overbearing) so I made for the kitchen to see if I could help Mrs. Mott—only to find that I wasn’t expected to do anything of the kind. If I hadn’t come to the kitchen because I wanted something, I was plainly though politely expected to remain elsewhere: a girl named Sarah Ann from the village was giving all the help necessary, while two other women called Annie and Mrs. Clark were getting on with the cle
aning. I retreated hastily, and wondered what I was going to do with myself. It appeared that I shouldn’t even have bothered to make my bed, or tidy my own room. I thought ruefully that it was going to be difficult to obey Henry’s injunction to feel at home in circumstances which were so unlike home.

  Miss Essie, Mrs. Mott told me helpfully, was down at the stables. I decided I would go down there myself—partly because making friends with Esther was bound to require it, and partly because I wanted to remind her of her promise to let me re-dress her arm. I put on a pair of flat shoes, tried to tell myself that my pink suit looked countrified enough, and made my way across the drive and a piece of paddock towards the stable buildings. Beyond them I could see, grazing in a fenced-off area, a mare with a growing foal, and beyond that again a barrel-shaped grey pony was snickering placidly at a slightly larger brown one. The stables themselves surrounded a concreted yard, and as I came into it a boy with a round face was crossing it with a sackful of something. He was too like Mrs. Mott to be anyone but her son, and he seemed to know who I was, too: he gave me a friendly grin, and called out,

  ‘Miss Essie, there’s the new young lady from the house here for you!’

  ‘Okay, Phil—’Essie’s husky voice floated out from the open top half of one of the stables. A moment later I saw her arm come over the lower half-door to unbolt it, and then she came out, backwards, hauling on something. ‘Co—ra!’ she said crossly. ‘Will you behave, you stupid—’

  The animal she was tugging looked vicious enough to me already; but at that moment it caught sight of me—and took instant exception. Its ears went back further than ever and it rolled its eyes meanly, beginning a kind of rearing dance which, terrified, I thought would have Essie on the ground at any moment. Not so: swearing fluently, Henry’s daughter kept hold of the reins in one hand and forced the horse’s head round, keeping a measure of control while avoiding the dancing hooves. Phil Mott, I saw, seemed to take the performance as a matter of little concern. As Esther came round in a circle I shrank back, but as she got a proper look at me she let out another expletive.

  ‘Oh, lord, no wonder she’s being difficult—get out of sight a minute, will you—Cora! Phil, we’ll have to put her back in, she’ll never behave while she can see Charlotte wearing that colour—come round, stupid, when I tell you! If you won’t behave I’ll cut your oats, I swear I will!’

  Hastily, unsure which of us was being addressed as stupid, I retreated so that the corner of the stables was between me and the horse. The sounds of struggle lasted a minute or two longer: any moment, I felt, my professional services were going to be called on for something a great deal worse than a scratched arm. However, while I was still standing rooted, and doubtful, Esther came rapidly round the corner, barely out of breath, and looked at me with a kind of friendly scorn.

  ‘You’ll have to put on something else if you want to see Cora properly. She’s bad enough with post-office vans, but that colour—!’

  ‘S—sorry.’ Frightening horses was something which certainly hadn’t occurred to me when I dressed this morning. ‘I—didn’t mean to—’

  ‘‘S’all right. I’ll introduce her to you later when you’re wearing something else,’ Essie said cheerfully. I bit back a request not to be introduced to Cora, at any time. ‘You’ll learn, I suppose. Come and see the others, anyway—they’re placid enough not to care. That’s why I got Cora—Star jumps all right, but he’s a bit of an armchair ride nowadays. Pity you’re too tall for him, ‘cos he’d be good for a learner. You’d have your feet practically on the ground, though, I’m afraid. How tall are you?’

  She’d had my weight and my age from me yesterday: she might as well have my height too. ‘Five feet ten,’ I said meekly, wishing I had given up being self-conscious about it years ago. I had frequently been told (by people who weren’t) that it must be an advantage to be tall, and certainly my younger sister made an advantage out of her almost equal height—but then she was strikingly pretty, too.

  ‘Just about a man’s height,’ Essie said without sympathy, from my shoulder-level, and went on calmly with an air which showed me she was thinking about riding, as usual, ‘Could be an advantage if you’ve got the strength to go with it, of course ... Here, come and meet Dido, and her foal. He’s a fine fellow, isn’t he? We haven’t named him yet.’

  After Cora’s performance (I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if she could have murdered Phil Mott by now, but I couldn’t hear any screams) I kept back nervously as we went into the paddock. Dido, however, swished her tail amiably, and nuzzled at Essie’s hand in search of sugar. The foal kept to the far side of his mother, but came cautiously when Essie flicked her fingers to him: I thought he was adorable, but didn’t say so in case it was the wrong word for a horse. We went on to see the others—Star, the barrel-shaped grey who was apparently over twenty years old, and Fiddlestick, the larger brown gelding who Essie told me was recovering from a strained something-or-other which had been complicated by something else, but was doing quite nicely now. Never having had anything to do with horses, I found it unnerving when Star nudged at me, though he seemed quite amiable—and it was a relief when Fiddlestick seemed to feel, as I did, that he and I were more likely to be friends from a distance. I felt I had done my duty in coming to be introduced to all these animals—and certainly they made a pretty picture, moving placidly across the green of the grass, with distant trees forming a backcloth—but I couldn’t help being glad of my height for once since it stopped Esther from suggesting that I had an immediate riding lesson. As we walked back towards the stable block, which I made a mental note to visit in future only in the dullest colours possible, I reminded Essie about having her arm dressed, but she said it had already been done.

  ‘Kev insisted on looking at it. He had to admit it was fine, though. Oh, look, he must be coming back—hey!’ She gave me a wicked grin. ‘Go and stand by that fence—I want to see if you startle Thunder as much as you did Cora. He’s a devil, and he’ll rear at almost anything!’

  ‘Certainly not! If your cousin’s coming, I think I’ll go back to the house,’ I said firmly, with as much dignity as I could muster. My pink suit would have to remain in the cupboard in future; and I most certainly was not going to be used as a deliberate horse-scarer. Besides, a horse described by Essie as a devil and with the ominous name of Thunder didn’t sound like one I wanted to meet—quite apart from its owner. I began my retreat, asking, ‘Which way will he be coming from—?’

  ‘There, of course, here come the dogs. Oh, lord, I suppose you’ll be scared of them—they’re quite gentle, honestly—’ Essie looked at me with resignation, seeming to forget that she had threatened me with the dogs yesterday—and the ill-concealed pity in her voice made me stop dead in my tracks.

  ‘I am not in the least afraid of dogs,’ I said, truthfully—hoping all the same that she meant the same as I did by ‘gentle.’ ‘Where—oh, I see! Aren’t they beautiful!’

  They were—and enormous. They were Great Danes, lolloping up to us with huge strides, tongues lolling pink against their golden coats. I couldn’t see Kevin Thurlanger yet, but his dogs seemed bent on giving me a welcome—kinder, I hoped, than his. They circled Esther and myself as we stood in the approach to the stable yard, and I stood very still to let them sniff me. One of them—fine-boned enough to be young, despite his size—sat down to study me, his head coming up to my waist, his beautiful golden brow wrinkled in comical enquiry. I was putting out a hand gently towards him when the sound of hooves came from beyond the stable, and a deep voice called out clearly:

  ‘Bess—Royal—damn!’

  It seemed that Essie was getting her wish. Kevin Thurlanger had come round the corner of the stables—and, to my horror, he was now wrestling to control the antics of an enormous black brute of a horse, on which he sat, I had to admit, as if he’d been born there. While I watched, he gave the animal its head and the two of them careered off, taking the nearest fence as if they were flying. I heard E
sther chuckle, and when I could drag my eyes from the retreating figures of man and horse I saw that she had both dogs by their collars and her eyes were filled with glee, not unmixed with admiration.

  ‘Thunder can really go,’ she said. ‘Kev’ll take him round the jumps to keep him quiet, I expect. No, Royal, you’ll stay here—he won’t want you under his feet just now, and you’re not well enough trained yet! Go on, Kev, go it—make him race!’

  ‘Supposing he comes off,’ I said, feeling shaken. ‘If you knew he was going to come on us suddenly like that, you should’ve—’

  ‘Oh, Kev can hold him all right. And serve him right for being so snooty about you—we might as well give him a reason for feeling mean, mightn’t we? Besides, he did say he wanted to teach Thunder not to shy!’ Essie said mischievously.

  It was definitely time I went back to the house. I said so, and went, trying not to look back over my shoulder to where Kevin Thurlanger was still giving a private exhibition of how to control a nervous horse. This, certainly, was not going to make him like me any better. I couldn’t have said that I wanted him to like me better: nevertheless, I felt foolish, and more than a little angry with Esther for what seemed to be quite deliberate staging of the incident. She’d pointed the opposite way from that from which her cousin did in fact come... Of course, I thought bitterly, it was my fault for being so unaware of what one should and shouldn’t wear in the depths of Suffolk. I went up and changed, feeling a failure, and wondered why everything about Kevin Thurlanger had to be oversized. His dogs, I had to admit, I liked; but while I might just about get used to Esther’s ponies, with the exception of Cora, I would certainly never want to go near what had looked like the largest and nastiest black horse I had ever seen. Fortunately I wouldn’t be likely to have to, which was some comfort.