“Cynthia’s not much of a rider, and I’m damned if I want her to start eating again because she’s been thrown on her bottom.”
On this afternoon Toby had her saddleless on a lunge line, jumping her over hurdles he had set to five feet. Not wanting to interrupt him, Eric and Lisa saddled their own horses and Cynthia’s as well. When Cynthia saw that Lisa was coming with them, she became surprisingly surly.
“So you’re coming along, too? Well, I suppose there’s no help for it,” she grumbled.
Eric looked at Lisa and shrugged. “I might say the same for you,” he pointed out uncharitably. “When you’re along, we always have to go the long way round because Twinkle can’t jump, and you wouldn’t if she could.”
Cynthia’s habitually smug look these days was replaced by a scowl. “You’ll sing a different tune one day and beg me to ride with you,” she retorted.
“You must be mad.”
“Mad, am I? Christian, tell me if I’m mad,” directing her words now to the horse, “when it’s all right under your nose. Or should I say under your feet?”
“Whatever are you nattering on about?” Eric demanded, his eyes going silver.
“Never mind,” Cynthia said sweetly. “Some other time.”
“Well, I for one intend to go riding,” Lisa broke in. “Shall I go alone, or are you coming?”
For the entire ride Cynthia chattered on cheerfully about how Jarrell had promised her a trip to London the next time he took Carrie, and what kind of clothes she intended to buy, and who she was going to see, and the parties Jarrell would take her to — Lisa doubted this last but said nothing — and how she loved to dance but hadn’t done it for so long, and on and on and on until Lisa felt like screaming. Eric on his part had fallen into a black funk and had nothing whatever to say. All in all, it was a very unpleasant ride, and Lisa for one was glad it was over. She was also glad she and Cynthia weren’t in the same room anymore, for with returning confidence Cynthia had exchanged her whining for an equally maddening constant chatter that revolved solely around herself. Lisa wished heartily that Jarrell would begin riding again soon. Eric could be good company, but lately he had been moody and unpredictable. On the other hand, before he went this last time to London, Jarrell refused to go out if Cynthia were along.
“It’s enough I have to have my meals spoiled by that empty headed little magpie. If I hear her go on one more time about what colors best suit her complexion, I’m likely to wring her neck. I tell you, Lisa, there are times I wish she were still fat and wallowing about in that bed all day.”
Lisa smiled to herself ruefully as she thought of how once she had determined never to speak to Jarrell again unless she had to. But she had found that she missed his dry humor and missed even more the variety of subjects they always seemed able to talk about. Right now, for example, she wanted to ask him what he knew of the fallow deer, which she had never seen either, and if it was true what she read somewhere, that the Romans had brought them all the way from Asia Minor.
When the riders returned, they found the grey mare tied and a wiping cloth carelessly thrown over her withers. “Toby! Eric shouted, and Toby came running out of the feed storage part of the stables, flushed and ill at ease.
“The missus asked me about poison fer rats,” he explained. “Ay wus showin’ ’er.”
Lisa assumed he was talking about Mrs. Lewis and reminded herself to warn her that if the rats were poisoned in the house, Tommy might be poisoned as well if he ate one. They unsaddled and left the horses to Toby. Later on, Lisa approached Mrs. Lewis about the poison.
“I never talked to Toby about poison,” Mrs. Lewis said indignantly. “There may be some down at the stables, but I won’t have it in the house. If you knew the number of times children and adults as well came into the hospital for having accidentally taken rat poison, you wouldn’t have it around, either.”
Since Cynthia had been riding with them, that left only one other missus, Mrs. Stephens. Mrs. Priddy he called just Priddy as they all did. She became very thoughtful. Mrs. Stephens was either making an excuse to get poison, or else making a pretext to talk to Toby. Surely she couldn’t be trying to talk him into doing something she didn’t want the others to know about, could she? But what? The garden! What if she had decided to have him spade up the hated vegetable and herb garden? Mrs. Stephens was a determined woman, and she had been deceptively meek when Jarrell told her that after thinking it over, he had decided that the vegetable and herb garden being near the kitchen was a good thing. Unless it was raining tonight, which hardly seemed likely, she would invite Toby for a run. They hadn’t gone for more than a month because of her hand.
That night she slipped down to the stables and tapped on the door of Toby’s quarters next to the tackroom. He opened the door stealthily and pulled her inside.
“What’s the matter, Toby? Is someone coming?” she whispered.
His face was only a light blue in the darkness. “It be you!” He sounded surprised and let go her arm.
“Who did you think it was, silly, St. Nicholas?”
After she had changed her clothes, they trotted across the stable yard, down the slope, and up the little valley to the ridge. “Let’s not go too far tonight, Toby,” she said. “I’ll have to get my wind again.”
He led the way, and though they weren’t long at it, she was breathing hard when they came to the clearing where the rabbits had danced. It was silent and empty tonight, and Lisa supposed they were waiting for the full of the moon. When they reached the clearing, Toby stopped and turned, looking at her silently. The faint light of a quarter moon shone on his face and silvered his thatch of hair, leaving his eyes shadowed.
“Lisa?” he said. “Make me feel good, Lisa.”
“What do you mean, Toby?” she asked, thinking he had a new game in mind.
“You know, Lisa. You never told me, but you know. Make me feel good like she do.” He reached out for her and before she knew it he was kissing her full on the mouth, his hand feeling for and finding her breast.
She didn’t struggle, but turned her head to one side, sickened. “Toby, Toby, that’s a bad thing you’re doing. Let me go.”
For a dangerous moment she had the feeling it could go either way, but at last he let her go and asked sadly, “You no be wanting ter make me feel good? You no be wanting me ter make you feel good?”
“No, Toby,” she said gently, “it wouldn’t be right. Who is it makes you feel good?” Though she thought she knew, it didn’t seem believable.
“She said Ay wusn’t te tell.”
“That’s all right, Toby, I know who it was. It’s Mrs. Stephens, isn’t it?” He nodded miserably. “Well, I won’t tell on you. But Toby, you mustn’t do it anymore.”
“Why?” he asked. “It no be wrong for the horses and cows and rabbits and birds. Why be it wrong fer me?”
Why indeed? Why suppose this poor half-witted, warm-hearted creature wouldn’t suffer at least as much as Jarrell? And now, like Jarrell, he knew what he was missing. Was the whole world peopled by monsters? Eric and his whores, Jarrell and his syphilis and loveless marriage, Henry and Tatty and their abortions, and now Carrie Stephens, who had apparently decided not to suffer anymore no matter where she had to go to slake her thirst. Was that why she was down at the stables with Eric that night? Had Cynthia seen her with Toby before Eric arrived? No, wait, Toby had been drugged to ease his head. But perhaps not that drugged. Could that have been when she seduced him?
“Toby, I can only tell you that it isn’t right unless you are married. That’s one of the reasons people get married.”
“The animals no be married. The missus no be married.”
“The animals know no better, and God has made them that way,” Lisa said, desperately trying to think of reasons that would appeal to him. “But God made man in His image and — and so you have to be married,” she finished illogically. “As for the missus,” she added grimly, “I’ll be explaining all this to her a
s well.”
“No, Lisa! No!” he exclaimed, terrified. “She say if Ay tell, my ma and me ’ave ter go.” He was almost crying.
“You’ll not have to go,” Lisa promised, “but this has to be stopped. Let me think about it.”
Saddened, she realized this had to be her last run with Toby, and she said a final farewell to her childhood. Toby’s innocence was lost, and next time he might not be able to control himself. Instinctively she knew that he wouldn’t have touched her had she not had an aura of awareness, a readiness to be fulfilled as a woman, yes and a wanting, too. Only the innocent could watch the rabbits dancing with impunity. She sighed.
That night she tossed and turned, thankful she had the room to herself. She couldn’t decide what was best to do for Toby, for his mother, for all of them. She knew that once she made her protest, the entire household for good or bad would never be the same again. Unhappily she realized that in Jarrell’s place she would fire Toby and his mother, threaten Carrie Stephens, and hope the household returned to its uneasy truce. Yes, and in his place she would get rid of herself as well, which she supposed was behind his arranging for her nursing training.
At last she fell into an uneasy sleep full of dreams of futile, complicated undertakings pursued against a background of menace, and woke late feeling dull and depressed. Her wakening mind contained a solution of sorts, but so long a chance as to be hardly a solution at all. Why couldn’t that blasted woman have gone to Burresford like Eric? And there was the solution: Eric. He was the one who was close to his sister; he would be the one to persuade her to leave Toby alone. If she were to be confronted by Lisa, whom she already didn’t like, there was no telling what would happen, and Lisa had already decided what Jarrell would do about it.
She ate breakfast that she got herself alone in the kitchen. Priddy was in the pantry taking inventory of supplies, and Amy was polishing the table in the dining room. The weather outside was as dull as she felt, overcast and gloomy with a smell of rain in the air. She was just washing up when the subject of her thoughts looked in.
“There you are. It’s likely to rain by midday, how about coming for a ride now?” Eric seemed his old cheerful self.
“All right, as long as we don’t go far. I don’t fancy getting soaked.” Perhaps it was better at that to talk to him out where he couldn’t do anything immediately rash.
Dancer was particularly irritating that morning, shying at everything, refusing to walk, and in general misbehaving so as to make a serious discussion out of the question. Meanwhile the sky grew darker and darker, and Lisa was afraid that it would start to rain before she had had a chance to say anything. Now that she had made her decision, she was anxious to share the problem.
“Eric,” she said suddenly, “would you mind if we dismounted by those trees over there? I have something to say to you.”
“You do sound ominous, Lisa. Let’s see, a tall, dark stranger has been courting you secretly and you’re asking my permission to marry him. The answer is no.”
“No to marrying him, or no to dismounting so we can talk?”
“No to marrying him, in which case there is no reason to talk.”
“Oh Eric, do be serious. Dancer has been maddening all morning, and now you are as well.” She solved the problem when they reached the trees by getting off.
“While we’re having serious discussions, you’ve got to admit that I’ve behaved myself admirably ever since I promised.”
“It hasn’t done much for your disposition,” she replied, laughing despite herself. Somehow she could always laugh with Eric. There were, after all, worse ways to spend your life.
“You could cure my disposition in a very short time,” he said. “Of course, my disposition’s terrible. I inherited very hot blood, probably from my mother, for God knows Mark doesn’t seem to have it. Oh, he got along well enough with Ellen, I’ll grant you, but imagine locking yourself up like a monk for seven years.” He shuddered. “It’s not human.”
“That’s in a way what I want to talk to you about.” She hesitated a second, unsure just how to begin. “What I have to say concerns your sister.”
“Carrie? Whatever has she done now?” He seemed only mildly interested now that they had stopped talking about him.
“Something pretty serious, and I’m trying to work out what to do about it. You’re close to her, and perhaps you’re the one to discuss it with her.”
“Is she mucking about with your vegetables again? I thought that was all settled.” He now sounded downright bored, which angered Lisa.
“If you must know, it’s Toby she’s been mucking about with this time, and it’s got to stop,” she snapped.
Eric’s face went absolutely white. “If that lout has so much as touched her, I’ll — ”
“It’s the other way around, Eric!” Lisa interrupted. “Don’t blame Toby; it’s she who seduced him. Think about it a moment and you’ll realize that she has a mind of her own. No half-witted boy could ever so much as lay a finger on her without her wanting him to.”
“How do you know?”
“I wormed it out of Toby; never mind how. He’s simple and doesn’t know how to lie. Besides, he’s terrified that he and his mother will be sent away.”
“As they shall be, if this is true.”
Lisa was angry now, angry with Eric for his irrational dislike of Toby that had begun as jealousy over her, and angry with herself for not forseeing how Eric would react. “If they go,” she announced, “I go. Is that what you want, Eric? I’ll not stay in a place where the innocent are taken advantage of and then punished for it.”
“As long as he’s here, there’ll be trouble,” he said sullenly.
“I think it’s your sister who should be shipped off,” Lisa pointed out. “I agree heartily that it’s not natural to lock oneself up like a monk — or a nun in this case — for seven years. And as you say, hot blood runs in the family. So Toby goes — don’t you think she’ll find someone else? Will it be the gardener? The delivery boy from the village? How much choice has she? She should be in London where she has a chance of marrying again.”
Eric’s face went very still, and she could almost hear the thoughts rushing through his mind. “We’ll see,” he said noncommitally. “Let’s go back.”
On the ride home, the fain finally caught up with them, and they arrived drenched, the horses’ coats black with water. When they arrived in the stable yard, Toby was not in evidence, for which Lisa was thankful. She didn’t want Eric near him just now. Ordinarily she enjoyed the smell of wet horse and wet leather, but today she was too upset to notice. Her gamble had been a poor one, and she admitted to herself she probably should have gone to Jarrell. But she was determined to leave if Toby did.
They walked silently up to the house, Eric absently tapping against his boot the riding crop he’d forgotten to leave in the tackroom. There was no one about when they came in through the dining room, their boots clattering on the polished wood floor. Amy, who was in the hall dusting, said she thought Mrs. Stephens was in the drawing room writing letters. Whenever Lisa thought of the drawing room, she thought of Eric’s puzzle that ended up taking weeks to do because everyone lost interest. At the last, somehow a single piece had been lost, and the oddly shaped hole stared at them like an eye until one day Eric dismantled the whole puzzle and put it back in its box. Several days later Amy found the missing piece under a corner of the carpet when she was cleaning, but no one by that time had the heart to put the whole thing together again.
When Eric had his mind on something, he could be painfully direct. “Carrie, what’s all this about you and Toby?”
There was a flicker of panic in her eyes before she blinked and replied easily. “Oh dear, I’d hoped no one would ever find out.”
“Then you admit it’s true?” Eric asked incredulously.
“I hardly think ‘admit’ is the right word,” Carrie replied just as easily as before. “If you must know, poor Toby got carried away
one day and pressed his advances on me forcibly. I had to fight him off. I felt sorry for the poor simple thing, though, and made him promise me he wouldn’t tell anyone and that he would never do it again. I think he knew that he would have to leave if the incident were repeated. Don’t punish him, Eric — he didn’t really know what he was doing.”
Oh, the sly one! Lisa thought. She looked at that handsome face and knew that she could hate her. “You lie,” she objected heatedly. “Toby never had a thought like that in his life until you gave it to him. What a shabby thing to do, to seduce a simple-minded boy who had done you no harm, and then try to put the blame on him.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but it was you, not I, who gave him ideas.”
“What do you mean?” Lisa demanded.
“Would you like to tell Eric what you do with Toby when you and he go up on the moor at night? Don’t tell me you go out just to look at the moonlight?” Mrs. Stephens asked spitefully.
Lisa felt trapped. How could she possibly explain those lovely night runs that were over forever? “But Toby and I have run on the moor since we were children,” she protested. “That was how I knew anything had happened, because he had changed.”
“Changed?” Eric look thoroughly confused, as well he might.
“He had lost his innocence.” At Eric’s raised eyebrows she added, “If you must know, he wanted to make love to me, and I knew perfectly well it wasn’t his idea.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t,” insinuated Mrs. Stephens, her silver eyes a mirror reflection of Eric’s.
“Oh, what’s the use?” Lisa said wearily. “Just stay away from him from now on. Mrs. Stephens, I’m warning you. I don’t know what I’ll do about it, but I’ll do something.”
“No you won’t,” Jarrell said from the doorway. They had all been so preoccupied they hadn’t noticed him. Lisa wondered how long he had been standing there. “I am master in this house, Lisa, in case you’ve forgotten, and problems are to be brought to me. I’ll find a solution that is as satisfactory as possible to everyone, a better one I assure you than the foolishness you’ve all been contemplating. Frankly, it looks to me as if Toby should go, for his own sake and everyone else’s.”
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