by Sue Peters
home for several seasons. Curls of rusted barbed wire, sprung dangerously back from the rotted posts that once held them, abdicated their duty as gap fillers in the unkempt hedge. Rob mentally compared the entrance facing her with the well oiled barrier barring the entrance to the track leading to Wade Hollow, and found the Norton End farmer, whoever lie was, definitely wanting.
She turned the Austin on to the weed-strewn track and chugged along in second gear, hoping that it would not prove to be the five fields length of the one to the Wades' farm. It was infinitely rougher, and the springing of her car, already feeling its years, was not on the same purpose built level as the vet's Land Rover. In fact, the track petered out after three thistle-strewn fields, and ended in front of a dilapidated-looking building that Rob had difficulty in deciding whether it was house or barn.
At the sound of her engine in the yard, a woman appeared at the door, wiping her hands on a dirty-looking calico apron. Lank, mousy hair, untidily escaping from a carelessly applied rubber band, wisped unheeded about her face as she eyed Rob suspiciously.
"Well?'''
"I ought to be used to this sort of welcome by now," thought Rob wryly. "It doesn't look as if women vets are popular with the profession, or their clients." She introduced herself.
"I'm Mr Rand's assistant. You rang to say you had a cow in some sort of trouble."
"Well, it's no use you coming to the house. The cow's in the shed over yonder."
The woman pointed towards a broken-down-looking shed with a sagging roof, standing—if so it could be described—about forty yards beyond the back of the house.
"I'll find my own way," offered Rob, but the woman did not wait to hear her out. She turned her back and re-entered the house, shutting the door uncompromisingly behind her, and Rob heard the clatter of a pail as if she might have been in the middle of scrubbing the floor.
Left to her own devices, Rob picked her way across the farmyard to the shed on the other side. The woman's manner had been abrupt to the point of rudeness, but she could not stop to worry about that now. She carefully skirted a rusty disc harrow lying, like the gate, in a bed of nettles, and her critical gaze took in the general air of seedy neglect that hung heavy over buildings and yard. Her opinion of the farmer dropped to zero. Gingerly she stepped through a clutter of depressed-looking fowls, all showing evidence of feather-pulling, and reached for the shed door, half afraid to pull at it too hard in case it came away from its hinges in her hands. It swung out creakily, catching on the deeply rutted earth outside, and she left it open to let in a bit of light. After the bright sunlight outside, the interior of the shed seemed dark, and she paused for a minute to let her eyes adjust to the gloom.
Something moved in the one corner, and her eyes took in the shape of a small cow. "A runt," thought
Rob. "It would be, on a holding like this." The animal was tethered loosely by a much knotted piece of binder twine, and it eyed her as she moved across to it, talking quietly while she walked. It chewed its cud with bovine patience, its jaws moving up and down with a rhythmic sound that in a better cared for animal always left Rob with a strange sense of peace. It was such a quiet, meditative occupation, it was a pity human beings did not do the same, she thought; there would be fewer nervous breakdowns if they did.
She was glad that she had left the door open. Even now, the light in the shed was poor. True, there was a window of sorts, but it was partly stuffed with dirty sacking to mend a break, and what glass was left was so obscured by grime and cobwebs as to be virtually useless for letting in any light. She looked round the shed. There was only the one animal inside, indeed there was only room for the one amid the general clutter littering the floor. Her practised eye told her that it was in calf, but it did not seem to be in any distress. She ducked underneath its neck, running her hands across its spine gently, looking for the reason she had been called out. She soon found it A jagged rip across the animal's shoulder spoke eloquently of an encounter with barbed wire, and Rob remembered the rusty tangle in the hedge by the gateway. She ducked back underneath the beast's neck, and started to untie the rope from the ring in the wall.
"I shall have to take you outside, old girl," she addressed herself to the cow. "It's too dark to be able to attend to you in here."
She got the knot untied at last, and turned the cow towards the door. There should be something she could tie it up to again once she was outside. She wished the farmer would put in an appearance; it would make things better for her if he were there to steady the animal while she worked.
"What are you taking my cow outside for ?"
A surly voice growled at her from the doorway, and she recognised the tones of the man who had phoned her earlier. "I tied it up in here to keep it still while you looked to the rip in its shoulder."
"I can't possibly see to work in this shed, it's much too dark." The man was standing with his back to the open doorway, blocking the light, his face in the shadow. "Let me through, and I'll attend to it outside." Rob did not wait for him to answer, but straight away turned the cow into the doorway, obliging him to move. Once outside, she looked round for somewhere to tie it to, but there seemed nothing handy except the latch of the door, and one good pull from the cow would assuredly bring the door down, she suspected, and probably the shed with it. She turned to the cow's owner, and found herself confronting the dark, scowling face that had filled her viewfinder on the village green the day before. Her second encounter did nothing to improve her first impression of the man, and her face tightened. "Please hold the rope, so I can start work."
She held it out to him, and he took it with a surly grunt, but he held the cow still while she opened her case and got out her equipment. The rip was a bad
one, and as she worked she seethed, longing to give the farmer the tongue-lashing he deserved for allowing the animal to get into such a state.
"This wouldn't have happened if you'd cleared up the old barbed wire on your property, Mr—er—" was all that she allowed herself. She did not want to get involved in a row with one of her employer's clients, and risk further trouble when she reported the case to him that evening.
"I ain't got time to pretty the place up." His scowl grew blacker. "And my name's Ford—Lewis Ford," he informed her, with a glare that suggested she should have known all along.
Lewis Ford ! The man who kept his bull in a field where there was a footpath. Rob could well understand, now, why Verity had called him an awkward type. He and his wife both seemed tarred with the same brush, she thought. She threaded a needle and glanced up at him, her voice coldly professional.
"Hold the animal a bit more firmly, will you ? I'm going to have to stitch the rip here."
She went about her work, ignoring him completely. Her fingers were unhesitating and sure, and she finished her stitching unhurriedly, taking time to check over her handiwork to see if it needed further attention. It did not. The shoulder was neatly dressed, and the cow stood calmly enough, apparently undisturbed by its unpleasant experience.
"That should heal all right. Either Mr Rand or I will call again in a day or two, just to make sure. If
there's any sign of infection before then, give me a ring," she bade the farmer.
"There hadn't better be," the man snapped. "If you've done your work properly, it shouldn't need another visit from either of you."
Considering that the rip in the cow's shoulder was due to his own carelessness about his fences, Rob felt that his abruptness was a bit uncalled-for, even though he was at odds with her employer over allowing his bull free access over a public right of way.
"No, but it might ..." she began, anxious for the wellbeing of the beast.
"And it might not," he growled back. "The less I see of either you or your boss on my land, the better." His hand shot out and gripped her arm in a vicelike hold. "I don't want no nosey-parkers ferreting about Norton End, and you can tell that to Rand when you see him !"
Rob gasped. Pain shot up her arm from
the cruel grip of his fingers, and she winced.
"Let go of her, Ford. At once !"
A voice, dangerously quiet, spoke from behind the farmer, and the man loosed her arm and spun round. Rob rubbed it, feeling the pain of the blood flowing back now that the pressure was taken away, and she turned to confront the vet. His face wore a scowl as black as Lewis Ford's, and when he spoke to her his voice was cold.
"Put your things back into your case, and go back to your car," he commanded her.
"I was just checking to see if there was anything else. .. ."
"I'll check for you," he retorted grimly. "Do as I
say.”
His voice brooked no disobedience, and Rob hastily stuffed her things back into her case, careless of tidiness, and turned away. She did not look at the farmer again, but deliberately turned her back on him and slipped thankfully into Hoppy's lumpy front seat.
"Phew ! He's a bad-tempered type, and no mistake," she informed the Austin—and then wondered which of the two men she meant.
A strong hand grasped the handle of her passenger door and wrenched it open. She spun round, her eyes wide, but it was only the vet.
"You left this." He held out a bottle of ready diluted disinfectant, and she opened her mouth to thank him. "Perhaps in future," he interrupted her, thrusting the bottle forcefully into her hand, "you'll take some notice when you're told not to have anything to do with a person. Verity told you what type of man Lewis Ford was, and I said you were not to answer calls from him. Now start your car, and I'll follow you home."
CHAPTER EIGHT
"HE thinks I came here deliberately !" Sheer shock
froze Rob to her seat, and she stared after Hallam
Rand disbelievingly as he strolled towards his Land Rover. "He thinks I knew which holding Lewis Ford farms, and came here despite what Verity said. He must think I came for a cheap thrill." The vet had seen the man grab her arm, and put the wrong interpretation on his action. Hallam Rand had been too far away to hear what the fanner had said, and there had been no time to explain, indeed he had not given her the chance.
"Perhaps in future you'll take more notice."
The cool tones had stung the angry colour to Rob's cheeks, and hot temper rose in her throat. She glared furiously after the vet's retreating figure. The Land Rover door slammed behind him, and he turned in his driving seat and looked in her direction. She stared back in mute anger. He waited for a few seconds, and then slid down his window and called out to her.
"Can't you start it ?"
"Start it?" The sound of his voice brought Rob off the boil, and she shook herself back to reality. "Of course I can start it !"
She was so vexed that she had almost forgotten she had to drive herself back to Mill House. Hallam Rand had called it 'home', but she could not think of it as that. Her hand shook slightly as she reached for the ignition key, and Hoppy started up instantly, as if glad to be leaving Norton End farm. She stamped angrily on the accelerator, and the little Austin caught a bad bout of kangaroo petrol. With three startled leaps it cleared the rutted farmyard, and the resulting jolts shook Rob back to herself again.
"Sorry, Hoppy, I shouldn't take it out on you," she apologised, quietening down, and proceeding more sedately along the apology for a drive. "The track is rough enough in all conscience, without me making it worse."
The brief mechanical struggle had steadied her, and she drove smoothly back to Mill House and garaged the Austin with a sigh of thankfulness. She still felt angry, but now it had simmered to a dull ache, and suddenly she felt she wanted to cry. She entered the house through the back way rather than face the vet again, but she need not have bothered, for she heard him talking on the phone through the open study door. She turned towards the stairs, but was forestalled by Martha.
"There's a cup of tea poured out in the kitchen, Miss Rob. Come along and get it while it's hot," she bade her cheerfully.
It was not an unusual invitation at this time in the afternoon if she happened to be in the house, and Rob turned towards her instantly, suddenly urgent for a sympathetic ear. She curled up in the big rocking chair beside the kitchen stove, and accepted the hot, strong brew that was the housekeeper's speciality She shook her head at the proffered scones, an unusual refusal that brought a crease of concern to the kindly face opposite to her, but even to please Martha she could not eat one now. She felt as if food would choke her.
"It's a coincidence, you and Mister Hal getting in together," commented the housekeeper happily. "It
will save having to make another pot of tea later on."
"It's no coincidence," replied Rob wearily. "Mr Rand turned up at Norton End farm just as I'd finished stitching up a cow, and he followed me back."
"Norton End? What, not Lewis Ford's place? I wouldn't have thought Mister Hal would have let you go there," Martha ducked disapprovingly. "Lewis Ford is a rough, uncouth sort. Better you'd' stayed away, though of course if you were helping Mister Hal that would be different."
"I wasn't helping him. He came afterwards. And Verity did warn me about not going to Lewis Ford's place, but the trouble was she didn't say which holding he farmed. I wasn't to know that he and Norton End went together." Rob stretched out her cup for a refill, and Martha caught sight of the marks on her arm, already beginning to show signs of bruising.
"Don't tell me he ..."
"No, he didn't. He was merely making sure that I stayed to listen to what he had to say. I met him on the green yesterday, by accident, though of course I didn't know who he was then. He wanted to give me a message for Mr Rand then, but he wasn't completely sober, so I walked away. He evidently intended to make sure I listened today." Rob rubbed her arm ruefully. It ached where the man had gripped her.
"And what message did he have for me today ?"
Hallam Rand had come silently into the kitchen, his rubber-soled shoes making no sound on the quarry floor, and both the women jumped.
"Well?" The vet's voice was grim.
"He said—he said to tell you that he didn't want any n-nosy parkers ferreting about Norton End. I think he meant about his bull." Rob's voice trailed away lamely, unable to continue. Misery stopped her throat. Nothing she did seemed right for Hallam Rand. For a little while she had hoped, but after this she was sure that he would stand by his first decision, and refuse to renew her appointment at the end of her month's stay. She leaned back in the chair, defeated, and closed her eyes against the threatening tears. She heard Hallam Rand speak to Martha, heard him go out of the room, and felt Martha's motherly hand brush across her hair.
"Don't let it worry you, dear. Mister Hal will go and check up on the cow, whether Lewis Ford wants him to or not. You won't have to go there again."
"He thinks I went there deliberately."
She no longer felt angry at the injustice of it, only unhappy that it had to be this way, that her shining hopes had turned to dust at her every move. And it did not help that none of the misunderstandings she had had with her employer, except the initial one over her name, was her own fault.
"I'm sure he thinks nothing of the sort." Martha sounded scandalised.
"He certainly does not." The vet had re-entered the kitchen, and now stood regarding his white-faced assistant intently. "It seems as if Verity and I were partly to blame," he said. "All the locals know what a surly brute Lewis Ford can be, it never occurred to me that a stranger wouldn't know which farm he
belonged to. When I told you not to take any calls from there, the thought never entered my head."
Rob looked up at him, her too bright eyes glistening darkly, like the bark of a beech tree wet with rain.
"I thought—you thought. . . ." She could not go on.
"I thought nothing of the kind," snapped the vet, then amended his tone hastily as Rob's mouth drooped. "Which brings me to something I've meant to say for the past fortnight."
"Here it comes," thought Rob, and braced herself for the news that she knew must come. Evidently the vet di
d not intend to wait until the month was up.
"Yes ?" She tried unsuccessfully to put a dignified firmness into her tone, and failed lamentably.
"In future," the vet commanded her, "whenever you go out on rounds, you must always take Red with you."
Rob sat up and stared.
"Take Red ?"
"Take Red." The vet's voice was adamant. "And don't look at me like that. He won't bite. At least, he won't bite you." He paused for a moment, studying her thoughtfully, and then went on, "I'm not happy about you wandering the countryside on your own like this. This area is very isolated, and I should feel a great deal easier if I knew you always had the dog with you."
Martha stared at her employer, amazement writ in an almost ludicrous fashion on her face, a reflection of Rob's own expression.
"You, leave Red behind ? I don't believe it !"
"I'm afraid you'll have to," the vet told his housekeeper crisply. "There's nothing I can do about providing Rob with a human escort." He ignored her indignant "I'm quite well able to look after myself !" and went on, "Short of confining her to treating lapdogs and pet cats around the village, there's no other way of accepting her services. And there are not enough lapdogs and pet cats to keep you occupied in these parts," he smiled. Swiftly, he knelt down beside her chair. "No, don't get up," as she started to rise. "Just sit still while I rub some of this ointment on your arm." Evidently he had fetched it when he quitted the kitchen. He unscrewed the top off a jar of pink-coloured cream, and dipped his index finger into it. "It doesn't smell, and what's good for healing bruises on small animals won't hurt your skin, either." Gently, very gently, he smoothed the cream across the swellings. It was cool, and comforting, and Rob relaxed under his touch. Thank goodness he did not think she had gone to Norton End the moment his back was turned. She shivered, and the look in the man's eyes above her grew steely. "Does it hurt much?"