The Storm Within

by Sue Peters

  "I didn't know I was such a straight shot !" She accepted her prize—a ping-pong ball on which some village artist had painted a gay little face—and reached down for Jimmy's hand. "Come on, let's go and cool down with a glass of lemonade or something."

  "And a bun." The two went together in Jimmy's young mind, and at the mention of food Sam, hitherto a hot and not very interested observer of the antics of human beings at church fetes, rose shaggily and set off at once in the right direction.

  "He knows the way," explained his young master earnestly. "I had to bribe him before he'd go in the ring for the dog show."

  Rob smothered a smile.

  "How did he get on ?" she asked cautiously.

  "Oh, Miss Wilberforce won—at least, her dogs did," qualified Jimmy, "but of course there were two of them. Whisky and Soda, you know," as if that explained everything. "I think Mr Rand might have given it to Sam, otherwise. He said he was a—a beeyootiful example of his breed," he remembered, with a rush of pride.

  "And so he is." Verity dropped on to the grass beside them with a gasp of relief. "Whew ! I'm so hot. Thank goodness for lemonade." She took a long drink through her straw then, cooled off, she looked at the child. "You went off without your prize, Jimmy."

  "What prize? There wasn't. ..."

  "There was. One for special breeds," said a deep voice above them. "And that was Sam." Hallam Rand collapsed on to the turf beside Verity, and regarded the lad with a serious face. "You'd better take it now. I had to collect it for you because you'd gone."

  He held out a gaily wrapped package, and the little boy's face lit up. He took it eagerly, and undid the wrapping with hasty fingers.

  "Ooh, it's a collar ! Oh ! It's pink." He eyed it doubtfully.

  "Hmm, yes." The donor eyed the offending colour with some dismay. "I didn't think when I bo . . ." He stopped abruptly and moved his shin ruefully out of reach of Verity's toe. "Oh well, never mind. A bit of saddle soap will bring it up a nice nut brown. I'll sort some out for you when I get back to the surgery, and

  let you have it the next time I pass the Martyr's Arms," he promised.

  "Thanks, Mr Rand." Jimmy raised a grateful face, and spotted his father heading in their direction. "Dad, Sam won a prize after all. Isn't that great ?"

  Tom Grant strolled up and regarded the party on the grass.

  "Won what? I thought there was only one prize for the dog show ?"

  A ferocious scowl appeared simultaneously on the faces of both Verity and the vet, and stopped him in mid-sentence. He looked down upon his son, and the mop of hair beside him that was busily demolishing more than its rightful share of Jimmy's bun, and smiled at the vet.

  "Thanks, Hal."

  The vet looked embarrassed.

  "He's in a class of his own, is Sam."

  "Why, that's just what Miss Fenton said," exclaimed Jimmy, delighted. "And Mr Rand is bringing me some soap," he went on, to his father. "For the collar, I mean," he qualified hurriedly, "to change its colour. Sam can't wear pink, can he, Dad?"

  "From the look of both of you the soap is needed for more than the collar," retorted his father drily. "Collect your belongings, boy, it's time we went home. Opening time soon," he explained.

  "But, Dad, the fete isn't finished yet !"

  His father eyed him speculatively.

  "Well, I suppose another half hour won't hurt,

  providing you have no more ice creams. But come straight home afterwards," he warned the boy.

  "He can stay with me if you like," offered Rob. "I'll see him back. And I promise not to feed him," she smiled, seeing Tom Grant relent.

  "Very well, but just be good," the publican commanded his son, with the inbuilt distrust of every parent. "Don't let him be a nuisance to you, Rob."

  "He can help me, as a matter of fact," replied Rob, and gained Jimmy's immediate interest. She held up the ping-pong ball. "I think I've seen the old lady I took the kitten to, somewhere about," she told him. "It would be nice if we could find her, and give her the ping-pong ball for the kitten to play with. I'm afraid it's too small for Sam," she apologised to Jimmy.

  "Oh, he'd only eat it." Jimmy regarded his faithful follower with a complete lack of illusion. "He eats most things."

  "A walking dustbin, in fact." Rob shook her head reprovingly. "Come on, let's go and find the old lady."

  She stood up and brushed down her slacks. She did not want to make a third with Verity and her employer. The vet's off duty hours were scarce enough, without her playing gooseberry while he and Verity did have time together. She felt badly enough about the dance that evening as it was. If she had not been around, Rand would have taken Verity on his own, but as she was living in the same house, and Verity herself had mentioned it, he could hardly back out of

  taking her now. She held out her hand to the child, and he grasped her fingers with a sticky paw. "Come on, Sam."

  One end of the woolly bundle looked up. An energetic pink tongue appeared, and licked up the remains of the bun from around the grass where he had been lying, then when he had decided that there were definitely no more crumbs hidden under the short green blades, he heaved himself reluctantly to his feet and padded after them. Rob could hear him panting behind them with the enthusiasm of a small steam engine, and shortened her stride to let him catch up.

  "You'll have to dock his rations, Jimmy. He's getting fat."

  Jimmy regarded his property dubiously.

  "That's what Mum said, but Dad said it was only his hair growing," he told her. "One of the days when there's time, we're going to have him properly clipped out, but we're busy at the Arms just now, with the summer visitors," he explained seriously.

  Rob smiled. She had not seen all that many tourists in the village. There was sometimes an odd car or two, but mainly they were people who were just passing through, stopping for a break in their journey and a meal at the inn. Barshire had not the attraction of a Bard, like Warwickshire, to tempt sightseers within its environs, and it was rare for the population of the village to exceed its normal numbers, most of whom were gathered now among the stalls, looking for a bargain or a gossip as the mood took them.

  Rob let Jimmy lead the way. She had only caught

  a fleeting glimpse of the kitten's owner, and had no real idea whether or not the was still at the fete, so one direction was as good as another in which to look for her, and as her main object was to leave Verity and the vet on their own it did not particularly matter. She had promised not to feed Jimmy, and voluntarily extended that promise to include Sam, regarding his portly person with a professional shake of the head, but she felt at liberty to let the boy have a go at the hoopla, then went on to roll a penny, ring the bell—Jimmy's biceps were much too puny to get the hammer even half way up to its target, and Rob was much too hot to try—and finally spent all her remaining coppers on some wildly unsuccessful shots at the coconut shy. She had two balls left, and eyed the serenely untouched nut with something akin to despair.

  "I wanted one to hang up in the garden for the birds," wailed Jimmy plaintively.

  "Then you try. I miss every time."

  She handed him one of the balls, and he looked at it doubtfully.

  "I can't throw far enough."

  He had thrown three already, and narrowly missed the stall minder with two of them. That good lady moved hastily out of the way.

  "Let me try, and see if I can get one for you."

  Jimmy and Rob turned to see the vet standing just behind them, watching their efforts with unconcealed amusement.

  "Will you, Mr Rand?" Jimmy handed over his ball

  eagerly. "I wanted that one, in the middle." He pointed to a large, round nut, with a top knot of frizzy fibre.

  The vet smiled at Rob.

  "Haven't you made contact, either? In my experience, you usually manage to !"

  Rob's cheeks flamed. He still had not forgotten their first disastrous encounter, but he need not have brought it up now.

  "I hope he
misses !" she thought furiously, and instantly felt ashamed. Jimmy did so want the coconut. Hallam Rand drew back his arm, and threw. The ball flew through the air, there was a gasp from Jimmy, and then a disappointed "Oh, you missed !" He had, but only by a fraction of an inch. The nut rocked in its holder with the wind of the ball passing, and for one tense second Rob thought that it would fall, but it steadied and settled back safely. She felt guilty, as if her wish had transferred its bad influence to the vet's aim, and held out her last ball.

  "Try this one."

  The vet took it from her hand, his grey eyes on her face, still with the smile in them. Rob realised with a sense of shock how young he looked when he was relaxed. His afternoon with Verity had done him good. But where was Verity? She looked round, but there was no sign of the girl. She had probably been buttonholed by one of her numerous friends. The people at Wade Hollow were known to everyone in the neighbourhood, and seemed to be liked by them

  all, with the exception of Lewis Ford, the fanner at Norton End.

  "You've hit it ! You've hit it ! Oh, isn't that great, Miss Fenton? I've got my coconut !"

  Jimmy blissfully assumed that the nut would be his, and Hallam Rand looked at Rob, his expression a mute appeal for permission. She nodded, smiling, childishly relieved that her unkind wish had not come true, and laughed along with the vet when the stall-holder handed the little boy his coveted prize, and he wriggled in dismay as the stiff top fibres stuck through his thin tee-shirt.

  "Here, hold it by the hair, like this, from the top."

  The vet demonstrated, and Jimmy wrapped his small fingers round the top-knot, and carried it proudly.

  "He looks a bit like a head-hunter," chuckled the vet, watching him strutting along in front of them, with a curious Sam trotting close in order to get near enough to have a sniff at the odd-looking thing swinging from his small master's hand. He lost interest when he decided that whatever it was, it was not food, and dropped behind them, following at his own, much slower pace.

  A group of lively youngsters, in purloined sacks, suddenly erupted from one of the tents, and set off on an impromptu sack race of their own towards the lemonade stall. Rob and Hallam Rand were caught in their midst, hustled from all sides, and the laughing vet put his arm around her, steadying her against the onrush.

  "They'd get there a lot quicker without the sacks," laughed Rob, watching the hopping crowd disappear with thirsty speed.

  "Ah, but it's more fun going in a sack when you're that age. At least, it is if you've got someone else to play with." His voice was unconsciously wistful, and Rob looked up at him quickly, touched by the revelation of a vulnerable human being inside his usually reserved exterior.

  "How lonely he must have been," she thought, with quick compassion. "He probably still is." But that was silly. How could he still be lonely, when he had Verity ? The thought came unbidden, and something inside her flinched. The thought of the fair-haired girl from Wade Hollow made her conscious that Hal's arm was still about her, and she moved slightly, causing his hand to drop. He looked down at her quickly, and she felt him stiffen.

  "Now I've annoyed him again," she thought. Everything she did seemed to have the same effect on him. She lifted her hand and brushed the errant curl from her forehead; it still would not stay up. "I must have it cut," she thought, "if I can find a good hairdresser." Maybe in Barhill, when she had got an hour free. Although there was so little time to go now until the end of the month that it would hardly be worth it. She might as well wait, and have it done at home while she was waiting for another post.

  Suddenly the sun felt unbearably hot, and she wished the fete would end, and she could go back to Mill House, to the cool room overlooking the river,

  with the sound of the waterwheel a murmur in the background. An ache in her hand made her look down, and she realised that she had been gripping the little ping-pong ball tightly within her palm. The vet caught her glance, and spoke.

  "Haven't you found the old lady yet ?" His voice was cool, impersonal as when they were attending a patient together, the laughter gone from his eyes. He glanced about the crowd, thinning now that the races were done, and it was getting towards tea time. "It looks as if—yes, there she is, over there by the tent." He slid his hand under Rob's elbow, his greater height enabling him to see over the heads of the people about them, and steered her in the right direction.

  `We've come to see how Jet is getting on," he stated, annexing the kitten's owner just as she was about to move off.

  Delight flooded the old lady's face, and Rob felt a sudden, warm glow inside her because the vet had remembered the name they had given to the kitten. He listened patiently while the owner gave a blow-by-blow account of its doings since the day it had come into her care, and he gave no sign of impatience, but promised to come and see the kitten some time when he was passing, 'to keep an eye on it for you' as he put it. Instinctively Rob knew that he would keep his promise, and also that he would not charge the owner any fee. She knew that the bill she had made out in the surgery for her attention to the old lady's previous cat had never found its way to the post, and across the counterfoil, in the vet's firm, black handwriting,

  she had read the word 'Cancelled'. A crony of their companion's, a fellow member of her local Guild, eventually claimed her, and released them to go in search of Verity.

  "She joined up with her parents," said the vet, "and they got buttonholed. You know how it is in these small communities, everyone knows everybody else."

  "The Wades seem to have a lot of friends."

  "They ought to," retorted her companion, "they've lived in Martyr's Green for long enough."

  "Four hundred years at Wade Hollow." Unconsciously Rob echoed her own words on the first day that she had met Bill Wade. It must be good to have roots that went as deep as that. Her own family had been in Devon for generations, but not so long as the Wades had been at Wade Hollow. And soon the vet would join them. Like a graft on to an old tree, thought Rob, that thrust its own roots into the ancient stock until it became one with the whole, and indistinguishable except by the vigour of its growth that rejuvenated the life stream for the branches yet to grow.

  Rob caught sight of Verity and her parents first. They were just coming out of the nearby tent, accompanied by another, youngish man. Verity was busily licking an ice cream comet. She spun round at the sound of the vet's hail, and a blob of ice cream transferred itself to her chin The vet slid his fingers into the pocket of her dress and fetched out her handkerchief.

  "What on earth is the use of this?" He held up the

  minute, lace-edged square incredulously, then dropped it back where it came from and shook out a large white one from his top pocket. "Hold still while I wipe your face." He busied himself with his task, making a thorough job of it. "You always were messy with ice cream."

  Verity accepted his ministrations calmly, returning to her cornet unrepentant when he had finished.

  "I still feel grubby," she complained. "If we're going to leave ourselves time to get ready for the dance tonight, we ought to be going soon. It must be nearly six o'clock."

  Her father nodded, and turned to the fair-haired man who had come out of the tent with them.

  "That's it then, Martin. I'll arrange to send the beasts over for next week's market, and leave the rest to you. Oh, I'm sorry, Rob," he apologised, turning to her, "you must think we're an ill-mannered lot. But you're so tiny, you were half hidden behind Hal," he smiled "This is Rob Fenton, Martin," he introduced her to the young man. "Martin Bradley, our tame auctioneer."

  Rob smiled and held out her hand, and found it clasped in a firm grip.

  "So you're Hal's assistant? I've heard a lot about you."

  He did not say what he had heard, or from whom, and Rob wondered which of her particular blunders had taken precedence.

  "I think it's time we took young Jimmy home," butted in the vet, looking around. "Where on earth ...

  oh, there you are." He reached out
a hand and seized Jimmy by the slack of his shirt, and the faithful Sam immediately did an about-turn from whatever errand he had been bound upon, and joined the group along with his master.

  "I'll come and pick you up at about eight o'clock, Vee," continued Hallam Rand, "if that's all right ?"

  "Fine," replied Verity, licking the remains of her ice cream from her fingers. "I shall be a bit cleaner by then, I hope," she grimaced.

  "We'll see you there, Martin ?"

  The fair-haired man nodded, smiled pleasantly at Rob, and turned away with Verity and her parents, heading for the car park. Rob noticed that he limped slightly as he walked.

  The vet had left his Land Rover in the driveway of the vicarage for a quick getaway in case he was called out to an urgent case, and Rob and Jimmy and the panting Sam followed him in the opposite direction from the others. Within a few minutes, the boy was proudly displaying his coconut to his parents, and Rob and the vet were on their way back to Mill House, and the quiet rooms that she had been longing for for the past hour.

  The air seemed cooler by the water, and by the time she had bathed and changed she found she was looking forward to the dance. Verity had inferred that there would be a crowd of people they knew, so she might not after all be solely dependent on the vet as

  an escort. She found it distasteful to have to share another girl's escort, but after all, she consoled herself, it

  was Verity who had suggested the idea in the first place. The vet had been more or less pushed into it. A mischievous quirk turned up the corners of her lips, and lit up the amber depths of her eyes, and she slipped her clothes over her head, surprised to find her spirits lighter than they had been for some days. The fan-pleated skirt of her coffee-coloured dress just hid her knees, its three-quarter sleeves and tight, high-necked bodice giving it a demure look that suited her. She buckled a slender gold belt about her waist, matching the colour of her slippers, and on an impulse she reached across to the vase of roses that Martha had put on her dressing table, and snapped off a tight, cream-coloured bud. She tucked it firmly into the thick waves of her hair, where it nestled against her curls, the soft, pale petals complementing the creamy pallor of her skin. The sleeves of her dress felt over-warm in the thundery air, but it was the only one she had with her that was suitable, and would at the same time cover the bruise on her arm.