By this time all Laura’s brothers and sisters and cousins were filling the yard, all of them good zoo customers. They were all watching and waiting for her decision. Kate lifted the lid of the box and saw that the mouse was still living. Its eyes were open and it was lying in one corner of the box its heart beating frantically. Kate’s mind was working feverishly for she could see already the opportunities but had yet to work them out. She thought for a full minute, appearing to examine the mouse minutely as a doctor would a patient. Then when her plan was fully formed, she announced to everyone that she could indeed cure it.
‘It takes time though,’ she said. ‘Always does. I’ll have to keep the mouse until tomorrow afternoon. By that time it’ll be better.’
‘How will you do it?’ Laura asked, sniffing back her tears.
‘I have my ways,’ Kate said mysteriously. ‘I have my ways. There’s not a lot I can’t do when I put my mind to it.’ And then she added, ‘It’ll cost you five pence though.’
Miss Marney was not sure if she would ever see Kate again. She had lain awake all night wondering if her secret might have frightened the little girl away, so she was delighted when she saw Kate opening the gate from the moor and running up towards the house; and she was only too pleased to take in the injured mouse for it meant she would be seeing more of her new friend whose company had become suddenly very important to her after all the long years of loneliness.
‘Laura’s very upset, you know,’ said Kate, ‘and seeing as how you’ve got the healing powers, I thought, if you don’t mind – I thought maybe you could cure it.’
‘Do you know, Kate, I really don’t like mice. I don’t know why. But I’ll do what I can for anything you bring me,’ said the old lady setting the box down on the kitchen table and peering anxiously inside. ‘But no one must know about it. No one must ever know.’ And she poured out a cup of strong sweet tea again and sat down in her rocking-chair smiling happily. ‘Do you like stories, Kate?’ she said leaning forward. ‘Shall I read you a story that no one’s ever heard before?’ She did not wait for an answer, for she knew she did not need to. ‘I’ve called it “The Giant’s Necklace”.’
It was a ghostly little story and Kate sat enthralled throughout; but the tea and the story came to an end too soon, as all good things do; and with the promise that she would be back tomorrow to collect the mouse, Kate ran back down past the Eagle’s Nest across the road and back home to Wicca.
Kate had absolute faith in Miss Marney’s healing powers and so she was not a bit surprised that when she went back to pick up the mouse the next day it was running round its box fully restored. She stayed for her tea and her story, this time a strange one about a crippled boy who went to live with the seals, before she made her way back home with the mouse-box.
Laura Linnet and her friends arrived at the greenhouse soon after she got back and when Kate opened the box there was a gasp of admiration and amazement from everyone around her.
‘That’ll be five pence,’ said Kate, and then she made her announcement. ‘I’ll be setting up an animal hospital,’ she said. ‘It’ll be in the old chapel – in secret. My powers will only work if it’s in secret. And I don’t want anyone else ever to know. If they do all the animals I have healed will just roll over and die. Bring along any sick animals, any bird, any creepy-crawly. I’ll cure anything you like for five pence a time.’
So Kate Trelochie’s financial empire spread from the zoo to a thriving hospital in the old roofless chapel all hung about with ivy and brambles and with ash trees growing up where the altar once stood. Kate would sit on a granite block under the ash trees by the back wall with Jasper on her shoulder, and hold her veterinary court. Several times she had tried to release Jasper who could now fly perfectly well, but he did not seem to want to leave her and she now went everywhere with him permanently attached to her shoulder.
All summer long the children came with their egg-bound hens, their limping dogs and their battle-scarred cats. They brought half-squashed frogs, crushed moles, torn fledglings and even a goldfish that could only swim upside-down and was losing its tail. Kate took them all in and carried them in secret up onto the moor to Miss Marney who would keep them for the night, heal them, and then return them to Kate the next day when she came for her tea and her stories.
Kate spent most of her days now up in the lost house with Miss Marney listening to her strangely compelling tales – about the white horse of Zennor, about the milk-drinking knockers of Tremedda. She explored the house and browsed through the books and she talked endlessly to Miss Marney whom she discovered was becoming increasingly anxious as the summer finally came towards its end. She found she was worrying more about her books than about herself.
‘It’s the damp,’ she said. ‘It hurts them, you know, more than it hurts me. Just so long as my books are dry and I’m a little warm, I’m as happy as a lark and then I can write. All I need is a thick woollen coat and a woolly hat to cover my ears. The worst thing about getting old Kate is that you can’t keep warm like you used to. Up to now I’ve only been able to write in the summer time. You see, I can only write when I’m warm and happy.’
In spite of the success of her animal hospital enterprise, by the autumn Kate had only half the money she needed, and so she came reluctantly to the conclusion that she would have to auction off her zoo. She had nothing else to sell. The zoo was not bringing in much money these days for she had no time now to collect new specimens and everyone had seen the old ones too often. Even the fascination for holding the grass snake was wearing thin. The animals she knew were all replaceable and anyway they would go to good homes. What had to be done, she thought, had to be done.
She held the auction in the ruined chapel and the prices went sky high. Each bid was for a penny so the bidding took some time, but her friends seemed incapable of resisting the temptation to out bid someone else. After all, what was one penny more? Within an hour every creepy-crawly was sold and she had made over five pounds – enough she knew for what she had in mind.
She was just counting her money to be sure, when everyone fell quiet around her. There was the sound of plodding, hesitant hoofbeats and little Laura Linnet came in through the door of the chapel leading her old horse. She had tears pouring down her cheeks.
‘The vet’s been,’ she said, ‘and he says Rubin’s dying and he wants to shoot him. He wants to shoot my Rubin.’
The horse’s head hung almost to the ground and its legs could scarcely carry its weight. He moved slowly into the middle of the chapel and sank heavily to the ground, exhausted.
‘I’ll pay you anything, Kate,’ Laura begged. ‘Just help him, please help him. You must help him.’
Kate knelt down by the horse and stroked his neck. He was breathing fast and she could hear a terrible wheezing in the lungs. She could see from the way he sank down that even if she could get him to his feet again she could not walk him all the way to Miss Marney’s house on the moor. The faces around her were all expectant, and she knew how popular old Rubin was and that he meant all the world to little Laura Linnet. She stood up slowly.
‘I think I can save him,’ she said. ‘But it will take time – maybe more than just a day – and it will take all my healing powers.’ She needed to give herself room for manoeuvre while she thought things out. ‘He’s very sick,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen a horse as sick as this. He can hardly breathe.’
‘But the vet will be back tomorrow morning,’ said Laura. ‘Father said that unless Rubin looks better by then, he’ll have to have him shot. And he will, he will.’
‘I’ll try,’ Kate said finally, but try as she did to disguise it there was little confidence in her voice. ‘But I can’t promise anything. Go home now all of you and leave me alone with Rubin. I can’t work my healing powers with people around me. Go away and remember – not a word to anyone. Meet back here tomorrow first thing.’
They obeyed as they had always done. Kate knew that some of the little ones al
ready thought she was a witch and she used that fear as a threat. Some time ago she had made it known that if any of them betrayed their secret, and told anyone of her healing powers, she had the power to turn them into toads. No one she felt sure would have the courage to put that threat to the test and so her secret was safe.
Kate’s mother and father always went to bed early for they had to be up early every morning. She waited fully clothed under her blankets until she heard them stop talking in their bedroom and then crept downstairs. It was a star-bright night with the full moon lighting her way up the tracks towards Miss Marney’s house. The first frost of the year glistened on the rocks. She knocked and called out:
‘It’s me, Miss Marney. Don’t worry. It’s only me. I need help.’
Over a warm welcome cup of sweet tea in the kitchen she told Miss Marney everything, all about her animal hospital in the chapel. She confessed how she had used her healing powers without ever telling her.
Miss Marney listened in silence, her chair rocking back and forth.
‘Old Rubin is dying in the chapel, Miss Marney, and I can’t do anything for him,’ she went on. ‘You must come. I can’t get him up here – he’s too weak. Miss Marney, you must come – you’re the only one who can save him.’
‘Is it him you want saved, Kate?’ Miss Marney asked, ‘or do you want me to save you?’
‘Both,’ Kate said honestly enough. ‘But Rubin’s the oldest horse around – nearly forty he is. Everyone knows him. Everyone loves him – we’ve all ridden him. Please Miss Marney.’
‘One thing I still don’t understand,’ said Miss Marney looking hard at Kate. ‘The money. I know you too well Kate – you’d not make money out of the suffering of animals. What did you want the money for? Tell me that Kate.’
Kate could scarcely see the old lady through the tears in her eyes. ‘I wanted it to be a surprise,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to tell you. I just wanted to give it to you for all the tea and the stories and the nice talks we’ve had.’
‘What did you want to give me?’ said the old lady leaning forward in her chair and reaching out to take Kate’s hand in hers.
‘A coat,’ Kate said. ‘There’s a coat I’ve seen in a shop in Penzance – second-hand shop. But it’s warm and woolly and it’s only ten pounds and I wanted you to have it for the winter. You said it was the thing you most wanted in the world, so that’s why I collected the money – and I’ve got enough from the zoo and the animal hospital to pay for it and for a woolly hat I’ve seen as well. They said they’d keep it in the shop for me – I was going to get it next week and then this had to happen.’
The old lady lay back in her chair and smiled. ‘You’re a kind little person Kate Trelochie,’ she said, ‘as kind a one as I’ll ever meet. I’ll do it for Rubin, I’ll do it for you and for my warm woolly coat, but I must be back before morning. I don’t want to be seen down there with you.’
Kate put her arms around the old lady and hugged her, and then helped her into her corn-sacks and tied them around with cord. With a last sip of warm tea inside them they went out into the frosty night and hurried across the moor hand in hand and down towards the sea that shimmered silver under the white light of the moon. And from Pendeen Lighthouse, the light carved out its arc over the land and the sea, and seemed to wink at them.
Once in the chapel Miss Marney crouched down over the horse and felt him all over. She looked in his mouth and smelt his breath before sitting back on her haunches to consider. Then slowly, so slowly she extended her hands a few inches above his chest.
‘I’ll be some time, Kate,’ she whispered. ‘You stay by the door and keep watch. And stay awake mind.’
But Kate used only her ears as watchdogs and looked on as Miss Marney worked. She did not touch Rubin but knelt over him, her hands held out straight like detectors, and always over the horse’s chest. The hours passed and all that could be heard was the sound of the sea, the occasional hoot of an owl and Rubin’s laboured breathing, and then she saw Miss Marney take off her sacks and lay them over the horse.
‘You’ll be cold, Miss Marney,’ Kate whispered.
‘No I won’t,’ she said, and she lay down beside the horse and put her arms around him. ‘I’m tired, I shall sleep for a bit now. Keep a good look-out and wake me before it’s light.’
Kate settled down by the chapel wall and pulled her coat up around her ears. To keep awake she tried to count the stones in the chapel wall. Her last thoughts were of the miners who must have come here to pray all those years ago. She wondered what they would think of it now if they came back and found it ruined and deserted.
She woke because she was woken by someone shaking her shoulder. It was little Laura Linnet. The chapel was filled with whispering children who stood, backs to the walls as far away from Miss Marney as they could. Miss Marney herself was pulling on her sacks.
‘You dropped off, Kate,’ she said, her voice full of fatigue and disappointment. ‘That was a shame.’
‘It’s Mad Miss Marney,’ someone said, too loud.
But then Rubin lifted his head from the ground and sat up. He looked around him sleepily, his eyes blinking in the light. He got to his feet easily enough, nuzzled Miss Marney gently and began to pull at the grass beside her.
‘Mad I may be,’ she said. ‘But your horse is better. Keep him warm and well fed and he’ll be all right. He’ll go on for more years than I will.’
And she hobbled out of the chapel past Kate who was too sleepy to find the words to stop her.
Kate confessed the whole deception to her friends and offered them their money back. Not one of them would take it – indeed it was Laura Linnet herself who suggested they should all go up to the lost house that afternoon after Kate had bought the coat.
And so a cavalcade of children and dogs and cats and horses and creepy-crawlies in boxes made their way that same afternoon up the black track over the moor to Miss Marney’s house. Kate brought with her the bright red woollen coat with a fur collar, and a warm white bobble-hat for Miss Marney’s ears. She did not come out at first when Kate knocked. The children all fell silent and listened. They could hear her talking away to herself. Kate knocked again.
‘Come in Kate,’ Miss Marney called, and they all trooped into the house through the book-lined living room and into the kitchen.
‘I’ve brought your coat Miss Marney,’ she said, ‘I’ve come to say sorry, and we’ve all come to say thank you. We’ve told everyone about how kind you are to animals and about how you heal them and we’ve told everyone at home you’re not a bit mad or witchy. Everyone knows you’re a healer now, Miss Marney – the vet says it was a miracle. And my father says he’ll be calling on you when his animals get sick. There’ll be money enough to keep your books dry.’
Miss Marney smiled. ‘They say,’ she said slowly, ‘they say that everything is for the best in the world. But I never believed it, not until now.’
And she took the coat and tried it on.
‘It’s a bit on the large side,’ she said standing swathed in pillar-box red from head to toe. ‘But it’ll keep me all the warmer. And I like the hat, but I won’t put it on now because it’ll spoil my hair. Now, children, will you all have some tea? I’ve only one cup so you’ll have to have a sip and pass it around. And if you’ll find a place to sit down I’ll tell you one of my stories. Some people think I talk to myself I know, but I don’t – well not often. I tell myself my stories out aloud before I write them down. I haven’t yet had time to put this one on paper. It’s all about an old lady they once called Mad Miss Marney.’
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The White Horse of Zennor: And Other Stories Page 9