Fortune's Lead (8 page)

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 cleaning. 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 Esther 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.

I decided to keep out of everyone’s way. I stayed in my room, writing a letter home to say I had arrived safely: that finished, I ventured as far as the library. I found it empty, and settled down rather dispiritedly to read. The library had french windows on to the terrace, and after a time, hearing a slight noise outside, I looked up—to see a pair of mournful canine faces regarding me hopefully. The two dogs obviously wanted to come in, so I let them in—and petted them, since they seemed disposed to accept me this time. The female (who must be Bess) settled herself on the hearthrug and blinked at me amiably, but Royal came and leaned lazily against me with friendly sentimentality. I had made a quick check of the terrace when they arrived to make sure that Kevin wasn’t out there too, but the dogs seemed quite happy to stay with me for the moment—and I was glad to have them, even if only as a proof that I didn’t have such disastrous effects on
all
the Thurlanger animals. We kept each other company, until they both got up as if called and asked to be let out of the window again. A glance at my watch showed me it was still only twelve o’clock (luncheon, I had been told, was at one) and I wondered if it was ungrateful of me to feel that idleness made time drag.

I was supposed to be a secretary. A secretary should know how to type: very well then, I decided, I would go upstairs to the study and teach myself to type. At least I would be doing something. Where Henry was I didn’t know, but Esther (and probably Kevin) would still be at the stables. I went determinedly up the elegant staircase to the room I had been shown—Thurlanger House seemed to have an enormous number of rooms in which one was apparently supposed just to sit—and found the portable typewriter Henry had mentioned. The study didn’t look a very workmanlike room—it was too beautifully furnished, like the rest of the house—but I put the typewriter on a table, found some paper, and settled down to try to sort out some order in the letters on the keyboard. There was probably a method...

I was too absorbed to hear anyone coming. The first intimation that I wasn’t alone came in the sound of a deep voice from the doorway. I looked up, startled, to see Kevin Thurlanger in his riding clothes leaning casually against the doorpost.

‘How interesting. It
is
new to you, isn’t it—or are you going to try to claim you’re out of practice?’

He spoke sardonically. I recalled myself from wrestling with a method which seemed to require me to have three thumbs, added up what he’d said, and found myself flushing.

‘I beg your pardon?’ I said coldly.