Penny Plain, page 5
'Is he attractive?' Emma asked Mr. Mills when Marian had driven away in her sleek white car.
'Couldn't say, not being a female,' the old man replied without much interest. 'A bit la-di-da for my taste, but Marian's a bit sweet on him, I fancy, for all she likes to play the lady of the manor.'
'And is he — sweet on her?' asked Emma.
'Couldn't say, m'dear, but if my little girl fancies summat, she'll go out after it, whether it's high-priced dogs or high-priced humans,' he replied with a chuckle. 'It's the price that attracts, see?'
'But how can that apply to human beings?'
'Hard to get — choosy. The trouble is it cuts both ways. Once you've got 'em licking your boots, you don't want 'em any longer. Same with the dogs. It was poodles before this, you know, because they were the fashion, then these Alsatians go top of the pops and she switches. Never make a name for herself that road to my way of thinking, but it keeps her happy.'
Emma went thoughtfully down to the kennels to help Ireen with the evening feeds, reflecting on their brief conversation. In her short time at Armina Court she had conceived respect and liking for this blunt little man who seemed to get so little in exchange for his pride and pleasure in a daughter whose superior assets never quite ceased to surprise him, and she wished his retirement could bring him more than just a satisfaction in his hideous, expensive country estate and the Utopian project which would never see the light of day.
Her introspection lifted, however, at the familiar out-
burst of greeting from the dogs as they hurled themselves against the chain-link fencing in a frenzy of pleasure at the sight of her, but sadness and that sense of indignation she had expressed to Mr. Mills took hold of her again as she went to speak to the old dog who sat all day by the gate of his run patiently waiting and watching for Marian, who had tired of him long ago.
'Poor Corrie ... poor, faithful old fellow ... I wish I could do something to help you,' she said to him, but, as always, he turned his head from her, polite but disappointed when his sense of smell told him what his eyes could no longer clearly see, that this was not the beloved. Emma watched him a little anxiously, for he looked sick and the midday dish of food was beside him still untouched.
`Corrie looks off colour,' she called to Ireen. 'Have you tried tempting him with liver for a treat? He usually goes for that.'
The girl put down the bale of straw she was carrying and came to stand beside Emma at the run gate.
'He's moping,' she said. 'He knows she's gone off without a pat or a kind word. She made a fuss of the others this morning and walked straight by his run without a glance. He whimpered pitiful for nearly half an hour. Oh, Miss Clay, she'll have him put down if he's lost condition when she comes back, and he's not eating.'
'Oh, she wouldn't do that if the old boy wasn't suffering,' said Emma with more assurance than she felt, remembering that Marian had once said that Corrie should have been put down long ago.
'She'd make out he was suffering if he's gone thin and won't eat. She only needs an excuse,' said Ireen, refusing to be optimistic. 'It's always the same — all
over 'em when they come, having them in the house
and all and chucking 'em out as soon as she's won their affection, and forgets 'em altogether if they don't win for her. Old Corrie, now, was give her as a pet long before she took up breeding and she thought the world of him till she fancied showing and making a splash buying Champions. He wasn't up to much, I suppose, compared with all those prize-winners, but I reckon an old dog's got a right to his place in the sun when his useful days are over, same as you or me.'
Ireen finished abruptly by bursting into tears after the longest speech Emma had ever heard her make.
Emma administered such comfort as she could, working out a special diet for Corrie with delicacies to tempt a jaded appetite, but all the time she felt like weeping herself.
'The vet's coming tomorrow for the puppies' inoculations. Perhaps he'll be able to suggest something to pep the old boy up,' she said, proffering another thread of consolation. 'Is he the helpful kind in a case like this — sympathetic, ready to co-operate?'
Ireen looked vague.
'I suppose so. Ever so up-to-date and clever, Miss Mills says. I think she's a bit struck on him, if you ask me.'
When Emma went to bed that night she remembered, too, those words of warning ... never make favourites ... never give away your heart if you must work for others ... Ireen had given her simple heart to Corrie just as Emma had given hers to Flight, and neither of them had the right to question whatever decisions lay in the future.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning, however, Emma had forgotten the doubts of bedtime. The sun still shone with a brief return to summer, and the week-end stretched ahead, blissfully long in anticipation, promising the freedom of solitary leisure. She dressed with speed, putting on paint-stained jeans and tying up her head in a bright bandana handkerchief in preparation for a morning of dirty jobs in the kennels.
She lingered so long over breakfast listening to Mr. Mills's anecdotes that she was reminded rather sharply of her duties when a message was sent up from the kennels to say that the vet had already arrived and was waiting.
'Golly! I'd clean forgotten he was coming!' she exclaimed, springing up from the table, and caught a dismayed glimpse of herself in a wall-mirror. This was no get-up in which to make the right impression of hygiene and efficiency on a first appearance, but there was no time to change, and she raced out of the house and across the tidy lawns.
Grainger ... she remembered ... ever so clever and up to date.... Miss Mills was sweet on him or wasn't she? Emma slowed her pace to a more decorous walk as she came into the yard and saw Ireen in conversation with a tall man standing with his back to her. There was something vaguely familiar about that back view, or perhaps it was just that the tweed jacket resembled another, but as he turned to meet her, she stopped dead in her tracks.
'Oh, no!' she exclaimed before she could stop her-
self, and Ireen, evidently feeling she should make the introductions, observed with bald simplicity:
`This is Mr. Grainger, our vet, Miss Clay. Mr. Grainger, this is Miss Clay, the new head girl.'
`Miss Clay and I have already met. I'm sorry if I'm a little early for you, but I have rather a heavy round of visits to get through this morning, so shall we get on with the job?'
She bade him good morning with as much dignity as she could muster, wondering whether for the sake of politeness she ought to offer to shake hands with him, but he had already stooped to pick up his bag, and was clearly only anxious to get the inoculations over as soon as possible and be off.
She followed him into the wash-house without speaking, and took each puppy from Ireen as she carried them in one by one, and held it steady on the table. Marian had alluded to him by his surname, but once she had referred to an unknown Max Max Grainger ... Emma repeated in her thoughts, watching him give the injections with gentleness and skill ... the man she had guessed might be a doctor from the way he had examined her shoulder, but never in her senses would have put down as a country vet with his elegant tweeds and urbane air. There was no reason, she supposed, to feel cheated because he did not conform to a more familiar pattern of the veterinary surgeons she had known, and he presumably could well afford to dress well and drive an expensive car if his practice had many clients like Marian Mills. All the same, she felt deceived.
'Not the accepted image, were you thinking?' he asked suddenly, echoing her thoughts so uncannily that she jumped and the puppy she was holding wriggled out of her grasp and started yelping.
`Hold him still, please. I don't want to run the risk
of a broken needle,' he ordered sharply, and immediately made her feel like an ignorant little tyro in her first job.
'Right!' he said when, the last puppy dealt with, he began packing up his bag. 'They're a sturdy lot and you shouldn't have any trouble, but if you get a reaction keep them warm and quiet and on a light diet and, of course, let me know. Still, I don't need to tell you the drill, do I? You have years of experience behind you, so you gave me to understand.'
'Two, to be exact. I don't shoot lines,' she said, taking him literally, and he snapped his bag and stood looking down at her with one eyebrow lifted.
'Why are you so prickly?' he asked quite mildly.
'Because you have the effect of making me feel inefficient,' she answered promptly. 'Also, you've taken advantage of me. Why couldn't you have told me before who you were?'
'You didn't show much curiosity. You were too busy arguing and putting me in my place for my lack of knowledge of the dog world.'
She saw the mitigating twinkle in his eye, but she was not to be humoured.
'There was nothing to stop you slapping me down on that score,' she retorted. 'You're rather good at it.'
'Am I? Perhaps you do something to my masculine ego. Your prickles appear so unexpectedly.'
'Well, if it's any consolation, you do something to mine, too. You bring out the worst in me.'
'Really, Miss Clay! Don't you think you assume rather a lot on such short acquaintance?'
It was difficult to judge whether he was still indulging in idle banter or administering a reproof for trespass, and she felt herself flushing.
'I'm sorry,' she said a little primly. 'I'm wasting your time with irrelevant chatter. Have you any other in-
structions, Mr. Grainger? Anything I should tell Miss Mills?'
His eyes crinkled at the corners in a smile and she noticed again how blue they were, but he answered gravely enough:
'No, I don't think so. I'll be back in a fortnight for the second dose unless I'm needed before. Is that a new line in kennel attire, incidentally?'
He was observing her jeans and rakishly tied bandana with an interested eye, and she became suddenly conscious of her unprofessional appearance. Emma came to the conclusion that fate did not intend her to exercise charm on dark strangers.
'I was going to do mucky jobs like creosoting. I'd forgotten you were coming,' she said.
'How very unflattering, when I'd told you we should meet again,' he observed, but she didn't think it was worth pointing out that she hadn't known who he was then, since he would probably retaliate with an infuriating assurance that in that case he would excuse her.
'Now, if you'll forgive me hurrying away, I've got work to do,' he said, becoming brusque and impersonal again. 'Anything else needing attention now that I'm here?'
Emma hesitated, unwilling to prolong a visit which he clearly wished to terminate.
'Well, there's Corrie, but I don't suppose there's much you can do,' she replied.
'Corrie? Oh, the old gentleman in the end pen. There's nothing much to be done for old age, I'm afraid, except respect it and indulge its weaknesses. But let's have a look at him.' He picked up his bag and walked out into the yard, but Ireen was there already waiting with Corrie on a lead and she said before Emma had a chance to speak :
'Please do something for Corrie, Mr. Grainger. He's
moping and not eating. If we don't get some flesh on him before Miss Mills comes back she'll have him put down, and I couldn't bear it.'
Tears were quite evident in the girl's eyes and she made an awkward gesture to brush them away, but Emma was touched by the gentleness with which Max Grainger spoke to her and the patience with which he listened to a disjointed repetition of last night's outburst. He might have shared Marian's opinion of Ireen's stupidity, but nothing could have been more kindly or reassuring in the attention he was affording her now.
He went over the old dog with thoroughness and a gentle manner in handling which Corrie appreciated with a response he showed no one but Marian, and when he had finished, he patted Ireen on the shoulder and told her that there was nothing to worry about. He would leave some pills to promote appetite and an injection Emma could give should it be necessary, but the dog would pick up again when his mistress returned, and at thirteen years of age there was little wrong with him but failing eyesight and a rheumatoid stiffening of limbs.
`Try bringing him into the house while Miss Mills is away,' he said. 'If he feels himself to be important again it may do the trick.'
`They go down so fast,' said Ireen, uncomforted. 'She's only waiting for a chance to get rid of him and make room for something else. Old dogs have earned their rest, they should be pensioned off if they're not wanted any more.'
She gulped, and Emma, who felt rather tearful herself, said quickly:
`It's all right, Ireen. Mr. Grainger has left me something for Corrie. Take him back to his run now and sit with him for a bit and talk to him.'
The girl went away, the old dog pattering after her, his nails, untended and long with age, clicking on the yard stones. The vet watched them out of sight with a curiously compassionate expression on his cool, rather arrogant face, and Emma said, trying to sound professionally unemotional:
Ireen's very fond of old Corrie. She hasn't worked in kennels long enough to be philosophical about these things.'
And you have?'
`Long enough to have learnt that it's no use pitting your own personal opinion against those of the people who employ you.'
He turned to look at her then and when he spoke there was none of the usual raillery in his voice.
`You're not much more cut out for this sort of work than that poor child, are you? Why do girls like you slave away for little or no return for the love you put into it? Is it from a sense of dedication or just the spurious glamour of the show-ring and a share in the rewards?'
`You don't think much of showing, Mr. Grainger, as you made clear the other day, but there's more to it than the winning of a few cards,' she said.
'I don't think much of the false importance attached to it, the cut-throat determination to win at all costs, this bug that bites you all and turns serious breeding into nothing more worthwhile than a canine beauty contest, but I admit I'm probably prejudiced. I'm more concerned with curing sick animals than pushing healthy ones to stardom. Now, having shocked you again with my heretical views, I'd better be going. Tell Miss Mills when she returns that I found everything here as it should be, induding the working efficiency of her new kennelmaid if not an entire suitability for the job.'
'You recommended me,' Emma pointed out, a little stunned by such frank speaking, and he grinned at her rather unfeelingly and picked up his bag.
'I didn't know you then as well as I do now,' he said, and she retorted with a return of the old opposition: 'You don't know me at all, Mr. Grainger.'
'Well, that can be remedied. When are your days off? Never mind now, I can see you feel more like hitting me than making a date. I'll be seeing you.' He hurried away then without so much as a goodbye, and Emma spent the rest of the morning hammering in nails and slapping on paint with an energy which left her exhausted by lunch-time, but at least relieved her feelings.
On Sunday Emma decided she would take Flight for a long walk of exploration and somehow discover the whereabouts of her old home.
She let Flight out of his run and slipped a chain-choke over his head, then climbed over the boundary fence into a field beyond. 'Hi, boy! Hi, my beauty!' she called to Flight, and began to run.
Within sight of the village the footpath ended in a stile bordering a lane which would take her to the main road, but going the other way the lane continued downhill, dipping steeply into a hollow where it became little more than a track, and something stirred in Emma's memory. Halfway down the hill she met a labourer, and asked with so much assurance if she was on the right road for Plovers Farm that she felt little surprise when the man replied laconically :
'Straight on and turn left over the bridge.'
It was, she thought excitedly, like a fairy-tale come true, not the existence of the house which was an established fact, but finding the way back, and just for a moment, as she crossed the little dapper bridge over a tiny river which was hardly more than a stream, she
was stayed by a doubt. She could see the open gate with the name painted on it, but the house from this angle was hidden by a copper beech. Supposing it was deserted and fallen into ruin, or even pulled down and a modern one built in its place ... was it foolish to risk disappointment and exchange the dream for reality? Flight, however, settled matters in more prosaic fashion by suddenly spying a straying hen and chasing it through the open gate and into a carefully tended flowerbed. Emma perforce had to follow, praying that an irate owner would not emerge from the house before she was able to capture the dog and make a hurried retreat.
As she snapped a lead on the dog's choke, reviling him bitterly for such wanton behaviour, she cast a quick glance at the house, congratulating herself on the fact that everybody appeared to be out, but even as she turned to make her escape, a man in his shirtsleeves with a dog at his heels came out on to the porch and stood there watching her.
`Won't you come in, Miss Clay? I've been expecting you,' he said.
Her surprise turned to chagrin as she realized who he was. It was just her luck, she thought crossly, that Mr. Max Grainger should happen to be paying a professional call on this particular house at the very moment she had chosen to rediscover it and, not only that, was a witness both to trespass and damage. He was coming down the path to meet her and she had a passing thought that he looked very unprofessional with his sleeves rolled up and a scarf tucked loosely into his shirt in place of a tie. The dog, a setter and presumably the patient, fixed a wary eye on Flight and growled, and Emma, anxious to be gone before a scrap was added to the day's mishaps, said hastily:
'I'd better be going. I only came to look, you see —only Flight put up a hen, but it's not hurt. Do — do you think I ought to stop and apologize about the flowerbed, Mr. Grainger, or could you? I don't know these people.'
