“Aunt Alayne and Archer. He’s been late for school all week. About ten or eleven o’clock. And yesterday he didn’t come till afternoon.”
Adeline whistled, then said, “Come on up to my room.” She darted up the stairs. Roma followed.
Inside Adeline’s room she shut the door and locked it.
“Goodness!” said Roma. “Your back’s all over mud. So is your leg.”
“Jester threw me. He was in a bad mood. Gosh, it hurt! I want you to rub liniment on me. I don’t want Mummy to know. She wouldn’t let me ride him at the Show next week.”
“She won’t anyway. I heard her say so.”
Adeline was drawing off her muddy pullover. She dropped it to the floor. “We’ll see about that,” she said.
“Couldn’t Wright ride him?”
“Jester is in the ladies’ saddle horse class, you duffer.”
“Couldn’t Auntie Pheasant ride him?”
“She couldn’t possibly handle him. She hasn’t been riding. She hasn’t the time.”
Having stripped her upper part she got a bottle of liniment from the cupboard and handed it to Roma. She turned her beautiful suntanned back to her.
“Rub here,” she commanded, and indicated the area below the small of the back. She groaned as Roma rubbed but repeated, “Harder.”
The handle of the door was rattled. “Let me in,” came Archer’s voice.
“Go away!”
“No! I want to come in.”
“We’re busy.”
A kick resounded on the door.
Adeline went to it, opened it, grasped a handful of his dry tow hair and half lifted him into the room by it. Again she locked the door. Archer made no outcry but, when she freed him, examined her back with scientific interest.
“It doesn’t look sore,” he said.
“I wish you had it.”
“I’d rather have it than my tonsils. They have got to come out, the doctor says.”
“I saw a horse at the Queenstown fair that had had his tonsils out.”
“Did it bleed much?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But it saved his life.”
“I expect having mine out will save mine.”
“A lot of expense and trouble for a small thing,” observed Roma.
Archer made a pass at the bottle of liniment. Adeline took it from Roma. “That’s enough,” she said. “Now I must attend to my leg.” She pulled up the leg of her breeches and disclosed a knee, with a deep rasp on it.
Roma drew back but Archer leant close, his high white forehead giving him a profound look. Adeline produced a bottle of iodine. He begged:
“Please, Adeline, let me put it on! I won’t hurt you half as much as you’d hurt yourself. Please do!” He tried to take possession of the swab she had made.
She hesitated, then said firmly, “No. I’ll do it myself.” She immersed the swab in the iodine, looked at the bloody knee, looked at Roma and Archer pathetically. “Oo, how I hate to !” she said. “It will hurt like the dickens.”
“Let Archer do it,” said Roma.
“No.”
“I’ll put my arm round you,” said Archer.
This he did, leaning rather heavily on her. She set her teeth. She pressed the swab to her knee. Colour flooded her face. Again and again she sterilized the rasped place. She handed the swab to Roma, then sat down and rocked herself.
A knock came on the door. The handle turned. Alayne’s voice said,
“Why have you locked the door, Adeline?”
“So Archer wouldn’t bother me.”
“Well, let me in, dear, I want to speak to you.”
Adeline pointed under the bed. Silently Archer scrambled beneath it. Adeline kicked her muddy pullover after him. She drew down the leg of her breeches and opened the door. Alayne came in, noting with distaste that peculiar air of squalor which children are able to impart to the rooms they occupy. She said:
“So you are changing, Adeline. That’s right. What a smell of iodine!”
“I scratched my finger,” said Roma. She went to the medicine cupboard and, before returning the bottle to it, stuck her finger in the iodine. She held up the finger in front of Alayne who remarked:
“That is right. It’s well to be careful.” Then she turned to Adeline. “Did you know,” she asked, “that Archer has been playing truant from school?”
“I knew he’d been a little late.”
“How did you know?”
“He remarked that he’d been a little late.”
“A little late!” cried Alayne. “Yesterday he did not arrive till afternoon.”
“I expect it’s his tonsils. They’re poisoning his system and making him tired.”
“I suppose they are, poor little fellow. But how I dread his having them out!”
“He’ll be all right, Mummy. If you’ll let me, I will go with him to the hospital.”
Alayne gave a little laugh. “You know you are suggesting the impossible, Adeline.”
The child flushed. Alayne noticed her beautiful back, her shoulders where the dark auburn waves of her hair floated. Alayne gave her a pat, then sniffed her hand. “Liniment! What is the matter?”
“I’m a bit stiff. Roma was rubbing my back. Jester is quite a one to pull, you know, Mummy.”
“Adeline, if you knew how I dislike your riding that horse! If your father were here I don’t think he’d want you to. I don’t think Jester is suitable for a girl to ride.”
“Oh, Mummy, you don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Alayne’s voice came sharply. “Adeline, I will not have you speak to me like that.”
“Sorry. But, really, if you’d ever ridden him you’d think he was perfect. He canters like an angel.”
“Well, someone else can ride him at the Ormington Show. I’ll not endure the thought of your riding that temperamental creature in such a big show. He’s terrifying.”
“If I don’t, who will?”
“Wright can ride him.”
“He can’t! He’s too severe with him. Jester hates Wright! He loves me! I’ll get a big price for him, you’ll see.”
“Adeline, don’t be foolish. You must listen to me. We can hire someone to ride Jester. Anyhow we are not dependent on the sale of one horse.”
“It will make three I’ve sold.”
Alayne tried to speak patiently. “I know. You have done very well. But the time has come for you to — to —” She hesitated.
Adeline’s luminous eyes, with the changeful lights in their brown depths, were fixed on hers.
“To what?” she asked.
“Well, you’re thirteen. You’re not just a little girl. The people you meet at these fall fairs and horse shows aren’t always the sort you should associate with. It isn’t as though I were there with you.”