Mrs. Hall gunned the engine of the little black car. They were well past the Dimmsdale farm and heading for the highest peaks of the high Dales. April had begun, bringing with it wild storms, cold bleak days, and the nearly impossible tasks of helping neighbors in need of veterinary assistance, while also nursing a feverish Mr Farnon and keeping house with no cash coming into the household.
Without Tristan, she couldn't have managed it.
The thin young man beside her was a contradiction. From Mr Farnon's shouting upon the threshold of Tristan's arrival a month ago, the youth was incorrigible. Accused of stealing and destroying property, losing a valuable scholarship and his place at a prestigious school, and doing so in a drunken spree involving girls, Tristan Farnon was very nearly a criminal and the very clearly the bane of his elder brother's existence. But, Tristan didn't act like a boy who would steal a car and wreck it just for fun. In fact, he'd been Mrs Hall's right hand through the past difficult weeks, sharing night shifts without hesitation or complaint to watch over his brother, lending a hand with the animals, and even helping out with the house chores. Around his brother, he'd griped and groaned over every request. With Mrs Hall, he cheerfully weighed in to every task and even found things to do without her asking.
"Whatever possessed you to steal a car, Tris?" Mrs. Hall asked.
"Technically," Tristan answered, "I didn't. In fact, there was no car. There was no wreck and I still have a scholarship. All there is, Mrs Hall, is a letter written on school stationary. I did steal that paper and an envelope. I'm not going back to that school."
"For heaven sakes! Why would you make Mr. Farnon believe such a wild story?"
"It's what he expects of me."
"I can't believe your brother expects you to be a thief, Tristan. There must be more to this. Would you care to explain?"
"Three years ago our father died. He made Siegfried promise he'd make something of me. No one asked me what I want to be. No one asked me if I want to go to a posh school. Maybe I'd rather be a farmer. Maybe I'd like to join a circus. Maybe I don't know what I want to be. All I know is - I wasn't asked. Ever since he was put in charge of my life, I haven't been able to make up my mind about anything myself because Siegfried has been shoving advantages at me that he never got, just to please our dead father. It's not fair. I won't do it anymore. At least not until I know why I should. Pleasing my brother isn't enough, especially since he expects me to do such tremendous things," Tristan blurted.
He continued much more soberly, "I only told you this because you are the first person to ask Mrs. Hall. Nobody else has bothered. I hope you'll keep this just between us. You know how Siegfried is. He'll bully me into going back to that school, despite what I want."
Mrs Hall smiled and agreed. She'd heard the brothers lock horns as soon as Tristan walked through the front door, although it was probably somewhat justified by Tristan's misdirection. After Mr Farnon recovered from his accident with the Ashburton's sow, the fighting would, no doubt, resume. But Mrs Hall was sure there was more to this rebellion.
"Why now Tristan?" she asked gently.
"You saw him," the boy blurted. "He's falling apart. Evelyn meant everything to him. We buried father three years ago. Our mother died five years after the war and now Evelyn. He is working himself to death. He wasn't eating or sleeping. The Vicar wrote to tell me. Maybe I'm young, but I'm all the family he's got, Mrs Hall. He needs someone and he wouldn't let me come home any other way!"
"Well, Tristan," Mrs Hall said, "you are a good boy. I'm glad. Mr Farnon is lucky to have such a brother. You've been a godsend these past weeks. I couldn't have managed without your help and the Vicar's, although he seems to pray when there's worldly work to do."
That made them both laugh. The Vicar was a good man, who didn't shy away from dealing with tasks that Mrs Hall felt might offend her employer's dignity, if she performed them, but the man needed to be told. Otherwise, he would lapse into fervent bedside prayers that might make even a healthy man believe he was dying.
The little black car had crawled over the last peak. Wide vistas of the Dales spread before them, wind-whipped and forlorn, but starkly beautiful. The Olafs' farmstead came into view, a tight cluster of stone buildings half buried under drifting snow and huddled together as if for warmth.
Mrs Hall revved the engine and the car plowed into the Olafs' driveway until it was buried in snow up to its doors. Tristan jumped out and floundered through the snow to open her door and together they slogged through the drifts until they reached the lea side of the barn, where the wind had cleared away all but an icy layer of snow. Mr Olafs greeted them from the barn door.
"She's stopped bleeding, Mrs Hall," he shouted, "but I don't like the look of that 'ole in her."
He led them past a row of milk cows, each in it's stall, and beyond to a large dun work horse in a loose box.
"What's her name?" Tristan asked, sounding so like his elder brother that Mrs Hall half-smiled.
"Mary," Mr Olafs replied. "She was born on Christmas eve. Good name for her. Couldn't call 'er Jesus Christ!"
"Shall I hold her head, while you take a look, Mrs Hall?" Tristan suggested.
Mrs Hall nodded and slipped into the box stall behind Tristan. The horse was huge. She hadn't grown up with livestock and felt a quiver to be so close to this giant.
"She's gentle," Mr Olafs said, probably noticing her hesitate. "The hole is on her off front knee."
Mrs Hall saw it then. Even in the dark barn, she could see a strip of skin dangling from the horse's knee. She glanced around the stall but saw nothing that might have torn the skin.
"She'll need to be stitched up, Mr Olafs," Mrs Hall stated, standing and looking around for better light. "Can you bring in a lantern? I can't see to work."
"Oh, sure," the old man said and shuffled away toward the house.
"You would think a farmer would think of that before we arrived," Tristan griped in a good-natured tone. "But they never do."
"No. I think they want us to tell them what needs to happen. I saw the same thing at the Front," Mrs Hall replied, "even the officers." She stopped suddenly, realizing Tristan had no idea she had served in the Great War.
"You were at the Front?" he blurted. "Doing what?"
"I drove an ambulance for a while. I helped doctors with surgical cases, especially those that couldn't be moved without being patched up a bit first. I joined the WRENs and was posted to Yorkshire soon after. So, most of my time was as a volunteer. I was in for the duration, but for those of us that weren't allowed to serve in the military until 1917, the official duration wasn't very long."
Tristan was quiet for a long time before he spoke again, "Siegfried came home from the war. Father said he'd changed. He only joined up in his teens because it was the one way to learn veterinary science. There was a school run by the Cavalry and another by the Army proper. Father disapproved of him becoming a veterinarian. He felt it was beneath him. He should have been a physician, at the very least. So, Siegfried ran away from home, forged Father's signature, and joined as a private. He worked his way up through the ranks. By 1914 he had finished training and was promoted to Captain in the Veterinary Service when war was declared. His first postings were at the Front, as well. He managed a Cavalry horse depot. It was a bloody business. Father said it ruined him. He mustered out as a Major."
"Ruined him?" Mrs Hall was astonished. "He seems like a fine man. What could your Father have meant by that?"
"Oh, just that he'd lost his taste for shooting things. Foxes and such. Father wasn't a farmer. He managed a textile factory, but he enjoyed riding to the hounds. After the war, Siegfried refused. Even with Evelyn."
"Tell me, how did they meet?"
"She was French Belgian," Tristan replied. "A dark-haired beauty who loved horses almost more than Siegfried does. She was killed riding in late January at an indoor ring. Her horse didn't clear a jump. It fell. It was fine but she was dead. It nearly killed Siegfried, as well. He never held it against the horse. He sold it of course. He could barely stand to look at it, but it went to a good rider, who takes care of his animals. She would have expected that, of course. Anyway, he changed after the war. Father told me he came home angry, but he is never violent. Not like fathers of so many of my friends. Some of them are just plain crazy. I'm lucky, I guess. Siegfried only shouts."
Mr Olafs returned with a lantern and Mrs Hall had him walk the horse into the barn's alleyway, where she could crouch down and see the wound. It was a long, two-sided gash down the front of the upper leg, ending over the knee. She cleaned the wound thoroughly, dusted it with medication, and applied a topical pain killer. After waiting for the anesthetic to work, she stitched the ugly tear with a series of neat little stitches, then washed the wound down with iodine and wrapped it to keep it clean.
While she worked the horse snuffled at her hair, sending hot, moist breath down the back of her shirt and tickling her neck with its bristly muzzle. She stood, stretched, and reached out a hand toward the animal. Behind the stiff hairs, the skin of its muzzle was softer than velvet. Mrs Hall rubbed it gently and then gave the big horse a pat on its muscled neck.
"You'll be fine, Mary," she said softly. Then she turned to Mr Olafs and said, "I can't figure where she got such a cut. Has she been in this box stall? No where else?"
"Nay, she was in one of the cattle stalls, Missus. I moved her so you would have some room to work on her," he said.
"Show me where she was."
The old man walked down the long row of cow stanchions until he stopped and slipped inside one, backed the cow out from between the old wooden sides and said, "Here's the spot."
Intrigued, Tristan went into the stall and said, "Please hand me that lantern." He held it high along the front of the stall and said, "Ha. Here's the problem."
Mrs. Hall joined him and, in the wavering lantern light, saw a narrow strip of metal that had pulled away from the manger.
"Mr. Olafs," she called, "Come and take a look at this. You will want to do something about it before you put any of your animals in this stall. The horse is so massive that she had no room at all and was sure to hurt herself, but even a cow might be hurt. You should bend this metal piece back and cover it. I don't think your Mary will have any complications, but there's always a chance of tetanus and there's no cure for that, you know."
"Oh, right you are, Missus," the old man said. "I'll get that put right. What do you suppose caused that to bend out like that? These mangers are only about twenty years old and made out of good hard metal."
"I think it's caught on the chain you use," Tristan replied. "See it hangs at just the right level to catch on the edge. When the animal shifts a bit, it catches and pulls out a bit more each time."
"Maybe I should shorten those chains," Olafs replied.
"Or use rope instead," Mrs Hall suggested. "But do check the rest of your stalls. We don't want your animals to be cutting themselves on this metal."
"Right-Oh. I never thought of that and a boy and a lady figured it out for me - a farmer for seventy-two years. I never thought I'd see the day! Thank you both. Now if you have time, I know my Jane has put up something to warm you through in the house. And she's put a little by for Mr Farnon. How is he mending? That Ashburton sow was a monster of a pig. Did you know they had to shoot her after all? Should have done it in the first place and saved us all a good veterinary. Can't afford to lose the likes of him, not many like Mr Farnon. Not that you two aren't doing a pretty fair imitation!"
"Let's check your cows," Tristan said, "just to make sure this hasn't happened to any of them."
They found three milk cows with lesser injuries and several more mangers that had sharp metal projections where chains had caught and deformed the metal. Mr Olafs watched with great respect as Tristan treated the animals. Mrs Hall looked on with pride as the boy began to take charge, administering medication and wrapping the wounds with care.
In the end, Mr Olafs turned the three patients into the box stall with Mary and several other cows to prevent injuries. Then Mrs. Hall and Tristan followed Mr. Olafs into his small cobble-stone home where they were greeted by a thin, worn woman with a wide smile and thick Yorkshire accent.
"Sit ye down," she piped excitedly. "I've put up hot tater soup and scones for t'both of ye an' yer Mister will need something too. So, there's a nice tick bone with plenty of beef still on it. I was saving it for our dog, Molly, but she won't miss what she don't know about. And, we want yer Mister back on his feet before Summer. Can't do w'out him."
After a friendly meal together, Tristan and Mrs. Hall thanked the Olafs, refused payment, and reminded them they were just being good neighbors, helping out until the real veterinarian was mended. Then, Mrs. Hall backed the little black car out of the snow bank with Tristan pushing from the front, turned the wheels toward Darrowby, and drove home.
There was still much to do, including caring for the 'real' veterinarian who was probably hungry, thirsty, and feverish, but suffering under the verdant prayers of the Vicar, rather than being cared for properly.
"I was thinking, Tristan," Mrs. Hall said as the car barreled down the highest mountainside in the region, "next time we go out, if the weather improves, I think you need to learn to drive. We won't discuss this with your brother. Let's surprise him - right after you tell him that you never stole a car and certainly never wrecked one."