Moreton's Kingdom by Jean S. Macleod Page B

she answered truthfully, ‘but she did say something about having to go to New York in the near future.’ Suddenly she remembered that Coralie had gone to the party expecting to meet someone important to her. ‘I wish I could help,’ she added lamely.
    Their eyes met.
    ‘I think you really mean that,’ said Fergus. ‘Anyway, you’ve brought Sandy back, and that’s the main thing. Charles had heard the rumour about New York and we were very worried.’
    He wheeled his chair to the open main door as Charles appeared from behind the shrubbery leading a small piebald pony on which Sandy sat with confidence, sheer joy shining on his chubby little face.
    ‘Look at me!’ he cried when he saw them. ‘I can do it all by myself. Galloping, too!’ Charles had let go of the leading rein and he dug his impatient little heels into the cream-and-brown Bank. ‘Here I go! Watch me!’
    They watched as the pony cantered across the greensward between the house and the lochside, far too wise to gallop at speed with such a precious burden on his back. ‘We’ll make a horseman out of him yet,’ said Charles.
    ‘He’s where he wants to be,’ Fergus decided.
    Katherine saw the grim look on Charles’s face as she turned towards him. He agreed with his brother, but he was also determined that they would never be tricked again.
    Sandy rode the pony to the loch edge and back.
    ‘Leave him with me for a while,’ Fergus suggested. ‘He needs practice, and I can follow him in the chair.’
    It was a concession to his son’s need because he tried to use the electric wheelchair as little as possible, preferring to hobble about with the aid of a stick when he wasn’t going very far. Charles gave the chair a cursory inspection before they moved away.
    ‘He hates it, but it’s the only real mobility he has at present. He perseveres with the stick, but he can’t manage without the chair for very long.’
    Katherine stood looking after Sandy and his father with a lump in her throat as pony and wheelchair disappeared between the trees.
    ‘I wonder why you didn’t tell me,’ she said.
    ‘Tell you what?’ Charles had obviously been thinking of something more important.
    ‘That you weren’t Sandy’s father.’
    His face darkened.
    ‘We didn’t get that far, did we?’ Charles looked back towards the loch where Sandy and his brother could be seen again on the path beyond the trees, close together now on the wider approach to a small wooden jetty where a rowing-boat lay among the reeds. ‘Fergus is like that because of me,’ he added grimly. ‘He saved my life two years ago, ruining his own. If Coralie had been the right sort of person she would have stood by him, she would still be here—but I expect you’ve heard her side of the story. She couldn’t live with half a man,’ he added bitterly, ‘so she opted for divorce—and freedom.’
    ‘And you can never forget what Fergus did for you,’ Katherine guessed. ‘You’re trying to make amends.’
    He shook his head.
    ‘Nothing could ever compensate for what he’s been through,’ he said sternly, ‘so do you wonder that I haven’t time for women like Coralie?’
    ‘Did you give her a chance?’
    He paused, arrested by her question, surprised, perhaps, that she should have asked it.
    ‘More than one,’ he said.
    ‘And you’ll never forgive her.’ It was a statement more than a question, but he answered her.
    ‘No. What she did was unforgivable.’
    It was the sort of uncompromising reply she had expected him to make, and she knew herself cast in the same mould as Coralie in his estimation.
    ‘I thought I knew Coralie very well,’ she said slowly as they walked on, ‘but people change. It’s almost seven years since we were at school together.’
    He looked unimpressed.
    ‘But you were willing to help her,’ he pointed out.
    ‘And I still don’t know whether I was right or wrong!’ Katherine exclaimed. ‘You tell me what you want me to know—nothing