All Things Bright and Beautiful (12 page)

I know the memory of it was always fresh because many years later I was sitting on the sidelines at a cricket match and I saw the two of them; the old lady glancing keenly around her, Roy gazing placidly out at the field of play, apparently enjoying every ball. At the end of the match I watched them move away with the dispersing crowd; Roy would be about twelve then and heaven only knows how old Mrs. Donovan must have been, but the big golden animal was trotting along effortlessly and his mistress, a little more bent, perhaps, and her head rather nearer the ground, was going very well.

When she saw me she came over and I felt the familiar tight grip on my wrist.

“Mr. Herriot,” she said, and in the dark probing eyes the pride was still as warm, the triumph still as bursting new as if it had all happened yesterday.

“Mr. Herriot, haven’t I made a difference to this dog!”

T
HE THING THAT HAD
changed everything was the tranquil basis of my home life. The vagaries of practice went on and would always go on but behind it all Helen’s presence was a warm infinity, a measureless peace. When I looked back at the time before she was my wife it was an uncertain world and events like the Darrowby Show seemed an eternity ago.

I remembered when Siegfried first asked me about it.

“How would you like to officiate at Darrowby Show, James?” He threw the letter he had been reading on to the desk and turned to me.

“I don’t mind, but I thought you always did it.”

“I do, but it says in that letter that they’ve changed the date this year and it happens I’m going to be away that weekend.”

“Oh well, fine. What do I have to do?”

Siegfried ran his eye down his list of calls. “It’s a sinecure, really. More a pleasant day out than anything else. You have to measure the ponies and be on call in case any animals are injured. That’s about all. Oh and they want you to judge the Family Pets.”

“Family Pets?”

“Yes, they run a proper dog show but they have an expert judge for that. This is just a bit of fun—all kinds of pets. You’ve got to find a first second and third.”

“Right,” I said. “I think I should just about be able to manage that.”

“Splendid.” Siegfried tipped up the envelope in which the letter had come. “Here are your car park and luncheon tickets for self and friend if you want to take somebody with you. Also your vet’s badge. O.K.?”

The Saturday of the show brought the kind of weather that must have had the organisers purring with pleasure; a sky of wide, unsullied blue, hardly a whiff of wind and the kind of torrid, brazen sunshine you don’t often find in North Yorkshire.

As I drove down towards the show ground I felt I was looking at a living breathing piece of old England; the group of tents and marquees vivid against the green of the riverside field, the women and children in their bright summer dresses, the cattle with their smocked attendants, a line of massive Shire horses parading in the ring.

I parked the car and made for the stewards’ tent with its flag hanging limply from the mast. Tristan parted from me there. With the impecunious student’s unerring eye for a little free food and entertainment he had taken up my spare tickets. He headed purposefully for the beer tent as I went in to report to the show secretary.

Leaving my measuring stick there I looked around for a while.

A country show is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Biding horses of all kinds from small ponies to hunters were being galloped up and down and in one ring the judges hovered around a group of mares and their beautiful little foals.

In a corner four men armed with buckets and brushes were washing and grooming a row of young bulls with great concentration, twiddling and crimping the fuzz over the rumps like society hairdressers.

Wandering through the marquees I examined the bewildering variety of produce from stalks of rhubarb to bunches of onions, the flower displays, embroidery, jams, cakes, pies. And the children’s section; a painting of “Beach at Scarborough” by Annie Heseltine, aged nine; rows of wobbling copperplate handwriting—“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever” Bernard Peacock, aged twelve.

Drawn by the occasional gusts of melody I strolled across the grass to where the Darrowby and Houlton Silver Band was rendering Poet and Peasant. The bandsmen were of all ages from seventies down to one or two boys of about fourteen and most of them had doffed their uniform tunics as they sweated in the hot sun. Pint pots reposed under many of the chairs and the musicians refreshed themselves frequently with leisurely swigs.

I was particularly fascinated by the conductor, a tiny frail man who looked about eighty. He alone had retained his full uniform, cap and all, and he stood apparently motionless in front of the crescent of bandsmen, chin sunk on chest, arms hanging limply by his sides. It wasn’t until I came right up to him that I realised his fingers were twitching in time with the music and that he was, in fact, conducting. And the more I watched him the more fitting it seemed that he should do it like that. The Yorkshire-man’s loathing of exhibitionism or indeed any outward show of emotion made it unthinkable that he should throw his arms about in the orthodox manner; no doubt he had spent weary hours rehearsing and coaching his players but here, when the results of his labours were displayed to the public, he wasn’t going to swank about it. Even the almost imperceptible twitching of the finger-ends had something guilty about it as if the old man felt he was being caught out in something shameful.

But my attention was jerked away as a group of people walked across on the far side of the band. It was Helen with Richard Edmundson and behind them Mr. Alderson and Richard’s father deep in conversation. The young man walked very close to Helen, his shining, plastered-down fair hair hovering possessively over her dark head, his face animated as he talked and laughed.

There were no clouds in the sky but it was as if a dark hand had reached across and smudged away the brightness of the sunshine. I turned quickly and went in search of Tristan.

I soon picked out my colleague as I hurried into the marquee with “Refreshments” over the entrance. He was leaning with an elbow on the makeshift counter of boards and trestles chatting contentedly with a knot of cloth-capped locals, a Woodbine in one hand, a pint glass in the other. There was a general air of earthy bonhomie. Drinking of a more decorous kind would be taking place at the president’s bar behind the stewards’ headquarters with pink gins or sherry as the main tipple but here it was beer, bottled and draught, and the stout ladies behind the counter were working with the fierce concentration of people who knew they were in for a hard day.

“Yes, I saw her,” Tristan said when I gave him my news. “In fact there she is now.” He nodded in the direction of the family group as they strolled past the entrance. “I’ve had my eye on them for some time—I don’t miss much from in here you know, Jim.”

“Ah well.” I accepted a half of bitter from him. “It all looks pretty cosy. The two dads like blood brothers and Helen hanging on to that bloke’s arm.”

Tristan squinted over the top of his pint at the scene outside and shook his head. “Not exactly. He’s hanging on to HER arm.” He looked at me judicially. “There’s a difference, you know.”

“I don’t suppose it makes much difference to me either way,” I grunted.

“Well don’t look so bloody mournful.” He took an effortless swallow which lowered the level in his glass by about six inches. “What do you expect an attractive girl to do? Sit at home waiting for you to call? If you’ve been pounding on her door every night you haven’t told me about it.”

“It’s all right you talking. I think old man Alderson would set his dogs on me if I showed up there. I know he doesn’t like me hanging around Helen and on top of that I’ve got the feeling he thinks I killed his cow on my last visit.”

“And did you?”

“No, I didn’t. But I walked up to a living animal, gave it an injection and it promptly died, so I can’t blame him.”

I took a sip at my beer and watched the Alderson party who had changed direction and were heading away from our retreat. Helen was wearing a pale blue dress and I was thinking how well the colour went with the deep brown of her hair and how I liked the way she walked with her legs swinging easily and her shoulders high and straight when the loudspeaker boomed across the show ground.

“Will Mr. Herriot, Veterinary Surgeon, please report to the stewards immediately.”

It made me jump but at the same time I felt a quick stab of pride. It was the first time I had heard myself and my profession publicly proclaimed. I turned to Tristan. He was supposed to be seeing practice and this could be something interesting. But he was immersed in a story which he was trying to tell to a little stocky man with a fat, shiny face, and he was having difficulty because the little man, determined to get his full measure of enjoyment, kept throwing himself into helpless convulsions at the end of every sentence, and the finish was a long way away. Tristan took his stories very seriously; I decided not to interrupt him.

A glow of importance filled me as I hurried over the grass, my official badge with “Veterinary Surgeon” in gold letters dangling from my lapel. A steward met me on the way.

“It’s one of the cattle. Had an accident, I think.” He pointed to a row of pens along the edge of the field.

A curious crowd had collected around my patient which had been entered in the in-calf heifers class. The owner a stranger from outside the Darrowby practice came up to me, his face glum.

“She tripped coming off the cattle wagon and went ’ead first into the wall. Knocked one of ’er horns clean off.”

The heifer, a bonny little light roan, was a pathetic sight. She had been washed, combed, powdered and primped for the big day and there she was with one horn dangling drunkenly down the side of her face and an ornamental fountain of bright arterial blood climbing gracefully in three jets from the broken surface high into the air.

I opened my bag. I had brought a selection of the things I might need and I fished out some artery forceps and suture material. The rational way to stop haemorrhage of this type is to grasp the bleeding vessel and ligate it, but it wasn’t always as easy as that. Especially when the patient won’t cooperate.

The broken horn was connected to the head only by a band of skin and I quickly snipped it away with scissors; then, with the farmer holding the heifer’s nose I began to probe with my forceps for the severed vessels. In the bright sunshine it was surprisingly difficult to see the spurting blood and as the little animal threw her head about I repeatedly felt the warm spray across my face and heard it spatter on my collar.

It was when I was beginning to lose heart with my ineffectual groping that I looked up and saw Helen and her boy friend watching me from the crowd. Young Edmundson looked mildly amused as he watched my unavailing efforts but Helen smiled encouragingly as she caught my eye. I did my best to smile back at her through my bloody mask but I don’t suppose it showed.

I gave it up when the heifer gave a particularly brisk toss which sent my forceps flying on to the grass. I did what I should probably have done at the beginning—clapped a pad of cotton wool and antiseptic powder on to the stump and secured it with a figure of eight bandage round the other horn.

“That’s it then,” I said to the farmer as I tried to blink the blood out of my eyes. “The bleeding’s stopped, anyway. I’d advise you to have her properly de-horned soon or she’s going to look a bit odd.”

Just then Tristan appeared from among the spectators.

“What’s got you out of the beer tent?” I enquired with a touch of bitterness.

“It’s lunch time, old lad,” Tristan replied equably. “But we’ll have to get you cleaned up a bit first. I can’t be seen with you in that condition. Hang on, I’ll get a bucket of water.”

The show luncheon was so excellent that it greatly restored me. Although it was taken in a marquee the committee men’s wives had somehow managed to conjure up a memorable cold spread. There was fresh salmon and home fed ham and slices of prime beef with mixed salads and apple pie and the big brimming jugs of cream you only see at farming functions. One of the ladies was a noted cheese maker and we finished with some delicious goat cheese and coffee. The liquid side was catered for too with a bottle of Magnet Pale Ale and a glass at every place.

I didn’t have the pleasure of Tristan’s company at lunch because he had strategically placed himself well down the table between two strict methodists so that his intake of Magnet was trebled.

I had hardly emerged into the sunshine when a man touched me on the shoulder.

“One of the dog show judges wants you to examine a dog. He doesn’t like the look of it.”

He led me to where a thin man of about forty with a small dark moustache was standing by his car. He held a wire-haired fox terrier on a leash and he met me with an ingratiating smile.

“There’s nothing whatever the matter with my dog,” he declared, “but the chap in there seems very fussy.”

I looked down at the terrier. “I see he has some matter in the corner of his eyes.”

The man shook his head vigorously. “Oh no, that’s not matter. I’ve been using some white powder on him and a bit’s got into his eyes, that’s all.”

“Hmm, well let’s see what his temperature says, shall we?”

The little animal stood uncomplaining as I inserted the thermometer. When I took the reading my eyebrows went up.

“It’s a hundred and four. I’m afraid he’s not fit to go into the show.”

“Wait a minute.” The man thrust out his jaw. “You’re talking like that chap in there. I’ve come a long way to show this dog and I’m going to show him.”

“I’m sorry but you can’t show him with a temperature of a hundred and four.”

“But he’s had a car journey. That could put up his temperature.”

I shook my head. “Not as high as that it couldn’t. Anyway he looks sick to me. Do you see how he’s half closing his eyes as though he’s frightened of the light? It’s possible he could have distemper.”

“What? That’s rubbish and you know it. He’s never been fitter!” The man’s mouth trembled with anger.