MATCHMAKER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22071, 29 March 1935, Page 5

MATCHMAKER

All the World and his brother go to the Valley Show. You may see there men you never see from one year's end to the other—Dig Barnes, who borrowed a fiver from you last shearing season; T. S. Mathews, who once owned the thousand-guinea mare, Fire Gem of Erin; Greenbanks, the axo champion from the foothills; Ru Bannering, of lightning shearing fame; and Bart Manning,, who bought an unbroken outlaw stallion for a bet, and rode him three days later over the tricky course at the Spring Points-to-Points, and carried home the Huntsman's Cup. All riders worth the name are there —Lewis, from Matara, with his three grey jumpers; young BroSvnlie, whose father gave tho steeplechase cup; Neale, the bareback champion from tho Capo; Rutherford, the remittance man, with his level-headed little English hunter; Lyall Manning and tho White Hope; tho Maori rider llawcne, who won the open jump three seasons in succession. But of all the famous horses on tho grounds there were nono better than our Glensands mounts, and no rider more highly thought of than Miss Judy Lovatt, and she was riding for tho last time. If sho rode next year it would bo as Judy Norman, and more than likely she would never ride again for no one knew what manner of man John Norman was, or whether horses would be any more to him than other cattle. It was not a heartening thought for a man, and it made us who knew her strangely quiet as she rode Matchmaker

into the ring for tho open jumps

Matchmaker was white, a giant, beautiful as perhaps the devil is beautiful. He had a gloss on bitn like silver; his mane rode in a crest; his heavy bit and chain were white with dripping foam flakes. Two men led him into the ring, and Judy fought him round until he faced the course, and then let him go. He was white lightning streaking; a

burst of steel-shed thunder. Over the first hurdle he went in a great bound, over the second, and ho was going round the far end of the ring in jarring plunges, and the slim figure in his saddle was sitting steady as a rock. Then it all happened very suddenly. Ho was not going for the brush; ho was swerving. He leaped, clear, tho fence between the ring and the spectators, and he was in the crowd. There were screams, terrible screams such as I pray that I may never hear again, and there was a fighting surge of men and women trying to get back from the flailing hoofs. There was no screaming from Judy. She was fighting with bit and spur to gain control, and there was 1, jammed in the crowd across the ring Irom her, and only able to stare and gape. Then all in an instant there was a man in the picture. He had got Matchmaker by the bits, and that white devil was rearing up, and up, and swinging him like a sack. 1 saw Judy's riding crop descend, slashing on the laid-back ears and mane crest; I saw Matchmaker plunge down. There was an instant's wrestling scuffle, and then it was all over, and Matchmaker was standing oil his four feet, trembling, sweating, quivering, and the stranger was running his hand along the foaiiMvreathed neck. A steward came running wildly, and cut the wires of the fence, and I ran, and. one on either rein, tho stranger and I led tho white horse back into the ring. ~ , . , , T " Look out!" he said sharply, but I was not quick enough. He dropped the rein smartly, and all in an instant caught Judy as she pitched in a limp heap out of her saddle. " Poor kid!" he said, " Where shall I take her? Where's her car?" I left Matchmaker to the stewards, and went with him. Ho earned Judy as though she was the kid he had called her, her little brown riding-boots swinging, one sun-browned arm limply dangling, her pale face and closed eyes against his shoulder. Judy's car, the bonny blue saloon her uncle had given her for her birthday onlv a year ago, and how many endless years it seemed! —was parked in the row. The stranger laid her gently* down, and I loosened her belt and the neck of her crisp white boyish shirt. I slid in under the wheel, and began to back the car out. " I'd take it as a favour," said 1. politely as possible, " if you'd see tho stewards for me, and get them to send someone home' with Miss Lovatt s horses." " I'll do that," he said. "And what's your name?" 1 demanded, " Miss Lovatt will want to know." He looked at me, his eyes narrowing a little with merriment. " Tell Miss Lovatt to find out!" said he, most rudely. " As you please!" said I, and swung the car around and out of hearing Most angry and upset was Judy when she came to herself, angry over fainting, angry with herself for losing control of Matchmaker, angriest of all with me because I could not tell her tho name of the man who had subdued that crazy white horse. " You'ro a fool, Dick!" she said, savagely, her dark-blue eyes flashing sparks of flic. Jn an instant her mood had changed, and she turned over in the deck-chair where she was lying, on the cool verandah, and I saw a tear glisten on tho back of her sunburned little hand. " Perhaps it's just as well Glensands and tho horses have to go," she said listlessly. " I can't even ride a horso, now." , • . T , "Shut up!" said I, firmly. "I'm old enough to be your father, and I've worked on Glensands since you were a baby, and I guess- I can say shut up to you! * Judy laughed, but drearily, her brown, slender fingers clenched. " 1 wonder what I'll be doing a year from now, Dick?" " Waiting for your tea, I suppose," said I, sick at heart, and not knowing how to show it. " Same as you are now." . " As Mrs. John Norman," said Judy, " I wonder what I shall feel like as Mrs. John Norman. I shall probably kill myself." , I kicked the flower-pot again, and this time down the steps and into the rock garden. " Darn your uncle for a crazy fool!" said I, " They should not have let him make such a will, and lie seventy, and his brain softening!" "Oh, no, Dick," said Judy gently, "He was quite sane. It was just his idea of family. He wanted ine to have Glensands, and he wanted me to marry, and fourth-cousin John. Norman's mother was a Lovatt. That's why he left it to us, jointly, on condition we married, and to charity if we did not." I shrugged my shoulders. " Why doesn't ho turn up, then?" 1

Judy laughed, without mirth. "So long as it's within the year! I suppose he's having; his last fling." There was the light-hearted ring of horses' shoes on gravel. Judy sat silent, and the show beasts came around the bend in the drive. Matchmaker in the lead, ridden; Jade, the champion hack, chestnut and gold-burnished and freestepping; the bay Harkaway, who had been champion hunter, judged on type for five years running, and could not jump the bottom bar of the stable yards; mild-mannered Pussyfoot, the steeplechase hurdler. The man on Matchmaker rode up to the foot of the steps, and reined in. T knew him on the instant, though ho had changed his holiday garb for working clothes, faded and saddle-worn. I

A SHORT STOkY

BY JOYCE T. WEST (COPYRIGHT)

knew him by the gay set of his head, the swing of him from the hips, tho dark, lean, faintly-smiling face of him. He swept his hat off and bowed over Matchmaker's mane crest.

" t brought your horse home." "My cheque book, please, Dick!" said Judy, and when I came back the stranger was leaning over the white horse's neck, scratching his ears, and Matchmaker was liking it.

"They gave me mail for you!" said the stranger, and tossed me a package of letters. " And, by the way, 1 heard you were wanting another man for dipping." I looked at Judy; Judy looked at me. " Wo were," 1 said. He leaned from his saddle, and laid an envelope in Judy's lap. " References," he said, without wasting words. Judy gave mo tho envelope. "My manager will look into them. Thank you for bringing the horses. Here is your cheque. Will you go down and have tea with tho men, and I will let you know about tho job." Ho doffed his hat again with a flourish, and rodo around tho corner, and I opened his reference. " Jack Campbell," I murmured. Judy had slit open a. letter, and I looked up just as tho sheet dropped from her fingers. Judy had fainted for the second time in her life.

" Jt's a sort of a nervous breakdown," said the doctor 1 called in. " She's worrying about something. She must be kept absolutely free from strain or worry, and she'll be all right in a week or so,"

Sensible advice if I could have followed it! Judy had showed me the letter; it was from John Norman to say that he hoped to arrive at the end of tho month.

Judy lay for four days in a darkened room, scarcely eating, almost without speech. On the fifth day I went in to Judy. " My deay," L said, " you haven't mother or father or folk§, and the Lord knows I'd cut my hand off for you. You'll havo to do what I say. You can't lie hero in tho dark any longer. You'll go crazy. Get up, and come out, and I'll saddle a horse for you." She looked at mo very sadly, like a scolded child, and said, with strange obedience, " Very well, Dick." She waited, still curiously obedient, and" I shouted at Jack Campbell to leave what he was doing and saddle a horse and ride with Miss Lovatt, as I did not like her left alone after her illness. He was standing at the entrance to the dip, and he laid down his pole and, grimed with sweat and dust as he was, vaulted over the bars and whistled for Matchmaker.

They were not homo at dusk, and I was anxious, and went up to sit on the verandah and wait there.

I heard the ringing clatter of hoofs presently, and I saw Matchmaker shine white in tho gloom. There was the spurning and scattering of gravfel, ans then a sound that made me start — Judy's laugh, subdued, but still a laugh. Jack Campbell swung from Matchmaker. He came up to Judy's stirrup, and she slid down through his arms on to the gravel. Judy ran up the steps. •• "Good-night!" she said, a little bieathlessly, and Jack Campbell lifted his bridle and rode away in his singlet and dungarees, sitting like royalty on a kingly horse. Two weeks passed," and Jack Campbell rode respectfully with Miss Lovatt each afternoon. On tho morning of Saturday 1 had to go to town, and I was home at dusk. I had taken the car, for it was raining. I caime to report to Judy, and she called me from the top of the stairs. I ran up three steps at a time, and found her on her knees in the midfet of wildest confusion. Sho had a suitcase half packed, and she was throwing everything out, and beginning again from the beginning. " Read it!" she said, tossing me a crumpled telegram." I read the brief message.

" Arriving to-night. John Norman." " What are you doing then?" I said, staring like an idiot; " dressing for the wedding?" "Of course!" said Judy. Sho snatched up her purse, and tipped half a dozen silver coins out. "I'd better not take any money: it belongs to the poor, now. What is the time? Do hurry and lock that suitcase, Dick! We must be married before eight, or it isn't legal. There he is now I Jack Campbell came into the hall, in boots and breeches. Hare-headed and mud-splashed, and she ran straight into his arms.

" Did you get it?" For answer he freed a hand, and delved into a breast pocket, and produced a folded paper. Judy reached for it, but he put it hastily away. " Not yet. Wo mustn't waste time. We're to be married at tho manse at a-quarter to eight. Come on, Dick!" 1 had been standing there staring lik6 a man in a stupor, and 1 began to get my breath. " What about John Norman?" said I.

" Oli, you bring the car back, and meofc him, and tell liim!" said Judy. Slio camo closo to me. seized my arm, and drew 1110 down. " A fig for John Norman —and Glensands, too!" she whispered. " And if I'd never known Jack I "would have married him. . She shuddered, and then kissed me, suddenly, richly, warmly, and wont to Campbell and caught at his arm. "Hurry, Jack, hurry! He might come—try to make me marry him! A special license marriage is quite binding, isn't it. Jack,?" They went out into the darkness together, Judy's slim little figure in its rough coat, and he, with his st6p of a king. I picked up the case and followed, and knocked over the whipstand because I could not see. Jack took the wheel, and the car roared into the night. I watched tho hand of the dashboard clock as we ploughed through the mud and the streaming darkness. It was twenty to eight when we stood in the warm lamplit living room of the manse; The service had to be short. I remember how clearly the minister's voice roso above the murmur of tho rain.

"Do you, .Tohn Campbell Norman "

Judy nave a great start, itnd thou stood like a woman in a trance, hut when it was time for her to make her response she spoke unfalteringly: " I do. .

The bridegroom had given me tho ring arid I passed the gold hand over. Judy's hand lay in the hand of tho man who was John Campbell Norman. Wo stood, not knowing quite what to say. .John Norman was the first of us to speak, and his voice sounded unsteady.

"I intended—to give you your mother's wedding ring. Your uncle sent it to me—for that purpose. But I was foolish enough to lose it—so this is a new one."

" Look at it carefully," said I. 1 slipped it from Judy's unresisting hand, and held it up. There were initials within, faint, hut readable. »

.John Norman stared at me very strangely. I cleared my throat, and tried to explain while everyone looked at me: " I changed the rings—just now. I found your ring." " When ?"> said John Norman.

" The day of the show," said I, " it fell from your pocket while you were fighting with Matchmaker, and I picked it'up and looked at the initials."