Enchanted Glass Read Free Page B

private medical care, before she died. Their daughter had had a costly education. But then Tarquin had had a truly terrible fall. Tark, as Mr Stock heard it, had been lucky to live, trampled and broken in all directions as he was. He’d never ride again. Nowadays, Tarquin lived on his savings and what he got from the Injured Jockey Fund, while his daughter, the story went, gave up all the millionaire jobs she might have had and stayed in Melstone to look after her father.
    “How’s my niece doing?” Mr Stock asked, halfway down his second cup of tea. “These biscuits are good. She make them?”
    “No.” Tarquin pushed the biscuits nearer to Mr Stock. “I did. As for Stashe, I wish she’d have a bit more faith in how I can manage and consider working further afield. She’d surely get something at the University, just for a start, so she would.”
    “Where’s she working now then?” asked Mr Stock, who knew very well.
    Tarquin sighed. “Still down at the Stables. Part time. And I swear Ronnie exploits her. He has her doing pedigrees and racing statistics on the computer, until I think she’s never coming home. She’s the only one there who understands the bloody machine.”
    The computer. This was what had given Mr Stock his idea. He gleamed. “Wasting herself,” he pronounced. “Now my new fellow’s at the computer game too. Stuff all over, wires, papers. I’m not at all sure he knows what he’s doing.”
    Tarquin’s tufted, waif-like face lifted towards him. Worried, Mr Stock was pleased to see. “But he
does
know he has the field-of-care to look after?” Tarquin asked anxiously.
    Mr Stock turned the corners of his mouth down. And Iwish he’d get on and
do
it, and leave me alone! he thought. “As to that, I couldn’t say. He’s walked up and down a bit, for what that’s worth. I think he thinks he’s here to write a book. Now, to get back to my niece—”
    “But if he doesn’t know, someone ought to put him straight,” Tarquin interrupted.
    “That’s right. Show him he has responsibilities,” Mr Stock agreed. “It’s not my place to. You could do it though.”
    “Ah. No.” Tarquin slumped down in his chair at the mere thought. “I never met the man.” He stayed bowed over, considering. “We do need someone to sound him out,” he said. “See if he even knows what his job is here, and if he
doesn’t
know, to tell him. I wonder—”
    “Your daughter could do it,” Mr Stock said daringly. “My niece,” he added, because Tarquin seemed astonished by the idea. “If we could persuade him he needs a secretary — and he does, I don’t doubt: he’s used to several of them at that University, I’m sure — and then tell him we have the very person, wouldn’t that suit?”
    “It sounds a bit dishonest,” Tarquin said dubiously.
    “Not really. She’s high-class stuff, our Stashe,” said Mr Stock. “She could do the job, couldn’t she?”
    Pride caused Tarquin to sit straight again. “Degrees all over,” he said. “She’s probably too good for him.”
    “And too good for the Stables,” Mr Stock prompted him.
    “
Wasted
there,” Tarquin agreed. “All right, I’ll put it to her. Will Monday do?”
    Bullseye! thought Mr Stock. “Monday it is,” he said.
    At almost the same moment, Mrs Stock said to her sister, “Now don’t go putting ideas into Shaun’s head, mind, but you can tell him he’s really needed there. The place is crying out for someone to — ah — move furniture and so on. That man is really impossible as things stand.”
    “Can I give him a job description?” asked Trixie.
    “Jargon,” said Mrs Stock. “Anyway,
someone’s
got to do something and my hands are full. We’ll get on to it first thing Monday, shall we?”
    In this way, plans were made for keeping Andrew under control. The trouble was, neither Mr nor Mrs Stock had thought very deeply about what Andrew was really like, or about what made Melstone such a special place, so it was not