Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

Christina, darling, come to Mummy.”
    Beryl looked straight into the camera. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if our little ones were as obedient as our dogs?”
    She’d disappeared for a moment, the camera not following her. Instead it showed the dogs, all their heads turned to watch the teacher. And there she was again, carrying a serious-faced little girl of five or six with thick, dark, curly hair and startling blue eyes, quite a big child to be carried, but Beryl didn’t seem to be having any difficulty at all. She seemed not to notice the weight as she kissed the little girl repeatedly, then whispered something into her ear.
    After that, Tina and her mother were all smiles, waving at the camera until the screen went dark.
    “You didn’t say why Beryl is teaching instead of you, Tina.“
    „Well, I don’t know what to say,” she said, sitting straighter,
    trying to keep it all together now. “I was talking to Mummy and I told her I’d made this commitment but I simply couldn’t keep it. I felt awful about it, because Sam’s always been so good to me. I just told Mummy how difficult a time I was having calling Sam and disappointing her with the news. Well, then she said she’d take care of it. Naturally I thought she meant she’d call Sam and apologize for me. I even gave her the number. I had no idea she’d offered to come and speak in my place.”
    “And why was it that you couldn’t speak at the symposium?” I asked.
    “I don’t see that that’s any of your business, Rachel. Is that it?” She stood, ready to dismiss me.
    “I was wondering why you changed your name, Tina?”
    She sighed and sat down again. “Rachel, I don’t see—“
    “Please. It’s important.”
    “Mummy throws a big shadow. You’ve met her now, haven’t you?”
    I nodded.
    “Well, then.”
    I waited.
    “When Daddy was gone, she moved us back to England. I was only three at the time, so mostly I lived there. But I knew I’d been born here and that my father was an American, and I was curious, do you know what I mean? When it came time for college, I decided to come back to the States. After I graduated, I went home again. But living with your mother after you’ve been on your own—” She shrugged. “Anyway, by then I knew I wanted to work with dogs, and there isn’t business enough in Chipping Camden for two dog trainers. There really isn’t enough work for one, but Mummy can make a living anyway because she’s so famous. People come to her from miles and miles away.
    “Mummy said if I stayed, I could help her. There was enough work for both of us. But I didn’t want to be thought of as Beryl Potter’s little kid. I wanted to make it on my own. So I came back here. And I changed my name. Is that so difficult to understand?“
    „Not at all. So Sam doesn’t know that it was your mother calling to take—”
    “My stepmother,” she said. “My mother died when I was very little. I don’t remember her. But Beryl always used to tell me that she must have been both beautiful and sweet, else I wouldn’t be. She was a wonderful mother to me—please don’t think otherwise, I mean, because of the name change. Actually, it’s what she always called me.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “And Mummy never minded. She kept my secret for me. She thought it was the right way to do things, to soldier on, she’d say, manage on your own. It’s what she did, after all, when Daddy died.”
    “When was that?” I asked.
    “A couple of years after my mother died.”
    “His heart?”
    She nodded.
    “And your mother? She must have been very young.”
    “She was. She was only twenty. She committed suicide. So you can see how lucky I was that Beryl kept me, can’t you?”
    I nodded.
    “Another woman, someone less strong, someone selfish, might have passed me on to any of my parents’ relatives to raise. After all, I wasn’t hers. But she didn’t feel that way. She felt I was. You can’t imagine how good she is, how fiercely loyal. Even coming here, taking my place. It was simply brilliant of her to do that. But does that mean—”
    “No, she never told Sam about the relationship. It all seemed a happy coincidence, the deus ex machina saving the day.”
    She clapped her hands together.
    “Oh, good for Mummy, she didn’t tell.”
    “Yes, she’s full of surprises,” I said, thinking about Cecilia and looking around the neat little room for what seemed like the first time, looking and seeing now what wasn’t