“We being me and John,” Henry joined in. “And we’re the ones looking after him, so—”
“We want to call him Lightning, because he looks like a regular goer, and he has that blaze,” John continued. “But the girls—”
“But it doesn’t look like lightning! The blaze is a star, and so I think he should be called Star,” Jane finished.
“Stella is prettier than Star,” Susan declared, wiggling in between Jane and Henry. “And Stella means star.”
“Stella’s a girl’s name and he’s a stallion!” Henry said in disgust.
“And Star sounds girly, too, so we thought we’d ask you, sir,” John finished. “Maddy said you’ve lost your memory, so we know it won’t be his real name, but still, we have to call him something, so we thought we’d ask you to choose.”
“I see.” He looked at the five faces ranged along the side of the bed. “And do you have an opinion on what we should call my horse, Miss Lucy? Everyone else has shared theirs.”
“Peggy,” she said firmly.
They all laughed. “You can’t call him Peggy, Lucy; he’s a boy,” Henry told her.
“I don’t care,” she insisted. “Peggy, after Pegasus.”
“And he hasn’t got wings—” Henry began but was hushed by his brother.
“Sir?” They all waited.
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “They’re all very fine names.” He was tempted to tell them his horse would respond equally to any name, but he could see that, to them, this was no small matter. Something was bubbling over the fire, something spicy and delicious. “Pepper,” he said on a whim. “His name is Pepper.”
“Did you remember it, sir?” John said, clearly pleased.
“I did,” he lied. He didn’t care what the horse had been called before; from now on it would be Pepper.
“And do you remember your own name, too?” Jane asked him.
“No, I’m sorry.”
The children looked crestfallen.
“You have to have a name,” Lucy told him worriedly. “Everybody has to have a name.”
“Would you like to choose a name for me to use in the meantime?” he suggested. “I can’t go on being ‘sir’ or ‘hey you’ or ‘man,’ can I?” He showed them the handkerchief. “Perhaps something beginning with R.”
The children immediately went through the same litany of names he’d been driving himself crazy with, and even hearing them in different voices, none rang a bell.
They settled on Robert. “But it’s disrespectful to call an adult by his first name,” Jane objected. “He needs a surname.”
“He might have a title,” John suggested. “And then we could call him by his title; Wellington, for instance.”
“Rider,” Lucy said. “Mr. Rider. Cause he rided here on his horse and then he fell off.”
“Excellent,” said the newly named Robert Rider, ignoring the “fell off” part. “Mr. Rider it is, then.”
“Maddy’s coming,” Susan hissed. “And we weren’t supposed to disturb the man.”
“Not ‘the man.’ Mr. Rider,” Jane corrected her as the children headed hastily for the back door.
Mr. Rider lay back on the bed and did his best to look undisturbed.
Amoment later Maddy came flying into the cottage. She stuck her head between the bed curtains and said in an urgent voice, “No matter what you hear, or what is said, or done, do not wake up! Do you hear me? It is of the utmost importance that you appear to remain unconscious at all times. Don’t move a muscle!” She twitched the bed curtains closed, and before he could ask what on earth was going on, he heard a knock at the door.
“Oh, Mr. Matheson, what a pleasant surprise,” Maddy said in apparent surprise.
