‘Well, she was bought for me, but I’m not as horse-mad as the rest of the family,’ Camilla said. ‘I hunted her quite a bit last winter, but it’s mostly the meet I go for. I don’t care to bash around the country for hours on end and come home frozen and covered in mud. I usually go home after the first run, or even after the first draw if the weather’s really bad.’
‘Have you competed with her?’
‘Hunter trials once or twice, never pointing. I’m not that interested, to tell you the truth – I prefer to stay in the marquee and chat. But Ed says you manage her, and she never refuses. All you’ve got to do is stick on and get round. You’ll be fine,’ she pronounced, elegantly concealing a yawn. ‘How are you getting on with your cottage?’
‘Oh, pretty well,’ Kate said.
‘I can’t think why you want to bother, but I’m glad you did. It’s nice that someone’s bought it that we can get on with, or Ed would have been even more down on me. I don’t know what you see in the place.’
Kate picked the easiest answer. ‘I enjoy DIY,’ she said, even though she guessed that would damn her in Camilla’s eyes.
Camilla raised an expressive eyebrow. ‘Well, each to his own, I suppose. I don’t know what it is about that ugly old shack that attracts so much interest. Finding one person who wanted it is surprising enough, but two …’
‘Two?’ Kate queried.
‘Phil wanted it as well.’
‘Phil Kingdon?’ Kate said.
Camilla shrugged. ‘It was his idea for me to sell it, when I needed money. He said no-one would miss it – unlike the paintings! Then when I did sell it, to you, he got mad and said he’d meant me to sell it to him.’ She looked affronted. ‘He should have made that clear, that’s what I told him, not just suggest I sell it and say nothing. I’m not supposed to be a mind reader.’
‘Why did he want it?’ Kate couldn’t help asking.
‘No idea,’ she said indifferently. ‘I asked him the same thing and he wouldn’t answer. He’s got a house, though I suppose it is a bit of a drive away, over towards Bridgwater. Perhaps he wanted Little’s as an overnight base or something. But it would never do for him to live in unless he extended it – a lot – and you’d never get planning permission for anything like that.’
Kate was remembering the exchange between Kingdon and Camilla that she had overheard in the passage. Especially the familiar way he had spoken to her. There was evidently more between them than was apparent. And he had known Camilla was in debt and advised her of a way of bypassing Ed, his boss in all but name. Odd behaviour.
She had to ask. ‘How come he didn’t know you’d sold it, when it was his idea?’
‘Well, I didn’t want Ed to know, because he’d have made such a fuss, so I didn’t tell anyone. I told the estate agents to keep it quiet and not advertise it locally. I suppose it would have got out in the end, but fortunately you snapped it up quickly and they got the whole thing sewn up before anyone needed to know. So you can see you’re in my good books,’ she added with a bright smile, ‘because things were getting quite sticky, and now I shall be all right for months.’
‘Glad to be of service,’ Kate said ironically. Kingdon had said to her that if she wanted to sell, she should come to him. He’d said he’d find her a buyer – perhaps he knew someone who’d wanted it all along. But then why the mystery? Kate suspected there was no unnamed third party, that Kingdon wanted it for himself. But that did not answer the question, only displaced it. Why did he want it? And why not just go to Ed and ask straight out to buy it?
Because he knew Ed was dead against selling any of the estate. Ed would say no. Camilla might be bamboozled into selling.
But why did he want it? If he really wanted a pied-à-terre, there must be other cottages around that weren’t owned by the Blackmore Estate. Well, maybe it was the five acres he was after, maybe he was planning on setting up as a smallholder. It could be his retirement plan, for all she knew.
Her musings were interrupted by a knock on the door, and when Camilla called out, ‘Come in, we’re decent,’ it opened to let in a surge of dogs with Ed behind them.
‘Are you ready? Oh yes, that looks much better,’ he went on, looking Kate swiftly up and down. ‘Much more workmanlike. Everything fit all right?’
‘Well enough for the job,’ Camilla said. She picked up the greyhound and cuddled it, moving the other dogs away with a practised foot. ‘Are you hacking over to Northcombe?’
‘No, driving – hacking would take too long. Bradshaw’s boxing them now.’
Camilla stood up with the greyhound looking blissfully happy in her arms. ‘I’ll probably be out when you get back. Some bits and pieces to get. Don’t bother Mrs B about lunch, will you – she’s already cooking for the weekend.’
‘What’s Northcombe?’ Kate asked as they clattered downstairs, with the dogs racing after them.
‘Northcombe Grange. The Ordes’ place. They have a cross-country course set up in their fields, so you can get used to jumping Henna. These poor dogs,’ he added in parenthesis as they went out, still pressed against by hopeful hounds. ‘They really want a walk.’
‘Where’s Jocasta?’ Kate asked.
‘Gone to Weston to spend the day with a friend, so I suppose it will have to be me, later.’ They walked round into the stable yard, where a horse trailer was hitched up to an old-fashioned khaki Landrover. Bradshaw was securing the doors at the back. From inside there was a sound of hooves shifting and dust being blown from horsey nostrils. ‘All serene?’ Ed asked.
‘No trouble,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I put Gracie in first, and the mare followed like a lamb once she seen him.’
‘You do have a predilection,’ Kate remarked, going round to the passenger side of the Landrover, ‘for giving your boy horses girls’ names.’
Northcombe Grange was in a very different sort of country. One of the things Kate loved about Exmoor was the way, in just a few miles, you could go from bleak open moorland, good for nothing but grazing sheep, to lush fertile valley with dairy cattle, orchards and arable fields. Northcombe was in what she thought of as ‘soft’ country. The Ordes had a large modern house, extensive stabling, an indoor school, an outdoor manège – and the cross-country course.
Susie met them as they pulled into the stable yard, calling to them cheerily before Ed had even turned off the engine, so Kate missed the first part of her greeting.
‘—awfully good sport. I’m really looking forward to it. Hope you’re not nervous?’ Kate was in the process of climbing out of the car, and only managed a smile by way of a reply. Susie went on: ‘No need to be. Buscombe’s not one of those big, grand meetings. Everyone’s friendly, and the course is fun. That’s all it’s meant to be – a bit of fun for hunt members and their friends. Let’s get those horses down. Eric’s out on our course, checking everything’s in order.’
‘Is he going to ride with us?’ Ed asked, walking round to the back.
‘We both are,’ said Susie, following. She smiled at Kate. ‘We thought it would make it more fun for you, and better practice if, as well as letting you try Henna over the jumps, you got used to riding her in competition. Don’t you think, Ed?’
‘Sounds like a good idea,’ he said. ‘Who are you going to ride?’
‘Magic,’ she said, ‘and Eric’s taken Talley.’ She grinned. ‘So it’ll be no holds barred. No point in racing if you don’t try to win.’
They hacked up to where the course was laid out along a field, up the hillside, over the top and down into a coombe, across a stream then back, and up, over and down to the field again. Eric was there pounding flags into the ground, his horse, Talleyrand, a powerful-looking black, tied up to the fence.
‘This’ll be the flat at the end of the course,’ he explained. ‘You start down that end, jump all these fences, and when you come back, instead of jumping them again you race down the side of them, between the flags, to the finishing post. It’s not quite three miles, which the point
will be, but near enough.’
‘And some of the jumps are higher than four-foot-three,’ Susie added, ‘but not much. You know that’s the height of point jumps?’
‘I do now,’ Kate said.
‘Also, at Buscombe you go round the whole course twice,’ Eric said. ‘But I expect Ed will tell you all about it before you get there. Now, let’s have some fun!’
Kate had begun to feel nervous, but the Ordes were so cheery that she soon began to think it would be fun, and it was. Despite his shape, Eric mounted nimbly and was obviously a diva in the saddle. Susie’s grey was, she said ‘elderly’ and ‘getting past it now, poor old boy’ but he seemed as eager as any of the others to be off, and showed no sign of his age. First they all rode the course at an easy pace, jumping the fences in turn rather than together, and allowing Kate a couple of shots at anything she felt she hadn’t quite mastered. Going over a jump uphill and going over one downhill required different techniques, and different again from jumping on the flat. Henna was eager, excited, and back into her bad habit of head-tossing, and Kate got one painful blow on the nose that made her eyes water, though fortunately it didn’t bleed.
‘You ought to put her in a martingale,’ Susie said bluntly.
‘Ed doesn’t believe in them,’ Eric snorted. ‘Do you, old boy? Thinks they’re bad manners.’
‘I’d sooner correct the fault with schooling,’ Ed said. ‘Too often people just strap the horse down and leave the fault untouched.’
‘Well, martingales have their place,’ Susie said. ‘And Kate’s not going to be riding her long enough to school her.’
‘She’ll settle down,’ Ed decreed, leaving Kate to wonder whether he was referring to her or the mare. ‘Remember yesterday?’ he said to her. ‘Heels hard down, and keep riding her hard up to the bit.’
Eric shook his head. ‘You’ll exhaust the poor child! This is supposed to be a bit of fun.’
Ed rolled his eyes. ‘If she’s not settled down in ten minutes, Susie can ride back and fetch a martingale.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ said Susie.
By the time they had gone right round the course, Henna had settled, and Kate felt pleased with herself for having kept her on the bit, though her legs and buttocks were exhausted with working so hard. ‘I’ll never make it to the end of Monday,’ she said to Susie as they dismounted to rest the horses for five minutes. ‘My legs feel like string.’
Eric had lit a cigarette and was talking to Ed a little way off.
Susie looked across at him, and then back to Kate. ‘Don’t let him bully you,’ she advised. ‘Make him put her in a martingale. He’s a big old party-pooper, is Ed. Everything always has to be done right. You wouldn’t believe it to look at him,’ she added with an affectionate glance, ‘but he used to be a perfect fool when he was a kid. Such a joker! I remember a Christmas party when he smuggled a ferret in and slipped it into the rector’s wife’s handbag. There were such ructions! I had to lie down behind the sofa, I was laughing so much. And he used to do simply evil impressions of people. So accurate, they were scorchers!’
‘Is this before or after his mother died?’ Kate asked, intrigued.
‘Well, after is what I mostly remember, though the ferret was before.’
‘But I thought that was when he became so serious – when his mother died.’
‘Well, he was always a solemn little boy, but with this great sense of humour underneath,’ Susie said. ‘You know, he’d do something funny with such a straight face, it just made it funnier. It gradually went more into hiding, but it was always there, really, until – well, something bad happened,’ she concluded sotto voce.
‘Jack told me about Flavia,’ Kate whispered.
‘Oh! Right. Well, I suppose a lot of things combined that year to make the sun go in for him, and it hasn’t come out again. But we all love the old grumpy-boots, even so.’
‘You love who?’ Eric called, catching that bit. Ed looked too.
‘We love Ed, even if he is an Olympic-class sour puss, killjoy and responsibility junkie.’
‘I’ll admit the last bit,’ Ed said, looking a bit startled and – perhaps? – a bit hurt, ‘but sour puss? Killjoy?’
‘I must say, I can’t see it,’ Kate said. ‘You’ve been nothing but kind to me.’
‘Wait till he knows you better,’ Susie said, but with the sort of smile that said she was teasing, ‘and starts improving you. I used to smoke till he bullied me out of it.’
‘You must admit that it was an improvement,’ Ed said. ‘Don’t you feel better?’
‘Not when I see Eric smoking away and I can’t. It was my one little pleasure,’ she said mournfully – and, Kate guessed, untruthfully.
Eric threw down his cigarette butt and ground it out. ‘Enough of that. Any minute now he’ll start on me,’ he objected, ‘and I’ve too much to lose! Are we going to have this race, or are we going to stand here gassing all day?’
They mounted up and checked their girths, and Kate threw Ed a covert look under her eyelashes. He seemed thoughtful – not that he wasn’t always, but in a different way. She thought Susie really had hurt his feelings a bit. Who would like to be called a sour puss, even in fun?
‘Right!’ said Eric, and then there was no more time to think about anything, because the race was on.
‘That was simply amazing,’ Kate said to Ed as they drove back to The Hall. ‘I can see why people go in for it – racing, I mean. Completely addictive! The speed, the adrenalin rush …’
He gave her an amused sideways look. ‘I thought you were having a good time. You weren’t nervous?’
‘I thought I might be, but no. Though it may be different with more people, and strangers.’
‘I don’t think so. You know you can do it now. And you don’t have to try and win. Just get her round, for the experience.’
Kate wondered if it would be possible to race and not try to win. ‘The Ordes are fun, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, they’re good sorts. I’ve known them all my life,’ Ed said absently. Was he thinking again about what Susie said?
‘So, they’ve always lived at Northcombe?’ Kate asked, to keep him talking.
He roused himself. ‘On the land,’ he said. ‘There was an old house, further up the valley towards Stockham – the family seat, if you like – and Eric’s family owned all the land round these parts. Sold most of it, of course, and the house got into disrepair and cost too much to keep up. Eric was working in the City, making his fortune, but he didn’t make it quickly enough to save the old place. By the time he came back there was only five hundred acres left, and the house had fallen down. So he built the new place.’
‘It must be sad for him, to lose his family home,’ Kate suggested tentatively.
‘I don’t think he cares,’ said Ed. ‘A lot of people have decided trying to keep up the old ways is too much of a burden. Sell up and get out, make your money some easier way, live a more comfortable life. It makes sense.’
‘Not to you,’ she suggested.
‘Not to me,’ he agreed. ‘But then according to Susie I’m a responsibility junkie.’
‘I don’t think being responsible is anything to apologize for,’ she said.
He looked at her for a moment curiously, and she thought he might say something, reveal something about himself: the moment seemed poised on the brink of intimacy. But the gates of The Hall came into view, he had to concentrate on backing the trailer into the yard, and the moment passed.
Bradshaw came out. ‘How did it go?’ he called to Kate as she jumped out.
‘Marvellous,’ she said. ‘She went beautifully. It was just like flying.’
‘Ar, she’s not a bad lass,’ Bradshaw said. ‘Needs more exercise, that’s all. Crying shame letting a nice horse like that go to waste.’ He went round to drop down the back of the box and lead the horses out. ‘I’ll take care of ’em,’ he told Ed. ‘You must want your lunch. Go on, I’ve had mine.’ He included Kate in th
e glance.
Seeing he was determined, Kate let him take over. With nothing more to do, she hesitated, saying, ‘I suppose I’d better be on my way.’
Ed had been in a brown study, and came out of it abruptly at her words. ‘Um,’ he said. She had never seen him hesitant before, and waited, trying to exude willingness for whatever he had in mind. ‘I need to take those dogs for a walk. And Camilla said not to bother Mrs B about lunch. I suppose you wouldn’t like to come with me, help me walk them, and get a sandwich or something in the pub?’
Kate could think of nothing she’d like better, but she tried not to show her joy for fear of frightening him off. ‘I’d be happy to. Which pub? The Royal Oak?’
‘I’m not keen on the Oak, and there’s nowhere for the dogs. There’s a pub up the valley towards Withypool, the Barley Mow. They’re dog friendly and they have a garden we can sit out in. It’s a nice walk, too, across The Barrow and along the brook on the edge of the wood.’
‘That sounds nice,’ said Kate – oh, understatement!
‘You’re not too tired?’
‘No, a walk’s just what I need to loosen me up. I just need to change into my own clothes.’
‘Yes, I must change too,’ he said. ‘Can’t walk in these boots. I’ll meet you back down here in five minutes.’
Seventeen
If you’re hoping to get to know someone, going for a walk with them is by far the best way. There’s something about the gentle exercise – probably coupled with the slight anonymity of being side by side and not face to face – that gives rise to relaxation and confidences.
The dogs were having a whale of a time, running around them, racing away and coming back, sniffing deeply in the hedges and undergrowth, marking every tree until Kate wondered if they were carrying a secret spare tank. Everywhere she looked Kate saw waving tails and doggy grins of delight.
Kate's Progress Page 21