“Yes, I do, but I don’t want to name names.”
“They’re all dead, surely?” he countered.
“Oh, they are, but their children aren’t. Most of them are in their seventies, late sixties.”
“Yes, of course. Do you think any of these people might be his? The husband didn’t know?”
She shook her head. “No. He would have stamped his get.” She used the horseman’s term. “He must have been careful, or his lovers were. Any woman with a blond baby with a killer smile would have aroused too much curiosity.”
“I assume he had quite a few flings with Deep Run ladies.” Sister smiled, for the Richmond Hunt, a big fences hunt, always was famous for its good-looking women. Sister then continued, “Aunt Daniella, we have to get to the bottom of this, and we have to find that hunting horn.”
“There are ghosts, you know. You should know. Your house is at the base of Hangman’s Ridge. They still moan up there, the hanged men.”
Neither Gray nor Sister disputed this.
“I believe there are ghosts, I do. But why would Weevil’s spirit come back, take his horn from the Huntsman Hall of Fame, and then blow it? Yes it is in keeping with his cheek. Oh, he was full of the Devil.” She laughed, then considered the request. “Well, this is what I know, what I am pretty sure about, and I rely on your discretion. Edward Bancroft’s older sister, Evangelista. Sybil looks just like her,” she mentioned Ed and Tedi’s daughter, visiting her son at college. “Wilder than Sybil, but a decent girl. Anyway, Evie fell head over heels. The family was horrified, broke it up. Sent her to London for the season.” Daniella thought some more. “Florence Randolph. Married with two children. She was seen leaving the huntsman’s house one night. Covered it all up.”
“Shaker’s house?”
“The very same. He might have had affairs with some northern hunt ladies, Green Spring Valley in Maryland. He hunted around, was always in demand, made the most of joint meets—but when he disappeared, he disappeared from here, so this is where the mystery began and may never end. If it hasn’t been solved or resolved since 1954, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”
Sister pressed the button again, turned up the sound so “Gone to Ground” rang out. “It’s different now.”
Daniella sipped a bit of her exquisite bourbon; the damned bottle cost over three hundred dollars, which Gray knew, since he would be replacing it. “Quite right.” She waited a long, long time. “There was one other. Serious, I mean. I hesitate.”
Both Sister and Gray leaned forward, holding their breath in curiosity.
She waited a bit more, ever the dramatist. “Margaret DuCharme.” Pause. “Alfred and Binky’s mother. Dr. Margaret is named after her grandmother. Doesn’t look a bit like her, not that Margaret DuCharme—today’s Margaret—isn’t attractive, but she looks like her grandmother’s people, the Minors. Acts more like a Minor, too. Intellectuals. Lawyers. Doctors. The DuCharmes were rich plantation men, gentlemen, ferociously conservative. I wouldn’t be surprised if the original Margaret’s husband didn’t toast the king, even though they made their fortune during the War of 1812 robbing British supply trains. A fortune, all created by a raving beauty, Sophie Marquet, who beguiled the Brits, found out where the pay wagon and the supply trains were going, then later, with a small group of men, robbed them. It was said the good lady sold some of the goods to our troops but never relinquished the stolen cash, of course.”
Sister and Gray had heard the history of Old Paradise, built by Sophie as was Custis Hall, the private school, many times. Daniella relished the victory of this early nineteenth-century woman so much it was delightful to hear her tell the tale.
“This state bursts with incredible people, past and present.” Sister nodded to Daniella, indicating she was an incredible person. She was not always an easy one to be around, or to be related to.
“Where was I? Oh, Margaret. Elegant woman married to a crashing bore. Margaret’s mother, the Minor, seethed with financial ambition. Margaret’s marriage was arranged by her mother—not exactly on a par with Consuelo Vanderbilt’s arranged marriage to the Duke of Marlborough, but just as bad.” Daniella knew her history, social and political. “Brenden DuCharme didn’t mistreat her. He took good care of her financially. When a man owns a huge place, thousands of acres, outbuildings, dependencies, all that, he doesn’t pay but so much attention to his wife. He just bored her. Take it from me, he was boredom personified.” She tapped her forehead. “Dumb as a sack of hammers. Brenden inherited everything. Never really had to work hard, solve problems, learn to get along with others. I wouldn’t call him rude, especially, just dense. Very dense.”
“Good-looking?”
“Are Binky and Alfred good-looking?” A pause. “I rest my case. Weevil zeroed in on her. She didn’t have a chance.”
“And you say she was lovely?” Gray asked.
“Was. Titian-colored hair. Blue eyes. Classic WASP features. Wonderful figure, full bosom, small waist. And, the best part, she could ride. They had opportunities to meet—and then again, there were fewer ways to catch someone then. If you had half a brain you could have an affair undetected.”
Now Sister believed Daniella had indeed enjoyed the delights of Weevil as well as those of other men. For one thing, her collection of jewelry was suspicious. A few husbands, yes. That much jewelry, no.
“What happened?” Gray finished his drink.
“Oh, like Evie Bancroft, sent to Europe. Paris for Margaret. Spoke perfect French. Then again, she did evidence a strong interest in fashion. Brenden said she was going to bring back a collection of the latest high fashion, which she did.” She shrugged. “Who is to say?”
“Aunt Dan. What do you think of that video? Truly?” Gray softly inquired.
“I think it’s Wesley Carruthers. It frightened me a little and yet,”—pause—“and yet it made my heart leap to see him.” She breathed deeply. “I miss old friends. I have outlived almost everyone of my generation. I have outlived my son. Losing friends, that’s the hardest thing about aging.” She stopped, remembered Sister’s past. “Forgive me if I have brought up a painful memory.”
Sister smiled. “Aunt Daniella, I quite agree. My son was killed in that farm accident in 1974. I think of him every day. Big Ray died in 1991. I don’t think of him quite as much, but we mostly got along. People I started out with once I was on my own are dying now. The generation of foxhunters in front of me from whom I learned so much are mostly gone. My old horses, my old hounds. I know exactly what you mean, but we go on. You certainly have.”
“Life is to be lived. We all have sorrows.” This was said with dignity. Daniella rolled the cold glass in her hand, then stopped. “Should you find anything out about Weevil, tell me. Ghosts don’t drink, but how I would love to offer him a perfect brandy. To remember the old folks, friends. The laughter. How we laughed. I can still hear your mother’s laughter, Gray. We were close, you know.” Then switching gears. “How is Lucinda?”
Lucinda Arnold, Sister’s mother-in-law, was alive, in her high nineties, in Richmond, Virginia.
“The same.”
“Which is to stay she’s still a bitch. Only the good die young,” Daniella remarked.
Gray looked at her. “Indeed.”
She reached for her ebony cane to crack him, stopped, threw her head back, and laughed.
CHAPTER 10
“Lieu in,” Shaker called in his singsong voice.
Cora, head female, standing by the huge waterwheel at Mill Ruins, took the lead, trotting down the farm road winding behind the mill. This road had no ruts because Walter Lungrun, M.D., scraped it; it divided two huge pastures. A half mile down the road, forests rich in hardwoods awaited them.
The water sprayed off the turning wheel, tiny rainbows spraying color at seven forty-five A.M. The meet started at seven-thirty but there was always someone rushing to put on their tack, or Sister’s announcements took time. As there were no fixture cards during cubbing, information was trans
mitted before each meet or later by email. Even though it was September 21, Thursday, twenty-five people moved off behind the hounds. This goodly number in the middle of the week pleased Sister as well as her younger Joint Master, Walter Lungrun, sitting in his Tahoe converted to pick up hounds if need be. Next to him sat Yvonne Harris, looking as though she’d stepped out of a page of England’s Country Life magazine.
Walter informed her, “That little toodle you heard on the horn is really for the people. It’s to alert them to shut up, to keep them behind the hounds. ‘Lieu in’ is Norman French. Came into our language after 1066. He called that to the hounds telling them to search for the fox, to go into the covert.”
“Norman French?” she inquired in her modulated voice, a voice cultivated to suggest just that, cultivation.
He grinned. “When William the Conqueror defeated King Harold in 1066, everything changed. We’re still living out those changes. Latin, as in Norman French, intertwined with Anglo-Saxon. The French brought their ways with them and suddenly sauces appeared on long, well-appointed tables. Expensive, different furniture, really expensive architecture. Well, they brought their form of hunting as well. And we continue to use their terms.”
“Was Harold that rough? I mean, was England before the conquest that primitive? I’m not much of a historian until you get to the Paris of the Belle Époque—the beginning of mass fashion, in a way.”
“You’ll have to teach me. About all I know is your coat sleeve should show just a bit of shirtsleeve unless you’re hunting. Then the sleeves are longer. Oh, I know the best coats have buttons that really work so you can roll up your coat sleeves.”
“Very good.” Yvonne laughed. “My husband, my soon-to-be ex-husband, had all his clothing tailored in Jermyn Street. He swore we still can’t tailor men’s furnishings.”
“I’ve got a lot to learn.”
“So do I. Norman French. So the hounds are bilingual.”
Walter grinned again, a wide one. “Yvonne, you’ll make a houndswoman yet. And so to answer your earlier question, Harold and his people weren’t that rough, but Italy and France were more refined. They never let us forget it back then.”
Driving the Tahoe, which Walter referred to as “The Beast” since it would go through anything, he followed the last of the field, Second Flight staying behind so as not to press horses or make riders nervous. Enough of them in Second Flight were nervous anyway.
Noticing this, Yvonne asked, “These people go slow?”
“No. They don’t jump. They might jump a log, but they go to the gates. Often they run harder and faster than First Flight because they have to catch up. Second Flight is for green riders, green horses, to train them both. Sometimes a person just doesn’t want to launch over jumps anymore.”
“I see. So that’s where one would start or finish.”
“Yes. On big hunt days, days when we have over fifty people, sometimes Sister will allow a Third Flight, people who go much slower and often stand on hills to watch the hunt unfold. Hilltoppers.”
“I thought that’s what Second Flight was called. I’m trying to learn and I’ve worn out my daughter with questions. I’ll try not to prevail too much on you.” She smiled, teeth gleaming.
“Don’t mind a bit.”
“Thank you for escorting me. I know you hunt up front.”
“Sister may not have told you, but I just returned from a conference in Phoenix, plus I’ve pulled my back out. A little physical therapy will take care of that. I’ll be out in two weeks tops.”
“It’s a passion.” Yvonne smiled.
“A passion. An education, a chance to be with other people not riven with all manner of fears, and really, a way to imbibe beauty.” Walter heard a deep voice, then another. “We’ve got a line.”
He moved up, although still giving Second Flight plenty of room. Tootie, on the left, soared over a stout coop in the fence line on the left. Yvonne had never seen her daughter at work, so to speak. Her jaw dropped. Then Betty Franklin took the coop on the right, both women intently watching hounds as Tootie flanked them on the left.
“Why isn’t Betty over there with Tootie?”
“If the fox turns right, hounds will follow. No one will be there. So Tootie is covering the left side. If hounds go into that thick wood up there and turn farther left, then Betty will jump back over and get on their right side in the woods or wherever they go. But right now, she needs to be just where she is.”
The fox, a clever gray who had come to sneak by the red fox who lived behind the mill, realized the red fox wasn’t going to be the problem, as that big fellow would fuss since the gray was in his territory. The droppings of grain in the barn proved too enticing, so the younger fox figured he could easily outrun the older. Now he had to outrun the pack.
The mercury, not yet at 50°F, cooperated in holding scent, but the low cloud cover really helped. The sun wasn’t going to burn off anything and the temperature might stay down. Perfect hunting weather usually occurs with a low cloud cover and the temperature between, say, 38°F and 48°F. But good runs could be had in the 50s and 60s, especially down low by creek beds. The fox knows this, so on a sunny day he or she goes out into a pasture or onto a dirt road, sometimes even a macadam one, boogies along, and by the time the hounds reach the spot the scent has either evaporated or is rising over their heads.
Not today.
Sister, up front riding Aztec, her TB/QH cross, took the coop into the large pasture, then soared over the large log fence at the end of the newly mown field. She landed on a good wide path, good footing in the woods. Hounds at full cry tore up ahead of her. Betty had jumped back out onto the farm road and followed the pack on the road. If they turned farther left, which would be north, she could easily find a path into the woods, not as wide as the center path but she could get around. She knew the territory. Staff knows the territory often better than the people who own it.
“The creek,” Parker shouted, and put on the afterburners hoping to reach the swift-running creek before the fox, who was far ahead moving fast to faster.
Walter fastened his seat belt. “You’d better do the same. Once we leave the hayfield the road is rutted. If you have any loose fillings they’ll come out.”
“Thanks.” She looked for the Jesus strap and grabbed it.
Sure enough the fox headed straight down, for the land began to steeply incline to the creek. He jumped in and swam at a diagonal, crawled out on the other side, and took off.
Dragon reached the place where the fox entered the creek. Sniffing, he leapt into it, water breast high. He reached the other side. No scent.
“Move up or down,” his mother, Delia, ordered him.
Hardheaded though he was, Dragon listened to his mother. Staying in the water, he moved upstream first, up along the bank, sniffing. Twist, knowing older Delia knew her stuff, leapt into the creek and duplicated Dragon’s efforts moving downstream. Twist was a weedy hound—no matter what Sister and Shaker did, they couldn’t get much weight on the smallish fellow. Young, still learning, he could move with blinding speed which irritated Dragon, who wanted to be in front.
“Here!” The slender hound sang out, which really pissed off Dragon, who clambered out of the creek, flew to the spot, and opened before Twist could climb out.
The pack, in the creek, hurried out.
Thimble, Twist’s sister, now alongside him, praised him, “Good work.”
“I hate him. I really hate him.” Twist indicated Dragon now ahead of them all.
Shaker, on tried-and-true Showboat, jumped straight down into the creek, holding onto the mane as Showboat leapt up in the air to get out. He was such an athlete he hit the top of the bank, water flying off his legs, as Shaker sat deep and tight. Off they ran.
Tootie, already ahead, had the presence of mind to think the fox would cross, so she went to an easy crossing, as did Betty on the south side. Finding a decent path proved more difficult. If both whippers-in remained in the woods they’d b
e dodging trees and bramble, and really fall behind.
Betty, having hunted this territory since childhood, swerved hard right, found the well-trod deer trail, and kicked on. Tootie moved into the wide cleared path and thundered ahead of the huntsman. She hoped she’d see a cross path so she could move farther left. She needed to be on the outside of the pack, not behind them.
Meanwhile, Yvonne thanked heaven for the seat belt and Jesus strap. Otherwise, her head would have smashed up into the roof of the old 2008 Tahoe. Walter rolled down the rutted dirt road, the incline not giving comfort. Finally at the bottom, they roared across a ford, and Yvonne gave thanks they weren’t stuck in the creek bed. Walter knew what he was doing and moved along, his tires now creating mud tracks. Windows rolled down, he and Yvonne could hear the hound music as well as Shaker blowing “Gone Away.”
The huntsman also let out an encouraging scream to his pack.
Walter laughed. “We tell him he sounds like a girl when he does that.”
“It is high-pitched.”
“A high pitch excites the hounds, but that doesn’t mean we won’t torment Shaker.”
“I doubt anyone would mistake him for a girl.” Yvonne laughed, too.
“He’s the manly type. Huntsmen are, except for the lady huntsmen—but they are tough as the men.”
“I guess you would have to be to do this.” She shut up as he encountered another rut.
Walter pulled ahead as Second Flight followed Sister in the woods, where the sound ricocheted off the trees, the leaves muffling some of it.
Reaching open fields, uncut, he drove to where the rutted road intersected another rutted road, then turned around so the nose of the Tahoe faced the field and the woods, which were about a half mile away. The glorious sound came closer and closer.
“There.” Walter pointed to some broomstraw bending.
Sure enough the gray popped out of the field, ran right toward the Tahoe, passed it, and flew to a huge old storage building down the road. He ducked into his den, dug under and into the outbuilding, a perfect site for coziness in all kinds of weather.
Crazy Like a Fox Page 9