The Reverend Humphrey Paget hovered, Bible in hand, at the door of the breakfast room, wanting to know if I would be gracious enough to give the first reading. I rather shocked the fellow by saying that one or two simple prayers from him ought to be sufficient on this and other mornings. He wasn’t to know it, but at home I always take breakfast privately, in my rooms, where my morning readings are taken invariably from the Sporting Life.
We followed the Chaplain in. It looked a full muster to me, including the house steward, the groom of chambers, butlers and housekeeper, but I was conscious of Alix taking a mental register. I must admit to a tremor of unease when I noticed that Bullivant wasn’t present; however, he burst in shortly after, blaming a lost collar stud. I turned to Alix and asked in a whisper if she would now risk a kipper.
After prayers, I thought it fitting to say a few words, firstly of regret at the tragic news of Miss Chimes, then to suggest how best to conduct ourselves in the light of what had happened. I said I had thought hard and long whether to cancel the shoot. The decision had had to be taken early, for the beaters had been called for eight o’clock to start driving in the birds from the fields and hedgerows. The planning for this week of sport had begun more than a year ago, and the arrangements couldn’t be altered at the drop of a hat. What with loaders, beaters, stops, pickers-up, drivers and catering staff, we would be using some two hundred personnel. It was the climax of the year for our hostess, dear Lady Drummond, and her gamekeepers. So I ventured to suggest that if any one of us had been called suddenly, like poor Miss Chimes, to our Maker, we would have wished the week’s sport to continue regardless, and this was agreed to a man. I added that Jerry would be making arrangements for her to be given a decent, dignified burial in private, which would be impossible if I returned suddenly to Sandringham and the press got to hear of the tragedy. I’m sure that the point was well taken.
The servants withdrew and breakfast was served. Notwithstanding Alix’s fears about the cooking, I ate as heartily as I always do before a shoot. It seemed crystal clear to me that the unfortunate Miss Chimes had been afflicted by some seizure of the brain or heart quite unrelated to anything she had eaten.
An hour later, about half past nine, I mounted the dog cart with the other guns, Bullivant, Holdfast, Pelham and Osgot-Edge, and we were driven at a canter to the first stand.
The lofty beech trees of Buckinghamshire are a handsome sight at any season. On this October morning, shafts of strong sunlight imprinted fiery red and gold upon the autumn foliage, and if that sounds poetical, I wonder what Osgot-Edge made of it. He was seated back-to-back with me, spared the agonies of small talk.
Instead I palavered cheerfully with Holdfast, who sat beside me in his deerstalker and tweeds, stout, apple-cheeked and bright eyed with anticipation of good shooting. Away from his insufferable wife he was not bad company at all, and I respected him for his charity towards dumb animals. I’ll say this for Sir George: his name is on more horse troughs than any other man of my acquaintance. There’s scarcely a cab horse in the kingdom without reason to be grateful to him. Of course, he married an old nag as well.
I remarked, “I suppose you’ve been shooting here for years like most of the others, George?”
“That’s true, sir, except for last year, when I was down with shingles. The coverts are as good as any I could name.”
“Sandringham included?”
“Sandringham slipped my mind, sir.”
I laughed. “Did you hear the latest story about Harty-Tarty? He made a record bag at Chatsworth.”
(Harty-Tarty, readers, is the affectionate name by which my friend the Marquess of Hartington is known. A charming fellow, he is indisputably the worst shot in England.)
“A record bag? Lord Hartington?” Sir George sounded incredulous.
“Yes, he took aim at a wounded cock pheasant which was limping in front of a gate. He bagged it.”
“My word!”
“Yes, and with the same shot he hit the retriever which was chasing it.”
“Killed it?”
“Oh, yes. And what’s more, he hit the retriever’s handler in the leg.”
“No, that’s too much!” said Sir George, doubled up with mirth.
“It wasn’t. He shot the Chatsworth chef, who’d just arrived with the lunch.”
Ahead was a clearing where two shooting brakes had already transported our loaders and the pickers-up and their animals. The dog cart came to a halt and I stepped down first. As we walked the short distance to the stand, I made a point of giving specific instructions to young Marcus Pelham, “You’re our host, so you’re the captain of guns today. Treat me exactly as you do the others.”
He wetted his lips and ran his fingers nervously through his pale hair. He hadn’t expected this. “In that case, sir,” he said after a moment’s hesitation, “let’s make the draw.” He beckoned to his head keeper, a short, silver-haired fellow I remembered from my previous shoot at Desborough.
The keeper invited me to pick a disk from his leather pouch. I drew number three. Holdfast was two, Bullivant and Osgot-Edge were four and five, which left one for Pelham.
I marched to my peg, sank the point of my shooting stick into the turf and signaled to my loaders.
“And was the shooting to your satisfaction, Your Royal Highness?” Amelia asked me anxiously when the ladies joined us for luncheon after three stands. A marquee had been erected beside the tributary of the Ouse that runs through the Desborough estate. We were enjoying our preprandial champagne whilst the morning’s bag was being laid out for counting. It was a scene fit for a Christmas card: well over five hundred pheasants, twenty or more wild ducks, five or six woodcocks and sundry partridges, hares and rabbits.
“Your head gamekeeper is a miracle worker, my dear,” I answered. “If I were you, I’d double his wage and recommend him for a knighthood.”
“And the beaters?”
“Performed splendidly. The birds were beautifully presented, as fast and high as one could wish.”
“That is a relief. Some of the men have never beaten before.”
“It’s always so. If they are well supervised, you get no trouble.”
A suitable distance from us, the smocked army of about a hundred and fifty estate workers and farm laborers recruited for the week had grouped around several grand log fires, cooking sausages and onions, or some humble fodder with a smell just as appetizing. I can tell you that I was in grave danger of being lured away from the inevitable quails in aspic and game pie that awaited me in the luncheon tent.
I shall cleave to the memory of that scene by the river, refusing to have it taken from me by what happened after. Thirsty dogs lapping in the shallows; the smoke of the fires curling upwards; loaders at work cleaning the guns; and best of all, the ladies in their elegant walking costumes, looking like birds of paradise, so brilliant were the plumes and feathers in their bonnets. Our hostess, I recall, wore a stunning blue jacket and a jay’s feathers in her hatband. “After yourself, sir, who was the most successful?” she asked me with an impish look.
“My dear Amelia, it’s not meant to be a competition,” I told her, though of course she knew, “but I can tell you in confidence that the poet hardly missed a thing.”
“He surprises everyone year after year,” she said. “People underestimate Wilfred.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh, assuredly so.” Something in the way she answered made me prick up my ears.
“It sounds to me as if you know of other talents in his repertoire.”
She flushed and laughed. “Sir, I thought we were discussing his sporting prowess.”
I changed the subject. “Has Jerry Gribble returned?”
“He hadn’t by the time we left the house, sir. There’s a lot to attend to, I think.”
“Of course.”
&nb
sp; Presently luncheon was announced and we went into the marquee and took our places at the trestle table. This time I was seated opposite Miss Dundas, who surprised me by straight away asking the name of my gunsmith.
Talking guns with a lady was a novel experience. I suppose I should have realized that she was likely to own a weapon of some sort for use in the jungle. It turned out that she knew my gunsmith, Mr. Purdey of Oxford Street, tolerably well.
“My dear Miss Dundas, we ought to have invited you to shoot with us,” I said affably.
Without batting an eyelid she said, “I don’t kill for sport, sir. If I am obliged to shoot, so be it. There’s no pleasure in the slaughter.”
“Do I sense, Miss Dundas, that you don’t altogether approve of shooting game?”
Her cool smile told me I hadn’t flustered her. “Oh, I’m willing to shoot in self-defense, but I’ve never yet been threatened by a pheasant.”
“You’d eat one, I dare say,” I riposted.
“Yes, but I wouldn’t stuff my larder with several thousand. There isn’t room.”
I laughed and so did she. It was the first time I’d noticed how small, even and immaculately white were her teeth. Her complexion, tanned by the tropical sun, certainly showed them to advantage. With the dark brown eyes, she had something of the Celt in her background, if not the Latin. I’ve always found women of that coloring difficult to resist for long. A whimsical thought occurred to me. Whilst Alix stood guard against the alluring Amelia, perhaps I might manage a discreet adventure with Miss Dundas.
The tiresome Lady Holdfast, seated on my right, broke into my reverie by lightly tapping my knee with her finger.
You’re an optimist, I thought, and then I glanced along the table and observed that nobody had yet picked up a spoon.
“Heavens above!” I cried, snatching up mine and scooping up a chunk of the fruit. “You needn’t have waited for me. Damn it all, this is a picnic.”
Somebody gave a nervous cough. They still hadn’t gone for their spoons.
“Dear Father in Heaven . . .” came the Chaplain’s voice from along the table, and I knew that I had made a faux pas.
“Didn’t notice he was with us,” I confided to Amelia after the amen was said.
“Humphrey? He likes to join in the meals,” she told me. “He goes about his parochial duties at other times. He looks after the village church as well as our own, you know.”
“He must be worn to a frazzle.”
She smiled at the notion. “It doesn’t show.”
The ladies stayed to watch the first drive of the afternoon, in the part known as Roebuck Wood. Folding chairs were put out for them where the pickers-up waited at a safe distance behind the gun stands. I’m never sure whether the fair sex take much pleasure in watching a shoot. Some, I am told, pass the time with their hands over their ears, but I’ve always had my sights on the birds overhead.
We were rotating positions at each stand so that each gun had a fair day’s sport, and I found myself between Holdfast and Bullivant. Young Pelham blew the horn to start the drive and we heard the tapping begin deep in the wood.
How stirring is the rattle of sticks on trees and the screech and churr of startled wildlife—music more thrilling than any I can recall in a concert hall. I waited, flanked by my loaders, picturing the activity in the coverts as the fugitive birds scampered ahead of the beaters. A pheasant has a natural reluctance to take to its wings, and it requires a well-managed beat to put it up precisely over the guns without flushing too many others at once.
This battue was faultless. They presented the birds in a long, soaring sequence almost vertically above us. I worked with three guns, receiving from the loader on my right, firing and passing it empty to the other man, never shifting my eyes from the sky. Barrel after barrel the fusillade went on as we picked our targets, swung and fired, dropping the pheasants with steady precision until the cry, “All out, gentlemen,” The beaters were at the hedge and the horn was blown a second time to signal the end of the drive.
Ears ringing, I thanked my loaders, took out a cigar and strolled across to the ladies while the dogs were doing their work. The smell of cordite was all about us.
“I never saw such marvelous shooting, sir!” cried Amelia, and I saw Alix give her a sidelong glance.
“What was that, my dear?” I said out of mischief, cupping my ear and drawing closer to Amelia.
“Your shooting is incomparable!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. One or two in Europe are at least my equal. We’ll see what the bag amounts to.”
Alix had turned her back.
The other guns joined us and I noticed Bullivant walk straight up to Isabella Dundas and present her with a long russet tail feather he’d picked up. She fitted it under her hatband and twirled about like a dancer to display it, incidentally affording us all a sight of her ankles. Then she gave him an amused look that I didn’t know how to interpret. Claude, I decided, would have to be watched.
Amelia was still at my elbow singing the praises of my marksmanship. The other guns, notably Osgot-Edge, had not been so well positioned to impress the ladies. Even so, I suspected that she was overdoing the tribute, and so, evidently, did her brother Marcus, for as he was passing he prodded her thigh with the blunt end of his shooting stick and said, “Sis, you’re making a nuisance of yourself.” Addressing me, he said, “Would you care for a nip, sir?”
He held out his brandy flask.
“Not now,” I said. “I shoot better with my head clear. Which way is the next stand?”
He pointed. “Beyond the ridge. It should be the best of the day, sir. The birds have already been driven out of their roosting ground into a smaller covert, so when they’re flushed out, they fly towards home.”
I nodded my approval. A pheasant will always fly better towards home than away from it. “How long will it take us? Shouldn’t we start, or the light will go?”
A wagonette had been brought up in case we cared to ride, but I suggested legging it through the wood, and no one demurred. We said our farewell to the ladies, who were being conveyed back to the house to change into tea gowns. I generally find that I have a splitting headache by teatime after a shoot and don’t much care what anyone is wearing, but that doesn’t stop the ladies, bless them, from parading.
The dead birds were tidily lined up for counting, almost two hundred pheasants, one of the gamekeepers said, bringing our day’s bag past seven hundred.
“Somebody missed a few this time,” I jested. “I picked off sixty for certain. Seventy, I’d say.”
Bullivant asked Marcus, “Do you think we’ll take a thousand today?”
“Easily.”
I said, “I trust we can improve on that as the week goes on, gentlemen.”
Holdfast remarked, “With Jerry Gribble in the party we should.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Bullivant, grinning. “Have you ever seen Jerry shoot?”
“That’s enough about Jerry,” I told him curtly. Jerry is hopeless with a gun, but I won’t have my friends ridiculed behind their backs at any time, let alone when they are making funeral arrangements.
With Marcus Pelham leading, we started along a bridle path towards the ridge. Osgot-Edge fell in behind young Pelham, and Bullivant joined him, evidently willing to try for some kind of intelligible conversation. I forgave him a little for his crass remark about Jerry.
I brought up the rear with Holdfast and discussed insurance. I know as little about insurance as I do about poetry, so it was pleasing to discover that according to actuarial tables I can look forward confidently to attaining my sixty-ninth birthday, whereas young Pelham, who is half my age, will be lucky to get to sixty-one. Don’t ask me how it works.
The top of the ridge afforded a fine view of beech woods and bracken. We were almost at the limit o
f the Desborough land. It was bordered by a road, just visible in stretches between the autumn foliage. Everything across the road and as far as the eye could see belonged to Amelia’s neighbor, Jerry Gribble. Closer to us, Marcus Pelham pointed out the tower of the family chapel and beyond it the gamekeeper’s lodge and some of the tied cottages.
A short distance below us on the slope was the small covert where the pheasants had been driven in readiness to be put up for the last stand of the day. The army of beaters, conspicuous in their long white smocks, was making its well-disciplined way in silence up the incline and around the covert to begin the drive.
I complimented Pelham on their performance and enquired whether they would get a decent supper at the day’s end. Rabbit stew awaited them. My juices stirred and sang a short cantata at the thought.
To cover the sound I said, “I fear we mustn’t linger, gentlemen. Let’s go down to our positions.”
We set off again, skirting the covert.
The last stand of the day was cleverly sited in a hollow with good cover, far enough from the covert for the birds to fan out and reach a challenging height. Our loaders and the dog handlers, who were being conveyed there by horsepower, had not yet put in an appearance, which irked me slightly at the time, but was to prove fortuitous.
Discussing the wind and its possible effect on the flight path of the birds, we continued for some time down the slope before anyone thought to mention an object lying on the open ground selected for the stand. Brownish in color, it might have been a blanket thoughtfully provided in case any of us needed extra warmth at the end of the day: that was my first assumption. Farther down the hill I formed the view that it was a recumbent man, perhaps an assistant gamekeeper sent ahead to meet us. If so, he was in for a surprise when we woke him from his slumbers.
Bertie and the Seven Bodies Page 4