“Mmm. No use looking for sense in it. There isn’t any. Can understand peaceful protests, yes. But not this. Fox at least has a chance, unless he’s from the town.”
Kit looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“They bring ’em here, town foxes. Catch ’em in town, bring ’em down here and release ’em.”
“Why?”
“Think they have more of a chance in the country.”
“And do they?”
“No chance at all. Dead within the year – starved to death or set upon.” Roly shook his head. “No sense in it.”
The door of the library opened, and a weary Jinty came to join them.
“How is she?” asked Roly.
“Sleeping now. Dr Hastings gave her a sedative. Poor thing. Completely beside herself.”
“What have they done with . . . er?” asked Kit.
“Left them at the vet’s. We can collect them when we’re ready. Charlotte wants them buried at home.”
The three stared silently into the burning embers, while Charlotte drifted in and out of sleep in the room above. The house, as it had on the evening after Jinty’s fall, seemed strangely quiet.
Roly would have given anything to have tripped over a yapping dog.
Kit’s return to West Yarmouth had been greeted with concern by Elizabeth, who asked how on earth he had come to be in such a state. An argument with a car door was the best excuse he could think up at short notice, and after a brief but incredulous stare, she appeared to accept it as the truth.
Jess looked at him curiously as he endeavoured to explain. She said nothing and her face betrayed no expression.
For the next few days Kit busied himself with house clearance, doing his best to see through one good eye and one that was half closed.
The spare rooms presented no problem – old beds, ancient mattresses and ring-stained dressing tables he could dispose of with no compunction. The local removal firm took them to the sale rooms in Lynchampton where, in a week or two’s time, they would come under the hammer and be dispatched to the spare bedrooms of other local households in a rural recycling scheme that had gone on for centuries. He delayed making decisions about his father’s room, the main drawing room and the kitchen, all of which he would use until he decided what he was going to do and where he was going to live. Like a hang-glider, he hovered over the void of his future, waiting to see which way the wind would carry him. In spite of the estate agent’s promises of a speedy reply, he had still not heard anything about the offer.
Jinty’s recovery had been faster than her doctor had anticipated, but there were still days when she was enveloped in tiredness that weighed her down like a coat of chain-mail.
They had had little time alone together. Kit understood Jinty’s need to rest, but each day he called in to see if she was all right, trying not to outstay his welcome, yet longing to stay each time he had to leave.
Their conversation was relatively superficial, both of them anxious not to push the other too far too soon. What he had pledged to do was sort out the Heather situation, and at ten o’clock one morning, knowing that it would be nine o’clock in the evening in Australia, he dialled her number and waited as the phone rang on the other side of the world.
A man’s voice answered: “Balnunga Stud, hallo?”
“Stan? It’s Kit. Hiya!”
“Hiya, yourself. How ya doin’?”
“Oh, you know.”
“Wish we did, sunshine. Wondering what had happened to you.”
“It’s a bit tangled, that’s all. How’s everything there?”
“Ripper. No worries. Two new foals since you left – looking good. Wackatee’s colt’s coming on fine.”
“Sundance?”
“Yeah. That’s right. Could do with you here to sort a few things out, though. When are you looking to come back?”
“Difficult to say, really.”
“Well, we could do with you as soon as you can.”
Tentacles of guilt slid around Kit’s conscience. “Is Heather there?”
“’Fraid not. Gone off to Sydney for a couple of weeks.”
“Oh.” Kit was surprised. And disappointed.
“Think she’s a bit fed up, if you really want to know.” There was a note of reproach in Stan’s voice. “Keeps waiting for you to ring and you don’t. You know what women are like.” He meant it as a softener, but Kit detected a note of fatherly protection beneath the throwaway line.
“Has she left a number?”
“Nah. Gone with a couple of friends. The Johnson boys. Moving around.”
“I see.”
Kit changed the subject – talked about the horses, the farm staff, and anything that would take his mind off the fact that Heather had taken a holiday with Marcus Johnson without letting him know. She had his number, after all.
When he put down the phone, with promises to call back in a couple of weeks, he felt a mixture of regret and irritation. Regret that he had still not told Heather of his feelings, and irritation at her departure. He knew he could hardly blame her for going off rather than being glued to the other end of a phone just in case he chose to call, but why had she gone with Marcus Johnson? She must have known how he would feel. He did his best to rationalise the situation, but could not stop himself feeling angry and, if he were honest, a bit jealous. The anger, he knew, was at his own weaknesses – his failure to voice the decision he had already made, and his inability to confess to Stan that it was unlikely he would return. Having built himself up to take a grip of the situation, his resolve had slipped through his fingers. The jealousy he could not explain.
He rose from the desk, swore and stomped out of the house.
When Kit arrived, Titus was cleaning out the kennels. “Thought you had a girl to do that,” he remarked.
“So did I. Little bugger’s buggered off, so bugger ’er. Wish I’d seen it comin’.”
“Kill anything yesterday?”
“Nah. Bugger got away.”
“Lot of buggers getting away lately, aren’t there?”
Titus straightened up and grinned. “Coffee?”
“Yes. I need one.”
Titus closed the metal gate behind him. “At least I won’t have to do it for long. One of Maidment’s lasses is comin’ over this afternoon. Thinks she might like the job. Bloody relief.”
“So why did Becky . . . bugger off?”
“Conscience. I thought she was OK about it. Never came out huntin’, just looked after the ’ounds. Beats me, you know. They’d rather see a fox live for ever, or at least until its teeth fall out with old age. That way it could ’ave a natural death – you know the sort of thing, starvation, disease, agony, misery, the sort of pleasant death an old fox deserves. Shame to kill it before it has the opportunity of a quiet retirement, isn’t it?”
“Cynical sod.”
“Not cynical at all. ’Untin’ keeps down numbers and it keeps the fox population healthy – survival of the fittest and fastest.”
“And sport for you?”
“And work and pleasure for the community.”
“You could get that from drag-hunting. Why don’t you do that?”
“Because it’s like kissin’ your sister.”
“Old one.”
“Good, though.”
Kit looked thoughtful. Titus made the coffee and the pair sat side by side on an old bench by the kennel wall. Further down the path, Titus’s two horses, Mabel and Floss, were nodding over the doors of their stable, Mabel as dark as night, Floss a pale chestnut with a hogged mane. They tugged at hay-nets, hung on the outside wall.
“So ’ow do you stand on ’untin’?” asked Titus, “If yesterday’s experience ’asn’t coloured your judgement.”
Kit rubbed his head. “I think it stinks.”
Titus looked surprised. “Well, that’s honest.”
“Oh, I can understand why you do it, but I think you’re wrong. If you really want to keep down foxes you could shoot
them. It’s quick, it’s clean, and it’s fairer on the fox.”
“But foxes hunt.”
“Yes, but foxes don’t have any option. They have to hunt to live. We don’t.”
“But if hunting is banned, hundreds of people will be out of work.”
“Tough. That’s like saying if burglary was banned then hundreds of burglars would be out of work. Just because people have been doing it for years doesn’t mean it’s right.”
“Have you told Jinty O’Hare about this?”
“Don’t be daft.”
“I’m surprised you can look ’er in the eye.” Titus studied Kit’s shiner. “Sorry about that. ’Ow’s it feelin’?”
“A bit sore.”
“Don’t know where that lot came from. There’s so much ’untin’ around ere that we don’t tend to see many of their sort. Bastards. ’Ow’s Lady Billings-Gore?”
“Coming round – slowly. Poor thing’s devastated. Can’t understand why people who want to protect one animal can kill another.”
“Beats me. Most of ’em don’t, to be fair, but every now and again you gets one of these minority groups – I think they just go out for a bit of trouble. Don’t really care about foxes at all, just want to join in the class war.”
Kit looked thoughtful. “Mm.”
“Did you get a good look at ’em – before they ’it you?”
“Not really. Had balaclavas on. Saw the eyes of one of them but–”
Kit stopped abruptly. The hazy image of a diminutive hunt saboteur swam into his mind. He saw the thick woollen covering framing the eyes, saw the wisp of fair hair peeping out from beneath it, and the pale eyes looking straight into his.
“You OK?” asked Titus.
Kit was staring into the middle distance, then rose sharply to his feet. “Yes. Fine. I must go.” He left the coffee half drunk and walked briskly back to West Yarmouth Farmhouse. Titus watched him go, wondering if he himself was the only person in this neck of the woods who was not on another planet.
The post was late. He wished it had arrived before he had left that morning. Then, perhaps, he would not have had time to think about the events at the meet and would not have put two and two together. But now he could not dismiss the encounter from his mind. The eyes of the saboteur kept boring into his head. Eyes that he knew had looked into his before.
He opened the letter from the estate agent distractedly and absorbed the information it contained: “Mr Jamie Bickerstaffe, £1.25 million, early completion, no chain.” He put the letter down and thought of the implications.
The amount was smaller than the estate agent had previously intimated. Should he ask for more? Was a bidder in the hand worth two out in the bush?
Enough. It was time he acted. He hardly cared now whether he was offered £1.25 million or £2 million. He would ring the estate agent and accept the offer.
The second letter was from the solicitor, informing Kit that the notice period for the rental arrangement with Arthur Maidment had expired, and had he written and informed Maidment that this was so?
Not much point now, thought Kit, and pushed the letter into a pigeon-hole at the back of the desk.
He laid the estate agent’s letter by the telephone then went downstairs and out into the yard to look for Jess. She was nowhere to be found.
All afternoon he roamed the estate looking for her. Finally he asked Elizabeth where she was, only to be told that she had gone into Totnes to see friends. He wished he had asked earlier and saved himself the trouble of combing the estate. But at least the walk had calmed him down.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to fend for yourself tonight,” warned Elizabeth. “If you’re in.” Her dig was not lost on Kit. “I’m on the beach at Tallacombe with the naturalists.”
Just for a second Kit thought she had said ‘naturists’, and the prospect of Elizabeth Punch naked on the windblown West Country beach, with parchment-coloured flesh clinging in goose-pimpled swags to her protruding bones, made him shudder. “Oh,” was all he could say.
Elizabeth made what she hoped would be a friendly remark: “Bivalves of the south-western coast.”
“Really.” Suddenly Kit realised that his replies were churlish and tried to do better. “Shells?”
“Oysters, mussels, scallops, that sort of thing.”
“Very tasty.” Again he scolded himself silently for his incivility.
Elizabeth appeared not to notice, and went about her business with a detached air. “Supper afterwards in Lynchampton.”
Kit mused on the evening ahead, then brightened. He would invite Jinty round for supper and cook for her, if she felt up to it. He would tell her about the offer and they could celebrate together before the other two West Yarmouth inmates returned.
He checked his wallet then drove into Lynchampton for the makings of a supper he hoped Jinty would never forget.
Chapter 24: Stinging Nettle
(Urtica dioica)
The honey-coloured stone of Baddesley Court gleamed in the soft evening sunshine. He got out of the car, mounted the wide front steps and pulled on the old bell, which responded somewhere deep in the house. Mrs Flanders, her hair in its usual aerobatic mode, opened the door and greeted him warmly.
“Hello, Mrs Flanders. I’ve come to pick up Jinty.”
The old woman smiled indulgently. “She’s in the stables, Kit. The master and mistress are out and she’s just checking the hay-nets.” Flushed from the heat of the kitchen and wiping her hands on her checked pinafore, Mrs Flanders returned to the inner sanctum of the house, leaving Kit to make his way to the stable block.
There was no sign of her at first. The tops of the stable doors were all open, and he saw that both Allardyce and Seltzer were munching mouthfuls of hay.
“Hello?” he called across the yard. No reply. He walked on, past the Connemara pony, until he came to a tall open door, held back with a length of rope. He stuck his head inside. “Anybody there?”
“Only me.”
He looked up in the direction of the voice to see Jinty sitting on a pile of bales with a net in one hand. The evening sun shone through the dust-rimed windows on to the cobwebs around her, turning them to silvery gossamer and giving her the appearance of some ethereal beauty wafted in from a fairytale kingdom.
Kit grinned up at her. “You look like the Queen of the Fairies.”
“Rather me than you!”
“What are you doing?”
“Silly question. Filling hay-nets, of course – well, the last one.”
“Thought you were coming to supper.”
“I am. You don’t think I normally dress like this for work, do you?”
He looked at her. She wore a sleeveless white cotton dress and her feet were bare. Her long legs were dusted with freckles and her eyes glowed. The shafts of sunlight caught her hair and turned it to molten gold.
“Do you want a hand?”
“Here!” She tossed the hay-net down to him and he caught it and put it on the floor.
“How are you going to get down?”
“Over there.” She pointed to a rough staircase made of bales and he watched as she made her way over to it. She was not wearing her sling, and used both arms to balance herself as she teetered across the uneven surface.
“Take care,” he warned.
“Don’t worry!”
“No, but I do.” As he spoke the words she lost her footing and slid feet first down a chute of hay. He rushed forward to grab her but his intervention was unnecessary and she came to rest with her dress around her waist in a nest of corn-coloured straw, laughing uncontrollably.
“Why do you do this to me?” he scolded.
She looked up at him, her laughter subsiding. “I don’t really know.”
They gazed at one another for several seconds. “Pull me up?” she asked, offering her good arm.
He reached for it but she unbalanced him and pulled him down alongside her. For a few moments neither of them moved. Kit breathed in
the sweet scent of hay and freshly washed hair, and within seconds his mouth was on hers and his hands were exploring her body. He felt the damp warmth of her lips on his. He stroked her arm, then lowered his hand to her long, slender legs. She moaned softly as he caressed her, running his hand down her thigh to her knee and then back up towards her waist.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Let’s do it here.”
He continued to smother her neck and shoulders with kisses, barely breaking off to murmur, “But what about . . .”
“There’s nobody around,” she whispered. “Only the horses.” She began to unbutton his shirt and to run her hand over his chest.
He knelt up in the hay and took off his shirt, never for a moment looking anywhere except into her eyes. She watched mesmerised as he removed the rest of his clothing until he stood before her in the hay, quite naked.
She looked at the broad chest, strong legs and muscular arms, at the late sunlight glinting on his fair curls. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered. He held out his hand to help her up, his heart thundering, and lifted off the thin white cotton dress, easing it over her injured arm with care until she stood before him wearing only the briefest triangle of lace. Her arms were at her sides and her eyes shone. Slowly, he removed the last item of her clothing and they faced each other on the plump mattress of sweet-smelling hay.
For a minute neither of them moved, then Kit raised his hands and held them an inch from either side of her face. His whole body pulsated now, but he could not bring himself to touch her. Instead, he traced the contours of her body with his hands. Although he made no contact with her skin she seemed to feel some electric current passing between them. Finally she could bear it no longer, reached out her own arms, took him by the waist and drew him to her, feeling his hardness against her and smothering his shoulders with kisses.
The deep, rich scent of hay filled his nostrils as they toppled and rolled together in it, their hands exploring each other with an eagerness born of physical longing, their skin slippery with perspiration. He wanted to feel his entire body in contact with hers, to leave no part of her unexplored, unexperienced. He wrapped his legs around her, curved his arm about her waist, and traced the length of her neck with his tongue in a frenzy of passion. Time and again he felt he would explode, teetering on the brink of ecstasy until finally they came together in a shuddering climax of passion.
Animal Instincts Page 16
