Because Tom had come home for the New Year, Bess’s three younger sisters, eager to be near their brother, helped their mother prepare the tea. Bess’s mam forgave her for being late. Truth was, if she hadn’t apologised her mam probably wouldn’t have noticed.
During supper, Tom complimented his mother on her cooking and ate every morsel she put in front of him with enthusiasm. Bess, not as hungry as she had been before meeting James Foxden, ate like a bird and refused pudding.
‘Have mine as well, why don’t you?’ Bess said when her mother scraped the enamel dish to give Tom the last helping of apple pie.
‘Must be all that fresh air,’ he teased. ‘Gives a bloke an appetite. Not like you student types, sitting at a desk all day.’
‘Right! That’s it!’ Bess countered. ‘I challenge you to a race across the Foxden Estate. Be at the stables tomorrow morning at seven and we’ll see who’s the fittest and who can ride a horse the fastest.’
It was good to have Tom home. Bess watched as her sisters – all completely captivated by their older brother, with his dark hair and good looks, smart suit and wicked sense of humour – oohed and aahed and agreed with everything he said.
Margaret, Claire and Ena – second, third and youngest of the Dudley girls – were enjoying the fact that, because it was New Year’s Eve and Tom was home, their father hadn’t enforced the rule of no talking at the table. They nudged and shushed each other while Tom recounted stories of his travels to Ireland and France, where he had bought horses for Lord Foxden’s stables in Suffolk, and they giggled at the tall tales their brother told about the grooms and stable lads who had accompanied him.
Laughing, Bess said, ‘You can certainly tell a good story, Tom. Kiss the Blarney stone while you were in Ireland, did you?’
‘Ah, that was her name, was it, Miss Blarney Stone?’
Claire and Ena looked at each other and giggled again.
‘So what’s been going on in Woodcote, girls?’
‘Next door’s had another baby--’ Claire began.
‘And he’s still not working!’ Margaret said, her tone judgemental.
‘That’s because the poor man’s been ill,’ Ena explained.
‘Not too ill to get his wife in the family way.’
Ena’s cheeks flushed and she began to giggle.
‘Shush, Ena!’ Claire elbowed her younger sister in the ribs.
‘Ouch! That hurt!’ Ena turned, glared at Claire and hit her on the arm.
‘As I was saying…!’ Margaret shouted above the noise of Ena and Claire squabbling. ‘I don’t know how old she is, but --’
‘Mam, Claire dug me in the ribs,’ Ena said, interrupting Margaret to make sure she got her complaint in before Claire, who had already opened her mouth to tell her mother that Ena had hit her.
‘You big baby, I hardly touched you!’
‘I’m not a baby. Fatty!’ Ena hissed.
Margaret rolled her eyes and waited for her sisters to stop bickering. ‘As I was saying… She looks older than her years, but that’s what having kids so young does for you.’ Margaret pursed her lips, indicating she was an authority on the subject.
Bess and Tom, doing their best not to laugh, were saved by their mother. ‘I think you’re right, Margaret. I was young and slim, and I didn’t have a grey hair in my head until I had that pair,’ she said, frowning at Ena and Claire.
‘That’s enough!’ their father said, standing up and pushing his chair away from the table. ‘Of one thing I am sure,’ he added, taking in his three younger daughters, ‘Mrs Barnett won’t be sitting next door gossiping about her neighbours!’
Claire and Ena, allies now, stood up without saying another word and began clearing the table. While their mother covered the leftover food and put it in the larder, Bess and Margaret washed the dishes and put them away.
After banking up the fire, Tom poured his mother and each of his sisters a glass of sherry, his father and himself a glass of stout. Then, as they had done on so many New Years’ Eves in the past, the family sat round the fire and listened to the wireless.
Sitting on the corner of the fire surround, Bess watched her father take his old pipe from the mantelshelf. It had belonged to his father. He only smoked it at Christmas and New Year. The rest of the year he smoked Capstan Full Strength cigarettes, or rolled his own. He placed the empty pipe in his mouth and held it between his teeth while he took a piece of the grainy block from its wrapper and rubbed it between the palms of his hands until it was shredded. He then filled the bowl of the pipe, pressing and patting the coarse flakes of tobacco with his thumb, while he listened to the BBC’s National Programme. At last he struck a match, put it to the pipe’s bowl, and sucked slowly and deeply. Once the ritual was over Bess’s thoughts turned to events earlier in the evening and to James Foxden. Smiling, she hummed The Blue Danube and recalled how James had asked her to join the party. If only, she thought, and wondered if she would see him again during the holidays.
Before the New Year message, the BBC crackled its nightly news bulletin highlighting the collapse of Germany’s economy, the threat it posed to Europe and the possibility of war. Thomas Dudley tapped his pipe on the hot-brick at the side of the fire. ‘They told us there’d never be another war,’ he said, running his thumb round the bowl of the pipe to make sure it was empty. ‘They said the Great War was the war to end all wars.’
No one spoke. Their father had fought in France with the Royal Mounted Engineers from 1914 to 1918 and was lucky to get out alive. A bullet went through his right knee and into the heart of the horse he was riding. The horse died instantly.
It was Tom who broke the silence. ‘It’s the only way to stop Hitler and his Nazis from taking over Europe, Dad. From what I’ve been reading in the papers, another war is inevitable.’
The wireless crackled and went dead. Tom tapped the Bakelite case and it burst into life in time for the BBC’s New Year message: ‘Peace in our time and goodwill to all men.’
‘Except to Herr Hitler,’ Claire shouted and everyone cheered.
On the stroke of midnight the mood lightened, a toast was made to absent friends, Tom and Margaret led the family in a verse of Auld Lang Syne and Big Ben chimed in the New Year of 1939.
*
Early on New Year’s morning, Bess walked up to the stables at Foxden Hall with her father. She saddled her favourite horse, a black mare called Sable, and when Tom hadn’t arrived by the time she was ready to leave she set off alone.
‘I’m going up to Rye Hills, Dad,’ she called to her father, who was saddling Sultan, a handsome five-year-old Irish hunter. ‘Tell Tom where I’m heading when he gets here.’
‘Will do! Oh, and Bess?’ her father called after her. ‘Don’t forget the horses have to be groomed and on stable parade for Mr Porter to inspect at nine. The hunt’s at ten. You bear that in mind now.’
Bess shuddered. How could she forget? For as long as she could remember she’d been taken up to the Hall on New Year’s Day to watch the hunt – and if the kill was close she’d been taken to that too. She shook the memory from her mind. ‘Don’t worry,’ she shouted back to her father. ‘I know what a stickler for punctuality Mr Porter is.’ She didn’t like the old man very much, but as Mr Porter was the estate manager and her father’s boss, it was up to him who rode the horses out, so it was wise to keep in his good books.
Bess walked Sable round the lake and trotted her back through the woods. Once they were in open countryside she allowed the horse to gallop at her own pace until they came to the river.
What a beautiful morning, she thought, looking back at the Hall. The early morning sun penetrating the frozen marshes produced a fine silver mist that shimmered and rose before evaporating into the cold air. The Hall looked as if it was floating on a glistening sea. It was while she was watching the illusion that Bess noticed a horse and rider on the horizon. Putting her hand up to shade her eyes, she recognised the horse as Sultan, but she wasn’t able to see the rider because the sun w
as directly behind him. It must be our Tom, she thought. I’ll teach him to be late. She took off her neckerchief and waved it in the air encouragingly. As the rider started towards her, she galloped away, laughing.
She dismounted to rest Sable at Bonn’s Hole, a picturesque part of the River Swift where, as a child, she had spent many sunny afternoons - first with Tom and his friends and later with her sisters. The water was clear then but now, after the recent snowfalls, the current was fierce and the river muddy. Legend had it that on a winter morning many years ago a farmer and his wife, named Bonn, were taking produce to market in Lowarth by horse and cart when the horse slipped a shoe and stumbled into the river, taking the Bonns and the cart with him. Mr and Mrs Bonn and the horse were rescued, but the cart was stuck in mud on the riverbed and couldn’t be pulled out. Eventually the cart disintegrated, leaving that part of the river wider and deeper, and it has been called Bonn’s Hole ever since.
‘Perhaps it was on a morning like this, with the river ready to burst its banks, that Farmer Bonn’s horse lost his footing,’ someone called to her.
‘Yes-- perhaps it was,’ Bess said, unable to hide the surprise in her voice. Bess felt her cheeks flush so to give herself time to recover she took two carrots from her pocket. She gave one to Sable and the other to Sultan, before looking up at James Foxden and smiling.
‘You’re an early bird,’ he said, dismounting and following her along the bridle path that linked the Foxden Estate to the Rye Hills and Lowarth.
‘This is the best time of the day,’ she replied, stroking Sable’s nose. ‘It’s peaceful and quiet out here early in the morning. Sometimes I feel as if Sable and I are the only people in the world – if you know what I mean. Then I see a rabbit or a fox and, well … I love to ride out at dawn and watch the sunrise.’
Laughing, James said, ‘You must get up very early in the summer.’
Bess shot him a look, but soon saw the funny side of what she’d said and, laughing, kept walking. She didn’t feel the need to make conversation. It was enough to breathe the morning air and be with someone with whom she had riding in common – if nothing else. Nor did she feel self-conscious because she was the daughter of a groom and James the son of a lord. Everything was equal out on the Estate; there was no class or gender difference.
She was miles away, savouring the freedom that the open fields allowed, when James said, ‘Why did you ride off when you saw me?’
‘I thought you were Tom. I challenged him to a race this morning, but he didn’t show up.’
‘I’ll take up the challenge on Tom’s behalf,’ James said. ‘But I think it only fair to warn you that I have never been beaten racing Sultan across the Estate.’
‘Yet!’ Dare she challenge James Foxden? Yes, she dare! ‘I’ll see you back at the stables.’ And before he had time to reply, she was astride Sable and galloping towards the Hall. With the wind in her face, exhilarated and excited, she raced across Foxden’s fields and meadows. Of course she could beat James Foxden on Sable; Sable was the fastest horse in the stables; she loved to race and she loved to win, as much as Bess did.
‘You’re late, Bess! Mr Porter’s looking for you,’ her father shouted as she trotted Sable into the yard.
‘Only by a few minutes,’ she said, dismounting. ‘Anyway we don’t care, do we, girl? We beat James Foxden in a race,’ she shouted over her shoulder as she walked into the stables – and into Mr Porter.
‘If you wish to continue exercising the horses in my stables, Elizabeth Dudley, I suggest you abide by my rules,’ Mr Porter said curtly.
‘Yes, Mr Porter. I’m sorry I was late bringing Sable back.’
‘It’s not good enough. Mr James is leading the hunt today and it’s my job to make sure the horses are as well turned out for him as they would be if it was his father wearing the Pink.’
‘And they will be, of that I am sure, Mr Porter,’ James said, walking into the stables behind the old man. ‘Your horses are famous for being the best turned out hunt horses in three counties.’
‘Thank you, sir; it’s very kind of you to say so.’ Mr Porter puffed out his chest and pulled himself up to his full five feet five inches. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I must get on. Miss Dudley? Sir?’ he said with a nod, and left the stables.
Bess held her breath until he was out of sight, then burst into laughter.
‘He’s not such a bad old stick,’ James said.
‘I suppose not,’ Bess conceded, taking off Sable’s saddle, ‘but he’s always so damn miserable. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile.’
‘Do you ever smile at him?’ James asked, grinning.
‘No!’ Bess replied, mimicking him with an equally silly grin before leading the way into the tack room.
‘Perhaps you should. That face would reduce Ebenezer Scrooge to laughter,’ James said, following her with Sultan’s saddle.
While they fed and watered the horses they reminisced about their childhood and the sunny afternoons they’d spent at the river in the school holidays.
Shaking his head and laughing, James said, ‘What a tomboy you were, always trying to compete with the lads, challenging them to jump across the river, or climb trees. The trouble you got into!’
Pretending to be shocked, Bess retaliated. ‘What about the trouble you and Tom got into? Have you forgotten how the pair of you went scrumping in the vicarage orchard? How the vicar, taking his dog for a walk, had stopped to play throw-and-fetch beneath the apple tree that you two had climbed? When you were away at boarding school, Tom missed you. It wasn’t so bad for me,’ she said, turning away so James couldn’t see the blush in her cheeks. ‘I was much younger. Besides, I’d learned to ride a horse by then and progressed from jumping the river to jumping fences.’
By the time the third stable lad had nudged her and said pointedly, ‘Excuse me, Miss!’ Bess realised that she and James were in their way. The lads could hardly tell James to leave his own stables, so she intervened. ‘James, do you think we should let the lads get on with grooming the horses for the hunt?’
‘Perhaps we should,’ he said, looking around at the frantic activity. ‘Will you be riding out tomorrow?’
‘Yes, if Mr Porter will let me ride Sable.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he will,’ James said. ‘Until tomorrow then! Same time?’
‘Of course!’
As she approached the cottage, Bess could see Tom’s legs sticking out from under his Austin 7 motorcar. Tinkering, he called it. She opened the gate. ‘And where were you at seven o’clock this morning?’
‘Here, giving the car the once-over.’
‘You’ll never have any money while you’ve got that thing!’
‘Perhaps not,’ her brother said, edging his way out from beneath the car. ‘But I’ll have plenty of girls.’ With black and oily outstretched hands, he chased her into the cottage. ‘I’ll teach you to drive,’ he said, scrubbing his hands in the kitchen sink with a brush and a block of green soap that stank like fish and carbolic. ‘You can have a go now if you like.’
‘I’d rather ride a horse, thank you.’
‘But cars are the future,’ her older brother argued.
‘Then I’ll learn to drive one in the future,’ Bess said, pulling on the peak of his old cap until it covered his eyes before running upstairs to her room to get changed.
From her bedroom window Bess had a good view of the huntsmen and women as they arrived at the Hall for the meet. She scanned the crowd looking for Sable, hoping to see an experienced huntsman astride her rather than a novice.
She was watching the hounds running round in circles, annoying the horses with their excited yapping, when she noticed the dark haired girl from New Year’s Eve on Sable, followed closely by James on Sultan. She hated to admit it, but they made a handsome couple. Today, because James was leading the Hunt, he was wearing a red jacket instead of his usual black. Hunting Pink, they called it, but it was more the colour of scarlet. Bess watched as James and the b
eautiful girl from the party led the meet down the drive towards the cottage.
‘I hope she can ride,’ Bess said from between gritted teeth.
‘Hope who can ride?’ Tom had come into the room and was standing at her side.
‘The girl riding Sable.’
‘What a beauty. Lucky old James,’ Tom said, laughing.
‘Can’t you think of anything else, Tom?’ Bess snapped, immediately regretting the way she’d reacted. Her brother might suspect she had feelings for James – something she was almost afraid to admit to herself. ‘I’m sorry--’
‘I know how you hate fox hunting,’ Tom said, putting his arm round her shoulder to comfort her, ‘but it’s a country tradition, you know it is. Gentlemen--’
‘Gentlemen? There’s nothing genteel about thirty human beings on horseback and a pack of half-crazed dogs chasing one little fox to ground, frightening the life out of it or ripping it to pieces,’ she said, all thoughts of the girl with James forgotten.
‘I was going to say, gentlemen have been hunting foxes since the sixteenth century and --’
‘Maybe they have, but it doesn’t make it right!’ Bess shivered. Watching the hunt reminded her of the day she was blooded. ‘Go on,’ the villagers shouted. ‘It’s lucky to be first at the kill – to be given the pad and to be blooded.’
‘It’s not lucky for the fox!’ Bess had screamed back at them. But her mother, egged on by the village women, held her tightly by the wrist and dragged her through the pack of babbling hounds and the panting horses to the dying fox. She was six years old – and terrified.
Every year the memories of that poor fox lying at her feet, his eyes open and glazed, came flooding back to her. It had been fifteen years, but she could still smell the blood and feel it, warm and sticky on her face.
During the weeks that followed, Bess and James met most mornings, but they were never alone. Bess rode with her father, or the lads. James rode with the girl from the party who he introduced to Bess as Annabel, but who Bess’s father addressed as Miss Hadleigh. Tom rode with them several times. And each time he made a beeline for Annabel. He had no chance, Bess thought. Annabel Hadleigh may throw her head back and laugh loudly at Tom’s jokes, but she only had eyes for James.
Foxden Acres (The Dudley Sisters Quartet Book 1) Page 2
