Hotspur

by Rita Mae Brown

  Domino and Merry Andrew trotted up from the other side of the hill. After nuzzlings and pats on the neck, they left the two humans.

  “Ken, I don’t think we should let Mom or Dad collect Nola. What’s left of her.” A dark note of bitterness and loss crept into Sybil’s well-modulated voice. “They’ve been through enough. You and I should go get her. I didn’t ask Sidell when they’d release her remains to us.”

  “Shouldn’t be much longer. They photographed the grave, her position in the earth. They’ll measure the bones. Scrape whatever they can scrape and send it to the lab. Guess it will tell them something. I’m not a scientist.”

  “She was healthy as a horse.” Sybil scanned the western sky; a few gray cumulus tops were peeping over the mountains. “The horseflies watched the weather report.”

  “They always bite before rain.” Ken checked his expensive watch, tapping the crystal, a habit. “Still time to call the sheriff today. I’ll see if I can make arrangements to get her.”

  “I think you’d better call the funeral director first.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t think family members can pick up corpses. I think the law is, a funeral director or employee has to do it. I’m pretty sure. You can’t just carry her out in a bag.”

  “No.” Ken’s voice became a bit indignant. “I was going to get a proper coffin and put her in that. There’s nothing but bones. It’s not, well, you know . . .”

  Sybil acknowledged with a nod that she did know. One doesn’t grow up in the country without a good sense of the disintegration of dead things. She knew, intellectually, that buzzards, worms, and beetles had their work to do. Without them the whole earth would be piled miles high with corpses. But why couldn’t the Lord have made it a tidier process? The stench alone was horrible. To think of her sister’s body decaying in the earth . . . she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She struggled to remember her sister’s staccato laugh, to snatch at something lovely.

  The backfire of an engine drew their attention to the farm lane leading to the covered bridge. Jimmy Chirios coasted over the small rise, the farm truck emitting small puffs of dark smoke.

  “That truck burns too much oil.” Sybil was glad to switch to another subject.

  “Your father refuses to buy a new one.”

  Edward, despite his wealth, was no more sensible about personal expenditures than the rest of humanity. He would squander money on some things, yet he was tight as a tick about others.

  The dark green Dodge rattled across the bridge.

  Jimmy pulled up to the couple. “Storm’s coming. Heard on the radio. Coming fast. Flash floods.”

  The minute they hopped into the cab the wind shifted gears. The willows by the creek swayed like geishas.

  “You did a good job filling in that . . . the grave,” Ken awkwardly thanked the young man.

  “Oh.” Jimmy couldn’t muster a smile even though he was being complimented. The thought of that whole mess upset him deeply. “Why’d they make me wait a week? Nothing else there.”

  “Can’t be too careful.” Ken drummed on the edge of the door, his elbow on the armrest. “Cops, I mean.”

  “Yeah.” Jimmy drove them back to the big house. No sooner had Sybil and Ken reached the front door than the first big raindrops splattered across the immaculate lawn.

  Sybil called out, “Mom.”

  “In the den.”

  They walked into the richly paneled den, a glowing cherry wood, its patina enhanced by age. Moroccan leather-bound volumes—dark blue, red with gold, green, black, saddle-leather tan—filled the shelves. Photographs, some among the very first made in the nineteenth century, also dotted the shelves, each sepia-toned image encased in either its original filigree frame or a plain, sterling silver one. There was so much silver at After All, it could have filled one of the legendary Nevada mines.

  Tedi was seated on the chintz sofa, an album spread out before her on the coffee table. Images of Nola in her Christmas dress, her senior year at Madeira; images of Nola in ratcatcher, reins in hand, Peppermint, young and handsome, by her side; images of Nola at twenty-two, accepting her diploma from Mount Holyoke, where she distinguished herself on the show-jumping team but not in the classroom; images of Nola as maid of honor at Sybil’s wedding, and even a photograph of Nola at Opening Hunt in 1980, Guy Ramy in the background staring at her with a big grin on his face. Maybe he did love her. Tedi smiled back from those photographs, too. She was in her twenties, then thirties, forties, fifties, sixties. She remained thin, well groomed, and youngish thanks to excellent plastic surgery.

  “Oh, Momma, don’t.”

  Tedi, with steely resolve, said, “I know I missed something. The pictures help. Sit down, both of you.”

  “I’m all sweaty. Would either of you girls like a drink?” Ken, fearful of a possible emotional outburst, inquired.

  “Sweet iced tea and my martini.”

  Sybil, next to her mother, squeezed her hand. “I remember when I used to think you were so uncool drinking martinis. Now they’re all the rage again.”

  “Cycles. By the time you’re my age, you’ve seen them all.”

  Within minutes, Ken and Edward joined them, each man handing his wife a drink.

  Sybil gratefully tasted her daiquiri, the perfect summer drink, as the rain ramped up to a true downpour. “Mercy. It’s really coming down.”

  Edward, tall and patrician with an aquiline nose, seemed a forbidding presence, yet he was a kind man, a good man. He stared out the window, then back at his remaining daughter. He smiled, taking a sip of his scotch on the rocks. “Feast or famine. It’s either drought or a gully washer.”

  “True,” Ken agreed from where he still stood.

  “Honey, will you sit down. It’s not like there’s never been a sweaty man in this room before,” Sybil ordered.

  He perched on the edge of one of the oversized chairs. “Dad, how about eighteen holes tomorrow? David Wheeler and Pat Butterfield need us to clean out their wallets.”

  A flicker lit in Edward’s eyes. “The money in David’s wallet has mold on it.”

  “You’re right. That money needs to see the light of day. Capitalism depends on the circulation of cash. We can take them.” Ken’s voice was a bit too hearty. “Greens will be slow, too.”

  “We should. Will you call them?”

  “Already did,” Ken replied, happy that his father-in-law was evidencing some interest in the outside world.

  Privilege and the Fawkes name were not accustomed to each other. Fawkes was the surname of many poor whites in these parts. A few over the centuries had risen, but the name clung to them like a digger bee, wouldn’t let go.

  Ken’s people, hardworking, all attended the Baptist church. The Bancrofts had never and would never set foot in a Baptist church.

  Ken had worked his way through North Carolina State, made the football team as a walk-on. He proved so ferocious as outside linebacker that he won a scholarship for his junior and senior years. He majored in business, making respectable grades. He didn’t know what he would do exactly. He just wanted to find some type of work he liked and make a decent living. But then he met Sybil and his compass shifted. Making do wouldn’t be good enough.

  Jealous folks said, “That Ken Fawkes landed in the honey pot.”

  And he did, no doubt about it. But he was reasonably intelligent. Edward created a niche for him through the Bancroft real estate business in a small local company. Ken started learning the business. He studied the roads, bought near crossroads, and developed subdivisions. Of course, some people said the hardest way to make money was to marry it. Ken never said that.

  He exuded an air of masculinity. Women found him very attractive indeed, even though he couldn’t be described as classically handsome.

  Sybil bent closer to the photo album. “Amazing.”

  “What, dear?” Tedi thought her tea could use another hit of sugar, although her martini was perfect. “Ken, be a darling and put anot
her spoonful in there for me. I’m having my late-afternoon sinking spell.”

  “Of course.” Ken stood up, took her glass, and left the room for a moment.

  “Twenty-five years ago this picture, and Sister looks the same. Her hair’s silver now, that’s all.”

  “The outdoor life,” Tedi said.

  “And you look fabulous yourself, my love.” Edward, unlike many men, learned very early in life that you can never compliment a woman—especially your wife—too many times.

  “Thank you, dear.” Tedi smiled. “But I feel old. I feel, well, let’s just say I comprehend vulnerability.”

  Ken returned with her tea. “Here’s your sugar buzz.” He looked outside. “Black as the devil’s eyebrows.”

  “Nothing like a summer thunderstorm to make you glad you’re inside,” Edward said, savoring the distinctive deep sweetness of the scotch.

  “I’ve been thinking.” Tedi leaned back on the sofa. “A ceremony is in order, a commemoration and celebration of Nola’s life. We never had one—”

  Ken quickly said, “We always hoped.”

  “Yes.” Tedi never liked being interrupted. “That’s over now. A service is in order. I’ve spoken to Reverend Thigpin and I’ve considered where Nola should have her final resting place.”

  Edward cleared his throat, waiting. Would Tedi pick the Prescott plot on the Northern Neck near Warsaw, the seat of the first Prescotts, or would she choose the Bancroft private cemetery, here on After All?

  “And what have you decided, dear?”

  “Let’s make a special place, let’s build low stone walls around it, plant white lilacs there, too. Love. It must be a place filled with love. Nola loved Peppermint. More than any man, she loved Pepper. I like to think they’re hunting now with Ikey Bell carrying the horn.” Ikey Bell was a famous huntsman of the early twentieth century.

  No one knew what to say.

  Finally Sybil broached the subject. “Mom, it’s awfully close to where she was found.”

  “I know. But she had no peace there. She couldn’t. She’ll have peace with Peppermint. He loved her in life, he’ll be with her in death. It’s fitting, you see.”

  Edward stared out at the rain. His hand touched his Adam’s apple. “Whatever you want. You know better about these things.”

  “And let’s do all the things that Nola loved. Yes. Let’s plant huge blue hydrangeas, and the dwarf kind, too. I say fiddle to snotty gardeners and snotty gardens. Isn’t that a nasty word?” She brightened as though a burden had been lifted from her. “Red poppies next to purple iris and mounds of something snowy white. Let’s use all the colors Nola loved.”

  “Cornflower blue.” Sybil had tears in her eyes.

  “Yes. And you know what she loved more than anything in the world?” The family hung expectantly on Tedi’s next word. “Foxhunting!”

  CHAPTER 12

  The creamy coral of Crawford’s Paul Stuart polo shirt reflected warmth on his face. Crawford liked the best. Paul Stuart was an exclusive men’s shop on Madison Avenue. If he wasn’t shopping there or at Sulka up on Park, he thought nothing of picking up the phone and ordering a dozen shirts from Turnbull and Asser in London, shoes and boots from Lobb, luxurious cashmeres and silks from a dealer in Turin. To his credit, he always looked splendid.

  The morning, hazy, promised a muggy day. This July 28, the anniversary of the day Elizabeth’s bold men dispersed the Spanish Armada in 1588 and Arthur Wellesley knocked the stuffing out of the French at Talavera in 1809. A student of history and business, he remembered odd dates.

  He and Marty had attended early service at Saint Luke’s and now he puttered happily in the tack room of his sumptuous stable with its fittings of polished brass, PavSafe floors that cost a fortune, impeccable doors and stall fronts painted deep navy blue, all made by Lucas Equine in Cythiana, Kentucky. His stable colors were navy and red. Many in these parts painted their vehicles in stable colors, or painted a small symbol or name in those colors on the driver’s door. Crawford’s red Mercedes had BEASLEY HALL in one-inch script, navy blue, painted on the driver’s door, plus the car was pin-striped in navy blue.

  His cell phone, perched on custom-made tack trunks also in his colors, jingled.

  “Crawford here.”

  “Haslip,” came the terse, mocking reply.

  Crawford missed that Ronnie Haslip was making fun of him. “How are you?”

  “Fine. Two things.” Ronnie knew that with Crawford you got the best result by being brief and direct, most emphatically not the Virginia Way. “The hunt club is sponsoring a class at the Fall Classic Horse Show, Thanksgiving weekend this year. We’d like a perpetual trophy— silver, I think. It will cost quite a bit.”

  “How much?”

  “Seven thousand.”

  “My God, Ronnie, how big is this thing?”

  “Well, it’s huge. Sterling silver. The kind of stuff they used to do in the 1800s.”

  “Why is Sister being so grand? Not like her, really.”

  “It’s a secret. She wants us to do it in honor of Nola. The Nola Bancroft Perpetual Trophy, Ladies Over Fences.”

  “Oh.” Crawford thought a moment. “Put me down for three thousand five hundred. That ought to get the ball rolling.”

  “That is exceedingly generous, Crawford. Not only will Sister be grateful, the Bancrofts will be thrilled, once they know, of course.”

  “Awful thing.”

  “Yes. Oh, I just heard that Tedi intends to bury her August tenth at the farm. The club will be attending en masse.”

  “Naturally.” He found this news depressing even though he never knew Nola. Funerals were not Crawford’s preferred social activity, but one must play one’s part. And he was not an unfeeling man, simply an overreaching one. “Ronnie, you grew up with Nola. Was she what everyone says?”

  “And more.” Ronnie laughed. “There was a capriciousness about Nola that was divine, really, unless you were in love with her. Then she’d run you crazy or break your heart.”

  “Was she aware of what she was doing to people?”

  “I always thought she was like those Indian warriors collecting scalps. She’d keep four, five, who knows how many, on a string.”

  “Sleeping with them?”

  “Well . . .” Ronnie didn’t want to cast aspersions on any lady, but how could he put this? “Let’s just say that Nola was a high-spirited animal with prodigious energy.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Ronnie!”

  “She’d have lunch with one fellow, go to a party with another, and home with a third. She was heartless.” Ronnie laughed.

  “You weren’t in love with her?” Crawford couldn’t resist this little dig.

  “I wasn’t rich enough for Nola,” came the even reply, as Ronnie refused to rise to the bait.

  “Neither was Guy Ramy, from what I hear.”

  “But he was as beautiful as Nola was. Jet-black curly hair, ice blue eyes, shoulders as wide as Atlas himself. Fearless on a horse. Not the best rider, but fearless.”

  “That’s how he got the nickname Hotspur?”

  “Yes and no. I’m assuming you know the life of Sir Henry Percy.”

  “Of course I do, Ronnie.” A note of indignation darkened Crawford’s voice. “I graduated Phi Beta Kappa.”

  Bold, impetuous, strong, Henry Percy was the eldest son of the 1st Earl of Northumberland. Henry was born on May 20, 1364. He was taught to fight like all noble-born boys, displaying a true gift for it. In his early twenties he harried the Scots, who gave him the name Hotspur for his vigorous border patrols.

  When Richard II began to show clear signs that he wasn’t up to the demands of being king, unrest grew throughout England. Many giggled that Richard would make a better queen than king. Hotspur and his father helped put Henry Bolingbroke on the throne in 1399, who then called himself Henry IV.

  Hotspur’s daring brought him fame and admiration that perhaps incited a certain jealousy in the king. But Henry IV was no fool. H
e rewarded Hotspur with lands and offices in northern England and Wales, two places where a strong military leader was necessary.

  The Percys demolished the Scots at Humbleton Hill in Durham on September 14, 1402. Henry IV, who was vainly trying to suppress the Welsh, paled by comparison. Henry’s ego clouded his usually calculating judgment. He wouldn’t allow Hotspur to ransom the Scottish nobles he had captured, a common policy that would have fattened Hotspur’s pocketbook as well as the crown’s.

  To add insult to injury, Henry wouldn’t pay the bill for Hotspur’s border warfare. Not only was the king jealous, he was cheap.

  Furious, Hotspur and his father raised a rebellion to depose the king in 1403. Henry, more clever than the Percys realized, intercepted Hotspur near Shrewsbury before he could join up with his father. Though outnumbered, Hotspur fought like the lion he was but in the end he was beaten, hanged, drawn, and quartered. His violent end came on July 21, at the age of thirty-nine.

  “There was always a sense,” Ronnie’s bass voice intoned, “that Guy would draw his sword against the wrong man.”

  “Sword as in weapon or sword as in cock?”

  “Both.”

  “So he ran around on Nola?”

  “Oh no. No, he was totally in love with her. But while she might have been in love with him, that didn’t prevent her from enjoying other men’s attentions.”

  “But people say she would have married him.” Crawford began to understand how complex this was and how reluctant people were to tell what they knew. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that. Except the dogs were now wide awake.

  “Some people. I think that opinion reveals more about the romantic nature of the speaker than it does about Nola.”

  “Exactly what do you mean, Ronnie?” Crawford lacked the patience for linguistic subtlety as practiced in Virginia.

  “Unearthly beauty, child of Midas, marries country boy. People love that sort of thing. She wouldn’t have married him. She saw what Sybil endured when she married Ken Fawkes.”

  “He’s done quite well. With the old man’s help, of course.”