The girl's move revealed something else—a wedding ring upon her finger. It was that, not so much her face, she had been trying to conceal.
"You!" Nora repeated.
"Cory," the girl mumbled.
Swiftly Nora took her foot off the jar and, while Bryant was busy retrieving what was left of his beer, she darted forward and whisked the bag from under
the girl.
"Now," she said, "I want the truth of this matter. Or Lord Wyatt and Mr. Cory shall be told."
The bag reeked of fox.
Moments later she was cantering triumphantly back toward High Wood, near the head of the Beane Valley. For High Wood was the true home of their ringer fox—he had no more business in the small covert where they had found him than the man in the moon. That fox was a bagman! And she had the bag concealed beneath a fold of her riding habit.
Honour! she thought exultantly. Lord Wyatt—a man of honour!
To introduce a bagman was one of the worst crimes in hunting's social calendar. Rather be caught cheating at cards or forging a friend's signature. Rather go into seven years' voluntary exile!
She rejoined the field on the slope below High Wood. The bagman-fox, now on home ground, had delayed them by running up a long culvert. They had smoked him out and now he had run for home in High Wood. Once again Nora was among the leaders. Sir George was still nowhere to be seen. Cousin Meredith Wyatt was there though—and looking at her rather impertinently, she thought.
Lord Wyatt did not want the fox to slip out unseen, so he first made sure every side of the wood was watched.
He turned to the remnant of his field. "First ten or dozen," he said, "go around and hold up the northern half of this wood. We'll force him down to Dane End or Watton."
Those he had asked, Nora among them, set off at once to take up conspicuous stations around the northern fringes of the wood. Nora took the lead, determined to go right around so that she would be nearest to the line if Charley broke in the directions the Master had hoped. She heard the numbers falling off and the cries of "Try over-r-r-r!" and "Edawick!" as they took up station, one by one. Then she became aware that the horseman behind was following her very closely indeed. If she fell at a fence he could not avoid trampling her. She snatched a quick glance backward and saw that it was Meredith Wyatt, grinning like a death's-head.
"Hold back!" she shouted at him.
From inside the wood she heard the cries of "Leu-try, leu-try there," and "Try over, yoi try!" They were working across very quickly; unless she got around soon the fox might break unseen.
Over the next fence she went, with young Wyatt right at her heels. He was
laughing! "Stop!" she called, not stopping herself. "You stop here!"
But on he thundered, not a horse's length behind. When she took the last fence it brought her right around the wood, opposite the point where the Master had asked them to fan out. She could hear he was somewhere close now, in the wood nearby.
Again Meredith Wyatt was almost on to her over the fence. She turned hard upon him, doubly enraged—at his folly and at his interference with the joy of the hunt. No doubt he thought himself a national marvel.
"Damn you to hell!" she said, trembling with her anger. "Go back!"
"Where?" he asked, all innocence, walking his horse slowly toward her.
"To your riding nursery. If I fell, you'd trample me to a powder."
"Grind." He spoke the word like a correction; he was alongside her now, still grinning. "If you fell, I'd grind you all right."
She lashed out suddenly with her crop, intending to hit him in the face. But some last-minute impulse lowered her aim so that the blow caught him, hard but not painfully, on his chest.
He was startled, though he did not flinch. "Quite a governess," he said, lingering on the word as if it were especially endowed. "Do you relish…whipping?"
She looked angrily past him, into the wood; the cry for the Master was already in her throat. But there was the Master, not thirty yards away. He urged his horse into a walk, toward them, all the more ominous for its slowness. Meredith Wyatt followed her gaze. The smile vanished. He pulled his horse back, doubling and trebling the distance between it and Fontana. He might as well not have bothered.
"Meredith!" the Master called. "Leave the field at once!"
Meredith looked quickly around; there was no one else in view. "No, Watson. You can go and shit cinders."
The Master turned away in contempt and put his horn to his lips.
"What are you doing?" Meredith asked quickly.
"Going to lift the hounds. Going to abandon this chase. Going to call the field together. Going to expel you publicly."
"You wouldn't dare!" Meredith spoke as if he had some power over his cousin.
The other held the horn an inch from his lips. "You try, Meredith," he said. "Let me touch one note and you'll see what I dare."
Meredith did not wait. He turned his horse at once and ambled off without a word.
"You'll not hunt with the Puckeridge again until Mrs. Stevenson has accepted a written apology from you," the Master called after him.
Meredith looked back and blew a rasp at them.
"He'll write that letter. Promise you. Matter of honour," Lord Wyatt said. "Honour of the family."
Then he saw what Nora was doing. She was prying open the weave of the bag so that she could work the handle of her riding crop into it.
"What the bloody hell is that?"
She laughed—straight into his white face, so white that the red patches on it seemed like a clown's makeup. Bankruptcy was a thousand miles away. She turned and spurred Fontana forward, leaning down and dragging the bag over the ground.
"Hark forrard to!" she called to the hounds, still searching in the wood.
Obediently the whippers-in urged them toward her with "lope forrard!" and "try forrard!"
"No!" Lord Wyatt called.
But it was too late. Already several hounds had found the line of her drag. They challenged and gave tongue in delight—only to stop in bewilderment as they reached the point where she had lifted the bag and hidden it again. She spurred close to Lord Wfyatt and spoke in a voice full of soft malice: "They know what the bloody hell it is! And so do I!"
She spoiled several more chases for him that day by surreptitiously dragging her fox-reeking bag wherever their quarry held them to a check. There came a time when she thought that if she did it once more, he would burst of an apoplexy.
"You bitch!" he spluttered when he was sure they were alone. "I know you have little cause to like me. But to take your revenge in this petty…vindictive…"
"This?" Nora said. "This isn't even a beginning!"
She quit the field then. It was early afternoon and she wanted to be sure of getting to Panshanger before Wyatt returned. She approached by the same route she and Beador had taken the previous day. Halfway along one of the rides a gamekeeper stepped into her path.
She reined in. "I am a guest of Sir George Beador," she said. "I think we have leave to…"
"Ah, ma'am," he allowed. "I i'nt stoppin' you. But I'd beg you not to go in the rides south o' here, 'tween here and Cole Green."
"If his lordship wishes."
"Tis the pheasant, see? I'm very short-handed here. His lordship…"
"Quite understood!" Nora smiled. "I'll go around by the highway. Have no fear."
If she had not met the man at that particular moment, she would not have gone out to the highway and she would not have met Flynn. And everything would have taken a different turn.
Flynn was the nearest John had to a right-hand man. He was actually no more than a deputy, but John always used him as a sounding board for his new ideas and always considered his advice very carefully. Flynn got all the really difficult contracts or the ones John was unsure of being able to visit regularly; Flynn was the one man John would trust to manage an entire contract on his own. For his pains Flynn drew the biggest bonus of all the deputies. He would be a rich m
an soon enough.
"Mr. Flynn!" Nora called when she saw him on the road just ahead of her.
He turned, saw her, and smiled. "Well now! And well met, ma'am," he said. "I was after looking for ye, so I was."
"Nothing wrong, I hope? Have you news of Mr. Stevenson?"
His face fell. "There's quare things happening in the office, ma'am. And I wish we had news of Mr. Stevenson. Here's me who should already be starting the Great Southern and Western in Dublin, and the chief away. And I daren't go."
She felt the blood draining from her. "What…'queer things'?" she asked.
"I think you should come yourself. Mr. Jackson urgently desires you to."
"But what is wrong?"
"God, I'm sure I don't know. 'Tis all a muddle with letters from the banks and Mr. Jackson threatening murder and Mr. Chambers with his hair dropping out…"
She had to make light of it, of course. But things were falling apart much earlier than expected. The firm's next substantial income would not be until February—a month away. If what Flynn said was even half true, they could not possibly spin it out until then.
Breathing in to stop her guts from sinking any deeper, she said, "Really! Mr. Stevenson is not gone a week and you all go to pieces! And now I have to interrupt the first bit of pleasure I've been able to take in I don't know how long and put you all to right. I'm disappointed—especially in you, Mr. Flynn."
His face fell.
"Very well," she said. "You shall stay the night and tomorrow you will carry a letter to Mr. Chambers that will make all well."
Still he looked glum.
"Perhaps you need some pleasure too?" she said. "Have you a mind for a jape?"
It pricked his curiosity but he shook his head, saying, "Ah—I have to be away
to Dublin."
"Believe me," she told him, "you may do more good to the firm if you stay here. You know we are in partnership with Sir George Beador? In company with, anyway."
He nodded.
"Well, this is his land." She pointed to the left of the highway. "And his neighbour on this side"—she pointed to the right—"Lord Wyatt, has some threat out against him. I wish to show Lord Wyatt that he may not with impunity threaten any partner of ours. Otherwise, if Sir George is forced to withdraw from our company, a lot of work and even more money will have gone to waste."
"I'm at your entire service, ma'am," he said, eager now to know what she had in mind.
It was an idea she had thought of in a vague way yesterday, when she had seen the extent of the gravel ridge that ran beneath the two estates.
"Well then, Mr. Flynn, I would say this is excellent hoggin we're riding upon?"
"I was after thinking the same meself, before you came." He was puzzled at the apparent change of topic.
"The best."
"Pretty good."
"No, Mr. Flynn. The best. The best in England. And we're going to quarry it! Every last cubic yard on Sir George's side of the road. And we're going to do it in the most slovenly way possible, with a nibble here and a nibble there, leaving great gashes up and down the hillside, as near as you can get to my Lord Wyatt."
Flynn broke into a broad smile.
She grinned back; both were enjoying the picture. "And we'll mire and pothole the highway…"
"And fell trees accidentally upon it!" he broke in.
"Yes! Yes—force the traffic around onto his land. Good!"
"Ye don't want Stevenson men," Flynn told her. "It'd spoil them. Ye want any catch-hand rabble. I can scour them from the hedgerows and workhouses."
"Wherever you can, Mr. Flynn. They're to have a liberal allowance of liquor. And we'll waive all our usual requirements on the bivouac and sanitary needs. And fires."
By now Flynn was roaring with laughter. "Mr. Stevenson'll turn grey!" he said. "So he will!"
"Mr. Stevenson will love it. I promise," she answered. "One more thing—you could pass the word that the pheasant manors on Lord Wyatt's land are well stocked. And there's few gamekeepers to bother with. The southern part is the best, I'm told."
Flynn went ahead of her to Maran Hill. Slightly mystified, he took the fox bag with him. Nora turned back to wait for Lord Wyatt, on the road between the Panshanger gate lodge and the stables.
It was almost dark when he came; there were two grooms riding with him. He was barely inside his own grounds before Nora urged Fontana out from behind the cedar. A furlong separated them but he knew her at once. He rode on toward her with no change of pace, getting quite close before he spoke. "I've said all I wanted to say to you."
"I am not yet in that happy position," she answered. "Please send your grooms back to the gate."
"Damned if I will!" he said. But he stopped.
"Very well. It is no concern of mine if they overhear us." She pretended to search in the folds of her habit, where she had previously concealed the fox bag.
The look he shot her was pure hate. "Go back," he told the two grooms. When they had gone he turned again to her. "What do you want?"
Had she not met Flynn, she would merely have asked for the farms to be restored to Maran Hill; but the news from London made her too bold.
"Do you know what those worthless shares cost us?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Two hundred thou', I presume."
"A hundred and fifty."
"You did well!" She was surprised to hear a note of admiration behind the mask of impatient indifference.
"You lured Beador into it, knowing he was in partnership with us. You knew he could not pay and that we would have to."
"You did not have to go into partnership with the fool." He grinned complacently. "I'll take the shares back if you like."
"You'll buy them."
"Five shillings."
"No. A hundred thousand pounds. And the four farms—they are to be restored to Maran Hill."
He breathed in, ready to laugh, but something in her face stopped him. "It is quite clear," he said, "that you are insane."
He obviously intended this remark to conclude their conversation for he halfturned to call his grooms.
"I'll hunt you!" she said. She could think of nothing else to say. It sounded
fine though. "I'll hunt you from here to Yorkshire!"
Afterwards she thought that, of course, she must already have formulated the plan somewhere at the back of her mind; but at the time it burst upon her with all the excitement of a vision.
"Insane!" he repeated. But she saw that he was intrigued with the words— with the insane idea of it.
"By no means," she said, with a confidence she did not feel. "The Oakley, the Pytchley, Fitzwilliam, Cottesmore, Belvoir, Blankney, Lord Galway's, Badsworth, and my own York and Ainsty!" She listed without hesitation every hunt between here and Yorkshire.
It left him shaken, for the outlines of her plan were taking shape in his mind— exactly as they were in hers. "And I'll take the fox bag, your fox bag, and its story with me. Every hunt in England shall know of…"
"They won't let you in," he sneered. "You are riff-raff to them. And to me."
"Bet me!" she challenged. "The same stake you lured Beador into making—a hundred thousand pounds."
He licked his lips but refused the challenge.
She smiled. Her heart, in delayed response, began to pound. "Whether you take the challenge or not, my lord, it's there. You are gambling. I'm going now. And from this moment on you are gambling that I shall fail." She turned Fontana's head.
"No, ma'am. That's a certainty." His voice was very level.
She did not, at first, take his meaning so she replied. "The price of making it a certainty is a hundred thou' and the four lost farms."
Then she saw how he was staring at her habit and looking at the two grooms. When he called them and turned smiling to her she realized why he had said it was a certainty.
"They'll find nothing," she said, and she pulled her habit this way and that, exposing every fold. "The bag is safe, many miles from here."
A flaw in her plan then struck her, just as she was about to go. She turned to him again. "I'll give you a sporting chance," she said. "I'll hunt my way to Yorkshire without saying a word. If by then you haven't paid, I'll hunt my way back, chattering like eskimos' teeth."
Her first enthusiasm began to wane on the short ride back to Maran Hill. True, it would suit her very well just now to be darting hither and thither between Hertford and York. The journey and the sport would usefully consume at least three weeks, during all of which she would be beyond the regular or predictable reach of the mails. And it was such a natural thing for her to do if she truly hadn't a care that it would lull any suspicion. Yet there was the one supreme difficulty; Lord Wyatt had put his finger on it: The hunts wouldn't let her in. To them she was just riff-raff.
The Rich Are with You Always Page 27
