by Rebecca Tope
‘Hepzie!’ she called. ‘Come on, now. Hepzie!’
She stood quietly, listening for a rustle, watching for the white plumy tail to come wagging through the undergrowth. Walking quickly, she went along the track to where she thought she had last seen the dog. It made a bend to the right, big beech trees growing on both sides. There was a steep slope to the right, with ledges formed by tree roots, dropping abruptly down to a lower level. It would take an undignified scramble to get down there.
Still she was not alarmed. The woods carried no sense of threat or danger. Nobody was waiting behind a tree to shoot squirrels or crows or people or spaniels. No dog snatcher lurked with a net and chloroform. ‘Hepzie!’ she called, deliberately making her voice as sweet and encouraging as she could. No trace of anger or anxiety tinged it.
She was rewarded by a faint yap away to her right, down the steepest section of the slope. ‘Hepzie – where are you?’ she shouted.
The yap came again. As far as she could tell, it was not a cry of pain or distress. More, I’m over here. Come and find me.
With an inward groan, she left the path and started to step carefully down the untrodden terrain, with all its prickly and knobbly hazards. Tree roots were buried by dead leaves, straggly young holly trees grew almost horizontally in places and brambles snatched like cunning woodland sprites.
Another yap floated through the trees. Thea visualised the dog at the foot of a large beech, jumping at a tantalising squirrel safely out of reach. Something was occupying her attention enough to prevent her from obeying her mistress’s orders. Not that she was overly obedient, it had to be said.
‘Where are you?’ she shouted. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Now she was cross, as a bramble snagged her ankle on the single inch of vulnerable skin between trousers and shoe. She had to jump down a small vertical cliff almost three feet in height, landing on an invisible root and hurting her foot.
Suddenly, she could see the dog. It was sitting staring at a clump of vegetation growing next to a fallen tree which must have been left for the benefit of wildlife. A young holly tree and the drooping leaves of bluebells had been flattened to reveal an entrance to a cave-like hollow beneath the tree trunk. ‘Is it a badger?’ Thea asked the dog. ‘Be careful, Heps, if it is. They’re rather fierce if you annoy them.’
Hepzie squeaked anxiously, her gaze never shifting from the shadowy cavity. Thea moved forward for a better look. She met two brown eyes and a moist black nose. ‘Oh! It’s a dog!’ she exclaimed. ‘Hello, darling. What are you doing here?’
She assumed the animal had become snared or stuck in some way, hunkered down to die in the makeshift shelter. It growled as she approached. ‘I won’t hurt you,’ she soothed. ‘I want to see if you’re all right.’
A peculiar sound merged with the growls. A musical squeal that was like nothing she had heard before. ‘What’s that?’ she said. Hepzie added her own worried cries to the chorus.
Gradually, the scene beneath the log came into focus, as Thea’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. A black and white dog was curled up, squeezed into a small space. Something squirmed and heaved further into the cavity, and it was several seconds before Thea understood what she was seeing. Small bodies were in there, along with the dog. ‘Puppies!’ she finally realised. ‘You’ve come out here to have your puppies! What a clever girl!’
It was a collie type. Clever girl seemed to be a familiar phrase, and the head came forward at this suggestion of friendly praise. But when Hepzie stepped forward to share in the new rapprochement, the mother dog snarled angrily and the spaniel retreated. Like several collies Thea had encountered, this one appeared to be more comfortable with human beings than with her own species. But something was wrong if she had to crawl away into the woods to produce her babies. If she was a working dog, then it was quite possible that her owner would drown all the pups at birth, as Thea knew from experience did happen from time to time. Perhaps it had already happened in the past to this one, and the intelligent animal had worked out a way of avoiding such a cruel loss again.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t betray you,’ Thea assured her. ‘But you’re going to get terribly hungry out here, even if you can nab the odd rabbit. I’ll try and bring you something tomorrow morning – OK?’
The dog grinned at her, but made no further move. The squealing pups had subsided into near silence. Curious to see them, Thea knew better than to stretch a hand into the burrow. Perhaps if everything went well for the next week or so, she would earn enough trust to be able to handle them.
With a careful check for anybody watching, Thea withdrew from the scene, dragging the spaniel after her. ‘You’d better not come with me next time,’ she said. ‘You’ll only give the whole game away.’ Which was what Hepzie had done already, she realised. ‘But it was quite bright of you to find them, I must say.’ And if a visiting cocker spaniel could do it, so could other dogs, she thought. What chance did the poor outlaw have of bringing her offspring to any kind of independence? Feral dogs were certainly not going to be tolerated in the neat and tidy Cotswolds, even if they could manage to feed themselves, which she doubted.
She retraced her steps to the village, torn between excitement at the discovery and anticipated guilt if she was questioned about a missing collie. Had the owners not noticed that the bitch was in pup? Would they be searching far and wide, furious with the absconding animal? Or would they perhaps relent, in the face of her obvious need to keep her offspring, and at least spare one or two of them? Her vivid imagination showed her the struggling little dogs in the bucketful of icy water. In Duntisbourne Abbots something of the sort had taken place, and that quite recent memory made her shudder.
Whatever pangs her conscience might deal her, she had unswerving priorities. The lactating bitch would need fluids most of all. There were no visible watercourses in the woods, and the drizzle of the day before had been unlikely to create any useful puddles. She would also need meat. There was nothing suitable to hand in the Manor, despite the various packages stuffed haphazardly into the freezer. Besides, Harriet had seemed reluctant to give her free access to them. ‘You do generally cater for yourself, I assume?’ she had asked at their first encounter.
‘It varies,’ said Thea, frankly, thinking of some of the luxury foodstuffs she had been invited to consume at other house-sitting commissions.
It was half past seven. There had to be a supermarket still open somewhere, so she bundled the spaniel into the car, collected her handbag, and set out in search of provisions.
She had to go to Stroud to find what she wanted, throwing minced beef and pork belly into the trolley, along with a lot of milk and a large box of dog biscuits. Even as she did it, she had a sense that it was money wasted, that the desperate bitch would not accomplish her goal, long-term. There was too much against her, especially once Thea departed from Cranham – unless she could find a substitute dog-feeder, who would respect the secret and deal with the burden of a litter of homeless dogs at the end of it.
Back at Hollywell she phoned Drew. His wife answered, sounding tired and uninterested. ‘Is it about a funeral?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Thea, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. ‘At least—’
‘I’ll get him. Hang on a minute.’
It was almost a full minute before his voice came through. ‘Sorry – I was reading a story to the children,’ he said, before he knew who was calling. Thea was impressed that he would reveal such a personal side of his life to a probable stranger.
‘It’s me. Thea,’ she said. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
‘No problem. We’d just about finished anyway.’
‘What was the story?’
‘Charlotte’s Web for about the tenth time. I keep suggesting they’re too old for it now, but maybe they’re not.’
‘Have you seen the film?’
‘Once. It’s dreadful. Not a patch on the book.’
‘Oh – I quite liked it. Anyway,’ she gave herself a little shake, �
��I’ve arranged for you to meet Donny here tomorrow afternoon, if you can manage it.’
‘Right. What time exactly?’
‘Just after three would be good.’
‘Should be possible. Where are you?’
‘It’s a fair way from Broad Campden, I’m afraid.’ And she carefully explained how to find Cranham and the Manor.
‘Sounds very grand,’ he said.
‘Oh, it is. I’m sure you’re going to like it.’
‘And is everything nice and calm for a change?’
‘So far,’ she laughed, touching the wooden surface of the telephone shelf.
‘Good,’ he said; then, as if remembering something, he quickly curtailed the conversation with a brief, ‘See you tomorrow, then.’
The dog situation raised a host of imponderable questions about the relationship between mankind and other species. ‘Leaving it to nature’ had very little meaning when it came to creatures that had long ago learnt to depend entirely on human beings for their survival. A cat in the woods would raise her kittens with little trouble; a dog had lost almost all its survival instincts. Which meant that any human coming across a struggling mother dog carried a responsibility to help. It was a debt due from one species to another, and it almost made Thea tearful to contemplate this stark truth. The burden was a heavy one, which a great many people dropped without proper thought. It was also not the first time Thea had been called upon to face it. Dogs, somehow, seemed to be her nemesis. Like it or not, she repeatedly found herself caring for them, one way or another.
There was still just enough light to enable her to return to the burrow when she got back to Cranham. Thoughts of the hungry and thirsty mother decided her to do it, so she shut Hepzie in the house and set out with the bulging carrier bag. She had planned to cook the meat before presenting it, but on consideration, she concluded that the dog would not be fussy.
She had made a careful note of the way, marking one or two distinctive trees as she had returned from her earlier walk. Even so, it was difficult in the twilight to recognise any landmarks.
She carried a supermarket bag containing a pound of raw mince and a litre-bottle of milk, with a plastic bowl to pour it into – which she’d have to take back with her, for fear of leaving telltale evidence. There was no sign of human life, but birds were singing overhead, acknowledging the end of the day. There would surely be badgers and foxes emerging from their lairs any time now. It was quite a different world from the one most people knew, not so much hidden as completely ignored. She had heard mocking remarks about the way Australians clustered around the very edges of their terrifying country, facing steadfastly out to sea, their backs to the incomprehensible desert. But Europeans were not so different. They were uneasy with their wild places too.
Sliding down the steep bumpy slope, she finally located a tree she recognised, and turned right into undergrowth which seemed to have become taller and thicker than a few hours earlier. There were no sounds of cheeping pups or rustling night creatures until she had walked into an even darker patch of woodland, when she saw the fallen tree and heard a muffled whine.
The dog could smell the meat, she assumed. Quickly, she approached the burrow and took the food from the bag. The dog’s sharp nose sniffed eagerly from a safe distance, and then darted forward and gobbled Thea’s offering almost in one gulp. Belatedly, Thea remembered that farm dogs were almost invariably fed with dry complete food in convenient small shapes, raw meat a rare delicacy. Would it upset this poor animal’s digestion, she wondered. Too late to worry about it now.
The milk also disappeared in seconds, the urgent lapping somewhat inefficiently scattering drops on all sides. When it was finished, she gave Thea a grateful smile and retreated into her hole, where the puppies were making their odd undoglike sounds.
‘Bye, then,’ said Thea, beginning to worry about getting lost in the deep dark woods, and glad she had left her own dog behind. Far from leading her home, Hepzie would be quite liable to get lost in the shadows and delay things further.
Her own clumsy footsteps sounded loud in her ears as she stumbled back to the main track. Dry sticks cracked beneath her feet, and young holly trees swished as she passed. Last year’s dead leaves still lay thickly on the woodland floor, crunching when trodden on. She sounded like a small elephant blundering around. It should hardly have been a surprise when she met a person on the track, head pushed forward, listening to Thea’s approach.
It gave her a nasty turn, all the same. The features were indistinct in the dying light, but they did not look very friendly.
‘What in the world are you doing?’ came a cut-glass voice.
‘Oh! I got a bit lost, that’s all. Sorry if I startled you.’
‘Lost? Startled?’ The voice rang out on a high indignant note. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Something connected in Thea’s mind, and she thought she might be able to put a name to this person. ‘I bet you’re Edwina,’ she said recklessly.
‘And if I am, I fear you have the advantage of me.’ It was like talking to somebody out of a P.G. Wodehouse story.
‘I’m Thea Osborne, Harriet Young’s house-sitter. Donny told me about you.’
‘Well, you’ve jumped to quite the wrong conclusion, young woman. I am in fact not Edwina, but her sister. I dare say Donald neglected to mention me. He generally hopes to eradicate me from existence by the sheer force of his will. We enjoy what you might call a mutual antipathy.’
‘Oh,’ said Thea.
‘My name is Thyrza Hastings. I live close by, in a house that has been in my family for three hundred years.’
Is that all? Thea thought impertinently, well aware that there were still families in England who could add several more centuries than that to their tenure. And who would take it over after Thyrza, she wondered inconsequentially. The details of inheritance was a pet interest, leading as it often did to people behaving badly.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said, offering her hand, whilst trying to hide the carrier bag containing the plastic bowl behind her back.
Thyrza Hastings took her hand fleetingly, as if impatient at the irrelevant gesture. Thea took a closer look at the woman’s face, settling on the Cupid’s bow mouth. ‘Are you related to a man called Philippe?’ she asked boldly. ‘You look rather like him.’
‘He’s my son. How very observant of you. Very few people can detect a likeness. But then they only look at things like hair and height.’ Her hair was thick and frizzy, forming a dark-grey halo around her head. Philippe’s had been brown and floppy.
‘Does he inherit the ancestral home, then?’ she asked with a smile, hoping she didn’t sound too rude. ‘I suppose he lives with you?’ The stereotype of the spoilt only son of a dominant mother seemed to fit the man with the poodle rather well.
Thyrza bridled, her neck stretching as she pulled her head back. ‘I do not consider that any of your business,’ she snapped. ‘I can’t imagine why it would matter to you.’
‘You’re quite right,’ Thea conceded. ‘I’m incorrigibly nosy, that’s all. I like to get a sense of where everybody fits, in a small place like this.’
‘Perhaps you ought to bear in mind that curiosity killed the cat,’ the woman warned. ‘Now I think we should both be getting home. It’s nearly dark.’
‘It’s not half past nine yet, is it? I thought it would stay light a bit longer than this.’
‘It’s the trees,’ said Thyrza. ‘And it’s cloudy tonight.’
‘Of course.’
They walked along side by side, without speaking for a few minutes. Thea was glad of the company, and grateful for the absence of searching questions as to exactly why she was in the woods all alone on a darkening evening. Her companion appeared preoccupied with her own thoughts as she marched sturdily along the track. No hint of any sisterly echo of the bad hip that Donny had said afflicted Edwina. ‘Do you and your sister live together?’ she asked, as they finally left the woods and emerged onto the ro
ad down to the village. Then she added meekly, ‘Sorry. I’m still not minding my own business, am I? I don’t think I can help it – I find new people so interesting, you see.’
The woman had evidently thawed somewhat during the walk. She snorted, half laugh, half impatient protest. ‘Heaven forbid!’ she replied. ‘She lives on the other side of the common from me. She and I are very different.’ Thea thought she could detect a note of wistfulness in these words.
‘And she’s visiting her daughter,’ Thea recalled. ‘Donny said something about that.’
‘Due back any time now. They’ll be glad to be shot of her – might even persuade her to set off this evening. Her duties expire when half-term finishes, but she insists on staying one more day, to help get the house straight or some such nonsense.’
They were approaching the edge of the wood, where the road ran through the centre of Cranham. ‘I go that way,’ said Thyrza Hastings, tilting her chin to the right.
‘And I’m straight over the road,’ said Thea, sounding more certain than she really was. The light was fading fast and she had emerged onto a different point from the one she knew.
‘You can see the Manor from the corner there,’ said the woman, with a glimmer of humour. ‘It’s easy to lose your bearings around here.’
‘Thank you. Maybe I’ll see you again.’
‘Maybe you will. Goodnight, then, Thea Osborne.’
‘Goodnight,’ said Thea, impressed that her name had been so accurately noted.
