by Diane Allen
‘I knew it, I just knew it. I could tell on Moorcock Show day that something had happened. There was that look in your eyes when you came back to us. I said to you, Father, didn’t I?’ Mary Allen sobbed into her hankie at the news of her son’s engagement.
Daisy blushed at the thought of what had happened at the fair, grateful that Mary hadn’t witnessed the unleashed sexual exploits of her son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law.
‘Aye, Mother, you’d think it was a funeral, not an engagement. I’m right suited for you both. Couldn’t be a more perfect match. You keep him on the straight and narrow now, Daisy, you promise me? He can be a bit of a bugger, can this one.’ Luke Allen slapped his son on his shoulder. ‘Time for a tipple, I think, Mother. Get the sherry out. That is, if you haven’t used it all in the trifle. It was a bloody good one, by the way, lass.’ Luke sat back in his chair. ‘When are you thinking of getting married – have you set a date then?’
‘Stop it, Father, give them time to think.’ Mary passed over the sherry bottle from the sideboard and turned around for the small sherry glasses that were displayed on its shelves. She sniffed into her delicately embroidered handkerchief before passing everyone a glass.
‘No, we haven’t set a date. In fact, we have hardly talked about it since fair day; we haven’t had time.’ Sam looked at his parents: his father was taking the news well, but he knew his mother was going to give him a lecture about marrying below what she thought to be his status.
‘Where are you thinking of living, lad? Here isn’t the place for you and Daisy; you’ll want family, so you’ll want a home of your own.’ Luke sipped his sherry.
‘I haven’t thought about it. I suppose, if Daisy will let me, we’d be happy at Mill Race in Grisedale. It’s a bonny little cottage, with a good kitchen and orchard, and a paddock big enough to keep a pig or two for bacon.’ Sam smiled and squeezed Daisy’s hand for a response.
Daisy nodded. ‘Yes, that would be perfect. It would make me happy for us to stay there and raise a family.’
‘Hush, now, there’s no need to talk of family yet. I can’t get it into my head that my son’s getting married, let alone me becoming a grandmother. I’m not old enough, and are you sure you are both ready for this? Sam, you’ve never been with another woman – are you sure Daisy is the one for you?’ Mary stared at Sam. Daisy was not good enough for her precious son, but then again, nobody could look after him like she did. She wouldn’t let him go without a fight.
‘Mother, you are upsetting Daisy and insulting me. I’m no longer your little boy.’ Sam placed his sherry down sharply, nearly spilling the golden liquid on the white linen tablecloth.
‘I think I’d better go. You need to talk to your family alone, Sam.’ Daisy’s cheeks were flushed and her legs shaky as she stood up from the tea table. ‘I do love him, Mrs Allen, and I’ll always be there for him, if that’s what you are worried about.’ She pushed her chair away and walked to the doorway.
‘Don’t be silly, Daisy – stop! My mother will never be happy with whoever I marry, and I want to marry you.’ Sam grabbed hold of her hand, pulling her back into the room.
‘Aye, lass, tha’s right with me. I can see it being a good marriage,’ said Luke. ‘In fact, I was going to give you a bit of a nest egg to start you off right. Maybe you’ve rushed it a bit, eh! Mother? Have a long engagement, and let your mother get used to the idea, Sam. Shall we say a spring wedding, if you are still hell-bent on getting wed?’
‘Spring! That’s ages off.’ Sam raised his voice.
‘I can wait until spring, Sam. What’s six months, when we love one another like we do?’ Daisy squeezed his arm. ‘We’ll do that, Mr Allen. I’d rather you all accepted me than we all sneak and plan behind one another’s backs.’ She aimed her words at Mary; Daisy knew she’d never win her over.
‘Nay, lass, we’d never do that. Say it as it is, that’s the best way. Give Mother here some time to get used to it, and then she’ll be celebrating with the rest of us.’
Mary Allen said nothing. A lot could happen in six months, and it gave her time to turn her son’s head away from the woman who was going to pinch him from her.
‘Daisy, I’m sorry. Are you sure you are happy to wait that long?’ Sam looked worried; he didn’t want to lose the woman he loved.
‘We’ll still only have known one another a year, and some folk are engaged to be married for years, Sam. As long as it makes everybody happy.’ Daisy’s face belied her innermost feelings. She was disappointed, but she had time to win over Sam’s mother before they wed.
‘See, lad, happen your lass has got sense – it’s no good rushing these things. I’ll feel better about it when I know Daisy better. And I’m sure she thinks the same of me.’ Mary smiled a dry smile and wiped her eyes, knowing that she’d won the battle this time.
‘All right, we’ll wait, but neither of us will be changing our minds. You can count on that.’
Daisy leaned on the garden gate of Grouse Hall. It was a quiet autumn day and the smell of decaying leaves and drying peat from the turfs cut for winter filled the air. Across on the surrounding fells the purple heather gave the hills a glorious hue, and the rowan tree at the bottom of the garden hung laden with red berries. She smiled as she listened and watched a flock of sparrows argue over the berries, despite her standing there; they were too busy fighting over easy food supplies.
Despite the stillness of the day Daisy felt uneasy. She was going to leave Grouse Hall tomorrow and live back at Mill Race by herself – a time she had looked forward to, in honesty. But still, something was holding her back from feeling happy. Perhaps it was the fact of leaving young Tobias behind. She had grown fond of the lad, but he knew he could visit her if he was ever in bother, and so far her sister had been playing the game with Daisy’s monthly allowance for him. She looked at the penned-up fox cubs. They weren’t cubs any more; they were fully grown and Tobias no longer played with them like puppies. Their teeth were like razors and they’d bitten the young lad a time or two, just enough for him to lose interest in them. She hoped the poor creatures could run fast enough to outwit the huntsmen and dogs. What Clifford had agreed to wasn’t right; the cubs should have been killed along with their mother, rather than be ripped to pieces by the pack. She looked back at Grouse Hall. She’d hated it the first time she’d visited it and was no fonder of it now. It was an ugly house, like its owner – cold and grey. Clifford and it were well matched.
‘What are you doing, Daisy?’ Tobias ran up to her and smiled.
‘I’m thinking, my love, that it’s time to leave you. I’m going to my own home in the morning. But don’t you fret, you’ll be all right. Things are in place to make sure you’re not treated as you were.’
Tobias cried and wailed. ‘I don’t want you to go, Daisy. He’ll beat me and make me live under the table, like a dog again.’
‘No, he won’t, my love. I’ve paid Kitty to look after you, and if ever he touches a hair on your head, you come to me in Grisedale and tell me. Because Kitty won’t get a penny more, if she doesn’t look after you. But you keep this a secret – not a word; she mustn’t know you know.’
Daisy kissed Tobias on his head and held him tightly against her. The poor lad, she’d miss him. But she had a life to live, and he was not part of it. From now on her life would be spent cooking for the Allens and living quietly until her wedding day. How things had changed for the better within a year. Yet still she felt something was waiting to happen just around the corner. Call it intuition. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something more was to happen, she was sure, although exactly what she didn’t know.
24
Oversby and the Lunesdale Hunt came galloping at a pace up the roadway to Grouse Hall. The hounds bayed and sniffed, chasing whatever sport they detected on the dewy early-morning grass. The whipper-in blew his horn as they approached the garden and watched as the hounds went frantic at the smell of fox around the newly emptied cage.
Cliff
ord came to the doorway as he heard the din outside. ‘What the Devil . . . ? Why are you so early, man?’ He tucked his nightshirt into his trousers and swore at his partner-in-crime as the hounds sniffed and licked at him, bashing his legs with their long, spotted tails.
‘The early bird catches the worm, Middleton – or should I say “the fox” in this case? I see you’ve done the deed, so we should be in for a good day’s sport, and my hounds will get their breakfast. Just look at them: keen as mustard, they can smell the foxes’ blood already.’ Oversby laughed cruelly.
‘Keep your voice down. I don’t want the lad to hear, for he’s fond of the bloody things.’ Clifford pulled on his boots and laced them up as he sat on the garden wall.
‘Going soft in your old age! It must be that pretty thing of a sister-in-law that’s giving you manners. But I hear she’s to marry the Allen lad. Now what’s she doing that for, when there’s the likes of me still single?’
‘She’d want nowt with you, you old letch. You bat for the wrong side, for a start.’ Clifford knew that Oversby preferred young men; it was well known, but nobody dared say anything out of turn. Even though it was illegal, Oversby held too much power in high places.
‘Keep your voice down. I’ve always got a good eye for the ladies, and you don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Aye, well, neither do you. What have you brought a spare horse for? It looks as jumpy as a box of frogs – you must only just have broken him in.’ Clifford looked at the spirited gelding, which pawed the ground, wanting to be away from all the commotion of the hunt.
‘I’ve brought him for you. You could hardly join us on that nag you’ve got; it’s only fit for the knacker’s yard. You’d be at the bottom of your field and we’d be halfway to Sedbergh. I’ll not have you made the laughing stock of the hunt.’ Oversby hit his leg with his riding crop as he watched Clifford pull on his waistcoat.
‘I wasn’t thinking of coming with you. I don’t have the stomach for blood sports – there’s nowt pleasant about seeing something live pulled apart by another animal.’ Clifford had no time for the middle classes with their so-called sport, and hunting had never appealed to him.
‘Nonsense, man. It gets the pulses racing, to feel the horse under your thighs and chase the hounds when they know they are near the kill – there’s nothing like it.’ Oversby leaned down from his grey and whispered into Clifford’s ear, ‘Five guineas says I beat this miserable bunch to the kill; and if you do, I’ll double it.’ He leaned back in the saddle and watched Clifford look around him at the gathering hunt, weighing up whom he could outwit and outride. ‘Aye, my gelding doesn’t look a bad option now, so get yourself across its back. The hounds have found the trail.’
Clifford looked up towards the back of Grouse Hall. The hounds were baying in delight as they followed the foxes that had been sent up the gill edge and through the trees.
‘Kitty, bring me my crop. I’m off with the hunt,’ he yelled through the open kitchen door, before grabbing hold of the gelding’s reins. Its eyes flashed and steam came out of its nostrils as Clifford tried to mount the frisky animal.
‘Hold still, you bastard! You’ll not master me – nobody does that.’ Clifford led it to the mounting steps next to the barn and, with his injured arm holding the animal’s mane and reins, pulled himself onto the back of the edgy horse. ‘Now that I’ve got you, you’ll do as I say.’ He pulled back on the reins, making the bit unsettle the creature.
‘Just be gentle with the bit, for he’s soft-mouthed. Don’t damage him.’ Oversby was a horse man and, while he wasn’t above tearing fox cubs to pieces, being cruel to a horse was another matter.
Kitty came running out of the house with the crop in her hand. ‘What are you doing on the back of that animal? You can’t ride that with your bad arm. It looks like the Devil himself – just look at him flaring his nostrils. Come down, before you hurt yourself.’ Kitty pulled on Clifford’s boot, pleading with him not to be such an idiot.
‘Out of my way, woman, there’s a stake at risk.’ Clifford snatched the crop from Kitty, brushing her aside, and horse and rider dashed out of the yard of Grouse Hall as if the Devil himself was chasing them. Oversby and the hunt followed, with a few stray hounds baying in their wake.
The horn could be heard loudly and clearly as the party made its way up the gill and over to neighbouring Uldale, with the hounds baying more and more as they got closer to their prey.
Kitty shivered in the sharp, frosty air of the morning; she was still in her nightdress with her shawl wrapped around her. The Devil take the man; he’d never listen to her when that fat, bloated Oversby was around. She looked up at the spare bedroom window. Through the dirty pane she could see Tobias looking at her. There were tears trickling down his face, for he knew all too well what had happened to his pet foxes. Damn Oversby; he brought nothing but bother whenever he visited.
Clifford trotted along with the rest of the hunt, next to Oversby and Reg Towler, the head huntsman. He didn’t feel easy with the Lunesdale huntsmen, for they were all of better stock than him, and he had a feeling they were sneering at him having to be given a decent horse to join them. What did they know? They knew nowt about him, and there were some things he could tell them about their portly benefactor, Oversby.
Clifford decided to break away from the pack and put his horse into a canter as he followed the baying hounds, with their tails wagging and their noses down to the ground, hard on the trail of the foxes.
‘Get yourself back here, Middleton,’ Clifford could hear Oversby yelling at him as the hounds packed together at the first sighting of a fox’s white brush.
The race was on to catch the fox, and Clifford was going to win it. He whipped his horse, urging it to go faster, jumping a thicket hedge and nearly making the petrified animal stumble as it landed awkwardly on the other side.
‘Damn you, get up – we’ve to be first at the kill,’ Clifford shouted in the horse’s ear, as he smiled a wily grin and lay almost flat with the horse. It was galloping like the wind over the heather, through the sphagnum-moss peat bog and down into the pastures of Uldale. The fox darted in front of the pack, running for its life, its tongue red and dripping as it tried to outflank the hounds and rider. With a jubilant yell, both horse and hounds went in for the kill. Clifford looked behind him, realizing he was the first man there.
As he spotted his rival, Oversby, he pulled too hard on the reins, making the horse stop in its tracks with pain and fright. Clifford lost his footing in the stirrups, holding on for dear life as he flew over the horse’s head and landed in front of it in a crumpled mess, his legs bent under him on the grassy slopes that led down to Cautley Spout. The horse bowed its head and sniffed at him. Sensing death, it whinnied loudly and then, dragging its harness, moved off to graze. The hounds sniffed and dribbled around Clifford, their saliva dripping onto his still body, the thrill of the fox gone, as the chase came to an end and the three lead hounds tore and argued over the few sinews that were left.
‘Out of my way, you bloody things.’ Oversby jumped off his horse and strode among the gathering hounds with his whip.
‘Is he all right?’ Reg Towler came running up behind him. ‘He rode like a fool.’
‘Aye, well, he’ll not ride like a fool again. The silly bugger has broken his neck.’ Oversby knelt down on one knee and gently closed Clifford’s startled eyes. ‘How the hell do we tell his wife?’ He ran his fingers through his long, fine grey hair.
‘Well, I’m not telling her, poor bitch. He was your friend, and he broke his neck on your horse, so it’s your job.’ The whipper-in spat and whistled for his dogs, as Oversby knelt with his head in his hands as he thought about what he had to tell Kitty.
‘At least give me a hand with putting his body over my horse. I’ll walk him back over the fell top.’ The rest of the hunt watched from their horses.
‘Here, grab his arms and I’ll carry his legs.’
Both men lifted the body
of Clifford over the saddle of Oversby’s grey mare and caught the skittish gelding that had been to blame for his untimely death.
‘I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, mate. You heard her telling him not to go, and now you fetch him back dead.’
Oversby grabbed both horses’ reins and started walking with a heavy heart back over the fell into Garsdale, with Clifford’s body swaying on the back of his mare.
The rest of the hunt watched until Oversby and his burden were out of sight over the skyline, before sounding the horn to gather the hounds and trot back down the road to Sedbergh. It was still not yet lunchtime, but any appetite for the day had gone, with the death of Clifford. What fools the two men had been, and it had been no sport chasing a hand-reared fox, no sport at all.
Oversby made his way down the fellside following the gill, with two subdued horses and the body of Clifford. He rehearsed the words he was going to say to Kitty over and over again, and they still didn’t convey the sentiment he wanted. He hadn’t liked the man – in fact he had thought him a fool. A fool who was parted too easily from his money. But at the end of the day, he’d spent many a good night at Grouse Hall. His heart sank as he smelled the smoke from the fire burning at Grouse Hall, and heard Kitty shouting for Tobias to come in for his dinner. He stood for a minute and looked around him. An hour or two earlier he was laughing at his hot-headed friend, and now he was bringing home his corpse. It was no day to die on; the sky was too blue, the air too sharp, too clear and cold, giving you a zest for life.
He watched as the autumn leaves fell silently to earth through the frost-filled air. They twisted and turned towards the ground, making a mottled carpet of yellow, russet and brown. He wished it was himself thrown over the back of his saddle. Yes, he had money, but he’d no wife to go home to and, most of all, no son. In fact if he was honest, fool or no fool, Clifford had been the one true friend who had always been there for him, and now he was gone. The bastard never did know when he was well off. Oversby smiled before whispering, ‘Come on then, let’s do it. You can’t get out of this one, you old bastard.’
