Hunt with the Hounds

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  But Caroline at the door dispelled that wish; she gave her a happy glance in which there was a suspicion of tears. “I’m so glad, Sue—I’m so thankful, and somehow it makes the hunt and—and the hunt ball so soon after Dr. Luddington …” she stopped and took a breath and said, “all right. Doesn’t it?”

  Sue understood; she said firmly. “He’d have wanted it this way.” Caroline, satisfied, nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and went away.

  And suppose she was right; the police had apparently accepted it and in the end the police were always right. Sometimes one didn’t know their reasons but there were always reasons—solid and valid. Suppose there did exist some explanation, odd and illogical as Woody had suggested, but still an answer to her own questions!

  She dressed on a wave of that infectious, happy theory and under its spell tied her stock so neatly that it met with even Caroline’s approval.

  They were waiting when she came downstairs, already in the saddle. Woody was not a club member because he was away from home so much and a subscription was expensive, but he was always a welcome visitor; he wasn’t in scarlet but he looked very slim and attractive in his dark riding coat. Chrisy had succeeded and his breeches were spotless. Caroline, mounted on Geneva, was a part of her, flexible and balanced, her hands, Sue knew, light and sure. She had taught Sue to ride astride; Sue looked with hopeless admiration at Caroline’s beautiful seat on a side saddle which to Sue would have been perilously insecure. She liked to be able to grip hard with her knees—and that was not very secure either, for old Jeremy took that grip (and quite properly) to be a command to jump and often did. She must remember that. Jeremy rolled a pleased eye at her, Geneva gave a cavorting little step out of sheer glee, Lij stood by to give her a boot up and Chrisy stood at the side door, waving, her dark face alight with joy.

  Caroline, all of them, waved back as they set out.

  It was, Caroline said, a perfect morning for hunting, cold for the time of year and rather still. The laws governing scent, Caroline had told them many times, are mysterious; there are theories and theories none of which quite suffice to explain it and all of which were, at least to Sue, rather abstruse, but Caroline looked happy and satisfied. The fixture was the parkland in front of Wat and Ruby’s magnificent house. They hacked over, Sue’s spirits rising at every step. She was no expert horsewoman; she never would be. But she liked to ride and the creak of the saddle leather, the feeling of smooth and controlled power beneath her, the air in her face, the sense of well being, of a pulse of excitement was all of it exhilarating and deeply, gratefully, joyous. A softness and pleasure wiped out the lines of strain on Caroline’s face; she leaned over and gave Geneva a lingering, gentle pat. Woody felt it and with difficulty kept himself from giving the borrowed mare a short test of her speed and spirit and told Sue happily that she was a love and there was something about a horse that was like a ship.

  Sue thought, I suppose there is; and perhaps it’s something deeper than sheer physical well being and the delight of balance and motion; perhaps it’s a feeling of being close to the earth and the creatures thereof. She did not say so to Woody who would have been embarrassed for her and probably given his lovely borrowed mare a short fling merely to cover his shame that she could think or speak such nonsense. They arrived by dirt road at the Luddington place.

  Sue thought again, “How I’ve missed it; all of it. It’s my country. They are my people.” The riders in scarlet and black, the horses, excited, pleased, knowing as well as their riders what it was all about, hounds—gathered so closely together that while the traditional blanket might not actually have covered them, still several blankets of a rather large size might have been stretched to do so. It was the dog pack, a beautiful one; Caroline looked them over with proud scrutiny for she had had much to do with the selection, breeding and management of the kennels. The Dobberly packs were now mainly bred from good English foxhounds; deep-chested, their sterns rather bushy, with springy well cushioned feet, muscles like whipcords. They were now, twenty and a half couple, eager and alert, waiting the huntsman’s signal.

  It was a comparatively large field; the Dobberly hunt was small and that day, except for Woody, there were no visitors, but all the regulars were out and, all of them, they made it clear, felt as Caroline did. They crowded around Wat; they crowded around Caroline and herself. Bob Hallock again, huge and kindly, pressed Sue’s hand without a word. They didn’t say much, any of them; their feeling was like a banner over the whole hunt. Jed was talking to the present M.F.H. (retiring by his own request that season); he waved and started toward them and was stopped by somebody who obviously was congratulating him. Camilla was there looking, as usual now, like Ernestine, slim and elegant in her saddle, controlling her hunter with ease. She was gay and vivacious; she waved at Sue. Before Jed could reach them the hunt moved off. Sue fell in beside Caroline and Woody. Jed, ahead of them in the narrow lane, turned to find Sue and to wave; Fitz was nowhere among the riders.

  She looked for him and looked for him among the scarlet-coated men and controlled Jeremy who was beginning to wish they’d get on with this tiresome preliminary business. They avoided the Luddington woods—probably it had been agreed—unless, of course, hounds found near them and the fox led them into the woodland. They turned off across Luddington meadows and finally drew up as the huntsman cast hounds into the covert below a ridge of low-lying hills. Ruby came up to them so suddenly that it startled Jeremy who gave an uneasy prance. Sue kept her balance and Ruby said, “You ought to tie a red ribbon on his tail, Sue. I didn’t know Jeremy was a kicker.”

  “He’s not, really,” Sue said jerkily, trying to quiet Jeremy who was executing a neat waltz turn.

  Ruby looked beautiful and stately with her severe, dark hair in a bun, her silk hat, her beautifully tailored, dark riding coat and beige breeches. She said, “I wanted to tell you, Sue—it seems heartless but I’m so thankful about Sam Bronson—although to tell you the truth I never liked him anyway.”

  “Listen …” said Caroline sharply, watching the distant covert.

  Ruby would not; Jeremy, crossly, backed.

  Ruby said across Caroline, “But it clears everything up. I wasn’t sure that Wat was right about insisting that we join the hunt today but now I see that he was. Do you know,” said Ruby suddenly dreamy, “this reminds me of the day Ernestine was killed.”

  “It’s Rambler—he’s speaking,” cried Caroline sharply. “Do hush, Ruby. Listen—he’s never wrong.”

  A clear bell-like note came from the covert; both Caroline and Rambler were right. His voice was honored by another and another; there was a sort of excitement, among the riders, a gathering up of reins, a tense listening. Sue’s heart beat rapidly; she was half excited, half afraid. And then all at once the gone away sounded clear and strong.

  Always to Sue it was a moment when she passed from the state of being herself, Sue Poore, to another being who didn’t have time to do, or be, or think anything aside from sticking on her horse and trying to remember Caroline’s teachings. Choose your line; don’t thrust. She was thudding across meadow land, conscious of other riders as the hunt spread out. Someone viewed the fox; she caught a flashing glimpse of a rider, standing up in his stirrups, his hat lifted on high for the huntsmen to see. It was a wily fox, this one, leading them swiftly across meadow and then stubble; he slid under a fence, hounds after him in a tumult of flashing white and brown and eager waving sterns. Show your horse the fence.

  She felt, as always, a kind of catch at her throat in the split second before Jeremy, his stride perfectly timed, lifted with fine power and landed easily and neatly. He was all right then; no lameness yet. They headed for Bob Hallock’s place and plowed ground; choose the furrow where water stands; it’s hardest. There weren’t any furrows with water standing and anyway the fox was swerving again, Jeremy was pounding along. Sue felt as if she had no breath left in her body. They swerved again, backwards along a rather marshy strip of ha
y lands. The going was slower; she couldn’t see Caroline or Woody: indeed the whole panorama of the field flashed confusingly outward, fanlike, in a chaos of scarlet and black, of thudding, galloping horses, of sound and life and color.

  The fox led them into the Luddington woodlands.

  They were there before Sue realized it and then she was so occupied with Jeremy—ride slow at woodland, ride slow at woodland—that they were in the woods before she knew it, in the woods with the hunt and all its color and motion disappearing, vanishing, disseminating into leafy, thin young greens.

  She slowed Jeremy who didn’t like it and fretted, tossing his head. They reached a bend of the same little stream that Sue had crossed on her way to Dr. Luddington’s and before she could think of any of Caroline’s admonitions, Jeremy had jumped it with such zeal that he nearly unseated her; the willows whipped her cheek and knocked her hat awry. She checked Jeremy, to his fury; her arms ached by the time she brought him to a standstill. She caught her breath and straightened her hat and listened; from the sound the hunt was veering to the right, away from the village and toward the ridge of hills again. She glanced around and realized with disgust that, again, she was tagging the field. Woody, an apter pupil, and Caroline would be away ahead; they’d be in at the kill if there was one. She repressed a secret, heretical hope that there would not be.

  Then she realized that she was not, as she had thought, alone in the rear of the hunt. There was another rider, out of sight in the brush, keeping pace with her.

  She was not at first uneasy. He was a straggler from the hunt as she was. She spoke to Jeremy and he moved on rather slowly through the uneven, slippery territory.

  The other rider did likewise.

  Jeremy put up his head sharply; his ears flicked back. Without any warning he began to run.

  21

  SOMEHOW SUE clung to his back.

  They were over the stream, Jeremy taking it like a bird, they were out of the woodland, plunging across meadow land again. He wasn’t running away. Let him run—let him run then—he’d steady down. She realized dimly that another rider was galloping towards her, not from the woods, though, from some other direction. Another rider, in a scarlet coat came up with her and Jeremy began to steady, into a gallop, into a canter, stopped and stood there panting and trembling. She was trembling, too, patting Jeremy with a hand that shook, speaking to him in a breathless, uneven voice. Fitz rode up. “Okay, Sue?”

  She nodded.

  “What scared him?”

  She nodded back toward the woodland. “Somebody was there—quite near—somebody …”

  “Wait for me here.”

  She got her breath and slid out of the saddle; it seemed as always a long way to the ground; she held Jeremy’s reins and was walking him slowly along, talking to him, when Fitz emerged from the woods again and came at a gallop back to her. “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. He’d got away. I ought not to have taken any chances. I was following you; I thought if it was somebody hunting today—but then you had such a sudden burst of speed that I lost you.” He swung down from his saddle and came to her and put his hand on Jeremy’s sweating neck. “He’s all right now. Sue, do you care about the hunt? Will you come to Dr. Luddington’s house with me? It’s not far and the hunt’s gone off toward Piney Ridge. I’ll give you a lift.…”

  Jeremy was now as steady as an old carthorse; Sue kept a weather eye on him, however, as, with a boost from Fitz, she got back into the saddle. He got into his own saddle. They rode together back toward the woods but further down, nearer the village, nearer Dr. Luddington’s house. She said, “Fitz, everybody thinks it was Sam Bronson. The papers, the police …”

  “I know. At least—they’re letting everybody think that’s what they think. And there’s one thing certain; act as if you believe it, Sue. If anybody is scared, thinks you know too much, is threatening you—if you could convince such a person that you believe it was Bronson, that there’s no question in your mind—if, in short, you convince whoever was in the pine woods that you believe it was Bronson and nobody else, then that person would have no reason to—well, you’d be safer. I hope,” he added.

  “Fitz, you look as if—what do you think? Could it have been Bronson?”

  “If I told you what I think just now, you’d … Look out. Here’s where we cross. Show me where you saw the rider that day.”

  She did, identifying it as nearly as she could. They rode toward Dr. Luddington’s but now Fitz was ahead. She couldn’t talk to him; they reached the stables and Dr. Luddington’s house. They came to the gate where she had dismounted and Jeremy pricked his ears forward, snorted and waltzed. Fitz came back; he held Jeremy, he told Sue to get down. She opened the gate and Fitz led Jeremy through it and there Jeremy would go no further; he put back his ears and pranced and Fitz at last led him around, back of the stables, out of sight of the house and the place where Sue had tied him. He tied him there and tied his own horse beside him. “Isaac Bell will stand. Come on, Sue.”

  “Isaac Bell?” Sue said, looking at the beautiful dark chestnut hunter he rode.

  He glanced at her, amused. “Named for a famous sportsman. Don’t let your aunt hear you ask that.”

  She said suddenly, as they walked toward the house: “Fitz, do you really like hunting?”

  “I like the riding. I like the breeding of fine horses and hounds. I’m not sure about the fox.”

  “But the fox …”

  “Enjoys it? I’m not sure about that. Yet actually no wild animal has a safe life. This way the end is merciful. And of course they really are a pest to the farmers. Here we are; let’s go in the back door.” He knocked but Lissy Jenkins had gone home; she wouldn’t stay in the house. No one answered; he tried the door and in true Dobberly fashion it was not locked. They went in. The kitchen was neat and orderly, which was obscurely comforting to Sue. Fitz said, “I hate to ask you to go in there but …”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know exactly. But—show me where you stood, what you did, everything.”

  It was not easy, but neither was it as hard as she’d have thought. The place was dusted and neat; the curtains were open and daylight flooded the consulting room and the waiting room. She stood beside the desk, with light flickering upon the glass-enclosed cabinets and told everything she could remember and then Fitz questioned her.

  About Jed and what he had said, minutely. What she had said? Exactly what had she said? “‘Why did you come back like that?’” What had Jed said then: why had he urged her to leave?

  “For the same reason I tried to make him leave.”

  “It would have been the worst thing either of you could have done.”

  “He wanted to get me out of it. That telephone call—he said I didn’t understand how necessary—and then Ruby came.”

  “Did she seem suspicious?”

  “Oh, no! I think she’d have agreed not to tell the police that I’d been there. While we were talking the police came and …”

  “Wait a minute. How did Ruby take it? Was she excited?”

  “Oh, yes; she doesn’t show things as most people do; but she—I remember she stood there in the waiting room and said something about the fern needing watering, so I knew that she didn’t know what she was saying …”

  “Fern,” said Fitz. “Fern!”

  But she didn’t believe it, not even when he examined the great spreading fern, when he plunged his hand into it, when he gave a kind of cry and pulled out a mirrored, flat little box that winked and shone. He cleaned off soil and peat moss. “It’s Ruby’s.”

  And it was; her name was engraved on the other side of it, the metal side, with below it “Happy Birthday from the Doctor.” It was a trinket, a very flat, small cigarette case; one side had actually a mirror set in it. The other, except for the engraving, was plain. Fitz opened it and there were three cigarettes and a few flakes of tobacco.

  “So she’d used it. When’s h
er birthday, Sue?”

  It took her back to the days when birthdays were of primary importance, of secrets, anticipation and birthday cakes. “October. October second.”

  Ernestine had been murdered on the ninth.

  Fitz put the trinket in his pocket. “All right, I’m going to the Hunting Horn. Want to come along?”

  “What for? I mean—yes, I want to go with you. But why …”

  “I’ll show you when we get there. I want you—if I’m right—to hear it with your own ears.”

  They went back out of the neat, quiet house, across the graveled drive to where the horses waited, calmly and contentedly together. Fitz again gave her boot a lift. The hunt had gone far to the left along the ridge; time had passed. Fitz swung himself on his own horse, “We’ll lunch there.” He thought for a moment and added, “I’ll take you along the byways; no use inviting the attention of any troopers.” But he wouldn’t talk and his face was so queer and grave that Sue did not question him. Ruby’s cigarette case—why had she hidden it? There had to be a reason.

  They turned onto a dirt road, they wound amid low hills, they passed a remote farmhouse or two and followed a dirt lane and came out onto another road which wound along a quiet valley. The Hunting Horn was in a remote and secluded spot yet actually not far away. Sue had been there at some time in the past; she remembered it dimly when they rode up at last into the courtyard. It was small and old with gabled windows and early, red geraniums flowering in window boxes.

  “It’s a fine place,” Fitz said rather grimly, “for a rendezvous.” And helped her from the saddle.