Strange Music (14 page)

To be milling around in clouds of cigar smoke while the crowd caught up on the week's gossip and the servants dug Charley out was not her idea of fun. She almost suggested to Alex that they turn for home then. But the day was now blessed with such perfect weather that, even if they could not get a fox away, the most incompetent hunt in England couldn't fail to make something of it.

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘They're not usually this daft.'

‘He won't do it at the next find,' Alex promised – with a strange air of certainty.

They went back to the overgrown ride where they had left Sir George. He was just remounting as she reined in. ‘Gone back to earth,' he said.

‘See that small bit of sticks there?' he asked them when they reached the edge again. ‘In the hollow, two fields away? I'm going to draw that next. From the upwind side – I don't want to surprise the fox and have the hounds chop him. As I'm short of a huntsman, might I ask you two very kindly to go downwind and watch him away? You seem to know what you're doing.'

‘Something bloody odd here,' Faith said as soon as they were out of the master's hearing.

‘His reputation in the City is none too savoury,' Alex said.

‘You know him?'

‘No. But when you told me the name of the hunt, I looked him up and . . . asked around. He made his fortune in the war.' After a brief pause he added, ‘And you're right – something pretty odd
is
going on here.'

For the next draw they chose a place to the south of the covert, where they could stand unseen in a gateway, their silhouettes lost against a spreading hornbeam at their back. There they waited for the hounds to open and challenge.

Sir George gave one crack of his whip as a signal to his pack to begin drawing the covert. The fox needed nothing more to start him from his kennel. As soon as the hounds entered at the farther side he slipped from the edge nearest Faith and Alex. Only they could see him, a gash of red streaking over the pasture. They let him pass, fifty yards to the east; the temptation to shout was strong but they waited until he was at the farther hedge. Then ‘View halloa! halloa!' they yelled, making sure that the pack had started to chase before spurring toward the point in the hedge where Charley Fox had vanished.

But then the fox's behaviour went somehow wrong. He ran a great circle almost passing through the covert where they'd started him.

‘A ringer!' people shouted.

Then he ran a short foil along part of his original track and broke abruptly northward, almost dead straight. Through Perrywood he led them, and Watkins Hall, between Datchworth and Broom Hall, over the Stevenage road, through the park at Frogmore Hall and on up the valley of the Beane.

All the while a dark suspicion was growing in Faith's mind: a ringer that broke and then ran dead straight for so many miles? Something was amiss. It was not Charley, not in such country as this.

Then there was the slovenly, almost token, way they had drawn the first covert. And then that other rider had
deliberately
headed the fox back to earth. Everything about this chase was wrong.

‘Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' Alex asked.

‘A bagman?'

‘Just so! I think we now know why he's short of a huntsman today – the fellow is now lying low in that covert clutching an empty sack that smells strongly of Charley Fox.'

She was mortified. ‘Oh . . . Alex! I'm so sorry. I promised you some
sport
– not this. I've no stomach left for it, have you? Shall we pop these two in the trailer and see if there's anything doing with the
East
Herts? They're near Ware today. We could be there in twenty minutes.'

‘Frankly, old darling, I'd as soon ride around the park by the Dower House. There are some fallen trees we could jump – more reasonable than that giant you put me over.'

‘On one condition,' she said. ‘That you never call me “old darling” again.
My
darling – fine.
Old
darling – you're dead.'

His eyes dwelled in hers for a long moment. ‘I'd be happy to comply with that,' he said.

They were two fields away before Alex spoke again. ‘We ought to report this,' he said. ‘I was always taught that putting up a bagman was the biggest crime in the hunting calendar.'

‘But we won't,' Faith replied. ‘His money is all that's keeping this hunt alive. Most of the others are what my grandfather would have called “distressed gentlefolk.” Oh, Alex! What is happening to our world – when the
MFH
of a respectable hunt can behave like that . . . and tradesmen earn more than bank clerks, and middle-class children have to sit
exams
to get a good education? And if they fail, they're condemned to be hod-carriers and nameless faces in the typing pool. Don't jump that hedge – the farmer measures every hoof print and comes cap-in-hand for compensation. We'll go round.'

‘I think the answer lies in what's happening at your Dower House. Before the war it was home to one retired colonel, his wife, and seven servants. Now, seven families and no servants. Would you prefer the world as it was?'

She sighed. ‘Not in that way. But I'd hate it if the sort of despicable behaviour we've suffered this morning became the norm.'

‘You never cut corners in publishing?'

‘All the time.' She looked back at him in surprise. ‘But that's business – different traditions. But fox hunting . . . I
mean
. . .'

‘It's just business to Sir George Fenby. He probably promised some splendid kills to some bigwig in industry – that fellow whose clothes smelled of mothballs, I'll bet – and the bagman was to ensure a good start. If hunting can only be sustained by money from business, it'll have to adapt. And that's a paradigm for everything else in this post-war world.'

She looked at him in a new light. ‘You suspected him from the beginning! Even before you drove down from town?'

He chuckled. ‘Hardly that early. But when he cursed the hounds for finding at that first covert I was pretty certain he
wanted
to draw blank there. And then, when he put us on the blind side of the second covert . . . I was in no doubt at all. Why such a rueful face?'

‘Because
I
didn't suspect we had a bagman until Charley Fox did a reconnaissance circuit and then made a beeline for home. And I like to think of myself as pretty astute.'

‘You're more astute than the rest of the field. I don't think any of them suspected a thing. Also, I had the advantage of looking up his record in the City.'

‘Yes! How do you
do
that?'

‘Oh,' he said airily, ‘you just need to know the right people.'

‘This will be your room, Mister Findlater,' Marianne said. ‘The farthest bedroom from the nursery!'

‘Alex, please,' he insisted. ‘Faith tells me your maiden name was von Ritter?'

‘The bathroom is along there – turn right and it's the first . . . in fact, the
only
door on your left. Our bedroom is at the end of that same passage.'

He waited.

‘I broke off all connection with my parents in nineteen forty-four . . . Alex. Did Faith explain that we'd love to have you and her to dinner tonight – and two other friends from the community? They live on the ground floor.'

‘Eric and Isabella Brandon – yes. I'm looking forward to it very much. You are all very kind. I hope that soon, when I'm fully settled back in England, I'll have the chance to repay your hospitality?'

Marianne glanced over his shoulder, back down the corridor and, lowering her voice, said, ‘You can do that right now, if you wish – by doing what you can to help Faith make the move into television. We think she's absolutely made for it.' Then, seeing a flicker of doubt in his eye, she explained: ‘We have the best
TV
reception in the house, so she often comes up here to watch. So we hear the comments she makes and, believe me, she doesn't miss a thing.'

He nodded. ‘I agree. You are pushing at an open door here . . . Marianne? May I?'

‘Please do.'

‘But I want to help in such a way that she won't feel beholden to me. Will we hear when she comes upstairs?'

‘Yes.'

‘I have already spoken to . . . certain people . . . presently in television . . . and they are very eager to meet her. But that puts me in a quandary, you see. May I trust you with a secret?'

‘Me? Why me?'

‘Because you are her friend and I want to ask your advice – after I have told you.'

‘Very well. You may trust me, for her sake. And I hope it
is
for her sake.'

‘It is this: the moment I saw her I knew – I became utterly convinced that she was the woman I wanted to marry. It knocked me for six because I'm simply not the sort of person who makes decisions like that. I'm a cold fish. I observe. I inquire. I deliberate – all before reaching the most tentative conclusion. But there it was – a sudden and absolute and quite unshakeable conviction that we were meant for each other.' He laughed. ‘Even as I say it – knowing it's true – I can feel the absurdity of it all.'

‘This was in Paris last Tuesday? She told me about meeting you there.'

He shook his head. ‘Two or three years ago – out hunting in Gloucestershire. I took one look at her, and . . . I just
knew
. It upset me so much that I cut short my leave and went back to India – because, you see, I was already married to a lovely woman, whom I also loved, but not in the passionate, overwhelming way that I'd been smitten by Faith Bullen-ffitch. I was sure that a passion which had ignited so swiftly would also subside with equal speed. And so it seemed. So it seemed.'

He gazed over her shoulder, out through the window, where he caught sight of Faith, hanging up some washing in the wall-fruit orchard. His stomach hollowed as his eyes possessed her. ‘But,' he continued, ‘it was simply being masked . . . obscured by my concern for Wendy, my wife, who was . . . fighting . . . and losing, to . . . the cancer that eventually killed her.'

‘Did she know about Faith?'

‘No!' He was shocked.

‘I don't mean “did you tell her”! But did she sense it anyway?'

‘Oh, God, I hope not. No. I'm sure she didn't.'

‘Did she – when she knew she was dying – did she urge you to marry again?'

‘Yes, but only for the sake of Jasmine, our daughter.'

‘So your meeting in Paris was no accident!'

His grimace was a rueful admission.

‘But how did you know she was there?'

He waved his hand vaguely and said, ‘Inquiries.'

‘Well,' she said in a tone that signified an end to their conversation, ‘I'll answer the one question you have not asked – perhaps have not dared to ask. And I'll tell you this: I don't believe I will need to carry your secret for very many weeks . . . in fact, the secrecy itself may become pointless within a matter of days.'

Isabella plonked her elbows hard on the table and, even more demonstratively, pulled them off it, staring balefully at her husband throughout. Eric went on expounding his ‘Chinese Whispers' theory of history: ‘For instance, what Samuel Adams
actually
said to Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty was . . .' and his voice rose and fell, emphasising certain words, seemingly at random: ‘“Down by
Boston
harbour
on
December the sixteenth
I'm
throwing
a
tea
party
– fancy dress, of course, on the theme of
Mohawks
– and we'll maybe drink a few ironic toasts to
show the British what we think of this absurd new tax.
” But all that survived when his words had finished doing the rounds was “Boston harbour . . . throw . . . tea party . . . December the sixteenth . . . disguised as Mohawks . . . show the British what we think of this absurd new tax!” A combination of high winds, slovenly Yankee speech, and root beer laced with moonshine that changed the course of history.'

The laughter gave Isabella covering fire, so to speak, to repeat her demonstration.

Eric, elbows firmly planted, leaned forward to hear Willard's response: ‘OK. A dollar to a nickel that what Henry Five actually cried was “
God
– if only there was a fair wind
for England
, then by
Harry
I'd be down at the Crown
and St George
, drinking with my old pal Falstaff!”'

‘Not bad! Not bad!' people cried, as Isabella made a third attempt to convey her message to her husband.

‘Or,' Faith said, ‘what Queen Elizabeth actually said was, “I may have the body of a frail and feeble woman but, by heaven, I have the heart and stomach of a king!”'

They stared at her in bewilderment. Isabella said, ‘But isn't that exactly what she
did
say?'

‘Precisely, darling! You see! When a woman
speaks
her mind – outright just like that – men do actually listen, take note, and record her words correctly. That's because conversation among men is all verbal duelling – they don't listen to each other closely because they're too busy honing the next barb.'

‘Ah.' Isabella appeared to see the light. ‘In that case, I've often wondered why we say “half
past
eight” when the Germans say “half nine.”'

‘The same in Swedish,' Marianne said. ‘
Halv nio
.'

The rest looked bemused. ‘What has this to do with Chinese Whispers?' Eric asked.

‘Nothing,' Isabella said. ‘Why should it? Anyway,
you
wouldn't take your elbows off the table.'

‘Oh, stupid me! I really should have remembered that keeping elbows on tables automatically leads to a change of subject. But, actually, it
is
quite a fascinating question: why do the Germans and – we now learn – the Swedes look forward while we Anglo-Saxons look back?'