I didn’t mention it to Mark that evening or the next day. Most of the time I was busy with my own thoughts. And part of Tuesday I was riding Forio over to the Newton-Smiths for the Wednesday meet. That was a horrible ride because I knew it was the last time I should ever be alone with him. Wednesday, riding in a crowd, wouldn’t be the same.
I found when it came to the point there were other things I should miss. There was the Richards family and the blind men. Even in a short while I’d got friendlier with them than anyone I ever remembered before. And it wasn’t unpleasant being your own mistress, having your own house, and a nice house at that.
. . . Mark was talkative at breakfast. We were driving over and the meet was to be at ten. Seeing Mark like this, I realized how quiet and moody he’d been these last weeks. And this was next to the last breakfast I should ever have with him. Tomorrow night I was going to go into his bedroom when he was undressing and while he wasn’t looking change over the keys and . . .
I said: ‘Is it true you’ve sold Rutland’s, Mark?’
He looked up and smiled. ‘More or less anyway. An offer has been made. We’re recommending all shareholders to accept it.’
‘But why? I thought you would never do that.’
‘So did I a few months ago. And then I thought, how ever long I work there and whatever I do, we shall never be free from the friction that poisoned half my father’s life. And I thought, what’s in a name? Let it go.’
‘But what will you do?’
‘Probably go into partnership with someone else. There are one or two printers I’m interested in who do some of their own publishing. That’s more attractive to me. I was going to tell you, but I waited till the whole thing was settled.’
‘And what will the others do?’
‘Rex? He’s drawing out as I am. Anyway he has plenty of money. The Holbrooks? If they want to stay in I’m sure they can keep their seats on the board.’
‘Do they feel badly about it?’
‘This move? Yes. But I honestly don’t see what they have to complain of; they first interested Malcolm Leicester. Of course Rex has been the organizer of this coup.’
‘He’s smarter than he looks.’
‘Except for the first two meetings with Leicester I’ve tried to do everything openly. The choice is put fairly before the shareholders now.’
‘Yes. Yes. I see.’
He got up. ‘It’s time we were off . . . It’s been a big wrench, but now I’ve decided, it’s like throwing off a hair shirt. It’s pretty unpleasant, Marnie, to have this to contend with month after month. And I honestly think that the Holbrooks, once they’ve swallowed the first pill, will find it better too. Jealousy’s a nasty thing: it’s bad to suffer under and it’s bad to feel oneself.’
I got up slowly. He said: ‘Marnie, I hope you’ll let me start approaching Strutt and the other two firms pretty soon. I want to go and see them on my own. I think I could bargain.’
‘How?’
‘Well, it’s something Westerman couldn’t suggest because it’s illegal. But I could put it that I would return the money stolen from them provided they agreed not to prosecute.’
I shook my head. ‘It isn’t much to bargain with. They’ll have been insured.’
‘Probably. But not certainly. Everyone doesn’t do everything he should. Anyway it’s worth trying.’
The sun was breaking through thick misty clouds as we drove down. Just before we got there he said: ‘How did you know about Rutland’s?’
‘Dawn told me.’
‘She doesn’t know. None of the staff has any inkling yet.’
I sat in silence.
He said: ‘When you tell a silly lie like that I get depressed all over again.’
We were following a horse-box now which was evidently going to the same place as ourselves.
He said: ‘If you’ll only trust me there’s no limit to what we can do, how far we can go together. If you don’t trust me then we’ve no solid ground under our feet at all. We’re still struggling in the same dreary morass where we began.’
He overtook a farmer on a big strong bay which looked as if it might not be very fast but would last for ever.
‘Was it Terry who told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you still see him?’
‘No. He telephoned and suggested it. We had tea at a café in St Albans.’
‘Why did he want to see you?’
‘He seemed to think I might be able to persuade you to back out of this deal.’
‘And are you going to try?’
‘No. I know it’s no use.’
‘But you might if you thought it would be? Whose side are you on, Marnie?’
I stared out of the window. Once again I didn’t seem to care. It wasn’t my concern. ‘Isn’t this where we turn left?’
‘If you are on the other side, say so.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m on your side, Mark, in this.’
But I suppose I didn’t have enough feeling in my voice, because he looked at me as if he knew it wasn’t true.
The meet was in the grounds of a big house called Thornhill. It was a Victorian place, I should think, built of brown brick with a lot of ivy climbing up it and chimneys as tall as rows of pencils. At the side was this large conservatory with a glass roof the shape of the covers you see in cafés to keep the flies off the cakes.
There were quite a lot of people already about when we rode up with Rex Newton-Smith. There were ten cars and four horseboxes and two trailers and about a dozen people mounted or dismounted and a farmer or two, hands in corduroys. Before I agreed to come I’d asked Mark to find out if Arthur Strutt was a hunting man but it turned out he wasn’t, so I was safe from that risk.
Mark was on a big brown horse that was pretty restive so I steered Forio away from him because Forio, although the sweetest-tempered thing, easily caught nerves. Then a man came along in a velvet cap and a scarlet coat, and Rex introduced him as one of the Masters. We all got down and talked for a bit, but I didn’t listen much to what was being said because this was all new to me and, although I was still thinking more about tomorrow than today, I was glad in a way to experience it all once before I bolted. I’d seen horses and dogs streaming over the Gloucestershire countryside but somehow had never come full tilt into them and certainly had never been one of them before.
Just then the hounds came, bobbing and making strange noises and waving their tails all ways. Then suddenly there seemed to be more people everywhere, people talking, people tightening girths, people mounting, a huntsman talking to the dogs, three men in bowler hats and yellow breeches, horses pawing the soft turf, a girl in a blue habit – I’d like one like that – on a horse with white stockinged forefeet, an old man with a crab-apple face; Forio was excited now, he’d never been in so much company; I checked him as well as I could with one hand; just in time we moved off.
Everybody moved off talking, chattering to each other like a Sunday picnic, waiting their turn at the gates, then off down a rutted muddy lane. They were a queer-looking lot, a good many of them ugly, even the women, and hard in a way; I mean tough. I’d swear none of them had ever been short of anything important all their lives. ‘Good crowd,’ Rex said to me in his squeaky voice. ‘More than usual for a Wednesday. It’s the weather I suppose.’ The sun was still trying to shine, weakly, like one of those poached eggs that come pale. Mark was just behind me but his horse was straining; it was one of those animals that always must lead, like some men; it’s a question of temperament. Forio was still lively, kept trying to rear. ‘Hullo, Mark,’ somebody said. ‘It’s a long time.’
We got to the end of the lane, just by a coppice. Somebody in the front had stopped and everybody was jostling each other. ‘They’ve found!’ a man in front said, and it was like an electric current going through everyone. A man next to me was biting his bottom lip and trying to edge forward even though there was no room. Then there was a movement up front and people
were turning off through a gate and up the hill beside the coppice.
Suddenly there was this horn. I’d heard it before in the distance, but it’s different when you’re part of it. The hounds must have gone up the hill because everyone was following, but it was hard to get a move on; it was like driving a car in Oxford Street; I thought I’d sooner have a good clean canter any day.
Mark caught up with me, still checking this big brown horse of his. ‘All right?’ he asked, but his eyes were still cloudy with what had been said in the car. I nodded.
Suddenly we were through and galloping up the field. It was only a couple of hundred yards or so before we came up with the leaders who had checked, or whatever it’s called, but it did us good to go full out, the wind whipping at my face; and I got a bit of nasty satisfaction out of the fact that Forio left Mark’s mount behind.
‘I’m thinking the fox has swung left-handed into Cox Wood,’ said a man in a bowler, looking me up and down as if he liked the look of me. ‘If so we shall lose him. Scent’s always poor in Cox Wood.’
For about half an hour we jogged about, up and down fields and lanes, squelching and splashing, and waiting our turn and getting in each other’s way, and I thought, there are too damned many of us altogether, and I thought, well done fox, you’ve had the laugh of us, stay in your hole, don’t be a fool and give those hounds a chance to show how smart they are.
But at twelve they found another fox and this time it seemed the crazy thing hadn’t been so careful. The horn began to blow like mad, and I followed Mark over a fence, noticing that his horse took it easily, and suddenly the field seemed to spread out and we were racing along level open ground beside a railway embankment. In the distance you could see the hounds and the man called the whip, I think, and the huntsman and about three other riders; then there was the Master and two more, then about a hundred yards behind came Mark and me, but I was leaving him again, and a cluster of about ten others. The rest had been unlucky and had got in a tangle at a bridge.
We had to slow at another gate and then the ploughed field that came next was too heavy for anything but a trot. I was sweating, and I was enjoying myself now. The difference from just riding was that someone else told you what you were going to do, and it was exciting, and just for the minute you didn’t think about what was being chased.
We went downhill then full-pelt and almost caught the hounds, which were scrambling and wriggling through a wire fence. Some of the riders in front of me were making a detour to get through a gate, but I saw the MFH take the wire fence and come to no harm so I set Forio at it and we went over. He never as much as stumbled and I’d gained on the rest of the field. I heard a crash and rumble behind me but it wasn’t Mark, it was the man in the bowler; Mark had got over all right and was only twenty yards behind.
I’d turned at the wrong moment because a low branch nearly had my hat off, and a bit of it scratched my ear and neck. There were only three ahead of me now, and I was out of breath with excitement. The hounds had checked but only for half a minute and they were swinging in a sort of wide arc, past a farmhouse with a small boy leaning over a gate, across a tarred road and down a narrow lane past three cyclists who shouted and waved, over a thick fence of blackthorn and through a wood where pigeons were fluttering and a dog barked. Then out in the open again.
My eyes were watering with the speed, and Forio was white-flecked and his flanks were heaving, and we came to another bigger fence and this time just cleared it. The three men were still ahead of me but I’d gained on them. And then I saw the hounds. And then I saw the fox.
The ground was rising again, and I saw the fox black against the green of the short grass, and I could see he was nearly done. I saw him turn his head and I saw him sink once and then go on running. There must have been getting on for four dozen hounds. All the time they’d been baying, that odd sound; but now it changed somehow. They could see the fox and they’d got him, so it was a sort of different cry, and their hackles were up and their tails seemed to stiffen. And I thought, he can’t get away from them. Whichever way he goes, it’s open country. He’s run well but now he’s tired and done up and there’s nothing for him left but a horrible death. Perhaps he’s got young at home but he’ll never see them again. And I thought no one will help him. No one.
I gave Forio the whip, trying to hurry him forward, with some sort of dim mad idea that I could stop what was going to happen. But all that happened of course was that Forio put on an extra spurt so that I was nearer and could see it all better. The hounds were only a few yards behind the fox now, and he’d no more cunning or strength left in him and he turned snarling for his last stand; and it was fifty to one. Just one minute he was there, a single lonely animal against all the rest, and then suddenly he was swamped in a mass of hounds snarling and fighting and bloodily tearing his life out of him.
Somehow I’d come to a stop, or Forio had stopped for me. The huntsman had gone in with his whip, beating the hounds off the dying fox, so that he could save the brush. That was all he cared about. And then the other three horsemen came up with them and hid the scene so I couldn’t see it any longer. And then others came up, Mark with them, and the afternoon was full of blowing panting horses and people talking and people laughing, and somebody waved the fox’s brush in the air and there was a cheer, and everybody was saying what a good run it had been. And the afternoon was full of laughter and satisfaction and cruelty and death.
‘My God, you made a fine run of it, ma’am,’ a man said to me. ‘If you ever want to sell that horse, ma’am, do let me know. You quite outdistanced me.’
I didn’t answer. Mark said smiling: ‘You rode beautifully.’
I turned away because my throat was choked and I really wanted to cry although I couldn’t quite. Because all these people were happy because an animal had been chased over miles and miles and then cruelly torn to pieces with no chance of escape. I looked at them all, the way I’d looked at them just as we were starting; they were all well fed, well turned out, just the way I’d seen them before. But now I seemed to be able to see something more in their expressions. They were the sort of people who would have sat in an arena and seen men tortured or horses gored or any other show of cruelty without being personally touched at all. They hadn’t any real feelings at all. All they wanted was their own pleasure.
Mark was talking to Rex who had just come up. Rex’s face was a lot redder than the sun, and he kept mopping the sweat off his forehead and neck.
Perhaps there was something wrong with me just then; I’d like to think so because it all got out of proportion. I think I was feeling more just then than I’d ever felt before in my life. Instead of being able to stand aside from things, as I always used to be able to, this was right in my stomach like a knife. It was happening terribly to me.
And now these people, not satisfied with one kill, were getting ready to move off again. Another fox was going to be hunted to its death. And I fancied that, if they knew the truth, that I’d preyed on them, just the way a fox’ll prey on chickens, stealing a few pounds from their banks and their offices, they’d just as quickly turn and hunt me. That fat wrinkled little man with his brass-buttoned coat and white stock and peaked velvet cap, that man looking after the hounds with his whip and his horn, could just as easily set them on me. And once the chase began, once the hounds had started baying, I could gallop and gallop and twist and turn, but I could never get away from them until I too was spent and they came at me with their tearing mouths. But the human beings, so called, would stop that. They’d step in and take me carefully away and very soberly bring me before a judge, and someone would pretend to put my case, although really he’d have his tongue in his cheek all the time, and then someone else would speak for the police, and I would be called to answer questions; but it would all be according to the so-called rules of evidence and I would never be given a chance to explain as I could explain in private and given proper time; and then the judge would speak a few words summi
ng up and he would say, ‘Margaret Elmer, you stand convicted on three charges of embezzlement and fraudulent conversion, it is my duty to sentence you to three years imprisonment’, and I would be led carefully and firmly away.
It was all part of society – what was allowed and what was not allowed. Prison was allowed but they didn’t consult me. Hunting was allowed but they didn’t consult the fox.
So they were all moving off again, and I couldn’t look at the blood of the fox staining the short grass. But Forio more or less turned on his own and went with the rest. I don’t know how long we jogged on, but instead of it getting better inside me it got worse. The thing was boiling up in me like water inside a pan with its lid tied on. The jostling and the neighing and the creak of leather, and the high brittle voices of the women, and the squashing noise of mud and the yelping of the hounds, it all made it worse. ‘You ought to distinguish between being happy and being trigger-happy,’ Roman said. ‘At five guineas a visit,’ said the jailer, ‘I have a long waiting list.’ ‘All right, damn you, have it your own way,’ said a man near me, wheeling his horse. Forio whinnied and nearly had me off. ‘They’ve found again!’ a girl squeaked. ‘What super luck!’ ‘How much do you know of her background, Mark?’ Westerman asked. ‘Well, she was pretty well dragged up.’ Was a fox dragged up? Was it any more dragged up or I any more dragged up than a hound; was its mother less loving? Was my mother less loving than Mark’s? To Hell with their damned patronizing beastliness. All of them. Hard-mouthed, cruel hunters. What had I done half as bad as kill a fox?
We were off again. The whole damned herd of us, off at a yelling gallop, the horn twanging, people thrusting their heels in, mud flying, faces alight with the blood-lust. We came to a fence and Forio checked and then took it perfectly; I suppose I helped, I don’t know. Across another field full pelt and over a ditch and landing among some broken branches: nearly down. The whole hunt had swung right, up rising ground towards a wood. I jerked Forio’s head left. He didn’t like it. I dug my heels in and we galloped off and away from the rest. I heard Mark’s voice: ‘Marnie! This way!’