Рита Браун - Crazy Like A Fox

Sister and Gray had heard the history of Old Paradise, built by Sophie as was Custis Hall, the private school, many times. Daniella relished the victory of this early nineteenth-century woman so much it was delightful to hear her tell the tale.

“This state bursts with incredible people, past and present.” Sister nodded to Daniella, indicating she was an incredible person. She was not always an easy one to be around, or to be related to.

“Where was I? Oh, Margaret. Elegant woman married to a crashing bore. Margaret’s mother, the Minor, seethed with financial ambition. Margaret’s marriage was arranged by her mother—not exactly on a par with Consuelo Vanderbilt’s arranged marriage to the Duke of Marlborough, but just as bad.” Daniella knew her history, social and political. “Brenden DuCharme didn’t mistreat her. He took good care of her financially. When a man owns a huge place, thousands of acres, outbuildings, dependencies, all that, he doesn’t pay but so much attention to his wife. He just bored her. Take it from me, he was boredom personified.” She tapped her forehead. “Dumb as a sack of hammers. Brenden inherited everything. Never really had to work hard, solve problems, learn to get along with others. I wouldn’t call him rude, especially, just dense. Very dense.”

“Good-looking?”

“Are Binky and Alfred good-looking?” A pause. “I rest my case. Weevil zeroed in on her. She didn’t have a chance.”

“And you say she was lovely?” Gray asked.

“Was. Titian-colored hair. Blue eyes. Classic WASP features. Wonderful figure, full bosom, small waist. And, the best part, she could ride. They had opportunities to meet—and then again, there were fewer ways to catch someone then. If you had half a brain you could have an affair undetected.”

Now Sister believed Daniella had indeed enjoyed the delights of Weevil as well as those of other men. For one thing, her collection of jewelry was suspicious. A few husbands, yes. That much jewelry, no.

“What happened?” Gray finished his drink.

“Oh, like Evie Bancroft, sent to Europe. Paris for Margaret. Spoke perfect French. Then again, she did evidence a strong interest in fashion. Brenden said she was going to bring back a collection of the latest high fashion, which she did.” She shrugged. “Who is to say?”

“Aunt Dan. What do you think of that video? Truly?” Gray softly inquired.

“I think it’s Wesley Carruthers. It frightened me a little and yet,”—pause—“and yet it made my heart leap to see him.” She breathed deeply. “I miss old friends. I have outlived almost everyone of my generation. I have outlived my son. Losing friends, that’s the hardest thing about aging.” She stopped, remembered Sister’s past. “Forgive me if I have brought up a painful memory.”

Sister smiled. “Aunt Daniella, I quite agree. My son was killed in that farm accident in 1974. I think of him every day. Big Ray died in 1991. I don’t think of him quite as much, but we mostly got along. People I started out with once I was on my own are dying now. The generation of foxhunters in front of me from whom I learned so much are mostly gone. My old horses, my old hounds. I know exactly what you mean, but we go on. You certainly have.”

“Life is to be lived. We all have sorrows.” This was said with dignity. Daniella rolled the cold glass in her hand, then stopped. “Should you find anything out about Weevil, tell me. Ghosts don’t drink, but how I would love to offer him a perfect brandy. To remember the old folks, friends. The laughter. How we laughed. I can still hear your mother’s laughter, Gray. We were close, you know.” Then switching gears. “How is Lucinda?”

Lucinda Arnold, Sister’s mother-in-law, was alive, in her high nineties, in Richmond, Virginia.

“The same.”

“Which is to stay she’s still a bitch. Only the good die young,” Daniella remarked.

Gray looked at her. “Indeed.”

She reached for her ebony cane to crack him, stopped, threw her head back, and laughed.

CHAPTER 10

“Lieu in,” Shaker called in his singsong voice.

Cora, head female, standing by the huge waterwheel at Mill Ruins, took the lead, trotting down the farm road winding behind the mill. This road had no ruts because Walter Lungrun, M.D., scraped it; it divided two huge pastures. A half mile down the road, forests rich in hardwoods awaited them.

The water sprayed off the turning wheel, tiny rainbows spraying color at seven forty-five A.M. The meet started at seven-thirty but there was always someone rushing to put on their tack, or Sister’s announcements took time. As there were no fixture cards during cubbing, information was transmitted before each meet or later by email. Even though it was September 21, Thursday, twenty-five people moved off behind the hounds. This goodly number in the middle of the week pleased Sister as well as her younger Joint Master, Walter Lungrun, sitting in his Tahoe converted to pick up hounds if need be. Next to him sat Yvonne Harris, looking as though she’d stepped out of a page of England’s Country Life magazine.

Walter informed her, “That little toodle you heard on the horn is really for the people. It’s to alert them to shut up, to keep them behind the hounds. ‘Lieu in’ is Norman French. Came into our language after 1066. He called that to the hounds telling them to search for the fox, to go into the covert.”

“Norman French?” she inquired in her modulated voice, a voice cultivated to suggest just that, cultivation.

He grinned. “When William the Conqueror defeated King Harold in 1066, everything changed. We’re still living out those changes. Latin, as in Norman French, intertwined with Anglo-Saxon. The French brought their ways with them and suddenly sauces appeared on long, well-appointed tables. Expensive, different furniture, really expensive architecture. Well, they brought their form of hunting as well. And we continue to use their terms.”

“Was Harold that rough? I mean, was England before the conquest that primitive? I’m not much of a historian until you get to the Paris of the Belle Époque—the beginning of mass fashion, in a way.”

“You’ll have to teach me. About all I know is your coat sleeve should show just a bit of shirtsleeve unless you’re hunting. Then the sleeves are longer. Oh, I know the best coats have buttons that really work so you can roll up your coat sleeves.”

“Very good.” Yvonne laughed. “My husband, my soon-to-be ex-husband, had all his clothing tailored in Jermyn Street. He swore we still can’t tailor men’s furnishings.”

“I’ve got a lot to learn.”

“So do I. Norman French. So the hounds are bilingual.”

Walter grinned again, a wide one. “Yvonne, you’ll make a houndswoman yet. And so to answer your earlier question, Harold and his people weren’t that rough, but Italy and France were more refined. They never let us forget it back then.”

Driving the Tahoe, which Walter referred to as “The Beast” since it would go through anything, he followed the last of the field, Second Flight staying behind so as not to press horses or make riders nervous. Enough of them in Second Flight were nervous anyway.

Noticing this, Yvonne asked, “These people go slow?”

“No. They don’t jump. They might jump a log, but they go to the gates. Often they run harder and faster than First Flight because they have to catch up. Second Flight is for green riders, green horses, to train them both. Sometimes a person just doesn’t want to launch over jumps anymore.”

“I see. So that’s where one would start or finish.”

“Yes. On big hunt days, days when we have over fifty people, sometimes Sister will allow a Third Flight, people who go much slower and often stand on hills to watch the hunt unfold. Hilltoppers.”