Рита Браун - The Hounds And The Fury

Betty Franklin and Sybil Bancroft Fawkes, although honorary whippers-in, not paid staff, still performed all staff functions. They too didn’t attend the breakfasts until hounds were in the party wagon or in the kennel, horses cooled out, blankets thrown over them.

Later, back in the barn, Betty Franklin and Sister cleaned tack in the heated tackroom. Shaker, with Sybil’s help and that of her two sons of grade-school age, had fed all the hounds and even rubbed soothing bag balm on their pads. No one’s pads had been cut up, as there wasn’t much ice, but Shaker figured an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. The two boys felt important to help with a big job. Sybil appreciated Shaker’s thoughtfulness. Her marriage, a disaster, had left her a single mother. She liked her sons to be around real men, and Shaker was about as real as it got.

Sari, Lorraine Rasmussen’s daughter, and Jennifer, Betty’s daughter, were home from Colby College on Christmas vacation. They washed down the staff horses and asked to clean tack, but Sister sent them on their way. She knew both girls wanted to primp for a big New Year’s Eve party, although first they had to attend Betty’s party.

As Betty finished washing the bits, hanging Shaker’s bridle on a tack hook high over a bucket, she asked, “When does Gray start at Aluminum Manufacturers?”

“Tuesday. Thought Garvey might be with us today, but maybe the roads aren’t as good out his way.” Sister paused. “Iffy won’t take kindly to what she considers a footprint in her garden.”

“Iffy’s been a pill since birth.”

Sister laughed so hard she startled Raleigh and Rooster, who barked. “Oh, shut up. It’s just me. Go back to sleep. Betty, savage but true.”

“She isn’t that bad looking. A bit of a dumpling, but pretty enough. She’s so sour no man would have her.”

“No woman either.” Sister laughed.

“Who do you think is pickier? Men or women?”

“Men.”

“See, I think it’s women.” Betty answered her own question.

“Maybe men and women are picky about different things. Men get very distracted by looks. Women get distracted by promises. And both get what they deserve.”

“Ain’t that the truth. You’d better go into marriage with your eyes wide open.”

“Betty, you no more did that than I did. When you’re young you can’t possibly know the changes the years bring. Love is blind, for which I suppose we should give some thanks, or there’d be no next generation.”

“Ha!” Betty wrung out a soft rag before rubbing it on saddle soap, her first step in cleaning the leather.

“Ha, what? I know that tone of voice.”

“Sex. Nothing can keep the human animal from sex. No laws, no religion, not even the threat of death. In the old days it was syphilis. Now it’s AIDS. We’re fools breeding fools, and we always were.”

“I did my share,” grinned Sister, alluding to her very rich past. “You did all right.” Betty wiped down the leather after the saddle soap. “Back to Iffy. I heard she was seeing a lot of Alfred DuCharme. Hard to believe.”

“Lord.” Sister raised her eyebrows. “Hadn’t heard that. Let’s keep on the good side of Alfred. He allows us to hunt Paradise. Took awhile to bring Binky around to it, so we need Alfred to be especially happy with us. Iffy, on a whim, could toss a monkey wrench into the works. Especially if she gets mad at Gray. She’ll take it out on the club.”

Binky, Alfred’s older brother, had stolen Alfred’s girlfriend, Milly Archer, a west end Richmond girl, back in 1975. Alfred had never forgiven Binky.

Regardless of Binky’s entreaties, Alfred refused to attend the marriage. He wouldn’t even wave to his brother or his sister-in-law if he passed them on the road.

When their father, Brenden, had died he’d kept the land intact. He thought this would force them to cooperate, and thus reconcile, without him alive to be a go-between. He figured wrong.

Instead, Binky and Milly’s daughter, the bright and spunky Margaret, soon found herself filling in for her departed grandfather and mediating between her father and her uncle.

Embittered though he remained toward Binky and Milly, Alfred worshipped his niece, a sports physician at Jefferson Regional Hospital.

The brothers lived in separate dependencies, small houses, near the ruins of the main house. The one time they had been seen together willingly was at Margaret’s graduation.

“Yep. Funny how people shoot themselves in the foot. Think of the happiness Alfred has missed. He doesn’t stick with a woman long. Maybe that’s why he’s going out with Iffy. He thinks she’ll be dead soon, so he won’t have to dump her. Or vice versa.” Betty giggled, finished cleaning Shaker’s bridle. “You stripped your bridle. I didn’t strip Shaker’s. I washed it, then used saddle soap.”

Stripping took more time as one used something like castile soap to wash it, then rub it even cleaner. After this, one hangs it up and reapplies a light leather oil with a clean cloth. Then one uses the heat of one’s fingers to rub it again, lastly wiping all down once more with a clean dry cloth.

“I know. I’m being superstitious, so I went the whole nine yards.”

“Any other superstitions besides cleaning way too thoroughly?”

“I count the spoons in the house.”

“What?”

“I count the spoons in the house.”

“Why?” Betty looked at her.

“I don’t know. My mother did it and her mother did it every New Year’s Eve. I know it’s stupid—but hey, you asked me and I told you. What do you do?”

“Make resolutions. The usual. I will lose weight.”

“You don’t need to lose any more weight, Betty.”

“I’m so used to making that as a New Year’s resolution, I can’t stop.”

“See, that’s why I have to count the spoons. I’ve always done it.”

Another forty-five minutes passed between the two close friends, who could open their hearts to each other as well as talk about substantive issues sprinkled with the paprika of gossip.

The phone rang in the tack room.

“Hello. Hi, Walter.”

“Jason Woods cornered me at breakfast after you left. He said you didn’t think he knew how to whip-in.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“I know. You’d be more diplomatic. He’s taking this as”—a note of humor filled Walter Lungrun’s voice—“a slur on his manliness.”

“Jesus Christ, spare me a man who isn’t one.”

“He’s okay, Sister. He’s just one of those people who needs attention, adoration. He’s very good at what he does.”

“So are a lot of other people. If you aren’t at the top 20 percent, you slide into mediocrity, I reckon. But that’s not the point. The point is, what do we do with this twit?” She went on to explain her entire conversation with Jason concerning how Jefferson Hunt develops whippers-in. “And I apologize. I should have told you, but I thought he’d be smart enough to let it go. Or if not, then show up this summer to start walking puppies.”

Betty listened, attention rapt.

“If he would do that, would you and Shaker work with him?”

“Of course, if he has aptitude. Look, I know he can ride. He has that beautiful chestnut gelding, Kilowatt. That’s not the issue. It’s the rest of it. I have yet to see him evidence any interest in even one hound, much less the pack, and he wants to whip-in?”

Walter, putting his feet on the hassock in his den, replied in a relaxed voice. “But if he does the real work, the hard work in the off-season, will you and Shaker work with him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if I call him and discuss this? I’ll relay our conversation.”

“No. I’m grateful. Gets me off the hook.”