Daphne du Maurier - Hungry Hill

Mrs. Flower, dressed as for a London reception, was mending a tear in her brocaded bedroom curtains, nor did the entrance of the two visitors embarrass her at all.

"I am delighted to see you both," she said, extending a gracious hand, which Henry wondered whether he was expected to kiss. "You find us as usual in a state of disorganisation. Pray take a chair and tell me the news. Not that one, Mr. Brodrick, the leg is unsafe… How kind of your father to send us a present of game! It so happens that my husband's brother, the Earl of Mundy, is not at the moment in residence in this country-he generally keeps us very plentifully supplied with game, as you can imagine… Are your sisters still picnicking in the little farmhouse? Miss Brodrick must fancy herself Marie-Antoinette at the Petit Trianon. Quite a change after Clonmere…?

She rattled on, hardly pausing to draw breath and never waiting for an answer, and as she talked loudly to make herself heard above the piano, so did her husband increase the volume of sound, until one of the setters, which had been crouching between his legs, crawled from his lair and added a mournful howl to his master's strains.

"Poor Boris cannot abide the pianoforte," shouted Mrs. Flower. "Sometimes he will continue howling for an hour on end, but it never puts my husband out of countenance. When are you both coming over to hunt with my father's hounds at Duncroom?"

The strain of conversing under such conditions proved too much for Henry, for all his charm of manner, and he could do little else but smile and bow and gesture with his hands, while John remained steadily mute, as he invariably did when secretly entertained.

At length the concert came to an end, there was a superb flourish of chords and a loud hammering in the bass that drew forth a final moan of protest from the setter, and Simon Flower rose to his feet, slamming the lid of the piano.

"They say it's a sign of intelligence when a dog sings to music," he said, waving his pipe at the brothers. "Did you hear that hound of mine trying to accompany me? I declare he puts his very soul into his voice; it wrings my heart to hear him."

"Don't be absurd, Simon; the animal dislikes it."

"Dislikes it? I tell you the dog will sit by my side like a leech, with his eyes fixed on the notes, so devoted he is to the instrument. But never mind about that; these lads want refreshment after their journey. Come down to the cellar, both of you; we shall do better that way than if we allow my wife to make tea."

He led the way down a narrow, twisting stair to the labyrinths of his castle, and after poking about with a stump of candle he discovered a bottle of old Madeira, which he proceeded to decant on the spot into an ancient carafe hidden in a cranny of the cellar along with some half-dozen glasses.

"When there's frost on the ground in winter and I can't hunt," he said gravely, "I bring my friends down here, and it would astonish you to see how well we pass the time. My wife imagines us to be playing billiards, and to deceive her I get my servant to click the balls about She never knows but what we are there, the dear trusting soul. Fill up your glasses, my boys, and make yourselves comfortable.

There's a beer barrel apiece for you to sit upon."

The two young men and their host did indeed do so much better than if their hostess had made tea for them in the drawing-room, that when they finally emerged from the cellar and blinked their way into the upper regions once more Henry had forgotten his mission, John was in a state of bland benevolence, and their host was singing "O! Mistress mine, where are you roaming?" which song, in John's opinion, could hardly be directed at the formidable Mrs. Flower. Tea, however, was being served in the drawing-room, and Henry recovered himself sufficiently to broach, in a somewhat lame fashion, the reason for the visit. The story he told certainly sounded a little muddled, and Simon Flower, in spite of the interlude in the cellar, could hardly be blamed for shaking his head at the end of it.

"I'll not go crawling around in a rabbit burrow for your father or for any man on earth," he said, yawning, the potency of the old Madeira beginning to show in his sleepy blue eyes. "Why, it might be that I'd lose me way, and never a soul would have sight of me again. Do you remember it was in such fashion we lost poor Trouncer, Maria? She got poking into an old badger's earth and that was the end of her, the best bitch I ever bred."

"You mistake me, sir," said Henry; "there was never a question of your descending the mine and going into the tunnel. My father's plan is for you and the rest of us to mount guard at the outlet of the tunnel on the hillside, and to waylay any of these beggars who may appear."

"Is it foxes or men you are after?"

"Men, Mr. Flower. I have just explained to you.

The fellows who are stealing the copper from the mine.

My father wishes to arrest them and make an example of them. He thinks Morty Donovan is at the back of it."

"Ah, I'll not do a thing against Morty Donovan. Didn't he sell me the father of that same Trouncer I was just telling you of? A wonderful dog, John; you would have appreciated the pair of them. No, why should I lie all night on a hillside to pick a quarrel with Morty Donovan? I don't see what your father wants to meddle in the business for at all."

"But, surely, Mr. Flower, you believe in upholding the law? Are you not a magistrate yourself?"

"Shame on you, Simon," said his wife; "there is poor Mr. Brodrick over at Doonhaven working all alone to save the property belonging to him and to my father, and you don't raise a hand to help him. I only wish my brother-in-law were at home, Mr. Brodrick. The Earl of Mundy would never sit by and see such injustice done, and I dare say if I used my influence and perhaps got word to him over the prater…"

"Very good of you, madam, but you see the matter is urgent. I gather think my father hoped that Mr.

Flower would accompany us home tonight."

"Tonight? Impossible. I shall not stir from Castle Andriff this night for all the thieves in Europe," said Simon Flower dramatically. "Let Morty Donovan run away with the copper, and may it bring him better fortune than it has to my house."

And clamping his hat more firmly on his head, Simon Flower sat himself down once more to the piano.

Henry looked across at John and shrugged his shoulders, and at this moment the door of the drawing-room flew open and Simon's daughter rushed into the room, her face flushed, her eyes bright with anger, and her mass of chestnut hair in a tangle down her back.

"It's a shame," she shouted, "a wicked shame, and I told her I would not stand it, and no more I will.

And I've scratched her face, and locked her up in the linen-press, and I hope she dies."

So saying, she slammed down the lid of the piano, forcing her father to silence, and stood with heaving breast, her eyes upon her mother.

The vision that had so suddenly descended upon them was too much for the young Brodricks. They rose to their feet, abashed and speechless, and indeed Fanny-Rosa Flower, at seventeen, would have reduced any man with a sense of beauty to the same state of silence.

Her present anger only added to her loveliness, the flush on her cheeks brought new depth to her slanting green eyes, and the untidy curling hair made her look like a Bacchante from the wild woods. The fact that she was stockingless seemed in perfect keeping with the character. She now noticed, for the first time, that her parents had visitors.

"How do you do?" she said, with something of her mother's regal manner, but with her father's smile. "I am sorry to cause such a disturbance, but I have just had a fight with my governess, and I trust it is the last one."

"Fanny-Rosa," said her mother, "I am pained and surprised. What will Mr. Brodrick and his brother think of you?