Out Of Hounds

CHAPTER 11

February 16, 2020 Sunday

The Episcopal church at Greenwood was the church of the Langhorne family, the family famous for the four beautiful daughters, one of whom became the first woman to serve in England’s Parliament, Nancy Astor. Lady Astor was also a terrific horsewoman, as were her sisters, Phyllis being quite famous for her skills. Irene became the Gibson Girl, the personification of the “New Woman.” Nora, also beautiful, lived a quieter life. Beautiful, hard-riding women drew attention in the hunt field. Almost a century later their exploits were remembered in the United States and Great Britain. They were the kind of women Sir Alfred Munnings painted, the sheen of their skills apparent.

Driving home from the service, the air cold but clear, Sister turned for the Lorillard place, knowing Gray, Sam, and Aunt Daniella would be there, having gone to their church service together.

She knocked on the back door, as an old friend would do. Sam opened the mudroom door for her. They walked through the kitchen door to the warmth of the old wood-burning stove, its iron potbelly looking as though it had had a good meal.

Uncle Yancy watched them from his perch over the kitchen door. Flattened on the ledge over that door, the spoiled fox was missed by the humans, despite the whiff of fox scent. They attributed it to the old towels in the corner, thinking they had old cologne smell, even old washed-out dirt. Uncle Yancy lived quite well.

“The gang’s all here.” Sister smiled, for Yvonne was also there. “Yvonne, aren’t you Catholic?”

“I am. I went to mass and like you dropped by here.”

“We know where the good times are.” Sister walked across the shiny old kitchen floor, the original, to kiss Aunt Daniella on the cheek, then Yvonne. Ladies in Virginia believe in kissing, so Yvonne had adjusted but she still sometimes raised her shoulders and grinned.

“Sit down here,” Aunt Daniella ordered.

“I will but first let me put this in the fridge, shepherd’s pie. Perfect for a cold day, and boy, it’s cold.”

“Good sermon?” Sam asked.

“Was. How about yours?”

He sat by the stove. “All those Sundays after Epiphany. I lose count. What really gets me is shifting the calendar to the Gregorian.” He looked to Yvonne, sitting next to him. “These chairs are old kitchen chairs. Wouldn’t you all rather be in the living room with the big fireplace?”

“Not a bad idea.” Gray rose, preceded them into the living room, threw more logs on that fire.

The fireplaces helped cut the electric bill. The odor of pearwood, cured hardwoods, wonderful odors, made one relax and breathe deeply.

Sam walked Aunt Daniella to her favorite chair while Gray brought her drink. Sam then attended to everyone else’s drinks. Although an alcoholic he had no trouble smelling liquor, creating mixed drinks. He poured himself a tonic water with lime, one for Sister, too, and joined the others, who had encapsulated the sermons they heard.

“See the news this morning?” Aunt Daniella asked.

“No. I was tired from yesterday and overslept. What is the outrage du jour?” Sister smiled slyly.

“Not so much outrage, for which I am grateful, but the man killed at Showoff Stables was Parker Bell.”

“Really?” Sister’s eyebrows raised.

“Maybe he had it coming.” Sam shrugged. “That’s the creep that kicked Trinity then Weevil, right?”

“Yes. Ben later told us his name. He took statements to have a record should there be any legal proceedings.”

“For what?” Yvonne wondered.

“Trespassing. That’s what he was shouting about. We sat, oh, seventy yards behind one of the paddocks. I didn’t go down those lanes because you could hear him screaming about trespassing. Weevil kept his cool. Well, anyone know how he was killed?” Sister was curious but figured Parker Bell got his due.

“Strangled with a lead shank, a brand-new Fennell’s lead shank, the commentator reported.”

Aunt Daniella filled in, “Here’s the strange part. His right forefinger and second finger had been cut off at the first knuckle, the wound long healed. They discovered this when they removed his gloves.”

“Probably an old accident. Farm work is dangerous,” Gray wisely noted. “I think, too, many of those workers or anyone’s workers do odd jobs for others for cash. One gets injured over years of labor.”

“Oh, remember when Yugoslavia blew up after Tito died?” Sister thought back as the others nodded. “It was Muslim vs. Christian. I’m sure there were other hatreds as well but that was the one that made the news over and over again. It was quite savage.”

“There is such a thing as an enlightened dictator, and I guess Marshall Tito was one. When he was alive nothing like that happened.” Aunt Daniella relished her bourbon. “If there isn’t some unifying principle or strongman, things fly apart.”

“In our case the unifying principle is the Constitution,” Sam offered.

“We hope.” Yvonne smiled, as she had her doubts that people even read the Constitution anymore.

“Well, we took you off the track,” Gray apologized.

“That’s what happens when we all get together.” Sister opened her hands, palms up. “We are all over the map.”

“Then let’s go back to the former Yugoslavia.” Sam untied his shoes, slipping them off.

“Lots of killing. I saw a photo, it was in The Manchester Guardian newspaper. I remember that and it showed Christian dead soldiers, facedown. Their forefinger and second finger had been cut off. Everyone.”

“Why mutilate a corpse?” Yvonne shook her head lightly.

“You keep hating them after they’re dead.” Gray was right about that. “That’s why law enforcement people study the victim as they do. Was it a clean killing? Get them out of the way. Or was it hate?”

“Gross but human, I guess.” Sister then added, “The point of the mutilation was that they couldn’t make the sign of the cross. Also a signal to other Christians that the Muslims would give them no quarter. This hatred was well repaid by the Christians when they got their hands on any Muslims. Never ends, does it?”

“No,” Yvonne said with finality.

“Didn’t the murdered man call Kasmir an Arab?” Gray frowned. “I remember Kasmir laughing about that and saying he corrected him. He wasn’t a goddamned Arab, he was a goddamned Muslim.”

“No way Kasmir would kill the lout.” Aunt Daniella appreciated the odor of the pearwood.

“Of course not, but people being who and what they are, some will gossip about it.” Sister shrugged. “Let’s forget Showoff Stables. What about the signs popping up? ‘Stop Foxhunting,’ ‘End Bloodsports’?”

Sam said, “I’ve seen the signs. Just a thought, but what if Gigi Sabatini is behind this? It was his man who was killed, his man who blew up when hounds crossed into the farm.”

“He couldn’t be that stupid.” Sister’s voice rose.

“No doubt, but Parker Bell was his man. Perhaps there is anger there,” Gray remarked.

Yvonne thought a moment. “Tootie said Ben Sidell called Weevil to ask some questions.”

“To change the subject, how about those two foxes in Freddie Thomas’s tack room?” Sister laughed.

This happy subject delighted them for nearly an hour until finally Sam couldn’t stand it. He heated up the shepherd’s pie and they all ate a shepherd’s dinner, a perfect meal for a cold day.

Sister didn’t get home until five. Gray stayed with Sam and Aunt Daniella was driven home by Yvonne. Sister heard her car drive down to Tootie’s place after that. She thought it good that mother and daughter were becoming close.

“Where were you?” Golly indignantly asked. “I could do with something from the refrigerator. No canned food.”

“O la.” Rooster rolled his eyes.

The complaint evaporated as Sister actually heated up leftover chicken soup, pouring it on the dogs’ kibble as well as Golly’s. Two shepherd pies rested on a refrigerator shelf for the next day. Sister shared her food with her pets. Not all of it but enough to spoil them rotten.

The phone rang.

“Sister.”

“O.J. How good to hear your voice. Have a good hunt yesterday?”

“I did, but I’m calling you about something else. This is, I don’t know, perplexing? Anyway, last night the Munnings painting of Mrs. Oliver Filley was stolen from Delores Buckingham’s. Her mother was a friend of Lady Astor. She and her husband would take a hunt box in England for most of the season. Anyway, her mother and father became friends with Sir Alfred Munnings. I think they met him shortly before the First World War. Became fast friends. This is bizarre. Delores inherited the painting decades ago, upon her parents’ death.”

“Funny, I was thinking about Nancy Astor today because I go to her church, the one she grew up in. It’s so simple. Nothing extraneous and Mirador is across the road almost.” She named Lady Astor’s childhood home, kept in fine condition. What was missing was the nonstop activity of those days: all the people, horses, long parties since distances took so much time to cover. Once you got somewhere you stayed a few days if not weeks. People drew close together and those four girls met so many people, played games constantly, and like most children of the time, especially girls, economic and political conditions were not explained to them. The marvel of it was that Nancy Langhorne became so political and so wisely married Waldorf Astor.

“I remember. So here’s the thing,” O.J. said, using one of her common expressions.

“Is this about Munnings?”

“Is this some kind of obsession with foxhunting?”

“Munnings foxhunted,” Sister calmly replied.

“Not sidesaddle.”

“Not that we know.” Sister had to smile.

“The black market. Has to be some kind of black market,” O.J. mused.

“I agree. And it is peculiar that these thefts are taking place so close together. So if it is the black market, perhaps the work is going to the same place. Best to take them all at once.”

A pause followed this. “I don’t know. What if this is someone obsessed with either Munnings or women riding sidesaddle?”

“The only answer to that will be if another artist’s sidesaddle painting is stolen.”

“Well—yes.” O.J. considered that.

From there they compared Saturday’s hunt notes. O.J. loved the story of the two stowaways in Freddie’s trailer tack room.

Then Sister gave her the story of Parker Bell kicking Trinity, and then being murdered.

“If my father were alive he would have something to say about those missing fingers. Has to mean something.”

“I suppose, but not to us. Here’s an unrelated thought. Ready?”

“I’m always ready.” O.J. egged her on. “Never know what you’ll come up with.”

“Joint meets are a lot of work and you need to prod people to travel or you need to prod them to host guests. It’s great fun but I think the Leishmaniasis scare kind of damaged that.”

This was their response to a Mideastern disease that attacked dogs but could pass to people. The uproar was back in 1999. All clubs had to get blood drawn, and depending on the results hounds were supposed to be killed or removed from the pack. Apart from some hunts putting down good hounds, it was a kind of panic that played itself out. Is there Leishmaniasis? Yes. Is it under control? Yes, and foxhounds are not singular vectors for it, although some did have those titers.

But the scare was intense. The Master of Foxhounds Association’s vigilance killed joint meets because people feared putting their packs together. There are still joint meets but not like in the old days because packs aren’t often blended for the day. New foxhunters have no memory of that and don’t realize how important joint meets are.

However, Sister and O.J. had those memories and they mourned all those fabulous joint meets where packs could be put together, sometimes three or even four packs at a time. The music was stupendous.

O.J. agreed. “Everything changed and I still draw blood.”

“I do, too, but let’s do this: We won’t call this a joint meet but we will call our stomping buddies and go to one another’s hunts. If anyone wants to come they have to tell us so the hunt can prepare. But laid-back.”

“Okay. Who do you have in mind?” O.J. asked.

“Deep Run, Red Rock, Bull Run, Big Sky, and the two of us. Maybe Marion Thorne at Genesee Valley if she can get away. That’s the real difficulty, getting away, and Marion hunts the hounds. She is gifted.”

O.J., knowing the Upstate New York huntsman, readily agreed. “Don’t you think huntsman are born, not made?”

“Yes, but I feel that way about so many things, be it the arts or medicine or being called to God. Priests and pastors feel called. One should never mock that.”

“People do that. Can you imagine if a schoolteacher suggested people are called?”

“You can teach people some things. I mean, you can give people the demands of hunting hounds and a reasonably intelligent person will do it, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be good at it and in time the pack will unravel. Same for a congregation, I suppose.”

“Boy, is that the truth. Takes a couple of years to pull hounds back together. How did we get off on this?”

“The way we get off on everything. So let’s just ask our girlfriends, a girls joint gathering, and go for it. I’m not being sexist but I do think it would be so much fun if the hunts get together. All of us women masters.”

“That’s a good idea. But I don’t think we should advertise that this is girl power.”

“Of course not, O.J. Anyway, men like to look at women. Those ladies are good-looking. The boys won’t know what hit them.”

“What might be easier is to all convene without our packs, think of the hauling distances, at one hunt. Each year we change the location. Something a little different,” O.J. suggested.

“Good idea, sugarpie. It’s always a great idea to dazzle men.”

Peals of laughter followed this, then O.J. inquired, “And how is Gray?”

“One of the sweetest men who ever lived. We don’t meddle in each other’s lives. We enjoy what we do together. Then again, it helps to be older.”

“Does. Okay. I’ll call you back tomorrow and we can make a list of who calls whom.”

“Such good English,” Sister teased her.

“After all the money my father spent on my education, I’d better be correct.” The Kentucky master smiled, remembering her father, a powerful and driven man who loved his children.

“Okay. We’re on,” Sister said.

“We’re on.”