Outfoxed

CHAPTER 15

The night promised a light frost. Sister Jane made the rounds before turning in for the night. She checked Dragon, head swollen but beginning to feel better. She said good night to the rest of the hounds, hearing a few good nights in return.

She walked back over the brick path to the stable. The horses slept in perfect contentment.

With Raleigh at her heels, she walked in her back door, removed her barn coat and scarf, draping them over the Shaker pegs. Then she slipped her feet out of the green wellies.

She clicked off the lights in the kitchen, the hall, and the front parlor. Then she climbed the front stairs to her bedroom. Two windows, the glass handblown, looked over an impressive walnut tree. Beautiful though it was, the sound of dropping walnuts on a tin roof could waken the dead during the fall.

Golly, already on one pillow, opened an eye, then shut it when Sister and Raleigh entered the room. An old sheepskin rested at the foot of the bed. Raleigh jumped up, circled three times, finally dropping like a stone.

“You weigh more than I do,” Sister teased him.

“Close,” Raleigh replied.

A chill settled in the room. Built in 1707, the house was a marvelous example of early American architecture. Insulation was horsehair in the walls, some of which also had lathing. Years ago when Ray was still alive they’d blown fluffy insulation down the exterior walls and it helped cut the cold. Materials had advanced since then, and she often thought of just ripping out the walls from the interior and putting up those fat rolls of pink insulation with numbers like R-30.

The expense halted that pipe dream, as did the total disruption to her life. Bad enough to be disrupted at forty but by seventy her tolerance had diminished proportionately.

She hopped out of bed, slipped on a sweatshirt, and hopped back in.

She picked up Arthur Schnitzler’s The Way into the Open, published in 1908. There was a line in the novel she appreciated, “the bereavements of everyday life.” She read a bit, then put it down. Neurotic, edgy Vienna displeased her tonight.

She reached for George Washington’s foxhunting diaries, which had been compiled for her by an old friend who worked at Mount Vernon. The good general had kept diaries, notes, letters from the age of fourteen on.

She read a few lines about hounds losing a line on a windy day. Then she put that down, too. Normally she loved reading Washington’s foxhunting observations. He was a highly intelligent man and a forthright one about hunting. But she needed relief from hunting. Right now it was causing as much headache as joy.

She opened a slim red volume of Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. These notes, written in 1746, when the general was fourteen, were, he hoped, going to be engraved on his brain. The physical act of writing pinned the words in the mind as well as on the page. But for the young, tall youth, the main purpose was mastery over himself.

She read out loud to Golly and Raleigh: “In the presence of others sing not to yourself with a humming noise, nor drum with your fingers or feet.” She paused. “Well, that leaves Kyle Dawson out of polite society.”

“Sister, you haven’t seen Kyle Dawson in years,” Raleigh reminded her.

She peeped over the book, speaking to the animals. “Here’s one for you. Number thirteen. Ready? ‘Kill no vermin as fleas, lice, ticks & c in sight of others; if you see any filth or thick spittle, put your foot dexterously upon it; if it be upon the clothes of your companions, put it off privately; and if it be upon our own clothes, return thanks to him who put it off.’ ”

“I don’t have fleas.” Golly rolled over, reaching high into the air with her left paw.

“Liar.” Raleigh lifted his head.

“That got a response.” Sister turned the page. The phone rang. No one close to Sister called after nine-thirty in the evening. It was now ten. “Hello.”

“Hello, is this Mrs. Raymond Arnold?”

“Yes.”

The deep male voice replied, “This is Dr. Walter Lungrun. I was hoping I could cub with you this Thursday.”

“Are you a member of another hunt, Mr. Lungrun?”

“No, ma’am, I’m not. I’ve just returned to the area to do my residency.”

“Ah, well, come on ours anyway. You’ll have to sign a waiver and release form saying you know this sport is dangerous and if you break your neck so be it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It will be good to have a doctor in the field. What’s your specialty?”

“Neurosurgery.”

Sister glanced at the silver-framed photograph of Raymond in his army uniform that rested on her night table. “Lungrun. From Louisa County?”

“Yes. I left to go to Cornell and then to NYU School of Medicine.”

“So you’re smart, Dr. Lungrun.” Her voice lightened.

“Smart enough to call you.” He was light in return.

“Well then, I’ll see you at seven-thirty at the Mill Ruins.”

“I look forward to it.”

“Good-bye, Dr. Lungrun.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Arnold.”

She hung up the phone, folded her hands over her chest. “How extraordinary.”