Scarlet Fever

CHAPTER 27

March 26, 2019 Tuesday

A finger of wind kept punching down the side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Not a sweeping, moaning wind but one steady puff riding a ravine, which bottomed out a mile west of Old Paradise’s carriage stable being refurbished.

Given the weather and the odd run they’d had last week, Sister had changed to Tattenhall Station for Tuesday.

Cindy Chandler breathed a sigh of relief, since a pine tree had fallen over Clytemnestra’s paddock fencing. A crew had worked on it Monday and how Cindy got that stubborn giant and her equally huge son to follow her to the adjoining paddock was a miracle. She’d considered walking them into the barn, food shaken in a bucket being the enticement, but if Big Momma grew restive in Cindy’s beautiful stable, the damned cow could take out a wall. Cindy was always helpful about using her place for a last-minute fixture change. She was, however, glad they were at Tattenhall Station.

Also Sister didn’t want to overhunt Foxglove Farm. It was tempting because it was close and if the unpredictable weather socked them again, it was easy to drive in and out of the place. Not always the case with other fixtures.

As Cindy unloaded Booper from her two-horse trailer, she and the girls laughed about her tribulations. Sister asked her dear friend to ride up with her, which Cindy accepted. So she’d be up front with Kasmir and Alida. The Bancrofts, still wary of the footing, chose to remain at After All.

For a Tuesday there was a crowd. Only two hunts left, the sun was shining, people found a way to wiggle out of work.

Weevil, hat under his arm, waited for Sister to nod. He clapped his cap on his head, walked behind the train station.

The large pasture rolled down on the east side toward the railroad track, on the south toward woods. Norfolk Southern had abandoned the station decades ago, as well as much of the land they owned. Trains did run from time to time, though, and Weevil kept clear of the tracks.

However, he wanted to slip over the lip of the rise to be out of the wind. His plan was to hunt forward, which is to say south.

Riding with him on her day off was Jean Roberts, former huntsman at what was then New Market Hounds. Retired some years back before the merger with Middletown Valley, like most huntsman she may not have been carrying the horn but her mind never left the hounds.

Weevil, knowing Jean’s history, felt a trifle nervous but she smiled at him, encouraged him, and he relaxed a bit.

That odd wind wouldn’t abate. Weevil stopped, allowed the hounds to think a bit. Instead of staying out of the wind, over the lip of the land, they moved right up onto the pasture, now moving crosswind.

Seeing Weevil hesitate for a moment, Jean observed, “It’s a tricky wind but my experience is if hounds draw crosswind, sooner or later they will turn into the wind. Scent will carry depending on wind speed, of course.”

He nodded, grateful for her experience.

Still adjusting to Virginia’s conditions by the Blue Ridge Mountains he could be baffled sometimes by how quickly conditions shifted. At Toronto and North York Hunt he didn’t need to factor in mountains or how ravines could create wind tunnels and funnels. Also the soils were rich in Canada. Here, one could run through Davis loam, some lovely alluvial deposits, and then clatter on clay, awful for holding scent. One needed versatile hounds, hounds with glorious noses. Given the thick forests, one also needed hounds with cry. How else would you find them?

Marty Howard had kindly loaned Jean her hunter, a good match. The two huntsmen walked along, the wind now perhaps twelve miles an hour. Jean, like most Mid-Atlantic huntsmen, could peg windspeed. One had to, as you’d be riding across a pasture, calm, mountains to your right, and in a blink, whoosh. And equally as fast one would go from bending trees to silence, nothing.

“Trust your hounds.” Weevil repeated this to himself, a mantra.

Ardent lifted his head. Then Dasher, Thimble, and Taz followed suit. Four hounds standing stock-still, noses in the air. Then without a yelp they trotted west, occasionally rising on their hind paws.

Hounds may run silent when very close to their game but it is unusual otherwise. It’s not something staff particularly wants, yet here were four solid hounds running without a peep. The pack followed them to the fence line between Tattenhall Station and Old Paradise, the two-lane Chapel Cross South Road in between.

Hounds crossed the road, leapt over the stone fence, stopped.

Weevil and Jean got over first, followed by Sister.

Now two fingers of wind smacked them in the face.

Weevil put his horn to his lips. Jean intervened.

“Forgive me, but wait a moment. You were going to move them a bit off the wind, right?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“This wind is like a thin blade. It’s not spreading, it doesn’t cover territory to the sides. Your hounds picked up the scent high. If you wait a bit, the wind may drop for a moment. Then speak to them, for scent will have dropped with it.”

Hounds waited, lifting their noses but not moving forward. Weevil waited, too, a moment or two, and as wind often does, it slacked.

“Get ’em up.” He smiled at the hounds.

Diana, nose down, needed no encouragement. Scent settled. She opened, for she now had little doubt, plus it’s hard to open when you’re running with your nose high in the air, occasionally standing on your hind legs, which is what set Jean to rights.

The pack roared, heading straight for the elegant original stable. Now finished, the old stable looked like something out of a nineteenth-century print. The copper roof gleamed, verdigris not yet in evidence. The three huge cupolas also gleamed, and the middle one had a large copper flag, created to look as though it was waving. It was the Union Jack.

Earl, resident of this architectural gem, had already ducked into his den in the next-to-last stall. He also used the tack room for his lazing about, but if he needed to escape, the stall was the answer.

Hounds rushed into the center aisle, then into the stall, as all the doors were open. No horses were yet at Old Paradise and would not be there until the entire estate was regenerated.

Everyone sang at once.

Weevil dismounted, throwing the reins up to Jean, walked in, blew “Gone to Ground,” and praised everyone. Then he leaned down and called into the den opening. “I know you’re in there.”

A bark greeted his hello. “Yes, I am. Time to find another fox.”

Smiling at the response even though he didn’t know what the fox said, he walked outside, the entire pack around him, swung back up in the saddle, taking the reins from Jean.

“Thank you for that advice.”

She smiled at him. “I was born and raised in these parts and I’m long in the tooth,” she mocked herself.

“Madam, if you were long in the tooth you wouldn’t be riding with the huntsman.”

She laughed, happy to be up, happy to be with hounds, and while the run was short, the music was good.

Weevil cast southward from the stable and carriage stable, past the newly discovered slave graveyard along with remains of Monacans, for this was once Monacan territory.

Dutifully, hounds kept noses down. Not until the woods’ edge was there a bit of speaking. The pack fanned out. Scent would appear then disappear, frustrating.

Sister noted footing was better on the woods’ path but hounds then turned east, moved toward the road. They crossed over to Beveridge Hundred, began working back north toward Tattenhall Station. All opened at once, charging north.

A stout coop divided Tattenhall Station from Beveridge Hundred at this point. Yvonne, Aunt Daniella, and Ribbon sat in the car in Yvonne’s driveway. Once everyone was over the coop or through the gate, she crept out onto the road.

This turned into a straight shot, no maneuvers to throw off hounds. Scent, relatively fresh, was in a straight line as though laid down by a drag, which of course it wasn’t. They threaded their way through the woods, which covered the rear of Tattenhall Station starting about a half a mile from the coop. So there was a burst over the meadow then the woods, and of course trees had come down in the high winds earlier in the week…the whole season, really.

Cursing, for all were losing time, Sister did her best to keep up, but even Weevil couldn’t. Hounds easily negotiated the obstacles. Not so horses.

Finally out in the open again, she galloped toward Tattenhall Station, which was visible a mile and a half away. To her right, low, ran Broad Creek, the same waters that flowed through After All. The fencing behind Tattenhall Station was zigzag, as it was in colonial times. The entire fence line behind the station where everyone could see it was zigzag fencing. Along the road it was three-board. Sister picked her spot, over, pushing on, for this fellow had passed the station, crossed Chapel Road East, and moved into Tollbooth. There hounds stopped, for Gris, the gray whose scent they had picked up, was in his den in the outbuilding. He could easily get into the outside entrance. Hounds could not.

It was now two and a half hours since the first cast. Had this been a normal season Sister would have stayed out another hour, at least, but given the footing and the season it had been, no one’s horse was truly fit for such a full day.

Tattenhall rested across the road, rigs parked there, so all walked back.

Within twenty minutes everyone had a drink in their hand, some sat with a plate of food at the tables. A buzz filled the room.

Jean and Cindy Chandler relived old days of hunting with the late Jill Summers or the late Bobby Coles of Keswick Hunt. They remembered great masters from Maryland, wonderful whippers-in.

As those two caught up, Yvonne sat down with Sam, Tootie joining her.

Kasmir, as always, saw to the comfort of his guests.

Marty and Crawford attended although they didn’t hunt. Skiff was with Shaker. Those who hunted spoke of the odd wind currents. The great thing about hunting is one never runs out of things to discuss.

“Strange. A pool of blood perhaps the circumference of a plate,” Sister recalled how she and Betty had been checking out their fixture for Thursday. Pitchfork had everyone wondering how it would be. The weather reports kept Sister running to the TV and The Weather Channel. Drove her and everyone else crazy, but she was determined to finish out March and sidestep yet another downpour.

Sam, sitting across from Sister, who was starved, said, “Betty said you all saw a coyote.”

“We did,” Sister confirmed as Betty now sat next to her.

“They’re out there and they’ll kill anything.” Sam had heard them howl at Beasley Hall at sundown.

“You’d think he’d be carrying whatever it was,” Sister puzzled.

“Who knows? And you don’t know how many of them there were. You only saw one. Usually there’s more than one.” Sam watched wildlife, especially coyotes and foxes.

“True,” Sister agreed.

“Pray we don’t get one on Thursday. The last thing we need is a coyote hunt on a fixture we haven’t hunted in years.”

The breakfast, with people eating, talking, drinking, not wanting the season to end when they were so close, went on for two hours. Finally folks trickled away.

Jean bid her goodbyes, complimented Weevil, and pulled Sister aside to tell her he was young and good, all he needed was time on the target.

Then she got in her car, headed back through Charlottesville, pulling off Route 250 to Dunbar’s Antiques.

As she opened the door, Kathleen looked up. “How was the hunt?”

“Pretty good.”

“Could I get you something to drink? I’m Kathleen Dunbar, by the way.”

“Jean Roberts. Here for a day with Jefferson Hunt. I hunted with Harry and thought I’d see the store. Looks wonderful.”

“Thank you. These are all his acquisitions. In time I hope to add things I find. There’s a hand-tinted old hunt print on the wall.” Kathleen walked over. “1850s. Don’t you like to look at the clothing?”

“I do.” Jean walked through the store, picked up an ashtray from the 1930s with a sculpted fox on the outside. It was a deep ashtray, the kind that used to be in expensive hotels.

“How do you like it here?” Jean asked.

“So far so good.” Kathleen smiled. “Did you hunt often with Harry?”

“Until I retired six years ago, I did. I occasionally fill in at Horse Country and a few of the other girls there hunt. We all would go out together and Harry,” she smiled, “would take each of us to a different hunt ball annually. He could have started an escort service.”

“He could talk to anybody.” Kathleen wrapped the ashtray.

“None of us knew he had a wife until he passed,” Jean confessed. “Do come up sometime to Warrenton. You’ll like Horse Country and I see you have a Welsh terrier. Two Scotties run Horse Country. They are our best marketers.”

“Hear that, Abdul? You’ve got a lot to learn.”

When Jean left, Kathleen sat down at the desk in the back. She knew Jean had come in to look at her, but then many people did. She’d turned into a bit of an attraction.