Scarlet Fever

CHAPTER 1

February 21, 2019 Thursday

A flash of scarlet caught Sister Jane’s eye then disappeared as a gust of wind blew snow off the trees below. The day, cold, tormented those who thought spring should be around the corner. The calendar cited spring as starting March 20 with the equinox, but the weather gods did not seem to be planning warmth anytime soon.

The winter of 2018-2019 burst pipes, ran up electric bills, sent country people to dwindling firewood piles. Jane Arnold, Sister, master of the Jefferson Hunt, could deal with most of the troubles. It was cold hands and icy feet that she hated.

Another gust of wind sent swirls of snow as trees bent low. Far ahead she again saw Wesley Blackford’s scarlet coat as he rode alongside the glittering hard-running creek, ice clinging to the bank sides.

She couldn’t see her hounds. Nor could she see the whippers-in, those outriders assisting the huntsman. Sitting on a rise above the creek she peered into the forest, much of it conifers. Behind her stood a small field of riders desperately wishing to drop down out of the wind. Hearing Wesley, nicknamed Weevil, horn to lips, blow hounds forward she turned Lafayette toward the path down. He, too, was eager to move off the rise in the land. As the two carefully picked their way over the frozen ground covered with three inches of snow, more snow slid down Sister’s neck from bending tree limbs. Lafayette reached level ground then stopped, snorted. His ears swept forward.

Those behind the master also stopped, wishing she’d move on because some of them still battled the wind. Right in front of Lafayette and his human cargo sauntered Target, a red fox, dazzling in his luxurious winter coat. Looking neither to the left nor the right, he crossed in front of the master, walked to a downed tree trunk secure across the creek, roots upended at the near end. Hopping up, he picked his way over, alighting on the other side.

Now what? No point bellowing “Tally-ho.” One should normally count to twenty to give the fox a sporting chance. This arrogant fellow didn’t need a sporting chance. Target had them all beat and he knew it. He kept a den on Sister’s farm, under the log cabin dependency. Also, chances were that with the wind a “tally-ho” would be swept away. Still, Sister had to do something so she walked into the blue spruces, firs, and high pines. The space between the trees meant everyone, about fifteen people on this inhospitable day, could fit in. Turning Lafayette’s head toward the creek, she waited and counted. If she didn’t hear hounds after reaching one hundred she’d move on in the direction she saw Weevil.

“One, two.” More snow down her neck.

On she counted as the small field huddled, shoulders up to their ears. A few people wore earmuffs but she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t hear her hounds and would most likely mislead everyone.

“Fifty-one, fifty-two.” She grasped a heat pack in her coat pocket while keeping her left hand outside, freezing, because she held her crop in that hand.

As she was right-handed, she mused to herself, perhaps she could afford to lose her left.

“Seventy-two.”

Trident shot in front of her without speaking. A young hound, a bit of a kleptomaniac, fast, he stopped suddenly and put his nose to the ground as his sister, Tinsel, caught up. Now the entire pack, twelve couples today, twenty-four hounds, for hounds are always counted in couples, milled around the tree roots.

Diana, a hound of remarkable intelligence, a true leader, opened while the others puzzled. “It’s him.”

Asa, an older hound, amended this. “Him, but fading.”

Pickens leapt up onto the large trunk but hopped off, as he couldn’t keep his balance.

Parker carefully stood on the trunk, succeeding where his brother failed. “He’s crossed. Here are his tracks. There’s a bit of scent left.”

“We’ve got to go with what we have.” Diana, not fooling around with the tree trunk, jumped into the icy creek, not deep, crossed to the other side, where the scent was a little better. “Come on, move your asses!”

The entire pack quickly assembled on the other side of the creek bank, moving with determination.

Sister marveled at their logical powers as well as that fantastic determination so typical of the American foxhound, a hound bred for Mid-Atlantic conditions, conditions designed to make even a saint cuss.

She heard hoofbeats; Weevil came up behind his hounds. She stepped out of the woods, took off her cap, and pointed in the direction the fox had moved in. No need to speak. All it would do would bring up the hounds’ heads.

The handsome young man nodded to his master, asked his horse to step into the water, which the fine animal did without a minute’s hesitation, crossed, and reached the other side just as the entire pack opened, a sound of exquisite beauty and excitement even to people who didn’t hunt. Perhaps it is the sound of our history calling to us.

Sister followed her huntsman and made it across as Betty Franklin, her best friend and a whipper-in, blasted across the creek. The master stood still, for the whipper-in had right-of-way. Betty hadn’t gotten out of position so much as she couldn’t find a decent creek crossing. While they all knew this territory, the rains made some crossings treacherous, the silt piling up below. She touched her hat with her crop, a thank-you to the master’s quick thinking, and charged off.

The field, well trained, now followed.

Sister, up ahead, negotiated a small drift then shot out of it back onto what she hoped was the old farm road. One couldn’t see what was underneath the snow and it was easy to slide off the road. Her hope was to look where it was the flattest.

Hounds roared, sang, shook the treetops, bending low as they were.

The riders in the field, most of them experienced foxhunters, for novices often forsook hunting when the weather turned ugly, felt their pulse pounding. The old hands knew the scent had to be red hot.

Scent sticks in a frost or disappears in very cold conditions. The mercury needs to nudge a few degrees above freezing for it to lift and then scent can turn favorable. But today was not a favorable day so hounds had closed with their fox and the scent was hot, fresh for a brief time before the cold ruined it.

Hounds, with their tremendous olfactory powers, could pick up what a human could not, no matter what the conditions. Hounds followed scent but they didn’t understand it. In truth no one did. Xenophon, born in 430 BC, the great Athenian major general, observed it but no one from that time until today truly understood it. Perhaps Artemis did but she wasn’t telling.

Lafayette lived for these runs. He and Sister had been a team for eleven years. Both were advanced in years. Didn’t mean a thing. He had his Absorbine Jr. rubdowns after a hunt and she had her Motrin. That was their only concession to the years.

Clever, in his teens, Lafayette had an uncanny instinct for negotiating deceptive ground. His hind end slipped a little, he quickly brought up his back legs. Sister stayed in the tack. On they ran. She burst into a meadow, saw the pack at the other end of it, Weevil right behind and Betty to the right. She had no idea where Tootie, the other whipper-in, was but she didn’t worry. Staff work was excellent, plus they liked one another.

Diana and Dasher, her littermate, hung a few steps behind two youngsters, Audrey and Aero, who exhibited blinding speed with the recklessness of youth. Of course, they overran the line.

“Stop, you idiots! Get back here.” Diana turned in midair, heading west where the sun had not hit the hills, which meant it was going to be even colder.

Betty, in her mid-fifties, an old hand, saw the youngsters overrun the line, not because she could smell scent but she trusted Diana. If Diana or Dasher or any of the older hounds turned, then it meant the fox had.

No doubt about it. Riding Outlaw, a solid fellow, Betty reached the outside of the two overexcited youngsters, urging them to turn but not really rating them. No point in scolding. They had figured out something was amiss and were hurrying back to the pack.

Like humans, hounds learn by doing and observing.

Steam rose off horses’ hindquarters. People were actually sweating in their heavy coats and winter undershirts. Sister, her eye never leaving her huntsman, reached the other side of the meadow, plunged onto a narrow path, more snow down her neck, and soared over a large tree trunk. High winds had scoured central Virginia last week. Neither she nor her staff knew what lay across paths or how much destruction had been done. Jefferson Hunt covered two large counties. They’d find out when they found out. Work parties, hopefully, would follow. Windy though it was at this moment, at least there were no thirty-mile-an-hour gusts. The wind, too, would blow scent, which is exactly why Target crossed an open meadow. However, a bit to the left of the fox tracks, hounds stuck with it, opening loudly again once in the woods.

Another five minutes of hard running and Sister pulled up at the ruins of a modest house, the chimney standing like an upturned finger, alone, the fireplace visible. The chimney had not fallen down but the rest of the place lay strewn about. Hounds dug at the side of the stone fireplace.

Weevil dismounted, blew “Gone to Ground,” praised his hounds.

The fox, deep in his snug den, heard the commotion outside. He knew all the hiding places in a five-mile range.

“I know you’re in there,” Parker baited him.

Tinsel added her two cents. “You’re afraid to come out. We’re ferocious, you know,” said a hound who was anything but, although she was puffed up from the run.

He said nothing, waiting for them to leave. Target was wise and in his prime.

Weevil called them together and mounted up as Tootie, a young woman, the other whipper-in, arrived at the site. She had also had a devil of a time finding a crossing from her left side of the pack. She took the left, Betty had the right.

“Come along,” Weevil sang to them.

Hounds packed in behind him, the whippers-in on each side. They walked back to the trailers perhaps two miles away at Foxglove Farm. Foxglove was a cherished fixture, being in their territory since the beginning of the hunt in 1887.

Coming up to Sister, Harry Dunbar, mid-fifties, trim and tidy with a salt-and-pepper beard and moustache, complimented the pack. “What terrific work on a dicey day. You must be proud.”

“I am.” She smiled. “It pleases me when people in the field actually pay attention to the pack and know what’s happening.” She paused. “You’ve ripped your coat again. Harry, a few more of those and you’ll turn into an icicle. The cold has to be stabbing you.”

“I’m parading my manly toughness,” he joked. “You will, however, be pleased to know I ordered a heavy scarlet Melton from Horse Country. I’ll retire this and thankfully be warmer.”

“You’ve worn this coat ever since I’ve known you and that’s, what, since 1990?”

“No, 1989,” he said. “I’d opened my shop and you paid me a call, inviting me to hunt. Well, I took you up on it. On the subject of coats, my weazlebelly is as old as this Melton, used when bought, but I save that for the High Holy Days or joint meets. Scarlet is expensive.”

He spoke of his tails, which for men are often called weazlebelly, shadbelly for the ladies. Worn with a top hat the tails reek of elegance as well as dash. Flying over fences in top hat and tails never fails to impress itself upon the memory of those who see it.

“You’re right about the expense, but the truly serviceable hunt attire, the stuff that lasts generations, which some does, costs both men and women. Those wonderful English fabrics.” She turned to face him fully as they rode. “Could you get heavy English fabric? That dense twill?”

“Marion has worked her magic despite the uproar in England.”

Marion Maggiolo, proprietress of Horse Country, made annual pilgrimages to England and Scotland in search of their fabrics, unmatched by any other nation no matter how hard they tried. Given that warmth was now hanging on until later November she also pioneered lighter hunt coats with fabrics from Italy, to keep a rider comfortable on fall days where the mercury might even nudge seventy degrees Fahrenheit. For the old hunters, these high temperatures were confusing. Might have been for the new ones, too.

“When will the coat be ready?”

“Next week, I hope. I waited too late, trying to squeeze one more year out of these tatters. I expect I won’t be using the new one until next winter.”

“You might be fooled.”

He smiled. “You’ve got that right. I wake up and wonder what season I’m in. Sometimes I even wonder if I’m in America.”

She nodded. “I think many of us feel that way. I’m older than you, of course, but I’m coming to the dismal conclusion that it’s all smoke and mirrors. No one really knows what’s going on.”

“Sister, you are not old. You will never be old.” He thought a moment. “About no one really knowing what’s going on. Honest to Pete, I now think simple competence is revolutionary.”

They both laughed, old buddies who had hunted together for decades. Hunting together is not as strong a bond as being in a combat unit under fire but it’s strong, partly because hunting can be so unpredictable. One soon sees who has courage, who has brains, and who has both. Truthfully, the horses have more of both than the humans.

Harry reached over, touching Sister’s elbow with his crop’s stag handle and wrapped in thin strips of leather. “Drop by the store, will you? I’ve found a Louis XV desk much like the one you and Ray inherited from his uncle. The one that was stolen all those years ago.”

“Oh, what a siren song. You are trying to seduce me. Trying to sing that money right out of my pocket.”

“What man isn’t?” he teased back. “But do drop by. It would be restorative to see you when we both aren’t freezing.”

She smiled at him, agreeing, then looked ahead, riding forward to Cindy Chandler, an old dear friend.

“What the hell?” Sister blurted out.

Reaching the trailers, Cindy Chandler stood in her stirrups. Booper, her horse, gingerly stepped forward. Sister also stood in her stirrups.

An expensive maroon Range Rover had driven through Cindy’s fence by the cow barn. Clytemnestra, huge, and her equally huge son, Orestes, charged about, which set Booper off. No one wanted to tangle with the evil-tempered heifer and her dismally stupid son.

Cindy slid off, handing her reins to Sister. While no one expects a master to perform a groom’s duty these two had been friends for over forty years. Each was always happy to help the other, status be damned. Sister knew Cindy was the only person who could sweet-talk Clytemnestra, who actually followed Cindy, her son in tow, into her special cow barn, quite tidy and warmish considering the day.

Morris Taylor, sixty-two, in a T-shirt and jeans, sobbed next to the Range Rover, its nose in a drainage ditch, steam hissing from under the hood.

“I didn’t mean to do it.”

Sister, now dismounted, motioned for Tootie to come over, handed the gorgeous young woman the reins to both horses, and walked over slowly to Morris, as Weevil, who didn’t know the man, approached from the opposite direction.

“Morris, it’s Janie.”

“Sister, Sister. I didn’t mean to do it.” He shivered.

As Weevil removed his coat to put over Morris’s shoulders, Morris shrank away. “Who are you? Don’t touch me.”

“It’s all right, Morris. He is a friend.”

“Who is he? Why does he want to touch me?”

“He wants to put a coat on you,” she told the shivering man, who now held on to her for dear life, a life preserver, which in a way she was.

Betty motioned for Weevil to give her the coat, touched her temple. He understood.

“Morris, it’s Betty Franklin, your old dancing partner.”

“Betty? Betty?” He struggled to place her but didn’t shrink away.

“Come on. Let’s get you into the house.” Sister gently guided him, holding on to his right arm while Betty had his left, toward Cindy’s house.

People threw blankets on their horses. Weevil, having pulled his work coat out of the hound truck, and Gray, Sister’s partner in life, were already fixing up a temporary fence to keep in Clytemnestra and Orestes for tomorrow, when they would be put out to pasture.

Weevil asked no questions as they worked.

Gray volunteered, “A former hunt club member. Morris Taylor.”

“Drew Taylor’s family?”

“Brother. Senile dementia. He must have found or stolen the car keys. He’s pretty far gone.”

Weevil, hammer in hand, drove a nail into the makeshift board. “Hope this holds.”

“Let’s get another one plus one of her old barrels for a barrier. You never know about that damned cow,” Gray grumbled.

As Sister and Betty walked the crying man to the welcoming house, Sister thought to herself, “There but for the grace of God.”

Perhaps.

In the house, having endured the cold for two and a half hours, Sister wrapped her hands around a cup of hot chocolate, glad for the warmth. Today the cold seeped into her bones. Seemed to affect the others the same way. The members sipped tea, coffee, and hot chocolate and a few braced themselves with strong spirits.

A knock on the door sent Cindy to open it.

“I am so sorry to keep you waiting,” Drew Taylor apologized.

“No matter, come on. Morris is over there with Betty and Weevil, whom he met today. Chattering away.”

Having completed the temporary fence repairs, Weevil and Gray were now inside.

“Had a devil of a time getting a client out the door.” Drew blew air out of his nostrils, looked at his brother, sighed. “How much damage is there?”

Cindy released a deep throaty laugh, one that sent men into a transport. “A few fence panels. Don’t worry about it. I fear, however, your Range Rover will need to be towed. All the way to Richmond, unfortunately.”

He smiled, as he’d always liked Cindy, had done so for decades. “I should never have kept that car.”

“You look important driving it.”

“Why Rover doesn’t open a dealership in Charlottesville I will never know. It’s a pain in the ass.”

She placed her hand on his forearm. “Morris cried quite a bit. He’s afraid you’ll be angry at him.”

Now noticing his brother, Morris became fearful. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

Betty stood up but Drew motioned for her to stay seated. Morris now clung to her hand so she was pulled down.

“It’s all right, buddy, but where did you find the keys?” Drew lifted an eyebrow.

Defiantly, his younger brother said, “I’m not telling. You can’t make me tell.”

People looked then looked away, except for Harry Dunbar, who stared for a minute, shook his head, then averted his eyes.

“Lower your voice, Morris,” Drew ordered.

Again a fearful look crossed the not-unattractive suffering man’s face.

Sister walked over. “Drew, glad you got here. Missed you during the hunt, which had some good moments.”

“And some cold ones.” He smiled. “I’ll be out Saturday.” He looked down at Morris. “Maybe I can find someone to drive him in our old truck. You know, so he can be part of things.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sister agreed. “Morris has always been social and it’s not too different now. He seems to remember some of us but not our names. If I say my name he nods.”

“There are days and then there are days.” He put his hand under his brother’s armpit. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”

Morris shrugged him off. “I don’t want to go home. There are no women at home.”

Betty couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.

“Come on.”

“I’m not going,” Morris refused.

“You know, Morris, you have a point. No women. Men need women.” Betty smiled at him. “How about if I walk you with Drew and we figure out how to get some girls to the house.”

Morris brightened. “I like to talk to women. I like to look at them. I like breasts.”

“Oh God.” Drew moaned.

Sister shrugged. “It’s all right. He says what everyone else is thinking.”

Drew looked around at the small group, noticing Harry Dunbar. A slight sneer appeared on his lips then he refocused on his brother, dismissing the man he loathed, a man he had accused of cheating him and seducing his late mother. Neither charge had ever been proven.

Harry, seeing Drew, turned his back, a maneuver he also used in the hunt field.

To the credit of both men, once the initial uproar had passed, and that was years ago, they did not drag club members into their dislike. The members carefully sidestepped it as well.

What had happened was Mrs. Waycross Taylor, Missy to her friends, had died, leaving behind exquisite eighteenth-century furniture as well as a few lovely small sculptures from the late eighteenth century, early nineteenth, all English. Neither Drew nor Morris wanted any of it. Neither man had an aesthetic bone in their bodies and their wives were all for the modern, at that time, as well as brighter colors. No silk moire for them.

So Drew and Morris called Harry, told him to pick up the stuff after he gave them a price. He did. Twenty thousand dollars, which sounded reasonable. One small graceful Hepplewhite incidental table alone was worth that, but they neither knew nor seemed to care. So Harry wrote the check, brought a moving van, and took the entire lot, rooms full of fabulous furniture.

A pair of George III gilt-wood armchairs, circa 1770, sold for nine thousand dollars. The gilt candelabra held by two fetching female figures, breasts exposed and perfect…well, they were bronze-gilded, how could they sag after all those centuries? Anyway, the candelabra had adorned Missy’s formal dining room table. The two ravishing ladies stood about forty-six inches high. That included the base and the candelabra, which they held a bit sideways so their bosoms met the eye. Harry sold the pair for eighty-five thousand dollars. That’s what did it. The sons might have absorbed the sale of the gilt chairs but this, this sent them into orbit.

A few hunt club members at the time felt that the Taylors may have been carried a little fast, to use the old Virginia expression. However, most believed the brothers had been stupid. They could have asked for bids.

Missy Taylor spent lavishly and she could afford to, for her husband, Waycross, a born salesman, expanded the Taylor Insurance business, started by his father. Before there were multiple listings, Taylor got all the big estates, partly due to his prowess in the hunt field. He hunted many of the estates he later sold. Socializing came naturally to him, as did easily clearing a stout four-foot fence. Well respected, he increased his fortune. Multiple listings became the norm. It certainly made it easier for buyers and sellers but not necessarily the listing agent. Waycross adjusted, worked well with other firms. The business expanded.

Drew stepped into the business. Morris hated selling, loved science, went to MIT. He wound up working as a nuclear physicist for a private company that built nuclear reactors. He inherited the moneymaking gene, for certain, along with old Waycross’s brains. Drew, not so much. He coasted. Taylor Insurance was kept afloat by his agents.

Morris’s hopes for his own son were dashed because Bainbridge, now an adult, harbored little ambition and indeterminate brainpower.

Before his accelerating decline, Morris, too, hunted and rode well when he retired, moving back to Charlottesville. Building reactors had taken him all over the country in his prime but when he could he had joined the local hunt. He was well liked and certainly respected, making his decline all the more painful.

Behind their hands many a person whispered, “Why couldn’t it have been Drew?”

Weevil, seated next to Betty, rose, walked to where the Shaker pegs were lined up by the front door, grabbed Betty’s heavy hunt coat and his own. He returned.

“Thank you, Weevil.”

He helped her put it on.

“I could do that,” Morris offered.

“Thank you for thinking of it.” Betty beamed at him.

Betty, Weevil, and Drew propelled Morris to the front door. Drew lifted his own lamb fleece coat off a peg.

Weevil filled him in. “No coat. Took almost a half hour for him to stop shivering.”

“You know, I’ve an extra in the car. I’ll run out and get it.” He opened the door and a wedge of frigid air pushed in.

“I don’t want to go.” Morris’s eyes glazed over. “I hate him.”

“He’s your brother,” Betty said soothingly.

“So what? He talks to me like I’m an idiot. I forget things, Betty. I do, but I’m not an idiot. I built nuclear reactors. I know things.”

Weevil’s eyebrows raised and Betty nodded in agreement.

“You built Three Mile Island. You worked on big projects.”

“I remember all that,” he said as his brother came back through the door, handing Morris a down jacket.

Betty moved to Morris’s right side while Weevil took his left. Both intuited that if Drew touched his brother, resistance would accelerate.

They walked him to Drew’s brand-new BMW X5. Had to have cost at least seventy-two thousand, with every gadget known to the Germans.

Drew paused for a minute. “Damn, he really did plow through that fence. I’ll pay for it, obviously.”

“The good news is, Cindy coaxed Clytemnestra and Orestes into their barn and closed the door,” Betty noted.

“Thank God the cow didn’t attack the Range Rover.” Drew exhaled.

Weevil noticed the enormous cow giving them the evil eye from her barn window. “Don’t count her out. Best to get the wrecker here before she gets out tomorrow morning.”

“Good point.” Drew smiled at him then opened the door and slid behind the wheel, while Morris would not close his door.

Betty kissed him on the cheek, closing the door, and Drew quickly locked it.

The two staff members walked back to the house, the snow and ice crunching underfoot.

“When did his dementia start?” Weevil asked.

“I don’t truly know. I noticed a change four years ago. Little things. He’d forget a name, lose a reference. The lapses became more pronounced until finally he drove to Roger’s Corner.” She mentioned a convenience store out in the country. “Didn’t know where he was. Roger called Drew. Ultimately he took his brother in and now has a part-time housekeeper. I guess you’d call him that, he’s a nurse, really, I don’t know, but it’s a young man who watches him. Morris has a son, but he’s not a success story. So far he’s not done much for his father. They fight then Morris fights with Drew.”

“The nurse must have been off duty today,” Weevil noted.

“Maybe. Sad. The whole process is so sad.”

They gladly stepped inside, peeled off their coats.

“I didn’t think I’d be here so long.” Weevil walked over to Sister. “Let me get the hounds back.”

“Fortunately, their trailer is closed up and full of straw, but yes, it’s a good idea. None of us could have predicted the accident. Better he took out Cindy’s fence than one of us.”

Weevil motioned for Tootie, and they left together.

The breakfast—hunt tailgates or food at a member’s house are called breakfasts, no matter what time the hunt is over—was breaking up.

Cindy said to Sister, “Hope we hunt at Mud Fence Saturday. The weather report is not promising.”

“There’s time between today and Saturday. I’ll worry about it the night before,” the tall, silver-haired master replied.

“You’re good at that.”

“Worrying?”

Cindy laughed. “Not worrying.”

“I have Gray to do that for me.” She lifted her eyebrows as her partner walked over.

“What?” the handsome man, mid-sixties, said.

“Worry. I told Cindy I don’t worry because you do it for me.”

“I don’t worry. I think ahead.”

She looked at him, light brown skin, a thin military moustache gray over his upper lip. “Whatever you say, darling.”

He smiled back. “You’re up to something.”

“Me? Never.”

She was, but she would wait to see that desk first.