The Hunt Ball

C H A P T E R 2 6

Soft golden light flooded the snow-covered campus. Tracks crisscrossed the quads. The lovely diffuse December light somewhat made up for the long, black, cold nights. Last night the mercury had dipped to twenty-one degrees, but at eleven in the morning it shot up to forty-six with promise of further rising.

Tootie, Valentina, and Felicity, in riding clothes, walked toward their dorm.

“Did I bump Money? I swear I didn’t. Bunny’s in a mood. She always takes it out on me.” Valentina loved the look of the school after a snow.

“Didn’t see. I was in front of you,” Tootie said.

“Me, too.” Felicity noticed a determined squirrel stuffing acorns into her fat cheeks from a chinquapin oak.

Tootie noticed as well. “Mrs. Childers said chinquapins grow where the soil is alkaline. Sure are a lot of kinds of oaks.”

“I like water oaks. Don’t see them this far west.” Felicity liked botany. “There’s something romantic about water oaks.”

Valentina’s blue eyes narrowed. “You’re talking about oaks and I got my ass chewed by Bunny, the bitch.”

“One dollar,” Felicity grinned. “No, two.”

“Oh, pulease!” Valentina rolled her eyes. “Ass is a body part.”

Tootie stopped, holding up her hands. “I’ll make the call on this. Otherwise you two will go on for days. Val, you owe one dollar. I accept your explanation for ‘ass.’ Okay, F.?”

“Okay.” Felicity kept grinning as Valentina dug into her britches for a dollar.

“You’re such an accountant. How boring.”

“It won’t be boring when we throw our end-of-the-year party, funded mostly by your mouth.” Felicity laughed, her features relaxing from her normal strained visage.

“Did anyone ask for early acceptance?” Tootie wondered about college.

“No,” said Valentina as she shook her head. “We’ll get in to wherever we apply. We’ve got good grades and lots of extracurricular activities.”

“Don’t be so sure.” Felicity’s worried expression returned. “Places like Stanford and Yale, Smith, those places, the best of the best.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to Princeton and they’ll be lucky to have me,” Valentina said with lightheartedness.

“Be funny if we wound up at the same college.” Felicity wanted the comfort of her dear friends even if they did bicker.

“Never happen,” Valentina pronounced. “What are the odds of the three of us getting in to Princeton?”

“Pretty good according to your analysis,” Tootie replied.

“Jennifer and Sari both got in to Colby.” Felicity liked the two college freshmen, having ridden with them many times.

“Colby isn’t Princeton,” Tootie remarked. “It’s a good school and all, but how many people want to go to Maine? Too cold.”

“If that was the criterion then no one would apply to Wisconsin or Michigan or Vermont.” Valentina saw the door of the dorm swing open and Pamela Rene emerge. “Chicago’s dream girl, in her own estimation,” she said under her breath.

“Okay, we all applied to Princeton. Tootie and I applied to Duke. You and I applied to Colgate. You and Tootie applied to Bucknell. At least two of us might make it.” Felicity kept on track.

“And I applied to Virginia Tech,” Tootie added.

“Yale,” Valentina said.

“Northwestern,” Felicity chimed in.

As Pamela approached them, Valentina asked, nicely, “Pamela, where’d you apply to college?”

Fingering her red scarf, Pamela stopped. “UVA, Tufts, Ole Miss.”

“Ole Miss?” Tootie’s eyebrows shot upward. “A Chicago girl like you at Ole Miss. Pamela, that surprises me.”

“I did it to piss off my mother.” She laughed. “She wanted me to apply to Radcliffe, Mt. Holyoke, Bard, and Vassar. If I get in to all three, I think I’ll go to Ole Miss anyway. But I put in a late application to Brown because I liked Professor Kennedy. Did it over Thanksgiving.”

“Did you have a good one?” Felicity didn’t like Pamela either but she tried to like her. Felicity tried to like everyone.

“No. But it was good to see my friends. What’d you guys do?”

“Stayed at Sister Jane’s. We hunted with her and she took us to other hunts. We hunted almost every day,” Tootie bubbled.

“Yeah, we cleaned the kennels with Shaker and we learned all the hounds’ names.” Felicity’s eyes sparkled.

“Cleaned all the tack, too.” Valentina’s stomach rumbled. Time for lunch.

“I like cleaning tack.” Felicity heard Valentina’s stomach, reminding her that she was hungry, too. “It’s therapeutic and Sister cleaned with us so she told us stories about hunting when she was our age. It was really cool. Back then people stayed out so long they brought two horses,” she enthused.

This happiness weighed on Pamela. “Guess you all are the favorites.”

“If you’d stayed here, Sister would have invited you, too.” Pamela knew Sister was evenhanded. “You’re a good rider, Pam.”

This caught Pamela off guard. “You think?”

“Yeah,” Valentina backed Tootie up.

“You couldn’t hunt your horses every day.” Pamela was curious as to what she missed.

“Sister let us ride hers!” Felicity boasted.

“She said, ‘Light hands, keep out of his mouth, and be still,’ ” Tootie added.

“Wish I’d been there.” Pamela told the truth.

This struck all three friends because they knew enough about Pamela to know she went to great pains to hide her emotions. What you saw was not what you got.

“Maybe she’ll let us have a sleepover some weekend after Christmas,” Felicity suggested.

“Sister might but I don’t know if my adviser will let me go. They’re all mad at me. The administration and the faculty, too.” Pamela overstated the case.

“Maybe some are, but Mrs. Norton isn’t like that. If your grades are good and Bunny says ‘okay,’ Mrs. Norton will flash you the green light.” Valentina liked the headmistress.

“Dad says I’m costing Custis Hall money. He says I’m right to raise the issue but wrong the way I did it. And he said I should never have gone behind Mrs. Norton’s back to find Professor Kennedy.” The usual defiance wasn’t in Pamela’s voice.

“What’d your mother say?” Tootie asked.

“She didn’t care. I’m overweight. Okay, maybe I’m ten pounds overweight but I’m not Queen Latifah. She doesn’t care what I think or what I do. She cares about how I look and that I meet ‘the right people.’ ” Pamela’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“You are meeting the right people.” Valentina smiled her politician’s smile. “Hey, you’re with us, aren’t you?”

“You’re so modest, Val.” Pamela listened as the bells chimed noon. “Lunch. I’m starved.”

“Me, too,” Valentina and Felicity said in unison.

They fell in step, walking to the dining hall.

Pamela remarked, “I can’t wait for Professor Kennedy’s report.”

“You missed the point, Pamela.” Val sounded as though she were talking to a child. “The stuff in those cases is just stuff. What matters is how Professor Kennedy interprets it, and I still don’t see how she can be sure who made what.”

Felicity countered Valentina. “If a bit was made by slaves she’ll know. That’s her field, Val. It is evidence, not interpretation.”

“Oh, come on, F.” Valentina was impatient, an impatience intensified by hunger. “She can identify some things, sure, but most of it? No one will ever know. And face it, what’s a piece of old plate to us?”

Pamela’s face darkened. “That’s just like you, Valentina.”

“What? You’re going to pitch a fit over a broken teacup? The stuff is junk. It just happens to be two-hundred-year-old junk, that’s all.”

“My dad said the real reason this junk, as you call it, is going to cost Custis Hall so much money is once Professor Kennedy’s report is delivered, the school will realize the whole security system is inadequate to protect it. He said some items might even be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“So you’d rather have the school raise money to save broken teacups than build a new gym?” Valentina stepped toward Pamela.

“You’re so white,” Pamela fired right at her.

“And you are so fucked up.”

“One dollar.”

“Felicity, not now!” Tootie stepped between the two antagonists. “Pamela, it’s our heritage, white and black. It’s important. Valentina doesn’t care about history and it wouldn’t matter what color she was. She thinks the world began the day she entered it.”

“Tootie!” Valentina raised her voice.

“Hey, Val, that’s the truth, but in a sense, you’re right. The world began for you, anyway.” Tootie returned to Pamela. “But if you’re as political as you say you are, then maybe you need to think about the right use of resources. Do you preserve the past or prepare for the future? If you have tons of money, great, do both. If you don’t, then I guess I’m with Val, build the gym.”

“I knew you’d stick together.” Pamela brushed by Valentina with her shoulder as she stomped toward the dining hall, the archway crowded with students hurrying to get in.

“I can’t believe you said that about me.” Valentina turned on Tootie.

“Look, Val, self-esteem isn’t your problem. Do I care about what’s in those cases? I do. Let’s eat.”

“If we go in riding clothes, Mrs. Childers will give us demerits,” Felicity warned.

“Mrs. Childers can stuff it.” Valentina’s face reddened. “It’s a stupid rule.”

“Come on, F., what’s two demerits?” Tootie cajoled the normally placid Felicity. “We don’t have time to change. I’m starved.”

“All right.” Felicity hated getting demerits.

As they walked toward the graceful archway, Valentina asked Tootie, “Why’d you apply to Virginia Tech?”

“If I don’t get into Princeton, Bucknell, or Duke, I’ll go to Virginia Tech and stay there. That’s where I want to go to veterinary school once I get my B.A.”

“Your father isn’t going to like that,” Felicity said as she shook her head. “He told you he wouldn’t pay for it.”

“How come I don’t know all this?” Val threw up her hands in exasperation. She hated feeling left out.

“Because I only had this discussion with my dad last night and I didn’t see you until now. Dad says I’m too smart to be an equine vet; he wants me to be an investment banker. He’s being a real shit.”

“One dollar.” Felicity commiserated but stuck to her mission.

“I owe you one, too.” Valentina paid up, as did Tootie.

“Sorry.” Valentina was, too. She was blessed with parents who felt she needed to make her own choices, even bad ones. Sometimes a person learns more from a bad choice than a good one, but the important thing was that Valentina’s parents trusted her and loved her.

Tootie’s father loved her, too, but he pushed her. Her mother, more sympathetic, had ideas about one’s place in the world that weren’t too dissimilar from Pamela’s mother’s, although Tootie’s mother wasn’t quite the snob that Mrs. Rene was.

Felicity’s parents, like Valentina’s, were one hundred percent supportive. However, if Felicity wanted to do something unusual like take a year off before college and walk through Europe, she would have to earn the money for it. They were very firm that they would pay for her education and only her education.

They walked in silence. Then Felicity piped up, “I think your father is a shit, Tootie.” She then took a dollar from her right pocket and put it in her left with the other money.

The administration and the faculty convened at their own tables, which faced the students’ tables. Dining under the watchful eye of the adults usually ensured good behavior. The girls would sing but at least there were no food fights, and the singing was quite spirited.

Charlotte knew from Ben Sidel that the corpse was most likely that of Professor Kennedy. He told Charlotte not to reveal this until the tests proved conclusively that it was Professor Kennedy. This would give them both an opportunity to try to pick up the scent.

Charlotte asked if she herself was a suspect. Ben had replied that she shouldn’t worry about it. Of course, everyone must be questioned, the answers examined and compared to those of others. That was police work, lots and lots of tiny bits of information pieced together.

She then asked if she or the students were in danger. He said he didn’t think the students were but if she came across whatever or whoever was behind this, yes, she was.

Charlotte struggled to act as though all was well. She didn’t even confide in her husband because she was told to just wait until the I.D. was confirmed. However, the strain in her face made her look tired, older.

Alpha, sitting next to her today, regaled her with stories about the junior class reading Twelfth Night.

“. . . they get it.”

“It does take some time to adjust to the language. That’s a wonderful play to read at this time of year,” Charlotte responded as she pushed a spear of asparagus with her fork.

Knute sat on Charlotte’s left, Bill on Alpha’s right. They tried to keep to the old rule of man, woman, man, woman, but it depended on who came to lunch or dinner that day.

“Any time of year is the right time to read the Bard.” Bill stuffed his mouth with gusto.

As Tootie, Valentina, and Felicity walked by, Charlotte called to them, “Girls, come up here when you’re finished.”

“Are we in trouble?” Valentina was racking her brain to think of what they could have done wrong, apart from wearing riding clothes.

“We’re sorry about coming into the hall in our riding clothes, Mrs. Norton,” Felicity apologized.

“Sometimes it can’t be helped and you’re in luck because Mrs. Childers isn’t here for lunch.” Charlotte smiled at them.

“You mean you aren’t going to give us demerits?” Felicity balanced her overflowing plate.

“No.” Charlotte shook her head.

“Great!” Valentina breathed deeply.

“If you girls would like a demerit, I’ll arrange one or two,” Bill teased them.

“No, thank you, Mr. Wheatley.” Tootie took this opportunity to head toward a table.

As the girls followed her, Alpha said, “The Three Musketeers.”

“Who’s d’Artagnan?” Knute loved the Alexandre Dumas novel, but then who didn’t.

“Valentina, but a seasoned one, she’s past the girl-from-the-country stage,” Alpha smiled.

“Well, Tootie’s the brains of the bunch,” Bill said, pouring more hollandaise sauce on the asparagus, which was quite good for institutional food.

“Let’s get her in the administration,” Knute laughed.

The holiday season picked up everyone’s spirits. The kids burst with energy and the faculty and administration were looking forward to their vacation as much as the students. The only person not bubbling was Charlotte, but she was trying.

After dessert the three girls came up to Charlotte.

“Ladies, did you keep any notes from your work with Professor Kennedy?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they chimed.

“Bring them to me after classes. How about four?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Then Felicity said, “Mrs. Norton, mine are in a notebook.”

“That’s fine. I want you to sit down and go over your notes with me. And if Pamela has notes, bring her. On second thought, I’ll talk to her.” She smiled, realizing these three did not get along with Pamela. “What I want to do is review what you found, what you learned, and then when Professor Kennedy’s report comes in, we can compare. I think it will be very interesting.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And as my Christmas present to you, you can hunt with Sister Jane this Thursday. The field will be small and you can get up front to see the hounds work.”

“Thank you!” Their faces flushed with their good fortune.

“That means you are missing my class,” Alpha remarked with sternness.

“Well, Mrs. Rawnsley, I am the culprit,” said Charlotte. “Will you accept this absence if they write a book report on Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of a Hunting Man?”

Alpha’s eyes lit up, “Marvelous book. All right, ladies, you have your assignment.”

After more thank-yous, the three hurried out of the dining room to the library to check out copies of Sassoon’s book. The library boasted extensive hunting titles as well as a vast equine collection. Some of these books were worth hundreds of dollars and could only be read in the rare book room.

Knute watched them hurry out while trying not to run. “You made them happy. I can’t imagine their notes will be much.”

“At the least there should be descriptions of the items each girl had to handle.” Alpha was all for training young people to use their powers of observation and then accurately describe what they saw, heard, felt, tasted, touched.

“I think we’re lucky some of it didn’t disintegrate in their fingers,” Bill added, stifling a laugh.

“Bill, it’s not that bad,” Knute replied.

“Not that good.”

Alpha shrugged, “Mixed blessing.”

“Why do you say that?” Charlotte’s senses were keen. She looked for anything out of line.

“Custis Hall has a long, dramatic history. Our founder, our benefactors, truly have given so much to this school, but what do we do with it? And Pamela may be a troubled child, an unhappy child, but I think she’s hit the nail on the head.”

Knute snapped, “By calling us racist pigs, in so many words.”

“She was pretty direct.” Bill again had to stifle a laugh.

“No.” Alpha was accustomed to her male colleagues’ flares of ideological passion, or of plain old ego. “She’s forcing us to look anew. Her motives are scrambled but then is there anyone on the planet with pure motives? In a way, I think she’s done Custis Hall a favor.”

Charlotte thought a moment. “Alpha, I think you’re right.”

“Well, I don’t. Whatever this report turns out to be it’s going to cost us money.” Knute put his right hand on the table, quietly, palm down. “Obviously, some of those pieces have to be worth money. And even if they aren’t, they are important to Custis Hall. We’re going to have to wire the cases, put up new locks, and who knows what else?”

Bill grimaced. “Nothing has been right since Al was killed.”

Knute nodded in agreement. “We’ll never find another Al.”

“No progress.” Alpha’s eyebrows raised quizzically.

“Not that I know of,” Knute replied.

“It will take time, but you know Sheriff Sidel will keep at it; he’s a dedicated man.” Charlotte liked Ben Sidel a lot.

“Small-time,” Knute simply dismissed Ben.

“Back to the objets d’art or whatever you’d like to call them.” Bill felt expansive after his delicious lunch. “You can’t rewire those old cases. You’ll have to rebuild everything in there, which means the whole damned hall gets torn up. And the contractors will probably find old horsehair stuffing in the walls, which someone will declare a health hazard. People used horsehair for insulation for centuries and seemed to live quite normal lives, but trust me, it will all be ripped out. And then the old plaster will crumble and that will come out, too. You’ll rebuild the interior of the whole damn hall, I’m telling you, and the electrical costs alone will fry you, forgive the pun.”

“You’re full of Christmas cheer,” Knute sourly replied.

“It’s the truth. Your worry about security costs is scratching the surface. The security costs will be a pittance compared to the rest of it.”

Alpha asked Bill, “Isn’t there another way? Does it have to be that extensive?”

Bill laughed, a true belly laugh. “Well, I can make it look like it’s wired, like we have a security system. Hell, I can even set up infrared beams. It won’t cost the school more than two thousand dollars because I’ll throw in my labor for free.”

“Bill, that is completely irresponsible!” Knute raised his voice. Those left in the dining hall looked at him. He immediately shut up.

“Why don’t we wait for the report?” Charlotte smoothly said as she rose, her folded napkin on the side of the plate.