from the start, pumping Bluey’s hand, hugging Lusty and Lusty’s ecstatically sobbing stable lass, and the crowd erupted once more.
Rupert had mostly deserted jump racing for the flat but the punters loved him, and once again he’d delivered. Taking another celebratory slug, Etta jumped higher than Lusty, as an accusing voice cried: ‘We thought you were fetching us another bottle. Sampson’s getting very stressed, he must be due his second lot of pills and poor Basil’s still waiting for his glass of port.’
‘So sorry,’ gasped Etta.
‘And now you’ve spilled wine all over your jersey. You really ought to smarten yourself up,’ chided Blanche, grabbing the bottle and racing back to Sampson.
Scurrying after her, dripping port like drops of blood on the flagstones, Etta heard Blanche say: ‘She was drinking from the bottle and drooling over Rupert Campbell-Black, triumphalist as ever, winning some race at Cheltenham.’
‘Would you all like some coffee and we can eat your lovely chocolates?’ asked Etta nervously.
‘Not if it means you disappearing for another hour to salivate over Rupert Campbell-Black,’ snapped Sampson.
He wouldn’t bawl her out before Blanche and Basil, that would come later.
Bartlett stirred in her sleep. Etta must walk her before it got dark and the greenhouse needed watering, but Blanche and Basil were showing no signs of leaving.
Blanche was rhapsodizing over the children.
‘So good-looking – you must be so proud. So brilliant Carrie winning that High Flyer of the Year award and Martin doing so well in the marathon, he looked almost as dishy as his dad on telly.’
Basil slept.
If she had known they were coming, Etta would have arranged for Ruthie, her daily, to pop in to wash up and stay on to keep an eye on Sampson, but Ruthie had gone to her grandson’s school play. The sun was sinking, round and red like Basil, as they finally left. Feeling dreadful, knowing Sampson shouldn’t be abandoned in such a choleric mood, even with the distraction of a video of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Etta escaped to walk Bartlett.
Scuttling through drifts of white daffodils and blue scillas, past un-cut-back flower beds, through an unpruned rose walk, she reached the fields. Here she got her daily horse fix, from a lovely bay mare and her plump skewbald Shetland companion. Although they flattened their ears and nipped each other as Etta gave them chopped carrot, the two horses were utterly devoted. If parted, their anguished cries could be heard by half of Dorset.
A proper marriage, thought Etta wistfully.
Bartlett progressed slowly, her waving blond tail gathering burrs, stopping to sniff everything, leaving Etta to admire the sulphur explosion of the pussy willows and leaves escaping like green rabbit ears from the lank brown coils of the traveller’s joy. Nature had already carpeted the woodland floor with wild garlic. As she returned through the trees, she could see the faded russet towers and gables of Bluebell Hill warmed by the last fires of the sun.
‘Come on, Bartlett.’
Bartlett smiled and refused to be hurried.
Where the wood joined the garden, Etta found a sycamore blown down by the recent gales and gave a cry as she noticed that three or four bluebells, trapped beneath its trunk, had struggled out from underneath and were trying to flower. Such was their longing to bloom.
Frantically Etta tried to roll back the tree but it was too heavy. She’d get Hinton the gardener to lift it tomorrow and chop up the logs. Tomorrow she’d prune the roses.
Bartlett was snuffling smugly ahead, searching for a stick or a leaf to take home as a present for Sampson.
There was no bellowing as they entered the house, nor when Etta called out. In the drawing room, she found Sampson slumped in his wheelchair. The television was still on, with Bancroft engines roaring round the track. The telephone had fallen from Sampson’s hand. His grey, waxy, outraged face would haunt her for ever. And wilt thou leave me thus? He had been extinguished by a massive heart attack.
3
Martin Bancroft was sailing in the Mediterranean when he heard of his father’s death. His inconsolable grief was intensified by guilt at not having visited his father more and by the horrific realization that because Sampson, after making over so much money, had not lived the requisite seven years, his dependants would be stymied by estate duty. Both Martin and Carrie were overstretched by mortgages and expensive extension schemes in London and the country.
Martin was a shit like Sampson, but a more devious one. Although he earned enough to support