himself another drink. He’d better go and kick-start Ione’s nephew Toby, who would much rather have been shooting.
Toby had run for his school and once had an Olympic trial. Now, outside the kitchen, he was gloomily rubbing bloody meat into his running shoes to lay a trail that would ensure the hunt a fast and furious run. At his destination, five miles away, a hunt lorry waited with a bucket of meat to reward hounds.
‘Better get going,’ urged Alban. ‘They’ll be moving off in twenty minutes.’
‘Head off across the fields, then left at the bridle path,’ suggested a hunt servant shrugging on his red coat. ‘We’ll go round by the top of the village and pick up the scent in North Wood. Good luck,’ he added, walking off to find his horsebox.
‘Safe journey, Toby Juggins,’ called Phoebe, leaning out of the kitchen window as her husband set off down Ione’s rosewalk.
‘Wiv any luck hounds will gobble up hubby, then I’ll be in wiv a chance,’ chortled Chris from the Fox, winking as he put more full glasses on to a tray for Phoebe to carry out.
‘You are wicked,’ she said, going into peels of laughter.
‘Better go and open up,’ said Chris. His wife Chrissie would be making moussaka, in the hope of brisk custom, once the hunt set off.
Outside, Phoebe met Major Cunliffe, who was writing down the number of a silver Mercedes parked on the grass. Replacing the Major’s glass with a full one and popping a cauliflower floret into his mouth, she murmured, ‘I’m having such trouble with the gas board, Normie, could you bear to sort out the bill for me?’
‘You could start by paying it,’ murmured a hovering Alan.
*
Checking she was unobserved, Debbie Cunliffe pulled up a clump of Corydalis ochroleuca, when in flower a lovely off-white instead of the common yellow, and nicked a root of the Japanese saxifrage Fortune. Ione had even printed the Japanese name on its discreet black label. Silly old show-off. Debbie jumped out of her skin at a frantic jangling as Martin roguishly clinked a Sampson Bancroft Fund collecting box against a Compost Club tin thrust out by Phoebe.
‘Cheers,’ laughed Martin.
Next moment, a large speckled hound with a rakish brown patch over one eye had detached himself from the pack and rushed over to a newly arrived Old Mrs Malmesbury. Whimpering with joy, tail whacking back and forth, he put both paws on her shoulders, nearly sending her flying.
‘Hello, Oxford,’ she bellowed, ‘how are you? Walked him and his sister three years ago,’ she told a grinning Alan and Alban, ‘never forgotten me. Damn nuisance when he was a pup, dug holes in the lawn, dug up my bulbs, chewed up every shoe and boot in the house, took my beloved dachs off hunting for days, had to lock him in the stable. Nice dog.’ She patted Oxford affectionately before reaching out for a glass of sloe gin. ‘But I’m not walking any more puppies.’
‘Perhaps Mrs Bancroft could take on a couple,’ said Dora. ‘She misses her dog Bartlett dreadfully.’
‘I think Etta’s got her hands full enough with Mrs Wilkinson and that pestilential goat,’ boomed Charlie Radcliffe, cigar in one hand, glass of port in the other, as he bucketed up on a big blue roan with thick furry ankles. ‘How’s my little patient. Looks splendid,’ he added, then as Mrs Wilkinson turned whickering towards him, ‘She’s such a sweet horse.’
‘She is,’ agreed Dora. ‘I still think Etta would enjoy walking puppies.’
‘Do better with a little dachs,’ boomed Mrs Malmesbury. ‘Hounds don’t make good pets, they need to work.’
‘So do I,’ sighed Alan, ‘or I’ll never finish Depression. But who could work on such a lovely day? What d’you fancy in the three thirty, Alban?’
‘Ilkley Hall, normally, but Marius is so not in form.’
‘Rupert Campbell-Black’s Lusty’ll win,’ said Joey.
32
So many people had come up and patted Mrs Wilkinson, she’d stopped yelling her head off. The crowd were also excited to see Olivia Oakridge on Etta’s favourite, Stop Preston.
‘He’s lost his taste for jumping after a nasty fall, thought a day out might cheer him up,’ Olivia was telling Charlie Radcliffe.
Chatter stopped completely as Harvey-Holden arrived on a spectacular bay gelding who glowed like a new conker. Always after a story, Dora edged up and overheard him telling Olivia that his yard was nearly rebuilt after the fire and filling up with horses.
‘That one’s seriously nice,’ said Olivia.
‘Very seriously,’ said Harvey-Holden. ‘Called Bafford Playboy. Bought him in Ireland. He’s for sale,