‘Oh Christ,’ he added bitchily as Niall the vicar strolled up the drive, ‘here comes Goldilocks. God, he was a pest when the yard burnt down, kept rolling up to counsel me and drink all my drink.’
Niall had been ordered by Ione to bless the hunt, but without her here everyone had forgotten, so he got stuck into the sloe gin and sausages instead, and blessed Not for Crowe, his hand itching to stroke Woody’s long muscular thigh at the same time.
Not for Crowe nibbled the vicar’s prayer book.
Niall had competition when Shagger charged up, scattering foot followers on a huge, dark brown cob which was clearly unnerved by Shagger’s loud, harsh voice and which he was having great difficulty controlling. Despite being a dreadful rider, Shagger was wearing a red coat, for the privilege of which he’d paid the hunt a large sum. He also sported a top hat on the back of his head, so his straight black forelock fell over his face.
‘Needs a kirby grip,’ observed Miss Painswick beadily.
‘Can’t raise his hat, needs both hands to cling on,’ said Dora.
‘Where’s Marius?’ Harvey-Holden asked Olivia.
‘Towcester.’ Olivia straightened one of Preston’s plaits, adding that Marius didn’t want to get shouted at by Lady Crowe, the Master, who was one of his owners.
‘He hasn’t given her a winner for two years. She’s been bloody loyal.’ Olivia shook her head when plum cake was offered. ‘Sentimental attachment to Marius’s father, I suppose. Did you know Lady C was his mistress?’ She lowered her voice. ‘Hard to believe today, but they used to tie up their horses all over Larkshire and disappear into the bushes. Charlie Radcliffe swears they didn’t miss a beat when hounds ran right over them one day … Ah, here she is.’
Both gold hands of the church clock edged towards eleven as Nancy Crowe, the Master, arrived. A long-term friend of the Travis-Locks, she had a beaky nose, a line of crimson lipstick instead of a mouth, yellowing skin like a wizened apple, and cropped, dyed black hair. Far more heterosexual than her masculine appearance suggested, she had run the hunt for twenty years. Her horse Terence looked older than her, but would last until she retired. Her voice was as loud and rasping as her name.
‘High time you were mounted,’ she yelled at Alban, as she tossed back a glass of port.
‘Is Spencer out?’ asked Alban, lighting her cigar.
‘Given up. Seventy-eight now, had to get off and widdle eighty times last time we were out.’
‘That’s the Lady Crowe,’ whispered Woody to Dora, ‘who turned down Crowie.’
Ears sloping like a basset, eyes closed like an old crocodile, still plump from summer grass, his skimpy tail nearly chewed off by the cows with whom he’d summered, Not for Crowe could never be described as a picture, even less so when he hoovered up Ione’s courgette and walnut tart and curled his lip back.
‘She rejected Crowie?’ raged Dora. ‘She’ll eat her words, the stupid bitch.’
A group of hunt saboteurs who’d crept in via the churchyard were of the same mind. As Lady Crowe approached them, their tattooed and dreadlocked leader shouted out, ‘You fucking bitch.’
‘You are entitled to call me the latter,’ shouted back Lady Crowe, ‘but I haven’t indulged in the former activity for twenty years.’
The crowd roared with laughter.
‘Don’t you insult our master, you cheeky bugger,’ yelled Charlie Radcliffe as he thundered towards the saboteurs on his mighty blue roan.
‘Look out, Brunhilda,’ yelled the dreadlocked leader to a big girl in black.
Dora turned green. Brunhilda had been the leader on the goat raid. That night Dora’s face had been hidden by a balaclava, but today’s leader was now videoing the hunt. What would they think? Goat saviour one day, fox murderer the next. Dora and Mrs Wilkinson retreated behind a yew hedge.
Creeping out five minutes later, Dora retreated again as a smart silver car drove up and out jumped her eldest brother, Jupiter, who was not only MP for Larkminster and head of the New Reform Party but also a governor of Bagley Hall, who didn’t approve of bunking off. Jupiter proceeded to announce, to loud cheers, that the New Reform Party would repeal the ban on hunting once they came to power, and shot back into his car again.
‘It’s going to be Crowie’s year,’ a returning Dora comforted Woody. ‘If Marius is doing that badly, he’ll really drop his prices and you’ll be able to afford to send Doggie and Crowie to him.’