For her part, Sister sensed that Crawford was a kind of Richard III, a man of tremendous ability and loyalty whose ambition was not naturally destructive. Like Richard, Crawford lacked the outward conviviality of Edward IV, whom Richard succeeded and mourned.
As years rolled by, Sister made a point now and then to invite Crawford for coffee, just the two of them. She would also have Crawford and Marty to small dinners, carefully selecting her guests, never more than eight.
In time, older hunt club members did their best to get along with Crawford because of Sister’s example. And he did siphon money into the treasury, for which every single member was grateful, even Bobby Franklin, the president, and Bobby couldn’t abide the man.
Bobby Franklin would say, sotto voce, that one of the happiest days of his life was when Crawford moved up from the Hilltoppers to First Flight. Poor Bobby. As Master of Hilltoppers, he had to handle green horses, green riders, or, the worst of the worst: a green horse dealing with a green rider. Bobby’s sympathies rested with the horse. By the time people made it to First Flight, Bobby, a font of hunting lore, had drummed the basics into their heads.
Crawford looked out the window from his beautiful living room decorated by Colefax and Fowler. The decorating bill for the living room alone amounted to $275,000. Naturally, his estate had been featured in decorating magazines on both sides of the Atlantic.
In Virginia, money whispers. For Crawford, it shouted. He couldn’t help it. Marty tempered him a bit, but his need for display usually won out.
“Well, the goddamned Weather Channel has it wrong yet again.” He tapped his manicured forefinger against the cold windowpane.
Marty walked over.“Here.”
He gratefully took the brandy snifter and sipped the warming, delicious cognac.“Rituals of pleasure.”
She smiled.“Perfect coffee in the morning; a strong cup of tea at four in the afternoon; and brandy at twilight in the winter, a cool Tom Collins in the summer.”
“Hot kisses at bedtime.” He wrapped one arm around her waist. “Bet Tuesday’s hunt will be canceled. I was sorry that Sorrel Buruss canceled tonight’s cocktail party, but only you and I could have gotten there.”
He had recently bought a Hummer II and thought he could drive up Everest with it. His daily driver was a metallic red Mercedes S500. Crawford eschewed the other Mercedes: M’s, C’s, and E’s. A real Mercedes was an S or an SL, and that was that. Marty sensibly drove a Subaru Outback and was quite happy with it, even though Crawford wanted to buy her a Toyota Land Cruiser.
“Hot kisses? I’ll drink to that.” Marty touched her glass to his and took a sip.
“Hard to believe it’s almost the New Year. Honey, I’ve been thinking. I swore when we moved here I would retire—”
“Managing your investments is a full-time job.”
“It’s not enough for me.”
“Darling, you’re on the Board of Governors of the Jefferson Hunt Club, the board for Mercy Hospital, the national board for Save Our Farmland. You do so much even I lose track, and I’m pretty good with details.” She flattered him. “And let’s not forget that you are treasurer for the Republican Party in this county and, I expect, sweetie, will be tapped for that job for the state.”
“I don’t think they’ll put a non-Richmonder in that slot,” he replied.
“Oh, yes, they will. You’re smarter than all of them, and you have great connections out of the state. But,” she sighed a mock sigh, “I know you. What are you planning now? What world will you conquer?”
“First things first: I will be joint-master this year. The hunt selects the master on Valentine’s Day. A funny little tradition. Most hunts do it May first, unless they’re private packs, of course. February’s Board of Governors meeting is February eighteenth, so Sister Jane will have to make her decision by January’s board meeting, the twenty-first.”
“You’ll be a wonderful master.” Marty kept to herself that she thought immediate chances of this honor were slim.
He stared out the window. The snow, a white curtain, obscured even the English boxwoods lining the curving front walkway to the columned portico.
“This has been some kind of winter.” He took another sip. “Let’s sit by the fire. I like to look at you in the firelight.”
She kissed his cheek. They walked to the overstuffed sofa, squeezing side by side as the flames, orange, red, a hint of blue, cast warmth.
“Honey, how do you think Sam Lorillard is working out?”
He put his snifter down, stretched his hands. His joints hurt.“So far, so good. Too early to really tell.”
“Fairy thinks there will be trouble in the hunt field with Sam.”
Fairy Partlow kept the Howards’ foxhunters in tune. In her late twenties, she had proven surprisingly capable and reliable.
He exhaled through his nostrils.“Reminds me. I forgot to give the club money for Sam to ride as a groom. I’ll check with Sister.”
“Fairy hasn’t been out in two weeks. Hunting, I mean,” she said.
Fairy rode as a groom, a policy most hunt clubs use to include stable help employed by wealthier members. As a rule, the grooms rode better than their employers and were helpful in the field, as they rode in the rear.
“Well, now that Sam’s here, and I’ve hired Roger Davis to help out with the horses, maybe she can hunt more. But this damned weather has got us all holed up.” He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Hunt field is the best place to bring young chasers. Sam needs to hunt, too.”
Crawford, having talked to old-timers in the steeplechase world, thought he’d stick to the tried-and-true ways of the past, although many a modern owner and trainer no longer did.
Eager to make a bigger mark, he was purchasing young steeplechase and hunter prospects, hence his recent hiring of Sam.
“Fairy says over the years Sam has worked for members of the club and fallen foul of some of them.”
“Oh, these damned Virginians never forget a thing. That’s ancient history.”
“If someone sleeps with your wife, I doubt it ever becomes ancient history,” she quietly said.
His eyebrows rose.“Oh. Who did Sam sleep with?”
“Henry Xavier’s Dee. Ronnie Haslip told me in confidence. That Ronnie knows everyone and everything.”
“Really?”
“And the list goes on, of women I mean.”
“Hmm.” He dropped his chin for a moment, thought, then raised it. “He’s gone through rehab. He goes to AA meetings at least five nights a week. There has to be some forgiveness in the world.” Crawford did believe in forgive but never forget.
“Hopefully.”
“Can’t understand how those women fell for him. He’s a bandy-legged, skinny little thing. Nice color though.”
Caf? au lait was Sam’s coloring.
“He was younger then. Alcohol ravages even the most beautiful. Think of Errol Flynn or William Holden.”
“Mmm. Too far back for me.”
She lightly punched him.“You’ll pay for that.”
“How about now?” He pulled her to him, kissing her.
“What a good idea.”
CHAPTER 5
“Are you doing this to irritate me?”Delia, mother of the D litters, crossly said to Trudy, a racy second-year entry.
“No,”the young hound replied as they walked through the snow. The humans accompanied them on foot this Tuesday morning.
Sister, Shaker, Betty, and Sybil Bancroft—she’d taken back her maiden name—each wearing warm boots, marveled at the beauty of this crisp morning.
The snow did not stop Sunday night as predicted, but floated down throughout Monday, finally ending late Monday night. The road crews in Virginia, more accustomed to dealing with flooding conditions or old macadam roads bubbling up in fierce heat, worked twenty-four hours even in the storm to keep the interstates open. Given that Virginia generally gets far less snow than upstate New York, the state budget allowed for the purchase of only a small number of snowplows. Close to the mountains it snowed more regularly, so the state, and it was a good plan, sold the work out to local people. Anyone with a snowplow attachment to a heavy-duty truck, a bulldozer, or even a big old dump truck could earn some extra money during the storms. The dump trucks followed the plows. As the snow would be scraped up and piled to the side, the dump truck driver would slowly release a load of sand. Sometimes salt would be mixed in with the sand, wreaking havoc on the underbodies of older cars and trucks.