‘Well you are.’
‘Well I thank you Kildare for being damn honest about it’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know how that quite slipped out. But of course you’re not. A stranger. You know you are absolutely welcome.’
‘Well since you put it with such insistence. Alright. I’ll stay. Only because you absolutely entreat me to.’
Hunting may not sweep all sadness from the mind but does indeed quite quickly erase misery from the soul. And one did feel relief at the Master’s signal to move off. With the usual shouts and hoots from the gung ho contingent. But not ten yards from the front door of Andromeda Park, two members of the hunt already nosedived on their heads, having in their efforts to mount, got up on one side of their horses only to tip over to plunge down the other. And Gearoid holding the reins of both, while still clinging to a glass of Guinness and trying to swallow its spilling contents, was dragged off bodily. One did look back at the house and the fuss. And there up in the whim room window, catch sight of Leila. Staring it seemed down. At the top of the heads of hunt followers and of the assembled staff arrayed watching on the front steps. And waving goodbye. Sexton rushing up to me with a nosegay.
‘Ah now you’d not want to be without a bit of colour taking you with its beauty flying through the wind safely.’
One presumed the front hall had been left to scavengers. Cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews of one’s staff. Who make themselves known from the lower reaches of the house when the grand folk have gone. Sexton of course directing traffic and hoofs to keep us off his sacred preserves of flower bulbs and grass. Down the drive someone dismounting. Secreting themselves behind a piece of broken statuary and heaving out their guts into the rose bushes, sounding as if in their death throes. You’d think that that terrified, they might rather retire safely quiet in front of the fire, and read about the more active moments of the hunt in Horse and Hound. Which periodical as it happens has sent a lady associate just arrived to report today’s outing. Although I don’t suppose she’ll be reporting that in the thick of the rhododendron plantation there, white breeches can be spied of similar folk crazed with terror, depositing their hunt breakfasts. Which, who knows, will quite possibly be gladly gobbled up by one of the very devilishly clever foxes we shall chase.
It would seem that the advent of the use of the motor car again has brought a plethora of the nervous of heart to hunt. For not even a quarter way to the first covert, an extremely pinched faced lady down from Dublin, her face a mask of make up, which nonetheless underneath could be seen turned entirely green, keeled with a sighing gasp from her lips, in a dead faint straight out of the saddle and stuck like a pole into the ground. The hunting priest did stretch her out and do his well meant mumbo jumbo over her unconscious face, till the lady awoke and it would seem was distinctly and irately Protestant. Of course one does feel a shiver or two oneself. But at this casualty rate we will soon be minus the field before finding a fox.
Approaching the second covert, the first finding no fox, and just beyond and at the edge of the wood. The breeze not so cold in the snatches of sun. But the cloud brought a shuddering chill as we waited. And one did think. That not that long ago one sat in solitary enjoyment of one’s privacy. The sole lonely occupant of one’s house and served by its staff. Whose exact number one always has trouble to calculate. And now bloody hell. The place is overflowing. But if I were merely to count up the mouths. It would amount to more than a dozen more than I can afford.
‘Tally ho.’
A fox found. And off straight into the woods. To make sure we’re all scratched to pieces if not knocked senseless.
‘Watch out.’
A shout just behind one. And a silly chap, absolutely belted backwards off his horse by that branch of a tree under which Petunia and I have just ducked. Blood exploding from his nose before he hits the ground. Miss von B following him, to whom he was obviously turning to display his charms. And who at the same time shouted to him to watch where he was cantering. Poor damn sod. Immediately pretending to Miss von B, as she offered to help, that he was tough as nails and completely alright. And then as she rode on, whammo, the Mad Vet, lately arrived at a gallop out of the trees, flattened your man once more. Poor wretched sod, just as he was sitting up to hold together his various parts of his loosened skull.
The field veering suddenly. Hounds barking hell bent on yet another fox. And foolish doggies. Down a hillside. Over a stream. Dear me, the injured gentleman’s riderless horse has just scampered by. Which being on our way once more, everyone pretends not to see. And those who can’t avoid being seen seeing, pretending to grasp and tussle about with the reins, and of course as I see is happening, letting them go at the first opportune unobserved moment while shouting loose horse. They really are, just like oneself, such a bunch of damn self centred pleasure seeking hypocrites caring only for indulging their own sport and enjoyment. Rather like the Mental Marquis of Farranistic who one does keep an eye open for to come thundering out of some copse, like the last charge of the Light Brigade. Which of course exactly happened the next second as his lathered horse came up beside mine. And god, he does look at times awfully insane. By his own admission having been rapped constantly on his head by a perverse nanny who maintained it was a good way of knocking sense into him. Only on one occasion she used the leg of a table.
‘Damn sorry Kildare to have missed my stirrup cup. Damn car blew up other side of the village. Damn silly fellow can you imagine came lighting a cigarette to examine why my petrol tank was leaking. Set the horse box on fire. Burning bloody inferno. I say, see a few nice pieces of crumpet out today.’
One heard while waiting at the next covert that instead of anyone coming to the flattened chap’s assistance, poor damn man ended up crawling to the nearest cottage where he was nearly shot. The farmer not only loosing a load of pellets over the poor bugger but nearly garrotting him pulling his head gear off and trampling his top hat with his muddy Wellington boot. It’s not stylish to wear a cord attached to your top hat. But I suppose the poor polite foreign fellow will have learned a thing or two before this day’s out. Among which is, that he does not quite present the pleasure one gets fetching a beautiful lady in her muddy soaked finery out of a bog hole. And that an injured gentleman is quite likely to be left for dead. Perhaps a reason why more gentlemen of the inclination to prefer gentlemen should be encouraged to hunt.
‘Go get him.’
The huntsman with a terrier released into a foxhole. The whipper in nearby furiously digging with his spade to fill in an escape route. The stragglers slowly arriving. Gossip being savoured on various lips. Miss von B off to the side with a bevy of bug eyed still slathering at the mouth gents in eager attendance. And directly behind one. Sounds like a waterfall. Must turn to see. My god. Baptista Consuelo. Who obviously has avoided my hunt breakfast. Now suddenly here. Reined up and tightening her girth. Probably ready to accuse me of further and better particulars of my previous heinousness various. Her horse taking one incredibly noisy pee. Which one can’t help marvel at. The stream coming out of what one must certainly term an inordinately large equine penis. Exactly what one would expect her horse to have of course.
‘I would prefer, if you do not mind, and in particularly you, not watching while my horse is peeing.’
Of course one turned away. Who bloody well wants to watch her damn horse peeing. While she is preening and making all her usual efforts to look captivatingly splendid while at the same moment also haughtily attempting to ignore the collection of chop licking gentlemen surrounding Miss von B. And it is amusingly clear that she and the Marquis currently utterly detest each other. I suppose some brands of fucking can breed later abhorrence. And dear me, over where the fox has gone to ground, an altercation already. The Master raising his voice to the Mad Vet.