“It’s the new people.” Betty pronounced this with gusto.
Gray broke a peanut butter cookie in half. “Betty, maybe, but even without this new influx flooding Virginia, there have always been people opposed to hunting. Some are adamant about not killing animals.”
“We don’t,” Betty interrupted.
“Of course, Betty, but who knows that? Foxhunters have been rotten about educating the public.” Gray, having worked in Washington, D.C., for years, possessed insight into the urban and suburban mind.
“He’s right, Betty.” Sister turned to Gray. “But remember we were taught that our names should only appear in the newspaper when we were born, when we married, and when we died. Anything else was considered vulgar.”
“It is.” Betty stood up, poured herself more tea, and topped off Sister’s and Gray’s cups. “It truly is.”
“What about Facebook?” Gray’s eyebrows rose.
“You don’t see me doing it. Exposing yourself in that way is vain. Why would anyone assume they are that interesting?”
Sister laughed, dropping her forehead into her hand for a moment. “Betty, you have just offended millions of Americans, plus whoever else in the world is taking a selfie at this moment.”
“Betty, you’re younger than we are. I’d think you’d be part of this,” Gray teased her.
Betty leaned back in the kitchen chair. “I suppose writing a letter is a form of exposure, but that’s private, and if you take the time to actually write using good paper, which my husband and I carry, in case you forgot,” she smiled mischievously, “you think a bit. Simply going to your iPad or your computer and firing off what comes into your head without reflection, I believe it does more harm than good. I need time to think things through.”
“Not when you’re whipping-in.” Sister meant this as a compliment.
“That’s different. That’s action. We think on our feet out there. Actually, we think on four feet.”
“You’d imagine that people would find that a challenge.” Sister liked running after an animal who could think and turn at a ninety-degree angle, who could make a complete fool out of horses, humans, and hounds. Who could and did.
“They don’t grow up in the country. A house on a two acre lot is the country to them. Riding on a lawnmower that costs five thousand dollars is doing your chores. They live in a different world. They could care less about country people, if they even know we exist.”
“Well, Betty, they do, or they wouldn’t be passing anti-barking ordinance laws.” Sister sighed as the phone rang.
Gray walked over to pick up the landline. He listened. “She’s right here.” He held out the phone, whispering, “O.J.”
Sister took the phone while Gray seated himself and the two dogs kept pressing for cookies. Betty noticed the look on Sister’s face.
“I am so sorry. I know she was one of your oldest and most supportive members. Let me know if there’s anything we can do. I know you have a lot to do. Let’s talk when you’re not so pressed.” She listened then said, “Bye. Love you.”
“What’s going on?” Betty held her cup midair, focused on whatever the news would be.
Sister returned to the table. “Remember me telling you about the Munnings painting being stolen in Lexington? The painting of the beautiful Mrs. Oliver Filley riding sidesaddle? It was owned by Delores Buckingham. She’d supported the hunt club for years, was in her eighties. Well, she was strangled leaving her house. No one saw a car or a person. Or no one says they did. Oh, another lead shank. Fennell’s.”
Gray said, “It may be the old story, who has most to gain? The lead shank method seems unnecessary.”
“Quite.” Sister added, “But there are different kinds of gain. We’re focused on money. What if this is about something else?”
Later, settled in the library, dogs asleep at their feet, Golly snuggled next to Sister on the sofa, both humans finally home, each reading a magazine that interested them.
On the coffee table, Michael Hicks’s detailed biography of Richard III lay, the bookmark at page 93. Sister would tackle it again tomorrow. Mr. Hicks’s knowledge, deep and wide, impressed her, but she had to rev her mental energy to read it. At this moment her engines were slowing down. It had been a long day.
“What are you hmming about?” she asked as she glanced up from her Garden and Gun magazine filled with enticing photographs.
Looking up from his Economist, he replied, “This bug in Wuhan, China. Spreading.”
“Bugs do that. Then again, China has so many people crammed together, has to be a field day for bacteria and viruses. A form of pestilential paradise.”
He folded the magazine in half. “Doesn’t matter where something starts, all those things travel easily. It’s creeping into Italy, Europe. Think of Ebola.”
“I’d rather not,” she teased him. “I remember the day the polio vaccine was hailed; 1955. Mother said it was a miracle and it was. I remember one of the boys at school coming down with polio. He lived but was crippled. Think of all the diseases that have been conquered or greatly reduced.”
“You’re right. I take a lot for granted. I eat good food, there’s an abundance of it. We have central heating and air-conditioning. We can move about freely. I think restoring the home place has made me appreciate what my ancestors did. Tough people, the Lorillards and the Laprades.”
“Still are.”
He placed the folded Economist in his lap. “I wonder. Think how our ancestors worked, used their bodies. Even baking bread takes effort, and women did it every morning. If rich, they had a cook who did it. Can you imagine getting a toothache? When we worked on the flue…well, there are two of them, in decent shape, but you can’t fool around with a chimney…it reminded me that twice a day the fires needed to be stoked. The only insulation was horsehair. Honey, they were tough. No wonder men started splitting wood in the middle of the summer. Then you had to stack it, it needed a year to cure. The cured wood from the prior year had to be brought into a woodshed near the house. No one wants to fetch wood in a blizzard, so there had to be places inside the house that were safe to store flammable material, and I haven’t even gotten to food storage.”
“Not much. Well, canning, and if a family built a smokehouse, that helped with meat. We are spoiled. On the other hand, most people unless disgustingly rich had fabulous bodies.”
He laughed. “Vanity. I expect some of the disgustingly rich had pretty good bodies, too. How did we get off on this?”
“China.”
“Oh, well, how is your Garden and Gun?”
She sighed. “One temptation after another. I am so glad my mother curbed my impulsiveness or I’d buy most of what I see in the magazine.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The Louis XV desk.”
“Now, Gray, Harry Dunbar willed me that.”
“If he hadn’t died, you would have found a way and snookered me into helping.”
“Well—-maybe. I mean, what’s the point of loving someone if you don’t spoil them a little?”
He left his chair by the fireplace, leaned over her as she sat on the sofa. “You can spoil me anytime you please.”
CHAPTER 15
February 20, 2020 Thursday
“When was the last time you had contact with Delores Buckingham?” Ben Sidell questioned Carter Nicewonder.
Both did not hunt this Thursday.