“For how long? People will lose their shirts.”
Sister thought a moment. “Yes. We’ve lived through flu epidemics before. I mean recently, not 1919, which was mass death worldwide. But all those recent flus that have names like SARS. I bet I have that wrong, but you know what I mean.”
“I do. Vaccines developed pretty quickly, so we can hope this does, too.”
“If this were up to the medical profession, I would agree. But the politicians are in it and both parties will try to use this to advance themselves. They don’t give a damn about the American people.” Sister revealed bitterness.
O.J. sighed. “I remember reading The Gilded Age in college. This is the second gilded age.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it’s also the gelded age. So many men aren’t men.”
“Now, there’s a savage thought but funny,” Sister responded.
The two chatted a bit more then Sister hung up, returning to the sofa. Raleigh and Rooster laid on each side of her, their heads on her lap. Golly rested on the back of the sofa, her tail occasionally flicking over the human’s nose.
Sister stopped, brushed the tail back, then referred to the index in the back of the Munnings book. She rose, disturbing the dogs, looked in the index of volume one and volume two. Then she sat back down, looked into those warm brown doggy eyes.
“He never mentions Florence. Why didn’t I notice that?”
“Who’s Florence?” Golly asked.
Sister rose again, went over to Gray’s far too expensive computer and looked for Florence Carter-Wood. Photographs showed up of a beautiful woman then paintings of her. Paintings by Alfred Munnings.
“I wonder,” she muttered under her breath.
Florence was Sir Alfred’s first wife. They married in 1912. She committed suicide in 1914. She had tried to kill herself on her honeymoon but somehow pulled it together. She herself painted and was part of a group of painters before World War I known as the Lamorna Group. Others painted her as well, for she was so beautiful. She could ride. Sidesaddle, of course.
Sister thought about that. Today Florence might be considered depressive. Then she seemed to have a streak of melancholy but nothing so severe as to cause comment until her suicide attempt on her honeymoon.
Sitting there, surrounded by the best love, Sister considered what little she knew.
She said, “He never mentioned her. Not once in his three volumes, and according to this brief biography, not once after she died. Not once.”
Rooster replied. “I like it when you talk to me.”
“Ha. She’s not talking to you, she’s talking to herself. Humans do that.” The cat tossed her head in what she considered a fetching manner.
“She talks to us.” Raleigh couldn’t bear criticism of Sister. “When she talks out loud even if it isn’t to us we can learn something.”
Once again, the tall woman whispered. “Not once.”
CHAPTER 33
March 12, 2020 Thursday
Brilliant sunshine flooded pastures, trees almost blooming. Sister, Betty, Weevil, and Tootie walked hounds across the large field between her farm and the Bancroft’s After All. The temperature, in the low fifties, promised spring.
Hounds knew they were not hunting, as no one was on horseback. But the humans, far apart from one another, walked briskly. A human brisk pace was a hound’s fast walk sneaking into a slow trot.
Sister and Betty, in their hound-walking shoes, began to trot. Weevil and Tootie, up front, kept pace with the hounds. Sister and Betty brought up the rear.
“I’m going to have to work up to this.” Betty slowed.
“Me, too.” Sister smiled, watching the two young people and the hounds move away.
“I never was much of a runner.” Betty looked down at her breasts. “No support bras in my youth.”
Sister laughed. “Those protuberances can get in the way. I used to wrap mine with the tape used to wrap ankles. You know, that stretchy fabric. At least it was soft, but then again I am not as generously endowed as yourself.”
“You’re a C. That’s enough to hurt when you run or take a big jump.”
“Well, when you’re young, or at least for me, I noticed, but it wasn’t awful. Tell you what, when those first support bras came out for athletes, I bought one. Helps. Originally the material didn’t breathe, so you sweated like a horse. Then things improved.”
“Has. Look at the knee braces we can wear that don’t interfere with riding. Those are made out of elastic cloth. My left knee has gotten to the point where I hate to climb the stairs.”
“Operation?”
Betty groaned. “I guess. Maybe this summer. I lack enthusiasm but I hate losing mobility.”
“Honey, sooner or later age humbles you.”
Betty rejoined, “I was born humble.”
“I’d better duck before one hits me.”
As Tootie and Weevil turned to come back across the meadow, a few shoots peeking up, they beheld two women laughing at each other; they couldn’t hear what was being said, but more laughter.
“They never stop,” Tootie remarked.
“Good to have a friend like that. Do you think women make friends easier than men? Deeper friendships?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the way we go about it is different. Men like to do things together. Women sit around and talk. I’m not much of a talker.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She dropped her head and smiled. “But when Val and some of my classmates from Custis Hall and I get together, usually over their college vacations, I’ll talk. ’Course, no one can outtalk Val. I hope she runs for public office someday. She has that gift, you know?”
“I’ve never met her.”
“If Princeton lets people out early maybe she’ll stop by. She’s as tall as Sister. Maybe a little taller, a terrific athlete, blonde, blue-eyed, the American dream. She really is beautiful.”
“Tootie, she couldn’t be more beautiful than you.” He worked up his courage and it wasn’t a false compliment.
“I, well, thank you. I’ve always been in Mom’s shadow. I’m happiest in hunt clothes, that’s my idea of getting dressed up. The rest of the time, you can see.”
“A turtleneck sweater, jeans, and cowboy boots. Very sensible.” He smiled.
She laughed. “From the rear people will call me ‘Sir.’ ”
“Tootie, all you have to do is turn around. I bet they’re speechless.”
She laughed again. “They’re embarrassed.”
“I love you, Tootie.” Trident slid his head under her hand and the pack moved up a tiny bit to be close to the humans they all loved.
“I feel better with animals.”
“I do, too,” Weevil replied. “They’re honest and they try so hard for you. And I thank you because you try so hard as a whipper-in. You can ride like the devil.” He grinned a lopsided grin.
“You think?”
“I do. I don’t say much when we’re out there because my focus is on the quarry and the hound. I do try to thank you all after a hunt. That’s only proper for a huntsman. And Sister thanks us.”
“Sister’s hunting manners are impeccable. No matter what, even something right out of the blue, she’s calm, cool, collected, and diplomatic. I have to bite my tongue,” Tootie confessed.
“Me, too. Can you believe some of the dumb stuff people do and say, and this is a pretty wonderful hunt club? Still, every now and then I’ll look back or someone will yell out and I just want to paste them.”
They reached the two friends.