At dinner the Earl of Longcross was cock of the walk, boss of the town, king of the hill.
Caro fluttered and flattered around him, and he positively lapped up the attention – they were behaving like newlyweds. The food, of course, was amazing and the talk was all of hunting – having stopped the total ban, Rollo was excitedly gearing up for his big Boxing Day meet.
‘Full regalia, old thing, full regalia,’ he kept saying to his wife, as he forked up the fancy tartlet we’d been served as a starter.
I thought he meant at the House of Lords. ‘But you weren’t in the furry robes. Today, I mean.’
‘No, not in the House. Full regalia at the meet. Proper field dress. No tweeds, no ratcatchers. In the pink, my dear. In the pink!’
I twigged. He meant everyone at the Boxing Day meet had to be in those red coats. When I’d first gone to STAGS I thought those red coats people wore out hunting were called … well, red. Since then, I’d learned that they were known as hunting pink. Now was the time to ask. ‘Why are those coats called pink?’
‘There was an eighteenth-century London tailor called Mr Pink,’ said Rollo. ‘He made the classic hunting coat. So nothing to do with the colour at all, really.’
‘Henry looks wonderful in his hunting togs,’ said Caro dreamily, out of nowhere. ‘He’ll look magnificent on Boxing Day.’
Of course there was nothing anyone could say to that. Rollo and Bates exchanged a look, and we all stared down at our plates. ‘Your father too,’ said the earl to Shafeen. ‘Mowgli looked top-hole in the coat.’
‘My dear,’ chided Caro gently.
‘Quite right. Mustn’t keep calling him that. Not quite the ticket in this day and age, eh?’
Or any day and age, I would have thought.
‘Hardy, I mean.’ It was almost laughable that he still hadn’t got the name right, preferring to give Shafeen’s father yet another name of Rollo’s own choosing. But we didn’t laugh. ‘Looked dashed handsome in that colour. In the pink, one might say.’ Rollo chuckled at his own joke.
Shafeen lined up his already dead-straight cutlery. ‘So you did ride to hounds when he was at Longcross?’
‘Of course,’ said Rollo. ‘Different times then. None of this animal-rights rubbish. That’s when we nabbed that fierce little bugger on your wall.’
‘Reynard,’ I said. ‘Like the one in the poem.’
‘Clever girl,’ Rollo said approvingly. ‘That’s right. We were doing it at school, I remember. Our English Friar made us damn near recite it by heart. We all moaned at the time, as one does, but I’m jolly glad now. Ripping poem, that.’ I couldn’t disagree with him there. I remembered the excitement of hearing him recount it in the ancient chamber, willing Reynard on, wanting to know what happened next.
‘Meet after meet we had him on the run. But he always got away.’
‘What changed?’ asked Shafeen.
Rollo gave a little bark of laughter, foxlike himself. ‘Your father, that’s what.’ He took a mouthful of blood-red port. ‘In ’69, we had Mowgli with us. He was the secret weapon, what?’
Shafeen leaned forward, an oddly intent look on his face. ‘Could you tell us, sir, a little of what happened?’
Rollo wiped his mouth on his napkin, leaving a red-wine stain as if his lips bled. In answer, he addressed not Shafeen but the butler. ‘Bates,’ he barked. ‘A bottle of the Veuve Clicquot ’84. We’re celebrating.’
The butler bent slightly in a bow. ‘The ’84, my lord. Very good,’ and he melted away. I wasn’t sure Rollo had even heard Shafeen’s entreaty, but as soon as the door closed, he put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together like he was telling a story. We all leaned in – it seemed the right thing to do.
‘We’d been after this fox for a few seasons. Five years old, we reckoned, by his teeth when we finally nabbed him. Always the same little bugger with a black snout. Fast as you like. Led the hounds a merry dance. Sometimes we’d see him stop on the hill, let them catch up – freeze for a second like he was posing for a bloody photo. Then he’d vanish like a ghost.’
‘We?’
‘The other Medievals of my year. Miranda, Charlie, Serena, Francesca. All of them ended up teaching at the school. And Gideon, of course, became the Abbot.’ He checked himself, as if he’d remembered something. ‘May he rest in peace.’
That blessing came a bit late, I thought. Was the Abbot really dead or not? If he was, how could he have tried and branded me? By habit I rubbed my middle finger on my thumb. I wished people would decide if they were one thing or the other.
‘So of course it became a thing. By that Justitium weekend we were champing at the bit to catch him. And that’s when we brought old Mow— Hardy along.’
Everyone was silent, rapt, listening to the story like kids at bedtime. For the second time that day the Earl of Longcross had a room in his thrall, hanging on his every word.
‘Well, Hardy was a game-changer. He said he wanted to look at the fox. Look him in the eyes. He said we should give him a name, and that’s how we’d get him. So we decided on Reynard, because we’d been doing the Masefield poem at school, and took Hardy out cubbing. Let the dog see the rabbit, you know?’
Now I was really lost. Rabbits? I needed some exposition. First things first. ‘What’s cubbing?’
‘It’s something you do before the hunt proper. You take the hounds to the covert where you’ll be hoping to hunt.’ Rollo began to rearrange the place setting in front of him. He pushed his plate away and put a small silver salt cellar before him – presumably to represent the fox. Then he encircled it with six crystal glasses (all empty – Bates was sure taking his time with that champagne). ‘You let the hounds get used to the smell of the foxes, teach them not to get distracted by the smell of hares or ferrets or the like. And if you see any grown foxes –’ he moved the salt cellar to the edge of the circle – ‘you turn ’em back so they’ll give you a good run on the meet day.’ He nudged the salt cellar with the nearest glass, making a clinking sound. The salt fell over, bleeding whitely onto the tablecloth. I remembered, fleetingly, that to spill salt was unlucky. ‘We thought we’d have to teach Hardy to ride, but no.’ Rollo glanced at Shafeen. ‘Wonderful seat your father had.’
For a surreal moment I actually wondered if Rollo was complimenting Aadhish’s bum.
‘It means he can ride,’ murmured Shafeen in a whispered aside. ‘Yes,’ he said louder to Rollo, ‘he’s been riding since the day he could cling onto a mane.’
‘One could tell. Anyway, we went into Longwood to turn the foxes back. I knew Reynard would show his pointy little face. So we surrounded the covert and waited. I remember it was a foul day, rain dripping from the trees, collars up, all waiting. Well, we all started complaining, moaning about the cold and wet. Not your father. He was silent as the grave.’
We were silent too, even Caro, entranced, listening.
‘We’d put him on a horse called Satan. He was a devil by name and by nature, jittery bugger, big as a house, would take off if you so much as snapped a twig. But even old Satan was still, four feet to the ground. They looked like one of those old statues – you know?’
We did. I remembered our conversation from that morning. Four feet to the floor meant the rider lived to conquer.
‘Seemed like hours we waited. We saw a few young cubs and let the hounds chase them away, but there was no sign of Reynard. I was about to call the whole thing off – couldn’t feel my fingers on the reins – when damn me if he wasn’t there. Little triangle face, black snout.
‘He saw us at once and was about to slide away when he sort of checked himself. He just stopped, like he used to do on the hill, one foot up. And he was looking at your father.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Shafeen softly.
‘He was looking at Hardy, and Hardy was looking at him. I’ll go to my grave swearing they were … well … communicating with each other. It went on for quite a few heartbeats. None of us could move, even the hounds.’
‘And?’ prompted Shafeen.
‘Then your father gave a sort of tiny nod – without breaking eye contact, you know – and Reynard just … went. He buggered off – slid past us in the undergrowth like a shadow. It was like he’d been given permission to go.’ Rollo shook his head, as if dislodging the memory. ‘It was a dashed queer thing.’
For a moment no one spoke. Then it was Nel who said, ‘What happened next?’
‘Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I was bloody furious. We’d been after Reynard for years, and we wanted to make a run for him the next day at the meet. Hardy should’ve turned him back, but he just let him go.’ Rollo, to this day, still sounded angry, but then seemed to relent. ‘He didn’t know the form, to be fair on him. Got confused by the name “cubbing”. He thought it meant one had to turn back the tiny ones, the little balls of fluff, you know. But, by God, he knew his error after that.’ Rollo twirled his glass in his hand – the champagne still hadn’t come. ‘We were a tiny bit beastly to him that night if I’m honest. I don’t think he had a very jolly time of it.’
Shafeen put down his own glass sharply. ‘What did you do to him?’ he asked, in a dangerously quiet voice.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ laughed Rollo dismissively. ‘Just joshing. Only sport. Boys will be boys, you know. Anyway, it all came good because you should’ve seen him the next day at the hunt. Like a different chap, he was.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘Well, come morning we took the hounds out and went after Reynard. Hardy was at the front, leading the field. Like the bloody Charge of the Light Brigade, it was. Never seen such a thruster. Popped over every five-bar gate like it was nothing. And we were always one step ahead of Reynard. Cut him off at every covert, every spinney, every ditch. It was like they were playing chess and Hardy was always one move ahead. We cornered Reynard in a valley on the far side of Longwood.’
Into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I thought.
‘That’s when we got him. One last check, where he looked at us all. He knew he was finished. Brave little sod – he snarled at us right at the end.’
I knew the expression well – Reynard had snarled at me like that from the wall.
‘Then the hounds took him limb from limb. They were in such a riot Perfect had to whip them off.’
It was an oddly brutal thing to be discussing at dinner, especially as at that moment we were tucking into some pretty pink-looking roast beef. I pushed mine away.
‘Then we blooded Hardy, of course. After all, it was him who’d caught the fellow really.’
Now I sat up. Here it was. We were getting, at last, to the meat of what had happened in 1969. Why Aadhish had appeared in that black morocco leather-game book.
‘Bloodied him?’ I asked.
‘No, my dear. Blood-ED. Somebody – usually the Master of Foxhounds, but that day there were only a few of us – takes a little of the fox’s blood and dabs it on the new hunter’s forehead. Right between the eyes.’ He turned to Shafeen. ‘Your lot do that anyway, don’t you? Sikhs and whatnot? You know, the little red dot? He must’ve been used to it.’
Shafeen’s face went still. ‘I think you’re referring to the Hindus, sir,’ he said tightly.
Rollo didn’t even acknowledge the reproach. ‘We offered him the mask, of course.’
‘The mask?’ queried Nel.
‘The fox’s head. Perfect clipped it off for Hardy.’ That repellant phrase conjured up the incident horribly – young Perfect, no doubt tall as a sapling already, shearing off brave Reynard’s head where he lay stretched out, a smear of red on the winter grass. Where had I imagined that before?
‘But he didn’t want the mask. Hardy, I mean. Seemed dashed sorry for Reynard in the end. So I had it mounted and put it in my room.’
I sat back in my chair and considered what we’d been told. None of this explained why Aadhish was in the game book. Huntin’ shootin’ fishin’ was how it went on Justitium weekend. Aadhish had been listed on the pheasant page, so he must have been shot, just like Shafeen. When? And why?
But I couldn’t think about that just then. It was getting late, and I was conscious of the drive to Oxford the next day. Suddenly exhausted, I couldn’t face the thought of dessert, then coffee, then port, standing like five-bar gates between me and bed. I put my stiff linen napkin on the table and tried to think of the right words. ‘Might I be excused?’ I asked, channelling Downton Abbey. ‘I have my Oxford interview tomorrow.’
Rollo looked up. ‘Ah. I’m afraid I’ll be needing the car – day at my club, you know. But one can easily train it from Marylebone.’
Nel, the Uber driver, said drily, ‘I’m taking her.’
Rollo turned to Shafeen. ‘And what about you, old chap? You could come along to the club with me.’
I’d sort of taken it for granted that Shafeen would be coming with me to Oxford, but I didn’t protest. I didn’t want to be that sort of girlfriend.
‘What club?’ Shafeen asked curiously.
‘Why, the STAGS Club of course.’
‘There’s a club?’ I exclaimed before I could stop myself.
‘Of course. The alumni of the school, and any other decent chaps who’ve been nominated by a STAG. Fellows from the city, politics, the media. That sort of thing.’ Rollo looked back at Shafeen. ‘Ideal opportunity to come along if the ladies are in Oxford.’
‘Why?’ asked Shafeen.
‘It’s Stags only, don’t you know. No Does. No women allowed.’
‘Wow,’ said Nel to no one in particular.
But Rollo didn’t notice. He got all misty-eyed. ‘I never got to take Mowgli. Hardy, I mean. Sad thing, really. He would’ve loved it.’
Shafeen looked at me, and to my surprise he said, ‘If you don’t mind?’
I shrugged. ‘Sure, why not?’ I was fine with it. I really was. No one was going to make me feel less nervous about the interview, and if Shafeen could get closer to Rollo and find out what went on inside the STAGS Club, that could only be a good thing. Besides, I could see he wanted to go. This was something his father had never done, an inner sanctum to which Aadhish had never been admitted. I was not about to stop him going.
Rollo watched us both. ‘Here’s a compromise. Women are allowed in the dining rooms, so why don’t you ladies join us for dinner when you get back from Oxford? It’s in St James’s. You can drop off that jolly little Mini here and get on the Tube to Green Park, what?’
I looked at Nel and she nodded. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
Still in Downton mode, I felt vaguely that we ought to express our gratitude for all this hospitality. ‘Thanks very much, by the way,’ I said clumsily as I got to my feet. ‘For, you know, everything.’ I sort of tailed off.
Rollo, who’d sprung to his feet as soon as my butt had left the chair, bowed his head gallantly. Then he studied me, his eyes curiously bright. ‘Any friend of Henry’s,’ he said, ‘is a friend of ours.’
It was uttered with great chivalry. But as I mounted the carpeted stairs I turned the phrase over in my mind. I wasn’t thinking about the gallantry then, but the implied threat.
How welcome would we be if we were no longer friends of Henry’s?