‘You barged into me,’ I retorted. ‘And how dare you even begin to lecture me about how to behave when you have behaved
All my rage, all my pent-up emotion flooded out as I regarded her up on her grey mare with her carefully painted face. So much I wanted to say seethed and jostled within, but which words to choose? Surely I could do better than hussy? Strumpet, perhaps? As I struggled to find a twenty-first century expletive I was capable of uttering, she watched disdainfully. Her red lip curled as she looked me up and down.
‘Just don’t bite off more than you can chew, hm?’
And with that she was off. From a standing start to a canter, as the field circumnavigated the hedge through a series of gates, then out into open country again. I was on her heels whether she liked it or not. For Thumper had got second wind and seemed determined to stick like glue to Miss Harding’s mare. And of course she rode right up at the front, so that’s where I ended up: with Hope and Chad, Simon, who had the grace to look abashed as I came thundering up, the terrifying Mary Granger of the stony face, who bonked blacksmiths, Angie, whose eyes were round as I yet again rocketed past her horribly out of control, and then Sam, who, with intrinsic style, was executing a stately collected canter at the head of the field. He raised an ironic, here-we-go-again eyebrow as I cannoned past, but no more than that. Pulling for all I was worth and travelling at a speed that made my eyes stream and the wind rush in my ears, I at least managed to turn a circle before I reached the hounds. I bounced inelegantly back, features jockeying for position, hat over my eyes, everyone staring in wonder, even the children having never seen the like. Suddenly I found my reins being firmly taken from me. It was Angie, and her eyes were sparkling.
‘Poppy, I’m going to have to take you home,’ she told me. ‘I have
I couldn’t breathe, such had been the exertion of trying to stop Thumper. Such was my terror and lack of fitness. I could only nod; try to get some air into my lungs. I felt terribly sick. At that moment a grim-faced whipper-in swept past silently in the opposite direction.
‘One of the hounds is missing,’ Mary Granger, a face like thunder, informed us, riding up. ‘We’re going to have to hang around here a moment while Martin goes back to look. It’s literally nowhere to be seen. Seems to have vanished into thin air.’
She rode off to tell the others; to inform the rest of the field. I gazed after her, stricken.
22
That should have been my moment. Of course that should have been my moment. All I remember, though, was turning back from staring at Mary’s retreating back, and looking into Angie’s glittering eyes as she held my reins. My own eyes cast wildly about: I saw Simon and Emma talking to Sam, grave and deadly serious. My throat clenched with fear, my heart with it. I wished so badly I was not with the thrusters, but with the Pollys and Grants of this world. I could see them at the tail end of the field, sharing a joke and a hip flask, laughing uproariously, Grant even lighting a cigarette. Please, God, I thought, let me go to them; I could tell them. Then they could pass it on, like Chinese whispers. But Angie still had hold of my reins and was telling me in low, measured tones, as one might a child who’s run in the road and scared one enough to yell initially, that of course it wasn’t my fault, because I hadn’t been out before, but if only I’d gone to her
‘If only you’d asked, you could have had Clarissa’s pony. It’s hunted seven seasons, knows exactly how to behave. You are a goon, Poppy.’
I listened to this almost in a dream. It was said, certainly, in something more like her usual friendly voice as she relaxed her grip on my rein. And she was my friend; my good friend, who I could tell, surely? I opened my mouth to speak, but my mouth was so dry my teeth stuck to my upper lip. By the time I’d licked them free, Sam had ridden up beside her, mobile clamped to ear, and was talking to her, relaying what he was hearing to Angie. Angie, who, I suddenly noticed, had a mustard collar to her blue coat. Did that make her a hunt official? Like part of the secret police? My befuddled mind swam as she bestowed a dazzling smile on Sam, then, realizing the smile was inappropriate, adopted a grave expression as she listened to what he had to say, as indeed, I did too.
They’d found the hound, stone dead in a copse, apparently. A nasty gash to his head. Kicked, by the looks of things. Someone had even had the gall to hide him with some bracken.
Angie’s expression was no longer manufactured; there was genuine horror in her eyes as she gave a sharp intake of breath. Mary Granger, beside us, who was as tough as old rhino hide, put a hand over her mouth. Sam rode off, white-faced. And then it spread, in a rolling tide, around the field. The hound was called Peddler, it was Mark, the huntsman’s, favourite. He’d bred him and walked him as puppy. Yes, definitely kicked, and then hidden with a blanket of bracken – no, actually, a shallow grave had been dug, to secrete it. Never had I felt such fear. Never had my heart beat so loudly or had I felt
