Hunt with the Hounds Page 8

  Sue said quickly, “But Ernestine knew so many people. Not just us, but all those outsiders, all the people who come to hunt, so many newcomers, so many …”

  “That’s true,” Fitz said, “but someone close to her might have a clue. You, Sue, and Camilla and Ruby knew her so long and so well. Jed, Wat Luddington—I, myself; we were closest to her. Among us we might discover some hint, some faint clue.”

  Jed, staring at the table, said suddenly, “We might. Yes—there might be something—I’m not sure …”

  Fitz’s control slipped; there was sharp impatience in his voice. “Jed, can’t you see how important it is? What are you talking about?”

  But the impatience aroused Jed’s instinctive sense of combat; he lifted obstinate and angry eyes to Fitz. “I’m only trying to think—trying to remember. Ernestine—you all knew her; as you say it’s not a time for—well, she was difficult; she was—high-handed. She made people furious when she wanted to, and she was ambitious. She knew of course that I liked Sue, she wasn’t very pleasant about it—Shepson wouldn’t let me admit that. She might have had a quarrel with almost anybody, really, but if she had I didn’t know it.”

  Caroline said suddenly, “How was she ambitious, Jed? What did she want?”

  It was an important question. Fitz flashed Caroline a look of approval. It was like Caroline’s honesty to put her finger on what could be the crux, the motivating force which had led—but by what dark ways?—to Ernestine’s murder. Suddenly it occurred to Sue that they had never inquired like that before about Ernestine herself; yet if her murder was an affair of motive (maddened and twisted though it might be) and not a wanton, chance and brutal thing, then that motive had to lie in something Ernestine wanted, or didn’t want—desired or opposed or threatened. Perhaps they had been, up to then, mainly taken up with clearing Jed. It had preoccupied them; its urgency had both obscured and denied paths of inquiry which did not appear to lead directly to that end, or which might be dangerous to Jed.

  Fitz said to Caroline, “That’s right! Now Jed’s acquitted there’s no reason not to proceed on that line. Before now Ernestine—well, there was no point in emphasizing anything which might seem, then, to add to the case against him, I mean to provide fuel for quarrels between them, that sort of thing. So Shepson said. But now …” He got up. “Thanks for breakfast, Miss Caroline. Do you want to come with me, Jed?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I thought I’d go and see the sheriff. Find out if there’s any news.”

  “He wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Maybe not. But he’s friendly, he might.”

  Jed looked at Sue, looked at Fitz. “Well, all right, I’ll come back, Sue, just as soon as I can.”

  There was nothing so overt as proprietorship in his tone; there was an easy acceptance, a kind of recognition of mutual claims upon each other. Fitz flashed a quick look at her, and then went with Caroline into the hall. Jed was about to follow; Sue braced her hands on the table. “Jed—wait …”

  He turned. “Why, Sue …”

  “I want you to know. Jed, what we felt for each other wasn’t—wasn’t real. We—I don’t know how it happened or what but it wasn’t real, I know that now, and I …”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m trying to say, that I—I can’t—we don’t really love each other, so …”

  Incredulous surprise flashed into his eyes. “Why, Sue Poore! Are you trying to say you don’t want to marry me?”

  “We were wrong, Jed. We were mistaken. We …”

  “Well, I never heard of such a thing! Of course we’re going to be married. We’re engaged, aren’t we?”

  “No, we’re not. No …”

  He interrupted, “Well, we are. You’ve just got yourself worked up, Sue honey—it’s been rough. I realize it, but we’re in the clear now. I’ll …” The hall door closed; he cried, “There goes Fitz. Listen, Sue, I’ll come back. I’ll soon talk you out of this.”

  “Jed, I mean it. It’s true. I mean it.”

  “Why—why, Sue! You can’t let me down like that. Why I …” He came back a step or two, his face flushed, his voice shaken and vehement. “You can’t. I need you, Sue. I love you. I’ve depended on you all this time. You …” His face cleared. “You’re tired and worried and don’t mean it! Sue, darling, we’ll get you out of this.… I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He waved and smiled and dashed out the door, down the hall. There was a word with Caroline; the front door closed again.

  She was still standing there when Caroline came back. She sighed and pushed up her hair. “I wonder,” she said, “what Ernestine was up to.”

  “Ernestine! But what could she …”

  “I don’t know what. But we all knew Ernestine.” Caroline added thoughtfully, “I told Fitz to question Camilla; Camilla’s not as smart as Ernestine but she’s—and then besides,” said Caroline not really on a tangent, “Camilla certainly does like Fitz. Ernestine snapped up Jed soon as he came down here and didn’t have anything to do but spend his money; maybe Ernestine thought he had more than he had. Anyway it was the best match that offered itself. Young men around here, young men with money, aren’t too plentiful; it’s always rich but married men. If Camilla’s not set her cap for Fitz I can’t see straight!”

  Sue said, astonished, “I never heard you say anything mean about anybody.”

  “Well, then,” Caroline said, “it’s high time,” and unexpectedly a little ghost of a giggle caught them both. In the very midst of it, however, Sue thought, “But that’s right, Camilla does like Fitz.”

  In the afternoon Camilla came.

  It was a curiously divided day. On the one hand there was the familiar and comforting presence of the house, of all its tangible reminders that life was sweet and secure and gracious, that it had always been safe, that it would go on like that. It surrounded them with a layer of kindness and of reassurance; it fought off a very dark and dreadful shadow with its reminders of sunshine and warmth.

  But on the other hand the telephone might ring at any moment. A police car might drive up. Their ears were attuned to that possibility.

  As the day wore on the silence began to seem rather ominous. Fitz did not telephone; Jed did not telephone. So probably the sheriff either had or gave them no news. It was Thursday; ordinarily Caroline would have joined the Beaufort meet. Caroline subscribed to the Dobberly hunt; it was by now almost her child. She had been M.F.H., she loved the Dobberly hunt, the Dobberly packs, the acres of hills and meadows over which they hunted, she knew the hounds, their names and dispositions as well as she knew the dispositions and names of friends: old Reveller, his toenails worn down and too old and stiff to hunt, had been a leader of the pack, brought home by Caroline to be given a peaceful old age. (Sister Britches was a pet; she had never hunted except for private excursions of her own into the woods behind the stables.) But Caroline was well known also and popular among the neighboring hunts; her dressing-table mirror was always studded with invitations. There was scarcely a day during the whole season when she did not join some hunt; she was restless that day, missing the hunt, missing the usual vigorous and happy routine of her life.

  She gave Geneva and Jeremy in turn some rather desultory exercise around and around a track that had been worn down, in the long meadow behind the house, by other horses long ago. She found a thorn in one of Reveller’s old feet and worked at it energetically.

  Even the horses were restless. Once the Beaufort hunt in full cry swept fairly near, over the ridge toward Dobberly; old Jeremy thumped about crossly in his loose box. Caroline looked wistful. “They’re heading toward the Luddington woods,” she said and listened. “The fox will cross Osbaldeston Run the other side of Dobberly, strike for the Luddington woods and get to Hollow Hill again. I wonder if we ought to have more of those earths stopped.”

  She knew the country better than any topographer; she knew what the fox was likely to do at any given poi
nt. She listened to the faraway cry with an intent yet dreamy smile of longing; to Sue the music was merely a remote and rather eerie wail, pitched on a high note. “I’ve been away for too long,” Sue thought, “it’s the land of my birth and I feel like a stranger.” She offered, apologetically, to exercise Jeremy.

  “N-no,” Caroline said. “He’s had enough.… Someone might come,” and went back to the stables to berate, insofar as Caroline was able to berate, her only stableman, who was not a stableman at all but a boy of fourteen or so, Chrisy’s grandson, Lij.

  Camilla drove up about four in Jed’s car; she got out and hurried up the steps. For the first time since Ernestine’s death she was wearing a color, a beige tweed suit that, as a matter of fact, had belonged to Ernestine. Again Sue had the illusion of a stronger, more forceful Camilla, clothed literally in Ernestine’s suit and in Ernestine’s authority. Camilla said, stripping off her gloves, “Who’s that man parked down by the road? Sue, I want to talk to you about Jed.”

  9

  THE MAN parked down by the road, out of sight of the house, was a policeman. Chrisy went down to see, creeping along in her blue starchy uniform, behind the laurels, to peer at him. Camilla had whirled past too rapidly to see the uniform; he had made, however, no attempt to stop her.

  And Camilla had come, not as Jed’s emissary, but to plead his case. “Jed doesn’t know I’ve come. Sue Poore, you can’t be serious.” She appealed to Caroline. “Jed says that Sue said she’d changed her mind; she said she doesn’t want to marry him. Oh, of course, Jed doesn’t think she means it but I think it’s outrageous for Sue to talk like that. What has got into you, Sue! You can’t let him down like this. He’s depending on you; you mean everything to him. He said so. He said, all this horrible winter, the poor boy, he’s got through it only by thinking of you. You’ll just have to marry him, Sue. And if you ask me, I think you ought to be thankful he wants to marry you!”

  Caroline bristled. Sue cried, “Wait, Aunt Caroline. Camilla, this is between me and Jed and …”

  “It’s my business, too,” snapped Camilla. “I was Ernestine’s sister. Jed is more than a brother to me. He loves you and you gave him every reason to think you loved him just as much and that you’d marry him. Even before Ernestine died, that very night when he talked of divorce, you …”

  Caroline uttered a threatening sound.

  Sue said, “No, that’s wrong, Camilla. I meant what I said to him then; I was going away. I …”

  “Going away, nothing! You were just leading him on. Besides Jed’s a good match. Where would you hope to make a better one? There’s not another unattached man in the county!”

  Caroline got a word in there before Sue could stop her. “There’s Fitz,” she said mildly, but with a cold sparkle in her blue eyes.

  It checked Camilla; she came to a full, blank stop as if all her instincts sent out little questions like groping tentacles; she said then, “Fitz! Do you mean to imply, Miss Caroline, that Fitz Wilson and Sue …”

  Caroline adroitly and with a pleased glint in her eyes, side-stepped. “Not at all! What on earth made you think of that, Camilla? You said Jed was the only unattached man in the county and I said no, there was Fitz.”

  “Well,” said Camilla, “but—and besides, Fitz—well, at any rate, Miss Caroline, I think you ought to make Sue see her duty to Jed. As well as her duty to herself. Good gracious, after all that publicity and their meeting in the cabaña and—everybody perfectly sure that …”

  Caroline suddenly was dangerous; she stood, looking like a rather tousled but militant duchess and advanced upon Camilla. “Camilla Duval, if I hadn’t known your mother and grandmother before you, I’d smack your face …”

  Sue caught her square little hand. “Darling, let me talk …”

  “I’ve got plenty to say myself,” snapped Caroline, “and I’ve got a right to say it. You listen to me now, Camilla Duval.”

  Camilla was looking uneasy. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Miss Caroline. But I do think Sue ought to marry him, and I think as much for her own sake as Jed’s. Everybody thinks so; they expect it. It’s the only thing for Sue to do. I’m one of Sue’s oldest friends, and—and Jed needs her so much, he told me so; it’s her duty …”

  The telephone at last rang.

  Caroline turned ashy white. She forgot Camilla; she swept to the telephone and picked it up. But it must be Fitz, thought Sue; or Jed, or …

  Caroline said, “Oh. Sheriff Benjamin …” in a stifled voice. She listened for a second or two and sat down as if her sturdy knees wouldn’t hold her. She turned stricken eyes to Sue. “He wants to talk to you, he—here,” she held the telephone to Sue.

  Sue moved. She crossed the room; her hand touched Caroline’s, she saw Caroline’s imploring, tragic gaze; she spoke into the telephone and Sheriff Benjamin said, “Miss Sue?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve told your aunt. I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.” He cleared his throat; he was reluctant, hating his duty. The words were forced out, “I wanted to warn you ahead of time in case—I’ve known your people, Miss Sue, all my life and I—but the fact is I was overridden in this, I—the fact is”—he cleared his throat again—“I’ve just sworn out a warrant for your arrest.”

  The room was so still that the beating of her pulse in Sue’s ears was like a drum; somewhere Sister Britches was scratching at a screen wanting to be let in; in the distance, away off, the Sheriff’s voice said finally: “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wanted to warn you. I’ve fixed it so they won’t be along for another two or three hours; I’d suggest you get in touch immediately with a lawyer, maybe Judge Shepson.” He hesitated. “I am doing this as a matter of personal friendship; ex officio. They, the state police, Captain Henley, in fact, and a Captain Wilkins, feel that I am prejudiced in your favor. I—well, at any rate—I’ll see that you have some time to do what you can to prepare.”

  Sue whispered, after a moment, “Thank you.”

  Later it occurred to her that he was doing a bold and courageous thing. There had been strong pressure; his present action might endanger his own job. He said, “I’m sorry. I wish I could do more.”

  She said, “Thank you,” again as she put down the telephone.

  Camilla was beside her, listening; Caroline stood up, stiffly, her face frozen and white with only her eyes alive and, again, imploring. Sue thought, if I could only tell her that it was wrong, that she was mistaken, that he didn’t say that. Camilla said shrilly, “What did he say? What’s wrong? What did he say—Sue, have they found out …”

  Sue turned. “He’s sworn out a warrant …” Her voice stopped. Camilla searched her face with those bright, sharp eyes and cried, “A warrant—he’s going to make an arrest—you!”

  There was a long moment of silence; Camilla said, “Oh, my God!”

  Caroline said: “I’m going to phone Fitz,” and took up the telephone.

  Afterward it seemed to Sue that she listened and watched as if none of it had anything to do with her. Even the room was strange, the colors had changed, the dimensions were different; she felt lightheaded, so some things were obscured and some things painfully clear. Caroline was asking for Fitz’s number, repeating it, Camilla was pacing up and down, pausing to watch and listen, too, twisting her gloves, smoothing Ernestine’s skirt nervously; her eyes seemed to have retreated in her head, under that fair coronet of braids, above that thick, wide jaw. Sue thought blankly, “Arrested, that means charged with murder, Ernestine’s murder. Me!”

  Caroline said sharply to Camilla, “Tell Chrisy to bring some whiskey, quick.”

  Camilla hurried to the door but then paused to listen as someone answered the telephone at Fitz’s house. It was Jason but Fitz was not there.

  “Ask him to call me when he gets back.” Caroline put down the telephone. “He doesn’t know where he is.”

  Camilla vanished toward the dining room. Caroline lifted the telephone
again, “Dobberly one three five.”

  It was a familiar number, the number Caroline always had called in times of crisis, Dr. Luddington. Camilla, followed by Chrisy, came back as he answered. Chrisy’s face was like a thundercloud; her lower lip was shaking. She carried a decanter of whiskey and a glass and she poured out a drink—which she placed on the table. Caroline said, “The sheriff phoned. It’s come. They made him swear out a warrant. Oh, Tom—what are we going to do?”

  Sue said, “Tell him we’ve got several hours. Tell him Sheriff Benny’s holding off the police as long as he can. Tell him …” Caroline nodded and repeated it word for word in short quick bursts. She listened, then; all of them listened. Camilla’s perfume—rose, like the perfume Ernestine had always used, Sue thought queerly—floated out and around them like a ghost of Ernestine, like an avenging presence. Ernestine would want to be revenged.

  Caroline put down the telephone again. “He said he’d do something. He said to wait.”

  Camilla said rapidly, “I’m going home. I’m going home now, Sue. I—I think I’d better go home.”

  Chrisy looked at her with dark fury and reproach. “Well, then, Miss Camilla, you go on home. Nobody’s stopping you.”

  Camilla gave her a cold glance. “Oh, there’s nothing I can do. I—I was thinking of Jed. I …”

  Caroline did not answer; Camilla in Ernestine’s beige suit, trailing rose perfume, went away. They heard her high heels tap on the hall floor; they heard the front door bang; they heard Jed’s car start up and sweep down the drive with a roar. Chrisy said, biting her angry underlip: “Ain’t that like her now! Off like a scared cat. Them Duval girls never was any account, if you ask me.” But, valiant though she was, she turned to Caroline like a frightened child, “What we going to do now, Miss Caroline?”

  Caroline said firmly, as if it answered everything, as she had done so many times in the past, “I’ve called Dr. Luddington.”

  So they waited, the three women, while a man in a police car at the gate, down by the roadside, waited, too.