“That’s right,” Tedi whispered.
“And we’d hunted through there Saturday morning. I’ve checked my hunt records.” Sister, like many masters, kept a detailed hunt diary. “We had forty-one people the first day of cubbing.”
“Everyone in the county knew about the bridge work,” Tedi said, a wave of hopelessness washing over her. She fought it off. “A lot of people knew, anyway.” Tedi reached for the ring. “I should have never given this ring to Nola. For her it was the Hapless sapphire, just as it was forits first owner.”
“Old sorrows,” Sister said.
“It was made for the Empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Elizabeth. She had dark hair, was a wonderful, wonderful horsewoman like Nola. Loved foxhunting. Rented hunting boxes in England and flew her fences. But hers was not a happy life. Her son committed suicide, and she was assassinated. I often wonder, if she’d lived, would Franz Josef have signed the Declaration of War of 1918?”
As a foxhunter, Sister had always found the empress’s story irresistible. “As I recall, the Bancrofts bought this right after the First World War,” she said. “Nolan couldn’t have worried too much about the history of the stone if he gave it to his wife. She lived a long, happy life.” Nolan was Edward’s grandfather, who had lived through the terrifying action at Belleau Wood during the Great War.
Tedi held the ring up to the light; bits of rainbow struck off the diamonds, little dots splashing the walls. She slipped the ring on the middle finger of her left hand.“This was on my baby’s finger when she died. Now I’m wearing it. Every time I look at it I’ll remember her laughter. I’ll remember how much I loved her. I’ve not spent one day that I haven’t missed her, felt that ache. It’s kind of like my tongue going back to the site of a missing tooth. I swore I would find out what happened to her but never did. Now—this. Sister, I will find Nola’s killer even if it kills me.”
“That makes two of us.”
CHAPTER 7
“Jesus Christ, Doug, watch what you’re doing.” Shaker rubbed the back of his elbow where a heavy oak board had smacked him from behind.
“Sorry,” the handsome young man apologized. “It’s this heat. I can’t think today.”
Sticky, clammy humidity added to the discomfort this Monday, July twenty-second.
Shaker put down his hammer, tilting his head to direct Doug’s attention across the road.
Doug followed Shaker’s eyes. Wearing a torn tank top and equally torn jeans, an old red bandanna tied around her forehead, Sister toiled on the other side of the dirt farm road building a new coop, a jump resembling a chicken coop, with Walter Lungrun’s help.
The old hunt club truck, Peter Wheeler’s 1974 Chevy with the 454 engine, was parked off to the side of the road.
“Can’t slow down,” Doug pretended to whisper, “she’ll cuss us.”
“I heard that.”
“I thought you were working, not eavesdropping,” Shaker said.
“Women can do two or three things at the same time. Unlike men,” Sister said, laughing.
“Doc, are you going to let her get away with that kind of abuse?” Shaker looked to the blond doctor for help.
“I suggest you call the state employment commission and register a complaint of sexism,” Walter solemnly intoned.
“Oh, do make it a complaint of sexual assault. At my age, I’ll be a heroine.”
They all laughed at that and decided spontaneously to take a break and sit under a huge chestnut tree.
This particular tree was much studied by Virginia Tech students motoring up from Blacksburg, as it was one of the few original chestnuts to survive the horrible blight that almost entirely killed this most beautiful of species. The disease had started in New York State in 1904, spread west to Michigan, north to the border, and south to Alabama. Within a few decades most every native American chestnut, many over one hundred feet high, was dead.
This tree had survived because it was alone.
They were working at Foxglove Farm, a tidy farm north of Sister’s farm. You could see the long, flat top of Hangman’s Ridge to the south from high spots on Foxglove.
The staff and dedicated members of a hunt club worked harder during the summers than during hunt season. Puppies were whelped. Young entry had to be taught their lessons. Foxes would be carefully watched, wormer and other medicines put out for them to ensure their health. Seasoned hounds might need a few reminders of their tasks. The hunt horses would be turned out for vacation time. Young horses, called green, would be trained to see if they could become staff horses, a harder task than being a field hunter. Neighboring landowners would be visited, always a pleasure. Old jumps would be repaired or replaced, and new jumps would be built in new territory to be opened if the club was lucky enough to secure new territory.
Foxglove had been part of the Jefferson Hunt territory from the late nineteenth century, when a group of farmer friends had merged their small packs of hounds together into one communal pack. Many of these men had been veterans of the War Between the States. Their sons and grandsons were destined to be shipped overseas to the horrors of the First World War.
Out of this raggle-taggle mess of hounds, a systematic breeding program emerged under the visionary second master, Major H. H. Joubert, called Double H by all. He blended his tough local Bywaters hounds from northern Virginia with a little Skinker blood from Orange County Hunt. Then he folded in a lacing of English blood. Whether by guess or by God, Double H’s system worked. He was a smart master, he bred for the territory, and he studied other packs of hounds, ever eager to improve his pack and his methods.
Hound men had been bragging about their animals since the early seventeenth century and a few very wealthy colonists imported hounds from England, products of a line that could be traced to a single source.
In 1670, the Duke of Buckingham fell from favor at Charles II’s court. In his disgrace, he retired to North Riding in Yorkshire and established a pack of hounds solely devoted to hunt fox. If the vigorous, robust duke offended His Majesty the King, he pleased subsequent generations of foxhunters, all of whom owe him a debt. Until Buckingham’s time, packs hunted stag, otter, and hare somewhat indiscriminately.
The Duke of Buckingham, a fashionable man as most Buckinghams were and still are, prompted his contemporaries Lord Monmouth and Lord Grey to specialize in foxhunting down in Sussex. These gentlemen began to study their quarry and to consider, intelligently, the best type of hound to hunt such a wily foe.
Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, born in 1693, drew inspiration from this older generation of Englishmen. He lived a long life, dying in 1781, and he kept good records concerning his hounds. Lord Fairfax also had the wit to repair to Virginia in 1748, where he had been granted an estate of 5 million acres—the Northern Neck. The entire Northern Neck between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers was his backyard. And he brought his passion for foxhounds with him. Young George Washington hunted with Fairfax, his cousin Col. William Fairfax, and the Colonel’s son, George William Fairfax. When George William Fairfax married the enchanting Sally Fairfax, young Washington fell in love with her, an unrequited love. But foxhunting repaid his passion by giving Washington a lifetime of pleasure.
Then, as now, foxhunting imparted a certain social cachet, and men eager to rise found a good pack of hounds was one way to do so. Ripe arguments continually erupted about who had the best hounds. Some argued for the French Bleu hound; others said the large Kerry beagle was best for the New World. The black and tan had many admirers, and any white hound was always claimed to go back to the medieval kennels of King Louis of France.