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‘I’m so sorry, so very sorry,’ she stammered. ‘Mrs Wilkinson was so lonely and nervous of being turned out by herself into your lovely orchard, Dora and her boyfriend Paris rescued this dear goat. They adore each other and now Mrs W goes outside. She’d be in the orchard today if it wasn’t raining and the grass is doing her so much good.’

As if to prove her point, Mrs Wilkinson scrambled to her feet, whickering and nudging Valent with pleasure.

‘She recognizes you,’ said Etta in delight. ‘She’s so grateful for all you’ve done for her and so am I.’

Valent scratched Mrs Wilkinson behind the ears.

‘And I haven’t thanked her for her valentine,’ said Valent, suddenly aware that he’d pronounced the words ‘thunked’ and ‘vulentine’. Bonny’s voice coach had made him so self-conscious.

‘Oh, you got it,’ asked Etta, ‘and it was your birthday on the fourteenth too.’

‘Lousy day for a birthday.’ Valent got a packet of Polos out of his pocket. ‘You find loads of coloured cards on the doorstep and
imagine they’re valentines from glamorous birds, and they turn out to be lousy birthday cards. And when I wanted to go out to celebrate and get wasted in the evening with my mates, I was expected to take Pauline,’ he paused, ‘and now Bonny out for a romantic Valentine’s dinner.’ Suddenly he smiled, lifting the heavy forbidding features like sun falling on the Yorkshire crags.

He’s gorgeous, thought Etta in surprise.

Hearing Mrs Wilkinson crunching Polos, Chisolm leapt to her feet, shoving Mrs Wilkinson aside, giving little bleats and butting Valent’s hand. Once she’d been given a few Polos, however, Mrs Wilkinson shoved her firmly out of the way.

‘Wouldn’t have done that at Christmas,’ said Valent approvingly, ‘and she looks very well. Where’d you find the goat?’

‘From some dreadful laboratory, but despite all the horrible tests she went through and apart from a slightly dodgy knee and a cough she seems to be fine. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her. I wanted to send you a photograph, but she’s so affectionate, she rushes up to the camera before you’ve got time to take a picture.’

Chisolm started to eat
The Oldie
.

‘I must go and find Joey.’ Valent petted goat and horse and turned towards the half-door.

‘I’m sorry about that too,’ muttered Etta. ‘Mrs Wilkinson just loves gazing out and talking to your builders. It’s given her so much more confidence.’

‘More talking than building, judging by the progress of the last few months,’ said Valent dryly, ‘but I’m glad they’re both thriving.’

‘Dora’s already tacked up Mrs Wilkinson,’ Etta told him, ‘and although she bucked and kicked at first, Dora thinks she’s already broken, so she was probably a flat horse.’

Nice lady, thought Valent, delighted to see how Etta had perked up, and how pretty she looked with her pale skin tanned, her hair washed and her dark blue eyes no longer swollen and bloodshot.

As he made his way through the puddles, hearing the rain slapping on the hard summer leaves, he noticed a little tree he was sure hadn’t been there last time. Next moment Chisolm had leapt over the half-door and, butting and nibbling, escorted him to his car.

When Dora started hacking Mrs Wilkinson out, Chisolm trotted behind them, and when autumn came, she taught Mrs Wilkinson to climb up banks and eat blackberries off the bushes. They were soon denuding Valent’s trees of apples and pears.

When Charlie Radcliffe came to check on Mrs Wilkinson, her new goat friend had got so possessive, she stamped her cloven foot and butted Charlie out of the field. When Charlie had recovered his dignity and his medicine case, he thought the whole thing very funny.

‘Little bugger nearly got me in the nuts,’ he pronounced from behind the safety of the gate. ‘You’ve done a fantastic job, Etta. Mrs Wilkinson looks wonderful, and she’s certainly fit enough to go hunting.’

The following week Joey mounted Mrs Wilkinson for a ride round the orchard, which ended with her carrying his fifteen-stone bulk round the valley.

‘She’s incredibly strong,’ he reported in amazement.

Meanwhile Dora, who’d been riding Mrs Wilkinson all over Larkshire, jumping anything in her path, also spent a lot of time teaching her tricks: making faces, sticking out her tongue for a Polo, shaking hooves and bowing. Chisolm, as had been noted, was very quick with her little horns. Both of them spent hours kicking and heading a football.

A captivated village had a whip-round to pay for the cap when Dora took Mrs Wilkinson hunting for the first time. Early in November the West Larks Hunt met at Willowwood Hall. Having alerted people with a notice in the Fox, Dora expected a good turnout, but was apprehensive of how Mrs Wilkinson might react. Her fears increased when Etta refused to go along.

‘But Mrs Wilkinson has got to hunt six times to qualify to run in a point-to-point,’ protested a horrified Dora. ‘She’s such a progressive horse, you can’t deprive her of the chance.’

‘I accept that hunting may be good for Wilkie, but I’m not coming to support it,’ said Etta. ‘Nor is Chisolm. Hounds might eat her. I’m sorry, Dora.’

Denied her two comfort blankets on the day, Mrs Wilkinson neighed with increasing desperation. But it would have been hard to say who looked better: Mrs Wilkinson, with her pewter coat gleaming, neat plaits and newly washed white and silver tail, or Dora in her dark blue riding coat, snow-white stock for which she’d abandoned her Pony Club tie, and new black leather boots. These had been bought with the proceeds from several stories – including the rescue of Chisolm.

If only Paris could see me now, thought Dora, waving her whip at passers-by and admiring her reflection in the village shop window as she trotted up the high street. So sad Wilkie was blind in her right eye and couldn’t admire herself as well.

Willowwood Hall, dozing in the low-angled morning sun, swarmed with horses and riders, gossiping and knocking back drink. An already trembling, sweating Mrs Wilkinson was further unnerved to be greeted by loud cheers.

The atmosphere was unusually relaxed because Ione had been
called away to chair a Compostium in London. This enabled Alban to sex up his wife’s innocuous cider cup with lashings of brandy and sloe gin. Nor was there anyone to bellow if hounds, horses or foot followers (mostly retired people in flat caps or pull-on felts and dung-coloured coats) absent-mindedly trod on a precious plant.

In compensation, in between handing round flapjacks, fruit cake, Kit Kats and trays of drink, Mop Idol and Phoebe clanked Compost Club collecting tins.

It was a beautiful day with enough cloud for the sun to idle in and out, casting magic shadows on rolling downs and gold cascades of willows, then lighting up ash-blond stubble and rich brown ploughed fields. Huge proud trees rippled gold, orange and olive green against the rough grass as hounds roved around Ione’s orchard and garden, and strayed out through the door into the churchyard. Dirty white, freckled, beige and white, brown, black and white, their amber eyes darting, they leapt to snatch a passing sausage, jumped up lovingly on anyone who stroked them, or rolled joyfully in the grass and piles of leaves.

If only Etta could see how adorable hounds were, thought Dora, she couldn’t have stayed away.

‘Oh, do shut up, Wilkie,’ she snapped, as Mrs Wilkinson jumped all over the place, screaming for Chisolm.

‘Come over here,’ shouted Woody, looking as beautiful in the formality of hunting kit as the ginger Not for Crowe, who was hoovering up Ione’s veggie snacks, looked ugly.

Beside them, skiving from Badger’s Court, talking into two mobiles and marking the
Racing Post
, was Joey, who was mounted on the other syndicate horse, Family Dog, or Doggie, whose white face looked remarkably cheerful, despite his belly ruffling the fallen leaves as he buckled under Joey’s fifteen stone.

Seeing her two horse friends, Mrs Wilkinson calmed down a bit and blew in their nostrils.

‘Where’s Etta?’ asked Woody.

‘Not coming,’ said Dora sadly. ‘Thinks hunting’s cruel.’

‘I like people who stick to their principles,’ said Painswick, who’d brought a dashing green trilby to match the green and blue scarf Hengist Brett-Taylor had given her for Christmas. She immediately presented Mrs Wilkinson with a Polo, which she rejected with a tossing head.

‘My, we are off our food,’ said Painswick, giving the Polo to Family Dog. Immediately Not for Crowe heard crunching, he had to have one too.

‘You do look splendid, Wilkie,’ added Painswick, ‘and so do you, Dora dear.’

They were joined by a beady Direct Debbie in a ginger trouser suit.

‘You exactly match Crowie,’ giggled Dora. Direct Debbie’s bright red lips tightened.

‘How did you get the day off, young lady? Half-term’s long gone.’

‘Amber Lloyd-Foxe always has exeats from Bagley to hunt with the Beaufort,’ protested Dora.

‘Indeed,’ agreed Painswick, ‘Amber ran the beagle pack at Bagley. Her father, Billy Lloyd-Foxe, was one of our nicest parents.’

‘Anyway this is research,’ answered Dora. ‘Hunting comes in our GCSE set book,
Pride and Prejudice
, with Young Lucas saying, “If I were as rich as Mr Darcy I would keep a pack of hounds and drink a bottle of wine a day.” Sensible guy.’ Defiantly Dora reached over and grabbed a glass of port from Phoebe’s tray.

Phoebe, as pretty as the day but ever on the scrounge, was trying to persuade Woody to lop the beech hedge that grew between Wild Rose Cottage and Cobblers, in return for an unlimited supply of Bramleys.

‘You know how your old mum loves stewed apple, Woody.’

‘Hello, Debbie.’ Turning, Phoebe pecked Debbie on her mastiff jaw, ‘Woody’s going to trim our beech hedge so you’ll get your sun back.’

‘Tree loader,’ snarled Dora.

Hunting was anathema to the Cunliffes. How could the Major’s traffic-calming plans operate with people unloading their horses and leaving filthy Land-Rovers and lorries so arrogantly all over the village? The Major was having a seizure because Marius Oakridge’s trailer was blocking his drive.

‘Oh, is Marius here?’ asked Phoebe in excitement.

To enrage Debbie, dogs had relieved themselves all over the verges, village green and no doubt her lawn, from which she’d hoovered up every leaf that morning. And now the foot followers were photographing Ione’s garden and letting out their terriers without a pooper scooper in sight.

Having hidden a pair of secateurs and trowel in the jute bag handed out at Ione’s Christmas drinks, Debbie intended to nick or dig out as many cuttings and plants as possible. She was also determined, if she could escape Pocock’s bird-of-prey eye, to annex Dame Hermione Harefield, a glorious gold rose, which would feel so at home at Cobblers beside Angela Rippon, Anna Ford and Cliff Richard.

Pocock himself was not happy. That morning he had been forced to rake up thousands of leaves before mowing the lawns and now they were strewn with leaves again. This time of year, he dreamed of leaves and more recently of Etta Bancroft, such a lovely lady.

Even sadder that Etta hadn’t shown up was Alban Travis-Lock, who was walking round filling people’s glasses from a big jug. He had longed to hunt once he retired, but last autumn had mounted one of Marius’s chasers and it had carted him across country almost to the motorway, and he’d completely lost his nerve.

He pretended he’d backed off because the ban had made hunting so tame. Now he longed to surge off into the falling leaves with the rest of the field. If only he could have poured his heart out to Etta and gazed into her kindly blue eyes … Instead he poured himself another drink. He’d better go and kick-start Ione’s nephew Toby, who would much rather have been shooting.

Toby had run for his school and once had an Olympic trial. Now, outside the kitchen, he was gloomily rubbing bloody meat into his running shoes to lay a trail that would ensure the hunt a fast and furious run. At his destination, five miles away, a hunt lorry waited with a bucket of meat to reward hounds.

‘Better get going,’ urged Alban. ‘They’ll be moving off in twenty minutes.’

‘Head off across the fields, then left at the bridle path,’ suggested a hunt servant shrugging on his red coat. ‘We’ll go round by the top of the village and pick up the scent in North Wood. Good luck,’ he added, walking off to find his horsebox.

‘Safe journey, Toby Juggins,’ called Phoebe, leaning out of the kitchen window as her husband set off down Ione’s rosewalk.

‘Wiv any luck hounds will gobble up hubby, then I’ll be in wiv a chance,’ chortled Chris from the Fox, winking as he put more full glasses on to a tray for Phoebe to carry out.

‘You are wicked,’ she said, going into peels of laughter.

‘Better go and open up,’ said Chris. His wife Chrissie would be making moussaka, in the hope of brisk custom, once the hunt set off.

Outside, Phoebe met Major Cunliffe, who was writing down the number of a silver Mercedes parked on the grass. Replacing the Major’s glass with a full one and popping a cauliflower floret into his mouth, she murmured, ‘I’m having such trouble with the gas board, Normie, could you bear to sort out the bill for me?’

‘You could start by paying it,’ murmured a hovering Alan.

*

Checking she was unobserved, Debbie Cunliffe pulled up a clump of
Corydalis ochroleuca
, when in flower a lovely off-white instead of the common yellow, and nicked a root of the Japanese saxifrage Fortune. Ione had even printed the Japanese name on its discreet black label. Silly old show-off. Debbie jumped out of her skin at a frantic jangling as Martin roguishly clinked a Sampson Bancroft Fund collecting box against a Compost Club tin thrust out by Phoebe.