Kate's Progress (26 page)

She also began to have an idea of where all Camilla’s money went.

Now Camilla was sitting on the couch, covertly looking at herself in several of the mirrors, and otherwise watching as Kate tried on the riding clothes. She had been wondering how she would feel about borrowing a stranger’s gear, but it had obviously been put away freshly dry-cleaned, so it was practically like new. She was glad she had thought to put on her least tatty underwear, just in case. Even so, she felt like hunching up and crossing her arms over her chest when she got down to it.

Fortunately, Camilla’s attention was taken by the red marks left by the seams of her jeans. ‘Oh, goodness, look at your poor legs,’ she said. ‘You really do need some proper riding clothes. Do they hurt?’

‘Only when something presses on them,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid your riding clothes are going to be too big.’ She saw her hostess bristle a little, and added quickly, ‘I mean, too long. You’re taller than me.’

Camilla was mollified. ‘I don’t think that’ll matter with the breeches – they’re stretch. But you are very flat-chested,’ she added with a complacent glance at herself in the mirror. ‘My jacket will probably hang on you.’

Both these statements proved prophetic. The breeches were comfortable, and the length of the leg would be hidden inside the boot. The jacket looked as if it were wearing Kate rather than the other way round.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ said Camilla. ‘You’ll just have to go without. It’s summer, no-one will mind.’

The boots Kate had anticipated would be a problem, but though Camilla was taller she had small feet, and with an extra-thick pair of socks they would just about do. ‘It’s not as if you’ll be walking in them.’

‘We hope not,’ Kate said wryly, turning back and forth to look at herself in the mirror.
Not bad
, she thought. There were occasions when not being busty worked to one’s advantage. She looked slim, and sporty – athletic. ‘You’re very kind to lend me your things – and your horse. I understand Henna’s yours really.’

‘Well, she was bought for me, but I’m not as horse-mad as the rest of the family,’ Camilla said. ‘I hunted her quite a bit last winter, but it’s mostly the meet I go for. I don’t care to bash around the country for hours on end and come home frozen and covered in mud. I usually go home after the first run, or even after the first draw if the weather’s really bad.’

‘Have you competed with her?’

‘Hunter trials once or twice, never pointing. I’m not that interested, to tell you the truth – I prefer to stay in the marquee and chat. But Ed says you manage her, and she never refuses. All you’ve got to do is stick on and get round. You’ll be fine,’ she pronounced, elegantly concealing a yawn. ‘How are you getting on with your cottage?’

‘Oh, pretty well,’ Kate said.

‘I can’t think why you want to bother, but I’m glad you did. It’s nice that someone’s bought it that we can get on with, or Ed would have been even more down on me. I don’t know what you see in the place.’

Kate picked the easiest answer. ‘I enjoy DIY,’ she said, even though she guessed that would damn her in Camilla’s eyes.

Camilla raised an expressive eyebrow. ‘Well, each to his own, I suppose. I don’t know what it is about that ugly old shack that attracts so much interest. Finding one person who wanted it is surprising enough, but two …’

‘Two?’ Kate queried.

‘Phil wanted it as well.’

‘Phil Kingdon?’ Kate said.

Camilla shrugged. ‘It was his idea for me to sell it, when I needed money. He said no-one would miss it – unlike the paintings! Then when I did sell it, to you, he got mad and said he’d meant me to sell it to him.’ She looked affronted. ‘He should have made that clear, that’s what I told him, not just suggest I sell it and say nothing. I’m not supposed to be a mind reader.’

‘Why did he want it?’ Kate couldn’t help asking.

‘No idea,’ she said indifferently. ‘I asked him the same thing and he wouldn’t answer. He’s got a house, though I suppose it
is
a bit of a drive away, over towards Bridgwater. Perhaps he wanted Little’s as an overnight base or something. But it would never do for him to live in unless he extended it – a
lot
– and you’d never get planning permission for anything like that.’

Kate was remembering the exchange between Kingdon and Camilla that she had overheard in the passage. Especially the familiar way he had spoken to her. There was evidently more between them than was apparent. And he had known Camilla was in debt and advised her of a way of bypassing Ed, his boss in all but name. Odd behaviour.

She had to ask. ‘How come he didn’t know you’d sold it, when it was his idea?’

‘Well, I didn’t want Ed to know, because he’d have made
such
a fuss, so I didn’t tell anyone. I told the estate agents to keep it quiet and not advertise it locally. I suppose it would have got out in the end, but fortunately you snapped it up quickly and they got the whole thing sewn up before anyone needed to know. So you can see you’re in my good books,’ she added with a bright smile, ‘because things were getting
quite
sticky, and now I shall be all right for months.’

‘Glad to be of service,’ Kate said ironically. Kingdon had said to her that if she wanted to sell, she should come to him. He’d said he’d find her a buyer – perhaps he knew someone who’d wanted it all along. But then why the mystery? Kate suspected there was no unnamed third party, that Kingdon wanted it for himself. But that did not answer the question, only displaced it. Why did
he
want it? And why not just go to Ed and ask straight out to buy it?

Because he knew Ed was dead against selling any of the estate. Ed would say no. Camilla might be bamboozled into selling.

But why did he want it? If he really wanted a pied-à-terre, there must be other cottages around that weren’t owned by the Blackmore Estate. Well, maybe it was the five acres he was after, maybe he was planning on setting up as a smallholder. It could be his retirement plan, for all she knew.

Her musings were interrupted by a knock on the door, and when Camilla called out, ‘Come in, we’re decent,’ it opened to let in a surge of dogs with Ed behind them.

‘Are you ready? Oh yes, that looks much better,’ he went on, looking Kate swiftly up and down. ‘Much more workmanlike. Everything fit all right?’

‘Well enough for the job,’ Camilla said. She picked up the greyhound and cuddled it, moving the other dogs away with a practised foot. ‘Are you hacking over to Northcombe?’

‘No, driving – hacking would take too long. Bradshaw’s boxing them now.’

Camilla stood up with the greyhound looking blissfully happy in her arms. ‘I’ll probably be out when you get back. Some bits and pieces to get. Don’t bother Mrs B about lunch, will you – she’s already cooking for the weekend.’

‘What’s Northcombe?’ Kate asked as they clattered downstairs, with the dogs racing after them.

‘Northcombe Grange. The Ordes’ place. They have a cross-country course set up in their fields, so you can get used to jumping Henna. These poor dogs,’ he added in parenthesis as they went out, still pressed against by hopeful hounds. ‘They really want a walk.’

‘Where’s Jocasta?’ Kate asked.

‘Gone to Weston to spend the day with a friend, so I suppose it will have to be me, later.’ They walked round into the stable yard, where a horse trailer was hitched up to an old-fashioned khaki Landrover. Bradshaw was securing the doors at the back. From inside there was a sound of hooves shifting and dust being blown from horsey nostrils. ‘All serene?’ Ed asked.

‘No trouble,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I put Gracie in first, and the mare followed like a lamb once she seen him.’

‘You do have a predilection,’ Kate remarked, going round to the passenger side of the Landrover, ‘for giving your boy horses girls’ names.’

Northcombe Grange was in a very different sort of country. One of the things Kate loved about Exmoor was the way, in just a few miles, you could go from bleak open moorland, good for nothing but grazing sheep, to lush fertile valley with dairy cattle, orchards and arable fields. Northcombe was in what she thought of as ‘soft’ country. The Ordes had a large modern house, extensive stabling, an indoor school, an outdoor manège – and the cross-country course.

Susie met them as they pulled into the stable yard, calling to them cheerily before Ed had even turned off the engine, so Kate missed the first part of her greeting.

‘—awfully good sport. I’m really looking forward to it. Hope you’re not nervous?’ Kate was in the process of climbing out of the car, and only managed a smile by way of a reply. Susie went on: ‘No need to be. Buscombe’s not one of those big, grand meetings. Everyone’s friendly, and the course is fun. That’s all it’s meant to be – a bit of fun for hunt members and their friends. Let’s get those horses down. Eric’s out on our course, checking everything’s in order.’

‘Is he going to ride with us?’ Ed asked, walking round to the back.

‘We both are,’ said Susie, following. She smiled at Kate. ‘We thought it would make it more fun for you, and better practice if, as well as letting you try Henna over the jumps, you got used to riding her in competition. Don’t you think, Ed?’

‘Sounds like a good idea,’ he said. ‘Who are you going to ride?’

‘Magic,’ she said, ‘and Eric’s taken Talley.’ She grinned. ‘So it’ll be no holds barred. No point in racing if you don’t try to win.’

They hacked up to where the course was laid out along a field, up the hillside, over the top and down into a coombe, across a stream then back, and up, over and down to the field again. Eric was there pounding flags into the ground, his horse, Talleyrand, a powerful-looking black, tied up to the fence.

‘This’ll be the flat at the end of the course,’ he explained. ‘You start down that end, jump all these fences, and when you come back, instead of jumping them again you race down the side of them, between the flags, to the finishing post. It’s not quite three miles, which the point will be, but near enough.’

‘And some of the jumps are higher than four-foot-three,’ Susie added, ‘but not much. You know that’s the height of point jumps?’

‘I do now,’ Kate said.

‘Also, at Buscombe you go round the whole course twice,’ Eric said. ‘But I expect Ed will tell you all about it before you get there. Now, let’s have some fun!’

Kate had begun to feel nervous, but the Ordes were so cheery that she soon began to think it
would
be fun, and it was. Despite his shape, Eric mounted nimbly and was obviously a diva in the saddle. Susie’s grey was, she said ‘elderly’ and ‘getting past it now, poor old boy’ but he seemed as eager as any of the others to be off, and showed no sign of his age. First they all rode the course at an easy pace, jumping the fences in turn rather than together, and allowing Kate a couple of shots at anything she felt she hadn’t quite mastered. Going over a jump uphill and going over one downhill required different techniques, and different again from jumping on the flat. Henna was eager, excited, and back into her bad habit of head-tossing, and Kate got one painful blow on the nose that made her eyes water, though fortunately it didn’t bleed.

‘You ought to put her in a martingale,’ Susie said bluntly.

‘Ed doesn’t believe in them,’ Eric snorted. ‘Do you, old boy? Thinks they’re bad manners.’

‘I’d sooner correct the fault with schooling,’ Ed said. ‘Too often people just strap the horse down and leave the fault untouched.’

‘Well, martingales have their place,’ Susie said. ‘And Kate’s not going to be riding her long enough to school her.’

‘She’ll settle down,’ Ed decreed, leaving Kate to wonder whether he was referring to her or the mare. ‘Remember yesterday?’ he said to her. ‘Heels hard down, and keep riding her hard up to the bit.’

Eric shook his head. ‘You’ll exhaust the poor child! This is supposed to be a bit of fun.’

Ed rolled his eyes. ‘If she’s not settled down in ten minutes, Susie can ride back and fetch a martingale.’

‘Gee, thanks,’ said Susie.

By the time they had gone right round the course, Henna had settled, and Kate felt pleased with herself for having kept her on the bit, though her legs and buttocks were exhausted with working so hard. ‘I’ll never make it to the end of Monday,’ she said to Susie as they dismounted to rest the horses for five minutes. ‘My legs feel like string.’

Eric had lit a cigarette and was talking to Ed a little way off.

Susie looked across at him, and then back to Kate. ‘Don’t let him bully you,’ she advised. ‘Make him put her in a martingale. He’s a big old party-pooper, is Ed. Everything always has to be done right. You wouldn’t believe it to look at him,’ she added with an affectionate glance, ‘but he used to be a perfect fool when he was a kid. Such a joker! I remember a Christmas party when he smuggled a ferret in and slipped it into the rector’s wife’s handbag. There were such ructions! I had to lie down behind the sofa, I was laughing so much. And he used to do simply
evil
impressions of people.
So
accurate, they were scorchers!’

‘Is this before or after his mother died?’ Kate asked, intrigued.

‘Well, after is what I mostly remember, though the ferret was before.’

‘But I thought that was when he became so serious – when his mother died.’

‘Well, he was always a solemn little boy, but with this great sense of humour underneath,’ Susie said. ‘You know, he’d do something funny with such a straight face, it just made it funnier. It gradually went more into hiding, but it was always there, really, until – well, something bad happened,’ she concluded sotto voce.

‘Jack told me about Flavia,’ Kate whispered.

‘Oh! Right. Well, I suppose a lot of things combined that year to make the sun go in for him, and it hasn’t come out again. But we all love the old grumpy-boots, even so.’

‘You love who?’ Eric called, catching that bit. Ed looked too.

‘We love Ed, even if he is an Olympic-class sour puss, killjoy and responsibility junkie.’

‘I’ll admit the last bit,’ Ed said, looking a bit startled and – perhaps? – a bit hurt, ‘but sour puss? Killjoy?’

‘I must say, I can’t see it,’ Kate said. ‘You’ve been nothing but kind to me.’