Marnie (31 page)

I’d turned at the wrong moment because a low branch nearly had my hat off, and a bit of it scratched my ear and neck. There were only three ahead of me now, and I was out of breath with
excitement. The hounds had checked but only for half a minute and they were swinging in a sort of wide arc, past a farmhouse with a small boy leaning over a gate, across a tarred road and down a
narrow lane past three cyclists who shouted and waved, over a thick fence of blackthorn and through a wood where pigeons were fluttering and a dog barked. Then out in the open again.

My eyes were watering with the speed, and Forio was white-flecked and his flanks were heaving, and we came to another bigger fence and this time just cleared it. The three men were still ahead
of me but I’d gained on them. And then I saw the hounds. And then I saw the fox.

The ground was rising again, and I saw the fox black against the green of the short grass, and I could see he was nearly done. I saw him turn his head and I saw him sink once and then go on
running. There must have been getting on for four dozen hounds. All the time they’d been baying, that odd sound; but now it changed somehow. They could see the fox and they’d got him,
so it was a sort of different cry, and their hackles were up and their tails seemed to stiffen. And I thought, he can’t get away from them. Whichever way he goes, it’s open country.
He’s run well but now he’s tired and done up and there’s nothing for him left but a horrible death. Perhaps he’s got young at home but he’ll never see them again. And
I thought no one will help him. No one.

I gave Forio the whip, trying to hurry him forward, with some sort of dim mad idea that I could stop what was going to happen. But all that happened of course was that Forio put on an extra
spurt so that I was nearer and could see it all better. The hounds were only a few yards behind the fox now, and he’d no more cunning or strength left in him and he turned snarling for his
last stand; and it was fifty to one. Just one minute he was there, a single lonely animal against all the rest, and then suddenly he was swamped in a mass of hounds snarling and fighting and
bloodily tearing his life out of him.

Somehow I’d come to a stop, or Forio had stopped for me. The huntsman had gone in with his whip, beating the hounds off the dying fox, so that he could save the brush. That was all he
cared about. And then the other three horsemen came up with them and hid the scene so I couldn’t see it any longer. And then others came up, Mark with them, and the afternoon was full of
blowing panting horses and people talking and people laughing, and somebody waved the fox’s brush in the air and there was a cheer, and everybody was saying what a good run it had been. And
the afternoon was full of laughter and satisfaction and cruelty and death.

‘My God, you made a fine run of it, ma’am,’ a man said to me. ‘If you ever want to sell that horse, ma’am, do let me know. You quite outdistanced me.’

I didn’t answer. Mark said smiling: ‘You rode beautifully.’

I turned away because my throat was choked and I really wanted to cry although I couldn’t quite. Because all these people were happy because an animal had been chased over miles and miles
and then cruelly torn to pieces with no chance of escape. I looked at them all, the way I’d looked at them just as we were starting; they were all well fed, well turned out, just the way
I’d seen them before. But now I seemed to be able to see something more in their expressions. They were the sort of people who would have sat in an arena and seen men tortured or horses gored
or any other show of cruelty without being personally touched at all. They hadn’t any real feelings at all. All they wanted was their own pleasure.

Mark was talking to Rex who had just come up. Rex’s face was a lot redder than the sun, and he kept mopping the sweat off his forehead and neck.

Perhaps there was something wrong with me just then; I’d like to think so because it all got out of proportion. I think I was
feeling
more just then than I’d ever felt before
in my life. Instead of being able to stand aside from things, as I always used to be able to, this was right in my stomach like a knife. It was happening terribly to me.

And now these people, not satisfied with one kill, were getting ready to move off again. Another fox was going to be hunted to its death. And I fancied that, if they knew the truth, that
I’d preyed on them, just the way a fox’ll prey on chickens, stealing a few pounds from their banks and their offices, they’d just as quickly turn and hunt me. That fat wrinkled
little man with his brass-buttoned coat and white stock and peaked velvet cap, that man looking after the hounds with his whip and his horn, could just as easily set them on me. And once the chase
began, once the hounds had started baying, I could gallop and gallop and twist and turn, but I could never get away from them until I too was spent and they came at me with their tearing mouths.
But the human beings, so called, would stop that. They’d step in and take me carefully away and very soberly bring me before a judge, and someone would pretend to put my case, although really
he’d have his tongue in his cheek all the time, and then someone else would speak for the police, and I would be called to answer questions; but it would all be according to the so-called
rules of evidence and I would never be given a chance to explain as I could explain in private and given proper time; and then the judge would speak a few words summing up and he would say,
‘Margaret Elmer, you stand convicted on three charges of embezzlement and fraudulent conversion, it is my duty to sentence you to three years imprisonment’, and I would be led carefully
and firmly away.

It was all part of society – what was allowed and what was not allowed. Prison was allowed but they didn’t consult me. Hunting was allowed but they didn’t consult the fox.

So they were all moving off again, and I couldn’t look at the blood of the fox staining the short grass. But Forio more or less turned on his own and went with the rest. I don’t know
how long we jogged on, but instead of it getting better inside me it got worse. The thing was boiling up in me like water inside a pan with its lid tied on. The jostling and the neighing and the
creak of leather, and the high brittle voices of the women, and the squashing noise of mud and the yelping of the hounds, it all made it worse. ‘You ought to distinguish between being happy
and being trigger-happy,’ Roman said. ‘At five guineas a visit,’ said the jailer, ‘I have a long waiting list.’ ‘All right, damn you, have it your own
way,’ said a man near me, wheeling his horse. Forio whinnied and nearly had me off. ‘They’ve found again!’ a girl squeaked. ‘What super luck!’ ‘How much do
you know of her background, Mark?’ Westerman asked. ‘Well, she was pretty well dragged up.’ Was a fox dragged up? Was it any more dragged up or I any more dragged up than a hound;
was its mother less loving? Was my mother less loving than Mark’s? To Hell with their damned patronizing beastliness. All of them. Hard-mouthed, cruel hunters. What had I done half as bad as
kill a fox?

We were off again. The whole damned herd of us, off at a yelling gallop, the horn twanging, people thrusting their heels in, mud flying, faces alight with the blood-lust. We came to a fence and
Forio checked and then took it perfectly; I suppose I helped, I don’t know. Across another field full pelt and over a ditch and landing among some broken branches: nearly down. The whole hunt
had swung right, up rising ground towards a wood. I jerked Forio’s head left. He didn’t like it. I dug my heels in and we galloped off and away from the rest. I heard Mark’s
voice: ‘Marnie! This way!’

I went on. Forio gathered speed, fairly thundering down the slope. I didn’t think I could ever stop him; I didn’t want to. We breasted a blackthorn hedge, fairly flying.

‘Marnie!’ There was the beat of hooves behind me; Mark was following.

I gave Forio his head. He’d been winded when he got to the fox but in half an hour he’d recovered, and he was strung up with all the excitement. He’d never gone so fast. But
Mark wasn’t far behind. He was coaxing or whipping some extra speed out of his brown horse.

We were still going downhill. There was a lane on ahead with an open gate this side with a line of willows behind. Somehow I slid or slithered through the gate, hooves striking sparks, there was
no gate on the other side but the hedge was low; anyway I couldn’t have stopped Forio there. We took it and over into the next field. Mark followed and had somehow gained. I heard him shout:
‘
Marnie!
’ again.

I let Forio go across the next field. It was as if not just Mark but all the things he stood for were after me, as I’d fancied they could be.

The next hedge was higher than any so far; and in the sort of flickering way these things come to you I saw that the willows were alongside a river or stream. I couldn’t see whether there
was room to land in between, but I knew Forio was going to try and I knew I was going to let him. Mark shouted behind me again and then we took off.

Half over I knew we were for it. The other side was a good four feet lower on to stones and sand, with a twist bringing the river almost up to the wall. Forio saw his danger and seemed to try to
check; he’d have landed square but the height did it; he came down on his forelegs and went right over; I went up, and while I was falling I saw Mark somersaulting after me.

I just missed the river, crumpled backwards into the low willow branches, came head down on the ground but gently, breaking and bending branches, and my hat took the worst. I just hadn’t
any breath. That was the only bad thing at first. You had to gasp and strain to stay alive. Then I heard something or someone screaming. I tried to claw myself round and sit up. Mark nowhere.
Mark’s horse in the river up to its hocks, shaking itself, unhurt. Forio was still down. The noise, that unbearable noise was coming from Forio.

He was trying to get up but he couldn’t. He was wriggling and fighting to get up but he couldn’t. I pulled myself up and fell down again, got up again, staggered towards him. Then I
saw Mark. He was lying very still. I ran towards Forio. He was lying there and rolling his eyes like a mad horse and the foam was flecking out of his mouth; and as I got to him I saw one of his
front legs. Something white was sticking out through the skin.

I went up to him and knelt beside him and tried to unfasten his bridle. His mouth bit at me in a sort of agony, and I thought of that dog that had been run over in Plymouth, that mongrel that
had bitten right through my sleeve. I got his bridle off somehow; someone else was making a noise and it was me; I was crying out loud as if I was hurt; I looked back and saw Mark hadn’t
moved. His head was down, almost flat in the mud. I got to my feet again and stared, and it was like being pulled both ways by ropes, like that torture they’d had in the Middle Ages, being
pulled apart; but it wasn’t my
body
that had to suffer. If only Forio would stop that terrible whinnying scream; and he kept trying to get up. Mark was dead perhaps; and Forio was
alive and needed me. If I could hold his head, comfort him somehow, hold him till help came; Mark didn’t need me, Mark was dead; Oh Jesus help me; help me to comfort my old friend. I was on
my knees and I was crawling towards Mark.

He wasn’t dead. The mud was plastered all down one side of his face and in his mouth. I tore his scarf or stock or whatever it’s called and began to wipe the mud away from his mouth.
He could only just breathe; in fact he was suffocating because the mud had got up his nose too.

‘Gawd, you’re ’urt!’ said a voice. ‘I thought you’d took a almighty tumble!’

A man, a farmer or something. ‘Get help!’ I screamed.

‘Let me see,’ he said. He slithered down the wall, looked at Forio. ‘Gawd what a mess, whatever made you come that way?’

‘Stop him screaming!’ I said. ‘For Christ’s sake stop him screaming. Go and get an ambulance! Telephone!’

Pointing to Mark: ‘Is ’e all right? ’E looks pretty bad. Something broken?’

‘I don’t know; I can’t
leave
him. Look after my
horse
! Go for help! Don’t ask questions.’

He scratched his head and then went scrambling up to the hedge again. I began to drag Mark out of the mud. He was right out, and as pale as paper, and perhaps he was going to die after all; and
I knew what was going to happen to Forio; I knew, and if I thought of it I should die too, and for some reason until they came it was important to stay alive.

I dragged Mark as far as the stones, and I was panting and groaning myself, and I didn’t look round, but thank Christ Forio had gone a bit quieter. I unfastened Mark’s collar and
dragged my torn coat off and put it under his head; and then there was a noise I thought I’d never want to hear again, the thud of hooves. I left Mark there and stood up and hung on to a
branch of a tree and was sick, and then I looked at Forio again, being quieter as if he knew he’d never walk again; and Rex said over the wall: ‘My God, what a mess. Jack, go for a
doctor!’

‘Somebody’s gone,’ I said, and wanted to faint and couldn’t. Now that ‘they’ were here I did so badly, badly want to faint over and lose myself, faint and be
just another body for them to look after; but I wasn’t helped that way. I stood there and saw it and watched it all, to the bitter and terrible inevitable end. After all it was my fault so
perhaps it was right that I should.

I watched Forio being shot, and I went in the ambulance with Mark to the hospital and I was treated for bruises and shock and then sent home. It was easy really. Everybody
said, poor girl, her horse bolted, she’s terribly brave, I do hope Mark will be all right; darling, the best thing for you is to go straight to bed. You have someone at home? Don’t
worry about Mark, he’s in the best possible hands, I’m sure he’ll be better in the morning. The surgeon said: ‘We really can’t tell you yet, Mrs Rutland; it’s
severe concussion. His arm has been set, but he hasn’t broken anything else. By tomorrow morning we shall be much better able to judge.’

So I went home. And nobody blamed me at all.