Bad Bet by Roger Longrigg

Author:Roger Longrigg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bad Bet
ISBN: 9780755132867
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2013-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Miss Viola Biggs, Master and Huntsman, her Field Master, the four amateur Whippers-in, were dressed as resplendently as the Beaufort. They wore green hunting coats with old-gold collars and scarlet piping, stocks with winking gold pins, and white breeches. The remainder of the field of two dozen were more casually dressed. Seven couple of endearing basset hounds were sniffing the legs of the people, sterns waving, excited at the prospect of hunting, under the gentle control of the giants Luke and John Field, who were dressed in the one-gallus tradition.

The Meet was on the small lawn among the trees standing sombre sentry round Mount Malcolm. Some tables had been put on the lawn, and enough drinks on the tables for a crowd ten times the size. As though to compensate for their small number, the field attacked the drinks as though they were a crowd ten times the size. Miss Viola Biggs and her Hunt staff felt an evident obligation to show a lead. Only the giant twins were not drinking.

Matthew carried a flask of Scotch (not two, as instructed), Rosie a flask of brandy.

Rosie tried to allow the time-honoured booze-up to push out of her mind the infuriating negligence of Peach. Brandy helped also, and Matthew’s smiling presence.

Rosie had on a ridiculous hat, by Sherlock Holmes out of Tugboat Annie. Utter and blissful self-abandonment to love, night and morning, had given her face a remembering softness. The chilly, fitful breeze and bright sunshine gave her cheeks colour, and anger with Peach her eyes a hard hot sparkle.

Field and Hunt staff whispered to one another that Rosie looked more beautiful than ever. Their lubricated whispers rang among the trees. They all knew why she looked as she did. They stared at Matthew with interest, respect, envy and disapproval. They all knew Tim Phillipson.

At twelve-forty-five Miss Viola Biggs tooted her horn in a call unconventional in form but unmistakable in content. As the field began to move off, bottles disappeared magically from the tables, and there were strange lumps in the pockets of breeches. Some of the field also disappeared, having done all that they came to do, and drove hazardously home. One of the amateur Whippers-in, a heavy-set woman, sprained her ankle after a hundred yards, and withdrew from the chase. The Field Master tried to quiet the rest. They proceeded to look for cottontails.

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