"The Major is coming in to tea," said Mrs. Hoopington to her niece.
"He's just gone round to the stables with his horse. Be as bright and
lively as you can; the poor man's got a fit of the glooms."
Major Pallaby was a victim of circumstances, over which he had no
control, and of his temper, over which he had very little. He had taken
on the Mastership of the Pexdale Hounds in succession to a highly popular
man who had fallen foul of his committee, and the Major found himself
confronted with the overt hostility of at least half the hunt, while his
lack of tact and amiability had done much to alienate the remainder.
Hence subscriptions were beginning to fall off, foxes grew provokingly
scarcer, and wire obtruded itself with increasing frequency. The Major
could plead reasonable excuse for his fit of the glooms.
In ranging herself as a partisan on the side of Major Pallaby Mrs.
Hoopington had been largely influenced by the fact that she had made up
her mind to marry him at an early date. Against his notorious bad temper
she set his three thousand a year, and his prospective succession to a
baronetcy gave a casting vote in his favour. The Major's plans on the
subject of matrimony were not at present in such an advanced stage as
Mrs. Hoopington's, but he was beginning to find his way over to
Hoopington Hall with a frequency that was already being commented on.
"He had a wretchedly thin field out again yesterday," said Mrs.
Hoopington. "Why you didn't bring one or two hunting men down with you,
instead of that stupid Russian boy, I can't think."
"Vladimir isn't stupid," protested her niece; "he's one of the most
amusing boys I ever met. Just compare him for a moment with some of your
heavy hunting men--"
"Anyhow, my dear Norah, he can't ride."
"Russians never can; but he shoots."
"Yes; and what does he shoot? Yesterday he brought home a woodpecker in
his game-bag."
"But he'd shot three pheasants and some rabbits as well."
"That's no excuse for including a woodpecker in his game-bag."
"Foreigners go in for mixed bags more than we do. A Grand Duke pots a
vulture just as seriously as we should stalk a bustard. Anyhow, I've
explained to Vladimir that certain birds are beneath his dignity as a
sportsman. And as he's only nineteen, of course, his dignity is a sure
thing to appeal to."
Mrs. Hoopington sniffed. Most people with whom Vladimir came in contact
found his high spirits infectious, but his present hostess was guaranteed
immune against infection of that sort.
"I hear him coming in now," she observed. "I shall go and get ready for
tea. We're going to have it here in the hall. Entertain the Major if he
comes in before I'm down, and, above all, be bright."
Norah was dependent on her aunt's good graces for many little things that
made life worth living, and she was conscious of a feeling of
discomfiture because the Russian youth whom she had brought down as a
welcome element of change in the country-house routine was not making a
good impression. That young gentleman, however, was supremely
unconscious of any shortcomings, and burst into the hall, tired, and less
sprucely groomed than usual, but distinctly radiant. His game-bag looked
comfortably full.
"Guess what I have shot," he demanded.
"Pheasants, woodpigeons, rabbits," hazarded Norah.
"No; a large beast; I don't know what you call it in English. Brown,
with a darkish tail." Norah changed colour.
"Does it live in a tree and eat nuts?" she asked, hoping that the use of
the adjective "large" might be an exaggeration.
Vladimir laughed.
"Oh no; not a _biyelka_."
"Does it swim and eat fish?" asked Norah, with a fervent prayer in her
heart that it might turn out to be an otter.
"No," said Vladimir, busy with the straps of his game-bag; "it lives in
the woods, and eats rabbits and chickens."
Norah sat down suddenly, and hid her face in her hands.
"Merciful Heaven!" she wailed; "he's shot a fox!"
Vladimir looked up at her in consternation. In a torrent of agitated
words she tried to explain the horror of the situation. The boy
understood nothing, but was thoroughly alarmed.
"Hide it, hide it!" said Norah frantically, pointing to the still
unopened bag. "My aunt and the Major will be here in a moment. Throw it
on the top of that chest; they won't see it there."
Vladimir swung the bag with fair aim; but the strap caught in its flight
on the outstanding point of an antler fixed in the wall, and the bag,
with its terrible burden, remained suspended just above the alcove where
tea would presently be laid. At that moment Mrs. Hoopington and the
Major entered the hall.
"The Major is going to draw our covers to-morrow," announced the lady,
with a certain heavy satisfaction. "Smithers is confident that we'll be
able to show him some sport; he swears he's seen a fox in the nut copse
three times this week."
"I'm sure I hope so; I hope so," said the Major moodily. "I must break
this sequence of blank days. One hears so often that a fox has settled
down as a tenant for life in certain covers, and then when you go to turn
him out there isn't a trace of him. I'm certain a fox was shot or
trapped in Lady Widden's woods the very day before we drew them."
"Major, if any one tried that game on in my woods they'd get short
shrift," said Mrs. Hoopington.
Norah found her way mechanically to the tea-table and made her fingers
frantically busy in rearranging the parsley round the sandwich dish. On
one side of her loomed the morose countenance of the Major, on the other
she was conscious of the scared, miserable eyes of Vladimir. And above
it all hung _that_. She dared not raise her eyes above the level of the
tea-table, and she almost expected to see a spot of accusing vulpine
blood drip down and stain the whiteness of the cloth. Her aunt's manner
signalled to her the repeated message to "be bright"; for the present she
was fully occupied in keeping her teeth from chattering.
"What did you shoot to-day?" asked Mrs. Hoopington suddenly of the
unusually silent Vladimir.
"Nothing--nothing worth speaking of," said the boy.
Norah's heart, which had stood still for a space, made up for lost time
with a most disturbing bound.
"I wish you'd find something that was worth speaking about," said the
hostess; "every one seems to have lost their tongues."
"When did Smithers last see that fox?" said the Major.
"Yesterday morning; a fine dog-fox, with a dark brush," confided Mrs.
Hoopington.
"Aha, we'll have a good gallop after that brush to-morrow," said the
Major, with a transient gleam of good humour. And then gloomy silence
settled again round the tea-table, a silence broken only by despondent
munchings and the occasional feverish rattle of a teaspoon in its saucer.
A diversion was at last afforded by Mrs. Hoopington's fox-terrier, which
had jumped on to a vacant chair, the better to survey the delicacies of
the table, and was now sniffing in an upward direction at something
apparently more interesting than cold tea-cake.
"What is exciting him?" asked his mistress, as the dog suddenly broke
into short angry barks, with a running accompaniment of tremulous whines.
"Why," she continued, "it's your game-bag, Vladimir! What _have_ you got
in it?"
"By Gad," said the Major, who was now standing up; "there's a pretty warm
scent!"
And then a simultaneous idea flashed on himself and Mrs. Hoopington.
Their faces flushed to distinct but harmonious tones of purple, and with
one accusing voice they screamed, "You've shot the fox!"
Norah tried hastily to palliate Vladimir's misdeed in their eyes, but it
is doubtful whether they heard her. The Major's fury clothed and
reclothed itself in words as frantically as a woman up in town for one
day's shopping tries on a succession of garments. He reviled and railed
at fate and the general scheme of things, he pitied himself with a
strong, deep pity too poignent for tears, he condemned every one with
whom he had ever come in contact to endless and abnormal punishments. In
fact, he conveyed the impression that if a destroying angel had been lent
to him for a week it would have had very little time for private study.
In the lulls of his outcry could be heard the querulous monotone of Mrs.
Hoopington and the sharp staccato barking of the fox-terrier. Vladimir,
who did not understand a tithe of what was being said, sat fondling a
cigarette and repeating under his breath from time to time a vigorous
English adjective which he had long ago taken affectionately into his
vocabulary. His mind strayed back to the youth in the old Russian
folk-tale who shot an enchanted bird with dramatic results. Meanwhile,
the Major, roaming round the hall like an imprisoned cyclone, had caught
sight of and joyfully pounced on the telephone apparatus, and lost no
time in ringing up the hunt secretary and announcing his resignation of
the Mastership. A servant had by this time brought his horse round to
the door, and in a few seconds Mrs. Hoopington's shrill monotone had the
field to itself. But after the Major's display her best efforts at vocal
violence missed their full effect; it was as though one had come straight
out from a Wagner opera into a rather tame thunderstorm. Realising,
perhaps, that her tirades were something of an anticlimax, Mrs.
Hoopington broke suddenly into some rather necessary tears and marched
out of the room, leaving behind her a silence almost as terrible as the
turmoil which had preceded it.
"What shall I do with--_that_?" asked Vladimir at last.
"Bury it," said Norah.
"Just plain burial?" said Vladimir, rather relieved. He had almost
expected that some of the local clergy would have insisted on being
present, or that a salute might have to be fired over the grave.
And thus it came to pass that in the dusk of a November evening the
Russian boy, murmuring a few of the prayers of his Church for luck, gave
hasty but decent burial to a large polecat under the lilac trees at
Hoopington.