Marnie (30 page)

‘And what’s wrong with Mark selling out? – though I can’t believe he’s done it.’

‘He’s going to do it. The Glastonbury Trust, instead of being a big minority holder who could act in cooperation with us or not at all, becomes virtually
owner
, and I and my
father will be reduced to ciphers.’

My tea was too sweet. I added some water.

‘But isn’t that just what you’ve been trying to do to Mark?’

Terry fiddled with his tie. ‘So you are on his side, my dear. I just wanted to
know
.’

‘I’m on nobody’s side. It doesn’t concern me. Why should it? It’s Mark’s money. He does what he wants with it . . . Anyway, why are you telling me all
this?’

‘What sort of influence have you got with him?’

I stared. ‘Over this? None at all.’

‘I’m not so sure. Look, Mary, it’s this way. The Glastonbury Trust has made an offer of seventy-two shillings for all our shares. Mark told us this morning. A circular’s
being printed to send to our outside shareholders, recommending acceptance. It will go out next Monday. There’s still time to draw
back
, my dear.’

My mind was wandering again; I wasn’t really interested. Who was he talking about?

‘You think I could stop him? You’re crazy. Why should I want to?’

Terry leaned back and watched a girl leaving the shop. His eyes started on her legs and worked up.

‘
Why
did you marry Mark?’

I shrugged.

‘You’re not his type. I’ve told you before. You’re more my type. Up against it. Know what they called me at school? Turkey. Because I’d got a red neck. That sets
you off on the wrong
foot
, doesn’t it?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Somehow
you
got off on the wrong foot too. I don’t know how but it hasn’t left you feeling too good about life. Not
sure
of yourself. I’m never sure of
myself, even though I act that way. D’you know the first girl I ever
had
, all the time I was thinking, she’s really bored and disgusted. It puts one off, the knowledge that one
is – different in a
disgusting
way. It’s like getting out of step early on in the march.’

‘You’re making a lot out of nothing.’

‘That’s what you think. Oddly enough, I get on well with Dad. I’m sorry for him and even sometimes admire him. He held the firm together when it would otherwise have gone to
pieces. But the rest of mankind . . . you’ve got to despise ’em before they despise you.’

He went on talking for a bit, off and around the point. He hadn’t much to say, but again I felt a sort of link that he was trying to make stronger. But it wasn’t anything he actually
said, because I hardly listened. If I
had
listened I should have thought him a fool for supposing I couldn’t see the truth, which was that in some way Mark had turned the tables on
him. How he’d done it I didn’t quite understand and I didn’t care. I didn’t care for Terry’s problems at all, nor for Mark’s. The firm of Rutland & Co. meant
less to me than last week’s laundry bill.

Maybe I should have paid more attention to the fact that he was talking to me at all. Asking my help and sympathy really was grasping at a straw, and the proverb says drowning men etc. That
didn’t register. All I knew was that he was plugging at something that went deeper than what you might call logic. We were like two houses on opposite sides of the street connected by a
land-line.

I didn’t mention it to Mark that evening or the next day. Most of the time I was busy with my own thoughts. And part of Tuesday I was riding Forio over to the
Newton-Smiths for the Wednesday meet. That was a horrible ride because I knew it was the last time I should ever be alone with him. Wednesday, riding in a crowd, wouldn’t be the same.

I found when it came to the point there were other things I should miss. There was the Richards family and the blind men. Even in a short while I’d got friendlier with them than anyone I
ever remembered before. And it wasn’t unpleasant being your own mistress, having your own house, and a nice house at that.

. . . Mark was talkative at breakfast. We were driving over and the meet was to be at ten. Seeing Mark like this, I realized how quiet and moody he’d been these last weeks. And this was
next to the last breakfast I should ever have with him. Tomorrow night I was going to go into his bedroom when he was undressing and while he wasn’t looking change over the keys and . . .

I said: ‘Is it true you’ve sold Rutland’s, Mark?’

He looked up and smiled. ‘More or less anyway. An offer has been made. We’re recommending all shareholders to accept it.’

‘But why? I thought you would never do that.’

‘So did I a few months ago. And then I thought, how ever long I work there and whatever I do, we shall never be free from the friction that poisoned half my father’s life. And I
thought, what’s in a name? Let it go.’

‘But what will you do?’

‘Probably go into partnership with someone else. There are one or two printers I’m interested in who do some of their own publishing. That’s more attractive to me. I was going
to tell you, but I waited till the whole thing was settled.’

‘And what will the others do?’

‘Rex? He’s drawing out as I am. Anyway he has plenty of money. The Holbrooks? If they want to stay in I’m sure they can keep their seats on the board.’

‘Do they feel badly about it?’

‘This move? Yes. But I honestly don’t see what they have to complain of; they first interested Malcolm Leicester. Of course Rex has been the organizer of this coup.’

‘He’s smarter than he looks.’

‘Except for the first two meetings with Leicester I’ve tried to do everything openly. The choice is put fairly before the shareholders now.’

‘Yes. Yes. I see.’

He got up. ‘It’s time we were off . . . It’s been a big wrench, but now I’ve decided, it’s like throwing off a hair shirt. It’s pretty unpleasant, Marnie, to
have this to contend with month after month. And I honestly think that the Holbrooks, once they’ve swallowed the first pill, will find it better too. Jealousy’s a nasty thing:
it’s bad to suffer under and it’s bad to feel oneself.’

I got up slowly. He said: ‘Marnie, I hope you’ll let me start approaching Strutt and the other two firms pretty soon. I want to go and see them on my own. I think I could
bargain.’

‘How?’

‘Well, it’s something Westerman couldn’t suggest because it’s illegal. But I could put it that I would return the money stolen from them
provided
they agreed not
to prosecute.’

I shook my head. ‘It isn’t much to bargain with. They’ll have been insured.’

‘Probably. But not certainly. Everyone doesn’t do everything he should. Anyway it’s worth trying.’

The sun was breaking through thick misty clouds as we drove down. Just before we got there he said: ‘How did you know about Rutland’s?’

‘Dawn told me.’

‘She doesn’t know. None of the staff has any inkling yet.’

I sat in silence.

He said: ‘When you tell a silly lie like that I get depressed all over again.’

We were following a horse-box now which was evidently going to the same place as ourselves.

He said: ‘If you’ll only
trust
me there’s no limit to what we can do, how far we can go together. If you don’t trust me then we’ve no solid ground under our
feet at all. We’re still struggling in the same dreary morass where we began.’

He overtook a farmer on a big strong bay which looked as if it might not be very fast but would last for ever.

‘Was it Terry who told you?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you still see him?’

‘No. He telephoned and suggested it. We had tea at a café in St Albans.’

‘Why did he want to see you?’

‘He seemed to think I might be able to persuade you to back out of this deal.’

‘And are you going to try?’

‘No. I know it’s no use.’

‘But you might if you thought it would be? Whose side are you on, Marnie?’

I stared out of the window. Once again I didn’t seem to care. It wasn’t my concern. ‘Isn’t this where we turn left?’

‘If you are on the other side, say so.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m on your side, Mark, in this.’

But I suppose I didn’t have enough feeling in my voice, because he looked at me as if he knew it wasn’t true.

The meet was in the grounds of a big house called Thornhill. It was a Victorian place, I should think, built of brown brick with a lot of ivy climbing up it and chimneys as
tall as rows of pencils. At the side was this large conservatory with a glass roof the shape of the covers you see in cafés to keep the flies off the cakes.

There were quite a lot of people already about when we rode up with Rex Newton-Smith. There were ten cars and four horseboxes and two trailers and about a dozen people mounted or dismounted and
a farmer or two, hands in corduroys. Before I agreed to come I’d asked Mark to find out if Arthur Strutt was a hunting man but it turned out he wasn’t, so I was safe from that risk.

Mark was on a big brown horse that was pretty restive so I steered Forio away from him because Forio, although the sweetest-tempered thing, easily caught nerves. Then a man came along in a
velvet cap and a scarlet coat, and Rex introduced him as one of the Masters. We all got down and talked for a bit, but I didn’t listen much to what was being said because this was all new to
me and, although I was still thinking more about tomorrow than today, I was glad in a way to experience it all once before I bolted. I’d seen horses and dogs streaming over the
Gloucestershire countryside but somehow had never come full tilt into them and certainly had never been one of them before.

Just then the hounds came, bobbing and making strange noises and waving their tails all ways. Then suddenly there seemed to be more people everywhere, people talking, people tightening girths,
people mounting, a huntsman talking to the dogs, three men in bowler hats and yellow breeches, horses pawing the soft turf, a girl in a blue habit – I’d like one like that – on a
horse with white stockinged forefeet, an old man with a crab-apple face; Forio was excited now, he’d never been in so much company; I checked him as well as I could with one hand; just in
time we moved off.

Everybody moved off talking, chattering to each other like a Sunday picnic, waiting their turn at the gates, then off down a rutted muddy lane. They were a queer-looking lot, a good many of them
ugly, even the women, and hard in a way; I mean tough. I’d swear none of them had ever been short of anything important all their lives. ‘Good crowd,’ Rex said to me in his
squeaky voice. ‘More than usual for a Wednesday. It’s the weather I suppose.’ The sun was still trying to shine, weakly, like one of those poached eggs that come pale. Mark was
just behind me but his horse was straining; it was one of those animals that always must lead, like some men; it’s a question of temperament. Forio was still lively, kept trying to rear.
‘Hullo, Mark,’ somebody said. ‘It’s a long time.’

We got to the end of the lane, just by a coppice. Somebody in the front had stopped and everybody was jostling each other. ‘They’ve found!’ a man in front said, and it was like
an electric current going through everyone. A man next to me was biting his bottom lip and trying to edge forward even though there was no room. Then there was a movement up front and people were
turning off through a gate and up the hill beside the coppice.

Suddenly there was this horn. I’d heard it before in the distance, but it’s different when you’re part of it. The hounds must have gone up the hill because everyone was
following, but it was hard to get a move on; it was like driving a car in Oxford Street; I thought I’d sooner have a good clean canter any day.

Mark caught up with me, still checking this big brown horse of his. ‘All right?’ he asked, but his eyes were still cloudy with what had been said in the car. I nodded.

Suddenly we were through and galloping up the field. It was only a couple of hundred yards or so before we came up with the leaders who had checked, or whatever it’s called, but it did us
good to go full out, the wind whipping at my face; and I got a bit of nasty satisfaction out of the fact that Forio left Mark’s mount behind.

‘I’m thinking the fox has swung left-handed into Cox Wood,’ said a man in a bowler, looking me up and down as if he liked the look of me. ‘If so we shall lose him.
Scent’s always poor in Cox Wood.’

For about half an hour we jogged about, up and down fields and lanes, squelching and splashing, and waiting our turn and getting in each other’s way, and I thought, there are too damned
many of us altogether, and I thought, well done fox, you’ve had the laugh of us, stay in your hole, don’t be a fool and give those hounds a chance to show how smart they are.

But at twelve they found another fox and this time it seemed the crazy thing hadn’t been so careful. The horn began to blow like mad, and I followed Mark over a fence, noticing that his
horse took it easily, and suddenly the field seemed to spread out and we were racing along level open ground beside a railway embankment. In the distance you could see the hounds and the man called
the whip, I think, and the huntsman and about three other riders; then there was the Master and two more, then about a hundred yards behind came Mark and me, but I was leaving him again, and a
cluster of about ten others. The rest had been unlucky and had got in a tangle at a bridge.

We had to slow at another gate and then the ploughed field that came next was too heavy for anything but a trot. I was sweating, and I was enjoying myself now. The difference from just riding
was that someone else told you what you were going to do, and it was exciting, and just for the minute you didn’t think about what was being chased.

We went downhill then full-pelt and almost caught the hounds, which were scrambling and wriggling through a wire fence. Some of the riders in front of me were making a detour to get through a
gate, but I saw the MFH take the wire fence and come to no harm so I set Forio at it and we went over. He never as much as stumbled and I’d gained on the rest of the field. I heard a crash
and rumble behind me but it wasn’t Mark, it was the man in the bowler; Mark had got over all right and was only twenty yards behind.