Death of a Huntsman

Death of a Huntsman Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: Death of a Huntsman Read Online Free PDF
Author: H.E. Bates
contradiction of the ridiculous scarlet-fastened pigtails with the rest of her body.
    â€˜I’d better get back,’ she said, ‘before she starts creating hell at me.’
    â€˜She?’
    â€˜Mother,’ she said. ‘Oh! and by the way. I almost forgot. She sent a message for you.’
    â€˜For me?’
    â€˜She says will you be sure to come along on Tuesdayevening for a drink? She’s having a few friends in. About seven o’clock.’
    He began to say something about his train not always getting in on time, but she cut him short:
    â€˜I think you’d better try and make it if you can. She said to tell you she positively won’t take no for an answer.’
    â€˜Well, I shall have to see——’
    â€˜You won’t,’ she said. ‘You know mother, don’t you?’
    â€˜I did know her. Years ago——’
    â€˜If you knew her then,’ she said, ‘you know her now.’
    He started to feel uneasy again at that remark and said something about he would do his best and did it include his wife, the invitation?
    â€˜Nothing was said about Mrs Barnfield.’
    A few minutes later, at the crest of the hill, he was holding her foot in the stirrup while she mounted the pony. There was really no need for that piece of help of his, since she could almost have mounted the animal directly from the ground, but she seemed touched by it and turned and gave him, without a word, a short thankful smile.
    This touched him too more than words could possibly have done and he mounted his horse in silence. After that they rode, also in silence, for two hundred yards along the hill-top to where the path forked and she said:
    â€˜This is my way back. Thank you for everything. Don’t forget Tuesday. I’ll get it in the neck if you do.’
    This again was beyond him and he said simply, raising his cap:
    â€˜I’ll do what I can. Goodbye.’
    Then, turning to ride away, she gave him an odd miserable little smile and once again he found himself appalled by the ridiculous sight of her sitting on the pony. Somehow the picture was not only fatuous. It struck him as being infinitely lonely too.
    â€˜And no more crying now,’ he said. ‘No more of that.’
    She turned, rested one hand on the rump of the pony and stared, not at him but completely and far past him, with empty eyes.
    â€˜If you listen carefully,’ she said, ‘you’ll probably hear me howling across the hill in the night-time.’
Chapter 5
    It was past half past seven and already dark, the following Tuesday evening, when he drove up to the old keeper’s cottage on the opposite side of the hill. There were lights in the narrow mullioned windows of the little house but, much to his surprise, no other cars.
    Edna Whittington herself came to the door to answer his ring, holding in her left hand a half-empty glass and a cigarette in a bright yellow amber holder.
    â€˜Sweet of you, Henry. Absolutely and typically sweet.’
    As she leaned forward so that he could kiss her first on one cheek and then the other he caught an overpowering fragrance, sickly in the night air. He did not fail to notice too how she called him Henry.
    â€˜But come in, Henry, come in, come in, you sweet man. Let’s look at you.’
    He went in and, inside, discovered that the house was empty.
    â€˜I’m sorry I’m so late,’ he said.
    With magenta-nailed fingers she took his black homburg hat and umbrella and laid them on a window sill. ‘The train lost time.’ He looked round the room to make perfectly sure, for a second time, about its emptiness. ‘Has everybody gone?’
    â€˜Everybody gone?’
    â€˜I thought it was a party.’
    â€˜Party?’ she said. ‘Whoever said it was a party?’
    â€˜Valerie.’
    â€˜Oh! my little girl,’ she said. ‘That little girl of mine. My silly little girl.’
    He started to
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