The next day, wearing her riding habit, which didn’t seem as though it was ever going to dry completely, Claire again went hunting with Harry. She had tramped across marshlands, up a steep, heather-covered hill with him and his loader, until they finally came to a pretty little wooded area. She had not said a word to Harry throughout the long walk because he’d warned her of the need for absolute silence.
As they entered the wood, Harry whispered something to his loader and Claire looked about her. Standing not very far away was a magnificent buck and his three females. Claire smiled at the loveliness of the scene. She watched the lovely creatures, so sleek, so calm, so unworried.
The next minute Harry’s rifle went off beside her and the great buck fell to the ground. The does ran away.
Harry and his loader were jubilant, talking excitedly about having brought the animal down in one shot. Claire watched them walking toward the big animal, then she saw the buck lift its head slightly. It was still alive.
She started running toward the deer, passing Harry and the other man as she ran. But before she reached the buck, Harry’s rifle rang out again and the buck’s head fell to the ground.
It was too much for Claire. She was too tired from days of hunting, too sick with all the hundreds of dead birds and animals she had seen in the last few days. She stood where she was, looking at the enormous deer that a mere few minutes ago had been alive and beautiful and now was lying dead. And for what? Harry didn’t need the animal for food. He had killed it for sport. He had killed the animal because it gave him pleasure to do so.
“Great shot, wasn’t it?” Harry said from behind her.
Claire turned toward him, her eyes blazing. “How could you?”
“How could I what?” He was genuinely confused.
At his lack of understanding, something within Claire broke. She doubled up her fists and began pounding on his chest. “You had no right to kill that animal. No right at all. It was beautiful and there was no reason. You—”
Harry caught her hands in his. “Darling, you have a case of wedding nerves. Everything will be all right. I know that when I took my first buck I was a little upset too.”
She pulled away from him and saw he had no idea what was wrong with her. “Don’t you do anything useful?” she shouted. “Don’t you do anything besides kill things?”
Harry stiffened at that and dropped his arms from around her. “I am not an American, if that’s what you mean.”
Claire took a step backward and put her hand to her mouth to keep from saying another word. Her eyes filled with tears. How could she have said such a thing to the man she loved? She turned away and began to run.
She ran out of the woods, down the hill, across the fields, and when she reached her horse, she mounted as quickly as possible, wrapping her leg firmly about the sidesaddle. She kicked the horse forward and raced back to the house.
At the house she entered the main door and was greeted by her mother standing in the midst of what looked to be a hundred boxes of clothing, all the boxes bearing London labels.
“Come and look at the lovely things I’ve bought, dear,” her mother said. “Look, here’s a fan with diamonds on it.”
Claire’s eyes were so full of tears she couldn’t see a thing. She merely shook her head and ran up the stairs to her room. Once inside she bolted both the bedroom door and the door leading into the dressing room where horrid Miss Rogers usually stayed.
Once she was alone
and safe, Claire flung herself on the bed and dissolved into a flood of tears. She wasn’t sure why she was crying; she told herself it was because of seeing the deer killed. Some part of her knew there was a deeper reason for her tears, but at all costs she didn’t want to look at what was making her cry.
At times during the day people knocked on the doors but Claire didn’t open them. She just cried.
Sarah Ann was in the stables when Harry returned. She tried to look as though she “happened” to be there, but the truth was Cammy had seen Claire return in a blaze of hooves and tears. Brat had run to the stables to see what was going on. Sarah was becoming annoyed with her older sister. For all of Claire’s brains, she wasn’t very good at figuring out what she wanted to do; Claire was ruled by shoulds. She should love Harry, therefore she did.
Harry came into the stable and Brat could see that he was enraged. He flung himself off the horse. Brat watched him silently. What she had never told anyone was how beautiful she thought Harry was. She liked the look of Trevelyan, but Trevelyan was not a man a woman—for that’s what Brat considered herself—could live with. Harry, on the other hand, was a man one could spend a life with. Poor Claire was just too dumb to know how to handle a man like Harry.
“Leave you again, did she?” Brat said, making Harry start as he turned to her. Brat smiled at him as she bit into a fat red apple.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” Brat said in a seductive voice.
Harry looked at her and gave a snort of laughter. “You’d better go back to the nursery.”
Brat gave a chuckle and walked past him. She swayed her hips as she’d seen women do, swayed them in a way that Claire never did. Claire thought that the way to get a man was to talk to him. Brat stopped about ten feet in front of Harry and looked back at him over her shoulder. He was watching her, as she knew he would be. “Will you come and visit me?” she practically purred, then tossed her apple away and ran back to the house.
Harry stood for a moment looking after the young woman whom he’d thought of as a child, then he hit his riding crop against the stable wall. “Damn the lot of them,” he said and went to the house.
The tunnel door opened and Brat entered. She stood by the bed and stared down at Claire for a while. “You and Harry have a fight?”