Read Online The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons - Free Book Online

river, she veers sharply upwards towards the ridge of the hill. Her prints are even and steady – she seems to know preciselywhere she’s going and she hardly ever pauses to catch her breath or to stop and admire the view. After a mile or so, I’m surprised – she’s travelled quite a distance. I stood beside her in the kitchen watching the dawn less than an hour ago so she must have been out walking through the dark.
    I trace her into the woods. Half the trees were felled for fuel during the war – but the oldest part remains. Great thick-trunked Durmast oak and slim alders stand silent amidst the endless white, masts of an armada adrift on an arctic sea. I like the sensation of being alone amongst the trees but this morning I’m uneasy. The snow has muffled the world – I hear a rook call echoing through the trees but it’s distorted and strange.
    I nudge further into the heart of the wood. The glare of snow and the clear, leafless sky makes it weirdly bright, brighter than the boldest summer’s day. There are no berries left on the branches; the birds have picked them clean. It seems that all colour has leached out of the landscape and then I glimpse the streak of a fox’s brush, a smear of orange on white, as it slides between the trunks and vanishes. It’s more sheltered in the wood than out on the bare back of the hill, and the trees themselves dispense a tiny sliver of living warmth. The bracken and brambles grow more thickly the deeper I go and I struggle to trace Edie’s footprints. I lose her for a minute under the greenish shade of a yew, only to find her again in the well of a badger path, then she’s gone again. I cast about but can see no more footprints. It’s as though she’s walked out into the woods and disappeared.
    Irritated now with the game, I turn for home, ready for a decent breakfast and a pot of coffee. I have an unpleasant sensation of being watched, that something is waiting out of sight. I hum a Bizet ditty to drive away the feeling but my voice is thin. I don’t want to look for more prints. I don’t want to know what I might find. I’m well on the way to frighteningmyself and I’m angry at how ridiculous I’m being, brimming with schoolboy terrors.
    Suddenly I hear a crashing nearby and my blood is electric, stinging through my veins. I start to run, leaping over felled stumps and knotted roots, but I’m not as fast or as fit as I’d like. Yesterday’s brandy bubbles up into my throat and pools there, burning. I’m forced to slow, and then stop. I bend over, wondering whether I’m going to be sick. I hear the jangle of bells. Rushing bodies smash through the undergrowth. My heart thunders in my ears. Slamming myself flat against a beech trunk, I look up to see half a dozen men weaving through the wood, great pairs of antlers strapped to their shoulders, encasing them like a cage. Others join them. At the sight of me, they halt.
    â€˜Happy New Year, young Master Fox-Talbot,’ says one, reaching up to touch his cap, but on finding only antlers he chuckles.
    I remain leaning against the beech, quite spent, adrenalin seeping away. ‘And to you all. I’d quite forgotten you’d be coming. You gave me quite a scare, I must say.’
    At that the men roar with laughter, clearly delighted.
    â€˜It’s a good thing, to have yer all back in the big house, sir,’ says a cheery fellow, and I wonder whether our principal role is to provide entertainment for the village.
    â€˜We’re jist on our way to the Hall.’
    â€˜You go on. I’ll follow in a minute. Don’t start without me.’
    â€˜Right you are, young sir.’
    I watch for a minute as they weave through the holly and ash, somehow managing not to tangle their antlers in the branches, the bells strapped to their ankles crying out shrilly as they run. I follow them, emerging from the wood