‘Sporty or not, you’ll do a superb job, I have no doubt.’
‘Well then, if you’ll forgive me, I need to get into position.’
‘I’ll see you at the start in’ – she pulled out her late uncle’s pocket watch – ‘gracious, only twelve minutes!’
Twelve minutes later, Eleanor was embarrassed to see everyone else had arrived at the start line before her. As she appeared, Reverend Gaskell hailed her through his brass loudhailer. ‘Three cheers for Lady Swift and her generous hospitality!’
The crowd erupted, making Eleanor jump and leaving her not knowing where to look. She gave a cordial wave and looked around for her butler.
‘My lady?’ Clifford’s voice came from behind her.
‘Ah, Clifford. Tell me, how does the Christmas fun run usually get started?’
‘In the customary manner, with the firing of the starter pistol as detailed in the fete programme.’
‘Yes, yes, the programme. It’s just that Reverend Gaskell seems to be stalling for some reason. The runners are getting restless.’
Clifford frowned. ‘There seems to be some disturbance at the start line.’
Before she could reply a drop of snow landed on her nose and instantly melted. She jerked her head up. ‘Oh, Clifford, we need the reverend to get this thing started, the snow’s arrived.’
He nodded and walked over to the stage. Reverend Gaskell leaned down, cupping his ear as Clifford said something and held his hand out to show the first snowflakes were falling. The vicar pulled out his pocket watch and bobbed an apology. After patting Clifford’s shoulder, the reverend put the loudhailer to his mouth again. ‘Ladies, gentlemen, children, this is it! We are here to cheer on our most adventurous and spirited runners. Wish them God’s speed, but first, please step back off the running course itself.’
This brought a hasty shuffling backwards from the spectators and a great deal of frenetic limbering up among the runners who the vicar now addressed.
‘Gentlemen, I wish you every success in navigating this year’s most ingenious course. Take care and be guided by Corinthians, chapter nine, verse twenty-four. “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.”’ He bowed his head momentarily, then looked up. ‘I declare this Christmas fun run…’ He lowered the loudspeaker and patted his blazer pockets.
Eleanor watched Clifford point at the vicar’s back. With evident relief, the reverend reached behind and from the waistband of his trousers produced the starting pistol. He paused and seemed to stare intently at one of the runners, the gun pointing dangerously in their direction. Clifford gently moved the barrel to one side. The reverend shook his head and addressed the crowd through the loudhailer again. ‘Good friends, my apologies. Runners! On your marks. Ready. Set. GO!’
At the sound of the shot, the runners set off like stampeding cattle, divots of grass and earth flying out behind them as they surged forward. Intense concentration was written on every face. It might be a fun run, but there was a lot of rivalry in the village. Eleanor’s eye was caught by Canning. He was surrounded by a group of five men she didn’t recognise – probably from Chipstone, she thought. She had greeted everyone at the entrance to the Hall, but there were too many faces to remember.
Clifford reappeared at Eleanor’s elbow, holding an umbrella festooned with silver tinsel.
‘Thank you for magicking that up from wherever you did.’ She huddled under it gratefully.
‘Crikey, Clifford. I thought this was supposed to be a fun run. Mr Canning for one seems to be taking it outrageously seriously.’
‘Indeed, my lady. And it will probably turn combative before the finish line.’
‘Well, I hope it doesn’t actually get out of hand, that’s all.’
‘Then the crowd will be most disappointed. Shall we?’ He gestured past the first obstacles that ran down the field before looping back to give the onlookers room to fan out along the length of the course. The furthest reaches were down the steep hill at the midway marker before the trail snaked back up the tortuous climb to the finish line at the Hall’s main entrance.
She looked up at the snow, now falling faster, and shuffled her feet back and forth on the sodden grass. ‘It is getting very slippery, you know.’ An icy wind was whipping the flakes into spinning eddies, which whirled away across the ground before settling. ‘We’d better get a move on, although I don’t want to miss the fun of seeing the runners negotiate the first of your fiendish obstacles.’ She gestured to the three lines of lorry tyres placed at intervals along the route.
Clifford pointed to a tall man in the crowd opposite with a thin moustache in a weathered trilby and overcoat belted tightly at the waist. ‘The Chipstone Gazette reporter is enjoying the show, my lady.’
‘I know, he has a pocket Kodak camera, so our little Christmas entertainment might even make the front page. Well, if he can get any photographs in this snow, that is.’ By now the front runners who had escaped the tyres were tangled in the next obstacle, a large rope net they had to crawl under.
Eleanor and Clifford took a shortcut and reached their first cheering station, which was the point at which the field sloped dramatically downhill. The runners who had escaped the clutches of the rope net lurched towards them, slipping on the now mud and snow-covered grass. Once they’d passed, there was a brief gap before the next bunch of runners arrived.
One of them made Eleanor wince at the gasping sounds he was making. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. Then she remembered he was one of the group of five men surrounding Canning at the beginning of the race. As he drew level, he seemed to trip and landed hard in front of them. Clifford held out a gloved hand and helped him up, which drew a wheezing ‘Cheers’ before he lumbered off after the others.
Eleanor tilted her head. ‘I thought I saw something in the rules about spectators not helping the runners?’
‘True, my lady. Perhaps you saw the rule about runners not deliberately tripping each other up also?’ He peeled off his now muddied white gloves and pulled another pair from nowhere. ‘Hence, my helping him.’
She clapped and shouted encouragingly to the next straggle of runners who passed, then peered at the blackened sky. The biting wind had got up and the snow was now almost horizontal. She had to raise her voice to be heard. ‘I wonder if we will be able to witness anything at all at the end. How many more are there to come through this section?’
‘Approximately ten or so.’
Eleanor applauded at another small group who ran past, one of them holding the back of his leg as he hobbled to keep up.
‘Oh dear.’ She offered him a commiserating smile and an extra enthusiastic round of applause. As he crested the hill, he slipped and disappeared from view in a tumble of arms and legs.
‘I say, man down!’ Eleanor cried.
‘Fear not, my lady, the noble members of the St John Ambulance Brigade are poised and waiting at the bottom.’
By the time all the runners had passed and she and Clifford had taken another shortcut to the finish line, a thick white layer had covered the course. The onlookers had their hands in their pockets and their hats pulled down against the snow and wind.