Page 9 of Linenfold (The Alice Chronicles #4)

‘What are they standing around for?’ He jerks his head towards the two who have now unhitched the horses and got them to their feet. They stand by their charges, conferring together as they regard the catastrophe that was a coach. Philip’s uncle scrambles down to the ground and storms towards them.

‘But master,’ the coachman defends himself, ‘the leaves are everywhere. The ditch was not to be seen before the wheels were in it – and besides, I swear there was a jolt before we met it. You felt it, didn’t you Pearce?’

Pearce hesitates. ‘Well …’ but before he can answer, their master snaps, ‘I don’t want excuses for bad driving, Jackson, I want this coach righted and on our way, man!’

Jackson’s unhappy look deepens. ‘Master, that front wheel is broken. The coach cannot be driven until it’s repaired. They will have to go on without us.’

‘Where are they?’

Jackson and Pearce look up the road into blankness.

Their master sighs. ‘Mount up and go and fetch them. They should know by now not to go trundling off God knows where. We travel together. God’s blood, how many times do I have to say it? Go on, what are you waiting for?’

As Jackson hoists himself onto the back of the nearest horse and starts off up the road, his master turns to Pearce. ‘And you can walk back into Guildford and get muscle and a wheelwright. And quick about it!’

‘Sir, I beg you,’ Alice intervenes, ‘do not send your man to walk through this.’

He turns as though noticing Alice for the first time. ‘And you are?’

‘I am Mistress Jerrard. My home High Stoke is through the trees here. This fog is dangerous, sir. A man not familiar with the land hereabouts could easily lose his way and even injure himself.’

He looks as if he would like to say it would serve Pearce right.

One hand taps rhythmically against his thigh.

Philip, silent, sits atop the coach, eyes on his uncle.

Although warmly cloaked, not one of the passengers is equipped for the sodden, freezing outdoors.

Their footwear is thin, their buckles are fine affairs, their gloves display more elegance than warmth.

The spindly secretary’s face is pinched and blue despite the travelling rug around his shoulders and the restoration of his hat. He quivers with cold.

His master appears oblivious. ‘It is imperative I get to London without delay.’

‘I have people on the demesne who can help get your coach out of the ditch, sir. I believe you will not be journeying for a few hours at best. I can offer you and your horses shelter at my house until you can take up your journey once more.’

The secretary from his perch pulls his rug closer as he awaits his master, who heaves a tight-lipped sigh and addresses Alice. ‘I am Hardcastle,’ and points up at the young man. ‘My nephew, Philip Sewell. I am obliged to you, mistress. How soon can your people help with the coach?’

‘They can come out directly and get it out of the ditch, at least.’

‘I’ll not leave it on the road for any vagrant to strip.’

‘Few will be out in such weather as this, sir. What I can do,’ she offers, ‘is to ask a young man of my household to take a look at it and assess the damage for you. He is not a wheelwright by calling, but he has experience with wood and the making of carts.’

‘It’s not a—’ he starts to say. ‘You understand, it needs an experienced coachmaker.’

She has to remind herself that this man has suffered a severe setback to firm plans he had, perhaps to obligations he feels duty bound to fulfil.

He goes on, ‘It’ll have to be manhandled off the road.’

‘Very well, sir, I will find a man and send him to help your people bring it down to the house.’ She indicates the shivering secretary. ‘I believe I should take your companion with me now. See, he is suffering severely.’

Hardcastle nods his agreement, ‘I thank you,’ and looks up at the skewed coach. ‘Philip, get him down.’ As they lower the old man between them. ‘Off you go now, Cranley.’ And Alice leads the secretary off the road and into the trees.

‘You are most kind, Mistress,’ Cranley says between shivers, ‘… so grateful,’

She collects one of her sacks of gleaned wood as they enter the trees. ‘We have fires to warm your outside, and ale to warm your insides,’ she encourages.

He holds onto his narrow hat brim and treads hesitantly alongside her, picking his steps carefully. ‘It is said, mistress, that in the year in which Christmas falls on a Friday, winter shall be changeable.’ He looks meaningfully at her, then as though recalling himself, quickly looks away again.

‘And Christmas Day falls on a Friday this year, does it, sir?’

‘Verily it does.’

Alice laughs. ‘I must remember that, sir. Certainly we weren’t expecting this fog after yesterday’s storm.’

He steps beside her, slightly panting with unaccustomed exertion as they make their way through the belt of trees.

The ground is littered with fallen boughs and twigs over which he treads with trepidation.

Alice maintains a light chatter on High Stoke’s house and lands, the good hay harvest but disappointing barley yield this year, the butter and variety of cheeses from her dairy.

As she speaks, they emerge from the trees.

He stops, a look of dismay on his face as he regards the blank mist before him.

She pauses alongside. ‘The house is just across this clearing through the mist,’ she assures him.

‘Take my arm, sir. Two together are stronger than each alone.’

‘No, I could not—’ but a sheep suddenly appears out of the fog, a surprise as great to the sheep as to him.

Panicked, the sheep scampers past, causing him to slip and stagger against Alice.

He grasps her arm and moves beside her, stiff with fear of sliding on the wet, gale-strewn leaves.

After a few steps in silence, he is stirred to say, ‘It is further said that your sore itching sheep shall die.’

‘Oh?’

‘In the years of Friday Christmases.’

‘Indeed?’ She hardly knows how to respond to this sudden declaration. What a strange little man he is.

The house looms, its walls, windows, roof emerging through the mist as they approach.

Visibly cheered by the view of shelter, the fire-flicker at the hall window, ‘Ah, blessed homecoming,’ he murmurs.

Alice leads him into the house and through to where the settle stands close to the hearth.

There she takes his blanket, already damp from the wet mist, and invites him to divest himself of his cloak, but this he keeps hold of.

She nudges the footstool towards him. ‘Do you slip off your shoes, sir, they are soaked through.’

‘No, no!’ he declares, drawing back both feet. ‘’Twould not be seemly.’

‘They need to be dried, sir, or you could catch an ague,’ Alice advises, adding, ‘None of my people will disturb you here in the hall.’

Perhaps the idea of warming his stockinged feet before the fire persuades him. He bends shakily to slip off one shoe, then the other shoe and hands the pair to her.

‘I shall fetch you some warm ale, sir.’

‘You are the quintessence of kindness, mistress,’ he declares.

In the kitchen, Alice calls across to the stables, ‘Can you find room to house a few extra horses, Joe?’ and briefly tells him of the accident out on the road. ‘Just for a few hours.’

‘How many?’

‘Two horses for each of two coaches, I imagine.’ She thrusts a poker into the centre of the fire to heat up, reaches for a mug from its ceiling hook and unlocks the buttery door.

‘Athena and Cassie can share the big stall,’ she tells him, pulling the bung from the barrel of October ale and holding the mug under.

Cassie and Athena, the two horses she brought with her from her family home in Dorset, have lived side by side these several years.

‘It’ll be a squash but do your best, Joe,’ she says, pushing the bung back into the barrel.

‘They will be here shortly. There’s a damaged coach, and another that was further ahead.

If I can find Ned I’ll send him up to help.

’ Ned Cotter, another of High Stoke’s men, just the man for a job like this.

‘Ned was digging over the vegetable patch a while ago,’ Joe says. ‘I’ll give him a shout.’

‘Digging? After all this rain? He must be up to his knees in it.’

Joe shrugs on his way out of the door. ‘You know Ned.’

Yes, she knows Ned. His good heart shows in the things he does without being asked, and part of that willingness, she suspects, is the desire to escape the hen-pecking he suffers at home on his strip.

He will huff and puff about the damaged coach, but he is the most likely to know how such a vehicle, now down to three wheels, can best be brought safely out of the ditch and into the barn.

Alice puts the mug on the hearth and moves several bricks to heat by the fire.

With the poker at red heat, she pulls it from the fire and plunges it sizzling in the mug.

She is curious to find out more about these people she is offering hospitality, especially this singular man with his archaic speech.

Rose scuttles into the kitchen, big-eyed with news. ‘Mistress, have you heard? There’s a coach in the ditch out on the road!’

‘I know,’ Alice tells her.

‘And the wheels are all fallen off, and there’s passengers tossed into the ditch and all.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Allan. He said it is all fallen into sticks and shreds. He’s gone up to see what can be salvaged.’

‘And he told you about the passengers too?’

‘Oh no, Joe told me that. He says they’re going up to bring back a dead man.’

Rose’s gullibility, Alice thinks, has become fair game for the two boys’ teasing. ‘Rose?’ she says. ‘One broken wheel, and no dead men, believe me.’

‘But they said definitely—’

‘I was up there.’

‘You were? You mean they were pulling my leg?’

Her crestfallen face draws Alice’s sympathy. ‘You should know those two by now.’

‘Ohh!’ Rose screws her hands into fists. ‘I’ll give them such a bust in the chops!’

That’s my girl . ‘If you want to know the truth, Rose, come and ask me.’

‘But mistress, the baby! What about the baby?’

‘What about the baby?’

‘It’s foggy and it’s freezing, and you went out.’

‘I was well wrapped, and a lot warmer than our guests who are not dressed for this weather. So do you look out some mugs, half a dozen or so. Make sure they’re clean and fill a flagon from that barrel of October ale. We’ll offer them all warm ale when they come in, and hot bricks for their feet.’

Rose is never downcast for long. New to the house three months ago, she is as unlike shy, retiring Mollie as it is possible to be. Brash, bouncing and talkative, she responds with excited enthusiasm to the mention of guests. ‘Who are they? What are they like? How many?’

‘Just the secretary so far,’ Alice tells her.

He’s in the hall. I’ll attend to him. His master will follow with his nephew and there will be at least four menservants, so let’s get plenty more of these bricks heating.

’ Alice wraps one of the hot bricks in a cloth and picks up the warmed ale.

In the hall the elderly secretary has his stockinged feet to the fire, his cloak still about his shoulders.

He looks up as she hands him the drink, quickly averts his eyes.

‘A hot brick, sir?’ She leans to put it by his feet and he jerks away as one fearful of a touch. ‘I am merely putting it down for you, sir, you are very chilled,’ she says. ‘I feel sure Master Hardcastle would not wish you to take cold.’

‘ My Lord Hardcastle,’ he says. ‘He is My Lord !’

‘Forgive me, sir. I did not realise.’

‘The forms must be observed, mistress!’ It clearly frets him that someone might incorrectly address his master.

‘I shall see that they are,’ she assures him.

‘And that all his people are courteously received.’ She would naturally treat any guest with courtesy and is not ignorant of the deference expected towards one of high rank.

A Lord wields power by custom, if not by right.

The wise do not offend, far less cross such a man.

‘Tell me, how many are there in your party?’

‘Three,’ he says, wrapping his hands round his mug. ‘His Lordship, myself and his young relation you saw, one Philip Sewell.’

‘But who are the other men I saw around the coach? And the other coach, what of that?’

‘Oh, the lower sort.’

‘Can you tell me how many, sir? If I am to feed you all I need to know how many are at my table.’

He waves that away. ‘They will eat what is left from our meal.’ In his position to a well-heeled master, here is a man who appears never to have concerned himself with the minutiae of household numbers. ‘We three shall take our meal in here. Your husband may serve us.’

‘I have no husband, sir.’

His eyes fly to the swelling under her skirts. ‘No husband?’ He shrinks back into the corner of the settle.

Alice realises an explanation is needed. ‘My husband is dead these six months and more.’

‘Oh.’ The thought hangs between them that he fancied himself in the house of a fallen woman. As his gaze falls, she discovers that the elderly are capable of blushing.

‘I shall serve you your meal, with pleasure, sir.’

With an irritated frown, ‘We are not accustomed to being served by women. Philip will order the food My Lord desires. I am sure you have menservants to carry it to table.’ He places his feet on the hot brick and as she turns to leave, he concedes, ‘I thank you for the ale.’ And leans back with a sigh.

Alice walks away, silently mimicking his tones. ‘“We are not accustomed to being served by women.”’ Well, they are in for a surprise then, aren’t they.