Page 11 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

‘Thank you, my lady.’ Contemplating the sixpenny bit, he looked a lot more confident.

Rows and shouting were unpleasant, but they didn’t kill you, and coin of the realm was coin of the realm.

A penny would have been acceptable, but a sixpence now!

That bought a lot of loyalty. He raised his eyes hopefully to her ladyship. Perhaps she would protect him.

Alice read the look. ‘I promise I won’t let you get into trouble,’ she said, put her heel to Pharaoh, and was gone.

The woodsman’s cottage was in Motte Woods, at the edge of the land covered by Hillbrow Farm.

It was solidly built, and had several large outbuildings – a tool shed, a log store, a vast work-shed with a saw pit big enough to cut tree trunks, a barn, and a stable with an open-sided cart-shed to one side and saddle-room to the other.

Compared with the little cottage Axe had lived in before, it was palatial.

He had had to rent the former himself, and it had been all he could afford, but this house came with the job.

Axe was in the yard when Alice rode in, and his face warmed with that long, slow smile of his that she forgot when she hadn’t seen him for a while.

Pharaoh whinnied when he saw his old friend, and Axe came forward to catch the bridle and let the horse thump him in the chest with his muzzle in greeting.

‘He’s getting chatty these days, isn’t he?

’ Axe said, squinting up at Alice against the light.

‘More chatty all the time. He embarrasses me sometimes,’ Alice said.

‘Passing through, my lady, or would you like to get down?’

‘Of course I want to get down. I came to see how you’re getting on. I want to see everything.’

He came round to the near side, she freed her leg, and let him jump her down.

Normally she resented anyone trying to help her dismount – as if she couldn’t manage it by herself!

– but she loved the feeling of his big hands on her waist. In the moment that he was close to her, she smelt the familiar smell of him, leather and saddle soap and warm skin and a clean hint of horse.

And something new now – just a little scent of sawn wood.

‘Axe Brandom, woodsman to Lord Stainton,’ she said.

‘That’s a fact,’ he said genially.

‘It’s quiet here.’ There was no sound but birdsong, and a little rustling of leaves. ‘Very different from the forge.’ She had always thought of him as the blacksmith. He had been inseparable from his calling in her mind. ‘Will you miss your old job?’

‘I’ll miss the horses,’ he said. ‘Won’t miss the heat, or the dirt, or the noise. Coming home black from head to foot every night. Smell of coal and hot iron in your nose all the time so you can’t smell the grass and the earth and the rain.’

‘I never thought of rain having a smell,’ she said.

He didn’t answer, but took hold of the reins. ‘We’ll put him over there, in the shade. It’s hot for April.’

When he had tied Pharaoh up and loosened the girth, she said, ‘Can I see inside your house?’

‘You can, and welcome, but there’s not much to see yet. It’s a bit empty.’

‘Didn’t you bring your furniture with you?’

He gave her a patient look. ‘’Twadn’t mine, was it? I only rented that place.’

‘Oh,’ said Alice. She hadn’t realised that when you rented a house, you rented the furniture too. Her own home was full of solid pieces accumulated over centuries. She hadn’t realised it was possible not to own your bed and chairs.

‘Now, Cutmore, see, he’d been here a long time,’ Axe went on, leading her to the door, ‘so some of the stuff here was his own. But he left other bits, enough for a start.’

The door led straight into the kitchen-living-room, as was customary, but it was larger than in his old place, and seemed larger still because there was no bed in it. ‘Bedroom through there,’ he said. ‘Shan’t know myself for posh, having a separate bedroom!’

One whole wall was covered with an enormous dresser of shelves, with cupboards and drawers below, and a few plates and mugs only made it look more bare.

The centre of the room was occupied with a solid, scrubbed deal table with a wooden bench down either side.

The wide chimney place was occupied by a range and an open fire, with the usual high mantel-shelf above it, and the sitting end of the room had a high-backed wooden settle, like a church pew, against the wall, and a rectangular rag rug on the floor in front of it.

It certainly was ‘a bit empty’. Alice sought for something nice to say. ‘It’s a lot bigger,’ she said. ‘And it smells nice – like wood shavings.’

‘I been doing a bit of work out in the barn,’ Axe explained. ‘Brought it in last night for the light, to finish off.’

‘I expect a woodsman’s house ought to smell of wood, anyway,’ Alice said. ‘The dresser’s very handsome.’

‘Cutmore had to leave that, and the settle, being as they’re fixed into the walls.

And he left the table and benches and his big bed, because they wouldn’t’ve fit into his sister’s house.

My sister Ruth, she was worried about me, starting up here on my own.

She’s the eldest and she always fusses about us.

Anyroad, she’s gone round everybody and scrounged me a bit here and a bit there.

So I got pots and pans and cups and plates enough.

Got a stool and two chairs – one’s got a broken leg, but I’ll soon mend that.

A chest of drawers she got me – wants knobs, and a foot’s missing, and the back’s split, but I can fix it.

Esther, my other sister, she give me the rug.

And Mary, our Seth’s wife, she give me a little looking-glass for the scullery so I can shave meself decent.

’ He looked at her slightly anxiously. ‘I mean to make it nice here, once I’ve saved up a bit.

No rent to pay and the wages are higher, so I shall be well set.

I’ll get some material and make curtains, and cushions for the settle. I’m handy with a needle.’

‘How clever you are,’ Alice said. ‘I’m no good at sewing.’

‘I don’t suppose you need to be,’ he said politely.

‘And I see you’ve got your tea caddy and your shepherdess,’ she said, gesturing to the mantel-shelf. ‘And another tin – that’s new, isn’t it?’

‘Biscuit tin,’ he said. ‘Our Seth’s Mary give me that as well. Nothing in it yet – I wasn’t expecting visitors,’ he apologised.

‘You’re a long way out, here, for visitors,’ she said. ‘Won’t you mind being so far from everyone?’

‘I’ve always liked it quiet,’ he said. ‘Family thinks I’m a bit strange that way. Our Ruth, she didn’t even like it when I moved into the old cottage at the Carr, ’stead of living in the village.’

‘And you’re even further out now. How will you get to church?

It’ll be a long walk.’ A delightful idea had popped into her mind, that she could offer to call for him in the pony-trap on a Sunday.

It would be hard to get that plan past everyone at home, of course – her mother would flatly forbid it, Josh would be outraged, and probably even Giles would think it ‘unsuitable’, but—

‘Don’t you worry,’ Axe said, and smiled, his blue eyes crinkling. ‘I’ve got a secret. Want to see?’

‘Of course,’ she said.

He led her outside, where she was accosted by his little dog, Dolly. ‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ Alice said, squatting to make a fuss of her.

‘She’s been in the woods. Sniffs about in there all day long,’ said Axe. He watched indulgently. Dolly’s stump of a tail was a blur of ecstasy as Alice scratched behind her ears.

‘So she likes it here,’ Alice said.

‘She likes you . She says she’s not seen you for a long while. Thought you’d forgotten her.’

‘Never! Not for a moment ,’ Alice said emphatically, looking up at him. ‘What’s this secret of yours?’

‘I’ll show you,’ he said.

He led her to the stable. Inside there were two stalls, one of which was occupied by an enormous, glossy chestnut rump. ‘You’ve got a horse!’ Alice exclaimed in delight.

‘Comes with the job,’ Axe said. ‘Name’s Della.’

The mare turned her head at the sound of his voice, showing a neat, fine face with a kind dark eye and a long mane and forelock that were almost blonde. ‘She’s lovely!’ Alice said. ‘What sort is she?’

‘Suffolk Punch. Best horses for working in woods.’ He laid a friendly hand on her rich gold-brown buttock.

‘Dragging logs in the chain harness. She pulls the big wagon and the pole tug too. But I’ve got an old pair of wheels I bought from Mr Rowse, and I’m going to knock up a little trap for myself for when I want to drive down to the village.

Mr Rowse, he said he’d do the ironwork for me.

So you see,’ he smiled down at Alice, the thin sunlight slanting in through the doorway illuminating his red-gold hair and the fine floating dust in the air, ‘I shan’t be stuck far away from civilisation, like my sister thinks. ’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Alice said. ‘But I don’t think you’re far away from civilisation. This is civilisation to me. A place all your own, a horse and a dog – what more could anyone want?’

‘Quite a lot, I should say, if you’re born Lady Alice in a castle.’

‘As if that matters. It’s not really a castle, anyway, and it isn’t mine. I can’t help where I was born.’

He heard the discontent in her voice, and felt a stab of pity.

She envied him his freedom – and, just then, he saw how very good it was, and how little of it she had, probably would ever have.

She’d be watched and told what to do all the time, and then be married off to some old lord she didn’t even like.

(He had absorbed vague ideas about how the nobs went on from Ruthie’s eldest, Polly, who read penny novels.)

Alice’s cage might be golden, but it was a cage all the same. He looked down at her seriously. ‘You can come here any time you like,’ he said. ‘You’re always welcome. And anything I’ve got is yours.’