Page 52 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

‘I wouldn’t mind if they were just shenanigans,’ Dory said, going back to her sewing.

‘But sometimes there’s quite an atmosphere.

Mrs Webster was furious with Hook, but of course he’s not under her, he’s under Mr Moss.

And Mr Moss . . .’ She paused. It wasn’t for her to peach on the butler. That was going too far.

Sebastian helped her out. ‘I get the feeling that Moss isn’t quite himself lately,’ he suggested. ‘Is he drinking?’

Dory looked up warily, but didn’t answer.

‘That’s all right,’ Sebastian said. ‘I’ve been on this earth long enough to know that butlers always drink.

It’s part of their job, after all. When they open the claret, they have to taste it, to make sure it’s sound.

And when they decant it, there’s always a little bit left at the end of the bottle.

And if the port decanter comes back not quite empty, well, it can’t be served up again the next day, can it? ’

Dory took a few more stitches. ‘I don’t think it’s drink,’ she said at last. ‘I think there’s something on his mind. But I don’t know what it is,’ she added quickly.

‘No,’ he said. ‘None of us can know another person’s mind.’ He played a few phrases, then reversed them, and said, ‘I have something I’ve been meaning to ask you.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘When I visited my house last weekend, I noticed some things that need the attention of a good needlewoman. I wondered, if her ladyship and Mrs Webster and all other interested parties agree, whether you would come over for a few days and work your magic?’

She looked up. ‘Would you be there, sir?’

‘That’s my intention,’ he said. ‘Crooks would come with me, of course, and I have staff there – a housekeeper, Mrs May, a maid, and an outside man – so you would have company. I thought of going next month, when the summer crowds are gone. The river is lovely in September. Fine walks for you in your time off.’

She thought of the word going round downstairs – that when a gentleman suddenly took an interest in his neglected house, it generally meant there was a bride in the offing.

She had ignored the talk because she felt sure he would have mentioned it to her.

But if he was making the house ready to receive a woman, she was happy for him.

‘Would you be willing to come?’ he asked again.

‘Of course, sir. I go where I’m sent.’

He gave a little shake of the head. ‘There’s no coercion in the case. I thought you might enjoy the change – and the work does need doing. Needlework is not Mrs May’s forté.’

‘I’ll come, sir, and gladly,’ Dory said. She felt a little sad, because if he married he would go away, and she would miss these times, with her sewing, him playing, and both of them chatting. But mostly she felt happy for him.

The library was full of cigarette smoke by the end of the regular meeting with Markham, when Adeane was ushered in.

‘You sent for me, my lord?’

‘I’ll be off,’ Markham said, beginning to gather up his papers.

‘No, stay,’ Giles said. ‘I want to put an idea to both of you.’

Richard pushed his chair back and stretched out his legs. ‘Deal gently with him,’ he advised the two men. ‘It’s an affair of the heart.’

Giles frowned at him. ‘Must you always be so frivolous?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid I must. Much as I sympathise with your tender feelings, I reserve my romantic inclinations for human females.’

Adeane was looking bewildered, and Markham gave a slight smile at Richard’s whimsy. Giles explained about Lord Shacklock’s bull at the Canons Ashmore Fair, and his thought about improving the stock of all his tenants.

Adeane immediately shook his head. ‘Couldn’t be done, my lord, not with one bull. He’d drop dead of exhaustion, having to go round all the farms and service everyone’s cows.’

‘In any case,’ Markham said, ‘the improvement would be desperately slow, just with one bull, given the poor stock you’d be starting with. It would be a decade at least before you’d see any results.’

‘But wouldn’t any improvement be a good thing?’ Giles asked.

‘Yes, but not at any price. It would be a terrible waste of a prize bull’s – er – potential.

If you really wanted to do something like that, you would need to start with half a dozen prize heifers as well, and start your own herd from scratch.

Take one of the farms back in hand, say, and do the thing properly. ’

‘How would one take a farm back in hand?’

‘Nothing easier,’ Adeane growled. ‘Just put the rent up, and chuck ’em out when they can’t pay.’

Giles winced. ‘That sounds a bit brutal.’

‘Most of ’em are in arrears as it is,’ Adeane said. ‘Anyroad,’ he went on disapprovingly, ‘this estate’s always been arable. Can’t change it over to stock just like that.’

‘Arable’s finished,’ Richard said. ‘You know that. The price of wheat . . .’

Giles gave him an amused look. To think of his frivolous brother knowing the price of wheat!

‘But beef prices are no better,’ Markham said. ‘With all that dead meat imported from America and Canada and Argentina, you’d never get a return on the investment.’

‘What if it wasn’t beef?’ Giles said slowly. ‘What about dairy cattle?’

Richard grinned. ‘I told you it was love. That was a dairy shorthorn he saw at the show. You can’t argue with the human heart.’

‘I don’t see any market for milk,’ Markham said.

‘So where do local people get their milk from?’ Giles asked.

‘Every farm’s got a house cow or two, to provide ’em with their own milk,’ Adeane said. ‘Even if they had any to spare, who’d they sell it to?’

‘What about the village?’

‘Poor’s dairy,’ Markham said. ‘You’ve probably seen the cart going round. Jasper Poor keeps a small herd, takes a few churns round the houses every morning, and that covers it.’

‘What about cheese and butter?’ Giles asked.

‘Well, the farmers make a bit for their own use,’ said Markham. ‘What’s in the shops is all imported.’

‘ Imported? ’

‘From Australia and New Zealand.’

‘But that makes no sense!’

‘Their costs are so low over there, and they can produce on such a scale, that even after it’s shipped across half the world, it’s still cheaper than anything our farmers can make in the small amounts they produce.’

‘Suppose you set up a factory of your own?’ Richard said suddenly. ‘Did it on a large scale?’

‘But where would you get the milk?’ Markham said simply. ‘And it would have to be good milk, high in butterfat.’

Giles shook his head. ‘We’ve gone round in a circle. All right, I can see my idea isn’t viable. But I still think there’s something there. It just needs thinking through. This hand-to-mouth business benefits nobody.’

He remembered Mr Cowling saying farming had to be run like a business.

He hadn’t understood at the time, but he knew he was feeling his way towards an idea, though he didn’t know what it was yet.

But he thought of his tenants, scratching a living, each alone with his problems and debts; and the land, which every Englishman grew up to believe was all-important.

Two wasted resources. There had to be a better way to bring them together.

‘Improvements take time,’ Markham said comfortingly. ‘And you’ve already made a difference with the buildings and the tracks. And we’ll start to see a benefit next year from the drainage schemes we’re putting in hand.’

‘Good effort,’ Richard told him. ‘But don’t expect him to smile when his heart is broken.’

It was a hot day at the end of August when Axe Brandom’s sister Ruth drove into his yard. He went to the pony’s head, but there was no need – it seemed only too glad to stand still.

‘He’s sweating a bit,’ Axe remarked.

‘He’s not used to that hill,’ Ruth grumbled. ‘It’s a long way from the village.’

‘I like it. ’Squiet up here,’ said Axe. ‘Shall I untack him?’

‘Just tie him up and give him a bucket of water. I’m not stopping long.’

‘But you’ll have a cup of tea?’

‘That I will.’ Ruth climbed down, holding a basket.

‘I’ve brought you a cake. And a jar of those pickles you like.

And our Mary sent you some of her brawn.

Seth sends his best. And our Polly’s started knitting you a scarf for Christmas.

You’re to act surprised when you get it.

Mother’s been showing her how to knit, but she’s not very good at it yet, so it’ll take her till then.

She drops more stitches than she makes. Right, you see to Bramble, and I’ll put the kettle on. ’

She went inside, followed by a hopeful Dolly, who soon, however, came out disappointed.

Ruth was thin and dark and brisk, taking after their mother, where Axe, large and fair and slow-talking, was more like their father.

Ruth was practical and frugal, and not one to squander either food or caresses on a dog.

‘So,’ she said, when she emerged, ‘let’s see this famous white elephant of yours.’ Axe feigned not to understand her. ‘There’s talk,’ she said. ‘Seems Lady Alice was mooning over some broken-down old pony on its way to the knackers, and you pranced in like a knight in armour and bought it for her.’

Axe didn’t care for ‘pranced’. He scowled. ‘Didn’t buy it for her .’

‘Well, that’s what it looked like. Where is it, then? Bring it out so I can see how a damn fool gets parted from his money.’

Axe went into the stable, and led the pony out.

Two weeks of grooming and feeding-up had made a very different animal of it.

Under the dirt, its coat had been revealed as bay, of a good, rich colour; and the hip-bones and ribs were now receding under a layer of flesh.

The listlessness and misery had gone, and it stood normally rather than sagging at the knees with its head drooping.

It was not, in any way, a distinguished-looking pony, but there was nothing basically wrong with it.

Ruth stared at it long and hard, with her lips compressed. ‘What the devil were you thinking?’ she said at last.

‘It’s not a bad bargain for five bob,’ Axe defended himself. ‘Nice-natured, too – easy to handle. I reckon I did all right.’

‘I’m not concerned with whether you got your money’s worth, you big gowk. You bought a pony for Lady Alice at the fair. For Lady Alice! In front of everyone. You couldn’t even settle for winning her a coco-nut, oh, no, you had to buy her a blasted pony !’

‘I told you, I didn’t—’

‘You were seen talking to her beforehand as well. And at the haysel up at High Ashmore. And now I’m told she’s visiting you here, alone.’

‘She just calls in when she’s out and about, that’s all. She likes to see the animals, and play with Dolly.’ He thought for a moment before adding, ‘I think she’s lonely at home.’

‘You’re a damn fool! What d’you think you’re playing at, having an unmarried girl visit you alone? And a girl from that family, what’s more!’

‘There’s no harm in it. She’s just a child.’

‘Oh, to you, maybe, but not to the rest of the world. She’s a grown woman, Axe Brandom. Marriageable age. That’s what people see.’

‘But I haven’t done anything wrong,’ he protested.

‘Don’t you understand? If there’s a scandal, nobody will care about that.

They won’t ask what you did or even whether you did anything.

The scandal will be enough on its own. You’ll be chucked out.

You’ll lose your job, and you’ll never get another one – they’ll see to that.

No one will touch you. And don’t think any of us will help you, because if we did, we’d be damned along with you, and we’ve got our own families to think about.

You’ve got to stop this, Axe, before it gets any worse.

Make her stop coming here. And get rid of that pony. ’

‘Who told you she comes here?’ he asked sulkily. Ruth telling him off had always made him feel six years old.

‘I was told, that’s all you need to know.

’ She read his expression as contrition, and softened slightly.

‘Maybe there’s not too much harm done yet.

Just don’t let her come here again. And don’t get seen talking to her anywhere.

You should have got married long ago,’ she added, almost to herself.

‘Too blooming handsome for your own good.’

There was an awkward silence. Axe broke it by saying, ‘That kettle boiled yet?’

‘Let’s see,’ she said. She looked around her with dissatisfaction as they walked towards the house. ‘I don’t like you being so far away. See how you get yourself into trouble? I wish you’d never taken this job.’

‘It’s a good job. Much better wages.’

‘It’d need ’em, all alone up here like you are. What if you got ill?’

‘I’m never ill.’

‘What if you had an accident? Out in those woods of yours, what if a tree fell on you, and you lay there for days with no one coming? I worry about you.’

‘Aaron Cutmore lived up here alone just the same, and I never knowed you worry about him.’

‘Aaron Cutmore’s not my brother,’ said Ruth. But she slipped her arm through his and squeezed it, to signify forgiveness.

‘Who told you?’ he asked as they reached the door.

‘Someone. You don’t need to know.’

‘Was it Josh?’

‘Course it wasn’t. If he knew, you’da been out on your ear long before now. You know what he’s like about the Family. You better pray he never does find out, either. You better pray your Lady Alice never lets anything slip in front of him.’

‘She wouldn’t. She’s sound.’

A snort of disbelief served Ruth as a reply to that.