Page 23 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘Ah,’ said Afton. ‘Now we have a little problem to overcome. I don’t speak German, but I know you speak English. However, if you refuse to, I can always ask Lady Linda to translate for us. Or her highness. Would you really like one of them to hear what I have to say?’

Adolf thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘You are a clever man. And a handsome one! No doubt you are having pleasure with the maids yourself. If you tell me which ones you favour, I will leave them alone. There are plenty, enough for both.’

Afton gave him a look of distaste. ‘We don’t do things that way in this house.’

‘That is hard to believe.’

‘I don’t really care what you believe, Mr Usingen. You will cease to interfere with the maids from this moment.’

Adolf looked almost merry. ‘But, Mr Afton, what can you do?’ He jumped into a mock pugilist pose. ‘ Handgreiflichkeiten? But you, handsome man, clever man, you are also small man, smaller than me. It would not go well with you.’

Afton did not smile. ‘I have no intention of fighting you, though if I did, you’d learn a thing or two.

Where I grew up, we had to take care of ourselves.

But if you do not leave the maids alone, I will go to my master, and he will speak to yours.

You are abusing our hospitality, and that is an insult to my master, and thus to his mother, who is your master’s wife.

I think the prince will not care to have her insulted. ’

Adolf sighed theatrically. ‘I understand. You wish to keep all the maids for yourself. You are – how is it said? – dog in the manger. I will leave them alone, as you ask.’ He twinkled at Afton. ‘My friend, you should have the fat ones first. They are more bequem .’

Mrs Webster and Rose called all the maids together before servants’ supper, crowding them into Mrs Webster’s room and closing the doors.

And under two sets of eagle eyes they listened in silence to the warning to steer clear of the German valet.

Some of the maids had cast-down eyes, some were blushing – though that may simply have been because of the subject – and some simply looked bewildered.

‘If he approaches you, just walk away. And if you have any trouble, come straight to me. But I warn you, anyone who goes along willingly with it will be dismissed straight away, without a character. We don’t want girls of that sort here at the Castle.’

They filed out. Rose caught up with Mabel and said, ‘I’ve something to say to you.’

‘I’ve not done nothing,’ Mabel said automatically.

‘You think Mr Usingen was calling you a pretty girl? Men will say anything to get you to give them a fumble. And it wasn’t even a compliment.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘ Schmutzig doesn’t mean “pretty”, you stupid girl. It means dirty.’

Shock was followed by fury in her round pink face. ‘ Well! ’ she said, almost speechless.

Rose nodded. ‘He was laughing at you. Now get about your work.’

Unseen in the shadow of the boot room, where he had turned off the light and opened the door just as the girls streamed out of Mrs Webster’s room, Sam blinked back tears of chagrin.

The short way down to the village did not pass Hundon’s farm, but Rose was not in a hurry, and found reasons to go the longer way. Well, it was a nice walk. She certainly didn’t walk that way in the hope of seeing Michael Woodrow.

He had two cattle dogs now, Fly and Jess, and as she passed the gate one afternoon, allowing herself no more than a glance into the yard, Fly came running out with a single bark, and circled her as if trying to herd her in.

She stooped to caress him – he was a black and white Border collie, his face white with a black patch round the eye, which gave him a comical look – and as she straightened, Woodrow emerged from the barn and saw her, smiled and approached her.

‘Hello! I haven’t seen you for ages. Come in! Are you in a hurry?’

‘I can’t stay long,’ she said. Not for anything would she show eagerness.

‘Please. There’s something I want to show you.’

She turned into the yard, Fly frisking about her. ‘Your sister at home?’ she asked casually. His unmarried half-sister Martha kept house for him, and even he admitted she was an odd one. Rose had got the feeling she didn’t like her, and avoided her when possible.

‘No, she’s gone down to the village. Come into the barn.’

In the sweet-smelling, dusty half-light he led her to a pen made of hurdles, and there in a bed of straw lay his other dog, Jess, with a litter of squirming puppies.

‘Fly is the proud father.’ Fly was pushing his nose through the bars in an interested way. Jess wrinkled her muzzle in a silent warning, and Michael pushed the dog back with his foot. ‘He’s terribly interested in them, but Jess isn’t ready to let him near them yet.’

‘They look big and healthy,’ Rose commented. ‘I expect they get lots of milk, with all the cows around.’

‘Only mother’s milk for now,’ he said. ‘But Jess has a saucer of fore-milk every day, to get her strength back.’

‘Don’t the cats get jealous? I thought that was their treat.’

‘Oh, there’s enough for all of them. We’ve twenty-six in milk at the moment, plus four that are drying off.

’ They walked back outside to leave the bitch in peace, and stood outside the barn door in the cool, weak sunlight.

A gusty March wind was banging a loose shutter somewhere, and blowing rooks about the sky, as if it had shaken them out of the stand of elms where they nested.

‘You must be busy come milking time,’ Rose said, to keep the conversation going.

She liked the way the sun lines at his eye-corners were white in his brown face, and the way his mouse-fair hair grew a little tufty and unruly at the crown.

His shoulders and neck were strong, and his hands, though work-roughened, were shapely.

‘It’s quite a problem,’ he said. ‘Good milkers are hard to come by, and they don’t stick at it. Beattie Gale’s a good girl – you know Beattie?’

‘George Gale’s daughter?’ Gale was the estate carpenter. ‘Yes of course.’

‘Girls are lighter-handed than men, I prefer them. But girls keep going off and getting married. Half the time Martha and I have to make up the numbers. I wish we had machines to do the milking.’

Rose laughed. ‘Machines? That’s like something in a story.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said seriously. ‘People have been patenting milking machines for years and years, but none of them really works perfectly. There are always problems.’

‘How can a machine milk a cow?’ Rose asked, thinking of a factory full of steam-driven looms and spinning jennies.

‘Well, the early ones were just cups you fitted over the teats, connected to a hand pump, and they sucked the milk out. But continuous suction is uncomfortable for the cow. You see, when a calf nurses, it sucks and then pauses while it swallows, so there’s a sort of pulsing action.

And it pushes on the udder before it sucks to make the milk flow.

What’s needed is a machine that mimics what the calf does, but no-one’s perfected it yet. ’

‘I should think not,’ Rose said genially.

Seeing she was interested – or at least was pretending to be – he was pleased, and went on.

‘And a machine that milks one cow at a time is still only half the battle. Ideally, you’d want a machine that milked several cows at once and passed the milk into a common container, sealed against contamination. ’

‘I see you’ve got some big ideas,’ Rose said.

Woodrow smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I got up on my hobby-horse just then, and bored you.’

‘It’s not boring ,’ she said truthfully.

‘But not a suitable subject for a lady.’

‘I’m not made of paper. I can talk about cows’ teats without fainting,’ she said briskly. ‘So that’s your hobby-horse? Machines that milk?’

‘Not only that. I want to bring method and science into dairy farming. Too often it’s a muddy yard and manure-stained cows wandering into a dark, broken-down byre to be milked into a dirty bucket.

I’d like everything to be clean and hygienic.

Concrete floors and electric light. Find out by scientific observation which is the best sort of cow and what’s the best way to look after it.

Measure feed against milk output. Test for bacteria. ’

‘Doesn’t sound much like farming,’ Rose said.

‘No, I know. To the average person, a farmer is a chap leaning over a gate with a straw in his mouth.’

‘I’m not an average person,’ she objected.

‘I’m very well aware of that,’ he said, and there was a moment when the air between them seemed to ripple, and Rose suddenly felt very warm, despite the cold wind. ‘I say,’ he began, ‘I wonder if some time you’d like to—’

At that moment Fly barked and dashed past them, and they both turned to see Martha coming in through the gate with a basket on her arm.

She scowled at the sight of them, and said, ‘Got time to stand talking, have you? I just saw Mrs Ogg and she says Bill’s got a sore hand.

’ Bill Ogg was Woodrow’s yard man. ‘Tore it on a nail yesterday and now it’s swelled up and gone bad.

So he won’t be milking tonight.’ She looked at Rose. ‘Can you milk?’

‘I dare say I could,’ she said with dignity, ‘but I shall be busy. I must get on.’ She started away, and Woodrow gave his sister a cross look and followed her.

‘When’s your next afternoon off? Come to tea.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Rose said. ‘Your sister doesn’t like me.’

‘She doesn’t like anyone. Pay no heed. Come and have tea, so we can talk properly.’ He gave her an enticing smile. ‘I can talk about other things than milking machines. Or farm improvements.’

‘I don’t mind what you talk about,’ Rose said, and found herself smiling. And realised she had agreed to come to tea without actually saying it.

Fergus’s plan to show his bride around his estates began with Cawburn Castle, his ancestral home in Northumberland, where he took her directly from London. He issued a wide invitation to the family to join them for a house party.