Page 44 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

Rose was just passing Harriot’s feed and seed store when Michael Woodrow came out and almost bumped into her. He pulled off his hat and said, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Hawkins. And where are you heading this fine day?’

‘Poining’s. For some tape and thread.’ She looked at the roll of baling twine he was carrying and didn’t return the question. ‘Well, I must get on,’ she said.

‘Why the hurry? Come and have a cup of tea and talk to me,’ he said.

‘I haven’t got time,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get back.’

‘Then I’ll walk with you.’ She said nothing, looking at him with a frown. He lowered his voice. ‘Rose,’ he said, ‘what’s wrong?’

She thought of Afton’s advice and sighed. ‘I’ve got something to tell you. Meet me by the Pack Bridge in a quarter of an hour.’

He looked about to argue, then nodded, and walked away in the opposite direction.

He was there at the bridge when she came along, sitting on the low parapet, hat in hand, and her heart gave an unruly flutter at the sight of him, so familiar and male, comfortable and exciting at the same time.

What would it be like to . . . ? She cancelled the thought.

After this conversation he would probably want nothing to do with her.

He stood up as she approached. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t come,’ he said. He examined her expression. ‘What have I done? You didn’t want to be seen walking along the high street with me?’

‘It wasn’t that,’ she said. ‘But when I tell you . . . you might be angry. I didn’t want . . . People are so nosy.’

‘This is not like you,’ he said. ‘You’re always so direct. Tell me what’s wrong, and we’ll see if we can’t make it right.’

She felt it would be easier to talk while moving, so she turned along the path beside the river, and he fell in beside her. And she told him about Martha’s cake, and the dog’s death.

‘Wait, wait,’ he said. He stopped, turning to face her. ‘Are you suggesting that Martha deliberately put poison in a cake and gave it to you?’

Rose looked at him steadily. ‘It’s what it seemed like to me.’

‘But – that’s madness! That dog could have died of anything at all!’

‘It was poison all right. I know what that looks like,’ she said.

‘And simply from that you conclude that my sister – my sister – tried to do away with you? Are you out of your senses?’

‘She hates me. You saw how she was when I came for tea that time.’

‘She takes time to get used to people, that’s all. It’s hard for her to cope with new faces. Once she knows you, she’ll be all right.’

‘You didn’t see her face when she gave it me.’

He ran a wild hand backwards through his hair.

‘Martha’s a bit strange, I admit, but to jump to the conclusion that she’s trying to kill you .

. . All she’s done is show a bit of friendship in her own, odd way.

You must have a warped view of humanity, that’s all I can say.

’ He looked at her with a mixture of anger and perplexity.

‘What must you think of me, then? When I raise my hat to you, you must think I’m about to bludgeon you to death. ’

‘I was afraid of this,’ she said. ‘I thought you might react this way.’

‘How else can I react, when you accuse my sister of murder!’

‘I wasn’t going to tell you, but I thought I’d better put you on your guard, in case.’

‘In case she murders me as well?’

‘All right, you think there’s nothing in it, but I’ve warned you, that’s all. I can’t do any more.’

‘I think you’ve done quite enough. And if you’re so sure that you can’t trust me and mine not to do away with you, I shan’t ask you to tea again.

And I’ll be sure to cross the road when I see you coming in future.

’ And he walked away, back towards the bridge, with angry, jerky steps, kicking a stone into the river when it happened to lie in his path.

Rose watched him go, then turned in the other direction to walk down to the Old Toll Bridge and go home that way.

Her heart was sore, and she wondered if she had, after all, jumped to a mad conclusion.

To an outsider it must look like that, but she had been there, she had seen Martha’s expression.

If it was merely a peace offering why not offer her a slice of a larger cake, invite her inside to eat it with a cup of tea?

Why bake her a whole small cake to take away with her?

And she had seen the dog die, so soon after eating it.

Rat poison worked quickly, she knew that, and there were no barns near the place where it had come out of the hedgerow.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything to Michael – kept her suspicions to herself. Mr Afton’s idea that Martha might poison him did seem far-fetched. On the other hand, she could never have gone to the house again or eaten anything there, and how would she have explained that to Michael?

She walked on, with her usual brisk, head-up walk, as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

But inside she grieved. She had lost Michael Woodrow, the only man ever to pay her that sort of attention.

Long before she met him she had accepted that she would die a spinster, and now she cursed herself for having let down her guard and allowed herself to grow fond of him.

She should have known no good could come of it.

Lady Marlow leaned so far forward in her enthusiasm, the lace of her much tucked and puffed blouse was in danger of dipping into her tea. ‘You must be so thrilled that your dear brother is back in Town! And with his delightful new wife! One quite longs to meet her.’

There was an element of question in the statement.

The fashionable world had long ago decided that Lord Leake would never marry, and now he had burst back onto the scene with a young, handsome, foreign wife.

There was some comfort in her foreignness.

It would have been intolerable to have him prefer one locally grown daughter over another.

Caroline Manningtree merely smiled and sipped. She was grateful to Fergus and Giulia for driving the Sir Thomas Burton scandal, at least temporarily, from everyone’s minds.

‘Do they make much stay?’ Lady Marlow asked.

‘I believe a month or six weeks. Giulia wants to enjoy the Season before they go to Italy.’

‘One hears she is quite the intellectual. Almost a bluestocking?’ Lady Marlow was not sure whether to suggest any disapproval of this unfeminine tendency.

Lady Manningtree said, ‘She’s frighteningly clever to someone like me who has no brains at all, but not at all outrée . She loves the theatre and the opera and so on, but she loves to dance as well.’

‘I’m so glad to hear it,’ Lady Marlow said, seeming relieved.

Forbes opened the door at that moment and announced, ‘Lady Beaminster, my lady.’

Lady Beaminster rushed in. ‘My dear Lady Manningtree! I’ve just come from Lady Vane’s, and all the talk is of your dear brother and Lady Leake.

She is quite the sensation! So beautiful, so vivacious, so – Italian!

And her style of dressing so new and interesting!

You will laugh at me, but I quite rave about Lady Leake. ’

‘I had no idea you had met her,’ Lady Marlow said, with a hint of jealousy.

Lady Beaminster sat, her pouter-pigeon front even more tucked and lacy than Lady Marlow’s, her upper sleeves even fuller and more beribboned, her tilted-forward boat-shaped hat, filled to the brim with artificial flowers and berries, the very apogee of fashion.

‘Oh, I haven’t, but I hope to very soon!

They have taken the Rylance house in Grosvenor Square, I understand – so charming!

Edith Warminster had it for Pamela’s come-out in oh-three.

They had the floor of the ballroom completely re-laid for her ball because it was shockingly warped.

I remember the year before that , poor Georgie Sargent’s girl tripped and fell on it, and that was the end of their hopes of the Macclesfield boy for her, because it had to be said that she was a large girl and she did not fall gracefully.

She wallowed , poor child, and it’s the sort of image that sticks in the mind.

He married an American girl in the end – though I suppose he might have done that anyway, because Georgie told me, in strictest confidence, that Sir Harold had been unlucky with some Russian stocks and needed to recoup. What was I saying?’

Lady Marlow picked it up. ‘I do hope Lady Leake will give a ball. I suppose that is why they took Rylance House?’

‘Yes, you are right,’ Caroline said. ‘Giulia is set on a ball—’

‘Such a pretty name!’ Lady Beaminster interjected.

‘My dear papa favoured it for me, but there were expectations from a great-aunt, so I was named Mabel for her. And in the end nothing came of it, and she left her fortune to a hospital – such a mistake! Family must come first, don’t you think?

The sick we have always with us – isn’t that in the Bible?

I’ve never liked the name Mabel. But Julia – I’m surprised they have such an English name in Italy. ’

‘Spelled differently, I believe,’ Lady Marlow said, catching at the narrative as it sped by. She had her own agenda, and carried on determinedly. ‘Now, Caroline dear, I hope you will put in a word for me and persuade them to come to my little soirée next week.’

‘No, no, I’ve come specifically to ask you to bring them to my card evening,’ Lady Beaminster interrupted. ‘It’s too bad of you, Marjorie!’

Lady Marlow ignored the outburst. ‘The Argylls said they might drop in, and you know how artistic they are. Princess Louise is so clever. I think it would be nice for them to meet someone of superior intellect for a change.’

Lady Beaminster felt there was an insult somewhere in there, and was silent while she ferreted it out.

Caroline Manningtree was firm. ‘I’m afraid I have no influence over their diary. Giulia is very strong-minded and Fergus, of course, wants nothing but to please her.’