Page 92 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)
Alice thought it was lovely having Rachel back, and to have Christmas to plan for – like the old days, but better, because their mother had never been a great one for Christmas.
Even Linda, annoyed at having been dragged away from London, where she had been perching since being sent back from Biarritz, cheered up at the thought of some festivities, threw herself into planning, and took more notice of her children than for many years past. She even begged them a holiday from Miss Kettel to take them out riding – Miss Kettel, harbouring a cold, was glad to give in and take to the big armchair by the nursery fire, with a shawl and a novel and a handkerchief sprinkled with friar’s balsam.
Alice enjoyed long, cosy talks with Rachel – at least at first, until all the new matter had been gone through.
But when it got to the point where every conversation became about Angus, when even playing with the babies became coloured with the putative future babies of Angus and Rachel, she began to be aware that having her sister at home and constantly demanding her attention curtailed her freedom.
She wanted to go and see Axe. She had a new book to lend him – The Call of the Wild by Jack London – which Giles had bought months ago and finally finished.
She had borrowed it from him on her own behalf and had galloped through it.
She thought Axe would enjoy it because it was about animals.
And she had a Christmas present to give him – a sketch she had done of him, which she had been almost satisfied with.
She had tinted the drawing with water-colours, and framed it, using the frame, glass and backing from an old print from the day-nursery.
The print was an Ernest Nister of Little Boy Blue asleep in the hay with his horn on his lap.
The print had torn slightly as she got it out, and she’d had to conceal it in her dresser drawer, but without remorse.
She had always despised it, thinking the boy poor-spirited for letting the sheep wander, perhaps into harm’s way, while he dozed stupidly.
You always put your animals’ comfort before your own, as she had been taught by Giddins when put astride her first pony at the age of three.
A day came when a grey sky and bitter cold outside had Rachel and Linda both retreating to the Peacock Room to share Kitty’s good fire.
They all had work – Kitty embroidering a bib for Alexander, Rachel pin-tucking a blouse for herself, and Linda fiddling with a piece of crochet, which she had been intending as a hat for one of her children but, since it seemed to have a mind of its own and kept going out of shape, might end up as a scarf instead.
Alice watched them for a moment, contemplated drawing the group, and then, restless, said, ‘I think I’ll go for a ride. Does anyone want to come?’
‘Too cold,’ said Rachel, without looking up.
Linda didn’t even reply. Kitty looked up and smiled, but said, ‘Not me. Are you sure you want to go out? It’s not a nice day at all.’
‘Can’t stay in,’ Alice said. ‘I’ve been sitting too long.’
She had underestimated how cold it was. When she stepped out of the side door, the nearest one to the stables, the freezing air bit her, like a spiteful dog, and she gasped as the first breath seared her lungs.
The stable yard was deserted, the grooms all having retreated inside.
Even the yard dog was inside his kennel and declined to come out or bark.
Someone must have alerted Josh to her presence, because he came limping out of the tack-room, letting out a cloud of smoke.
They had lit a lamp in there, probably more for the warmth than the light, but its yellow glow spilling onto the frost-rimed cobbles made the grey day look darker.
‘I’m going for a ride,’ Alice told him.
He hunched into his collar and said, ‘It’s too cold, my lady. I think it’s going to snow.’
‘It’s not. And I’ll be warm enough when I’m moving.’
‘D’you want me to come with you, my lady?’ Josh asked, clearly hoping for the answer no.
She almost said yes, just to tease him, but that would not answer her purposes. ‘No. And you don’t have to saddle Pharaoh – I’ll do it myself. Just hand me out his tack.’
Josh hesitated, clearly tempted, but said, ‘I’ll do it, my lady.’
Pharaoh, annoyed at being dragged from his warm stable, laid back his ears sharply as he was led out, and nipped, his breath making clouds.
When Josh pulled up the girths, he cow-kicked.
While Josh tried to throw her up into the saddle, he skittered about, his hoofs slipping on the cobbles, and when she was up he tried to nap back to his stable.
But she was glad she’d decided to go out.
The cold was exhilarating: her cheeks stung with it, and she wanted to gallop.
‘Looks like snow, my lady,’ Josh said again. ‘You don’t want to get caught in it.’
‘I’ll turn for home as soon as the first flake falls,’ she promised. ‘But I don’t think it will. It’s too cold for snow.’ And she turned the reluctant Pharaoh and drove him firmly out through the gate and into a canter up the hillside.
The sombre sky was like pewter, and the sun, reaching weakly for its winter zenith, showed as a swollen red ball through the indigo brush-strokes of bare branches.
The last part of the route to Castle Cottage was under the lee of the woods, and by then rider and horse were warmed up, though Alice’s hands were burning with cold.
She turned down the track under the trees at last, and into an eerie stillness and twilight.
Pharaoh’s hoofs made no sound, and the birds were all silent, huddled away somewhere.
But there was sound coming from the cottage, the intermittent thud and crack of logs being split; and at the same moment she smelt the delicious tang of woodsmoke. As she rode into the yard, Dolly gave a single welcoming bark to announce her, and Axe came out from the smaller barn.
‘Wasn’t expecting any visitors today,’ he said. ‘Colder’n a witch’s curse.’
‘Josh says it’s going to snow,’ she replied, halting Pharaoh and loosing her foot from the stirrup.
‘Might do,’ he said. ‘Hard to say.’
‘I said it was too cold to snow. Anyway, I’ve been cooped up indoors for days. My sister’s back, and she had so much to tell me, I had to sit and listen to her.’
He stood his long-handled axe carefully against the door frame and came to jump her down. He was a patch of cheerful colour in the grey day, wearing a red woollen shirt – he had taken off his jacket when the exercise made him warm.
‘My hands are frozen,’ she said. ‘The rest of me’s all right, though.’
‘Give ’em here,’ he said. She pulled off her gloves and held out her hands, and he folded them between his own, which were hot from the axe-handle. ‘Bet ol’ Pharaoh didn’t like coming out.’
‘He tried to bite Josh, then he tried to kick him.’
‘We’ll put him in with Della, she’ll like the company. Hands all right now?’
‘Yes, thanks. Have you been out today?’
‘Course we have. Bit o’ cold don’t stop us. Ready for a cup of tea now, though.’ They led Pharaoh towards the stable. ‘Heard Lady Rachel was back, and his lordship and her ladyship. Weren’t long in Germany, were they?’
‘You always know everything,’ she marvelled. ‘I think the birds must tell you.’
He gave his most cat-like smile. ‘How was the wedding?’
‘Rachel said it was odd. I can imagine – it’s strange to think of one’s mother marrying someone else.’
‘She’s not that old, your mother.’
‘It’s not age so much as – well, they sort of come as a set, you know, mother and father. When you’ve grown up with them.’
‘I expect we’ll see him here some time, your mother’s new husband. Prince of somewhere?’
‘Usingen. It’s near Frankfurt.’ His smile said he didn’t know where Frankfurt was, either. ‘They’ll be in England some time next year. They’re doing a sort of grand tour of all their relatives, and he has a lot, according to Rachel, so it’ll take a while before they get round to us.’
She spent a few minutes petting Della, then had to say hello to Cobnut, who was in the barn, and the cats who were keeping him company. ‘Like a hot-water bottle he is to them,’ Axe said. ‘Sit on his back when he’s standing up, then when he lies down they curl up along his belly.’
‘I expect they keep him warm, too,’ Alice said.
‘True. Nothing so warm as a cat on your lap of an evening.’
Inside the house it was warm and welcoming with the fire glowing in the range and the kettle steaming thoughtfully on the slow plate.
Dolly hurried past them straight to the hearth.
Another cat, a smart ginger tabby, that had slipped in with them, darted into the scullery to see if there was anything left in Dolly’s food bowl, then stalked daintily, with a slight swerve to rub Axe’s legs, to the fire, sat down beside the dog and started a thorough wash.
‘What’s in the satchel?’ Axe asked, as she pulled it off over her head.
She showed him. ‘A new book for you. I’ll take back Oliver Twist if you’ve finished it.’
‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘But ’nother couple of these long evenings’ll do it.’
‘I’ll take it next time, then.’
‘What’s this new book?’
‘I think you’ll like it. It’s about sled dogs, somewhere up in the north of Canada. About one in particular that has all sorts of adventures. It runs away and joins the wild wolves in the end.’
He took it with a sort of cautious reverence, the way he always handled books, which touched her. ‘Are you sure it’s all right, me borrowing all these books?’ he asked, not for the first time.
‘Nobody else reads them,’ she said. ‘And I know you’ll take care of them.’
He laid the book carefully on the dresser before filling the pot from the kettle, putting it on the table, and taking down the cake tin. ‘See what you think of this,’ he said, removing the lid.
She peered in. ‘Fruit cake. It looks good. Which one of your sisters made it?’
‘Made it myself. First effort. Might be terrible.’
‘I’m sure it’s not.’