Page 24 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

‘I’ll look for you next Sunday,’ Alice said.

She had never particularly noticed the choir.

So he sang, she thought. Somehow, despite his massive frame – or even because of it – it fitted.

She remembered someone, long ago – could it have been their governess?

– saying that when birds sang in their innocence, they sang to God.

It was a nice thought, Axe Brandom, innocent too in some essential way, singing to the Maker.

But there was the question of the phoenix still to be settled.

‘Why would it rise from its own ashes? How did it get to be ashes?’ she pursued.

She liked to get to the bottom of things.

But Axe only shook his head – either didn’t know, or didn’t want to tell her.

Rachel nudged her and frowned, telling her not to converse so freely with strangers, she supposed.

But Rachel had asked the cyclist’s name, so she was in no position to object.

‘Do you live in the village?’ Alice asked next. Perhaps she could get him talking about himself.

He shook his head. ‘Got a cottage over the other side of the Carr,’ he said.

‘Is it nice there? I bet you see lots of birds.’

She’d said the right thing. He actually looked at her.

‘Any amount,’ he said. ‘Ducks and moorhens and coots. Woodpeckers, nuthatches, chaffinches. I had a starling last year – fox’d injured its wing.

I kept it in my kitchen a month till it healed.

Got tame as a Christian, it did, sit on my hand, take food from my fingers. ’

‘Oh, I wish I’d seen it!’ Alice said. ‘Have you still got it?’

‘Let it go once it could fly. You can’t keep wild things – ’taint right. Aaron Cutmore, he had a vixen once – had it from a cub.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Woodsman.’

What a good name for him , Alice thought. ‘Was it a pet?’ she asked.

‘Tame as anything. Lived in his old dog’s kennel at the back door.

But it broke its chain one night, bust into the brooder pens and killed two dozen pheasant chicks.

Mr Saddler nearly had a fit. Said it’d have to be shot when it come home.

But no-one never saw it again.’ He shrugged.

‘Musta died somewhere out there – couldn’t hunt, you see, trailing that old chain. ’

‘Oh, the poor thing!’ Alice cried.

‘Can’t keep wild things,’ Axe said again. ‘’Specially foxes – they always turn back to the wild.’

‘Have you got any animals now? Apart from Dolly?’ She caressed the soft ears, and the little bitch sneezed.

‘One or two. I got two cats. Hare with a broken paw – he’s nearly mended. Two young hedgehogs I took in last year, orphaned. They’ll go soon. And a jackdaw. Had him three years.’

‘I thought you said you couldn’t keep wild things.’

He shook his head, smiling. ‘Can’t get rid of him. He’s not in a cage or nothing, he can come and go as he likes. Seems like he chooses to stay.’

‘I bet he does,’ Alice said. I would . ‘What’s his name?’

‘Captain.’

‘Does he talk?’

‘ He thinks he does. Lot a gibberish. Clever, though. He can open boxes and find things.’

‘Oh, I wish I could see him!’ Alice cried.

She was sure Axe was on the verge of inviting her, but at the last minute he must have thought better of it, because he clucked to the pony instead to hurry it.

Rachel pinched her hand, and when she looked round, she was scowling and shaking her head.

So the rest of the drive went in silence.

They were delivered to the stable-yard at the Castle, explanations were exchanged with Giddins and Josh, Biscuit was untied, the basket swapped for the rope halter, and Axe drove off without a backward look, comically too large for the shabby little trap – except that Alice didn’t feel at all like laughing at him.

There were more explanations at dinner. With no company, Lady Stainton allowed the girls to dine down.

Unlike Giles, she would never have contemplated a tray, and since Sebastian had gone to his own house for a few days, having her daughters there was preferable to a tête-à-tête with Giles – or, more likely, long silences, because he did not seem to have developed any social small-talk.

Thank goodness, she thought, that Easter was approaching, when family members would come and stay to break up the monotony.

The girls had to explain first about the damage to the trap. Giles’s first thought was More expense . ‘How did you come to put it in a ditch?’ he demanded crossly.

‘Not all of it – only one wheel,’ Alice said. ‘And it wasn’t Ray’s fault – Biscuit was startled when the bicyclist came round the bend.’

The rest of the story followed. Lady Stainton paid little attention until it got to the part about Victor Lattery staying in the village with his aunt. ‘What’s a philanthropist?’ Rachel asked.

‘Someone who does good works,’ Giles answered her.

‘Oh, then she must be very respectable,’ Alice said, with a glance at Rachel, ‘and so must he. He said she’s called Miss Eddowes.’

The dowager’s face stiffened. ‘We don’t know her,’ she said, in an icy voice.

‘He said she lives—’ Alice began, but was quelled by a positively glacial look from her mother.

‘We do not know her.’

There was a brief, awkward silence. The girls exchanged a glance, and seemed on the verge of disastrously pursuing the subject when there was an interruption.

The second footman, William, came in with a telegram on a silver tray, which he handed to Moss, who examined it loftily, then stepped in stately mode across the room to Giles.

‘A telegram has just come for you, my lord,’ he said – As if , Alice thought, we didn’t know that!

Giles read it, and looked up. ‘It’s from Richard. He’s coming home tomorrow. Wants to be picked up at the station – the nine-fifty.’

‘Richard! Hooray! Oh, Giles, can we be the ones to fetch him?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘Moss, tell Mrs Webster to prepare Mr Richard’s room,’ said the dowager, neutrally. But even she looked pleased.

‘And send word to the stables to have the carriage ready to meet the train,’ Giles added. ‘I suppose it’s compassionate leave,’ he added to his mother.

‘Not very compassionate,’ Rachel said, ‘all these months later.’

Victor Lattery and Miss Eddowes were forgotten.

Richard Tallant was a little shorter than Giles, a little stockier in build, and was handsomer and more charming.

He was ‘the spare’, the sole reason for his existence being to guarantee the title should Giles die untimely.

But he had never minded that. He had inherited not only his father’s looks but his lack of introspection, while Giles had more of his mother’s reserve.

Not having to be serious and steady and take responsibility suited Richard perfectly.

He could enjoy life and leave Giles to stand the nonsense.

A second son traditionally went into the army, and that suited him too.

He loved horses and good company, and the army had not been engaged in any dangerous actions when he first got his commission.

He was a little put out when the second South African war broke out, but he anticipated no danger or hardship from being sent overseas.

And while he met, in fact, with both, it never dented his sanguine assumption that everything would turn out all right: the world, he believed without thinking about it, was designed specifically to ensure his happiness. On the whole, he had been proved right.

He was pleased to see his little sisters waiting for him on the platform as the train pulled in.

Rachel was starting to be very pretty – she would break hearts, he thought – and Alice had grown tall.

He climbed down, leaving his servant, Speen, to see to the luggage, and enjoyed their excited greetings and their concerned cooings over the sling on his left arm.

‘It’s nothing, just a scratch,’ he assured them, then winced as Alice hugged him.

‘Not that much of a nothing! ’Ware the wing, old thing! ’

‘Oh, sorry – but it’s so lovely to see you!’ Alice cried. ‘I don’t think you’ve changed a bit.’

‘Only you’re very brown,’ Rachel added.

‘It’s hot out there in South Africa,’ he assured her solemnly. ‘I thought you knew.’

They walked to the gate, where Giles was waiting. He, Richard thought, looked older, and even more grim than the last time he’d seen him, as if the earldom wasn’t bringing him much jollity.

The brothers shook hands. ‘Wounded?’ Giles said, scanning Richard’s face anxiously.

‘Just a nick. Almost healed.’

‘So it’s sick leave? You’ll have to go back?’

‘Not me,’ Richard grinned. ‘My tour’s finished, and I’ve declined to sign on again. I’m out and clear.’

‘But …’ Giles began, wondering how Richard was going to support himself. Or did he believe the estate would do it?

Richard went on quickly, before anything else could be said, ‘I calculated that you’d need me here. Must be a lot to do. I’m yours to command, brother of mine. I’m here to help.’

Giles frowned, but this wasn’t the place to pursue it.

Richard processed to the carriage, with people smiling and greeting him, and many hands to shake – a bit like his own homecoming, Giles thought, except that there was no element of duty in it: these well-wishers simply liked Richard and were glad to see him again.

I wish I could do that , Giles thought. A young woman held up her baby to Richard, and he kissed its cheek, then kissed hers as well, and made everyone whoop and laugh.

‘Mr Richard’s handsome, isn’t he?’ Dory said, as she walked with Rose down the long basement corridor they called Piccadilly, towards the dining-room and the servants’ dinner.

‘Yes, and good-natured too,’ Rose answered.

James, overtaking them with his rapid, jerky walk, said, ‘You’ve already got William following you like a little dog. Isn’t that enough?’

‘No-one was talking to you,’ Rose spat back.

‘And I wasn’t talking to you. Miss Dory here seems to think every male in the house has got to drool over her.’