Page 35 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

She needed no more encouragement, but sat quickly as though only a thread of politeness had been holding her back.

Richard watched in amazement as her fingers ran across the keys so fast he could hardly see them, releasing a flood of sound such as he’d never heard before.

He’d had no interest in music until then.

He never went to concerts, and though hostesses sometimes held ‘musical soirées’, there was no need for a guest to listen.

Flirting and whispered conversation beguiled the performances, and one could always slip out of the room for a smoke if particularly bored.

Little girls like his sisters learned to thump out ‘pieces’ on the piano as part of their training for marriage, but he had never heard playing like this.

The rippling tune – he had no better word for it than ‘tune’, though he knew it was much more complex than that – poured and tumbled and sparkled like a mountain stream rushing downhill, and only when she abruptly stopped playing did he discover he had actually been holding his breath.

Mrs Sands had been watching him. ‘She is good, isn’t she?’ He groped for a word. ‘Miraculous,’ he said.

She smiled, satisfied. ‘It’s a very nice instrument,’ she said, ‘and we are more grateful than I can say. I shall be able to teach, and Chloe will be able to practise. But I wish you could hear her play on a concert piano – a grand. Then you would really know how good she is.’

He didn’t know what to say. He thought of all the grand pianos he must have walked past in his life, in the great houses of relatives and acquaintances.

To him they had been merely large items of furniture, no more significant than a marble-topped console on which he laid his hat; and to judge by the array of silver-framed photographs and bowls of flowers they so often carried, their owners probably thought the same.

He wished, suddenly and foolishly, that he could conjure one from its forgotten corner of a drawing-room for Miss Sands to work her magic on.

But even if he had the power, there would be no room for it here.

She had stood up now, and turned to him with a shy smile and said, ‘Thank you, sir. With all my heart.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing, nothing at all,’ he mumbled. ‘Well, I had better be going.’ He felt obscurely disappointed to have come to the end of his association with them.

Mrs Sands held out a hand to stay him. ‘Oh, Mr Tallant,’ she said, ‘would you – is it too much to ask? – would you do us the honour of dining with us one evening?’ He hesitated, thinking of his engagements with Giles, which took up most evenings.

She went on, ‘It would only be a simple meal and we eat rather early, I’m afraid – at six, usually … ’

That would enable him to be on hand for Giles at nine or thereabouts, and evening engagements rarely started earlier. ‘I should like that,’ he said.

May brought fine weather and long, light evenings, and with them more freedom for Rachel and Alice, who could be out of doors all day, as long as they arrived clean and dressed for dinner.

Amusing Linda’s children was easier to do outside.

Long walks, fishing for sticklebacks, collecting wild flowers, spotting birds and butterflies, paddling in the Ash – all kept them busy and tired them out, so that their fretfulness and whining diminished and they became more agreeable companions.

Rachel decided to teach them to ride, using Biscuit, the trap pony, and Goosebumps, the flea-bitten grey pony that pulled the lawn mower and roller, both very quiet.

Alice helped her, but one Sunday after church, feeling restless, she left Rachel to it, and took Pharaoh out for a ride.

It was Josh’s day off, and the grooms were all absent (probably asleep somewhere, she thought) when she reached the stable-yard, but she told the boy on duty that she didn’t need to be accompanied.

If she had to dismount for any reason, she could find a gate or stile to remount from.

It was glorious to be out alone. Pharaoh was fresh and wanted to gallop, so she let him, revelling in the freedom from Josh, whose disapproval ground her down, like an over-sharpened pencil.

Galloping was an easier pace at sidesaddle than cantering, and she adored the wind rushing past her face, and the sound of Pharaoh’s pounding hoofs and snorting breaths.

She let him run until he slowed naturally, then pulled down to a walk, and idled along, enjoying the clean air, the smells of grass and leaves, and the birdsong.

She rode without thinking about her destination, but finding she had almost reached the hamlet of Ashmore Carr, she wondered suddenly about Axe Brandom, and where his cottage was.

He had said ‘out past the Carr’, which meant on this side of it.

He’d invited her to call in and see his animals, and he should be at home on a Sunday.

Seeing a boy just disappearing into the trees with a home-made fishing rod and jam jar, she called to him, and when he came lounging reluctantly up to her, she asked if he knew where Axe lived.

‘The blacksmith?’ he said. He pointed. ‘Down that way. Go on a bit, and there’s a big ole bush and a track along of it what goes right to his house.’

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He looked at her doubtfully. ‘He don’t have a smithy there. ’ve you lost a shoe, miss?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I just wondered where he lived. I knew it was somewhere hereabouts. Go along now.’

She watched him go, until he reached the trees, then sent Pharaoh on. She found the big old bush and the track easily enough, hesitated a moment, then turned onto it. He’d invited her, after all. He couldn’t be cross.

The track did lead straight to the cottage, and ended there, in a beaten yard.

It was a stone cottage, with a slate roof, and several wooden outbuildings tacked on.

The front door stood open, and as soon as she arrived, Dolly came bustling out, barking officiously.

‘It’s only me,’ she said to the dog; and Axe appeared at the open door, wiping his mouth with a dishcloth.

‘I’m sorry,’ she called to him. ‘Did I disturb your dinner?’

‘Just finished,’ he said. ‘’Twas only a bit o’ pie.’ He advanced and took hold of Pharaoh’s rein, looking up at her with, she thought, some reserve.

‘You did say I could call in if I was passing,’ she apologised. ‘To see your animals. But I can go away again if you’re busy.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘’Tis all right. Surprised, that’s all. D’you want to get down?’

She needed no further invitation. She freed her legs and let him jump her down, enjoying the feeling of his big hands on her waist. It surprised her, because she had never even noticed when Josh did it.

Without a word, Axe led Pharaoh to a ring fixed in the cottage wall, tied him with a piece of rope and loosened his girth.

He went into one of the outhouses and came out with an armful of hay, which he put down in front of the horse, patting his neck as he began happily pulling at it.

All the while, Alice watched him, while crouched on her haunches petting Dolly, who leaned against her knees, eyes closed in bliss. When Axe finished with Pharaoh he turned to look at his visitor. ‘She’ll stand there all day for that.’

‘She’s got her figure back,’ Alice said. ‘She’s had the pups?’

He nodded. ‘In the scullery. Made herself a nest under the sink. Four on ’em.’

‘Oh, could I see?’ Alice cried.

He said, as if it were a caveat, ‘You’ll have to come inside.’

‘Do you mind?’ she asked bluntly.

‘ I don’t,’ he said. ‘But it’s not grand.’

‘Well, nor am I,’ she said. He grunted and turned, and she followed him in, with Dolly pushing past her to hurry on ahead.

Inside it was dark, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She smelt a bit of coal from the range, a bit of dog, a bit of leather, and the sharpness of lye soap.

Underneath all that there was the faint whiff, like mushrooms, of the damp that you always got in cottages like this, where the brick floor was laid straight on the earth.

She had entered any number of cottages, in the course of the poor-visiting her mother insisted on, and they generally had a whole lot of other less pleasant smells, of dirty bodies and privies and sickness.

All the smells of Axe’s cottage were clean ones.

Now she could see, and it was just one room.

The range was straight ahead of her, in the long wall opposite the door, alight, of course, but banked low, with two high-backed wooden chairs flanking it, and an open door to the left through which she could glimpse the scullery.

A big table occupied most of the space. A narrow bed, with a patchwork counterpane, was pushed up against the right-hand wall, and a dresser occupied the whole of the wall to the left.

There were two windows, one either side of the yard door, with window-seats under them, covered with red cloth, and lockers underneath.

Everything looked clean and scrubbed and bare, the house of a man who spent little time in it.

On the table a plate, knife and pewter mug were evidence of his meal; on the chimney shelf were more mugs, a tea tin – black with a pattern of pink roses – and a single ornament, a figurine of a shepherdess, about six inches high.

It intrigued her – it seemed an odd thing for such a large, masculine man to have – and she wanted to ask where he’d got it from, but felt it wouldn’t be manners to ask such questions so soon.

‘It’s not much,’ Axe said, watching her look around.

‘It’s very nice,’ she said, embarrassed to be caught looking.

‘Scullery,’ Axe said, and led the way. There was Dolly, in a box under the sink, with three squirming puppies tugging at her teats, while she gave her master a martyred look.

‘You said she had four,’ Alice said.