Page 44 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘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.’