Page 86 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘My nephew has gone missing, Brandom,’ Giles explained. ‘Told his sister he was running away to London to seek his fortune, but he was seen heading this way. He’s only eight years old and not country wise.’

Axe said, ‘I haven’t seen him, my lord. But I’ll keep an eye out. Or would you like me to search the area?’

‘Yes, if you will. I’ve got everyone I can out, on foot and on horseback. He was last seen by Crown Woods heading in this direction.’

‘I don’t think he’s in my woods. I’ve heard no disturbance,’ said Axe. ‘A tired boy would likely head downhill.’ He looked at the sky. ‘Some showers coming over. He’ll try and shelter.’

‘Yes, check any outbuildings.’

‘I’ll go out on my horse, my lord, cover more ground.’

‘Thanks,’ said Giles, and turned Vipsania. He felt oddly comforted that Axe Brandom was going to look – as though that made all the difference! It was the quality of the man, he thought, to reassure.

When Vipsania was tired he headed back to the Castle, hoping he would find a tear-stained and chastened boy being simultaneously comforted and scolded by the females of the house. But Giddins, the head man, took Vipsania’s rein from him as he dismounted and said there was no news yet. When he went into the hall, Afton confirmed the negative. ‘Should I send down to the village, my lord, and inform the police?’

‘Might be as well,’ Giles said. It was a very big world out there, and it would start to get dark soon. Inwardly he cursed his sister for abandoning her children to him. Hadn’t he enough unwanted responsibility with the estate? Afton was looking at him with sympathy, but he felt suddenly lonely. There was no-one to share the burden with him. Even Kitty had gone off to London to enjoy herself.

‘We’ll find him, my lord,’ Afton said.

‘Will we? How many trees are there in Buckinghamshire, do you think? How many miles of hedges, acres of field?’

Afton had no answer to that. He said, ‘Shall I have water sent up for a bath, my lord? You’ve been in the saddle for a long time.’

This was about the time of day when Giles usually paid a visit to the nursery. But Kitty had taken the boys with her to London. No comfort there. ‘I suppose a bath is the next best thing,’ he said wearily.

In the morning Giles woke to no news. He began really to worry. Not just a lost boy, now, but possibly an injured or dead boy. There were so many hazards out there for an unwary small child – quarries and bogs and rivers – and he’d been without food and shelter through the night. He felt a twinge of conscience that he resented but could not ignore. When Afton came to wake him he said he would take his breakfast upstairs with Arabella and Miss Kettel.

When he had addressed the staff and arranged for the search parties to go out again, he climbed to the top of the house, expecting to find Arabella frightened and tearful. But she seemed unaffected by her brother’s absence – perhaps she hadn’t the imagination to think him in danger. She was excited by the novelty of Giles sitting down to breakfast with them, not to mention the dogs, and prattled away to him, once she had got over her tongue-tied shyness. But he could see that Miss Kettel appreciated the gesture. Apart from natural anxiety for her charge, she must be thinking she was sure to be dismissed for losing him.

Giles spent another day in the saddle, wearyingly unproductive. Flocks of small clouds like floating sheep passed across the sky, clustering together now and then to drop brief showers of thin rain, making Vipsania lay back her ears and fidget. The paths became slippery, but quickly dried when the sun came out again. Everything smelt wet, green and fertile. The Ashmore bull, Roderick, was out in a field with some of his wives, and turned to face Giles as he passed. He stamped a warning hoof, but the grass was too delicious to waste time being bullish, and he soon returned to it.

Up at the top of the hill, on Topheath land, real sheep scampered away from him, with the ability of their kind to be startled today by the same thing that had startled them yesterday. He stopped and dismounted to give Vipsania a breather. From the crest he could look down the Ash Valley one way and the Wye valley the other. He could barely see a man-made structure, only the top of a distant church spire poking above the treeline, and a thread of smoke from someone’s chimney. He saw only miles and miles of rolling, thickly wooded hills, looking much as they must have in every century past since the ice retreated: intensely green, so green they almost hurt the eye; silent, massively indifferent to man’s petty concerns. How would you ever find one small child in all that?

Home again, and little as he wanted to, he was working out in his mind how to phrase a letter to Linda and his mother. But as he turned in at the stable yard he sensed the atmosphere even before Giddins hurried up to catch Vipsania’s rein.

‘News, my lord!’ he cried.

‘He’s been found?’ Giles said, heart lifting as he swung his leg over the cantle and jumped down.

‘A message come in just now, my lord, a boy sent by Axe Brandom. Says he’s found young Lord Cordwell, but he needs help, and to bring shovels and rope.’

‘What on earth for?’

Giddens looked anxious. ‘I couldn’t rightly say, my lord. The boy wasn’t clear about it – too young to carry a message right, but I s’pose he was all Axe could find.’

‘And where are we to send ropes and shovels to?’ Giles asked, patience fraying.

‘The motte, my lord. I’ve got the pony harnessed to one of the carts and we’re loading what we think might be needed, but I’m at a bit of a loss, my lord, not knowing what to expect.’

‘Very well, I’ll go with it myself. Throw in some forks and a mallet as well, and an axe. And get some blankets from the house, and a flask of brandy – ask Mr Afton. I’ll take six men – whoever you think best.’

Giddins selected five of the grooms, and a stable boy, Oscar. Afton came out himself with the blankets and brandy, and was also carrying a canvas bag and a first-aid box from below stairs. Giles eyed it and said, ‘Good thought, though I hope to God we don’t need it. What’s in the bag?’

‘Food and water, my lord. He’s been out for some time. And I’ll come too, if I may, my lord.’ Giles looked a query, and he said, ‘I have some knowledge of first aid. In case it’s needed.’

‘Come, if you like.’ Giles turned away, preparing to mount his tired horse.

The day was declining, but the sky had cleared. To the west, the last of the sheep-clouds, their fleeces now edged with rose and gold, were streaming away towards a plum-indigo bar that floated like a distant island in a transparent sea. Giles kept his mind away from useless speculation about what they might find that required shovels and ropes. The grooms trudged along beside the cart, hardly talking – they had been on horseback all day, but walking was at least a change of exercise. Now and then there was the scratch of a lucifer and the sneeze-sharp tang of first-lit tobacco. Someone coughed. Someone cursed softly when he tripped on a tussock. The harness creaked rhythmically as the pony Biscuit plodded along; now and then a horseshoe rang on a stone, a wheel rattled as it jolted over it.