Page 35 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘Hullo, Mr Rowse. He’s almost asleep,’ Alice called with amusement. ‘Mind he doesn’t go down!’

‘Ar, he’s a soft ’un, all right,’ said Rowse. ‘Likes to put all his weight in my hand.’ At the sound of voices, his assistant, Axe Brandom, came out of the forge, wiping sweat from his brow with a grubby cloth, blue eyes squinting at them as a stray beam of sunlight broke though the grey cloud bank. ‘Something I can do for you, my ladies?’ Rowse asked, dropping the hoof and straightening up.

‘We had a little accident,’ Alice said. ‘Wheel went down a ditch. I thought p’r’aps you’d have a look and make sure it’s not broken or anything.’

Both smiths came forward. The girls jumped down. ‘Nearside,’ Alice said, going to Biscuit’s head. The carthorse craned round to see what was going on.

‘How’d you come to do a thing like that, miss?’ Rowse asked.

‘Oh, a bicyclist came round the corner too fast and startled poor Biscuit. He helped us out of the ditch afterwards, though.’

Rowse squatted to examine the wheel. Axe, bent over him, raised his head to say, ‘Bicyclist?’

‘A young man. In tweed knickers. He said his name was Victor Lattery.’

‘Oh, ar, I saw him go by earlier on,’ Axe said. ‘Come to live with his aunty, I did hear tell. Miss Eddowes.’

Alice and Rachel exchanged a glance. Live with. That sounded permanent.

Examination over, Rowse eased himself to his feet. ‘Bit of a crack here, in the axle arm.’

‘Is that bad?’ Alice asked, wondering whether they would get into trouble.

‘Oughter be fixed,’ said Rowse. ‘Might go any time, specially if you was to bump over a rock or summat.’

‘But we can drive home?’

Rowse shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t risk it. That road up to the Castle’s in a state. Wouldn’t want you ladies taking a tumble.’ He gave them a small smile, a whiteness in the blackness of his face. ‘My reputation’d take a tumble if I was to let you.’

‘But how shall we get home, then?’ Rachel asked, too anxious to laugh at his joke.

The two men exchanged one of those looks in which questions were asked and answered without words. ‘We got a little cart out the back,’ said Rowse. ‘Axe here’ll drive you home.’

The cart was shabby and old, but Axe laid a clean blanket over the seat. ‘Don’t want to mess up your nice frocks,’ he said shyly. He harnessed up an elderly brown pony, attached Biscuit to the back with a rope halter, and invited the girls to get in. Rachel climbed up, and as Alice prepared to follow, a stout little Jack Russell bitch came bustling out and demanded her attention.

‘She’s sweet!’ she exclaimed squatting to scratch behind the ears. ‘Is she yours? What’s her name?’

‘Dolly,’ Axe said. ‘She’s in pup.’

‘Oh, how wonderful.’

‘Daft old thing,’ he said, smiling at the dog. ‘Never likes me out of her sight.’

‘Oh, then can’t she come with us?’ Alice pleaded.

‘’Fyou don’t mind. She mid have dirty feet.’

‘I’m already muddy from the ditch. My coat can take it.’

So they drove off, with Axe at the reins and Dolly enthroned on Alice’s lap, facing forward with an air of intense interest. Axe was too big for the trap, like an adult in a child’s pull-cart, and his hands, Alice noted, were enormous – the reins just disappeared in them. But there was something very gentle about him, and he kept a light contact with the pony’s mouth, not jerking or pulling as she had often seen men do.

The forge was a place of interest to the girls, particularly to Alice, who had often had long conversations with Mr Rowse while one of the horses was shod. So they knew Axe Brandom by sight – he was one of a large local family, and the elder brother of their own groom Josh – though had never had occasion to talk to him. Alice looked at him sideways now under her lashes, impressed by the size and presence of him. She noted the fine golden hairs over his cheekbones, illuminated by that same stray sunbeam, the nice straightness of his nose, like something architectural, the curve of his lips … She shivered suddenly.

He glanced sideways at her. ‘All right, miss? Hope you didn’t take cold, waiting about?’

‘No, not at all,’ Alice said, and suddenly wanted to keep him talking. ‘Do you know Miss Eddowes?’

‘Seen her at church,’ he admitted. ‘Never spoken to her. Mended her gates once,’ he remembered. ‘New hinges.’