Page 94 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle

‘Why?’ is what she eventually managed to say.

He shook his head. ‘Asking myself the same thing.’ He scratched his head under his hat, staring at the wretched pony. ‘How the dickens will I get it back up the hill? I must be going soft in the head.’

Alice laid a hand briefly on his wrist. ‘You’ve saved a poor wretched creature from misery,’ she said.

With expert and not unkind hands, Axe forced the pony’s mouth open and looked at its teeth. ‘Not as old as I thought,’ he commented, letting it go. ‘About fifteen. Maybe when it’s fattened up, it might have a bit of work left in it. Few years, if we’re lucky. I suppose that bloke couldn’t afford to feed it.’ He stood staring at it in silence, thinking. The pony had no energy to do anything but stand there, unaware of the changes in its fortunes.

Alice said, ‘I’m so grateful to you for buying it. I couldn’t bear the thought—’

He looked down at her. ‘I know. I heard.’ He coughed. ‘Miss Eddowes – she’s a practical person.’

Alice felt shy. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here,’ she said.

‘Everybody’s here,’ he said. ‘Nobody misses the fair if they can help it. And I’ve got, er . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘The church stall’s selling some of my carvings,’ he finished, looking shy himself. ‘Some little things I made. Help out with the beetle fund.’

‘Oh, how lovely! I must see them! But what are we going to do with the pony?’

‘I been thinking,’ Axe said. ‘I thought of the stable behind the forge – there’s a spare stall, and Mr Rowse’d let me use it temp’ry. But I’m not sure this old boy’d make it down the far end of the village on his own legs. So I’m thinking I should walk him round to the sexton’s yard behind the church. Mr Gomperts lets me leave Della there. He’ll let me put the pony under the cart shed with a bit of hay. I brought Della a feed down in the cart, and I reckon she can go without for once. Pony can have it, and if he don’t drop dead from shock, I can keep him there a couple o’ days til he’s strong enough to go up the hill.’ He scratched at the pony’s neck and examined his fingernail. ‘Could do with a good grooming as well.’

‘You are so very kind,’ Alice exclaimed passionately. ‘And now I feel guilty for making you buy him. If I had any money, I’d pay you back, honestly I would.’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘No need. You can come and visit him when he’s up at my place, see how he gets on. You should think of a name for him as well. I’m no good at names. And now, I’d better get him moving.’

‘Can I help?’

‘No, m’lady, better you go and mingle. You don’t want to be seen with this old scarecrow of a pony. Don’t want people talking.’

‘As if I’d care!’

‘Go and enjoy the fair. I’ve got him,’ Axe said imperturbably.

* * *

Moss had no idea why he had asked Ada to come to the fair with him. He hadn’t known he was going to do it until the words were out of his mouth and, being Moss, it was issued less like an invitation than a summons. She would enjoy the fair a great deal more, he said, if she understood the background to it, the history, the traditions. And sweet, shy, pink-cheeked Ada had lowered her eyes and said, ‘Thank you, Mr Moss,’ in a whisper.

She looked even more enchanting in a grey skirt, white linen blouse and her Sunday hat of straw with a pink ribbon. ‘Most suitable,’ was all he allowed himself to say when she presented herself. There was a brake going down to take the servants, but he wouldn’t subject her to the inevitable talk if they got into it together; and, besides, he wanted the length of the walk to have her to himself. He loved to talk to her. She listened so quietly, and he felt himself grow powerful and eloquent in her service. He wanted to educate her, so that she could Better Herself. She was too good to be a housemaid all her life. She was lovely and good, and with the polish he could give her, could raise herself to be a lady’s maid, or even get a job in a shop – a lady’s outfitters perhaps, or something genteel of that sort.

Actually, a different ending to her story was lurking in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t yet bring himself to take it out and look at it directly. It was too beautiful, too precious, too delicate, like a butterfly’s wing from which the bloom would vanish with too much handling.

On the way down the hill, they passed a hedge in which wild summer roses were having a second flowering. He stopped, picked a spray and, with a bow, presented them to her. She took them rather awkwardly, as though wondering what to do with them, and he said, ‘Perhaps, pinned to your hat . . . They’d go so well with your pink ribbon.’

Between them, with one of her hat-pins, they accomplished this. The roses were already dropping their petals in the heat, and he was afraid they would be quite bare by the time they got down the hill, but he forgot the problem when a story came to his mind, which he took pleasure in relating to her.

‘There is an old legend that the gods named the rose queen of all the flowers. This, of course, was in pagan times, when the people believed in lots of different gods, not the One True God we worship today, you understand.’

‘Yes, Mr Moss.’

‘Well, the legend says that the nightingale fell in love with the beauty of the flower queen, so much so that he flew down and tried to embrace her.’ In his mind, he was the noble, the eloquent nightingale, she the exquisite, beautiful rose. ‘Such was his passion, that he did not notice her thorns. As he embraced her, they pierced his breast, and drops of his blood fell on the ground.’

He paused. She frowned a little. ‘Did—?’ she began, and stopped, too shy to go on.

‘Yes, my dear. Ask what you wish,’ he said kindly.

‘Did he die?’ she managed.

‘No, no! The legend is that where the drops of his blood fell, new roses grew.’

‘Oh,’ she said.