Page 68 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

‘How old were your brothers? I’m a grown man, in case you haven’t noticed.’

‘Men never grow up. And I have noticed.’ The first was said scornfully. The second hinted of a softening.

‘I’m glad to know it,’ he said. ‘Try it, it’s nice.’

She sipped. ‘I’ve never had mead before. Nice. It’s strong, though.’

‘Not as strong as the cider old Fegarty sells round the back of the Dog and Gun.’

‘You shouldn’t be going to a place like the Dog and Gun. It’s not respectable.’

‘I don’t. I’ve heard about it, that’s all.’

A band was setting up as quickly as the trestles were cleared, eager to be playing and get the dancing started. A squeeze-box and a trumpet and a couple of violins – one in the hands of Frewing, the hall porter from the Castle – and a banjo played by young Peter Brinklow from the Red House, who was only fifteen and too young for the official banquet. He would sooner be out here anyway, because he wasn’t allowed to play his banjo at home – his siblings said he made a terrible noise (but they were just being mean).

A tune struck up, a polka, and the first few couples jumped into action.

‘Dance with me?’ Woodrow said.

‘I’m not making a fool of myself to amuse you,’ Rose said.

It sounded like an automatic rejection – Woodrow was getting used to her manner – so he held out a hand to her insistently and said, ‘Come on. You know you want to. Doesn’t the music make you want to jig about? I can’t keep my feet still.’

She actually laughed, and he found she looked more different when she laughed from when she didn’t than anyone else he’d ever met. ‘You’re a fool,’ she said, but she took his hand, and he put his other on her waist and they joined the dancers. They danced in the road, which was shut to traffic for the day, while onlookers stood or sat on benches along the pavements and clapped their hands to the music.

Afton was strolling with Miss Hatto along the space kept clear by common consent between the onlookers and the buildings. The pubs were open, and there was a constant traffic in and out, and where side-turnings and courts made a little extra space, knots of people clustered, laughing and chatting.

‘It’s turned into quite a grand affair, hasn’t it?’ Afton said. ‘It must be gratifying to Axe Brandom that the village admires him so much.’

‘People will celebrate anything if there’s free beer attached,’ Miss Hatto said. He looked at her. She shrugged. ‘I don’t take away from what he did. But look at all this lot. Do they look as if they’re thinking about Mr Brandom and his bravery?’

‘I take your point. Everyone’s glad of an excuse to have fun. It comes rarely enough to most people.’ Through a gap in the heads and shoulders he caught a glimpse of the dancers. ‘I wish I could ask you to dance,’ Afton said, ‘but I suppose it wouldn’t fit our dignity, given our positions at the Castle.’

He hoped she would say, ‘Damn our dignity,’ or something to that effect, but her attention was elsewhere. ‘Do you know that woman?’ she asked. ‘Over there, standing by that house with the black window-frames, black coat and black hat with cherries on it.’

Afton looked. The woman seemed in her fifties, and must once have been quite good-looking, but now had a careworn face, with an indoor pallor. Her black coat was worn grey at the seams with age, the hat was shabby, and from under it her greying fair hair was escaping in wisps. Just an ordinary working-class woman: he’d have placed her as a laundress or factory worker, something of that sort.

‘I don’t know her,’ he said, ‘but I expect there are lots of people who’ve come from the villages around for the celebration. Why are you interested in her?’

‘She’s interested in you,’ said Miss Hatto. ‘She’s been following us around.’

‘In a crowd like this, everyone’s following everyone else around,’ he pointed out.

‘She stares at you like she knows you from somewhere.’

‘If she knew me, she’d come and talk to me, wouldn’t she?’

‘Depends what she knew you for.’

He looked at her uncertainly. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Are you accusing me of something?’

‘I don’t know what you did before you came here, any more than you know what I did. There’s any number of ways someone could know you. They don’t have to be bad ways.’

‘I think you’re imagining things,’ he said. He glanced across, and the woman was no longer there. ‘You see? She’s gone now. It was just a coincidence that you happened to notice her.’

Miss Hatto shrugged. ‘You can believe me or not, it doesn’t matter to me.’

He felt he’d offended her. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you. But I really don’t know that woman.’ Miss Hatto didn’t respond. They were just coming up to the Crown. ‘Will you allow me to buy you a cherry brandy?’ he asked.