Page 45 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘I should think not,’ Rose said genially.

Seeing she was interested – or at least was pretending to be – he was pleased, and went on. ‘And a machine that milks one cow at a time is still only half the battle. Ideally, you’d want a machine that milked several cows at once and passed the milk into a common container, sealed against contamination.’

‘I see you’ve got some big ideas,’ Rose said.

Woodrow smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I got up on my hobby-horse just then, and bored you.’

‘It’s not boring,’ she said truthfully.

‘But not a suitable subject for a lady.’

‘I’m not made of paper. I can talk about cows’ teats without fainting,’ she said briskly. ‘So that’s your hobby-horse? Machines that milk?’

‘Not only that. I want to bring method and science into dairy farming. Too often it’s a muddy yard and manure-stained cows wandering into a dark, broken-down byre to be milked into a dirty bucket. I’d like everything to be clean and hygienic. Concrete floors and electric light. Find out by scientific observation which is the best sort of cow and what’s the best way to look after it. Measure feed against milk output. Test for bacteria.’

‘Doesn’t sound much like farming,’ Rose said.

‘No, I know. To the average person, a farmer is a chap leaning over a gate with a straw in his mouth.’

‘I’m not an average person,’ she objected.

‘I’m very well aware of that,’ he said, and there was a moment when the air between them seemed to ripple, and Rose suddenly felt very warm, despite the cold wind. ‘I say,’ he began, ‘I wonder if some time you’d like to—’

At that moment Fly barked and dashed past them, and they both turned to see Martha coming in through the gate with a basket on her arm. She scowled at the sight of them, and said, ‘Got time to stand talking, have you? I just saw Mrs Ogg and she says Bill’s got a sore hand.’ Bill Ogg was Woodrow’s yard man. ‘Tore it on a nail yesterday and now it’s swelled up and gone bad. So he won’t be milking tonight.’ She looked at Rose. ‘Can you milk?’

‘I dare say I could,’ she said with dignity, ‘but I shall be busy. I must get on.’ She started away, and Woodrow gave his sister a cross look and followed her.

‘When’s your next afternoon off? Come to tea.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Rose said. ‘Your sister doesn’t like me.’

‘She doesn’t like anyone. Pay no heed. Come and have tea, so we can talk properly.’ He gave her an enticing smile. ‘I can talk about other things than milking machines. Or farm improvements.’

‘I don’t mind what you talk about,’ Rose said, and found herself smiling. And realised she had agreed to come to tea without actually saying it.

Fergus’s plan to show his bride around his estates began with Cawburn Castle, his ancestral home in Northumberland, where he took her directly from London. He issued a wide invitation to the family to join them for a house party.

Maud accepted. ‘I want you to see where I come from,’ she told her husband. ‘My childhood home.’ The prince, still a little bemused and infinitely tender, agreed readily.

Caroline was frank. ‘At this time of year? No, thank you. I still remember the chilblains I had when I was eleven.’

Giles refused politely for him and Kitty, saying that they already had engagements right up to Easter. ‘He could have taken her round some friends’ estates first, and gone north when the weather was better,’ he said to Kitty. ‘He’s going to give her a poor idea of England.’

‘I’ve never seen Cawburn,’ Kitty said, but he didn’t catch her slightly wistful tone.

‘You haven’t missed anything,’ he said.

Only Linda was eager for the trip. She still wanted to ingratiate herself with the prince. He was as rich as Giles, if not richer, and from what she had observed far less stingy.

Then Maud decreed that Rachel was to come with them. Rachel begged to be left behind, but Maud narrowed her eyes, suspecting some secret tryst was planned. ‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘Your place is with me. You were only allowed to stay at Ashmore to recover from your exertions, and I can see that you are recovered.’

Rachel went up to her room, and wrote a frantic letter to Angus, sprinkling the page with tears.

I know if once she takes me out of England I am doomed. I don’t know if she plans to come back to Ashmore before going to Germany. If she goes straight back to Germany, we must pass through London, and perhaps I can escape somehow from the station when we change trains. Oh, my love, I wish you were here to give me courage. I am so weak and foolish, but I will hold on to the best of my poor strength.

Kitty suggested hopefully to Linda that it would be good for Arabella and Arthur to see where their maternal family came from, but Linda replied shortly that since Fergus had seen fit to marry (she made it sound like a particularly egregious aberration) they had nothing to expect from Cawburn. The fact was that she had no intention of hampering herself with two children when she had successfully shrugged off that responsibility onto Giles, Kitty and Miss Kettel.

Cawburn Castle was set amid tall pine trees at the top of a steep cragside above a raging burn. It was built of grey stone and had a castellate, fortified air that appeared to set it in the time when the borderlands were wild and dangerous. In fact it dated only from the 1840s when Prince Albert, missing his homeland, had romanticised everything Scottish, and Maud’s grandfather had felt that Northumberland was close enough to Scotland to qualify. Inside, the fake-baronial had replaced the original baronial and was, in fact, more comfortable in many ways, wood panelling being cosier than bare stone walls, and edge-to-edge carpets an improvement over flagstones. But it was still a bleak place in winter, and the small resident staff were slow to respond to orders to light fires in every room and keep them burning brightly.