Page 85 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘Young Lord Cordwell seems to have gone missing, my lord,’ said Afton. He beckoned Miss Kettel forward.

‘We were having a lesson in astronomy,’ she explained. ‘I was only absent for a moment, to get a ball out of the cupboard to represent the planet Mars, and when I returned, he had gone.’

‘We searched the house, my lord,’ Afton said, ‘in case he was hiding, but one of the stable boys, Bobby, thought he saw him on the track going out towards Crown Woods.’

‘Have you sent anyone out to look for him?’ Giles asked.

‘Not yet, my lord. I’ve only just heard.’

Giles cursed very softly, then called Arabella forward. She had just turned ten, and was a plain child, with a nose too big for her face, and freckles, and impossible mouse-coloured hair that never looked smooth. Her stout, undeveloped body was packed into an unbecoming dress of dull red-brown stuff. She had a look of her mother about her. Her late father had been quite a handsome man, but unluckily she hadn’t taken after him.

‘What’s all this about?’ he asked her. Her eyes slid about. ‘Where is Arthur? I know you know something.’ He grabbed her shoulders, not roughly, but with intent. ‘Where has he gone? You must tell me. He’s only a little boy. He could get into trouble, he could be hurt. You’re older than him, you’re supposed to look after him.’

‘I told him not to,’ she said, defending herself.

‘Arabella!’ Miss Kettel said in shocked tones. ‘You told me you knew nothing about it.’

She wriggled out of Giles’s grip. ‘Can I go out riding now?’

‘There’ll be no more riding for you if you don’t tell me everything,’ Giles said. ‘Where has he gone?’

She sighed, then said, in a mutter, ‘He’s run away.’

It took patient questioning to prise the story out of her. They had been reading the story of Dick Whittington, and he had decided to emulate the hero and run away to London, where the streets were paved with gold, to seek his fortune. ‘Only he didn’t have a cat,’ Arabella said. ‘So he was going to take Goosebumps.’

Giles looked at Afton.

‘The boy Bobby saw was on foot,’ Afton said. ‘I’ll check with the stables if Goosebumps is missing.’

Giles turned back to Arabella. ‘London’s a long way. What did he take with him?’

‘He wanted to make a bundle on a stick like in the picture, but he couldn’t make it stay on, so he put things in his pockets. His pen-knife and catapult and some biscuits and Pepper.’

‘He took pepper with him?’ Giles was, baffled. ‘What on earth for?’

Miss Kettel intervened. ‘It’s a toy pig made of felt. He’s never parted from it.’

‘We must organise a search,’ Giles said, with a sigh. ‘Probably he hasn’t got far. If he was heading for Crown Woods he was going in the wrong direction anyway.’

‘I’m so sorry, my lord,’ Miss Kettel said, twisting her hands together. ‘I really only turned my back for a moment.’

‘I’ve heard he’s getting too much for you to handle,’ Giles said.

‘He’s a good boy really,’ she said. ‘But restless. They lead such confined lives,’ she added, in a low voice so that Arabella, who was patting the dogs, wouldn’t hear.

Giles’s nostrils flared as he detected a criticism. ‘Let’s concentrate on finding the boy first. Then we can look into the children’s situation. And your role in all this.’

He saw her blanch as he turned away, and was not sorry. This was her fault entirely.

The pony, Goosebumps, was not missing: evidently Arthur had been unable to extract him from the busy stable yard. Every horse was now utilised with all the grooms and boys riding, while the footmen and house boys went out on foot. Everyone they passed was to be put on alert, all the farmers told to keep an eye out for the boy, especially as it started to get dark – he would probably seek shelter somewhere.

Giles went out on Vipsania, his road horse, and passed from a state of annoyance to a state of worry. Arthur was a very small boy, not yet nine years old, and had never been out on his own, as far as Giles knew. Miss Kettel was right: the children were too much confined. A boy ought to be roaming the fields and exploring with his dog at his heels, as he had been at Arthur’s age with his spaniel Buffy. But Arthur, of course, was not on his own estate, which had been sold when his bankrupt father died. There was no reason for him to learn every inch of Ashmore, which would never be his.

He rode out past Crown Woods and towards Motte Woods, calling in at Hillbrow Farm to pass the word and ask if anyone had seen him. Then, reaching Motte Woods, he thought to call on Axe Brandom, his woodsman, who had a cottage there.

A small terrier ran out and barked as he rode into the beaten-earth yard, and the woodsman came out from his saw-pit, sawdust on his shoulders and leather apron.

‘Afternoon, my lord,’ he said, and stood and waited for Giles to explain his visit. He was, Giles thought, the most extraordinarily still man he’d ever known. There was never any unnecessary movement, no wasted words: most people chattered and fidgeted, but Axe listened and observed, then acted, neatly and efficiently. It was no wonder animals loved him: Giles had observed him sometimes when he had worked at the village smithy, and had seen the most skittish horse grow quiet in his hands.