Page 33 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

There was no sense in flowery words. ‘Marry a rich girl. As soon as possible.’

‘I see. Well, you will not be the first. Such marriages can work out as well as any. Have you someone in mind?’

‘Aunt Caroline is making a list,’ Giles said, wincing slightly at the word. He hurried on, ‘Now that you know, I can tell you that in the mean time, we ought to make economies, wherever we can.’

She disagreed. ‘That would be fatal. To let the world know we are in difficulties? You would find every debt called in and every tradesman withholding credit.’

‘That’s what Markham said.’

‘Do not undertake any reductions without consulting me.’ He didn’t reply to that, and she said, in a milder voice than any she had used to him for years, ‘I will help you, Ayton. I am your mother.’

He gave a rueful, slightly twisted smile. ‘It might help if you could remember not to call me that.’

Her eyes hardened again. ‘It is difficult for me to call you Stainton.’

‘I know. But I have a name, Mother,’ he said.

‘You mean – call you Giles?’ She considered the proposal with faint surprise. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘In private, perhaps.’ He felt a tentative thread of warmth reaching out to her from him, but her next words made it shrivel. ‘It was your father’s choice of name. I never cared for it.’

March was mild and damp, as February had been mild and wet. ‘We haven’t had any proper winter,’ Rachel complained, as they drove in the trap along a winding lane from the hamlet of Ashmore Carr. ‘No snow at all.’

‘I don’t like snow,’ Alice said.

‘But it’s so beautiful. It makes everything sparkle.’

‘Frost is better. A good, hard frost to kill the pests is what you need.’

‘Kill the pests? You’re so unromantic.’

Alice was unrepentant. ‘Snow means hardship, ’specially if it goes on a long time. The poor people suffer … And the animals, the sheep dying in snowdrifts, the birds falling from the branches.’

‘Can’t I even think about a pretty snow scene without you spoiling it? You didn’t mind the snow last winter when you did that painting.’

‘Oh, that was— Look out!’

A bicyclist had come round the blind bend they had just reached, riding fast. Biscuit, the dun pony, had been daydreaming, trotting along with his eyes half closed. Startled awake and nearly collided with, he flung up his head, snorted and backed. There was a terrible lurch, and the nearside wheel of the trap went down into the drainage ditch that ran alongside the road.

Fortunately he was a sensible pony, and feeling at once that things were awry, he did not try to bolt, but stopped dead, ears back and eyes rolling white. Alice had scrambled down from her side, dropping the last foot into the ditch to the detriment of her boots, and ran to the pony’s head. The cyclist had skidded to a halt just past them, and now freed himself from his machine, propped it against the hedge, and hurried back, snatching the cap from his head.

‘I’m so sorry! Entirely my fault! The hedges are so high, I didn’t see you coming. Are you all right, ladies? Please tell me you’re not hurt.’

‘Of course we’re not hurt,’ Alice said stoutly, though Rachel, still in her seat, clutching the front rail, was looking shocked.

The cyclist was a young man, warmly and suitably dressed in a tweed Norfolk and matching knickers, thick lovat-green stockings and good stout shiny boots, the outfit completed by the tweed cap he had doffed, and a lovat-green woollen scarf wound round his neck. He was of slim build, and had a rather thin face with a prominent nose, but he was still attractive, with large blue eyes and curly brown hair, and he spoke like a gentleman.

He had only glanced at Alice: Rachel took all his attention. He probably thinks I’m just a child, Alice thought. Her sister, she realised, was looking rather lovely, with a healthy blush to her cheeks, her Scotch bonnet, worn at a rakish angle, revealing her long, soft fawn curls. Rachel is the pretty one. She had heard that all her life, and didn’t resent it. So far, the world of men and love and so on had seemed distant and unimportant, and she much preferred animals to most humans, especially males. But Rachel was almost of an age to come out, and might be expected any moment to start being ‘soppy’. Alice looked at the cyclist critically, then back at Rachel, who, she was alarmed to see, had begun to smile at him in a tremulous fashion.

‘I’m – not hurt,’ Rachel managed to murmur.

‘I’m so glad to hear it,’ the young man said warmly.

‘You were going much too fast,’ Alice said sternly.

He turned his smile on her. ‘I know. I’m so sorry. But what a remarkably sensible pony, not to bolt.’

Alice was placated. ‘His name’s Biscuit, and he’s a wise old cove, Josh says – he’s our groom – only Biscuit isn’t old, really, only nine.’

‘What a good name for him,’ the young man said.