Page 21 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle

‘Of course I want to get down. I came to see how you’re getting on. I want to see everything.’

He came round to the near side, she freed her leg, and let him jump her down. Normally she resented anyone trying to help her dismount – as if she couldn’t manage it by herself! – but she loved the feeling of his big hands on her waist. In the moment that he was close to her, she smelt the familiar smell of him, leather and saddle soap and warm skin and a clean hint of horse. And something new now – just a little scent of sawn wood.

‘Axe Brandom, woodsman to Lord Stainton,’ she said.

‘That’s a fact,’ he said genially.

‘It’s quiet here.’ There was no sound but birdsong, and a little rustling of leaves. ‘Very different from the forge.’ She had always thought of him as the blacksmith. He had been inseparable from his calling in her mind. ‘Will you miss your old job?’

‘I’ll miss the horses,’ he said. ‘Won’t miss the heat, or the dirt, or the noise. Coming home black from head to foot every night. Smell of coal and hot iron in your nose all the time so you can’t smell the grass and the earth and the rain.’

‘I never thought of rain having a smell,’ she said.

He didn’t answer, but took hold of the reins. ‘We’ll put him over there, in the shade. It’s hot for April.’

When he had tied Pharaoh up and loosened the girth, she said, ‘Can I see inside your house?’

‘You can, and welcome, but there’s not much to see yet. It’s a bit empty.’

‘Didn’t you bring your furniture with you?’

He gave her a patient look. ‘’Twadn’t mine, was it? I only rented that place.’

‘Oh,’ said Alice. She hadn’t realised that when you rented a house, you rented the furniture too. Her own home was full of solid pieces accumulated over centuries. She hadn’t realised it was possible not to own your bed and chairs.

‘Now, Cutmore, see, he’d been here a long time,’ Axe went on, leading her to the door, ‘so some of the stuff here was his own. But he left other bits, enough for a start.’

The door led straight into the kitchen-living-room, as was customary, but it was larger than in his old place, and seemed larger still because there was no bed in it. ‘Bedroom through there,’ he said. ‘Shan’t know myself for posh, having a separate bedroom!’

One whole wall was covered with an enormous dresser of shelves, with cupboards and drawers below, and a few plates and mugs only made it look more bare. The centre of the room was occupied with a solid, scrubbed deal table with a wooden bench down either side. The wide chimney place was occupied by a range and an open fire, with the usual high mantel-shelf above it, and the sitting end of the room had a high-backed wooden settle, like a church pew, against the wall, and a rectangular rag rug on the floor in front of it.

It certainly was ‘a bit empty’. Alice sought for something nice to say. ‘It’s a lot bigger,’ she said. ‘And it smells nice – like wood shavings.’

‘I been doing a bit of work out in the barn,’ Axe explained. ‘Brought it in last night for the light, to finish off.’

‘I expect a woodsman’s house ought to smell of wood, anyway,’ Alice said. ‘The dresser’s very handsome.’

‘Cutmore had to leave that, and the settle, being as they’re fixed into the walls. And he left the table and benches and his big bed, because they wouldn’t’ve fit into his sister’s house. My sister Ruth, she was worried about me, starting up here on my own. She’s the eldest and she always fusses about us. Anyroad, she’s gone round everybody and scrounged me a bit here and a bit there. So I got pots and pans and cups and plates enough. Got a stool and two chairs – one’s got a broken leg, but I’ll soon mend that. A chest of drawers she got me – wants knobs, and a foot’s missing, and the back’s split, but I can fix it. Esther, my other sister, she give me the rug. And Mary, our Seth’s wife, she give me a little looking-glass for the scullery so I can shave meself decent.’ He looked at her slightly anxiously. ‘I mean to make it nice here, once I’ve saved up a bit. No rent to pay and the wages are higher, so I shall be well set. I’ll get some material and make curtains, and cushions for the settle. I’m handy with a needle.’

‘How clever you are,’ Alice said. ‘I’m no good at sewing.’

‘I don’t suppose you need to be,’ he said politely.

‘And I see you’ve got your tea caddy and your shepherdess,’ she said, gesturing to the mantel-shelf. ‘And another tin – that’s new, isn’t it?’

‘Biscuit tin,’ he said. ‘Our Seth’s Mary give me that as well. Nothing in it yet – I wasn’t expecting visitors,’ he apologised.

‘You’re a long way out, here, for visitors,’ she said. ‘Won’t you mind being so far from everyone?’

‘I’ve always liked it quiet,’ he said. ‘Family thinks I’m a bit strange that way. Our Ruth, she didn’t even like it when I moved into the old cottage at the Carr, ’stead of living in the village.’

‘And you’re even further out now. How will you get to church? It’ll be a long walk.’ A delightful idea had popped into her mind, that she could offer to call for him in the pony-trap on a Sunday. It would be hard to get that plan past everyone at home, of course – her mother would flatly forbid it, Josh would be outraged, and probably even Giles would think it ‘unsuitable’, but—

‘Don’t you worry,’ Axe said, and smiled, his blue eyes crinkling. ‘I’ve got a secret. Want to see?’

‘Of course,’ she said.

He led her outside, where she was accosted by his little dog, Dolly. ‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ Alice said, squatting to make a fuss of her.