Page 28 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

Now she looked indignant. ‘Did he? After getting her in the family way? How horrid! I would never have thought it of him. Perhaps he’s not as nice as he seems.’

‘’Twasn’t him as got her that way.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘I wouldn’t normally talk about this sort of thing to a lady, it’s not seemly. But a man’s life’s at stake. So you should tell your brother, like – Mr Richard – to talk to Tabby Mattock. Cos according to what I heard, it was her as William went to see that night. That was the very night he broke it off. And that’s all I’m saying. Have a bit of shortbread.’

She took a piece absently and nibbled it, thinking. At last she said, ‘But why wouldn’t she tell the police that? She must know he’s been arrested.’

‘I can’t answer for other folk. Maybe she’s got her reasons.’

‘Then why don’t you tell the police?’

‘They wouldn’t listen to me. No, it’d come better from your brother. If there’s anything in it.’

She shook her head. ‘It all seems very rum to me.’

‘People are rum,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing queerer than folk. Unless it’s cows.’

‘Cows?’ She was startled out of her thoughts.

‘Mysterious animals, cows. Horses, now, they’re straightforward, you always know what a horse is thinking. But cows . . . They live in another world.’

She stared a moment, then laughed. ‘You’re teasing me again.’

‘Not a bit,’ he said, smiling. ‘Maybe they come from another planet. Think Mr Wells’d like to write a story about cows?’

‘Animals all do strange things in Through the Looking-Glass. I think you’d like it. I’ll bring it next time I come.’

‘So there’ll be a next time, then?’ he said, offhand, looking at the level in the teapot.

‘If that’s all right,’ she said politely.

He didn’t answer directly, but he smiled as he topped up her cup. ‘When you’ve finished your tea, d’you want to come up the top end with me and Della? We’ve got a tree to fetch out.’

‘I’d love to,’ she said.

Richard frowned. ‘Who told you all this?’

‘Axe Brandom,’ said Alice.

‘The blacksmith?’

‘He’s our woodsman now.’

‘Oh, yes, I’d forgotten.’

‘You know him – you know he wouldn’t make it up.’

‘How did you come to be speaking to him?’

‘I met him when I was out driving,’ Alice said. Well, that was the truth, wasn’t it?

‘And where did he hear it?’

‘He heard Tabby’s mother talking about her at church.’ Well, that was also the truth, if not all of it. Alice surveyed her brother’s face anxiously. ‘What will you do? Will you tell the police?’

‘It could just be gossip,’ Richard said. ‘I don’t know this Tabby woman. I don’t want to stir up trouble for her if she’s respectable – though everyone must know by now that William’s been arrested, so why wouldn’t she come forward to clear him, if she could? Hmm. I think I’d better talk to her first, before saying anything to the police. And you won’t say anything either,’ he added sternly to Alice. ‘Not to anyone.’

‘Of course not. But you do think William’s innocent, don’t you?’

‘I really hope he is.’