I trust you have prepared his chamber and will make him comfortable.’
‘We have been making preparations for his arrival ever since we heard you were coming home with a friend,’ replied Mrs Lynch reassuringly. She nodded briefly in response to Thomas’s polite but dream-like bow. In a daze, Thomas followed Alexander, clambering up on to the driver’s seat next to John, who flicked the pair of black horses with his whip and set off along the road beyond the city walls towards the hills. Behind them, laughing and chortling and yelling cheerful abuse, several of the choristers chased behind and leapt on to the back bar of the carriage for a lift part of the way. One by one, at different junctures, the boys fell away with shouts of, ‘See you in September,’ and soon the carriage was out on the open road, lurching through the ruts and ridges and mudpools left by the bad weather of the night before, towards the hills and Ashbrook.
They didn’t speak much, though every now and then Thomas couldn’t resist calling out, ‘Hey, look at that!’ Or, ‘Did you see that?’ The raucous sounds and smells of the city gave way to the more harmonious and gentle tones of the countryside. He listened and watched enchanted: stone-pickers and farm labourers – men, women and children – moved down the furrows of newly ploughed fields, calling to each other and singing together as they tossed in the seed – barley or millet, wheat or rye. Wheatear, chiffchaff and swallows who, in the winter, emigrated to warm lands where oranges grow dived and swooped, as if delighted to see the folds of Cotswold hills rising and falling from valley to valley and upland to high common. Long shadows of beeches streaming with sunlight slatted the wold and ribbons of stone walls, now gold, now silver, meandered through light and shade down the meadows, dividing flocks of snowy sheep from grazing cattle.
Thomas wondered what Alexander was thinking; he sat so silently, not looking round, impervious to the countryside as they rumbled through. Only once did he turn and gaze back intently at the city walls, as if he couldn’t bear to leave the cathedral behind him. Then he looked forward again, his head dropping to his chest, humming under his breath, his brain unable to contain all the melodies which flowed from it.
‘This will be the first time you’ll be meeting Mrs Milcote and her daughter, I take it, Master Alexander?’ Mrs Lynch’s overly high voice broke through their thoughts as she leant out of the carriage window. ‘She’s a pretty young thing, and there’s no mistaking . . . ’
‘Who?’ retorted Alexander tartly. ‘The mother or the daughter?’
‘Ooooh, you are become quite a wag, sir, if you don’t mind me saying,’ tittered Mrs Lynch. ‘Why, the young lady, to be sure – Miss Milcote. She and your sister have become quite bosom friends.’
‘Hmmm . . . ’ Alexander grunted and glanced at Thomas with a bemused look.
Thomas grinned and shrugged. ‘Nowummm . . . ummum . . . Look here . . . ummum, Alexander me boy . . . ummum . . . about young ladies . . . ummmummmumm . . . ’
Alexander laughed. To make him laugh was always a triumph and Thomas laughed too.
They left the soft lowlands and the road began to climb up and up into a dark wilderness of dense woods. Thomas shivered with apprehension as they seemed to leave civilisation behind them. The road became rougher and narrower. The trees loomed over them as if they would swallow them up. No wonder he had heard such stories of wild brigands roaming the hills.
Ahead, a coarse voice swore and cajoled. John reined in the horses. A wagon was half up on the bank trying to get out of a deep rut and a train of pack mules snorted and attempted to munch the hedgerow as they waited. A large, red-headed boy was trying to push the wagon from behind as, in front, a man on foot cursed and shouted and whipped the lead mule impatiently, then ran round and laid the whip across the back of the boy as well.
‘Oi, Otis,’ John yelled to the man. ‘Be that you blocking the way? Shall us give you a hand?’
A stream of expletives preceded Otis shouting, ‘We’ll abandon the wagon at the Borham barn,’ he shouted. ‘No good trying to get the darn thing up into the hills till the road’s drier. But if you’d be so good as to help my boy with giving it a shove to get us going, I would be greatly indebted.’
John jumped down, followed instantly by Thomas and Alexander. They joined Meshak in putting their shoulders to the wagon, while Mrs Lynch leant out of the carriage window calling out encouragement. The huge wheels crunched into motion, creaking and groaning, and, with a jerk which nearly sent them tumbling face down, was suddenly free.
‘We’ll not be in your way for long now, John!’ shouted Otis, climbing up on to the wagon. ‘The barn is just beyond the corner.’ Thomas and Alexander stood in the road, brushing themselves down. For a moment, Otis towered over them. With an exaggerated sweeping bow he said mockingly, ‘Good day to you, young master, and my thanks for your help.’
Alexander nodded an acknowledgement and climbed back on to the carriage. ‘I dislike that man. He’s insolent. What’s more, he treats his animals abominably and his son not much better,’ he muttered. They looked at Meshak running behind now with the mules, as Otis drove the wagon on at speed.
‘Otis Gardiner! Otis!’ Mrs Lynch called out as the mules and wagon reached the Borham barn. ‘Don’t forget to call at Ashbrook! I would be most obliged.’
‘Rest assured, Mrs Lynch! I’d as soon forget my right hand. I’ll be calling by in a day or two,’ and Otis turned into the barn, leaving the road free.
John Millman coaxed the carriage onwards. They began to climb and their pace was slower now. They entered the depths of thick beechwoods, where knotted roots thrust up through the earth. The track became more pitted and rutted and, had there not been two strong horses, the carriage would have got bogged down and abandoned. As it was, the boys, feeling sick with all the swaying and tossing, jumped down and said they would walk.
Alexander guided Thomas to a track. ‘I want to show you something,’ he said. They climbed and climbed. The path rose, twisting gradually round the edge of the hillside until, suddenly, it levelled out and the woods gradually thinned.
Alexander took Thomas to the edge of a knoll and grasped him by the arm. ‘Look down there!’ Far, far below, shining amber in the noon sunlight, he saw Gloucester Cathedral gleaming like a jewel. ‘Now let me show you something else,’ cried Alexander. He left the path and began to scramble almost vertically up the hillside. On hands and knees, they scrambled and slid and sometimes clung to creepers which hung from the branches to haul themselves upwards. Finally, they surfaced like swimmers out of the dark wood into the bright open reaches of a heath. The sky was wildly blue; it surrounded them as though they stood on the rim of the world.
Far below them, in the middle of all that Cotswold wilderness, stretched a landscape of smooth, deforested slopes which extended into cultivated lawns, hedgerows and paved walkways culminating in an artificial lake. In the middle of the lake stood a small Greek temple. Beautiful ornamental gardens were bursting with summer flowers and elegant walks entered shady pergolas and secret bowers. It looked like a hidden kingdom, guarded by the overlapping wooded hills which encircled it. Dominating it all was the finest house Thomas could ever have imagined: a huge honey-stoned mansion of steeply pitched stone-slated roofs, gables and elaborate cornices, of tall ornate chimney stacks and mullioned windows.
‘That’s a fine house. Who could possibly own that?’ murmured Thomas. ‘I can’t imagine anyone normal living there.’
‘Can’t you, Thomas?’ said Alexander lightly. ‘Come, let’s get back to the carriage,’ and, oblivious of his fine clothes, Alexander led the way, slipping and sliding down through
