Free Ashenden by Elizabeth Wilhide

back against the buttoned seat. Before they had left Yorkshire, she had cut her hair short, and dark wisps of curls escaped from under her cap. “What do you say, Uncle James?”
    “We are on chalk here. I am inclined to agree with you. In my experience, you have to respect what lies underneath.”
    His nieces were kind and affectionate women. Hannah believed he did too much. The word “retirement” was often on her lips. She pointed out quiet villages where it would be pleasant to spend one’s later years and thought of quiet occupations, such as fishing, it would be pleasant for him to take up. Maria sometimes asked questions to which he did not have the answers. Aside from that, they were good companions, and had not complained once since they had set out days ago.
    When they came up the drive and the house appeared, they fell silent. Then Maria said it was beautiful, Hannah said she had no idea it was so large, and Maria replied it was not large, it was exactly the right size. The driver had already jumped down, turned out an ostler from the stable block, and was setting the steps under the door.
    “Give you a hand, sir.”
    “I can get down well enough,” he said. “Help the ladies.”
    He found that he needed a little time and walked along the frontage towards the north pavilion, which housed the kitchen. In his head he counted his paces, measuring out the yards, the way he had done before the land had been surveyed, when the old manor had still been standing.
    The girls—he had to remind himself they were grown women, and in Hannah’s case with a family of her own—were waiting for him, sharing a parasol. No one would ever take them for sisters. Hannah was fair, placid, and getting a little stout. Maria, small and dark, was quick and sensitive. She had never married.
    “This wonderful color,” she said, as he joined them, “what is it?”
    “Bath stone.” He touched his hand to the wall and ran his fingertips along it. “It’s warm. It holds the light. You used to get a similarquality from the quarry at Headington. Headington stone built Oxford, but the best of the quarry has been worked out long since. This was more costly.” He frowned at the memory. “We had to bring it up the river by barge.”
    They went through the central archway at the lower level. Woods rang the bell. He was glad that he had taken the precaution of arranging the visit to coincide with a time when his former patron, More, would be away.
    After a time, the door was answered by the housekeeper, a capable-looking young woman with dark eyes and a receding chin. A small boy with the same dark eyes and receding chin was hiding in her skirts.
    “You will be Mr. Woods.” The housekeeper smiled. “And these ladies must be your nieces. Welcome to Ashenden. I must say, you couldn’t have picked a better day for your visit. Isn’t it grand to see the sun?”
    “Mrs. Hastings, I should like to show my nieces the loggia first. Would it be possible to admit us above?” He explained to Maria, “You’ll have a better impression of how the apartments are arranged if we go in by the principal entrance.”
    The housekeeper, shooing the boy away, said that it was just what she would have advised herself. “Have you been here before?” she asked Maria. “No? Well, a pleasure awaits you. I shall go and unbolt the doors.”
    Woods led the way back through the vestibule to a pair of stone staircases rising to either side.
    “Which one do we go up?” said Hannah.
    “Does it matter?” said Maria.
    They went up the left-hand side and soon Maria was well in front. The stairs were enclosed, narrow, and plain. They could have been climbing up a curved tunnel or a shaft cut from solid rock.
    Woods was thinking about arrival. What he had never attempted to explain to his patrons, and what he could barely describe to himself, was his conviction that a house conveyed richness through experience. Any fool could dream up a grand front, sit it on