Free Shadows & Lies by Marjorie Eccles

in front of the stables in the yard, at present being cleaned of the previous day’s mud by one of the grooms, wielding a shammy leather and hissing under his breath as if he were grooming a horse. “Well, Davey – it is Davey, from the smithy, isn’t it? – this letter demands my presence in the village urgently, and as you see, I’ve no means of transport at the moment. What do you say to lending me your bicycle, hm?”
    â€œT’ain’t mine, sir. ’Tis Miss Louisa’s. ’Er borrered it me, to get here quick.”
    â€œRight, then, I can return it to her.”
    Barty considered. “’Er give me a thrupenny bit.”
    â€œI believe I could make that sixpence.”
    A tanner? A predatory gleam appeared in the boy’s eye. “It be a long walk into they village.”
    â€œIt’s all downhill,” Sebastian replied heartlessly. Relenting, he added, “I dare say Timmins will let you sit in the driving seat of my motor and show you how things go if you behave yourself.”
    â€œCor!”
    Sebastian felt in his pocket for a sixpence and the bicycle was handed over with no further argument from the budding extortionist.

Chapter Five
    Flying down the village street towards the Fox’s house on Louisa’s bicycle, sending the would-be intimidating flock of hissing geese on the green about their business, waving to Lister’s youngest little girl who was sitting on the cottage doorstep blissfully blowing bubbles from a clay pipe dipped in soapy water, Sebastian scarcely registered the knot of excited people gathered outside the village school, the bicycle propped up against its wall, or the horse and covered cart drawn up outside.
    He did, however, become aware of the unusual silence among the crowd as he approached. He raised a hand in salute and this was returned, but without the usual cheeriness. He felt the stares on his back and prudently lessened his speed until he came suddenly on the house, sitting like a surprise in the bend of the road.
    It always brought a smile to his face, the old manor house that Augustus Fox had purchased from the Scot who had bought it sixty years ago, added to it and sentimentally renamed it ‘Aynholme’ – although it was still known to everyone in the locality, and the family, too, for that matter, as the manor. On the outside, the best thing that could be said about it was that it was decidedly individual: to the original Jacobean buildings had been added fancy Victorian extensions and a Scottish baronial tower to one side, in questionable but exuberant taste, which nevertheless had appealed to Gus’s quirky sense of humour when he first saw it. Whatever it looked like outside, inside it was spacious, pleasant and comfortable, an ideal house in which to bring up a large, widely-spaced and energetic brood. Children could be noisy here, slide down banisters, roast chestnuts in its huge, old-fashioned fireplaces, play hide and seek in its many secret corners (though once Barty had been tied up as an enemy Red Indian, left in the pepper-pot tower and been forgotten). There was a field where you could play French cricket without being fearful of spoiling the lawns. Robert, now married with children of his own, had been Sebastian’s greatest hero, and it was here that the boys – and Louisa – had fished and climbed trees, where
Louisa had beaten Sebastian at conkers and let him teach her how to skate on the pond behind the house. He still missed Gus’s wife, Ellen, an endless source of comfortable common sense, who had always made sure there were cups of cocoa, cake and glasses of milk available for hungry children. Or better still, crusty bread, still warm from the oven, plastered with sweet butter and raspberry jam – ambrosia! Having known this untidy house with its threadbare carpets and scuffed, well-worn furniture so intimately from childhood, Sebastian often felt more