The snow was nearly blinding and Cadoc sighed in relief when he saw the giant oak that stood at the end of the lane. His home was less than two hundred feet away.
When the stable came into view, the head groom rushed out. “No need, George. I’ve got him. I’ll give him a rubdown and some oats while you tuck into the supper you likely have ready to go.”
The bandy-legged man gave him a gap-toothed smile. He was a former miner like Cad, and he’d been like a father figure. When one of the drays crushed his foot and he was confined to a bed for weeks until he could make his way about again, Cad took care of him in return. All of George’s family was gone - taken by disease or the mine - and he lost the lease on his cottage. Cad and his sisters had made room for him in their cottage.
The man had always had a way with the dray horses, so when they moved to Cumbria, Cad asked George to accompany them as the new head groom.
“Right you are, young lad. I have a bowl of stew and some fresh bread,” George rubbed his stomach to illustrate. “This weather’s for neither man nor beast.”
“If you’re going up to the house, will you let Caris know I’m home and I’ll be in shortly?”
“Aye. Don’t tarry overlong, the stew may be gone by the time you finish.”
After he’d tucked Bacchus in with a bucket of oats, he made his way up the steps. The storm was in full, blinding swing, and the outline of the house in the distance was nearly obscured by the snow. He sighed in relief when he shut the door behind him and stamped and shook the flakes from his coat and boots.
He left his footwear to dry by the door and crept to the kitchen in stockinged feet. When the household was settling in for a storm like this one, they all tended to gather there, in front of the giant hearth. He heard the laughter before he saw them.
He rounded the corner and leapt into a crouch, growling as loudly and disturbingly as he could. Ella and Caris’s screams were most gratifying.
“Cadoc, you gave us a fright!” His sister chastised with bright eyes. “Come, have a seat and a bowl of stew. I’ve kept it warm for you.”
Caris was very fond of the wood cookstove he’d bought her when they moved into Heathsted, and delighted in using it.
“Will we be able to take the sled out tomorrow, Uncle?” Davy eagerly asked.
Cadoc regarded him over his spoonful of soup. “If ‘tis not too cold, and the visibility is better, I don’t see why not. The snow is so dense I could have lost my way between here and the stable and staggered into the woods. You would have found my bones in the spring.”
Ella’s eyes widened. “You would have turned into a ghost, Uncle? Like Marley from the story you read us?”
Cadoc curled his hands into claws and crossed his eyes in her direction. “Exactly like Marley. I would have haunted you.”
She squealed and ducked her head against Caris’s shoulder. Caris stroked her hair and glowered at him. “When she has nightmares because of your teasing, you’ll be the one to brave the cold floorboards and comfort her.”
“Ella, look at me.”
“I don’t want to, Uncle,” she protested and burrowed her head further into Caris’s armpit.
“I was only teasing. If there are ghosts, they have more important things to occupy their time. Like figuring out how to get to heaven.”
She lifted her head. “Not everyone goes to heaven when they die?”
“The vicar will tell you that only those who’ve been baptized get past the pearly gates.”
“Is that what you think too?”
“I think that if you’re good, and you treat others the way you want to be treated, there’s a place for you in heaven. Whether or not you’ve been baptised.”
“Blasphemous,” his sister muttered with a smile. And then she wagged a finger in his direction. He knew she was scolding him for his treatment of the teacher. Because such treatment was far from a reflection of the tenet he’d just espoused.
“Your teacher has a sprained ankle,” he confided to the table at large. “I rescued her and took her home on Bacchus.”
“I don’t have to be a wise man now?” Davy could barely contain his excitement at the prospect of the pageant being cancelled.
Cadoc ignored Caris’s raised brow.
“It’s only a sprain,” he said to Davy. “She’ll be good as new in a few days. I am going to try and find the crutches your aunt Ellen used when she twisted her knee.”
At the age of twenty-seven Ellen had decided it was time she conquered her fear of heights. Her solution had been allowing Davy to teach her to climb trees. She’d become dizzy when she crawled out on one of the limbs and lost her grip. She’d been lucky her fall wasn’t from a great distance and a sprained wrist and twisted knee were the only disastrous outcomes of her escapade. She’d recuperated with the aid of the crutches, and informed Caris and Cadoc that tree-climbing would not be one of the lessons she delivered as a governess.
