Chapter 11
THE CIDER MILL
That afternoon, with the pony cart hitched and ready to go, Cecilia drove down to the cider mill with James riding beside her.
“What do you hope to see at the cider mill?” James asked.
“I don’t know, but we haven’t seen it since the fire.”
“I want to check for any evidence of an accelerant,” her husband said.
“From what Gideon told us, it doesn’t seem like an accelerant was used—save for the calvados,” Cecilia said.
“But was the fire set by the apple brandy, or did it start elsewhere? How long did the fire burn before the brandy ignited?”
Cecilia nodded. “When I first saw smoke, it was a thready pale gray, looking not much different than the mist.”
“And I’m sure the moisture in the air kept the smoke from rising higher. Even without the coming rain it provided a dampening effect.”
“Hmm. Perhaps. You are thinking the goal was not to destroy the cider mill?”
“I didn’t say that,” her husband enigmatically countered.
Cecilia laughed. “No, you did not.”
“Whomever our arsonist is, they were not counting on the rain coming to aid in putting the fire out. But a fire that burned longer before it is discovered can get hotter and envelope more before discovery. In the circumstance of Gideon’s cider mill, if the fire was set away from the brandy, this allowed the casks of brandy to heat slower before they exploded and spread faster. ”
Cecilia considered her husband’s words. “Do you think they even knew about the brandy?”
“Hard to say without seeing for ourselves.”
She nodded.
As they approached the cider mill, Cecilia saw a man enter the front part of the building. He looked as if he had a bandage around his head, under his hat.
“Do you see, James?”
“I do and that is Mr. Abney. Gideon will not be happy to learn he is about in the village. He was ordered to stay at home in bed. I’d best find out what he is about,” James said, dismounting.
Cecilia set the brake on the cart and climbed out to hurry after her husband.
“…you doing here,” she heard her husband say as she got to the open doorway.
“Who are you?” Mr. Abney asked.
Cecilia could imagine her husband grinding his teeth.
“Your employer’s cousin and the person who carried you through the mud until we got to where we could pull you out of the mine.”
“You?”
“Yes, or did you think Monteith did it.”
“No, no… but the other lads… Mrs. Plummer said there were another gent covered in mud like me.”
James nodded. “That was me.”
“Oy, beg pardon, my lord, thank you for getting me out of that mess,” Mr. Abney said. He pulled his hat off and held it before him.
“I’m not a lord. I’m Sir James Branstoke, Monteith’s cousin. Now tell me, why are you here? My cousin said he told you to stay in bed for a while.”
“I dids stay abed for a while. All day yesterday,” Mr. Abney said defensively.
“That is not what your employer wanted. He needs able men, what with both the cider mill and the mine in need of repairs. You’re not an able-bodied man with that head injury.”
“And you won’t recover quickly if you are up and about,” Cecilia put in.
“Who are you?” he said, blinking owlishly at her.
“Lady Branstoke,” she stated. She lifted his chin to look into his eyes. She judged the pupils to be larger than they should be. “Your vision is impaired, is it not?”
He fidgeted where he stood. “Just a trifle, but it is improving. It’s that sun out today, you know?”
“Sit down here,” Cecilia said, indicating an empty barrel that had escaped the fire. She waved at James to go on with his investigation. “You have a concussion,” she said to Davey Abney. “Your head needs to be lying still in a darkened room. —Do you live alone?”
“Nay, me sister an’ her husband do live wi’ me in our parents’ house—God rest their souls.”
“Do they work there?”
“Nay, me sister works at the big house dairy and Jack, he works at the Carnegie farm.”
“So you are alone all day if you are not working.”
“Aye.”
Cecilia thought about Mr. Abney’s situation. He likely was bored and not likely to stay settled down. She needed to discuss this with Gideon. For right now, perhaps she could learn something about the mudslide without Davey’s exaggeration.
“Did you see anything unusual or out of place at the clay mine before the mudslide occurred?” she asked him.
“The whole mine looked odd!” he said theatrically, swinging his arms wide.
Cecilia frowned a little but did not argue—yet. “How can you mean odd?”
“More rain came down than the land could hold, that’s what I mean. You throw a stone down to the bottom and where it landin’ shook like puddin’.”
“And did you? Throw stones to watch the land jiggle?”
“We all did, Alfred, Bob, Sam, Teddy, me, Corey, and Marty. We was testing all areas and seeing what size stone sunk and what did not. Was not a day fer minin’, and so we planned to tell his lordship.”
“Has that ever happened before? A heavy rain making the ground jiggle?” she asked him.
“Aye. Couple of times. We just wait a day and the ground be solid again.”
“Have you ever before had a mudslide like you had?”
“No, never. And that were the crazy thing, too. We are purty good at getting the timber retaining walls down deep to hold back the mud, and each terrace ain’t so wide as to have lots of weight of mud to get soaked and push the wall out.
” He frowned and touched the side of his head.
“I think I were on me way to check out a wall when there were a loud crack and wood and mud descended all about me.”
“Did it look odd?”
“I don’t know. When I thinks on it, all I see is wood and mud coming at me, and that’s the truth.
I don’t know why I were where I was. I jest feel like I was lookin’ at sumthin’, but all I see is the mud coming to drown me.
” He closed his eyes and shook his head back and forth. “Thought I were a goner.”
James rejoined her.
“Find anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m no fire expert. But I’d guess the fire wasn’t started by the apple brandy.
Looks more like it started near the back door and burned low until it reached the brandy.
That’s when it exploded upward. The wall between the back and the apple press took the most damage, along with the roof in that area. ”
“Would you stay with Mr. Abney while I go see?” she asked.
“You’ll need to hold your skirts up, and stay to the left as much as you can,” he advised. “What do you hope to find?”
She shook her head. “Nothing you, Gideon, or Mr. Thornbridge hasn’t seen.” She gave him a lopsided grin. “It’s more for my education than to find anything,” she said.
She carefully made her way into the grinding and pressing room.
There wasn’t much to burn by the grinding wheel, unlike the area of the apple press.
Heavy stoneware vessels lined the wall near the press.
Overhead, sunlight streamed in an area where the roof had collapsed.
It looked like much of the damage in the open area was more from heavy burning roof beams falling than fire.
She continued to make her way to the back room where it appeared the fire began.
The fire damage was heavier to her right, more wood burned to a light gray char or burned through.
She lifted her skirts a bit higher as she crossed the room to the back double doors. They were partway open. She squeezed her way between the doors, striving to avoid touching anything, but knowing she was unsuccessful when a rain of cinder fell.
Out back was an open area with a mixture of broken machinery, wooden barrels, and crates—not victims of the fire, but victims of time.
She walked to the right, around the building, and looked ahead. She could clearly see the path the man she had seen walking away from the fire had taken toward the ridge.
If it hadn’t been for the rain that day, she thought the cider mill would have been a total loss.
As it was, the shell of the stone building remained intact.
Some of the wood could be salvaged and reused.
If work was started on it soon, it could be back in service by Michaelmas. Rain had been a blessing.
When she entered the front area, she found James and Mr. Abney discussing the apple brandy.
“Mr. Abney tells me some of that apple brandy was older than three years.”
“Aye. The old earl, he liked his apple brandy, and set aside a fer amount of cider fer distillin’.”
“How do you know this?” Cecilia asked.
“I worked the still the last season he were alive.”
“Why don’t you do that now?” she asked.
“There’s more money to be had at the clay mill, and ‘aside I like the blokes I work with now. I don’t like workin’ alone, and I didn’t like them Frenchies coming to tell me how to do ma job.”
James and Cecilia exchanged glances.
“Frenchmen?” James asked.
“Aye. Tellin’ me which apples to mix together and how much of each and saying we’d not have good calvados, they called it, ’acause we ain’t have this or that apple fer the mix.
Bah! I learned from ol’man Thomas. When he got so he couldn’t walk no more, the old earl put me in charge, but I couldn’t stomach them Frenchies and I tol’ him so.
He said as I was to shut up and jest make the brandy, but when he up and croaked riding that fool horse of Lord Jasper’s, I asked Lord Jasper to let me work at the home farm.
Which he did. Didn’t have much choice as the still were broken.
Then when the new earl, Lord Monteith, were looking for workers fer the clay mine I volunteered. I like it there. It’s a good group.”
“The still was broken? How did that happen?” James asked.
Mr. Abney shrugged. “Don’t know. But it were missin’ a couple of parts, like the worm outlet pipe and the lyne arm.”
James nodded slowly. “Have you seen these ‘Frenchies’ about since the old earl died?” he asked
“Can’t say as I have, but being at the mine all day, can’t say as I would, neither.”
James nodded and was silent, thinking.