Page 112 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

Her ladyship seemed to understand the difficulty. ‘You must call me Kitty – won’t you? How was the journey? Are you terribly tired?’

‘We only came from London today,’ Dory reminded her. ‘But we seem to have been travelling for months.’

‘That’s because you have.’ This was Mr Richard, taking her hand and bowing over it with a parade of gallantry that was intended to amuse. ‘I was at your wedding, remember, so I know exactly how long you’ve been gone. Was Italy glorious?’

‘Yes, but getting too hot by the time we left. Sebastian—’ She caught herself up, embarrassed to have called him by his first name in front of them, then realised that ‘Mr Sebastian’ would have been a far worse faux pas. ‘Sebastian was rather suffering in Rome, and we were glad to head north. The lakes were lovely.’

‘The lakes! How lucky you are. I mean to go myself one day,’ Richard said, with kindly ease. He was so nice, and Kitty (Kitty!) was kind, but now his lordship had finished with Sebastian and was ready to greet her. He didn’t smile, but then she knew from hearing the other servants talk that smiling was not his way. He was the serious one where Richard was the joker, and everyone was a little wary of him.

He shook her hand and said, ‘Welcome to the Castle. Come in and have some tea.’

There was nothing in what he said or the way he said it to upset her. But he didn’t ask her to call him Giles. And it was just as well because she never, never could have.

‘Well, I’m not curtsying to her,’ Daisy announced to the table, round which the servants had gathered for their tea – thick slices of bread, and a vast fruit cake. ‘Not a servant who’s sat at this very table.’ She liked the sound of that, and repeated it. ‘At this very table!’

Mrs Webster was quick to squash her. ‘Nobody’s asking you to curtsy to her. So don’t talk nonsense, and pass the bread down.’

Daisy automatically passed the plate, but carried on with her complaint. ‘She’s only a sewing maid when all’s said and done.’ She was resentful because she had expected to be asked to maid Dory, since she had maided the two young ladies, and had been intending to refuse. This glorious act of rebellion would have conferred distinction and have been talked of in the servants’ hall with hushed admiration for weeks. But Mrs Webster had asked Ellen instead.

‘I never trusted her,’ Daisy went on. ‘The way she used to hang about the small drawing-room when Mr Sebastian was playing the piano. She had her eye on him right from the start, the sly—’

‘Be quiet, Daisy,’ Mrs Webster stopped her before the word ‘baggage’ could tumble from her lips. ‘That’s quite enough from you. If that’s the quality of your opinions you had better keep them to yourself.’

Daisy looked black, and took a savage bite out of her slice of bread.

Cyril said, ‘But what Daisy says: why should we wait on her when she’s just a servant?’

Afton spoke up. ‘Mrs Sebastian Tallant is entitled to every courtesy we offer to a guest in this house, and anyone who thinks differently can come straight to me after tea and give me his notice.’

Mrs Webster built on that. ‘Quite right, Mr Afton. Furthermore, the wife of a member of the family is entitled to an extra level of consideration, and don’t you forget it.’

Ellen said, ‘I don’t mind maiding her. I’ve done guests before, and I bet there were some rum characters among ’em. They’re not all saints. It don’t matter to me. The work’s the same, whoever you do it for.’

‘Well, I don’t agree,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s – it’s demeaning, that’s what it is, when they’re not real ladies.’

‘Mr Sebastian wouldn’t marry anyone that wasn’t a real lady,’ Ellen said. ‘It’s what’s inside that counts.’

‘That’s the proper attitude,’ Mrs Webster said.

Ellen gave a satisfied smirk over her bread-and-jam.

Mabel, slow of thinking as of speaking, caught up. ‘I think it’s romantic. It’s just like one of them stories, when the chimney-sweep turns out to be a prince in disguise, who’s trying to find out if a woman can truly love him when he’s not wearing his crown and that.’

There was a pause as people untangled the syntax.

Then Rose said, ‘You’re an utter fool. Mr Sebastian isn’t in disguise.’

‘Well, but you know what I mean,’ Mabel said, bewildered herself now.

‘I think she was always a cut above us,’ said Milly. ‘I mean, she liked that high-up music Mr Sebastian played.’

‘I like music,’ said Wilfrid, cheekily. ‘D’you think I could get a posh lady to marry me?’

‘No-one will marry you until you learn to scrub your nails before you sit down at the table,’ said Afton. ‘Go and do it now, you heathen.’

The reluctant scraping of Wilfrid’s chair accompanied his departure; and the pause extended as Mr Crooks came in, and everyone had to inspect the next thing they were going to say for appropriateness.

Afton indicated the seat beside him. ‘Did you find everything to your satisfaction, Mr Crooks?’