Page 119 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘The question is, what is to be done with you?’ Maud went on. ‘Linda stays here. She has expectations of Cousin Pippi.’ Maud closed her eyes. ‘It would be the best outcome for her,’ she murmured. ‘For me, too. We do not deal comfortably together. Although she is much improved lately . . . He seems in earnest . . . I must do all I can to foster the match. I have already . . .’ She opened her eyes abruptly and looked at Alice with a touch of confusion. ‘What was I talking of?’

‘You wondered what to do with me,’ Alice said.

‘Alice. Always such a disappointment,’ Maud said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Well, Vicky must do what she can for you. She says she’s willing to take you as well, and I hope you will do your best to attract a husband, because I don’t know what else to contrive. I can’t have you here. As soon as I am well, Paul and I will be travelling. To Venice first to see Fergus and that woman – his bride, I should say. Linda, I hope will stay here, if she is not already married. But you?’

‘Oh, Mama, please let me go home!’ Alice said urgently.

‘Home? To the Castle?’

‘To London, to Aunt Caroline’s. I must be back before the new term starts.’

‘What new term?’

‘At the art school. Don’t you remember? You gave me permission to study there and, oh, I do love it so. I’m good at it, all the teachers say so. You must let me go back!’

It was the wrong word to say to her mother, even in her present weakened state. Maud frowned. ‘There is no “must” about it. I don’t know what I was thinking. You haven’t your sister’s looks, but you are well enough, or will be once Vicky has worked on you. And if Linda can attract an offer, so can you. I won’t have you disgrace me.’

‘I shan’t, Mama, but I don’t want to be married. I want to be an artist. Oh, please, please let me go back! I’m not like Rachel, I couldn’t bear that sort of life. If I’m in London, you won’t see me or hear about me so you won’t be able to be disappointed. It’s the only thing I want. Oh, please!’

‘Stop talking! You exhaust me.’ Maud closed her eyes and waved Alice away, like a troublesome moth. ‘Go away now, I can’t bear any more. Ring the bell for my maid on the way out.’

Maud drifted . . .

She was back in her childhood home, Cawburn Castle. There was a new baby in the crib, the longed-for heir, her brother Fergus. Her father, a cold and autocratic man, had made his disapproval manifest at the arrival of three daughters, and his oppressed and miserable wife had died as soon as Fergus was born. So Maud had become mother to the baby, and mistress of the castle, to atone for her unwelcome existence. Plump little Fergus, her darling baby, had thrived, but she had never won her father’s love. She had done her duty, but he had never given her a word of approval.

Nor had Willie Stainton, her husband, a cold and autocratic man. Another castle, another baby – a girl! How furious he had been at Linda’s birth! How racked with anxiety she had been all through her second pregnancy, how fearful while giving birth. A hard birth – old Nanny, who had come with her from Cawburn, had said second births were always hard. She had been quite ill afterwards, and perhaps because of that had never been able to rejoice much in Giles’s birth, or feel affection for him. But she’d had a boy, and bearing a second boy had completed her duty. If she did not secure an approving word from her husband, she did at least deflect his wrath.

And gain relief from his bedroom attentions. There followed a period of comparative peace.

Then his infidelities came to light. She writhed at the memory. Men had mistresses, it was understood, but he was not discreet. Or discriminating. His tastes were low. No servant was safe from him. Oh, those girls! The ones who gave her sly, sidelong glances; the ones who flounced and tossed their heads; the ones who came weeping and snivelling for sympathy! Those who became pregnant. The furious quarrels, the humiliations . . .

She had built a carapace around herself, within which she could feel no hurt. She did her duty, and spared neither herself nor anyone else. It was not love or even lust that had brought him back to her bed and forced her into another series of pregnancies. He had done it to spite her. Two daughters and several miscarriages she should never have had to endure.

Willie Stainton. She had not loved him. When he was brought in on a hurdle like a dead stag, she had felt only fury that he had used her up and discarded her . . .

She drifted in the cold fog of desolate memories . . .

There was the sound of a baby crying. A new baby, the longed-for, the precious son and heir. Not Fergus, her loved, her adored, the first of her babies. It was Paul’s son. The realisation jerked her for a moment back to reality. How strange it was that Paul had wanted to marry her. He had known she had no money; and she had never been under any illusion that she was handsome. She had supposed he wanted her for an efficient chatelaine, a suitably blue-blooded consort. She had thought she had done with the tiresome bedroom activity, but he had proved uxorious. And then had come the shock of another pregnancy.

He had been so pleased, it had been almost touching . . .

He loved her. There was no other conclusion. No-one had ever loved her. Not her father, not Willie, not her children. But Paul loved her. His face when the baby had been put into his arms for the first time! His expression as he leaned over her and asked – oh, so tenderly – how she did . . .

Pain. Exhaustion. There was always a price to pay. They used you. Men used you up, for their own purposes. But what else could you do? Boys went into the army, the Church, the law. Girls went into marriage. It was their career, their only option. It was that, or dwindle into ‘daughter-at-home’, no better than an unpaid servant; or ‘companion’ to some elderly widow, at her beck and call for nothing more than bed and board. Better marriage than that . . . Better cold-hearted Willie Stainton . . . Better a title, a position. She was a countess . . .

No, she was a princess, wasn’t she? Paul . . . ?

A baby was crying somewhere. She stirred in her half-sleep. The baby needed her, her little brother. She must be a mother to him. Their mother was dead. It was her responsibility now. She must be mother to them all, run the castle, somehow please her father. It was all on her shoulders, always had been, always would be. The burden, the responsibility . . .

Maud drifted . . .

Linda found Alice down in the little conservatory. ‘Why are you sulking in here?’ she asked briskly.

‘I’m not sulking,’ Alice defended herself. ‘I’m thinking.’

‘Drawing again,’ Linda remarked. Alice closed the cover of her sketching-pad to hide what she had been doing. ‘Some rubbish, I suppose. I don’t know why you are so set on it.’

‘It makes me happy,’ Alice said.