Page 133 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

Crooks recoiled. ‘Perhaps in France you have different ways. But the saying is, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.’

Gaston whirled round, made a gesture with his hand imitating the quacking of a duck, and shouted, ‘Cease your noise, barnyard!’ Followed by a few more obviously disobliging things in French.

Crooks flushed, and felt his eyes grow moist. This was too much! A gentleman’s gentleman – note the second word – should not be slighted and insulted. Barnyard indeed!

‘I insist that you move your baggage, sir,’ he cried, his voice distressingly reedy with emotion. ‘And that you address me with proper respect.’

‘Allez-vous en!’ Gaston said deliberately, leaning towards him with an air of menace. ‘Go away, old man. Silly old man! J’en ai assez de votre bavardage bête!’

‘What did you call me?’ Crooks gasped.

‘Bête! Niais! Stupide!’ hissed the valet, who evidently understood some English, if he chose not to speak it.

‘How dare you, sir? How dare you?’ was all Crooks could manage in his outrage. He had never been spoken to thus in his life.

Gaston said nothing, but picked up Crooks’s case, threw it out into the passage, shoved Crooks roughly after it, and slammed the door. Before Crooks could gather his wits, he heard the key turning from the inside. Near to tears, he stood staring at the impenetrable barrier, wondering what to do. He would not thump on it and shout and make a show of himself – even if there were any likelihood that it would help. He had been insulted, abused – and locked out of his legitimate room. He had no bed for the night, nowhere to change. He would have to go ignominiously downstairs and ask either Mr Moss or Mrs Webster for help, like a child reporting to Nanny that his brother had stolen his toy. It was humiliating. It was undignified. It was not right!

He plodded back to the landing where, as he started down the stairs, he was overtaken again by the Ravenscar maid, with a gown over her arm and a pair of shoes in her hand. She gave him an amused glance as she passed and said, ‘Chucked you out, did he? Yes, that’s his favourite trick. I told them downstairs that he doesn’t like to share but they didn’t listen to me.’

‘He called me a— He called me names!’ Crooks quavered.

She dashed on. ‘You’ve only got him for the weekend. I have to live with it.’

‘Really, Mr Crooks, I’m surprised at you,’ Moss said, at his most monumental. ‘Quarrelling with a visiting valet? It’s not what I would have expected of a man of your experience.’

‘I am a visiting valet,’ Crooks pointed out, hot with chagrin.

‘But you’re also family,’ said Moss. ‘I expect you to show an example to the younger servants.’

‘I did nothing to provoke it!’ Crooks cried. ‘He started to abuse me as soon as I appeared.’

‘I can’t take sides. You’ll just have to apologise and find some way to get along,’ said Moss. He wasn’t really listening. There was so much to do. He had forgotten in the fallow fields of Weldon House how much there was to do when the Castle entertained.

‘But he’s locked me out!’ Crooks said desperately. ‘Where am I supposed to sleep?’

Mrs Webster, passing the door, looked in. ‘Is there a problem, Mr Crooks?’

‘Mr Tallant,’ Moss corrected her with a frown.

‘When I went up to the room, Mr Ravenscar shouted at me in the French language, pushed me out and locked the door,’ said Crooks.

‘Have you tried to get back in?’ Moss asked vaguely, running a finger down the cellar book. ‘Have we a spare key, Mrs Webster?’

She took Crooks’s arm and drew him out into the passage. ‘Lady Ravenscar’s maid did say he could be trouble, but we had no idea he’d go this far.’ She tapped her lips with a forefinger in thought. ‘You’d better have your old room. The bed’s not made up, but I’ll send one of the girls up while you’re dressing Lord Denham.’

‘Thank you,’ Crooks said, comforted. Mrs Webster had taken his part. And he’d end up with a better room, which was snooks to the rude Frenchman!

‘There, that wasn’t too bad, was it?’ Sebastian said to Dory when they got back to their room that night. Before his marriage he had always had the Gainsborough Room at the Castle, but the Waterloo Room had a small dressing-room attached, making it more suited to a married couple. It was a rather masculine chamber, with red flock wallpaper and heavy mahogany furniture, and over the mantelpiece a large reproduction of The Forming of the Squares at Quatre Bras.

‘The dinner was very good,’ Dory said.

‘You know that’s not what I meant.’

Hatching was waiting to undress her, and she didn’t want to say too much in front of the maid. She was getting more used to being on the wrong side of the service when they had company or went out, but she managed mostly by saying very little, which made people think her dull. The company for this weekend was composed of people who did not know her past, which helped; but she always went in fear of the wrong question being asked. There had been a moment, for instance, when Lady Bayfield had asked her where she had got her gown. It was one she had made herself, and she hesitated and then said Paris. Lady Bayfield, who by her appearance knew a great deal about fashion, had given her a long, cool look, then turned away to speak to someone else. Dory decided to wear the Paquin at dinner tomorrow, so her ladyship might think she was merely confused, rather than a pitiful liar.

‘The Ravenscars seemed pleasant people,’ Dory said. ‘And I like the sister – Miss Rowsham.’

‘Seems a nice girl. Invited for Richard, obviously,’ Sebastian said. ‘Perhaps rather too obviously,’ he added, with a rumble of a laugh. ‘Richard tends to be perverse. Expect him to do something and he’ll do the opposite.’