Page 41 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘You must ask Charles Kingsley. I suspect he meant metaphorical lame dogs.’

‘I’ve never met one of those. Our neighbours had a dog with three legs when I was a girl. It could run faster than all the other dogs.’

‘There’s a Kingsleyish message in that somewhere, if we could think of it. “Don’t shoot the dog that’s one leg short, it runs so fast, it can’t be caught.”’

She laughed. ‘You’re quick!’

‘What’s the talk below stairs?’ he asked. He saw that she had relaxed, and was glad of it. He slithered into some Scarlatti, where you could fudge a little, since it all sounded much the same to the untrained ear.

‘Oh, about her highness, of course. What a strange thing that she thought she was dying when she’s really having a baby!’

‘And very glad we all are about it.’

Dory nodded. It wasn’t that the princess was beloved, but a birth was always better than a death. ‘But what a queer mistake to make.’

‘It’s happened before, only the other way round. Queen Victoria had a lady’s maid called Lady Flora Hastings, who suffered from nausea and headaches and a swollen abdomen. There was a scandal because she was unmarried and everyone thought she was pregnant, but it turned out that she had a growth on her liver.’

‘Oh, the poor lady. What happened?’

‘She died.’

‘I don’t like that story. Will her highness stay here to have the baby?’

‘I imagine the prince will want her to go home. It’s his heir, after all. He’ll want it to be born in his house.’

‘Will she take Lady Rachel with her?’

‘Probably.’

She sighed. ‘I wish she’d take Lady Linda and those children instead.’

‘What’s Arthur done now?’

‘Caught a rat in the stables and let it loose in the kitchen. I thought Mrs Terry would have a nose bleed, she screamed so hard. She’s all right with mice but she can’t abide rats.’

‘What happened?’

‘The prince’s man heard the racket and came in, grabbed a saucepan, whacked the poor thing and killed it, picked it up by the tail and threw it outside. Cool as a cucumber. The girls were all very impressed. They think he’s a sort of hero. Even him not speaking English makes them wriggle.’

‘Wriggle?’

‘They think it’s romantic.’ He saw her mood change as she remembered where she was. ‘I must go.’

‘Not yet. It’s been so long since we’ve had a chat like this,’ he said. ‘I miss you.’

‘I miss you, too, but I mustn’t,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I ought to go away, get another position.’

‘Please don’t,’ he said.

She shook her head, and was gone.

He played on without knowing what he was playing, thinking that the time had come. He had been putting it off, telling himself first that the Christmas season was in the way, then the weather, then Maud’s strange drama. But the longer he waited, the more he risked losing her. She might just go one day, and not tell him where, so that he wouldn’t be able to follow.

He must act.

* * *

Addy and Mabel passed each other on the first landing as they went between bedrooms with their housemaid’s boxes.