Page 6 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘Immolation,’ said Mrs Webster.

‘Either way,’ said Miss Taylor, ‘a valet whose master dies is for the chop. It’s not as if there’s anything else he can do. And at your age,’ she added to Crooks, her voice brimming with malicious pity, ‘you’ll never get another place.’

Crooks had been saying the same thing himself, but he didn’t expect to be agreed with. ‘Perhaps his new lordship will need a man,’ he said in a wobbly voice.

‘Bound to have one already,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘He’s not a child. How old is he?’

‘Twenty-six,’ Moss provided.

‘But he may not have a man suitable for an earl,’ Crooks said. ‘Someone who knows what’s due to his position.’

‘Quite, quite,’ Moss said soothingly. ‘I believe he’s been living very modest. And abroad such a lot of the time.’

Mrs Webster asked, ‘You’ve known Lord Ayton longest, Mr Moss. What sort of a man is he?’ She had only been at the Castle six years.

Moss pondered. ‘He was very good-natured when he was a boy. Unusually so, given he was the heir – no side to him. But who knows how he’ll change when he takes on the mantle, if I might speak poetical?’

‘There’s bound to be changes,’ said Mrs Webster. ‘He’ll have his own ideas. We’ll all feel it.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Crooks. ‘It’s her ladyship runs the house. A gentleman wouldn’t trouble himself about domestic details.’

‘If she’s still here,’ said Mrs Webster.

‘What can you mean?’ said Miss Taylor stiffly. ‘Her ladyship is in perfect health.’

‘But she’ll be moving to the Dower House, won’t she?’

Moss and Miss Taylor exchanged an amused glance. ‘Have you ever seen the Dower House, Mrs Webster?’ Moss enquired.

‘Of course I have. Pretty little square house at the end of the village.’

‘Little’s the word,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘Her ladyship couldn’t stick it.’

‘And I believe it’s in poor repair,’ said Moss. ‘No-one’s lived there in – well, it must be fifty years. His lordship’s mother – his late lordship’s mother, I should say – didn’t care for it.’ The fourth earl had caused a scandal by bringing home from his travels a lively Frenchwoman, Victoire Ballancourt, for a bride. She had found the English countryside too cold and English country houses too damp, and as soon as she was widowed had decamped to London and a cosy house in Bruton Street.

‘Besides,’ said Miss Taylor, ‘his new lordship’s unmarried so she’ll have to stay and run things for him.’

‘I run the house, Miss Taylor,’ said Mrs Webster, ‘so there’s no need for her to stay. Her ladyship can go to the Dower House any time she likes. And you’ll go with her, of course. I’m sure you’ll love it there – once essential repairs have been carried out.’ She had no personal spleen against Miss Taylor, but she liked to keep the balance of power in the house, and Taylor had been bullying poor old Crooks all day.

‘We’ll see,’ said Miss Taylor, her nostrils flaring. ‘And if I might venture an opinion, Mrs Webster, some changes might be welcome in this house. I think you’d hardly claim that everything is entirely as it should be.’

Mrs Webster reddened, but with vexation rather than embarrassment. ‘I do the best I can with what I have. I’ve asked and asked for more staff—’

‘I’m sure I wasn’t blaming you,’ said Miss Taylor meaning exactly the opposite. ‘And we all know that fool in the kitchen isn’t up to the job. That pork last night – practically raw! I cannot and will not eat raw meat.’

‘Indeed, it’s true, pork should always be well cooked,’ Moss ruled ponderously. ‘And chicken, and game also. It’s acceptable for lamb to be pink, however. And roast beef, now that can be rare – gentlemen often prefer it that way. His lordship’s father, I believe – his late lordship’s father, I should say—’ he corrected himself with a quiver, ‘liked it bloody.’

‘I will not have blood oozing out of my meat,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘I am not a vampire.’

‘Come, come,’ Moss said, disturbed. ‘There’s no need for that sort of talk. You can’t be calling his lordship’s father—’

‘The fact is,’ said Miss Taylor, impatiently, ‘neither the earl nor her ladyship ever cared a jot about food, or they’d have done something about it and sent that cook packing.’

‘Well, perhaps his new lordship will have fresh ideas about food, having lived away for so long,’ Mrs Webster said. ‘He might have London tastes. He might even want foreign dishes prepared.’ Which, she thought, might make Mrs Oxlea uncomfortable enough to leave of her own accord. Modern cooking was beyond her – she was fit only for roasting vast joints, as if they were still living in Tudor times with spits and cauldrons. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘when he gets married, there’ll be a new mistress. Then there really will be changes.’

Crooks groaned, ‘I hate change. I wish we could just go back to the way things were. Twenty years I was with his lordship. Twenty years!’

Miss Taylor ignored him. She was thinking, and the fruit of her thoughts she offered to Mrs Webster, being of the opinion that Crooks and Moss were both fools. ‘It occurs to me,’ she said slowly, ‘that he might not settle here at all.’