Page 78 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘I’d like that,’ Kitty said. This sort of history was much more interesting.

Lady Stainton had finally bored herself with the grand tour, and invited Giles to show Kitty the gardens while she and the Bayfields took refreshments in the drawing-room. Lady Bayfield almost spoiled it by suggesting that Kitty would do better to sit quietly in the drawing-room and rest, but she protested that she was not tired, and Giles and his sisters hurried her away before any more objections could be raised.

‘It’s too nice a day to sit indoors,’ Giles said, as he, his sisters and the dogs pattered downstairs. ‘The gardens aren’t very interesting – nobody has ever cared to do much with them – but the views are pretty.’

‘Or we could go and see the stables,’ Alice added beguilingly. ‘I could show you my horse, Pharaoh. He’s lovely!’

‘Oh, I should like to see the stables,’ Kitty said, and glanced nervously at Giles to see if it was all right to express a preference.

‘Then we shall,’ he said patiently. ‘Do you ride, Miss Bayfield?’

‘I did learn, as a child,’ she said, ‘but I haven’t had much opportunity. There doesn’t seem to be much riding in Hampstead.’

‘It must be horrid, living in a city,’ Rachel said.

Giles said, ‘Londoners count Hampstead as the country – isn’t that right, Miss Bayfield?’ Kitty looked at her feet and blushed. She thinks I’m making fun of her, Giles thought, exasperated. He had meant it only as a gentle pleasantry. He felt hollow, realising that he was irrevocably tied to this very young person who did not understand him at all. Miss Sanderton would have laughed and said something droll in reply.

But he mustn’t think of Miss Sanderton …

The visit to the stables, however, was a success. Giddins seemed to take an instant liking to Kitty. He instinctively lowered his voice and spoke more gently, but he did not mistake her timidity for fear of horses. He led her right up to them, introduced them, and produced horse-nuts from his pockets for her to give them. She admired and stroked them, even asked questions, and seemed relaxed for the first time.

They lingered there until a servant came out from the house to summon them for tea.

In bed that night, Kitty lay sleepless. The mattress was hard and lumpy and the blankets had a musty smell that was not vanquished by the lavender of the sheets. All the new impressions, the new people, and most of all being on her guard all the time against making mistakes, had worn her out. And this was just the beginning. After she was married, there would be flocks of people of the Staintons’ sort to disappoint. What would her duties be, as a countess? She wouldn’t know what to do and would be constantly in the wrong, running to catch up in a world she didn’t understand.

She wept a little, like a tired child. Now that she was engaged to Giles, he seemed more, not less, daunting. She had noted his slight impatience with her. She didn’t understand him, or know how to please him, but that did not stop her loving him. She loved him as wholly and helplessly as a flower turns to the sun. She could not withdraw from the engagement, not only because it was socially unthinkable but because she didn’t want to. She wanted to marry him; but she did not suppose it would be easy, or that she would not often be unhappy.

But there was much she could do for the house, if she was allowed. Bathrooms, for instance. When she had asked her maid where her bathroom was, Marie had looked disdainful. There were no bathrooms in Ashmore Castle. If you wanted to bathe, a hip bath was placed in your bedroom before the fire, and cans of hot water were brought up the back stairs by toiling servants. It was all very laborious, and the unspoken thought seemed to be that you had to want a bath very much to initiate it.

And there were no wash-down water-closets.

The food had been very poor. She noticed that Giles didn’t eat much, and thought he looked too thin. Surely something could be done about that. One of the first things Mama had done when she married Papa was to employ a new cook.

There was no electric light, or even gas. Lamps were such a nuisance. A lot of the carpets were in holes, and the curtains at many of the windows were faded and frayed. There was a good housewife deep inside her, somewhere in her real mother’s blood. And if Giles was marrying her for her money, couldn’t she spend some of it on making him more comfortable? Thinking about those things, she began to drift off to sleep at last, borne on visions of electric chandeliers, velvet drapes and modern plumbing …

*

Giles was also sleepless. He had learned, while on digs, to sleep on virtually anything, but he was also thinking with some dread of the marriage he was committed to. It had been a ghastly day. Except in the stables – there she had seemed happier, though she had still not spoken to him, only to Giddins and the horses.

He had been a solitary boy, and though in young manhood he had worked and co-operated with others in his field, it had been on an intellectual, not a personal plane. He had never really had any friends, or been close to anyone, and his inner solitariness had endured. He had always been alone, but it had been a natural state to him, and had not troubled him.

But he was to be tied on terms of intimacy with a very young girl, almost a child, who seemed afraid of him, and out of whom he could get scarcely a word, however hard he tried. He became aware of loneliness for the first time in his life. Now that he had been brought into a situation where one might reasonably expect companionship, he found he wanted it. The brief weeks during which he had shared thoughts and opinions and understanding with Miss Sanderton had given him a liking for such intimacy. To be alone and lonely was one thing, but it seemed to him just then that to be with someone else and lonely was much worse.

Yet he pitied her, having enough imagination to realise that shyness was desperately painful to the sufferer. He must curb his annoyance. And as a husband he must always do his best for her, however little comfort he took from the situation.

Richard dreamed he was back on the veld. His mouth was as dry as a desert, and the thunder of his patrol’s hoofs hurt his head. He hurt all over, in fact, from being in the saddle sixteen hours a day. This kind of pounding was hard, but it was harder on the horses. They would endure for so long, then simply keel over and die. Now he dreamed his horse had fallen, and he was trapped under it. He couldn’t move. He was racked with pain, struggled feebly, tried in vain to call for help …

He moaned, drifting upwards into consciousness. Opening his eyes a crack, he saw the sky a blank white above him. No, not the sky. Not the veld. He was in a bed. A strange bed in a strange room. The pounding hoofs were in his head. His mouth was so dry his tongue cleaved to the roof of it. He must have been very drunk last night to feel this bad. He tried to open his eyes fully, but it hurt too much, so he closed them and allowed himself to sink back into unconsciousness.

Giles, with Uncle Sebastian, his mother and his sisters, was standing on the front steps, seeing the Bayfields off for the station the next day. As the carriage pulled away, Moss came up behind him with a discreet cough, and murmured that there was a policeman to see him.

Waiting in the rear hall was the very tall, muscular young constable from the village – oh, what was his name? Something odd. Hollyhock, was it? No, Holyoak. He was darkly handsome and unshakeable, and stood looking about him calmly, his helmet was politely in his hand. His dark hair was curly as a ram’s fleece, Giles noticed. Removal of the helmet had even pulled up two little tufts at the sides, like embryo horns.

‘Yes, Holyoak, how can I help you?’ Giles said, proud of himself for remembering the name in time.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday, my lord, but there’s been an accident. Your brother Mr Richard’s been in a motor-car smash, and seeing he’s not married, and you being head of the family, you’ll be his next of kin, so it was thought you ought to be told.’

*