Page 119 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

Goaded, Linda went on, ‘You must be wondering how I can be so sure.’

‘I wonder nothing,’ Maud said truthfully.

‘I’ve been observing him with Rachel these past weeks, and he’s attentive to her, it’s true, but like a father, not like a suitor.’

Maud said harshly, ‘I wish you would not talk so much, Linda. You give me a headache with your constant—’

‘But he is a suitor,’ Linda went on relentlessly. ‘Nothing else would explain his hanging around us so much. And it’s thanks to me.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Maud snapped.

‘I’ve taken the trouble to encourage him, to bring him out, and his attentions to me are becoming so marked, I think even you must have noticed them. Of course, he has to be discreet, since I’m still officially in first mourning, but there’s no disguising his sentiments. That’s why I felt I should warn you that he won’t be making an offer for Rachel. He is in love with me.’

Maud looked at her daughter at last and, seeing her self-satisfied smile, wanted to slap her, even while at the same time feeling a queer twist of pity. She felt no responsibility for the way Linda, or any of her children, had turned out – that was what one had nannies and governesses and tutors for – but Linda seemed to her just then like a wounded thing, or perhaps something half formed. Not a whole person.

‘You are quite mistaken,’ she said. Time to put Linda out of her delusion. ‘Paul Usingen has been taking the trouble to get to know you and Rachel as a compliment to me.’

‘Oh, Mother, how can you—’ Linda began, exasperated at such folly.

‘He proposed marriage to me in June. I asked him to wait for my reply. I gave it last night. I agreed to marry him as soon as arrangements can be made.’

Linda stared. ‘You?’ she said at last, in disbelief. Maud held her gaze steadily, and her expression turned to disgust. ‘You? But – you’re old! It’s ridiculous! Getting married at your age? And you’re a widow! Father’s hardly cold in his grave, and you’re going to—’

‘Don’t dare to invoke your father’s name,’ Maud said furiously. ‘As if you ever cared a jot for his opinion on anything!’

‘I care more than you, that’s plain to see! What do you think he’d say about this if he were alive today?’ The absurdity of what she’d just said tripped her up for a moment, but she recovered herself. ‘You’ll make a fool of us all! You’ll make the family a laughing-stock! I won’t have it!’

‘You won’t have it?’

‘You can’t care for him, anyway – he’s old and ugly. You just want him because he wants me. You always spoil things for me. You could never bear to let me to have anything nice of my own. Well, I won’t let you take him away from me! I won’t!’

Her face threatened to crumple into tears, and Maud slapped it briskly, but at the last moment modified the blow to a light tap. ‘Keep your voice down,’ she commanded calmly. ‘If you become hysterical I shall slap you hard. Now listen to me. The prince has asked me to marry him and I have said yes. It is all agreed. Any feelings you thought he had for you were in your imagination. And if you think it is seemly for a woman less than four months widowed to be publicly throwing herself at another man, you are no daughter of mine. You will behave yourself, or I will have you locked up as irrational.’

Linda gasped as though cold water had been thrown in her face. Locked up? Her mother would do it, too. Her eyes filled with bewilderment. ‘But – but, I thought . . .’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Maud said firmly. ‘Now we will go in to breakfast and I will tell the rest of the family about my betrothal. And if you don’t want people to pity you, you will pretend to be happy about it, and you will behave civilly towards the prince. We will forget we ever had this conversation. I certainly shall never mention it.’

She turned for the house. Linda trailed after her, but she soon straightened her back. What she mostly felt was anger, and anger was very sustaining to dignity.

Giles put his head round the Peacock Room door and said, ‘I shan’t be in to luncheon.’

Kitty looked up in alarm. ‘You’re not going out?’

‘Didn’t I tell you? I have to see Adeane and Saddler about the poaching.’

‘But can’t you do that another time?’

‘No, because I have to see Bexley this afternoon with the evidence if we’re to make a case.’ Lord Bexley was the local magistrate. ‘Why? What’s the matter?’

‘The person is coming this morning to be interviewed for governess,’ Kitty said.

‘Oh, Lord! I’d forgotten. You can interview her on your own, surely?’

Kitty was dismayed. ‘You said you’d do it with me.’

‘Interviewing servants is your job, not mine. You’re the mistress of the house. I can’t be expected to undertake everything personally. Anyway, it can’t be helped. I have to see Bexley today, because he’s going away tomorrow morning, and I have to see Adeane and Saddler first.’

‘They’re your niece and nephew.’