Page 147 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

‘You have changed.’

‘But you were saying the finances are sound?’

‘Despite all the capital outlay, on the milk scheme and around the estate, we’re doing very well. The jam scheme is bringing in so much money, Vogel’s having to look for new places to put it. And that’s despite our mother trying to ruin us with clothes for Rachel.’

‘Ah, Rachel. I’m glad to see she’s perking up a little. She looked very pulled when she came home.’

‘Too much dancing.’

‘Probably. But now Alice is moping about something. Am I doomed always to have one sister up and one down?’

‘You have three sisters.’

‘Linda’s always the same,’ Richard said. ‘Down, down, down.’

Thinking about the up-and-downity of his younger sisters, Richard went looking for them when he got home. Rachel was in the great hall, helping to decorate the Christmas tree that had been brought up by the woodsman while he and Giles were out. The children were in a state of wild excitement, dancing about wearing coronets of tinsel, and quarrelling over who was to put the angel on the top. Since Linda had a firm hold of it, Richard guessed she would keep that privilege to herself. Miss Kettel, for once not trying to contain them, was chatting earnestly to Uncle Sebastian about Dickens, her eyes fixed intently on his face. Kitty stood watching the scene, with Louis in her arms.

Rachel stood on a chair and carefully disposed glass ornaments. She seemed happy, and either exertion or pleasant anticipation had put colour into her cheeks. Alice was not there. The tree was something that in previous years she would have been sure to be involved in, and it added to Richard’s feeling that something was troubling her.

He found her in the old schoolroom, which she and Rachel had long used as their sitting-room. There was a fire in the grate, and its red contrasted with the grey snow-light from the windows, making a little glowing cave around the hearthrug. Alice was sitting there, looking through a sheaf of drawings. The dogs had found her, and were basking side by side on the rug. They heaved themselves to their feet and came to greet him, swinging their tails, their yellow eyes shining wolfishly in the firelight.

Alice gave a quick glance over her shoulder, then turned back to her drawings, shuffling them so that those on top were underneath. He noted the subterfuge, as he had also noted the glint of what might have been a tear on her cheek, and the quick swipe of her sleeve that removed it.

‘I’ve just got back,’ he said. ‘What are you doing up here all alone? Are you coming down? They’re decorating the tree without you.’

‘There wasn’t room for all of us round it,’ Alice said, her voice sounding normal. Far too normal, as though it were an effort.

‘But your eye is needed. After all, you are the artistic one of the family.’

‘Kitty’s artistic. She does lovely embroidery. You should see the buttercups and daisies she’s done on Alexander’s bib.’

Richard walked round and sat in the fireside chair so that he was facing her. ‘You don’t need to put on a show for me,’ he said. ‘I’m your brother, and I know when you’re upset about something. Can’t I help?’

‘I’m not upset,’ she said. ‘Just—’

‘Yes?’ She didn’t answer. He held out a hand. ‘Can I see?’

She looked at him to gauge how serious he was, then separated and handed over a wedge of sheets – not including the ones she had moved to the bottom, he noted. He went through them slowly, studying her work. Figure studies, landscapes, some still-life groups, mostly in pencil or charcoal, but some colour-washed. ‘These are very good,’ he said, in surprise. He had always known she liked drawing, but he hadn’t realised how much she had developed. There were wonderful dogs and horses in various poses. The human studies – Uncle Sebastian reading, spectacles slipping to the end of his nose, cigarette between his fingers; a man digging in a vegetable patch, foot on spade and back bowed; Afton polishing silver, faintly smiling at his own thoughts; the back view of a maid hanging up a dress, stretching to reach – they were not only lifelike, but seemed so alive they might have moved and stepped out of the page. ‘You’re very good,’ he said, looking up. ‘I had no idea.’

She shrugged shyly at the compliment. Then she said, ‘I can draw – sometimes I think quite well. But I want to paint. I feel as if I can’t really get any better without some instruction. There are techniques – there must be – but I don’t know them. I keep doing the same things again and again, not moving on. It’s frustrating.’

‘These look pretty good to me.’

‘But I want to be better.’ He waited, hoping his silence would invite her to expand. At last she said, ‘I have to get away.’

‘Get away?’

‘I’ve spent all my life here. I want to go somewhere and do something.’

‘You’ll have your Season next year, I suppose.’

‘I don’t want one. And it won’t happen now Mother’s married and gone. She was the only one who cared about that sort of thing, and she never wanted it for me anyway. I wouldn’t have paid for all that dressing-up. I’m not pretty enough.’

‘I think you’re beautiful,’ he said, not just loyally, but because just then it was true.

She waved a hand, cancelling the remark. ‘Oh, all that’s just – it doesn’t matter. It’s not—’ She stopped.

He tried to help her along. ‘Well, then, what do you want to do?’