Page 65 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

‘Tell me,’ she said.

It was a few moments before he answered, as though he was pursuing a thread of thought to its end. Then he said, ‘I feel all the time like an impostor. People think they’re looking at the Earl of Stainton. I wear his clothes, I answer to his name, but I’m not him.’ He shook his head, trying to find words. ‘Everything seems unreal. I hear myself talking, I watch my hands pick things up, I watch my feet walking, as if they don’t belong to me. The whole world is like a photograph, without colour, without depth – an image in shades of grey. Except you.’ He looked down at her hand, and rubbed his thumb back and forth across the back of it. ‘This hand is real.’ He looked up. ‘You are the only piece of colour. And I’m not allowed to look at you or touch you.’

She had nothing to say. It all hurt too much.

‘I blame my father,’ he went on. ‘If he’d only lived another ten years, as one was entitled to expect . . . But the whole thing came down on me without warning, like a mountain, burying me, the estate, the debts, the family. Suddenly I was responsible for everything and everyone. Oh, I always knew that sooner or later I would have to take over. If only I’d had time – if I’d come to it in maturity, when I was ready . . . Another ten years of being an ordinary person with no-one expecting anything of me . . . I could have married during that time, married the right person. I could have chosen for myself, for the right reasons, instead of—’

‘You mustn’t talk to me about Kitty,’ she interrupted him gently.

‘I know,’ he said, with a dreary look. ‘The last thing I would want to do is to hurt Kitty. Do me the justice to believe I know how damnable the situation is, for all of us, but especially for her.’

Nina followed her own thought. ‘She’s jealous of Giulia. She thinks—’

‘She doesn’t understand, you see. In academic circles, men and women can be friends, but it doesn’t happen in Society. You understand – you were brought up in that way. That’s why I can talk to you. Oh, God, I have missed talking to you. Being with you now, I feel—’

‘Do you think I don’t feel it too? But we can’t – we mustn’t—’

‘I know. It’s impossible. But, Nina, can’t we at least be friends? Just that? Must we shut ourselves off entirely from each other? Would it be so wrong just to be friends and sometimes be in the same room, and talk? I think, if I had that, just to know I would see you sometimes, I think I could be what I’m supposed to be. I think I could do my duty.’

She shook her head – not a negative, but at the contemplation of what Fate had done to them. ‘It isn’t fair,’ she said, very low.

‘I know.’

‘I miss you, all the time. Like a dull ache.’

‘Would it be so wrong, to be friends? God will read our hearts, He’ll know we mean no harm. Come to the Castle this summer. I swear I won’t make it difficult for you.’

Trump, sitting at their feet, sighed and lay down, resting his chin on her instep. She thought suddenly of the evening before. Her gown had come back from Madame Hortense – sea-green twilled silk, a glorious thing of line and elegance and simplicity. Mr Cowling had worried that it was too plain: shouldn’t it have more frills, more bows, some beading, some lace, crystal spars perhaps? She had protested she loved it as it was, but only Clemmie’s assurance that everyone would recognise the superior quality of the cut and fit had carried him. And he’d said, ‘At least your emeralds will go with it.’ She had an emerald and diamond necklace and earrings, gifts from him. ‘I’ll buy you an emerald bracelet tomorrow, to make the set.’ That night, he had come to her bed. She had braced herself for one of his onslaughts, but he had only folded her in his arms and fallen asleep. When she was sure he was sleeping, she had gently wriggled free, and lain staring at the ceiling for a long time before she too dropped off. When she woke, he had gone.

She wanted to tell Giles that he had nothing to fear from Mr Cowling, that they did not – do that thing together. But that would have been a betrayal. Above all, Kitty and Mr Cowling must not be hurt. None of this was their fault. She was silent while she assembled her words, and he thought she was going to refuse, and urged her further.

‘Come and stay. Kitty would like that. She’ll be rather isolated this summer. I won’t be a nuisance. I’ll be out most of the day in any case, but in the evening you’ll be there and I can look at you and talk to you. Let us just be friends. We’re owed that.’

Trump sighed again and shifted his heavy head, and Nina thought the sigh could have been hers. Would it be so wrong to be friends? Looking into his dear face, she suddenly felt it was silly and pointless to keep saying they couldn’t be, when they were. They could never be more than that, but at least life was sustainable if they had that. She felt she could be happy if she had that.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nina had doubts about the visit to the factory, even before Mrs Albertine Crane advised them to dress plainly and not to wear any jewellery. But Clemmie and Lepida were both keen to go, and Mrs Crane seemed determined to take them. ‘One must see these things for oneself,’ she said firmly, and the other two nodded, as if that were an immutable truth. Nina thought she was quite well able to accept things she hadn’t seen for herself, if someone reliable vouched for them. Wasn’t that what imagination was for?

But Clemmie was so eager for it, she went along with it. The factory, they were told, was on the corner of Grunthorpe Street and Whitechapel Road. Whitechapel was a lot further east in London than ladies were accustomed to venture, though Nina and Lepida had been to Commercial Road several times – that was where Aunt Schofield’s Free Library had been set up. Nina and Lepida had visited the library under Aunt’s chaperonage. Now it amused her to think that she was in the position of chaperoning Clemmie and Lepida, since she was married and they weren’t.

Her misgivings increased when the cab set them down on the corner of Grunthorpe Street and the smell assailed her.

It seemed to worry the cabby, too. ‘Are you sure this is where you want to go, ladies?’ he asked.

‘Quite right, thank you,’ said Mrs Crane, briskly, eager as a sheepdog heading up to the hills.

‘I don’t mind waiting, if you’re not too long.’ It was Nina he addressed, looking as doubtful as she felt. ‘You’d better have me wait, missy. This ain’t the sort of street for a lady to wander about.’

‘That would be very kind,’ Nina said gratefully.

At the same moment, however, Mrs Crane spoke over her. ‘Quite unnecessary, thank you. We can take care of ourselves.’

But as she was already walking off, and it fell to Nina to pay the jarvey, she gave him an extra shilling and said, ‘Please wait,’ and he said, ‘Right you are, miss,’ and nodded kindly. There was no danger of Mrs Crane hearing the exchange, for there were factories all around making grinding and thumping noises, to say nothing of the traffic going up and down.

‘This way,’ Mrs Crane called. The other three followed, keeping close together like sheep in wolf country. Nina was glad she hadn’t brought Trump. There were a lot of dogs about, but they looked skinny and mean. One dashed past with something purple and wobbly in its jaws, pursued by two others, determined on a share of the feast.

The factory was a grim-looking building of smoke-blackened brick, and what with the soot coating and the paint peeling, the sign across the top of the upper windows was almost illegible. The words Bleaker’s Tannery were just discernible. The windows were almost opaque with dirt, and were closed tightly, but despite that, a terrible smell leached out, a mixture of pungent chemicals that made the eyes water, and something horribly organic. The closest Nina had come to smelling anything like it before was when Trump had discovered a very dead fox in a ditch on one of their walks. But this was worse.