Page 68 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

Afterwards she had been introduced to Mrs Keppel, who was very kind, and said, ‘I’m so glad to meet you, my dear. Mr Cowling has been boasting for ever of his beautiful, clever young wife. I can see you are beautiful, and you look clever. Are you clever?’

‘I don’t feel very clever at the moment,’ Nina had said.

Mrs Keppel laughed. ‘It was a most unfair question, and I withdraw it! Tell me instead what you are interested in. I know all the other guests, and one so longs for something new at these affairs. They can be rather deadly, you know,’ she added, in a conspiratorial tone, setting Nina quite at ease. They had talked about paintings, then, and music, and Nina did not feel she had let herself down too badly.

The conversation round the table was mostly about the Entente Cordiale recently signed with France – ‘And isn’t it typical of them,’ Mrs Keppel laughed, ‘that it’s named in French, rather than being called the Cordial Alliance?’

There was much to say, not least because the King had been advocating an alliance against Germany ever since 1881 when he was still Prince of Wales. He retold how he had met Léon Gambetta, just about to become prime minister of France, at the Château de Breteuil to discuss it. Britain had been following a policy of ‘splendid isolation’ for almost a century; France had become isolated after the Napoleonic wars – and was regarded warily because of its perceived liberalism. But Germany was growing in strength. France, still smarting from defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, eyed their expanding navy and army with disfavour; Britain was worried about Germany’s industrial might in the Ruhr. And when Germany signed the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy in 1882, it was clear Britain and France needed each other. But it had taken a long time and many diplomatic summits for the old enemies to come together. The ramifications of the Entente occupied a good deal of the conversation. Nina tried to listen intelligently.

There had also been discussion of the death earlier that year of the King’s cousin, the Duke of Cambridge. His military career had been dissected among the men, and the women had discussed his private life – he had married an actress, in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act, so his children could not inherit the title – ‘Which is a pity,’ said Lady Wroughton, ‘because there are three very likely sons.’

‘I believe he was originally supposed to marry Queen Victoria – they were designed for each other when they were young,’ said Mrs Keppel.

‘It wouldn’t have worked,’ said Lady Leven. ‘As he said himself, these arranged marriages never do.’

Nina thought of Giles and Kitty, and felt a pang.

Lady Wroughton disagreed. ‘Marriage is too important to leave in the hands of the young people themselves. Besides, Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert was arranged, and that worked out well enough.’

The two halves of the table reunited in conversation about motor-cars, which had increased in number so much in the past two years that the government had felt required to legislate on them. Now they must be registered and carry an identifying number on a fixed plate at the front and rear. A speed limit of twenty miles per hour had also been enacted. Everyone agreed that the registration was a good idea, but there was a split in opinion about whether twenty miles per hour was too fast, too slow, or just right.

The King, who loved motor-cars, said, ‘Cowling, why haven’t you got one? You’re the man for innovations and new fangles.’

‘I’ve never even kept a carriage, sir,’ Mr Cowling answered. ‘I’ve always lived in town, where you can get a cab. Though Mrs Cowling loves horses,’ he said, looking down the table at her, ‘so she might persuade me to buy a carriage and pair one of these days.’

‘Lord, no – get a motor-car!’ exclaimed Mr Goldfarb. ‘Horses are history, man!’

‘But aren’t motor-cars always breaking down?’ said Lady Leven.

‘Not as often as horses,’ said Mr Goldfarb. ‘I kept a pair once, and between cut fetlocks, twisted hocks, swollen knees, coughs, colic and laminitis, I don’t suppose I had thirty days’ use of them in a year. Eating their heads off in the stable, and a coachman to be paid for no work, and a groom in league with the feed-merchant and all the time cheating me. No, no, take it from me, it’s a motor-car you want. At least you can leave it standing outside when you visit, without it running off or catching cold.’

‘And they are much more reliable than they used to be,’ the King said. ‘The new models hardly break down at all these days.’

‘Well, Wroughton and I shall stick to our horses,’ said Lady Wroughton. ‘I can’t abide the smell of motor-cars, or the noise.’

‘Ah, but you live in the country, ma’am,’ said Cowling. ‘Now, I can see that, in a general way, they’d be good for towns. No-one can relish the – er – what the horses leave behind in the street.’

And Nina had suppressed a smile, remembering that when she first saw the King, at the Wroughtons’ house, he had shocked Lady Wroughton by saying that in twenty years the streets of New York would be up to the second-floor windows in dung.

After dinner, when coffee was brought, she had found herself sitting near enough to the King for him to notice her. Being obliged to speak, she’d told him the story she had worked up, on Aunt Caroline’s advice, about Trump chasing a squirrel up a tree, then being put to the right-about when the goaded squirrel rushed back down and attacked him. ‘He had to hide behind me, poor dog, until it ran off. He was quite mortified,’ she concluded.

The King had laughed, and told a story of his own, about his little dog Caesar, and she felt she had done all right. Certainly Mr Cowling looked across the room at her with pride.

It was all such a long way from the tanning factory, and the poor women working for five shillings a week. For an instant she felt guilty about being so well-off. But then, she reflected, only the wives of rich men had the leisure and freedom of movement to pursue good works. It was a conundrum.

‘I see they’ve nearly finished clearing Bunce’s six acres,’ said Axe.

‘Yes, I saw that as I passed,’ said Alice. Axe was fixing the chains to a tree stump while she held Della’s head. It wasn’t at all necessary to hold Della’s head – she knew her job and was controlled entirely by Axe’s voice – but it gave her the illusion of being useful. And she liked to think Della enjoyed having her cheeks stroked. ‘Though I suppose we oughtn’t to call it Bunce’s six acres now the Bunces are all gone and Hundon’s is back in hand.’

He looked up. ‘By rights, then, we shouldn’t call it Hundon’s. Place names go back to people long forgot.’

‘That’s true,’ Alice said. ‘I suppose in centuries to come, people will take a short-cut down Poor’s Lane and wonder who Poor was.’

He grunted in response, then said, ‘All right, ready now. You can lead her forward.’

Alice clicked to Della and she walked forward until the strain came on her traces; then her ears went back for Axe’s voice. It was to his ‘Goo-on, gal!’ that she threw herself into her collar and heaved. He got his pick into the cavity he’d dug and levered, and between them he and Della dragged the stump out.

‘Like drawing a tooth,’ Alice called back cheerfully. Della halted with the slackening of the ropes; Axe backed out of the great raw hole, wiping his forehead on the wrist of his shirt. Alice’s heart gave a little bump as he stood straight and eased his back, and she saw the cords of his neck stretch and the muscles of his upper arms flex.