Page 32 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

He had forgotten how conversing with her kept you on your toes. But her tone through it all was pleasant, not combative, so he was enjoying himself. ‘It’s generous of you to be so understanding,’ he said. ‘Elevated society tends to despise people of business. It regards captains of industry as coarse and dull compared with, say, artists.’

‘Business is no different from art, though,’ said Miss Rowsham. ‘They perform the same function.’

‘How so? Commerce is not usually considered to be creative,’ he said.

‘A painter creates a painting that someone buys for money. A businessman creates goods that someone buys for money. Both add to the sum of human happiness – the businessman perhaps more so, because he creates jobs for people who need them. The artist works in selfish solitude. A little trade in paint and canvas is nothing compared with all the work created by factories and shops.’

He was struck by the argument. ‘You think the creation of jobs is a good in itself?’

‘Certainly. How else are people to feed themselves?’

‘I haven’t been used to thinking in those terms, but you are right. However, to return to the main point, can you really compare a great painting, which will last for ever, with the jug of milk on the tea-table, which will be consumed and gone by tomorrow?’

‘Look around you,’ she said, with a small gesture. ‘Mrs Painswick has paintings on her wall that no-one is looking at, but everyone has milk in their tea.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, Miss Rowsham, you are an original!’

She smiled at him, a touch ruefully. ‘Females are not meant to be original. They’re meant to be decorative.’

He was about to accuse her of fishing for compliments when they were interrupted by Mrs Painswick, accompanied by a man in uniform. ‘Miss Rowsham, I don’t think you have met Colonel Williams, have you? Colonel, Miss Rowsham. Richard, I must steal you away. I do want to introduce you to Mrs Asquith – I know she will enjoy talking to you.’

It was the thing he had come to the gathering for, but he felt a small pang at being forced to leave Miss Rowsham.

‘Rachel, dear,’ said Aunt Caroline, ‘I must talk to you. Do come away from the window.’

She had been watching the last of their visitors leave the house. The wind was blustery, and he had been holding on to his hat. At the corner he had looked back and up, as though he knew she would be at the window, though he couldn’t have seen her from that angle, and now had turned out of sight.

With nothing more of interest down there, she didn’t mind leaving her post to sit opposite her aunt by the fire. She settled her skirt around her, aware she looked very well in the pale green silk afternoon dress, with the wide, swathed belt emphasising her small waist, full sleeves to the elbow and crossed bands of dark green velvet on the bodice. Not everyone could wear green, especially when they were as fair as she was. She folded her hands in her lap, remembering how Jervis’s eyes had told her she looked very pretty indeed.

Aunt Caroline seemed preoccupied about something. She said, ‘Rachel, dear, you know that I love having you stay with me.’

‘Thank you, Auntie.’

‘But I do feel a degree of responsibility towards you. Your mother – well, I suppose she left you in my charge, in a way.’

A faint tickle of alarm stirred in Rachel’s mind. Was she about to be sent away? ‘You take wonderful care of me, Auntie,’ she said. ‘And I’m sure Mama doesn’t want the bother of having me, now she’s married, and with a new baby too.’

‘Not such a new baby – he’s eight months old. The nursery maids will be taking care of him. I don’t suppose Maud has much to do with him now,’ Caroline said, distracted, then pulled her attention back to the subject. ‘The point I’m trying to make, Rachel dear, is that I can’t help noticing that we hear nothing at all from Angus Tullamore. He hasn’t visited the house, and as far as I remember we haven’t seen him since February at the hospital ball. Is something wrong, dear?’ She fixed Rachel with an anxious look. ‘You seem to be dancing a great deal with young Mr Farocean lately. I was surprised when he called today—’

‘It is your usual visiting day,’ Rachel interrupted quickly.

‘Yes, dear, but he’s not really a family connection, and a young man visiting alone in that way gives a certain impression. It’s bound to cause comment. I know Lady Vane was giving him very curious looks. I wonder if your attentions to Mr Farocean might make poor Mr Tullamore – well – uneasy? Not, of course, that I’m suggesting there is anything at all wrong in your friendship with Mr Farocean, but at the same time, an engaged girl, while she might allow herself a little more freedom, must not be seen to be encouraging the attentions of an unattached young man.’

Rachel sighed inwardly, and realised that the explanation had been delayed as long as it possibly could be, or even a bit longer. ‘I’m not really engaged to Angus,’ she said.

Caroline frowned. ‘I know there wasn’t a formal notice in the newspapers, but your mother gave her permission, and there was no doubt about it. He was invited to the ball at Christmas as your fiancé.’

‘But something happened at the ball,’ Rachel said uncomfortably.

‘You quarrelled? Oh, little tiffs between lovers are soon mended. You mustn’t take them seriously.’

‘We didn’t quarrel exactly.’ Rachel realised she would have to tell her aunt the truth, but it had better be the version most flattering to Angus. To express anger and resentment would be to burn her boats, and she was a girl who liked as many arrows in her quiver as possible. ‘He said he realised it was unfair of him to tie me down when he wasn’t in a position to marry me. He released me from the engagement so that I could be a free agent until I came of age. He said he would propose to me again in August, if I hadn’t formed another attachment by then.’

Aunt Caroline looked baffled. ‘That is the oddest thing I have ever heard! He released you? It isn’t for him to release you or not release you. Are you engaged or are you not? That is the question.’

‘I suppose, in a sense, I am not. Just at present. So, you see, I am free to dance with Mr Farocean as much as I please.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me before?’