Page 44 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

‘Perhaps,’ said Miss Eddowes. ‘Households were run on stricter lines in those days. At all events, she certainly believed it. I reassured her, told her I had been awake anyway, and that I liked her singing. After that we became friends, and would chat every morning while she worked. Nellie was her name. She was a few years older than me, and I confided many of my childish notions to her, while she told me about her life, so different from my own. It was the beginning, I believe, of an education for me in the strange inequalities of life.’

She paused for so long, staring into the past, that Kitty eventually prompted her. ‘What happened to her?’

Miss Eddowes roused herself. ‘She was walking out with a nice young man in the militia. We often had regiments billeted on our village in those days. One day the regiment was sent overseas at short notice. The young man promised Nellie he would come back and marry her. They said their goodbyes. Some weeks later she discovered she was with child.’

Kitty stirred uncomfortably. She was afraid she had an idea where the story was leading.

‘We had a housekeeper in those days. She found out and reported the matter to my mother and Nellie was dismissed without a character. Her parents would not take her in. She had nowhere to go, no way of supporting herself. A few days later she was pulled out of the Ash river, drowned dead.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Kitty said. ‘I expect you were upset.’

‘I was,’ Miss Eddowes agreed. ‘I had become fond of her. In tears I asked my mother why she couldn’t have stayed with us – I was, remember, just a child, only eleven or twelve years old, with no understanding of such things. My mother explained that there were rules, and rules must be kept. She said I would understand one day. I was still upset, so on the next Sunday after church she asked the priest to speak to me. We were, as you probably know, Roman Catholics. He told me that Nellie was a sinner, and that sin must be punished or it would flourish. It was like weeds in the garden – if you didn’t pull them up they would grow and choke the true flowers.’

Her tone had been so neutral that Kitty couldn’t tell whether or not she endorsed the argument. ‘What about the young man – the soldier?’ she asked. ‘Did he ever come back?’

‘I never heard what happened to him, but I do know that his regiment suffered heavy losses, both in skirmishes and through sickness, so he might have meant to come back but not have survived to do so.’

She paused. Into the silence there came, from beyond the partly open window, the insistent song of a blackbird, clear and close – it must have been on the roof above the window. In between its phrases, Kitty became aware of the fast, light ticking of the French clock on the chimneypiece. She didn’t like to look at the time, as it might seem rude, but she worried that Giles might finish his meeting and drop in on his way out as he sometimes did.

Miss Eddowes resumed: ‘It was many years later, Lady Stainton, after my dear parents had gone to their reward and I had inherited my father’s fortune, that I remembered Nellie. I thought that if only she’d had somewhere to go, someone to help her, she need not have died – remembering that to her initial wrongdoing had been added the sin of suicide, and guilt for the death of her unborn child. Her soul had borne a heavy burden, at least some of which could have been avoided. Would it not have been a good thing, I wondered, to help her at the beginning so that she did not compound her error? I put it to our priest – not the present incumbent, you understand, but his predecessor – who was quite clear that helping Nellie, and other girls like her, would be an encouragement to vice, and would put my own soul in danger. I thought long and hard about it, but in the end I considered St Paul’s words to be a better guide than the priest’s, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. The first book of Timothy, chapter one, verse fifteen,’ she added helpfully.

‘Yes, I’m familiar with it,’ Kitty said. It was repeated in the Liturgy every Sunday.

‘And surely, therefore, I argued with myself, it behoves us to show compassion to those lost sheep whom Our Lord is said to love more than the sheep who do not stray. Just at that time, the house High Beeches, in New Ashmore, was put up for sale, so I bought it and set up a home to care for girls like Nellie.’

After the long preamble, Miss Eddowes had come abruptly to the point. Kitty drew a sharp breath. No wonder her mother-in-law had disapproved. But was that enough to turn the disapproval into such hatred?

Miss Eddowes regarded her with an enquiring tilt to her head. ‘Shall I continue, Lady Stainton? Or will you ring to have me shown out, with instructions not to admit me again?’

Kitty folded her hands together in her lap to steady herself. She was not Maud. And she could make up her own mind about things. This business was shocking, but there was truth in what Miss Eddowes said about preventing further sin. She tried to imagine what it must feel like to be cast out, with nowhere to go. How frightened Nellie must have been, how desperate, to believe suicide was her only way out!

‘Please continue,’ she said, her voice feeble to her own ears. She went on more firmly, ‘What is it, exactly, that you do at High Beeches?’

‘We provide bed and board to the girls during their pregnancy, we give them work to do, and after their confinement we find a position for them, usually in domestic service but sometimes factory work or some other position suited to their abilities. We have an agency in London that specialises in placing them with respectable employers. The child we place with suitable parents, a couple who cannot have children of their own, or decent people who will care for it in return for a weekly sum.’

Kitty considered this. ‘The girls – the mothers – they don’t care for the child themselves?’

‘It is best for the separation to be immediate and complete,’ Miss Eddowes said. ‘Neither ever knows anything about the other, not even their name. The child must have the opportunity of a life without taint. And the mother must be able to put the shame of the past behind her and start afresh.’

Kitty thought of her own two boys. ‘How can they bear to be parted – never to see their child again?’

‘I assure you it’s better that way,’ said Miss Eddowes. ‘A clean cut heals more quickly.’ She looked at Kitty with understanding. ‘They cannot have what you have, Lady Stainton, or feel what you feel. They must settle for what they can have – which is a great deal more than my poor friend Nellie – and be grateful. So, will you help us?’

Kitty didn’t answer immediately. She thought of her mother-in-law; she thought of Giles. He had said it was good for her to be known to support local charities – but with this? If her name became associated with it, would it reflect badly on her? He would be furious if she were looked down on and shunned.

Miss Eddowes gave her a tired smile, as though she knew her thoughts. ‘I will not press you,’ she said. ‘We must all do what our conscience bids us.’

‘I – I want to help,’ Kitty said uncertainly. ‘But I need to think about it.’

‘Of course. Our expenses are high and any donation, however small, would be welcome. It can remain anonymous. Several of our kind patrons give on that condition. But if you feel, on reflection, that you cannot help, I will understand. No blame attaches to you.’

Kitty felt a surge of relief that she could now just say no and be free of the horrid problem with its dangerous ramifications. It was not her business to worry about the plight of those girls. Let other people help them – people without a standing to be damaged. There were lots of other good works she ought to be involved in, suitable to a countess. She should say no, and forget she had ever been asked – and avoid Miss Eddowes in future.

Oddly, the more excellent reasons to refuse Kitty recited to herself, the more she found herself thinking of Nellie. There was a famous painting she remembered from a school trip to the Tate – Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais. She saw the housemaid lying under the water, like Ophelia, her dead white face and her long hair trailing among the water-weeds…

Miss Eddowes was preparing to get up and leave, and would no doubt thank her for her time, and Kitty heard herself say, without at all knowing she was going to say it, ‘I would like to see High Beeches for myself.’

Miss Eddowes surveyed her face carefully. Was she afraid Kitty wanted to see the place only to make trouble? ‘There is no need. I can answer any questions you have.’