Page 64 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

Alice recognised the dismissal and turned obediently away. Instead of going to the cloakroom she went up the stairs to the small room called the library, where the shelves were packed with books exclusively about art. There was a wooden table and chair in the centre. She searched for and found a reference book called Directory of British Artists, wondering why she had not looked at it before. She laid it on the table and opened it near the end, leafed further forward – there were few entries after W – and found it.

Wentworth, Ivor Barrington, b. July 27th, 1864, m. 1890 Augusta Mary Tiernan.

He was married. She stared at the words. There were children, too, four of them. An address: Wild Rose Cottage, Eashing, Nr Godalming, Surrey. It sounded rural, idyllic, just the sort of place an artist would find his inspiration. He often painted roses in his pictures. And was Augusta Mary his muse? Had she been his pupil once, like Alice? She imagined her having long golden hair and rose-petal skin like the figure in his painting Tristan and Isolde.

She tried to make sense of it. What had been going on? Had she imagined the whole thing? But, no, he had definitely said he wanted her to pose for Psyche. Perhaps he had meant fully clothed – though that made no sense. Or only wanted her face. That must be it. He was a married man with a home in the country, and he was her teacher, nothing more. The intensity of feeling – the dreams of the future – she had made all that up. She was an abject fool, making up stories for herself like a child playing with her dolls. Because she had wanted it to be so.

She felt a blush of shame. Had he realised the foolish things she was thinking? He was a handsome man – girls must often look at him adoringly, he must get tired of it when yet another new pupil became awestruck. Was that why he had cut off her lessons? If he knew…She felt so embarrassed.

Her time here was done. There were only a few classes on Monday and Tuesday before term ended. She could miss those. They were going down to Ashmore on Wednesday, she and Rachel, to prepare for Axe’s investiture on Thursday, and the village celebrations surrounding it. Oh, Axe! She felt a deep ache at the thought of him, and a longing, like the longing for home. She was so proud of him, but if he knew what she had been planning with Wentworth, he would be ashamed of her. There was no reason he ever should know, of course. No-one would know. How could they? It had all been in her head.

She put the book away and went downstairs to the cloakroom, collected her materials and her overall, and walked out of the school. She felt bad about not saying goodbye to Bron and one or two others, but she wanted to be done with it all at once. She would write to the school and say she was not coming back.

She had thought she might never see her family again, but it was the Blackwood she would never see again. It was ironic, she thought, as she walked down Old Burlington Street towards Piccadilly. Ironic, but not very amusing.

The journey was very long – to Edinburgh by train, change to a second train for Perth, then a cab out to Craigend – and gave Angus plenty of time, too much time, to think. His mother’s telegram had been short and to the point.

FATHER DYING+COME AT ONCE++

He had flung a few necessities into a bag and rushed straight to the station, merely tossing a word to the housekeeper as he passed, in too much of a panic for explanations, or even to arrange for leave of absence from work. All that could wait – he could send telegrams from Scotland.

Father dying! The words were seared into his brain. His father was not an old man. It must have been some kind of accident. Motor-cars, trains, machinery, runaway horses, rabid dogs – the world was full of hazards. Or a disaffected worker, a miner with the huge muscles of his calling and a pick in his hands. A drunkard on the street with a baulk of wood wanting a fight and not caring with whom. A cutpurse with a knife lurking in the shadows, looking for a rich man. He had to rein in his fevered imagination. He would find out when he found out. There was no point in speculation.

At last here was the handsome, solid granite house, with lights on in many windows, despite the long Scottish summer dusk. He had been born in the Edinburgh house, but they had moved here when he was five, and it was his real childhood home. The door was opened by his brother Fritz, whose ginger-sparked brows drew down at the sight of him, who said resentfully, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Mother sent for me,’ Angus said. Fritz seemed not entirely in control of himself, and stood there, staring stupidly. Angus pushed gently past, put down his bag in the familiar hall, and said, ‘How is he?’

‘Sinking, the doctor says.’ Tears immediately filled Fritz’s eyes.

‘What happened? Was it an accident?’

Fritz shook his head, and the words took a moment to come. ‘It was at the office. I wasn’t there. Callender saw it.’ Callender was their father’s private secretary. ‘He said Father was angry all morning, then a letter came that got him really mad. He stormed up and down, raging about it. Then he just fell, like a stone, Callender said. Dr Tweedie said it was a stroke. We had him brought back here, but Tweedie says there’s no hope.’

‘Can I see him?’

Fritz shook his head again, as though he had water in his ears. The slow answer came at last. ‘Best see Mother first. If she sent for you.’

His mother was in the small sitting-room. It felt cold in there, and smelt of furniture wax, and a little of soot. There must have been a summer chimney-fall: he could see it speckling the paper fan in the empty grate. His mother sat in a wing-chair beside it, with a heavy shawl round her shoulders: Father wouldn’t allow fires in July, whatever the weather, and Angus felt a moment of anger, seeing his mother uncomfortable. Father never felt the cold – the fires of his temper burned too brightly – and he didn’t care if anyone else did. Coal cost money (though he owned coal mines and could have as much coal as he wanted without paying for it). Economy was a virtue to be embraced (especially if it didn’t inconvenience him).

Standing beside the chair was a small, slight young woman with a nervous expression; she made him think of a fieldmouse – an obviously pregnant fieldmouse. ‘My wife,’ Fritz said, all the introduction he seemed capable of. She gave Angus a frightened look but didn’t speak. Fiona Culross, Angus remembered: she had brought rail and lumber interests into the family when she and Fritz married in June last year. Had she wanted to marry Fritz at all? he wondered. Or had there been some other young man she had yearned for but dared not mention while her future was being decided by Sir Gordon and her father? But Fritz would be kind to her, he thought. He would not be what Sir Gordon was to their mother.

He approached his mother nervously, unsure of his welcome, but her eyes lit when she saw him, even though they filled at once with tears, and she held out her hands to him. He went and knelt in front of her and took them – they were like blocks of ice – then put his arms round her and gave and received a fervent embrace. He felt her wet cheek against his, and cried, ‘Oh, Mummy, I’m sorry!’

She stroked his hair. ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Dear child. I never wanted you lost to me. There! My owny-own.’ The childhood endearment restarted his tears, and he clung to her for a moment before recovering himself. The banishment had been his father’s idea, he knew that, but in her few words he understood that she had not agreed with it, though she would never have gone against her husband’s wishes. The fact that she had called him here now told him it was all up with his father: she would never have defied him otherwise.

She went on. ‘It was his temper, his dreadful temper. A stroke, Tweedie says. He’s been mad at everything and everyone since he sent you away, and it’s just got worse and worse.’

‘It was my fault!’ The guilty words burst from Angus.

‘No, no, my dearie. It was not reasonable, how he behaved to you, but there was nothing I could do. You know that.’ Their eyes met in understanding. ‘He would have this, and there was no arguing with him. Don’t blame poor Fritzie either: he never wanted to take your place. He’s too much a dreamer for the business. But it’s all done now, can’t change it.’

‘He wouldn’t let me come and say goodbye to you. He said you didn’t want to see me.’

‘Ah, no,’ she said, with soft pain. It was all that was needed.

‘Can I see him?’

‘You can, but he’s not conscious. He probably won’t know you’re there.’