Page 92 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

It was, of course, nowhere near the size of Aunt Caroline’s own, and she knew that the rooms looked big because they had no furniture in them. But she adjusted her sights to the needs of a newly married young couple, and away from what an earl’s daughter might have had with the right marriage. ‘It’s nice, dear,’ she said. ‘And, of course, it is only your Town house.’ She herself lived permanently in London, but the children surely would have a country seat eventually. Glancing about, she calculated the size of the bedrooms above. Probably two on the next floor, with possibly a dressing-room in between; the four on the top floor would be small, almost bachelor rooms. But who would they be likely to have to stay?

‘What is the other house like?’ she asked.

‘It’s a little bigger than this one,’ Angus said. ‘Still only six bedrooms but it has a wider entrance hall. But it’s in Mecklenburgh Square, and some of the houses on the other side of the square have been divided into lodgings, so it’s not quite such a nice address.’

Caroline said quickly, ‘I don’t think we need to go and look at it,’ she said. ‘This house seems quite suitable for young people beginning their married life. We must see what furniture you can take from the Castle. And, of course, there will be wedding presents to come. We shall have fun furnishing it.’

Rachel beamed at the ‘we’.

‘I was hoping you could advise us about servants,’ Angus said.

‘Cook, kitchen maid, two housemaids and a man,’ she replied briskly. She had, of course, already been thinking about it. ‘Rachel will need a lady’s maid. The manservant can double as butler and valet – it’s quite often done these days in smaller households.’

‘Won’t I need a housekeeper?’ Rachel asked, aware she knew nothing about how to run a house. Angus had told her a long time ago that she ought to learn either from her aunt or her mother, but she had thought it a silly suggestion. Perhaps she should have listened to him.

‘If you find the right man, he and the cook between them will run things,’ Aunt Caroline answered. ‘We must make enquiries. An older, experienced man and a steady, reliable cook – and you must pay them well, Angus. No good ever came of skimping on upper servants’ wages. The maids we can get from an agency. Now we had better go and look at the offices. They will probably need thoroughly cleaning and painting, and we haven’t a great deal of time before the wedding. It would have been better to put it off until the spring – I don’t know why you don’t.’

‘Because we couldn’t bear to wait any longer,’ Rachel said, before Angus could.

There hadn’t been a wedding at Ashmore Castle since Lady Linda’s, and the excitement below stairs more than made up for the extra work. Rooms had to be cleaned, furniture polished, carpets and curtains beaten. The best china service, for the wedding-breakfast – the gold-rimmed one with the Stainton crest on each piece – was got out to be washed. The breakfast set, for other meals, had one or two missing pieces, but fortunately it was of a popular design that was still manufactured so Mrs Webster could order replacements. There were things she’d have liked Frederick’s help with, but Mr Moss had taken him over completely. All the silver had to be brought out and cleaned, and with literally hundreds of glasses to polish, furniture to move, visiting valets to accommodate, and the wine list to decide, it didn’t look as though he’d be available at all before the wedding.

Moss brooded over the guest list, shaking his head a little. He, almost alone in the household now, remembered Lady Linda’s wedding: a hundred guests for the ball in the evening, and fifty sitting down to the meal beforehand. Every bedroom had been occupied, and they’d had to ask neighbours to accommodate some of the visiting servants and horses. That had been a wedding fit for an earl’s daughter, even though she had only been marrying a viscount. But his old lordship had been in a different mould, one of the great old landowning aristocracy of Victorian days. And it had been before the troubles came to the house, so no expense had been spared.

His present lordship wore his rank too lightly, in Moss’s opinion, and was not sociable. They’d had a Royal at Lady Linda’s, representing the Queen, as well as high figures from Society and the Government. Lady Rachel’s affair would be very small beer. Of the family, apart from those resident in the house, only the old dowager and Lady Manningtree were coming, and Mr Sebastian and his wife, expected back from Italy. Not the princess and Lady Linda – now the landgravine, he must remember: Moss understood that they were hosting a visit from Lord and Lady Leake at Usingen. But at least the groom would have some family present, having been reconciled to his mother. Lady Tullamore would be bringing her next eldest son Frederick – Fritz – and his wife; her third son Benedict; and one of her daughters, Miss Augusta – Gussie – who was to be a bridesmaid. They would sit down fourteen at the table on the evening before the wedding, with another twenty-four for the wedding-breakfast.

Well, Moss would do his best for Lady Rachel, who was a sweet, pretty young lady (though if he was to admit a favourite it had always been Lady Alice, who’d had a way of running up to him when she was little and prattling to him about the things she had seen while out riding. She had once brought him an autumn leaf whose vivid colours had caught her notice. He’d tried to preserve it as a keepsake, pressing it in a book, but it had become brittle as it dried and crumbled away…).

In the kitchen, Mrs Terry had for days been dashing about with a furrowed brow, clutching an increasingly dog-eared and stained notebook. In it she had written out the menus for the wedding-breakfast and all the other meals, the numbers expected, a list of ingredients, the order in which the dishes should be prepared and how long in advance this could be done. Then there were the Downstairs meals, at which there would be visiting maids and valets. Mrs Webster had hired two extra temporary kitchen maids for her.

In addition she had the wedding cake to make. No-one could remember where the enormous tins were kept, but they were eventually discovered in a high cupboard in one of the pantries, and William, who was tall, got up on a chair to get them down. When the day’s labours were over and she ought to have been in bed, she had made a start on creating sugar roses, birds, bows and other ornaments for the cake, which she stored carefully in a tin in the coldest larder so they wouldn’t get damaged.

There could be no dashing about in the stables, of course – you never made sudden movements around horses – but there was still a great deal going on. Provision had to be made for visiting horses, and Giddins, the head man, wanted the stables to be spick and span for what he assumed would be critical visiting eyes. All the carriages would be needed to take the wedding party down to the church, and in addition the state landau had to be got out for the bride and groom, its bodywork polished, its upholstery brushed, its springs and straps inspected. Drivers’ and grooms’ liveries had to be cleaned; every scrap of tack and harness to be polished.

Giddins was in a state of bliss over the chance to show the world what they could do, even after his lordship pricked his balloon by telling him there would be no need of borrowing two more greys for the carriage, that four would be enough. He personally exercised the greys every day, and as he said goodnight to them every evening he told them in a crooning voice of the wonderful day to come, in which all eyes would be on them. Some might believe that the bride would be the centre of attention, but he knew better. He would see to it that their coats shone and their hoofs gleamed; they would be decked with white silk rosettes, and their mane plaits would be topped with the stiff royal blue standards that he’d kept in a tin under his bed for safety ever since the last time.

His beauties, his darlings must be on their best behaviour, he murmured, must hold their heads nicely, and lift their knees high, and make him proud. In the shadowy stable, they shifted their feet peacefully in the straw, mumbled his palms, blew softly in his hair; and the sound of his voice followed them into their innocent sleep, rocking them to the rhythm of his dream.

There was a final fitting in Bond Street for Rachel and her bridesmaids, Alice and Gussie. Richard found he had somehow promised to meet them at the dressmaker’s afterwards and take them for tea. He had been given a time, but knowing how these fittings always overran, he had arrived fifteen minutes late, only to find they still weren’t finished. He stumped away to beguile another quarter-hour in the Burlington Arcade, found himself tempted by the idea of a new pair of gloves, and was standing, nose to the glass and hands clasped behind him, when the reflection of a passing lady halted next to his own. He turned, hand going automatically to his hat, to see that it was Miss Rowsham.

‘Is it the black or the tan occupying your attention?’ she asked.

‘I was actually contemplating the burgundy Italian pair,’ he answered.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said gravely. ‘Those fancy cuffs! Dandyism is one of the seven deadly sins, you know.’

‘Surely not? I feel I should have remembered that from my nursery. Nannies were very keen on the Bible in those days.’

‘They still are, or what would become of the nation? I believe it fell somewhere between Pride and Avarice.’

He grinned. ‘And evidently Misdirection was so far down the list you never managed to read that far, O Miss Rowsham!’

She opened her eyes wide. ‘Dear me, can you possibly be accusing me of untruth, Mr Tallant? I’m not sure our friendship runs that deep.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. You are a shining beacon of virtue. Are you here alone? Shopping?’

‘Idling. My sister Vanessa is with her dressmaker, and when they had spent half an hour on floss trimming, I found I needed a breath of air. I shall have to go back before she finishes, but at the present rate of progress that may not be before next week.’

‘I’m in the same position. I promised to take my sister and her bridesmaids for tea after their fitting, but they weren’t nearly ready.’