Page 98 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

Wilfrid’s eyes and mouth grew round. He loved tales of horror. ‘Cor! Could you really? When was that, then?’

‘A long time ago,’ Moss said firmly, not having the date to hand, ‘and we’ll not discuss heads being cut off at this table, thank you very much.’

Maria laughed, a sound like birdsong to the male ears. ‘But you are not wanting to cut off my ’ead now, surely?’ she asked, turning her smile on Wilfrid and causing the scorching blood to rush up from under his collar. ‘That would be so unkind! And then I would never smile again.’

Wilfrid could only gibber.

Frederick was observing her from under lowered eyelids, with a faint, contemplative smile. Catching Afton looking at him, he grinned and murmured, ‘Oh, this is going to be fun!’

Afton shook his head at him, though he was amused himself. Crooks, he could see, was as smitten as anyone else. And while Maria clearly regarded him as a benign uncle, there was nothing avuncular in Crooks’s heart: he treated her with the slightly proprietary awe of an older man suddenly finding himself possessed of a young and lovely bride.

To rescue the conversation, Afton said, ‘Tell us about Lord and Lady Leake. You were there after the baby was born, weren’t you?’

‘Oh, yes. Such a sweet baby, with lovely eyes like his mother’s,’ Maria said. ‘He will break hearts, that one, when he is older. But the house, it is on the canal, water everywhere – Dio mio! Me, I would not want to have a child in such a place. I would think all the time he will tumble out of a window and drown!’

‘But somehow people in Venice must have children, and bring them up safely,’ Afton said. ‘Otherwise there’d be no-one there.’

‘Because they are used to it, but it is not good sense. In Sicilia they live on a volcano – that is surely very stupid. Me, I like very much England, where there are no canals and no volcanoes and no-one is cutting off the ’eads.’ She dimpled at Wilfrid again. ‘All is very safe and nice in England.’

‘I’m not sure you’re going to like your new home in Henley, then,’ Afton said. ‘It’s right on the river.’

Her eyes widened and she looked at Crooks. ‘E vero?’

He hastened to reassure her. ‘Oh, the river is there, but yards and yards away from the house. You can’t even see it from most of the windows. No danger at all.’

‘Unless it floods,’ said Frederick, ‘which I believe is not unusual in winter.’

Crooks gave him a furious look, and Afton went to the rescue again, saying, ‘What is the history of Venice, Mr Moss? Can you enlighten us? Who built it and so on?’

Moss swelled with pleasure at being appealed to, only regretting he had not yet studied the entries under V in his A–Z of Universal Knowledge in great detail. He rummaged in his brain for what he had read in his first dash-through. ‘I believe it was the Romans, Mr Afton,’ he said, clearing his throat, ‘fleeing the invading Visigoths.’

It was such a pity that Visigoths began with V as well. If it had been the Franks or the Huns he’d have been on firmer ground.

The only disappointment of the wedding for Kitty was that Nina and Mr Cowling had declined the invitation. She had been longing to see her dearest friend, and perhaps the baby too, and Angus had been most anxious that his kind patron should be invited. But the exciting news was that the King had conferred a barony on Mr Cowling, and the Writ of Summons, which required his attendance at the House of Lords to take the Oath of Allegiance and sign the Test Roll, was unluckily issued for that same day, after which they had been invited for the weekend at Sandringham.

‘I wish we could come,’ Nina wrote. ‘I suspect Ashmore Castle and Rachel’s wedding will be much more fun. Next time, try to hold your weddings when the House is not sitting! But we will be sending a present for the happy couple, and we wish them every happiness.’

The present turned out to be an exquisite early Turner watercolour of Aysgarth Falls on a misty summer morning. Rachel liked it well enough, and when Angus had explained to her who Turner was and how special it was, she liked it very much, and was touched and grateful for the generosity. Angus was almost overwhelmed by the thoughtful kindness, and assumed it had been Mr Cowling’s initiative and choice.

‘It’s a lovely thing,’ Giles said. ‘You have a worthy starter for your collection, Angus. I wish Father hadn’t sold all our good paintings,’ he added regretfully. About the only one that had survived was the portrait of the fifth earl by Sargent, which hung in the Queen’s Bedroom. Giles supposed that his father hadn’t been able to contemplate parting with his own image, however much he had needed the money, and since Giles had refused point blank to use the great state bedroom when he succeeded, he had forgotten all about it until after marrying Kitty had made selling it unnecessary.

Alice borrowed the Turner while they were away on their honeymoon, and made a copy for Giles, which he liked and admired so much he had it framed and hung on the wall of the drawing-room.

‘It’s as good as the real thing,’ Kitty said. ‘You are so clever!’

‘We must send you to the National Gallery with your paints,’ Giles said, ‘and have you copy some more Old Masters for us. Our walls are shockingly bare.’

Alice smiled at the joke, but sadly, remembering the time when she was so young and foolish she had thought she would be an Old Master herself one day.

Giles said that he and Kitty would go up to Town in October, when Nina had said they would be there. It had been quite a year for babies, Kitty reflected, with Giulia’s, and Nina’s, and now Dory and Sebastian expecting an increase. She thought a lot about Giulia’s, with the lustrous dark eyes she had heard mentioned. A boy. Giles had not seemed particularly moved one way or another when the news came. He had only said, quite mildly, that Uncle Fergus would be glad to have a son to inherit the title.

But Fergus and Giulia had chosen to go and show the baby to Maud rather than come for Rachel’s wedding. Of course, Uncle Fergus was Maud’s cherished younger brother and was much closer to her than to his nephews and nieces. But perhaps Giulia had influenced the decision, wanting to avoid the Castle and Giles. Would they ever come to England again? Kitty thought she could bear never to see Giles admiring Giulia’s baby and perhaps wishing it had been his.

But with the subject of babies very much in mind, and in the anticlimax that followed the wedding, she found herself thinking again about Miss Eddowes’s lost maid, and the other unfortunates who would never rejoice in the birth of a child the way Giulia and Nina must have, and Dory surely would. The thought of their sadness began to haunt her, and though Miss Eddowes had presented the whole thing in practical terms and suggested that the unfortunates were simply glad to have their problem solved for them, she found more and more that she wanted to see for herself.

She was in the village one day, having taken a ring to Grossmith’s, the jewellers, to have it resized. Coming out, she saw Miss Eddowes walking along the road on the other side. She hurried across to catch her.

Miss Eddowes showed neither surprise nor pleasure at the request. In the way she suppressed all emotional displays, she was oddly like her arch-nemesis, the princess. She said in a neutral tone, ‘There is really no necessity for a visit, but it can be arranged. You will want it to remain secret, of course.’