Page 17 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

The dowager Lady Stainton and her daughter returned to Ashmore at the end of April. ‘For the Birth,’ she said magnificently, making it clear that Birth had a capital letter. ‘I was told the child was due in May.’

‘The middle of May,’ Giles said. He didn’t much care whether his mother was present or not, since he had ways of avoiding her, but he had a vague idea that being upset wasn’t good for pregnant women, and his mother’s capacity to upset other people, especially meek women, and most especially Kitty, was unbounded.

Maud dismissed the objection. ‘Tallant babies always come early,’ she decreed. ‘I shall go up and see Kitty when I’ve changed. And what have you done about an accoucheur?’

‘A what?’ Giles said, distracted.

She frowned at him. ‘ All my births were attended by an accoucheur. A London accoucheur, of course. The best ones are booked months in advance. My grandson is the heir to the Stainton estate. His birth is a matter of the utmost importance.’

‘It might not be a boy,’ Giles objected feebly.

‘It will be a boy,’ she replied. ‘And I gather, then, that you have done nothing to prepare for his arrival. Really, Giles, must I do everything? I go away for a few weeks and the house falls into wrack and ruin.’ There seemed a hint of satisfaction in her voice about that.

‘You’ve been away almost four months,’ Giles said. ‘And we’re getting along very well.’ But she had gone out of the room and didn’t hear.

Hot on the dowager’s heels came the Cordwells. ‘Linda’s amazing. She must have been lurking in the woods waiting to see Mama’s carriage arrive,’ Richard said wonderingly. ‘How did she know, otherwise?’

‘She knew Mama would come back for the birth, and Mama told her it would be in May, so she came at the first opportunity, that’s all,’ Giles said.

‘How depressingly literal you are, dear brother’, said Richard. ‘Well, the Willoughbys have had a good long go of her. I suppose we can’t really object to taking our turn.’

‘I just hope she doesn’t upset Kitty,’ Giles said.

Richard looked thoughtful, and later that morning sent a telegram, the result of which was the arrival of Grandmère to swell the ranks – or, rather, to take control. She could out-general anyone, even Maud.

‘So now it’s all settled down again,’ Dory said to Uncle Sebastian. ‘As you will know, sir. Peace abounds.’

Her head was bent over a pale pink blouse, lace over silk, and she was repairing a tear in the lace with tiny stitches. Sebastian liked the way she pressed her lips together when she was doing something tricky.

‘I did notice a certain increase in tranquillity,’ he said, resting between pieces, hands unmoving on the keys.

‘Although not so much below stairs,’ Dory went on.

‘Old Lady Stainton’s maid, Simone, got into a big row with Miss Taylor over the booking of an accoucheur.

When Miss Taylor found out old Lady Stainton had vetoed it, she was angry.

Her ladyship always had Sir Desmond Wentworth, and Miss Taylor said it wasn’t fitting that the heir to Ashmore Castle should be brought into the world by anything but a knight of the realm.

She said old Lady Stainton shouldn’t interfere, which made Simone mad.

She said her ladyship was the one interfering, that she couldn’t stand that she wasn’t top dog any more, and that she ought to go to the Dower House and keep her mouth shut.

So of course that set them at it like cat and dog, until Miss Hatto said that her lady – Lady Kitty – didn’t want an accoucheur anyway, and that ought to be the end of it.

And then, of course, Miss Taylor and Simone both turned on her and told her she’d only been a lady’s maid five minutes and ought to respect her elders.

’ Dory tested a silk-covered button and decided that it was coming loose.

She reached for her scissors. ‘It doesn’t help that Miss Hatto outranks them below stairs, her lady being the countess and theirs only dowagers.

It just makes them madder when Mr Moss points it out.

They think she’s a flibbertigibbet upstart, and ought to sit at their feet and drink in their wisdom, until she’s past forty and has a face like a pickled egg, just like them. ’

Another thing Sebastian liked about the sewing-maid was her unexpected vocabulary. She didn’t talk like any maid he’d ever known before. There was a mystery about her past that he’d like to uncover – one day. For now, he just said, ‘So much conflict! It all sounds exhausting.’

She looked up. ‘It is, sir. That’s why I like to get away, up here. Except that I shouldn’t be in here at all. I should be in the sewing-room.’

‘You should obey orders,’ said Sebastian, ‘and my orders are that you stay while I play again. What do you say to a little Bach? How about a Goldberg Variation?’

‘It’s very good for sewing to, if you don’t take it too fast, sir,’ she said, with a hint of a gleam in her eyes.

Sebastian knew he couldn’t play this most difficult of Bach’s music fast – he wasn’t good enough, and his hands were not so nimble these days. But did she know that? And was she saving his face? She disconcerted him – and he suspected she meant to.

***

Alice was pleased and excited to see Rachel again, but felt oddly shy at first. Her sister had changed so much.

Her hems were down and her hair was up, she moved quite differently, and Alice wondered how her cheeks could be suddenly so pink.

Could it be the new tightness of her corset pushing the blood up into her face?

When Alice persuaded her to go up to the old schoolroom for a private chat, Rachel wandered about the room at first, touching things idly, and said, in a voice unlike her own, ‘Goodness, everything looks so different! Smaller, somehow. And how faded and shabby the Castle is compared with the Wachturm and Biebesheim.’

Alice said, ‘Oh, Ray, don’t be affected!’

Rachel blushed with annoyance. ‘I’m not affected!’

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ Alice pleaded. ‘Please be the same, so I can talk to you.’

Rachel looked serious. ‘I can’t be the same, because I’m not the same, but I’ve missed you too.’ She sat down, and somehow seemed more like the old Rachel, which reassured Alice.

‘You haven’t changed,’ Rachel said. ‘What have you been doing since we went away?’

‘Hunting, of course, and we had house parties for hunting weekends, which was nice. Otherwise, there’s been no company.

But I’m allowed to dine down all the time now.

What else? Keeping Kitty company. Uncle Sebastian plays cards with me in the evening sometimes, but he always wins, because he remembers every single card that’s been played.

He says you have to, to be a proper card player.

So I said I’d sooner just do it for fun and keep losing.

Oh, and Kitty’s maid Hatto taught me to knit.

I’m not very good yet – I can only go in a straight line – but I knitted a scarf. ’

Rachel seemed impressed. ‘Can I see it?’

‘I haven’t got it now. I gave it to Richard for a present, but he laughed so much he cracked a chair leg. So I took it back and gave it to Josh, and he said it was very nice, which was something, coming from him .’

‘How’s my darling Daystar?’

‘I kept him exercised for you, and hunted him a bit. But Josh has been so disagreeable, he insisted on turning him and Queen Bee out with the others after Easter, even though they’d hardly hunted at all, really.

I was hoping to ride one of them while Pharaoh is out but he said no, they all had to rest. So if you want to ride this month it’ll have to be one of the road horses, or the ponies. ’

‘That’s all right, I don’t need to ride,’ Rachel said. ‘We rode a lot in Germany.’

‘Did you hunt?’

‘Well, they called it hunting, but it was really just riding out into the forest and having a picnic.’

‘Was it fun, over there?’

Rachel’s face grew animated. ‘ So much fun. Aunt Vicky and Uncle Bobo are so nice. And the cousins are lovely. We didn’t see much of Freddie, because he’s at cadet school, but he did come to one or two parties and looked divine in his uniform.

He’s nineteen this summer. Addie’s fifteen and charming – she so admired me, it was almost embarrassing.

She’s longing to go to grown-up parties.

Klaus and Giddy are just little boys, but much less annoying than little boys usually are.

And the baby, Pauline, is simply sweet. She’s going to be a great beauty. Nothing like Linda’s Arabella.’

‘But what did you do that was so much fun?’ Alice pursued.

‘Oh, parties – so many parties! And balls. I had to have dozens of gowns made – I’ll show you some later, when I’ve been unpacked.

And we went to a lot of military reviews.

Goodness, German uniforms are smart! And there were the hunts, and picnics, and lots of things on the river.

And when we moved to the summer palace, there was bathing as well.

’ Rachel blushed. ‘I have a bathing dress,’ she confided in a low voice, ‘but I’d never dare to wear it in England. ’

‘I suppose you had lots of admirers.’

Rachel tried to look modest. ‘Well, a few. But everyone danced with everyone else. It was very nice, really.’

‘And I suppose you’re madly in love with someone.’

‘Of course not. I’m too young.’ She said it as if it were a matter of course, but Alice wasn’t convinced. Rachel coloured slightly. ‘I don’t mean to be in love at least until next year. I learned my lesson with you-know-who.’

‘You mean there was no flirting?’

‘Of course there was flirting. But don’t tell Mama.’

‘I won’t tell. Who did you like best?’