Page 29 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)
Kitty was pleasantly surprised when Giles came into the nursery, where she was indulging herself with holding Louis before he was put down to sleep. She was even more pleased when he said, ‘Let me have him for a moment.’
‘He’s looking well, don’t you think?’ she asked. At the sight of her husband cradling her child, she felt an upsurge of love for him.
‘Very bonny,’ Giles said. ‘I just came to tell you I’m going up to Topheath Farm with Adeane, so I shall be out all day.
’ This was the furthest away of the farms, mostly given over to sheep.
‘They’ve had an outbreak of swayback, and I want to see if we can get to the bottom of what’s causing it.
I might not be back before dressing-bell. ’
‘I can have dinner put back, if you like,’ Kitty said. She saw so little of him, and if he did not get back in time to dress, sometimes he would order a tray brought up to the library and she didn’t see him at all.
‘No, don’t do that. No need to put everybody out.’ He was making no move to hand the baby back.
‘It’s no trouble—’ she began.
But he spoke over her. ‘Am I imagining it, or is he bigger already?’
‘Of course he’s bigger! Babies grow all the time.’ He smiled privately at her newly acquired expertise. ‘He’s put on two pounds since he was born,’ she went on proudly.
Giles had no idea where two pounds stood on the scale of achievement.
‘Magnificent. He’s clearly an exceptional child.
’ He stared down at the sleeping face, glad the heir was apparently healthy, but also curiously moved on a personal level.
Human babies did not have the instant appeal of, say, calves or lambs or kittens.
You had to be attached to them in some way to find them attractive.
But his son (oh, the emotional thump in the belly of those words!) was surely one of the nicer-looking specimens.
Kitty, seeing he was in no hurry to leave, seized her chance.
‘I did want to talk to you,’ she said, and quickly began telling him her plans for refurbishment.
But she was afraid she only had half his attention, and that he was agreeing with her more or less at random, his mind already drifting away to the fields, hedges, lanes, buildings, tracks and livestock of his inheritance, which he seemed to find so much more interesting than anything Kitty could provide – except his heir.
‘So you see, it will be mostly repairing and cleaning, not actually new things,’ she said anxiously. ‘Except for the drawing-room curtains. They really are beyond saving – even Dory says so, and she’s wonderful at repairing things so you can’t see the mend.’
‘Yes, dear. Wonderful.’ He looked round vaguely, caught nursemaid Jessie’s eye, and indicated that she should take the baby. She scuttled over eagerly. She was so in love with Louis she could hardly bear even his legitimate parents to share him.
Kitty was still talking. ‘They’ll have to be replaced.
But we’ve unpicked the seam to see what the colour was originally and Mrs Webster’s sure she can match it exactly, so they will be the same curtains, really, only what they used to look like, not all faded and rubbed.
So I hope your mother won’t mind too much. ’
‘My mother?’ Giles said vaguely, catching the end of the sentence.
‘She doesn’t like me to change anything,’ Kitty said bluntly.
‘Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t care really,’ he said, turning away.
‘But the point is, Giles,’ Kitty said desperately, ‘that it will cost money, even though I won’t be buying much new, only the velvet for the curtains – the maids can make them up at home – but it’s an expensive material, and as the windows are so big, there will be an awful lot of it.’
‘I’m sure you’ll do what’s necessary.’ He was almost at the door.
‘And I really do feel we ought to have new mattresses. Ours are quite dreadful, and I hate to invite people to stay when I know they won’t get a wink of sleep.
I can order them from Whiteley’s and Mrs Webster says they will give me a good rate for a large order, but it will still be a lot of money and, Giles, you must listen! ’
He paused and half turned back to her. ‘I am listening. You want a new mattress.’
‘New mattresses for all the beds. And to carry out my plans for refurbishment we must take on more servants.’
He said impatiently, ‘For heaven’s sake, Kitty, you are mistress of the house. Do as you like and don’t bother me with all the details.’
‘But, Giles, it will be a lot of money. And I know you need my inheritance for the estate, so I can’t just buy things without asking you. And what if, when your mother comes back, she objects to what I’ve done? You have to support me.’
He turned back fully, recognising the urgency in her tone. ‘My mother won’t even notice. She has very little interest in the house,’ he said.
Kitty retorted, ‘She had enough interest to stop me changing anything. Enough to say wanting things not to be shabby is middle-class.’
‘Oh, Kitty,’ he said sadly. ‘You mustn’t mind her. I know she has a sharp tongue – I’ve been on the end of it myself often enough – but she can’t actually do anything to you.’
Except make me unhappy , Kitty thought. But she must stick to the point, before he escaped again. ‘But, Giles, do I have your permission for all this?’ she persisted. ‘If I do, then she can’t object – not really.’
He looked at her with sympathy. Poor Kitty , he thought, so afraid of everyone .
Yet the thought was not without a hint of irritation.
He hadn’t time to be bothered with all this nonsense.
Still, he hunted out a reassuring tone of voice for her.
‘Of course I support you. You are mistress of the house. Order what you like. And hire more servants if you want,’ he had remembered something else she had said.
‘But the money, Giles. I’ll have to spend some of my inheritance, and I know you wanted it all for bringing the estate back to health.’
‘But your inheritance isn’t a fixed sum,’ he said, in surprise. He saw her blank look. ‘It isn’t a big bag of coins that we’re gradually emptying.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No, dear, it’s an income as well. There was a large sum of money on deposit, and thank God for it, but the Harvey’s company continues to trade and make money.
’ He sought for an easy way to explain it to her.
‘Every time someone buys a jar of Harvey’s jam and hands over fivepence to the shop-keeper, part of that fivepence comes to you. ’
She frowned. ‘Only part?’
‘Well, the shop-keeper has to make a little profit, or he couldn’t stay open.
Then there’s the cost of making the jam – the fruit, the sugar, the wages of the workers, the upkeep of the factory and so on.
When all that’s paid for, the rest is yours.
It isn’t much on one jar of jam, maybe only a penny, but of course the company sells thousands of jars every day, and when you add up all those pennies, it comes to a good amount of money refilling that bag of coins you brought me when .
. .’ he reached over and took her hand ‘. . . you did me the honour of marrying me.’
She flushed with the pleasure of his touch, and his words. ‘So you really don’t mind, then?’
‘Mind if you spend your own money on making your own house more comfortable? Of course I don’t, foolish!’
But the tender moment didn’t last long. He gave her hand a valedictory squeeze and pushed it back to her, saying, ‘Now I must be off. Adeane will be waiting downstairs.’ And he walked smartly out before she could say anything more.
Kitty sighed and, having seen Louis put in his crib, made her way back towards the Peacock Room, her mind drifting off to the rosy land of soft furnishings.
Her mother-in-law surely couldn’t object if she changed things in the Peacock Room, as it was her own sitting-room.
A new carpet, the chairs and sofas reupholstered, different curtains – those ochre ones really were disagreeable .
. . It would be nice, she thought, to see it all in peacock colours to reflect the name.
Deep blue, green and gold. Surely someone somewhere made curtains with a pattern of peacocks?
It might be a William Morris design – Liberty’s would be the place to look.
It would mean going up to Town, and wouldn’t that be nice, after all the months and months of being in the country, the last few of them confined to a sofa feeling like a stuffed goose?
Giles only got as far as the back hall before he was waylaid by Alice, jumping in front of him as he stepped out of the door.
She plainly wanted to catch him before he got to the stableyard.
She was dressed in riding habit, and he noticed she was growing, though upwards rather than outwards.
She was tall for her age, but barely had a figure at all.
The dogs, who had been running ahead of him down the stairs, discovered her like a long-lost lover, and mobbed her with thrashing tails and yards of adoring tongue. He checked his initial exasperation at being held up again, and said, ‘Well?’
She looked up, hands busy around thrusting heads and offered ears. ‘Josh is being so disagreeable, Giles! Can’t you speak to him? He won’t let me ride out on my own.’
‘I thought he still wasn’t riding.’
‘No, he isn’t, because just when his broken foot was better, that horse trod on it, so it’s sore again.’
‘That would make anyone bad-tempered.’
‘I know. But he makes me take a groom out with me and, honestly, Giles, you can’t imagine how tedious it is, always to be trailing someone behind you who doesn’t want to be there.’
He smiled at her. ‘I can imagine. I shouldn’t like it a bit.’ She brightened, and he hurried on, ‘But I’m a man and you’re a girl, and there’s nothing to be done about that.’