Page 36 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

Kitty had had a pleasant morning talking to Peason about espaliered fruit in the new garden, where the walls were three-quarters finished.

Already they were thinking beyond its completion.

Succession houses, he had proposed: Lord Shacklock had an acre of glass, much of it heated all winter.

Kitty had fallen in eagerly with his talk of peaches and grapes.

And further down the line, a proper flower garden, lawns, walks, shrubberies – one day she would like to see them too.

It would require a lot of earth-moving, Peason warned, but with relish.

Cutting back the hillside, creating terraces – but what an opportunity, then, to have a descending water-course!

There was water up the hill, the little Shel brook could be diverted.

Cascades, pools, rockeries. Standing in the sunshine, with Peason politely holding her parasol over her, Kitty felt entirely happy, and at peace.

There was no conflict here. She and Peason were of one mind, and she had the power to achieve what she wanted, without referring to anyone else, for neither Giles not his mother cared about the gardens.

Here was one place in which she ruled unchallenged.

She would create something – and it would be hers !

Afterwards, she went up to see Louis and, later, was approaching the door of her sitting-room when Giles came out of it, with Alice behind him.

‘Ah, there you are! Come in – I’ve something to give you.’

Kitty looked enquiringly at Alice, but she only grinned.

She went obediently into the Peacock Room with the dogs swirling eagerly around her, and Giles conducted her with an expansive gesture, like a circus ringmaster, towards the round table, where a flat package wrapped in brown paper was lying.

‘I’m sorry it’s late,’ Giles said. ‘It was meant to be a present for our wedding anniversary but I couldn’t quite manage it in time.’

‘Oh,’ Kitty said, disconcerted. ‘But . . .’ She was going to say, ‘I didn’t get you anything.’ Their anniversary, on the 28th of June, had not been mentioned or marked in any way, and she thought that was the way it was meant to be.

But Alice interrupted her excitedly. ‘Open it! Open it!’

It was a picture in a fine black and gold frame: the head of Giles, three-quarter profile, staring pensively away to the left.

The original pencil drawing had been enhanced with water-colour and ink.

Kitty looked up at Alice. ‘You did it?’ Alice was nearly always sketching away in the drawing-room after dinner, so much that Kitty hardly noticed any more, or wondered what she was drawing.

‘It’s not my fault it’s late. I did finish it in time, but Giles wanted it framed and the framer took ages. What d’you think? Is it a good likeness?’

‘It’s wonderful,’ Kitty said. A critical eye might object that he was not quite as handsome as the picture made him, but to Kitty he was , every bit.

‘I’ve never tried colouring a face before, but I think it’s come out rather well. I had to do a lot of practice on a spare sheet to get the tone right. Funny how we think of skin as being white or pink, but it isn’t anything like either.’

‘It’s absolutely lovely,’ Kitty said. ‘You’re so clever!’

‘I did about a dozen sketches of him before I had one I liked. He’s got a very difficult mouth.’

Kitty looked at Giles, and thought, No, he has a beautiful mouth, and I want to kiss it .

He smiled at her. ‘The brat thought you’d like to have it as a present, so I took it to Aylesbury to get it framed properly. Happy anniversary, dear.’

Alice gave him an impatient nudge. ‘Kiss her, then. You’re supposed to kiss her.’

‘I was just going to. Mind your business, infant!’

He laid his lips gently on Kitty’s, and for a moment she revelled in his touch, the smell of his skin, the warmth of his closeness.

It was over all too soon. He straightened up, and Alice said, ‘Where will you hang it?’

Kitty knew exactly where. ‘On the wall beside the window,’ she said. Opposite the chair where she sat to work, so she could see it every time she looked up. ‘Thank you both. It’s a lovely present.’

‘I’ll send one of the men up on my way out, to hang it for you,’ Giles said. ‘I’m meeting Moresby in the village, then going on to Ashridge Park. I won’t be back for luncheon, I’m afraid.’

He was gone, the dogs close at heel, and Alice, after staring at her work a moment longer, recollected something and ran after him, saying, ‘Giles! There’s something I want to ask you.’

The room seemed suddenly very empty. But Kitty picked up the picture, and thought how good it would be to be able to gaze at him whenever she wanted, through all the long hours when he was elsewhere.

Moss did not like change. What butler did? The butler’s business was to create order and ensure continuity.

Moss had been with his old lordship for many, many years, and while he could not claim there had been friendship or affection between him and his master – that would not have been proper, even if possible – he had got used to him, and admired him as the template of all that an earl should be: grand, commanding, remote and, in all public dealings, correct.

Moss liked routine, rules, customs. He liked people to know their place, and remain in it.

He liked to know what to expect. But now things had changed too much, too suddenly.

The very manner of his late lordship’s death had been horrible: he should have died in his bed in the amplitude of years.

Moss had had an image in his mind, culled from reports in the newspapers, of the old Queen’s death, with her eldest son holding one hand and her eldest grandson the other, with the rest of the family gathered silently at the foot of the bed as she breathed her last in appropriate solemnity.

That was how Lord Stainton should have gone – not carried in on a hurdle from the hunting field, dishevelled, muddied, broken.

Moss felt old these days. He had not so much as opened his precious stamp album for months, let alone corresponded with other collectors, as he used to.

His duties seemed to take longer, and left him with no energy for other interests.

And he felt shaky. He had not yet spilled a drop on the cloth as he poured the wine at table, but the possibility that he might haunted him.

His new lordship did not set enough store by formality.

Her new ladyship was very young – almost a child – and, frankly, not from their rank in society.

Who knew what she thought, or might do? And her ladyship – the dowager – seemed to be turning her back on Ashmore Castle, leaving a hole where her certainty should be.

Then there had been the shocking death of the cook.

Suicide – a black, black sin and a scandal.

The idea that other servants’ halls around the county would be discussing their shame made him lie in his bed some nights, pale and sweating, unable to sleep.

He had never had any opinion of Mrs Oxlea, and had not understood why her ladyship kept her on, but she had at least had the advantage of speaking rarely and never drawing attention to herself.

The manner of her departing changed all that.

It would never have occurred to him to enquire into the happiness or otherwise of any servant, but the fact remained he was responsible for them.

In the final analysis, he was master below stairs.

He couldn’t have known – but he should have.

Now there were new servants, new faces to bother him as he passed them along Piccadilly.

Two new kitchen-maids and an Irish scullery-maid whose names he had not bothered to learn yet – he had very little to do with the kitchen.

Ida, the previous head kitchen-maid, had taken over the cooking, and so far seemed to be managing.

Mrs Webster gave cautious praise – cautious because they had not had any large parties so far to test her.

When they did, they would probably need yet more kitchen staff – four was barely enough as it was.

There was a new, very young, houseboy, Eddie, who lived out, and was so young and undeveloped he seemed to be all ears and elbows.

He did at least give Wilfrid, previously at the bottom of the pile, someone to boss.

The new footman, Sam, was also young, and had only had two years’ experience, but he seemed modest and willing to learn, which Moss found refreshing after the cockiness of James and Cyril, and the self-composed menace of Speen.

He only hoped the lad would not be corrupted

The other newcomers he noticed more because they sat at the table at mealtimes.

The new maids were Mildred, Ada and Addy.

Mildred was a very thin girl (Worms? he wondered in passing) and constantly sniffed.

He had already mentioned to Mrs Webster that Mildred needed to be reminded of the difference between a sleeve and a handkerchief.

Ada and Addy – such similar names, such dissimilar girls.

Addy, strong and fat, cheerful and stupid, was the sort of housemaid one always imagined on her knees, scrubbing. Ada – ah, quite another story.

She was tiny, to begin with – not so much short as small all over, as if she belonged to a different, more delicately built race of creatures.

Too delicate for housework, he had thought, when he first saw her, but Mrs Webster, when he suggested this, had said she seemed strong enough.

She had fair, fine hair, pale skin, blue eyes and a wistful mouth.

You would not have called her pretty, but with her resemblance to a porcelain figurine, you might have thought she was beautiful, in a way.