Page 64 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

William was having a smoke out in the yard with Cyril when one of the stable-boys came in, looking furtive.

‘Here, you, William – there’s someone wants yer.’

William straightened up, frowning at the grin on the grubby face. He was first footman now, a position that should be accorded respect by mere dung-shovellers. ‘What way is that to talk? You got a message, you deliver it proper.’

‘Ho, yuss, yer lordship,’ the boy mocked. ‘Yer presence is required out there,’ he jerked his head, ‘ hif you’d be so kind.’

Cyril sniggered. William tried to frown at him and at the boy simultaneously. ‘Is it Mr Giddins wants me?’

‘Naw – what’d the boss want wiv a waspie?’ The stable hands called the footmen wasps because of their striped waistcoats. ‘It’s a laydee wants yer – and quick about it!’

‘Ooh, a laydee !’ Cyril mocked. ‘William’s a great one for the laydees !’

‘It’s prob’ly my mum,’ William said hastily. ‘Is she all right?’ he demanded of the boy.

‘It ain’t yer ma ,’ the boy said with an indescribable leer, and disappeared.

William hurried out of the yard, and as he rounded the corner he saw a figure lurking behind the big bush that grew by the stableyard gate.

An arm came out and beckoned him urgently, and he recognised the bottle-green velvet sleeve of Tabby’s favourite jacket.

He joined her behind the bush, his loins giving a now-familiar surge of welcome.

‘Tab,’ he said. ‘It’s lovely to see you, but I can’t do it, not here.

Anyone could see. And I can’t go anywhere – I’m on duty. ’

Tabby fastened her hand round his forearm as if to stop him fleeing. ‘I’ve not come for that,’ she said sternly. ‘Lord, how your mind does run on one thing! I want to talk to you.’

‘Can’t it wait? I haven’t got long – I was just having a fag.’

‘No, it can’t wait. I got to talk to you now.’ She looked up into his eyes, dragging them back from their natural propensity to slither down her cleavage. ‘I’m in trouble.’

‘How’s that?’ he asked nervously, but wanting to help. She was his girl, after all. ‘It’s not old man Corbie, is it? Is he having a go at you again?’ Corbie had told Tabby off for sneaking out of the bar to see William, and he felt both indignant and guilty.

‘It’s not Corbie,’ she said impatiently. ‘This is serious, William. Will you just shut up and listen?’

‘Course,’ he said, slightly hurt. He folded his arms and ostentatiously closed his mouth.

His silence seemed to put her off. She chewed her lip, her eyes shifting away from his face and back. Finally, she said, ‘I’m expecting.’ The news didn’t seem to register with him. She tried again. ‘I’m having a baby.’

‘Oh,’ he said. He stared, his brain obviously working slowly through what was, after all, a short sentence.

She grew impatient. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say – oh?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said stumblingly. ‘I’ve never – no one never – a baby?’

‘Yes, a baby. So what’re you going to do about it?’ This was obviously too complex a question for him. She simplified: ‘You and me, we’ve got to get spliced. Before the baby comes.’

‘Oh,’ said William again. ‘Married?’ He’d got there at last. ‘But—’

‘Don’t you “but” me, William Sweeting,’ she said in low fury. ‘We got to get spliced, and that’s all about it! You had your fun, and fun don’t come free. Got to be paid for. I’m not having this here baby out of wedlock, with everyone pointing at me, while you get away scot-free—’

He caught hold of her arms. ‘Tab, Tab, I don’t mean to. I don’t want nobody pointing at you. And this baby . . .’ A soppy look crossed his face. ‘A real baby? I’m going to be a dad?’

‘It’s real all right,’ she said grimly. ‘So what’re you going to do?’

The soppiness faded. ‘But, Tab, I don’t see how I can marry you. I’d never be allowed. You can’t be a married footman. And I got to live in. Footmen can’t live out.’

‘You know all that, when you’ve never asked?’

‘But I do know,’ he said anxiously. ‘It’s the truth. Honest, Tab, I wouldn’t lie to you. I’d never get permission to get married. I’d lose me job, and then what?’

‘You’ll have to get a different job,’ she said remorselessly. ‘You’ve got to support me and the baby. I can keep working at the Dog for a bit—’

‘I don’t want my wife working behind a bar,’ he said, because it seemed like the sort of thing a proper man would say.

‘Your wife? So you do want to marry me, then?’

‘Course I do. Course I do. And a baby! You and me and a baby, like a proper family. It’ll be smashing!

’ He thought of being able to do those things Tabby had shown him all the time – and in comfort.

What joy! ‘But it’ll take some thinking about.

I mean, what other job could I get? I don’t know anything else.

I’ve always been in service. And I’m getting on at the Castle – first footman now, and if Mr Moss retires one day, I bet I’ll get made butler. If I leave I’ll lose all that.’

‘Well, I can’t help it. We’ve got to get married.’

‘And where would we live?’ he went on, following his own thoughts.

Tabby had an answer. ‘We could live with your ma first off, till you’d got a bit saved.

Then we could rent a little place. And as for jobs, you know how to serve drinks and wait tables.

You could be a barman or a waiter. They always want people at the Crown – smart people for the carriage trade.

You’d be grand at that. You know how nobs like things done – and you’re good-looking.

If that Horace Dawkins can get a job there, with a face like a squashed tomato, they’ll jump at you. He’s got half his teeth missing.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Tab. It’s a big change—’

‘Well, what d’you think it is for me? But it’s got to be.

You just get your head around it, William Sweeting, because this is going to happen.

Now, I could have a word with Mr Millet down the Crown, but it’d come better from you.

Don’t want him to think you’re going to be hen-pecked, do you?

’ The truth was that Millet knew too much about her, and a word from her wouldn’t secure a dog a scratch behind the ears, but she couldn’t tell him that.

‘You want him to think you’re a proper man, don’t you? ’

‘I am a proper man,’ William said, drawing himself up. ‘And I will see you right, Tabby. But you got to give me time. I got to think about it. I got to sort it out.’

‘Well, don’t take too long about it. I ain’t got time. Babies don’t hang about.’

‘No, I won’t. But I got to think things out.

And, Tab, don’t say anything to my ma. Don’t go round there and talk to her.

’ Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he hurried on, ‘Only, she can’t take a shock.

She has these funny turns if she gets upset.

I’ll have to break it to her gentle, in my own time.

And don’t say anything to anyone else about the baby, because you know how things get round, and if she hears from someone else .

. . But I’ll look after you, Tab, I promise.

Only I’ve got to do it right. You’ve got to give me time. ’

She stepped closer, and lifted her mouth for kissing. ‘All right. I trust you, William. I know you love me. And when we’re married, I’ll make you the happiest man in the world. You know what I mean.’

He did. He surged again. If only he was free now .

. . But when they were married, oh, they could do it every night.

When he got back from work. He gulped, thinking about that.

He’d always been in service and it had never bothered him, the lack of freedom.

But thinking of doing a job that you left in the evening to go home to a separate place where no one was watching you – well, it was exciting. Frightening, too. But exciting.

Mr Cowling watched Nina smiling over a letter, reached for the marmalade, and said, ‘Something interesting, my love?’

‘It’s from Kitty.’ She looked up. ‘She says they’re all going to London next week. Rachel’s going to be shown off in the Little Season, and Giles has business, and everyone else is just going to have some fun. They’ll be staying at Lady Manningtree’s.’

‘Funny coincidence,’ Mr Cowling said. ‘I was just going to ask you if you’d like to go to London for a bit.

’ Her face lighting up was his reward. It wasn’t entirely fiction – he did need to go to London on business, but hadn’t begun to think about when.

But he thought he had heard a note of wistfulness in her voice.

‘Decius can find us somewhere for a couple of weeks. I don’t like to make you stay in a hotel all that time. ’

‘I don’t mind where I stay,’ she said, ‘but it would be lovely to go. Can we go to the theatre and things like that?’

‘Anything you like. And I’m sure if you tell your friend Kitty there’ll be invitations from them, too.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Nina said doubtfully. ‘I expect everything’s been arranged. But I’m sure we can manage to meet somewhere. Perhaps have tea together.’

‘You write and tell her straight away,’ said Mr Cowling. He crunched up his last piece of toast and stood up. ‘And I’d better get on and arrange things my end.’

‘Sit up straight, Alice. Do not slouch.’

‘Or you’ll never get a husband,’ Alice muttered.

‘What do you say?’ asked Grandmère sharply.

Alice straightened herself hastily. ‘That’s what they always say: “Sit up straight or you’ll never get a husband”.’

‘Me, I do not talk about husbands. I wish you will not slouch because it is disagreeable to look at. Also, it is not comme il faut to show so clearly that you find it a bore to visit me.’

Alice was instantly contrite. ‘Oh, no, truly, Granny, I love to visit you. It’s London that’s a bore. There’s nothing to do.’

Grandmère looked amused. ‘Some might say that London has more things to do than one can have time for.’