Page 71 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

‘Of course she must stay,’ Giles said quickly. ‘We ought to have a celebration dinner. What did we have on tonight?’

‘The Richboroughs’ ball,’ said Aunt Caroline.

‘They’ll never notice if we’re not there,’ said Richard. ‘It will be an unholy crush anyway’

‘Maud will want to take Rachel.’

‘They can go – and Linda too. The rest of us will dine at home and give thanks for the preservation of our loved ones. What were you doing this evening, Nina?’

‘ Man and Superman at the Royal Court,’ said Nina. ‘But I don’t think Mr Cowling much wanted to go. Shaw, you know – requires a lot of concentration.’

‘Good, then you won’t mind if I send word round to St James’s Square and tell him to come here instead?’ He anticipated her objection. ‘Don’t worry about changing – we shan’t dress.’

‘Excellent idea!’ Richard said. ‘We could do with a cosy night in, after all this gallivanting. I’m sure we’re all worn out with gaiety! And Nina shall tell us in blood-curdling detail exactly what happened and what was passing through her mind as she looked death in the face.’

‘You all joke,’ Kitty said, ‘but she was very brave.’

‘I wasn’t brave,’ Nina asserted.

‘You were !’

‘Oh, this is going to be fun!’ said Richard.

And Giles had forgotten for the moment all about Egypt.

Crooks had taken over the table in the corner of the ironing room, which was rarely wanted in the evening, and was installed there with Sam and his copy of the Good Book.

It wasn’t ideal for teaching reading, with so many long words and with the print being so small, but it had the advantage that Sam already knew a lot of the passages by heart, having heard them in church every Sunday of his life.

And a lot of the stories were familiar, too, from Sunday-school.

If he stuck to the better-known bits . .

. Sam wasn’t showing much progress so far, but one thing Crooks had in quantities was patience.

He was willing to go on for far longer at a session than Sam was.

A shadow passed the door, and Crooks’s heart sank when he saw it was Hook, stalking past with a jacket over his arm, doubling back when he saw them. His bulging eyes surveyed the scene. His face was so thin you could see the muscles in it move as he assembled an unpleasant grin.

‘Oh, very cosy!’ he said. ‘What d’you call this, then?’

‘I’m teaching Sam to read, as you very well know,’ said Crooks, trying for dignity.

‘I know what you call it, Crooky. I was talking to Sam.’ Sam looked up, and blushed automatically. Hook’s expression had that effect on a lot of people. ‘You want to watch him, Sam, my lad. He does you a favour, you have to do him one back – that’ll be expected.’

Sam only looked bewildered. ‘Mr Crooks is being kind—’ he mumbled.

Hook cut him off. ‘Oh, I’ll bet he’s being kind. Kind of this, kind of that. Kind of queer behaviour from an old man, isn’t it?’

Crooks mottled. ‘What business is it of yours? Go away and leave us alone.’

‘I dunno what he says he’s teaching you, Sam, old chum,’ Hook said with a salacious wink, ‘but you’re not the first. Oh, no, not by a long chalk. Very keen on teaching stuff to young men, is Mr Crooks.’

‘What are you implying?’ Crooks said angrily.

Hook ignored him. ‘Just make sure he keeps both hands on the table.’ He waggled his hands in the air. ‘Adam and Eve and Pinch-me, eh?’

‘How dare you!’ Crooks cried, almost inarticulate with rage. ‘How dare you come here with your disgusting insinuations—’

‘If the cap fits, Crooky,’ Hook began. ‘We all know—’

But Speen had appeared in the doorway behind him, and said sharply, ‘That’s enough.’

Hook turned in surprise. ‘What?’

‘I said, that’s enough. You’re always riding him. Leave the poor old devil alone.’

‘I’ll remind you, Mister Speen,’ Hook said angrily, ‘that I am the senior valet in this house. My master outranks yours, and I outrank you.’

‘Oh, give it a rest, James,’ Speen said indifferently. ‘Rank this and rank that. We all put our trousers on one leg at a time. Just leave Crooks alone. Nobody likes a bully. Go on, go about your business.’

And he stood, calmly but implacably, until Hook gave a snort, turned on his heel, and went. Speen, his face expressionless, gave Crooks a nod and walked away too.

After a moment, Crooks said, ‘I think we’d better stop for tonight.

’ Sam, his face red, scrambled away hastily without meeting his eye, and Crooks closed his precious Bible and wondered whether there would ever be another lesson.

He hated Hook, with his crudeness, his libidinous mind and his spitefulness.

Hated him and wished him dead. He had been in two minds about Speen, and he didn’t much like being beholden to him.

But Speen had done the right thing this evening – and no one else seemed able to get the better of James Hook.

Tabby was getting impatient.

‘I will marry you, Tab,’ William said, ‘but I got to sort things out.’

‘It’s all right for you,’ she said angrily. ‘You’re not the one swelling up like a balloon. You’re not the one that’ll have fingers pointed at you.’

‘No one’s going to point a finger at you, not if I have anything to do with it,’ William said stoutly.

‘Well, but what are you doing about it? Cos this baby won’t wait for ever.’

‘I been looking for another job,’ he said.

‘But it’s not that easy. You know this place – everyone knows everyone, and all the jobs’re being done by somebody already.

I’ve tried the Crown and the Royal George.

There was nothing doing. That Ippy Cobham just laughed when I asked her dad for a job, then whispered to him, and he grinned and said I’d have to sort out my problems on my own.

And I’ve asked around the village, but no one wants an extra hand.

Most wouldn’t even listen to me. But Mr Peascod’s housekeeper said I ought to go to London and sign on with an employment exchange.

Maybe we ought to think about going away.

There’d be bound to be more jobs in London, stands to reason. ’

‘But I don’t want to go away,’ Tabby objected. ‘I’ve lived here all my life.’

William sighed. ‘I don’t want to either, and there’s my ma to think about. But maybe that’s the only way. I could go on ahead and find something, and get some lodgings, and then send for you when I was settled.’

‘Oh no you don’t!’ Tabby said. ‘You’re not running out on me!’

‘I never said I was running.’ William was hurt. ‘I’m going to do the right thing by you, Tab. I’m standing by you, but I got to have a job. Don’t you trust me?’

She burst into tears. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. People’ll say I’m a loose woman, just because I was overcome with love for you.’

He put his arms round her. ‘I love you too. And we’ll get married, I promise, and we’ll love this baby, don’t you fret.’

She stopped sobbing and dried her eyes on her sleeve. ‘I’ve got to start getting things for the baby, William. Get ready, like. And my clothes won’t fit me much longer. I need some money.’

‘I got a bit left out of last month’s wages, you can have that. And when my next month comes in, you can have it all – or nearly all. I can give you two pound ten.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘First footman at the Grange gets four pound a month.’

‘I only get three,’ William said sadly. ‘And I got to give my ma something.’

‘I reckon the master’s getting restless,’ Hook said at dinner, heaping potatoes onto his plate and passing the dish on.

‘What makes you think that?’ Rose asked, wondering how he stayed so rake-thin when he ate so much. Probably worked it off in spite and bile, she thought.

‘His bedside book. Always a good clue, that is, to the valet that knows how to read it.’

‘I didn’t know you could read,’ Speen said with mock interest. ‘When did you learn that, then?’

‘Read the clue, is what I mean,’ Hook said, glaring at him. ‘And since he got back from London, he’s had this old book beside the bed by some bloke called Belzoni. All about the pyramids, temples and tombs of Egypt and – some other place, Nubbly or something.’

‘Nubia?’ suggested Mrs Webster. ‘That’s next door to Egypt.’

‘Could be that,’ Hook admitted.

‘Ah, Egypt!’ Moss exclaimed with a sigh, gazing down the table at Ada, who was daintily crunching a piece of crackling.

‘The pyramids! The mighty Nile! The great Cleopatra! Most beautiful woman in the world, you know, Queen Cleopatra. The Emperor Julius Caesar fell in love with her at first sight, as did Mark Antony, who was a great Roman general. She used to bathe in asses’ milk—’

‘How d’you get milk out of an ass?’ Hook interrupted impatiently.

‘You ask him to pass you the jug,’ said Speen. ‘Pass it down, will you, Mr Hook, there’s a good chap?’ Hook gave him a furious look.

‘All domestic mammals can create milk, not just cows,’ Moss said, momentarily diverted from his course. Knowledge of all kinds was his resource, and distributing it his prerogative. ‘Many primitive peoples drink goat’s milk instead of cow’s. Even, I believe, sheep’s milk in some places.’

‘Sheep’s milk, fancy,’ murmured Ellen politely. She quite liked learning new facts. She thought it was posh, knowing things.

‘Asses are donkeys, aren’t they?’ said Mabel. ‘I couldn’t fancy drinking that. Mr Gregory has a donkey up at Shelloes, and it don’t half pong!’

‘That was because of the pigs,’ said Doris. ‘It’s always getting into the same field with ’em and getting pig mess on it when it rolls.’

‘ Asses’ milk ,’ Moss said emphatically, regaining attention, ‘was considered to be an aid to beauty. I believe all the lovely women of the eastern world used it: the Queen of Sheba, the famous obelisks of the sultans—’

‘Odalisques,’ Mrs Webster corrected.

He ignored her. ‘It was said to soften and whiten the skin.’ His eyes drifted back of their own accord to Ada, who was as white as a lily. ‘Fine ladies used to anoint their bodies with exotic ungulents . . .’

He saw Ada’s lips form a pleasantly shocked O at the mention of bodies, and missed Mrs Webster’s patient correction.

Speen, who knew what an ungulate was, smirked. ‘And now we’re back to the asses,’ he commented to his plate.

‘But Cleopatra was the most beautiful of all,’ Moss went on for his audience of one. ‘They say her face was so lovely it could launch a thousand ships.’

Mrs Webster rolled her eyes and gave up.

‘How did that work, then, Mr Moss?’ asked Ellen, genuinely puzzled. ‘I thought they used a bottle o’ champagne.’

Moss was puzzled himself, but could not, of course, admit it. ‘It’s a metaphor,’ he said kindly.

Ellen was plainly about to ask, What’s a metaphor?

Hook intervened loudly. ‘My point being ,’ he said, ‘that I wouldn’t be surprised if the master wasn’t to bolt one of these days.

He had a letter from some old university friend of his that’s going out to Egypt to dig up tombs, and I bet he’s thinking of joining him.

He’s been staring at nothing a lot these last few days, and you know what that means. ’

‘How do you know about the letter?’ Speen asked, beating Mrs Webster to it.

‘I saw it. He’s using it to keep his place in the book.’

‘But how d’you know what it said?’ Speen asked nastily.

‘Please tell me you didn’t read it,’ said Mrs Webster.

Hook flushed angrily at being caught out. ‘Of course I didn’t. What do you take me for? It – it fell on the floor when I moved the book, and I couldn’t help seeing a few words when I picked it up.’

‘Oh, Hooky, you’ve done it now,’ Speen murmured.

Crooks, a little slow off the mark, caught up. ‘A gentleman’s gentleman reading his master’s private correspondence? I can’t believe it! I simply cannot believe any personal servant would be so debased as to do such a thing!’

‘Or, at least, not so stupid as to blurt it out in front of everyone,’ Speen said, for Hook’s ears alone.

‘Oh, come off it, Crooky,’ Hook lashed out angrily. ‘I bet you did your share of snooping – before you got demoted, that is.’

‘How dare you! I wasn’t—’

‘Be quiet, all of you!’ Moss commanded. He glared from one valet to another.

‘What sort of example is this to set to the lower servants?’ Silence settled over the table, except for the rather noisy chewing of Wilfrid, down the far end, who had adenoids and ate with his mouth open.

And we were having such a nice, civilised conversation about antiquities , Moss thought sadly, and the girls were learning so much.

He sought for another subject. India might be too inflammatory, and too close to Egypt.

He settled on milk. ‘Turning milk into cheese is an ancient craft, practised by the earliest humans. It is believed to have started with the Sumerians of Mesopotamia.’

Peaceful eating resumed. Ada was daydreaming about bathing, not in milk, which she thought would be a bit nasty, but in hot water, scented with bath salts, which she had seen in an advertisement.

In her dream she arose from the bath and dressed herself in a flowing silk gown, and was brought a bouquet of roses by a tall, handsome man who bore a strong resemblance to George, the third groom in his lordship’s stables . . .

Speen dissected the black bit carefully out of a potato, smiling to himself in a satisfied manner.

Hook glared at Speen sideways under his brows, viciously smashing his potato into his gravy and vowing to get his own back.

That was two grudges he had now, and Hook was good at grudges.

That Speen thought he was so clever. But everyone had secrets, and Hook was the man to find them out.

He’d get him back, you could count on that!