Page 73 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

They changed, ordered the horses, and half an hour later set off up the hill.

By unspoken consent they cantered for a long way along the crest, then turned back at the walk, the horses blowing and steaming in the misty air.

The declining sun was swollen and red; a scarf of starlings swirled across the sky and draped itself over the treetops for the evening assembly.

Riding side by side on a broad path was a pleasant way to have a conversation.

Giles glanced across at his wife and thought she looked pretty, her dark curls netted under a saucy tricorn hat, the chilly air bringing colour to her cheeks.

‘You’re a good rider,’ he said. He had talked of horses with Nina from the very beginning, but they hadn’t seemed to be a large part of Kitty’s growing-up. ‘Where did you learn?’

‘On Hampstead Heath,’ she said. ‘I know country people think Hampstead is part of London, but there’s lots of open country. Papa thought a lady should be able to ride properly, and had me taught. But anyone could ride well on Apollo,’ she said, stroking the golden neck.

‘I’m glad you like him.’

Kitty glanced sidelong at him, and judged that he was in the mood for conversation. ‘Tell me about your trip,’ she said. ‘How was Cambridgeshire?’

‘Very flat,’ Giles said. She didn’t laugh, as Nina would have done, but looked at him seriously, receptively.

‘The factory is astonishing, almost like a self-contained village. They grow all their own fruit, apart from the lemons and oranges, of course. They have their own electricity plant, their own sawmill, they have carpenters and blacksmiths and coopers, they have a building department – which will make putting up the new extension easier. Logan, the general manager, was training as an engineer when your great-uncle recruited him, so he’s interested in that side of things.

He has a chief engineer on the staff, a fellow called Ingram, who has already designed machines for sorting the fruit and sterilising the jars, and he showed us a lot of drawings he and Logan have got together for the canning machinery, including making the cans themselves.

They’ve thought it all out, the two of them.

Cowling was very impressed. He liked the fact that they’d got the whole scheme together before they came asking for money.

He says it’s rare to find youthful enthusiasm allied to solid common sense. ’

‘I expect he had it, when he was getting on,’ Kitty suggested. ‘People tend to praise the things they like in themselves.’

He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘That’s very perceptive of you.

’ She blushed with pleasure at the compliment.

‘At all events, they impressed me so much I was half sorry I wasn’t doing the whole thing myself.

But it’s easy to be overwhelmed in that sort of atmosphere, with the machines thundering away, workers dashing back and forth, and all that commercial endeavour all around.

As soon as I got a proper distance between me and it, I knew I’d made the right decision.

Cowling is the man to make sure it goes as it should, and there’ll be plenty of profits to go round.

I don’t begrudge him his share. Even without the canning operation, Logan has lots of schemes for expansion into other lines; and the lines he already has are very profitable.

I had no idea jam was such a big thing, but it seems people can’t get enough of it. ’

‘I’m glad it’s making you lots of money,’ Kitty said.

‘Us,’ he corrected. ‘Making us lots of money. And young Louis. He’ll be the King of Conserves one day; the Emperor of Marmalade.’

‘And you’ll still have the capital intact to put into the estate,’ she said.

‘Most of it, yes. I am putting some into the canning scheme. Vogel advised it. But best of all is a stream of income that should increase, unless something goes terribly wrong.’

The fat red sun snagged itself in the net of the bare treetops; it got suddenly, noticeably colder. The shadows were long and blue, and there was that wintry sense in the air that one should be getting indoors before it got dark. ‘We’d better take the short way home,’ said Giles.

They turned downhill

Kitty felt so comfortable with him, she said, ‘Will you come up to the nursery when we get back and see Louis having his bath?’

He concealed a smile. ‘What red-blooded man could resist an invitation like that?’

‘I know you’re joking,’ Kitty said, ‘but will you? I sometimes feel men don’t have any of the pleasure of having children, just the worries about money.’

‘It is a very great pleasure to me to have a son,’ he assured her.

‘I’m glad Louis was a boy, for your sake,’ Kitty said. ‘I know you had to have an heir. But I would love to have a girl as well, though.’ She pondered a moment. ‘Or another boy. I wouldn’t mind.’

There was a wistfulness to her tone that tweaked his conscience. He hadn’t visited her bed in longer than he could remember. There was so much else to do. ‘Would you like another child?’ he asked diffidently.

‘Of course,’ she said, surprised. She went on carefully. ‘I always thought it was intended. What is it Richard says? An heir and a spare. But—’

‘Yes?’

‘I’d like lots of children. If they’re yours.’

The tweak became a twinge. He tried to joke it off. ‘They had better be mine, Lady Stainton!’

And this time she only looked at him, a look so full of love and longing and doubt and resignation, if he had been a dog he’d have thrown back his head and howled.

Warner’s Rents was a row of cottages at the south end of the village, on a back lane that bordered Poor’s Farm.

They looked picturesque, with their thatch and crooked chimneys, especially now, with a soft snow falling, capping the roof trees and the chimney tops, the grey gloom of snow clouds making the small windows glow with the lights inside.

An artist could have made a very pretty picture of it.

In reality, the brick floors were laid straight onto earth so they were damp, the wattle-and-daub walls were too thin to keep out the cold.

The ancient green glass of the windows let in too little light, and the thatch needed renewing, and harboured rats.

The rents were too low for old Warner to afford to do repairs, and they were too badly in need of repair to command a higher rent.

So cottages and tenants rotted gently together.

Mrs Mattock opened the door to number five, and surveyed the bundled-up figure on the doorstep. A jaundiced eye took in the swollen belly and the carpet bag in one hand.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said.

‘Hello, Ma,’ said Tabby. ‘I’ve come home.’

‘Lost your job?’

‘Corbie don’t want me this shape,’ Tabby said. ‘Damn the old blood-sucker! Afraid I’ll drop the kid in the public and scare the customers.’

‘What happened to your feller, then? The soft one you had at the fair. You said you could wind him round your thumb.’

‘I’m working on him,’ said Tabby. ‘Takes time.’

‘You ain’t got time.’

Tabby agreed, but she didn’t want to talk about it now. The chill was striking upwards through the inadequate soles of her boots. ‘Let us in, then. I’m starving cold.’

Mrs Mattock considered. ‘There’s that do-good woman in the village, Miss Eddowes. She does with females in trouble.’

‘I won’t need to go to her. I can handle William.’

‘So’s you know, you can’t have that baby here.’

‘It won’t come to that. Let us in, for gawd’s sake. Can’t stand out here all night.’

Mrs Mattock stood back. ‘Come on, then,’ she said resignedly. ‘Don’t know why you get yourself mixed up with these fellers. No good never come to no woman from no man. Making babies and smacking you around, that’s all they’re good for.’

Tabby went into the familiar sour, dark house, with the familiar sour, dark litany rising and falling behind her as Mrs Mattock went about filling the kettle and pushing it over the fire.

She wondered if her mother had ever been young and in love.

Or even young and happy. She couldn’t imagine it, somehow.

Balcombe House was in the centre of Market Harborough, on one of the roads that led out of the market square, a handsome, symmetrical Georgian house, flint-knapped, with a red brick trim.

There were steps up to the front door straight from the pavement, and a railing that defended the narrow pit that gave light to the basement windows.

The door was answered by a very elderly butler, who took their cards gravely, and begged them to come in, saying that her ladyship was at home and would be pleased to receive Lady Wharfedale and Mrs Cowling.

Bobby had told Nina that she had met the new arrival in Market Harborough, found her charming, and was anxious for Nina to meet her too. ‘She’s a single lady, so it’s especially important to make her welcome to the town. And I know you’ll like her.’

The hall was dark with well-polished wood – floorboards, panelling and staircase – but they were shown into a parlour that had been painted a light colour and sported modern furniture.

There were few ornaments, and only a couple of paintings, which from Nina’s cursory glance looked daringly modern.

They were not afforded long to inspect them, because the lady of the house came in almost immediately, and greeted Bobby warmly.

‘Lady Wharfedale, how kind of you to call!’

‘Lady Clementine, may I present my very dear friend Mrs Joseph Cowling, of Wriothesby House? Nina, Lady Clementine Leacock.’

Nina shook hands with a very tall, thin lady in her thirties, with soft fair hair, a pale face and large pale blue eyes, which together gave her a rather failing look, as though she had suffered all her life from ill-health. But her handshake was firm, and her expression keen.