Page 75 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

‘We have guests coming to dinner today,’ Mrs Webster said at servants’ breakfast. ‘Friends of his lordship, a Mr and Mrs Talbot Arthur, and they’ll be staying the night. We’ll put them in the Jade Room – Rose, see it’s prepared, please. Do what you can about flowers.’

‘Yes, Mrs Webster.’

‘And they won’t be bringing servants with them. So will you look after Mr Arthur, Mr Crooks?’

‘Certainly, Mrs Webster. It will be my pleasure.’

‘And, Rose – you’ll maid Mrs Arthur?’

‘Yes, Mrs Webster.’

‘They’re on their way to Egypt,’ Speen commented, ‘where they’ll live in a tent and eat God knows what – beetles, probably, and scorpions – so they won’t need much looking after. A real bed instead of a blanket on the ground will be luxury to them.’

‘It’s not for you – or any of us – to pass comment on guests in this house – and close friends of his lordship into the bargain,’ Moss said sternly.

‘If anyone thinks any guest in this house is to be treated with less than full attention, they’d better tell me so now,’ said Mrs Webster. There was a dutiful silence.

Then Ada remarked to Ellen, ‘I shouldn’t like to live in a tent. All grass and insects and such. I went on a picnic once, and a caterpillar fell down my neck.’

Moss heard her – he was always sensitive to her voice.

‘A tent may be humble, Ada, or it may be very grand indeed,’ he pronounced.

‘When King Henry the Eighth met the King of France, all the tents were made of cloth-of-gold. When a tent is so rich and sumptuous, it is often called a pavilion. And Queen Cleopatra, the Bard tells us, lay in a pavilion of tissue of cloth-of-gold. “The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, burned on the water.”’

Cleopatra again! Mrs Webster thought, with a silent roll of the eyes. ‘Never mind tents—’ she began.

But Speen had picked it up and spoke over her.

‘Burned, did it, Mr Moss?’ he said innocently.

‘I expect someone’d knocked over a lamp – like Mr Hook did the other day.

Awful mess, wasn’t there, Mr Hook? And flaming oil is a real danger, especially on those old wooden boats – they’d go up like tinder.

I suppose she had to jump into the water, this queen? ’

Moss drew breath to correct some of the many misapprehensions, then thought better of it, and said instead to Mrs Webster, ‘A good dinner, I presume, will be ordered?’

‘I spoke to Mrs Terry about it yesterday,’ said Mrs Webster. Now that Ida was properly the cook, she was called by her surname, and was ‘Mrs’ by custom. ‘Caviar, julienne soup, cold salmon, pigeons, saddle of mutton, plum tart, and anchovy savoury and cream cheese.’

‘Excellent,’ said Moss. ‘They should carry away a good impression of Ashmore Castle.’

Hook was furious that Speen had referred to his lamp mishap, especially in front of the lower servants.

He was seething as he strode along Piccadilly, and bumped hard into William, coming out of the boot-room and moving with a particularly under-water sort of languor, like weed swaying in a gentle current.

‘Watch where you’re going, can’t you?’ he snapped.

William didn’t even react, only stared at him, and then said, ‘Sorry,’ as if his mind was far away.

Hook knew that look. ‘Mooning about your girl-friend, are you? I don’t know how you can be so daft as to be taken in by a female like that.’

William was jerked from his reverie. ‘Don’t you say anything about Tabby,’ he said. ‘She’s the woman I love.’

‘Huh! You and every other man in the county!’ said Hook.

William didn’t get the jibe. ‘She’s always been popular, and why not, so beautiful as she is? I’m lucky it’s me she wants to marry, when she could have anyone.’

‘Gawd! You get softer in the head every day! Have anyone? She’s already had everyone!’

‘What are you talking about?’ William began to burn slowly, sensing at last that Hook was being insulting.

‘She’s only marrying you ’cause she’s got a bun in the oven. And you fell for it.’

‘I’m standing by her, as any decent chap would,’ William said, reddening.

‘It’s not your bun, you dullard! Can’t you count?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘When’s the baby coming?’

‘Jan’ry or Feb’ry, she says. Why?’

‘You and her got together in August, at the fair, right? And babies take nine months, start to finish.’ Hook watched as William, frowning, counted in his head.

‘She said it takes six months to grow a baby,’ he said at last. ‘Or five. She said—’

‘Nine months. Everybody knows that. I’m not making it up.

You ask anyone you like. She was up the pole before you ever laid a finger on her.

And who was she seeing before the fair? Speen, that’s who – our own roving tom-cat.

Quite the Lothario is Mr Edgar Speen. Women can’t resist him.

O’ course, to be fair, Tabby never tried to. ’

William’s face was red. ‘That’s not true! You take it back! She loves me, we’re getting married, she’d never – she’d never—’

‘She never stopped seeing him, you bloody idiot! She’s got him for fun, and you for the serious stuff, like bringing up his kid.’

William’s hands bunched into fists. ‘You’re making it all up,’ he said. ‘And you’re a dirty dog for saying stuff like that. I could smash your face in for talking about my Tabby.’

‘You’re getting mad at the wrong person, cully. Speen’s your man. He’s not on duty tonight – where d’you think he is?’

William stared a moment with his mouth open, then walked abruptly away.

He was too easy a target, really, Hook thought.

It was like teasing a puppy. And a puppy that didn’t bite, at that.

William might talk big, but he’d never actually do anything.

Still, at least he’d shaken him out of his languor, Hook thought: he was moving quite briskly now.

Giles came into Kitty’s room, where Hatto was fastening her necklace. ‘Nearly ready?’ he asked.

She turned her head. ‘The bell hasn’t gone yet,’ she said. Her eyes caressed him. ‘You look so handsome in evening dress.’

Hatto picked up a few things for washing and slipped out of the room. Kitty turned back to the looking-glass and began to put in her earrings, watching him in reflection.

Giles moved about the room, fidgeting with things.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked at last.

He opened his mouth and closed it again. She waited, thinking he was about to tell her something; but in the end, he said, ‘No, nothing. Of course not. Why do you ask?’

‘You seem – uneasy.’ It wasn’t quite the right word.

He knocked over a small vase on one of the tables and righted it again. ‘It’s probably the phase of the moon,’ he said. ‘Full moon tonight, isn’t it?’

‘That’s women,’ Kitty said. ‘And cats. Men aren’t affected by the moon.’

‘What about lunatics?’ he objected. ‘Well, it’s windy tonight. Horses get nervous when it’s windy.’

Kitty turned to look at him again, wondering why they were having this conversation. ‘Giles, if there’s something you want to tell me—’

‘It’s nothing. Are you ready? Then let’s go down. It would be bad form for our guests to wait for us.’

‘Uncle Sebastian would look after them. He’s always down early,’ Kitty said, but she got up obediently and went with him.

‘Where’s William?’ Moss asked agitatedly. ‘Has anyone seen William?’

‘I think he’s gone out, Mr Moss,’ Hook said.

‘ Out? ’

‘I saw him with a coat on a bit since.’

‘It’s not his evening off!’ Moss cried in outrage. ‘How can he go out? Where has he gone?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Moss. I didn’t ask him,’ Hook said.

Moss looked about him, a little wildly. ‘But we have a big dinner tonight. With guests! I can’t serve it just with Cyril. Sam has a boil on his chin – he can’t go into the dining-room.’

Hook toyed for a moment with the idea of tormenting the butler, but decided to put himself on the side of virtue for once. ‘I’ll give a hand, if you like, Mr Moss. I don’t mind.’

Moss looked at him almost with love. ‘Would you? Thank you, James! That would be most gracious of you.’

‘Glad to help, Mr Moss.’

‘You can draw a coat and waistcoat from the wardrobe. Oh, my goodness, what a relief! Why people have to do these things, just when we have guests – getting boils, and going missing . . . I shall speak to William when he gets back,’ he added menacingly.

‘He’ll be docked a week’s wages for this little spree of his! At least.’

He walked on down the passage, muttering.

The dinner was good, the conversation fluid and wide-ranging, and Kitty was glad to see Giles eat enough for once, probably due to a combination of the two.

She liked the Arthurs, and was particularly touched by their obviously close relationship.

Talbot Arthur had been at university with Giles, both studying under Flinders Petrie, and Mary Baxter had been a librarian at the college at the same time.

Talbot and Mary had fallen in love, and since Talbot was a man of independent fortune, they had married as soon as he had taken his degree, had spent their time since then travelling, and Mary went with him on all his digs, and acted as secretary, taking and keeping his notes, and ordering them afterwards for publication.

‘It must be lovely to have so many interests in common,’ she said to Mary at one point.

Mary smiled fondly at her husband, who was in animated conversation with Giles. ‘My father always said we were more like brother and sister than husband and wife,’ she said. ‘I was never sure if he meant that kindly – but he agreed to our marriage anyway.’

‘And you enjoy all the travel? Strange food and living in tents. And what about the danger? I suppose some of them are rough places.’

‘I never mind anything as long as we are together. The only time I ever felt ill was when he left me behind in Winchester while he went to Greece – though perhaps that was partly because I was expecting at the time.’

Kitty was surprised. ‘You have a child?’

‘A boy, Ptolemy. He’s five now. He stays with his grandparents while we’re travelling.’