Page 10 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘Well, I ’m not pitying you,’ Rose said. ‘Seems to me you’ve got enough self-pity to be going on with. But you’d better snap out of it before Upstairs loses patience with you. That’s all I’ve got to say.’

She turned to leave, seeing out of the corner of her eye Miss Taylor reaching for something to throw.

But the only thing to hand was the Book of Common Prayer on the nightstand, and that was too small to do much damage.

All the same, Rose turned at the door in time to catch it, and lobbed it neatly back onto Taylor’s bed.

‘You’ll go to Hell, abusing the Good Book like that,’ she remarked.

And as she closed the door behind her, she heard Miss Taylor say, ‘I am in Hell.’

Left alone Mary Taylor stared at the ceiling and contemplated her wretchedness.

Her leg still hurt a great deal, but Dr Welkes had stopped allowing her morphine, and the aspirin only helped a little, and gave her an acid stomach, which did nothing to improve her temper.

Most of all, she hated her helplessness.

She had always been proud and haughty with other servants and kept them in their place with cold looks and a sharp tongue.

Now they dared to look at her with pity and say sugary things, as though she were old or an imbecile!

So she abused them and threw things. Better they disliked her than felt sorry for her.

And there had been no word from her mistress. She knew Lady Maud did not like her. Well, she didn’t like her , either. But she had grown old in her service, and she had been loyal, through thick and thin – mostly thin. That deserved loyalty in return.

A broken leg! What if she was never able to walk again? What if she walked, but with a limp? No lady would keep on a crippled maid, least of all Lady Maud.

A servant who had given long personal service to a noble family and could no longer work could expect to be kept on in the house and found something to do: fine sewing was the usual thing for a retired lady’s maid, or fine laundry, or washing delicate ornaments.

But her history with Lady Maud was complicated, and she was afraid the dowager would seize an excuse to be rid of the embarrassment of what Taylor knew.

Rose had put her finger on it. The present Lady Stainton was being kind, but Taylor was not her servant.

The cold terror came over her, the fear that every servant faced at some point in their life.

To fall so low: unable to work, no money and no way to support yourself, old and alone and helpless – then it was the Union Workhouse, and you would eke out your last days in shame and abject poverty, to die at last on a stained, straw-filled mattress with some toothless crone watching at your bedside for the chance to search you as soon as you were dead for anything of the slightest value.

Some said they would even smother you to help you along, merely for the sake of a handkerchief or a petticoat.

She thought, now, with a small shiver of guilt, of how little pity she had spared old Moss, the butler, when he had collapsed with a heart-attack and his position at the Castle had been closed to him.

He had been lucky enough to get a position down in the village with Miss Eddowes – a great step down in status, but at least he was still a butler, albeit with only a cook and a maid under him.

He had been seen cleaning the front-door brass.

Moss, cleaning brass! She had sneered at how low he had fallen. But there were lower places than that.

Silently she raged at her misfortune: at her mistress for sending her half across Europe in the middle of winter, at that patch of ice for being invisible, at the station staff for not removing it.

Behind her eyes she felt the heat of tears gathering, but she would not cry.

If another impertinent maid walked in, they should not find her weeping.

She would save her tears for the middle of the night, the only time she could hope for privacy.

Alice’s hopes plummeted when, on the 16th of January, they discovered that the Slade School had no vacancies: her dream seemed to have ended before it began.

But Richard squeezed her hand, and proceeded to get into conversation with the porter.

In his opinion, porters of these venerable establishments always knew everything.

He took out his cigarette case, offered one to the fellow, lit his own and leaned his elbow comfortably on the desk, a man with all the time in the world to chat – and probably a half-crown in his pocket that might want a new home.

It transpired that London was full of art schools, and many of them now followed the lead of University College London and accepted women on equal terms with men.

‘There’s the Blackwood, sir,’ the porter suggested. ‘That might be just the job for you.’

The Edith Mary Blackwood School of Art, founded by the famous nineteenth-century landscapist, was in Old Burlington Street, just round the corner from the Royal Academy.

‘It’s a small establishment, sir, nicer for the young lady – more individual attention, you see. And all girls. I know that some parents prefer that.’

‘Probably very popular then – perhaps over-subscribed?’

‘I’m sure they’d make room for one more young lady, if circumstances were right.’

‘I suppose he was hinting that it costs a lot more,’ Richard said to Alice, as they walked away.

‘But it still won’t be a fraction of what Giles had to fork out for Rachel’s come-out.

And Old Burlington Street is even more convenient than the Slade.

No distance at all from Berkeley Square – you can walk there. ’

‘I just wish we knew whether it’s a really good school,’ Alice said.

‘Well, let’s go and have a look at the place. See if they’ll take you first. Then we can ask questions.’

He treated her to luncheon first at the Princes Restaurant on Piccadilly, because he said it was originally built for the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, ‘So it has appropriate connections.’ The vast dining-room was elegant in white, red and gold, and fabulous with mirrors, gilding, moulding and chandeliers, all in the French Empire style, celestial painted panels on the ceiling and potted palms in niches.

Richard observed Alice’s expression and said, ‘Enjoy it while you can. Once you’re a jobbing painter you won’t be able to afford places like this,’ which made her laugh, when she had been on the verge of being overawed.

Old Burlington Street was only a step away.

The Blackwood occupied a handsome double-fronted Georgian house, four storeys and a semi-basement, with nothing but a discreet brass plate outside to tell what it was.

On enquiry within, they were directed to the room of the school’s principal, whose name Alice recognised: Mary Ellen Brightwell was famous for her paintings of dogs and horses.

She told Richard in an urgent whisper as they went up the stairs that he would recognise them if he saw them.

‘Wait a minute – that painting of the little girl and the dog playing the piano together, that the cousins have in their drawing-room?’

‘Yes, that’s one of hers.’

Richard entered the sanctum with more confidence now he knew what he was dealing with.

It seemed somehow insulting not to know any of a person’s works when that person had dedicated their life to them.

But the lady herself was not at all how he expected an artist to look.

Where was the pale, spiritual face, the soulful eyes and flowing Rossetti locks, the billowy pre-Raphaelite gown?

This was a short, round, homely-looking woman in a tweed skirt and sensible blouse, with the sort of ordinary, bumpy face anyone might have.

She looked like a cook. But the bright, dark eyes were sharp, her handshake was firm and her voice was commanding.

She invited them to sit and listened to Richard’s exposition, and then looked with careful attention through Alice’s portfolio.

She looked up at last. ‘These are all your work?’ she asked Alice.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Who taught you?’

‘Nobody. I taught myself.’

‘You didn’t have a drawing-master? You didn’t do art at school?’

‘I didn’t go to school. I had a governess for a while, but nobody taught me. I just did it because I love it. But I want to be better.’

Mrs Brightwell smiled, and her face was transformed.

No-one would have taken her for a cook just then.

‘That’s the right answer!’ she said. ‘You have talent, but you have much to learn. I’m glad you know it.

I’ve no room for girls who think they know everything already. Are you prepared to work hard?’

‘Oh, yes, ma’am. It’s all I want.’

‘Then I think we can take you. Term has begun already, but the young ladies have been settling in, so you won’t have missed anything important. I suggest you come in on Friday to get your bearings, and start lessons on Monday. You’re living nearby, you said?’

Richard answered. ‘With our aunt, in Berkeley Square.’

‘That is satisfactory. We have a few girls who board but I have no vacancies for a boarder at present. So now we need only discuss our fees.’

Alice had little idea of money, never having had to use it, so she didn’t know whether the fee was high or not. Richard did not blink, but merely nodded and said, ‘I assume a cheque will be acceptable.’ And that was that.

But outside he said, ‘I just hope Mother doesn’t forbid this when she finally hears about it, because that fee’s a stiff one and I’m pretty sure it won’t be refundable.

I’m not sure I’d even have the gall to ask – your Mrs Brightwell might look like one’s granny, but I have the feeling she’s tempered steel inside. ’

‘ My Mrs Brightwell,’ Alice said, and laughed with pleasure. ‘I’m going to study art,’ she said, hugging herself. ‘I really am.’

* * *

Rachel was daydreaming over breakfast when Afton came in with the letters on a tray, and startled her back to the present by laying one beside her plate.

If a bow could be said to convey emotion, his was sympathetic.

She only said, ‘Oh!’ as she looked at it, but Kitty knew it was not an ‘Oh!’ of pleasure.

They were alone at the table. Richard was still in London with Alice; Giles had breakfasted earlier and gone out about his business; and Uncle Sebastian was at his own house in Henley for a few days.

And Linda had gone to visit her long-suffering friends the Willoughbys on their estate in Somerset, in the hope of an invitation to go with them to Paris – Mrs Willoughby always went in February – while her children were upstairs at their lessons with Miss Kettel.

So it was up to Kitty to show an interest in her sister-in-law’s affairs. ‘Not bad news, I hope?’ she said.

Rachel looked up tearfully. ‘It’s from Mama. She’s—’

‘Upset?’ Kitty suggested, when Rachel didn’t finish.

Rachel nodded, read to the end, then said, ‘You can read it if you like. You can probably guess what it says anyway.’

It was not the sort of letter Kitty would have liked to receive – at the same age she had been even more shy and sensitive than Rachel.

The words were so angry that at times the dowager’s pen had stabbed right through the paper.

At the end of the tirade, she forbade Rachel to see or correspond with Angus.

Maud would come in person to fetch her as soon as was convenient.

Until then she was to remain at the Castle and concentrate on her languages, both French and German, and practise on the piano every day, to ready herself for the prestigious marriage that was being arranged for her.

She was also, the letter concluded, to look to her conscience and pray to be forgiven for her unfilial behaviour, which had caused her mother such distress, and a breakdown in health.

‘Oh dear,’ Kitty said, as she got to the end.

Rachel was weeping now. Kitty was amazed at how she managed to do it without the contorted features, swollen eyes and red nose that afflicted ordinary mortals.

She looked, if anything, even more beautiful when weeping.

‘I’m sorry. It’s not a nice letter to receive. ’

‘It’s so unfair!’ Rachel cried. ‘I love him! She doesn’t understand!’

Kitty thought her mother-in-law understood perfectly well, but simply did not regard Rachel’s feelings as relevant.

Maud’s marriage had been arranged for her, and so had Linda’s.

Kitty’s too – though in her case she had wanted to marry Giles more than anything.

Girls of Rachel’s rank married as they were directed, always had, always would.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kitty said again. ‘But you know there’s nothing to be done about it. Much better to put Angus out of your mind. You’ll only make yourself miserable.’

‘I don’t want to marry a R-Russian,’ Rachel grieved.

‘He might be very nice,’ Kitty said. ‘And once you start having babies it will all be different.’

Rachel turned drowned blue eyes on her. ‘Why do babies make it different?’

‘Because you love them so much, you can’t want any life where you didn’t have them.’

Rachel dried her eyes daintily. ‘I’ll go upstairs now, if you don’t mind,’ she said, getting up, and added, ‘To practise my French.’

She had always been a good girl, always obedient, because she had always hated to be scolded.

But loving Angus had changed that. She was going to defy her mother.

She was going to write to Angus. She would see him whenever the opportunity arose.

And if necessary, she would run away with him.

In the mean time, she realised she would have to allay suspicion.

She wouldn’t put it past her mother to have someone in the household who reported on her.

So Rachel would improve her languages and piano and behave like a good, obedient girl – and hope fervently that Angus could come up with a plan before Mama came to England and kidnapped her.