Page 11 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

Back in London, Angus had been able to get a room in the same lodgings, which was lucky as he wouldn’t have had any idea where else to go.

And there he had retired from the world for a while to lick his wounds, dazed with the shock of such a violent rupture.

He was like the survivor of an earthquake who crawls out from the rubble to find every trace of his village obliterated.

All his landmarks were gone. He was young and strong and intelligent and he would come about, but it would take time to understand the terrible thing that had happened.

For a while he could only sit and grieve.

He knew there was no way back. His father had the adamantine pride that would never back down.

He was not destitute, however. His father had paid him an ample allowance in recent years, and he had not needed to spend much of it, so his bank account contained enough to live on modestly for a while.

He could afford to take time to look around for something to do that would earn him enough to support a wife.

He wouldn’t be able to keep Rachel in the style of Ashmore Castle, of course, but he hoped eventually for a decent middle-class life in a neat house with at least a cook and a housemaid.

London was the place: lots of opportunities for a hardworking fellow to get ahead. Plenty of houses to choose from. In London they wouldn’t need to keep a carriage. Rachel had family there. And there were all the resources and entertainments of London to enrich their lives.

He wrote to her, a letter full of hope and firm intentions. Her reply was by turns hopeful and despairing, fearful and determined, and urged him to hurry up and rescue her before her mother came back.

He was beginning to realise that marriage was a different matter when you didn’t have a prosperous parent behind you, providing home, income and all the other wherewithals.

But before he could become too discouraged, he received by the next post a friendly note from Richard inviting him round to tea at his aunt’s house in Berkeley Square.

Aunt Caroline doesn’t know all the circumstances of your present predicament, but she won’t ask awkward questions, so if you don’t say anything either, all will be serene. Do come! I’m eager to hear how you are doing.

Aunt Caroline was an easy-going person, who had found that assuming everything was as it should be made for a comfortable life.

She also loved to be visited and was fond of young people, so the appearance of Angus Tullamore in her drawing-room elicited no more questions than ‘You’re in Town on business, I suppose? ’

To which Angus replied, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘How is your dear mother?’

He had anticipated that one, and said, ‘Still at Craigend, ma’am.’

‘Do call me Aunt Caroline,’ she said. Angus’s mother was in fact her aunt, but such entanglements weren’t worth going into.

She hadn’t had much to do with the Tullamores over recent years – since her marriage the contact had always been more between them and Maud’s family – but she was the right age to be an Aunt Caroline, and was quite prepared to accept her pleasant and good-looking young relative as a nephew.

He was glad to find he was not the only guest. Apart from Richard, there were some other young people – the Pelham girls, Isobel and Frances, and Peter Hayes-Wallace, all children of Caroline’s old friends.

And there was Mr Cowling, for whom she had conceived an inexplicable fancy the year before.

He had taken a house on the opposite side of the square.

A few days previously, he had called and left a card announcing his arrival in Town, and she had responded with a card of her own inviting him to come to tea.

She presented Angus to him. ‘I don’t think you have met? Mr Tullamore is a sort of cousin of mine – eldest son of Sir Gordon Tullamore—’

‘Coal and shipping?’ Cowling said, his sharp eyes assessing Angus and noting a slight stain of confusion.

‘And property – yes, sir,’ Angus said. ‘Do you know him?’

‘I’ve not met him, but I’ve heard of him, of course I have. Eldest son?’

Angus could only swallow, and nod.

‘Mr Cowling is in business himself,’ Aunt Caroline said helpfully. ‘Boots and shoes and – and all sorts of other things.’

‘A very useful fellow to know,’ Richard added, giving Angus a pointed look.

Aunt Caroline thought this sounded rude. ‘I assure you,’ she said hastily, ‘we value him for himself !’

Cowling gave her a twinkling look. ‘Aye, sought after for my sparkling wit in drawing-rooms up and down the land, isn’t that right, Lady Manningtree?’

Tea was brought in – a lavish one, Angus was glad to note, because he had been on poor grazing lately – and he had to do his duty to one of the Miss Pelhams, handing her things and sitting beside her and conversing.

Richard was looking after the other sister, and Peter Hayes-Wallace was talking to Aunt Caroline, who had Mr Cowling on the other side of her.

It was Hayes-Wallace who brought up the subject of Russia.

‘What do you think, Mr Cowling, about this news of another assassination? My father told me about it this morning – Grand Duke Serge, the tsar’s uncle. Blown to bits by a revolutionary’s bomb.’

Miss Pelham gave a little gasp, and her teacup rattled in its saucer. ‘Oh, how dreadful!’

He went on: ‘Only last month there was an uprising in St Petersburg. Thousands marched on the Winter Palace and were shot down by the guards. Do you find such upheavals affect business, Mr Cowling?’

‘I don’t think this is a topic for the drawing-room, young man,’ Cowling said. ‘There are ladies present.’

But Aunt Caroline was answering: ‘It’s Serge’s poor wife I feel sorry for – she was Princess Elisabeth of Hesse, you know, and sister to Princess Alix who is the present tsar’s wife.

’ Genealogy was her passion. ‘ Their brother, of course, is Grand Duke Ernie Hesse, who my sister Vicky knows very well. And your mother met him too, Richard, when she took Rachel over there. Says he’s a most charming fellow: he thought Rachel a great beauty.

He will be very upset by this – they are all very close, the Hesses.

And ,’ she went on, ‘the previous tsar’s wife was Princess Dagmar of Denmark and sister to our own dear queen.

They were apparently inseparable as children.

Oh dear, so many connections between that unhappy country and ours!

Poor Serge’s sister, Grand Duchess Marie, married our Duke of Edinburgh – Prince Alfred.

He was Queen Victoria’s favourite son, I believe, and she was quite against the marriage at first, not liking the Russians much, but she took to the idea at last. And her mother – the Duchess of Edinburgh’s, I mean – was also a Hesse, now I come to think of it.

Princess Wilhelmine of Hesse. So you see! ’ she concluded triumphantly.

It was not terribly clear what she thought everyone would see, and there was a little silence. Then Hayes-Wallace repeated his question to Mr Cowling. ‘Does Russian instability affect business much, sir?’

‘Not directly,’ Mr Cowling said. ‘But I’d advise those with shares in Russian railways or coal mines to think carefully. Your father,’ he looked at Angus, ‘does he trade much with Russia?’

‘We don’t sell coal to them,’ Angus replied, ‘but our ships – my father’s shipping line, I mean – carry goods both to and from Russia, mostly lumber and furs from . Machinery, machine parts and luxury goods to . St Petersburg seems to have an insatiable appetite for English soap.’

He had tried to make it into a little joke, but Mr Cowling nodded without smiling. Angus felt uncomfortably that his eyes saw everything. He was sure he had noticed that little stumble over ‘ our ships’.

But the conversation moved on, people changed seats, and some time later Angus found himself standing by the fireplace with Richard, who said, ‘How are things going with you? Have you found yourself a position yet?’

‘I’ve been looking,’ Angus said. ‘There are jobs I could have taken – general clerk, shop assistant, that sort of thing – but they wouldn’t have paid enough for me to marry on.

I’m not trained in anything specific, you see, like the law or engineering.

I can keep accounts and I know my father’s business inside out, but how to apply it elsewhere is the problem. ’

‘How to convince others you can apply it elsewhere, rather,’ Richard said. ‘I wonder if—’

He broke off as he realised that Mr Cowling had come up and was standing just beside him. Cowling nodded to him in a friendly manner. ‘Now, I know something is going on,’ he said. ‘Heads together, lowered voices. Is this young man in trouble?’

Richard said, ‘Not in trouble exactly, sir, but he needs a job. He needs someone to recognise his considerable abilities and take a chance on him.’

Angus was mortified. ‘Oh, I say, Richard—’

Cowling made a negating gesture with his hand.

‘Good employees are just as much a raw material to a business as coal and steel – and harder to find. Know much about import and export, lad? Bills of lading? Bonded warehouses?’ Angus nodded to each.

‘Come and see me tomorrow. Maybe I can help you.’ He looked around.

‘Attend to the ladies, now, young gentlemen. Lady Manningtree won’t thank us for spoiling her tea-party. ’

A sudden sleety squall sent two young women scurrying down Old Burlington Street, like blown leaves, huddling, arms linked, under one umbrella, hastening to gain the shelter of the house.

The sleet gathered in balls in the gutter and bounced up from the pavement.

Their hems and stockings were splashed and dirty.