Page 14 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

It amused Richard to contrive a meeting between Rachel and Angus, though it had to be kept secret from Aunt Caroline – she would never go behind her sister’s back.

He suggested, quite truthfully, that Alice might like a visit from her sister, and Aunt Caroline obligingly wrote inviting Rachel to stay for a few days.

Richard offered to amuse Rachel on the Friday while Alice was at school. Aunt Caroline was surprised that he proposed taking her to the Victoria and Albert Museum. ‘I don’t think she’s interested in old things, dear,’ she said.

‘It’s not that sort of museum,’ Richard said. ‘There are some pretty things to look at. And a tea-room she’ll certainly enjoy.’

That was no more than the truth, because he arranged for Angus to meet them there. He was interested in any case to hear about his interview with Mr Cowling.

‘It sounds as if he means you to have a career with him. You could end up running a significant part of his business,’ he said, when Angus had told all.

‘That’s what I’m hoping for,’ said Angus. ‘And if I can help him develop the export side—’

‘It will make him even richer than he is already,’ Richard finished for him. ‘I don’t think you’d find him ungenerous.’

‘Then I’d be able to support a wife in decent style,’ Angus said.

Rachel was gazing at him, torn between admiration and doubt. ‘But—’ she began.

‘But,’ Richard agreed. He owed it to his sister to keep a level head. ‘There’s still the question of our mother’s permission. Which I can’t imagine will be forthcoming.’ He held out his hands like the two sides of a balance scale. ‘A job in manufacturing and shipping. A Russian prince’s estates.’

‘Oh, Richard !’ Rachel said reproachfully.

‘You have to face it, old girl. The mater is no advocate for True Love.’

Rachel looked at Angus with swimming eyes. ‘She’ll never let me marry you.’

Angus reached for her hand across the table. ‘You just have to hold on for another eighteen months. Once you’re of age, you won’t need her permission, and by then I’ll be established in my career and have some money behind me. Only eighteen months more.’

Rachel gave him an adoring if watery look, but Richard knew – and probably the young couple did, too, deep in their hearts – that expecting Rachel to hold out against her mother was like expecting the ramparts of a sandcastle to hold back the tide.

Once Maud’s honeymoon was over she would take Rachel back to live with her in Germany, and Rachel would have no-one to stiffen her resolve.

‘I’ll hold on,’ Rachel said. ‘I really will.’

Angus could only squeeze her hand, with a bleak look.

‘What was all that rumpus?’ Rose asked, coming down the back stairs into Piccadilly – as they called the main connecting passage below stairs.

Afton paused to enlighten her. ‘Little Lord Cordwell got into a fight with one of the stable boys, Timmy.’

Rose snorted. ‘He wants beating, that boy.’

‘Quite. Timmy called Lord Cordwell a blankety beggar-boy who was only here on sufferance.’

‘No, I meant young Cordwell wants beating. I’d bet anything he started it. I heard him the other day making fun of Billy Watts’s stammer. And what was he doing in the stables anyway, when he was supposed to be doing lessons?’

‘I suppose he slipped away somehow.’

‘That Miss Kettel can’t control him, a big lummox like him. He’s nearly nine years old. He ought to be sent away to school.’

‘I agree. School would be the best thing for him.’

They both knew there was no money left in the Cordwell estate to pay for school. ‘You should have a word with his lordship,’ Rose said.

‘It’s not my place to suggest any such thing,’ said Afton.

‘There’s bad blood in the Cordwells. His grandfather was a spendthrift and blew his brains out, and his father wasn’t much better,’ Rose said. ‘Bad blood will out.’

‘There’s no such thing as bad blood,’ Afton said stiffly.

Rose gave him a penetrating look. ‘Says it right there in the Bible. The sins of the father will be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation. You can’t argue with the Bible.’

‘I’m sure his lordship is acquainted with the state of his own household and can make his own mind up,’ said Afton.

The penetrating look did not waver. ‘Well, if I catch him messing with my things again like he did last week I shall box his ears, and her ladyship can dismiss me if she wants.’ She continued on her way, but turned a few steps past Afton to say quietly, ‘You should have a word with his lordship, Mr Afton, place or no place, before that boy causes real trouble.’

Miss Taylor was able to get about on crutches now, which was a cause of irritation to Rose because she never knew where she was going to come across her.

She found her poking about in the ironing room.

She turned as Rose came in, and scowled.

Her temper was as stretched as the head housemaid’s.

Dr Welkes had told her that her leg would heal in three or four months, but would she still have a position after that time?

‘A whole basket of little Lord Ayton’s things sitting here waiting to be ironed! Those nursery maids are shockingly idle! They should be done as soon as they are washed, not left for the creases to set in.’

‘Not my business,’ Rose said sharply. ‘And not yours either.’

‘The smooth running of the house is everyone’s business. We never had slackness like this in Mrs Horsepool’s day.’ This was the housekeeper before Mrs Webster.

‘You don’t remember,’ Rose told her. ‘You were never down here except for meals. And it’s time you started to get used to the stairs again. Your mistress is coming back next week, isn’t she?’

Miss Taylor tossed her head, jammed the crutches into her armpits and heaved herself away instead of answering. To add to the worry of the Princess of Usingen coming back to the Castle was the unusual way she had announced it.

Everyone had expected Maud to go to London first, and probably to stay there until after Lord Leake’s party.

Also, when she came to the Castle, she normally only sent a telegram giving the train she would be on, so that the carriage could be sent to the station.

But this time she had announced her return two weeks in advance, and by letter to Mrs Webster, with no mention of any stay in London, but an unusual degree of detail about the arrangements to be made.

The prince would sleep in the Queen’s Bedroom – the state bedroom that Giles’s father had occupied but which he had never cared for – and the portrait of the princess’s first husband, the Earl of Stainton, which hung over the fireplace, was to be replaced with the daguerreotype of Queen Victoria from the morning-room.

That much was understandable. But she went on to say the Van Dyck Room was to be prepared for her.

It was named after the studio copy of the portrait of Henrietta Maria of France in a magnificent dark blue silk gown, by Van Dyck, which had once hung over its mantelpiece, facing Charles I on horseback on the opposite wall.

Both paintings had been sold by the late earl when he got into difficulties, but the name survived.

In addition the princess stipulated that she would have the state bed from the Tapestry Room; the yellow satin sofa and chairs from her old bedroom, along with the rosewood bonheur-du-jour from her former sitting-room; and the green porphyry fern stand from the library with an arrangement of flowers in the Roman vase from the Jade Room. .

‘What on earth is all this about?’ Mrs Webster had said to Rose, perplexed. ‘I’ve never known her to give orders like this. You’ve been here the longest, Rose – is this usual?’

‘I’ve never known her to care a jot about what bedroom she used and what was in it,’ Rose answered. ‘If you ask me, she’s just making trouble.’

‘The state bed from the Tapestry Room?’ said Mrs Webster. ‘It’s enormous! However can we move it?’

‘The carpenter’ll have to take it to bits and put it together again. It was done once before when the Empress Eugénie visited – Mr Sebastian will probably remember. That’s three days’ work for four men. If I was you, I’d check with his lordship. It’s not as if she even lives here any more.’

Mrs Webster looked worried. ‘But supposing it means she’s moving back in? With the prince?’

‘Then you’d definitely better check with his lordship. Maybe she’s written to him as well,’ said Rose.

The invitations to Fergus’s post-wedding celebration had gone out, and the illustrateds had caught the romance of the story and had fallen into breathless superlatives.

England’s Most Eligible Bachelor Brings Home Italian Bride.

Florentine Beauty Set To Dazzle London. Not since Helen of Troy captured the heart of Paris .

. . Lord Leake, famously impervious to the most feted of English debutantes .

. . Renaissance elegance and wit has cast a spell . . .

Lacking any likeness of Lord Leake’s bride, one ingenious weekly had published the image of Da Vinci’s La Belle Ferronnière to be going on with.

Lady’s Realm had managed to acquire a photograph of Lord and Lady Leake exiting the Meurice in Paris, but as she was wearing a hat with a veil and Lord Leake was holding an umbrella over both of them, there wasn’t much to be seen.

The publishable facts were that Lord and Lady Leake were to stay at the Hambleton Hotel in Grosvenor Square where they would host a dinner for ninety followed by a ball to celebrate the nuptials that had taken place quietly in Florence.

The less delicately minded publications were making estimates of how much it was all going to cost.

‘Ninety at dinner! I had no idea Fergus knew so many people,’ Aunt Caroline said to Giles, who had come up to Town to talk to his banker, Vogel.

‘“His charming bachelor habit of moving from house to house during the Season proved him to be one of the best-known and most popular house-guests in the land,”’ said Giles.

‘Is that a quotation?’ Aunt Caroline said, puzzled.