Page 18 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

Up in the old schoolroom, Rachel wept on Alice’s shoulder. When she was quiet at last, Alice said, ‘Did she mention me?’

‘No,’ Rachel hiccuped. ‘I suppose you’ll get your turn.’

Alice gave her a handkerchief. ‘Do you really not want to be a Russian princess and have jewels and carriages and furs and great houses?’

Rachel gave her a reproachful look. ‘But I love Angus.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rachel said. ‘I just love him. I could never love anyone else.’

If her sister had come up with reasons, Alice might have doubted her, but she was aware of how love took you and didn’t bother with whys and wherefores. It just was .

‘Then you must resist.’

‘But how can I refuse Mama’s dying wish?’

‘You must, that’s all. If you feel you’re starting to give in, we’ll run away together.’

‘Run away? Where to?’

‘London, of course.’

Rachel looked doubtful. ‘Aunt Caroline wouldn’t side with me against Mama.’

‘We won’t go to her. We’ll get jobs as chambermaids in a hotel – that way we’ll have somewhere to live as well. Then, as soon as you’re of age, you can marry Angus.’

‘I don’t think I’d like to be a chambermaid,’ Rachel said.

‘Well, perhaps you can get some other kind of work,’ Alice said impatiently. ‘The important thing is not to give in.’

Rachel still looked doubtful. The thought of working at a job and living in lodgings like ordinary people was frightening.

She wouldn’t know how to go on. People would tell her to do things and she wouldn’t know how, and they’d get cross with her.

Her clothes would get dirty and wear out.

How could she buy food? She didn’t know how much anything cost.

But the image of Angus’s face came before her eyes in the nick of time. ‘Angus will look after me,’ she said. ‘Angus knows how to do things.’

The next morning the princess was not down to breakfast: word came that she was over-tired and was remaining in bed. Rachel felt horribly guilty. Had she made her mother sicker?

The prince, in his halting English, attributed it to the strain of the long journey, and did not seem worried. ‘Travelling is by all means tiring,’ he told them.

‘He doesn’t know,’ Richard said afterwards to Uncle Sebastian. ‘I’m convinced of it. But how could Mother not tell him?’

‘Because she hates talk about health matters,’ Uncle Sebastian said.

Richard shook his head. ‘One feels sorry for the poor man – he’s obviously devoted to her. Do you think you ought to have a word with him?’

Uncle Sebastian looked alarmed. ‘Come between a husband and wife? In any case, what could I tell him? I don’t know what’s wrong with her.’

As Mabel straightened up from putting her basket back in the cupboard in the housemaids’ closet, the awareness of a looming presence behind her made her whip round defensively and squeak.

‘ Genau wie eine Feldmaus! ’ the valet said, smiling.

Mabel caught the ‘mouse’ in the answer and decided it wasn’t threatening; besides, when a male creature smiled, she always smiled back. ‘Oh, you startled me, Mr Usingen,’ she said, giving him the title by which he was known below stairs.

‘ Nein, nein .’ He jabbed himself vigorously in the chest with a forefinger and said, ‘ Adolf . Mein Name ist Adolf .’

Even Mabel could not mistake that. ‘Oh, Adolf? That’s nice,’ she said.

‘ Und wie hei?t du? ’

A pointing finger and questioning eyebrows meant she understood the question. ‘I’m Mabel. Ma-bel,’ she repeated, with slow clarity, as to the feeble-minded.

He said something else in German, still smiling, and putting out a hand to rub her upper arm appreciatively.

Mabel filled her uniform plumply, and while not strictly pretty she had a round, healthy, pink face and shiny eyes, and men quite often smiled at her and found it hard to resist a stroke or a pinch.

She knew where she was with this approach.

Adolf was not bad-looking. Besides, he was a valet, and she had a very keen sense of hierarchy.

‘It must be lonely for you, not speaking any English,’ she said. A doubt struck her. ‘You don’t speak any English, do you?’

‘ Du bist ein lustiges M?dchen ,’ he said. ‘ Willst du auf meinem Scho? sitzen? ’

She smiled incomprehendingly, but he stepped closer and slid an arm round her waist, and she knew what that meant. ‘Oh, you are a naughty man!’

‘ Und du bist ein schmutziges M?dchen! ’

She giggled. ‘You think I’m pretty?’ she hazarded, from previous experience. That’s what they usually said.

He smiled and nodded. ‘ Schmutzig .’

She tried it. ‘Shush . . . Shmush . . .’

‘ Schmut-zig ,’ he said with slow clarity and a smile that, had she been concentrating, she’d have noticed was a little menacing. His hand crept from her arm to her shoulder, with a drift of fingers towards her bosom.

‘Shmoo-sig,’ she copied carefully. And then the choreography fell into usual patterns.

‘It’s a growth,’ Rose told Mrs Webster in the privacy of her room. ‘Something of a dropsical nature. Lady Linda said she thought it might be liver.’

‘But what are her symptoms? I thought liver made you yellow.’

‘Well, it might not be liver. She has vomiting and light fevers, and swelling in the ab— What’s it called?’

‘Abdomen?’

‘That’s it. And tiredness and loss of appetite.’

‘Sounds more like heart failure,’ said Mrs Webster. ‘I had an aunt went that way. Dropsy and extreme tiredness. Did Lady Linda mention what the doctor said about it?’

Rose gave her a look. ‘She’s not seen a doctor. You know what she’s like.’

‘So she doesn’t know . . . ?’

‘How long she’s got left? No.’

‘It seems unfair on the poor prince,’ Mrs Webster said, after a moment. ‘He ought to have the chance to say goodbye.’

It was for Giles, as host, to look after the prince while his mother kept to her chamber, and he took him out for a long walk with guns. Shooting was over, of course, but there were always pigeons, and the more of them they shot, the happier Saddler would be.

After luncheon he offered him a mount, and Richard, in response to an urgent rolling of the eyes at the luncheon table, joined the party and helped with the conversational burden.

The prince rode well; he had proved himself an excellent shot, too.

And when Richard, by trial and error, had discovered a subject that interested him, he waxed lyrical about his estate in Germany, the countryside, and German rural life.

As his speech grew more animated he lapsed more often into German, but Richard’s German was better than Giles’s, and he was quicker at picking up meaning from context, so Giles was able to lapse into his own thoughts, which dwelt on what a horrid mess this was, how distressing it was going to be for everyone, and what would happen to his three sisters.

‘What’s happening?’ Alice asked, as she entered the drawing-room before dinner.

Everyone was looking tense. The atmosphere in the house was almost palpable, and everywhere there were servants being busy about nothing, a sure sign they were waiting for news of some sort.

‘Is Mama not coming down to dinner?’ she asked, when no-one answered her.

‘ He ’s in there,’ Linda said. ‘In her room. They’re having the most tremendous row.’

‘I don’t think we should be talking about it,’ Kitty said.

‘It’s too late for discretion,’ Richard said. ‘The cat’s well and truly out of the bag.’

‘But what’s happened ?’ Alice asked again.

‘Uncle Sebastian had an attack of conscience,’ Richard said. ‘He took the prince for a game of billiards and put the whole thing to him. The prince looked horrified and rushed off to Van Dyck to have it out with her. Did you know Germans don’t play snooker?’

‘Don’t be frivolous,’ Giles rebuked. ‘There’s nothing amusing about any of this.’

‘I didn’t say I was amused.’

Sebastian walked in. ‘I don’t know how these things get about, but Crooks just asked me some very oblique questions.’

‘They listen,’ Richard said. ‘My mother may believe servants are blind and deaf, but that doesn’t make it true.’ He looked at Linda. ‘And of course my dear sister is thick as thieves with head housemaid Rose.’

Linda bristled. ‘Are you accusing me of gossiping with servants?’

‘Oh, please, don’t let’s quarrel.’ Rachel was near tears. ‘Mama’s dreadfully ill and the poor prince does love her so. He must be so terribly upset.’

Afton appeared at the door and caught Kitty’s eye.

‘I think we should go in to dinner, and not wait for the prince,’ she said.

‘And as mistress of the house,’ Giles said, going to her side, ‘my wife hereby forbids any further discussion of this subject. Let’s try to behave in a civilised manner at table.’

It was an unnerving thing to Giles to see his mother subdued.

He had never known anyone make her do anything against her will.

He supposed his father might have, but they had led such entirely separate lives, he had never seen it happen.

Besides, he didn’t suppose his father cared much what she did.

She came down to breakfast in the morning on the prince’s arm and announced that she would be going to London after breakfast. She seemed disinclined to say more, but the prince gave her a nudging sort of look and she added without meeting any eyes, ‘His highness wishes me to consult a physician.’

‘That seems a good idea,’ Kitty said tentatively. ‘At least, then—’

Maud cut her off, shaking away sympathy as a dog shakes water from its coat. ‘In accordance with his wishes I shall consult Sir Henry Felden. And that is all I wish to say on the matter. Kitty, will you give orders for the carriage? The prince and I will take the ten-thirty train.’

‘Of course,’ said Kitty. She wanted to say how glad she was that her mother-in-law was to consult a doctor; to say that perhaps the case was not hopeless as she believed, that perhaps there was something that could be done.

But she didn’t quite dare, and tried to put it all into a look.

But Maud had turned away and didn’t see it.