Page 21 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘I can hardly believe she’s chosen me when she could have had anyone. I don’t know what she sees in me, but I shall dedicate my life to making her happy. Thank God I have fortune enough to give her anything she wants.’

It was unlucky that Linda passed at that moment, and overheard the last words. She glared at her uncle. ‘I hope you know you have ruined my life!’ she hissed, and stalked away.

‘What was that about?’ Uncle Fergus said in surprise.

‘She was banking on your remaining a bachelor and leaving your fortune to her children.’

‘Oh, is that it?’ He thought a moment, and actually blushed a little. ‘Of course, I am hoping Lady Leake and I will have children. Why not? She’s young, and I’m in my prime. And Linda may be my niece, but I have no responsibility for Cordwell’s dependants.’

‘When you’ve anything in your pocket, there will always be people wanting to help themselves to it. Spend it on Giulia, that’s my advice. It will be more enjoyable.’

* * *

He danced with Kitty. ‘At last,’ she said. ‘Why is it so difficult to dance with one’s own husband at these affairs?’

‘Duty,’ Giles said. He hoped she didn’t want to talk – he was emotionally exhausted.

She was silent for a while, and then a gap opened in the crowd and she saw Giulia dancing with Lord George Alexander, the colour high in her cheeks as she gazed up at him, laughing at something he’d said.

The gap closed again, and she said, ‘I don’t want to reopen old wounds, but I have to say something. ’

He looked down at her wearily. ‘Must you?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing bad! Just to say that I know now I’ve been foolish to be jealous of Giulia.

I know it was just friendship, because she’s so clever, and you don’t have many clever people to talk to.

It must be hard for you. I used to think, during our coming-out year, that you’d have been more suited to Nina than to me.

You could talk to her so much more. If only she’d had any money—’

‘Kitty, don’t!’

‘It’s all right. I know you married me for my fortune. But we’re happy enough now, aren’t we? People say these things work out, and they do, don’t they?’

‘Oh, Kitty!’ What was happy ‘enough’? he wondered.

‘I’m not going to be jealous of Giulia any more. It was silly of me and I’m over it. That’s all I wanted to say.’

He looked down at her: smiling and at ease, a sweet-faced little matron, pretty as a kitten, mother of his two adored sons; and he thought how lucky he was. ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve you,’ he said.

She looked up, and her smile was for him alone. ‘I think it’s always a matter of luck, isn’t it, not deserving? I didn’t deserve you, either, but here we are.’

There were many ways you could take that, he thought, as they danced on.

* * *

Caroline enjoyed the dinner and the ball, finding many old friends to talk to, and even dancing – once with someone who had been a beau of hers before she had married Manningtree.

He had flirted with her, just a little, and she had enjoyed his subtle suggestion that if Sir James hadn’t cut him out she might even now be Lady Flintshire.

But she did not stay to the end. For one thing, the evening had been long and loud, and the solitary pleasures of her bed and a book had an irresistible attraction after ten o’clock.

And for a second, she had not had a chance to talk to Maud since her consultation with Sir Henry Felden, and her leaving the ball right at the beginning was concerning.

She had known nothing of Maud’s state of health until yesterday, when she had called in with the prince to say that they would be staying at Claridge’s, and to drop her bombshell.

She gave the news without emotion, and when Caroline had tried to express shock and sympathy had cut her off.

Her attitude had always been ‘Never complain, never explain.’ There was no sense in even talking about things that could not be helped.

But she had said that, to please Usingen, she would consult with Sir Henry that morning. ‘And that’s all I have to say.’

Caroline had known there was no point in asking her for any details as to what ailed her.

She had eyed the prince and thought that if she could get him alone she could probably find out more – thanks to their sister Vicky’s early marriage and many holidays at the Wachturm, her German was almost as good as Maud’s – but they left immediately so there was no opportunity.

But she had gathered from Maud’s unspoken attitude that she did not think there was anything to be done, and the consultation was only to appease her husband.

As her maid prepared her for bed she thought about her sister, and how much harder their childhood would have been if Maud, the eldest, had not taken on the role of mother to them all, and how the strain of responsibility had hardened her already tough character into adamant.

She could only hope that whatever it was Maud had, the end would not be too painful or difficult, and decided that it had been sensible to come home to die rather than in a foreign land.

And she felt desperately sorry for the prince, to be losing his new bride so untimely.

She did not sleep well, and was up early the next morning.

She went down to breakfast before last night’s revellers were up.

She was spreading toast with her favourite lime marmalade and thinking that she ought to visit Grandmère today, and break Maud’s news to her gently, when Sebastian appeared, another early riser.

With a subtle gesture she sent Forbes for fresh toast and coffee, and said, ‘What an excellent occasion it was last night, don’t you think? ’

‘Went off like a bomb,’ Sebastian said. ‘No-one else about?’

‘I expect they’ll all sleep late after so much dancing. I’m a little too tired myself for church this morning.’

Sebastian cleared his throat and said, ‘Young Tullamore was there.’

‘Oh dear. Why do things have to be so difficult?’ Caroline said, unconsciously repeating Rachel.

‘Can’t think why Maud didn’t settle her last year, when she was all the rage.’

‘But I don’t believe she had any suitable offers,’ Caroline said. ‘It was a question of dowry, you see.’

Sebastian’s own youthful love had been scotched by the unsuitability of his choice. ‘Awful lot of nonsense,’ he rumbled.

Forbes returned with the coffee and they lapsed into silence, until they were roused from their thoughts by the undeniable sound of the street doorbell.

Caroline looked up. ‘Who on earth can it be at this time of the morning?’ It crossed her mind that it might be Angus, hoping for a word with Rachel.

Who else would get up so early? Should she allow it, which would be disloyal to Maud?

And really not in the children’s best interests either, because there was no point in encouraging them when it was hopeless.

Moments later Forbes appeared at the door, looking put out – it wasn’t right to show visitors into the morning-room – and admitting the Prince and Princess of Usingen.

Maud was fully and fashionably dressed and was looking less composed and calm than usual, with an unexpected amount of colour in her cheeks.

And the prince was positively radiant, so Caroline rose to greet them with the happy conviction that it must be good news, that Sir Henry had been able to give some hope.

‘No, I won’t stay for breakfast,’ Maud said, intercepting the enquiry and the order to Forbes. ‘We are on our way back from church. I’m glad to find you alone.’ Her look included Sebastian, so he didn’t offer to leave. ‘I have something to tell you and it will be easier without so many to hear it.’

‘Come and sit down,’ Caroline urged, gesturing towards the sofa and chairs in the bay window.

But Maud remained standing where she was, giving her an almost uncertain look. She waited until Forbes had left the room, and then nervously stripped off one glove, and fiddled with it between her fingers.

Caroline was disturbed all over again. It was unlike Maud to fidget. Perhaps it was bad news after all. ‘It is something about – something Sir Henry said yesterday?’ she urged.

‘Yes,’ said Maud. She glanced at Usingen, who smiled and nodded at her, encouragingly.

‘Oh, do say that it is good news!’ Caroline cried.

Maud recoiled slightly. ‘Please, Caroline, restrain yourself. I cannot bear displays of emotion. My nerves are strained already.’

‘Your nerves?’ Sebastian said, in astonishment. ‘I never knew you to have any.’

Maud ignored him. ‘When I saw Sir Henry and explained the symptoms he said he had little doubt as to the diagnosis but regarded an examination as essential.’ She reddened even at the mention of it.

One very good reason never to admit to illness was the horrible embarrassment of submitting to a strange man touching your body.

‘And?’ Caroline prompted. ‘Please don’t keep me in suspense!’

‘It is not as I thought. The symptoms – perhaps at another time I might have guessed.’ She gathered her courage. ‘I am with child. I am going to have a baby.’

Usingen beamed as the words were finally spoken, nodded in delighted confirmation at the other two.

He reached out and took her hand, and for a wonder she did not shake him off.

The next words broke from her as if against her will, almost in a wail.

‘I thought I was done with all that! It was the last thing I suspected.’

Usingen could contain himself no longer, and broke into a flood of delight in German.

He had never been married before, had thought he had left it too late, his family and the whole estate had been afraid he would leave no heir, but his beloved Maud had agreed to marry him and he was so blessed, now everyone would be so happy, almost as happy as he was.

It was well that he filled the silence because Caroline was too astonished for words.

At last she said, ‘I’m so glad you’re not dying.’

Sebastian said, ‘I’m glad the prince insisted on your seeing a physician. Congratulations, by the way, Usingen. I’d say let that be a lesson to you, Maudie, but I can’t immediately think what the lesson would be.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Maud rebuked him. And to her sister, who was moist about the eyes, ‘I look to you to tell the rest of the family, and to tell them that I forbid any fuss. And now I’m going home.’

‘But, Maud,’ said Sebastian, urgently, as she turned away. ‘You are pleased, aren’t you?’

She turned and met his eyes with a look of utter perplexity. ‘It was not what I expected,’ she said at last. ‘It will take time to understand.’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Usingen is pleased.’

He took her hand and drew it through his arm, beamed at her, and called her his herzliebste Frauchen .

‘Yes, I should think he is,’ Sebastian said.

Maud could not bear to talk to anyone. She could hardly bear to be in the same house as another soul. She was uncertain, wrong-footed, and riven with embarrassment – emotions she was not accustomed to in her rigidly controlled life.

Despite the fact that Usingen, having married her, wanted to affirm his passion for her far more often than she would have chosen, it had never occurred to her that she might conceive.

She was over fifty, and her Monthly Visitor had been irregular for some time.

Most of all, she had had no intention of having more children – and such was the force of her character that what she willed always came to pass. .

The nausea, general feeling of unwellness, and then the swelling in the abdomen, were symptoms she recognised from a close friend of her mother whom she had witnessed die of a growth on the liver.

Lady Wendell’s death had been a grim backdrop to a period of her life that had culminated in her mother’s death in childbed, and was engraved on her mind and her heart.

In the grim watches of the night Maud had faced and come to terms with the prospect of her own dissolution.

Fergus’s wedding celebration gave her the excuse to return to London without telling Usingen – she could not face his anguish – and once there, she would stay to the end, which she assumed would not be long coming.

Lady Wendell had lived only a few months: the disease took its victims rapidly.

She’d had no intention of telling anyone until the very end, when it would become obvious anyway.

Above all things, she hated talk about health matters.

But arriving at Ashmore, miserably uncomfortable and tired from the long journey, Stainton’s annoying remark about her looking well had been the last straw and she had barked out that stupidly melodramatic statement.

And then came the long, exhausting scene with Usingen, at the end of which she had agreed to see a doctor.

He had made it impossible for her to refuse.

He had raged, and wept, pleaded his love for her, demanded in wounded tones how she could shut him out from something so vital, asked what she thought he must be feeling, claimed wildly that there was always hope.

Hope, that insidious poison. Despair she knew could be coped with; but hope would kill you.

And now she was in this dreadful position, where she had told everyone she was dying when in fact she was harbouring new life.

It was horribly, scaldingly embarrassing.

She did not know how to have any conversation that was likely to arise.

And at the end of it – a baby. Usingen was delighted, of course, and she was glad enough to please him.

But to bear another child at her age? She’d had more than enough of that in her marriage to Willie Stainton.

She was too old, she was too tired. She didn’t want to do it. But there was no choice in the matter.

Most of all, she didn’t want to talk about it. A convent at the top of a mountain where the nuns had taken a vow of silence – that was where she would have chosen to spend the rest of her pregnancy.

If only, if only she had not blurted out that she was dying!

One moment’s lapse had led to all this trouble.

She had lived her life by suppressing all natural reaction, and lectured her children on the virtue of iron self-control at all times.

Now, once people had got over the surprise of the news, they would be laughing at her behind her back.

The pains of childbirth were as nothing beside the anguish of feeling foolish.