Page 22 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

Sebastian, at the piano, saw a flicker of movement at the door, and lifted his head to say, ‘Don’t go! Come in and listen.’

Dory reappeared doubtfully. ‘I mustn’t.’

‘Please,’ he said. ‘There’s no harm in listening to a bit of music.’ Still she hesitated, and he said beguilingly, ‘I’ll play you Chopin – the piece you like.’

‘Just for a moment, then.’ She came in and stood to the side of the door where she couldn’t be seen from outside.

He let his hands transition through some chords and arpeggios until they found the opening notes of the Berceuse.

She folded her arms round the silk counterpane she was carrying – she was the sewing maid and repaired all the most delicate things in the house – and gazed at the empty air as she listened.

‘What’s that?’ he asked, when he had finished and slid into another piece so as not to leave a gap she might depart in.

‘It’s the counterpane from Van Dyck. The one with tropical birds and such. The thread’s badly worn in places. Her highness likes to rest on top of the bed, but she ought to have Miss Taylor take it off first.’

‘Would you like me to tell her?’

Her eyes opened. ‘What – and let her know I’d spoken to you about it?’ And then she realised he was joking, and smiled. ‘You shouldn’t tease me.’

‘You take your work so seriously.’

‘It’s the only way to do any work, isn’t it?’

‘You’re right, of course. “Do the work as best you can, Though it’s hard at whiles, Helping when you meet them, Lame dogs over stiles,”’ he quoted.

She frowned. ‘That’s not how it goes.’

‘I paraphrased to fit the occasion.’

‘Anyway, why would you help a lame dog over a stile? Dogs go under stiles – I’ve seen ’em.’

‘You must ask Charles Kingsley. I suspect he meant metaphorical lame dogs.’

‘I’ve never met one of those. Our neighbours had a dog with three legs when I was a girl. It could run faster than all the other dogs.’

‘There’s a Kingsleyish message in that somewhere, if we could think of it. “Don’t shoot the dog that’s one leg short, it runs so fast, it can’t be caught.”’

She laughed. ‘You’re quick!’

‘What’s the talk below stairs?’ he asked. He saw that she had relaxed, and was glad of it. He slithered into some Scarlatti, where you could fudge a little, since it all sounded much the same to the untrained ear.

‘Oh, about her highness, of course. What a strange thing that she thought she was dying when she’s really having a baby!’

‘And very glad we all are about it.’

Dory nodded. It wasn’t that the princess was beloved, but a birth was always better than a death. ‘But what a queer mistake to make.’

‘It’s happened before, only the other way round.

Queen Victoria had a lady’s maid called Lady Flora Hastings, who suffered from nausea and headaches and a swollen abdomen.

There was a scandal because she was unmarried and everyone thought she was pregnant, but it turned out that she had a growth on her liver. ’

‘Oh, the poor lady. What happened?’

‘She died.’

‘I don’t like that story. Will her highness stay here to have the baby?’

‘I imagine the prince will want her to go home. It’s his heir, after all. He’ll want it to be born in his house.’

‘Will she take Lady Rachel with her?’

‘Probably.’

She sighed. ‘I wish she’d take Lady Linda and those children instead.’

‘What’s Arthur done now?’

‘Caught a rat in the stables and let it loose in the kitchen. I thought Mrs Terry would have a nose bleed, she screamed so hard. She’s all right with mice but she can’t abide rats.’

‘What happened?’

‘The prince’s man heard the racket and came in, grabbed a saucepan, whacked the poor thing and killed it, picked it up by the tail and threw it outside. Cool as a cucumber. The girls were all very impressed. They think he’s a sort of hero. Even him not speaking English makes them wriggle.’

‘Wriggle?’

‘They think it’s romantic.’ He saw her mood change as she remembered where she was. ‘I must go.’

‘Not yet. It’s been so long since we’ve had a chat like this,’ he said. ‘I miss you.’

‘I miss you, too, but I mustn’t,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I ought to go away, get another position.’

‘Please don’t,’ he said.

She shook her head, and was gone.

He played on without knowing what he was playing, thinking that the time had come.

He had been putting it off, telling himself first that the Christmas season was in the way, then the weather, then Maud’s strange drama.

But the longer he waited, the more he risked losing her.

She might just go one day, and not tell him where, so that he wouldn’t be able to follow.

He must act.

* * *

Addy and Mabel passed each other on the first landing as they went between bedrooms with their housemaid’s boxes.

‘What you just done?’ Mabel asked.

‘Lady Mary’s Room,’ said Addy. ‘You?’

‘Jade Room. Lot of fussy stuff in there.’

‘Mine’s worse. Lady Linda’s awful untidy,’ Addy said. Linda always slept in Lady Mary when she was at the Castle. ‘Here,’ Addy remembered, ‘there was a funny book on her nightstand, all in foreign.’

‘That’ll be German,’ Mabel said. ‘She knows German on account of visiting her aunty, her that married a German prince.’

‘You mean her mother?’

‘No, stupid! Princess Usingen’s her mother, but she’d an aunty that married a German as well. When she was a child.’

‘Oh,’ said Addy, blankly. Then her face cleared. ‘Here, that valet of the prince’s is a nice gent.’

Mabel frowned. ‘What sort of nice?’

Addy giggled. ‘Oh – you know!’

‘I don’t know. What you been up to?’

‘Nothing. Just a bit of a kiss and cuddle. No harm is there?’

‘What? You as well?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I had a kiss and cuddle with him an’ all.’

Addy looked disconcerted. ‘But he said I was a pretty girl.’

‘He said I was too, only he said it in German, on account of he doesn’t speak no English.’

‘Well, he talked English to me,’ Addy said, bewildered.

Mabel took a step towards her, belligerently. ‘You lay off him, Addy Coggins! I saw him first!’

‘You never! Anyway, he said English to me, and that’s better than German. So he must like me better.’

‘Get off! He knows you’re too stupid to understand German.’

‘Well, so are you!’

Rose appeared in the corridor behind them and said furiously, ‘What d’you think you’re doing, bellowing away like fishwives? Shut your mouths and get about your work!’

Mabel had one last shaft to deliver before flouncing away. ‘I know more German than you, anyway! Shmoo-sig! That’s German for a pretty girl, so there!’

Rose maided Lady Linda at the Castle, as she didn’t have a lady’s maid of her own. When she was doing her hair that evening, she said, ‘Can I ask you something, my lady?’

‘Hmm?’ said Linda, staring at her reflection, and thinking that when a lady reached thirty she ought to have diamond earrings. Diamonds close to the face gave it a sparkle.

‘What’s the German word for “pretty”?’ Rose asked.

‘ Hübsch ,’ Linda said absently.

‘Oh,’ said Rose. ‘So what’s shmoo-sig , then?’

Linda frowned, dragged back from her diamond reverie. ‘What? Do you mean schmutzig ?’

‘I expect so,’ Rose said. ‘What does that mean?’

‘“Dirty”,’ said Linda. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, the German servants below stairs. Something that was said, that’s all,’ Rose said vaguely. ‘It’s a bit awkward them not speaking English.’

‘Taylor speaks German well enough now,’ Linda said dismissively. ‘She can translate.’

‘Yes, my lady. The tortoiseshell combs? Or the jet?’

Rose cornered Adolf in the visiting valet’s room, where he was polishing the prince’s boots.

‘What have you been up to, Mr Usingen?’ she demanded. ‘Have you been bothering the housemaids?’

He turned and examined her slowly up and down with an undressing look. Rose, however, had dealt with that sort of thing too many times before and looked straight back. He said something in German that sounded like a denial.

She narrowed her eyes. ‘You understood what I said, otherwise you couldn’t have answered me. Speak English!’

‘Oh, Miss Rose, you are very sharp,’ he said. ‘A rose has many thorns, is it not?’

‘You’re not the first man to say that, so don’t think you’re clever. And don’t think you can smarm me, either.’

‘I don’t know what is smarm , but I have no interest in you, Miss Rose. You are . . .’ He held his palms six inches apart and moved them up and down. ‘I like girls who are . . .’ Now he used the hands to describe a roundness that was almost a full circle. And he grinned.

Rose bristled. ‘Oh, yes, I know your sort, Mr Usingen. Interfering with girls too silly to know better, getting your pleasure at their expense.’

He moved a step closer, looking insistently into her face. ‘But I am not Mr Usingen. My name is Adolf. You must call me Adolf.’

‘I’ll call you with the back of my hand if you fiddle with my girls. I’ll tell his lordship. I’ll tell your master.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, but you will not. There must not be a fuss. And housemaids do not speak to masters. It is not done.’ He stepped closer again, and she held her ground, refusing to flinch from him, though they were almost nose to nose.

‘You have much spirit, Rose of the thorns, I like that. Even though you are too mager for my taste, I like you.’

Like a snake striking, he seized her round the waist, pulled her close and fastened his lips to hers. She was wiry and strong from housework, but he was taller and more powerful, and she struggled in vain. When he released her she rubbed at her mouth furiously, bristling like a cat.

He only laughed. ‘ Ach so! ’ he said. ‘Now you have kissed me too, so you cannot complain about the others. You are as bad as them.’

She stared for a moment, then walked away. There was nothing she could do or say that would enhance her dignity.

‘Mr Usingen, can I have a word with you?’

Adolf turned and looked down at Afton as he stood in the doorway. ‘ Bitte? ’ he said.