Page 38 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘This is very nice,’ Michael Woodrow said.

The Three Corners Café in the village had a tiny garden, just big enough to take three small round tables, and for the first time that year it was warm enough to sit outside.

Usually it was only the summer visitors who took tea in the garden: Rose felt self-conscious.

She said, a little stiffly, ‘I suppose it is.’

There were bright tulips in the beds, and the lilac bush was in flower, filling the air with the scent of childhood.

The table had a nice white cloth – her housemaid’s eye noted the tiny, neat darn at one corner – and the china was pretty.

Michael Woodrow, sitting across the table from her, scrubbed to a shine and wearing a suit, was the most decorative of all.

He was a nice-looking man, and he had gone to all this trouble for her .

For plain, awkward Rose Hawkins. It made her a little tongue-tied.

‘You’re not cold?’ he tried. ‘We could have sat inside.’

‘No, it’s a nice change,’ she said. ‘I’m indoors all the time.’

‘I suppose you have to be for your work. But I’ve always thought of you as an out-of-doors sort of person. You’re such a good walker.’

‘Am I?’ She was surprised.

‘Whenever I see you going past, you’re always striding out.’

‘I can’t be doing with idling along, wasting time,’ she said, unsure if it was a compliment. ‘I want to get where I’m going.’

‘But there’s a place for idling, too – when you’re just taking the air and enjoying the view.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ she said.

Mrs Henson came out from the kitchen with the teapot and the cake stand, placed them on the table and gave Rose a conspiratorial smirk that quite unsettled her.

Rose took up the pot automatically and began to pour.

Woodrow examined the cake stand. ‘I don’t suppose those scones are as good as Martha’s,’ he said, ‘but they look nice enough. May I help you to one?’

She nodded, and passed him his tea. He resumed the conversation. ‘Have you never been on a nature walk? We had them sometimes at school.’

‘Not my school. What’s a nature walk?’

‘A teacher took us out into the fields or the woods to see what flowers and insects and birds we could find.’

‘What’s the point of that?’ Rose asked, buttering her scone.

‘Learning the names of things, their habits, how they grow. Sometimes we collected flowers and ferns, or birds’ eggs, or we might find a caterpillar, or catch minnows. It’s called nature study.’

‘Nature?’ She wrinkled her nose.

‘It’s all around us, and we’re part of it,’ he pointed out. ‘Life is richer if you look with eyes that see.’

She was struck by the expression, and thought about it. ‘My mother told us the names of things, when I was little,’ she said. ‘You know what’s a sparrow and what’s a robin redbreast, and what’s a chestnut and what’s an oak. How would you get on if you didn’t?’

‘But there’s pleasure to be had, too. Just walking along, breathing in the scents, watching the birds and butterflies going about their work. Even better if you have an agreeable companion,’ he added.

She met his eyes for a moment, then looked away. ‘My brothers kept some tadpoles in a jam jar once,’ she said. She hadn’t thought about that for years. ‘Most of ’em died, but a few of ’em turned into frogs. It was – interesting,’ she admitted.

‘I had a chrysalis, and watched it hatch to a butterfly. And we used to play with conkers, of course.’

‘My brothers did. But Ma used them to keep moths out of the blankets.’

‘I didn’t know conkers did that.’

She was pleased to know something he didn’t. ‘And she made acorn flour, for baking. There’s a lot of good eating in a wood.’

‘Blackberries,’ he said.

‘Rosehips. And sloes.’

‘And mushrooms.’

‘You’ve got to know what you’re doing with mushrooms,’ she said. ‘A kid along the row from us died from eating a toadstool by mistake. But we used to find poor man’s beefsteak for my dad. That grows on oak trees.’

‘Have you ever eaten young lime leaves? We used to call them bread-and-butter – I don’t know why.’

They chatted on, about foraging, their childhoods, country lore: the conversation spread and flowed naturally like water finding new courses.

Rose didn’t notice that she was completely relaxed or that she was enjoying herself: she only realised it afterwards, when going home up the hill and contemplating the oddness of having accepted an invitation for a walk with Woodrow the following week.

‘A nature walk,’ she said to herself, with a snort of amusement.

When Grandmère summoned him, Richard went at once. The tiny, elegant grande dame was as gracious as always, and though he sensed an unusual tension about her, she made him sit and take tea and make light conversation first. It was the civilised way.

‘And you, mon petit ,’ she said, when he had answered her queries about the rest of the family, ‘how are the affairs of your heart progressing? When are you going to bring a prospective bride for me to interview?’

He laughed at her idea of how his courtship should be managed. ‘Be sure when there is such a person you will meet her first.’

‘At your age, you should be married. It will settle and improve you.’

‘Like fine port? Dear Granny, how can I possibly marry?’ he said, an edge of his frustration showing under the lightness of his tone. ‘I have no income.’

She waved a hand at him. ‘One sees that you eat and drink. You smoke – too much – you wear clothes. Comment ca ce peut? ’

‘I charge my necessities to the estate,’ he said. ‘But I have no money. Oh, I can draw a little cash for day-to-day things, but that’s all.’

‘But that is not comme il faut ,’ Grandmère said. ‘You are a grown man. I shall speak to Giles.’

‘Please don’t. It would embarrass me.’

‘ Pfui! ’ She made a very French sound of dismissal. ‘You cannot afford to be so nice. Le travailleur est digne de son salaire .’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose you do work hard?’

He changed the subject. ‘What was it you summoned me here to say? I know it must be important.’

He saw her expression harden. ‘It is Sir Thomas. Something very grave.’

‘Is he unwell?’

‘Oh, it is far worse than that. It is that girl, that girl! Oh, why did you bring her into our lives?’

‘You mean Chloe Sands? I thought you said she was a brilliant artist?’

‘What has that to do with it?’ Grandmère cried in frustration. ‘She will ruin Tommy. C’est une catastrophe! ’

‘But what has she done?’ Richard asked in alarm. He had never seen her so upset.

Grandmère lifted her hands as if warding off an attack. ‘He means to marry her!’ she cried.

‘ What? But he’s married already!’

‘ Exactement! This foolish, foolish man means to obtain – un divorce .’

She could obviously hardly bear to say the word. It sounded worse, somehow, in French.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Richard said slowly.

‘Believe! He means to divorce poor Violet and marry that child, and it will be the scandal of the year, of the decade. He will never be forgiven!’

‘You mean you will never forgive him,’ Richard suggested.

‘That is entirely beside the point. He and I – we are what we are. On n’y peut rien . But his music is everything to him. His career. Son éclat . If he marries that girl he will lose everything.’

‘I had no idea about this,’ Richard said.

‘ Had you not?’

‘Of course not, or I would have said something. Like you, I was worried that he might make her his mistress.’

‘Oh, if it were only that!’ Grandmère cried. ‘ No-one would care or even wonder.’

‘ I would care,’ Richard said. ‘But she told me, and I believed her, that she would never do that. And she said that she had the measure of him.’

‘She is clever, I give you!’ Grandmère said bitterly.

‘To say no and no until in desperation he offers her marriage.’ She shook her head.

‘I never cared for Violet – I have no patience with those who use ill health to control others – but she and I, we knew our places. This girl – this terrible girl – seizes all for herself and cares for no-one else. She will ruin him.’

Richard sat forward urgently. ‘I don’t believe it’s her idea at all. And I don’t see how Sir Thomas can obtain a divorce anyway. Lady Burton will simply refuse, and that will be the end of it.’

‘He will persuade her,’ Grandmère said. ‘He will talk and talk and exhaust her and she will agree for the sake of peace. And then there will be newspapers and scandal and shame.’ She stiffened into an even more upright posture. ‘You must stop it!’ she declared.

‘ Me? ’ He looked appalled. ‘What can I do?’

‘Talk to the girl. It was you who brought her among us, I blame you for this. It must be stopped. He came to see me only yesterday, and said he was going to talk to Violet at the weekend, so there is just time for you to act. Make her tell him it will not be. You say she has influence over him. She must end it. Il est hors de ses sens .’

Richard looked grim. ‘I will talk to her, for you. But I offer no hope. I have no sway with her.’

Grandmère rose from her chair, and he rose too perforce. ‘Go now. Do not come to me and say that you have failed.’ He bent towards her to kiss her cheek in farewell but she pulled back. ‘No, I do not permit a salute from you until you bring me good news. Go!’

Molly Sands looked as anxious as Grandmère. ‘She came to see me yesterday evening. I was shocked. I had no idea.’

‘Grandmère is convinced it was all Chloe’s idea.’

‘That’s not what Chloe said. She said that Sir Thomas is determined on it. She says he has never offered to make her his mistress. He honours her too much.’

‘Honours her!’ Richard exclaimed.

‘She doesn’t know how much damage a divorce would do. I tried to explain, but she said that as Lady Burton she would have security, power and influence.’

‘Influence to do what? She would not be received in society.’

‘She’s not interested in society,’ Molly said. ‘It is only the music she cares about. She thinks he will use his fortune to advance her career.’

‘He can do that anyway,’ Richard said.