Page 5 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

A telegram had been sent off to Craigend on Boxing Day.

On the morning of the twenty-eighth, Giles received a reply, and called Angus and Rachel into the library after breakfast. Through the Christmas festivities, the meet on Boxing Day and the ball at the Grange, he had kept an eye on them, but they had shown no tendency to try to slip out of the room.

Angus had been particularly good with Linda’s children, played chess with Uncle Sebastian, and made up fours at bridge to keep Uncle Fergus happy.

At the Grange he had danced with Rachel only a seemly amount.

Giles was impressed with his steadiness.

‘I’ve had a telegram from Sir Gordon,’ Giles said. ‘He is very seriously displeased, and demands that you go home immediately.’

Angus had expected that. ‘I’m not going to give in to him. I’m a grown man, I can make my own decisions.’

‘He’s still your father,’ Giles said.

‘But my life is my own to live as I see fit.’ He grew a little angry. ‘If he thinks behaving like a – like a tyrant will make me any more likely to come to heel, he mistakes me!’

‘Please don’t rant at me. I’m only the messenger. Obviously he has anticipated your answer because he says if you don’t go home the consequences will be severe.’

Angus was silent. Rachel looked up at him and said, ‘What consequences?’

Giles answered for him. ‘Financial ones, I assume.’ What other power did a man have over a grown son?

‘Money doesn’t matter, does it?’ she said.

‘Of course it does,’ Giles said impatiently. ‘Don’t talk like an idiot.’

Rachel blushed. ‘You sound like Mama. All she cares about is how rich a person is. She wants to marry me to a Russian prince and talks about jewels and carriages and so on. But I love Angus, and he loves me. That’s what’s important.’

‘Next you’ll tell me you’d be happy to be poor and live in a hovel,’ Giles said. ‘You, who’ve never mended your own clothes or cooked your own food.’

‘I can sew,’ Rachel retorted. ‘And I could learn to cook,’ she added less certainly. ‘You’re just being disagreeable and trying to make me give him up. Well, I won’t!’

‘You wouldn’t have to live in a hovel,’ Angus said. ‘I’d look after you.’

‘That rather begs the question, doesn’t it?’ Giles said. ‘How exactly would you support a wife?’

‘I’d find something,’ Angus declared. ‘I’m not afraid of hard work. I’ve helped in my father’s business for years, I must have skills I can use.’

‘Hmm. I don’t think you have the least idea how expensive my sister would be. You’d need a pretty damn good position.’

Angus eyed Giles cautiously. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t—’

‘You suppose right,’ Giles interrupted grimly.

Rachel looked at him eagerly. ‘Oh, Giles, you could give Angus a job on the estate! Then we wouldn’t have to go far away from you all. A job and a little cottage. Angus is terribly clever. He’d be a tremendous help to you.’

‘No, Rachel.’ Giles stopped her, feeling like a wicked stepfather. ‘How can I help you, after I gave our mother my word that I’d keep you two apart? Even if I wanted to – and I don’t.’

‘You don’t?’ Rachel’s lip trembled.

‘Not as things stand.’ He noticed that they had instinctively moved a step closer to each other and gave an inward sigh. ‘I can’t order you to go home,’ he said to Angus, ‘but I strongly advise it. Talk to your father, see if you can’t find a way through.’

‘I have talked to him,’ Angus said. ‘He doesn’t listen. All he wants is his own way.’

‘I see a family resemblance,’ Giles said.

‘I won’t give him up,’ Rachel said. ‘And I won’t marry anyone else. Mama can’t make me.’

‘But she can separate you for another two years, and do you really think you’ll last that long?’

Rachel began to cry, but quietly. She and Angus were standing so close together now she was able to slip her hand into his.

‘You’d both do better to give up this nonsense,’ he concluded.

‘I’m afraid we can’t do that, sir,’ Angus said, a trifle glumly.

‘I see.’ Giles was standing by his desk, and picked up a pencil, put it down again, drummed his fingers briefly on the leather surface, picked up the pencil again, thinking.

‘Well, I can’t let you stay here,’ he said to Angus.

‘I gave my word, and I’ve stretched it already.

You can remain for today, but you must leave tomorrow.

I can’t do any more for you. Now I’m going downstairs and you can follow when you’re ready.

Mind, if you haven’t appeared in ten minutes, I’ll come back up and chase you down. ’

He walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. When he reached the stairs he realised he still had the pencil in his hands, and was surprised to find that it was snapped in two.

‘Cup of tea, Mr Afton?’

Afton, passing the open door to the housekeeper’s room, paused. ‘Thank you, Mrs Webster. That would be most agreeable.’

As he walked in, his sharp eyes noted that the table in front of her was already laid with two cups, so the invitation hadn’t been spur-of-the-moment. Brigid appeared almost instantly with the filled pot, and put it down in front of Mrs Webster without a word.

‘This is very nice,’ he said, taking the offered seat. ‘You’ve made this room very cosy.’

‘As the Duke of Wellington said, any fool can be un comfortable,’ she said, preparing to pour. ‘Milk in first or afterwards?’

‘I understood it was always first?’

‘For the finest bone china, yes, to prevent cracking. I’m afraid these cups aren’t quite so dainty. Bread and butter, or cake?’

‘Bread and butter, please,’ Afton said. ‘I believe “Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays.”’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mrs Webster looked startled.

‘I was quoting. From a play.’ Evidently it rang no bells with her, and remembering that mention of Oscar Wilde was largely frowned on since his imprisonment for gross indecency, he did not enlighten her.

Instead, he looked round. ‘What a lot of photographs you have.’ They were framed and displayed all along the mantelpiece and the windowsill, and clustered on a small table in the corner.

‘I come from a large family. My father was one of seven and my mother was one of nine, so I have cousins galore, and four brothers of my own, and most of them are married and have children.’

‘Might I enquire whether there was a Mr Webster?’

‘I’ve never been married,’ she said. ‘But that’s not for other ears. I don’t discuss personal matters with the lower servants.’

‘I beg your pardon if I was impertinent.’

‘Not at all. I don’t mind your asking. What about you, Mr Afton? Do you have much family?’

‘I never married either. The opportunity never arose. It’s difficult for people in our position, isn’t it? And I have no family.’

‘None at all?’ The way she said it made him think of Lady Bracknell.

He imagined her saying, ‘To have few relatives may be regarded as a misfortune. To have none looks like carelessness.’ He had seen The Importance of Being Earnest at the St James’s Theatre during its opening run, before the author had fallen into disgrace, and it had made him laugh so much – because he recognised so many of the characters from real life – he had gone twice.

Wilde, of course, was dead now. He wondered if his work would ever be performed again.

It seemed a shame to lose works of genius because of the frailty of their creator.

How many great artists had a private life that would bear close scrutiny?

But Mrs Webster was waiting for an answer. ‘None I know about. I was a foundling. Left in a box on the steps of the poorhouse.’

Mrs Webster threw a glance at the open door, then lowered her voice.

‘If I might offer a little advice, I shouldn’t mention that to anyone else.

Your secret is safe with me, but the other servants .

. . Uneducated people have strong prejudices, and servants in particular like things to be a certain way. ’

‘A butler who was a foundling wouldn’t do?’

‘He would not. And you’re already coming to the position from the wrong direction,’ she said.

‘You were a valet. A butler ought to have started as a boot-boy and worked his way up through footman and under-butler: that’s the proper way.

His parents should have been in service too, for preference.

They want you to be like their idea of a butler. It’s how they make sense of the world.’

Afton smiled. ‘It’s a form of play-acting, isn’t it? Are you fond of the theatre?’

She shook her head indulgently. ‘When do you think I’d have the time to go?

And living out here in the country, there’s none to go to.

I did once see a pantomime at Drury Lane,’ she added, ‘when I was about ten years old. It was a Christmas treat. There were harlequins and a giant goose, as I remember. And a demon king. And a dog that did tricks. Dear me. It was . . . very entertaining.’

‘I never went to one, but I remember seeing the bill-posters for the pantomime when I was a child. The walls would be papered with them in the weeks leading up to Christmas.’ He paused. ‘Quite a different Christmas we’ve had here this year.’

‘Rather too many surprises for the smooth running of the house,’ she said.

‘It was very pleasing news,’ he suggested, ‘about Lord Leake’s getting married.’ She gave a cautious assent. He leaned forward. ‘Tell me, why was Lady Linda so angry about it?’

He thought she might not answer, but she lowered her voice again and said, ‘You see, Lord Leake has been a bachelor for so long everyone assumed he’d stay that way.’

‘Yes, I gathered that.’

‘And he’s very wealthy, and none of his estate is entailed. Lady Linda’s late husband inherited nothing but debts, so she’s been banking on Lord Leake leaving everything to her children, seeing he hadn’t anyone else to leave it to.’

Afton considered. ‘Wouldn’t there be other claims on him, from other members of the family?’