Page 63 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

Nor had Willie Stainton, her husband, a cold and autocratic man.

Another castle, another baby – a girl! How furious he had been at Linda’s birth!

How racked with anxiety she had been all through her second pregnancy, how fearful while giving birth.

A hard birth – old Nanny, who had come with her from Cawburn, had said second births were always hard.

She had been quite ill afterwards, and perhaps because of that had never been able to rejoice much in Giles’s birth, or feel affection for him.

But she’d had a boy, and bearing a second boy had completed her duty.

If she did not secure an approving word from her husband, she did at least deflect his wrath.

And gain relief from his bedroom attentions. There followed a period of comparative peace.

Then his infidelities came to light. She writhed at the memory.

Men had mistresses, it was understood, but he was not discreet.

Or discriminating. His tastes were low. No servant was safe from him.

Oh, those girls! The ones who gave her sly, sidelong glances; the ones who flounced and tossed their heads; the ones who came weeping and snivelling for sympathy!

Those who became pregnant. The furious quarrels, the humiliations . . .

She had built a carapace around herself, within which she could feel no hurt.

She did her duty, and spared neither herself nor anyone else.

It was not love or even lust that had brought him back to her bed and forced her into another series of pregnancies.

He had done it to spite her. Two daughters and several miscarriages she should never have had to endure.

Willie Stainton. She had not loved him. When he was brought in on a hurdle like a dead stag, she had felt only fury that he had used her up and discarded her . . .

She drifted in the cold fog of desolate memories . . .

There was the sound of a baby crying. A new baby, the longed-for, the precious son and heir.

Not Fergus, her loved, her adored, the first of her babies.

It was Paul’s son. The realisation jerked her for a moment back to reality.

How strange it was that Paul had wanted to marry her.

He had known she had no money; and she had never been under any illusion that she was handsome.

She had supposed he wanted her for an efficient chatelaine, a suitably blue-blooded consort.

She had thought she had done with the tiresome bedroom activity, but he had proved uxorious.

And then had come the shock of another pregnancy.

He had been so pleased, it had been almost touching . . .

He loved her. There was no other conclusion. No-one had ever loved her. Not her father, not Willie, not her children. But Paul loved her. His face when the baby had been put into his arms for the first time! His expression as he leaned over her and asked – oh, so tenderly – how she did . . .

Pain. Exhaustion. There was always a price to pay.

They used you. Men used you up, for their own purposes.

But what else could you do? Boys went into the army, the Church, the law.

Girls went into marriage. It was their career, their only option.

It was that, or dwindle into ‘daughter-at-home’, no better than an unpaid servant; or ‘companion’ to some elderly widow, at her beck and call for nothing more than bed and board.

Better marriage than that . . . Better cold-hearted Willie Stainton .

. . Better a title, a position. She was a countess . . .

No, she was a princess, wasn’t she? Paul . . . ?

A baby was crying somewhere. She stirred in her half-sleep.

The baby needed her, her little brother.

She must be a mother to him. Their mother was dead.

It was her responsibility now. She must be mother to them all, run the castle, somehow please her father.

It was all on her shoulders, always had been, always would be. The burden, the responsibility . . .

Maud drifted . . .

Linda found Alice down in the little conservatory. ‘Why are you sulking in here?’ she asked briskly.

‘I’m not sulking,’ Alice defended herself. ‘I’m thinking.’

‘Drawing again,’ Linda remarked. Alice closed the cover of her sketching-pad to hide what she had been doing. ‘Some rubbish, I suppose. I don’t know why you are so set on it.’

‘It makes me happy,’ Alice said.

‘Happy! What has that to do with anything?’

‘Don’t you want to be happy?’

‘I shall be happy when I do the right thing. That’s the only happiness that matters.’

‘Is marrying Cousin Pippi the right thing?’ Alice asked, a little crossly.

‘Of course. It’s what Mama wants. It’s what Papa would have wanted.’

‘Papa never cared a jot about any of us,’ Alice said.

‘That’s a shocking thing to say, and shows you have a very bad character. And, by the way, your sulks have been noted. Aunt Vicky has been asking about you. Personally, I think it’s far too good of her to want to take you in hand and find you a husband.’

Alice grasped at that. ‘Yes, far too good. I wish she wouldn’t. It would cost a great deal of money, and for what? I’ll never “take”.’

‘Not with that attitude.’ Linda hesitated, and it came to Alice that she was not here merely to harangue. ‘Mother said you want to go back to London, and go on with that silly school.’

‘I do. It’s the only thing I want,’ Alice sighed.

‘Well, I think you should go,’ said Linda.

Alice looked up in amazement. ‘You do?’

‘You’re not needed here. I can look after Mother until she’s out of bed. And I don’t want you hanging around with your miserable face and bad temper.’

‘I’m not bad-tempered,’ Alice protested.

Linda wasn’t listening. ‘And you won’t do Rachel’s prospects any good if you tag along with Aunt Vicky.’

‘Rachel’s engaged to Angus. She doesn’t need any more prospects.’

Linda ignored that, as well. ‘So the best thing is for you to go back to school until you come to your senses and realise it will get you nowhere in life. Then you’ll come begging for another chance, and perhaps some clergyman might be found willing to take you.

Don’t expect anyone better, because it will be too late. ’

Now it was Alice’s turn to ignore what to her was as meaningless as a sparrow’s chirping. ‘Will you help me go home? Will you persuade Mother? Oh, thank you! You don’t know what it means to me. But how can it be managed? She’ll never let me travel on my own.’

‘Of course not,’ said Linda, ‘but as it happens, it fits in with my own plans. Miss Kettel shall take you back.’

‘Miss Kettel?’

‘I’ve only been keeping her on until I could find a new governess. Now the Pfaffenheims have recommended someone. A Fr?ulein Schneider. She comes tomorrow. So as soon as you’ve packed, you can be off.’

‘You’re getting rid of Miss Kettel?’ Alice said slowly.

Linda looked scornful. ‘Did you think I would keep her after her appalling negligence cost the life of my son? I needed her to bring Arabella to me. I intended to punish her by turning her off to fend for herself in Germany. But as it is, she can accompany you back to England. She should be grateful for the opportunity, which she doesn’t in the least deserve. ’

‘But what will happen to her then?’

‘I neither know nor care. Why on earth do you? My little boy is dead.’

Alice had never understood Linda, who had always seemed only to want to be rid of the bother of her children.

But perhaps she had a mother’s heart underneath all the crossness.

And, in fairness, the crossness was not much in evidence these days.

She couldn’t help asking, ‘If you marry Cousin Pippi, will you take Arabella with you?’

Linda frowned. ‘Of course I will. What a strange question! He has two daughters of his own, just about her age, as well as two older sons. One more won’t be noticed in the nursery. Fr?ulein Schneider can teach them all.’

‘I see,’ Alice said. She was wondering whether that was Linda’s attraction for Cousin Pippi – he wanted her as a stepmother for his brood. A suitable woman of rank to run his house and supervise his children.

Then Linda said, looking rather conscious, ‘Of course we may well have children of our own.’

‘I suppose so,’ Alice said blankly.

Linda turned away. ‘If Mother can manage it, at her age . . .’ she added, under her breath.

The journey was long and slow and tiring, and by the time Alice and Miss Kettel were on the final train to London, they were weary and grubby.

Alice was worried about what would happen to her companion.

‘There are agencies,’ Miss Kettel said, in a leaden voice. ‘But without a reference . . .’

‘Didn’t Lady Cordwell give you one?’ Alice said, uncomfortably.

‘One could hardly expect it, after the death of her son.’

‘But it wasn’t your fault!’ Alice cried. ‘He ran away and got in an accident. There was nothing you could have done. He was always running away. You couldn’t watch him every moment of every day.’

‘It was my responsibility,’ said Miss Kettel. ‘He was in my charge.’

‘But what will you do?’

‘I doubt I shall be able to get another position as a governess. I can teach at a school, however. Not at a good school, of course, with no reference. But there are lesser schools that are not so particular.’

Alice looked at her in silent sympathy, not knowing what to say. She looked so worn and uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last.

Miss Kettel roused herself. ‘Let me be a lesson to you, my dear. For a woman, reputation is everything. Once lose it, and you are lost indeed. Take care of your reputation, Lady Alice. When one is young and full of passion, one is too likely to undervalue it.’

Alice was not sure what she was being put on guard against, but there was no doubt Miss Kettel was sincere in her warning.

* * *