Page 72 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

In the train on the way down to Portsmouth, Mr Cowling broke a long silence to say, ‘It’s been a good summer. Don’t you think so, my dear?’

Nina looked up from the magazine she wasn’t really reading, not sure what he was referring to. He was looking at her intently.

‘I mean, spending so much more time with you,’ he said. ‘First the Isle of Wight—’

‘I wasn’t sure you really enjoyed that,’ Nina said. ‘Bobby’s family can be rather boisterous.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind a bit of good, honest family fun,’ he said. ‘I’m not such a dour old fossil, am I?’

‘None of those things,’ she said, with a gallant smile.

‘And then the trip to Paris. We must do it again, and see the sights. Notre Dame and the Louvre and so on. The Eiffel Tower – you’d have liked to go up that, eh?’

‘I expect the view from the top is wonderful,’ Nina said.

‘Tallest structure in the world when it was first built. People said it’d never stand up. And, d’you know, the French nobs and artists and such hated it! Said it was ugly and ridiculous and an insult to French good taste.’

‘How do you know that?’ she marvelled.

‘Oh, I read it somewhere. There was some famous French writer or other who had lunch in the Eiffel Tower restaurant every day, because he said it was the only place in Paris where you couldn’t see it.’ She laughed. ‘There’s always people who will stand in the way of progress.’

‘I suppose you need a brake on a motor-car. The faster the car, the more it needs the brakes.’

‘That’s cleverly put,’ he said. ‘Yes, we must go back to Paris some time. And how would you like a trip to Italy?’

‘I would love it. Is there some reason you’re mentioning it now?’ she asked.

‘I’ve been thinking it was time I rearranged my life a bit. I’ve got Decius, and Truman, and young Tullamore in London, and good people in all the factories. I ought to spend more time enjoying my money instead of making it.’

‘Not instead of making, it, surely.’

‘Oh, you’re too sharp for me! You know what I mean. Next month, for instance, the hunting will start. There’ll be lots of dinners and parties to go to, but why shouldn’t we give one?’

‘No reason that I can think of,’ she said.

‘And make it a prime ’un, too – one that everyone’ll talk about.’

‘You should buy a horse, and come out with me,’ Nina said generously, on the basis that he would like to be asked but would never do it.

But he said, ‘Aye, well, I might, at that. I’m no great horseman, but I dare say I could stick on all right. See what it is all you folk get so excited about.’

‘Well, do,’ she said, and looked away, out of the window, while she got her expression under control. She’d had an image of Giles on horseback, and for an instant saw herself riding at his side. In that other world, a world where history had happened differently.

‘Are you all right, Nina dear?’ Mr Cowling asked. ‘You’re quite well, aren’t you?’

‘Quite well, thank you,’ she said, and turned back to him to smile.

‘Only you looked uncomfortable for a moment there.’

He had seen her face reflected in the window. She had to say something. ‘I just thought about Trump for an instant.’

He took her hand and pressed it. ‘I’m sorry, my love. I should have thought. Dragging you to Portsmouth – it’s bound to bring it all back.’

‘No, really, I’m quite all right. Don’t worry about it, please.’ She changed the subject with determination. ‘It will be a very grand celebration, I suppose?’

‘I should just about think it will! A hundred years since Trafalgar? The navy have Trafalgar dinners in their messes every year, but for the centenary it’s got to be a bit special.’

‘What goes on at these dinners?’

‘Oh, there’s a grand spread, of course, and they generally have a band playing while they eat. And there’s the parading of the beef.’

‘Goodness, what’s that?’

‘The main dish is always the roast beef of old England, and the chef brings it in on a trolley and parades it round the table for everyone to see before it’s carved.

All very jolly. At the end of dinner there are speeches and toasts.

The chair says, “Mr Vice, the King,” and the vice chair stands up and proposes the Loyal Toast. And then the guest of honour proposes a toast to the Immortal Memory. ’

‘Immortal memory of what?’

‘Of Lord Nelson and those who fell with him, of course.’

‘Ah! It all sounds very . . .’ she wasn’t sure how to put it. It sounded like something from a gentlemen’s club, or a university dining hall ‘. . . interesting,’ she concluded. ‘But there aren’t any women in the navy. How can I be invited?’

‘This is a special Trafalgar dinner, and it’s not being held in a mess. There’ll be all sorts of dignitaries and their wives. It was hoped the King might come, but he’s got engagements in London. I expect he’ll send someone to represent him.’

* * *

HMS Victory had been rotting at her moorings for years, and in 1903 she had been accidentally rammed by HMS Neptune , and only by the skin of her teeth had been prevented from sinking.

Emergency repairs had been carried out, but she was too frail to accommodate a centenary celebration.

The best that could be done was to dress her overall, not just with flags but with electric light globes, which were powered from a submarine moored alongside.

The special dinner was held in Portsmouth’s grandest hotel, with the Princess Royal and the Duke of Fife representing the King.

There were two long tables, joined at the top by a short one at which the princess and her husband were seated along with the chair and vice chair, the port admiral, the mayor of Portsmouth and various other ‘high-ups’, as Mr Cowling called them.

Nina and Mr Cowling were seated quite far down one of the long tables.

The menu was extensive, beginning with oysters, then consommé, fillets of sole Grand Duc, braised sweetbreads Demidoff, and pheasant à la Reine .

Then came the roast beef of Old England, with the promised parade and, since suitable wines had been served with each course, considerable noise and jollity.

After that came the sweet and the savoury – omelette surprise and barquettes de foie gras , then dessert, speeches and toasts.

Nina, with Mr Cowling opposite her on the other side of the table, had on her left a young captain who was just back from Malta and was happy to tell her everything she wanted to know about the island’s history and culture.

On her right was a Portsmouth man of the law who had plenty to say about starting a campaign to save HMS Victory ‘since the Admiralty clearly won’t’.

‘It would be a scandal if our most famous ship were allowed to perish,’ he said.

The captain leaned forward to agree. ‘And foolish, too. If the old girl was put into good enough shape to allow visitors, she’d make enough money from entry fees to pay for her keep. Back in the eighteen forties she was attracting over twenty thousand visitors a year.’

‘That’s an interesting idea,’ the lawman said. ‘It would be good for the rest of Portsmouth, too, bringing people to the city, to stay at hotels and eat in restaurants, hire cabs and boats and so on.’

Nina looked at her husband and saw that he had overheard the exchange and was bursting to join in with the discussion, had etiquette not forbidden speaking across the table. More people spending money was an ideal close to his heart.

It was a late evening, and with so much food, drink, talk and noise, Nina felt very sleepy when she and Mr Cowling finally left.

They stepped out under the hotel’s canopy to have a cab summoned to take them back to their own hotel.

The streets were shiny and wet. It was not very cold, but a blustery wind was blowing a light rain in from the sea.

The air smelt wonderfully fresh after the banqueting room, and slightly salty; the strings of electric lights the hotel had put up for the celebration rocked alarmingly overhead.

‘Did you have a nice time?’ Mr Cowling asked, when they were seated in the cab.

‘Very nice,’ she said.

‘You had a couple of interesting people to talk to,’ he suggested.

‘I did. Didn’t you?’

He didn’t answer that. ‘The young fellow on your left,’ he said. ‘He had a lot to say for himself. Seemed to be very taken with you, too.’

‘Taken with me?’

‘Hogging your attention. Leaning towards you. I was afraid he was going to end up in your lap if he got any closer.’

He was jealous, she realised with surprise. ‘I spoke to the man on my right too,’ she said. ‘When we turned.’

‘Aye, but then blow me if the young whippersnapper didn’t lean right forward and poke himself into that conversation as well.’

‘It was about saving the Victory . I saw you were interested.’

‘Interested in why he couldn’t leave you alone for long enough to attend to the lady on his other side.’

‘Ah, here we are at the hotel,’ she said, hoping to break the chain. ‘It isn’t far, is it? I’m so sleepy, I’m more than ready for bed.’

He said nothing more, but got out to help her down.

The hotel porter had emerged to open the cab door and hold an umbrella over Nina, but as she stepped onto the pavement, a strong gust of wind snatched it inside-out, and the rain hit her face as the porter wrestled with it.

At the same moment, a small dog scuttled out from the alley at the side of the hotel and ran past her across the road.

A dray with a tarpaulin-covered load was passing the stationary cab at a smart pace.

Nina, who had closed her eyes momentarily against the fine blowing rain, heard the dog’s shrill scream, cut off short, a shout from the dray’s driver, and the snorting of the horses.

Her eyes flew open. She was on the move before Mr Cowling could catch her arm to hold her back. ‘No, Nina!’ he called.