Page 48 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

Kitty was glad that she’d had the experience of staying at Dene Park, which had prepared her a little.

It had been even larger and grander than Ashmore Castle, and the Wroughtons were loftier than the Staintons.

The meeting between Lady Stainton and Lady Bayfield was almost comic, with each attempting to out-gracious the other with gritted smiles and stiff compliments, but Kitty was too frightened to be amused.

A tall, stout man was presented, who reminded her a bit of the King – Giles called him Uncle Sebastian.

Giles at least was familiar, though she felt more shy with him than ever, now they were engaged. But he was accompanied by two large dogs, which bowed politely, waved their tails and butted her hands with their big heads, and she could be at ease with them, at least.

‘They were my father’s,’ he said. ‘They adopted me when he died. That’s Tiger and this is Isaac. They’re very gentle.’

‘Oh, I’m not afraid,’ she said. ‘I’ve always wanted a dog.’ And he seemed pleased.

As well as the dogs, there were two very nice, cheery girls, Giles’s sisters, who did not seem at all lofty and were dressed quite plainly. Nothing to daunt her there. They greeted her warmly.

‘We’re so glad Giles is getting married,’ said Alice. ‘Now we’ll be your sisters.’

‘It must be nice for you, to be always two,’ said Kitty.

They looked at each other. ‘We don’t think about it, really,’ said Rachel, ‘because we’re used to it. But it is, of course. Are you really only one?’

‘I had a brother,’ Kitty said, ‘but he died.’

‘Oh, that’s so sad,’ said Rachel, her eyes growing moist.

Kitty’s did too. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she faltered.

Luncheon was served at once. The food, to her surprise, was not very good.

Sir John and Lady Bayfield only picked at it, but Lady Stainton, Uncle Sebastian and Giles’s sisters ate as though there was nothing wrong.

Giles ate very little. Kitty worked away as well as she could, swallowing what she didn’t know how to spit out politely, pushing the most inedible bits together to make them look less.

The conversation was all between Lady Stainton and Lady Bayfield, and between Sir John and Uncle Sebastian.

The latter two seemed to be getting on better than the ladies, and chatted pleasantly about politics and the land.

After luncheon, Uncle Sebastian excused himself and the others were taken on a tour of the house.

Lady Stainton expounded its history as if she had learned it by rote.

There was no escape – even Giles’s sisters were quiet and did not whisper together.

But when they reached the picture gallery, and Lady Stainton led Sir John and Lady Bayfield firmly around the portraits to impress them with the achievements and royal connections of the family, Giles extracted Kitty and took her to the far end, where there were landscapes, still-lifes and many paintings of horses and dogs.

‘These, I think, will be more to your taste,’ he said. ‘Other people’s relatives, I always think, are of limited interest.’

The girls came hurrying to join them. ‘Come and look.’ Alice drew Kitty towards another wall. ‘This is my favourite painting – Great-grandpa’s horse, the one he rode at Crimea. He’s called Buckingham. Isn’t he splendid?’

‘What happened to him?’ Kitty asked.

‘Buckingham? He was brought home after the war. Great-grandpa died out there, you know, and a friend, Lord Tilney, took over his horse because they were so short of them. They both survived, and he brought Buckingham back here, to the Castle, because he thought Great-grandpa would have wanted it.’

‘My father told me my grandfather used to go and see the horse every day,’ Giles said. ‘He’d take him an apple or a carrot and stand talking to him.’

Alice chimed in eagerly, ‘Grandmère says Grandpapa always claimed he got more sense out of the horse than any of the humans he knew.’

‘He lived to be thirty and died of old age,’ Rachel said. ‘Papa buried him and built a memorial over him. We can take you to see his grave.’

‘I’d like that,’ Kitty said. This sort of history was much more interesting.

Lady Stainton had finally bored herself with the grand tour, and invited Giles to show Kitty the gardens while she and the Bayfields took refreshments in the drawing-room.

Lady Bayfield almost spoiled it by suggesting that Kitty would do better to sit quietly in the drawing-room and rest, but she protested that she was not tired, and Giles and his sisters hurried her away before any more objections could be raised.

‘It’s too nice a day to sit indoors,’ Giles said, as he, his sisters and the dogs pattered downstairs. ‘The gardens aren’t very interesting – nobody has ever cared to do much with them – but the views are pretty.’

‘Or we could go and see the stables,’ Alice added beguilingly. ‘I could show you my horse, Pharaoh. He’s lovely !’

‘Oh, I should like to see the stables,’ Kitty said, and glanced nervously at Giles to see if it was all right to express a preference.

‘Then we shall,’ he said patiently. ‘Do you ride, Miss Bayfield?’

‘I did learn, as a child,’ she said, ‘but I haven’t had much opportunity. There doesn’t seem to be much riding in Hampstead.’

‘It must be horrid, living in a city,’ Rachel said.

Giles said, ‘Londoners count Hampstead as the country – isn’t that right, Miss Bayfield?

’ Kitty looked at her feet and blushed. She thinks I’m making fun of her , Giles thought, exasperated.

He had meant it only as a gentle pleasantry.

He felt hollow, realising that he was irrevocably tied to this very young person who did not understand him at all.

Miss Sanderton would have laughed and said something droll in reply.

But he mustn’t think of Miss Sanderton …

The visit to the stables, however, was a success.

Giddins seemed to take an instant liking to Kitty.

He instinctively lowered his voice and spoke more gently, but he did not mistake her timidity for fear of horses.

He led her right up to them, introduced them, and produced horse-nuts from his pockets for her to give them.

She admired and stroked them, even asked questions, and seemed relaxed for the first time.

They lingered there until a servant came out from the house to summon them for tea.

In bed that night, Kitty lay sleepless. The mattress was hard and lumpy and the blankets had a musty smell that was not vanquished by the lavender of the sheets.

All the new impressions, the new people, and most of all being on her guard all the time against making mistakes, had worn her out.

And this was just the beginning. After she was married, there would be flocks of people of the Staintons’ sort to disappoint.

What would her duties be, as a countess?

She wouldn’t know what to do and would be constantly in the wrong, running to catch up in a world she didn’t understand.

She wept a little, like a tired child. Now that she was engaged to Giles, he seemed more, not less, daunting.

She had noted his slight impatience with her.

She didn’t understand him, or know how to please him, but that did not stop her loving him.

She loved him as wholly and helplessly as a flower turns to the sun.

She could not withdraw from the engagement, not only because it was socially unthinkable but because she didn’t want to.

She wanted to marry him; but she did not suppose it would be easy, or that she would not often be unhappy.

But there was much she could do for the house, if she was allowed.

Bathrooms, for instance. When she had asked her maid where her bathroom was, Marie had looked disdainful.

There were no bathrooms in Ashmore Castle.

If you wanted to bathe, a hip bath was placed in your bedroom before the fire, and cans of hot water were brought up the back stairs by toiling servants.

It was all very laborious, and the unspoken thought seemed to be that you had to want a bath very much to initiate it.

And there were no wash-down water-closets.

The food had been very poor. She noticed that Giles didn’t eat much, and thought he looked too thin. Surely something could be done about that. One of the first things Mama had done when she married Papa was to employ a new cook.

There was no electric light, or even gas.

Lamps were such a nuisance. A lot of the carpets were in holes, and the curtains at many of the windows were faded and frayed.

There was a good housewife deep inside her, somewhere in her real mother’s blood.

And if Giles was marrying her for her money, couldn’t she spend some of it on making him more comfortable?

Thinking about those things, she began to drift off to sleep at last, borne on visions of electric chandeliers, velvet drapes and modern plumbing …

*

Giles was also sleepless. He had learned, while on digs, to sleep on virtually anything, but he was also thinking with some dread of the marriage he was committed to.

It had been a ghastly day. Except in the stables – there she had seemed happier, though she had still not spoken to him, only to Giddins and the horses.

He had been a solitary boy, and though in young manhood he had worked and co-operated with others in his field, it had been on an intellectual, not a personal plane.

He had never really had any friends, or been close to anyone, and his inner solitariness had endured.

He had always been alone, but it had been a natural state to him, and had not troubled him.