Page 70 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

Mary Caldecott had come to tea with Aunt Schofield, and brought with her a thin-faced, intense young woman, Octavia Liston.

She was much exercised by the new Education Bill being brought by Mr Balfour, who had taken over as prime minister from his uncle Lord Salisbury when he retired owing to ill health.

She spoke so rapidly it was hard for Nina to understand whether she was for or against it.

Mrs Caldecott’s more measured tones sounded almost languid by contrast. ‘Of course, the ratepayers won’t like it.

Some of them hardly accept that children should go to school at all, let alone after the age of twelve.

If these new local education authorities start putting money into secondary education, they’ll riot in the streets. ’

‘I hardly think so,’ said Aunt Schofield. ‘Rational people will see the need for more technical schools—’

‘And for general education, too,’ Miss Liston broke in eagerly. ‘The LEAs will be charged with seeing that teachers are properly qualified, which surely must mean education beyond the elementary level …’

Nina felt herself sagging, and straightened her back hastily. She ought to be interested in this sort of thing if she was to be a teacher, but her mind kept wandering.

Mrs Caldecott turned to her as Miss Liston had to stop to draw breath. ‘How is your search for a teaching post going, Miss Sanderton?’

‘Oh, is Miss Sanderton going to be a teacher?’ said Miss Liston, with new interest.

‘I haven’t found anything yet,’ Nina said. ‘But Miss Thornton says her sort of school usually starts a new year in January, so there’s plenty of time. She’s still looking out for something for me. May I offer you some more tea?’

Mrs Caldecott saw she didn’t want to talk about it, and turned the conversation to the Free Library. ‘How are things progressing? Have you any news?’

‘I have indeed,’ Aunt Schofield said. ‘I think I told you we had located a building in the right place. Now we’ve received a most generous offer not only to buy the freehold for us, but to pay for all the necessary alterations.’

‘How wonderful! Who is this philanthropical person?’ Mrs Caldecott asked.

‘I don’t suppose you know him. He’s what they call nowadays an industrialist, though he’s one of the King’s new circle. Nina met him during her Season, and he turns out to be a friend of Mawes Morris, too.’

‘Oh, the very useful Mawes Morris!’ Mrs Caldecott laughed. ‘I wonder if there’s anyone he doesn’t know.’

‘Apparently, he was at dinner there the other evening,’ Aunt Schofield went on, ‘and Lepida Morris was talking about the Free Library. He asked a great many questions, and presumably was seized with the idea, because his letter arrived yesterday.’

‘Excellent man,’ she said. ‘Alexandra, my dear, you must positively have this paragon to dinner, and be sure to invite Quin and me. I should like to interest him in one of my schemes.’

Aunt Schofield smiled indulgently. ‘Invite a person to dine and then pick his pockets? That would be shabby. But a dinner is an excellent idea. I should welcome the chance to thank him in person.’

‘Tell me more about the building,’ said Mrs Caldecott.

‘We’re going there tomorrow morning,’ said Aunt Schofield. ‘You’d be welcome to join us.’

‘Oh, tomorrow I can’t. Never mind – another time.’

The building was on the Commercial Road, a former warehouse.

The agent was waiting for them in the rain when Aunt Schofield, Nina and Lepida arrived in a cab from the station.

It was a poor area of mean streets and over-crowded tenements, and the Commercial Road itself was busy with traffic and full of small factories and workshops belching out yellow-grey smoke.

But the building was solid, of red brick with a slate roof, the height of a two-storey house, with a row of windows set at second-storey level, the wall at ground level being blank.

‘I like it,’ Nina said, as they climbed out of the cab. A hansom was a tight squeeze for three, but they were all quite thin. ‘The red brick is cheerful.’

‘It would be if it were washed down,’ said Lepida. The prevailing soot in the air had coated everything. ‘But won’t the lack of windows make it dark?’

‘Could we put in another row lower down?’ Nina wondered.

The agent said, ‘I wouldn’t recommend it, ladies. High windows make it more difficult for anyone to break in.’

Inside, the place smelt dusty, but not unpleasant. It was completely empty, a brick oblong with a concrete floor. ‘It was used for storage,’ the agent said. ‘Dry goods in tea-chests waiting to go to the docks.’

‘I don’t see any puddles on the floor,’ said Nina, ‘so I suppose the roof is sound.’

‘There may be the odd slipped slate, ‘said the agent, ‘but that’s easily remedied. It’s a good building. The only reason it’s still empty is that, as a commercial property, it’s rather small.’

A shadow darkened the door behind them, and a voice said, ‘Do I intrude? May I come in?’

They all turned, and a male figure coming in out of the rain and doffing its hat resolved itself into Mr Cowling.

‘Oh, good morning!’ Nina said. ‘How did you know we were here?’

‘Mawes told me, when I happened to drop by, so I hurried out to see if I could catch you,’ he said.

Nina realised that her aunt had never met him, though she could probably guess who he was. ‘Aunt, may I present Mr Cowling? Mr Cowling, my aunt, Mrs Schofield.’

‘Honoured to make your acquaintance, ma’am,’ Cowling said, giving her hand a hearty shake.

She drew it back and discreetly massaged it. ‘The pleasure is mine, Mr Cowling. This scheme has been dear to my heart for many years, and your generous offer has made it possible to realise.’

‘A free library,’ Cowling said. ‘Not a bad idea, as long as there’s good solid books of education, and not too many trashy novels.’

‘Self-help is the main purpose,’ she said. ‘But knowledge of the classics can only enrich the mind. We need gardens, Mr Cowling, as well as factories. Mankind needs plants as well as plant.’

He seemed struck by that. ‘Plant and plants – I hadn’t thought of it that way.

That’s a good one! I shall remember that.

Plants and plant.’ He looked around with a sharply critical eye.

‘It looks a solid place enough. What do you think, Miss Sanderton?’ His voice underwent a modulation when he turned to Nina: he asked her opinion almost tenderly.

‘I was wondering about the lack of windows,’ she said. ‘It needs to be inviting – people will be scared enough to come in without it looking dark and oppressive.’

‘Aye, the thought of having to read a book would shake most of the folk round here to their boots,’ Cowling said genially.

‘You couldn’t build bookshelves across windows,’ said Aunt Schofield, ‘so the more blank wall you have, the more bookshelves you can put in. The room is high enough to have two storeys, and my idea is to build a gallery upstairs, where the natural light is, to use as a reading-room.’

‘But how will people down below be able to see the books?’ Lepida said.

‘If the gallery is made of pierced ironwork, it won’t cut out all the light,’ Aunt Schofield said.

‘But there will have to be artificial light for the ground floor.’ This was the point that had been worrying her most. There would have to be light anyway, because they wanted to open in the evenings, the only time most working people could get there.

There had been no need of gaslight in a warehouse used only for storage, so there was no supply laid on.

She didn’t know how much their new benefactor was willing to spend.

Mr Cowling looked untroubled. ‘Electric light’s the thing. No sense messing around with gas, these days, specially when your stock’s all paper. You don’t want any risk of fire, now, do you?’

‘That’s a good point,’ said Aunt Schofield. ‘But wouldn’t electric light be expensive?’

‘No more than gas,’ said Cowling. ‘There’s electricity all up and down the Commercial Road.

Only a matter of tapping into it. Easier to lay electric cables than gas pipes, ma’am, I can tell you.

But you leave all that to me. You don’t need to worry about details.

You just decide what you want, and I’ll stand the nonsense, whatever it is. ’

‘That is very generous of you, Mr Cowling.’

‘No, no, I said I’d do it and I will. I can’t stand paltriness. I suppose you’ll need an architect to draw your plans.’

‘I can recommend a very good firm,’ the agent began.

Cowling turned on him, like a cat pouncing.

‘I don’t doubt you can, young man – and a firm of builders as well, eh?

All friends of yours, and greasing your palm to get the work.

Well, I wasn’t born yesterday. You and me are going to have a serious talk about money very soon, but we won’t do it in front of ladies, so bide there and hold your water till I’m ready. ’

Having trounced the agent, Cowling clasped his hands behind his back, and stared around with apparent pleasure, rocking a little on his heels.

‘Aye, not bad, not bad. I can see it all. That gallery – having the study part upstairs’ll mean you can keep an eye on the books and not have ’em walking out the door.

And pierced ironwork’ll mean you can watch what folk are up to.

You don’t want the place getting a reputation for hanky-panky.

You want decent folks to let their sons and daughters come here. ’

‘You seem to have thought of so many things that hadn’t occurred to us,’ said Aunt Schofield.

Mr Cowling beamed. ‘Well, now, ma’am, I wouldn’t expect ladies to recognise all the pitfalls the way I can, having been in business all my life.

Ladies have the fine, grand ideas – they do the artistic bit of the thinking, which is right.

Base folk like me can get down to the grubby details, being closer to the ground, as you might say. ’