Page 76 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

Giles looked up, and curbed his immediate reaction of irritation at being interrupted, remembering the sweetness of the night before. But Kitty saw that he looked at her with a stranger’s eyes, and her heart misgave.

‘Give me a moment, Markham,’ Giles said, and the agent bowed and went out. Kitty clasped her hands before her, like a child summoned to a stern father’s study. ‘Well?’ Giles said. He didn’t say, ‘Be quick,’ but it was in his tone.

She summoned her courage. ‘Dinner last night,’ she said. ‘In fact, dinner every night. I see that you don’t eat much—’

‘I’m not a great eater,’ he said.

‘You ate in Italy,’ she said. ‘I saw you enjoy your meals. And you put on weight. Now you’re getting thin again. I see our guests pushing the food to the side of the plate. We invite people to dinner, and they can’t eat anything. It’s – humiliating.’

‘The food at the Castle has never been much different in my lifetime,’ Giles said, turning a pen round and round in his fingers. ‘My father—’

‘But now you are the earl,’ Kitty said. ‘You ought to have meals you can eat and our guests can enjoy. We need a new cook. The one we have is useless.’

‘Then do something about it,’ he said. ‘Running the household isn’t my business.’

‘But it isn’t mine, either. Your mother orders everything.’

‘I can’t be drawn into an argument between you and my mother,’ he said impatiently. ‘You must sort things out for yourself without involving me every time.’

Kitty felt tears start, and tried to suppress them, knowing it would annoy him if she cried. ‘I don’t want to involve you,’ she said, ‘but she won’t listen to me. I asked about having the communicating door made between our rooms, and she said no.’

‘Well, don’t ask her. Tell her. You’re mistress of the house.’

‘But you told me to ask her. And you know very well I’m not mistress,’ Kitty said. ‘She won’t allow me to “interfere”, as she calls it.’

‘I’m sure she’s just trying to help.’

‘You know she’s not. She runs the household, and nothing will change that unless you say something to her!’

His nostrils flared. ‘Have you the slightest idea of what’s involved in running a house this size? You’re very young, and you’ve never done anything like it before.’

Kitty pressed her nails into her palms to keep the tears back. ‘How can I learn if no-one will teach me? I don’t want to take everything over all at once, but I want to start. Some things need changing, you know they do, and she won’t change anything unless you tell her to let me have a say.’

Giles put his head in his hands for a moment and inwardly cried, Oh, God!

Why do I have to put up with this? He wanted to shout at Kitty, tell her to go away and sort things out for herself, and above all stop bothering him !

But then he thought of his mother, and her cold haughtiness, and he knew he could not in fairness expect young, unarmed Kitty to fight the dragon with bare hands and no help.

He sighed and said, ‘I’ll speak to her about a new cook. Now, I really must get on. Will you ask Markham to come back in?’

Dismissed, Kitty went.

‘Out of the question,’ said Lady Stainton.

Giles leaned against the mantelpiece and fiddled with a china figurine. ‘I don’t think it is. The one we have – what’s her name? Oxhey?’

‘Oxlea.’

‘I think you must admit, Mama, that she is not very good. If we are to entertain, as I assume you must want us to, we must have a better one. Good heavens, this is an earl’s house – we ought to be serving the finest food. What if the King were to come?’

‘The King thinks altogether too much about food. It is vulgar.’

‘I’m not talking about twenty courses, larks’ tongues and fillets of unicorn,’ Giles said impatiently. ‘Just well-cooked English food that I can eat.’

‘You have learned finicking ways with all the time you’ve spent abroad,’ Lady Stainton said. ‘No-one else but you complains.’

‘Well, I’m the earl, so who else matters?’

‘Yes, I thought that would come!’ she said angrily. ‘Arrogance, Giles! Disrespecting your father’s memory! Dismantling everything he stood for! Trampling on my feelings as a widow!’

‘I’m not doing any of those things,’ Giles said, exasperated. ‘I just want a new cook.’

‘The food at the Castle was always good enough for your father.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Mama!’

‘There is no question of dismissing Mrs Oxlea,’ Lady Stainton said, with absolute determination. ‘No question , do you hear?’

She was trembling with rage. Suddenly he felt an unwilling sympathy for her.

She had been in charge of a household since her own mother had died when Uncle Stuffy was only an infant and she was just a girl.

She was an autocrat who had run first Cawburn Castle, and then Ashmore, and to be usurped by a much younger woman must be difficult for her to contemplate.

He tried to speak reasonably, gently. ‘I just want to make my life more comfortable, that’s all. It is my home, after all.’

‘ Your home!’ she cried furiously, and then quite suddenly grew icily calm. ‘I suppose you’d like to pack me off to the Dower House?’

It gave him pause. He knew what she was saying.

If she went to the Dower House, he would have to pay her jointure, and it would be most inconvenient just now to find the money.

She could hold that over his head whenever a dispute arose.

It was blackmail. He had a flare of anger.

‘I will be master in my own house,’ he said.

She glared at him with white fury. ‘Burn the whole place down, if that’s what you want! As you so elegantly remind me, you are master. I have no rights here any more.’

She swept out, and he sighed wearily and rubbed his temples. How much more of this would he have to endure?

Everyone had been at the Commercial Road property in the morning, with the architect’s drawings, and now, after luncheon, they were settled in at Aunt Schofield’s house discussing the plans.

Tea was brought in, and Nina did her duty with the teapot, and helped Haydock and Minny hand the cups round.

In the general changing of places, she found herself on a sofa beside Mr Cowling.

He was looking different lately, she thought.

He seemed to have had his hair cut in a different way, and his suit was new and his necktie had a certain jauntiness.

Becoming involved in the Free Library project seemed to be invigorating him.

The first thing he said to her, however, was ‘That’s a pretty dress you have on, Miss Sanderton, if you don’t mind my saying so. Is it impertinent to comment on it?’

‘Not at all,’ she said, rather touched – he seemed so anxious not to offend. ‘As you must know, sir, a female takes to compliments as a duck takes to water.’

He smiled. ‘You have such an original way of talking! You always amuse me. I wish all ladies were as conversable as you.’

‘Not all gentlemen like ladies who talk,’ she said. ‘I was at a political meeting a while back—’

‘Aye, I know. Morris told me about it. Not that I’d have taken a lady there myself. It’s no place for a woman – though I wouldn’t criticise him, for he’s as good a fellow as ever lived. But politics is not the business for females.’

‘Politics controls every aspect of our lives. Should we not have a say in it?’ Nina said.

He thought about it. ‘I can see why you’d say that, you being a very clever young lady, and a thinker, but someone has to be in charge.

I wouldn’t like it if my workers wanted a say in how my factory was run.

I treat them well – you don’t get good work out of unhappy folk – but what I say goes. It has to be that way.’

Nina saw many obvious flaws in the argument, but she didn’t want to upset him, so she said instead, ‘I’m sure you are right. Have you any new shoe styles coming out for the Little Season?’

‘Now that was an obvious change of subject,’ he said genially. ‘You think I’m an old fellow not worth arguing with, don’t you?’

‘Oh dear, not at all,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t want to be disputatious. And I would never think of you as an old fellow! Whatever put that into your mind?’

‘Well, I’m a widower, and most folk think that once you’ve buried a wife, you can’t have any more love in your life. I’m sure your good aunt has the same thing thought about her.’

Could he be interested in marrying Aunt Schofield?

she wondered. It hadn’t occurred to her before.

It was an odd thought – no two people could be more unsuited, in her view, and in any case she didn’t think her aunt would ever consider marrying again, having no need to.

‘I think,’ she said, to let him down gently, ‘that she’s still dedicated to my uncle, in her heart.

I expect you miss your wife, don’t you?’

‘I used to,’ he said, ‘very much. My Emma was a good creature, and I shall always honour her. But I don’t think about her often, as I used to.

Which is not to say I’m not lonely sometimes.

Work keeps a man busy, but when he stops at the end of the day, why, there’s an empty space by the hearth that needs filling.

’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not explaining myself very well. ’

‘Oh, but you are,’ she said. ‘I understand perfectly. Work is important, and life would be empty without it, but a life with nothing but work …’ She thought, briefly and unwillingly, of Giles Stainton. ‘The heart has its own priorities,’ she said quietly. ‘And it won’t be argued out of them.’

He was silent a moment. Then he said diffidently, ‘I heard tell that you had an offer of a teaching place. Somewhere up north, I believe.’

‘In York. Apparently it’s a nice city.’

‘Aye, it’s very nice, and quite grand. A lot of fancy folk live there. I expect it’d be an expensive sort of school for young ladies?’

‘Yes, where young ladies are sent to learn how to catch expensive husbands,’ she said; and then was sorry. She should not make public her doubts about Allely’s School. And Mr Cowling was not the person to entrust with her secrets.

But he looked at her with unexpected sympathy. ‘I think you don’t much want to go there – am I right?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Is it going up north that bothers you?’

‘Oh, I’ve nothing against the north, in particular,’ she said.

‘Then it’s teaching in general, is it? Don’t you want to be a teacher?’

She resisted for a moment, but it broke out of her. ‘I thought I did, but the closer it comes, the less I like it. Yet I have to do something.’

‘Can’t you stay with your aunt?’

‘She isn’t trying to get rid of me – you mustn’t think that – but she can’t keep me for ever. I have to earn a living.’ She shrugged. ‘There aren’t many things a genteel girl can do.’

‘What would you like to do?’ he asked. ‘In the whole world – say you could choose, and money didn’t matter?

She smiled. ‘Make-believe, is it? Would you have chosen to make shoes, if you had the choice of the whole world?’

‘Why, yes,’ he said, as if surprised. ‘It’s what I’ve always liked.

Though I wouldn’t choose to be living all alone, and having no son to follow me.

But though shoes chose me in the beginning, I chose ’em right back.

I’m happy with that part. But we’re talking about you, Miss Sanderton. What would you choose?’

She thought. ‘I’m not entirely sure just yet. But I would like to go to university.’

‘Would you, by heck! I beg your pardon, I mean, would you really?’

‘Yes, I think so. I love to study, to learn.’

‘Aye, you’re about like my secretary, young Decius. Decius Blake – you’ve not met him yet. He never misses a chance to learn something new. Makes him right valuable to me. But that’s not something to spend all your life on. University’s only a few years, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, and that’s why I say I’m not sure what I’d like to do. Eventually, I’d like to do something good for other people, to make their lives better.’

‘Poor folk, like?’

‘Yes, and girls in particular.’ She smiled. ‘Being one myself, I know the disadvantages.’

‘Well, you may say so. But I must say I like the fact that girls are different from boys. It wouldn’t be half as nice a world if they weren’t.’

Yes, you would say that , she thought. But she didn’t say it. She smiled, and said, ‘I expect you’re right. And may this girl have the pleasure of getting you another cup of tea?’