Page 8 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

It rained on the day of the funeral. Canons Ashmore stood sodden under a sky almost low enough to touch.

Trees dripped; roofs and cobbles glistened; gutters and downpipes gurgled steadily.

In the row of carriages outside St Peter’s that went all the way up Church Lane, the horses stood with heads drooping and ears out sideways, their breath making little clouds about their muzzles, where raindrops caught and trembled on their whiskers.

Inside the church, there was the dank smell of wet wool and the mouldy smell of chrysanthemums; sniffs and the occasional hollow cough were the counterpoint to the familiar words of the funeral service.

The neighbourhood had turned out to see off the earl.

Giles was aware he was being scrutinised: he felt the eyes on the back of his neck.

What sort of a landlord would he prove? Was there anything to be made out of him?

At the graveside, all was black umbrellas, an astonishing number, like a sudden growth of mushrooms brought on by the rain.

The inside of the grave was grey and slippery, indecent, like a wound, an exposure of something never meant to be seen.

Giles felt faintly nauseous – though perhaps that might have been hunger.

He had been unable to eat at breakfast. He’d had little appetite since he’d left Thebes.

The rector nodded to him, and he stepped forward and threw a lump of clay down, hearing it thump hollowly on the coffin, and tried for decency’s sake to think about his father and feel grief for him.

But nothing came. He couldn’t remember a single moment when his father had spoken to him naturally or with unalloyed affection.

Perhaps an earl had always to be acting a role.

It was a depressing thought. When they had driven through the gates this morning, the gatekeeper had come out carrying his little son, presumably having been engaged in doing something for him when the carriage passed.

The child had his arm around the gatekeeper’s neck, his cheek resting comfortably against his father’s, as though this were an accustomed perch.

It was what people did, in the real world.

They touched, they smiled, they spoke unguardedly, from the heart.

It was impossible for Giles to imagine his own father holding him like that.

He stepped back from the graveside. There was a smear of clay on the fingers of one glove, and he wiped it absently with the other, spoiling both. I have nothing for you, Father , he thought. But then , you never had anything for me .

His mother’s face was carved in stone; but Aunt Caroline was holding her elbow, as though she might need support.

Giles noted that his little sisters were crying: Alice with a tremble of the lip and a tear or two, but Rachel was weeping as though broken-hearted.

He was surprised, but then remembered that Rachel had always been too tender-hearted.

She could not bear a mouse in a trap or a butterfly beating against a window.

Even a sad song or story could reduce her to tears: The Constant Tin Soldier or The Fir Tree .

When they were all young together, Richard, he recalled, had enjoyed teasing her by quoting certain lines from The Little Match Girl : ‘… frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches …’ Sometimes simply drawing a box of matches from his pocket with a significant look would be enough to set her off.

Giles did not suppose she had ever had more of a relationship with their father than he’d had, but for Rachel, the mere idea of his being dead had tears beslobbering her face.

Well , he thought, it’s good that someone cries for him. No-one should go unwept to their grave. The fifth earl of Stainton had Rachel – and the sky. It had to be enough.

When he arrived back at the Castle after the interment, and entered the great hall, the first thing he noticed was that there were two dogs – lurchers, a grey and a brindle – lying by the fire.

They got up as people began to come in, and Giles heard his mother make a sound of annoyance.

But the dogs skirted round her and came to Giles, heads low, tails swinging uncertainly.

‘Moss, what are they doing in here?’ Lady Stainton said sharply.

‘They must have slipped in, my lady,’ Moss said. ‘I had no orders about excluding them.’

Alice, coming up behind Giles, said, ‘They’re Papa’s, Giles – Tiger and Isaac. How they must miss him!’ She squatted to caress their rough heads. ‘You don’t understand, do you, poor boys?’ Tiger turned his muzzle to her, but Isaac was pressing against Giles’s legs, shivering.

And Giles, somewhat to his own surprise, heard himself saying, ‘Let them stay.’

Even more surprising was that his voice came out commandingly.

He saw his mother’s mouth open to contradict him, then close again as a slightly puzzled look came over her face.

After a moment, she said, ‘As you please,’ and turned away.

Alice, still crouching, threw him an adoring look, and then they all had to move to admit the rest of the party.

The dogs went with him, as though attached by invisible leashes.

So he had gained two new friends – or three, counting Alice.

*

Dory reached the bottom of the back stairs to find the passage blocked by a knot of whispering maids. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

The nearest one, in the pink dress of a kitchen-maid, turned to her, and Dory recognised her. Ida, wasn’t that her name? ‘It’s Mrs Oxlea,’ she said. ‘She’s shut herself in her room and won’t come out.’

‘Drunk again,’ said one of the housemaids.

‘She’s not drunk,’ Ida said angrily. ‘Don’t you go spreading lies, Doris Clavering. She’s very upset. Crying fit to bust.’

‘What about?’ Dory asked.

‘His lordship, of course,’ said Ida.

Dory thought it was good that someone was weeping for his lordship. ‘Why don’t you just leave her alone?’ she asked.

‘Because they ’ll be back any minute,’ Ida said.

‘There’s the meal, you see,’ Doris elucidated. ‘They’ll all expect to be eating and drinking and nothing’s been done.’

A wave of chattering broke out as everyone gave their own version of the situation, but it ceased abruptly as James appeared, thrusting his way through them imperiously.

‘What’s all this? You sound like a yard full of hens!

’ When the situation was explained to him, he took Ida by her shoulder in a grip Dory could see must hurt.

Ida was the senior kitchen-maid, and in a few sharp questions he had found out what needed to be done.

Dory didn’t like him, but could only admire.

The food was all ready in the kitchen – a cold buffet, apart from the soup.

He despatched Ida and Brigid to heat it up, and sent everyone else to carry things upstairs, delegating William to supervise down here while he took the third footman, Cyril, with him upstairs to see it was all laid out suitably on the buffet.

‘And hurry it up!’ he goaded them, as effectively as a touch of the whip.

Finding Dory just behind him he grabbed her – yes, that grip did hurt!

– and said, ‘Go and find Mr Moss, tell him he should be here. They ’ll be here any minute and they’ll want something to drink.

Come and tell me when you’ve found him – I’ll need you for messages. ’

‘What about Mrs Oxlea?’

His lip curled. ‘We don’t need her. Leave her to stew. Look lively, girl!’

She found Mr Moss in the butler’s room. He was sitting in a collapsed way in his armchair, with a glass of wine in his hand, which he was holding up in front of a candle flame.

He didn’t look surprised to see her when she came in.

He seemed, she thought, slightly dazed – or slightly foxed.

‘It was his favourite claret, the Talbot,’ he said lugubriously, swirling the wine in the glass.

‘Her ladyship didn’t know. Wanted me to serve a Margaux.

Said our guests wouldn’t know any different.

But he ’d know. He wasn’t fond of the Margaux.

Said it was too soft. And it’s his funeral – it should be his choice.

I told her, “it’s what he’d want, my lady,” I said. ’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Dory said soothingly, ‘and what a good thing he has you to look out for him. But they’ll be back any minute, Mr Moss, and won’t the bottles have to be opened and ready for them?’

‘They’re open and breathing,’ he said. ‘D’you think I don’t know what’s what?’ He looked up at her blearily. ‘Who are you?’

‘The sewing-maid, Mr Moss. Dory. Only Mrs Oxlea’s not well, and nothing was ready, and James said you ought to be out there. He’s getting things taken up, but—’

Moss heaved himself to his feet, his face contracting with either alarm or annoyance, possibly both.

He swayed, and then was steady. If he was drunk, Dory thought, he could handle it.

‘It’s not his job to order things, or send me messages.

You go and tell him that! I shall take control, and I shall have everything ready and waiting when they arrive.

The very idea! His lordship would turn in his grave if he thought I needed a footman to tell me my duty! ’

He went on muttering, but he was on the move, and in the right direction, so she ran the other way and up the back stairs to find James.

He was directing activities, like a conductor with a large orchestra, and the cold feast was taking shape on the long white-clothed table at the end of the great hall.

He received her message impassively, hardly seeming to see her.

‘Run down and find William, tell him to help Mr Moss bring up the bottles to the anteroom. And find Mrs Webster and tell her we’ll need bowls for the soup, and napkins. She’ll know which ones. Run!’