Page 9 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

Dory ran, and found Mrs Webster in the china room loading housemaids’ trays with bowls.

She received James’s message with a quick frown, but only said, ‘The bowls are coming, as you see. And Rose is getting the napkins. He takes too much on himself,’ she added, almost under her breath.

She seemed to register Dory for the first time. ‘Run to the nap-closet and help Rose.’

Dory obeyed, thinking that if James hadn’t taken too much on himself, there might have been an unpleasantness. She didn’t like him, but she liked him more when he was too busy to look at her in that undressing way, or make sly remarks.

Funeral baked meats. The words arrived unbidden in Giles’s head, and he thought what an odd idea it was.

Was it the Irish who laid out a feast on the chest of the corpse and summoned the sin-eater to consume the food and the departed’s sins with it?

He had eaten nothing all day, but the idea of food sickened him.

A buffet had been laid out, of cold meats, rolls and cakes, such fruit as could be mustered in mid-winter, and wine and port to drink.

Giles thought, after the cold graveside, many would have preferred hot tea.

Then a wheeled trolley made its appearance, with a great tureen of steaming soup on it, and he tipped a mental hat to the cook, or whoever had thought of it.

Moss appeared at his elbow. ‘Mr Moresby is here, my lord, in the library.’

‘Moresby?’

‘Of Moresby, Tuke and Moresby, my lord, solicitors.’

‘Oh,’ said Giles. ‘The reading of the will.’

‘Mr Moresby specifically requested to speak to you first, my lord, alone. As a matter of urgency.’

‘Very well, I’ll come.’

Moss made his stately way out (he seemed more stately than ever today, almost as if he wasn’t sure of his footing) and Giles followed him, trying to do it unobtrusively.

The two dogs got up and attached themselves to his shadow, and he heard their nails clicking on the marble floor.

It was a comforting noise, like a clock ticking in the background.

The footmen, James and William, presiding at the buffet table, followed him with their eyes, and James slewed his lips sideways at William and muttered, without moving them, ‘That’s trouble!’

Moresby was a handsome man in his forties, with black hair going grey all over, like a badger, and a bushy moustache.

His eyes were blue and intelligent and his gaze was direct, a little assessing.

Giles liked the look of him, and offered his hand, and Moresby shook it with an air of faint surprise, as though he had not expected to be received so affably.

‘Moresby, Tuke and Moresby,’ Giles said. ‘Which Moresby are you?’

‘The latter one, my lord. My father is nominally his late lordship’s man of business, but he has pretty much retired, and his health lately is not of the soundest. But I assure your lordship that I have a complete grasp of all aspects of the estate and his late lordship’s affairs.’

Giles took a seat and waved Moresby to another.

‘Well, you had better say what you came to say. I understood you had come to read the will.’ Moresby opened his mouth to reply, and Giles added, ‘I’d be obliged if you would speak to me like a fellow human being, and leave out as many your lordships and his late lordships as possible.

I’m not made of glass and I shan’t shatter from the shock of a plain pronoun. ’

Moresby smiled carefully. ‘You are most obliging, your – that is, I shall endeavour to follow your wishes.’

‘You’d better,’ Giles said, smiling in return, ‘or I might go to Tuke. Now, what is this urgent business of yours?’

Moresby took a moment to assemble his words, and Giles did not like him less for that.

He was a scientist, and liked accuracy. ‘It is customary for the will to be read immediately after the funeral, and usually the whole family assembles to hear it. But I don’t think that will be appropriate today.

You see, about a year ago, my father went to see your father to tell him – no, to remind him, because it was a subject that had been discussed before – that the estate was in poor financial health. ’

Giles sat forward. ‘ How poor?’

Again Moresby hesitated, then said, ‘To give it to you with the bark off, there is no money left. Only debts.’

Giles sat back, feeling it like a blow. He had not expected this. The money had not much interested him, given that he had had his own adequate provision, but he had always assumed it was there. ‘Go on,’ he said at last.

‘My father urged your father to undertake some retrenchments, and your father agreed to do so, though without enthusiasm. My father, thinking to urge him on, said, “As things stand, if anything should happen to you, there would be no point in reading your will. There is no money to honour the bequests.”’

‘That’s plain speaking,’ said Giles, absently.

‘I’m not sure my father used those exact words, my lord.’

‘Well, go on. Were there retrenchments?’

‘I’m afraid not. Nothing changed – except that a few days later, your father summoned my father to write him a new will.’

‘Ah,’ said Giles, sensing they had come to it.

Moresby was looking at him with acute sympathy.

‘The new will is very simple. All previous provisions are taken out. It simply states that he leaves everything to his eldest son Giles. My father tried to discourage it, but he was quite determined. He said as he signed it – I’m sorry, my lord – “Let the boy sort it out. I haven’t the time. ”’

Giles was silent for a moment, absorbing it. ‘He just turned his problems off onto me? And went on as before?’

‘That’s it, in essence,’ said Moresby.

‘And there’s no money?’

‘The income from the estate just barely pays for the day-to-day running of the Castle. The entail ended with your father – I don’t know if you knew that?’ Giles shook his head. ‘And there are no other legal restraints, other than your mother’s jointure, which will have to be found somehow.’

There was a silence. Giles rubbed his head absently, staring at the two dogs, which were sitting at his knees and staring up at him, waiting for instructions.

‘What am I to do?’ he said at last. Moresby seemed to take it for a rhetorical question, so he looked up and said, ‘What am I to do, Moresby?’

‘Nothing, today, if you’ll allow me to advise you.

It’s not the time or place. I can attend you at any time of your choosing to go over matters in detail, and help you to devise a strategy.

For today, I think you need only tell your company that there is no need to read the will because it contains only one clause, leaving everything to you. ’

‘They won’t like that,’ he said. ‘They’ll think …

’ Yes, what would they think? There must be some among them who had been expecting something, even if only a token remembrance.

Some might be hoping for much more. It would be damned unpleasant – embarrassing.

What in God’s name had his father been thinking?

He had come home dreading the responsibilities he would have to face.

Now he had to face them with nothing but debts in his armoury. ‘I’ll have to tell them something.’

‘If you’ll forgive me, anything beyond the plain statement will only attract more questions.

And it would be a bad idea to allow any hint of the true state of affairs to escape this room.

Creditors tend to get nervous and call in their debts if they think there’s any doubt they will be paid.

You could face a storm of demands. Confidence is everything.

Everyone must believe there is nothing wrong. I do urge your lordship—’

‘I understand you. I must be cold and arrogant and simply refuse to discuss it.’

‘It is not without precedent, my lord. An earl is a king in his own castle.’

But I’m not like that , Giles thought. I shall have to act a part . It was all right for my father …

And then he wondered suddenly whether his father’s untouchable arrogance had been his nature after all, or whether he, too, had adopted an act.

A matter of survival.

He summoned the family to the library, and stood with his back to the fireplace until they had settled. They stared at him, murmuring among themselves.

His first words cut through into silence. ‘There will be no reading of the will.’ Now they were listening. ‘A year ago, my father made a new will, which is very short, having only one clause. It says, in essence, “I leave everything to my eldest son Giles.”’

Now there was a clamour. Every sentence seemed to begin with the words, ‘But what about—?’

He held up his hand for silence. ‘I need to study the previous will to discover what provisions were named in it. I must also take time to learn the condition of the estate and where the various assets are disposed. I suspect all this will take me some time.’ His mother’s eyes were boring into him. Did she know? Or suspect?

There was more murmuring. Linda took half a step forward and said determinedly, ‘But, Giles, you must —’

He interrupted her. ‘I must understand fully before I act. Anything else would be irresponsible. And that is all I have to say to you today.’

The clamour broke out again, everyone wanting him to answer their question.

His little sisters, at the back of the throng and nearest the door, were watching him silently, passively, as though none of this had anything to do with them.

But it did, of course, didn’t it? They ought to have dowries.

His father ought to have set money aside for them.

It was not a legal requirement, like his mother’s jointure, but it was a moral requirement.

Another responsibility his father had shrugged off onto him.

Something else occurred to him. He lifted his hand again, and the talking stopped. ‘There is one more thing. This matter must not be spoken about beyond these four walls. You must not discuss it with anyone not present in this room.’