Page 91 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

‘He didn’t want to part with it,’ Cowling said, watching her for reaction, ‘but once I saw it, I had to have it. I gave him a pretty price for it, I can tell you! He looks soft, does Mawes Morris, but when it comes to business he knows his own worth.’

‘I thought he wanted to exhibit it next year,’ was all Nina could think to say.

‘Aye, well, I’ve told him he can have it back for the Academy exhibition. I’m proud of my wife and want the world to admire her. It’s a good likeness – though nowhere near as beautiful as the original.’

She had to look at him. He smiled hopefully, and she could no more disappoint him than smack a child’s face. ‘It was a lovely thought, to buy it. I’m touched that you want me hanging over your fireplace.’

‘I’ve already hung you in my heart,’ he said, and then seemed so surprised at his own lapse into poetry, she felt a surge of affection for him. ‘Could you fancy a bite of supper?’ he asked. And she could. If talking was difficult, there was always eating.

And so to bed. Nina was wide awake now, lying in the big bed (the sheets had been warmed, she was glad to discover, because she was very cold) waiting for the man to come through from the dressing-room for the final act.

She remembered the book Aunt Schofield had shown her, remembered what was to come, and couldn’t decide whether she was glad or sorry that she knew.

Perhaps, unless you were madly in love, it was better to come at it in ignorance because there was something awfully – well – unecstatic about it.

There was one light still on, turned down low, at the other side of the bed but that was still too much.

She’d have preferred complete darkness. When the door opened and he came through, she closed her eyes, not wanting to see him in his night clothes.

He put out the light and got into bed, and she heard his breathing, too loud in the absence of any other sound.

He inched up close to her, his hands stroked her face, he kissed her brow, then her cheek, then her lips.

A change came over him. His kissing became harder, his breathing harsher.

He pushed up her nightdress and she felt his touch on her bare skin.

Well , she thought, he was married before .

He knows what to do . She tried to relax.

The man finds it intensely pleasurable, her aunt had told her.

She must not spoil his pleasure. He touched her breast, and she gasped at the feeling.

Aunt hadn’t said anything about this. She tried to remember what she’d said about ‘the pipe’ – but it was rather horrid to think of the pipe in relation to Mr Cowling, so she concentrated on making her mind a blank.

He was breathing like a man running, and there was fumbling and touching down below, which she forced herself not to resist …

And then his weight was gone from her, he rolled off and lay beside her in the darkness, and his breathing gradually slowed.

Was that it? she wondered. It didn’t seem to accord with what Aunt Schofield had told her.

Of course, she didn’t know how it would feel so perhaps she was mistaken.

She didn’t know what to do, whether she was expected to speak, or touch him in any way. She wondered if he was falling asleep.

Then he turned on his side facing her, and laid an arm across her, and said quietly, ‘I’m sorry.’

She hadn’t expected that. She was going to ask, ‘What for?’ but at the last moment swallowed the words. She was so ignorant, despite Aunt’s efforts, that the whole subject seemed too fraught with potential embarrassment. She waited in silence for some cue.

Then he said, ‘Come here, you’re cold.’

She was. He drew her against him, arranging her with her back to his front, and folded his arms round her, and she was warmer at once. It was rather nice. Very soon she became drowsy with the warmth, and then she fell asleep.

Kitty wanted to go to a meet, so Giles drove her in the dog-cart, and let Archer and one of the stable boys, Timmy, hack the horses down. ‘Then Timmy can drive you as far as the first draw,’ Giles said. ‘And drive you home afterwards.’

‘I can drive myself,’ Kitty said. She’d been having lessons with Alice. ‘And Biscuit knows the way.’

But Giles said, ‘I don’t want you driving on your own in case anything happens.’

He was glad now he’d had the tracks repaired.

He knew vaguely that going over bumps was not good for expectant ladies.

When they came to a pothole, he drove through it carefully, saying, ‘We’re not on my land now.

This is Shacklock’s responsibility. I must have a word with him.

’ The road took a bend, and he checked Biscuit.

‘Look back, over that way, Kitty. You see where that clump of three trees is?’

‘On a sort of hill?’ said Kitty.

‘That’s right. That hill is the old motte, where the original motte-and-bailey castle was.’

‘I read about it in the guidebook,’ Kitty said, pleased.

‘You get the best view of it from here.’

‘It said in the book there were no stoneworks left.’

‘That’s right, nothing of the castle at all. Though I suppose there might be something under the ground.’

‘You should excavate it one day,’ Kitty said. ‘Just to keep your hand in.’

He felt a sharp pang at her words, of loss for the old life. For an instant he saw the diggings in Thebes, the hard-edged sunlight, the acid sky, the dazzling sand, the tents, the camels and mules … He came back with a shocking bump to the grey-green, damp reality of England.

And yet, as he looked around like a man waking from a dream, he discovered he didn’t hate it any more.

It was his burden, his responsibility, the thing that tied him to this place so that he could never escape.

For the rest of his life, he would carry it.

But he couldn’t resent it, any more than he would a child’s hand slipped trustingly into his.

He must look after the land, which was his child; and the family; and Kitty; and the heir she was carrying.

He felt a thrill of excitement at the thought.

He had understood with his mind before; now he understood with his guts and his blood and his inner core why the estate must be cared for and passed on.

There were clattering hoofs up ahead. ‘Oh, there are the girls. And Richard,’ Kitty said. ‘How nice Apollo looks,’ she added wistfully. Richard was taking her horse to the meet, just to show him hounds.

Giles gave her a sympathetic look. ‘It’s a pity you can’t ride, just when the hunting season’s starting.’

‘Best to get it over with before the hot weather comes,’ Kitty said. ‘One wouldn’t want to be carrying in July and August.’

There it was again, he thought, that unexpected wifely Kitty. He didn’t know, of course, that she was quoting. He thought that pregnancy had made her wise.

*

The first week of marriage passed more easily for Nina than she had expected.

Mr Cowling was out all day, seeing to his business.

And she had enough to do. She had to learn the house and the routines.

Mr Cowling had said she should change anything she pleased, but she knew Mrs Mitchell would resist, albeit silently.

Shopping was always fun when you had plenty of money.

She had the town and the area to explore.

And lots of neighbours were making their formal visits, which she had to return in the few days available.

She saw Decius Blake every morning, when he called to take Mr Cowling to his business.

And in the evening, when he brought him back, and the following day’s plans had been discussed, Cowling would as likely as not say, ‘Stay and eat, my boy. Don’t go back to those lodgings of yours.

There’s enough for three.’ His company and conversation were very welcome to Nina, and he created a bridge between her and the unknown quantity of her husband.

So, all in all, married life was less difficult to adjust to than Nina had expected.

It was only in the bedroom that she had misgivings.

Kitty, she knew, had a separate bedroom from Giles, but Cowling slept in the same bed with her, and most nights witnessed that silent struggle under the bedcovers.

She was fairly sure now that it was not going the way it should, though of course she could not possibly ask him anything about it.

One evening at dinner they were talking about Christmas. He was as excited as a child at the thought of decorating the house. ‘Mrs Mitchell never approved of it,’ he said, ‘and it seemed a bit daft anyway, with only me here. But this year we’ll go all out, won’t we?’

There would be a grand party on Christmas Eve, with thirty expected for a buffet supper. ‘I saw it done in Russia once. You can pack a lot more in that way, and nobody minds at Christmas-time. But we’ll have proper dinners next year.’

Decius told Nina about Cowling’s Christmas good works, saying his employer was too modest to mention them.

Cowling scowled at him, but seemed pleased all the same to talk about them.

Every year he paid for a special party and presents for the nearby elementary school; and at the local hospital he provided a turkey to every ward for the patients who couldn’t go home.

‘They cook ’em in the hospital kitchens, and the doctors go up to the wards to carve them, like it was the operating theatre.

Lot of jokes made on that subject, let me tell you. ’

Then Decius talked about Christmas back in Wigston, with his family. ‘Everybody manages to get back, wherever they are, so there’s a grand houseful,’ he said. ‘Nobody but a Blake could stand that many Blakes in one small space. But we like it.’

‘It must be nice to have so many brothers and sisters,’ Nina said, with a touch of wistfulness. She thought it must be like her childhood in India – the sort of warm, happy-go-lucky, loving atmosphere – but with more individuals to share it.