Page 17 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘I won’t be pitied!’ Miss Taylor cried sharply.

‘Well, I’m not pitying you,’ Rose said. ‘Seems to me you’ve got enough self-pity to be going on with. But you’d better snap out of it before Upstairs loses patience with you. That’s all I’ve got to say.’

She turned to leave, seeing out of the corner of her eye Miss Taylor reaching for something to throw. But the only thing to hand was the Book of Common Prayer on the nightstand, and that was too small to do much damage. All the same, Rose turned at the door in time to catch it, and lobbed it neatly back onto Taylor’s bed.

‘You’ll go to Hell, abusing the Good Book like that,’ she remarked.

And as she closed the door behind her, she heard Miss Taylor say, ‘I am in Hell.’

Left alone Mary Taylor stared at the ceiling and contemplated her wretchedness. Her leg still hurt a great deal, but Dr Welkes had stopped allowing her morphine, and the aspirin only helped a little, and gave her an acid stomach, which did nothing to improve her temper. Most of all, she hated her helplessness. She had always been proud and haughty with other servants and kept them in their place with cold looks and a sharp tongue. Now they dared to look at her with pity and say sugary things, as though she were old or an imbecile! So she abused them and threw things. Better they disliked her than felt sorry for her.

And there had been no word from her mistress. She knew Lady Maud did not like her. Well, she didn’t like her, either. But she had grown old in her service, and she had been loyal, through thick and thin – mostly thin. That deserved loyalty in return.

A broken leg! What if she was never able to walk again? What if she walked, but with a limp? No lady would keep on a crippled maid, least of all Lady Maud.

A servant who had given long personal service to a noble family and could no longer work could expect to be kept on in the house and found something to do: fine sewing was the usual thing for a retired lady’s maid, or fine laundry, or washing delicate ornaments. But her history with Lady Maud was complicated, and she was afraid the dowager would seize an excuse to be rid of the embarrassment of what Taylor knew. Rose had put her finger on it. The present Lady Stainton was being kind, but Taylor was not her servant.

The cold terror came over her, the fear that every servant faced at some point in their life. To fall so low: unable to work, no money and no way to support yourself, old and alone and helpless – then it was the Union Workhouse, and you would eke out your last days in shame and abject poverty, to die at last on a stained, straw-filled mattress with some toothless crone watching at your bedside for the chance to search you as soon as you were dead for anything of the slightest value. Some said they would even smother you to help you along, merely for the sake of a handkerchief or a petticoat.

She thought, now, with a small shiver of guilt, of how little pity she had spared old Moss, the butler, when he had collapsed with a heart-attack and his position at the Castle had been closed to him. He had been lucky enough to get a position down in the village with Miss Eddowes – a great step down in status, but at least he was still a butler, albeit with only a cook and a maid under him. He had been seen cleaning the front-door brass. Moss, cleaning brass! She had sneered at how low he had fallen. But there were lower places than that.

Silently she raged at her misfortune: at her mistress for sending her half across Europe in the middle of winter, at that patch of ice for being invisible, at the station staff for not removing it. Behind her eyes she felt the heat of tears gathering, but she would not cry. If another impertinent maid walked in, they should not find her weeping. She would save her tears for the middle of the night, the only time she could hope for privacy.

Alice’s hopes plummeted when, on the 16th of January, they discovered that the Slade School had no vacancies: her dream seemed to have ended before it began. But Richard squeezed her hand, and proceeded to get into conversation with the porter. In his opinion, porters of these venerable establishments always knew everything. He took out his cigarette case, offered one to the fellow, lit his own and leaned his elbow comfortably on the desk, a man with all the time in the world to chat – and probably a half-crown in his pocket that might want a new home.

It transpired that London was full of art schools, and many of them now followed the lead of University College London and accepted women on equal terms with men.

‘There’s the Blackwood, sir,’ the porter suggested. ‘That might be just the job for you.’

The Edith Mary Blackwood School of Art, founded by the famous nineteenth-century landscapist, was in Old Burlington Street, just round the corner from the Royal Academy.

‘It’s a small establishment, sir, nicer for the young lady – more individual attention, you see. And all girls. I know that some parents prefer that.’

‘Probably very popular then – perhaps over-subscribed?’

‘I’m sure they’d make room for one more young lady, if circumstances were right.’

‘I suppose he was hinting that it costs a lot more,’ Richard said to Alice, as they walked away. ‘But it still won’t be a fraction of what Giles had to fork out for Rachel’s come-out. And Old Burlington Street is even more convenient than the Slade. No distance at all from Berkeley Square – you can walk there.’

‘I just wish we knew whether it’s a really good school,’ Alice said.

‘Well, let’s go and have a look at the place. See if they’ll take you first. Then we can ask questions.’

He treated her to luncheon first at the Princes Restaurant on Piccadilly, because he said it was originally built for the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, ‘So it has appropriate connections.’ The vast dining-room was elegant in white, red and gold, and fabulous with mirrors, gilding, moulding and chandeliers, all in the French Empire style, celestial painted panels on the ceiling and potted palms in niches. Richard observed Alice’s expression and said, ‘Enjoy it while you can. Once you’re a jobbing painter you won’t be able to afford places like this,’ which made her laugh, when she had been on the verge of being overawed.

Old Burlington Street was only a step away. The Blackwood occupied a handsome double-fronted Georgian house, four storeys and a semi-basement, with nothing but a discreet brass plate outside to tell what it was. On enquiry within, they were directed to the room of the school’s principal, whose name Alice recognised: Mary Ellen Brightwell was famous for her paintings of dogs and horses. She told Richard in an urgent whisper as they went up the stairs that he would recognise them if he saw them.

‘Wait a minute – that painting of the little girl and the dog playing the piano together, that the cousins have in their drawing-room?’

‘Yes, that’s one of hers.’

Richard entered the sanctum with more confidence now he knew what he was dealing with. It seemed somehow insulting not to know any of a person’s works when that person had dedicated their life to them. But the lady herself was not at all how he expected an artist to look. Where was the pale, spiritual face, the soulful eyes and flowing Rossetti locks, the billowy pre-Raphaelite gown? This was a short, round, homely-looking woman in a tweed skirt and sensible blouse, with the sort of ordinary, bumpy face anyone might have. She looked like a cook. But the bright, dark eyes were sharp, her handshake was firm and her voice was commanding. She invited them to sit and listened to Richard’s exposition, and then looked with careful attention through Alice’s portfolio.

She looked up at last. ‘These are all your work?’ she asked Alice.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Who taught you?’