Page 91 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘It was a long time ago,’ Giles offered. ‘Perhaps people of rank led very separate lives back then.’

‘Oh, have you seen it?’

‘I’ve read the book.’

‘I didn’t know there was a book.’

‘There is.’

Conversation stuttered to a halt. Nanny, perhaps sensing something, came and took Alexander out of Kitty’s arms. Louis was deeply involved with the Flood, mumbling a narrative as he moved the animals and figures about – ‘They went up here and round there and down there and he went smack smack with his stick and the camble ran away and they all ran after him . . .’

Kitty stood up and moved to the window and Giles followed her. ‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ she said, in a low voice, staring out at the tops of the trees.

‘I couldn’t let Uncle down.’

‘Oh, you couldn’t let Uncle down,’ she said bitterly.

‘Kitty—’

‘After all these weeks, that’s what you decided. You didn’t even want to know how the children were.’

‘I knew they were all right. They were with you,’ he said. She looked up at the tone of his voice, doubtful. ‘They were lucky.’

She didn’t speak, waiting for more.

‘I missed you,’ he said.

‘But not enough,’ she said.

He gathered himself. It had to be done. ‘Kitty, I’m sorry. I behaved like a fool, and a brute. I said things I shouldn’t have said.’

‘But you meant them,’ she said, and it was only half a question; half an epitaph.

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘How can I explain? It’s such a responsibility, such a burden, I sometimes feel as if I’m shackled to a great weight and I can’t get free. It makes me angry. But I shouldn’t show my anger to you.’

‘You don’t show me anything,’ she said very quietly. ‘I thought married people were supposed to share their feelings. But, then, I’m middle-class, I know. Perhaps it’s different for people like us.’

He winced. ‘Don’t. I never thought that. Please forgive me, Kitty. I was worried and I overreacted and there’s no excuse, but forgive me anyway. And you can have your garden.’ She looked up quickly, and he added, ‘Not all of it. Not the earth-moving part. That really is more than I can afford. There’s so much still to do to get the estate on a sure footing. But you can make a start. When you come home we’ll look at the costs, perhaps have your garden man back, and decide which parts we can afford. We’ll decide together. And when Richard’s milk scheme is running at a profit, we’ll see about the rest.’

She regarded him for a long, searching minute. But by ‘the rest’ she realised he meant the rest of the garden plan. He was not referring to married people sharing their feelings. When she went home, nothing would really have changed.

‘I see,’ she said in a flat voice.

‘Will you forgive me?’ he pressed.

‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ she said, and it was true, in the sense that he was who he was, and she couldn’t change that.

He seemed to realise that a harmonic was missing from the absolution, and was about to say something more when Afton came in and the dressing bell sounded at the same moment.

‘Time to change, my lord,’ Afton said. There was no need for him to come and announce it, but the real reason for his presence was made clear when Louis jumped up and ran to him with a glad greeting, grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the Ark to have him join the play.

He didn’t jump up when I came in, Giles noted. And for some reason thought of poor little Arthur.

So that the visit to Town should not be entirely wasted, Giles went out early on Saturday morning and was able to have an interview with Vogel, his man of business, about the state of his finances. They were in better health even than he had hoped, and Vogel expressed himself cautiously pleased. Giles raised the matter of Kitty’s garden plan, and when he mentioned the cost, Vogel shook his head.

‘Those sorts of schemes were all very well a hundred years ago, or a hundred and fifty. The landed peers of those times were blessed with vast amounts of capital, and labour was cheap. But the world is a different place now. I venture to suggest that the great gardens like Stowe and Blenheim and Highclere could not be replicated today without the sort of fortune that only American railway barons amass.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Giles said.