Page 132 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘I mean, do you understand why I am telling you this?’ Aunt Schofield insisted.

Nina looked at her, then quickly away. ‘Oh,’ she said. Now she understood.

‘If you marry Mr Cowling, you will go through this process with him. He will expect it, and it will be your duty to co-operate. Men differ from each other, but in general they get great pleasure from the process, which makes them eager to do it often, sometimes every night.’

‘I see,’ said Nina.

Aunt Schofield closed the book. ‘It is something for you to think about, before you make your decision.’ She began to turn away, then turned back. ‘Is there anything you want to ask me?’ she said, in a kinder voice.

‘Yes,’ said Nina, but she didn’t know how to phrase it. She rehearsed it in her head, but it was still hard to say. ‘Did you—?’ No, that was not the way. She cleared her throat. ‘What I mean is – you say it is pleasant for the man. But is it not for the woman? When you were married, was it hard for you to – to bear it?’

Aunt Schofield paused for so long, Nina thought she wasn’t going to answer. ‘It was not unpleasant. Not hard to bear. I’d say it was a tiresome necessity, on the whole. But sometimes …’ Another pause. ‘Sometimes there was a feeling of – of warmth and comfort. And one likes to please one’s husband, if one cares about him.’ She turned firmly away. ‘That is all I have to say. Think about what I’ve told you.’ And she left the room, taking the book with her. Nina realised now why she had shut the morning-room door – so that Minny should not come in and see it by accident.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Richard was let in by the housekeeper, and ran up the stairs two at a time, hearing the thumping sounds of a piano lesson from above. He tapped on the door to be polite, but opened it at once. A small boy was sitting at the piano, feet dangling above the pedals, watching his hands with intense concentration as if they might come loose from his wrists and prance away without him. Mrs Sands, who was beating time with a baton on her palm, looked up. The boy glanced up too, his hands fell over themselves, and the music stopped.

‘Do I intrude?’ Richard said gaily. He held up a paper bag. ‘I’ve brought sacrifices to appease the gods.’

‘I’m teaching,’ Mrs Sands said. ‘I’m always pleased to see you, but I can’t have you interrupting my lessons. I have a living to earn.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Richard said meekly. ‘I’ll sit quietly in the corner until you’re finished.’

‘You’ll do no such thing. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate with your eyes boring into my back. You must go away and come back later.’

At least she’d said he should come back. He pressed his advantage. ‘At what time?’

‘Twelve,’ she said.

‘And then I’ll take you to lunch.’

‘I have another lesson at a quarter to one.’

‘Then lunch shall come to you. I’ll leave these, for now,’ he said, and put down the bag on the table. ‘In case you have time between pupils.’ He winked at the rather startled boy, and withdrew before she could say something severe.

At twelve, he passed a different pupil on the stairs, a twig of a boy with a long neck, whose sleeves and trouser legs were too short, as if he had grown rapidly in the past hour.

The first bag he had brought was still on the table, he noticed. He put down a second one. Mrs Sands paused from sorting out music. ‘Hot pies. Fetch plates,’ he commanded her. ‘And glasses. I brought a bottle.’

‘I can’t drink wine, foolish boy,’ she said. ‘What would my pupils think?’

‘How would they know what wine smelt like on the breath?’

‘My next pupil is a girl and her mother brings her,’ said Mrs Sands.

‘Well, the bottle isn’t wine, anyway. It’s ginger beer. Do you think I don’t know how you work by now? Ginger beer, so we can pretend it’s champagne.’

‘You are a most insistent, persistent person,’ said Mrs Sands. ‘You bother me like a fly at a picnic.’

‘Since I brought the picnic, that’s most ungenerous,’ he said. She had fetched the plates from the chimney cupboard, and he was laying things out. ‘But I forgive you. What would you have been eating if I hadn’t?’

‘I think there’s some bread and cheese,’ she said vaguely. ‘I don’t bother much with luncheon when Chloë isn’t here.’

‘Just as I thought! You neglect yourself. It won’t do, you know.’

‘Hm, those pies smell good.’

‘From the stall on the corner of Green Park.’ He saw how hungrily she ate. Things were a struggle, he guessed. Chloë was getting her tuition free, but there would still be incidental expenses – clothes and music, and food for Chloë while she was out during the day. And there was nothing he could do about it. He had nothing himself.