Page 147 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

All right for you, Kitty thought. A little sulkily, she asked, ‘Is there anything else I mustn’t do?’

Nobody said anything, but she met Giles’s eyes and the same question occurred to both of them. Of course, it was not something either of them could ask his mother. They both looked away, embarrassed.

The anniversary of the old earl’s death came, and there was a memorial service at St Peter’s, with the whole neighbourhood attending, and a very beautiful choral work performed by the choir. The following day, the dowager went up to London for a week, to buy new clothes and meet old friends. The anniversary marked the end of her mourning period. ‘Couldn’t wait to get away,’ Sebastian remarked to Giles. ‘Unseemly haste?’

But Giles said, ‘I can’t blame her. I don’t suppose, from what little I can gather, my father was an easy man to live with.’

‘Mourning’s not about feelings,’ Sebastian said. ‘it’s about perceptions. Still, I don’t suppose there’s any harm in it. You broke the mould by getting married. And,’ he went on, before Giles could comment, ‘that was a very good thing you did for Ashmore.’

Giles thought he was referring to Kitty’s money. Sebastian smiled, knowing exactly what was on his mind, and went up to play the piano, hoping that the sewing-maid would appear. He played better with an audience. No, little Kitty would be good for Ashmore in many other ways – as soon as Maud could be persuaded to loosen her grip.

Next, the traditional farmers’ dinner was held at the Crown in Canons Ashmore. The fine old coaching inn was finding a new role for itself, since the railways had killed coaching. There was a new fashion for Londoners to take pleasure trips out into the nearby countryside. Visitors sought the historic, the picturesque, the quaint, but they still wanted London-class food and accommodation.

The farmers’ dinner was a male-only event, at which Giles, assisted in this case by Richard, beguiled the local farmers with a slap-up meal, and plenty of port and cigars, to talk about local matters, to moot improvements, to air problems, and to renew their devotion to the hunt. Giles had attended it once with his father, and had woken the next morning with a head like a pumpkin from the port and a throat like a cheese-grater from the cigar smoke. He did not relish having to do it every year and, in the coach on the way home, said to Richard, ‘You seem remarkably chipper. How do you cope with this sort of thing?’

‘Practice,’ Richard said unhelpfully.

For a few days it was mild for December, and actually sunny after the early fog had cleared. Kitty begged Giles for his company in a walk around the gardens. He was surprised by the novelty of the request, but the glimpse through the window of the hazy sunshine persuaded him. Besides, the dogs needed a walk.

It was almost warm outside. Around the horizon, the trees were bare, a black mesh of branches against the faded blue of the sky, and the air smelt of woodsmoke and leaf mould. The dogs greeted the outing with rapture, coursing about nose to the ground, running back every few moments to laugh up at the humans and urge them to hurry. So much to smell! So little time! Giles had brought a cane with him, and slashed occasionally at a weed, or used the point to turn over a clot of leaves, looking about him keenly, his mind on the estate. Only when Kitty stumbled did he notice her and offer his arm.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked dutifully.

‘Very well,’ Kitty said. ‘I’m not being sick any more. How are your improvements going?’

‘Slowly. There’s so much to do. And everything involves expenditure,’ he added awkwardly. ‘Markham and Adeane sometimes get carried away, but I do question everything to make sure it’s really necessary.’

‘You don’t need to worry about spending my money,’ she said earnestly. ‘It’s yours now. I would never question anything you did.’

He looked down at her. The low sunlight, illuminating her face, only showed how young she was. She was having a baby – his baby! The thought gave him a cold feeling at the pit of his stomach – not distaste, but fear of not being good enough. ‘You’ll turn me into a tyrant if you agree to everything I say and do.’

‘You would never be a tyrant,’ she said contentedly. They turned into the walled garden. ‘This was what I wanted to talk to you about,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it since I first came here. We ought to grow a lot more vegetables and fruit for the house. Mrs Oxlea really only understands potatoes and cabbage, but there’s room here for much more variety.’

He smiled. ‘Is this what a well-bred young lady thinks about all day? Cabbages and potatoes?’

‘We need those too,’ Kitty assured him, ‘and carrots and turnips and all that sort of thing. And that’s what the kitchen garden is mostly full of. But if we build a second walled garden next to it, we could have spinach and chard and peas and – oh, everything!’

‘How exotic! Fruit too?’

‘We grow apples and pears enough, but in the second garden you could have peaches and apricots. Gooseberries and currants. And strawberry beds. Think of fresh strawberries in the summer!’

‘I like raspberries better.’

‘Raspberries, then. And, Giles, if we built greenhouses all along one wall, we could have fruit out of season. And a vine-house.’

‘What brought all this on?’ he asked.

‘I remember how you ate in Italy, and I see you pick at your food here. I know Mrs Oxlea isn’t very … adventurous—’

‘A masterly understatement, my dear.’

‘—but if she had better ingredients, perhaps she could learn. There must be recipes somewhere, and she’d only have to follow them. That is,’ she added, in a low voice, ‘if she can’t be replaced.’

There was a brief, awkward silence. He did not want to tackle his mother again on the subject. He did not want to participate in a civil war in his own house. Perhaps Kitty was right, and an influx of new ingredients would do the trick. They were worth having, anyway, for their own sake.

‘Very well,’ he said, ‘you shall have your walled garden and your greenhouses. It shall be just as you want it. We must speak to the head gardener,’ Giles said. ‘I’m sure he won’t object.’

‘I did actually speak to him,’ Kitty admitted shyly. ‘He seemed very pleased. But he’ll need more boys if there’s more to do.’