Page 63 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle

‘But—’ Kitty still looked troubled.

‘It’s a different kind of relationship from yours with – Giles.’ Nina brought out the name with an effort. ‘But it’s what I chose. You mustn’t worry about me. You know I never expected to fall in love, the way you did.’

Kitty said no more, but on the way downstairs, believing her friend still to be brooding on the subject, Nina said, to change the subject, ‘Are things still difficult with your mother-in-law?’

Kitty sighed. ‘I know I ought to be stronger and stand up to her. Grandmère – Giles’s grandmother – says she’s just a bully. But people who don’t mind standing up to bullies never understand what it’s like to be someone who can’t.’

‘I understand,’ Nina said.

‘You know,’ Kitty said, ‘but you don’t understand. You’re so bold and fearless. You’d have known just what to say to her. She only has to look at me, and I seem to shrink.’

‘Like a salted snail. Poor Kitty!’

‘It’s been wonderful, her being away. I dread her coming back. But Alice is a great help. And Richard. And dear Uncle Sebastian. They all try to give me courage.’

Nina noticed that she didn’t say Giles helped her.

Giles had suggested Mr Cowling might like a turn in the garden. That way, he reasoned to himself, he could walk beside him and not have to look at him. He didn’t want to look at Cowling’s face. A disembodied voice was easier to bear.

He found himself apologising for the garden. ‘We haven’t extensive pleasure-grounds. My father and grandfather had no interest in horticulture, and I’m too busy about the estate at the moment.’

‘Run down, is it, the estate?’ Cowling suggested. ‘In poor heart and hardly making a return?’

Giles frowned. ‘Who told you?’

‘Bless you, it’s the same everywhere,’ Cowling said genially. ‘I’ve a lot of acquaintances among the landowning sort. I know all about the depression. I don’t suppose you’d have read the Royal Commission of 1893 – ten year ago your interests were quite different, I suppose?’

‘You are right, sir. Ten years ago I was still at school.’

‘Aye, well, ten year ago I got hold of a copy on behalf of Lord Rockport – d’you know him? No? He’s a friend of a friend and he asked me to study it and give him the gist, not being a great one for reading himself. And sorry reading it did make! Value of produce halved over twenty year, while cost of production keeps going up. Thousands of acres passed out of cultivation. That’s with all this cheap American corn being imported, which is good for us manufacturers, because it makes for cheaper bread for our workers. But English farmers can’t compete.’

‘Yes, my tenants have complained about the price of corn,’ Giles said, surprised at Cowling’s knowledge – and a little put out. He didn’t want to admire anything about this man.

‘Just so,’ Cowling said. ‘And to adapt the land to other uses needs capital, which few landowners have any left of, after years of decline. Not that pasturing’s doing much better, with meat and butter and such coming in from abroad and forcing prices down. It’s no joke being a stock farmer these days.’

Giles nodded. ‘And the animals seem to suffer from so many diseases. We’ve an outbreak of swayback in the sheep on one of our farms at the moment. Can’t seem to get to the bottom of it.’

‘Swayback, eh?’ Cowling’s attention seemed caught. ‘What sort of grazing is it?’

‘They’ve recently moved the flock to a new field up on the hill,’ Giles said, puzzled by the question.

‘Hill pasture – a lot of gorse and heather and the like?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Why do you ask?’

‘That’ll be it. The grass is lacking. It often is where you see those sort of plants. You need to give ’em salt licks to make it up.’

‘My dear sir, how would you know that?’ Giles said in astonishment.

‘My father was a shepherd,’ said Mr Cowling, chuckling. ‘No need to look surprised. I wasn’t born a cobbler, you know. It’s grand sheep-country where I come from, Leicestershire. Aye, my dad knew a bit about sheep, and the ills they come in for. How come your tenant didn’t know about salt licks, any road?’

‘The tenant, Marbeck, died suddenly last year. His widow and his sixteen-year-old son are trying to run the place between them.’

Cowling stopped and turned, so Giles could not avoid facing him. He looked flinchingly at the face of an older man – not old, but of a different generation – not ugly but commonplace. He was not stupid, but what was there in his stolid mind to attract a vibrant young woman? It was the face of a stranger, which he’d have passed in the street without a glance, except that this stranger was licensed to hold Nina in those arms and kiss her with those lips—

No, that way madness lay.

Cowling was speaking. ‘He’ll learn, but he’d better learn fast,’ he said, giving Giles a searching look. ‘Now, if you’ll forgive me giving you advice, my lord, you must have an experienced shepherd on one of your farms. You should send him over to these Marbecks for a few weeks, to set them straight. You might have to pay his wages for them, if they’re hard up, which I suppose they must be, but it’ll only be a few shillings a week, and it’ll be worth it to you in the long run. It’s a rule in my world, that you have to invest before you can profit, and from what I’ve heard it’s the same in land.’