Page 68 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle

‘Is it, sir? Fancy!’ she said.

‘Oh, yes.’ He allowed himself a glance up at her tender, fair face. ‘The African elephant is actually smaller, but it has larger ears. Look, I’ll show you. Just let me find the bit on elephants . . .’ Keeping one finger in India, he leafed back urgently to the Es. ‘Now, here’s a picture – just put your hand there and hold the page down . . .’

He grew happily expansive, and forgot to enquire where his meek and receptive audience had been going when he’d stopped her.

The work on the bathrooms was taking longer than Nina had expected. The architect, Leathwaite, explained that the house was very old, and had to be treated carefully. ‘And once we looked under the panelling, we discovered that the back part of the house is much older than the rest – probably fifteenth century.’

‘Is that good or bad?’ Nina asked.

Leathwaite exchanged an amused look with Decius, who said, ‘Depends on your attitude to history. It’s interesting, at all events.’

‘It’s not unusual,’ Leathwaite said, ‘to find a later structure built over an earlier one. A family puts up a house according to the fashion of the time, and the next generation, or the one after, adds to it according to their fashion. The good thing is that the earlier structure was well built and is very sound. But I’m having to go carefully so as not to damage or spoil anything. But I have my best men on it,’ he added reassuringly, ‘and they’re well used to dealing with ancient structures.’

‘By ancient structures,’ Decius added with a wicked grin, ‘he does not mean old Mrs Cornwell-Yorke of Yorke Place, who drove him to distraction by questioning every last nail.’

‘I would never speak disrespectfully of a client,’ Leathwaite said with dignity, though a smile lurked at the corners of his lips.

There was to be a bathroom on each of the upper floors – one above the other, it was explained, so that the pipework went in straight lines – and a proper water-closet below on the ground floor. It involved not only work inside the house, but the digging of long trenches outside, down the side of the house and across the gravel approach. Mr Cowling didn’t seem to mind the dust and noise and disruption, and often popped home from the factory during the day to see what the workmen were up to. There was building work going on at the factory, too, where one wing was being emptied of its machinery and adapted for the new operation to be set up. ‘But we don’t have to worry about old beams and Tudor bricks,’ he said, ‘so we can get on a bit quicker.’

For Nina, the disruption was the perfect excuse to go and visit Bobby Wharfedale. The initial attraction between them had not faded – they liked each other more the more they met. With Kitty she had been the leader and the talker; now with Bobby she found herself a follower and listener, and enjoyed it just as much. She had been to Welland House several times to ride, and once or twice to tea. She had met Bobby’s husband, Aubrey, a tall, slightly stooped man with a vague, kindly manner, whose mind seemed to be so much elsewhere that Nina half expected him not to remember her if they met again. His passions, Bobby told her, were shooting, fishing and the history of the area and its old families.

She had learned a lot about Bobby’s family. Her father was Lord Kibworth (‘my darling old pa’, she called him), her mother bred pointers, and she had an older brother, Kipper, a younger brother Jolly and two younger sisters, Missy and Pip. ‘I miss them so much! We had such fun together. I never wanted to grow up – did you?’ Bobby loved to talk about them, and tell stories of the pranks and adventures they had got up to.

She talked much less about her children – it wasn’t until the second visit to Welland Hall that Nina even discovered she had any. Elizabeth was three, Rupert was five. ‘We named him after Prince Rupert of the Rhine, my absolutely favourite character from history. Who is yours?’

Nina confessed she had never thought about having a favourite. Bobby seemed to regard history like a family almanac, and took the deeds and characters of the protagonists quite personally. She seemed more absorbed by them than her own children, who lived an entirely separate life in the nursery. ‘I’ll show them to you one day,’ she said indifferently, when Nina asked a tentative question, ‘but they’re a bit boring at the moment. They’ll be more interesting in a year or two. I can’t get excited about babies, can you?’

Nina remembered Kitty’s obsession with baby Louis, and was relieved she would not be required to gush. She was much more interested in their riding expeditions. Bobby had provided her with a mount, a brown mare called Florence. Followed at a discreet distance by a groom, they rode out and explored the country. Bobby was determined Nina should know her way around before the hunting season started.

‘You’ll have your own horse by then,’ Bobby said. ‘I’ve put out enquiries all over the county.’

‘Decius has too,’ Nina said as they rode down through a wood towards the river. It was a hot July day, and the shade of the trees was delicious. ‘He says as soon as people bring their horses up at the end of the month there’ll be a wide choice.’

‘Quite right. I must meet this Decius of yours. He sounds a very sensible fellow.’

‘And divinely handsome,’ Nina said, and laughed. ‘Quite absurdly so. My friend Lepida in London was struck all of a heap when she met him.’

‘Are you similarly afflicted?’

‘No, I seem to be immune to him,’ Nina said. ‘But he’s very nice, and I do enjoy talking to him.’ She gave a sidelong glance, and asked, a little awkwardly, ‘Isn’t it wrong to say another man is handsome when one is married?’

‘Not if it’s just a statement of fact,’ Bobby said. ‘I’m devoted to my darling Zephyr,’ she leaned forward and patted his neck, ‘but I can still appreciate someone else’s beautiful horse.’

‘But husbands are different from horses,’ Nina said.

‘Well, I’m devoted to my darling Aubrey, too. But my dear Nina, we are not blind and deaf just because we are married. Though, of course, there are husbands who think their wives should be. Let’s take this path down to the river. The horses will be glad of a drink – it’s so hot today.’

The path grew steeper, and came down to a ford, where the water ran chuckling over the stones. Bobby rode Zephyr into the middle and halted to let him drink. ‘Just keep an eye on Florence,’ she called back to Nina. ‘She likes to roll in water sometimes. Don’t let her go down.’

Nina rode in beside her and Florence lowered her head to snuffle the water, but did not seem to be thirsty. Then suddenly Nina felt her mount begin to sag under her. It was an alarming sensation. ‘She’s going! Hit her!’ Bobby shouted, and when Nina, too surprised to react quickly enough, didn’t move, she leaned over and hit the mare sharply behind the saddle with her whip, making her start and straighten up.

They both rode out of the ford and Nina apologised.

‘Have you never had a horse do that before?’ Bobby asked. ‘Never mind, it’s not your fault. I’m sorry I barked at you, but if she’d gone down you might have been trapped underneath.’

The groom, Buckland, came splashing through to join them. ‘Florence up to her old tricks again, m’lady?’ he said.

‘Yes. I wouldn’t have stopped in the water except that it’s so hot. I thought they needed a drink.’ She grinned at Nina. ‘But it’s all useful experience.’