Page 133 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

‘Where have you been?’ she demanded crossly.

He had forgotten to go and make his excuses during the interval. ‘I was sitting in the stalls. I wanted a closer view.’

‘One does not view a musician. One hears.’

‘I’m not an aficionado like you, ma chère. I need to engage my sense of sight as well. And then I went along to the dressing-room to congratulate Miss Chloë.’

‘You are quite the stage-door Johnny.’

‘Her mother was there. Sir Thomas came in and invited us all to supper at the Savoy.’

‘Yes, he has invited me and the Levens as well. Caroline was already engaged elsewhere. I think I will not go, however. I am tired and want my bed. Where is your guest?’

‘Gone. Listen, ma chère, I think you ought to go to the Savoy.’ He had to show Molly that it wouldn’t matter. And she would not make a fuss in a public restaurant. Besides, he now had another reason. ‘I’ve been listening to people talk.’ He waved a hand round the foyer. ‘Not good talk.’

‘One cannot be governed by the opinions of imbeciles,’ she said irritably. ‘I have had une expérience transcendante, and I do not wish to have it shattered by worldly chatter.’

Richard said urgently, ‘Yes, dear one, but I think you should go all the same. It would be better if the imbeciles were reminded that Miss Chloë is Sir Thomas’s protégée only, and that the position of amoureuse is already filled.’

She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, ‘You are not so insensible as you pretend. Hmm. Il parait que j’ai un petit creux. Perhaps an omelette, or a little foie gras would suit me after all. Give me your arm, and make a way for me through cette foule.’ She waved a disparaging hand at the superbly dressed gathering of the capital’s top people.

‘This foule of fools,’ Richard improved.

She gave him a little smile. ‘Une foule de fous.’

‘Throng, host, multitude, congregation,’ he said. ‘It always amuses me that “congregation” comes from the Latin word for a flock of sheep.’

‘But these are more like a pack of hounds,’ she said. ‘And when hounds go rushing off after something new, it is called a riot, this I know.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The rain had stopped by the time the service was over, and Moss stepped out into a world of drips and sparkles and a little spiteful wind, the sort that gets down inside your collar and shakes raindrops from trees just as you pass under.

He was not strictly needed to carry the umbrella over Miss Eddowes on the short walk home, but he waited anyway. There was something dignified and nicely old-fashioned about a lady being accompanied by a male servant when she walked abroad. It had been the custom of his youth. No young lady would have been allowed to go and look at the shops without a footman following; and though he was a butler, not a footman, he was beginning not to mind these gradations of service in the way he had. It was pleasantly relaxing to be in a small household like Miss Eddowes’s. As long as things were done properly – and he made sure they were – it didn’t matter so much who did them. They all served the one mistress, after all. His old self would have been surprised to hear that thought from his new self, but so much had happened to him this year. He had lost so much, and was now in the way of being grateful for what he had retained.

The recent rain had stripped the last of the autumn leaves from the trees, and the bold colours were gone now, leaving a grey world and a distinctly wintry aspect. He wondered what was usually done about Christmas in the Eddowes household. He hoped there would be some entertaining. He thought of Christmas at the Castle, and how he had always made the punch for Christmas Eve from his own recipe. He’d be glad to make it again for his new mistress. Everyone had said his punch was the best they’d tasted. He remembered the occasion, during the old lord’s time, when the Earl of Strathmore had been pleased to say . . .

He was jerked out of his thoughts by the sight of the Castle servants streaming out of the south door, having come down from the gallery where they always sat – and more particularly by the sight of Ada, arm in arm with one of the other maids. Mildred, wasn’t that her name? He felt a painful tightness around his heart as he looked at that dear little face, pale and pointed, and the few strands of transparently pale hair he could see under a brown velour hat. His Ada, his love, on whom he had longed to pour out the treasures of a lifetime of learning and doing. He was staring, he knew, but he couldn’t stop himself.

She saw him now, and stopped, and the other maid glanced up, then detached herself from Ada’s arm and stepped aside. The other servants streamed past with curious glances, and Ada stood looking up at him, as fragile and tremulous as a fawn.

‘How – how are you, Mr Moss?’ she asked at last.

Love surged through his heart like a tidal bore. Her sweet interest in him was balm to his spirits. ‘I am very well, thank you, Ada. And how are you? How are things up at the Castle?’

‘All right, thanks,’ she mumbled shyly. She wished he’d move aside and let her go, but he seemed to expect her to say something, so she said, ‘We got a new butler now.’

‘So I heard. Mr Afton. I hope you’re all helping him to settle in.’ She blushed and looked down, lost for a reply. ‘You all like him, I hope?’

‘He’s nice,’ she mumbled. She scraped her brain for something to say. ‘He sings, sometimes, when he’s working. He’s got a nice voice.’

‘Sings?’ Moss said doubtfully. That wasn’t the behaviour of a butler. At Christmas, leading the carols in the hall, perhaps, or at church, but in the house, while working? ‘Well, I expect he has his own way of doing things.,’ he concluded, not to undermine Afton’s authority.

‘He’s not like you, Mr Moss,’ Ada agreed, and he chose to interpret this as regret.

‘Things change, I’m afraid, life brings changes, and we have to change with them.’ There was a famous Latin phrase Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis, and he toyed with quoting it, but wasn’t sure he had the wording exactly right. He’d look it up when he got home. Miss Eddowes had a book of quotations and sayings in the drawing-room bookcase. Instead he said, in a softened tone, ‘I hope you didn’t take any harm from our outing in the summer, which had such an unfortunate ending.’

‘Oh, no, Mr Moss,’ she said. Then, ‘I was a bit scared . . .’