Chapter Five
Frederick was standing in the doorway of the servants’ hall as Rose came past, and said, ‘Her ladyship’s very happy, these days. What’s that all about?’
She stopped and looked at him impatiently. ‘How would I know? I hardly ever see her. And it’s not my business to notice whether Upstairs is happy or not. It’s not yours, either.’
‘I disagree,’ he said. ‘When they’re happy, it makes everyone’s life easier. A happy house is good for us all.’
‘Well, it’s not us that makes ’em happy or unhappy, so you’re wasting your time,’ she said shortly. ‘What are you cooking up?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, giving her the full force of his blue eyes and charming smile. Rose withstood it sturdily. ‘I noticed at breakfast, that’s all. She was like a dog with two tails.’
‘Here, don’t you call her ladyship a dog!’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said impatiently. ‘Happy as a lark, I meant. Is that better? She’s been smiling a lot lately. Why d’you suppose that is?’
She regarded him witheringly. ‘You’re soft in the head, you are. What you asking me for?’
‘You’ve been here a long time. You know these people.’
‘These people? These people? It’s “her ladyship” to you. If you want to know her ladyship’s secrets, ask Miss Hatto. And she won’t tell you. She never gossips. You should take a leaf out of her book.’
‘Her ladyship’s secrets,’ he mused. ‘What would they be, I wonder?’
‘I don’t suppose she’s got any.’
‘Everybody’s got secrets. What are yours, Rose?’
‘There was a plant my mum used to have outside the back door. It was called mind-your-own-business,’ she said.
‘I’ve got work to do. I haven’t got time to stand around asking silly questions like some people,’ she concluded, and walked away.
A few steps further on she looked back and saw him writing something in a small notebook.
She had seen him writing in it before, she remembered.
A notebook about six inches by four, the size a man could slip into his pocket, bound in black leather.
It was unusual enough behaviour to intrigue her. ‘What you writing about?’ she asked.
‘Just making a note of things to be done, so I don’t forget them.’
She tapped her temple. ‘You should use this, like the rest of us,’ she said, and went on.
In Market Harborough there had been a heavy snowfall in February.
Nina had enjoyed the look of it – the suddenly sparkling world, roofs and hedges and trees decorated as though for Christmas – but Mr Cowling had been afraid she would slip and fall, and had forbidden her to leave the house.
The snow hadn’t lasted long, but was followed by deep frosts, which worried him just as much.
She was feeling very well and full of energy, and it irked her to be confined, but there was no reasoning with him.
On the subject of her and the baby’s safety, he put his foot down.
Spring came in late March, mild and wet, a thing of fast-moving grey skies reflected in puddles, squally winds and intermittent spats of rain.
Nina could go out again, though it meant being accompanied by the new footman Alfred, holding an umbrella over her.
Nina had questioned the need for a footman, but Mr Cowling was adamant.
When he was at home, his man, Moxton, acted as butler, but when he was away on business he took Moxton with him.
‘I want to know there’s a man to see to things when I’m not here. ’
So Alfred had come. Nina thought him an amiable fool, and suspected that she would be much more capable than him in any emergency, but Mr Cowling had old-fashioned ideas.
In deference to her condition, he had stopped visiting her at night.
She would have liked him to share her bed just for the comfort of his arms, but didn’t know how to ask him.
For proofs of love she had to make do with his fussing over her well-being.
‘You don’t need to worry about me being alone,’ she told him when he lingered anxiously on the brink of departure.
She had a constant stream of visitors. The situation of a young woman expecting her first child was always interesting, but especially so when she had no immediate family to guard her.
It wasn’t that anyone wanted anything to go wrong, but monochrome lives craved drama, and while Mrs Cowling looked robust and healthy, it was often the ones you least expected that ran into trouble.
Her mainstays were Bobby Wharfedale, and Lady Clementine Leacock. Best were the days, like one damp afternoon at the end of March, when both called.
Bobby arrived first, bringing Rupert and Elizabeth with her.
‘Nanny and both nursery maids have three colds in the head,’ she explained.
‘It’s a swamp of misery up there, and Rupert and Lizzie were running wild.
Hickman almost begged me to take them away – and Aubrey would have a fit if we lost our butler.
You can’t get a good one just for the asking. ’
‘We were only sliding down the banisters,’ Rupert protested. ‘We weren’t doing any harm.’
‘I didn’t mind it but, darling, you can’t think how children get on servants’ nerves,’ Bobby told him.
She talked to her children exactly as she talked to everyone else.
‘If only they could have gone out riding,’ she added to Nina.
‘But they got soaked through yesterday and their riding clothes aren’t dry yet.
I told Nanny I spent most of my childhood in wet clothes, but she was predicting everything from typhoid to rheumatic fever so I had to bring them with me.
I hope you don’t mind. They’ve each brought a book so they won’t be any trouble.
Go and sit over there,’ she addressed her children, ‘and look at your books and don’t say a word for half an hour. ’
They went off obediently. Nina said, ‘Goodness, I hope my child turns out to be as good as yours.’
‘They are quite nice,’ Bobby said judiciously.
‘The thing is to be strict with them from the very beginning. It’s no good thinking how sweet and delicious they are and telling yourself you’ll be cross and cruel when they get older, because it will be too late by then.
Aubrey would have been a hopelessly indulgent father if I hadn’t set the tone.
’ Nina laughed and Bobby said, ‘I am perfectly serious! It’s the same with children as with dogs. ’
‘Your dogs climb on the furniture,’ Nina reminded her.
‘My point exactly – I didn’t nip it in the bud when we first got them.
But also, I must tell you, don’t forget to enjoy them.
The children, I mean. Because they grow up so quickly.
Rupert will be going off to Uppingham this year, if you can believe it!
Of course, it’s the other way round for his father – Aubrey couldn’t wait for Rupert to grow up enough so he could take him fishing and play cricket with him.
Men don’t care for babies or very small children. ’
‘What about Elizabeth? I might have a girl, you know.’
‘Oh, daughters are always babies to them, when they notice them at all. But you’ll have a boy – I can tell.’
‘Really? My maid Tina says her mother has an infallible method, involving a piece of string and a coin with a hole in it, but I haven’t tried it yet.’
Albert appeared at the door of the drawing-room, announcing Lady Clemmie and stumbling over her title, calling her Lady Leacock and then correcting himself with a blush.
Clemmie gave him a kindly it doesn’t matter a bit look, and when he had gone away to fetch the tea-tray, Bobby said, ‘There’s another example.
We were just talking about starting as you mean to go on, Clem.
You tried to make him feel better, but he’ll never learn that way. Sheer terror is the best teacher.’
Clemmie said, ‘I can tell you didn’t have a stern father who made you miserable.’
‘Oh, no, Pa was a perfect poppet. I wound him round my thumb, and you see how badly I’ve turned out.’
‘What about you?’ Clemmie asked Nina.
‘Mama and Papa were never stern, but they died when I was a little girl, so I can’t say whether they did the right thing or not,’ Nina said. She had adored her parents, and the loss of them had created a dark hole inside her that she thought could never be filled.
Clemmie said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. Forgive me for asking.’
‘My aunt brought me up. She was very strict – make of that what you will.’ She changed the subject. ‘We were talking about telling the sex of a baby using a coin with a hole in it.’
Clemmie was puzzled. ‘Can’t you just look?’
Nina laughed. ‘Before it’s born, I mean.’
‘My father had a collection of old coins,’ Clemmie said, ‘and I remember some of them had holes in the middle. They came from China, I believe, or possibly Japan. Somewhere in the Far East, anyway. It’s hardly necessary to put holes in coins, however, when the finance of the country has a hole right through it. ’
‘Oh dear, are we going to talk about politics?’ Bobby said.
The conversation was halted as Alfred and the under- housemaid Ruby came in with the trays. When they had gone, and Nina was pouring the tea, Bobby said, ‘Aubrey is terribly worried about having twenty-nine Labour Party MPs in the Commons since the election. He says it’s the end of civilisation.’
‘But isn’t he a protectionist?’ Nina said. ‘I thought the working classes were in favour of protectionism, because it keeps food prices low, so shouldn’t he be glad of them?’
‘He says there’s no knowing what way they’ll vote on anything, because it’s all so new to them. They’ll follow the last person who spoke,’ said Bobby.
‘I don’t agree,’ Clemmie said. ‘They’ve waited so long for this, I believe they’ll take it very seriously and think deeply about the issues.’
‘I suppose Mr Cowling is a free trader?’ Bobby said to Nina, spreading butter on a crumpet. ‘Industrialists usually seem to be. Though Aubrey says tariffs protect English goods from competition, so they ought to be for them. These crumpets are delicious! Does Mrs Deering make her own?’