Chapter Seven #3
Maud turned a bitter look on him. ‘You brought her here. You!’ She rose to her feet so violently Frederick only just had time, leaping forward, to catch the chair and prevent it falling over.
‘I shall leave this house at once,’ Maud said fiercely, ‘and I shall not return. Send for the carriage. Usingen, come.’
The prince followed her, looking miserable. He turned at the door to make a deep and probably apologetic bow to Kitty, and then to Giles, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. His English deserted him in moments of high emotion. And, besides, what could he possibly say?
Rose managed to intercept Miss Taylor, the princess’s waiting-woman, as she followed Frederick, who was carrying two bags, towards the back stairs.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked urgently, falling in beside her.
Miss Taylor, staring grimly ahead, didn’t answer.
Rose, glancing at Frederick’s impassive back and aware that his ears would be standing out on stalks, lowered her voice.
‘Come on, Mary,’ she urged, ‘it’s me. We’ve been through a lot together.
What was all the row about? Are you really leaving? ’
‘My lady has been barbarously treated,’ Miss Taylor said, between tight lips. ‘She could not stay after that.’
‘Somebody,’ Rose jerked her head towards Frederick, ‘said that her highness called her ladyship an upstart. So who’s treating who bar-ber-us? There’s something else to it, I know. Tell me, go on!’
Taylor slewed her eyes sideways at her and away again, thought for a moment, then – so low Rose had to lean in to catch the words – said, ‘She never wanted a row. She wanted to be nice. She doesn’t think she’ll be coming back, you see. It’s a sort of farewell visit.’
‘Well, it’s that now, all right,’ Rose remarked. ‘But if she was trying to be nice, why’d she go off like a rocket at her ladyship like that?’
Taylor shook her head. ‘I don’t know what set her off.
I wasn’t in the room, was I? Better ask him.
’ Rose maintained an urgent silence at her side, the insistent silence that, in a dog under the table, always results in something being slipped to it.
They were almost at the stairs, where single file would prevent further confidences.
Taylor leaned even closer and whispered, ‘She thinks she’s increasing again. ’
Rose’s eyes widened. ‘No!’ she breathed. The prince must be braver than he looks, she thought, to go slap-and-tickling the dowager. I’d sooner cuddle a wild tiger. ‘How come?’
‘How d’you think?’ Taylor said curtly. ‘If you ask me, it’s just her age. But she’s scared and not thinking straight.’
‘Scared? Her? She’s never been scared of anything in her life!’
‘She thinks it’ll kill her,’ Taylor whispered.
‘She thought that last time and it didn’t,’ Rose said.
‘It nearly did. And she’s older now. That’s why it’s a farewell visit.’
‘Do they know?’ Rose rolled her eyes to the ceiling to indicate the family.
‘Nobody knows, not even the prince. And don’t you go telling anyone.’
‘Me? I don’t gossip.’
They had reached the stairs. There was no time for more.
Rose had been friends with Miss Taylor for many years – well, if not friends, they had worked together and faced many dramas, which had created a bond.
So given that Taylor probably knew what she was talking about when she said they would not be coming back again, Rose thought it right to see her off properly.
She walked with her through the yard to the second carriage, which would take her, the luggage and the prince’s man to the station, watched her climb in, and as the carriage pulled away she waved goodbye.
She saw Taylor turn her head towards her, so she knew she had seen the wave.
She didn’t wave back, but Rose had not expected her to.
As she went into the house through the yard door, she saw Frederick sitting on the chair in the sheltered corner of the yard where the footmen sometimes came for a break or to smoke a cigarette.
His head was bent over that blasted notebook and he was scribbling away.
What was he writing? Notes about his job, rubbish!
But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being curious.
Good-looking beggars like Frederick loved to be the centre of attention.
He glanced up as she drew level with him, and she said, ‘Don’t you let Mr Moss see you sitting down. He’ll find you brass to polish.’
He just gave her a grin and put his head down again.
All those white teeth! she thought, with a toss of the head.
He thinks he’s someone! Anyway, he wasn’t that handsome.
Michael Woodrow was just as good-looking, and she preferred fair men to dark ones.
She’d been scratched by a black cat once, when she was a nipper, and it had put her right off dark hair.
Giles entered the Peacock Room, Kitty’s private sitting room, and saw her standing at the window, her hands down by her sides. ‘They’ve gone,’ he announced.
The dogs slipped past him and went to Kitty to lick her hands and point their noses up at her.
‘They’ll go to London first, of course,’ Giles went on. ‘I think I’d better send a telegram to Aunt Caroline to warn her, in case they go straight there. It’s only fair to give her notice.’ He pulled out his watch. ‘I think a telegram will just about beat them.’
Still no reaction.
‘Are you crying?’ Giles asked. ‘Don’t cry. It’s not worth it.’
She turned, and he saw that she had been crying, but had controlled it now. ‘It’s easy for you to say that. You don’t mind her.’
With her pink nose and eyes and traces of dampness on her cheeks, she looked like a little girl. ‘You shouldn’t either,’ he said. Then, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t step in earlier, as soon as you brought up Miss Eddowes. For some reason Mother hates her. If I’d known, I’d have told you not to mention her.’
Kitty trembled slightly. ‘Why must I be careful what I say in my own house?’
‘Kitty, don’t,’ he said coaxingly. He really didn’t want a quarrel. He hated them as much as she did, but for different reasons. She was afraid of dispute, found it distressing. He found it boring. ‘Mother is just – Mother. What she says doesn’t matter.’
Kitty was trying hard not to cry, knowing he hated it, but a mixture of sorrow and anger made it hard to keep her lips steady. She managed to say, ‘Do you think I’m an interloper? Am I just tolerated?’
He took both her hands in his, searching for words that would convince.
‘Do you remember what this house was like when you first came here? Bare. Neglected. Shabby. Not very clean. Far from what a great house should be. Now it’s cared for, it’s bright, it’s comfortable.
Of course you’re not just tolerated. You’ve been a good mistress to the house – better than Mother ever was. ’
She blinked away a tear, turning her head to the side to do it.
She didn’t speak. He knew he had not said enough yet.
What did she want? How could he make it better for her?
When Louis came to him with a grazed knee, he could pick him up and hug him and he was comforted.
He wished he could pick her up in the same way – that it was that easy.
Louis and Alexander – his sons. She’d given him those precious gifts, and yet she still needed reassurance.
Poor Kitty! What must it be like to be like her, to be able to be wounded so easily?
‘I used to hate this place,’ he said. ‘That’s why I kept away most of my life, until Papa died.
I dreaded coming back here. It was like…
entering a prison. But now, when I’ve been out around the estate all day, I come down the hill and see the house below me with the windows lit, and I know you’re here, and I feel glad, because I’m going home.
You’ve made the Castle home for me. You did that. ’
He had given her what she needed. She gave him one look of astonished gladness, and then was in his arms, pressing herself against him, her damp face against his neck.
He held her, kissed the top of her head tenderly.
Poor Kitty. But also dear Kitty. Just for a moment he thought of what Ashmore Castle would be like without her, and saw that his words had been wiser than he had known.
Richard had obviously taken Mrs Asquith’s fancy when he met her at Mrs Painswick’s, because she had invited him to a bridge evening the next day. Richard enjoyed bridge, and though he was not as keen as the Asquiths, he played a good enough game to hold up his end and become a regular invitee.
What he liked best on those evenings was when he was dummy and could walk about and talk to other guests, and the supper break when everyone was released from the table.
Mrs Asquith – always known as Margot – had an unfettered intellect and a wild spirit.
It puzzled many how she and the dry, lawyerly, widowed Asquith had come together.
She had a passion for politics, and since her husband told her everything, and she held nothing back, Richard found his visits to Cavendish Square not only lively but informative.
Mr Asquith seemed to be the coming man, and Mrs Asquith spoke openly of him as prime-minister-in-waiting.
Richard wondered whether their combined indiscretion would cause problems if he ever led a government.
It was axiomatic that one social event begets another: at A’s card evening you meet B, who invites you to their soirée, where you meet C, who asks you to dinner, and so on.
And the personable bachelor is always at the top of every hostess’s list. By the time the Season got into full flow in May, Richard was besieged by invitations every time he came up to Town.
Out of curiosity, and for variety, he decided to sample the artistic circle – writers, poets, painters, sculptors – of the Morrells, who functioned a little further east from the Asquiths, in Bedford Square.