Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(58)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“Anything exciting happen today?” Julia asked as the kettle burbled.

Mrs. K wanted to tell her that everything exciting had happened that day because nothing had happened without Lady Ashton to please. Mrs. K felt a sense of such deep relief, she didn’t exactly know how to handle it. She did not keep an eye out for every speck of dust, every slight smudge on window, mirror or the sheen on the banisters or tables. She didn’t have a pile of laundry to inspect to make certain they were fresh smelling and stain and wrinkle free. She didn’t have to mentally calculate every calorie in every dish she was making. And she didn’t have to calm Veronika’s nerves every time she saw the girl, who was also adjusting to this new feeling at Sommersgate with rapid ease.

All they had to look forward to was Miss Julia’s smiling face coming in the backdoor, a quick gossip over a fresh cuppa, the children’s rushing about when they got home and the rest of the time nothing but peace.

Even the house seemed to be settling into this new regime. The days were getting shorter but at Sommersgate the evening shadows were receding. The weather was becoming chill but in the house the draughts and cold were disappearing. In the evening, when it always seemed so dark, in the house, the edge was off the night. Shadows lost their menace. Rather than seeming alive and frightful, as they always had done, they just became shadows of this piece of furniture or that shape of a tree hit by the moonlight.

Even The Master and The Mistress had been silent. Not even Ruby saw or felt them anymore, Mrs. K knew because she’d asked the girl.

“No, nothing exciting,” she answered and Carter walked in just then with a nod and grabbed the grocery list and one of Mrs. K’s homemade scones. “Make it quick, I want to get that crumble ready for tea.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Carter grumbled but he did it genially while Mrs. K poured the water into the freshly ground coffee in the cafetière.

“I was reading about The Master and Mistress last night,” Julia told her as she got up to grab mugs, sugar bowl, teaspoons and the jug of milk out of the fridge. “There are a couple books about the Barony in the library and in one, there’s quite a bit about them.”

Mrs. K pressed down the cafetière.

“Learn anything?” she asked as she sat down at the bench across the table from Julia, something she’d done every day this week so far, something she’d never have done, ever, with Douglas or Monique Ashton. But then, both of them rarely came into the kitchen.

“Their names, Archibald or ‘Archie’ as he was known and get this…” she paused for effect, “Ruby! I bet that’s why Tamsin named Ruby-girl that.”

Mrs. K nodded, looking fondly at the other woman’s glowing face. “It’s likely. Miss Tamsin was taken with that story, always was from the first moment she saw The Master and felt his lady.”

Julia took a sip of her coffee. “Did you know there are portraits of the two of them amongst the others in the stairwell?”

Mrs. K leaned forward in a small rush of excitement because she didn’t know. In all her years there, she’d never had the time to go sorting through the Sommersgate library (nor did she wish to get caught) to find information about the ghosts.

“Which ones?” she asked.

“Come on, I’ll show you,” Julia invited conspiratorially, grabbed her mug, they went out to the stairway, walked up to the landing and Julia pointed, “Those two.”

Mrs. K stared at two paintings she’d seen nearly all her life, even twice, in that time, had ordered taken down and cleaned.

They stood alone, the only portraits on the wall at the landing, while all the other walls were stuffed full of them, higgledy-piggledy arranged to get as many in the space allowed. They were also the grandest of them all, twice as big as any other painting. The man stood tall, looking a bit like Douglas, or at least he had a similar way about him even if the features were only a touch the same. The woman was dark-haired, fair skinned and lovely. He looked arrogant and haughty. She looked, as Mrs. K always thought, happy. She had a bit of what Mrs. K thought of as a Mona Lisa smile, as if she was content and had a secret.

“That portrait, according to one of the books, was finished only two weeks before her death,” Julia mentioned, indicating Lady Ruby Ashton’s portrait. “She doesn’t look like a woman who had an unhappy marriage, do you think?”

Mrs. K considered it. “I always thought, of all these portraits with their grim faces that she looked the happiest.”

At that point, Mrs. K and Julia could talk no more as the kids rushed through loudly, their voices ringing happily through the halls. Another change that Mrs. K welcomed but also caused great relief for it said the children too were adjusting to the changes Julia Fairfax was causing and, Lord knew, those beautiful children needed, finally, to adjust.

It was time for their homework and for her to start dinner and hopefully a quick apple crumble.

But later, when she walked around to put the house to bed, Mrs. K found Julia again on the landing looking up at Lady Ruby with a wondering gaze.

* * * * *

Julia sat at her writing desk going through her lists. Or, she was supposed to be going through her lists, but instead, she was thinking about him.

He’d done it again, left without a word or warning and now it had been a week since Douglas left.

This time, however, he’d called. Just once, but he’d called. Last night, when the kids were asleep, Ronnie and Mrs. K gone, the phone rang.

For a second, she didn’t know what to do. She was told by Mrs. K that the staff answered the phone unless it was in the study. In the study, no one touched it except Douglas. There was a complicated system of inter-comming via the phone, which meant you had to memorise which number rang to which person (which meant the phone rang everywhere with a specific ring that the member of staff knew meant them) or room. One was Mrs. K, two Carter, three rang only in the kitchen, four was Veronika and it went on.

Patricia always phoned when the kids were awake and not out at one of their scheduled classes so she could talk to them as well, so if it was her mother, it was an emergency.

Late Thanksgiving evening, her mother had the full briefing about Trevor Fairfax and Monique (not to mention Douglas’s actions, which elicited a “You’re joking! Well, well, who knew the boy had it in him?” and Julia thought only Patricia Fairfax would refer to Lord Douglas Ashton as “the boy”). Patricia had made her usual threats of arriving at Sommersgate House imminently to save the day and had been talked down by Julia at the last minute.