Snobs: A Novel

'That's nice.'

'But if you shoot you won't mind normal people.'

'Like Sir William Fartley. Can't wait.'

She laughed and pulled a face. 'Silly old fool but he only lives three miles away so there's nothing I can do.'

I commented inwardly that he was further away than the Eastons, that there were probably two or three hundred people a similar distance from Broughton who would cry out for an invitation and would never receive one, but naturally I said nothing.

Lady Uckfield patted my hand. 'Seriously. You must come. I'll see to it.'

'I'd love to, but only if you promise not to ask any writers or talkers. I don't want to lose face in front of Edith.'

She smiled her conspiratorial smile and was gone about her duties.

It was all over quite soon after that. The lucky pair went off to change and we followed them out as a shining barouche landau carried them away. This rather mawkish detail had been specially arranged by Edith's father with the mistaken idea that it would lend glamour to the occasion. At any rate, when we all turned back we found that the Palace had been locked against us. The authorities had decreed that the day was over and there was nothing more to do but go home.

SEVEN

To Edith, as much as to anyone else who knew it, one of the oddest aspects of her marriage, at least in the context of the 1990s, was that she had never slept with Charles before their wedding night. It sounds quite remarkable but the fact remains that it was so. At first she had resisted his advances as she knew that he was definitely the type who did not respect in the morning the easy conquest of the night before and several dates had to have taken place before it was sufficiently established that she was a 'nice girl'. This went on for two or three months but when she had decided that it was just about safe to yield she found to her puzzlement that Charles seemed to have accepted the pattern of their relationship and that he did not apparently want more. He would kiss her, of course, and embrace her but without the deadly urgency that she had come to expect in these moments. Once when they were lying on the sofa in her parents' flat (Kenneth and Stella were in Brighton for the weekend) she had casually allowed her hand to slide across the front of his trousers but although she could feel a perfectly satisfactory erection beneath the fabric, the gesture made him jump so sharply that she did not repeat it. And after he had asked her to marry him there didn't seem much point. After all, she wanted him whether or not they 'suited' between the sheets but, if they did not, might he be put off? So when, a few weeks before the wedding, he had suggested that they 'get away together' for a weekend she had murmured that she thought it better to wait, now it was so near, and not 'spoil it'. Charles had accepted this because although, being a man of his generation he had acquired a certain amount of sexual experience, deep in his subconscious he still believed that bride-material should enter the wedding-chamber chaste. Of course, Edith was not chaste in this sense but she decided that, if questioned, she would refer to 'an incident' when she had been very young which she didn't want to talk about. In actual fact she never had to as Charles seemed to be satisfied with the fact that this was their first time together and sensibly refused to enter into a competition with her past.

He had booked a room in the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge. The world knows that this establishment now forms part of the Mandarin chain and so, technically, the old name is defunct but the upper classes are slow to alter accepted nomenclature. To them it will be the Hyde Park Hotel at least until their children are in late middle age. The plan was to spend the wedding night there and then fly to Rome at noon the following day. Accordingly the barouche swept them up St James's, down Piccadilly past the Ritz, over Hyde Park Corner, and turned round in front of the Bowater House entrance to the park, to deposit them on the steps of the hotel. As they bowled along, passers-by, tourists and Anglo-Saxons alike, turned to smile and even wave. Probably the connection between carriages and Royal occasions is fixed in the public Pavlovian consciousness. So that she might be undisappointing and because the brilliance of her new state filled her brain with a cloud of sparkling lights, Edith waved tentatively back. Charles, on the other hand, looked straight ahead as if somehow his candidacy for officer material was in question. She understood why. Charles was saddled with that most tedious of all English aristocratic affectations, the need to create the illusion that you are completely unaware of any of your privileges. That cool insouciance, so chic in theory, so crashingly boring in practice, was to ruin many occasions in the future for the pair as Edith suspected, looking at the frozen profile beside her. But this time at least the drive did not last long, certainly not long enough for Edith. Barely fifteen minutes after they had left the reception they were in the foyer of the hotel. It was still only about half past five and Edith wasn't absolutely clear what happened next.

She thought of suggesting that they stay downstairs and have some tea but since this would betray a total lack of urgency to be alone with Charles (that she was afraid she was feeling), she rejected the idea. They were shown into the Bridal Suite, which they had not requested but was theirs anyway — the difference in price being compliments of the management, following the age-old principle 'To them that hath shall be given' — and there they found their luggage as well as flowers and fruit and more of the bottomless supply of champagne. Then the door shut and they were alone. Married. They stared at each other in silence. Edith felt a slight tremor of panic as the reality of seeing this man more or less every day for the remainder of her life hit her. What on earth were they going to talk about?

Charles pointed at the bottle. 'Shall I open this?' he said.

'Honestly I don't think I could. I'm swimming in it already.' She paused. 'I think I'll have a bath.'

She started to undress as casually as she could with Charles lying on the bed watching her but at the last moment her nerve failed and, still with her bra and pants on, she snatched her dressing gown out of her suitcase and dashed into the bathroom.

When she came out, half an hour later, Charles was still lying on the bed, reading a newspaper. He had taken off his coat, waistcoat and tie as well as his shoes and socks, and something about the slightly studied relaxation of his pose told Edith that her hour had come. She strolled over to the bed and lay down next to him, naked beneath the gown, and pretended to read the paper over his shoulder.

'Happy?' he said, without raising his eyes.

'Mmm,' she replied, wondering how long it was going to take him to get to it. Now that the moment was here, she was suddenly rather anxious. She felt the need to reassure herself about the physical attraction between them. This, after all, was the side of their relationship that had nothing to do with ambition or even shared interest. It was the sexual conjunction that, at this point at least, she was determined was going to be the only one she would know for the rest of her natural life.

After what seemed an eternity, Charles folded the paper and turned to her. With a deadly earnestness and in absolute silence (which lasted throughout), he started to kiss her as he inexpertly unfastened her dressing gown. She responded as well as she could, trying not to lead. This time when she touched his penis, although he still started like a frightened colt, he didn't actually pull away. And so they lay there, fondling each other through their garments until Charles deemed a suitable period had passed and then he sat up, still in absolute silence, and removed his shirt, trousers and underpants. Edith shrugged off the gown and waited. Charles had quite a good figure, in that he was muscled and covered without being fat, but he had one of those English bodies, white, faintly freckled skin, with a little ginger pubic hair around his groin and none on his chest. His beaky nose and crinkly, public-school hair looked somehow odd on top of an undressed body, as if he had been born in a double-breasted suit and being nude was too raw to be natural. In truth, he seemed more skinned than naked.

Still without a word he turned back to her, the same furious intensity in his face, and, avoiding direct eye contact, he started to kiss her while he planted his right hand against her vagina. Once it was in place, he began to massage her with a kind of dry pumping action, which reminded her of someone blowing up a lilo. She groaned a bit by way of encouragement. He didn't seem to need more as suddenly he heaved himself over between her legs, fumbled himself into her, thrust away a few times — no more than six at the outside — and then, with a terrific gasp to tell her that it was now (which she countered with some cries and pants of her own), he collapsed on top of her. The whole business, from the moment he folded the paper, had taken perhaps eight minutes. Ah, thought Edith.

'Thank you, darling.' One of Charles's more irritating habits was always to thank Edith after sex, as if she had just brought him a cup of tea. Of course, at this point, she did not know it was habitual.

She thought of responding, 'Oh, but thank you,' then decided it was too like people waving at each other through a hotel door so she settled for simply saying, 'Darling…' in a sort of misty way and kissing him on the neck. He had rolled off her by now and she was feeling a bit chilly lying there but moving seemed the wrong thing as this was all constituting a 'very important moment' for Charles and she had no intention of spoiling it. She did not allow herself any review of the love-making

— if that was what they had just been through. It was, after all, early days, and she was beginning to suspect that Charles, for all his savoir faire with waiters, was not very confident when it came to the more private areas. At least he seemed to feel that something momentous had taken place, even if her body had never left the station, so the episode surely rated as a success rather than a failure. That said, she did catch herself briefly hoping that things would improve with practice.

They dined in the hotel, more to avoid being spotted and congratulated by any of their friends (who never dine in hotels except with Americans who are staying there) than for any particular enthusiasm for the cuisine de la maison and then went to bed around eleven. They had a repeat performance of the afternoon's activity and then rolled over to sleep. Edith stared at the ceiling, contemplating the oddness of life. Here she was with this man, whom she hardly knew when she really thought about it, asleep, naked, beside her. She pondered that central truth, which must have struck many brides from Marie Antoinette to Wallis Simpson, that whatever the political, social or financial advantages of a great marriage, there comes a moment when everyone leaves the room and you are left alone with a stranger who has the legal right to copulate with you. She was not at all sure that she had fully negotiated this simple fact until then.

The thought had not left her when she awoke — the first time for a good long while that she had awakened next to anyone

— and she was rather relieved when Charles made it clear, slightly sheepishly, that he was not a 'morning man'. Things eased when they began to discuss the wedding, the various near-dramas, which guests they disliked, who was unhappily married, who was going broke. Of course, thought Edith, this is what we're going to talk about, the things we've done together, and the longer we're married, the more shared experiences we'll have to discuss. She was just comforting herself with these ruminations when Charles lapsed into silence. Not for the last time, he had run dry. There was a knock at the door. A waiter came in wheeling a trolley of breakfast.

'Good morning, my lord,' he said to Charles and then, as he approached the bed with a tray, 'Good morning, my lady.'

Oh well, thought Edith, things could be worse.

Given the fact that their first hours together had not been an overwhelming thrill, it was perhaps a little surprising that the trip to Rome, by contrast, went very well. They stayed at the Hotel de la Ville, quite near the top of the Spanish Steps, and just down from the Villa Medici. Rome is a very beautiful city anyway and this was of course Edith's first experience of being milady'd and contessa'd everywhere she went, which was amusing (though she knew enough not to show it) and a solid reminder of why she was in this spot. The food was delicious and there was plenty to see and consequently to talk about and so as they sat in the Piazza Navona eating under the stars or strolled down the fountain-decked walks of the Villa d'Este out at Tivoli, Edith began to feel that she had after all made a good choice and that the rich and rewarding life of her imaginings really did lie ahead.

During their stay Charles started to talk about Broughton and Feltham in an affectionate, detailed way that was new to her.

Perhaps he had thought that before she had actually, so to speak, become a Broughton she would not be interested. He loved his homes and his cares and since this was all fitting in along the lines of her pre-nuptial fantasies, she loved him for it. She was able to respond to his enthusiasm with an unfeigned enthusiasm of her own. To her delight, she discovered that he was a bit rusty on the history of the family itself. Here was her task! She saw herself lovingly cataloguing the furniture and pictures, entertaining ancient aunts and writing up memoirs of long, hot Edwardian summers at Broughton, bringing down and cleaning forgotten pictures in the attics of some particularly amusing ancestor. She was interested in both history and gossip — what could be better qualifications? It is true that the sex did not improve dramatically and the format never varied but once Charles was less nervous with her it did at least take a bit longer. Altogether, as they boarded the aeroplane for Madrid, the first leg of their journey to Mallorca, Edith and Charles were able to stare into each other's eyes in a deliberate imitation of two people who were as 'happy as newly-weds'.

EIGHT

At Palma, where they surged out of the ticket hall surrounded by what looked and sounded like the entire supporters' club of Wolverhampton Wanderers, they were hailed by a wrinkled cockney with a face like beaten leather and red nylon shorts. He was, he explained, Eric's 'driver' and had come to take them to the villa. Charles was slightly put out at not being met in person — Edith would learn that like many apparently easy-going grandees his insecurity manifested itself if he ever felt that he was being treated like an 'ordinary person' despite his often saying that this was exactly what he wanted. She, herself, was simply glad to be out of the airport and in a car and gradually her relief transmitted itself to him. In the end he forgave the Chases for staying at home: the drive consisted of two and a half hours of dry scrub and shanties as they crossed the centre of the island. Edith had never visited Mallorca before and had not known what to expect. But she realised on looking out of the car window that the images in her mind had consisted of various combinations of Monte Carlo and Blackpool, not the scratch farming and dust of the plains of Salamanca. As they approached Calaratjada, however, the huge concrete hotels of her imaginings began to materialise together with the crowds — mainly respectable but with the hovering hint of kiss-me-quick hats — and all the sights and smells of the Beach Holiday made their familiar and comforting appearance.

The villa itself was a large, white, modern affair constructed around a kind of hill/courtyard, with vast tiled terraces looking out across the bay. There was a private jetty, which was apparently more for swimming than for tethering boats, and meant that there was no need for the villa's inhabitants to use the crowded, sandy beach that launched the tourist swimmers into the sea from a point a few hundred yards to the left of their position. Across the water, the smart houses of the Mallorcin could be glimpsed through their modest curtaining of trees and beyond there was the wide, blue ocean. Edith and Charles stood admiring the view, as a pin-figure far below them on the jetty waved and started to run up the steps. A few minutes later Caroline appeared. They were kissed and congratulated and, in turn, they admired the villa.

'Isn't it fabulous? It belongs to some client of Eric's so we've got a frightfully good rate. It's far cheaper than the one we had last year and it's twice the size. Needless to say, we're being used as an absolute boarding-house all summer long.'

Charles frowned slightly. 'I thought it was just going to be us this week.'

'I know. So did I. But then Peter rang because this was the only week he could do. And Jane and Henry suddenly said they could come after all. And then one of Eric's business people appeared with his wife.' Caroline momentarily wrinkled her nose. 'Apparently Eric had asked them and forgotten all about it. Wasn't it frightful? Anyway, they're here now and they seem to have forgiven us.'

'You mean they're all here now? This week?'

'This minute. They're coming up to change for dinner even as we speak. Has anyone shown you your room? You've got the best one so you mustn't grumble.'

Charles threw himself on the bed in what Edith could only describe as a 'pet'. 'Christ! I don't know why we didn't just go to Trafalgar Square and set up a tent.'

Edith lay down next to him. 'Oh, darling, it doesn't matter. I'm sure everyone just does what they want anyway. We'll be able to push off by ourselves.' Actually she was feeling rather guilty as when Caroline was speaking she, Edith, suddenly realised that she was rather relieved to discover it wasn't just going to be the four of them after all. From what she knew of him she didn't like Eric much, Caroline she found rather intimidating and she had to admit that she was feeling just the teeniest bit talked-out with Charles. 'It'll be much easier later when we've done more together,' she said to herself but it was with a faintly sinking feeling that she realised she could already predict what his opinion would be on more or less any given topic. As a sort of private game with herself, she had begun to introduce odd items into the conversation, like psycho synthesis or the Dalai Lama, in the hope of catching herself out and being surprised by something he said. So far she hadn't dropped a point.

They met the rest of the party when they assembled that evening on the top terrace. Edith had been nervous of Caroline during the courting months for the simple reason that Caroline was a good deal more intelligent than Charles, and Edith was half afraid that she would try to put him, if not off her, at least on his guard. This may well have been true but Caroline, snobbish and egocentric as she was, was not essentially bad-hearted. Now that Edith was her sister-in-law she was determined to get on with her and she was equally determined that Charles, of whom she was extremely, if rather parentally, fond, should have a happy stay. All this Edith saw in the genuine smiles and the slightly touching arrangements of festive nibbles and champagne on ice as they walked across the sitting room and out through the glass doors to join the others. All the women wore expensive cocktail, rather than evening, frocks and all the men were in open-necked shirts. They looked oddly mismatched, like a bad hand in Happy Families. Jane Cumnor was the most over-dressed in strapless black moiré, but she held no threat any more for Edith who was quite content in off-the-shoulder cotton. Since they had last met properly she had breached Jane's citadel and Edith was anyway the prettier woman. Their relationship had subtly altered overnight, a fact of which Jane was quite as aware as Edith. She sidled over to plant a lipsticky kiss on the cheek of the bride. Henry lumbered across and pushed his face against hers. In his brightly coloured summer clothes he resembled a nineteenth-century bathing-machine. Edith wondered if his shirt might suddenly open to reveal a timorous swimmer in stripes. Caroline raised her glass:

'Welcome to the family.'

'Yes,' said Eric, who was standing behind the others nearer the edge of the terrace. 'Well done, Edith.'

The others noticed but ignored his tone and raised their glasses to the name, making the salutation sound more normal.

Edith smiled and she and Charles drank their thanks and everyone sat down.

The moonlit sea glittered behind their heads as they sprawled and chattered on their cushioned wicker, champagne in their hands, the women in their couture dresses, diamonds twinkling in their ears. As she lay there, curled up against the squashy Liberty prints, more spectator than participant, Edith found herself warmed by the enveloping luxury of privilege. All the years of her growing up she had wanted not just to avoid being a have-not but to be an emphatic have and now, at last, just at the moment when she had begun to face the possibility of failure, here she was, living her dream. This gaggle of lords and millionaires was a sample of her set from now on, this exotic setting the first of many. Just as a driver can see distant mountains across a desert far before him and then realise that he is up in those very mountains without being aware of their coming nearer, so Edith pondered with wonder her progress from the respectable haut bourgeois life of Elm Park Gardens and Milner Street to this cross between an American soap-opera and a novel by Laclos.

The first evening passed uneventfully enough. Edith knew everyone there except for a lacklustre blonde who seemed to have come with Peter and Eric's friends, the Watsons. Of these the husband, Bob, was dull and rather common but the wife, Annette, though also common, was pretty and funny and Edith warmed to her. She had been a model and an actress in the early eighties before her marriage and was full of hilarious anecdotes about various Roman epics and Spanish westerns she had appeared in. She babbled away through dinner, which was served in the loggia/dining room that opened onto the courtyard, and saved Edith from the Name Exchange, which she knew was all she could expect from the others.

Charles was more non-committal about their fellow guests. 'Well, she's got plenty to say for herself, I'll give her that,' was his only comment as he turned the light out.

'I like her. She's funny.'

'Don't speak too soon.' In some mysterious way she felt reprimanded, although his tone had not been angry, and it was with a vague feeling of apprehension, like a child who expects a beating the next day, that Edith lay back on the pillow. Nor was her thought-train interrupted before sleep set in as it was the first night, since their marriage, that they did not make love.

The next morning Edith woke late and found herself alone. With a delicious, almost tangible sense of well-being she rang for breakfast as she had been bidden to do and settled back into her habitual review of the life that lay ahead. The maid arrived with her tray and told her that the others had already eaten and were down on the jetty so as soon as she was ready she put on a bathing suit, took up a towel and set off down the steep paved stairs that were cut into the rock below the villa. She could see the Chases, the Cumnors and Charles, but there was no sign of the rest of the party. On the jetty itself she waved a hello to everyone, spread out her towel and lay down, letting the soft, woolly warmth of the southern sun wash over her body.

Charles threw himself down next to her, spraying her with drops of sea and gave her a salty kiss. 'Good morning, darling.' She smiled and kissed him back.

'What shall we do today? Just lie here and drink up the sun?'

Caroline answered her. 'We thought we might go into Calaratjada for lunch and then the Franks have asked us for tea.

You're all included.'

'Who are the Franks?'

'They're this rather extraordinary family who are fearfully rich and they have a collection of sculpture that apparently must not be missed.'

'Why are they so rich and how do you know them?'

'To the first, God knows. Something to do with Franco so we'd better not ask, and to the second, we don't, but Mummy's godmother to one of their nephews in Rome and she let them know we were going to be here.'

Edith lay back and closed her eyes. This great network, this web that reached far beyond national boundaries, that crossed seas and mountain ranges, need not threaten her any more because now she was part of it. And soon, in Vienna or Dublin or Rome, people would be saying, 'I saw Edith Broughton when I was in London. She says they might be in New York in September…' and this would be greeted by some member of the Inner Circle saying, 'Edith? How is she?' or better still, 'I'm so mad about Edith. Aren't you?' and thus would be excluded all those other people in all those rooms in Vienna or Dublin or Rome who did not know Edith Broughton; and they would feel the poorer and the more middle-class for it, which would have been the intention of the name-droppers who would then go away satisfied that they had once again asserted their caste. In all this Edith would play her part by being the kind of person it is hard to meet unless you are in her set. And just for a moment on this particular morning, with the sun caressing her eyelids and the children shouting on the distant beach, Edith pondered the ultimate purpose of this endless raising and lowering of barriers.

There was a terrific thud near her and she opened her eyes to see the awe-inspiring sight of Henry Cumnor stretching out to sunbathe. If anything he looked even larger without his clothes, like a seaside postcard captioned 'Where's my little willy?'

'What about the others? We can't all go to these wretched people, can we?' He spoke undirected, straight up into the air, so that he should not have the inconvenience of moving more than his lips.

Caroline shrugged. 'I don't see why not. I said there were lots of us.' She had that curiously English upper-class belief that whatever the occasion, however much people have put themselves out, even when, as now, total strangers extend their hospitality as a duty, still she, Lady Caroline Chase, was doing them a favour. It is impossible for such people to conceive that they have not necessarily honoured a house by entering it. Consequently, because of this sense of having blessed her hosts by her presence, Caroline made no effort whatsoever with anyone outside her own crowd and despite being an intelligent woman could be a crushingly boring guest. Something of which neither she nor the many others of her kind who are just like her have any suspicion. 'We'll ask them when they come down,' she said.

'How long are they staying?' said Jane, propping herself up on her elbows and reaching for the oil.

'Who? Peter or the others?'

'Oh, not darling Peter. "Bob" and "Annette".' Jane spoke their names in inverted commas, distancing herself from them to make it clear to her listeners that she did not consider them as ordinary members of the house-party but rather as strange specimens of an alien culture. This was carefully judged.

'Tuesday or Wednesday, I think.' Caroline looked over to Eric who nodded and wrinkled his nose. He was quite clear about which team he wished to be on.

'Crikey,' said Henry. 'Who's in the listening chair this evening?' They all laughed.

Edith felt an irresistible urge to tear up her membership of the Club. 'Is this Annette you're talking about?' she said in a tone of feigned disbelief. 'How funny you are. I really like her.'

Henry was unfazed. 'Well, you can sit next to her at dinner. I hope you're ready to discuss her film career ad nauseam.'

Edith smiled. 'Why? What would you rather talk about? The people you all know in Shropshire?' She lay back with her smile still intact and her eyes closed, relishing the awkward silence like a naughty schoolgirl.

'I'm not often in Shropshire, actually.' Henry rolled away from her, bloated and breathless, like a beached whale far from the water.

'I'm going for a swim,' said Charles.

They lunched late on paella with too much squid in it in an open-air restaurant overlooking the harbour with its bobbing flotilla of yachts and then set off in two cars for the Franks's house, which lay outside the town on the edge of the sea and appeared to be entirely surrounded, on the land-locked frontier at any rate, by a high stone wall, topped with broken glass.

The gates were not gates but rather iron doors, which swung open automatically when they identified themselves and then clanged shut, only just missing the rear fender of the second vehicle. 'Well, they're obviously not expecting two cars,' said Annette with a laugh.

Undaunted, Caroline, who was driving the first car with Edith, Annette and Henry, ploughed on through the enormous, empty pleasure gardens. Tantalising glimpses through the trees of Henry Moores and Giacomettis flashed past until rounding a huge clump of rhododendra they came to a fork in the road. One led apparently up to a nineteenth-century castle that was perched on the highest point of the estate, which Edith had assumed was their destination, while the other, incredibly, pointed the way to another house, as large as the first only modern, which had been built at the water's edge. It was too low, with its balconies thrusting out barely higher than the waves, to be seen from the road.

'Which one do we go to?' said Edith.

'The bottom one. Mrs Frank likes to be near the sea.'

'What happens up on the hill?'

Caroline looked suitably vague. 'I think it's mainly for the grandchildren.'

'Blimey O'Reilly,' said Annette and Edith noted with interest that no one else would acknowledge the strangeness, the orgiastic luxury that they were witnessing. She was beginning to understand it is a point of honour in that world that one must never be overawed by any display of wealth, no matter how fabulous. To register that riches on any scale are not routine, even mundane, is to risk being 'middle-class' — a sector of society to which many of them spend most of their lives proving to no one in particular that they do not belong. There are exceptions to this rule. It is possible to exclaim, 'How simply lovely!' but it is done in such a way as to show generosity rather than awe on the part of the speaker. Better yet, 'My dear, how grand!' This in a tone to show that the decoration, menu, whatever, is excessive and verging perilously close to vulgar. Lady Uckfield was particularly adept at crushing with smiling enthusiasm. These are hard skills for the novice though and Edith did well not to attempt them.

A white-coated footman took the party through the gleaming marble rooms out on to the terrace where Mrs Frank, a sun-beaten, robust figure, reclined in a brightly coloured cotton sarong, chunky bracelets bouncing and rattling against her sinewy, masculine arms. She waved them all over towards her.

Caroline took charge. 'How do you do?' she said lazily. 'I'm Caroline Chase.'

She started to indicate the other members of the party, deliberately pausing a fraction of a second before the three non-Broughton guests, Bob, Annette and Peter's girl, as if to demonstrate to Mrs Frank that they were not in the first circle and she need not therefore bother with them. Mrs Frank took the signal and welcomed the outsiders with a perceptibly cooler smiling nod than the one she reserved for the principals.

'You must be the bride,' she said, rising and taking Edith by the arm to lead them back into the house. Edith smelled the strong musk of her scent and watched the leathery creases move around the thin, scarlet-greased mouth. 'How are you enjoying Mallorca?'

'We only arrived last night. It seems lovely so far.' She smiled back into the glassy, bored eyes of her grinning hostess.

'You must let us entertain you while you're here. Tell me, how is darling Googie?'

'She's fine. She and Tigger are in Scotland.' As the words came out, Edith realised that this was the first time she had spoken these ludicrous nicknames out loud. Before her marriage she had privately determined to address her inlaws as Harriet and John, but already the unspoken urgings of intimacy, of club-membership, which rippled through Mrs Frank, had made her break her vow because the truth was that whatever she might say to her friends, she did not want to be the 'foreign' daughter-in-law. She did not want people to sympathise with Lady Uckfield that Charles had not done better. She wanted her mother-in-law to be congratulated on her, Edith's, brilliance, on her taste, on her charm, on her entertaining. And so Edith learned the first lesson of why England has had no revolutions, of what has emasculated so many careers from Edward IV's queen to Ramsay MacDonald. Namely that the way to deal with a troublesome outsider is to let him in, to make him a convert with a convert's zeal and in no time he will be plus Catholique que le Pape. Learning this lesson did not reduce Edith's resentment of the forces that taught it to her but she had another heady moment of realising she was now a member of the Gang. It made her feel powerful. She turned and smiled at Charles.

A tour of the sculptures had been planned and the party set off. As they came out of the front door they were approached by a young, rather stringy woman, a reduced, ferret-sized version of Mrs Frank. She had obviously just been playing tennis and carried a slightly oversized racket in front of her, covering her face, half shield, half fan. Their hostess introduced her as her niece, Tina. Unlike her aunt the girl was painfully shy. She fell into step with them as she was quite clearly commanded to do but mutely, only muttering miserable, whispered answers if she was directly addressed.

They passed a swimming pool, cut into a small cliff above the sea, and Edith heard Annette asking about the terracotta vases that surrounded it, apparently continually filling it with faintly steaming water.

'They are Roman,' said Tina almost inaudibly. 'My uncle had them brought up from a wreck off the coast near here.'

'And now they're plumbed in?'

'What is "plumbed in" excuse me?'

Charles cut off Annette rather irritably. 'She means that now they're used to feed the pool.'

'Yes. With sea water.'

'Sea water? Warmed sea water?'

Tina nodded. 'It's much better for you, no? We have another pool with clear water but I think this is good, no?'

Annette was silent for a while. She was clearly beginning to agree with the others — that she was out of her depth. The group had stopped on a terrace dripping with bougainvillea where a large male torso by Rodin stood on a marble plinth. They murmured and admired. Mrs Frank turned to Caroline and started to enquire about various mutual friends. She appeared to resent the fact that she had not been asked to Charles's wedding, as many of her queries ended by an assumption that 'they must have been at the reception', and time and again Caroline was forced to admit that they had been. The names rippled out as they climbed from terrace to terrace, against the deep azure blue of the Mediterranean sky. Had they seen the Esterhazys?

the Polignacs? the Devonshires? the Metternichs? the Frescobaldis? Names torn from history books, names that Edith knew from studies of Philip II of Spain, or the Risorgimento, or the French Revolution, or the Congress of Vienna. And yet here they were, stripped of any real significance. They had simply become court cards, rich court cards, in the game of Name Exchange. These were high stakes indeed and Edith noticed with some amusement that Jane Cumnor and Eric had dropped back with Tina, no doubt anxious to avoid the left-out feeling that it pleased them to inflict on others. Caroline and Charles were unfazed. It was clear that whatever the extent of the Frank millions they could match name for name and top them too.

And so the afternoon passed in a litany of duchesses intoned against a background of art enshrined by money. An hour and three quarters after setting out they were back at the modern palace-by-the-sea.

On the terrace a tea had been set out 'English-style', that is to say 'American-hotel-style' and three white-coated footmen waited to serve it. Mrs Frank led them to their chairs. Peter's girl, Bob and Annette were thoroughly squashed by this time and secretly longing to regain the villa and turn this flattening experience into a funny story. Eric brought up the rear, red-faced with his exertions and clearly irritated that his social ignorance had excluded him from the conversation that had revolved around his wife for most of the afternoon. He dumped down onto a chaise next to Edith and seized a proffered cup.

Mrs Frank turned her attention back to the bride. 'Tell me, was Hilary Weston at the wedding? Someone said she was stuck in Canada.'

Eric looked up with a snort. 'No good asking Edith, is it, old girl? You'll have to wait until she's done a bit more training.'

Edith ignored him. By some merciful providence it so happened that she had spoken to Mrs Weston for quite a time at the reception. She thanked her patron saint as she spoke chattily across Eric making no reference to him. 'No, she was there.

Galen was in Florida and couldn't get back. I suppose that's what they were thinking of.'

Mrs Frank nodded, casting a slightly strange look at Eric. 'She does so much! I feel like a sloth when I think of her.' She moved on. Edith had passed.

Eric lay back and looked at her: 'Well done. Ten out of ten.'

She stared back at him, holding every inch of gained ground. 'Do you know Hilary?'

'I know her as well as you do,' said Eric, and stood up to join Caroline at the other end of the terrace. This interchange was oddly refreshing to Edith because it established beyond any doubt that Eric was her enemy in the family circle. There was no pretence necessary any longer and, best of all, in their first round, Edith had won.

She was singing in the shower when Charles came in to change for dinner later that evening. He smiled. 'You seem very happy. Did you enjoy yourself today? What a collection! What a place!' Even in these circles amazement is not forbidden in private between consenting adults and Charles clearly felt he had been unimpressed for long enough.

'I'll say. And yes, I am happy.' She turned off the tap and kissed him, standing there wet and naked.

The next few minutes, indeed the rest of the evening, were as agreeable as any she had known with Charles and it was with a sense of victory and well-being that she climbed into bed that night.

Charles turned to her. 'I gather the Franks want to give us a dinner before we go.'

She pulled a slight face. 'Oh dear. I suppose we have to?'

'Come on, darling,' said Charles. 'It's good of them and they're not that bad.'

'The old girl's not that bad but the niece is a nightmare.'

He laughed. 'I thought she was rather sweet. We must be kind.'

Edith propped herself up on her elbows beside him. 'Why is it that when someone like Annette is talkative and funny you all cold-shoulder her and wrinkle your noses behind her back and yet with Tina Frank, who must be the most boring and inconsequential young woman I have ever met, you make excuses and pretend that she's a dear?'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'Yes, you do, Charles.' She felt oddly confident, almost breezy. For the first time since her marriage she began to sense that she really was Lady Broughton. She had managed things well and according to the ancient tradition she was 'entitled to her own opinions'. She continued, smilingly severe. 'You know very well. And I'll tell you the answer. Annette does not know the people we know and Tina does and Tina has a hundred million besides. I don't know, darling, doesn't it ever make you wonder? Just a bit?' Edith was feeling her oats. She smiled at her husband quizzically, shaking her head slightly, imagining how charming her hair must look, rippling against her neck.

Charles stared at her. 'Who are all these people that you and Tina Frank know?' he said sourly and turned out the light.

PART TWO

Forte-Piano

NINE

I did not see a great deal of Edith in the months after she had returned from her honeymoon although they were in London from time to time. She did not apparently care for her mother-in-law's lair in Cadogan Square but they used Charles's little flat in Eaton Place and occasionally they would come up for a party or a show. I ran into them at a couple of dinners and I was asked for a drink with a few others in their tiny second-floor sitting room one day in October but there wasn't much of an opportunity for talk. Edith looked happy enough and had already begun to acquire that patina of the privileged, the faint, touch-me-not aura of luxe that marks such people apart from us mortals, and I was amused to trace the beginnings of an hauteur starting to obliterate the lucky girl from Fulham. I didn't see them at all in the build-up to Christmas and I was just beginning to feel myself drifting out of their circle when I received a letter tucked into a card, not from Edith but from Charles, asking me for a day's shooting in January. It was to be a Friday so I was asked for dinner and the night on the Thursday and, since nothing further was specified, I was presumably intended to vanish after the shoot to make way for the arrival of Saturday's guests. The lateness of the invitation meant that someone had chucked, but it was no less attractive for that and I knew (for once) that I was going to be free on the date in question. I had already been booked to be villain-of-the-week in one of those endless boy-and-girl-detective series, which was due to start five days after the date proposed so I wrote back accepting and received, almost by return, directions by road or rail. These told me which train to be on if that was how I would be travelling or alternatively to arrive at the house at about six o'clock.

I enjoy shooting. This I know is as difficult for one's kind-hearted London theatrical friends to understand as it is easy for the country-bred fraternity but I do not propose to launch into a defence of blood sports since I have never encountered anyone of either opinion who could be swayed. While I must say that there does not seem much logic in people gaily eating battery-processed food and objecting to conservation-conscious game-keepers, still I accept that there is not necessarily a logical basis for all or even any of one's feelings. At all events, at that time in my life, most of my sport had been of the country shoot variety and so it was with a sense of pleasurable anticipation that I set off for what promised to be a real, Edwardian Grand Battu.

I knew the way well enough, as I had often been down for weekends with the Eastons, but getting out of London to the South can be a nightmare and so I was in the habit of leaving time for hold-ups. On this occasion, I had not allowed for the fact that I was making the journey on Thursday instead of Friday and so, after a comparatively free run, I arrived at Broughton not much after half past five. The butler who went by the unlikely name of Jago told me that Lady Uckfield and Lady Broughton were in the yellow drawing room finishing a committee meeting of some sort.

Having no desire to join in — the committees one is forced to attend are bad enough — I settled into a surprisingly comfortable velvet-and-gilt William Kent armchair in the Marble Hall. I didn't have very long to wait before the door opened to release some of the members, muttering fawning farewells to Edith who was in the process of showing them out. She broke away.

'Hello,' she said. 'I didn't know you were here.'

'I'm rather early so I thought I'd wait instead of coming in to spoil your fun.'

She sagged her shoulders with a comic sigh. 'Some fun!' she said. 'Come and have a cup of stewed tea.' Ignoring the nods and smiles of the departing ones, she led the way back into the room. They did not object to this treatment. Far from it. The net result of her cutting them in order to greet me was simply to make them include me in their deferential smiles as they sidled towards the staircase. I imagine they thought that I too had been touched by the golden wand.

The remaining members of the committee, the usual collection of provincial intellectuals, tightly permed councillors and farmers mad with boredom, were in the final stages of leaving. Some of them had that dilatory manner of collecting their things together, which betrays a resolve to 'catch' somebody before they go. The prey that most of the lingerers were after was, of course, Lady Uckfield, who was ensconced in a pretty, buttoned chair by the chimney-piece, surrounded by admirers. A few of the aspirants, disconcerted by the competition, made do with five minutes of Edith and left. I approached my hostess, who rose to greet me with a kiss, which was a kind of signal to the entourage that the audience was over.

'Goodbye, Lady Uckfield,' said a black councillor in a baggy artist's smock, 'and thank you.'

'No, thank you.' Lady Uckfield spoke with her usual intimate urgency. 'I gather you're doing the most marvellous things down in Cramney. I hear it's simply buzzing. I can't wait to come and see for myself.'

Her companion beamed, shedding his Socialism on the spot. 'We will be most glad to see you there.' He retreated, wreathed in smiles.

'Where's Cramney?' I said.

Lady Uckfield shrugged. 'Some ghastly little place in Kent. Do you want some tea?'

By the time I made it to my room, my things had been unpacked and my evening shirt, tie, socks and cummerbund lay waiting for me. There was, however, no sign of my clean underpants. I hunted around through various drawers and was just in the process of searching under the bed when I heard a voice behind me. 'What can you be looking for?' I turned and saw Tommy Wainwright standing in the doorway that connected my room, aka the Garden Room, with its larger neighbour, the Rose Velvet Room, where Tommy was billeted. Actually, despite these impressive titles, the chambers themselves were rather small, having been squeezed into a sort of mezzanine floor at one side of the house. They had been created by the architect as part of an arrangement to provide a score of secondary bedrooms while only messing up one end facade of the house.

Consequently, despite the fragrant names, these chambers overlooked the stable yard, had eight-foot ceilings, and faced north.

We hunted around for my missing undergarment for a bit, then gave up, abandoning it to its fate. Presumably, to this day, a rather old pair of pants is still wedged at the back of some drawer in the Garden Room of Broughton Hall. Tommy retreated to his chamber and returned with a small bottle of Scotch and two tooth glasses. 'Essential equipment for hotels and house-parties,' he said, and poured us both a slug.

'Are they mean with the booze?' I asked. I have often been surprised at the fantastic discomfort and deprivation the grand English are prepared to put their friends (and total strangers) through, particularly in my youth. I've been shown into bathrooms that could just about manage a cold squirt of brown water, bedrooms with doors that don't shut, blankets like tissue, and pillows like rocks. I have driven an hour cross-country to lunch with some grand relations of my father, who gave me one sausage, two small potatoes and twenty-eight peas. Once, during a house-party for a ball in Hampshire, I was so cold that I ended up piling all my clothes, with two threadbare towels, onto the bed and then holding all this together with a worn square of Turkish carpet — the only bit of floor-covering in the room. When my hostess woke me the next day, she made no comment on the fact that I was sleeping in a sort of webbing sarcophagus and clearly could not have been less interested in whether I had ever shut my eyes. When one thinks of the Edwardians who revelled in luxury it seems odd that their grandchildren should be so impervious to it. Recently I have detected that the comfort demanded by new money is effecting a slow improvement in the houses of the anciens riches but, heavens, what a time it's taken.

Tommy shook his head in answer to my question. 'No, no. They're not mean at all. Not a bit of it. Lord U chucks it down everyone's throat. It's just too complicated to try and get a dressing drink.'

We sat and gossiped for a bit and I asked if Tommy had seen a lot of the Broughtons.

He shook his head. 'Not really. They're always down here. I must say, I'm quite surprised that Edith is content to coddle the village and give away prizes without taking a breather but the fact is they're hardly in London at all.'

I too found this slightly unlikely. Particularly as the young couple were still living in the big house with Charles's parents.

There had been plans to renovate one of the farm houses when they were first married and I asked Tommy if he knew how it was coming along.

'I'm not sure they're going on with that,' he said. 'I gather they've gone off the idea.'

'Really?'

'I know. It's funny, isn't it? She wants to stay here and her in-laws are delighted, so Brook Farm will probably be finished quickly and let.'

'Do they have a flat in the house, then?'

'Not as such. Some sort of upstairs sitting room for Edith and Charles has his study, of course. But that's it. Rather like one of those American soap-operas, when they're all worth a hundred million and they still cram together in one house with a big staircase.'

I shook my head. 'I suppose Charles likes the set-up here but it seems rather tiresome for a bride.'

Just as Charles, like all his breed, was not immune to the sense of getting 'special' treatment wherever he went — in fact, as Edith had already observed, he resented its being withheld from him — so I could understand that, after a lifetime of pretending he was unaware of the extraordinary baroque surroundings of his life, it would be hard actually to give them up.

The English upper-classes have a deep, subconscious need to read their difference in the artefacts about them. Nothing is more depressing (or less convincing) to them than the attempt to claim some rank or position, some family background, some genealogical distinction, without the requisite acquaintance and props. They would not dream of decorating a bed sitting room in Putney without the odd watercolour of a grandmother in a crinoline, two or three decent antiques and preferably a relic of a privileged childhood. These things are a kind of sign language that tell the visitor where in the class system the owner places him or herself. But, above all things, the real marker for them, the absolute litmus test, is whether or not a family has retained its house and its estates. Or a respectable proportion of them. You may overhear a nobleman explaining to some American visitor that money is not important in England, that people can stay in Society without a bean, that land is 'more of a liability, these days', but in his heart, he does not believe any of these things. He knows that the family that has lost everything but its coronet, those duchesses in small houses near Cheyne Walk, those viscounts with little flats in Ebury Street, lined as they may be with portraits and pictures of the old place ('It's some sort of farmers' training college, nowadays'), these people are all déclassé to their own kind. It goes without saying that this consciousness of the need for the materialisation of rank is as unspoken as the Masonic ritual.

Of course, the Broughton position was an unusually solid one. Few were the families in the 1990s that held their sway and the day would dawn when Charles would enter Broughton Hall as its owner. Still, listening to Tommy, I suspected he might have dreaded the possibility that people, awe-struck as they shook his hand in the Marble Hall, could make the mistake, on finding him at home in a chintz-decorated farmhouse sitting room, of thinking that he was an Ordinary Person. In this, however, I was wrong.

Tommy shook his head. 'No, Charles wouldn't mind. Not now he's used to the idea.' He paused for thought and then decided against it. 'Oh, well. I must get changed.'

We assembled for dinner in the drawing room that the family generally used, a pretty apartment on the garden front, much less cumbrous than the adjacent Red Saloon where we had gathered for the engagement dinner. There were a few vaguely familiar faces besides Tommy. Peter Broughton was there, though apparently without his dreary blonde. Old Lady Tenby's eldest daughter, Daphne, now married to the rather dim second son of a Midlands earl, was talking to Caroline Chase in the corner. They looked up and smiled carefully across the room. Filled with trepidation, I looked around for Eric and saw him scoffing whisky as he lectured some poor old boy on the present state of the City. The listener stood looking into Eric's red face with all the pleasure of a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

'What would you like to drink?' Lady Uckfield stood by my elbow and sent Jago off to fetch a glass of Scotch and water.

She followed my glance. 'Heavens! Eric seems to be making very large small talk.'

I smiled. 'Who is the lucky recipient of his confidences?'

'Poor dear Henri de Montalambert.'

For some reason or other, I knew that the Duc de Montalambert was a relation of the Broughtons by marriage. His was not a particularly smart dukedom by French standards (they, having so many more than we do, can afford to grade them) since it had only been given by Louis XVIII in 1820, but a marriage in the 1890s to the heiress of a Cincinnati steel king, had placed the family up there alongside the Trémouilles and the Uzès. Lady Uckfield had referred to him in the manner in which one speaks of an old family friend, but since she always disguised her true feelings about anyone, even from herself, I was, as usual, unable to gauge the true degree of intimacy. 'He looks a bit dazed,' I said.

She nodded with a suppressed giggle. 'I can't imagine what he's making of it all. He hardly speaks a word of English.

Never mind. Eric won't notice.' She accepted my laugh as tribute and then rebuked me for it. 'Now, you're not to make me unkind.'

'How long is Monsieur de Montalambert staying?'

Lady Uckfield pulled a face. 'All three days. What are we to do? I'm still at où est la plume de ma tante, and Tigger can hardly manage encore. Henri married a cousin of ours thirty years ago and I doubt if we've exchanged as many words since.'

'Is there an English-speaking duchesse, then?'

'There was. But since she was deaf and is dead, she cannot help us now. I don't suppose you speak French?'

'I do a bit,' I said with a sinking heart. In my mind's eye, I could see the re-shuffling of place cards and the endless, sticky translated conversation that lay ahead.

She caught my look. 'Cheer up, you'll have Edith between you.' She darted one of her flirtatious, birdlike glances at me.

'How do you find our bride?'

'She's looking very well,' I said. 'In fact, I've never seen her prettier.'

'Yes, she does look well.' Lady Uckfield hesitated for a fraction of a second. 'I only hope she finds it amusing down here.

She's been the most marvellous success, you know. The trouble is they all love her so much that it's frightfully hard not to rope her into sharing all the wretched duties. I'm afraid I've been rather selfish in unloading the cares of state.'

'Knowing Edith, I bet she enjoys all that. It's a step up on answering a telephone in Milner Street.'

Lady Uckfield smiled. 'Well, as long as it is.'

'She seems to have given up London so you must be doing something right.'

'Yes,' she said briskly. 'If they're happy, that's the main thing, isn't it?'

She drifted away to greet some new arrivals. It struck me that I had missed some nuance in the coiled recesses of Lady Uckfield's perfectly ordered mind.

The dinner, as predicted, was rather leaden. I had Daphne Bolingbroke, Lady Tenby's coolly pleasant daughter, on my right, so I was all right for the first course but behind me I could hear Edith struggling gamely with M. de Montalambert on her other side and, in truth, I found it quite hard to concentrate on my own conversation. The trouble was that Edith's French and her neighbour's English were more or less on a par. That is, terrible but not so non-existent as to preclude all effort. It would have been simpler if neither had commanded a word of the other's language but they had, alas, just enough vocabulary to be utterly confusing. Edith kept maundering on about bits of Paris being so 'bon' and London being 'épouvantable' with M. de Montalambert alternately looking completely blank or, worse, when he thought he had understood her observation, answering with a swirling torrent of French of which Edith could barely catch more than the first word or two.

The courses changed and I turned to rescue Edith from her travails but M. de Montalambert declined to obey the English regulations and refused to give her up. Instead, grasping at the slight improvement in communication that my moderate French offered him, he launched into a passionate denunciation of the French government, which had reference, in some mystifying way that was quite lost on me, to Louis XVIII's minister, the Duc Decazes.

'What are we talking about?' said Edith softly under the apparently unstoppable Gallic flow.

'God knows. The French Restoration, I think.'

'Crikey.'

In truth, we were both completely worn out by this time and longing for a reprieve but the Duc resolutely ignored Lady Uckfield on his left and she, needless to say, could not have been more delighted to set aside the conventions this once.

The Duc paused and smiled. I sensed a change of topic. Perversely, having discovered that my French was better than Edith's, he decided it was time to demonstrate his grasp of English. 'You like sex?' he said pleasantly. 'You find you come often?'

At exactly this moment Edith was drinking some of her water and so of course did a massive nose trick. Seizing her napkin, she tried vainly to pass it off as a fit of coughing. To my right I could feel Daphne shaking with silent laughter. A desperate schoolroom hysteria was enveloping the table.

'I think,' said Lady Uckfield, who sensed the whiff of civic unrest, 'that Henri is asking if you are familiar with Sussex.' She spoke firmly, like a schoolmistress with a rowdy troop of children, but inevitably her statement gave rise to another terrible wave of giggles among us all. Edith was literally red in the face and almost weeping in her attempts to control her mirth.

At this point Charles looked up. He had naturally missed everything. 'Darling,' he said, 'do you know what I've done with my other gun sleeve? Richard wants to borrow it tomorrow and I cannot think where it is.'

His words achieved what his mother's had failed to do. They fell like a heavy fire-blanket on the burgeoning hilarity and effectively stifled it. There was a flat pause before Edith spoke. 'You lent it to Billy Westbrook,' she said. And as she turned back to her tiresome neighbour, she caught my eye. It was at that moment, hearing Edith's patient answer and sensing her weariness, that I began to realise her bargain had perhaps not been an easy one.

I was up early the next day, but when I arrived in the dining room, most of the house-party was already there, munching away at the splendid, fin de siècle breakfast that was spread out in silver chafing dishes along the sideboard. I helped myself to various cholesterol-rich preparations and took my plate over to an empty chair next to Tommy.

'Do we draw numbers, or do they just tell us where to stand?' I asked.

'Numbers. Charles has got a frightfully swanky silver thing with numbered spills in it. We do it when we assemble in the hall. The great thing is not to draw the place next to Eric.'

I could think of any number of reasons to follow this advice but from Tommy's expression, I gathered that simple self-preservation was the main one. As it happened, I was only one away from Chase, with the hapless M. de Montalambert between us. I could see his face fall when he pulled his number, although it might have been simply because he dreaded another Pound-versus-Euro lecture. I had Peter Broughton on my right. There were eight guns in all and of these four had loaders, so what with wives, dogs etcetera, we made quite a party as we stepped out to be stowed into the team of Range Rovers that waited on the gravel. Edith, I noticed, was not among us. The reason for this I discovered after the third drive when she appeared with thermoses of delicious bouillon laced with vodka (or plain for the virtuous). 'Can I come and stand by you, or will I put you off?' she asked.

'Come, by all means. I can't be put off. I miss alone or accompanied. Won't Charles mind?'

'No. He's much happier with George. He says I talk too much.'

They were driving a high wood, quite a way from the house and the guns were placed in a semi-circle around the base. I had originally drawn the number two, so now, on the fourth drive of the morning, I was in position eight and at the end of the line. Edith and I pottered across the field to the numbered stick that beckoned me, and there we waited.

'Do you really enjoy this?' she said, moving over and leaning against the post-and-rail fence.

'Certainly I do. I wouldn't be here if I didn't.'

'I thought you might have accepted to study me in my splendour.'

'You're right. I might have done. But, as it happens, I do enjoy it. It was kind of you to get Charles to ask me.'

'Oh, it wasn't my idea.' She paused. 'I mean, of course, I'm perfectly thrilled you accepted, but it was Googie who proposed you.' She had long ceased to notice that she used her in-laws' tiresome nicknames.

'Then it was kind of her.'

'Googie is seldom kind for no reason.'

'Well, I can't imagine what her reason could be.' The whistle sounded so I loaded my gun and stared at the tops of the trees. If anything, my turning away from Edith seemed to relax her.

'She's worried about me. She thinks I'm bored and you'll cheer me up. She imagines that you're a good influence.'

'I can't think why.'

'She thinks you'll remind me how lucky I am.'

'And aren't you?' Edith made a wry face and stretched along the fence. 'Oh dear,' I said. 'Don't tell me you're bored already.'

'Yes.'

I sighed slightly. I cannot pretend the idea of Edith's discovering that kind hearts mean more than coronets and simple faith than Norman blood was exactly surprising. I suppose I'd thought it was bound to happen sooner or later but even bearing the previous evening in mind, this really did seem unreasonably early. Like most of her friends, I hoped that by the time she had made the time-honoured discovery that you can only sleep in one bed or eat one meal at a time she would have children to give her a genuine and unfeigned interest in her new life. And after all, whatever one might say of Charles, he did have a kind heart and, I would have thought, a pretty simple faith. I could feel an admonishing spirit rising in me as I spoke.

'What exactly are you bored with? Charles? Or the life? Or just the country? What?'

She didn't answer and my attention was taken by an extremely high bird heading my way. I vainly lifted my gun and blasted away. The pheasant flew merrily on.

'I must say,' I continued, becoming slightly more conciliatory, 'it seems a bit rough to be starting your married life under the same roof as your parents-in-law — capacious as that roof may be.'

'It isn't that. They offered us Brook Farm.'

'Why didn't you take it?'

Edith shrugged. 'I don't know. It seemed rather — poky.'

Of course, it was suddenly quite clear that the real problem was she was bored to sobs with her husband. Her life was just about acceptable in the magnificent surroundings of Broughton Hall where there were people to talk to and where there was always the heady wine of envy in others' eyes to drink but to be alone with Charles in a farmhouse… That was out of the question.

'If you're so bored, why don't you spend more time in London? We never see you there, now.'

Edith stared at her green Wellington boots. 'I don't know. The flat's tiny and Charles hates it so. And it's always such a bloody production.'

'Couldn't you sneak up on your own?'

Edith stared at me. 'No, I don't think so. I don't think I should, do you?'

I stared back for a moment. 'No,' I said.

So that was it. She had barely been married eight months and already her husband bored her to death. On top of that she was afraid of starting up a life in London because she knew that, without a shadow of a doubt, it would engulf her entirely and at once. She was at least sufficiently honourable about the Faustian pact she had made to wish to keep it.

I smiled. 'Well, to quote Nanny: you would do it,' I said. She nodded rather grimly. 'Whom do you see down here? Not much of Isabel, I'll be bound.'

She pulled a face. 'No. Not too much, I'm afraid. I've been made to feel that I've failed David. He keeps dropping hints about shooting for one thing and I simply haven't dared tell them you were coming today.'

'Won't Charles have him?'

'Oh, it's not that. I mean he would if I asked him but, you know, it's just a different crowd whether they like it or not. And David can be a bit…' she paused, 'naff.'

Poor David! That it should come to this! All those years of Ascot and Brooks's and drinks at the Turf! And the end of it was that Edith was embarrassed by him. Harsh world. I was not completely complicit, although of course I knew what she meant.

'You'll have to tell him I was here. I'm not having Isabel finding out and thinking we're in league against her.' Edith nodded.

'What about this "different crowd"? Are they fun?'

She sighed, idly scratching a bit of dried mud from her Barbour. 'Terrific. I know almost everything there is to know about estate planning. I could list the parts of a horse in my sleep. And what I haven't learned about running a charity is, believe me, not worth knowing.'

'You must get about a bit, though. Isn't that quite interesting?'

'Oh, it is! Did you know that in Italy the bowl of water in front of your place is to dip your fruit in, not your fingers? Or that in America you must never discuss acreage? Or that in Spain it is the crudest social solecism to use a knife when eating an egg however it may be cooked?' She paused for breath.

'I didn't know about the egg,' I said. She was silent for a while and I had another go at a bird passing overhead. 'There must be some of them you like.'

'I suppose so.'

'What about the family? Do they know how bored you are?'

'Googie, yes. Not darling old Tigger, of course. He's much too dense to notice anything that doesn't hit him over the head.

Caroline, I think.'

'And Charles?'

Edith looked up at the woods above us for a moment. 'The thing is, he finds it all so riveting that he is quite sure that, as I get into it, I will too. He sees it as a "period of adjustment".'

'That sounds very sensible to me.' Of course, as I said these words, I realised I was failing her by taking Charles's part.

But I couldn't, for the life of me, think of any other line to take. The simple fact remained that she had married a man who was, through no fault of his own, much duller than she was, for the purpose of her own social advancement. That was the deal she had made. No amount of fretting was going to make Charles witty and dynamic, and I already doubted that Edith was prepared to rejoin the mortals on the tier from which she had so lately risen. She had that common twenty-first-century desire, namely to have her cake and her half penny too. 'Surely there must be a lot to do? Didn't you have great schemes of combing the attics and re-writing the guide book?'

'There really isn't anything in the attics except for a lot of Victorian furniture. Googie rescued all the good stuff years ago.

And the librarian got rather ratty when I suggested putting a bit more about the family into the book.' She yawned. 'Anyway, Tigger and Charles were so completely uninterested. They think it's rather common to know too much. It was a bit disheartening in the end.'

'Then you'll have to find something else to take up. I can't believe you're short of offers from the local charities.' Even as I spoke I knew I was sounding more and more like a German governess but the truth was I felt like one, watching this spoiled beauty pouting against the fence.

She sighed drearily. 'So I suppose you're saying I've just got to tough it out?'

'Well, haven't you?'

She caught my eye as the whistle blew. The drive was over and we headed back to the Range Rovers. There we were distracted by a certain amount of fuss and suppressed rage, which appeared to have been caused by Eric Chase firing more or less directly at M. de Montalambert's nose. Eric was, of course, wildly indignant at the very suggestion, while the other side was muttering a collection of extraordinary French phrases, some of which were quite unfamiliar to me. I was appealed to as an independent witness but, needless to say, chatting to Edith, I had missed the whole thing.

Caroline listened to my protestations and nodded her approval. 'Quite right,' she said, blandly. 'I should stay out of it if I were you.'

I wasn't absolutely sure as to what she was referring.

After tea, I was just getting into my car at that slightly awkward moment when one lot of guests leaves and the next contingent draws up, when Charles followed me out across the gravel and came up to the driving window. I wound it down, wondering what I'd forgotten as I'd already done all my goodbyes, tips and signing. 'I meant to tell you,' he said, 'we've had an offer from a film company. My father's a bit blank. It's your neck of the woods. What do you think we ought to do?'

'They want to make a film at Broughton?'

'I don't know if it's a real film or one of those television things, but yes. What are they like? Is it safe?'

As a general rule, speaking as an actor, I wouldn't let a film unit within a mile of my house, under any circumstances, but it is nevertheless true that they are fairly reliable when they are dealing with anything that might qualify as 'historic'. Of course, whether or not it is worth it rather depends, like everything else in life, on what one is getting out of it. The best I could do was give Charles the name of an agency who might know the form for negotiating with film companies and suggest that he did what they told him.

He thanked me and nodded. 'We must stipulate you as part of the contract,' he said with a smile, as I drove away.

TEN

Oddly enough, and in sharp contrast to most of my Show Business acquaintance in similar circumstances, Charles kept his word. The film in question was one of those made-for-television pieces, which gather together as many fashionable actors as are short of money at the time, and run for three interminable hours on Sunday nights.

It was supposed to be the story of the Gunning sisters, an obscure pair of Irish beauties who arrived in London in 1750, took it by storm and married respectively the Earl of Coventry and the Duke of Hamilton. As it happened, the Hamilton marriage was unhappy — a situation rectified by the early death of the Duke — but the widowed Duchess went on, with some panache, to marry her long-term admirer, Colonel John Campbell, himself the heir to the dukedom of Argyll.

This was clearly the stuff of which pseudo-historical mini-series are made. Broughton was to double as both Hamilton Palace (demolished in the twenties) and Inverary (which I suppose was too far from London. Either that or the present Duke of Argyll didn't relish the prospect). In addition, various interiors would be employed for the vanished splendours of Georgian London.

It was to be directed by an Englishman named Christopher Twist, who had enjoyed some success with a couple of zany pieces at the end of the sixties when that style was in vogue and who was still eking out a living on the scraps of his earlier reputation. I knew the casting director, who had been kind to me in the past and I assumed it was due to her that I had been summoned for the quite reasonable part of Walter Creevey (a gossip of the period who had been written up as the double Duchess's confidant, although I don't believe there was much factual evidence of their friendship) but as soon as I had sat down Twist gave the game away. 'I gather you're a close friend of the Earl of Broughton,' he said.

I suppose anyone who lives in Hollywood may be forgiven for falling into American ways as, unlike many other peoples of the globe, Los Angelinos do not appreciate any code but their own. I was nevertheless slightly irritated, not by the misnaming of Charles's title, nor by the clumsiness of referring to his rank in full, but by that most intrusive phrase, 'close friend'. In my experience, anyone who says they are a 'close friend' of some celebrity has generally a slight acquaintance at best. Just as

'sources close to the Royal Couple' in a newspaper means gossip from the outermost circle of Royal hangers-on. 'I know him,' I said.

Twist wasn't put off. 'Well, he thinks very highly of you,' he continued. He had that odd, mid-Atlantic manner of speech that reminds one of a television chat show where every trivial remark is supposed (a) to denote a caring soul and (b) to bring all reasonable conjecture on the subject to an end.

'That's nice,' I said.

'So,' he lay back in his chair, stretching his legs and revealing a pair of cowboy boots covered in frightful Red Indian patterns, 'tell me a little about yourself.'

It is hard for anyone who is not an actor to comprehend fully the level of depression into which one is plunged by this question, when the credits of one's feeble career must be dragged out and displayed like the tawdry contents of a salesman's battered suitcase. I shall consequently pass over it and say that I was given the job. This was not because of the 'little about myself that I had told but because Twist did not want to start on the wrong side of Lady Uckfield, who had apparently, I later learned, been most resolute in my cause.

As soon as my agent had confirmed that I was hired for the full eight weeks of the movie — which would involve six weeks in or around Broughton — I telephoned Edith.

'But how perfectly thrilling! Of course you'll stay with us.'

It is always nice to be asked but I had already resolved that I would not stay at Broughton itself. I could foresee a certain amount of awkwardness being generated by my being friendly with the family as it was. Had I stayed with them, in a short time I would have separated myself from the actual 'making' of the film entirely.

'You are kind. I don't think you could stand me for six weeks.'

'Don't be silly. Of course we could.'

'I shan't be so unreasonable as to put you to the test.'

Edith understood this kind of talk well enough to know that she had been turned down and the invitation was not repeated.

I told her that I would be at the unit hotel, a converted country house just outside Uckfield, but that we would obviously be seeing a lot of each other. I must confess that after my little taster at the shooting party, I felt a slightly ghoulish curiosity to see her and Charles on their home ground. Perhaps at the back of my mind was a faint glimmering of Schadenfreude — that terrible pleasure we feel at our friends' ill-fortune — although I hope not. But I had witnessed Edith's accession to Dreamland and I'm afraid there is always a kind of pleasurable self-justification in others' disappointment in the world's blessings. It is the consolation prize of failure.

Two or three weeks passed. I went for my fittings at Bermans and Wig Creations, occasionally bumping into others in the cast. The Gunnings themselves were to be played by a couple of American blondes on 'hiatus' from a Hollywood cop series.

The product was consequently doomed from the start so far as any artistic standards were concerned. I do not wish to sound snobbish here. There are many roles that should unquestionably be filled by American blondes. I only mean to imply that the casting of Louanne Peters and Jane Darnell meant that the producers had entirely abandoned the idea of trying for any kind of truthful representation of eighteenth-century London in favour of viewing figures. One cannot blame them, I suppose, or at least one would not if only they would ever admit what they have done. As it is, the rest of the cast has to sit in endless restaurants on location hearing how hard they've tried to get the right candlesticks or mob-caps when they know as well as you do that the central characters do not and will not bear the slightest semblance of reality. Actors laugh together as they

'take the money and run' but it is disheartening all the same. At any rate I was glad to learn that the sisters' mother, Mrs Gunning, was to be played by an actress called Bella Stevens with whom I had once shared a cottage in Northampton during early rep days after leaving drama school, and it was pleasant to renew a friendship that we had made no effort to maintain during the interim.

A strange and perhaps unique feature of theatrical lives is the depth of involvement one forms with people when working together, only to return home and literally never bother to pick up the telephone to contact them again. Weeks of tearful intimacies, to say nothing of sexual liaisons, are lightly discarded without a backward glance. It is inevitable in that the nature of the work generates intimacy and the number of jobs makes the support of all such relationships impossible. But it is strange nevertheless to contemplate how many people are walking the streets of London who know a great deal more about you than anyone in your immediate family.

Conversely, nothing is more agreeable than the renewal of such a friendship after several years' interlude, as there is no need for the preamble to intimacy. It is already in place. One may immediately pick it up, like a piece of unfinished tapestry, where one left off ten years before. So it was with Bella. She was a ferociously strong personality, with a dark, almost satanic face, a cross between Joan Crawford and the commedia dell'arte, but this went along with a kind heart, a witty if promiscuous tongue and a genius for cookery. The repertory company we had worked in — she as leading lady, me as assistant stage manager — had been unusually chaotic even by the standards of the time, run as it was by an amiable, alcoholic cynic who slept through most rehearsals and all performances, and we consequently had a good many shared horror stories to laugh about.

Soon after I had arrived in my hotel room, while I was still reeling from the obligatory brown and orange colour scheme, the telephone rang. It was Bella. I agreed to meet her in the bar in an hour. She was sitting at a table with a companion she introduced to me as Simon Russell, an actor of whom I had more or less heard, who had landed the good part (if any parts in these epics may be defined in such terms) of Colonel John Campbell, faithful lover of our principal heroine and eventually, in the last five minutes of the film, Duke of Argyll.

Physical beauty is a subject that many skirt around and almost everyone attempts to down-play thereby demonstrating some sound moral stance, but it remains one of the glories of human existence. Of course, there are many people who are attractive without being beautiful just as there are beauties who bore, and the danger of beauty in the very young is that it can make the business of life seem deceptively easy. All this I am fully aware of. I know too, however, that of the four great gifts that the fairies may or may not bring to the christening — Brains, Birth, Beauty and Money — it is Beauty that makes locked doors spring open at a touch. Whether it is for a job interview, a place at a dining table, a brilliant promotion or a lift on the motorway, everyone, regardless of their sex or their sexual proclivity, would always rather deal with a good-looking face. And no one is more aware of this than the Beauties themselves. They have a power they simultaneously respect and take for granted. Despite the moralists who tut about its transience, it is generally a power that is never completely lost. One can usually trace in the wrinkled lines of a nonagenarian, stooped and leaning on a stick, the style and confidence that turned heads in a ballroom in 1929. Simon Russell was without question the most beautiful man I have ever seen. I do not call him handsome for the word implies some kind of masculine confining of the concept of beauty, a rugged state of alluring imperfection. Russell's face had none of this. It was quite simply perfect. Thick waving blond locks fell forward, half shading large, startlingly blue eyes. A chiselled, statue's nose (I have always disliked my nose, and so am rather nose-conscious), and a modelled, girlish mouth framing even, if marginally sharp, teeth completed the picture. Nor did the perfection end there.

Instead of the weedy build that one associates with the Blond Toff school of actors, Russell was possessed of an athlete's body, muscular and trim. He was in short a magnificent specimen. Sometimes it seems the Gods grow bored with marring their handiwork and allow someone through without a hitch and Russell was such a one. If he had a fault, and really one had to search for it, I suppose his legs were a little too short for his size. I later learned that this tiny detail, this fleck of dust against the rainbow, caused him hours of mental anguish daily, revealing the paranoia and ingratitude of the human race.

The three of us, having decided to avoid both the director and the hotel dining room, found ourselves some time later ensconced in the booth table of a curious restaurant in Uckfield decorated with, of all odd choices, a Wild West motif. It was a pleasant evening and a heartening start to the job. Simon was good company, one of the lovely things about the lucky being that they are so easy to be with. He was married with three children, a boy and two girls, about whom we heard (and would continue to hear) a great deal, and he talked of himself and his triumphs in that relaxed unselfconscious way that only the deeply egocentric can manage. Still, he was funny and pleasant and charming, and he toned well with Bella's more frenetic volubility. He was also patently a colossal flirt. No interchange with another mortal, from our waitress to a man we stopped to ask for directions, escaped the beam of his arc lamp smile. Everyone, no matter how mean or meagre, had to be roped to his chariot. I enjoyed watching him at work enormously.

'I don't think I can manage six weeks in the room I've got,' said Bella. 'I thought there must have been some mistake. It's the size of a drawer and the lavatory is in a sort of wardrobe.' She waved her hand for another bottle.

It is a truism that the collective noun for actors is 'a grumble'. They are never happier than when they can have a really good whinge about the conditions under which they're working, sleeping, changing. There is the old joke about the actor who, after five years of unemployment, at the point of suicide, is given a starring film role opposite Julia Roberts and when asked if it's really true replies: 'Yes. And the best thing is, I've got tomorrow off.' Nevertheless, even I, who care little about such things, felt daunted by the prospect of six weeks of orange and brown wallpaper and it was at this moment that the idea of the three of us sharing a cottage took shape. It was a risk, of course, and we resolved to make it a week-by-week arrangement, but it would be a great saving on expenses and generally a considerable improvement on our present situation. 'The only thing is,' said Bella, 'I've been asking around. Practically everything near here is part of the Broughton estate and I gather they're not keen on short-term rentals. They have an absolute embargo on holiday lets.'

'Couldn't the film people pull some string?' Simon smiled the gentle smile of one for whom an inconvenient status quo can always be overcome. 'They must be making quite a lot out of us. Who's the location manager? Someone must be on good terms with them. At least at this stage.'

Since we were starting on the film the next day and it was bound to be revealed quite early on that I knew the family, I cut in. 'I know them,' I said. 'I don't know if there's anything to let, but I can certainly ask.'

Bella was pleased and unsurprised at this turn of events. She had known my double life of old and, being unsnobbish, did not feel any attitude to it was called for. I could see, however, from the headlight-glare of Simon's eyes as he turned to me with a chariot-roping smile, that I had risen quantifiably in his estimation.

The next morning I'd barely arrived on the set, a ballroom scene in the Red Saloon where Charles and Edith had received us at the engagement dinner, when my cover, if I had one, was blown. Most of the principals had assembled in their not-very-accurate costumes when Lady Uckfield came in. 'Ah, Marchioness,' said Twist with what I suppose he thought a courtly bow.

Not a glimmer of a wince could I trace in her even, smiling features as, portentously, like the local mayor in a Midlands manufactory, he started to introduce her to the cast. Spying me, she broke away, kissed me on both cheeks and led me over to the window. For most of the unit, in that one second, I was a marked man and it took me several weeks of production to regain the slightest credibility as an actor.

'Edith tells me you won't come and stay with us.'

'You are kind but honestly not. I think I'd get muddled about which team I was on.'

She laughed and answered, with a cursory glance round the room, 'I do hope not.' I smiled. 'So where are you going to stay? You can't seriously mean to stick it out in the local pub?'

I thought of those sad brochures on my hotel dressing-table welcoming me to the 'country house splendours of Notley Park', and shook my head. 'I don't think so.'

'Thank goodness for that.'

'As a matter of fact, three of us were wondering if there was anywhere on the estate we might be able to hire. What do you think? It doesn't have to be sumptuous. So long as there are three bedrooms and hot water.'

'Which three?'

I nodded towards Bella, laced into burgundy velvet, who was talking to Simon. He was in pale blue silk, with lace at his throat and wrists, and a wig, which, unlike those of most of the extras, did not look as if it had been removed from a body in the Thames but rather framed his face with even more of the abundant, fair curls he boasted in life. He caught our glance, looked over to us and smiled.

Lady Uckfield smiled carefully back. 'Heavens, what a beauty.'

'He's our love interest.'

'I can well believe it.' She turned back to me. 'I'm sure we can fix up something. You could probably have Brook Farm if you don't mind pretty minimal furnishing. I'll ask Charles to sort it out. Come to dinner tonight and bring the other two. For vetting,' she added crisply, as she moved off. 'About eight and don't change.'

'You're sure this is all right?' said Bella for the twelfth time, as we crunched to a halt outside the front entrance.

'I'm sure.

She wriggled out of the car. 'God, I've brought nothing but dungarees and sweaters.' Actually she looked quite saucy in a black outfit with big earrings, like a French singer in some politically subversive boîte.

Simon was considerably cooler as we approached the great horseshoe stair. He was one of those actors, who come if not in battalions at least not singly, who play aristocrats so often on television that they end by believing in themselves as one. He had worn almost every uniform, gone over the top in almost every conflict, ridden to hounds and danced till he dropped in epic serial after epic serial, and now in some way he believed that he was indeed the sort of person who gets his shoes from Lobb's and his hats from Lock's, that somehow he would be a member of White's if they only knew about him, that he was, in short, a member of the gratin. He would lounge around Fulham sitting rooms making disparaging remarks about junior members of the Royal Family with the air of one who would rather not tell all he knows. Not that there was much difference between him and David Easton down the road. It was just that he had been less in the country and so was still unaware that it is a harder act to bring off out of London.

Of course, what neither Simon nor David ever really grasped was that the key to these people is their familiarity with one another. Most of them are unable to receive anyone as 'one of their own' who is not either known to them from early youth or at the very least known to one of their circle. They cannot accept that they would not have come across, at least at one remove, anyone who was entitled to be included in their set. The best that all those grinning racing-drivers and cockney actors can hope for as they glow in the pews at Royal weddings is the position of unofficial court jester, a service that may be dispensed with at any time. Simon was insufficiently familiar with the great world to understand this and so he maintained throughout the evening a kind of swagger, which was presumably supposed to demonstrate to the company that he was always dining in large stately homes all over the country. Needless to say, they were neither deceived nor interested.

There were only the four of them at home when we were ushered by Jago into the family drawing room and when we walked in they were all silent and reading. I thought, although I could not be sure, that I detected a rather torpid atmosphere.

Lady Uckfield came over to greet us. Receiving Bella's gushings, she led her instantly to her husband with whom, she could see straight away, Bella was going to be a great hit. When she turned back to us, Simon had already forged over to Charles to ask him about the possibilities of Brook Farm and I watched as Charles almost jumped at the ferocity of this full frontal attack, but he recovered his ground. In fact, he was nodding with an amiable half-smile after a while so I assumed that all would be well. Edith, I noticed, after acknowledging me, had not risen and had returned to her book. I watched Simon eyeing her but she would not be included and after he had tried throwing a few remarks sideways, he gave up for the moment and returned to dazzling her husband.

Lady Uckfield brought me some whisky and water, my evening drink, without being asked, which was flattering. Her glance followed mine. 'Charles seems to think Brook Farm will be fine if you're really serious. He'll have Mr Roberts go over it in the morning. We must have it ready for next month at the latest anyway so it'll be good to have a spurt at it. You could move in the day after tomorrow if you don't mind a bit of work going on around you all. I hope this means we'll be seeing a lot of you.'

'Much too much, I have no doubt.' I hesitated for a moment. 'Wasn't Brook Farm being done up for Charles and Edith?'

Lady Uckfield nodded. 'Yes. But they've changed their minds.' She caught my eye. 'Too lovely for Tigger and me,' she said firmly.

I nodded. 'Lovely,' I said.

Poor Charles had rather a dry time of it at dinner. Bella was having a great success with Lord Uckfield, telling him raucous and unsuitable stories to his obvious delight, and he was not inclined to include anyone else in their exchanges, while Simon was giving the same treatment — though more decorously — to Lady Uckfield at the other end. Edith certainly seemed to have very little to say to her husband though, as it happens, she didn't appear to have much to say to anybody. I saw her watching Simon as he sprayed her mother-in-law with wit and charm. He had of course met his match in Lady Uckfield who was not to be caught in such a frail net as his but I must say this for him: he clearly knew he was outranked, something that in all the time I knew him he was seldom conscious of.

'Your actor friend seems very confident,' said Edith.

'Why are you so grumpy this evening? What's the matter with you?'

'Nothing. I'm not grumpy. Although I am rather miffed that you turned us down for these two. Do you really think you'll enjoy sharing with them?' She was speaking half under her breath as if to excite curiosity while remaining audible. I found it rather tiresome.

'I don't see why not.'

She looked at Simon again, sharply. 'Googie's taken a great shine to him, I must say. She announced at tea that she'd let Brook Farm to the handsomest man she'd ever seen. I was rather surprised.'

'Were you?' I said.

We were both looking across at Russell as he laughed and flirted with our hostess. The candlelight reflected in his hair, which he constantly tossed back, like a restless stallion. His eyes, darker than by day, shone like two sharply-cut sapphires. I looked back at Edith. She was beautiful too, of course, as a general rule by far the most beautiful at this table but this evening I was aware of how much of her animation had gone. I remembered her twinkling away at Lord Uckfield when her engagement was announced but her flickering secret smile had been replaced by something grander and more resolute. It was not a becoming alteration.

'He is handsome, I suppose,' she said dismissively. 'But actors are such girls about their looks. I can't take a man seriously who worries about eye-drops and mascara.'

I turned to her. 'Who's asking you to take him seriously?' I said.

Edith returned to her plate.

ELEVEN

The Countess Broughton lay brooding in her bath, occasionally wriggling her body to disperse the hot water trickling from the tap that she operated expertly with her toes. Soon Mary would be bringing up her breakfast and would be surprised to find her in the bathroom. She was breaking the routine that had already somehow contrived to become established in her cabined life. Even Charles had looked startled when she had rolled out of bed and started to run the water. 'Are you having your bath, now?' he said, watching her like a puzzled puppy. Hardly daring to question her actions, and yet, as ever, fearful of change.

'Yes. Why shouldn't I?'

'No reason. No reason.' Charles was not a fighter. 'You normally have it after your breakfast, that's all.'

'I know. And this morning I'm having it before my breakfast. All right?'

'Yes. Yes. Of course.' He raised his voice, as she moved into the bathroom and started to clean her teeth. 'I'm going up to Brook Farm with Roberts. Do you want to come?'

'Not really.'

'We can look over what has to be done. I don't think much, if they only want it for a few weeks. It seems an odd idea to me. Wouldn't they be better off in a hotel?'

'Well, obviously they don't think so.'

'No. No, I suppose they don't. Well then. Did you like the other two?'

'I hardly spoke to them. Your parents didn't give me much of a look in.'

Charles laughed. 'I must say that Bella gave the Guv'nor a pretty good evening. I can see him wandering up to Brook Farm to see if she wants a cup of sugar. Russell looks a bit of a smoothy to me.'

'Googie seemed very taken with him.'

But Charles had said all he wanted to say. Leaving his wife to her novel arrangements, he pushed off into his dressing room.

Whatever he may have sounded like, he didn't object in the least to letting the farmhouse. Far from it. It gave him an excuse to gee up its completion and now that Edith had gone off the idea of living there he was anxious to hurry up and get the place rented and dealt with. Its empty, pretty rooms, which they had discussed together in such detail just after their marriage, were a reproach to him, a bewildering reminder of his failure to —what? To understand? But what was it he was supposed to be understanding? One minute, they seemed to be having such fun 'setting up home'. He would puzzle obediently over little squares of wallpaper and swatches of fabric (although he couldn't have cared less which she chose) and they would refer coyly to one of the bedrooms possibly being 'useful' later on, as they planned a better bathroom for it than the room might reasonably have expected. Then the next moment it all seemed somehow… Charles was aware of his wife's dissatisfaction. He was sufficiently anxious as to her well-being not to wish to ignore any signs of her unhappiness but he couldn't see where it had come from. What had changed? Certainly, he was completely stumped when it came to progressing the situation. He offered to spend more time in London but, no, that was not the answer. He invited her to take more of a role in running the house shop and the visitors' centre but, no, she thought she'd be treading on his mother's toes. In the end, he had hoped that doing up Brook Farm and perhaps generating a social life down in Sussex that was separate from his parents'

might do the trick but one day Edith had suddenly decided that she didn't want to leave the main house after all and then he had really come to a full stop. 'I just can't quite see us sitting there staring at each other, can you?' she said lightly. These words struck a low and sombre note in Charles's heart because of course this was exactly what he had envisaged. The two of them, possibly eating at the kitchen table or with trays on their laps in the little library, watching television, chatting over the day's dramas…

Charles's real difficulty, as he would freely admit (to himself, at least) was that he just couldn't see what was wrong with their life. He couldn't grasp what was wrong with seeing the same people and having the same conversations and doing the same things month after month, year after year. His annual round had always been circumscribed by the usual demands: shooting until the end of January, hunting on until March, a bit of time in London, then perhaps a trip away, fishing somewhere and up to Scotland for some stalking. What could be the matter with that? Well, obviously something was the matter with it, but he couldn't see it. And quite what he was supposed to do next to please this wife whom he loved but who bit his head off at the slightest provocation was a serious conundrum to him. A conundrum he was unlikely to solve that morning, he thought, as he put on his tweed jacket and started downstairs for breakfast with his father in the dining room.

Meanwhile, Edith lay back silently in the warm water, listening to his footsteps clattering on the polished wood of the great staircase. She knew she was a worry to Charles, but in some odd and undefined way, she thought he deserved a bit of worry.

And this morning, more than usual, she was disturbed and yet she hardly knew why. It was as if some kind of creeping rot had infiltrated itself behind the grand structure of her life and could only be detected by the faintest, acrid smell in the most sensitive of nostrils. There was a knock at the bedroom door and Mary came in with the tray. 'Milady?'

'I'm in here, Mary. Just leave it.'

'Are you all right, Milady?' Mary's voice, hovering discreetly near the open bathroom door, was tinged with worry occasioned, presumably, by this fractional alteration of routine.

'I'm fine, Mary. Thank you. Just leave the tray. I'll be straight out.'

'Very good, Milady.'

Edith listened to the maid bustling about in the bedroom until the door closed and she heard the footsteps retreating along the corridor.

How ordinary her life seemed to her. Today it seemed to be drenched in a kind of grey ordinariness that suffused the atmosphere of these stuffy, chintz-filled rooms and hovered like a mist above the waters of the bath. And yet, how recently these details — these Miladys, these echoing footsteps on polished floors, these male breakfasts far below, sparkling with silver dishes, these lace-covered trays glistening with exquisite china — how sweet to the senses these touches had been. In those early days at Broughton how much pleasure had she derived simply from the monograms on her linen, from the damask-covered bergères in her room, from the Derby figures on her desk, from the telephone with its buttons for 'stables'

and 'kitchen', from the footman, Robert, blushing with nervousness when he came to collect her emptied luggage, from the swans on the lake, from the very trees in the park.

She was a princess in fairyland. And how quickly she had learned the tricks of graciousness, of being showily unaware of her setting, of making people ill at ease with her studied relaxation. She delighted in the Eastons' discomfort in their triumph, as they found themselves at the Broughton table (at last!) surrounded by people all of whom knew each other and none of whom knew them. She had quite consciously imitated some of the tricks of the late Princess of Wales in the way she perfected her warm and delightful manner for the village, that combination of undisappointing celebrity and studied informality that was guaranteed to win all hearts. She would glow and gush as she was escorted round the new playgroup facilities or as she gave away prizes at the flower show, winning new friends, disarming old critics. What fun it was to catch the children shyly glancing at her and to disarm them with a sudden, winning smile and then to follow it up with a sunbeam directed at the mothers. But then again it was so easy…

With a low groan, she pulled herself out of the water, shut off the tap, pulled out the plug and sloped through into her bedroom to pick at her breakfast. Mary had tidied her bed and lit the fire — the dernier cri of luxury, particularly in September — and her tray, as pretty as ever, had been left on the table in the middle of the room. Nestling among the charming flowered china were her letters, appeals, thank-yous, invitations to boring parties in the country, which they would be going to, and amusing parties in London, which they would not. She flicked through them idly as she bit into a piece of toast, mid-brown with its crusts carefully removed. Mary had tidied her clothes, a tweed skirt, a cotton shirt, a jersey with a rabbit motif. She would wear these things, with some pearls and some not very sensible shoes, as a costume for the endless part that she found herself playing. She thought of her day: some errands, the librarian, Mr Cook, to luncheon ('luncheon' —

she even thought in the language of her role), a committee meeting in the village to discuss the summer show, a cousin of Googie's for tea. It was a dreary prospect.

But although she had already decided that resuming a London life would not be sensible for her, Edith had not at this point fully articulated her objections to it. She would murmur that it was a 'bad idea' without specifics. She explained these feelings to herself with observations on how 'left out' Charles would feel with her friends. After all, his London acquaintance was tremendously similar to the people they spent their time with in Sussex. And anyway it was true, or sort of true, when she told people how much he hated London and that (at this stage at least) she too had 'come to the end of it'. Still, she was aware that she was talking about being in London with Charles. There was already a potentially fatal sense that it might be more amusing, and therefore more dangerous, to be in the capital on her own. Even so, it was only occasionally, and then in a very faint voice, that she actually admitted to herself she was ready to take a lover.

Edith prided herself on having become, more or less instantly, a Great Lady, on obeying all the rules of her new life as one born to it. Of course, by this time, she had pretty well lost touch with the fact that she was not born to it. She had succumbed to her mother's self-image, and now imagined, in some mysterious way, that she had grown up in the Gentry and simply married into the Nobility. This was completely untrue but as an argument it had the supreme merit of allowing her to feel less grateful to Charles than she had formerly felt obliged.

Inevitably, part of her newly acquired rank was the morality it brought with it. She had proudly discarded the last traces of middle-class fastidiousness and assumed, without a struggle, the cold, hard-headed values that were the other facet of the Great World whose cause she had espoused. She had rapidly become one of those flawlessly-dressed women who lunch together and say things like: 'Why did he make such a fuss? The two boys were definitely his', or 'Stupid woman, it would have blown over in a year or two', or 'Oh, she doesn't mind a bit. Her lover's just moved here from Paris', and they lower their voices conspiratorially, half hoping to be overheard, as they bite into a leaf of radicchio. She had acquired the pretended horror of publicity and the genuine horror of scandal that are the hallmarks of Charles's class. And yet there was something truly felt even in these stock attitudes. Edith did not admire scandal. Above all, she did not admire people who had 'brought it off, and then 'made a mess of it'. She had brought it off and she had every intention of dying in the saddle.

And yet… and yet… with all these thoughts floating through her brain, she took another bite of toast and decided that perhaps she would, after all, go down with Charles to see Brook Farm.

===OO=OOO=OO===

She did not need to tell me later that she had gone on the tour of inspection, as I was watching from one of the windows on the Garden Front when they set off. It was our second day in the house and we were having one of those bitty, unsatisfactory mornings of being filmed coming out of doors and walking up and down corridors. All very useful to get the feel of a costume, of course, or to make friends with the cameraman, but not exactly demanding. Bella was sitting next to me on the window seat, laced into a brown travelling outfit this time, busily engaged in rolling a rather meagre cigarette, this habit being the last obvious trace of her earlier, sixties bohemianism. Simon was with us but not in costume as he was not called that day.

He was simply one of those actors who cannot stay away from the set, who would rather be called for a one-minute pick-up shot and spend the day waiting in makeup, than actually take some time off.

'Where are they going?' said Bella, as we watched the pair of them strike off across the park.

'Charles said he'd look over the farmhouse for us, and see if anything needed doing.'

'How long before we can move in, do you think?'

I shrugged. 'Straight away, I gather. If we don't mind roughing it a bit.'

'God knows I'd sleep on a mountain side rather than spend another night in that hotel,' said Bella with a wry laugh as she held a flame to her apparently non-flammable, little smoke.

Simon took another look at the departing figures below. 'I think I might go up there with them. I can tell him if he's fussing unnecessarily. After all, we want to get in tonight if we can.' He nodded and walked off down the corridor. Bella and I watched him go in silence. She spoke first.

'Off he goes. To break more hearts.'

'Don't you like him?'

She bent down to concentrate harder on her dingy little fag. 'What's not to like? I just get a bit worn out with all that charm.'

'I shouldn't think Charles would notice it,' I said.

'Maybe not. But she will. And judging by last night I'm not sure she'll like it much. I hope he doesn't bugger things up before we've even moved in.'

He didn't. Or not enough to prevent us taking up residence that night. We had broken for lunch and were sitting at a rickety caterers' table on the gravel in front of the house, making the best of our cardboard lunch, when Simon returned in triumph, dancing and punching the air as he spoke. 'We're in!'

'When?'

'Today.'

'What about the hotel?'

'All done. I've given them notice for the three of us and told them we'll be back to pack and pay as quickly as we can.

They're making so much money out of the film they didn't complain too much.' He beamed. 'Edith and Charles have asked us back for supper tonight so we don't have to worry about any shopping.'

'But how very generous of Edith and Charles.' Bella let the unaccustomed names linger on her tongue with a conspiratorial half-smile at me. I could see that Simon was destined to give her a great deal of amusement.

It was of course rather a bore to have to return to Broughton for the second evening running and make more polite conversation with 'Tigger' and 'Googie'. Bella and I confessed later that we had each privately thought of chucking. I would imagine that Simon had no such scruples. But in the event we came independently to the conclusion that it would have been a churlish return for what was both a favour and a dramatic improvement in our lot, so once again, shortly after eight o'clock, we crunched our car to a halt and made for the front door.

Simon was a changed man. The night before, his general braggadocio (unbeknownst to him, of course) had betrayed his social unease even to the unobservant. He had dropped names that had no kudos and spoken of social events that had either no currency value or with which he was clearly completely unfamiliar. In the end it was hard to resist a twinge of sympathy for his gaucheness despite the success he was having with his hostess. Like many actors, or civilians for that matter, he had been caught out by the need to demonstrate his right to belong in a world that he had long claimed as his own but seldom, if ever, penetrated. Tonight, however, he was free. He had that glow that distinguishes the insecure egomaniac when they find that their doubts were ill-founded and that they are liked. It was hard to avoid catching Bella's smiling eye as we made our way up to the family drawing room, with Simon trailing his hand along the gleaming banister and chattering amiabilities to the butler all the way, very much the Friend of the Family. Once there, we witnessed him greeting both Lord and, particularly, Lady Uckfield as Old Pals.

Of course, one of the basic truths of life is that, as a general rule, the world takes you at your own estimation. Just as the inexperienced hostess will tremble over her guest list, pondering endlessly whether or not she dare invite some grandee or media personality she hardly knows, only to discover in later years that nobody usually questions anyone's 'right' to send them Edith. The others started to snicker, as the blonde on the stage frisked and shouted her silly lyrics about striking it lucky.

Charles was silent. The performer beckoned him up onto the stage and clearly this was part of what had been pre-arranged but he shook his head and kept his seat, with no change in his expression. The boy/girl looked, puzzled, over to where Peter was sitting with a laughing Eric and a couple of the others. The act was grinding to a halt. In another moment, Peter jumped up onto the stage as her partner and the dance went on. Towards the end, Peter was given a cardboard jewel-box to present to her, which he did, going down on one knee. 'Edith' opened it and started to deck herself out in the glittering gewgaws within. I was reminded of Gillray's cartoon attacks on the actress, Elizabeth Farren, who succeeded in marrying the Earl of Derby in the 1790s. At the bottom of the box was a little coronet, a pantomime walk-down affair, bright with coloured glass. At the last note of the song 'Edith' took it up and planted it on her head.

In fairness to Peter Broughton I'm sure he hadn't quite hoisted in how fantastically offensive the cumulative effect of all this would be to Charles. Certainly the last thing he wanted was for the evening to end as it did. Peter was not one of the cleverest, poor soul, and I remember I thought then that Chase or one of the others must have embellished his original idea of simply having someone impersonate Edith, which, in itself, if 'she' had just sung a love song, could have been quite amusing. As it was, and without I think Peter's really knowing, she was lampooned as a greedy, social-climbing adventuress in front of her bridegroom. Chase and some of the others were applauding loudly. They were sitting behind Charles and so could not see the expression on his face, though for the life of me I can't imagine how they thought he was going to find it funny. But Chase was one of those who insults you and then says, 'Can't you take a joke?' and I suppose he had done this so often he had begun to think these insults really were jokes and that Charles, or anyone who couldn't take them, was simply being dull.

Charles stood up. 'I'm rather tired. I think I'm going back to the hotel,' he said.

Tommy and I volunteered to join him and that was that. We strode off, leaving the others to nurse the failure of Peter's prank.

'Shall we get a taxi?' said Tommy. It was late and the night was perceptibly cooler than it had been but Charles shook his head.

'Is it all right if we walk for a bit? I want some air.' We strode along in silence until he spoke again. 'That was rather unpleasant, wasn't it?'

'Well,' Tommy was placatory, 'I'm sure they didn't mean it to be. I dare say the girl, or boy or whatever she was, misunderstood the brief.'

'It was Peter's fault.'

'Well…'

Charles stopped walking for a minute and stood, looking mutely about him. 'Do you know what really depressed me about that?' We both had some pretty good ideas but naturally said nothing. 'It was because I suddenly realised how absolutely bloody stupid most of the people I know really are. These are supposed to be twelve of my best friends, for God's sake!' He chuckled bitterly. 'I'm embarrassed for them and I'm embarrassed for myself.'

In the end we walked home right across Paris. The others must all have gone to bed by the time we fell through the door in the Place Vendôme. We parted and went to our rooms and I suppose, all in all, the evening must be rated as a flop —

particularly considering the planning and the cost — but in some odd and undefined way I found myself feeling rather encouraged by Charles's outburst. My assessment of his brain was not revised but I do not think I had appreciated before that night how thoroughly decent he was. It is not a fashionable quality these days but it seemed to me that Edith's happiness was in safer hands than I had realised.

SIX

When she opened her eyes she knew at once that this was the last morning in her life when she would awake as Edith Lavery.

Henceforth, that girl would have gone away and whatever might happen in the future she would not be coming back. Edith attempted to question herself as to what exactly she was feeling. Just as when you are forced into a decision it is often the mouthing of one choice that makes you realise you really want the other, so she wondered if her stomach would tell her that she was making a ghastly mistake simply because this was the day when the whole thing became irrevocable. But her stomach did not wish to play the part of a goat's entrails at Delphi and declined to give an opinion. She felt neither elated nor depressed

— simply that there was a lot to do. There was a faint knock on her door and her mother came in carrying a cup of tea.

It is no exaggeration to say that Stella Lavery was so happy on this morning she really felt she might burst, that her heart might stop, exhausted by pumping the feverish blood of satisfied ambition. It is not true to say she would have gladly sacrificed her daughter to a rich marquess's heir if she had thoroughly disliked him, simply that unless he had attacked her with a knife it was not physically possible that she could dislike him. Actually, I don't think she had given Charles qua Charles much thought. He was pleasant, well-mannered, not bad-looking. That, to coin a phrase, was all she knew and all she needed to know. That, and the fact that after tomorrow her daughter would be the Countess Broughton.

It had been a source of the faintest irritation to Stella that her daughter's title was not to be Countess of Broughton, which she thought more romantic, and it seemed to her tiresome of the first Broughton to receive the earldom not to have asked for the 'of.' After all, the Cholmondeleys had done so and so had the Balfours when they were presented with their titles. True there was a village called Cholmondeley and somewhere in Scotland called Balfour but was there not a place called Broughton? Surety there must be one somewhere? Still, allowing the fact that you can't have everything' she had grown used to the form and now gained a good deal of pleasure correcting her friends. After all, the blessed 'of would come, with the marquessate, all in good time.

'Good morning, darling.' She whispered the words, gently conveying, as she thought, great tenderness. This was a moment when she knew it behoved her to feel some nostalgia and regret at losing the child of her heart. The fact remained, however, that, notwithstanding the very real and deep joy Edith had given her mother over the years, this morning Mrs Lavery was as happy as a sandboy. Not only was she gaining a son, as the saying goes, but, as she saw it, a whole new position in the firmament. Gates as rusty as the ones at Ham, locked after the departure of the last Stuart king, were everywhere springing open before her. Or so it seemed. Stella Lavery was not a complete fool. She did realise that it was up to her to make a success of this opportunity, that if some of the people she was going to meet, most particularly Lady Uckfield, could be induced to like her, could actually want her friendship, then she could turn herself into Edith's asset rather than being (as she very secretly and reluctantly suspected) her liability. She also knew enough to go slowly. Never must there be the slightest scent about her of a beast of prey in pursuit of its quarry. Softly, quietly, mutual interests must be unearthed, books must be lent, dress-makers must be suggested. In her mind, on this dizzy morning, were shining images, holographs of elegant pleasure, showing her tucking into a light lunch with Lady Uckfield before they rushed off together to their shared milliner, pulling on their gloves as they waved for a taxi…

"Morning, Mummy.' Edith was by this time used to the dream-reverie in which her mother seemed to exist. She did not grudge her the pleasure this marriage brought, although she hoped it had not been a contributory factor, pushing her into the torrent that Edith felt whirling her towards the coronet. 'Is it raining?'

'No, it's heavenly. Now, there's no need to rush. It's just after half past eight. The hairdresser will be here at ten, then we've got two hours before we have to be at St Margaret's. I'll make some breakfast while you have a bath and if I were you I'd just get into your undies and stick on a dressing gown. Then you can stay in that until everything's ready.'

'I'm not madly hungry.'

'Well, you must have something. Or you'll feel sick.'

Edith nodded and started to get up, sipping her tea as she did so. It was one of those moments when she was acutely aware of every movement of her body, even of the muscles in her face. Each word seemed to come from some other source than her own brain. She felt drugged, but in a bright, unsleepy way. No, not drugged, dazed — or even hypnotised. Am I hypnotised? she thought. Have I been mesmerised by all those unquestioned values I have sucked down since I was three?

Have I lost myself in other people's ambitions? But then she thought of Charles, who was a nice man who loved her and of whom, by this time, she really was very fond, and of course, she thought of Broughton and of Feltham, the family's other estate in Norfolk, and most of all she thought of the flat in which she was now standing and the job in the estate agent's in Milner Street and the opportunities the one life offered and the exhausted, negligible opportunities of the other, and so thinking she threw back her head and strode towards the bathroom. Her father was just coming out. He smiled a rather wistful smile.

'Everything all right, Princess?' he said and she knew, even as he spoke, that he would probably have to stop calling her Princess, that it sounded suburban, and she made a resolution there and then that she would not let him stop calling her Princess. It was a resolution she broke almost at once.

'Fine. How about you?'

'Fine.'

The wedding was going to cost Kenneth Lavery a great deal of money. Although less than it might have done, as Lady Uckfield had been given permission for the reception to be held in St James's Palace. Nevertheless, and even because of this, the Laverys had both been determined that they would carry the entire bill for the rest. They had even eschewed the modern, rather charmless custom of expecting the bridesmaids' parents to pay for their dresses. Edith was, after all, their only daughter and they did not want there to be any suspicion that she came from a family which could not afford to pay its way. Mrs Lavery, living as she was a plot from a Barbara Cartland novel, had even wondered if they were not expected to make some sort of dowry settlement on Edith but although her husband had touched on this with Lord Uckfield it had not been taken up.

Probably because the Uckfields did not want to embroil themselves in any corresponding legal entitlement. After all, as Lady Uckfield had pointed out before turning out the light, nowadays one could never be sure these things were for ever. Edith was grateful to her parents for ensuring she entered Broughton with her head held high, although again she was conscious of yet another of the million threads that pinned her, like Gulliver, to the ground.

She lay back in the bath and tried to conjure up her favourite mental image of herself presiding over charity boards, raising money for the disabled, curtseying to various Royalties before escorting them to her box on gala nights, visiting the sick in the village — she stopped. Do people still visit the sick in the village? She realised she had unconsciously clad herself in a crinoline in her daydreams. And she thought of Lady Uckfield and of what a model daughter-in-law she was going to be, how the day would come when they would all bless the hour that Edith came into their lives.

===OO=OOO=OO===

I arrived at St Margaret's at about twenty past ten to be handed my white carnation, stripped of course of the fern that the florist had so painstakingly arranged with it, and my list for the front pews. It was the expected combination of duchesses and nannies, with places marked for the tenants and staff at Broughton and, behind them, the tenants and staff at Feltham. From the Reigning Family we were to get the Princess Royal and the Kents, all of them, but not the Prince of Wales (a bit of a disappointment for Lady Uckfield, a tragedy for Mrs Lavery) as he was on a goodwill junket somewhere in the South Seas.

Nor were we to welcome the Queen. I don't know why as I believe Her Majesty and Lady Uckfield got on well. Needless to say, I was not deputed to usher any of them, this honour going to Lord Peter Broughton, who nodded to me as I came in. I had not seen him since leaving Chez Michou as we had been given a choice of return flights and, having no City deadline to meet, I was still in bed when most of the party had set off. I had written to thank him and Henry but I had obviously said nothing of the debacle.

'I got your letter. You shouldn't have bothered.' The English always say you shouldn't have bothered to thank them when, of all races on earth, they are the most unforgiving when one does not. I smiled in reply. He pulled a face. 'God, I had a head the next day! I was in a meeting by eleven. I do not think I gave it my best.'

I couldn't remember what he did. Something financial, I assumed, although I have noticed of late that the brain standard of the City has been rising in inverse ratio to the fall of its social status. I wonder where this is going to leave people like Peter Broughton. 'You were very kind to lay it all on,' I said.

He nodded in turn, slightly awkwardly. 'I'm afraid Charles was a bit shirty.' I shrugged. 'The thing is, it seemed the most frightfully funny idea, d'you see? Henry and I went over with photographs and things and we'd even borrowed one of Edith's frocks… She thought it'd be terrifically funny too, d'you see? She was a great sport about it, she even told Charles not to be silly…' He tailed off rather lamely. Good for Edith, I thought, to come out of that ghastliness ahead. I hardly needed to point out that had she seen the act she would have been less sanguine. We could be sure that Charles had not told her exactly what he had found so offensive.

'I expect the boy doing it misunderstood his brief,' I said, borrowing Tommy Wainwright's line.

Lord Peter nodded furiously. 'That's it, exactly. I think the song was wrong, that was the trouble. That and Eric's idea of the jewel-box. I can see that wasn't too clever.'

I nodded, unsurprised at Eric's complicity. It was interesting, though predictable I suppose, that Edith's first enemy in the Broughton household should be someone of considerably lower rank than herself, who had made an infinitely greater leap in catching at his bride. 'I should forget about it,' I said. 'I'm sure Charles has.' I was actually sure that Charles had not, although I was pretty certain he would never refer to the incident again.

Of course, Edith made a lovely bride and the collection of familiar Royal and Society faces on the Broughton side of the aisle put a glamorous spin into the whole business, which I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed. Even the sermon seemed quite interesting. The Lavery side of the church was inevitably rather over-shadowed but Edith had managed to attract one or two of her new, media-friendly friends and her mother, desperate to keep face, had written to her third cousin, the present baronet, introducing herself and enclosing an invitation to the wedding. Consequently, this very ordinary solicitor who lived in an old vicarage near Swindon (the family's modest pile had gone two generations before), suddenly found himself in the front pew of a London wedding, staring at what seemed to be half the Royal Family a few feet away. Actually, because of St Margaret's custom of keeping an empty pew for the Speaker on the right-hand side of the aisle, this necessitated a kind of half-backwards squint but he soon got the hang of it. At any rate, he was delighted to be there and so was his ugly wife, although she, understanding these things better than her husband, retained an air of having done the Laverys a favour in agreeing to come.

Which was, of course, quite true.

We had all been given special stickers to park on the gravel at the edge of the Mall so it was easier than usual to get to the reception. I had never got past the tables in the lower gallery of the Palace where, in those days, you could collect your badge for Ascot, so I was curious, as we stood in a long, slowly-moving, drinkless queue, to see what the state rooms had in store.

We shuffled up the great staircase, past a suitably dissolute full-length of Charles II, through a small ante-room, sumptuously lined with dark tapestry, where we were at last given a glass of the inevitable champagne, and then into the first of the three huge, red, white and gold apartments. In the receiving line it was not Mrs Lavery, whom I had met many times, but Lady Uckfield who greeted me by name and to my surprise offered me a cheek to kiss.

'I saw you beavering away in church,' she said, using her habitual tone of sharing a naughty secret that only I would understand. 'What a happy day.'

'We've been jolly lucky with the weather.'

'I think we're jolly lucky all round.' With that she dismissed me by angling me towards her husband, who, needless to say, hadn't a clue who I was, and having shaken his hand, I wandered off into the throng. It was clear that Lady Uckfield was making an effort to be agreeable to me but it wasn't all that obvious as to why. Probably she wanted to make sure that the only friend of Edith's that Charles liked at all would be her ally. She meant to subvert any attempts of Edith's to set up a 'rival court'

right from the start. This would ensure that if anyone had to do any adjusting it would be Edith, not her. I would not hazard a guess as to how conscious this was but I am fairly sure it was so. Just as I am sure that she was successful and that we all played our parts. From the start I was very taken by Lady Uckfield's ability to combine the kittenish with the autocratic and I do not think that where she was concerned I was ever a very useful friend for Edith.

I had hardly spoken to the bride in the line and I didn't really expect to get much of a chance to talk to her as I murmured and nodded my way through various chattering and kissing groups. David and Isabel were there of course, but I could see that they had not come to St James's Palace in order to spend their time talking to me so I let them get on with it and wandered into another huge, scarlet and gilded chamber, at right angles to the first. Large, full-length portraits, mostly of Stuarts, hung on chains against the stretched damask. I stopped beneath one, which, from the half-shut eyes and luscious décolletage I had taken for Nell Gwyn (who may not have been a Stuart but certainly served under them), so I was surprised to see from the plaque on the frame that the melting beauty was Mary of Modena, Queen of James VII and II.

Edith's voice behind me made me jump. 'What do you think of the show so far?'

'There's nothing like starting at the top,' I said.

'It seems rather fitting that my wedding should be celebrated in a Royal palace, traditional seat of the arranged marriage.'

I looked up at the heaving, painted bosom of the queen. 'I shouldn't think this one was very hard to arrange.'

Edith laughed. We were almost alone in the room for a minute and I had time to marvel at her beauty, now reaching the years of its zenith. She had chosen a dress in the style of the 1870s, with wide flounces and a bustle behind. It was of ivory silk with a tiny self-patterned sprig of flowers. What I assume was someone's mother's lace fell from her thick blonde hair, held there by a light, dazzling tiara, fashioned for a young girl, like a glistening diamond-studded cobweb, not one of those heavy metal plates made for dowagers to sport at the opera, which always look as if they belong in a Marx Brothers comedy.

I imagine it was part of the Broughton trove.

'You'll come and visit us?' she said.

'If I'm asked.'

We stared at each other for a moment. 'We're going to Rome for a week, then on to Caroline and Eric in Mallorca.'

'That sounds nice.'

'Yes, it does, doesn't it? I'm not supposed to know but I do. I like Rome. I don't really know Mallorca. I gather Caroline takes a villa every year there so obviously they enjoy it.' She laughed again rather mirthlessly.

There didn't seem to be anything more to say as I wasn't prepared to comment on her melancholy outburst. The last thing I believe in is the deathbed confession. In this case she'd made her bed and was already lying on it. All that was left was to shut her eyes. Anyway, I can't say I was worried. Presumably, many brides, or grooms too for that matter, have a slight what-have-I-done? feeling at the reception.

I kissed her. 'Good luck,' I said. 'Telephone me when you get back.'

'I'm not going yet.'

'No, but I won't have another chance to talk to you.'

And so it proved. Charles came to fetch her to parade her past yet more of his unknown relations and I was left alone again. I wandered into the throne room, which opened out of the end of the first room we had entered. More red, more gilt, this time as a background for a splendid canopied and embroidered throne, and more paintings in chains, these ones Hanoverians. I was admiring the chimneypiece when a fat, red-faced man in his sixties nodded to me. We talked for a while about a painting of George IV by Lawrence that hung in the room, whether it was the original or a copy and so on, when he suddenly leaned towards me conspiratorially. 'Tell me,' he whispered hoarsely, 'are you a friend of the girl or are you one of us?'

I must confess I was momentarily stumped for words.

'Both, I hope,' said Lady Uckfield, approaching at a brisk pace.

I nodded to her for getting me off the hook and she introduced me to my companion, who turned out to be called Sir William Fartley, which nearly made me laugh out loud. He sauntered away as Lady Uckfield took my arm and strolled us both across to the windows.

'I hope you'll come down and see us again soon,' she said. 'I know Charles would like it.'

This was to tell me that Charles was prepared to have me as a friend and also to let me know that they, the family, saw no threat in my friendship with Edith. I thanked her and said I should be delighted. 'I don't suppose you shoot?'

'As a matter of fact I do.'

She was quite surprised. 'Do you? I thought theatre people never shot. I thought they were always terrific antis.'

I shrugged. 'Better death on the wing than in an abattoir is my feeling.'

'What a relief! I was thinking we were going to have to scratch around for some writers and talkers to amuse you. I know Edith thinks you're terribly bright.'

'That's nice.'

'But if you shoot you won't mind normal people.'

'Like Sir William Fartley. Can't wait.'

She laughed and pulled a face. 'Silly old fool but he only lives three miles away so there's nothing I can do.'

I commented inwardly that he was further away than the Eastons, that there were probably two or three hundred people a similar distance from Broughton who would cry out for an invitation and would never receive one, but naturally I said nothing.

Lady Uckfield patted my hand. 'Seriously. You must come. I'll see to it.'

'I'd love to, but only if you promise not to ask any writers or talkers. I don't want to lose face in front of Edith.'

She smiled her conspiratorial smile and was gone about her duties.

It was all over quite soon after that. The lucky pair went off to change and we followed them out as a shining barouche landau carried them away. This rather mawkish detail had been specially arranged by Edith's father with the mistaken idea that it would lend glamour to the occasion. At any rate, when we all turned back we found that the Palace had been locked against us. The authorities had decreed that the day was over and there was nothing more to do but go home.

SEVEN

To Edith, as much as to anyone else who knew it, one of the oddest aspects of her marriage, at least in the context of the 1990s, was that she had never slept with Charles before their wedding night. It sounds quite remarkable but the fact remains that it was so. At first she had resisted his advances as she knew that he was definitely the type who did not respect in the morning the easy conquest of the night before and several dates had to have taken place before it was sufficiently established that she was a 'nice girl'. This went on for two or three months but when she had decided that it was just about safe to yield she found to her puzzlement that Charles seemed to have accepted the pattern of their relationship and that he did not apparently want more. He would kiss her, of course, and embrace her but without the deadly urgency that she had come to expect in these moments. Once when they were lying on the sofa in her parents' flat (Kenneth and Stella were in Brighton for the weekend) she had casually allowed her hand to slide across the front of his trousers but although she could feel a perfectly satisfactory erection beneath the fabric, the gesture made him jump so sharply that she did not repeat it. And after he had asked her to marry him there didn't seem much point. After all, she wanted him whether or not they 'suited' between the sheets but, if they did not, might he be put off? So when, a few weeks before the wedding, he had suggested that they 'get away together' for a weekend she had murmured that she thought it better to wait, now it was so near, and not 'spoil it'. Charles had accepted this because although, being a man of his generation he had acquired a certain amount of sexual experience, deep in his subconscious he still believed that bride-material should enter the wedding-chamber chaste. Of course, Edith was not chaste in this sense but she decided that, if questioned, she would refer to 'an incident' when she had been very young which she didn't want to talk about. In actual fact she never had to as Charles seemed to be satisfied with the fact that this was their first time together and sensibly refused to enter into a competition with her past.

He had booked a room in the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge. The world knows that this establishment now forms part of the Mandarin chain and so, technically, the old name is defunct but the upper classes are slow to alter accepted nomenclature. To them it will be the Hyde Park Hotel at least until their children are in late middle age. The plan was to spend the wedding night there and then fly to Rome at noon the following day. Accordingly the barouche swept them up St James's, down Piccadilly past the Ritz, over Hyde Park Corner, and turned round in front of the Bowater House entrance to the park, to deposit them on the steps of the hotel. As they bowled along, passers-by, tourists and Anglo-Saxons alike, turned to smile and even wave. Probably the connection between carriages and Royal occasions is fixed in the public Pavlovian consciousness. So that she might be undisappointing and because the brilliance of her new state filled her brain with a cloud of sparkling lights, Edith waved tentatively back. Charles, on the other hand, looked straight ahead as if somehow his candidacy for officer material was in question. She understood why. Charles was saddled with that most tedious of all English aristocratic affectations, the need to create the illusion that you are completely unaware of any of your privileges. That cool insouciance, so chic in theory, so crashingly boring in practice, was to ruin many occasions in the future for the pair as Edith suspected, looking at the frozen profile beside her. But this time at least the drive did not last long, certainly not long enough for Edith. Barely fifteen minutes after they had left the reception they were in the foyer of the hotel. It was still only about half past five and Edith wasn't absolutely clear what happened next.

She thought of suggesting that they stay downstairs and have some tea but since this would betray a total lack of urgency to be alone with Charles (that she was afraid she was feeling), she rejected the idea. They were shown into the Bridal Suite, which they had not requested but was theirs anyway — the difference in price being compliments of the management, following the age-old principle 'To them that hath shall be given' — and there they found their luggage as well as flowers and fruit and more of the bottomless supply of champagne. Then the door shut and they were alone. Married. They stared at each other in silence. Edith felt a slight tremor of panic as the reality of seeing this man more or less every day for the remainder of her life hit her. What on earth were they going to talk about?

Charles pointed at the bottle. 'Shall I open this?' he said.

'Honestly I don't think I could. I'm swimming in it already.' She paused. 'I think I'll have a bath.'

She started to undress as casually as she could with Charles lying on the bed watching her but at the last moment her nerve failed and, still with her bra and pants on, she snatched her dressing gown out of her suitcase and dashed into the bathroom.

When she came out, half an hour later, Charles was still lying on the bed, reading a newspaper. He had taken off his coat, waistcoat and tie as well as his shoes and socks, and something about the slightly studied relaxation of his pose told Edith that her hour had come. She strolled over to the bed and lay down next to him, naked beneath the gown, and pretended to read the paper over his shoulder.

'Happy?' he said, without raising his eyes.

'Mmm,' she replied, wondering how long it was going to take him to get to it. Now that the moment was here, she was suddenly rather anxious. She felt the need to reassure herself about the physical attraction between them. This, after all, was the side of their relationship that had nothing to do with ambition or even shared interest. It was the sexual conjunction that, at this point at least, she was determined was going to be the only one she would know for the rest of her natural life.

After what seemed an eternity, Charles folded the paper and turned to her. With a deadly earnestness and in absolute silence (which lasted throughout), he started to kiss her as he inexpertly unfastened her dressing gown. She responded as well as she could, trying not to lead. This time when she touched his penis, although he still started like a frightened colt, he didn't actually pull away. And so they lay there, fondling each other through their garments until Charles deemed a suitable period had passed and then he sat up, still in absolute silence, and removed his shirt, trousers and underpants. Edith shrugged off the gown and waited. Charles had quite a good figure, in that he was muscled and covered without being fat, but he had one of those English bodies, white, faintly freckled skin, with a little ginger pubic hair around his groin and none on his chest. His beaky nose and crinkly, public-school hair looked somehow odd on top of an undressed body, as if he had been born in a double-breasted suit and being nude was too raw to be natural. In truth, he seemed more skinned than naked.

Still without a word he turned back to her, the same furious intensity in his face, and, avoiding direct eye contact, he started to kiss her while he planted his right hand against her vagina. Once it was in place, he began to massage her with a kind of dry pumping action, which reminded her of someone blowing up a lilo. She groaned a bit by way of encouragement. He didn't seem to need more as suddenly he heaved himself over between her legs, fumbled himself into her, thrust away a few times — no more than six at the outside — and then, with a terrific gasp to tell her that it was now (which she countered with some cries and pants of her own), he collapsed on top of her. The whole business, from the moment he folded the paper, had taken perhaps eight minutes. Ah, thought Edith.

'Thank you, darling.' One of Charles's more irritating habits was always to thank Edith after sex, as if she had just brought him a cup of tea. Of course, at this point, she did not know it was habitual.

She thought of responding, 'Oh, but thank you,' then decided it was too like people waving at each other through a hotel door so she settled for simply saying, 'Darling…' in a sort of misty way and kissing him on the neck. He had rolled off her by now and she was feeling a bit chilly lying there but moving seemed the wrong thing as this was all constituting a 'very important moment' for Charles and she had no intention of spoiling it. She did not allow herself any review of the love-making

— if that was what they had just been through. It was, after all, early days, and she was beginning to suspect that Charles, for all his savoir faire with waiters, was not very confident when it came to the more private areas. At least he seemed to feel that something momentous had taken place, even if her body had never left the station, so the episode surely rated as a success rather than a failure. That said, she did catch herself briefly hoping that things would improve with practice.

They dined in the hotel, more to avoid being spotted and congratulated by any of their friends (who never dine in hotels except with Americans who are staying there) than for any particular enthusiasm for the cuisine de la maison and then went to bed around eleven. They had a repeat performance of the afternoon's activity and then rolled over to sleep. Edith stared at the ceiling, contemplating the oddness of life. Here she was with this man, whom she hardly knew when she really thought about it, asleep, naked, beside her. She pondered that central truth, which must have struck many brides from Marie Antoinette to Wallis Simpson, that whatever the political, social or financial advantages of a great marriage, there comes a moment when everyone leaves the room and you are left alone with a stranger who has the legal right to copulate with you. She was not at all sure that she had fully negotiated this simple fact until then.

The thought had not left her when she awoke — the first time for a good long while that she had awakened next to anyone

— and she was rather relieved when Charles made it clear, slightly sheepishly, that he was not a 'morning man'. Things eased when they began to discuss the wedding, the various near-dramas, which guests they disliked, who was unhappily married, who was going broke. Of course, thought Edith, this is what we're going to talk about, the things we've done together, and the longer we're married, the more shared experiences we'll have to discuss. She was just comforting herself with these ruminations when Charles lapsed into silence. Not for the last time, he had run dry. There was a knock at the door. A waiter came in wheeling a trolley of breakfast.

'Good morning, my lord,' he said to Charles and then, as he approached the bed with a tray, 'Good morning, my lady.'

Oh well, thought Edith, things could be worse.

Given the fact that their first hours together had not been an overwhelming thrill, it was perhaps a little surprising that the trip to Rome, by contrast, went very well. They stayed at the Hotel de la Ville, quite near the top of the Spanish Steps, and just down from the Villa Medici. Rome is a very beautiful city anyway and this was of course Edith's first experience of being milady'd and contessa'd everywhere she went, which was amusing (though she knew enough not to show it) and a solid reminder of why she was in this spot. The food was delicious and there was plenty to see and consequently to talk about and so as they sat in the Piazza Navona eating under the stars or strolled down the fountain-decked walks of the Villa d'Este out at Tivoli, Edith began to feel that she had after all made a good choice and that the rich and rewarding life of her imaginings really did lie ahead.

During their stay Charles started to talk about Broughton and Feltham in an affectionate, detailed way that was new to her.

Perhaps he had thought that before she had actually, so to speak, become a Broughton she would not be interested. He loved his homes and his cares and since this was all fitting in along the lines of her pre-nuptial fantasies, she loved him for it. She was able to respond to his enthusiasm with an unfeigned enthusiasm of her own. To her delight, she discovered that he was a bit rusty on the history of the family itself. Here was her task! She saw herself lovingly cataloguing the furniture and pictures, entertaining ancient aunts and writing up memoirs of long, hot Edwardian summers at Broughton, bringing down and cleaning forgotten pictures in the attics of some particularly amusing ancestor. She was interested in both history and gossip — what could be better qualifications? It is true that the sex did not improve dramatically and the format never varied but once Charles was less nervous with her it did at least take a bit longer. Altogether, as they boarded the aeroplane for Madrid, the first leg of their journey to Mallorca, Edith and Charles were able to stare into each other's eyes in a deliberate imitation of two people who were as 'happy as newly-weds'.

EIGHT

At Palma, where they surged out of the ticket hall surrounded by what looked and sounded like the entire supporters' club of Wolverhampton Wanderers, they were hailed by a wrinkled cockney with a face like beaten leather and red nylon shorts. He was, he explained, Eric's 'driver' and had come to take them to the villa. Charles was slightly put out at not being met in person — Edith would learn that like many apparently easy-going grandees his insecurity manifested itself if he ever felt that he was being treated like an 'ordinary person' despite his often saying that this was exactly what he wanted. She, herself, was simply glad to be out of the airport and in a car and gradually her relief transmitted itself to him. In the end he forgave the Chases for staying at home: the drive consisted of two and a half hours of dry scrub and shanties as they crossed the centre of the island. Edith had never visited Mallorca before and had not known what to expect. But she realised on looking out of the car window that the images in her mind had consisted of various combinations of Monte Carlo and Blackpool, not the scratch farming and dust of the plains of Salamanca. As they approached Calaratjada, however, the huge concrete hotels of her imaginings began to materialise together with the crowds — mainly respectable but with the hovering hint of kiss-me-quick hats — and all the sights and smells of the Beach Holiday made their familiar and comforting appearance.

The villa itself was a large, white, modern affair constructed around a kind of hill/courtyard, with vast tiled terraces looking out across the bay. There was a private jetty, which was apparently more for swimming than for tethering boats, and meant that there was no need for the villa's inhabitants to use the crowded, sandy beach that launched the tourist swimmers into the sea from a point a few hundred yards to the left of their position. Across the water, the smart houses of the Mallorcin could be glimpsed through their modest curtaining of trees and beyond there was the wide, blue ocean. Edith and Charles stood admiring the view, as a pin-figure far below them on the jetty waved and started to run up the steps. A few minutes later Caroline appeared. They were kissed and congratulated and, in turn, they admired the villa.

'Isn't it fabulous? It belongs to some client of Eric's so we've got a frightfully good rate. It's far cheaper than the one we had last year and it's twice the size. Needless to say, we're being used as an absolute boarding-house all summer long.'

Charles frowned slightly. 'I thought it was just going to be us this week.'

'I know. So did I. But then Peter rang because this was the only week he could do. And Jane and Henry suddenly said they could come after all. And then one of Eric's business people appeared with his wife.' Caroline momentarily wrinkled her nose. 'Apparently Eric had asked them and forgotten all about it. Wasn't it frightful? Anyway, they're here now and they seem to have forgiven us.'

'You mean they're all here now? This week?'

'This minute. They're coming up to change for dinner even as we speak. Has anyone shown you your room? You've got the best one so you mustn't grumble.'

Charles threw himself on the bed in what Edith could only describe as a 'pet'. 'Christ! I don't know why we didn't just go to Trafalgar Square and set up a tent.'

Edith lay down next to him. 'Oh, darling, it doesn't matter. I'm sure everyone just does what they want anyway. We'll be able to push off by ourselves.' Actually she was feeling rather guilty as when Caroline was speaking she, Edith, suddenly realised that she was rather relieved to discover it wasn't just going to be the four of them after all. From what she knew of him she didn't like Eric much, Caroline she found rather intimidating and she had to admit that she was feeling just the teeniest bit talked-out with Charles. 'It'll be much easier later when we've done more together,' she said to herself but it was with a faintly sinking feeling that she realised she could already predict what his opinion would be on more or less any given topic. As a sort of private game with herself, she had begun to introduce odd items into the conversation, like psycho synthesis or the Dalai Lama, in the hope of catching herself out and being surprised by something he said. So far she hadn't dropped a point.

They met the rest of the party when they assembled that evening on the top terrace. Edith had been nervous of Caroline during the courting months for the simple reason that Caroline was a good deal more intelligent than Charles, and Edith was half afraid that she would try to put him, if not off her, at least on his guard. This may well have been true but Caroline, snobbish and egocentric as she was, was not essentially bad-hearted. Now that Edith was her sister-in-law she was determined to get on with her and she was equally determined that Charles, of whom she was extremely, if rather parentally, fond, should have a happy stay. All this Edith saw in the genuine smiles and the slightly touching arrangements of festive nibbles and champagne on ice as they walked across the sitting room and out through the glass doors to join the others. All the women wore expensive cocktail, rather than evening, frocks and all the men were in open-necked shirts. They looked oddly mismatched, like a bad hand in Happy Families. Jane Cumnor was the most over-dressed in strapless black moiré, but she held no threat any more for Edith who was quite content in off-the-shoulder cotton. Since they had last met properly she had breached Jane's citadel and Edith was anyway the prettier woman. Their relationship had subtly altered overnight, a fact of which Jane was quite as aware as Edith. She sidled over to plant a lipsticky kiss on the cheek of the bride. Henry lumbered across and pushed his face against hers. In his brightly coloured summer clothes he resembled a nineteenth-century bathing-machine. Edith wondered if his shirt might suddenly open to reveal a timorous swimmer in stripes. Caroline raised her glass:

'Welcome to the family.'

'Yes,' said Eric, who was standing behind the others nearer the edge of the terrace. 'Well done, Edith.'

The others noticed but ignored his tone and raised their glasses to the name, making the salutation sound more normal.

Edith smiled and she and Charles drank their thanks and everyone sat down.

The moonlit sea glittered behind their heads as they sprawled and chattered on their cushioned wicker, champagne in their hands, the women in their couture dresses, diamonds twinkling in their ears. As she lay there, curled up against the squashy Liberty prints, more spectator than participant, Edith found herself warmed by the enveloping luxury of privilege. All the years of her growing up she had wanted not just to avoid being a have-not but to be an emphatic have and now, at last, just at the moment when she had begun to face the possibility of failure, here she was, living her dream. This gaggle of lords and millionaires was a sample of her set from now on, this exotic setting the first of many. Just as a driver can see distant mountains across a desert far before him and then realise that he is up in those very mountains without being aware of their coming nearer, so Edith pondered with wonder her progress from the respectable haut bourgeois life of Elm Park Gardens and Milner Street to this cross between an American soap-opera and a novel by Laclos.

The first evening passed uneventfully enough. Edith knew everyone there except for a lacklustre blonde who seemed to have come with Peter and Eric's friends, the Watsons. Of these the husband, Bob, was dull and rather common but the wife, Annette, though also common, was pretty and funny and Edith warmed to her. She had been a model and an actress in the early eighties before her marriage and was full of hilarious anecdotes about various Roman epics and Spanish westerns she had appeared in. She babbled away through dinner, which was served in the loggia/dining room that opened onto the courtyard, and saved Edith from the Name Exchange, which she knew was all she could expect from the others.

Charles was more non-committal about their fellow guests. 'Well, she's got plenty to say for herself, I'll give her that,' was his only comment as he turned the light out.

'I like her. She's funny.'

'Don't speak too soon.' In some mysterious way she felt reprimanded, although his tone had not been angry, and it was with a vague feeling of apprehension, like a child who expects a beating the next day, that Edith lay back on the pillow. Nor was her thought-train interrupted before sleep set in as it was the first night, since their marriage, that they did not make love.

The next morning Edith woke late and found herself alone. With a delicious, almost tangible sense of well-being she rang for breakfast as she had been bidden to do and settled back into her habitual review of the life that lay ahead. The maid arrived with her tray and told her that the others had already eaten and were down on the jetty so as soon as she was ready she put on a bathing suit, took up a towel and set off down the steep paved stairs that were cut into the rock below the villa. She could see the Chases, the Cumnors and Charles, but there was no sign of the rest of the party. On the jetty itself she waved a hello to everyone, spread out her towel and lay down, letting the soft, woolly warmth of the southern sun wash over her body.

Charles threw himself down next to her, spraying her with drops of sea and gave her a salty kiss. 'Good morning, darling.' She smiled and kissed him back.

'What shall we do today? Just lie here and drink up the sun?'

Caroline answered her. 'We thought we might go into Calaratjada for lunch and then the Franks have asked us for tea.

You're all included.'

'Who are the Franks?'

'They're this rather extraordinary family who are fearfully rich and they have a collection of sculpture that apparently must not be missed.'

'Why are they so rich and how do you know them?'

'To the first, God knows. Something to do with Franco so we'd better not ask, and to the second, we don't, but Mummy's godmother to one of their nephews in Rome and she let them know we were going to be here.'

Edith lay back and closed her eyes. This great network, this web that reached far beyond national boundaries, that crossed seas and mountain ranges, need not threaten her any more because now she was part of it. And soon, in Vienna or Dublin or Rome, people would be saying, 'I saw Edith Broughton when I was in London. She says they might be in New York in September…' and this would be greeted by some member of the Inner Circle saying, 'Edith? How is she?' or better still, 'I'm so mad about Edith. Aren't you?' and thus would be excluded all those other people in all those rooms in Vienna or Dublin or Rome who did not know Edith Broughton; and they would feel the poorer and the more middle-class for it, which would have been the intention of the name-droppers who would then go away satisfied that they had once again asserted their caste. In all this Edith would play her part by being the kind of person it is hard to meet unless you are in her set. And just for a moment on this particular morning, with the sun caressing her eyelids and the children shouting on the distant beach, Edith pondered the ultimate purpose of this endless raising and lowering of barriers.

There was a terrific thud near her and she opened her eyes to see the awe-inspiring sight of Henry Cumnor stretching out to sunbathe. If anything he looked even larger without his clothes, like a seaside postcard captioned 'Where's my little willy?'

'What about the others? We can't all go to these wretched people, can we?' He spoke undirected, straight up into the air, so that he should not have the inconvenience of moving more than his lips.

Caroline shrugged. 'I don't see why not. I said there were lots of us.' She had that curiously English upper-class belief that whatever the occasion, however much people have put themselves out, even when, as now, total strangers extend their hospitality as a duty, still she, Lady Caroline Chase, was doing them a favour. It is impossible for such people to conceive that they have not necessarily honoured a house by entering it. Consequently, because of this sense of having blessed her hosts by her presence, Caroline made no effort whatsoever with anyone outside her own crowd and despite being an intelligent woman could be a crushingly boring guest. Something of which neither she nor the many others of her kind who are just like her have any suspicion. 'We'll ask them when they come down,' she said.

'How long are they staying?' said Jane, propping herself up on her elbows and reaching for the oil.

'Who? Peter or the others?'

'Oh, not darling Peter. "Bob" and "Annette".' Jane spoke their names in inverted commas, distancing herself from them to make it clear to her listeners that she did not consider them as ordinary members of the house-party but rather as strange specimens of an alien culture. This was carefully judged.

'Tuesday or Wednesday, I think.' Caroline looked over to Eric who nodded and wrinkled his nose. He was quite clear about which team he wished to be on.

'Crikey,' said Henry. 'Who's in the listening chair this evening?' They all laughed.

Edith felt an irresistible urge to tear up her membership of the Club. 'Is this Annette you're talking about?' she said in a tone of feigned disbelief. 'How funny you are. I really like her.'

Henry was unfazed. 'Well, you can sit next to her at dinner. I hope you're ready to discuss her film career ad nauseam.'

Edith smiled. 'Why? What would you rather talk about? The people you all know in Shropshire?' She lay back with her smile still intact and her eyes closed, relishing the awkward silence like a naughty schoolgirl.

'I'm not often in Shropshire, actually.' Henry rolled away from her, bloated and breathless, like a beached whale far from the water.

'I'm going for a swim,' said Charles.

They lunched late on paella with too much squid in it in an open-air restaurant overlooking the harbour with its bobbing flotilla of yachts and then set off in two cars for the Franks's house, which lay outside the town on the edge of the sea and appeared to be entirely surrounded, on the land-locked frontier at any rate, by a high stone wall, topped with broken glass.

The gates were not gates but rather iron doors, which swung open automatically when they identified themselves and then clanged shut, only just missing the rear fender of the second vehicle. 'Well, they're obviously not expecting two cars,' said Annette with a laugh.

Undaunted, Caroline, who was driving the first car with Edith, Annette and Henry, ploughed on through the enormous, empty pleasure gardens. Tantalising glimpses through the trees of Henry Moores and Giacomettis flashed past until rounding a huge clump of rhododendra they came to a fork in the road. One led apparently up to a nineteenth-century castle that was perched on the highest point of the estate, which Edith had assumed was their destination, while the other, incredibly, pointed the way to another house, as large as the first only modern, which had been built at the water's edge. It was too low, with its balconies thrusting out barely higher than the waves, to be seen from the road.

'Which one do we go to?' said Edith.

'The bottom one. Mrs Frank likes to be near the sea.'

'What happens up on the hill?'

Caroline looked suitably vague. 'I think it's mainly for the grandchildren.'

'Blimey O'Reilly,' said Annette and Edith noted with interest that no one else would acknowledge the strangeness, the orgiastic luxury that they were witnessing. She was beginning to understand it is a point of honour in that world that one must never be overawed by any display of wealth, no matter how fabulous. To register that riches on any scale are not routine, even mundane, is to risk being 'middle-class' — a sector of society to which many of them spend most of their lives proving to no one in particular that they do not belong. There are exceptions to this rule. It is possible to exclaim, 'How simply lovely!' but it is done in such a way as to show generosity rather than awe on the part of the speaker. Better yet, 'My dear, how grand!' This in a tone to show that the decoration, menu, whatever, is excessive and verging perilously close to vulgar. Lady Uckfield was particularly adept at crushing with smiling enthusiasm. These are hard skills for the novice though and Edith did well not to attempt them.

A white-coated footman took the party through the gleaming marble rooms out on to the terrace where Mrs Frank, a sun-beaten, robust figure, reclined in a brightly coloured cotton sarong, chunky bracelets bouncing and rattling against her sinewy, masculine arms. She waved them all over towards her.

Caroline took charge. 'How do you do?' she said lazily. 'I'm Caroline Chase.'

She started to indicate the other members of the party, deliberately pausing a fraction of a second before the three non-Broughton guests, Bob, Annette and Peter's girl, as if to demonstrate to Mrs Frank that they were not in the first circle and she need not therefore bother with them. Mrs Frank took the signal and welcomed the outsiders with a perceptibly cooler smiling nod than the one she reserved for the principals.

'You must be the bride,' she said, rising and taking Edith by the arm to lead them back into the house. Edith smelled the strong musk of her scent and watched the leathery creases move around the thin, scarlet-greased mouth. 'How are you enjoying Mallorca?'

'We only arrived last night. It seems lovely so far.' She smiled back into the glassy, bored eyes of her grinning hostess.

'You must let us entertain you while you're here. Tell me, how is darling Googie?'

'She's fine. She and Tigger are in Scotland.' As the words came out, Edith realised that this was the first time she had spoken these ludicrous nicknames out loud. Before her marriage she had privately determined to address her inlaws as Harriet and John, but already the unspoken urgings of intimacy, of club-membership, which rippled through Mrs Frank, had made her break her vow because the truth was that whatever she might say to her friends, she did not want to be the 'foreign' daughter-in-law. She did not want people to sympathise with Lady Uckfield that Charles had not done better. She wanted her mother-in-law to be congratulated on her, Edith's, brilliance, on her taste, on her charm, on her entertaining. And so Edith learned the first lesson of why England has had no revolutions, of what has emasculated so many careers from Edward IV's queen to Ramsay MacDonald. Namely that the way to deal with a troublesome outsider is to let him in, to make him a convert with a convert's zeal and in no time he will be plus Catholique que le Pape. Learning this lesson did not reduce Edith's resentment of the forces that taught it to her but she had another heady moment of realising she was now a member of the Gang. It made her feel powerful. She turned and smiled at Charles.

A tour of the sculptures had been planned and the party set off. As they came out of the front door they were approached by a young, rather stringy woman, a reduced, ferret-sized version of Mrs Frank. She had obviously just been playing tennis and carried a slightly oversized racket in front of her, covering her face, half shield, half fan. Their hostess introduced her as her niece, Tina. Unlike her aunt the girl was painfully shy. She fell into step with them as she was quite clearly commanded to do but mutely, only muttering miserable, whispered answers if she was directly addressed.

They passed a swimming pool, cut into a small cliff above the sea, and Edith heard Annette asking about the terracotta vases that surrounded it, apparently continually filling it with faintly steaming water.

'They are Roman,' said Tina almost inaudibly. 'My uncle had them brought up from a wreck off the coast near here.'

'And now they're plumbed in?'

'What is "plumbed in" excuse me?'

Charles cut off Annette rather irritably. 'She means that now they're used to feed the pool.'

'Yes. With sea water.'

'Sea water? Warmed sea water?'

Tina nodded. 'It's much better for you, no? We have another pool with clear water but I think this is good, no?'

Annette was silent for a while. She was clearly beginning to agree with the others — that she was out of her depth. The group had stopped on a terrace dripping with bougainvillea where a large male torso by Rodin stood on a marble plinth. They murmured and admired. Mrs Frank turned to Caroline and started to enquire about various mutual friends. She appeared to resent the fact that she had not been asked to Charles's wedding, as many of her queries ended by an assumption that 'they must have been at the reception', and time and again Caroline was forced to admit that they had been. The names rippled out as they climbed from terrace to terrace, against the deep azure blue of the Mediterranean sky. Had they seen the Esterhazys?

the Polignacs? the Devonshires? the Metternichs? the Frescobaldis? Names torn from history books, names that Edith knew from studies of Philip II of Spain, or the Risorgimento, or the French Revolution, or the Congress of Vienna. And yet here they were, stripped of any real significance. They had simply become court cards, rich court cards, in the game of Name Exchange. These were high stakes indeed and Edith noticed with some amusement that Jane Cumnor and Eric had dropped back with Tina, no doubt anxious to avoid the left-out feeling that it pleased them to inflict on others. Caroline and Charles were unfazed. It was clear that whatever the extent of the Frank millions they could match name for name and top them too.

And so the afternoon passed in a litany of duchesses intoned against a background of art enshrined by money. An hour and three quarters after setting out they were back at the modern palace-by-the-sea.

On the terrace a tea had been set out 'English-style', that is to say 'American-hotel-style' and three white-coated footmen waited to serve it. Mrs Frank led them to their chairs. Peter's girl, Bob and Annette were thoroughly squashed by this time and secretly longing to regain the villa and turn this flattening experience into a funny story. Eric brought up the rear, red-faced with his exertions and clearly irritated that his social ignorance had excluded him from the conversation that had revolved around his wife for most of the afternoon. He dumped down onto a chaise next to Edith and seized a proffered cup.

Mrs Frank turned her attention back to the bride. 'Tell me, was Hilary Weston at the wedding? Someone said she was stuck in Canada.'

Eric looked up with a snort. 'No good asking Edith, is it, old girl? You'll have to wait until she's done a bit more training.'

Edith ignored him. By some merciful providence it so happened that she had spoken to Mrs Weston for quite a time at the reception. She thanked her patron saint as she spoke chattily across Eric making no reference to him. 'No, she was there.

Galen was in Florida and couldn't get back. I suppose that's what they were thinking of.'

Mrs Frank nodded, casting a slightly strange look at Eric. 'She does so much! I feel like a sloth when I think of her.' She moved on. Edith had passed.

Eric lay back and looked at her: 'Well done. Ten out of ten.'

She stared back at him, holding every inch of gained ground. 'Do you know Hilary?'

'I know her as well as you do,' said Eric, and stood up to join Caroline at the other end of the terrace. This interchange was oddly refreshing to Edith because it established beyond any doubt that Eric was her enemy in the family circle. There was no pretence necessary any longer and, best of all, in their first round, Edith had won.

She was singing in the shower when Charles came in to change for dinner later that evening. He smiled. 'You seem very happy. Did you enjoy yourself today? What a collection! What a place!' Even in these circles amazement is not forbidden in private between consenting adults and Charles clearly felt he had been unimpressed for long enough.

'I'll say. And yes, I am happy.' She turned off the tap and kissed him, standing there wet and naked.

The next few minutes, indeed the rest of the evening, were as agreeable as any she had known with Charles and it was with a sense of victory and well-being that she climbed into bed that night.

Charles turned to her. 'I gather the Franks want to give us a dinner before we go.'

She pulled a slight face. 'Oh dear. I suppose we have to?'

'Come on, darling,' said Charles. 'It's good of them and they're not that bad.'

'The old girl's not that bad but the niece is a nightmare.'

He laughed. 'I thought she was rather sweet. We must be kind.'

Edith propped herself up on her elbows beside him. 'Why is it that when someone like Annette is talkative and funny you all cold-shoulder her and wrinkle your noses behind her back and yet with Tina Frank, who must be the most boring and inconsequential young woman I have ever met, you make excuses and pretend that she's a dear?'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'Yes, you do, Charles.' She felt oddly confident, almost breezy. For the first time since her marriage she began to sense that she really was Lady Broughton. She had managed things well and according to the ancient tradition she was 'entitled to her own opinions'. She continued, smilingly severe. 'You know very well. And I'll tell you the answer. Annette does not know the people we know and Tina does and Tina has a hundred million besides. I don't know, darling, doesn't it ever make you wonder? Just a bit?' Edith was feeling her oats. She smiled at her husband quizzically, shaking her head slightly, imagining how charming her hair must look, rippling against her neck.

Charles stared at her. 'Who are all these people that you and Tina Frank know?' he said sourly and turned out the light.

PART TWO

Forte-Piano

NINE

I did not see a great deal of Edith in the months after she had returned from her honeymoon although they were in London from time to time. She did not apparently care for her mother-in-law's lair in Cadogan Square but they used Charles's little flat in Eaton Place and occasionally they would come up for a party or a show. I ran into them at a couple of dinners and I was asked for a drink with a few others in their tiny second-floor sitting room one day in October but there wasn't much of an opportunity for talk. Edith looked happy enough and had already begun to acquire that patina of the privileged, the faint, touch-me-not aura of luxe that marks such people apart from us mortals, and I was amused to trace the beginnings of an hauteur starting to obliterate the lucky girl from Fulham. I didn't see them at all in the build-up to Christmas and I was just beginning to feel myself drifting out of their circle when I received a letter tucked into a card, not from Edith but from Charles, asking me for a day's shooting in January. It was to be a Friday so I was asked for dinner and the night on the Thursday and, since nothing further was specified, I was presumably intended to vanish after the shoot to make way for the arrival of Saturday's guests. The lateness of the invitation meant that someone had chucked, but it was no less attractive for that and I knew (for once) that I was going to be free on the date in question. I had already been booked to be villain-of-the-week in one of those endless boy-and-girl-detective series, which was due to start five days after the date proposed so I wrote back accepting and received, almost by return, directions by road or rail. These told me which train to be on if that was how I would be travelling or alternatively to arrive at the house at about six o'clock.

I enjoy shooting. This I know is as difficult for one's kind-hearted London theatrical friends to understand as it is easy for the country-bred fraternity but I do not propose to launch into a defence of blood sports since I have never encountered anyone of either opinion who could be swayed. While I must say that there does not seem much logic in people gaily eating battery-processed food and objecting to conservation-conscious game-keepers, still I accept that there is not necessarily a logical basis for all or even any of one's feelings. At all events, at that time in my life, most of my sport had been of the country shoot variety and so it was with a sense of pleasurable anticipation that I set off for what promised to be a real, Edwardian Grand Battu.

I knew the way well enough, as I had often been down for weekends with the Eastons, but getting out of London to the South can be a nightmare and so I was in the habit of leaving time for hold-ups. On this occasion, I had not allowed for the fact that I was making the journey on Thursday instead of Friday and so, after a comparatively free run, I arrived at Broughton not much after half past five. The butler who went by the unlikely name of Jago told me that Lady Uckfield and Lady Broughton were in the yellow drawing room finishing a committee meeting of some sort.

Having no desire to join in — the committees one is forced to attend are bad enough — I settled into a surprisingly comfortable velvet-and-gilt William Kent armchair in the Marble Hall. I didn't have very long to wait before the door opened to release some of the members, muttering fawning farewells to Edith who was in the process of showing them out. She broke away.

'Hello,' she said. 'I didn't know you were here.'

'I'm rather early so I thought I'd wait instead of coming in to spoil your fun.'

She sagged her shoulders with a comic sigh. 'Some fun!' she said. 'Come and have a cup of stewed tea.' Ignoring the nods and smiles of the departing ones, she led the way back into the room. They did not object to this treatment. Far from it. The net result of her cutting them in order to greet me was simply to make them include me in their deferential smiles as they sidled towards the staircase. I imagine they thought that I too had been touched by the golden wand.

The remaining members of the committee, the usual collection of provincial intellectuals, tightly permed councillors and farmers mad with boredom, were in the final stages of leaving. Some of them had that dilatory manner of collecting their things together, which betrays a resolve to 'catch' somebody before they go. The prey that most of the lingerers were after was, of course, Lady Uckfield, who was ensconced in a pretty, buttoned chair by the chimney-piece, surrounded by admirers. A few of the aspirants, disconcerted by the competition, made do with five minutes of Edith and left. I approached my hostess, who rose to greet me with a kiss, which was a kind of signal to the entourage that the audience was over.

'Goodbye, Lady Uckfield,' said a black councillor in a baggy artist's smock, 'and thank you.'

'No, thank you.' Lady Uckfield spoke with her usual intimate urgency. 'I gather you're doing the most marvellous things down in Cramney. I hear it's simply buzzing. I can't wait to come and see for myself.'

Her companion beamed, shedding his Socialism on the spot. 'We will be most glad to see you there.' He retreated, wreathed in smiles.

'Where's Cramney?' I said.

Lady Uckfield shrugged. 'Some ghastly little place in Kent. Do you want some tea?'

By the time I made it to my room, my things had been unpacked and my evening shirt, tie, socks and cummerbund lay waiting for me. There was, however, no sign of my clean underpants. I hunted around through various drawers and was just in the process of searching under the bed when I heard a voice behind me. 'What can you be looking for?' I turned and saw Tommy Wainwright standing in the doorway that connected my room, aka the Garden Room, with its larger neighbour, the Rose Velvet Room, where Tommy was billeted. Actually, despite these impressive titles, the chambers themselves were rather small, having been squeezed into a sort of mezzanine floor at one side of the house. They had been created by the architect as part of an arrangement to provide a score of secondary bedrooms while only messing up one end facade of the house.

Consequently, despite the fragrant names, these chambers overlooked the stable yard, had eight-foot ceilings, and faced north.

We hunted around for my missing undergarment for a bit, then gave up, abandoning it to its fate. Presumably, to this day, a rather old pair of pants is still wedged at the back of some drawer in the Garden Room of Broughton Hall. Tommy retreated to his chamber and returned with a small bottle of Scotch and two tooth glasses. 'Essential equipment for hotels and house-parties,' he said, and poured us both a slug.

'Are they mean with the booze?' I asked. I have often been surprised at the fantastic discomfort and deprivation the grand English are prepared to put their friends (and total strangers) through, particularly in my youth. I've been shown into bathrooms that could just about manage a cold squirt of brown water, bedrooms with doors that don't shut, blankets like tissue, and pillows like rocks. I have driven an hour cross-country to lunch with some grand relations of my father, who gave me one sausage, two small potatoes and twenty-eight peas. Once, during a house-party for a ball in Hampshire, I was so cold that I ended up piling all my clothes, with two threadbare towels, onto the bed and then holding all this together with a worn square of Turkish carpet — the only bit of floor-covering in the room. When my hostess woke me the next day, she made no comment on the fact that I was sleeping in a sort of webbing sarcophagus and clearly could not have been less interested in whether I had ever shut my eyes. When one thinks of the Edwardians who revelled in luxury it seems odd that their grandchildren should be so impervious to it. Recently I have detected that the comfort demanded by new money is effecting a slow improvement in the houses of the anciens riches but, heavens, what a time it's taken.

Tommy shook his head in answer to my question. 'No, no. They're not mean at all. Not a bit of it. Lord U chucks it down everyone's throat. It's just too complicated to try and get a dressing drink.'

We sat and gossiped for a bit and I asked if Tommy had seen a lot of the Broughtons.

He shook his head. 'Not really. They're always down here. I must say, I'm quite surprised that Edith is content to coddle the village and give away prizes without taking a breather but the fact is they're hardly in London at all.'

I too found this slightly unlikely. Particularly as the young couple were still living in the big house with Charles's parents.

There had been plans to renovate one of the farm houses when they were first married and I asked Tommy if he knew how it was coming along.

'I'm not sure they're going on with that,' he said. 'I gather they've gone off the idea.'

'Really?'

'I know. It's funny, isn't it? She wants to stay here and her in-laws are delighted, so Brook Farm will probably be finished quickly and let.'

'Do they have a flat in the house, then?'

'Not as such. Some sort of upstairs sitting room for Edith and Charles has his study, of course. But that's it. Rather like one of those American soap-operas, when they're all worth a hundred million and they still cram together in one house with a big staircase.'

I shook my head. 'I suppose Charles likes the set-up here but it seems rather tiresome for a bride.'

Just as Charles, like all his breed, was not immune to the sense of getting 'special' treatment wherever he went — in fact, as Edith had already observed, he resented its being withheld from him — so I could understand that, after a lifetime of pretending he was unaware of the extraordinary baroque surroundings of his life, it would be hard actually to give them up.

The English upper-classes have a deep, subconscious need to read their difference in the artefacts about them. Nothing is more depressing (or less convincing) to them than the attempt to claim some rank or position, some family background, some genealogical distinction, without the requisite acquaintance and props. They would not dream of decorating a bed sitting room in Putney without the odd watercolour of a grandmother in a crinoline, two or three decent antiques and preferably a relic of a privileged childhood. These things are a kind of sign language that tell the visitor where in the class system the owner places him or herself. But, above all things, the real marker for them, the absolute litmus test, is whether or not a family has retained its house and its estates. Or a respectable proportion of them. You may overhear a nobleman explaining to some American visitor that money is not important in England, that people can stay in Society without a bean, that land is 'more of a liability, these days', but in his heart, he does not believe any of these things. He knows that the family that has lost everything but its coronet, those duchesses in small houses near Cheyne Walk, those viscounts with little flats in Ebury Street, lined as they may be with portraits and pictures of the old place ('It's some sort of farmers' training college, nowadays'), these people are all déclassé to their own kind. It goes without saying that this consciousness of the need for the materialisation of rank is as unspoken as the Masonic ritual.

Of course, the Broughton position was an unusually solid one. Few were the families in the 1990s that held their sway and the day would dawn when Charles would enter Broughton Hall as its owner. Still, listening to Tommy, I suspected he might have dreaded the possibility that people, awe-struck as they shook his hand in the Marble Hall, could make the mistake, on finding him at home in a chintz-decorated farmhouse sitting room, of thinking that he was an Ordinary Person. In this, however, I was wrong.

Tommy shook his head. 'No, Charles wouldn't mind. Not now he's used to the idea.' He paused for thought and then decided against it. 'Oh, well. I must get changed.'

We assembled for dinner in the drawing room that the family generally used, a pretty apartment on the garden front, much less cumbrous than the adjacent Red Saloon where we had gathered for the engagement dinner. There were a few vaguely familiar faces besides Tommy. Peter Broughton was there, though apparently without his dreary blonde. Old Lady Tenby's eldest daughter, Daphne, now married to the rather dim second son of a Midlands earl, was talking to Caroline Chase in the corner. They looked up and smiled carefully across the room. Filled with trepidation, I looked around for Eric and saw him scoffing whisky as he lectured some poor old boy on the present state of the City. The listener stood looking into Eric's red face with all the pleasure of a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

'What would you like to drink?' Lady Uckfield stood by my elbow and sent Jago off to fetch a glass of Scotch and water.

She followed my glance. 'Heavens! Eric seems to be making very large small talk.'

I smiled. 'Who is the lucky recipient of his confidences?'

'Poor dear Henri de Montalambert.'

For some reason or other, I knew that the Duc de Montalambert was a relation of the Broughtons by marriage. His was not a particularly smart dukedom by French standards (they, having so many more than we do, can afford to grade them) since it had only been given by Louis XVIII in 1820, but a marriage in the 1890s to the heiress of a Cincinnati steel king, had placed the family up there alongside the Trémouilles and the Uzès. Lady Uckfield had referred to him in the manner in which one speaks of an old family friend, but since she always disguised her true feelings about anyone, even from herself, I was, as usual, unable to gauge the true degree of intimacy. 'He looks a bit dazed,' I said.

She nodded with a suppressed giggle. 'I can't imagine what he's making of it all. He hardly speaks a word of English.

Never mind. Eric won't notice.' She accepted my laugh as tribute and then rebuked me for it. 'Now, you're not to make me unkind.'

'How long is Monsieur de Montalambert staying?'

Lady Uckfield pulled a face. 'All three days. What are we to do? I'm still at où est la plume de ma tante, and Tigger can hardly manage encore. Henri married a cousin of ours thirty years ago and I doubt if we've exchanged as many words since.'

'Is there an English-speaking duchesse, then?'

'There was. But since she was deaf and is dead, she cannot help us now. I don't suppose you speak French?'

'I do a bit,' I said with a sinking heart. In my mind's eye, I could see the re-shuffling of place cards and the endless, sticky translated conversation that lay ahead.

She caught my look. 'Cheer up, you'll have Edith between you.' She darted one of her flirtatious, birdlike glances at me.

'How do you find our bride?'

'She's looking very well,' I said. 'In fact, I've never seen her prettier.'

'Yes, she does look well.' Lady Uckfield hesitated for a fraction of a second. 'I only hope she finds it amusing down here.

She's been the most marvellous success, you know. The trouble is they all love her so much that it's frightfully hard not to rope her into sharing all the wretched duties. I'm afraid I've been rather selfish in unloading the cares of state.'

'Knowing Edith, I bet she enjoys all that. It's a step up on answering a telephone in Milner Street.'

Lady Uckfield smiled. 'Well, as long as it is.'

'She seems to have given up London so you must be doing something right.'

'Yes,' she said briskly. 'If they're happy, that's the main thing, isn't it?'

She drifted away to greet some new arrivals. It struck me that I had missed some nuance in the coiled recesses of Lady Uckfield's perfectly ordered mind.

The dinner, as predicted, was rather leaden. I had Daphne Bolingbroke, Lady Tenby's coolly pleasant daughter, on my right, so I was all right for the first course but behind me I could hear Edith struggling gamely with M. de Montalambert on her other side and, in truth, I found it quite hard to concentrate on my own conversation. The trouble was that Edith's French and her neighbour's English were more or less on a par. That is, terrible but not so non-existent as to preclude all effort. It would have been simpler if neither had commanded a word of the other's language but they had, alas, just enough vocabulary to be utterly confusing. Edith kept maundering on about bits of Paris being so 'bon' and London being 'épouvantable' with M. de Montalambert alternately looking completely blank or, worse, when he thought he had understood her observation, answering with a swirling torrent of French of which Edith could barely catch more than the first word or two.

The courses changed and I turned to rescue Edith from her travails but M. de Montalambert declined to obey the English regulations and refused to give her up. Instead, grasping at the slight improvement in communication that my moderate French offered him, he launched into a passionate denunciation of the French government, which had reference, in some mystifying way that was quite lost on me, to Louis XVIII's minister, the Duc Decazes.

'What are we talking about?' said Edith softly under the apparently unstoppable Gallic flow.

'God knows. The French Restoration, I think.'

'Crikey.'

In truth, we were both completely worn out by this time and longing for a reprieve but the Duc resolutely ignored Lady Uckfield on his left and she, needless to say, could not have been more delighted to set aside the conventions this once.

The Duc paused and smiled. I sensed a change of topic. Perversely, having discovered that my French was better than Edith's, he decided it was time to demonstrate his grasp of English. 'You like sex?' he said pleasantly. 'You find you come often?'

At exactly this moment Edith was drinking some of her water and so of course did a massive nose trick. Seizing her napkin, she tried vainly to pass it off as a fit of coughing. To my right I could feel Daphne shaking with silent laughter. A desperate schoolroom hysteria was enveloping the table.

'I think,' said Lady Uckfield, who sensed the whiff of civic unrest, 'that Henri is asking if you are familiar with Sussex.' She spoke firmly, like a schoolmistress with a rowdy troop of children, but inevitably her statement gave rise to another terrible wave of giggles among us all. Edith was literally red in the face and almost weeping in her attempts to control her mirth.

At this point Charles looked up. He had naturally missed everything. 'Darling,' he said, 'do you know what I've done with my other gun sleeve? Richard wants to borrow it tomorrow and I cannot think where it is.'

His words achieved what his mother's had failed to do. They fell like a heavy fire-blanket on the burgeoning hilarity and effectively stifled it. There was a flat pause before Edith spoke. 'You lent it to Billy Westbrook,' she said. And as she turned back to her tiresome neighbour, she caught my eye. It was at that moment, hearing Edith's patient answer and sensing her weariness, that I began to realise her bargain had perhaps not been an easy one.