by John Pearson
In years to come, she would secretly despise him for it, since it seemed to prove that Richard had never possessed the will to win, and that he had never been much more than that conscientious, slightly uninspired back-bencher that she knew. But at the time this hardly mattered, and she actually felt relieved when all the jockeying for power was over. She had her husband to herself again, and suddenly he turned from his ambition to his home and family. He was relaxed and easier to live with, more like that loving Richard she had known before James was born. Now for the first time he seemed to take an interest in his son—he came to love him dearly—and he had time to spend with her. That summer young Rose Buck, the lodge-keeper’s daughter from Scotland, came to help look after James, and it was Richard’s idea that he and Marjorie should go off to Italy for a romantic holiday together—Venice, the Lakes, then down to Florence, where they spent most of August. It was an idyllic time, with politics and Southwold far behind them. They were young lovers once again, and it was there on a summer night, with the whole of Florence lit by moonlight, that their second child was conceived.
1887
7. Jubilee
There are a few great tribal celebrations which remain like landmarks in the memories of families as well as nations: the 1887 Jubilee of Queen Victoria was one of these. Mention the Jubilee to an historian and he will tell you that it marked the high point of a period of unexampled human progress and prosperity. Speak of it to Richard Bellamy and you would spark off memories of an uncomfortably eventful summer marked by the memory of that frail, bobbing figure driving to the Abbey with her black state landau ringed with potentates and princes.
This was the year when Hudson married and Randolph Churchill suddenly resigned. It was the year when young James nearly died, and without question it was also Hugo’s year.
Richard’s uncomfortable concern about his brother-in-law, Hugo Talbot-Cary, really began one breakfast time in early January when Marjorie suddenly exclaimed, à propos of nothing in particular, “Oh, poor Hugo!”
“And why poor Hugo, pray?” Richard replied quite testily. He was not in the best of humours. On top of his political frustrations, he had just heard from Hudson that the customary kidneys and bacon, which he loved for breakfast, were “just a shade suspect, sir, after the weekend,” and that Mrs. Bridges had seen fit to send up boiled eggs instead. Richard detested boiled eggs. For him the British boiled egg summed up almost everything he hated on a Monday morning. Hudson and Mrs. Bridges should have known his feelings about eggs. So should Marjorie. How could a household be so damnably insensitive to a man’s inner needs?
Richard felt suddenly hard done by (he often did these days), but rather than complain outright and make a fuss, he tried to make a martyr of himself (which was also typical). He merely grunted back at Hudson, then as ostentatiously as possible made do with porridge, Melba toast (as part of his attempt to bant) and tea. (Marjorie naturally had coffee.) At such a moment the chance of venting just a little of his ill humour on the perennial subject of his ineffectual brother-in-law was irresistible.
“I really don’t see, Marjorie, why everybody’s quite so sorry for him—even you! He’s idle, he’s extravagant, he drinks too much and even then he’s deadly dull. Simply because he’s too soft to stand up against your sainted mother, I don’t see why that entitles him to pity.”
“Richard, you’re getting pompous,” Marjorie replied. “And middleaged.” She cracked another egg before expertly decapitating it. She was looking very pretty in her grey-and-white-silk dress (she would be meeting Prudence at ten-thirty for a shopping expedition down the road to Swan and Edgar’s).
“Everybody knows that poor Hugo …”
“There you go again,” said Richard, grinning now.
“… that poor Hugo never had a chance against my mother. He’s really very sweet. He’s always very nice to you, and Jumbo adores him. I think we ought to help him gain self-confidence. He’s still so very shy with women, and totally incapable of standing on his own two legs in politics. We should help him, Richard.”
Richard had his own ideas on the subject of Hugo and the fairer sex. As for his brother-in-law’s relations with young James (recently nicknamed “Jumbo” for no reason anybody knew), this was secretly a distinctly sore point. Hugo was James’s godfather and the child obviously adored him. When James was still quite tiny, before he could even talk, Hugo had always gone up to see him in the nursery whenever he happened to be in town. Richard always felt that as a Southwold he was permitted privileges by Nanny Webster which he was not allowed himself. Hugo spent hours there, charming that sour-faced old baggage and playing the strange games babies love.
Richard, who found it hard to deal with babies (and who anyhow had nothing like the time to spare that Hugo had), was really rather jealous, especially when James’s first spoken word was an unmistakeable “Oo-go!”
Since then the bond between young Jumbo and his Uncle Hugo had become closer still, especially after Elizabeth was born in May of 1886.
From the beginning she had been the perfect baby—Marjorie said she had inherited her father’s looks and placid temperament. She was bonny, rather plump, and rarely any trouble. She was more affectionate than James, and whilst Richard did his best to have no favourites, he secretly worshipped her. James was a complicated infant, passionate and moody and distinctly delicate. Elizabeth was just the opposite. When they succumbled to the usual childish illnesses, James always suffered badly. Elizabeth would shrug them off. Richard always felt some barrier between himself and James, whilst with Elizabeth there was passionate devotion on both sides.
Marjorie had for some time felt this lack of closeness between Richard and his son and was always trying to do something to repair it.
James’s fourth birthday was approaching, so she said suddenly, “Why don’t we make up a party for the circus as a birthday treat for Jumbo? He’ll adore it and Hugo can come for the weekend. Perhaps we could ask Prudence too. She doesn’t get much fun these days.” (Major Fairfax’s drinking had been getting worse, and once again Marjorie was intent on helping.)
“Marvellous idea,” said Richard, and then added as Marjorie knew he would, “Why don’t you arrange it?”
James’s birthday treat was to be far more memorable than anyone expected or desired. From the beginning the idea appeared distinctly fraught. Richard was none too anxious to have Hugo. (Marjorie won that one on the grounds that “After all poor Hugo is his godfather and his uncle.”) Nanny Webster thought it wrong to keep young Master James up so long past his bedtime. (Again Marjorie won with the self-evident and virtually unanswerable argument that “birthdays come but once a year.”) And finally Richard learned that his son’s birthday would inevitably coincide with a big debate on Ireland for which it was rumoured there would be a three-line whip. (”Well, dearest,” Marjorie said quite philosophically, “just do your best.”)
But as it turned out, much the most interesting complications came, not from Parliament, but from Hugo. Originally Marjorie had planned the party solely for her family and the two godparents, Hugo and Prudence. The circus would start at seven and end by nine. Afterwards James would be taken home to bed and the four adults would go on to celebrate his birthday at Romano’s.
At the last minute Hugo wrote, begging her not to let a word out to the family but explaining in that schoolboy way he had that he was in “something of a fix. This friend of mine happens to be in town that week and is expecting me, but I couldn’t bear to disappoint young Jumbo. Could you be a brick and invite my friend as well? Her name is Lilianne Spinkhill-Greye. She lives in Onslow Gardens, number 53.”
Even if Marjorie had not been fond of Hugo, it’s still hard to imagine her refusing such an irresistible request. Hugo was still officially in passionate pursuit of the financially and physically well-endowed Miss Stuyvesant from Baltimore. She was not one of the Stuyvesants but she was extremely rich, and Lady Southwold had long set her heart on having a dollar heiress
in the family. (Ever since Lord Randolph married Miss Jerome they had been quite the thing.) And Hugo had always seemed quite willing. True, the courtship had been a trifle long—“Such a good thing to let them get to know each other,” Lady Southwold said—but he had never given any hint of being anything but eager for this strapping beauty.
So who on earth was Miss Spinkhill-Greye (supposing it was “Miss”)? Neither Debrett nor Burke’s gave any hint of her resounding surname, nor could Marjorie discover anyone who’d heard of her. The only way to satisfy her curiosity was to write back, “Of course, do bring her,” and send a separate invitation off to Onslow Gardens.
The birthday itself was a great success, although the cult of children’s birthdays hadn’t yet become anything like the sentimental business that began a few years later. There was a cake, of course, with four small candles, and Mrs. Bridges made a special nursery tea; but there were no conjurers, no party for the other well-born children of the neighborhood, and few of those expensive toys which children would soon start expecting as their birthright. Richard and Marjorie gave James a large red model fire engine. Richard had chosen it. Marjorie considered it “rather too old for such a little boy,” but James was thrilled with it and rang its bell all afternoon, to the confusion of the staff. Had any other child done this, there might have been complaints, but somehow Master James was not the sort of small boy who got blamed for anything. With his enormous brown eyes, velvet party suit and page-boy haircut, he looked angelic.
Richard occasionally complained that “everybody spoils him and he gets away with murder,” but the fact was that little James could twist everyone in 165—Richard included—around his elegant little finger. He could get anything he wanted out of Mrs. Bridges. Hudson would tell him stories by the hour, and Marjorie coddled him, indulged him, spoiled him on the ground that he was “delicate.”
But on his birthday, the one person he kept asking for was Uncle Hugo. When he was told that he would meet them at the circus, he couldn’t wait for six o’clock to come.
Richard meanwhile was luckier than he expected, thanks to his onetime rival, Arthur Balfour. During the past two years that smooth young politician’s star had risen as inexorably as Richard’s had declined, and the surprise resignation of Lord Randolph from the government earlier that year had sealed his success. With Randolph off the scene there was no one in the House to rival Balfour’s eloquence. For Richard, on the other hand, the Chancellor’s resignation had removed his one potential patron in the government.
Balfour had just been appointed Secretary for Ireland, a post his enemies said would finish him. In fact it was to establish him as what the Morning Post described, a trifle fulsomely, as “the great new star in the Tory firmament,” and that afternoon it was Balfour’s speech, a passionate defence of firmness and legality, which saved the government from a division—and allowed Richard, feeling a little like a truant cutting school, to escape in good time for the circus.
As he was hurrying through the Central Lobby he passed Lord Randolph. He seemed thinner and his face was more lined and yellow than when Richard had seen him four months earlier. He appeared to shuffle slightly as he walked. Just for a moment those extremely angry, bulbous eyes met his. There was the faintest nod of recognition: then Lord Randolph shuffled on his way. That was the last Richard ever saw of him.
The circus was extremely fashionable that year, and the Bellamys’ evening coincided with the visit of the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra with their two youngest children, the Princesses Victoria and Maud. So there was a great excitement from the start. The Bellamys were sitting in the front row, just below the Royal Box, where they enjoyed a fine view of the portly Prince and stately Alexandra. (James kept asking Richard where their crowns were.)
The presence of Royalty turned the performance into something of a gala night: the show started with the national anthem, followed by the Prince’s special tune, “God Bless Victoria’s Son.” The elephants were lined up to attention and the seals and clowns and chimpanzees joined in as the top-hatted ringmaster led the loyal applause. James was oblivious of most of this patriotic splendour. He wanted one thing only—“When will Uncle Hugo come?” But the two seats beside his parents remained cruelly and obstinately empty.
Nothing made up for that: neither the dazzling high-wire artistes from the Cirque Médrano, nor statesque Madame Albuquerque with her performing lions, nor even the three Fratini Brothers from Milan. These clowns made the Prince of Wales slap his fat thighs with laughter, but James sat on, almost tearful now for Hugo. There was an interval, with boys selling toffee apples and black, snakelike strips of licorice. James wanted nothing. Only the dimming of the lights as the show began again could hide his tears.
Then suddenly Hugo was there. There was a flurry of “excuse me, please” and “sorry,” and Uncle Hugo, tall and god-like Uncle Hugo, had arrived.
“Happy birthday, dear old chap!” he whispered, pressing a large brown-paper parcel into James’s lap. “Sorry I’m late.”
But Uncle Hugo was not alone. There was a lady with him. James couldn’t see her properly in the darkness, but he had smelt her dress as she pushed past his seat and hadn’t liked it. Not that she mattered very much: with Uncle Hugo there beside him, nothing mattered and the remainder of the show passed in a daze of happiness. There were the Shetland ponies and the seals and the six jugglers who stood on each other’s shoulders. He never did forget them, and when the lights went up and the band was once more playing “God Save the Queen” he was able to slip the brown paper off his parcel. It was a large toy elephant with a long trunk, glass button eyes and the saddest face that James had ever seen.
There was a label round its neck which Richard read for him: “Jumbo for Jumbo—Happy Birthday from your Uncle Hugo.”
After the circus there was some confusion. It had begun to rain and the road beside the park was jammed with cabs and private coaches. For nearly twenty minutes the Bellamys had to stand huddled in the rain before their coach arrived.
Nanny Webster was outraged when they finally got back to Eaton Place. “Really, your ladyship, young James is soaked through to the skin, and it’s hours past bedtime!”
So James, still hugging a large, damp elephant, was bustled off to bed without the birthday story he had been promised. Whilst adults changed he was popped into a steaming bath before the nursery fire, wrapped in a large, warm towel and then tucked into bed without even being made to say his prayers.
“I can’t imagine what his mother thinks she’s up to,” grumbled Nanny Webster to the nursery maid.
Marjorie did have other things on her mind just then. There was the problem of finding dry clothes for her guests—fortunately, both ladies were her size and Roberts was a gem in such emergencies. Similarly, Hudson soon found Hugo one of Richard’s jackets. After some whisky and ten minutes by the fire in the drawing room, the party was quite ready to go on to dinner. But there was still one thing that worried Marjorie—Hugo’s latest friend, Miss Spinkhill-Greye. She was quite presentable—what Richard would have called “a fluffy little thing”—with bright blue eyes, blond, finely curling hair, and a manner which was best described as kittenish. She called Hugo “dear,” which Marjorie found irritating.
But there was something else that worried her about the lady (something beyond the fact that Richard seemed to find her rather too attractive). Marjorie was sure she’d met her somewhere but couldn’t for the life of her remember where.
Romano’s was quite packed that night. It was, said Richard, really becoming far too fashionable, but Marjorie enjoyed the famous faces. Irving was there, and several actresses, and somebody that Marjorie thought was the comedian Dan Leno (but was in fact Lord Queensbury). The food was good—whitebait, spring lamb, profiteroles and a good burgundy—and even Richard had to admit that it was months since he had had such an enjoyable evening out. Hugo had improved enormously and he told some very funny stories. Prudence was on excellent form, and as
for Hugo’s pretty little friend, she really did seem rather good for him. Mark you, she clearly had him taped and Richard sensed that Hugo’s bachelor days were numbered. But lucky Hugo!
As they were leaving there was a strange incident. There was a loud, drunken fellow in the doorway, and as Hugo’s friend walked past he raised his hat to her. Richard admired the calm way that she ignored him.
“Spinkhill-Greye,” Prudence said thoughtfully. “I must admit it rings no bell, but I agree she certainly appears familiar. And you had best watch out, my love, or you’ll be finding yourself with a new sister-in-law, unless I mistake that cold gleam in the lady’s eyes. What did you say her first name was?”
“Lilianne.”
“It would be, somehow. Poor dear Hugo. But what about that terrible American?”
“Miss Stuyvesant?”
“Exactly. What’s become of her?”
“I think officially they’re still engaged and Mother’s set her heart upon the marriage.”
“I’d back Miss Spinkhill-Whatsername against your mother any day.”
“You would? Good Heavens!” Marjorie said, thoroughly alarmed.
But she had other things to worry about than Hugo and the mysterious Miss Spinkhill-Greye. James, for instance. The morning after his night at the circus, Nanny Webster said he had a chill. Marjorie was inclined to see this as a well-known nanny’s tactic of “I-told-you-so” and was not as worried as she might have been. All the same, she said that James must stay in bed.
Then there was trouble once again with Hudson. He had been very difficult of late. Marjorie admitted she was sometimes tactless with him, but Richard really was absurdly lenient and would never hear a word against him. As a result he was, in Marjorie’s mind at any rate, becoming guilty of that most difficult of all domestic sins known as “getting above himself.” It was hard to put a finger on a clear example (which was why it was also hard to make Richard understand), but she always felt that he was really running 165 and that all the rest of them, including Richard and herself, were little more than puppets managed by this maddeningly perfect butler.