by John Pearson
“Dillon’s such a terrible old woman,” he had said to Marjorie. “I’m sure we should have someone who specialises in divorce.”
But Marjorie had as usual overruled him and on the usual grounds that Geoffrey Dillon was the Southwolds’ lawyer and had the family’s interests at heart.
“Besides, just think how upset he’d be if he heard we’d gone to someone else.”
But Richard was beginning to wish he had. The case was dragging on and now Elizabeth had heard that somebody called the King’s Proctor was threatening to intervene in the proceedings.
“Most unlikely, I am glad to say,” was Dillon’s bland reply when Richard taxed him with the possibility.
“Luckily I know Sir Ronald Wakeford, the present King’s Proctor, personally. We were at college together.”
“But why should he want to hold up the divorce?”
“If he believed that there were any—shall we say—irregularities, it would be his duty.”
“But that would be dreadful for Elizabeth. She could be stuck with that husband for the remainder of her life.”
“Richard, you worry far too much. You tell me you’ve talked to Partridge, and as I say Sir Ronald is a very old friend. Elizabeth will be all right.”
Like King Charles, Lord Southwold was “an unconscionably long time dying.” Marjorie stayed with him throughout the rest of September, and it was not until October that she sent the telegram to Richard: “Come at once.”
Richard went that afternoon and was at Salisbury before dark; dusk was falling as the trap carried him beneath the grey, stripped trees towards the sombre bulk of Southwold House. No lights were showing. A cold wind whistled from the Downs and the great house was like some old abandoned ship, obsolete, forgotten at her moorings, destined for the breaker’s yard.
Inside, the sense of doom persisted. Old Widgery, half dead himself, pulled back the bolts and let him in. The house smelt damp and cold. The chandeliers had not been lit.
“Where’s Lady Marjorie?” Richard asked.
“In with his lordship. I don’t know what we would have done without her, Mr. Richard.”
Richard knew Lord Southwold’s room, one of the small back bedrooms that overlooked the garden and the Downs beyond, but Widgery directed him to one of the grander main apartments at the front of the house. It was here in ancient splendour and a certain dingy dignity that Lord Southwold was dying.
He had told Widgery to have King James’s bed brought from the storeroom. Richard had never seen it before, but there it stood in all its sombre majesty, the white-and-crimson hangings and the ostrich plumes drooping mournfully at each corner. It was like a small, macabre theatre, a relic from the times when the nobility still had such things. Richard knew the stories of how earlier Southwolds had died in it—the great fifth Earl, the friend of Marlborough; Henry Southwold, who died bankrupt and insane; and his son Francis, the Prince Regent’s friend, who breathed his last in it after his fatal duel with an unknown officer in the Marines. And now Lord Southwold, traditionalist to the last, was using the deathbed of his ancestors for his own demise.
Marjorie was with him. She rose as Richard entered. She looked pale and miserably thin.
“Richard, my dearest Richard,” she half sobbed, and held him for a moment before taking him by the hand and leading him to the bedside.
Southwold was already looking like his death mask. There was no hint of ordinary flesh about those hollow cheeks and gothic features. Even in dying he appeared to be a work of art, yet curiously, with death so near at hand, his face looked younger and less troubled than Richard remembered.
“He’s been asking for you,” Marjorie whispered, and as Richard came up to the bed the eyelids fluttered and the old man looked at him.
“Ah, Richard,” he said in a wheezing murmur of a voice, “you’re almost one of us. Pity you’re not. I’d have liked you for my son. There might have been some hope then, but with Hugo …”
A fit of coughing interrupted him, deep, racking coughs that shook the frail bones of his body. He shut his eyes and Richard felt Marjorie’s hand tightening in his. But the coughing passed, and when Lord Southwold opened his eyes his voice was clearer than before.
“No point blaming Hugo. It’s been my fault. I’ve been extravagant. I should have been ready to adapt. You’d have adapted, Richard, but it wasn’t in my nature. I’m sorry for the way we’ve treated you, but you’ve succeeded, Richard. You’ve done very well. I’m rather proud of you.”
Once again Marjorie squeezed his hand as the old man laughed, a faint and ghostly echo of a laugh.
“Just one last thing, dear boy. Once I am dead the priests can do what they like with me. But make sure that they stay away from me while I’m still alive. And don’t let anyone believe I died a Christian.”
He closed his eyes.
“We’ll leave him,” Marjorie said. “He’ll sleep. The nurse will stay with him. She’ll call us when we’re needed.”
The nurse didn’t call them that night. Southwold seemed to be in a coma now, and Marjorie and Richard had to cope with Lady Southwold, who was maudlin drunk at dinner and by turns self-pitying and aggressive.
“It’s the end of all of us,” she moaned. “The end of everything.” Then she shouted for Hugo. “Where is the boy? He should be here to help his mother.”
For the tenth time that day Marjorie patiently explained that Hugo was on his way from Canada and would be there any moment now.
“But Hugo should be here, beside his mother. It’s his duty.”
All this over and over, fretfully and sadly, like a child.
Next morning Dr. Cowley told them that Lord Southwold had had a fresh attack at six o’clock and couldn’t last much longer. He was unconscious. Only his natural resilience still kept him tenuously attached to life.
All they could do now was wait, so wait they did, Richard and Marjorie and, later in the day, her mother too. The doctor stayed with Lord Southwold and the others maintained their vigil in the room next door.
It was a bare, cold room with a high-raftered ceiling. Small windows near the roof let in the grey light of the autumn day outside. As Richard sat there waiting for the last remaining drops of life to drain from the shrunken body in the great plumed bed next door, he had the feeling that it wasn’t just Lord Southwold who was dying. It was everything the Southwolds had believed in. For months now he’d been watching the power of the old nobility slowly eroded in the House of Commons, but here that power was already nearly dead. It was a strange sensation. He could feel disaster in the cold grey air, as if the house was slowly dying round him. It was like being at the last hours of some stricken once-proud animal of enormous age. For here in this house long generations of the Southwolds had been attempting to create a sort of immortality. Their money and their buildings and their power had all been used to keep alive this legendary creature which should have lived forever as fresh generations of the family renewed its strength. But there was only Hugo now.
“When’s the boy coming?” Lady Southwold moaned once again. And once more Marjorie did her best to comfort her. She was pathetic in her age and helplessness, a burnt-out ruin of the old virago who had caused Richard so much trouble in the past. It was hard to feel anything but pity for her now. Anyone who saw her today would think that she was grieving for her husband. Perhaps she was.
During that morning more of the family arrived: first Elizabeth, pale and unsmiling and unwell. Richard was glad she’d come. Then came old Great-Aunt Kate, Lord Southwold’s remaining sister. She dithered slightly and seemed none too clear why she was there. Finally James arrived. Richard had not believed he would and suddenly felt reassured and grateful for his children. At this moment when all else seemed in collapse and dissolution there were at least the children to provide some continuity. They would inherit nothing of the Southwold lands or wealth, but that was as well. He had suffered quite enough from Southwold in his time to be glad its influence was over. At l
east his children would be free to live their own lives and to find their own traditions.
Whilst Richard was brooding thus, Lord Southwold’s door was opened and plump old Dr. Cowley, reverent and thoughtful as the priest the dying man refused to have, came tiptoeing out.
“He wants to see you all before he goes. He’s quite lucid but he’s very weak. It won’t be long.”
They filed in, Richard first, then Marjorie with her mother and Aunt Kate and finally Elizabeth and James. The room was shaded, with the long curtains pulled and a candle burning by the bed. It was colder here than in the room next door, and Richard smelled the sweet, dry smell of death.
Southwold was propped up on his pillows, to all intents and purposes already a corpse. It was absurd, ridiculous, this deathbed scene, yet Richard couldn’t help admiring this dominating proud old man.
One hand was lying on the counterpane, looking like a saint’s hand carved in ivory. Richard took it, held it a moment; it was already cold. Then it was Marjorie’s turn: she kissed her father on his brow. Richard thought he saw him smile, but it was hard to tell in the gloom of the bedroom and beneath the great canopy.
The rest came closer. Elizabeth was sobbing slightly and James’s eyes appeared unusually bright. And then the strangest thing of all occurred. Old Lady Southwold uttered a great howl, whether of despair or rage Richard never could decide, and then threw herself upon the body of the dying man. Was it because she realised that he was finally escaping her, or was it some relic of the passion she must once have felt for him?
She looked like one possessed—eyes staring, thin grey hair in all directions—and as she cried his name she clung to him. The force dragged his body up in bed, and Richard glimpsed the narrow rib cage through the nightshirt. For just a moment everyone was mesmerised—then, quite audibly, Lord Southwold uttered one short low moan. The doctor stepped forward and, gripping Lady Southwold firmly by the shoulders, eased her away as she sobbed. Then he was moving Southwold’s body back onto the pillows.
“It’s all right now, your ladyship,” he said. “There’s nothing more now to be done.”
Then he closed Lord Southwold’s eyes.
“His lordship’s dead,” he said, and at the words a last despairing shriek echoed from the widow.
Thus expired the eleventh Earl of Southwold in the house of his ancestors, full of years and honours, mourned by his widow and surrounded by those who nominally loved him. And with him died the house of Southwold. True there was Hugo, who, in character as ever, arrived half an hour later, bronzed, apologetic and somehow quite irrelevant, although as Richard had to keep telling himself, Hugo was now Lord Southwold.
There should have been some sort of feudal ceremony, a herald to announce, “Southwold is dead! Long live Southwold!” But there was nothing of the sort—only old Dr. Cowley, snuffling with the beginning of a cold, assuring Hugo that his father “hadn’t been in any pain when he passed over.” Richard wondered but said nothing. Nor did he speak when Mr. Prothero the vicar was allowed in to do his usual business with the dead.
One imagines death will settle things. It rarely does. Richard had thought Lord Southwold’s passing would mark the end of the Southwold influence upon his life and on his family, but the reverse occurred. As the dead Earl’s son-in-law, Richard now found himself caught up in the flurry of activity the death occasioned. There was the funeral at Southwold, a melancholy, rather touching ceremony with the small church crammed with workers and tenants from the estate come to pay their last respects to “the good old lord.” The coffin was carried on a big old-fashioned farm cart drawn by men from the village all in their Sunday best. As the body was committed to its place in the big granite Southwold vault, there was scarcely a dry eye among them all.
Two weeks later there was the full-scale memorial service in Westminster Abbey. Once again Richard had to take his place as one of the chief mourners while the deceased Earl of Southwold was honoured by the nation. Richard had admired him, been maddened and exasperated by him, and at times almost loved him, but he had never thought of him as that aloof, impersonal creature “a great man.” But here were the greatest in the land assembled to insist that that was what he had been. The Prime Minister and Lord Lansdowne represented the King. Lord Rosebery, like the dead man a politician and a racing man, was there for the Jockey Club. There were the members of the Cabinet, the opposition, the ambassadors and envoys and generals and M.P.s—respectability incarnate. But as he listened to the Bishop of London give the memorial address, Richard could make no meaningful connection between these studied words of praise and the strange, unpredictable, sad man he remembered. Nor could he make much sense of what the new Lord Southwold would do with his inheritance.
After the service all the family had lunch in Eaton Place. It was a surprisingly light-hearted meal. The pale London sun lit up the dining room, and Mrs. Bridges, on Marjorie’s sensible instructions, had done her best to duplicate the sort of luncheon that the late Lord Southwold himself would have approved of—a lobster mousse, an excellent ragout of veal, profiteroles and brandy sauce and cream. Hudson had managed to unearth some of the Château Jubloteau champagne the old man had loved, and as they drank it even the dullest members of the family seemed to imbibe a little of his sparkle. Hugo appeared particularly optimistic. He had put on weight in Canada and it suited him. Suddenly he sounded like a credible successor to his father, talking of taking up residence at Southwold as soon as possible and telling Richard that he now intended to “do my bit in the Lords against the Liberals.”
Old Lady Southwold, a little over-rouged but otherwise unusually restrained, said, “Hear, hear, Hugo darling!”
But the real point of interest was Marion, Hugo’s new wife. She was a powerful brunette, extremely self-assured and ladylike, and very much aware of her position as the new Lady Southwold. There was no sign of her daughter, young Georgina Worsley; she had been left in Canada along with Martin, now Lord Ashby. Presumably they would be sent for, since Hugo and Marion obviously meant to settle into Southwold at once.
Hugo was telling Richard about the situation. “Of course there are the death duties to be met, and Marion is hoping to modernise the dear old house a bit, aren’t you, darling?”
Marion smiled and nodded gracefully. Marjorie was suddenly annoyed and wondered how her mother would react to this. Rather to her surprise, all that the new Dowager Lady Southwold did was nod as well.
“Everything depends on good old Geoffrey Dillon,” Hugo continued. “Wise old owl. Man in a million. He’s sorting out the details of the estate and everything should be ready for the will to be read by Christmas. But he’s hoping to be able to keep the damage down to a minimum, and when we win this next election everything should be all right.”
“If we win it,” Richard said.
“Oh, my dear old chap, surely there can be no shadow of a doubt.”
Hugo’s political optimism was misplaced. That November’s general election, for all the passion it engendered, settled nothing—except that the minority Liberal government stayed on tenuously in power with the conditional support of eighty-four M.P.s from the Labour Party. For the new Lord Southwold this meant no alleviation of the threat to his estate, and for Richard it was a further period in the obscurity of opposition. True, he was still among the top dozen in his party, but as he tried explaining gloomily to Marjorie, the period of his political prime would pass.
“I should have followed young Winston and crossed over to the Liberals,” he said bitterly. “Then I’d not have spent the best years of my life kicking my heels in the opposition.”
“But what about your principles?” said Marjorie. “I don’t think I could ever have forgiven you if you had followed that young traitor.”
Richard had other worries besides this nagging feeling that he was missing the one chance of his life to make his mark in history. (In fact, unknown to Marjorie, Richard had already received a most tempting secret offer from Asquith if he woul
d join them. He was in such broad agreement with the Liberals that only one thing really held him back—his fear of what Marjorie would say.)
First came a discreet inquiry from Coutts’s Bank, a note from Mr. Haldane wondering how his affairs were now progressing and when he would be in a position to discharge his overdraft. Happily, he was able to reply that the late Lord Southwold’s will would soon be settled, but the next problem that arose could not be brushed aside so easily. This was a note from Geoffrey Dillon deeply regretting to inform him that the King’s Proctor had seen fit to intervene in Elizabeth’s divorce. He had subpoenaed Henry Partridge, who had made a statement.
“So much,” thought Richard as he read the beastly letter, “for the appalling publisher’s firm promise to say nothing. And so much, too, for Dillion’s friendship with the King’s Proctor in their youth.”
That night at dinner Richard did his best to cushion the unpleasant news, but Marjorie was predictably incensed.
“What earthly reason can the law have in taking all this trouble to maintain a mere mockery of a marriage?” she exclaimed indignantly when Richard told her.
“It’s nothing to do with me, dear,” he said. “That’s the law.”
“Then why have you never tried to do anything to change it? As a politician you must have been aware that these things happen.”
Like many forceful ladies, Marjorie suddenly became a reformer when the system hurt her personally, but to Richard’s surprise his daughter took the news calmly. Since the funeral she had been looking prettier and slimmer. Now she sat playing with her wine glass and barely acknowledging her mother’s outburst on her behalf.