by Fay Weldon
What did men and women do to make babies? Something terrible, or why did the whole adult world keep it so secret? The bodies of her parents had been found in the one bed. Jenny the housekeeper here at the Palace had told her so. The proof of it was in the memory she tried so hard to forget: the searing glimpse of two burnt bodies entwined on the one stretcher. Had God punished them with fire for the sin of sleeping next to one another, instead of separately? If so, she was spared the sin of responsibility for their deaths. The other memory she could not forget, however confused the event, was being flung over the shoulder of a strong young man as he rescued her from the flames. She could think of nothing nicer than sleeping next to a man. How warm and companionable it must be. Married people did it all the time, it seemed; nuns, never. The Bishop and Mrs Kennion shared a bed, and presumably a bishop would do nothing to risk hell.
She should have been weeping: she was newly orphaned, alone and unprotected in the world, her every possession having gone up in flames. There was a kind of blank page when she thought of her loss, a nothingness where something was accustomed to being, but was that grief? She had managed a few tears because it was expected of her, but they had not flowed easily. People had been so kind and considerate; when she did cry it was from a sudden overflow of gratitude for their kindness. When she thought about her mother all she could think of was that there was no one any more to plait her hair and give her a headache all day. Here no one even tried: they brushed it out for her and let it flow free for a bit before putting it up in a bun. When she thought of her father all she could remember was this tall threatening figure which kept shouting and could never be pleased. Here no one shouted, people whispered in the corridors and scurried here and there about their business but if they saw you, smiled. And she was so comfortable and warm. They seemed to expect her to stay in bed so mostly she did. She slept a lot. They kept bringing her food and urging her to eat up. Fresh bread with great slabs of butter, whole chicken legs and thick slices of ham.
They’d moved her out of a little servant’s room into a big one which looked out over the moat, and she could watch the swans. They were such beautiful slender things, trained to ring a bell when they wanted food. But every now and then there’d be a great squawking and splashing of water and flapping of wings when the occasional marauding swarm of ducks flew in from the Cathedral Duck Pond and tried to steal the food. There was a lesson to be learned there somewhere but she was not sure what it was.
Mrs Kennion turned up from time to time to see how she was, sometimes with a strange young man with big watery eyes who looked at her with a stupid expression: but Mrs Kennion would quickly hurry him out, and she was glad. He reminded her of Rumpelstiltskin peering in the door. The old bedroom in Yatbury had been the dream, this was the reality. Jenny the housekeeper had been to the market and bought her new clothes, most of them black, of course, because she was in mourning, but the fabrics were soft, warm, and not at all scratchy.
They told her that her uncle was coming to collect her. She hoped he would not; he was a wicked man, a secret follower of the Scarlet Woman of Rome (whoever she was), licentious and a philanderer (again, whatever) and his wife her Aunt Isobel was little better, a flirtatious Jezebel. Adela had looked her up in the Book of Kings and for once found a reference. She had been thrown out of a window and had her face eaten by dogs, a just punishment apparently for getting mixed up with idols.
Now don’t you think?
It’s nice to know
The worms are waiting for you below . . .
She was going to hell, how could she not? There was this terrible other little wormy thing, waving and rearing its little head about inside her, like a bean sprouting in the darkness, reaching for light, crying thank God, thank God, it is over, I am free. She had sinned: with every thought she had, she sinned. Yet heaven was rewarding her, not punishing her. Sent her to bed in the goose girl’s hovel, woken her up in a palace.
It was Christmas Day. It was assumed she was so deep in grief she would want to stay in her room and not celebrate, but she could hear carols rising from round the Christmas tree in the Long Hall and longed to be there and to sing We Three Kings from Orient Are. It would make a change from The Worms Crawl In, the Worms Crawl Out. But they brought her up a thick meat soup with crusty rolls in a covered porcelain bowl, a whole chicken leg, roast potatoes, roast parsnips and green peas, and a tiny little plum pudding topped by a sprig of holly with two red berries in it – it reminded her of the churchyard at St Aidan’s but she quickly put that out of her mind – all served on a heavy silver tray brought up by the butler, accompanied by Mrs Kennion and the Bishop himself. He looked quite kindly, and not at all like the demon her father had described.
After she had eaten every scrap of the meal she turned the soup bowl upside down and found a red Sevres mark, and put it the right way up very carefully indeed. Then she worked out the row of hallmarks on the heavy silver knives and forks; she could make out the lion and a king’s head with a crown, probably George III, but would need a magnifying glass to discern the rest. Her father, may he rest in peace, had a little book of porcelain and assayers’ marks, which she had sent herself to sleep many a night learning by heart. Gone, all gone, dust and ashes. Never mind: she had enough in her head to be getting on with.
Someone knocked on her door. It was Frank Overshaw, of course, bringing her an offering. It was a shallow silver flower bowl in which three Christmas roses floated, their strange waxy greeny-white petals tinged with pink and slightly tattered about the edges. Adela really did not like them at all, and looked at them a little askance, but Frank seemed not to notice.
‘I shall call you Madelon,’ he said.
‘Why’s that, Frank?’
‘Madelon was the shepherd girl who wept on Christmas morning because she had no gift to bring the newborn king. A passing angel turned her tears into Christmas roses. Ah, my Madelon!’
Another knock at the door quickly followed. It was Mrs Kennion come to remove Frank. ‘Oh do stop being silly, Frank,’ she said, ‘leave the poor girl alone,’ and whisked him away.
When they had gone Adela looked underneath the bowl, and could make out a harp with a crown on top and so knew it was Irish silver and not very interesting. But she could see the name Madelon might do very well instead of Adela.
The Dilbernes’ Christmas
Sandringham Estate was very busy, very large, and the house itself really rather new, built of red brick some thirty years ago, and to Isobel’s eye had an oddly untidy look, as if a wilful child had been allowed to add bits to some unfortunate architect’s plans. It had gables, balconies, bay windows, towers, turrets; the chimneys did not match, a cupola had been added here, a bell tower there. As a palace it lacked the antiquity of Windsor, the scenic grandeur of Balmoral, the scale of Buck House. The outside of the house was so decorated with holly and ivy, festoons and lanterns, it looked more like a Christmas tree than a dwelling, as Robert observed. It was the first Christmas the new royals had been allowed to spend in their own home, and they were apparently making the most of it. They’d always so far had to endure the solemnities of Windsor every Christmas with all its formality, gloom and memento mori – and the previous Christmas spent with the Old Queen on her deathbed.
The King had sent a covered brougham to collect Isobel and Robert from the station on Christmas Eve. A sprinkling of snow was falling and the grounds were white, much criss-crossed with the wheels of carts and carriages. The Royal Family had spent the day in an orgy of gift giving, Lily, the lady’s maid, who had gone ahead of Isobel, reported. She’d marvelled at the generosity of the gifts the family had delivered in person to all the cottages of the estate, neglecting not the humblest woodcutter, the merest beater – a joint of beef to this family, furniture to another, toys, blankets, pots and pans where they were most needed.
‘Everything so gay and festive,’ said Lily. ‘To and fro they went, the carts piled high: Princes and Princesses walking beside,
the King and Queen going ahead, the little grandchildren running along beside, George’s four and Louise’s three. They love to be with their grandmama. She spoils them rotten. Everyone’s happy and laughing.’
Lily declared herself disappointed in the accommodation – she thought the rooms rather small and mean and dusty for a palace. Lily was unpacking Isobel’s trunk while Isobel lay on the bed with her feet up and watched. Lily had a real gift for folding and smoothing; little white dextrous hands moving swiftly and carefully, and quite an eye for fashion. One had to put up with an endless stream of chatter; but the chatter was often entertaining enough.
All the clothes were black because the Old Queen had been dead less than a year, and the Court, Robert had pointed out, was still in full mourning. Lily had packed mostly silks – Isobel assumed Sandringham was well heated, though she was already shivering a little and the fireplace was small. Dilberne Court was chilly enough in winter, but had the excuse of being a Jacobean building and prone to draughts, whereas Sandringham was so new – Edward, then Prince of Wales, had had the old house razed to the ground as too small for him and his new bride, and this new version built in its place. But at least, whatever its other shortcomings, as Lily said cheerfully: ‘There’s no carrying chamber pots about. There are water closets enough.’ Though this apparently didn’t quite make up for Lily having to share a bed with Princess Maude’s lady’s maid Mabel.
Maude, now twenty-seven, had been married for five years to Prince Carl of Denmark but kept coming over to stay at Sandringham, leaving her husband behind, and there was no sign yet of a baby. Perhaps there was something wrong.
‘In what way “wrong”?’ asked Isobel. It was not wise to become over-familiar with the servants, but sometimes one succumbed. One longed to know what went on, and the servants always knew more than anyone else.
‘They call her Harry,’ said Lily. ‘She’s ever such a tomboy, though good enough at dressing up and looking grand. All the girls are good at that. None of them are exactly girly, their noses are too long and their mouths too thin. Not made for kissing, if you know what I mean. Louise is the oldest and plainest. They speak of her as Her Royal Shyness. She hates company and likes fishing, which is peculiar. She hasn’t managed a son, either, only three girls and when they come to stay, which is not often, her husband the Duke of Fife never visits her bedroom. Toria isn’t even married though she’s a year older than Maude, and quite sweet and pretty but turns up her nose at her suitors which the Queen is glad of. She can stay and keep her mother company. George and his wife May live in the grounds, so the Queen has him close to her. But only just because May doesn’t let him out of her sight, she doesn’t want him turning into his father, who would? Just as well, the servants say, that Eddy – he was the oldest son – died ten years ago – he was probably Jack the Ripper—’
‘That’s enough, Lily,’ said Isobel. Gossip could go too far.
They decided on what Isobel should wear for dinner.
‘I don’t know why you told me to bring only black,’ said Lily. ‘Mabel showed me the dress the Queen’s going to be wearing for the Christmas lunch: it’s ever so pretty, in eau-de-nil figured satin, with a gored skirt that flares at the knee and pagoda sleeves, pouched at the bodice and no high collar, so she can wear her diamonds against the skin. All very much à la mode.’
Isobel all but cried out in distress. She would look so foolish in deep mourning if nobody else was.
‘Don’t distress yourself,’ said Lily. ‘I brought your purple silk with the sequins and train, and the lace sleeves with puffs. I thought you might need it. Wear it with the white kid gloves to lighten the look. It has a low neckline and it suits you very well. Wear it tomorrow for Christmas lunch. You will not outshine the Queen but look good enough. Eau-de-nil is better kept for the Spring, even if she is the Queen. For tonight you can wear the black silk with the jet bodice. It too has a bloused top, and good jet picks up so many reflections as to almost count as colour.’
Isobel resigned herself to her fate and congratulated herself for having seen promise in Lily when she was a scurvy little thing, a flower girl off the streets of London, and taken her in against all advice.
On the way down to dinner Isobel reproached Robert for having so misled her about what to wear.
‘Oh, they’re forever arguing about mourning,’ he said. ‘Alexandra claimed it could end six months after the Old Queen’s death; May says it’s only respectful to go for the full year. I asked young Frederick Ponsonby and he said safer to go with black. I expect we will find many of the old ways changing now the Old Queen is gone,’ he added. ‘If it worries you, say a close relative of our own has just died.’
‘That would be to invite misfortune,’ said Isobel. ‘I will say nothing and hold my head high.’
He breathed into her ear and murmured, ‘And I may say you look particularly good in black, with your skin so white and your hair so blonde.’ Lily had put ammonia and lemon juice in the rinsing water when she washed her Ladyship’s hair, to help keep it pale.
Consuelo was rumoured to put sulphate of iron in her hair wash to keep hers dark. Isobel would ask Lily to be more lavish with the ammonia in future. The more difference there was between her and her rival the better. There it was again – the little nagging doubt, the little worm of jealousy which kept sticking up its questing head at the most inappropriate moments. What was the matter with her?
And what was the matter with her that her own easy flow of charming chatter seemed to flow rather haltingly over dinner? She had been seated at the bottom end of the table with Ponsonby, the King’s private secretary, on one side and Sir James Reid, the Royal Physician, on the other, as if as a mere Countess she counted for very little. She did not like it: she was accustomed to being a guest of honour.
Robert had been invited because the King wanted him as a shooting companion on the week’s shoot: was suddenly she, Isobel Dilberne, to count as nothing?
Robert was seated between the Princess of Wales – a rather tight-mouthed, stern creature, though at least still in mourning, in high-necked black silk with rather old-fashioned puff sleeves, relieved only by a deep purple brocade chemisette, and a single diamond brooch at the neck – and Princess Louise, a sad-looking girl with a falling-away jaw and too large a nose, also in black, but who seemed in competition with her mother as to how many diamonds and pearls she could get round her neck. Alexandra wore the eau-de nil and glittered more brightly than anyone; the King had the two bottom buttons of his waistcoat undone, not just one, the better to incorporate his increasingly large girth. But this evening, at what the Queen described as a simple family supper, he seemed to swell in good humour as he did in size, and remained benign and talkative. The Queen sat on his left, not at the other end of the table, which was how Isobel would have done things. Those furthest from the throne, as it were, were bound to feel put out. Isobel had a feeling Robert was not enjoying himself any more than she was, but at least he was seated amongst titles, as she was not.
The lively little wire terrier who ran around under their feet was called Caesar. May positively winced as he snapped or leapt up for food, but Maude, the prettiest of the daughters, tiny waisted, seemed to encourage him in his pranks.
‘Another meat course with pastry,’ muttered the elderly Sir James Reid. ‘A boeuf Wellington after partridge pie, and that after ragoût of mutton. It is beyond belief.’
He was not a great conversationalist, beyond advising Isobel to eat the choux de bruxelles or the aubergines frites, and leave the caneton, and when Isobel declined to do so, warning her at length of the dangers of overeating, which Isobel thought quite unnecessary. Like most of all the other lady guests, Isobel ate sparingly in public, a taste of this and a taste of that, before plates were whisked away. Only Princess Louise, a big, doleful, bosomy girl, ate heartily like her father, not seeming to worry what anyone thought.
And young Ponsonby, who looked quite fun, had eyes only for his beautiful wife
Victoria Lily, busily flirting with George, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne – quite uselessly, because everyone knew he was hopelessly emamoured with his own wife, a tendency he most certainly did not inherit from his father. George, an apparently gentle, retiring man, looked baffled but polite, and his wife May looked on with a cold, raised-eyebrowed amusement, while Victoria Lily’s gay little laugh rang out around the table. More alarming still, the girl was obviously pregnant, and at a stage where most women would prefer to dine in private. As Robert had pointed out, many things were going to change now the Old Queen was gone. Pregnancy was no longer to be seen as shameful evidence of indelicate behaviour, better hidden.
Isobel felt suddenly rather old. Once it had taken so little effort to charm men. Now she did not even feel like trying. Worse, the dinner was painfully reminding her of what she so seldom liked to recall these days: her own humble origins. Robert had married beneath him: she, illegitimate daughter of a miner and a soubrette – forget that the miner had become a coal magnate and the soubrette become a famous actress – was born to the demi-monde and had no business at such a dining table as this. Frederick Ponsonby, whose hereditary business was to know everything – his father Henry having been secretary to the Old Queen – no doubt knew all about her. Ponsonby, like Robert, had been born a second son. Second sons, of course, could become first sons when accident or illness struck: the current Prince of Wales was only thus because his older brother Clarence had died of flu in this very palace. She herself was only Countess because Robert’s elder brother had died at sea along with his father. If he had not, she would have stayed only an Hon. Mrs at best. Frederick was only a minor branch of the Ponsonby earldom; he would have to earn his way into titled circles.