by Fay Weldon
‘We are both of us a terrible trial to our parents,’ said Rosina. ‘They did so want us to be like them, and look at us. I turn out a bluestocking, and you, Arthur’ – and she helped herself, as the footman offered none, to a slice of turkey along with her vegetables and a considerable spooning of rich meat gravy, and washed it down with the Pomerol – ‘digging up good grazing land, filling the air with noisome fumes which give Mother headaches, frightening the birds, annoying Father’s friends, and the King is hardly going to visit a country house where the hoi polloi run motor races round him. We have spoiled their lives. As for you, Minnie, Mother longs for someone to discuss ribbons and fashions with, and all she has is someone who wears a painter’s smock, day in, day out, covered with splashes of cobalt blue and chrome yellow.’
‘It is the tools of her trade,’ said Arthur loyally, ‘like the engine oil under my fingernails. We are in a new century. Everything changes. And she had to do something while we wait for the heir.’ And he enquired whether Minnie would join him in a slice of boiled beef with carrots; would it not remind her of home, now that Billy O’Brien was moving out of hogs and into cattle and Minnie said yes, though leave out the carrots. Her father could not abide vegetables. She spoke lightly. But it bothered her that he kept worrying away at her father’s trade, like a dog with an unsatisfactory bone. His own grandfather had started life as a coal miner, after all.
‘I think I may be having a baby,’ she said. The staff were listening. She could tell by a kind of sudden stillness in the air. But then they were always listening. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, quickly. ‘I shouldn’t even have mentioned it.’
Arthur got up and came over and kissed her on the cheek. He looked so pleased she wondered what she had been worrying about.
‘Of course you are,’ he said. ‘How could you not be?’
Rosina stayed quiet and then said, ‘Perhaps it’s too early to know for sure,’ she said. ‘If so, you will be in no condition to process at the Coronation, let alone be seen in public. There will be an extra place. Perhaps now Mama will let me have it. If she can’t have her daughter-in-law she might just put up with her own daughter.’
‘You’d have to sit next to the Baums,’ said Arthur, ‘who are complete nobodies, just rich. Papa can be so obvious one is almost ashamed.’
There was a crash and a bang. Reginald had dropped the great silver dish which carried the turkey.
George and Ivy’s Christmas
George was trying to develop Ivy’s psychic powers. Both had time to spare. His hands were still bandaged from the fire, so he could not work: she had no work to do. Farmer Swaley’s son Andy, back from agricultural college, had obliged his father by taking over the milking. George, having run in and rescued the Hon. Rev.’s little girl from the flames, was now the local hero. The Bath Technical College was closed for the holidays. Ivy’s place of employment was dust and ashes. Her employers were in the mortuary awaiting burial, and no one grieved for them: the village just looked forward to the funeral, though who would provide food for the wake no one knew. It was hoped the Church would: they had been known to put on a good spread if one of their own went. Adela was safe and warm in the grandeur of the Bishop’s Palace at Wells. Ivy would go and visit her but thought she might be turned away. She was only the servant after all. But her mother had been told that Ivy could look forward to a substantial contribution from the parish emergency fund towards replacing her bits and pieces.
‘Someone up there loves you,’ her mother said. ‘No mention that you weren’t in your own bed when the place went up. You were good to that little girl, I’ll say that for you. You can stay with me until you get yourself fixed up.’ Everyone was being kind to her, even her own mother.
Doreen had even asked George to share their Christmas meal. They’d had chicken, mashed potatoes and peas and a bottle each of Inde Coope beer, and done themselves proud. Doreen, who always liked a bit of trouser, had entertained George mightily by talking about ghosts; the headless horsemen on the Bath to Wells Road and the legionnaire soldiers she’d once seen marching on the old Roman road up by Dyrham, a spooky place where three Celtic kings had died fifteen hundred years ago. George had been really interested, and asked her if Doreen had second sight, and if so had she, Ivy, inherited it. And Doreen, to Ivy’s embarrassment, had talked about how when she was a little girl Ivy had talked about the lady who bent over her bed sometimes when she was trying to go to sleep.
After which she and George had repaired to the barn and nothing would now do but that George was trying to make her shift things by the power of thought.
‘Tell you what,’ said George now, ‘see that button over there?’ It was one of the buttons from her skirt which had popped off when she had removed it without undoing it properly, though he seemed to have lost interest in her, only in what he called her kinetic powers. She’d put the button on the table for safe keeping. The table was covered with dust and powdered corn husks and feathers where stray hens had been roosting in the warmth of the milking shed.
‘I see it,’ she said, sitting up in her scratchy straw bed. ‘Why?’
‘Make it move an inch to the left,’ said George.
‘How can I do that?’ she asked.
‘By focusing your life energy,’ he said. ‘Using your life soul. That’s the kind of language those in the business use, at any rate. I dunno. Just do it.’
Ivy looked at him askance and tried staring at the button for three whole minutes. The time dragged. The button stayed where it was. She thought she saw a little puff of dust go up in the air but that was probably from a draught.
‘Told you so,’ she said.
‘Then what was the puff of dust?’ he said. ‘Never mind, you looked pretty good doing it,’ and leapt upon her, bandaged hands and all. Later he said that he didn’t want to be a science teacher, just that he could get the training free, and there were so many suckers out there prepared to part with their money it seemed a pity not to relieve them of it. He was not like any of the other village boys, Ivy could see. But he might well be a sucker himself. Her mother always saw things on the way home from the pub, and Ivy had invented the lady who leant over the bed so she’d be allowed to stay up late. George was so sharp he cut himself.
‘If genuine telekenesis fails,’ George said, when he finally lay back, temporarily exhausted, ‘I suppose one can always fake it.’
‘I Woke,’ Said the Queen, ‘I Worried.’
A strange whining noise, rising and falling, woke Isobel on Christmas morning. She’d roused Robert, in some alarm. He sat up; listened, said, ‘It’s the Scotch bagpiper, bringing in Christmas.’ And he lay down and fell asleep again.
After that Isobel could not sleep. It was six in the morning: no one would be up. It had been a late night. Most of the guests she supposed would breakfast in their rooms: the grandchildren in their nursery. She wound up her hair without Lily’s help, found a black breakfast robe and fur-lined slippers and made her way to where a breakfast room might sensibly be, and where perhaps coffee was being served for early risers.
Maidservants made themselves scarce as she approached, and she was conscious of what a nuisance she must be: grates had to be cleaned, fires lit, carpets swept, Christmas Day or not, and all must appear as if done by magic, not by human sweat and toil. She passed through the great vaulted hall where the Christmas tree stood, a giant Norway spruce, its candles not yet lit, but bright with lanterns, hung with paper chains, and a thousand small ornaments, sweets, toys and bon-bons. Every mantelpiece, every door frame of the hall was hung with holly and ivy: wherever a pine-cone could be placed it had been: beneath the tree gifts for the children were stacked high – Isobel could pick out a drum here, a rocking horse there, a bow and arrow, a bicycle: in corners of the room still further packets and parcels, each with its coloured label, presumably for staff. There was to be a carol concert for family and staff mid morning. Alexandra was known to keep a kind and generous household. All very w
ell, thought Isobel, mindful of the dusty hangings of her bed, the rather tarnished taps in the bathroom, but perhaps better a staff that was in awe of you than one which took your kindness for granted and became slatternly.
When she finally found the breakfast room she was taken aback to see Alexandra already at the table. She turned to flee, conscious of her own informal attire. But Alexandra, slopping over the table in a mauve kimono dotted with yellow flowers, smoking a pink Sobranie cigarette, called her back.
‘How nice to see a friendly face so early in the morning! One wakes, one worries, don’t you find?’
‘Indeed one does,’ said Isobel, fervently. A chair was pulled back for her: coffee was poured. It was lukewarm.
‘Did the Christmas Piper wake you? I know it’s a dreadful noise but it’s a Balmoral ritual. The King hates Balmoral but I love it; the place reminds me of Castle Kronborg in Elsinore, stark and bare and Northern. Do tell me, what do you worry about?’
It was a royal command and for a moment Isobel almost told her. ‘I worry about whether my husband is fonder of Consuelo Vanderbilt than he ought to be, and I worry about having sent off three invitations to your coronation which were not mine to give—’ but fortunately the Queen did not wait for an answer but launched off into her own worries, namely that she might find the weight of the crown too much for her on Coronation Day. It was the kind of detail, she complained, that men overlooked.
‘Uneasy is the head that wears a crown,’ Isobel said, ‘even if it’s female.’
But Alexandra just looked puzzled and frowned, not understanding the reference, and Isobel felt a flash of sympathy for the King, who so liked the company of clever women he even got on with Rosina, and had asked after her at dinner and when told she was writing a book had said, ‘Well done.’
Isobel was not so sure it was well done. Rosina was working on a sociological study of the life and labour of rural workers at the dawn of the new century. They had good reason she said, for discontent.
‘But Rosina,’ Isobel had said, when asked for her comments, ‘our workers don’t seem at all discontent. We keep their cottages in good order, we provide firewood in the winter, there is a village school; the doctor calls. What more can they want?’ And Robert had not been at all supportive: once you started asking questions, the answers would never be in your favour, and could only result in unrest and agitation.
Robert had been quite right. There had been union activity on the Dilberne estate and an unreasonable wage demand as a result of Rosina’s casual ‘stirring things up’. Workers who had not known even of the existence of an Agricultural Labourers’ Union now not only just knew about it but joined it.
However, in the King’s kindly eyes, it seemed a woman who wrote a book, any book, was to be encouraged. Intelligent women were meant to foster intelligence in their sons, though his own daughters, Isobel noticed, were not encouraged to think or argue. Their interests lay in food, clothes and who was related to whom. Alexandra saw no virtue in education. George, heir to the throne, had not even been sent to Eton but been home tutored.
‘The fact is,’ said Alexandra, fluttering her jewelled hands, ‘I do really need to have a new crown.’ Even over this early breakfast and still in her mauve kimono she flashed ruby and amethyst rings on her fingers. But then how else should a queen behave? She complained now that neither of the crowns available – one the Adelaide and the other the Modena – was suitable. One was too tall and looked like something out of a music hall and the other too low and not at all splendid.
‘And dear Consuelo is bound to wear her new diadem,’ said Alexandra. ‘Such a pretty arrangement by some fashionable French jeweller: one thousand and ninety-one diamonds. But diamonds can be so heavy – one is frightened her pretty little head would quite snap on that slender neck of hers.’ She did not, Alexandra said, want her crown to be outshone at the ceremony, but one must consider the weight. ‘And now Consuelo is off to Moscow which is bound to mean more Fabergé. She is a dear good girl but always feels she must have everything that others have, and more.’
She gave Isobel a little meaningful look, or Isobel thought she did. Perhaps the Queen was trying to tell her something; possibly a warning that husbands were included in the Duchess’s list? Perhaps the King had looked at her favourably? But surely not: Consuelo was not his type. Bertie liked women with intelligent faces, big noses and strong jaws – until of course the exception came along. Now Alexandra looked at the clock and complained that everyone was very late down for breakfast; there were to be carols round the tree at eleven and it was already nearly eight.
‘Half past seven,’ said Isobel.
‘No, my dear,’ said Alexandra, ‘the clocks in the house are half an hour fast so Edward can get in more shooting in the daylight. Everyone knows that. It is a very annoying habit but one learns to live with it. I daresay your dear Robert has his annoying little habits too.’
Isobel felt reprimanded. She reflected that breakfasting with royalty was even more tiring than dining with them. At breakfast, natural impulses and the remnants of dreams were too close. The very ceremony of dinner imposed a more reasonable formality and a degree of forethought. One so wanted to be liked and approved of by one’s superiors in rank it became impossible just to speak or act naturally. The greater the gap the worse it was. She supposed it could be like that for humbler people in her presence: perhaps when Mrs Baum was with her equals she did not trip, stumble, and break things. Mrs Baum – no, that was another problem for another day. Isobel pulled herself together, refrained from listing Robert’s marital defects, and suggested that her Majesty have a new crown made, a shorter, flatter one than the Modena or the Adelaide, with eight arches which could be removed to form chokers or necklaces and perhaps with a St George Cross in front set with the Koh-i-Noor diamond. That, Isobel thought but did not say, should put Consuelo in her place.
Alexandra looked at her steadily for a moment or two and Isobel wondered if she had made yet another mistake. Then the Queen said, ‘My mother-in-law always thought the Koh-i-Noor brought its owner bad luck. It was large but lustreless and its origins always seen as dubious. It was certainly bad luck that when Garrards ventured to re-cut it in 1852 – I was a child of ten – they managed to reduce its weight from one hundred and sixty-eight carats to one hundred and forty-nine. I understand Prince Albert, for one, was extremely annoyed.’
Isobel felt ignorant. She knew nothing and was worth nothing. But then the Queen smiled suddenly and said, ‘However, it is certainly brilliant enough in its present state and the public holds it in high regard, if only because they have heard of it. However, we may possibly think again about Garrards. I wish they’d let me have you, Isobel, as a Lady-in-waiting, but one finds one has very little say in the matter. It has been a political appointment since my dear mother-in-law, at the very beginning of her reign, nearly brought down the Crown because of it. One has to be so careful.’
She patted Isobel’s hand and Isobel felt tears rising to her eyes. What was it? Gratitude? Adoration? Surely not. Perhaps she was just tired.
At eleven family and staff gathered round the Christmas tree to join in O Tannenbaum. The Duke and Duchess of Wales and the four children came up from York House, the littlest one, Henry, some nine months old, pushed by a nursemaid. Isobel watched the little procession of future kings and queens from the window. All in their turn would marry or be married off to royalty. There was no skipping or larking about; all were serious, quiet and well behaved. Alexandra, greeting them, gathering them into her arms in maternal embrace, was all smiles. Only when May insisted that the children sing O Tannenbaum in German did the royal smile fade. Since the eldest boy was in direct succession to the English throne it was not surprising, Isobel thought, that it did.
Relations between the King and the Kaiser were strained, she knew. Wilhelm had publicly blamed his mother, Bertie’s favourite sister Victoria, for having insisted on English doctors, not German, at his birth: it was as a r
esult of her misguided faith in her countrymen that the Kaiser’s arm was withered. Bad enough that he should so malign his own mother in the past, but when in the previous year she had lain dying in extreme pain Wilhelm had prevented the more merciful English doctors she wanted attending her. It had been a needlessly long and terrible death, for which the King blamed Wilhelm. It was tactless of May, to say the very least, to encourage her children to sing in German, not English.
She said as much to Robert, who said that May was just angry with her in-laws. She was only just back from a nine-month tour of the Colonies with George. May had wanted to stay home with the children – she had a new baby – but the King, the Queen, and Prime Minister Balfour had insisted she accompany her husband. After the Old Queen’s death, everyone said, such a tour would serve to re-establish the Crown’s continuing power and prestige around the Empire.
‘So the children had to stay at Sandringham with the Queen.’
‘Naturally. A very sensible arrangement,’ said Robert.
‘Not if you’re May,’ said Isobel. ‘Not if you know your mother-in-law is going to spoil your children and win their love in your absence. A whole nine months away – leave a newborn, and you’ll come back to a child who is nothing to do with you. Poor little Henry! Poor children! Poor May.’
‘Poor May indeed,’ said Robert. ‘She’s known as the Dragon. Poor George, more like it. She thinks herself very grand. She despises English royalty, finds them a very paltry, plodding lot, and Danish royalty – that’s Alexandra – even worse. Positively vulgar and brainless. She prides herself on being a Teck of the Württemberg line, a Serene Highness of the original German aristocracy; though God knows her mother was nothing to be proud of. Very fat and impecunious and loud. I think my brother Edwin married someone of the sort, but he keeps the details very quiet.’