Lance opens one of the doors with a dramatic gesture and he leads us inside. “This is Lady Jemma’s room.”
“Just call me Jemma,” I say, to break the ice.
Lance doesn’t lose composure. “I must insist, Lady Jemma.”
Ashford cuts in before I can say anything. “Don’t try to overturn the natural order of things. None of the servants will ever call you Jemma, not even if you write it all over the walls.”
Lance coughs lightly to draw our attention while he opens the heavy curtains.
I stand still and my jaw drops open. It really is the castle from Beauty and the Beast!
The room is wide, with many thick carpets, two large arched windows with padded seats and on my right there’s an emperor size canopy bed! Screw you, Ashford, I could stay in this room for months and die a happy girl.
“Is the accommodation to your liking?”
“Blimey, Lance, are you even asking? You should see where I lived! I had a single window, which was as big as a coffee tray and sometimes passers-by let their dogs pee on its corners!”
With a puzzled expression, Lance turns towards Ashford, who makes a nonchalant gesture with his hand.
I start opening doors. Behind the one on the right of my bed, there’s a smaller room with many shelves.
“That’s the walk in wardrobe, My Lady.”
“No way! Hey Lance, this place is as big as my flat!” I say, tossing the sports bag containing my clothes into the empty wardrobe, which is massive.
“Here is the bathroom,” says Lance, pointing at the door to the left of the bed.
Bathroom? This is a spa! There’s an Olympic size bathtub, the shower is so big you could live in it and there’s also a diva vanity table.
“I reckon I’ll start from this room,” I say, examining the bottles of bath products, deliberating which to soak in asap.
“Well, I see that you’re settled and satisfied. I’ll leave you to it and see you at dinner as I have some things to do now.” Says Ashford, leaving the room, followed by Lance.
“Wait a second, what’s that?” I ask, indicating a double door opposite the bed.
Lance turns towards me and answers impassively. “It’s the bedroom we prepared for His Grace, the duke.”
Ashford puts on the expression of someone who has just been woken up with a bucket of frozen water. “Sorry, Lance, what about my room in the west wing?”
“The duchess ordered that we prepared the master apartments for you and your spouse. Obviously you will, um, decide which one to use.” To ease the embarrassment, Lance changes the subject. “We were ordered to prepare all the rooms of the west wing in view of the…” he says, then he lowers his voice and almost whispers: “Royal visit.”
Ashford starts spinning around like a headless chicken. “Everyone has lost their minds! I never said I would move to another room! Have I got any authority left in this house?”
Once again, Lance doesn’t lose any composure. “It made sense.” Ashford crosses my room with long strides and opens the connecting door with a rude gesture. There’s another door which is identical to that of my room, and he opens it with as much anger.
“It’s true then,” he murmurs to himself, irritated, noticing that all his belongings have been taken to that room.
At that very moment I realise with horror that Ashford, who should stay miles away from me, will sleep next door.
Ashford closes the double doors with a violent slam and leaves furiously.
Lance and I stand in the middle of the room exchanging stunned looks.
“If Lady Jemma allows me, I will take my leave. The duke’s mother is waiting for you in her study for a brief interview.”
“Has Lady Bedlam got a name?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Lady Bedlam, Ashford’s mother, has she got a name?”
I can see from Lance’s tense expression that he’s trying to hold back a laugh. “Lady Delphina.”
I’m sure that as he went out he whispered ‘Lady Bedlam’ to himself, giggling.
*
After calling my parents to announce I have moved in here and reassuring them that I will visit as soon as possible, I gather all my inner strength to face Lady Bedlam.
But it takes me forty-five minutes to find the study.
I found out that the staircase we used earlier isn’t the only one: there’s another every twenty steps, and I’m pretty sure that they weren’t there when I arrived.
And the corridors? There are more than at King’s Cross station!
Luckily enough, I bump into Lance, and he accompanies me to Lady Bedlam’s study, rather sympathetically.
He announces me, then he hands me over to Lady Delphina.
She’s sitting in an armchair by the window and a lanky woman with her hair tied in a very tight bun stands behind her. Delphina is impassive. The skin on her face is as tight as a slingshot (plastic surgery, I suppose), the ash blonde, freshly dyed hair is static, petrified by hairspray; the impeccable white tailored suit, which seems carved in plaster, partly covers two skinny legs with pointy knees (I wonder whether she ever eats).
“Jenna,” she invites me to sit in the armchair opposite hers.
“It’s Jemma. With two m’s. I was expected to be a boy and be called ‘Jimi’, as in Jimi Hendrix. Then the midwife announced that I was a girl and Jimi became J-e-m-m-a,” I say, spelling my name.
Lady Delphina raises an eyebrow sceptically. “We can start.”
“Who is she?” I ask, indicating the woman behind her.
“This is Margaret, my special secretary.” Then she pauses, observing me. “Get up and turn round, slowly.”
“Why?”
My mother-in-law gives me a grim look. “Because I say so, and that’s more than enough. I want to see you better.”
These aristocrats are so full of themselves that they always forget to say the magic word ‘please’.
I get up reluctantly and lazily start turning round.
“Will this take much longer?” asks Lady Bedlam sarcastically.
“I’m turning round slowly,” I explain. She told me to!
“That’s too slow,” she snorts.
“You did not specify how slowly,” I say, continuing with my pirouette.
“That’s enough, sit down. Margaret, write: everything needs to be redone. Hair, hands, face, clothing, posture. Everything.” I sit down, leaning lazily against the armrest. When Delphina turns to look at me, her eyes nearly pop out of her head.
“That’s Queen Victoria’s armchair!”
“Well, she wasn’t sitting in it when I got here.”
Lady Bedlam ignores me again and turns towards Margaret. “Keep writing: ill mannered and lacking composure.”
“So many compliments at once,” I comment ironically.
“What about your family? Mother, father, grandparents?”
“My mother’s name is Carly, she teaches yoga and works in a holistic massage centre. My father’s name is Vance, and he works as a dj for an independent rock radio station. I never met my father’s parents. They died when he was very little, but I know that my grandfather was a Scot.”
“Scot… tish?” My mother-in-law almost chokes.
“Yeah, my father’s surname is MacPears, but the clerk at the gro got it wrong and registered me as Jemma Pears. Pears, she forgot ‘Mac’.”
“Thank goodness! For once, the mistake of a public servant was providential! If you don’t go shouting it from the rooftops, we can avoid mentioning your father’s origins,” the witch sighs.
“My grandfather was from Edinburgh,” I continue, regardless, but she ignores me.
“Margaret, write: no relevant connection on father’s side,” then she looks at me again. “Mother’s side?”
“My grandmother has recently died, her name was Catriona Straw.”
“I’ve already heard this name.”
“Her family manufactured weapons. Mostly rifles—”
/> Lady Bedlam touches her head in discontent. “Prince Charles is a pacifist, an environmentalist and an animal activist. How in the name of God are we supposed to explain that my son married the granddaughter of some warmongers?”
I can’t help but tease her a bit: “I cannot confirm that among my relatives there are no war criminals.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. What about your studies? What colleges did you attend?”
“No college, my parents preferred public schools so that I could go home in the evening and stay with the family.”
“University? Oxford, Cambridge…?”
“No university,” I just say.
“What does that mean?”
“I didn’t go to university. I attended a course in Cosmetology after leaving school.”
She sighs heavily, exchanging looks with Margaret. “You wasted your time, as far as I can see.”
“Not really, as it was my job until a few days ago. I worked as a theatrical make-up artist for a musical production.” Delphina appears to have been hit by a thousand volt shock.
“Theatrical make-up artist?”
“Yes, I did the actors’ make-up before they went on stage.” I say.
“How ridiculous…” my mother-in-law murmurs to herself. That’s it, I’ve had enough.
“Well, for a woman like you, working for a living must be ridiculous. Brace yourself, because I’m going to say something that will upset you quite a lot: I have never been ashamed of my work and I am certainly not starting now.”
Delphina gives me a flaming look, crossing her arms austerely.
“I’ll be brief. My son married you, but I do not understand why. Love? I doubt it. Infatuation? That’s most likely. In any case, as soon as he gets to know you better, he will realise that you’re not suitable for him. After just ten minutes in your company, I’ve already detected a long list of inadequacies. Nonetheless, until my son starts thinking again, I must ensure that you do not cause any more embarrassment to our family.”
Family? Is this The Godfather or something?
“I can tell you one thing for sure,” I say, pointing my finger at Delphina and her lady-in-waiting. “You’d better not start a war against me.” With a leap, I stand up from the armchair and head towards the door. “Now, ladies, I’m going to indulge in a long bath and I won’t see you again until dinner.”
That said, I leave.
What is the way back to my room, though?
12
Ashford’s Version
Years ago, someone gave me a book called The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.
As the title suggests, it provides concise instructions on how to escape from the most diverse emergencies, from defusing a bomb to landing a plane or delivering someone’s baby in a taxi, but none of the chapters contemplated this kind of scenario: control freak mother meets feral daughter-in-law after hasty marriage.
I really wish I had instructions. If there were a chapter on this topic, the solution would certainly be ‘run as far away as you can’.
Jemma and my mother met two hours ago and there has been the same relaxed atmosphere one would expect on the Gaza strip in the house: ground to air missiles and men armed to the teeth. Lance and I, specifically.
I am confused. I’m usually pretty sure of myself but recent events have disorientated me: too much chaos, too many threats, too many ultimatums. If I were asked how I feel, I wouldn’t know what to answer.
Relieved: I no longer have insurmountable debts with the banks.
A hostage: I’m married to the human equivalent of an armed nuclear weapon.
Freed: women will no longer compete to sit next to me at dinners.
A moving target: my mother will torment me with her complaints about Jemma.
Avenged: with Jemma as her daughter-in-law, my mother is on her way to a perforating ulcer.
Deprived of my rights: I hardly have a say in my own house. I’m the duke but apparently nobody cares.
How did I get to complicate my life like this?
What’s more, in a mansion of two thousand square metres, there’s nothing more than a single wall to separate Jemma and me.
Oh, and my mother is no longer going to Bath.
This is all I can think about while we’re waiting for Jemma to join us for dinner.
I’m sitting at one end of the long table and my mother is at the other end, as usual.
Between us, there are seven empty seats.
She should sit on my right, but this is a pretty clear signal that she isn’t willing to give up a shred of her authority in this house, even though she’s nothing more than my father’s widow, now that I’m the duke.
Jemma’s place is set exactly halfway between me and my mother, with three empty chairs on each side, a balanced compromise which puts her at the same distance from us both. If nothing else, there will be no danger of conversation.
“Listen up, you people, you must give me a map, a guide, a drawing with arrows, or whatever else you like, because I can’t find my way around in this place. Thank God I have a personal bathroom, otherwise I’d have had to pee in a vase!”
Jemma is finally here. Her opening lines are always effective. I’m pretty used to it now, but my mother is rather taken aback.
“You’re late, Jemma. We sit down for dinner on the stroke of 6:30 p.m.,” she points out.
“Well, what time do you have breakfast? If I sleep under the table, I will be on time tomorrow morning. I see there’s plenty of room, at least!”
I decide to intervene and pre-empt my mother’s reply, as she’s already frothing at the mouth. “Jemma, we’ll come down for breakfast together tomorrow morning, so you won’t get lost.” Yes, I mean, we’re married, what would everyone think if we had breakfast separately after our first night in Denby?
Jemma is about to sit on the first empty chair, the one next to my mother, who stiffens against her backrest, horrified.
“Lady Jemma, we’ve prepared your place over here, if you please,” Lance invites her, pulling out her chair.
“Wow,” says Jemma. “You placed me at a safe distance! I did have a shower this morning, though!”
“I’m not interested in the details of your ablutions, provided that they are regular. As far as meals are concerned, this is the customary arrangement.” There goes my mother, trying to expand her authority like wildfire.
“With three empty seats between one person and the other? What do you do when you have guests, rent the Wembley stadium?”
“The protocol is different in such cases. Now, if you’re done with your questions, I will have the courses served. Lance, you may proceed,” my mother directs.
As I’m about to eat my aspic, I see Jemma staring at her plate from the corner of my eye.
“Doesn’t it suit your taste?” I ask, without looking at her. If I did, she might think that I’m seriously interested in her appetite.
“I don’t know, should it?”
Here we go again, she answers a question with another question, as if she were programmed to start an argument.
“The most proper answer would be ‘Yes, it does’,” I reproach her.
“It would help if I knew what’s on my plate,” she says, poking the jelly cylinder in front of her sceptically.
“It’s an aspic. It’s made with veal, eggs and artichokes in jelly.”
“If I move the plate, it trembles like my aunt Jean’s arse as she goes up the stairs,” Jemma comments, less and less attracted to the entrée.
My mother puts her fork down on the plate noisily, shocked. “My God, what kind of obscenity am I forced to hear.”
“But it’s true!” Jemma objects.
I decide to cut in and provide a diplomatic solution. “Please serve the next course to my wife. She doesn’t like the aspic.”
When they put the main course in front of her, she claps enthusiastically. “Chicken wings! Brilliant!”
“It’s quail,” I correct her
.
Jemma grabs one with her hand and looks at it sceptically. “They looked like chicken wings from a distance.”
And she bites. Yes. She holds the quail firmly in her hand and takes a big bite.
My mother almost faints, so much so that she asks to have some lemon squeezed into her water.
“Jemma,” I call her, swinging my fork in an attempt to draw her attention and suggest that she uses the cutlery.
I can only think of one word: Neanderthal.
Jemma struggles with the cutlery and I hear her mumble: ‘Sodding little bones.’ Then, she gives up, puts the cutlery on the table and pushes her plate away.
“Serve the dessert,” I order sharply, but I’m partly relieved because this will put an end to this disastrous dinner. Thank God for that.
Jemma sinks her spoon into the white foam inside her dessert cup, she sniffs it and drops the spoon back in it. “Where’s the real dessert?”
“That’s the real dessert, Jemma,” I hiss, irritated.
“Listen, I played the shaving cream prank myself, but I was four years old!”
“This is syllabub. It’s been popular since Tudor times and this particular version is from the Parker family’s recipe book,” my mother replies icily.
“Is there anything with chocolate in your family’s recipe book?”
My mother breathes slowly in order to keep calm. “Not this evening.”
I start peeling an apple, wanting the dining room floor to swallow them up.
“What’s for tomorrow evening? Biscuits stuffed with toothpaste? Or dish soap ice cream?”
My mother loses her temper: “I can’t tolerate our culinary tradition being ridiculed by a fried chicken eater!”
“Well, fried chicken is far better than a bony little bird!”
My mother’s face is contracted in disgust. “Miss, before you can decide what is to be served, you need to learn some table manners. I’m not used to having savages at dinner!”
“Ladies,” I cut in, standing up. “I’ll be at the club.”
*
I’m out! Out! Out! Away from that madhouse. For the whole journey I hold the steering wheel of my car as tightly as a prisoner holds a sheet to escape.
I thought it was impossible to find a woman whose character is worse than my mother’s, but I have changed my mind. And now, these two women live in the same house: mine.
How (Not) to Marry a Duke Page 7