by Fay Weldon
She wished Lily was here to do her lady’s maiding, but she had left her back at the Court to help train the new agency staff, and so had to put up with Angela who was all fingers and thumbs and had run her bath far too hot – and now she was putting out a morning dress pretty enough but in a pale suede that would mark easily.
‘Goodness me, Angela,’ she said crossly. ‘Do use your wits. I’m with the children. Little fingers get stuck in the lace, and little fingers smear suede. Take it away.’
Yes, your Ladyship, no, your Ladyship, I’m sorry, your Ladyship. Isobel could hear it before it was spoken. Servants so seldom thought for themselves, or said anything unexpected. Rosina had turned her back on the whole lot, determined to live an independent life free of men, servants, the world of maids and mistresses. But Rosina did not care about what she wore, or what people thought; she inherited that from her grandmother, Isobel’s mother. Perhaps, thought Isobel, she herself would be a better person if she cared less about other people’s opinions?
It was the kind of thing she would like to talk to Mr Strachan about. He would give the matter due consideration and come back with a proper reply, not something dismissive. Strachan was not highly educated, but he knew a great deal about human nature, how people behaved, about who was dangerous, who was not. He made her feel safe: he was good company; if only he was around she could take Minnie’s visit in her stride. But apparently he must be at Windsor for the weekend; the King was away and there were new security measures to be organized – always simpler, quicker and certainly quieter in his absence. The King, like Robert, like Arthur, felt the need for precaution was much exaggerated.
Angela managed to bring out a more suitable dress, narrow-striped navy-and-white with puffed sleeves but which didn’t make one look too formidable, so one could enter a room looking more like a woman than a ship in full sail. Mr Strachan would like it. She did not really want to think too much about Mr Strachan. She enjoyed his company and his conversation but obviously it could not go further than that. She was a Countess, he was, frankly, just a policeman, a figure of fun. She must put him out of her mind. The dress was formal enough to set an example for Minnie, and would easily enough withstand Connor’s swarming without tearing. Edgar never swarmed: he had an inner dignity and formality as befitted his position in the family. She would not go to church today: it was necessary in the country, but in town one’s absence was not so noticeable. Mr Strachan was an atheist, which was an untenable position, and Robert would throw him out of the house if he knew. Best, clearly, that Robert didn’t get to know, since the Inspector was also of the opinion that the children would be better off with their grandmother than their mother, who was apparently unstable.
It was obvious that the children themselves barely noticed their mother’s absence. When Nanny and the nursemaid brought them down to the drawing room for Sunday tea, Edgar actually turned his face away from his mother’s kiss and Connor buried his head in Molly’s skirts, which was hardly surprising. What little ones want to see their mother crying? Connor was a dreadful name. Minnie had insisted on it. Why anyone wanted to be reminded they were of Irish ancestry Isobel couldn’t imagine, but the more one got to know Americans the more strange they seemed. Last Sunday Isobel had been courtesy itself and had kept the conversation light and ordinary. When their mother left, true, the little ones set up the most dreadful wailing, but as Nanny pointed out they were copying their mother’s snivelling but at full volume. Tea time with Minnie and the children should not after all become a normal occurrence. It was too draining. This was the last time she was doing it.
She did her hair herself; Angela would pull so. She lunched lightly and at about one o’clock Arthur turned up at the front door. She had no idea Arthur was in town. Her heart lurched – had he come to see Minnie and the children? Did that mean there was some kind of reconciliation? She wished Robert had not interfered. The home and the family were her business, not his. She need not have worried.
‘Arthur my dear boy,’ she said, ‘what a delight! Have you come to see dear Minnie? The children are upstairs with Nanny. They’ll be so happy to see you. They see far too little of you.’
Her voice faded away. Arthur looked dreadful; he was distraught, wild-eyed and with a bruised mouth and speaking thickly. He had come home from Eton like this once when he was about sixteen, she remembered. Robert had taken him to boxing lessons on that occasion.
‘Oh dear boy,’ she said. ‘Your father took you to the wrong boxing coach. But where on Earth have you been?’
‘To the dentist,’ he said, bitterly, and asked to see his father.
‘I believe he’s round at Downing Street,’ said Isobel, ‘helping poor Mr Balfour pack his books. I can have him fetched. Where on Earth did you find a dentist on a Sunday?’
She tried to straighten his tie and rearrange his collar but Arthur shook her off, which quite upset her. Common politeness seemed to have deserted him. She did not have to have Robert fetched. He arrived hot on his son’s heels, back early, he said, from the House.
‘I thought you were at Downing Street,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know the House sat on Sundays.’
It was an innocent enough remark but Robert reacted angrily.
‘You are very quick in accusation, my dear,’ which quite shocked her. Nothing had been further from her thoughts. And now Arthur was looking at her, his own mother, with what seemed like acute dislike. Why?
‘All women are the same, Pater, the pot calling the kettle black.’
‘Perhaps one could say the same about men,’ she said, sharply. But what was the matter with him? What could he be talking about? Did he think that she and Mr Strachan – she remembered the walk down from the Gatehouse to talk about locks and bars and pistols – surely he could not imagine – it was absurd. But he had already forgotten, lost in his own woes.
‘I did what you told me, Pater,’ he said. ‘I wish to God I had not. I spent yesterday afternoon at the lawyers. I am divorcing Minnie. You married me off to a whore.’
Isobel could see that Minnie coming to tea was not the worst that this particular Sunday could throw at her. Arthur, a grown man, her son, wept as loudly and copiously as little Edgar had a week ago, and Robert scowled and paced. She called for lunch for the men: in her experience food often quietened them and restored their mood. Fortunately lunch was being served in the servants’ hall – the kind of food they had so enjoyed in their school days. Brown Windsor soup, meat stew and mashed potatoes, roly-poly and custard. Some of that could be brought up for them.
Arthur told them all. Robert’s fury at Minnie’s treachery with Anthony Robin equalled that of his son’s, and was unsoftened by the latter’s distress which was so great that for a moment Isobel almost longed for Minnie’s return to the fold. She pulled herself together quickly. Arthur would recover and marry again. Men always did. An empty marriage bed soon becomes an abhorrence. Divorce would be a scandal, but at least no court would permit Minnie to have custody of the boys. Visiting rights might be allowed but even that was doubtful. An affair made public was bad enough, but for a mother to leave her children to run off with a lover was beyond the pale. Society would shun her; no one of any consequence would receive her. Minnie would be obliged to live on the Continent, or go back to Chicago and her impossible family and be out of everyone’s lives for ever. Arthur’s new bride could be chosen at more leisure, and more wisely – and with any luck would be someone with more of a sense of style.
All was working out very well. But it seemed strange that Robert was so preoccupied by the name of Minnie’s lover – Anthony Robin – which sounded familiar. She could not recollect quite who he was. Something to do with Rosina, who had so lamentably failed to chaperone Minnie? It was immaterial. Whoever he was, he was clearly a blackguard. But men were strange. Robert had been fond enough of Minnie in the past; his contempt for her was as sudden as it was absolute. She almost felt poor Minnie but not quite. One must be sensible.
She did not imagine that Minnie would have the face to come to tea; but at three o’clock precisely the front door bell rang. Robert went down to answer it himself, gesturing to the parlourmaid to stay back. Isobel followed behind him, while Arthur remained at the foot of the staircase. Minnie stood on the threshold, her face swollen, her hat awry, and her appearance unkempt. Worse, Mrs Tessa O’Brien stood there also, a red-faced Fury, a quivering jelly in pink. How little one could trust the ill-bred, Isobel thought, how quickly they reverted to type. This was the same Tessa O’Brien who had delighted everyone at Arthur’s wedding with her naïve charm. But these were her true colours. The upper classes, when confronted with difficulty, were just the more restrained, the more courteous, as was her husband now.
His Lordship barred the door with casual ease.
‘Let me in!’ said Minnie.
‘That is not possible. Not any more.’
‘Arthur!’ wailed Minnie, but in the background Arthur just shook his head.
‘I’ve come to see my grandchildren,’ said Mrs O’Brien, trying to elbow his Lordship out of the way. His Lordship stood fast, and smiled coldly.
‘I am afraid this cannot come to pass, Mrs O’Brien,’ said his Lordship. ‘Your daughter has made her bed and now must lie upon it.’
‘You stuck-up popinjay!’ shrieked Mrs O’Brien. ‘My girl’s done nothing wrong. Let me through this door!’
Little Edgar and Connor appeared on the landing, flanking Nanny Margaret, who had brought them down from the nursery on hearing the front door bell. Stopped in her tracks, she stood aghast. Seeing their mother, the boys tumbled down the stairs towards her.
‘Mama, Mama,’ they cried and his Lordship had to use considerable strength to shut the door against the force of Mrs O’Brien’s pounding fists. The children wailed some more as their mother was so rudely lost to their view, and Arthur, white-faced, bent to clasp them to him and comfort them, one on each side. They only wailed the louder and now Arthur wept too.
It was the worst Sunday Isobel could remember. She gave the pinstripe dress to charity. She would never wear it again. It was unlucky. A pity though that now Mr Strachan would not get to see it. She remembered how she herself had wept when Arthur, hardly higher than her waist, had been taken off to boarding school. Term after term it had happened until finally you got used to it and the tears dried up. Minnie would get used to it and see it was all for the best.
The Servants’ Version…
November 1905, Dilberne Court
‘You’ll never guess,’ said Reginald. ‘Grace is back in town. Looking like a lady, and so is Mrs Tessa O’Brien, looking less like one than ever. Straight off the boat to bring their girl back home, if you ask me, and who should they run into at the door of No. 3 but Lord Arthur on the same errand. Oh, but that Minnie does cause a lot of trouble, for all butter doesn’t melt in her Ladyship’s mouth. Butter melted a bit too fast, from what I can tell, and Lord Arthur was down to the Inner Temple to see his lawyer and take out divorce papers, in spite of all her denials.’
‘But he can’t do that,’ said Mrs Neville. ‘They’re a married couple. Think of the scandal.’
‘I don’t think the Viscount was doing much thinking at all,’ said Reginald. ‘He spat out a tooth and our Grace, ever the lady’s maid, handed him it back wrapped in a white hanky. The Jehu was backfiring like billy-o and he didn’t even notice it. That exhaust’s not half a problem. He went into that lawyer’s office like thunder and came out blubbing like a baby.’
‘Men have white hankies,’ said Lily, ‘to blow their noses on. Ladies have lace hankies just to dab. What was Grace doing with a white?’
‘It was covered with blood,’ said Reginald. ‘I didn’t notice the original colour.’
‘Was it écru, perhaps?’ asked Belinda. ‘Écru lace is all the rage.’
Belinda was a pale thin girl in her twenties with elegant hands, hollow cheeks and large eyes, a lady’s maid, one of the extra agency staff brought in for the royal visit. Mrs Keppel would probably bring her own maids but some guests liked to have extra staff in hand in case of emergencies. The ladies would have to change their clothes as many as eight times a day. She was a fussy eater, toying with her jam roly-poly and saying she was ‘banting’ which annoyed Cook. No one did that any more – no sugar, no flour, no salmon, no potatoes, and no pork? Senseless. Lily was delighted with her.
Belinda had seen service with the Duchess of Marlborough, and professed to find Dilberne Court something of a come-down, though there was now a W.C. wherever you looked, hot running water in every dressing room and bathroom, and electric lighting throughout. You could hardly find better at Blenheim Palace, though of course the scale was different. Nanny had been overruled and there were even radiators in the nursery. The young masters were spending quite a lot of the time in Belgrave Square. Lady Isobel liked to have them near her. As for the shoot, his Lordship had been lucky in the weather and the gamekeepers reported that the pheasants were in splendid form and the ground game was plentiful. New stands had been built and walkways for the ladies laid down.
Only the builders were behind schedule: they were meant to have finished a week ago but some chimneys needed re-lining – woodworm had been found in the attics, and dry rot in the back scullery where a tap had been dripping unnoticed for years. The source of the musty smell which had haunted the pantries for years was located – by the Inspector, as it happened, using his nose to sniff out trouble – and got worse before it got better as dusty, rotten beams were brought tumbling to the floors, and clouds of webby dust covered everything in sight. The fungus had reached as far as the third floor. All should be finished, but only just in time. The King was to arrive on Friday 15th December, straight from Sandringham, and return there on Wednesday the 20th.
‘All this because the King has a mistress,’ said Cook. ‘It’s beyond belief.’
‘All this because his Lordship has one too,’ said Reginald. ‘Isn’t that so, Digby?’
‘My lips are sealed,’ said Digby. He had come down from Belgrave Square with the Earl for a few days.
‘And now talk of a divorce. It quite makes you want to leave service,’ said Elsie. ‘If you can’t trust your betters who can you?’
Today there was beans and pork for lunch followed by golden syrup roly-poly – perhaps Cook was trying to annoy Belinda, though it was a favourite with everyone; the suet crust made from best beef, rolled flat, spread thickly with strawberry jam from the home farm, rolled up, tied into a muslin bag and boiled for a good two hours.
‘Agnes told me last Sunday Mrs Keppel wouldn’t have a suet crust in the house,’ said Lily. ‘Mrs Keppel is on one long bant.’
‘Quite right too,’ said Belinda. ‘How else can she keep the King and her husband happy?’
‘Enough of that,’ said Mr Neville, but mostly because he wanted to return to the subject of Lord Arthur and his runaway wife. Even Mrs Keppel faded into insignificance.
Inspector Strachan was not at the table, for which all were glad. He put a blight on the conversation: it was hard to know which side he was on. Sometimes he ate with family: sometimes downstairs. Mr Neville wished he would make up his mind. He was a necessity, it seemed, with the royal visit pending, but who on Earth would want to assassinate the King?
‘You mean she didn’t go because of Master Arthur and the lady journalist, all the time she’d just run off with a lover?’
‘Not just any old lover,’ said Reginald. ‘She ran off with the Honourable Mr Anthony Robin of previous acquaintance, and note: there was a rare argy-bargy on the pavement, I can tell you, and in front of everybody: blood and gore everywhere. And after Master Arthur had gone all the way to London to bring his wife back home, full of remorse and the joys of Spring. He told me as much on his way up.’
‘Stands to reason, a man needs his oats,’ said Horace, the new agency footman, tall and handsome as footmen are meant to be. He was in his new livery: brown cord with velvet lapels, silver bu
ttons and the narrowest of scarlet corded braids. (‘Good heavens,’ his Lordship had said, ‘are you trying to bankrupt me, Isobel?’ ‘Mrs Keppel has her servants in grey and gold,’ said his wife. ‘Hardly more expensive. What do you want of me, Robert? To be outdone by the royal fancy-woman?’)
‘That’s enough of that,’ said Mr Neville. ‘We’ll have none of that London talk round this table.’
‘I don’t see how a mother could do it,’ said Smithers, the assistant parlourmaid. She had a hairy upper lip and a mole on her chin: she would have to take care to keep out of sight when the royal party arrived. ‘Leaving her wee tots like that She’s little better than a hussy.’
‘Like mother, like daughter,’ said Reginald, ‘and Mother Irish was there all right, bringing the tone of the place down, a sight in bright pink. But then they’re Americans, we mustn’t forget that. At least Grace was still looking like herself, just filled out, lost ten years, and quite the lady.’
‘Too grand to visit us, I daresay,’ said Mrs Neville. ‘She always did have her nose in the air.’
‘She’s done well,’ said Mr Neville, magnanimously. ‘I’ll give her that.’
‘Fair’s fair about Lady Minnie,’ said Elsie. ‘The engagement was far too short. They didn’t give her time to think. Rushed her to the altar in a matter of weeks. We all thought she was in the family way, but no.’
‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ said Lily, meanly. Elsie had been engaged to Alan Barker, one of the estate gamekeepers, for some seven years. The more she saved, the more Alan gambled and drank and spent the money. Soon it would be too late for babies, if it wasn’t already. It was an on-going joke. Elsie’s lip quivered.