3 Great Historical Novels

by Fay Weldon

  Isobel thought her daughter had lost all touch with reality. Why would the Prince be bothered with a girl like Rosina? She was no beauty. It was true that the girl had a quick mind and was well-informed, which the Prince seemed to appreciate in a woman. Rosina’s was a nicely shaped bosom which many admired; that could not be denied. But to attribute her father’s friendship with the Prince to herself – that way madness lay. Rosina was unhinged. Her father Robert’s abominable behaviour – which somehow the girl must have come to know – had triggered off some kind of manic episode. And on top of everything else what had the girl said? ‘I think you should stay quietly here until you feel better?’ How dare she offer her mother advice! The mother she had cruelly orphaned, and ought to honour the more. Rage mounted.

  ‘I wish you had never been born,’ Isobel almost said to her daughter, but managed to stop herself. There was no escape from duty. Once one was a wife and mother one’s own personal life was at an end. To give in to rage and sorrow was to weaken the props that kept the entire structure of family and household going. She had a vision of the Modder Kloof mine, awash with murky water, ironwork eaten through by rust, the wooden props already rotting and failing, and saw it as a metaphor for her own life. If she was not careful everything would fall in upon itself.

  ‘Oh please go away,’ she said and Rosina did.

  Rosina Sets Pappagallo Free

  11.30 p.m. Sunday, 3rd December 1899

  Rosina gave a little skip and a jump as she went to her room. She felt happy. She had made all that up about the Prince, and her mother had believed her, and even told her she had a graceful body. She had been waiting years for her mother to say she was pretty. Now she could be. She was not ugly and plain and impossibly tall. She was, come to think of it, just the kind of intelligent girl the Prince did seem to favour. Lily Langtry was no dullard. Princess Alexandra was tall and everyone loved and admired her. She, Rosina, should stand up straight and be more like the Princess, and not spend her time stooping and looking at her toes and trying to be little and small. She must practise not scowling.

  She took off her silly clothes in front of the mirror and tried standing tall, and liked the way her small breasts seemed to perk up, and the nipples stand out. Of course the Prince admired them; everyone did.

  It was chilly in the room, in spite of the fire. Her limbs were long and thin and shapely, much longer than Minnie’s. If she relaxed her brow, her mother was right; her chin seemed to sink back and be no more protuberant than anyone else’s. She might try changing to clothes that fitted more tightly and didn’t hide her shape in flowing velvets and velours; she would think less about comfort and more about the impression she was making on others. Next time she was at a meeting she would stand up and speak her mind. She had seen advertisements for classes in public speaking for women and she would investigate them. She wouldn’t just think about the possibility: she would actually do it.

  She went to her wardrobe and looked through her clothes. Why had she felt it so impossible to choose her own, but that she must instead rely on someone else to do it? Perhaps because thus she had been making Grace responsible for her very looks? It was an absurd way to behave. She would be proud and daring – continue to be as she had at the d’Astis’ salon, in the blue dress and the rakish hat with the leopard-skin band. Boldly she picked out the narrowest skirt she owned, in a plain blue wool, and a white shirt with no frills, and buckled it tightly round her waist. She found her leopard-skin hat, looked at herself in the mirror, and lo, it was what she had made, like God, and like God she saw that what she had made was good.

  Rosina wondered how Arthur had got on with the American heiress and hoped the stupid girl had sent him packing in disgust. She said ‘stupid’ advisedly. Only someone really stupid would dismiss so tragic and profound a work as The War of the Worlds as ‘diverting’. If, in pursuit of the title she craved, Minnie had managed to ‘forgive’ Arthur, she, Rosina, could always tell Arthur that his future wife was illegitimate, a bastard, conceived out of wedlock. That would soon put paid to his knavish tricks. Even Arthur would not let the house of Hedleigh fall so low, and the Earldom go to the son of a bastard wife.

  Pappagallo squawked and flew across the room and landed on her shoulder, startling her. Its wings had grown; they needed clipping. It was unfair to keep this pretty creature trapped in a stuffy room. Its nature was to fly free. She went over to the window and flung it open. The bird launched itself on the instant into space. Immediately she was anxious. How would it survive? Where would it find the fruit and nuts it needed? Winter was coming. It might freeze to death. Perhaps parrots had enemies who flew about the skies? Hawks? Buzzards? It occurred to her that she knew so much about everything yet so little about the real world. The parrot fluttered and faltered but made it back to the windowsill and then jumped back upon her shoulder. They were both saved.

  She remembered she had called in at Vine Street Police Station and regretted it. But it would probably be all right. Just another mad woman, stumbling in from the fog, making a mean complaint. Getting others into trouble. They would probably forget it.

  Her Ladyship Faces the Truth

  Monday, 4th and Tuesday, 5th December 1899

  Her Ladyship decided rage and loathing must have a stop. That she simply did not have the strength to see a move to the country through without Robert’s help and support. Cancelling the royal dinner would be far more tiresome than giving it. And, of course, Freddie would crow and make mischief and spread gossip.

  Lily was nowhere to be found, so Isobel saw to her toilette herself, taking her time. She could see that it was hopeless to try to punish Robert. He simply would not understand what he had done, how he had turned her whole married life into a lie, how cruelly and suddenly destroyed the illusion of the love between them for which she had thanked God on her knees, and thought herself so blessed, that singular good fortune, that ‘specialness’ from which she had for thirty years construed her very existence, and borne her children too. She had been a fool, and had to face it. Hers was not the only body Robert had enjoyed, or could enjoy. But that was what it was like for women. One man all your life, the purpose of sex procreation, forget pleasure. Men were allowed more liberty, the force of their animal instincts forgiven by Church and State and increasingly, society. She must acknowledge that, once fired up, men could not help themselves.

  Fredericka even permitted male guests declared the guilty party in a divorce case to sit at her dinner table. Times were changing, a new century nearly here. Next time Robert came knocking at her door she would do her duty, try to forget that these limbs had once entwined with another woman than herself, allow him to penetrate her as he had another, and show no disgust.

  She had no choice but to face reality, forgive Robert, bring her daughter to her senses and her son back to face his responsibilities. The royal dinner would go ahead. But she would not invite Mrs Baum. She would not humiliate herself that far.

  Even as she decided this, Mr Neville came in with a letter. It was a reply from Mr Abbot at Pickford’s. They had replied with exemplary speed. When she opened it she realized why. The firm thanked her for her instructions but could not oblige until they had been paid the amount owing for the last five moves over four years. Their account totalling one hundred and thirty pounds had been presented five times but they had so far received no response. As soon as the matter was settled, of course they would be only too happy to oblige his Lordship and family.

  She kept her face unmoved for Mr Neville’s benefit, but her blood ran cold. This was unheard of. People like her did not receive letters like this. It was outrageous.

  ‘Will that be all, ma’am?’ She thought there was a new tone in his voice, one she did not quite understand. She glanced as if casually at the envelope. It was hard to tell, because the back of the envelope was torn, but the paper along the seal did look a little damp, wrinkled and stretched. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that the envelope had been stea
med open, the contents read, and it then resealed. But no one on her staff would surely do anything so petty and dishonourable.

  ‘Will you ask Cook to come and see me?’ she asked. ‘I think we will have an extra course after all on the seventeenth. We could have roast beef and Yorkshire pudding before the sorbet. The Prince is very fond of it, I hear.’

  When Mr Neville had gone she tried to get hold of Robert at the House and failed. She telephoned Mr Baum instead and asked him to call on her. Then she went to Robert’s study and started opening and collating all the unopened envelopes, so many of them brown, that she could find.

  Arthur Goes to Half Moon Street

  2 a.m. Monday, 4th December 1899

  It was two in the morning before Arthur got to Half Moon Street. Minnie had allowed him to take her back to Brown’s since she was left with no other way of getting home. He had found her stamping around in the lobby of the Bear Inn trying to hire a cab when it was obviously impossible to do so.

  The pair had driven back in silence, she in clothes still not properly dried, too proud to complain and too angry to speak, though he did do his best to be pleasant. It would have been much easier for everyone if she had been prepared to stay the night in Esher – she could have taken her own room, but nothing would do but that she went home immediately. She even talked about her reputation, which in the circumstances was fairly absurd. When they finally got to Brown’s he had had to rouse the concierge to gain admittance. He had thought surely such a place would have a watchman on duty through the night. But no.

  It was unfortunate that just as he ran the bell on the reception desk, Grace appeared out of nowhere to cluck over her young lady and fuss about her welfare. There would be extra explaining to his mother now. She was upset enough as it was. He himself had been fairly upset when she told him about his father’s misbehaviour. Her grief had probably contributed to his realization a man could not honourably marry a wife when he had a mistress in tow. Well, others could; no doubt someone like Redbreast could, he having the nerve of the devil, which he, Viscount Hedleigh, did not.

  One way and another it had been a devil of a day and he deserved time with Flora. He parked the Arnold Jehu outside the house. She was rather muddy but he looked forward to showing her off to Flora in the morning. Bother what the neighbours said. At least an Arnold Jehu was quiet, being a steam car, and didn’t wake the street with the clackety noise of an internal combustion engine. The little house was in darkness, which was a relief. The memory of seeing Redbreast and Flora entwined and silhouetted behind a lighted window blind had engraved itself on his memory. He wished he could have Flora to himself. He supposed it was not possible that he loved Flora? That he had given up his fiancée – well, almost – rather than lose his mistress, when it came to it? He might even be using Minnie’s past – which to some people would not seem so terrible – as an excuse to get out of the marriage. Of course the poor girl had been upset. She was a nice, bright, attractive girl, and virtuous too, as her immediate response to his suggestion had proved. He would have to apologize. Life, which had once been so simple, with right and wrong so obvious, was getting very complicated.

  He knocked again upon the door; and again. There was no reply. He called softly up at the window but had the impression there was no one there to hear. Something was amiss. He could see in the murky light from the streetlight that the aspidistra plant was not standing in its normal place on the windowsill. He found his key and used it, though she did not like him doing this, preferring him always to knock. But there was something wrong.

  When he went upstairs the rooms were empty, cleared of furniture, plants, ornaments. There were a few discarded clothes in the wardrobe, the odd crushed hat, the odd fashion plate, a couple of rugs left behind. An overflowing waste paper basket lying on its side. There had been no robbery, but a swift packing, a complete but untidy removal of all belongings, a faint whiff of Flora’s cheap scent hanging in the air, and a ghostly trill of laughter but it might have been the water in the pipes. He found a note. It was from Flora and addressed to him.

  ‘Dear Arthur,’ it said, in Flora’s careful hand, blue ink on flower-decorated pink paper. ‘Forgive me, but I have gone to Robin. He loves me very much and looks after me. Remember me with affection as I do you, your loving Flora.’

  He went out onto the landing, and sat on the stairs because there was nowhere else to sit. He felt very sleepy so he took a dusty old rug and put it in the bath and pulled another one over him and lay cramped and shivering until he fell asleep.

  Early in the morning there was a tremendous knocking on the door, which made the floor shake. He clambered out of the bath in a hurry, aware of an evident emergency. He looked out of the window and a helmeted policeman with brass buttons and a small neat moustache was walking round the Jehu, making notes. Somebody else seemed to be hurling themselves against the front door trying to break it open. Arthur hurried down the stairs and opened the door just as two more policemen fell inside, these two both wore tremendous moustaches. One was very tall and fat and the other one quite small and weedy, and wearing thick-lensed spectacles. He couldn’t help feeling that for some reason they wanted to make him laugh, so he did.

  They did not laugh in return but, grim-faced, pushed past him in their eagerness to get upstairs and catch whoever it was they were after. He went after them. He was very stiff from sleeping in so uncomfortable a place as a bath.

  ‘Your bird has flown,’ he said, as they stopped, surprised. Because there was nowhere for anyone to hide. They looked under the rugs in the bath but there was no one there either.

  He found himself laughing again, and the little one said, ‘It’s no laughing matter, sir, as you will find out.’ They showed him badges which claimed to be from Vine Street Police Station and one of them bent and picked up a discarded pink camisole from the floor, inspected it, and said, ‘Be so good as to adjust your dress, sir.’

  He asked them what they were doing and the talkative one said, ‘Making the area safe for respectable folk, sir.’ Arthur said he was perfectly respectable folk and a man can sleep in a bath if he wants to, and when they asked for his name and address, he gave it as Viscount Hedleigh and No. 17, Belgrave Square.

  One of them asked if that was where the Earl lived. Arthur said, ‘Well, obviously.’

  They looked at one another and murmured something inaudible. He wanted badly to sit down but there was nowhere to sit. He opened the window and sat upon the sill and swung his legs. This seemed to annoy them: they ran to where he sat and swung his legs back on the floor. He was not accustomed to being manhandled and said so, and adding that if anyone owed anyone respects it was they to him, not he to them: they were surely the servant of the tax-payer not the other way round. He hoped he was right about this. If Minnie had been around she could have told him. He said they had no business breaking into the property of honest citizens.

  Everything quietened down. He thought perhaps he had hit one of them: there was some muttering about ‘in the course of their duty’. They asked after a Miss Flora Evans and Arthur said he did not know her whereabouts. She had lived here once but had recently moved out. They asked him how long, and where, and he said he had no idea, and they suggested that cooperation would be to his advantage. He said he was more than anxious to cooperate, which by now was true.

  They asked for the name of the occupant of the flat and asked him who paid the rent, and he said he paid the rent. He remembered Reginald once saying something about the new vagrancy laws but could not remember exactly what, and surely they were meant for the lower classes not people like him. Arthur was sensible enough not to say this. No, there was no other occupant. They said the neighbours said otherwise. No, he did not live in the premises. They asked him in that case why had he been there in the morning after obviously staying overnight and leaving his automobile parked outside. He had no answer. They said he was under suspicion for aiding and abetting in the keeping of a disorderly house or broth
el. They would not detain him at present, but they would be in touch with him in the near future. He asked them who their informant was and they would not say. They asked for the name of his solicitor and he gave them Mr Baum’s. Arthur drove away in the Jehu. For the first time he engaged the new condenser. It seemed more important than anything that the steam pressure did not suddenly fall. As it was, water levels must be very low, for distracted as he had been, he had foolishly failed to top up the boiler when they were at Brown’s and had had the opportunity. He had installed the condenser in time for the trip to Hampshire but when it came to it had not engaged it, inasmuch as there had been one or two minor explosions when first it had been tried it out. Fortunately the Jehu, his faithful servant, now roared off into Park Lane and home with no embarrassing loss of power.

  He wasn’t sure why he was laughing, save that one bad dream seemed to be easing into another. He had left Minnie. Flora was gone. He had slept in a bath. The police were after him. Heaven knew what would happen when he got home. But home he’d got, and in style.

  He parked in the Mews and went in the house through the servants’ entrance. He ate what was on the sideboard in the morning room. It was too early for breakfast, but thick soft warm new rolls, a big slab of butter and Cheddar cheese had already been laid out. There was no sign of any staff. He made plump cheese sandwiches and bit into them and for some reason this made him think of Flora, something about the contrast of softness and hardness between his teeth. How would he live without her? Then he thought of Minnie, and somehow it was the coldness of the butter as it melted in the warmth of his mouth that had made him think of her. What had he done?