Ravenscliffe (14 page)

Alice Keppel entered a room as if she was walking onto a stage. When the ladies retired from the table and left the men to their port and cigars, she contrived to hang back until she could enter a drawing room that already held an audience, and when the gentlemen joined them she stood again, crossing the room to claim her king, dazzling the group, her neck adorned with diamonds, her earlobes dripping with them, and her voluptuous curves close-clad in a shimmering silver gown. The king watched her with his lascivious, hooded eyes and it was clear to everyone that Mrs Keppel was indispensible to him; she anticipated his needs, chivvied him out of a sulk, prompted his best anecdotes and, leaning in towards his ear, could make him either roar with laughter or glaze over with lustful desire, depending on the tone of her whispered confidences. Everyone was mesmerised by her, the women as much as the men. Lady Netherwood had been quite prepared to loathe her out of loyalty to Alexandra. But now, the very evening of Mrs Keppel’s arrival at Netherwood Hall, she and the countess were cosy together on the chaise longue, exchanging compliments and court gossip and the queen was quite forgotten: in any case, murmured Hermione Hartwick to Frank Ponsonby, Alexandra was far better off at
Sandringham, where it didn’t matter a jot that she was as deaf as a post, because there was no one there with anything to say worth hearing.

Bertie, on the other hand, was in fine fettle, everyone said so. Credit had to be laid at his tailor’s door for his appearance; his corpulence was skilfully contained, so that his general appearance was of noble stoutness rather than obesity. He was in a cheerful frame of mind too, helped along by two good days at the races in Doncaster – not only had he backed the triumphant Pretty Polly in both the St Leger and the Park Hill Stakes, but also all his friends had backed the wrong horses and lost their money. And now, here he was, in the bountiful home of the Earl and Countess of Netherwood, where dinner had turned out to be a sort of childhood fantasy of hearty northern fare and nursery classics. The memory of Eve’s Yorkshire puddings had remained with him since he’d last eaten them, back in May. If anything, the memory had been surpassed: plain, simple, perfect. He remembered Eve, too. Flushed and harassed at the stove when he complimented her, but quite beautiful in a humble sort of way. Naturally, one wouldn’t expect diamonds and décolletage in the kitchen.

‘I say, Clarissa,’ he said now, acting on impulse and fuelled by the earl’s fine claret. ‘Let’s have the little Yorkshire pudding chef up for an ovation.’

‘Oh, I don’t think—’

The countess faltered. Summoning Eve was a foolish plan; below-stairs staff should remain so, in her view. Yet the prevailing credo of Bertie’s circle was that he must not be denied, contradicted or allowed to grow bored. Clarissa laughed lightly, playing for time.

‘Come, come,’ said the king, not yet vexed. He looked about the drawing room and found Parkinson, respectfully alert and standing by the door. The king spoke directly to him.

‘Fetch her up here, there’s a good fellow.’

Parkinson bowed. ‘Certainly, Your Majesty,’ he said. He turned and left the room then, in the hallway, he waited. Moments later the countess appeared, as he had known she would.

‘Parkinson,’ she said urgently. ‘I see no way out of this, but what on earth will Mrs Adams think, when she was responsible for most of the dinner? It’s too bad.’

‘I really don’t think Mrs Adams will mind, your ladyship,’ said Parkinson neutrally.

Lady Hoyland tutted, exasperated. ‘Well of course she will. You know very well how cross she’s been. I saw her only this morning and she had a face like thunder.’

Now is as good a time as any, thought the butler. He coughed, then spoke: ‘Mrs Adams has passed away, your ladyship.’

The countess stared at him, uncomprehending. He nodded sombrely, keen to impress upon her the truth of his words.

‘Impossible,’ she said, then, illogically: ‘When?’

‘The time of death isn’t entirely clear, your ladyship. Some time after afternoon tea, we believe. Certainly before dinner.’

Unchecked, the countess’s face registered annoyance, not sorrow.

‘How utterly inconvenient. So who …’

‘Mrs Williams, your ladyship. And her fellow cooks from the old flour mill.’

Lady Netherwood processed this information for a moment. Then she remembered the three evenings ahead of her, and irritation darkened her face again.

‘All very well,’ she said, as if Parkinson deserved a reprimand. ‘But we can hardly let Mrs Williams loose on the
oeufs brouillés aux truffes
and
pavé de saumon
tomorrow evening, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Mrs Powell-Hughes has dispatched a telegram for
Monsieur Reynard,’ he said. ‘We hope he will be with us before lunchtime tomorrow.’

The butler’s genuine distress at the demise of his old colleague was very evident in his expression and it was this, as well as the resolution of her immediate difficulties, that finally prompted an appropriate response from the countess. She laid a small bejewelled hand upon his black worsted sleeve.

‘Dear Parkinson,’ she said. ‘How terrible this must have been for you all. And poor Mrs Adams, lying there cold – oh goodness!’ Lady Hoyland’s hand came up to her mouth as another unwelcome thought occurred to her. ‘Where is she?’

‘Currently still in the cold store I’m afraid, your ladyship. But Jeremiah Hague has been sent for and she will be restored to dignity within the hour.’

There was much that could still have been said: both of them knew it. Mary Adams had worked in the Netherwood kitchens for forty-five years, twenty of them as head cook. She had watched the earl grow from boy to man, and knew the preferences and dislikes of every member of the Hoyland family. Her death was shocking: it would shift the foundations of the way of life here. But both countess and butler understood perfectly that time was pressing; the hostess had been absent from her exalted guest for too long. Parkinson, dismissed by a silent nod, took the back stairs down to the kitchens to deliver the unwelcome news to Eve that she was wanted by the king and Lady Netherwood returned to the drawing room to find that in fact she hadn’t been missed at all. On the contrary, she entered the room unnoticed because the king had Caesar on his lap with Mrs Keppel’s diamond choker around the dog’s neck, which would have been entertaining enough, but there was Mrs Keppel, feigning outrage and demanding in exchange the leather collar with its silver name tag. The countess slipped easily into the body of the merry throng. She felt calm and composed, in spite of
the tragedy below stairs, and this, she knew, was because Parkinson and Mrs Powell-Hughes were such pillars of dependability. How blessed she was, she thought, in her household staff: how very well they served her. She began to laugh merrily at the antics of the king and his mistress, along with everyone else: to appear conspicuously solemn would have been unforgiveable, a dereliction of duty. Clarissa Hoyland could never be accused of that.

Eve endured fifteen minutes in the gilded drawing room, the centre of attention of everyone in it. She accepted the compliments heaped upon her by the king, blushed furiously – to her enduring annoyance – when he remarked on her beauty in the most condescending terms to the room in general, then she found herself listening, appalled, to his insistence that she travel with them in the royal train in order to continue to cook for him in the royal palaces. There was a heavy silence when he ceased speaking. It was not at all the thing, even for a monarch, to pluck staff willy-nilly from the homes of his friends. The king, however, looked expectantly at Eve. He was drunk, but still cheerfully so, and the room held its breath: the wrong answer from this young woman before them could alter the whole tenor of the evening.

‘Thank you, Your Majesty,’ she said. ‘You’re very kind, and I’m very flattered. But I can’t accept, I’m so sorry.’

She was looking directly at him and she spoke clearly, quite unafraid. He gave a short bark of laughter.

‘I see. And why not, pray?’

‘Because Netherwood is my ’ome, Your Majesty. And I’m soon to be married.’

The earl and countess exchanged a look: this was news to them. Lady Netherwood leaned in to her husband and
whispered: ‘Has she asked our permission?’ and he said: ‘She doesn’t need it Clarissa, she’s not ours.’ Meanwhile the king, pouting a little, was looking perilously close to falling out of humour. Eve, aware that denying a monarch’s request was a hazardous business, continued to speak.

‘But I shall cook for you, Your Majesty, whenever you visit the earl and countess, if it pleases you, Your Majesty.’

This was well said, respectful and earnest. Lord Netherwood felt a wash of pride in Eve that was almost paternal. Like a break in a bank of gathering clouds, the king’s countenance cleared and he allowed his attention to be diverted elsewhere. Eve, no longer required, backed from the room feeling a little as if she was retreating, miraculously unscathed, from a bear pit.

She rode home in the carriage with Nellie and Ginger; they spoke very little, all of them exhausted and somewhat stunned at the evening’s course of events. Eve, sitting opposite the other two women, could see in their faces the triumph of a job well done, burning bright beneath their weariness. Herself, she felt deflated and dispirited. Seeing the king, rosy and loose-tongued with wine, petulant as a spoilt child, had seemed to Eve to somehow reduce their valiant efforts in the kitchen to the mere indulgence of the already over-indulged. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the carriage window and, as she did, she saw they were rattling past the gardener’s cottage, Daniel’s house. There was the ethereal glow of yellow lamplight in the bedroom window, and Eve imagined the bliss of joining him there now, and losing herself in his arms. She was suddenly struck at the cruel injustice of him lying alone in his bed while she sped by on her way to her family. She hadn’t done right by
him since he came all this way to Netherwood for her, she thought now with a sudden pang of conscience. She treated him as the last in a long list of more pressing concerns. He deserved better, she told herself, remorsefully. She would make amends. She would begin tomorrow.

‘W
hat do you say to a trip down one of your mines, Teddy, old boy?’

This was the king, mouth full of roast woodcock, catching the earl completely unawares. Sarah Pickersgill, after a sleepless night, had proved herself capable of more than she thought and had cooked twenty woodcocks, twenty veal chops and fifteen bloaters on a spit while supervising the preparation of eggs – scrambled, fried and coddled – bacon and tomatoes. It was all delicious and Parkinson warmed her heart by saying that the famous Monsieur Reynard would find a capable second-in-command when he arrived later in the day. Currently, the king was gorging himself on meat and sharing it occasionally with Caesar, who sat on the floor by his master’s chair; it was a mercy, thought Lord Netherwood, that the terrier didn’t require his own seat. The earl bit into a piece of toast in a ruminative way then chewed and swallowed before replying to the question, giving himself time to collect his wits. He would have liked to say that a colliery was a place of industry, not a destination for idle sightseeing; however, he didn’t.

‘Certainly, Sir.’ He had found himself unable – and even,
somehow, unqualified – to call the king Bertie, and no one said Edward. One or two of the royal party referred to him affectionately as Tum-Tum, but this was a familiarity too far, in the earl’s opinion. Clarissa, at their mutual debriefing in her rooms last night, had told him he sounded obsequious with his Your Majesty this and Sir that, but truly the earl could take no other path: he felt he barely knew the king, and what he did know, he didn’t much admire. Now he had to attempt to talk him out of a preposterous suggestion without giving offence. Conversation with the king, he was finding, had something of the dangerous quality of a high-wire act: one wrong step spelled disaster. ‘Although,’ he continued carefully, ‘I know Clarissa has a full day’s sport planned for the gentlemen. A grouse drive for the shots among us. Cricket. Tennis. A little croquet. However, if you prefer …’