The New Countess (11 page)

‘Dilberne is a family home,’ she’d said. ‘I simply do not want any of the creeping-down-corridors-in-the-middle-of-the-night behaviour that used to go on in the fast set. There was no way I might simply refuse the Keppels, of course, once you had seen fit to invite the King in the way that you did, but if they are here together, that’s that.’

He said he hoped she might reconsider: he doubted that much ‘went on’ down the corridors these days other than conversation with old friends and relaxation: the King was not a young man, nor an agile one. But her Ladyship would not relent.

‘I will not be party to it, and nor should you,’ she said. ‘To place them near together is to invite the staff to gossip.’

Isobel had been much unsettled, Robert surmised, by Rosina’s sudden return from the Antipodes and her equally sudden departure from Belgrave Square. What exactly had gone on between his wife and their daughter she would not tell him in detail. Enough that Rosina had ‘behaved quite dreadfully’. It had involved Rosina’s ruddy parrot, that much was clear: dreadful bird – and a book Rosina had written while away on the habits of the Australian aboriginals. Robert thought Isobel worried unnecessarily: it was unlikely to find a publisher – who would be interested? He was sorry to have missed Rosina – but she was in good health and spirits enough to defy her mother, and to all accounts well provided for. She would turn up again when she saw fit. He had other things to worry about.

When he had been in Fisheries, he reflected, his family and their troubles had preoccupied him. Now he was in the Colonial Office and responsible for the fate of millions, he had less patience with their problems. Power was a mixed blessing. Great men were seldom sentimental men.

In the meanwhile Ponsonby was talking to him about protecting the Monarch. Now his Lordship had a minute or two to spare, due to the unexpected postponement of the meeting, perhaps his Lordship would have a word with Inspector Strachan. ‘His Lordship’ now came to Ponsonby’s lips with ease, thought Robert. Perhaps his own slight raise of the eyebrows at the secretary’s earlier familiarity had been noted. Ponsonby was an astute young man. When an instant or two later the Inspector came to the bar, it even occurred to Robert that the meeting with Lansdowne had been cancelled on Ponsonby’s instructions simply to make possible this more important meeting.

The other drawback to becoming a man of power, reflected Robert, was that you saw conspiracies everywhere. He dismissed the suspicion as unworthy or at any rate irrelevant, and concentrated on what Strachan had to say; namely that the Inspector would send a few of his men down a couple of weeks before the visit to stay in the village, frequent the pub, and report on any untoward activities. Strachan said he would like to come down himself in a day or so to make a further assessment of the doors, windows and locks.

‘The place is in something of an uproar,’ said Robert. ‘Today’s door is tomorrow’s window and vice versa, but by all means come down and inspect. You have my permission, though, I must say, my good man, you do seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill. What can you be expecting on the soft chalk downs of Sussex? Anarchist gangs, crazed madmen, roaming socialists, white-slave traffickers?’

Strachan did not smile, but then policemen were well known for having no sense of humour. The Inspector was a new kind of man: neither a gentleman nor in trade, but a public servant, as so many these days seemed to be, from County Council officers to School Boards, laying down the law from everything as to where one might build one’s house, educate one’s children or the speed at which one might drive one’s motor.

As such the Inspector was granted respect but not quite trust, and certainly not familiarity.

‘We can be certain of nothing, my Lord,’ he said. ‘Today even the chalk downs are not safe from wastrels and destitute wanderers. They roam further and further afield. Your own farm labourers, I understand, have been conspiring to form a union of agricultural workers. There is unrest everywhere. One does not want the King to encounter any unpleasantness.’

‘Indeed not,’ said Robert. In the past Rosina had stirred up agitation amongst the estate workers, simply by asking them questions about their wages. They had compared notes and felt oppressed. The shift from gratitude to resentment could be swift and sudden. Some of his best beaters were beginning to ask for more money, on the grounds they could always apply for a job in Arthur’s workshops, and all Arthur had to say when he remonstrated was: ‘If they have the ability and talent, then they deserve what they get.’

And when he queried the number of pheasant eggs per nest this season as compared to last, Alan, now the head gamekeeper, had given him an average of seventeen – not last year’s triumphant twenty – and blamed the frequent noisy blasts which accompanied the Jehu engines’ test runs.

‘When they hears it them birds takes to the air,’ he said, ‘instead of keeping their heads down and their eggs warm.’

Robert had said as much to his son, who responded by saying, well, Alan would say that, wouldn’t he, being a countryman, hating all things mechanical and only too happy to excuse his own inefficiencies by blaming the Jehu. The test runs continued.

Even one’s own children rose up against one, Robert lamented. Isobel was right. It would probably be wise if Rosina did not publish her book about savages, given her gift for stirring up trouble.

Strachan was warning the family against any mention of the King’s visit to the press. ‘Let a word slip, and they’ll be down to set up their cameras. The yellow press is both ungovernable and unstoppable. I have even known them break into private rooms to prove their own distasteful theories. But we will take our precautions. I’ll have a couple of my men stationed outside the King’s door all night.’

‘One of the servants can do that,’ said his Lordship, and Ponsonby shuffled a little and coughed, and said, ‘It might be wiser if the Inspector’s men stood sentry.’

‘I don’t see why,’ said his Lordship peevishly.

‘So they know to whom it is wise to allow entry,’ said Ponsonby.

‘Mrs Keppel, you mean,’ said Robert and Mr Ponsonby looked pained. Robert said he was sure her Ladyship would welcome Inspector Strachan’s men at Dilberne Court sometime in the future.

Let them fight it out: he had other more serious matters to think about. To arm one native tribe against another seemed an obvious solution, and was often tried, except it usually ended badly.

Another Week, Another Sunday

Sunday 3rd September 1905, Dilberne

‘Mother-in-law,’ said Minnie. Isobel and she were walking home from church side by side. They went down the narrow back lane that led to Dilberne Court. Connor and Edgar followed with their nannies, Connor in his perambulator and Edgar sometimes in his stroller, sometimes walking. They made sluggish progress. Her father-in-law and Arthur, who had things to do, had gone ahead, rather than slow their pace to one determined by the existence of women and children. The hedgerows crowded in on them, a wild tangle of hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple, shiny hornbeam and holly, convolvulus entwining with pink dog rose flanked by purple-headed thistle and white cow-parsley, with the more solid elm, ash, beech and oak pushing up here and there – the English countryside was intolerably, almost painfully lovely and romantic but Minnie still found herself longing for the simplicity of the flat Illinois landscape.

‘Mama,’ she said. It had taken her weeks to find the courage and to get the words right. ‘It had occurred to me that Arthur and me and the children could perfectly well move into the Dower House. We wouldn’t be in the way of the builders, and they could get on with taking up the floors without having to worry about the servants carrying hot water for the nursery.’

‘Arthur and I,’ said Isobel, ‘not Arthur and me. Nobody’s worrying. Why are you worrying about the servants? The servants will go on carrying water from the kitchens, just as they have since the house was built.’

It was a hot day. Isobel was wearing a dress in grey and white shepherd’s plaid voile trimmed with pink silk, a wide embroidered bertha and a little white wing collar: her hat had a modest brim, but such a mass of lacy foliage piled upon it, Minnie thought, that it quite echoed the tangle of hedgerows they walked between. She herself wore a serviceable lined tucked white shirt, a circular navy blue skirt in grosgrain and a straw boater, and was aware that Isobel must think her very plain. Poor little Edgar had been dressed in a tweed suit – a miniature of the one his grandfather wore to church when he had time enough from affairs of State to attend – with a wing collar and the black Oxford lace-ups which Nanny Margaret insisted he wore – ‘His little feet need the support’ – and were so stiff and uncomfortable that he preferred his stroller than to run around as he normally did. Surely nature knew best: children were not born with leather boots on their feet, but that was not a concept familiar to Nanny. ‘Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humour, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.’ No use quoting Emerson to Nanny, or any of the Dilbernes, come to that.

‘And the Dower House? But it’s perfectly horrid,’ said Isobel. ‘You can’t possibly live there. Tiny windows, tall rooms, the staircase is crumbling; it’s dreadfully damp and swallows and bats are nesting in the attics. I went inside the other day and the architect, old George Bodley – I think I introduced you – was quite horrified.’

‘So you’ll be doing it up?’ asked Minnie, hopefully.

‘Oh no,’ said Isobel. ‘No one “does” dower houses “up”. I suppose that’s American usage. Doing dower houses up is unlucky.’ And, as lately upon so many other subjects, she refused to be drawn. But of course, thought Minnie; dower is short for dowager. It’s the house where a deposed lady of rank is sent to live when her husband dies and the inheritance passes on. To do it up would be to invite that day: Minnie was hardly in a position to bring the subject up again.

But it was a pretty house, though indeed dilapidated; quite small and cosy – only one or two degrees up from a farmhouse – a whole quarter of a mile away from Dilberne Court. The staircase could be mended, the windows enlarged, the damp got rid of, there was a barn at the back that could be used as a studio – oh, the old dreams of doing something other than wearing clothes and being polite – the swallows could be seen as company, and she would live happily ever after with Arthur, as mistress of her own domain, her children her own, not Nanny’s. Dreams, dreams.

One day in the far, far distant future, if it hadn’t been allowed to crumble away altogether, the Dower House, or one like it, would be her own destiny. Well, as had Rosina, she had made her bed and must lie on it. All women had to.

But Isobel was talking.

‘Besides, Minnie, the children’s proper place is in the family nursery, where their own father was brought up and their grandfather before that. And change is the last thing Arthur wants; do you really want to upset him just when he’s so busy and the business is going so well? I am his mother; I do know what’s going on in his head.’

No mention of Rosina. Rosina was seldom mentioned. No one knew what went on in Rosina’s head, which was presumably the trouble. And Minnie herself had been outflanked so simply. Her request had been anticipated, she suspected, and her routes of escape barred.

When they got back to the Court, Edgar and Connor went up to Nanny for their flaked cod and white sauce lunch with mashed potatoes and a slice of decorative tomato, and with any luck for Edgar to change out of his church clothes into a sailor suit and different shoes. Nanny thought going barefoot would make his arches fall.

The Earl was there for lunch. He had fallen asleep in church, he said, and asked Minnie what the readings had been. Minnie – who had been so busy brooding she couldn’t remember a thing – shook her head mutely, and Isobel quickly stepped in. ‘John, six, twenty-four to thirty-five,’ said Isobel, ‘
Jesus said unto them I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty
.’

‘Which is why you allow us a proper luncheon after church, I daresay,’ said his Lordship to his wife, ‘instead of the frenchified lunches you’re so keen on nowadays.’

‘Praise the Lord,’ said Arthur, ‘as they say back home in Chicago, do they not, Minnie?’

Minnie smiled sweetly as ever, though she felt like crying. They were not unkind, but they would never allow her to be one of them, not even Arthur.

Lunch was
potage aux petits pois, filet de sole à la sauce aurore, chaud-froid de volaille, gigot d’agneau, gelée de fraises
and
bouchées d’abricots.
Arthur left for his workshops after the
gigot
, pecking Minnie goodbye and saying he was sorry he couldn’t be there when the children were brought down for Sunday tea, but their grandmother would be, wouldn’t she, and Isobel said, ‘Of course.’ His Lordship commented that the Dilberne table was exceptionally good these days, frenchified or not, so presumably Isobel must be very near to God. Isobel remarked that considering the manna that descended to the servants’ hall on a daily basis it was certainly the case. His Lordship suggested that the Rev. Stacey read the staff Exodus sixteen, verses one to thirteen at Evensong and that thus reassured they stopped their grumbling. The servants should be grateful for what they got.

‘Exodus chapter sixteen, verses one to thirteen,’ Isobel explained to Minnie, ‘is when the Israelites grumble against the Lord because they’re hungry, and he promises them meat in the evening and all the bread they want in the morning, and they end up getting manna. They now think we’re
in loco dei
and grumble because they don’t get manna all the time.’

At least, his Lordship put in, Rosina hadn’t been near them lately stirring up trouble with her questionnaires. Isobel made a ‘
Don’t mention that name
’ face and Minnie thought: ‘If my life is hardly worth living now, with these two as my allies, what would it be like if I had them as enemies?’