Park Lane (39 page)

Grace nods.

Bea picks up the sweet peas and walks back out on to the London street.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Park Lane
is a novel but its story is inseparable from its historical setting:

Mrs Pankhurst held rallies in Campden Hill Square and Glebe Place, and the evening and afternoon unfolded exactly as described here. The Suffragists and Suffragettes disliked each other and the WSPU’s HQ was in Mrs Pattie Hall’s flat in Maida Vale, though not necessarily in Lauderdale Mansions. When the flat was raided by the police in May 1914, stones and machetes were found there. Lloyd George’s house was bombed, and the Cat and Mouse Act was continuously being passed over in favour of the question of Home Rule for Ireland. The Gretna Green rail disaster was the worst rail crash in the United Kingdom, involved five trains, and a total of 226 people died. And Dartmouth House, now the English Speaking Union in Mayfair, was a nursing home run by the Countess of Lytton who, as Pamela Plowden, had been Winston Churchill’s first great love.

The first Sir William Masters, Bea’s great-grandfather, was inspired by Thomas Brassey, regarded by many as the greatest railway builder the world has seen. And the Brasseys, like the fictional Masters, lived in a house on Park Lane which was sold at the end of the First World War. The Brasseys’ house had attached to it an Indian Durbar Hall that was filled with ethnographical trophies brought back from
travels abroad. The family were ardent, and influential, Suffragists – in particular one Muriel Brassey, who was tiny in stature but huge in character. She had a daughter (rather than a daughter’s friend) who ‘bolted’ to Kenya, but that is the subject of another book …

London, October 2011

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This is my first novel. It has been an immensely enjoyable but very different writing experience from non-fiction and I should like to thank my talented editor Lennie Goodings for all her guidance along this new path. She is not alone at Virago and Little, Brown in her help. Vivien Redman copyedited the manuscript with great care, along with Mari Roberts and Jenny Page. Susan de Soissons, Judith Greenberg and Naomi Doerge have helped launch
Park Lane
into the world. Thanks, too, to Victoria Pepe for her views. The encouragement of my agent, the wonderful Gill Coleridge, has been with me from the start and thank you also to her assistant Cara Jones. In the US, both
Park Lane
and I have been equally well agented by Melanie Jackson, who has again delivered me into the talented hands of Vicky Wilson and I am thrilled to be working with her once more. As I am with the immensely capable Andrea Robinson and Russell Perreault of Vintage, both of whom worked with me on
The Bolter
. Finally,
Park Lane
could not have been written without the support and love of my friends, and my family. Thank you George for helping me find the time and space to finish. And thank you Luke and Liberty. I promise I will try to write a children’s book before you are too old to read it.

ALSO BY
F
RANCES
O
SBORNE

THE BOLTER

In an age of bolters—women who broke the rules and fled their marriages—Idina Sackville was the most celebrated of them all. Her relentless affairs, wild sex parties, and brazen flouting of convention shocked high society and inspired countless writers and artists, from Nancy Mitford to Greta Garbo. But Idina’s compelling charm masked the pain of betrayal and heartbreak. Now Frances Osborne explores the life of Idina, her enigmatic great-grandmother, using letters, diaries, and family legend, following her from Edwardian London to the hills of Kenya, where she reigned over the scandalous antics of the “Happy Valley Set.” Dazzlingly chic yet warmly intimate,
The Bolter
is a fascinating look at a woman whose energy still burns bright almost a century later.

Biography

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