The New Countess (27 page)

Cook sent Belinda up to let Lily know there was onion soup, haddock pie, and stewed apple for lunch – Lily having decided to join Belinda in her banting. Cook, as it happened, ever obliging, was also serving side dishes of croutons, chipped fried potatoes and individual bread and butter puddings for those who wanted to supplement their light and healthy meal. The plan worked. As Cook doled out the first servings of onion soup, Lily took her place at the table.

‘You’ll never guess,’ she said, ‘you’ll never guess!’

‘Don’t play hard to get, Lily,’ warned Reginald, ‘or I’ll make it hard for you.’

‘Talk about turn-up for the books!’ said Lily.

‘I know what it is,’ said Elsie. ‘The King’s called off. Him and his Mrs Keppel aren’t coming, and after all that.’

‘It’s on the cards,’ said Lily. ‘You’re a psychic, Elsie.’

There was a gasp of dismay all round.

‘She’s making it up,’ said Reginald, ‘as per usual. Don’t fret yourself, Elsie. ’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Belinda, who had spent the morning closeted with Lily. Thanks to none of the family being in residence, and the domestic improvements – no coal having to be carried or ashes cleared, no water boiled and baths or wash bowls filled, no slops fetched and emptied – and this particular morning no meals in anyone’s rooms, there was a blessed lull in work, and time to spare. ‘Tell them about Lady Rosina’s book, Lily. Her Ladyship said something to Mr Strachan about the Queen not liking it, what with it being so really rude, with lots of naked savages dancing around with no clothes on.’

‘I told you that in confidence,’ said Lily. ‘You have no business passing it on, Belinda. Her Ladyship was going on about it to Mr Strachan on the way up to Liverpool. I like Mr Strachan. I hope he’s not in too much trouble. He told her Ladyship he thought the King wouldn’t object to the book because His Majesty liked to know everything about his subjects even if the Queen didn’t. He was too honest for his own good and her Ladyship snorted and hardly said a word to him all the way.’

‘And we all know she fancies him,’ put in Belinda. Mr and Mrs Neville exchanged a look. Belinda went too far too fast, for someone new to the table. But Lily, seeing a danger that she might be upstaged, took up her story without further delay.

The Special Branch party got to Liverpool later than they had hoped; there’d been some irritating delays on the way – including a landslip on the line north of Reading which required a detour. Her Ladyship had not been at all happy; she was naturally anxious about the children.

‘Yes,’ said Belinda, piping up again, unquenched, ‘and in a mood because his Lordship didn’t come with her. Always some excuse. Off to the House, my left foot. Off to The Cardinal’s Hat, more like.’

‘My lips are sealed,’ said Digby.

‘They’d better be,’ put in Reginald. ‘There’s been enough trouble in this house lately without you two adding to it. Isn’t that so, Mr Neville?’ He spoke with a new authority.

‘That is the case, Mr Reginald,’ said Mr Neville, adding the ‘Mr’ with a new deference. Perhaps one day when he calmed down Reginald would rise to be butler.

‘Carry on, Lily,’ said Reginald, and she did.

‘I was so sorry for her Ladyship,’ said Lily. ‘She went on smiling, but as we got later and later she got quite agitated and kept looking at her wrist watch. Then Mr Strachan told her to take it off and put it in her reticule – we would be moving amongst crowds. It’s so pretty; a Cartier, all gold and diamonds. His Lordship gave it to her. She only wore it in the first place because she thinks it brings her luck, so she argued with him some more about that. But she saw sense in the end and took it off.’ Belinda opened her mouth to say something but Reginald quelled her with a look.

Lily went on further, to say that by the time they got to Liverpool it was half past one and the train from Kings Cross had already got in, but a porter said yes, a party of women and children without a man in sight had set off for the boat train, so they went off after them; but a party of six men in uniform, plus a smart woman and a lady’s maid, is hard to move through crowds, and by the time they got to the bottom of the
Carpania
’s gangway the fugitives were half way to the top. There were two officers at the bottom and two at the top checking papers. The third-class passengers now streaming on board were of an undistinguished nature, many of them foreigners speaking strange tongues; most in the first class were already on board, sipping their farewell drinks with friends and relatives until the
‘All ashore that’s going ashore’
shout was raised. Third class said their goodbyes on shore.

‘These immigrant ships are awash with trouble makers – criminals, terrorists, radicals –hoping to slip the nets of justice,’ so Terry the armed Special Branch man had warned Lily on the journey up, as they ate the chicken sandwiches which Cook had provided. Security would be shockingly lax, he said: the
Carpania
was a Cunard liner and crewed by Americans and Irish and none of them friendly to authority.

Not lax enough, it transpired, to suit the convenience of the Inspector and his contingent. Lady Isobel got through easily enough saying she was seeing friends off, but Lily was asked for her passport and not having one was stopped, and asked to stand aside on the deck. The Inspector was stopped for the same reason. He flashed the Special Branch badge from the inside of his lapel, but the inspecting officer was not impressed, said it was unknown to him, and all must step aside while he called a senior officer.

Lily watched as Minnie, seeing the approach of her mother-in-law, vanished with her flock into the crowds on deck, presumably to take refuge below. The crowd, quick to understand what was going on, parted willingly for the fugitives but stood deliberately in Isobel’s way to prevent further pursuit so she had no option but to retreat to the Inspector’s group, equally unpopular, it seemed. It was a sullen crowd of men who now gathered round the forces of authority and murmured insults. The senior officer took his time arriving, and when he did it was no relief: he found fault with the Inspector’s letters of authority. The passengers in question were American, were they not? Nevertheless enquiries had been made and after some time Minnie, her mother, Grace, Molly and the two children were brought back up to the top of the gangway to have their passports re-examined. The officer now held three passports in his perfectly uniformed hand and flicked through them.

The
‘All ashore that’s going ashore’
cry went up. Sirens hooted alarmingly.

‘Dear Grace,’ said Minnie. ‘You really must be going. Thank you so much for coming so far to say goodbye,’ and Miss Grace kissed them all and departed serenely down the gangway.

‘All these are in order,’ said the officer, ‘and all are American citizens except the maid, who is British. The children are on the mother’s passport, I don’t see where the problem arises. You have no jurisdiction.’ He said he had put a call through to the Metropolitan Police in London and they had no knowledge of the Strachan party: he must ask them to leave at once.

Her Ladyship explained that the heir to the Dilberne title and lands was being kidnapped and the officer would come to rue the day, et cetera, et cetera, but the officer laughed in her face and said he doubted it; if she was talking about lords and ladies why was the party not travelling first class?

‘Because they are so cunning!’ snapped the Countess of Dilberne, but then called out imploringly, ‘Oh, Minnie, you can’t do this to the poor little boy. If you have any scruple left at all, let him be where he belongs. In his own place, in his own class.’

‘His poor little feet –’ said Mrs O’Brien. ‘All blisters! Whine all you like, you’re not fit to bring up a jackass let alone my grandchild.’

Her Ladyship looked both puzzled and bereft and then said in a very different tone of voice, enough to break your heart:

‘Anything, anything. Minnie, I’m sorry. I had no idea it had got to blister stage. Nanny must go. Please, Minnie, please. Arthur’s eldest son, I know he’s difficult but even so – you love him, you know you do.’

Minnie looked undecided, and equally bereft, said Lily. Mr Strachan said he refused to leave and demanded to see the Captain.

‘It’s impossible,’ said the officer. ‘This is a Cunard liner. What do you want? An international incident? This ship is ready to leave, about to leave. The pilot’s on board and his time is expensive. We’re about to cast off.’

And indeed down on the jetty men were shouting, and the anchor chain began to rattle.

‘My men are armed,’ said the Inspector. It was quite the wrong thing to say. There was much rustling amongst the crowd. They were on the ship’s officer’s side.

‘So are mine,’ said the officer, calmly. ‘Stay on board and be incarcerated and delivered to the police at the other end. Our cells are not so very comfortable, they say, and our crew not so fond of the police. It is up to you.’

The Strachan party stood humiliated and hesitant. And then Molly stepped forward with Edgar’s hand in hers. ‘You lot had best keep Master Edgar,’ she said to Isobel. ‘He’s a sight more his father’s child than his mother’s.’ She turned back to Minnie. ‘And you lot keep Master Connor, who’s his mother’s, and a proper little Irishman. That’s fair.’

And Molly walked down the gangway, Master Edgar beside her. Isobel, after a minute’s hesitation, followed, and then Lily. The ship shuddered. Mr Strachan and his Special Branch men quickly fell in behind Lily. Minnie did not go after them, but stood as if fixed to the deck in surprise. The ship had come alive. Those for ashore had reached ashore. The gangway was raised abruptly and jerkily, as if to save further argument. There was another lurch as more hawsers were loosed. Sirens hooted in triumph as slowly but surely the
Carpania
slipped away from the dock to face a new world, start a new life. The crowds at the rails cheered. Master Edgar, under Molly’s instruction, waved up at his mother as the ship became more distant, smaller and smaller, and Minnie waved back. Little Connor waved too, vigorously and joyously, as the distance between him and his big brother grew.

And that was how it happened that Master Edgar was now at Belgrave Square with Isobel, and Molly, restored to favour to look after him; and Master Connor with his mother and grandmother were on the good ship
Carpania
and on their way to New York. Mr Strachan was in disgrace and licking his wounds in his room, and his Lordship at this very moment was in a meeting with Mr Akers-Douglas the Home Secretary as they discussed the suitability of a royal visit, however private, so soon after certain unfortunate difficulties in the Dilberne family had so narrowly avoided being the cause of an international incident, and, worse, the publication of Lady Rosina’s book had come to the attention of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office.

A Disturbing Morning

8th December 1905, No. 3 Fleet Street

‘It bodes no good,’ said Anthony Robin. He was reading the morning mail. He had come down for breakfast in the kitchen looking exceptionally splendid in a purple silk dressing gown with mandarin collar, a lavish satin cravat and a grey velvet smoking jacket with corded lapels flung round his shoulders for warmth. Diana and Rosina, who as it happened were both wearing white shirts and grey woollen skirts, felt positively dull by comparison.

‘What doesn’t?’ they asked.

‘I refer to the theatrical censor in our new government,’ he said. ‘Sporty Eddie is out as Lord Chamberlain, Charlie Spencer is in. Strait-laced old fart.’

‘But he’s only a Mister,’ said Diana. ‘You have to be a Lord to be that.’

‘They’re making him a Lord for the occasion,’ said Anthony. ‘Viscount Althorp. The new age of decency and probity is here.’

‘Oh Anthony,’ said Diana. ‘Calm down. We still have free speech. They won’t dare touch the little presses.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ said Anthony darkly.

‘At least Charlie’s Harrow and Cambridge,’ said Rosina. ‘Makes a change from Eton and Oxford. In with the Liberals, out with the Tories. Won’t it be better, not worse?’

‘The more they talk of freedom, the less they like it,’ said Anthony. ‘Say damn on stage and they’ll close the theatre down. It’s going to be all no, no, no, you bad boy from now on. We’re going backwards not forwards. Who publishes Beardsley now?’

‘At least my book’s gone to press. The review copies have gone out. It’s too late to stop it at this stage,’ said Rosina. ‘The die is cast. And nobody argued with Havelock’s
Laughter as Demutescence
in the November Issue.’

‘Only because no one bothered to read it,’ said Anthony. He asked Diana to make more coffee and Rosina to stoke the fire; the room was cold and William Brown her publisher was coming down.

‘Down?’ asked Diana, surprised. ‘Not round?’

‘Down,’ said Anthony and sure enough in a few minutes William came down the stairs into the kitchen, fully dressed for the office: double-breasted lounge suit, grey worsted, six buttons, high white collar, and the sharpest of pointed lapels.

‘Oh Anthony,’ said Diana, looking up as she ground the coffee. ‘This is far too domestic, far too dangerous.’

‘Anthony, are you out of your mind?’ demanded Rosina, getting up from the grate. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, leaving a great smudge of ash and cinders on her cheek, but at least the room was warmer.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Anthony. ‘William and I are just celebrating. I am the great Lothario, the breaker-up of marriages. I have it formally in black and white. I am cited as co-respondent in your brother’s divorce case. Better a bounder, I always say, than a sodomite.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Rosina. ‘Poor Minnie, at least she got away with one of the children. But it’s all rather a pity. She loves Arthur.’

‘She’ll mend,’ said William. ‘And yes, it looks as if we’ve got away with the book. The timing’s right. To recall
Manners and Traditions
now would cause more of a scandal than letting it go. You’re the daughter of the Earl of Dilberne, friend of royalty: next week the King is coming to stay, not to mention Mrs Keppel. No one will risk headlines.’