3 Great Historical Novels

by Fay Weldon

  Flora had made a great fuss when he left her, he remembered, and claimed her heart was broken. Fortunately her tears just hardened his heart against her; she lost all remaining attraction for him when he was obliged to watch her weeping, her eyes so red, swollen and ugly, and her mouth so loose and out of control. She managed to seize the bank notes he held out to her, he had noticed.

  He had not abandoned the girl: indeed, he had asked Reginald to organize his successor. Robert had not been pleased to discover the rogue had fixed the girl up with his own son, but there was nothing he could do about it, except be relieved that as these girls go she was healthy, clean and not too hysterical. There was no need to let Arthur know his own father was his predecessor in the girl’s bed. The boy was fond of his mother. He’d assumed Arthur would quickly grow out of any attachment to the girl. But apparently he had not. The consequences of little choices you made which you assumed would just fade away and disappear could come swirling back through time to get you.

  ‘It’s all over, long ago,’ he said to Isobel. ‘It meant nothing.’

  But her face was hardening into a mask of hostility and dislike. He shivered to see it. That was the last thing he should have said. When it came to women, as with politics, denial was the safest path.

  ‘You can have your dinner party for the Prince,’ she said. ‘You can spend my money and your children’s money on horses and cards, and whoring with your fat friend, whom even his own mother despises, but I choose my own guest list. Mrs Baum will only enter this house over my dead body.’

  ‘But haven’t the invitations gone off?’

  ‘I held hers back, on seeing the postal district. I hadn’t yet made up my mind. Now I have. I am my father’s daughter.’

  A thick yellow fog was beginning to curl up the river. It seemed a bad omen.

  Robert could see that it might take time to win her round and he had none to spare. Affairs of State called. He kissed her politely goodbye, or would have, had she not jerked her cheek away from him; so he advised her to go home quickly to get out of the fog and made for the Cabinet Office, where the war meeting was under way and there were no women.

  In the Cabinet Office

  4.30 p.m. Tuesday, 28th November 1899

  The latest dispatches were being discussed. The news was mixed. The Queen had received one from Lord Methuen after the Battle of Modder River to the effect that it had been the bloodiest of the century; the Boers had shelled from trenches with dreadful success before being charged by the British. Losses had been heavy. Nevertheless it was a victory; the Boers had been driven back. More detailed messages arrived. It seemed that a force of over seven thousand crack troops, including the Guards Brigade, armed with bolt-action rifles and supported by field artillery and four guns of the Naval Brigade, with further reinforcements arriving by the railway, had been surprised and pinned down by a larger force of Boers. The latter had been cunningly concealed and well dug in, armed with Mausers, several field guns and a Maxim ‘pom-pom’ apparently borrowed from the Orange Free State. It had taken ten hours to drive the enemy back just a couple of miles to Magersfontein. Some claimed the British had lost nearly five hundred men, the Boers only eighty.

  Robert spoke into a stunned silence. ‘A bloody victory indeed,’ he said. He had found his courage. Having just faced Isobel, a room full of political dignitaries were as nothing. ‘Some things become clear. We can no longer face this enemy armed only with inferior rifles. And where were the cavalry? If there were any not already laid low by fever, sea travel and the climate?’

  Chamberlain said it seemed mounted troops were indeed involved and had reconnoitred, but had failed to notice the presence of an army eight-thousand strong. ‘Then we can only conclude that the cavalry has no place in Africa. It is too busy avoiding ants’ nests to pay attention to anything else.’

  He was surprised at the strength of his own conviction.

  ‘Young Winston feels very differently,’ Salisbury woke up enough to murmur. ‘He always believes cavalry is the answer. After his most theatrical escape from the Boers he’s such a hero of the hour that I suppose we mustn’t contradict his opinions.’

  Robert replied that young Churchill saw horses as a living sacrifice to national pride. He himself rather liked them when they were alive. The Marquess of Lansdowne observed that Methuen’s apparent abandonment of close formation tactics was dangerous and Robert told him that, on the contrary, had Methuen in this instance advanced in close formation, there would have been a massacre as the Boers mowed down not just one in sixteen, but one in eight.

  ‘Well,’ said Salisbury, opening one of his eyes quite wide, ‘At least one of you seems to be awake.’

  Balfour said what was done was done, and the immediate problem was how the news was to be presented to the public, who were becoming restless. Kimberley and Ladysmith were still besieged, and there was no getting away from that.

  Robert saw himself and Isobel to be in the Battle of the River Thames. As with the Battle of the Modder River, the thing was to deny all, always show strength, and never admit weakness. She would forget, as the people of England would forget.

  Robert said forcefully that the Battle of Modder River must be presented as a victory, a rout by brave British forces. After all, the Boers had been driven back.

  Balfour agreed, glad to have the support he needed. Less than five hundred killed could be seen as a tribute to the courage of British fighting men rather than evidence of military stupidity. More care, he added, must in future be taken when dealing with the press. It was the way ahead.

  Salisbury suggested that perhaps the Earl of Dilberne would care to join them for further discussions in the War Office.

  Taking Tea at Liberty’s

  5.05 p.m. Tuesday, 28th November 1899

  As Isobel ran out distressed into the fog, watched by the curious eyes of Palace of Westminster officials, and his Lordship advanced his political career, Minnie wrote a cheque out for the bill for tea (which seemed to her excessive). Rosina scraped the last drop of cream from her éclair, and finally came out with what she had to say to Minnie. She found it more difficult than she had thought.

  First she advised Minnie that it would be dangerous to motor down to Dilberne Court with Arthur.

  ‘Because of the Devil’s Punchbowl?’ asked Minnie in all innocence. She had come to like and trust Rosina. ‘I know about that. You must not worry. Arthur will be very careful to make sure the boiler is not full at the top of the hill. We won’t pick up too much speed.’ She noticed she was crossing her own fingers as she spoke.

  But Rosina said it was nothing to do with the journey. It was to do with Arthur’s character. Minnie should be aware that Arthur kept a mistress, paying for her flat in Half Moon Street, not ten minutes’ walk from Liberty’s, a very pretty little house which she, Rosina, would not be ashamed to live in herself. Perhaps Minnie would like to walk round there herself with Rosina and they could challenge her together.

  The waitress had cleared the table and other customers wanted to sit down. Minnie was conscious of the great crush of expensive fabric bearing in on their table, heavy tweeds and cords, pliable velvets and satins all juxtaposed, in the jewel tones of the season, the imposing shoulder pads, the tiny waists, great puffed sleeves and plentiful gored skirts, high-frilled necks and bows and ribbons everywhere, and marvelled at how little wealthy women had to do but dress themselves. There was a heavy, uncomfortable smell of damp and sulphur mixed. Shoppers from all down Regent Street were crushing in here, Minnie realized, to get away from a drift of yellow fog. She could see its miasma begin to creep through tiny gaps in the sashed windows of the store. Really they should get up and go: their table was needed. But Rosina was not to be moved. She sat immobile and waiting for a response. What had Rosina said? Ah yes, Arthur’s mistress. Walking round to visit her together?

  ‘I don’t think so, Rosina,’ said Minnie. ‘There’s a nasty fog outside.’

  Of course Arthur ha
d a mistress. He was young and virile and hardly a virgin. Presumably he would give the girl up on marriage. Why would he need anyone else but her? She said as much to Rosina, who seemed disappointed.

  ‘He can be prosecuted as a pimp,’ said Rosina. Minnie caught an echo in her voice of the tone of delirium in Stanton’s when accusing her of sleeping with his fellow painters. Poor Rosina. But she was glad the girl seemed to have friends. Like Stanton, she would have trouble finding them.

  ‘He visits her with an equally caddish person, the brother of another good friend of mine, also affianced to another, while paying the whore’s rent. The three of them go to it together. Can you imagine? There could be a dreadful scandal, which would drag down the Hedleigh name. You must save yourself, Minnie. Have no more to do with my brother. He has a very bad character, and is marrying you for your money. He is not capable of proper feeling.’

  Needled, Minnie told Rosina how she had lived in sin with a fellow artist for three happy months in the Burnt District of Chicago, in a pretty little house that had been spared the flames. She had kept house and got away from home and had been very happy. It had not been her doing that they had parted. Troilism was not unheard of between young and energetic people, she said. It was part of male nature to want to demonstrate its sexual prowess to others. In her case, her lover had become jealous of another man, an occasional visitor, invited in by her lover in the first place. He had come to suspect that she had more feeling for the new man than she did for him, and that she crept out to visit his rival behind his back.

  Rosina was staring at her with startled, wide-open, slightly squinty eyes. The crush of fabrics beneath their elaborate roof of wide felt brims became oppressive. Minnie was jabbed in the arm by a succession of sharp-edged, beautifully packed parcels. Her eyes were smarting.

  ‘Did you?’ asked Rosina. ‘Creep out behind his back?’

  ‘Yes of course,’ said Minnie. Though that was a lie. She had been most upset that Stanton had insisted she shared him with his painter friend, embarrassed, humiliated and distressed. It had all been in the name of art though she could not remember his reasoning now. But as everyone said, Stanton was mad. One did not expect to make sense of it. She had perhaps been rash to trust Rosina with so much information. But at least now she could tell Arthur the truth. She was no more a virgin than he was. She could give up the pretence of purity.

  Rosina walked her back to her hotel. They could see only a yard or so in front of them. The fog was thickest and at its most yellow and sulphurous at ground level. Rosina had an advantage, perhaps, being so tall. Height was at least good for something. Minnie refrained from saying so. Eyes watered and throats rasped. The streets were empty of traffic. Hearing was muffled. Even the horses could not make their way: automobile drivers were blinded.

  As they groped their way forward together, hands splayed in front of them, something of fellow-feeling returned. Minnie remembered the stories about the Great Chicago Fire, the same mixture of companionship and dismay, excitement and dread, as the wooden city burned through a whole day and night, and home ceased to be home. Drastic events reminded you of the basics of your existence, how fragile they were: how you just wanted to be able to breathe.

  Rosina Goes to Vine Street

  7 p.m. Tuesday, 28th November 1899

  She’s going to take no action whatsoever, thought Rosina. The girl has no morals and no shame. Arthur and she are as bad as one another. She braved more of the fog, though it made her cough and sneeze, and walked round to Vine Street Police Station, where she claimed to be a neighbour in Half Moon Street. Men and children were in and out of No. 5 at all hours. Heaven knew what went on there. An officer of the law wrote it all down assiduously, taking a long time about it. But at last someone was taking the matter seriously.

  It occurred to Rosina on her way back home that Flora’s little flat was being paid for by family funds and that she could see herself living there very comfortably indeed while she set about earning her own living. Whether that thought had already come to her before she went round to Vine Street she wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t the point. Rich men like Arthur should not seduce and ruin poor girls like Flora, let alone marry so callously for money.

  In the Servants’ Hall

  The first week of December 1899

  Something had happened to sour the atmosphere at No. 17 Belgrave Square. The pea-souper had been nasty but cleared by the next morning. Her Ladyship put it about that she was indisposed, and either kept to her bed and wept or sat on its edge staring into space. If she did leave her room it was to rant around finding fault, inspecting the nails of the staff as if they weren’t all perfectly clean in the first place, complaining of a burnt flavour to the breakfast porridge though no one else could detect it, and sending the bowl back to Cook, to her outrage.

  ‘She has a nerve,’ said Cook. ‘Their very smartest friends all praise my cooking. If she’s not careful I’ll soon be off to Lady Fredericka. She’s just as much a countess as her Ladyship is.’

  Smithers and Elsie begged Cook not to do any such thing, and pointed out that Lady Fredericka, in spite of her airs and graces, was wife to a mere foreign count, they were two a penny, and hardly counted as aristocracy at all. Cook allowed herself to be pacified.

  ‘Poor thing,’ she said. ‘Her Ladyship’s in such a mood. There’s trouble between him and her, if you ask me, or it could just be the change.’ She whispered the word so the men didn’t hear. Reginald said if matters got any worse he would leave service and get Master Arthur to start him up in a garage, though using internal combustion rather than steam to power his engines. There was a fortune to be made, even more than in brothels, which these days were coming more and more under police scrutiny. His Lordship slept in his dressing room, stalked off to the House of Lords every morning and went off to his club and stayed there until its doors closed at midnight. Elsie reported that the marital sheets did not need changing. Reginald reckoned this was her Ladyship’s doing, not his Lordship’s. He was eager enough to be let in, but she was badly offended and would have none of it. Reginald put forward the idea that it might have something to do with Flora. His Lordship had been her first protector, it was years back but the truth would out. Flora had turned up in the white mink stole at Pagani’s the other night with Mr Robin from the Bank. That must have stirred things up somewhat. Supposing her Ladyship had found out?

  Mr Neville observed that no one was safe from indiscretion when the gentry took it into their heads to keep company with the rougher elements in society, which these days they too often did. Wealthy men dined publicly with hopeful young actresses and girls of low repute, well-bred girls kept company with gangsters, good wives had themselves painted naked by artists. Pagani’s itself hovered only just the right side of respectability. Trust the Americans to want to dine there of all places.

  Her Ladyship in the meanwhile showed no signs of recovery: on the contrary.

  It was while she was in one of her moods that she discovered little Lily in Rosina’s room cleaning up after the parrot; she demanded to know who Lily was and what she was doing, and threw her out of the house.

  The entire staff were summoned and accused of conspiring against her Ladyship.

  ‘Everyone knew, nobody told me,’ she complained, speaking as if the staff were her equals, which they resented, feeling she was taking advantage of them in some way. It wasn’t their business to act as informers. Reginald concluded that she had indeed found out about his Lordship’s relationship with Flora, and had been unbalanced by the news.

  Cook, Mrs Neville, Smithers and Elsie all thought her Ladyship should stop making such a fuss and pull herself together. Reginald and Mr Neville were more censorious of his Lordship, insisting that he should have done more to keep the matter secret.

  And how had she come to find out? That was the latest puzzle. Reginald denied any responsibility: he had not told Arthur of Flora’s connection with his father when he first brought the pair together
, and got an undertaking from her that she would not blab, but who was to say who had said what to whom, and under what provocation? Not that it had seemed to matter much. But now with the added complication of Mr Robin’s visits to Flora – he being an acquaintance of Lady Rosina – Flora might have said something to him, he to Rosina, she to her mother? The leak could be anywhere. Be all that as it may, her Ladyship was upset, and taking her time about returning to normal. It was not good enough.

  ‘Making a mountain out of a molehill,’ Cook observed. ‘And enjoying every minute of it, if you ask me. Poor little Lily.’

  As it happened her Ladyship had quickly relented, at least where Lily was concerned, if not her husband, and had the waif brought back into the house – she had not got further than to huddle in the coal cellar when they went out into the streets to look. Lady Isobel, after a short interview, in which she found the child both fastidious and not unintelligent, decided to take Lily on as an apprentice lady’s maid in Grace’s absence. She was to have Grace’s room to share. Mrs Neville was to look out a spare parlour maid’s uniform for the girl, which was seen as an apology to the servants for her Ladyship’s show of temper, and the latter was last seen teaching the child fine embroidery, which seemed to cheer both of them up. Reginald, who had hoped to make a few quid by taking the child round to act as Flora’s maid, was piqued.

  ‘A good little cleaner’, he said. ‘Pity. Now she’ll have to spend a lifetime sewing instead of fucking,’ and was roundly condemned by Mr Neville for use of language, and for days Cook banged his plate down in front of him so that the contents spilled, and Lily jumped with fright.

  The Trip to Dilberne Court