Snobs: A Novel

by Julian Fellowes

  'Charles what?' she said, while Kenneth was making them all a drink.

  'Broughton.' Charles smiled. Edith saw the penny drop with a silent boing but not for nothing had her mother been a lifelong admirer of Elizabeth I. The mask remained smiling but immobile.

  'And how do you know Edith?'

  'We met in Sussex at my parents' house.'

  'When I was staying with Isabel and David.'

  'Oh, so you know the Eastons?'

  Charles nodded, for which Edith was grateful. He was not prepared to say, 'No, I do not know them and we were not introduced at a private party. I met your daughter when she had bought a ticket to see where I live.' This was about the size of it but it would have got the evening off to an odd start. Nevertheless, having escaped this manhole, Edith brought the chat to a fairly rapid conclusion rather than chance her arm a second time. So, far from being nervous, she was actually quite relieved when they settled themselves into the gleaming Porsche that awaited them below.

  'I thought we'd go to Annabel's.'

  'Now?' She was surprised and spoke before she had edited.

  'Is that all right? We don't have to.' Charles looked faintly hurt and she felt mean at dashing what he might have supposed to be a bit of a treat. The thought that he had actually planned an evening for her was rather gratifying.

  'Lovely.' She smiled warmly into his open, pleasant, slightly dim face. 'It's just that I've always gone on late. I don't think I've ever had dinner there.'

  'I rather like it.'

  He drove off and they lapsed into silence until the car pulled up outside the famous basement entrance in Berkeley Square.

  Charles got out and handed the keys to a doorman. Edith had always been to Annabel's with young men who parked their cars around the square and walked to the club. There was a cosy feeling in the knowledge that she was out with someone who had no need to cut corners. They made their way down the steps and in through the door at the bottom. Charles signed in with a lot of 'good evenin', m'lord' going on all round.

  There was practically no one in the bar and seemingly even fewer in the restaurant. The empty dance-floor looked dark and maudlin with its black mirrors reflecting nothing. Charles seemed puzzled at first and then embarrassed. 'You're right. It is too early. I don't think it really picks up until about ten. Do you want to go somewhere else?'

  'Not at all,' she said with a brisk smile as she settled into the banquette. 'Now, tell me what to eat.'

  She had not yet decided what she thought about Charles but one thing she was quite sure of. This evening was going to be a great success if it killed her. The menu provided a few minutes of welcome chat. Charles knew about food and drink, and he was happy to take command, although in fact she had only asked for his help in order to re-establish herself as the helpless underdog like the good, nubile girl she was. The last thing she wanted was for him to start apologising. Experience had taught her that much. But in the event he chose well and the dinner was a good one.

  Charles Broughton was not exactly handsome. His nose was too large for that and his lips too thin. But in the candlelight he was not unattractive. He was very what Nanny would call 'distinguished'. He looked so like an English gentleman that he could have come from Central Casting and Edith felt herself being quite drawn to him physically. Much more than she had imagined she would be. She was mildly surprised to realise that she was looking forward to his asking her to dance.

  'Do you spend a lot of time in London?' she said.

  He shook his head. 'Good Lord no. Little as possible.'

  'So you're generally in Sussex?'

  'Most of the time. We've got a place in Norfolk as well. I have to get up there from time to time.'

  'Funny. I'd thought of you as rather social.'

  'Me? You must be joking.' He laughed out loud. 'Why was that?'

  'I don't know.' She did know although she was not prepared to say that she had read about him in various social columns.

  Since he and she had run into each other at Ascot, it all seemed to add up to a rather fun-filled image. It was a mistaken impression that lingered for some time before it was firmly put right.

  The truth was that, like most of the human race, Charles went to parties if he was asked and had nothing else to do but he did not have many friends — certainly not many that he had made in the last few years — and he saw himself exclusively as a countryman, helping his father to run the estates and the houses that God had seen fit to entrust to their care. He did not question nor resist his position but neither did he exploit it. If he had ever thought about the issues of inheritance or rank he would only have said that he felt very lucky. He would not have said this aloud, however.

  Contrary to Edith's belief, he had not taken her to Annabel's as part of any romantic strategy. The truth was that, without admitting it to himself, he liked to take girls to places where he was known. It put a spin on the dinner that anonymity lacked.

  It was his turn to speak.

  'Have you lived a lot in the country?'

  'Not much, really.' Edith realised this was an odd answer even as she said it for she had never, for half an hour, actually

  'lived' in the country. Unless one counted boarding school, which of course one couldn't. Still, she liked the country. She'd stayed a lot in the country. She'd walked behind the guns. She'd ridden. It wasn't a total lie. She qualified it: 'My father's business. You know.'

  Charles nodded. 'I suppose he has to move about quite a bit.'

  Edith shrugged. 'Quite a bit.'

  Actually, Kenneth Lavery had had to move about from the London Underground to the same office in the city for the last thirty-two years. He had once had to go to New York and once to Rotterdam. That was it. This slight re-shading of the truth was never corrected. Charles was forever thereafter under the impression that Edith's father had been some sort of international whizz-kid, jetting between Hong Kong and Zurich. In creating this false picture, however, Edith had read Charles correctly. There is something much less petit bourgeois about a businessman with permanent jet lag than a stationery drudge buying a ticket for the Piccadilly Line northbound, and Charles did like things just so.

  Time had passed and the club was filling.

  'Charlie!' Edith looked up to see a pretty brunette in a sharply tailored, sequinned cocktail dress bearing down on them.

  She was accompanied by, or rather trailing, a whale. He wore a suit that must have taken a bale of worsted and a large spotted tie. When they had made it to the table, Edith noticed the rivulets of sweat that trickled continuously from behind his ears over the fat, red neck.

  'Jane. Henry.' Charles stood up and gestured at Edith. 'Do you know Edith Lavery? Henry and Jane Cumnor.' Jane took Edith's hand in a swift and lifeless hold then turned back to Charles as she sat down and poured herself a glass of their wine.

  'I'm parched. How are you? What happened to you at Ascot?'

  'Nothing happened. I was there.'

  'I thought we were all having lunch on Thursday. With the Weatherbys? We hunted and hunted for you before we gave up.

  Camilla was bitterly disappointed.' She gave a half-smirk to Edith, ostensibly inviting her to join the joke. In fact, of course, consciously excluding her from it.

  'Well, she shouldn't have been. I told her and Anne that I had to have lunch with my parents that day.'

  'Needless to say they'd completely forgotten. Anyway, doesn't matter now. By the way, tell me: are you going to Eric and Caroline in August? They swore you were but it seemed so unlike you.'

  'Why?'

  Jane shrugged with a lazy, sinuous movement of the shoulder. 'I don't know. I thought you hated the heat.'

  'I haven't made up my mind. Are you going?'

  'We don't know, do we, darling?' She reached across to her puffing husband and kneaded his doughy hand. 'We're so behind with everything at Royton. We've hardly been home since Henry got political. I've a ghastly feeling we might be stuck there all summer.' She agai
n broadened her smile to include Edith.

  Edith smiled back. She was quite used to this curious need on the part of the upper-classes to demonstrate that they all know each other and do the same things with the same people. This was perhaps an unusually manic example of the palisade mentality but, looking at Lord Cumnor, aka Henry the Green Engine, it was not difficult to see that Jane had made some severe sacrifices to achieve whatever position she was in command of. It would be hard for her to set it aside, even for a moment, as a thing of little importance.

  'Are you very political?' Edith said to Henry, who seemed to be recovering from the effort it had taken him to cross the floor.

  'Yes,' he said, and turned back to the others.

  Edith had been inclined to feel rather sorry for him but she saw in a moment that he perceived no need to feel sorry for himself. He was quite happy being who he was. Just as he was quite happy to demonstrate that he knew Charles and did not know Edith. Charles, however, was not prepared to have the Cumnors be rude to the girl he had invited for dinner and he consciously and obviously turned the conversation back to her.

  'Henry's frightfully serious since he took his seat. What was your latest cause? Organic veg for prisoners?'

  'Ha, ha,' said Henry.

  Jane came to her husband's aid. 'Don't be beastly. He's done a lot of work for the national diet, haven't you, darling?'

  'Which didn't include going on it, I gather,' said Charles.

  'You laugh now but they'll come after you when your father snuffs it. You'll see,' said Jane.

  'No they won't. Labour will win next time and they'll have the hereditaries out before you can say Jack Robinson.'

  'Don't be so pessimistic.' Jane did not want to hear that the world she had pinned all her hopes on was threatened with extinction. 'Anyway, it'd be years before they came up with a formula for the Lords that works better and they won't do anything in a hurry.'

  Charles stood up and asked Edith to dance.

  She raised her eyes in a half-query as they shambled around the floor, by now crammed with Iranian bankers and their mistresses.

  He smiled. 'Henry's all right.'

  'Is he a great friend?'

  'He's a sort of cousin. I've known him all my life. God, he's fat at the moment, isn't he? He looks like a balloon.'

  'How long have they been married?'

  He shook his head. 'Four, five years, I suppose.'

  'Do they have any children?'

  He made a wry shape with his mouth. 'Two girls. Poor old Henry. Setchell's got him drinking port and eating cheese and Christ knows what.'

  'Why?'

  'To get a boy, of course. To get the bloody boy.'

  'What happens if they don't have one?'

  Charles frowned. 'There are no brothers. I think some bloke in South Africa gets the title although I'm not sure if he or the girls get the swag. Anyway, they're both quite young. They'll bash on for a while longer, I should think.'

  'It could get rather expensive.'

  'It certainly could. You never know how long to keep going. Look at the Clanwilliams. Six girls before they called it a day and it's worse nowadays.'

  'Why?'

  'Why do you think? Even the girls have to go to decent schools.'

  They danced in silence for a while with Charles occasionally nodding to various acquaintances on the floor. Edith gratefully recognised two girls from her deb season and flashed brilliant smiles at them. Taking in the identity of her partner, they waved back, allowing her to feel less invisible. By the time they returned to the table, she was beginning to feel that she was really having quite a jolly time.

  Henry and Jane had not moved and as they approached, Jane jumped up and seized Charles's hand. 'It's time you danced with me. Henry hates dancing. Come on.' She led Charles back to the floor, leaving Edith alone with her porcine husband.

  He smiled vaguely. 'She always says that. I don't really hate dancing at all. Would you like to give it a go?'

  Edith shook her head. 'Not unless you're dying to, if you don't mind. I'm exhausted.' The thought of being pressed into that pillow of blubber made her shudder.

  He nodded philosophically. Being turned down was obviously not a new experience. 'Do you know Charlie well?'

  'No. We just met in the country and then again at Ascot and here I am.'

  'Where in the country? Who with?' He perked up a bit at the chance of some more Name Exchange.

  'With the Eastons. In Sussex. David and Isabel. Do you know them?' She knew very well he would not. She was right.

  'I've known Charlie all my life.'

  Edith fished idly in her brain for an answer. 'I don't think I've known anybody all my life. Except my parents,' she added with a laugh.

  Henry did not laugh back. 'Oh,' he said.

  She tried again. 'Who are Eric and Caroline?'

  'Caroline's his sister. I've known her all my life too.' He nodded gently to himself, pleased with these long associations.

  'Eric's this chap she's just married.'

  'I gather you haven't known him all your life.'

  'Never saw him before the wedding.'

  'Is he nice?'

  'I really couldn't tell you.' Obviously Caroline was guilty of some hideous impropriety in Henry's eyes. Some horrible miscegenation had taken place in this coupling of strangers. Edith felt that she herself was hovering at the borders of a solecism by even talking about the interloper.

  'Where is Royton?'

  This time Henry's face registered surprise rather than distaste. For her not to know where Royton was must surely indicate that she was an eccentric. 'Norfolk.'

  'Is it lovely?' Edith was beginning to feel as if she was turning over huge clods of ploughed earth in her effort to keep Henry entertained.

  He shrugged and looked round for the bottle to help himself to another glass. 'People seem to think so.'

  Edith opened her mouth to try again and then shut it. Not for the last time she was struck by the tyranny of the socially inept. Endless effort is harnessed to a sluggish and boring conversation simply to preserve these dullards from a sense of their inadequacy. The irony being that they are quite impervious to their own shortcomings. If Henry had even noticed things were at all heavy going he would unhesitatingly have blamed it on Edith and the fact that she didn't know anyone interesting. Before the silence had become oppressive Charles and Jane returned and the remainder of the time was spent gossiping about more people that Edith had never met.

  'What a lovely evening,' she said, as the car stopped outside her parents' flat. Charles made no attempt to park it so he clearly knew the night would contain no sexual epilogue.

  'I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm sorry we got rather lumbered.'

  'Don't be. I liked them,' she lied.

  'Did you?' He seemed a bit anxious. 'I'm glad.'

  'Henry was telling me about Royton.'

  He nodded, back on home territory. 'Yes, they're next door to me up there. That's really why I know them.'

  'I thought they were cousins.'

  'Well, they are. From a marriage in about eighteen thirty. But I know them because they live next door.'

  'It sounds lovely.'

  'It is. I'm not sure how good old Henry is at managing it but it is charming. Anyway, there's pots of money so I suppose it doesn't matter too much.' It was easy to see that Charles thought he was terrifically good at managing Broughton.

  They stared at each other for a moment. Edith realised that she rather wanted him to kiss her. Partly because she wanted to be sure she'd been a success, and partly because she just wanted to kiss him. He leaned forward awkwardly and pressed his mouth against hers. His lips were hard and firmly shut. He sat back. Ah, she thought. More Philip than George. Oh well. What she said was, 'Good night and thank you again. I have so enjoyed it.'

  'Good,' he said, and he got out of the car and escorted her across the road to the front door, but he made no attempt to kiss her again as he said good night, nor was th
ere any mention of the next time they would meet. It would be fair to say that, up to that moment, she had not been aware of wanting much more from the evening than the reassurance that Charles found her attractive, liked her company and wanted to see more of her. But now that the ending was proving rather flat, she was filled with a feeling of disappointment, with the sense of a chance lost. This had been a great opportunity and she had blown it without fully understanding why. On the whole, it was with a sense of failure that she crept quietly into her room, trying not to wake the mother who was lying staring at the ceiling two doors down.

  She need not have been downcast. She did not know Charles and had misinterpreted his reticence. Because he was generally seen as a prize, she thought he must share this image of himself but this was not so. He felt that it was he, not Edith, on whom the responsibility for the evening lay. He was shy (not rude-shy, really shy) and so, while he could not quite express it, he was very pleased that she had appeared to have enjoyed being with him. In fact, as Charles pushed the key into the lock of his parents' flat in Cadogan Square, it was with a warm sense of an evening well spent. He liked Edith very much. More than he could remember liking any girl. With the respect for hypocrisy that is the due of a hypocritical society, he admired her all the more for pretending to like the Cumnors when it was plain that they, or at least Jane, had been bestial to her all evening.

  He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  The Uckfields' London flat occupied the ground and first floors of one of those tall, Edwardian Dutch, red brick houses that surround the exclusive, if not exactly bewitching square. It was a pleasant enough place, furnished with that delicately balanced mixture of the comfortable and the grand that his mother had learned from John Fowler and proceeded to make her own. The pictures, from the B-list of the family's collection, were carefully chosen to suggest hereditary importance without overpowering the spaces. The hangings, the ornaments, the very tables and chairs proclaimed the rank of the family but in a modest way. 'This is where we visit,' the artefacts seemed to say, 'but it is not who we are.' Just as no member of the family, not even Caroline, who lived there solidly for four years before her marriage, would ever refer to the place as 'home'. Home was Broughton. 'I'll be in the flat next week', 'I'm going up to the flat', 'Why don't we meet at the flat?' were all very well, but 'I must get home', even at the end of a long London dinner, could only ever mean that the Broughton in question was driving down to Sussex that night. These people may own a house in Chester Square and rent a small cottage in Derbyshire, but you may be pretty sure that 'home' is the one with the grass growing round it. And if no such hide-away exists, then they will make it plain that it is essential to their well-being to escape the smoke and pavements and fly to their rural friends as often as they can, thereby suggesting that while they may spend their lives walking on tarmac or behind a city desk, they will always be country people at heart. It is rare to find an aristocrat who is happier in London — at least, it is rare to find one who admits it.