Probably Caroline spoke for them all (she certainly spoke for me) when she muttered in a low voice: 'Well, she's done it. I only hope she knows what she's getting into.'
FIVE
I have not often participated in anything that could remotely be described as a Great Society Event. At any rate, not in an event that garnered much public curiosity. But by then Edith had achieved her status as a minor tabloid heroine and when she did succeed in landing her fish, the journalists who had set her up were only too anxious to reap their rewards. They'd established her as a story and she had not disappointed them. There were consequently offers from Hello! and OK! — much to Lady Uckfield's hilarity — for exclusive coverage and even though they were of course turned down the level of interest remained high. I do not think Mrs Lavery understood at first why the magazines were not to be allowed their way. I suspect she might have rather liked the idea of Edith and Charles on one of those red-outlined covers surrounded by the noble offspring of Charles's relations but when she had half suggested this to Lady Uckfield, she had been flattened to hear her companion turn to Edith and say, 'Your mother has got a wicked sense of humour. She had me quite taken in for a moment.'
Naturally, Mrs Lavery then laughed like billyo at the thought that Lady Uckfield might have believed her! And she never mentioned it again. At any rate, for all sorts of reasons, I was curious as well as flattered to be asked to be an usher at what was shaping up to be the Wedding of the Year — or so the newspapers told me.
I received the invitation from Charles, who had written to me in his rather charming, round hand, wondering if I would do this for him. It is always hard for an actor to commit in advance to anything social — not least because it is a kind of unwritten law of the theatre that if you accord the slightest importance to anything other than work then you have no talent. I suppose I would have chucked if I had been offered the title role in Ben Hur but I was pretty determined to play my part in the Apotheosis of Edith.
Isabel telephoned me the same morning: 'I gather you're an usher,' she said. 'David isn't.' I answered, as I knew I must, that this seemed a bit hard. 'Well, I must say I think it really is. He's in a sulk, which is a great bore and I don't see that there's anything I can do about it.' I said there was absolutely nothing she could do about it and after all, I was the only one of Edith's friends that Charles had even met before the whole thing began. 'I know that and I've said it, but you know David.'
'What about you?'
'What do you mean?'
'Are you going to play any part in it all? I thought Alice might be one of the bridesmaids or something.' Alice was the Eastons' eldest child. She was as plain as a pikestaff but quite amiable withal.
'No.' Isabel's voice was sodden with disappointment. 'Edith tried but apparently there were covens of prior claims and so she's settled for just having tinies. Much nicer really,' she muttered drearily. I could tell she had not finished. 'I was wondering about Charles's night out.'
'What about it?'
'Is he having one?'
'I don't know. I suppose so.'
'But you haven't been asked?'
'No. Should I have been?'
'Well, it's just that David was wondering if he, or both of you, shouldn't do something about organising one ... ' Her voice trailed away.
'Come off it. We hardly know him. What are you thinking of?'
'I dare say you're right.' I wondered if David was in the room with her. 'You might let us know if you are asked.'
David's background anxiety was becoming uncomfortable. He had obviously started on a lifetime's career of dropping Charles's name and he could not face the obloquy of being publicly excluded from his circle of intimates.
'All right,' I said, 'but I'm sure I won't be.'
As it happened, a month later, ten days before the wedding, I was asked. Presumably because of a dropout. A party of twelve was being flown to Paris in a week's time, three days before the Great Event, to dine and stay overnight at the Ritz. I was sent the ticket by bike and all I had to do was to be ready for collection from the flat at the appointed hour. The flight was to take off from the City airport. Instead of telephoning Isabel, I spoke to Edith. 'I've been asked to Charles's shindig.'
'I know. Completely his idea. I think it'll be fun, don't you? I love the Paris Ritz.'
'I suppose David isn't going?'
'No. The thing is Henry Cumnor and Charles's uncle Peter are organising and paying for the whole thing and so he can't have everyone.'
'Fains I tell David.'
'I've told Isabel.' Edith paused. 'As a matter of fact, I do think they're being tiresome. I am fond of Isabel but they want to be such "best friends" all the time. I feel like a heroine out of Angela Brazil. After all, I don't know David well and Charles has hardly met him.'
'My dear,' I said sagely. 'This is only the beginning.'
At three o'clock the following Saturday a capped and uniformed chauffeur rang my basement bell and seized my waiting suitcase to carry it up to the car. I had treated myself to a new one in honour of the elevated company I was about to keep so it was especially irritating when he caught it on the corner of the cellar steps and wrenched one of the handles off. As a result, despite my reckless extravagance, I felt shabby for the entire trip. Sic transit gloria mundi, or, I suppose, sic transit gloria transit.
Henry Cumnor was already in the car, his corpulence spilling itself across the back seat in vast folds of Turnbull and Asser-shirted flesh, leaving the barest ledge of vacant leather beside him. As I climbed in, I felt like Carrie Fisher squeezing up against Jabba the Hutt. I knew Henry vaguely, as it so happened that we had attended the same school although in different years, and this afforded me a faint protection against his exclusivity, but only faint. At any rate, I knew what to expect as Edith had made quite a funny story out of her 'first date' with Charles.
There was another passenger in the front seat who was cursorily introduced as Tommy Wainwright and whom I recognised as a rising Member of Parliament — if any Tory could be said to be rising at that time. So far as I could remember from those profiles beloved of the Sunday colour sections he was the younger son of a Home Counties peer and was consequently a slightly surprising inclusion in the group on whom Mrs Thatcher had smiled — she not being much in favour of the aristocracy. He was tall, almost lanky, with an amiable, round face and thinning hair that made him look like a kind of trainee old buffer, although, as I would learn, this was not at all the case. He turned, smiled and shook my hand, which placed him three-nil in the courtesy stakes against Henry and we set off.
The talk on the way to the airport was political and I was amused at the contrast between my two companions. Tommy gave his reasons for why the Conservatives had gone so completely down the plug. These were on the whole reasonable and seemed worthy of discussion but Cumnor countered them with a bundle of ridiculous assertions, all smug, all out of date and all apparently received unchewed from his late father (rather like his wardrobe). Feeling that I ought to contribute, I observed that it did not seem to me that the party had been very imaginative in their relationship with the arts.
Cumnor angled his bulk towards me. 'My dear fellow, how many people constitute what you call "the Arts"? We're talking thousands, not hundreds of thousands, not millions. Do you know how many members there are in the TGWU? The plain truth is, whether you like it or not, your "arts" don't matter.' He sat back, having won his point to his own satisfaction.
'Forty million people turn on their televisions every night to find out what they think,' said Tommy. 'What could matter more than that?'
The issue was not important to any of us but I could see that Henry was irritated at Tommy for taking my side, showing that he shared the usual fantasy of the less intelligent members of his class that on every given topic, from port to euthanasia, there is a 'sound' way of thinking and one has only to voice this view to carry the field. Since they are generally only addressing like-minded people, the field is as a
rule easy to carry. Tommy Wainwright, in not playing this game, risked creating the impression in Henry's sluggish brain that in some way, ever since Tommy had gone into serious politics, he was
'not quite a gentleman' — the stock response to original thought.
Having arrived at the airport and gone through the procedures, we were shown to a smallish departure gate where we were hailed by the remaining nine of the party. These included Lord Peter Broughton, Lord Uckfield's much younger half-brother, and Caroline's husband, Eric Chase, whom I had met briefly at the engagement dinner. Chase was an unlikely addition to the Broughton clan, being the very definition of a 'Yuppie'. That is to say he was a sleek and belligerent 'executive', whose conversation consisted largely of capitalistic platitudes and references to his membership of Brooks's. His most distinctive feature was an almost pathological rudeness, which made him simultaneously less pathetic and more objectionable although, oddly, he was attractive to women. I cannot imagine why but with the opposite sex (in marked contrast to his own) he undeniably had a good deal of success. I suppose he was handsome in a smooth, over-fed way and his satisfaction with his outward form (as well as, presumably, his dazzling marriage) was demonstrated in a constantly changing wardrobe of over-cut worsteds and tweeds. I later learned that his father had been a manager with British Rail. He made an odd pair with Caroline for politically and philosophically they were streets apart. The plain truth was that he had made a right-wing gesture in marrying her while she had made a left-wing one by marrying him. All this was concealed from them, however, because they seldom talked much when they were alone. It is quite possible in this way for couples often not to discover that they are in profound disagreement over the very fundamentals of life until ten or even twenty years have passed.
Charles strode up with a glass of champagne and a warm smile. For Edith's sake or perhaps for my own he was clearly determined not to let me feel left out of this group who (with the exception of Chase) had all played together in those long-ago nurseries and who he was fearful might be rude to an actor of whom they had never heard. I was touched by his efforts but he needn't have worried. I was not always an actor. I had not only been at school with Cumnor, but I recognised a prep school playmate, a friend from my debbing days and an acquaintance from Cambridge among the others. I also knew that Lord Peter had been engaged at one time to a cousin of my sister-in-law so I did not anticipate much trouble. Such is the world that still exists in a country of sixty million people a century after the Socialists first came to power.
As a further mark of distinction Charles took the seat next to me on the little aeroplane that had been chartered for the event. A raffish steward brought us some more champagne with a tiny bit of caviar squidged onto a slightly tough blini and we settled back.
'This is all very nice,' I said.
'I'm glad you could come.'
'So am I.'
'You were the one who introduced us.'
I laughed. 'In years to come we'll know whether I have earned praise or blame.'
Charles wasn't in joking mood. 'Oh praise. I'd say praise.' He paused. 'Edith thinks you're frightfully intelligent, you know.'
'That's very gratifying.'
He looked down into his drink. 'Of course, she's so bright. You must find that.'
I can't say that I had ever given the matter much thought. Certainly Edith was no Gertrude Stein. Her idea of intellectuality was reading the latest John Mortimer. Still, she was quite funny and in my experience funny people are seldom stupid. 'I'm always pleased to see her, which is probably the same thing,' I said.
He smiled a trifle wryly. 'Well, here's hoping she's always pleased to see me.' I murmured some reassuring nonsense but he was not content to leave it there. He drew in a breath. 'I hope I'm worthy of her,' he said. I suppressed my urge to smile at being trapped in this bit of Frederick Lonsdale dialogue. These were pedestrian sentiments to begin a stag night but they were none the less heartfelt for that. Charles was typical of his kind in that he had no modes of original expression and was almost invariably forced back into cinematic clichés when trying to describe love or hate or anything else not covered by the Jockey Club rules. I said I was sure he would be as worthy as anything and it was Edith who was the lucky one and that he was paying her a great honour, etcetera. I'm usually equal to this sort of thing but I hadn't quite hit the mark this time. He interrupted my encouraging flow. 'It's just that I hope I'm clever enough for her. I don't want her to get bored with me.' He laughed and raised his eyebrows slightly to pass this off as a sort of joke, but I could see he meant it — just as I could see he had a point. Edith was no Einstein but it had already occurred to me that there might come a time when attending race-meetings with a bunch of well-dressed people mouthing received opinions just might not do it for her. I didn't see, however, that there was any useful comment that could be made since I could hardly praise him for his perspicacity.
'Charles,' I said, 'if there's one thing that makes me uncomfortable it's modesty and we'll have no more of it tonight.'
He laughed and the moment was passed.
I love Paris. There are certain cities where you can only have a good time with the help of the residents and there are others where a good time is available to all. Such is Paris, which is just as well given the amount of help one generally gets from the residents. My mother, a poor linguist herself, had been extremely anxious that her children should not suffer as she had suffered, nodding and smiling at French diplomats' wives in a kind of frozen tableau of international goodwill. Consequently, in our early teens we all had one or more school holidays ruined by being sent off to families in the depths of France where, as she had made a ruthless point of checking, we would find no English spoken. As a result of these draconian cruelties we all speak tolerable French, which of course enhances the pleasure of visiting their beautiful capital city.
I had not previously stayed at the Paris Ritz, although I had been there once to a very grand reception, which formed part of a series celebrating a marriage between two spectacularly Faubourg families. It is a great hotel in the sense that it belongs more to that lost era of great hotels, where veiled beauties stood about waiting for their maids to check twenty pieces of luggage before embarking for the Riviera, than to our own eat-and-run epoch. A red, white and gilt palace, sumptuous and yet pretty — quite unlike the modern, Park Lane equivalents got up, as they are, like enormous Maida Vale hairdressing salons. I was thoroughly glad to be there, particularly since I wasn't paying, and even the contemptuous looks the hotel employees cast at my torn and broken luggage could not quench my enthusiasm.
We gathered in the bar, slicked up in our black ties, with that faintly desperate air of the English embarking on a 'good time', and started to tuck into the champagne. Tommy Wainwright came over to me and I asked him if he knew what the plan was for the evening.
He shrugged. 'I imagine we'll have dinner here and then push on to somewhere embarrassing on the Left Bank. Isn't that the form?'
'I expect so. Have you known Charles a long time?'
'We were at Eton together. Then I went out with Caroline for a bit when we were about twenty so we sort of re-met. What about you?'
'I hardly know him. I feel rather a fraud being here. It's just that I introduced him to Edith so I suppose I'm representing her. Just to check that no one tries to put him off the whole idea.'
Wainwright smiled. 'So you're a friend of Edith. How interesting. We've scarcely met. I must say she's a real beauty. But then she'd have to be to carry off the prize.'
'I imagine there were quite a few noses out of joint when they made the announcement.'
He laughed. 'There certainly were. I think they were all so irritated because none of them knew her. Or none of the ones I know seemed to. Like an outsider winning the Derby. At one point she was starting to sound like a cross between Eliza Doolittle and Rebecca.' I could just imagine and said so. He smiled. 'From the little I know of her, I'm sure she'll do very w
ell.'
He nodded over towards the groom. 'He's really smitten, you know. Charming. I like to see it.'
It was a particularly warm evening and the manager had decided to have the tables of the dining room carried out into the little courtyard that lies alongside it. The mellow stone, carefully carved for the seeing eye of César Ritz, and the modest fountain splashing coolly in the darkening night, induced that spirit of contentment, resting on a combination of luxury and beauty, which one would be foolish, whatever one's philosophy, always to resist. God knows it is rare enough. Euro-smart couples sat about, the women in their brilliant jewellery, one with a white poodle, idly barking its unhungry bark. To me it seemed agreeable to watch the rich taking their less controversial pleasures. Unfortunately nothing is perfect and I was seated next to Eric Chase, who proceeded to hijack as much of the arrangement as he could.
'Bring us another bottle,' he said brusquely to the waiter as he sat down. 'And try to get the temperature right this time.' He turned to me. 'We met at my in-laws' house, didn't we?' I nodded. 'You came with those frightful friends of Edith.' I nodded again, since I was certainly not prepared to wreck the evening for the sake of Isabel and David. But like all bullies he was not to be pacified. 'Where on earth did she meet them?'
'I don't really know. I met them because I've known Isabel since we were children.'
Snobs: A Novel Page 33
