Snobs: A Novel

by Julian Fellowes

  'Give him my love,' said Annette. They locked eyes for a moment and to Edith's relief the waiter reappeared at this precise moment to take their orders. That done, they shifted their ground back to more general topics.

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  Louisa rang our basement bell promptly at a quarter to one. They had decided to lunch at home as they were going on to Fortnum's for tea after the show. Adela, at five months, had only recently stopped feeling sick and was sorely in need of a Treat. I was to give them a lift to Savile Row on my way to a wig fitting in Old Burlington Street. I liked Adela's cousin. The daughter of an Anglo-Irish landowner, she had that slightly fey, unjudgemental quality of her tribe, so unlike their English counterparts, that made her easy company for anyone, despite her tweeds and sensible shoes. She was also a natural spinster for whom, I suspected, a lifetime of Royal service was going to have to do the work of husband and children. Of course, she was thrilled by the idea of the impending baby and I could see before Adela asked me that she was classic godmother material.

  The traffic was not heavy and accordingly it was no later than a quarter to three when the two of them climbed the staircase of Hardy Amies's headquarters and entered the large, first-floor salon overlooking Savile Row itself, where the collection was to be displayed.

  There is no real benefit in getting to these things early as all the seats are clearly and unarguably allocated but they had enough to gossip about to pass the time and so, once they had been ushered to two seats labelled, in a flowing hand; 'Lady Louisa Shaw & Friend', they were soon so engrossed in their own soap-opera that they were oblivious to the rest of the fast-filling room. They were seated well, at the foot of the catwalk on the short side of the room near the door from the staircase and therefore had a full view not only of the length of the catwalk but also of most of the rest of the seating. So Adela was quite surprised, on looking up as the lights were turned on to signify that the show was about to begin, to see Edith Broughton tucked into the far corner, in the back row, opposite the door where the models make their entrance. It seemed odd that Edith had not said hello, since she must have brushed past them to get to her seat and even now, while looking at Adela, she made no real sign of recognition. I am afraid that one could have read in this the treatment that Edith had had to endure over the previous months but at any rate Adela, for whom even the vestige of any kind of feud is anathema, immediately smiled and waved, and Edith, relieved perhaps, waved back.

  The conversation was beginning to die away in anticipation when there was a slight confusion at the door. Adela turned in time to see one of the princesses enter the room, followed by Lady Uckfield. Smiling their apologies, they made their way to two seats reserved for them near the foot of the catwalk beyond my wife and Louisa, in the front row. They were in their places before Adela looked back to where Edith sat, her eyes fixed on her mother-in-law. The contrast between the state of the two women was not lost on Adela and it must have seemed vividly clear to Edith. She sat in the back row, with her over-made-up friend, about to look at clothes she could not seriously entertain a thought of buying. Two rows before her sat the woman she might herself have been, with a member of the Royal Family, envied by more or less every other woman present.

  The music started, a selection of Copacabana rock, which seemed a surprising choice given the age of the majority of the clients. Adela glanced down at her programme for the description of the first presentation. Three models appeared, the numbers of their dresses displayed on plastic discs in their elegant hands, and the show had begun.

  It was a lively hour with the audience chatting relentlessly as each ensemble was paraded before them. 'Lovely for Spain',

  'What an odd colour, I wonder if they do it in cream', 'Pretty dress, wrong model', and other similar phrases would ring out, quite audibly, as the girls sailed imperviously by. From time to time a little fun was added by a model dropping her number disc (I gather these have since been abandoned, perhaps for this reason) or one might stumble in a graceful spin but these were rare breaks in the super-smooth operation. Still, Adela was distracted. Every time she glanced over to where Edith sat, she could see that her gaze was not on the catwalk but on the back of her mother-in-law's head, still blithely unaware of Edith's presence, as she scribbled on her programme and exchanged whispers with her august companion.

  The collection was presented and the company, notes jotted and images fixed, rose to go. A way was made for the Royal Highness to pass, with Lady Uckfield following on. With proper diffidence Adela did not draw attention to herself but it so happened that the princess recognised Louisa at the same moment that Lady Uckfield saw my wife. Accordingly she was presented, made her curtsey, and for a few moments the crowd fell deferentially back to leave them in a foursome. They were chatting quite amiably about which frocks they had preferred when Adela caught sight of Edith edging towards them through the thinning crush. These situations are hard. Though I say it myself, Adela is not one to shirk a difficult task, but what was the point of spoiling Lady Uckfield's afternoon or placing her in an invidious position as regards her companion? Her daughter-in-law was a figure of scandal and this was a public place stuffed with journalists. Judas-like, Adela opted for Damage Containment, and catching Lady Uckfield's eye nodded slightly in the direction of Edith's advancing figure. Lady Uckfield, demonstrating the skill that ran the Empire, became aware of her daughter-in-law's presence without so much as a flicker of recognition. Even Adela would have been hard put to it to deny that her immediate departure was simply fortuitous, had it not been for the conspiratorial squeeze of her arm by the older woman. In a moment princess and attendant were gone, leaving Adela to introduce Edith as she drew alongside a slightly bemused Louisa.

  They talked for a while with Edith asking about me and Adela rather pointedly not asking about Simon and then they parted. Though not before Edith had observed brightly, 'My dear mother-in-law looks well.'

  'Very well, I gather,' said Adela.

  Edith laughed. 'How funny to think one has turned into an awkward relation! Oh well. She can't avoid me entirely. She might as well get used to the idea that I do still live in London, whether she likes it or not.'

  'I don't think she was avoiding you. She just didn't see you,' said Adela, adding lamely, 'I never thought to say anything…'

  'No,' said Edith. 'Why would you?'

  And so they parted, Adela and Louisa to Fortnum's and then back to the flat to tell me every detail, Edith to Ebury Street and Simon, who was in a rage because one of his speeches had been cut from tomorrow's scene. He suspected his co-star, whom he was already beginning actively to dislike, and his brain was so full of this particular injustice that he had very little time for Edith's narrative. I doubt she told him much anyway. Only that she'd seen Googie but Googie hadn't seen her. In truth, beyond lesser horrors like the evening at Annabel's, this had been the starkest illustration so far of the extent of her fall and she could not yet talk about it without beginning to feel slightly ill.

  I knew enough from Adela's account to understand that Edith must be going through a pretty rough time however happy she was with Simon and I resolved to telephone her and buy her a decent lunch. But before I got around to it, I was surprised to receive an invitation from Isabel Easton to go down to Sussex for the weekend. The envelope was in fact addressed to Adela.

  Isabel had apparently learned her lessons well and grasped that the upper classes only ever address an envelope to the female part of a couple. Why? Who knows? At any rate it was Adela who read it first and she who suggested we accept. Adela was only mildly fond of Isabel and she didn't like David much so I suspected at once that she had an ulterior motive.

  'We might give Charles a ring when we're there,' she said, so I didn't have to wait long to know what it was.

  I don't think I had stayed with the Eastons since that time, three years before, when we had all been summoned to Broughton to witness Edith's triumph. I had seen them in London so the gap was not o
bvious and, looking back, I'm not sure why I had got out of the habit of going there. Perhaps the fact that Edith and I had become friends over their heads had made an awkwardness between us. I'm not sure. At any rate I was quite glad to find myself and my wife, a couple of Friday nights later, back in their familiar, GTC drawing room of frilled tables and chintz sofas and over-stuffed cushions. We had unpacked and bathed and been given a pre-dinner drink, but not much more than this before the real reason for our invitation became clear.

  'Are you going to go over to Broughton while you're here?' said David.

  I looked at Adela. 'I don't know. I don't know if they're there. We thought we might give them a ring.'

  'Good,' said David. 'Good.' He paused. 'Give our love to Charles when you speak to him, anyway.'

  And there it was. I should have guessed. After all, what a situation they were in! For years they had been driven nearly mad by their inability to get onto any sort of terms with the local family. Then, miracle of miracles, their friend marries the heir.

  They start to inch their way into the County. They are just beginning to make a little headway with the Sir William Fartleys of this world when, bang, a scandal erupts. Suddenly Edith, their friend, the woman they first invited down to these parts (for one may be sure they had made no secret of the role they had played), runs off with an actor, disgraces the family, lets down poor, darling Charles. Exeunt David and Isabel Easton.

  I think one would have to be very hard-hearted indeed not to feel some sympathy for them, poor things, even if their goal was a worthless one. It is easy to laugh at the pretensions of others — particularly when their ambitions are trivial — but most of us have a thorny path of it in some area of our lives, which is not worth the importance we give it. I suppose it is hard to live in a small society and to be obliged to accept that one is excluded from the first rank of that little group. This is what drives so many socially minded people back to the towns where the game is more fluid and up for grabs. On top of which the Eastons had come, at least in their own minds, so near the prize…

  David continued. 'I'm afraid the simple truth is that our dear Edith has behaved most fearfully badly.'

  We all, including Isabel, greeted this with a slight silence. Even Adela (who, I knew, most thoroughly agreed with this assessment) seemed reluctant to weigh in with David in Edith's absence. 'I don't know,' I said.

  'Really!' David was quite indignant. 'I'm surprised to hear you defending her.'

  'I'm not defending her exactly,' I said. 'I'm just saying that one doesn't "know". One never knows anything about other people's lives. Not really.'

  This is a truism but it isn't completely true. One does know about other people's lives. And I, in fact, knew quite a lot about Edith's and Charles's lives but, even if I was guilty of a certain dishonesty, there was some truth in what I said. I am not convinced that one ever knows quite enough to come down with a full condemnation.

  Isabel entered with her peace-making hat. 'I think all David means is that we felt so sorry for poor Charles. He didn't seem to deserve any of it. Not from where we were sitting anyway.'

  We all agreed with this but it was nevertheless perfectly obvious that David hoped to be able to ditch Edith and by demonstrating his indignation to someone who would report it to the Broughton household, he believed he would earn points and end up back on their list. Or on their list, full stop, since he wrongly thought he had penetrated the citadel during Edith's reign. In this I think he was mistaken for two reasons. The first was that he was simply not Charles's cup of tea. The English upper classes are, as a rule, not amused by upper-middle-class facsimiles of themselves. This brand of arriviste has all the dreariness of the familiar with none of the cosiness of the intimate. On the whole, if they are to fraternise outside their set they choose artists or singers or people who will make them laugh. But the second reason was more personal to Charles. I had a feeling that he would not admire David for attempting to abandon Edith and her cause, however he, Charles, had been treated.

  At any rate, following both David's urgings and Adela's original suggestion, I did indeed telephone Broughton that night.

  Jago, the butler, answered and told me that Charles was in London but when I was about to sign off there was the sound of an extension being lifted and Lady Uckfield came on the line.

  'How are you?' she said. 'I ran into your pretty wife the other day.' I said I knew. 'Is there any chance of seeing you down here in the future? I do hope so.' She spoke with the intimate urgency, with that voice of a Girl With A Secret, that I had come to associate with, and enjoy about, her social manner.

  'In actual fact we are here. Staying with the Eastons. I just rang to see if Charles was down.'

  'Well, he should be back tomorrow night. What are you doing for dinner? I don't suppose you can get away?' She made the heartless request without the glimmer of a qualm. Did she know that David would give his life's blood to be included among her intimates? Probably.

  'Not really,' I said.

  Her tone became even more conspiratorial. 'Can't you talk?'

  'Not really,' I said again, glancing over to where David stood by the fireplace watching me like a sparrow hawk.

  'What about tea? Surely you can manage that?'

  'I should think so,' I answered, still rather non-committally.

  'And bring your nice wife.' She rang off.

  David was bitterly disappointed that the call had not resulted in the general invitation that had been his unspoken plan. He suggested rather grumpily ringing back and asking the Uckfields to dinner instead but Isabel, always more reasonable, prevented him. 'I expect they want to have a bit of a chat about Edith and everything. Who can blame them?' In conclusion, deciding perhaps that since he had asked us down to re-establish relations with the Great House there wasn't much point in preventing us from doing so, he agreed that we should go for tea but carry with us an invitation for a drink on the Sunday morning.

  EIGHTEEN

  There were about six or seven people staying the weekend, which was par for the course with the Broughtons. I recognised Lady Tenby, who nodded at me quite pleasantly and a cousin of the family whom I had met with Charles and Edith in London a couple of times. I did not then know that there was any special significance in Clarissa Marlowe's presence but we did both notice that she was very proprietary in her manner, worrying about whether we were comfortable or had a sandwich or whatever and I suppose in retrospect that marked her out from an ordinary guest. The others, men in corduroys and sweaters, girls in skirts and walking shoes, barely looked up from their respective tasks, reading, gossiping, stroking the dogs, making toast at the glowing fire, as we came in. The Uckfields, by contrast, could not have been more solicitous. They asked our news, chatted about the dress show, discussed some film they had seen me in, fetched crumpets, topped up tea-cups until it must have been as plain to the other occupants of the room as it was to us that we were about to figure in some Master Plan.

  The normal manner one has come to expect from hosts and fellow guests alike in an English country house is a state of moderately amiable lack of interest. The guests loaf about, reading magazines, going for walks, having baths, writing letters, without making any great social demands on each other. Only when eating — and even then only really at dinner — are they expected to 'perform'. This lack of effort, this business of people barely raising their heads from their books to acknowledge one's entry into a room, may seem rude to the foreigner (indeed it is rude), but I must confess it brings with it a certain relaxation. They make no effort to be polite to you and you therefore are not required to make any effort to be polite to them.

  In fact, when a great fuss is made of someone in a house party it is almost invariably because they have been recognised as an

  'outsider' or at the very least someone with a terminal illness on whom extra energy must be expended. For everyone to jump to their feet and gush is therefore more or less an insult to the recipient.

&n
bsp; Adela and I, however, did not read any kind of social 'set-down' in the lathering we were receiving. We simply understood that a favour was about to be asked. Consequently, when Lady Uckfield wondered if I would like to see her sitting room, which had just been decorated and which, apparently, we had discussed at some time in the past, I got to my feet at once. My wife was included in the invitation but something in Lady Uckfield's manner told her that what was wanted was me on my own and since we were both dying to know what was going on, she opted to stay with Lord Uckfield and have some more tea to precipitate the expected intimacy.

  The sitting room in question was quite far from the rooms I knew and was situated in one of the wings, separated from the main block by a curving corridor from which the windows looked across the park. Once reached it was revealed as a charming and elegant nest, displaying Lady Uckfield's sure touch for gemüchtlich, fussy grandeur. It was quite a large room, with walls upholstered in rose damask and pretty chairs covered in delightful chintzes. Little japanned bureaux, painted bookcases and delicate inlaid tables stood about, all littered with the debris of the aristocratic rich, flowers, bits of Meissen, pretty lamps, miniatures, bowls of dried lavender, enamelled candlesticks, small paintings on carved stands, and, of course, on her main desk (a handsome, ormolu-mounted bureau plat, which sat sideways to the wall), a mass of papers and invitations and official requests. A day bed upholstered in buttoned moiré was placed at right angles to the little fire, which twinkled and crackled in the leaded and polished grate. Above the mantelshelf, where china figures and snuff-boxes jostled with chewed dog toys, a knitted rabbit and postcards from friends in Barbados and San Francisco, was a pastel by Greuze of an earlier Lady Broughton. It was, in other words, the definitive HQ of a Great Lady.