Snobs: A Novel Page 7

  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 well.'

  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.'

  'Poor you. Some of this?' Without waiting for an answer he slopped some wine into my glass. 'Well, I'm afraid little Edith'll have to shape up a bit if she wants to bring it off.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'If she wants to get away with it. As Lady Broughton.' He started to sing, 'There'll be some changes made.'

  'Oh, I don't know,' I said. 'Did you find it very difficult to get away with marr
ying Caroline?' Of course, in a way, this was a mistake and Chase turned to his other neighbour having registered me as an enemy, but I was satisfied to have maintained Edith's honour. Like many aggressive parvenus who have climbed the greasy pole, he was under the illusion that the reason people did not point out his social failings was because they were no longer visible. As rude as he was, he could not credit anyone else with politeness. That was his armour. I did not mind crossing him as I had disliked him a good deal on sight and anyway I was not entirely joking when I said I thought I was there as Edith's champion.

  The next stage of the evening was quite as embarrassing as anyone could wish. We were transported to Chez Michou in Montmartre, a pocket-handkerchief of a club, where assorted female impersonators mimed to the records of various stars.

  This was the idea of Lord Peter, who turned out to be, as I think I already vaguely knew, an amiable drunkard with a reputation for being 'quite a card'. Actually we were all pretty drunk by this time, having been at it more or less non-stop since we arrived at the airport in London. Doubtless this helped us enjoy the show, which contained few surprises: Garland, Streisand, a rather compelling Monroe, and an absolutely unlike Rita Hayworth miming to 'Long Ago and Far Away', which Rita herself only mimed to anyway. Drink or no drink, I was beginning to feel the siren call of my bed and I caught Tommy's eye as he made a let's-get-out-of-here gesture towards the door when the compere — or commère should it be? — jumped up onto the stage. 'Now, I'd like to introduce our special act for this evening, with our best wishes and congratulations. Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Edith Lavery!'

  I nearly jumped out of my seat as the young man who had given us Monroe reappeared as Edith. An over-made-up Edith with a kind of flashiness she didn't possess, but otherwise astonishingly accurate. Even down to her dress, which could easily have been one of her own. I looked at Charles. He was stunned as were we all. Peter, of course, was grinning like a clown. On the stage the boy/Edith started to sing a song from Guys and Dolls. 'Ask me how do I feel, Little me with my quiet upbringing…' She wiggled her way across the stage to where Charles sat, still motionless. 'Well, sir, all I can say is if I were a bell I'd be ringing…' At about this moment I realised that this was, in some undefined and complicated way, a terrible insult to Edith. The others started to snicker, as the blonde on the stage frisked and shouted her silly lyrics about striking it lucky.

  Synopsis:

  SNOBS is the story of Edith Lavery, who earns a living answering the telephone in a Chelsea-based estate agents. She is the attractive only child of a comfortably-off accountant. When she attends Royal Ascot as a guest of friends, she meets bachelor Charles Broughton, who as Earl Broughton and heir to the Marquess of Uckfield, is a gossip-column favourite. He proposes, she accepts — and here is the crux of the story: is she really in love with Charles or with his title and all that goes with it? The story is narrated by a journeyman character actor who comfortably moves among the upper and middle classes, while observing their foibles.

  Superbly observed, the story includes a fabulous character in Charles's mother, Lady Uckfield, known as

  'Googie', who wants for her son the daughter of a peer from the old, familiar world she knows and trusts. She perceives Edith to be a young woman on the make, and is vindicated when Edith, now Countess Broughton, falls for a blonde good-looking actor. Fellowes resolves his story with twists and turns aplenty. This is a tale worthy of a contemporary Jane Austen with a dash of Evelyn Waugh.

  SNOBS

  A NOVEL BY

  JULIAN FELLOWES

  Copyright © 2004 Julian Fellowes

  ISBN 0 75382 009 9

  To Emma and Peregrine, of course, but also to dearest Micky without whom this book would not have been possible

  PART ONE

  Impetuoso-Fiero

  ONE

  I do not know exactly how Edith Lavery came first to be taken up by Isabel Easton. Probably they had a friend in common or sat on some committee together, or perhaps they just went to the same hairdresser. But I can remember that from quite early on, for some reason, Isabel decided that Edith was rather a feather in her cap, someone that little bit special to be fed to her country neighbours in rationed morsels. History was of course to prove her right, although there was no tremendously compelling evidence for this when I first met her. Edith was certainly very pretty then but not as she would be later when she had, as designers say, found her style. She was a type, albeit a superior example of it: the English blonde with large eyes and nice manners.

  I had known Isabel Easton since we were children together in Hampshire and we enjoyed one of those pleasant, undemanding friendships that are based entirely on longevity. We had very little in common but we knew few other people who could remember us on our ponies at the age of nine and there was a certain comfort in our occasional encounters. I had gone into the theatre after leaving university and Isabel had married a stockbroker and moved to Sussex so our worlds scarcely crossed, but it was fun for Isabel to have an actor to stay occasionally who had been seen on television (though never, as it happens, by any of her friends) and for me, it was pleasant enough to spend the odd weekend with my old playmate.

  I was in Sussex the first time that Edith came down and I can testify to Isabel's enthusiasm for her new friend, later queried by her less generous acquaintance. It was quite genuine: 'Things are going to happen for her. She's got something.' Isabel was fond of using phrases that seemed to imply an inside knowledge of the workings of the world. Some might have said that when Edith climbed out of the car half an hour later, she didn't appear to have got very much beyond her appearance and a rather beguiling, relaxed charm, but I was inclined to agree with our hostess. Looking back, there was a hint of what was to come in the mouth, one of those cut-glass mouths, with the clearly defined, almost chiselled lips that one associates with the film actresses of the forties. And then there was her skin. To the English, skin is, as a rule, the compliment of last resort, to be employed when there is nothing else to praise. Good skin is frequently dwelt on when talking of the plainer members of the Royal Family. Be that as it may, Edith Lavery had the loveliest complexion I have ever seen: cool, clear, pastel colours under layers of flawless wax. I have all my life had a weakness for good-looking people and in retrospect, I think I became Edith's ally in that first moment of admiring her face. At all events, Isabel was destined to become a self-fulfilling prophet for it was she who took Edith to Broughton.

  Broughton Hall, indeed the very House of Broughton, was a wounding seam that marbled every aspect of the Eastons'

  Sussex life. As first Barons and then Earls Broughton and lately, since 1879, Marquesses of Uckfield, the Broughtons had held mighty sway over this particular section of East Sussex for a great deal longer than most potentates of the Home Counties. Until little more than a century ago their neighbours and vassals had mainly consisted of lowly farmers eking a living out of the flat and boggy marshland at the base of the downs but the roads and the railways and the invention of the Saturday-to-Monday had brought the haute bourgeoisie flooding to the area in search of ton, and, like Byron, the Broughtons awoke to find themselves famous. Before long, the local mark of whether one was 'in' or 'out' was largely based on whether or not one was on their visiting list. In fairness I must say that the family did not seek its celebrity, not at first anyway, but as the major representatives of the anciens riches in an upwardly mobile area their power was forced upon them.

  They had been lucky in other ways. Two marriages, one to a banker's daughter and the other to the heiress of a large section of San Francisco had steered the family craft through the turbulent seas of the agricultural depression and the Great War. Unlike many such dynasties, they had retained some if not all of their London holdings, and various tricks with property in the sixties had brought them to the comparatively safe shores of Mrs Thatcher's Britain. After that, when the socialists did start to regroup they turned out, happily for the upper classes generally, to have
been reborn as New Labour and so would prove much more accommodating than their rapacious political forebears. All in all, the Broughtons were the very acme of the

  'surviving' English family. They had reached the 1990s with their prestige and, more significantly, their estates practically intact.

  Not that any of this was a problem for the Eastons. Far from resenting the family's privileges they positively worshipped them. No, the difficulty was that despite living two miles from Broughton Hall itself, despite Isabel's telling her girlfriends over lunch in Walton Street what luck it was having the house 'practically next door', still, after three and a half years, they had never set foot in it, nor succeeded in meeting one single member of the family.