Long Live the King (15 page)

‘For all his Majesty’s weight and girth and pomposity,’ she said to Robert, once on the train, ‘I see why the King is so attractive to women. He understands so much.’ But Robert did not pursue the matter. He was disturbed and upset by his brother’s death, and it showed itself in anger. They sat side by side in the squishy seats of the first-class compartment while a damp, wet landscape rattled by, and Robert railed against poor dead Edwin. Isobel wondered quite what Edwin had done and said to offend his elder brother; the outrage had evidently been mutual. But if Robert was reluctant to tell her what it was she would abide by that. Her own spirits had been wonderfully restored by the understanding that the invitations to the Coronation would have gone up in flames with the Rectory. Robert need never know. The Baums would have the vacant seats. Their presence was a small price to pay for peace of mind. And perhaps the third seat could now go to Rosina. Rosina let principle over-ride self-interest. It was not so bad a fault, merely an annoying one. And the girl had no husband, no children: if she found a parrot congenial company perhaps it was not surprising. Many women parroted their husbands. Rosina, perhaps more man than woman, as Oscar Wilde had been more woman than man, kept a parrot in lieu of a wife. She, Isobel, must be more charitable. She just did not want the bird in Belgrave Square. It was smelly, musty and little insects hopped in and out amongst its feathers.

‘The Hedleigh vault is all the better for Edwin’s absence,’ Robert was saying now. The Pullman car had been attached at Cambridge, and they ate a late lunch: he had the steak; she had the sole. But he could not leave the matter alone. ‘If he does not want to lie with his ancestors, why should his ancestors want to lie with him? But it is a slap in the face. If he does not want us at his funeral, let him find others to pray over him. I will not.’

‘But Robert,’ said Isobel, ever the maker of peace, ‘he won’t have expected to die. Given time he might well have changed his mind and made another will. He probably wrote it on a bad day in a bad mood.’

‘He should have thought of that,’ said Robert, quite unreasonably. ‘No one knows when they are going to die. I find it outrageous that he used Mr Baum as his solicitor, having renounced the family in this spectacularly ill-mannered way.’

‘Robert,’ said Isobel dryly, ‘the poor man is dead.’

‘What, are you on his side now?’ he demanded. Isobel could see it was wiser not to persist, decided to drop the subject, but then like a dog with a bone went back to it.

‘But the daughter,’ said Isobel. ‘Poor little thing! We can’t just abandon her.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Robert, quite shockingly. ‘The father did not want dealings with our side, so let the mother’s side look after her.’

‘But we know nothing about her,’ said Isobel. ‘All we know is that Adela carries the Hedleigh name and is your own flesh and blood.’

‘She is also her mother’s daughter,’ said Robert. ‘I met the woman once on the unfortunate occasion of her wedding to my brother. She was very plain indeed. From a Catholic family so relatives will be plentiful. I have asked Baum to advertise so no doubt someone will come forward. In the meanwhile she is in the care of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, an arrant ass but without a doubt respectable.’

‘Your brother was a very handsome man,’ said Isobel, ‘just rather unsmiling. Adela may very well take after her father.’

‘That is not likely,’ said Robert, firmly. ‘Looks are inherited from the dam, temperament from the sire. She will have the worst of both worlds.’

‘Robert,’ said Isobel, ‘the girl is not a horse, she is a human being. What is the matter with you?’

Robert relented enough to tell her why, although he had said nothing at the time, he had been so incensed. After Edwin’s neglecting to reply to an invitation requesting the pleasure of his company at Arthur’s wedding to Miss Minnie O’Brien of Chicago on June 21
^st
1900, at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Robert had received a letter after the event which he had read, torn, and thrown into the fire. Edwin let it be known that he strenuously objected to the wedding on religious grounds; namely that Minnie was of the Roman Catholic faith.

‘But Minnie had taken instruction,’ said Isobel. ‘She made no objection and was received into the Anglican Church a whole month before the wedding. I hope you wrote to tell him so and put him out of his misery.’

‘I did no such thing,’ said Robert. ‘There is nothing to do with bigots but let them stew in their own juice. Nothing changes their minds: they are deaf to entreaties and blind to new facts.’

Isobel thought there was more to the story than this but held her tongue.

‘In the meantime,’ Robert said, ‘since the Bishop of Bath and Wells has taken her in, unasked and without any reference to me, let the Bishop of Bath and Wells look after her. I believe he has taken the Pledge.
Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine
, no less. Not that I suppose much touching of lips goes on at the Palace. It is probably just for public show anyway. I seem to remember I once had a drink with Kennion at the Commons Bar and he had a whisky and soda like anyone else. By the way,’ he added, ‘the girl is a Princess, according to Baum. Of the rather remote foreign kind, a tenuous link with Austrian royalty. But in case you are considering taking her into our own household, which I sincerely hope you are not, it as well that you are aware of her rank, should the link be proved.’

Isobel wondered again at the vehemence of his reaction, and toyed with her crème caramel. She enquired as to exactly what the link was. Robert said she should take the matter up with Baum, it did not concern him greatly. Isobel was enjoying the journey. She found train travel faster and more comfortable than carriage, and its melancholy hooting more attractive than the sound of the road beneath wheels. Robert, like most men, found change difficult, and noticed only the smuts and the rattling and the way steam seeped through the windows. He stared grimly out of the window at the dank Essex marshes, and brooded about his brother’s shortcomings. Isobel was the more grateful that the invitations had been so simply and fortuitously destroyed. She must remember to declare them lost and set the staff to searching. She would write to Consuelo telling her what had happened and asking for replacements. There would be no need to bother Robert with the problem.

She was sorry that Edwin had met his death but it was an ill wind indeed that brought nobody any good. And it was true that the last thing she wanted was a little princess, no matter how plain, sitting at her dinner table, in a place properly occupied by her daughter Rosina, a mere Honourable, and one much in need of a husband, being no beauty, over thirty and politically minded. Isobel herself, being a Countess, was a mere ‘my Lady’, the girl would be ‘Your Grace’, possibly even ‘Your Serene Highness’, and that would be intolerable. And then there would be the business of the girl’s coming out, and her eventual presentation at Court, an expensive, time-consuming and tedious business. The dresses were fun, and the new fashions most becoming to young girls – the stiff upholstered look the old Queen had favoured was already going out of style – but there was only so much you could do with white, and diamonds were barred to unmarried respectable girls. They were the kind of stones ardent but ignorant lovers bought for mistresses. Isobel’s father Silas the coal magnate had bought some superficially superb ones for Isobel’s mother, but they’d proved to be riddled with crystal imperfections when she had tried to sell them.

The Funeral

Mr Baum had accepted the Bishop’s kind offer of having the Diocese arrange the funeral, since his Lordship was proving dilatory in the matter. Both agreed that it was only sensible to ignore the Reverend Hedleigh’s wish to be buried without proper embalming. Coffins could leak, and masks might have to be worn, which could distress relatives. With embalmment, however, and since temperatures were below freezing, the undertaker took the view that with effective embalming the funeral could be left for ten days or more. Burials were considered too grisly a matter for the weaker sex to attend as mourners, let alone organize them, so Frank Overshaw was sent down to do the arrangements with Mrs Kennion to accompany him.

Mrs Kennion had a talent for organization, and it was she who decided St Aidan’s churchyard was not in a state to be used – the ground being more ash, mud and debris than grass, and alcohol having been smelled on the gravedigger’s breath. It was Mrs Kennion who organized a search amongst the ashes of the Rectory for a safe, which fortunately was found, blackened but undamaged, in the debris that was all that was left of the Rectory. The blacksmith was summoned to open it and it was found to be empty other than the Last Will and Testament of Elise Hedleigh, Princess of Gotha-Zwiebrücken-Saxony. Mrs Kennion persuaded the evangelical Vicar of St Bart’s to agree to have the burial there. ‘I’ve had most of poor Hedleigh’s congregation here for some time anyway,’ he said. ‘I might as well have him too. Not an easy man.’

Henrietta had consulted her husband as to the propriety of such a move and the Bishop allowed it. He was something of an evangelical at heart, a keen ecumenicist, and perhaps thought it would do Hedleigh’s soul good if his body rested amongst Low Churchers. He had a word with the coroner who allowed the burial to precede the inquest, in the lack of suspicious circumstances.

There was a sizeable turnout for the funeral – tragedy always drew a crowd – the newspaper headlines had been bold and stark, and ghouls loved to gather. Such local church dignitaries as could be spared from their duties were there and even a handful of their wives, breaking tradition to attend. Adela was there – Mr Kennion had said she was far too young to attend, but Adela had tackled the Bishop himself to get his assent, and won it. Her powers of persuasion were impressive; perhaps it was because she so seldom smiled that when she did it was hard to resist: the sweet, soft voice, always polite but slightly implacable, was persuasive in argument. She was a Hedleigh after all, Mrs Kennion thought, and one should not forget it. They got their own way.

But heaven knew what went on in the girl’s head. Mrs Kennion had written, on Adela’s insistence, to the Little Sisters of Bethany who said, yes, they had heard of the girl’s bereavement in the newspapers and there was certainly a place for Adela as a postulant when she turned seventeen in May. Some convents took girls at fifteen but it was an Anglican working order and they preferred girls to enter the religious life only when they were sure of their vocation. The father had signed the necessary papers about her upkeep and so forth, but in the circumstances, they would wait to hear from her guardians. The sense and competence of the Little Sisters quite impressed Mrs Kennion.

There had, so far, been no message from his Lordship, which rather surprised Mrs Kennion. There was to be no rushing to the child’s rescue, it seemed, princess or not. Perhaps when the mother’s will was read it would be a different matter. In the meanwhile Adela was a devout child, with her head very much screwed on the right way, and was quite definite in her desire to be a Bride of Christ. There were worse fates. It was a teaching order; she would be free of worldly concerns and be of use in the world. The girl seemed reluctant to be handed over to her uncle’s care and from what the Bishop said Dilberne was hardly a suitable guardian for a child with a serious and religious temperament.

Mrs Kennion had to admit that after a short stretch of good food and rest at the Palace Adela was filling out nicely, had learned to hold her head high and had lost the slightly cowed stance she had shown when she first came to the Palace. It would not even occur to anyone now to put her in the servants’ quarters. However, it was a big step in a young girl’s life to enter a convent, and though it was perfectly possible for a postulant to leave the order before becoming a novitiate, and after that a nun, few did so. Lord Robert would no doubt show up sooner or later and would decide.

A rare ray of sunshine struck through the stained-glass windows of St Bart’s and caught a wisp of fair hair which had strayed from Adela’s bonnet and turned it to a streak of gold in the gloom of the church. Adela turned her face up to the sun. It was the face of an angel, pure and intent. Mrs Kennion saw Frank gazing at Adela in adoration. His interest seemed more spiritual than physical, which was just as well. Mrs Kennion felt rather sorry for Frank. He so obviously worshipped Adela and had made the mistake of letting her know it: as a result she thought the less of him for it. Men had no idea how to captivate a woman: in Mrs Kennion’s experience it was done by showing no interest in her at all until she began to wonder why.

Ivy, the maid-of-all-work at the Rectory, was sitting a couple of pews back from Mrs Kennion and the funeral party. She was a bouncy, cheerful-looking girl but to Mrs Kennion’s eyes rather too forward. It would have been more correct for the maid to sit nearer the back in deference to her betters, but then what servant these days knew how to behave? And why should they? Were we not all equal under God’s eyes?

The boyfriend, George, the one who had rescued Adela from the flames, sat next to Ivy. Their bodies touched. One must be grateful, of course, that he had saved Adela from the flames, but Mrs Kennion did not like the look of him at all. He bore himself brashly, and was well built, even good-looking, but she thought he seemed untrustworthy, someone who pretended to be honest but was not – what they called at home a chancer. He smiled too widely with too-white teeth: Mrs Kennion was sure that his spectacles were of plain and not magnifying glass. That was what crooks did in Australia, to appear more earnest than they were. She did not see why they should be any different in this country.

Mr Baum came late, meeting the funeral party at the graveside. He was a man very much from the city, tall, thin, like some kind of predatory eagle, who thought very well of himself, and treated them all, Mrs Kennion thought, like country bumpkins. Which she supposed, after all, they were. But his shiny elegant pointed brown shoes and yellow waistcoat were hardly suitable for a country funeral, and when he left as soon as was decent after the final sods had been flung on the coffin, instead of waiting for the tea and ginger cakes in the vestry, which Mrs Kennion had taken it upon herself to provide, all were relieved. Now they could relax. Mrs Kennion had to run after him, a galleon in full sail, to hand him Elise’s will and other papers. She had not read them: she was honourable, a bishop’s wife.