Long Live the King (25 page)

‘Ah, Minnie,’ cried Rosina, ‘you really have become one of us. I am quite cheered up and Mama says I can take my parrot. She must be in a good mood.’

Isobel and Consuelo Seek Common Cause

Isobel and Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough took tea in the University Club for Ladies near Hanover Square. They were not members by right, neither having a university degree, but Consuelo’s name opened doors anywhere. They chose the Club because home was never free from servants’ gossip, the maître d’hôtel of any fashionable meeting place was likely to be in the pay of gossip columnists, but here they would be spared tittle-tattle, and two ladies lunching alone together would not draw attention, and cause comment. It was dowdy but they could put up with that. The food was a rather different matter. They ordered a cream tea but when eventually it came the scones were heavy and solid and Consuelo claimed she could taste gelatine in the unnaturally stiff whipped cream and the sour tang of boric acid in the raspberry jam. It was tea-time, not lunch, because Consuelo said most of her lunchtimes were taken up.

‘These blue-stockings always pay more attention to their minds than their appetites,’ observed Consuelo, and not in the normal, well-modulated, low-pitched voice of the English aristocracy, but for once, in her irritation, allowing its original rasping, American twang to show through. It must have been years, thought Isobel, since the daughter of Vanderbilt the railway king had let food pass her lips that had not been created by the finest cooks in the world. No doubt it was a shock. Isobel herself, though with a father wealthy enough, had been reared in rather hardier circumstances, and had eaten pie and mash from a street stall often enough, waiting for her mother to emerge from the theatre after the show.

Consuelo sent the food back and asked for thin brown bread and butter, which arrived so thin and delicate it was almost like lace, and Consuelo savoured it, seeming to cheer up at once. She handed over an envelope with three Royal invitations in it, saying dear Robert had asked her to bring them with her. They were replacements, she emphasized. They did not want empty seats on the day, but nor did they want peers fighting over places, a spectacle to be gloated over by the watching hoi polloi. Isobel said she had given enough dinner parties and organized enough charity events to realize the importance of forward planning. The row seated seven: the Dilberne party was only four, absent until they returned to their seats for the Parry anthem. Robert had told her the seats were going to the Baums, which was what Balfour had suggested, Baum being a director of the new Anglo-Palestine Bank and Baum’s wife being, as was Balfour himself, a great admirer of Handel’s oratorios – this latter was news to Isobel: perhaps she had dismissed Naomi Baum too easily? There was one further seat to be allocated. To whom did Isobel suggest it should go?

‘My daughter,’ said Isobel, magnanimously. ‘Rosina.’

‘But of course, Rosina. Isn’t she the clever one?’

‘That is so,’ said Isobel. Word got round. No wonder the girl had not married.

‘She will not be entitled to a coronet, of course,’ said Consuelo, ‘but do remind her to wear a nice hat, though not one that is so tall as to block the view. A nice straw will do very well with a bird of paradise wing round the rim and perhaps a diamond hat pin. Though Garrard have the prettiest ones in emerald and crystal at half the price. Do you think I should ask for some more bread and butter? It reminds me of my nursery. My mother was always off building houses, but she found me nice nursemaids.’

She ordered more bread and butter, and it came so quickly Isobel thought they had been recognized.

As soon as she was face to face with Consuelo, Isobel remembered how much she liked her. Fears and suspicions fled away. It was absurd to suppose this pretty, cheerful, brave girl took any undue interest in his Lordship, let alone that he returned it. She was half his age, and she was safely married: as was he, and if she occasionally felt the need for advice, who else to turn to but someone like Robert? Just as now, finding herself in trying domestic circumstances, she turned to Isobel for matters to do with the Queen’s coronation jewels. It was perfectly normal for Robert to bring her into the conversation whenever he could – half the men in London claimed to be infatuated with her. Sir James Barrie himself said he would cross London just to get a glimpse of her getting into a cab. Only her own husband managed to look bored and gloomy whenever Consuelo approached. Yet Robert reported that she shared an office in Buck House with Sunny, and was apparently effective and efficient, a go-between twixt the Queen – she was Mistress of the Robes, an astonishing post for one so young – and the Lord High Steward, which by tradition was the Duke of Marlborough’s duty whenever a coronation hove into view – thrice a century being the national average.

On the way to the Club, the black cloud had descended and Isobel had wondered whether there was not to be some dramatic confession scene when the mistress declares her love to the wife, but that was just something for penny dreadfuls and not real life, and certainly Consuelo would not choose the University Club to do it, where the scones were heavy and the jam tasted of boric acid.

Sitting opposite each other at a window table for two, they could have been taken as mother and daughter, two good-looking, fashionable women, the older accepting of life, the younger anything but inconspicuous, no matter where she went or how she tried. The slim figure, the straight back, the long neck, emphasized whenever time of day allowed by a jewelled choker – little chin and mouth and a clear high brow, a tiny, rosy mouth and huge, smudgy black eyes in an elfin face – could there be Red Indian blood? – and then the pearls – even today it seemed she could not be parted from them – two short strings over the collar of the green pleated taffeta of her high-necked dress, a third swinging free and almost down to her waist. The Palace was out of mourning, Queen Alexandra appeared in pale pastel flower prints, and anyone who was anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, and be in colour again.

‘I wanted your opinion on the Koh-i-Noor,’ said Consuelo now, leaning confidentially towards Isobel across the table, as well she might, the subject of the conversation being what it was. ‘The Queen has set her mind on it for the crown but to me the stone looks dull. It had not been well cut. We don’t want her to be a laughing stock. Potentates from all over the world will be present: the last thing we want is for the Queen of England to be outshone. And I worry about the King Edward Sapphire for the Monarch’s crown, though that is Sunny’s business, not mine. It’s so spectacular it looks as if it came out of a joke shop.’

‘Consuelo,’ said Isobel, ‘why ask me? You know more about diamonds and sapphires than anyone else I know.’

‘I know about pearls,’ said Consuelo, ‘and they’re easy. Though they say they’ll soon be able to culture them artificially, and then they’ll be two a penny, and no one will be able to tell the difference, so we’ll have to give up wearing them. But diamonds are a different matter. And the Koh-i-Noor! Its reputation so exceeds its worth. The Old Queen was convinced it was unlucky.’

‘Only for Kings,’ said Isobel, ‘not for Queens.’

‘But the real problem is the Queen’s penchant for any old jewellery. So long as it sparkles she’ll put it on. She’ll come across an emerald brooch, stick it on any old where but next to a pink sapphire, bury both beneath some crude crystal necklace and a string of pearls, and add a diamond choker high enough to strangle her. I love jewels, and so does Sunny, but at least I know where to stop. She’s fond of you, Isobel, she was so happy with you at Christmas, will you please talk to her and teach her a little taste?’

‘I’m afraid it may be rather late in her life to learn,’ said Isobel, ‘but I will do what I can should occasion arise.’

She took the opportunity of explaining to Consuelo that Minnie was expecting and would be in no condition to walk in the Coronation, indeed to attend at all. Her condition would be too obvious. The baby was expected in the first week of July.

Consuelo flushed with joy: she seemed delighted. Isobel was accustomed to the outrage that usually struck the very rich when their plans were thwarted but no. Consuelo’s pleasure was instant and sincere.

‘But that is wonderful, Isobel. Little Minnie! An Earl to follow in Robert’s footsteps: I hope he grows up to be as wise and wonderful as his grandfather, who is second only to Mr Balfour in greatness. I am sure he will be, proud and strong. Minnie is so sensible. She is like me, American and practical. She will get the necessities over with, she will produce the heir and the spare and then be free to get on with her own life, as I do. It is perfectly possible to be as happy in this country as at home: one must just learn the rules and follow them scrupulously. And the men here – quite extraordinary, they mumble and look reluctant and aloof, but then they pounce, oh how they pounce! American men are all talk and precious little action. But tell Minnie she must be terribly, terribly discreet. Not a breath of scandal, not now or for posterity. Oh Isobel, I am afraid I have shocked you!’

Isobel was indeed aghast, conscious of other tables listening in; but what exactly had Consuleo said? Not a child for Minnie, not a grandchild for her, but a grandchild for Robert. Robert the wise and wonderful. The men who mumble but pounce. The black fog was stirring around Isobel, clutching her ageing womb, narrowing her eyes and her thoughts. She made an effort: opened them, cleared them.

‘I am not in the least shocked,’ Isobel said, as if nothing untoward had happened. ‘But of course we mustn’t forget the baby may be a girl.’

‘I have the two darling little boys,’ said Consuelo, ‘for which thank God, one brave and bold like my father, the other like Sunny. If they had been girls I would have had to go on and on until two sons were achieved. Of course Robert’s grandchild will be a boy. Your husband is to be Prime Minister, Isobel, after Arthur Balfour the disembodied has drifted off into space. Robert is so firmly bodied. But why did he not tell me about the new child, why did he leave it to you to tell me? I don’t understand: men are so strange, but I suppose Robert is so, well, English. I had such a good long talk with him the other day at lunch. We talked about war horses and cavalry and how my father, who is a great horseman, believes tracked motor tractors will soon replace the war horse. Are you interested in horses, Isobel?’

‘No,’ said Isobel.

‘Ah no, of course, Robert said you were not.’

Isobel felt a sudden stab of anger. Consuelo was quite deliberately taunting her. She was in effect saying to Isobel, ‘I can have him if I want him.’ Isobel had met her sort before. The kind who loved their fathers and despised their mothers, and now liked older men, the ones with wives to upset and marriages to break up, who, having failed to replace their mothers in their fathers’ affections, couldn’t see a happy marriage without wanting to destroy it. Realizing what she was dealing with, Isobel’s head cleared wondrously. Consuelo had declared war, but had also revealed herself. She would toy with Robert like a cat with a mouse but not pounce. She would not risk indiscretion, she had said, and Robert was too naïve to be discreet. Isobel was safe enough.

Her Grace continued to complain about her Majesty. ‘And now she wants to borrow my seventeen-strand pearl necklace for the occasion. Her very best is a mere fifteen. Is one even allowed to say no to monarchy? I fear not.’ She asked if Isobel would like to see the treasures she, Consuelo, had brought back from Moscow. The jewellers there were so skilful and imaginative. She was taking her new treasures to the bank. ‘I ordered one of the Fabergé eggs they talk about; they usually only go to Royalty but the dear little man made an exception for me. Sunny can be very nice when he is in a good mood – the trouble is he so often isn’t. He’s a little man, of course, and can hardly help it. All little men are Napoleons, and must have their own way, however strange that way may be. But in Moscow Sunny behaved like an angel. Look. Let me show them to you. The bank must wait just a minute.’

Consuelo produced a little blue velvet reticule which she emptied onto the white tablecloth.

Isobel felt the tables were ridiculously small. The ruby earrings practically fell into the butter dish, and the pin of the fragile amethyst and garnet brooch pierced the bread. A diamond necklace followed. All glittered tremendously. There was a muffled gasp from the next table. Isobel felt it sounded very like disapproval, but what could you expect in a place like this?

Consuelo let the diamonds trickle through her fingers.

‘Sunny in Moscow is one thing,’ she said. ‘Sunny in New York is quite another. We were married in New York, you know. I was eighteen. I stood at the altar and looked up at him shyly in love and trust, but he didn’t look at me, he was looking over me, past me into space and I knew he was longing to be marrying someone else. There were three of us in the marriage. No matter. I am a good wife. And there are always jewels, aren’t there, to comfort one. Hard and cold, but at least for ever, as love is meant to be. Alexandra loves them too but goes too far. Every necklace, bracelet, brooch masks a disappointment.’ Her dark eyes glittered. Isobel thought for a dreadful moment she was going to cry. The tops of her little shell-like ears flushed pink. But she just laughed her delightful little laugh, and threaded the jewels back, one by one, into her bag. The blue-stocking ladies, their entertainment over, went back to their rubbery scones and puffed-up cream.

The two ladies parted apparently on the best of terms. Isobel felt quite benign, poor flailing Consuelo could be forgiven; she was hardly to be taken seriously, the more so because she wanted to be. She was like some child’s tinselly cut-out toy and if Robert was entranced, it was hardly surprising and would come to nothing. She felt immensely generous and forgave Robert too though for what she could not be sure. But as they were leaving the Club Consuelo said, ‘I am so happy for Minnie: just so very trying that she now can’t follow behind the canopy. I can’t think of anyone else pretty and smart enough to accompany you, Isobel. Perhaps I’ll just scrap the idea and have nobody, and you can join in with the other countesses. I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know.’