Long Live the King (11 page)

He breathed into her ear and murmured, ‘And I may say you look particularly good in black, with your skin so white and your hair so blonde.’ Lily had put ammonia and lemon juice in the rinsing water when she washed her Ladyship’s hair, to help keep it pale.

Consuelo was rumoured to put sulphate of iron in her hair wash to keep hers dark. Isobel would ask Lily to be more lavish with the ammonia in future. The more difference there was between her and her rival the better. There it was again – the little nagging doubt, the little worm of jealousy which kept sticking up its questing head at the most inappropriate moments. What was the matter with her?

And what was the matter with her that her own easy flow of charming chatter seemed to flow rather haltingly over dinner? She had been seated at the bottom end of the table with Ponsonby, the King’s private secretary, on one side and Sir James Reid, the Royal Physician, on the other, as if as a mere Countess she counted for very little. She did not like it: she was accustomed to being a guest of honour.

Robert had been invited because the King wanted him as a shooting companion on the week’s shoot: was suddenly she, Isobel Dilberne, to count as nothing?

Robert was seated between the Princess of Wales – a rather tight-mouthed, stern creature, though at least still in mourning, in high-necked black silk with rather old-fashioned puff sleeves, relieved only by a deep purple brocade chemisette, and a single diamond brooch at the neck – and Princess Louise, a sad-looking girl with a falling-away jaw and too large a nose, also in black, but who seemed in competition with her mother as to how many diamonds and pearls she could get round her neck. Alexandra wore the eau-de nil and glittered more brightly than anyone; the King had the two bottom buttons of his waistcoat undone, not just one, the better to incorporate his increasingly large girth. But this evening, at what the Queen described as a simple family supper, he seemed to swell in good humour as he did in size, and remained benign and talkative. The Queen sat on his left, not at the other end of the table, which was how Isobel would have done things. Those furthest from the throne, as it were, were bound to feel put out. Isobel had a feeling Robert was not enjoying himself any more than she was, but at least he was seated amongst titles, as she was not.

The lively little wire terrier who ran around under their feet was called Caesar. May positively winced as he snapped or leapt up for food, but Maude, the prettiest of the daughters, tiny waisted, seemed to encourage him in his pranks.

‘Another meat course with pastry,’ muttered the elderly Sir James Reid. ‘A
boeuf Wellington
after partridge pie, and that after
ragoût
of mutton. It is beyond belief.’

He was not a great conversationalist, beyond advising Isobel to eat the
choux de bruxelles
or the
aubergines frites
, and leave the
caneton
, and when Isobel declined to do so, warning her at length of the dangers of overeating, which Isobel thought quite unnecessary. Like most of all the other lady guests, Isobel ate sparingly in public, a taste of this and a taste of that, before plates were whisked away. Only Princess Louise, a big, doleful, bosomy girl, ate heartily like her father, not seeming to worry what anyone thought.

And young Ponsonby, who looked quite fun, had eyes only for his beautiful wife Victoria Lily, busily flirting with George, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne – quite uselessly, because everyone knew he was hopelessly emamoured with his own wife, a tendency he most certainly did not inherit from his father. George, an apparently gentle, retiring man, looked baffled but polite, and his wife May looked on with a cold, raised-eyebrowed amusement, while Victoria Lily’s gay little laugh rang out around the table. More alarming still, the girl was obviously pregnant, and at a stage where most women would prefer to dine in private. As Robert had pointed out, many things were going to change now the Old Queen was gone. Pregnancy was no longer to be seen as shameful evidence of indelicate behaviour, better hidden.

Isobel felt suddenly rather old. Once it had taken so little effort to charm men. Now she did not even feel like trying. Worse, the dinner was painfully reminding her of what she so seldom liked to recall these days: her own humble origins. Robert had married beneath him: she, illegitimate daughter of a miner and a soubrette – forget that the miner had become a coal magnate and the soubrette become a famous actress – was born to the demi-monde and had no business at such a dining table as this. Frederick Ponsonby, whose hereditary business was to know everything – his father Henry having been secretary to the Old Queen – no doubt knew all about her. Ponsonby, like Robert, had been born a second son. Second sons, of course, could become first sons when accident or illness struck: the current Prince of Wales was only thus because his older brother Clarence had died of flu in this very palace. She herself was only Countess because Robert’s elder brother had died at sea along with his father. If he had not, she would have stayed only an Hon. Mrs at best. Frederick was only a minor branch of the Ponsonby earldom; he would have to earn his way into titled circles.

‘So much advancement in this world happens by chance,’ she observed to Frederick Ponsonby, ‘and not necessarily because of intrinsic merit.’

But he was trying so hard to hear what his wife was saying he paid no attention to her. She turned to Sir James and said much the same to him, but instead of taking up the point he said, ‘Don’t worry your little head with matters better suited to an Oxford debating society than to a family dinner,’ and added, ‘tell me, have you been using ammonia on your hair? You must be careful. It can be most corrosive.’ Defeated, Isobel fell silent.

After dinner that evening, the men having had enough brandy and the ladies having seen to their toilettes, all took coffee, more brandy and little almond cakes in the drawing room.

Isobel had eaten frugally, but the company of the King induced to appetite, and she accepted one of the cakes which the footman offered. It was a mistake: the pastry was powdery and left its traces scattered on the black jet beads of her dress: she had to brush the crumbs away with her hand as unobtrusively as possible. But the tiny crumbs stuck between and under the beads. May noticed, and stared, and looked coldly astonished, and Isobel felt sorry for May’s children, and indeed for May’s mother-in-law the Queen, who had been the recipient of one or two such looks during the course of the evening. May never said a word out of place, but had the art of making others feel ill at ease, by virtue of their stupidity, frivolity or vulgarity.

Isobel found herself grateful that Arthur had married Minnie, who was incapable of putting on airs, and would be a kind father if only he could think of anything other than motor cars. Thinking of Minnie gave her a pang of acute anxiety – ah yes, the invitations! But she would not think of that now. She, illegitimate daughter of a coal miner, was dining with Royalty
en famille
. She would do her best to enjoy it.

‘December is not a good month for our family,’ the King was saying. With the move from the dining table his good cheer seemed to have evaporated. ‘Forty years ago almost to the day my father Albert the Good died at Windsor, and ten years ago our dear son Eddie in this very house. And it was at Christmas thirty years ago that I nearly met my end of typhoid fever, to the great distress of my good mother. Or so I am told. Though what my mother felt, and what she said that she felt, I now realize, were not necessarily the same thing. One is tempted to bring out the planchette board and ask her a question or two.’

The letters, the diary entries, the busts of John Brown, the statues of Ganesh, the planchette board, recently found, through which the Old Queen apparently tried again and again to raise the spirit of her beloved husband, evidently still preyed on the royal mind.

Hoepner the giant footman approached to fill the King’s glass with more brandy, and Isobel saw the Queen nod at the servant almost imperceptibly and the Monarch’s glass remained unfilled.

The King, deprived of his brandy, asked for a plate of devils on horseback to be brought in: they came at once as if they had been waiting, not even having to arrive from the kitchen. The King ate heartily. Isobel longed for bed.

Robert brought the conversation away from the dangerous subject of the Old Queen to the Coronation – he had the courtier’s natural skill of keeping the conversation on an even keel. Now the King forgot about ghosts and told stories about his mother’s coronation in 1837. Victoria had been only eighteen when crowned; the Archbishop of Canterbury had forced the ring upon the wrong finger, causing her pain; the Bishop of Bath and Wells had turned over two pages, bringing the service to an end when it was not over; the crown had been too heavy for her little head to bear; someone had left scraps of food on the altar itself.

‘I am the more determined, dear Alix,’ he said, ‘that my own coronation will go perfectly, be properly rehearsed, every detail attended to. The Empire needs a spectacular ceremony, witness to the grandeur of this nation of mine. It is not for myself that I want pomp and circumstance: that their King should be glorious is no more than the Nation deserves.’

It was quite a speech. Alexandra leant forward and patted the straining stomach.

‘Little Tum-Tum,’ she said.

The Coronation! All Isobel could think about now were the three invitation cards that should have been sitting safely in her little fruit-wood writing desk, and which Reginald had failed to retrieve, these having gone with the last post and a telephone call confirmed that they had already been delivered, so swift and efficient was the post: and how she must now tell Robert because it would be worse not to, but hardly knew how to set about it.

When, after all had retired, Isobel lay awake in a strange bed, in a bedroom surprisingly small for a royal residence, but with a handsome bathroom adjoining it, containing a most enviable cedarwood water closet, Robert forcibly pulled back the heavy crimson velvet curtains she had closed around the bed, and done so most carefully, fearing they had possibly not been shaken for twenty years or so. He was naked, which was completely out of character, glimmering in gaslight which he had turned down low. He said he had a confession to make, and Isobel’s thoughts went at once to Consuelo. Just as Sunny had confessed to Consuelo on their wedding day that he loved another, Robert was now going to tell her, Isobel, that he loved another and that the other was Consuelo. Even as she thought it she knew it was absurd. And of course he did not say any such thing: what he confessed was that he had invited the Baums to the Coronation and he would be obliged if she, Isobel, could see that the tickets were despatched to them.

‘It is not that I love their company,’ Robert said, ‘though I find them pleasant enough, and the little wife to be remarkably intelligent, it is simply an obvious and prudent move, in the light of my new business interests.’

‘Of course, my dear,’ said Isobel, as smoothly as she could, ‘shall I send them all three invitations, or only two?’

‘Send them two,’ said Robert. ‘There is no need to be lavish. How I have mistaken you, my dear. I thought you might send up a great wail of protest, but I am glad that you have not.’

The bed had been turned down by Lily and now he stepped into it naked. Isobel stretched out her arms to him, and did what she imagined many a woman had done to allow herself time to think, encouraged him in the wilder excesses of love. She allowed him to do, for the first time in all her life, what only whores do, and what, it was rumoured, Sunny required Conseulo to do, so by the morning she was exhausted, and a little sore, and no further forward in her thinking at all, other than she could no longer imagine what her objections to the Baums had been. Clouds of dust had indeed risen from the curtains, perfectly visible in the gaslight, so energetic had been his attentions, and indeed her response to them. All she could do was hope that it was not thoughts of Consuelo that had so inspired him to lust, and even thinking, if only briefly, that if such was the case putting up with Consuelo’s existence in her life might even be worth it. When Robert went back to his dressing room, his dongle – as he called it: she had no word for it – still so lively he could almost have hung his top hat on it, the wintry light of Christmas Day was already showing through the curtains.

Christmas at Dilberne Court

In the absence of the parents at Sandringham the young people Arthur, Minnie and Rosina dined alone in the Long Hall at Dilberne Court.

A skeleton staff was left behind in Belgrave Square – the rest decamped on Christmas Eve in three heavily laden carriages, to light fires, dust and generally bring the place back to life. Rosina, when in residence, as she now was – writing about the hardships of the rural poor – always underestimated the number of personal staff she needed.

‘I am perfectly happy with a baked potato and an egg for supper, and I can run my own bath and open my own wardrobe, thank you very much.’ At the same time it was observable that Miss Rosina – she abhorred ‘Your Ladyship’ – did like freshly baked bread for breakfast and expected clean ironed clothes in the wardrobe, and could fly into a temper if they were not provided, so by the time her personal needs were looked after, cleaning could get neglected. Rooms where she allowed the parrot to fly freely quickly grew musty and required scraping and cleaning without damaging delicate French-polished surfaces. Lady Rosina was not a favourite with the servants. Minnie was less demanding but hot water still had to be fetched for her daily bath and coals carried for her fire. She wore a washable smock for her painting but her studio was up on the attic floor and refreshments had to be brought all the way up from the kitchen.

Master Arthur at least spent most of his days in the workshops and made do with bread and cheese at lunchtime but still liked a good choice of food at breakfast and dinner. It was the staff’s experience that the greater part of their work went unnoticed and unappreciated; the family’s assumption being that comfort and cleanliness simply happened of its own accord, or through the power of some divine being.