The New Countess (2 page)
Authors: Fay Weldon
Minnie’s eldest son Edgar was three years old today, and could do no wrong. Connor Hedleigh, born a year to the day after Edgar, could do quite a lot of wrong, at least in the eyes of his English grandparents, not having the saving grace of being the first-born. Minnie had tried to explain to her parents, the O’Briens of Chicago, the necessary complexity of names and titles in the English aristocracy but without success.
‘Mother of God!’ Tessa had protested, when her daughter brought the children over to the stockyards of God’s Own Country for inspection. ‘Why is Edgar a Dilberne and Connor only a Hedleigh? They’re full brothers, aren’t they?’
‘You have to be English to understand,’ Minnie had replied.
‘At least neither one of them’s a bloody Turlock,’ their grandfather Billy O’Brien, the pork baron, had said – fortunately not in Arthur’s hearing. The last thing Minnie wanted was her past raked up; and least of all her doubtful liaison with the deranged American artist Stanton Turlock. Her father liked to speak plainly, but it could be an embarrassment.
Both her sons were fine, brawny, straight-backed lads, of whom their father Arthur was pleasingly proud. Minnie loved them both equally, but perhaps Connor a little bit more, since he was always in trouble and second in line. Edgar the heir would inherit the title. Connor was the ‘spare’. Even Arthur sometimes called him that – ‘the spare’ – as in ‘Tell the spare to stop that noise and be a man’ – although she wished he wouldn’t. She was sensible enough not to say so. Life with her father had taught her that if you asked a man not to do something he was the more likely to do it again.
Now, as the noise level rose, Arthur spoke. He had been sitting at a distance and silent, though smiling indulgently, if perhaps a little fixedly, in his effort not to mind the mayhem. He had a deep voice: it was very male, cutting through the squeaks and squeals of women and children. Minnie loved him.
‘
Risus abundat in ore puerorum
,’ Arthur said.
‘Oh, Arthur,’ said her mother-in-law, ‘another Latin tag. Just like your father. You are so clever. What does it mean?’
‘Laughter is plentiful in the mouths of small boys,’ said Arthur. ‘But enough is surely enough. The nursery world can be very noisy and annoying. No wonder Father’s found a pressing engagement.’
‘Very well,’ said Isobel. ‘Let there be an end to misrule,’ and she nodded to the bank of nannies who swooped into action as they had been longing to do, and quick as a flash the little ones were back on their chairs again, too startled to object, hands and mouths wiped clean, neat and sweet like the little lambs they were on a good day, little lions no more.
Arthur smiled and caught Minnie’s hand. He had his father’s long straight nose, square jaw and thick blond hair and seemed to gain in gravitas by the year – no longer the boy but very much the man. He had come up to London with Minnie and the boys to spend the day with their grandparents, for once delegating the care of his motor-car workshops to others. Four years and more into the marriage and she found she still thrilled to the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand. She was very lucky.
A pity that the Earl, Grandfather Robert, couldn’t be with them after all. He had been called away as ever by affairs of State – the occasion was genuine enough – some kind of insurrection in Russia that demanded the Privy Council’s attention even though it was a Sunday. With the modern world proceeding at the pace it did, politics was becoming a full-time job, not the diversion of a wealthy and patriotic man. Robert was not one to shirk his duties.
Minnie still found her father-in-law intimidating; but she liked the feeling of being at the centre of things, and sometimes he would regale the assembled company with what was going on abroad or at the Colonial Office, which was one of the reasons she so enjoyed coming up to Belgrave Square. Arthur’s interests were increasingly confined, she was beginning to find, to the insides of automobiles, the beauty of the Arnold Jehu III, the virtues of air-cooled engines as compared to water-cooled. She did her best to stay enthusiastic, but sometimes late at night she would fall asleep on the pillow while Arthur talked.
She’d said something of the sort to Tessa when her parents were over. ‘Better that he’s besotted by an automobile,’ Tessa had retorted briskly, ‘than by some chorus girl.’ And Minnie could see that it was true.
Tomorrow Minnie would go with Isobel to Heal’s to inspect their newly arrived range of bamboo furniture to see if any was suitable for the Belgrave Square back bedrooms – out of the question of course for Dilberne Court, with its massive four-posters, settles and cedar linen chests: the staff would just have to go on heaving and straining and polishing ancient oak – and then perhaps the ladies would go on to Bond Street to look at the new circular skirts from Paris, tiered and braided but two inches shorter than of late, so they cleared the ground and did not require the endless brushing that took up so much of the parlourmaids’ time. There was a great deal in modern life to be thankful for. The form and shape of furniture interested her. Once, she vaguely remembered, she had had dreams of becoming a sculptress. Stanton Turlock had even spoken of her as being a Camille Claudel to his Rodin – not that he had ever got beyond paint on canvas. She liked the touch, feel and colour of fabric, but Isobel’s obsession with fashion eluded her. All the same, for Isobel’s sake she would pretend a deep interest. You opened your eyes wide, looked intent and thought of other things.
Minnie had forgotten all about the telegram, when Reginald the head footman arrived with it on a silver tray. He had taken his time, having no doubt steamed open the thin brown envelope, read its contents, then hastily resealed it. He was a villain, if an amiable one. Isobel opened the telegram, read it, and nodded to Reginald to leave the room. She had the same stunned and unbelieving expression on her face as little Edgar had when suddenly snatched up from the floor and sat in his chair.
Reginald backed but did not leave the room. He would not be reprimanded, Minnie knew. He never was.
‘A good-looking feller, quite the swank,’ Billy had said of him the previous year when the in-laws were over for Wimbledon. ‘Gets away with anything. You bet he knows more than he should.’ Which Minnie thought was probably the case. It was one of the problems with living with servants. Not that the others seemed to notice, let alone worry about that.
Isobel let the envelope drop from her hand as if it was of little account.
‘It’s your sister Rosina,’ she said to Arthur, in what was almost a tone of accusation. ‘The steam ship
Ortona
docks at Tilbury tomorrow afternoon. Rosina will be on it. No explanation, no information, nothing. She just announces her arrival. How very rude, how very Rosina.’
‘Rosina! But how wonderful!’ cried Minnie into a silence which fell on the whole party. Even the little children stopped their clatter. Minnie hesitated. Rosina was disapproved of. But why? Rosina was difficult, and moody, true, and had left peremptorily for Australia, married suddenly under some kind of cloud, but she was family, only daughter of the house. Some show of enthusiasm was surely allowed? Back home in Chicago there’d have been shrieks of joy and everyone embracing, and tears shed, and a rushing out to tell everybody the good news. The prodigal sister returned. But this was Belgrave Square and spontaneity was not the way of things.
‘Dear Rosina,’ said Arthur, casually and calmly. ‘The mischief maker!’ And then, with a glance at Minnie, ‘Though naturally one’s jolly glad to hear from her after so long. How long, eh? Three years?’
‘Your sister embraces silence,’ said Isobel. ‘Only ever the briefest of letters and there’s been nothing for a good six months.’
‘No news of the husband or a child?’
‘Nothing. Not even that courtesy.’
‘How about her parrot?’
His mother ignored him and turned to Reginald.
‘The
Ortona
docks at Tilbury. Is it the Orient Pacific line?’
‘I’m afraid it is, my lady. An immigrant ship, returning half empty.’ He seemed rather amused.
‘How very uncomfortable for her,’ said her Ladyship. ‘Why always this perverse
nostalgie de la boue
– this desire to play the bedraggled?’
‘Even so, it’s our Rosina!’ protested Minnie. ‘It’s such good news! Someone to talk to!’ This sounded a little ungracious. Isobel looked at her rather strangely. So did Arthur. Minnie always tried very hard not to blurt things out and for the most part she succeeded, but today she had failed.
‘I have you to talk to, my dear, of course I do,’ she said to Arthur, to make amends, ‘at least I do when you are at home but you are so often in your workshop.’ She had made matters worse. Why did life have to be so difficult?
‘And I am sure you are busy enough with our children,’ he said, sensing an accusation. ‘You hardly have time these days to give me a second look.’
‘Well, well,’ said Isobel, fearing there was the making of a squabble in the air. ‘We will send Reginald to meet the
Ortona
tomorrow. Rest assured, Minnie, Rosina shall have a prodigal daughter’s welcome home. Though she could at least have given one proper notice.’
‘You could hardly expect that. A parrot doesn’t change its feathers, eh?’ said Arthur.
Minnie giggled, as she should not have.
Rosina had departed to Western Australia, with almost no warning, some three years before, in the company of a new husband, a Mr Frank Overshaw, theosophist and landowner. He was no catch for an Earl’s daughter, but Rosina was unmarried, past thirty, tall and ungainly, too clever for her own good and hardly in a position to be particular. Even so, the speed of the engagement and her departure had been unseemly, even scandalous, especially since Rosina had sailed on a ticket reserved for her own cousin Adela, Frank’s first choice of bride. It had been assumed there’d been the normal reason for haste but it had proved not to be the case. At any rate there had been no mention of a baby in the few brief letters Rosina had sent home: just descriptions of a land hot and dangerous beyond belief where the mail was bad and servants non-existent, and some requests for reference books: Emile Durkheim’s
Rules of the Sociological Method,
his treatise on suicide in aboriginal culture, and any of Max Weber’s early publications.
‘But Mama,’ said Minnie now – it was at Isobel’s request that Minnie called her ‘Mama’ – ‘someone from the family must be there to meet her. She has been away for three whole years – for all we know she may be ill.’
‘But the
Ortona
!’ said Isobel. ‘Tilbury, not even Liverpool,’ as if that settled the matter. But she put no difficulty in Minnie’s way, and even said their shopping trip to Heal’s could be delayed until Tuesday well enough: Minnie must certainly go and meet Rosina if she’d like to. One could only hope the boat got in reasonably on time, and poor Minnie didn’t have to wait around all day. Meeting boats was better left to the servants – but if it was what Minnie wanted... Isobel for one would spend the day with Robert at the House.
Then Arthur said that alas, he couldn’t go with Minnie: the Jehu III was at a critical stage: he had decided air cooling was a mistake, he must get back by the morning but Minnie was to wish Rosina very well and he would see her before long. He assumed she would be staying at least for a while at Belgrave Square.
So all was well, but Minnie wished she hadn’t thought, ‘My life is perfect,’ so loud and clear in her head. She had a niggling feeling the Gods had overheard and the ring of the front door bell, so close upon the thought, had been a sign of their displeasure. But how could Rosina coming home be bad?
Robert took Isobel to Newmarket for the last of the flat racing. His wife did not care for horses but at least in an enclosure she was far enough from the animals to be safe. He had been insistent.
‘Westminster’s far too dull at the moment,’ he said, when Isobel suggested she meet him for lunch at the House of Lords, having spent the morning in the Visitors’ Gallery. He would take her instead to Newmarket, and show her off. ‘Cherry Lass is tipped to win the 1,000 Guineas and you shall wear a straw hat with flowers, a white mink stole, a skirt with a train and any amount of lace and frills.’
‘But I so like listening to a good Lords debate,’ she said, ‘and then lunching with you. The Thames sparkles and the river boats go by: it is a great treat.’
‘It will be a grand day at Newmarket,’ he said. She could see he was determined to go. ‘There’s nothing on in the House but the military stores reports, which means yet another post-mortem on the war in South Africa, and more nonsense from the Liberals about the poor enslaved Chinamen working in our mines there.’ He added that in case rumours had unsettled her, so far as their own Modder Kloof was concerned, all their particular miners, whether white or Chinese, enjoyed excellent conditions, had freedom of movement, very reasonable wages and lived as well as his own estate workers in Sussex. ‘Not a rock fall or a death has been reported for months,’ he said.
‘As any mine owner says before the rocks fall,’ said Isobel. Her father had started life as a miner and ended up as a coal magnate, and she knew well enough how the view from the worker’s end differed from that of the owner.
‘Oh my dear,’ said his Lordship. ‘Leave all that to Rosina when she returns. She was born to be the conscience of the family.’
Isobel was happy enough to do so, resigning herself to a day at the races, while murmuring that she hoped three years in the Antipodes had taught their daughter a few of the realities of life.
‘At least she is alive and presumably well,’ said his Lordship. ‘And there is no objection, I suppose, to her having her old rooms back at the house in Sussex now Adela is gone.’
Adela was Rosina’s cousin, who had lately married and gone to live in Switzerland where the progressive Ascona movement had its headquarters and naked sun worship was earnestly practised.