The New Countess (30 page)

Should the day remain as fine as it promised to be Alice would stay on after lunch to keep the King company and assist his loader. She watched from the metal windows as the party gathered outside the front door. It was a frosty morning; horses whinnied and stamped. The Guns and their dogs piled into the assembling carriages; Strachan manned the King’s wheeled chair. It would be tough going to the butts, Alice thought, once the walkways stopped and the rough ground began. The King was a heavy man, but then Strachan was not exactly frail. There had been some talk about Isobel and Strachan, but Alice dismissed it as servants’ gossip. It was far too unlikely. The police cabal piled into one of the Daimlers: what possible likelihood could there be of an assassination attempt in such company? Balfour was far too imaginative. At least Campbell-Bannerman would just huff and puff and not fuss. Bertie had his brave face on: the one he put on for his subjects, benign and stoical. It would be better if he stayed at home in the warm and rested his poor stiff knee and admired the ladies – they would love that – but of course he would not. He wanted to outdo Ripon, Willy Desborough, George, and Dilberne too in the final bag count. It was an odd ambition for a man resolved to bring peace and concord to all Europe and so far doing well; surely he had nothing to prove.

She wondered if Ettie would join Willy at his peg after lunch but she thought probably not. She would be too sorry for the poor dead birds, and stay and flirt with Ponsonby. Of all the husbands, Isobel had probably done best. Robert shot birds
if
he had to, not
because
he had to – a
bon mot
she must remember. He had other things to occupy his mind, like the state of the colonies, the revolution in Russia, the entente cordiale, and by all accounts a girl from Brazil. She rather liked him herself.

Robert Dilberne, helped by Ponsonby, was now counting off vehicles, dog handlers, followers – and the Guns themselves: he was a good organizer, smooth and friendly. It was a jolly scene as the dawn broke, what with the barking of the dogs and the snorting horses, the cold crisp blast of the new day, the air of expectancy, a few brave ladies waving them off. Isobel was there, looking delightful in mink wrap and outsize muff.

A mannish young woman she hadn’t seen before, booted and hatted, was going out to join Robert – Alice realized it must be the daughter, Rosina. The King had spoken of her: it seemed Strachan was quite the gossip and a source of entertainment to the King. Isobel had thrown the girl out over a parrot – an African grey: wonderful birds – and her publication of a rude book about the sexual habits of the Australian natives which Longman’s had just published and which had made quite a splash. The King had read it – or at any rate opened and closed it: he’d met the daughter and liked her – but then he did like intelligent women. He was, Alice sometimes thought, a frustrated intellectual doomed to live amongst dolts. The Queen had flicked through the book and said it was disgusting, but then Alexandra would.

The King, in one of those acts of casual kindness which so endeared him to people, had reacted by congratulating Rosina in public on her fortitude and likening her to a female Joseph Banks whose subject was people not plants, which took the wind out of her critics’ sails and neutralized all outrage. At any rate Rosina seemed cheerful enough to be back on speaking terms with her mother, even pecking her on the cheek goodbye and planning to go out with her father for the day’s shooting. The parrot was on her shoulder, to the amusement of the guests, but to Alice’s alarm. It was such a chilly morning.

Alice threw her ermine over her tea gown, thrust on slippers, clip-clopped down the stairs and out the doors and was in time to waylay Rosina.

‘Rosina, isn’t it?’ she said to Rosina. ‘Isn’t it rather cold for the bird? It must be below freezing!’

‘Too right, mate! Too right!’ said the bird. ‘Votes for women!’

Rosina said the day would warm up soon, and she would take Pappagallo to the marquee if the dear love seemed unhappy. But did Alice know about parrots?

‘I have a pair,’ said Alice, ‘I adore them. They need to be kept at an even temperature.’

‘He coped with Australia,’ said Rosina, ‘where it froze by night and boiled by day. But you may be right. Will you take him for the day?’

Alice said she would and if it warmed up by lunchtime she’d take him to the marquee.

‘Too right, mate!’ said the parrot and hopped onto Alice’s shoulder.

‘Just keep him out of Cook’s way,’ said Rosina. ‘She’ll make parrot pie. And that goes for Mama too.’ She was a nice bright girl, thought Alice, if wary.

Lunch in the marquee was excellent: country cooking, none of this French-chef carry-on so many served these days, she heard Ripon say. Alice had ventured out with Pappagallo, for whom Cook had sent up a bowl of macadamia nuts, presumably as some kind of conciliatory gesture to the daughter of the house. The bird, seeing his owner, abandoned Alice and with another cry of ‘Too right, mate!’ fluttered over to Rosina’s shoulder.

There were six courses only for lunch, but they were quickly and efficiently served, as a mere an hour and a half was allowed. Caviar, clear game soup, John Dory, prawns in aspic, roast ducks and iced pudding – the latter a triumph. The old icehouse had been restored and stocked. Isobel, on balance, forgetting the dreadful bamboo and the satin flowers, had done really quite well.

Valets were in attendance to remove and replace wet mackintoshes and leggings, though the ground had been quite hard and dry. The bag had been good, if not spectacular. But the King had outdone Ripon by twenty-eight birds and Desborough by thirteen, the rest lagging far, far behind, and was triumphant, and over champagne Alice regaled him and Strachan with news of the day – all having left too early for
The Times.
There was further political trouble in Russia, strikes and massacres – which sent Strachan prowling the outskirts in a nervous agitation.

‘I told him,’ Bertie said, ‘I told the Tsar it would end in tears. Give them an inch and they take an ell.’

Alice reported that Alfred Walter Williams the painter had died and Miss Christabel Pankhurst was still in prison.

‘Good,’ said the King, and called out to the Inspector – ‘And keep a good lookout for angry women in the undergrowth, Inspector. None of us are safe any more!’

Everyone laughed. The King was in fine good fettle and when the King was happy everyone was happy.

‘Thank you for coming out, my dear,’ he said, patting Alice’s hand. ‘Stand by me on the peg and keep me company. So I feel all is right with the world, and that there are some proper women left in it.’

So at a quarter past two, when his Lordship called the return, and all trooped back to their pegs, Alice walked alongside the King’s wheeled chair. Strachan was still inspecting the perimeter, so his loader, one of the estate gamekeepers, took over the task of royal wheeling. Bertie rose from his chair to shoot when the birds flew: sat again when he had finished, and Alan the gamekeeper would hand him the fresh gun. He only felt happy when there was a loaded shotgun in his hand – preferably one of his favourite double-barrelled 16-bores. Alan was a slow-moving, stoical countryman and noticeably red-faced to boot – either the outdoor life or too much drink, it was hard to tell. Bertie became impatient at even a second’s delay, so Alice thought it wise to take over from Alan when the poor man fumbled – no doubt nervous in the royal presence. The pheasants flew; the King fired; the dogs ran; the birds rained down, glittering in red and gold, a magnificent sight. Surprising that so many seemed to come the King’s way – but the beaters knew what they were up to and the dog handlers too. No wonder the King’s bag filled so quickly, Alice thought.

And then it happened. Ripon, on the right cried out, ‘It’s yours!’ and a great cock bird flew overhead – rather too low for comfort, perhaps – but the King let off his blast and sank back in his chair even as the bird fell, when this time Robert Dilberne, on the left, cried out likewise, ‘It’s yours’; so the King was on his feet again, taking the gun that Alan handed him, but such an exquisite pain ran through the royal knee that he stumbled and the shotgun went off of its own volition. It was definitely in the King’s hand when it went off.

There was a sudden cry to the left where Dilberne’s head and shoulders could no longer be seen; then silence. Strachan appeared from nowhere to take the shotgun quickly from the King and hand it back to Alan, who stood transfixed. The King was back in his Bath chair, staring into space, clasping his knee.

‘What happened? What happened?’ he asked. ‘Alice?’

There was a shriek and a shout and a ‘My God!’ from Dilberne’s direction, and a woman’s scream and then a dreadful silence; and then a Babel of dogs barking and people calling, and a confusion of cries and footfalls, and then Strachan’s security fellows, young and strong and well fed, emerged through the tangles of leafless trees and wintry bushes to tower above the little people, the underfed, the leaderless, the gamekeepers, the beaters, the loaders, the flankers, the followers, to take charge. They seemed larger and taller than ever: they fed on emergency.

‘Go and see!’ implored the King, and Alice went off to see, while Strachan handcuffed Alan and had him bundled off. He seemed too shocked and bewildered to object. Strachan tried to take the King’s gun but His Majesty clung to it, and Strachan desisted and went instead with Alice, and found Lord Dilberne on the ground, and a fountain of blood squirting from a hole in his neck. Rosina was trying to quench the fountain with the scarf which had held her hat on, but it was already drenched and useless.

Strachan was at her side.

‘Come away, Mrs Keppel,’ he said. ‘There is nothing to be done. The jugular vein is punctured. He will bleed out in two minutes. He is not conscious, he feels no pain. Come now. The King needs you. A dreadful accident. The loader was to blame. I think you witnessed that. A drinking man from the look of him.’

Alice could see there was no way that the King of England could have shot a close friend, even by accident. For all eternity it would be all a great King would be remembered for. Alfred burnt the cakes, Canute defied the tide, who was it drowned in a butt of Malmsey? Edward VII shot his best friend instead of a bird – no, Bertie deserved better than that.

‘Yes, I witnessed that,’ she said. ‘The gun went off in his loader’s hand. A drinking man.’

Strachan flickered a half-smile at her: he nodded almost imperceptibly. The ground beneath her feet was growing dark from blood. ‘
Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
’ She spoke under her breath.

‘
Macbeth
, Act V,’ he said, without a pause. The Inspector was a man of surprises. Perhaps there was more to the Isobel-and-the-policeman rumour than she thought. Isobel was a widow now, the Dowager Countess. Arthur was the Earl: everything that his eye saw on a waking day belonged to him. The little boy playing with his toys on the nursery floor was now the Viscount; everything his eye could see when he looked out of the window would one day be his.

Pappagallo fluttered over to Alice’s shoulder, and perched there. Alice could feel his thin, feathery body trembling against her ear. All day he had watched his own kind raining down as corpses from the sky. Now this. Or perhaps she was the one who was trembling. Strachan took her by the arm and led her back to the King, who sat with his face in his hands. He looked dreadfully old.

‘It was Dilberne,’ she said. ‘Your friend, Bertie. I’m so sorry. The loader’s gun went off. A dreadful fumbler. Your gun, but in his hands.’

He looked up and nodded. She loved the King and the King loved her.

They carried Robert Dilberne on a plank to the marquee, his white, white face staring up at the sky. Pheasants and partridges flew by above unheeded and unhindered, and the odd wild duck or two, and all lived to fly another day. The spaniels and Labradors were allowed to finish their work, nosing through the undergrowth, picking up the feathery corpses, filling up the bags: one of the keepers tallied the count. So many pheasant, so many partridge, so many duck; one lord of the manor. Will the new Earl go on with the shoots? It seems doubtful; all he cares about is cars. Nasty, noisy, smelly things.

The Captains and the Kings Depart

16th and 17th December 1905, The Dilberne Estate

First the death, then would come the funeral. A security man’s nightmare. One was of course sorry for his Lordship, but it was no bad way to die. On a fine brisk winter’s day, surrounded by friends, pleasurably engaged, and so suddenly. Unlucky in one way, that a single wayward piece of shot should strike the jugular at the exact spot it did, tearing through all protective tissue; lucky in another that the victim was spared the lingering embarrassments of the traditional deathbed scene; as the body collapses and the family gathers. This was the clean quick finish of a man still in his prime, and one could wish it for oneself. One had witnessed far more gruesome an end.

Sheer surprise neutralizes pain, Andrew Strachan was thinking. One loses consciousness within the minute, one bleeds out within two, and it is over. God’s good earth sops up the blood: they kept the dogs well away, though no doubt they will be sniffing around for weeks. These rural people have their sense and skills, more than many a city dweller. They had his Lordship on a plank and out of there while my men, fine, young and trained though they are, were still searching for their notebooks and tapes to measure velocities, angles and so forth.

The one I respect greatly is Mrs Keppel. She kept her head in circumstances that would have most fine ladies screaming and distraught. Though in truth I have noticed a great stoicism and courage in the fine ladies I have met, from the Queen to the Countess of Dilberne – what I would call the straight-backedness of grandeur – in the way they face adversity. They are kind, they are beautiful, they are be-jewelled – but they take no prisoners.

‘Poor man,’ said Mrs Keppel, as she watched us take the wretched loader away, ‘what a fumbler he was! But do make sure his family is looked after.’