Snobs: A Novel

parents'

generation, more redolent of a girls' prep school than the kitchens of the Ivy but I was not then used to Lady Uckfield's command of detail. I had Lady Tenby on my left and I spent the first course in one of those are-you-an- actor-what-might-I-have-seen-you-in conversations, which are so disheartening, but when the plates were taken away and I was allowed to turn to my companion on my right, I found myself talking to a rather hard-faced but intriguing woman of about my own age who introduced herself as Charles's sister, Caroline.

'So you're an old friend of Edith?' she said.

'I don't know how 'old'. I've known her about a year and a half.'

'Longer than we have,' she said with a crisp little laugh.

'And do you think you're going to like her?' I asked.

'I don't know,' said Caroline, looking down the table to where Edith was flirting gently with her future father-in- law. 'As a matter of fact I think I might. But is she going to like Charles? That's the question.'

This was of course the question. I followed my neighbour's gaze to where Charles was sitting, his heavy, good-natured face frowning over what was in all probability a rather small intellectual problem being posed by his neighbour. I wondered if Edith had faced up to how thick he really was. Or, for that matter, to how bleak the country can be. Caroline was reading my mind. 'It's frightfully dreary down here, you know. I suppose Edith's ready for all that? Flower shows all summer, freezing pipes all winter. Does she hunt?'

'She rides so she probably could hunt.'

'I don't suppose it matters much. With the antis about to kill it off at any moment.'

'Perhaps she's an anti and doesn't approve. You never know these days.'

'Oh, I doubt Edith is anti-blood sport,' said Caroline carefully. 'She looks quite carnivorous to me.'

'What about you? Do you hunt?'

'Heavens no. I hate the country. I don't even go to Hyde Park if I can avoid it.'

'What does your husband do? Or is it common to ask?'

'It is. But I'll answer anyway. Mainly advertising but he also organises charity events.'

I have often thought how simple it must have been to live a hundred years ago when every man one knew was in the army, the navy, the Church, or owned land. These extraordinary jobs one hears about every day, that one never even knew existed, have an unsettling effect on me. Headhunting or working in futures, credit management or people skills, as explanations they all sound as if one were concealing one's true activity. Perhaps a lot of them are. I couldn't think of an appropriate response.

'Does he favour any particular cause?' I said.

'So how do you know Edith?' said Caroline, who was obviously as uninterested in her husband's activities as I was. I explained about the Eastons. 'I wondered what they were doing here. It's funny we haven't met before if they're so near.' I was glad David was too far down the table to hear this. After that we turned to more general topics and I soon learned that Lady Caroline Chase was one of those children of the purple who manage to reject their upbringing in their way of living, their philosophy, their chosen partner and their choice of address and yet take their snobbery with them absolutely intact into their new life. I liked her but she was in her way quite as dismissive as her mother only without, perhaps, Lady Uckfield's armour of moral certainty. To Lady Uckfield her social position was an article of faith; to Caroline it was simply a matter of fact.

The meal progressed with some sort of apple snow for pudding, then the cheese and just when I was expecting our hostess to gather up the women with her and leave us to leaden political discussion and port, I was pleased to see that an unused glass in the nest before me was being filled with champagne. This then was the moment.

Lord Uckfield stood. 'I suppose we all know why we're here tonight.' I suppose we all did, although one or two people looked a bit surprised. Kenneth Lavery, himself, seated next to Lady Uckfield, seemed to be full of wonder as well he might.

'It's to welcome a very charming newcomer into our family.' I looked at Mrs Lavery, glazed with delight on Lord Uckfield's right. Precedence had been set aside for this one night. I do not think I ever saw her seated so advantageously again. 'Shall we raise our glasses? Edith and Charles.' We all stood with a lot of chair scraping and a certain amount of panting from Lady Tenby.

'Edith and Charles!' We drank and sat, while poor Charles, scarlet in the face, attempted some sort of answer in an unnaturally base voice.

'I haven't anything to say, really. Except that I think myself a very lucky man.'

'Hear, hear!' The table was alive with muttered gallantries. I was watching Edith as she gazed at Charles with a kind of fresh-faced, open adoration that reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. When she's given the horse. I don't know if this was a lesson she had learned from her ex-suitor's bride four years previously or if she was simply assuming the most suitable expression to quell criticism or if, for that moment at any rate, she simply adored him. It was probably a mixture of all three. I turned my head and I saw that Lady Uckfield was watching me, a tender, perfectly constructed smile on her pretty cat-face. I looked back at her and she raised her eyebrows slightly before standing and bringing the table once more to its feet. I'm not quite sure what she meant to express by this quizzical look.

Probably Caroline spoke for them all (she certainly spoke for me) when she muttered in a low voice: 'Well, she's done it. I only hope she knows what she's getting into.'

FIVE

I have not often participated in anything that could remotely be described as a Great Society Event. At any rate, not in an event that garnered much public curiosity. But by then Edith had achieved her status as a minor tabloid heroine and when she did succeed in landing her fish, the journalists who had set her up were only too anxious to reap their rewards. They'd established her as a story and she had not disappointed them. There were consequently offers from Hello! and OK! — much to Lady Uckfield's hilarity — for exclusive coverage and even though they were of course turned down the level of interest remained high. I do not think Mrs Lavery understood at first why the magazines were not to be allowed their way. I suspect she might have rather liked the idea of Edith and Charles on one of those red-outlined covers surrounded by the noble offspring of Charles's relations but when she had half suggested this to Lady Uckfield, she had been