Snobs: A Novel

Edith took a bite of something in thin batter. 'David must have enjoyed that.'

'He didn't much. He was stuck with Diana Bohun. He kept trying to impress her, which I don't think was very successful.'

'I should say not. She cut me dead the other day in Peter Jones.' She continued to eat and drink with some gusto but she would not give me the slightest help with my task. With an inward sigh I soldiered on.

'Lady Uckfield was there.'

'So I imagined. How is dear old 'Googie'?' She was of course being ironic although not uncomfortably bitter. The tiresome nickname had once again gone into inverted commas as it had been in the first weeks of her marriage. And there was the recognition of a barrier there, a deep divide, which now separated the existences of her former mother-in-law and herself.

'Very well. I think. Of course, she wanted to talk about you.'

'There's no 'of course' about it. As a matter of fact, I'm rather surprised. Googie is not one for discussing the family troubles. You should feel very flattered.'

'I think she felt that I might be of some use.'

Edith nodded. The penny was dropping and she began to understand that this talk might be leading to deeper waters than she had come prepared for. 'Ah,' she said.

'She told me you were planning to wait the two years.' Edith looked at me in a non-committal way. 'It's not what they want.

They want Charles to divorce you now. Straight away. She needs to know what you would think about that.'

I had said it and there was some relief. The words were out. Edith stopped eating and laid her fork down gently on the plate. Very deliberately she sipped her wine as if she were savouring each separate droplet. I suppose the point was it had come. The End of Her Marriage. I am not sure to what extent she had truly accepted that this was where her romance with Simon had brought her until this moment. Though I must say her voice was quite calm when she spoke. 'You mean they want Charles to divorce me for adultery. Citing Simon.'

I nodded. 'I suppose so. I don't think it really works like that these days but I would guess that's the general idea. We didn't actually talk details. If he were to divorce you now it would have to be for a reason, or has that finished? I'm not too sure.'

'I can't say it seems very gentlemanly.'

'It wasn't very ladylike going off with a married actor.'

She nodded and resumed her eating. 'So what do you want from me? What am I to say?'

'I think they feel they have to know that if the divorce does go ahead now you won't suddenly try to fight it. It won't interest you but it won't make any difference, you know, to the money.'

She looked at me rather sadly. 'I don't want any money. Not much anyway. Less than Charles would give me tomorrow if I asked him.'

'I know,' I said. 'I told Lady Uckfield that.'

'Anyway,' she added after a pause, 'it's not a generous offer. Nowadays there isn't a 'guilty party'. It never does make any difference financially. Didn't you realise that?' I shook my head. 'Well, I bet 'Googie' does.' We continued eating in silence for a while. The waiter returned, took away our plates and came back with salmon fishcakes and a bowl of pommes allumettes. But the subject remained there on the table like a weeping centrepiece. It was Edith who introduced the character we were both thinking of. 'What does Charles say about all this? I assume he was there. Did you talk to him?'

'Yes, I talked to him.' While theoretically correct, my answer was a lie, for Charles had not been there when Lady Uckfield was sketching out her plans, which is what Edith had meant by her question. I very much doubted he would have allowed his mother to talk as she did had he been. I corrected myself, suddenly oppressed by my implied deception. 'Actually he wasn't there when I was talking to his mother but we went back the next day.'

'And?'

'He says he'll abide by your decision. Whatever you want to do.'

'That sounds more like him. Poor old Charles,' said Edith. 'How was he?'

I had dreaded this. If I could have said that he was looking fine and dandy I would have. I had come to feel, like Lady Uckfield, that it was time to call a halt to this unsuccessful experiment in miscegenation. The problem was he had not looked fine and dandy. 'OK,' I said. 'I don't think all of this has done him much good.'

'No.' She helped herself to some more chips. 'Was Clarissa down there?'

I nodded and Edith was silent. I was about to tell her to discount whatever she had heard, that it was a rumour inspired by Lady Uckfield's ambitions and nothing else, but I was silent. What was the point? She had to let Charles go and where was the good in slowing up her decision? For the rest of lunch we chatted about Simon and acting and Isabel and buying a flat, but as we were leaving Edith reopened the topic.

'Let me think about it.' She smiled slightly. 'Of course, we both know that I'll do what I'm asked but let me think about it.

I'll telephone you.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Edith Broughton did not go home — or rather she did not return to Ebury Street — at once. It was a crisp, sunny, spring day, when everything seems as clear as a cut-out, cold and bright as a jewel. She was warmly dressed and so, once past the Ritz, she turned left into the Green Park. She strolled down the path, past Wimborne House, past the restored, statue decorated splendour of Spencer House, past the Italianate magnificence of Bridgewater House until she stopped and looked up at Lancaster House, the golden pile, built and occupied for many years by the mighty Dukes of Sutherland. Their duchesses had dominated London Society, one after another, summoning the great and the good of the different eras to ascend the giant, gilded staircase in the grandest of all