Snobs: A Novel

Unbeknownst to us as Adela and Louisa made their plans, it so happened that our old familiar, Annette Watson, was also a Hardy Amies customer. She had been, as I have said, something of a screen beauty of the Lesley-Ann Down vintage and she had always provided willing fodder to the photographers at bashes where there was a scarcity of celebrities but now she figured on the pages of the glossy magazines wearing couture, which naturally made her a welcome guest at these galas.

Annette, in fact, was doing quite well by this stage, largely because, against all predictions, the dreary Bob had gone from well-off to extremely rich during the heady nineties. I seem to recall that his success was somehow connected to the 'dot.com'

revolution although I cannot remember exactly what he did, if I ever knew. Anyway, whatever it was he obviously did it profitably. In the two or three years since the Watsons had been Eric's embarrassing guests in Mallorca they had consolidated their social position and, in London at any rate, they had gathered up quite a satisfactory address book. They had not penetrated Lady Uckfield's charmed circle on any level but they were on good terms with a couple of the more disreputable young marchionesses and the 'It' girls who were busy on the London scene at this time. Annette had even been pictured in Hello shopping with the Duchess of York. On the whole, she was satisfied.

A good part of that satisfaction was because she was now in a position to refuse the Chases' invitations, which had become more pressing of late. Caroline Chase, of course, cared little one way or the other, but Eric's shadowy dealings on the outer fringes of what he optimistically described as 'Business Skills and Public Relations' had been badly hit by the recession.

These skills, it seems, were among the first economies in the newly hard-pressed companies that had bloomed so fast and were now looking as if they would wither as quickly. Eric felt that a helping hand from Bob Watson might make all the difference. Indeed it might have, I suppose, but perhaps because of that terrible dinner at Fairburn, the hand was withheld.

The Chases, or Eric anyway, had ceased to be necessary to the social game-plan of the Watsons. Apart from anything else Eric was not expected to be around all that much longer. It was known that they were living on Caroline's money and questions were beginning to be asked among her circle as to how long this would go on. Particularly as there were no children to confuse the issue. To Caroline's set, there did not seem to be much logic in being married to someone who was common and poor. Although I reject these people's values in many areas, when dealing with someone as abrasive as Chase I must confess to understanding them. It is pleasant to record that one friend who had not dropped Edith and automatically taken Charles's side in order to keep in with the Broughtons was this same Annette Watson. For Edith had paid a severe penalty for her chosen path. Actually I didn't much blame most of their crowd. They had been Charles's friends to begin with and Edith certainly had behaved badly. But this was not the real reason that they flocked to the Broughton banner. To a man they would have remained on Charles's team if he'd beaten Edith while keeping a string of chorus girls in the attic. However, I suppose one must concede that in this particular instance it was hard to argue with them. At any rate, Annette, partly because she knew she held few charms for Charles or his mother and partly because she really did like Edith, had stuck by her pal and one of the invitations she'd proffered was to accompany her to the Hardy Amies afternoon show and have some lunch beforehand.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Edith had never been to the first-floor restaurant of the Meridien in Piccadilly, which had recently been subjected to an exhaustive 'renovation'. The dining room was formed out of the old terrace, which had been glazed and palmed and marble-floored and generally made into a home from home for all those natives of Los Angeles who were now, hopefully, going to flock through the newly re-opened doors. Edith picked her way among the tables, following Annette's waving hand. She was smartly dressed in a snappy winter suit, complete with pearls and a brooch. She had surprised herself by being tempted to wear a hat. She didn't, but the costume, as it stood, was perhaps an expression of a part of her life that had been suppressed for a time beneath the T-shirts and sequins, apparently the only two options of Simon's crowd. Even he had commented on her outfit as he lay on a sofa happily reading the next day's scenes: 'Heavens, very smart! You look like your mother-in-law!'

But she hadn't risen. Maybe, subconsciously, she'd felt complimented.

Annette kissed her and ordered glasses of champagne for them both. It was not long before they had moved from the customary greetings to the real business. 'So, when do you make your next move?'

'Move?' said Edith.

'Well. The divorce. Are you getting on with it?'

Edith shifted slightly uncomfortably. 'Not really. Not yet.'

'Why not?'

She shrugged. 'I suppose I — we — rather feel that we might as well wait out the two years and do it with a minimum of fuss. Otherwise it means such a palaver…'

'Two years!' Annette laughed. 'Oh, I don't think Charles is going to be happy waiting two years.'

'Why not?'

Annette stared at her. 'Darling, you must know the race is on.'

Edith was surprised to find that her stomach lurched. 'What do you mean?'

'My dear, as soon as the news was out he was absolutely pounced on. How could he not be? You haven't even had a child so there's nothing to hold them back.'

Edith felt herself growing irritated. How dare this woman know more about her husband than she did? 'I don't think he's seeing anyone particularly.'

'Then you think wrong.' Annette took a sip to punctuate her pause. 'You remember Clarissa Marlowe?'

Edith laughed and breathed easily again. The Honourable Clarissa Marlowe, great-granddaughter of a courtier who had been raised to a lowly barony in the 1920s, was a second cousin of Charles's through their mothers. She was a hearty, healthy brunette, good in the saddle and helpful at sticky dinner parties. She worked as an up-market receptionist in a dubious property company, thereby lending it some respectability, and she lived in a flat with her sister just off the Old Brompton Road. A classic member of the Alice Band Brigade and, Edith thought comfortably, not at all Charles's type.

'Don't be silly. She's his cousin. She's just chumming him.'

Annette raised her eyebrows. 'Well, she chummed him to the West Indies for a week just before Christmas and she spent the New Year at Broughton.'