Snobs: A Novel

being sent off to families in the depths of France where, as she had made a ruthless point of checking, we would find no English spoken. As a result of these draconian cruelties we all speak tolerable French, which of course enhances the pleasure of visiting their beautiful capital city.

I had not previously stayed at the Paris Ritz, although I had been there once to a very grand reception, which formed part of a series celebrating a marriage between two spectacularly Faubourg families. It is a great hotel in the sense that it belongs more to that lost era of great hotels, where veiled beauties stood about waiting for their maids to check twenty pieces of luggage before embarking for the Riviera, than to our own eat-and-run epoch. A red, white and gilt palace, sumptuous and yet pretty — quite unlike the modern, Park Lane equivalents got up, as they are, like enormous Maida Vale hairdressing salons. I was thoroughly glad to be there, particularly since I wasn't paying, and even the contemptuous looks the hotel employees cast at my torn and broken luggage could not quench my enthusiasm.

We gathered in the bar, slicked up in our black ties, with that faintly desperate air of the English embarking on a 'good time', and started to tuck into the champagne. Tommy Wainwright came over to me and I asked him if he knew what the plan was for the evening.

He shrugged. 'I imagine we'll have dinner here and then push on to somewhere embarrassing on the Left Bank. Isn't that the form?'

'I expect so. Have you known Charles a long time?'

'We were at Eton together. Then I went out with Caroline for a bit when we were about twenty so we sort of re-met. What about you?'

'I hardly know him. I feel rather a fraud being here. It's just that I introduced him to Edith so I suppose I'm representing her. Just to check that no one tries to put him off the whole idea.'

Wainwright smiled. 'So you're a friend of Edith. How interesting. We've scarcely met. I must say she's a real beauty. But then she'd have to be to carry off the prize.'

'I imagine there were quite a few noses out of joint when they made the announcement.'

He laughed. 'There certainly were. I think they were all so irritated because none of them knew her. Or none of the ones I know seemed to. Like an outsider winning the Derby. At one point she was starting to sound like a cross between Eliza Doolittle and Rebecca.' I could just imagine and said so. He smiled. 'From the little I know of her, I'm sure she'll do very well.'

He nodded over towards the groom. 'He's really smitten, you know. Charming. I like to see it.'

It was a particularly warm evening and the manager had decided to have the tables of the dining room carried out into the little courtyard that lies alongside it. The mellow stone, carefully carved for the seeing eye of Cesar Ritz, and the modest fountain splashing coolly in the darkening night, induced that spirit of contentment, resting on a combination of luxury and beauty, which one would be foolish, whatever one's philosophy, always to resist. God knows it is rare enough. Euro-smart couples sat about, the women in their brilliant jewellery, one with a white poodle, idly barking its unhungry bark. To me it seemed agreeable to watch the rich taking their less controversial pleasures. Unfortunately nothing is perfect and I was seated next to Eric Chase, who proceeded to hijack as much of the arrangement as he could.

'Bring us another bottle,' he said brusquely to the waiter as he sat down. 'And try to get the temperature right this time.' He turned to me. 'We met at my in-laws' house, didn't we?' I nodded. 'You came with those frightful friends of Edith.' I nodded again, since I was certainly not prepared to wreck the evening for the sake of Isabel and David. But like all bullies he was not to be pacified. 'Where on earth did she meet them?'

'I don't really know. I met them because I've known Isabel since we were children.'

'Poor you. Some of this?' Without waiting for an answer he slopped some wine into my glass. 'Well, I'm afraid little Edith'll have to shape up a bit if she wants to bring it off.'

'What do you mean?'

'If she wants to get away with it. As Lady Broughton.' He started to sing, 'There'll be some changes made.'

'Oh, I don't know,' I said. 'Did you find it very difficult to get away with marrying Caroline?' Of course, in a way, this was a mistake and Chase turned to his other neighbour having registered me as an enemy, but I was satisfied to have maintained Edith's honour. Like many aggressive parvenus who have climbed the greasy pole, he was under the illusion that the reason people did not point out his social failings was because they were no longer visible. As rude as he was, he could not credit anyone else with politeness. That was his armour. I did not mind crossing him as I had disliked him a good deal on sight and anyway I was not entirely joking when I said I thought I was there as Edith's champion.

The next stage of the evening was quite as embarrassing as anyone could wish. We were transported to Chez Michou in Montmartre, a pocket-handkerchief of a club, where assorted female impersonators mimed to the records of various stars.

This was the idea of Lord Peter, who turned out to be, as I think I already vaguely knew, an amiable drunkard with a reputation for being 'quite a card'. Actually we were all pretty drunk by this time, having been at it more or less non-stop since we arrived at the airport in London. Doubtless this helped us enjoy the show, which contained few surprises: Garland, Streisand, a rather compelling Monroe, and an absolutely unlike Rita Hayworth miming to 'Long Ago and Far Away', which Rita herself only mimed to anyway. Drink or no drink, I was beginning to feel the siren call of my bed and I caught Tommy's eye as he made a let's-get-out-of-here gesture towards the door when the compere — or commere should it be? — jumped up onto the stage. 'Now, I'd like to introduce our special act for this evening, with our best wishes and congratulations. Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Edith Lavery!'

I nearly jumped out of my seat as the young man who had given us Monroe reappeared as Edith. An over- made-up Edith with a kind of flashiness she didn't possess, but otherwise astonishingly accurate. Even down to her dress, which could easily have been one of her own. I looked at Charles. He was stunned as were we all. Peter, of course, was grinning like a clown. On the stage the boy/Edith started to sing a song from Guys and Dolls. 'Ask me how do I feel, Little me with my quiet upbringing…' She wiggled her way across the stage to where Charles sat, still motionless. 'Well, sir, all I can say is if I were a bell I'd be ringing…' At about this moment I realised that this was, in some undefined and complicated way, a terrible insult to Edith. The others started to snicker, as the blonde on the stage frisked and shouted her silly lyrics about striking it lucky.

Synopsis:

SNOBS is the story of Edith Lavery, who earns a living answering the telephone in a Chelsea-based estate