Snobs: A Novel

was successful and that we all played our parts. From the start I was very taken by Lady Uckfield's ability to combine the kittenish with the autocratic and I do not think that where she was concerned I was ever a very useful friend for Edith.

I had hardly spoken to the bride in the line and I didn't really expect to get much of a chance to talk to her as I murmured and nodded my way through various chattering and kissing groups. David and Isabel were there of course, but I could see that they had not come to St James's Palace in order to spend their time talking to me so I let them get on with it and wandered into another huge, scarlet and gilded chamber, at right angles to the first. Large, full-length portraits, mostly of Stuarts, hung on chains against the stretched damask. I stopped beneath one, which, from the half-shut eyes and luscious decolletage I had taken for Nell Gwyn (who may not have been a Stuart but certainly served under them), so I was surprised to see from the plaque on the frame that the melting beauty was Mary of Modena, Queen of James VII and II.

Edith's voice behind me made me jump. 'What do you think of the show so far?'

'There's nothing like starting at the top,' I said.

'It seems rather fitting that my wedding should be celebrated in a Royal palace, traditional seat of the arranged marriage.'

I looked up at the heaving, painted bosom of the queen. 'I shouldn't think this one was very hard to arrange.'

Edith laughed. We were almost alone in the room for a minute and I had time to marvel at her beauty, now reaching the years of its zenith. She had chosen a dress in the style of the 1870s, with wide flounces and a bustle behind. It was of ivory silk with a tiny self-patterned sprig of flowers. What I assume was someone's mother's lace fell from her thick blonde hair, held there by a light, dazzling tiara, fashioned for a young girl, like a glistening diamond-studded cobweb, not one of those heavy metal plates made for dowagers to sport at the opera, which always look as if they belong in a Marx Brothers comedy.

I imagine it was part of the Broughton trove.

'You'll come and visit us?' she said.

'If I'm asked.'

We stared at each other for a moment. 'We're going to Rome for a week, then on to Caroline and Eric in Mallorca.'

'That sounds nice.'

'Yes, it does, doesn't it? I'm not supposed to know but I do. I like Rome. I don't really know Mallorca. I gather Caroline takes a villa every year there so obviously they enjoy it.' She laughed again rather mirthlessly.

There didn't seem to be anything more to say as I wasn't prepared to comment on her melancholy outburst. The last thing I believe in is the deathbed confession. In this case she'd made her bed and was already lying on it. All that was left was to shut her eyes. Anyway, I can't say I was worried. Presumably, many brides, or grooms too for that matter, have a slight what-have-I-done? feeling at the reception.

I kissed her. 'Good luck,' I said. 'Telephone me when you get back.'

'I'm not going yet.'

'No, but I won't have another chance to talk to you.'

And so it proved. Charles came to fetch her to parade her past yet more of his unknown relations and I was left alone again. I wandered into the throne room, which opened out of the end of the first room we had entered. More red, more gilt, this time as a background for a splendid canopied and embroidered throne, and more paintings in chains, these ones Hanoverians. I was admiring the chimneypiece when a fat, red-faced man in his sixties nodded to me. We talked for a while about a painting of George IV by Lawrence that hung in the room, whether it was the original or a copy and so on, when he suddenly leaned towards me conspiratorially. 'Tell me,' he whispered hoarsely, 'are you a friend of the girl or are you one of us?'

I must confess I was momentarily stumped for words.

'Both, I hope,' said Lady Uckfield, approaching at a brisk pace.

I nodded to her for getting me off the hook and she introduced me to my companion, who turned out to be called Sir William Fartley, which nearly made me laugh out loud. He sauntered away as Lady Uckfield took my arm and strolled us both across to the windows.

'I hope you'll come down and see us again soon,' she said. 'I know Charles would like it.'

This was to tell me that Charles was prepared to have me as a friend and also to let me know that they, the family, saw no threat in my friendship with Edith. I thanked her and said I should be delighted. 'I don't suppose you shoot?'

'As a matter of fact I do.'

She was quite surprised. 'Do you? I thought theatre people never shot. I thought they were always terrific antis.'

I shrugged. 'Better death on the wing than in an abattoir is my feeling.'

'What a relief! I was thinking we were going to have to scratch around for some writers and talkers to amuse you. I know Edith thinks you're terribly bright.'

'That's nice.'

'But if you shoot you won't mind normal people.'

'Like Sir William Fartley. Can't wait.'

She laughed and pulled a face. 'Silly old fool but he only lives three miles away so there's nothing I can do.'

I commented inwardly that he was further away than the Eastons, that there were probably two or three hundred people a similar distance from Broughton who would cry out for an invitation and would never receive one, but naturally I said nothing.