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.
Lady Uckfield patted my hand. 'Seriously. You must come. I'll see to it.'
'I'd love to, but only if you promise not to ask any writers or talkers. I don't want to lose face in front of Edith.'
She smiled her conspiratorial smile and was gone about her duties.
It was all over quite soon after that. The lucky pair went off to change and we followed them out as a shining barouche landau carried them away. This rather mawkish detail had been specially arranged by Edith's father with the mistaken idea that it would lend glamour to the occasion. At any rate, when we all turned back we found that the Palace had been locked against us. The authorities had decreed that the day was over and there was nothing more to do but go home.
SEVEN
To Edith, as much as to anyone else who knew it, one of the oddest aspects of her marriage, at least in the context of the 1990s, was that she had never slept with Charles before their wedding night. It sounds quite remarkable but the fact remains that it was so. At first she had resisted his advances as she knew that he was definitely the type who did not respect in the morning the easy conquest of the night before and several dates had to have taken place before it was sufficiently established that she was a 'nice girl'. This went on for two or three
