Snobs: A Novel

guests. They will enjoy these moments a good deal. Properly handled, the relationship soon develops into a mutual, if slightly glutinous, admiration society. At any rate, on this occasion I disappointed myself by feeling quite warmed by deference as we made our way back to the car. Bella and I chatted on the way home, both of us relieved that the evening was over and yet pleased that it had been easier than we had anticipated. Reaching Brook Farm, we loitered outside as Simon went in and started to turn on the lights.

'So he's made another conquest after all,' said Bella.

I nodded. 'Thank goodness really,' I said. 'After last night, I thought I might find myself keeping the peace.'

'Oh, I don't think that's going to be your role at all,' said Bella with a half-smile.

I raised an admonishing finger. 'Don't make scandal. We're all getting on very well and this is a cushy job. Let us look no further than that.'

Bella laughed. 'Maybe. But you haven't noticed one thing.' I raised my eyebrows quizzically. 'He hasn't spoken a word since we left the party.'

She was right. I think I had noticed but had forced the knowledge out. For when someone as eager for approval, as hungry for status, as ready for the world to know of his adventures as Simon Russell, spends the evening basking in the intimate glow of a young and beautiful countess and feels no need to brag about it, then it is generally because the story has only just begun.

And so it proved.

TWELVE

I was perhaps not as observant as I might have been around this period as it so happened that some time before beginning the film at Broughton I had met the girl whom I was going to marry. She does not play much of a part in Edith's story and so I shall try to be as brief as possible. There was nothing particularly unusual in our meeting. It was at a cocktail party in Eaton Terrace given by a friend of my uncle's and, as it happened, her mother's that neither of us had especially wanted to attend. I was introduced to her quite soon after she arrived (with said mother) and more or less at once decided that this was my future wife. Her name was Adela FitzGerald, her father was an Irish baronet, one of the earliest creations as she was wont to point out crisply from time to time. She was tall, good-looking and businesslike, and I saw at once that this was someone with whom I could feasibly be happy for the rest of my life. I was consequently very taken up for the next few months trying to persuade her of this truth, which seemed manifestly self-evident to me but was not, I must confess, so immediately apparent to her. Quite why one makes one's choice in these matters is a mystery to me as much now, happily married as I am, as then when I was chasing after someone I hardly knew. I had spent many years trying and failing to find the right partner and it seems rather illogical that I should have been satisfied on the instant but I was. Nor have I had any cause to regret my decision since.

I concealed Adela from my acquaintance for a while. When you are approaching forty everyone is apt to make a great fuss over any companion you are seen out with more than once — well-meaning friends kill many romances in the bud — and so I thought I would keep quiet until I knew if there was 'anything in it'. However, in the end, I felt there was and so I introduced her around. My society friends and to a much greater extent my family were relieved that I had chosen from my old world rather than my new. My theatrical friends — more generous if more casual of heart as a rule — were just relieved that I'd found somebody.

We were nearly at the end of the shoot when I suggested that Adela might like to come down to Sussex one Friday, watch a bit of the filming and stay two nights at the farmhouse. This was to be arranged, to Bella's delighted hilarity, quite properly, with me giving up my room and sleeping on the sofa. Adela accordingly drove down on the appointed night in her rather battered green Mini, was introduced to the other two over a merry and, thanks to Bella, delicious dinner and promised to join us on the set the following day when she had done a bit of shopping.

The next morning, before she had arrived, Edith came stalking me. We were filming in a rose garden, which was at the end of a short avenue leading away from one side of the house. The scene had originally been scheduled for the first week but had been endlessly delayed, I forget why, and so here we were, shooting it in mid-October. However, the luck of our (fearful) producers held and the day dawned as bright and hot as any in late June. I was almost irritated that their improvidence should have been so rewarded. It was a long sequence, involving Elizabeth Gunning (the fiercest American, Louanne) and Campbell (Simon) in a love duet, which was ultimately interrupted by Creevey (me). I was therefore sitting and reading, waiting my turn on the edge of the proceedings and I must say enjoying the location when Edith came into view.

'What's this I hear? You're a very dark horse.' I nodded that I was. 'Is it serious?' I observed that since I was already established as a dark horse it wasn't very likely that she'd know anything about it if it wasn't. 'Is she an actress?'

'Certainly not.'

'There's no need to sound so indignant. Why shouldn't she be?'

'Well, she isn't. She works in Christie's.'

Edith pulled a face. 'Not one of those earl's nieces at the front desk who sound so superior and then never know the answer to anything you ask them?'

'Exactly. Except she's not an earl's niece, she's a baronet's daughter.'

'What's her name?'

'Adela FitzGerald.'

'Well, you do disappoint me.' She threw herself down on a bank near to my folding chair. There were other empty chairs near so I felt no guilt.

'I can't think why.'

'You, my artist friend, to sink to a suitable match.'

'I'm not sure I'm prepared to listen to that from you. Anyway, surely the point is whether the suitability is an incidental detail or the primary motive.'

Edith blushed faintly and was silent. The first assistant signalled to us to be quiet and the cameras started to roll on Simon and the deadly Louanne. She pouted her way into the best position before the lens. We had all more or less reconciled ourselves to Jane Darnell, who was playing Lady Coventry. She was inept but there was no malice in her and she didn't appear to think much more of her chances of impersonating an eighteenth-century Irish beauty