Snobs: A Novel

this is finished. Stupid fool.'

It was Adela who nudged me to look towards the door when, as we were standing to receive the line of our guests, the footman announced in ringing tones: 'The Marquess and Marchioness of Uckfield and the Earl Broughton,' rolling the words lovingly around his tongue like delicious sweets. The three of them entered.

'Where's Edith?' I said.

Charles shrugged faintly and we let it go. I was, in truth, rather touched that the Uckfields had made the effort to come. As a general rule, such people are long on friendship on their own terms but short on doing anything on yours. I don't actually think Lord Uckfield had any idea why he had been forced to dress up and sacrifice a perfectly good afternoon when he might have been watching racing on the box, but Lady Uckfield, I believe, liked me by this time and also, I suspect, wished to establish a beachhead on Edith's only pre-marriage friend that had made the transition into her new life. They were ushered on through into the reception and we turned back to the unending line of old nannies and relations from the shires.

It is not possible to speak to anyone properly at your own wedding — certainly not at a smart wedding where it is out of the question that the company should do anything as middle class or sensible as sit down to eat. The bride and groom are passed round, like one of those endless trays of nibbling things, for a few words here or there, justifying those overnight journeys down from Scotland or those flights from Paris and New York. Still, Charles did manage to seize me for a moment.

'Can we have lunch when you get back?' he said. I nodded and smiled but avoided discussing the matter since the beginning of one marriage seems a poor place to ruminate over the probable end of another. I must confess I was flattered that by this time Charles obviously thought of me as his friend as well as Edith's, flattered but also vindicated for I certainly was on Charles's side, if sides there must be. Of course, I knew well enough that I was not one of Charles's close pals, but I had the merit of being able to discuss his wife with some real experience of her, which most of his friends, since they had never met her before the engagement, could not.

Adela and I spent a delightful fortnight in Venice and when we got back to the flat we found, along with further piles of wedding presents from Peter Jones and the General Trading Company, a letter from Charles suggesting that I meet him at his club the following Thursday. I accepted. Charles's club was inevitably White's and I accordingly found myself outside its familiar Adamesque entrance at one o'clock on the appointed day.

Of the three smart clubs whose charming eighteenth-century facades dominate St James's, White's is, I would guess most people are agreed, the smartest. It boasts few sleek City arrivistes even among its younger members, perhaps because there is still enough of the gratin left to supply its needs, perhaps because the air is too thin for lesser mortals to breathe and after one or two visits they decide to try for something a little less rich. Having said that, I have always enjoyed White's. I would no more wish to be a member than I would apply to sponsor a polo team but one of the virtues of the English upper-class (and it is only fair to give some credit, alert as I am to their vices) is that when they are gathered together in familiar, congenial surroundings, they are a most relaxed and pleasant bunch. They've all known each other since they could first breathe and, when there is no one near to criticize them for it, they revel in this familiarity of the extended family. At their best, alone together and in a 'safe house', they are polite and unafraid, a charming combination.

I gave my name and asked for Charles at the mahogany booth in the entrance hall but 'his Lordship' had not yet arrived and I was invited to sit and wait for him. Not here the nodding through of strangers into the inner sanctums. But I had hardly had time to read the latest bulletins from the tickertape machine (alas now gone) before Charles clapped me on the shoulder.

'My dear fellow, forgive me. I got stuck.' We went on through the staircase hall to the little bar, where Charles ordered dry sherry for us both. He was looking a good deal more like his old self, I was happy to see, smartly dressed and neatly coiffed.

His crinkly, blond hair in smooth Marcel waves, a tie of some educational or military significance at his throat. 'So, how are you? Busy, I hope.'

I wasn't frightfully, as it happens, but there was a chance of one or two things coming up so I hadn't yet reached the desperate stage that is the occupational hazard of Equity membership. I muttered away about Adela, the flat, Venice and so on but of course Charles was aching to get started. 'How are things with you?' I asked.

As if in answer he put down his drink. 'Let's go up and get a table,' he muttered, and we started up the staircase.

The dining room of the club is a grand, undisappointing chamber with a high gilded ceiling and long windows overlooking St James's. Against its damask-covered walls hang full-length portraits of erstwhile grandee members, the whole emanating that characteristic of aristocratic solidity that Charles correctly, if subconsciously, believed the mainstay both of his personality and his way of life. We gave our orders as we came in and found ourselves a table for two on the wall away from the windows.

'I think Edith's left me.' The statement was so bald that for a moment I suspected I'd misheard.

'What do you mean 'you think'?' I didn't quite see how one could be mistaken about such things.

He cleared his throat. 'Well, perhaps I should say she thinks she's left me.' He raised his eyebrows. I suppose the only way that he felt he could have this conversation at all was by distancing the whole business. As if we were exchanging a piece of gossip about someone else. 'She telephoned this morning. She's rented a flat in Ebury Street. Apparently the idea is for them to set up there together.'

I think the phrase is 'the universe reeled'. My first response, rather unworthily, was that I couldn't believe Edith would be this stupid before the scandal had forced her hand. 'What did she say?'

'Just that they're in love. She's been very unhappy. Nobody's fault, blah, blah, blah… You know. What you'd expect.'

At that moment my potted shrimps arrived, closely followed by Charles's avocado, I tried to use the silence to collect my thoughts but for the life of me I couldn't think of anything sensible to say. I chose badly. 'Who else knows?'

'You sound like my mother.'

At the mention of her name I yearned for Lady Uckfield to take the helm and steer everyone out of this ghastly mess. Not for her, be she never so young, a rented flat in Ebury Street shared with a married actor. 'Does your mother know?'

'She doesn't know all the details. Edith telephoned me a few days ago. When I sent round the note to you. I've been rather incommunicado since then. I don't see that there's much to be gained in facing the storm if the storm itself can be avoided.'

In my mind's eye I could see the articles in the very pages that had taken Edith up as Charles's intended and