Habits of the House (13 page)

Tessa, accustomed to choice as she was, almost cut up a little rough, insisted on being told what
borscht
was and finding out it was a beetroot soup said she didn’t fancy it, and asked for soup of tomato instead. She asked the waiter what
perdreaux voisin and salade
was when it was at home, and when he hurried off to ask the maître d’hôtel, Tessa said, ‘See, he’s only pretending to be French. Minnie excels in French. You know what it means, don’t you, Minnie!’

To which Minnie, with a hint of a smile, innocently replied, ‘It’s just a salad of lost neighbours, Mother,’ which made Arthur look at her twice and smile back, which annoyed Tessa, who nudged Minnie and hissed, ‘I told you not to get too smart, Minnie. I can’t see what you think is funny about it.’

Isobel formed the opinion that Tessa was as anxious for Minnie to get together with Arthur as she herself was to get Arthur together with Minnie. It created a bond between them
of, if not quite friendship, at least of common interest. The woman did not know how to behave, true, but would soon enough be back in Chicago, where no doubt she flourished, and Isobel wished her well.

The Austrian Ambassador, Isobel realized rather too late, as he let slip the occasional reference to Jan’s athletic skill and elaborate royal connections on his mother’s side – the poor woman was deceased – had the same ambitions for his young relative as she did for hers. A rich wife.

But there was no danger, as it happened: Minnie was indulgent to Jan but saw him as a boastful boy. She got on famously with Janika, and they talked happily enough about the charms of the
Art Nouveau
– all around them in Pagani’s – and how and why fine examples were so sadly lacking in the O’Briens’ native land. She and Arthur exchanged but few words – Isobel hoped Arthur could remember to talk about something other than automobiles, shooting birds, his tailor or the weather, but feared he would not. He did not easily reveal himself to young women. Rosina had mocked him too often into silence when he was small.

Rosina had declined to join them: she had to attend a reading of Havelock Ellis’ new volume of essays on sex psychology and secondary sexual characteristics in males.

‘Have to?’ her mother had enquired.

‘I could get out of it,’ Rosina had said, grudgingly, but when she added that she hated dining out with her father because he always ordered for everyone and would try to make her eat meat, and there would be a row, Isobel had conceded it might be better if she stayed away.

‘Besides, Mama,’ said Rosina, ‘it’s going to be so embarrassing. It’s just all so obvious. Minnie O’Brien! Even if she did marry Arthur what makes you think her father will part with a cent?’
‘Your father and he will no doubt come to a gentlemanly agreement.’

‘Gentlemanly?’ shrieked Rosina. ‘Do you know about Billy O’Brien? Do you know about the stockyards? They’re a disgrace to modern civilization. He treats his workers like so much machinery. If they wear out he throws them away. They were better off in the cotton fields.’

‘Your father and Mr O’Brien,’ said Isobel, ‘will come to an agreement because without a penny there will not be a wedding. She will be anxious to be married. The girl’s not as young as she used to be.’

‘Nor any better than she ought to be,’ Rosina said and giggled. ‘According to Grace. Second-hand goods, Mother. You’re selling Arthur to buy soiled goods?’

‘I am happy to tell everyone you have a landscape painting class,’ was all her mother said to that. ‘I don’t want our guests subjected to a diatribe.’

Robert, the business of ordering briskly done, took little more interest in the women and children, and was now talking with Francis von Demy about naval exercises in the Pacific. He had to be prudent, since Austria and Germany tended to think and act as one, and it was common knowledge that the Prince did not get on with his cousin the Kaiser. The former had been overheard saying to the Count at last year’s big Christmas ball at the d’Astis’, ‘Never trust a cripple. They hold too great a grudge against the world to wish the best for it.’ The Prince knew how to put his worldly wisdom elegantly and concisely, which was why Robert thought, he managed to stay popular, in spite of scandal after scandal.

The Kaiser had a withered arm, a source of distress to his grandmother the Queen. The Prince’s passing comment on his cousin had come back to Her Majesty and been the source
of yet another royal row. The Prince was often considered an excellent diplomat: it was just when Kaiser Bill was concerned his guard had been known to slip.

Robert’s first impression of Minnie had been favourable, just as first sight of a mare or a bitch could tell a countryman as much as he needed to know. As a mother to the future Dilberne heir she was acceptable. Glossy coat, even teeth, regular features and a soft voice which made the American accent almost quite bearable. She looked genial and docile enough. She might even have an intellect, though he did not think that was what his son currently looked for in a woman. Compared to the Austrian girl, whom Isobel had brought along presumably in the interests of comparison, there was no contest. A pity for the Ambassador’s family that though the boy had got looks, the daughter had not: plain girls were hard to marry off.

And then his Lordship concentrated on his dinner – he already rather regretted choosing the truffles; they tasted, if you could taste them at all, of something mildly rotten – and trying to extract such information from von Demy about the naval bases as the latter was willing to divulge. The diplomatic game being played in Europe and in the colonies, as the major powers vied for long-term influence and control in the world, was so much more interesting than Fisheries, where he feared he was destined. Remarkable how quickly one’s area of interest changed when one’s gold mine was sabotaged by enemy irregulars. On the other hand if he got Fisheries and a regular income the irritating problem of money would go away.

After those at the table had consumed the
hors d’oeuvre
, the sole, the
tournedos
, and the partridge, time came for the
soufflé Curaçao
. A hush descended upon the restaurant and even the waiters paused, trays poised above their heads for a
second, as in a stop-motion film. Dame Nelly Melba, fresh from the Opera House and that evening’s triumph in
La
Traviata
, was entering Pagani’s sumptuous arched lobby, unbooked and requiring an after-show supper with friends. Space was made for her party, chairs found, menus produced, the kitchens kept open: no trouble was too great. Her dress was elaborate, frilly, and emerald green, trimmed with fur. She bore herself theatrically, but with majesty.

‘She’d not be a beauty back home,’ said Tessa in far too loud a voice. ‘What’s all the great hoo-hah? Look at the size of her nose!’

‘Do hush up, Mother,’ said Minnie, gently, and Tessa did. ‘You know you tell me yourself to mind how quiet everyone is over here.’

She’s a nice girl, thought Isobel, not spiteful or condemning when others would be. Minnie would do very well for Arthur; she might be a little too clever for him but one can’t have everything.

‘Minnie can sing better than Melba,’ Tessa was saying, ‘she’s been to all the finest teachers in Chicago. Not so loud of course but with far less crackling.’

No, upon enquiry, it turned out Tessa had not heard Melba live but on a phonograph. Therefore the ‘crackling’. Everyone looked at her strangely. But then a little later Tessa came out with ‘We’re a Donegal family, sure, lots of labouring cousins back in the bogs of the old country, but Billy’s cut them out of the will, the lot’s going to Minnie,’ which was obviously aimed at the Dilbernes, and not the Austrian party. Young Jan clearly had a bad head for wine – probably unused to it – and was looking flustered and altogether ineligible, the carved young lips floppy rather than strong, the eyes bleary not alert, and in general seeming not so much youthful as unformed.
Arthur, on the other hand, was looking very well, strong and Byronic, his mother thought, mature and more than eligible. The high white collar of the shirt framed his face, the white set off his high colour, and his curly hair sprang with such energy from his head no barber could ever reduce it to ordinariness. The flavour of the aristocrat clung to him – a mildly petulant air softened by habitual courteousness, a heightened sensuousness kept coolly under control – yes, if Minnie was a catch for her wealth, so was Arthur for his birth and breeding. His silence, for he was hardly talkative tonight and his mother wondered why, could, she hoped, be mistaken for gravitas and strength of will.

The fact was, though Isobel was not to know this, for her back was to the entrance lobby, that during the
borscht
course, Flora had entered the restaurant in the company of the Honourable Anthony Robin, a slim, lordly fellow whom Arthur knew, having fagged for him at Eton, where he was familiarly known as Redbreast, and known him later at Oxford, where he had been, like Arthur, a member of the Bullingdon Club. Flora in Pagani’s? This was just not right. With another man? With Anthony bloody Robin of all people? She had slipped off a white mink stole and handed it to a waiter. When did she last have a fur stole? She was looking rosy and very happy, like a girl having a good time rather than a girl earning a living, her smile friendly enough and not calculated. Though perhaps – could one really tell? She was wearing a silky white dress, uncorseted, with leg of mutton sleeves and little white satin bows fastened everywhere. Her hair was piled up loosely as Arthur’s own mother sometimes wore hers. Redbreast was looking unbearably proprietorial.

Flora caught Arthur’s eye and gave him a little apologetic smile, which made him suspect her the more. The two of them
were led to one of the more private booths where diners who did not want to attract too much attention were put. Now he could not see them but watched as champagne and lobsters went to their table.

He tried to pay attention to what was going on at his own table but it was difficult. Mother was unashamedly hurling the O’Brien girl at him. He’d hoped she’d forgotten all about the marrying money business, but apparently she was still bent on it. The O’Brien mother was a nightmare, a circus act, she hooted when she laughed and threw herself about all the time as though she had all the space in the world, which he supposed in her own country one did. The girl didn’t seem, well, objectionable. She looked virginal enough but then so did Flora. He marvelled at how the worst kind of woman looked no different from the purest kind. Prostitution was meant to show in a woman’s eyes, in the hardness of her glance, but in his experience this was by no means the rule. The effects of poverty would show, in tired skin, a mean look, hardness of expression, but not always the effects of disreputable character. He wondered briefly what the reality behind Minnie’s gentle demeanour might be, but did not dwell on it. He was too taken up with outrage at thoughts of white-bosomed Flora and Redbreast conjoined that were too disgusting to face. He felt ill. Yet it was not as if he loved Flora. Men didn’t love whores, they used them. No, the problem was that she was taking advantage of him. He was paying for exclusive rights, and she was failing in her side of the bargain. She was royally cheating him, taking him for a fool. Exclusive, my foot!

When, over coffee, his mother suggested he accompany Minnie to the Victoria and Albert Museum to view the oriental ceramics, Arthur did not have the emotional energy to wriggle out of the arrangement. He found he had agreed to
call for Minnie at two the next afternoon. Von Demy then suggested that Jan and Janika came along too, and Arthur agreed to this too though Mama was looking daggers. Better four of them than two; conversation would be easier. With any luck Jan would know about steam cars and leave the girls to look at old bits of heathen china to their hearts’ content.

He thought it was strange that when their party was leaving his father caught sight of Flora and said, ‘But isn’t that—?’, and then broke off, and when Isobel quizzed him, said, ‘Oh, nothing. Just the way that nowadays the strangest people get to the grandest places.’

Not that Pagani’s was in the least grand, Arthur thought. Gold wallpaper and a sprinkling of famous people with greenery-yallery pretensions did not make a place grand. Give him Rules or the Savoy Grill any day. Though the food hadn’t been too bad. The
perdreaux voisin
was just plump partridge slices on lettuce leaves with some kind of red sweet sauce. The meat baron’s wife was like a rather plump partridge herself. The daughter was like the
sole Pagani
, delicate and fresh with chewy bits in the sauce, mussels and prawns.

But Flora, ah, Flora, she was the
soufflé Curaçao
, evil, frothy and aromatic, and infinitely desirable. He realized he too had drunk quite a lot, especially of the Saint-Estèphe, the better to blot out the infernal vision of Flora and Redbreast in each other’s arms.

Angry People

4.30 p.m. Friday, 27th October 1899

If Grace was angry with her Ladyship for ignoring her advice, and found it painful to realize just how lightly she, Grace, could be relegated from almost-friend to mere employee, Mr Eric Baum was incensed with the whole Dilberne family. They had mocked him and made light of him and worse, had failed to realize just how much consideration he offered them – running half the way from Lincoln’s Inn to Belgrave Square, kept waiting first on the step and then for breakfast – or even to take seriously how much they owed him. Money came easily to them, but had not to him. But it was not just his pocket they had hurt, but his pride.

Grace had gone straight down to the servants’ hall where they were having tea to let everyone know that Miss Minnie O’Brien, soon to be affianced to Master Arthur – not that the girl knew anything about it, but her Ladyship had set her mind on it and wouldn’t stop until she had her way – was not just a fortune-hunter but a title-hunter too and no better than she ought to be. But all that happened was that the staff ganged up against her.