He growled at me by way of recognition but I was not offended. I had by this time forgiven Eric his earlier insults and anyway one of the freedoms of growing older is that one is no longer obliged to dislike someone simply because they dislike you. After all, he was entitled. Lady Uckfield had made no secret of how little she relished his company and had, somewhat maliciously I suspect, used me at times to demonstrate this.
'I suppose you still see them all?' he said when his wife had stopped discussing her new Poggenpohl kitchen.
I nodded. 'We've got a baby now so a bit less than I did. But yes, I see them.'
'And is dear Edith happy in her work?' Of course, it was quite understandable that he should be irritated when he contemplated one who had survived the course that had brought him down.
'I think so.'
'I'll bet she is. And how is darling "Googie"?' He spat out the name just as I had once heard Edith do before her rehabilitation. Now, for her at least, the name had re-normalised. 'I wonder what my dear ex-mother-in-law thinks of all the recent developments.'
'Oh, I'd say she was pretty merry, one way and another,' I said, for all the world as if I thought he cared, and we nodded to each other and moved on.
As I strolled away to rejoin Adela for tea with Louisa in the Household Stand I pondered my answers and concluded that I had spoken no more than the truth. Of course, as everyone had predicted, the children had changed everything. One may be exhausted but there is little time to be bored with two children under four, particularly as Edith, to her mother-in-law's bemusement, had eschewed a proper Norland nanny and chosen instead to have a series of Portuguese and Australians.
Charming girls, one and all (or nearly all), but not the type to take over the nursery as their province. I thought it a wise decision and so, I was pleased to note, did Charles.
But as to quite what Lady Uckfield really made of it all … One would have to get up very early in the morning to know precisely what she thought about anything, earlier than I rise, certainly. We were not, as I had predicted, quite such friends after the reinstatement of Edith. Although I have not yet given up hope of regaining my former position of Court Favourite.
Poor woman, she had allowed herself to dream a little during the interregnum and the imagined life she had woven for herself with dear Clarissa or one of her kind as junior chatelaine had filled her with happy prospects. Ironically her imaginings had not been all that unlike the despised Mrs Lavery's. Lady Uckfield, too, had seen herself as a special friend of her daughter-in-law's family. The two grandmothers would lunch together perhaps and take in an exhibition… So it was hard to reconcile herself to the Return of Edith, not least because she had allowed herself the rare luxury of admitting what she really felt while Edith was away. Worse, she had confessed these secrets not only to herself and her husband, which was bad enough, but to me, a non-relation. In doing so she knew she had given me a weapon. From now on whenever she referred to 'our darling Edith' there was a risk that I might catch her eye if I so wished and in her heart expose her. I had no intention of doing this but the threat of it introduced a coldness between us nevertheless. I was and am sorry but there is nothing to be done about it. Meanwhile, Adela and I continue to stay at Broughton pretty regularly.
I remember once Lady Uckfield did let herself go a little. There had been a dinner party and the guests were spread out in knots over the drawing room and the Red Saloon next door. Edith was at the centre of an admiring group, for you will understand that a lot of people had a good deal of ground to make up having dropped her during her period of exile. One might have thought that those who had been loyal, Annette Watson for one, would have been rewarded with a shower of invitations but I don't believe they were. Perhaps this was predictable. Anyway, on this particular evening, surrounded as she was, Edith made some remark, I forget what, which was greeted with gales of sycophantic laughter. I was alone, having helped myself to some more coffee, so there was no one to overhear when Lady Uckfield drew level.
'Edith Triumphans,' she said. I nodded. But she would not let it go. 'To the victor the spoils.'
'And is Edith the victor?' I asked.
'Isn't she?'
'I don't know.' I shrugged. I imagine I was attempting to be philosophical and by an easy and familiar transition had become dishonest.
'Of course she is the victor,' said Lady Uckfield, quite truthfully. 'You have won.'
Now this was irritating. She was right about Edith, I do admit, but not about me. If anything I had always been a partisan of the Uckfields during the struggle for Charles's soul and she knew it. 'Don't blame me,' I said quite firmly. 'You asked me not to encourage her and I didn't. It was your own daughter who arranged it all, not me. The fact is Charles wanted her back.
Voilà tout. He must know what's best for himself, I suppose.'
Lady Uckfield laughed. 'That, of course, is precisely what he does not know.' Her tone was a little bitter but more predominately sad. It was also, as I knew it must be, the tone of resignation. 'I told you I didn't believe they would be happy and I wait anxiously to be proved wrong. However,' she waved her little claws and the jewels in her rings flashed in the firelight, 'the thing is done. We must make the best of it. It is time to move on to the next square. Let us at least hope they will be no less happy than everybody else.' And she was gone.
Would they be less happy than everybody else? That was certainly the question. Although she had returned to him without treaty, Edith had nevertheless wrung some considerable concessions in the process. To start with she had grasped the folly of her earlier belief that it was safer to be bored in the country than entertained in London and she had persuaded Charles into a house in Fulham, which had been purchased for more or less what the little flat in Eaton Place had gone for. Now she allowed herself a day or two in London a week. She had also found some committees to sit on and had become involved, down in Sussex, in the actual day-to-day running of a hospice near Lewes. All in all, she had started to evolve the life she would be leading at sixty when she herself, never mind everyone else, would have forgotten that there had ever been a hiccup in her early married life. I thought, on reflection, that it all boded quite well.
We went down to Broughton two or three times a year as a rule. Adela and Edith were never much more than amiable with each other but Charles became very fond of my wife and so we were easy guests, I think. We enjoyed it as, apart from anything else, we had a baby in tow and the houses we could stay in without feeling that we had imported a miniature anarchist were few. Our son, Hugo, was about five months older than Anne and that ensured a measure of shared activity, accompanied by a good deal of merriment from both mothers. It is a truism but it is still true that the longer one knows people the less relevant it becomes whether or not one liked them initially. As I knew from my friendship with Isabel Easton, there is no substitute for shared history and it was clear that by the time ten years had passed, my wife and Lady Broughton would think of themselves as close friends without ever necessarily liking each other much more than they did to start with.