Snobs: A Novel

'Come, by all means. I can't be put off. I miss alone or accompanied. Won't Charles mind?'

'No. He's much happier with George. He says I talk too much.'

They were driving a high wood, quite a way from the house and the guns were placed in a semi-circle around the base. I had originally drawn the number two, so now, on the fourth drive of the morning, I was in position eight and at the end of the line. Edith and I pottered across the field to the numbered stick that beckoned me, and there we waited.

'Do you really enjoy this?' she said, moving over and leaning against the post-and-rail fence.

'Certainly I do. I wouldn't be here if I didn't.'

'I thought you might have accepted to study me in my splendour.'

'You're right. I might have done. But, as it happens, I do enjoy it. It was kind of you to get Charles to ask me.'

'Oh, it wasn't my idea.' She paused. 'I mean, of course, I'm perfectly thrilled you accepted, but it was Googie who proposed you.' She had long ceased to notice that she used her in-laws' tiresome nicknames.

'Then it was kind of her.'

'Googie is seldom kind for no reason.'

'Well, I can't imagine what her reason could be.' The whistle sounded so I loaded my gun and stared at the tops of the trees. If anything, my turning away from Edith seemed to relax her.

'She's worried about me. She thinks I'm bored and you'll cheer me up. She imagines that you're a good influence.'

'I can't think why.'

'She thinks you'll remind me how lucky I am.'

'And aren't you?' Edith made a wry face and stretched along the fence. 'Oh dear,' I said. 'Don't tell me you're bored already.'

'Yes.'

I sighed slightly. I cannot pretend the idea of Edith's discovering that kind hearts mean more than coronets and simple faith than Norman blood was exactly surprising. I suppose I'd thought it was bound to happen sooner or later but even bearing the previous evening in mind, this really did seem unreasonably early. Like most of her friends, I hoped that by the time she had made the time-honoured discovery that you can only sleep in one bed or eat one meal at a time she would have children to give her a genuine and unfeigned interest in her new life. And after all, whatever one might say of Charles, he did have a kind heart and, I would have thought, a pretty simple faith. I could feel an admonishing spirit rising in me as I spoke.

'What exactly are you bored with? Charles? Or the life? Or just the country? What?'

She didn't answer and my attention was taken by an extremely high bird heading my way. I vainly lifted my gun and blasted away. The pheasant flew merrily on.

'I must say,' I continued, becoming slightly more conciliatory, 'it seems a bit rough to be starting your married life under the same roof as your parents-in-law — capacious as that roof may be.'

'It isn't that. They offered us Brook Farm.'

'Why didn't you take it?'

Edith shrugged. 'I don't know. It seemed rather — poky.'

Of course, it was suddenly quite clear that the real problem was she was bored to sobs with her husband. Her life was just about acceptable in the magnificent surroundings of Broughton Hall where there were people to talk to and where there was always the heady wine of envy in others' eyes to drink but to be alone with Charles in a farmhouse… That was out of the question.

'If you're so bored, why don't you spend more time in London? We never see you there, now.'

Edith stared at her green Wellington boots. 'I don't know. The flat's tiny and Charles hates it so. And it's always such a bloody production.'

'Couldn't you sneak up on your own?'

Edith stared at me. 'No, I don't think so. I don't think I should, do you?'

I stared back for a moment. 'No,' I said.

So that was it. She had barely been married eight months and already her husband bored her to death. On top of that she was afraid of starting up a life in London because she knew that, without a shadow of a doubt, it would engulf her entirely and at once. She was at least sufficiently honourable about the Faustian pact she had made to wish to keep it.

I smiled. 'Well, to quote Nanny: you would do it,' I said. She nodded rather grimly. 'Whom do you see down here? Not much of Isabel, I'll be bound.'

She pulled a face. 'No. Not too much, I'm afraid. I've been made to feel that I've failed David. He keeps dropping hints about shooting for one thing and I simply haven't dared tell them you were coming today.'

'Won't Charles have him?'

'Oh, it's not that. I mean he would if I asked him but, you know, it's just a different crowd whether they like it or not. And David can be a bit…' she paused, 'naff.'

Poor David! That it should come to this! All those years of Ascot and Brooks's and drinks at the Turf! And the end of it was that Edith was embarrassed by him. Harsh world. I was not completely complicit, although of course I knew what she meant.

'You'll have to tell him I was here. I'm not having Isabel finding out and thinking we're in league against her.' Edith nodded.

'What about this "different crowd"? Are they fun?'

She sighed, idly scratching a bit of dried mud from her Barbour. 'Terrific. I know almost everything there is to know about estate planning. I could list the parts of a horse in my sleep. And what I haven't learned about running a charity is, believe me, not worth knowing.'

'You must get about a bit, though. Isn't that quite interesting?'

'Oh, it is! Did you know that in Italy the bowl of water in front of your place is to dip your fruit in, not your fingers? Or that in America you must never discuss acreage? Or that in Spain it is the crudest social solecism to use a knife when eating an egg however it may be cooked?' She paused for breath.

'I didn't know about the egg,' I said. She was silent for a while and I had another go at a bird passing overhead. 'There must be some of them you like.'

'I suppose so.'

'What about the family? Do they know how bored you are?'

'Googie, yes. Not darling old Tigger, of course. He's much too dense to notice anything that doesn't hit him over the head.

Caroline, I think.'

'And Charles?'

Edith looked up at the woods above us for a moment. 'The thing is, he finds it all so riveting that he is quite sure that, as I get into it, I will too. He sees it as a "period of adjustment".'

'That sounds very sensible to me.' Of course, as I said these words, I realised I was failing her by taking Charles's part.

But I couldn't, for the life of me, think of any other line to take. The simple fact remained that she had married a man who was, through no fault of his own, much duller than she was, for the purpose of her own social advancement. That was the deal she had made. No amount of fretting was going to make Charles witty and dynamic, and I already doubted that Edith was prepared to rejoin the mortals on the tier from which she had so lately risen. She had that common twenty-first-century desire, namely to have her cake and her half penny too. 'Surely there must be a lot to do? Didn't you have great schemes of combing the attics and re-writing the guide book?'

'There really isn't anything in the attics except for a lot of Victorian furniture. Googie rescued all the good stuff years ago.

And the librarian got rather ratty when I suggested putting a bit more about the family into the book.' She yawned. 'Anyway, Tigger and Charles were so completely uninterested. They think it's rather common to know too much. It was a bit disheartening in the end.'

'Then you'll have to find something else to take up. I can't believe you're short of offers from the local charities.' Even as I spoke I knew I was sounding more and more like a German governess but the truth was I felt like one, watching this spoiled beauty pouting against the fence.

She sighed drearily. 'So I suppose you're saying I've just got to tough it out?'

'Well, haven't you?'