his scattered clothes and then climb into bed and fall promptly asleep. That would be that for the day. He would stretch out a companionable hand when she joined him and she had no sense that he didn’t love her – just that he was exhausted. He never slept in his dressing room – she would have to be grateful for that, she supposed. Some women would be glad enough to be left alone and spared a baby but she was a different kind of woman.
When Isobel came down from Belgrave Square it would be with a bevy of architects and designers, but they seldom had much to say for themselves, or else, more likely, saw no advantage in making themselves pleasant to Minnie, she being married and a mother. If the Earl came it was mostly to see how the shoot was coming along for the Autumn – foxes were being quite a pest this year – or to talk about the Matumbi rebellion at Samanga, and he would think the less of her if she admitted that she had no idea what he was talking about.
She never seemed to meet anyone young and lively. Arthur had his cluster of workshops near the Big Gates at the end of the oak drive and had moved the motor works offices into the Gatehouse itself – modernized by Norman Shaw in 1890 from the original Palladian for Robert’s father; everything, everything, had a history and the past was always being used to justify the present – so Minnie seldom met his colleagues and if she did they talked only about transmission gears and exhaust valves. Since Minnie’s ill-fated excursion to Tilbury Isobel had not invited Minnie to Belgrave Square at all. It seemed Isobel no longer wanted advice: she wanted the new, improved Dilberne Court to be hers and hers alone. Yet when the Earl died – God forbid – would not she, Minnie, be Countess and Isobel relegated to Dowager Countess and no longer be in charge? Should not she at least be consulted? Some things were owed to history, and this debt did not involve conceding to Mrs Keppel’s taste in all things bamboo and bright. Plumbing and wiring was one thing, flock wallpaper and chintz another. She was amongst Philistines.
She thought about Diana and her brother Anthony: they were her kind of people, but they’d flashed before her eyes like a tantalizing mirage, only to be snatched away by fate. Anthony had curious eyes, dark fringed and almond shaped. She had taken Thoreau’s Walden out of the Boots Library in Brighton as soon as she got home to Dilberne, and read it and loved it but there was no one to talk about it with. Arthur liked the way gears worked, not the way trees grew.
She hated the way she was finding fault with everything and everyone. And now they were singing the last verse of the Reverend Stacey’s favourite hymn about the Mercy Seat.
Poor tempest-tossèd soul, be still;
My promised grace receive;
’Tis Jesus speaks – I must, I will,
I can, I do believe.
Well, like Mr John Newton the slave trader, she was certainly tempest-tossed. She remembered what her mother always said: ‘God helps those who help themselves.’
She would have to help herself if she wanted this dark cloud of sorrow to pass, and she would. I must, I will, I can…
His Lordship Gets Away
20th August 1905, The House of Lords
Reginald was waiting in the trap when his Lordship left the church. He was to catch the train back to London. The Ngindo tribesmen in German East Africa were causing trouble again – it was primarily a German problem but unrest had a habit of spreading. Lansdowne of the Foreign Office had called him to the Cabinet table – along with Sunny Marlborough and Alfred Lyttleton – for a consultation; the last thing Lansdowne wanted was a premature showdown with the Kaiser, but the excesses of the German governor, Peters, must be challenged in some way if a rebellion was to be avoided. Peters’ tendency was to slaughter not negotiate, finding the latter tedious. Better for him to ship water into drought areas and relieve famine, but cheaper and easier to
When Isobel came down from Belgrave Square it would be with a bevy of architects and designers, but they seldom had much to say for themselves, or else, more likely, saw no advantage in making themselves pleasant to Minnie, she being married and a mother. If the Earl came it was mostly to see how the shoot was coming along for the Autumn – foxes were being quite a pest this year – or to talk about the Matumbi rebellion at Samanga, and he would think the less of her if she admitted that she had no idea what he was talking about.
She never seemed to meet anyone young and lively. Arthur had his cluster of workshops near the Big Gates at the end of the oak drive and had moved the motor works offices into the Gatehouse itself – modernized by Norman Shaw in 1890 from the original Palladian for Robert’s father; everything, everything, had a history and the past was always being used to justify the present – so Minnie seldom met his colleagues and if she did they talked only about transmission gears and exhaust valves. Since Minnie’s ill-fated excursion to Tilbury Isobel had not invited Minnie to Belgrave Square at all. It seemed Isobel no longer wanted advice: she wanted the new, improved Dilberne Court to be hers and hers alone. Yet when the Earl died – God forbid – would not she, Minnie, be Countess and Isobel relegated to Dowager Countess and no longer be in charge? Should not she at least be consulted? Some things were owed to history, and this debt did not involve conceding to Mrs Keppel’s taste in all things bamboo and bright. Plumbing and wiring was one thing, flock wallpaper and chintz another. She was amongst Philistines.
She thought about Diana and her brother Anthony: they were her kind of people, but they’d flashed before her eyes like a tantalizing mirage, only to be snatched away by fate. Anthony had curious eyes, dark fringed and almond shaped. She had taken Thoreau’s Walden out of the Boots Library in Brighton as soon as she got home to Dilberne, and read it and loved it but there was no one to talk about it with. Arthur liked the way gears worked, not the way trees grew.
She hated the way she was finding fault with everything and everyone. And now they were singing the last verse of the Reverend Stacey’s favourite hymn about the Mercy Seat.
Poor tempest-tossèd soul, be still;
My promised grace receive;
’Tis Jesus speaks – I must, I will,
I can, I do believe.
Well, like Mr John Newton the slave trader, she was certainly tempest-tossed. She remembered what her mother always said: ‘God helps those who help themselves.’
She would have to help herself if she wanted this dark cloud of sorrow to pass, and she would. I must, I will, I can…
His Lordship Gets Away
20th August 1905, The House of Lords
Reginald was waiting in the trap when his Lordship left the church. He was to catch the train back to London. The Ngindo tribesmen in German East Africa were causing trouble again – it was primarily a German problem but unrest had a habit of spreading. Lansdowne of the Foreign Office had called him to the Cabinet table – along with Sunny Marlborough and Alfred Lyttleton – for a consultation; the last thing Lansdowne wanted was a premature showdown with the Kaiser, but the excesses of the German governor, Peters, must be challenged in some way if a rebellion was to be avoided. Peters’ tendency was to slaughter not negotiate, finding the latter tedious. Better for him to ship water into drought areas and relieve famine, but cheaper and easier to
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