Page 32 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)
CHAPTER EIGHT
Chelsea was a little out of the way, but Sybil Colefax, wife of the MP Sir Arthur, gave good parties and knew everybody through her interior decorating company.
Argyll House was an exquisite early Georgian building by Leoni, on the King’s Road, with a symmetrical brick facade of two storeys, five twelve-paned tall sash windows, and a parapet hiding the roof.
‘It’s such a pretty house,’ Emma said, as she and Kit stepped through the front door into the hall, which was wood-panelled and always smelt delightfully of rosemary. ‘Too small, really, for grand parties, but she always carries it off.’
‘And what a treat it will be to hear Rubinstein,’ Kit said. ‘I believe he hardly ever plays for private parties.’
The first people they saw were the Duff Coopers.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Diana said. ‘You know the King and Wally are coming? And the Vansittarts, and the Hardinges, so just a small table. With the King mooning over Wally, and the Hardinges fuming in silence, we’ll need you to keep the conversation going. ’
‘Lots of others are coming after dinner for the music,’ Duff said. ‘The Mountbattens, the Winston Churchills, Kenneth Clark and his wife, the Princesse de Polignac—’
‘Alone?’
‘I believe she’s still between lovers,’ said Duff. ‘Emerald Cunard, Noel Coward—’
‘Rubinstein and Noel Coward?’ said Kit. ‘Is Duke Ellington invited, to complete the set?’
‘HM requested him.’ Duff rolled his eyes. ‘I think he’s gone completely potty,’ he said, barely bothering to lower his voice. ‘Not only going to the Ascot races in the middle of court mourning, but parading Wally in a royal coach! Does he think people don’t care?’
Alec Hardinge and Nelly joined them and caught the last sentence. ‘ He doesn’t care,’ Hardinge said.
‘Even I was shocked,’ Nelly said, ‘and I’ve almost got used to his antics.’
‘If only he’d marry, he could have any mistress he liked,’ Alec mourned. ‘Nobody’s asking him to be celibate.’
‘I heard a rumour they’re trying to arrange a marriage for him with Alexandrine of Denmark,’ said Emma.
‘Desperation,’ Diana snorted. ‘They tried to get him to marry her mother twenty-five years ago. It will never happen.’
‘Perhaps he’ll settle down, once he’s got used to being King,’ Kit said.
‘He can hardly carry on like this without being committed to a lunatic asylum,’ Hardinge said bitterly.
Dinner was excellent, and afterwards the great Polish pianist was escorted to the piano in the great hall.
The guests mingled, chatting, mostly about politics, until Sybil got everyone to sit down and hush.
The King made a great fuss about seeing that Wally had a good seat, close to the piano, then seated himself on a stool next to her.
Quiet fell, and the maestro began to play an étude by Chopin.
It was not long before the King began to fidget, and addressed a remark to Wally in his strangely high-pitched voice and his peculiar accent, part-Cockney, part American.
His talking become more frequent during the second piece, almost non-stop during the third, and when Rubinstein doggedly prepared to play a fourth, the King got up (which meant, of course, that everyone else had to rise) and walked over to the performer to say loudly and terminally, ‘We enjoyed that very much, Mr Rubinstein. Thank you.’
It was the royal dismissal. In the shocked silence that fell, everyone could see Rubinstein was furious. ‘I am afraid you do not like my playing, Your Majesty,’ he said, in a low voice, but the King had already turned away, looking for Wally.
The Princesse de Polignac – formerly Winnaretta Singer, the sewing-machine heiress – was next to Emma and said in a low, angry voice, ‘Such appalling rudeness! It would never happen in France.’ She was a musician herself and hosted musical salons in Paris.
‘Or in America. Mr Roosevelt might have picked “Home On The Range” as his favourite tune, but he knows how to behave to a guest.’
Sybil hastened to thank Rubinstein and, buttering hard, escorted him from the room. The Clarks, perhaps pointedly – he was the Director of the National Gallery and the Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, a very cultured man – attached themselves to the group and left also.
The King was not in the least abashed. Happy with Wally once again firmly attached to his side, he asked Noel Coward to play and sing for them.
Coward looked embarrassed, but could not refuse a royal command.
He assumed the seat just vacated by the world’s greatest proponent of Chopin, and hesitated with his hands above the keys as if wondering what on earth it would be appropriate to play.
‘My God, the poor sap,’ Kit whispered to Emma. ‘I hope he doesn’t give us Liszt, or HM’s head will explode.’
Wally broke the deadlock, ‘Let’s have “Mad Dogs And Englishmen”,’ she commanded.
Meekly, Coward complied, and followed it with ‘Don’t Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mrs Worthington’, and the King applauded each loudly, though as he had talked all through both numbers he could hardly have heard them.
* * *
The Bedaux party stayed in Stockholm for almost a week, partly to get over the shock, and partly for various diplomatic currents to settle.
The Swedes were neutral, but had always been more Russophile than the other Baltic countries, so there was a delicate balance to be struck.
Charlie, who bounced back in his usual fashion, took the opportunity to visit several model factories – Sweden was known particularly for its arms, automobile and machine manufacturing, and it was a chance to compare with similar American businesses.
Fern, whose nerves were very shaken, booked sessions with hairdressers, manicurists and masseurs, until she felt well enough to look at some shops.
James would rather have gone straight to Paris.
He was longing to see Tata. And he longed to be somewhere where he spoke the language.
Although most Swedes spoke very good English, Swedish was impenetrable to him and the written script had some peculiar symbols, which left him with that same nightmarish feeling of not knowing what was going on.
He was suffering from an underlying feeling of shame.
He had been so afraid, and the memory unmanned him.
Three of his cousins had fallen in the war, Jack and Bertie had been in it from the beginning, even Jessie had nursed at the Front amid falling shells and strafing Fokkers.
James was too young to have fought, but he had always assumed that if the occasion had arisen, he would have faced danger as bravely as they did.
Instead, he had quivered like a jelly merely at being questioned.
He tried to tell himself that facing shot and shell in hot blood would be different from the horrible creeping terror of interrogation and torture, but it didn’t help much.
He stayed in his room and brooded, until youth and strength restored his shaken nerves, and boredom drove him out to discover that Stockholm had several very fine art museums.
But at last they were free to leave, and Charlie, as eager as James now to get home, arranged for them to fly.
This time, not being afraid for his life, James was able to enjoy the experience, and the many stops they made.
Paris grew larger and more beautiful in his mind with every mile travelled, and the image of Tata’s laughing face was inextricably linked with it.
The strength of his feelings for her had surprised him: he had assumed no-one would ever take Meredith’s place, but his love for Meredith now seemed a mere boyish fancy.
It was not real. With Tata, he had filled every sense, and satisfied his mind as well.
He closed his eyes and daydreamed about how the reunion might go.
He was always happy in her company. She was beautiful, intelligent, warm, funny.
What more could a man want? Suddenly he knew he must ask her to marry him.
The thought sent a flood of happiness through him, and he began to plan how he might do it.
A little supper, champagne, perhaps a walk along the quai in the moth-haunted June twilight.
He would turn to her, take her hand; he would say …
It was late when they finally landed at Le Bourget.
There was a car waiting for Charlie, and he dropped James at his lodgings and told him to take a few days off.
‘We’ll talk about all this next week. Fern and I are going to the chateau for the rest of the week so I won’t need you.
’ He owned the Chateau de Candé, on the banks of the Indre in the Touraine.
‘But drop in at the office now and then to see if there are any messages. You can ring me if there’s anything you think I need to know.
’ He’d had the telephone installed in the chateau when he’d bought it in 1927, when such a thing was almost unheard of.
Telephone and inside lavatories and bathrooms with running hot water … The locals had been dumbfounded.
That night James slept like the dead, and woke the next day filled with such relief to be home that he felt light and refreshed.
He jumped from his bed to bathe and dress and hurry out, took a café complet in the rue des Saules, then walked for the sheer pleasure of it through the familiar streets.
Tata would be at school at this time of day, but it was a poor Parisian who could not amuse himself with strolling and sitting for a few hours, especially when he had a woman with midnight eyes and a dancer’s grace to fill his reveries.