Taking Liberties. Diana Norman

to receive condolences, the Dowager Countess circled the great room at her slow, giraffe-like pace to remind the more raucous groups by her presence of the respect due to the departed.

      There was a hasty ‘We were remembering, your ladyship …’ and then reminiscences of Aymer’s japes, the time when he’d horsewhipped a Rockingham voter during the ’61 election, when he’d thrown his whisky and cigar at Jane Bonham’s pug because it yapped too much, causing it to burst into flame, the time when … Endearing eccentricities of the old school. ‘We won’t look on his like again.’

      There was necessity for only one verbal reproof. Francis Dashwood was being overloud and humorous on the subject of her husband’s last illness – Dashwood of all people – and met her arrival with defiance. ‘I was saying, Diana, the pox is a damn hard way to go.’

      The Dowager Countess hooded her eyes. ‘For your sake, my lord, one hopes not.’

      She passed on to where Alice was exciting herself over the alterations she proposed for Chantries. ‘… for I have always thought it sadly plain, you know. Robert and I plan something more rococo, more douceur de vivre as the French say, more …’ Her voice trailed away at the sight of her mother-in-law but she rallied with triumph. ‘Of course, dear Maman, none of this until we have altered the Dower House à ton goût.’

      The Dower House, the overblown cottage on the estate that Aymer had used as a sexual playroom for his more local liaisons. She had never liked the place. Robert and Alice were expecting her to set up home in it – the conventional dower house for the conventional dowager – no doubt to spend her days embroidering comforts for a troop of little Alices and Roberts. Extend twenty-two years of imprisonment into a lesser cell.

      ‘Make it nice for you, Mater,’ Robert said.

      ‘Thank you, my dear boy.’ This was not the time to discuss it, nor did she want to hurt him, so she merely said gently: ‘We shall see.’

      He was, and always had been, her agony. It had been a mistake to have the baby in her arms when Aymer strode into the room after the birth; it should have been in its cradle, she should have pretended indifference, complained of the pain of its delivery. Instead, she’d been unguarded, raw with an effusion of love. Immediately, the child had become a hostage.

      She had failed her son, could have failed him no more if she had run off; he’d been taken away from her: a wet nurse, a nurse, a tutor, school – all of them chosen to distance her from the boy and put his reliance on the caprice of a father who’d both terrified and fascinated him. Her mind trudged round the old, old circular paths. Should she have stood against Aymer more? But revenge would have been visited on the boy as much as her; warring parents would have split him in two. Yet what had she been to her poor child? A figure drifting mistily on the edge of a world in which women were cattle or concubines.

      By the time she’d achieved some definition of her own, it was too late; both son and mother were too distanced from each other for the relationship that might have been. Individuality had been stripped from the boy, not a clever child in any case, and he’d opted for a mediocre amiability that offended no one and proved impossible for his mother to penetrate. She’d tried once to explain, said she’d always loved him, was sorry … He’d shied away. ‘Can’t think what you mean, Mater.’ Now, here he was at twenty years old, a genial, corpulent, middleaged man.

      And devoted to his wife. Whatever else, the Dowager Countess could have crawled in gratitude to her daughter-in-law. In this sallow, jealous little woman, Robert had found refuge and clung to her like ivy to a wall, as she did to him.

      The couple talked to each other always of things, never ideas, but they talked continually; they were happy in a banality in which Diana would have been pleased to join them if Alice hadn’t kept her out so ferociously that Robert, once again, was taken from her.

      Yes, well.

      Tobias was at her side. ‘A methenger for Lord North, your ladyship.’

      Alice almost elbowed her aside. ‘What is that, Tobias?’

      ‘Methenger at the door, your ladyship. For Lord North.’

      ‘I’ll see to it.’ She bustled off.

      Tobias hovered. ‘A letter came today, your ladyship,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘Addrethed to the Countess. Her ladyship took it.’

      Diana said lazily, ‘Lady Alice is the Countess now, Tobias.’

      ‘I think it wath written before hith lordship died, your ladyship. It wath for you.’

      ‘Then her ladyship will undoubtedly tell me about it.’

      Tobias was the most trusted and longest-serving of the footmen but even he must not imply criticism of Alice.

      ‘Diana, don’t tell me you’re retainin’ that balbutient blackamoor. Never could see why Aymer kept him on. Niggers look such freaks in white wigs, in my opinion. And the lisp, my dear …’

      Diana’s raised eyebrow suggested it was unwise of the Duchess of Aylesbury to include ‘freak’ and ‘wig’ in one sentence, the edifice on her grace’s own head being nearly a yard high and inclined to topple, making her walk as if she had the thing balanced on her nose.

      Actually, it was typical of Aymer, on finding that Tobias’s blackness and lisp irritated his guests, to promote him to the position of head footman and thereby confront visitors with his announcements.

      It was also typical of Tobias that he had kept the place by sheer efficiency. Poor Tobias. Alice and Robert, not having the assurance with which Aymer had flouted social taste, would undoubtedly get rid of him.

      North was coming back. Normally those in the room would not have noticed his entrance but they did now. He had a paper in hand and greyness about the mouth. She didn’t hear what he said but the reaction of those who could told her what it was; the man might have been releasing wasps into the room.

      He made his way to her to kiss her hand. ‘Forgive me, your ladyship. I must return to London. The French have finally come in on the side of America and declared war.’

      It had been inevitable. She said coolly: ‘We shall beat them, my lord. We always have.’

      ‘No doubt about it, your ladyship.’ But he looked older than he had a few minutes before.

      She heard Dashwood talking unguardedly to Robert in his loud voice. Dashwood was always unguarded. ‘Bad enough shipping supplies to our armies already, now we’ve got the damn French to harry us as we do it. I tell you, Robert, our chances of beating that lawless and furious rabble have grown slimmer this day.’

      The Dowager was shocked. Locked away in looking after her husband, she had paid scant attention to the progress of the war, assuming that mopping up a few farmers and lawyers, which was all that the population of the American colony seemed to consist of, would be a fairly simple matter. That the war had already lasted two years must, she’d thought, be due to the vast distances the British army had to cover in order to complete the mopping up. That the rebels could actually win the war had not crossed her mind.

      She glanced enquiringly at Lord George Germain who, as colonial secretary, was virtually the minister for war.

      ‘Y’see, ma’am,’ he said, ‘we were countin’ on Americans loyal to King George bein’ rather more effective against the rebels than they’re provin’ to be.’ He saw her face and said hurriedly: ‘Don’t mistake me, we’ll win in the end, but there’s no doubt the entry of the French puts an extra strain on the Royal Navy.’ He brightened. ‘There’s this to be said for them, though, their entry into the war will give it more popularity with our own giddy multitude. They’ve always gone at the frog-eaters with a will.’

      There was also this to be said for the news: it cleared the room. Nearly everybody in it had a duty either to the prosecution of the war or a protection of their investments.

      She was enveloped in the smell of funereal