‘What a dreadful routine.’
‘I don’t think I’m going to recommend it to Mrs Blunden, my lord. She’s a great believer in salads, the wife.’
‘No sustenance in salads, that’s what my father used to say. Never mind. Have you noticed something odd about the servants here, Inspector?’
‘I wouldn’t say I’ve had the time to do that yet, my lord. There’s a lot to think about round here.’
‘The curious thing about the servants at Candlesby Hall is that there aren’t any. Not in the conventional sense anyway. No parlourmaids, no ladies’ maids, no kitchen maids, no laundry maids, all of whom would be young and lively and frequent bait for resident younger sons, no young footmen, no young coachmen, no trainee gardeners. The minimum age of the staff here is about fifty years. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Sandy Temple, friend of Lady Lucy’s sister’s daughter Selina, was sitting in the armchair by the side of the fire normally occupied by Lord Francis Powerscourt. He felt slightly guilty, Sandy, until he remembered Lady Lucy telling him and Selina that they were to treat the house as if it were their own and she hoped they would enjoy their brief spell together. Sandy usually came home in time for tea and went back to his own quarters after supper. But now was not a time for frivolity. Sandy had been asked for a political judgement by his immediate superior at The Times and he was determined to succeed.
On his lap was a large black book with ruled pages. On the floor beside his chair were a series of smaller notebooks that might have fitted in a pocket. These were the shorthand books he kept of the debates in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In the black book was the voting record of the Lords on all the bills that had been sent up to them from the Commons in the present Parliament. Sandy was making a list of all those peers who had opposed government bills. Those who had voted against the Asquith government twice got two stars against their name and so on. The number of rebels grew longer with the passage of time. Soon there were some peers with five stars against their name, joined by other new recruits with only one.
‘Sandy, my love! How nice to see you! I’ve had such a tiresome afternoon at the V amp;A! I’ve ordered tea.’
‘Bear with me a moment, Selina. I’ve got to finish this off today.’
‘What is it?’ asked Selina, keen to be involved in the great work of journalism.
There was a silence while Sandy added yet more names to his list. This is how it will be, Selina thought suddenly, when we’re married, if we’re married. Some husbands spend their time deep in the form book or the cricket scores. Mine will be ensconced in the parliamentary reports in the newspapers. Sandy knelt down and picked up one of his shorthand notebooks.
‘I’m trying to work out, Selina, the likely size of the majority if the House of Lords throw out Lloyd George’s Budget.’
Selina had listened to enough conversations on the subject of Lloyd’s Budget to realize that this was very important. If pressed, she would have said that she thought this Budget had something to do with the poor and with big ships with a funny name but she wasn’t quite sure; politics had never really interested her very much.
‘I thought people said the Lords wouldn’t dare throw it out,’ she said, wondering how long this rather tiresome diversion was going to go on.
‘Selina, please,’ said Sandy, in an irritated voice, ‘I’ve got to add up four columns of figures in a moment. Could I ask you to keep quiet until I’ve done that? Please?’
Selina felt tempted to ask how long this was going to take but thought better of it. She watched as Sandy’s pen flew up and down the columns on his page. Even he was surprised by his figures. If you added together all those peers who had voted against one or more of the government’s bills when they reached the House of Lords, you would have not just a majority, but a landslide.
‘That’s it, Selina. I was fairly sure before I started. They’ve got a huge majority against the Budget, if they want to use it, the Conservative leadership in the Lords. It’ll be political dynamite. God knows who it might blow up, maybe the government, maybe the Lords. It could even backfire.’
Tea appeared at that moment and Selina busied herself with the role of hostess. ‘What are you going to do with the figures, Sandy?’ she asked.
‘These figures here about the potential size of the majority? I have to take them to my boss at The Times. I don’t know what he’s going to do with them. I’ve just got time to drink this cup of tea.’
‘I haven’t told you, Sandy, we’ve been invited to stay in Norfolk for the weekend. In a rather grand house too. I think Lady Walpole’s a friend of my mother’s; that’s where the invitation comes from.’
Selina was wishing she could lure Sandy over to sit beside her on the sofa. It would be much more cosy but she didn’t want to be interrupted by someone coming back for the tea things.
‘Will she be one of those hostesses who puts up lists of where everybody is sleeping?’ said Sandy. ‘A chap told me about all that the other day.’
‘I don’t think it would apply to us, anyway. You’ll be in the bachelors’ wing, I expect, and I may get a room on my own somewhere. We’ll have to wait and see.’
Sandy brushed a crumb or two off his jacket and started out for Westminster. He was just on the far side of the door when Selina called to him.
‘I’ve just thought of something, my love. She probably has a couple of peers who come for the weekend. Think about it. You’ll be able to ask them in person how they’re going to vote.’
12
It was going to be a great day at Candlesby Hall. Today was the day Richard, the new Earl, was to be installed and to take his seat in the House of Lords in London. His robes were ready for collection at a traditional tailor’s tucked away in the side streets of Westminster. His two supporters, both diehard opponents of Lloyd George’s Budget, were ready to welcome him in and see him through the ceremonial. He would be joining, one of the supporters had assured him, not just one of the most historic and most ancient chambers of its kind in the world, but the ranks of those who were not prepared to abandon their ancient freedoms to the whims of a tainted majority and who intended to oppose the dictatorship of the Liberal proletariat by voting against Lloyd George’s Budget.
His brothers Henry and Edward were going to travel down with Richard and observe the ceremony from the gallery. And because this was such an important day Richard had decreed that they should travel in a special train, with accommodation reserved for them and for them alone. There was a dining car, a luxury lounge car and a private carriage for Richard, who wished to be left alone on this journey to contemplate his responsibilities and think about what he would say to his fellow peers. He had realized that he didn’t have to give his maiden speech on the day he was introduced, but he thought he had better consider it anyway. This train had been booked a week or two earlier when the date of the ceremony became known. It was waiting for them at Boston station at ten to eleven in the morning, getting ready to depart at eleven o’clock sharp, as the horse-drawn carriage with the three brothers rode up to the station. Two guards in their uniform of dark jackets and the green cord waistcoats of the Great Northern Railway escorted the new Lord Candlesby to his special coach.
‘Just to remind you all,’ the new Lord Candlesby said at the top of his voice to all those within earshot, ‘I am not to be disturbed. It is a very great responsibility for a man to take his seat in the House of Lords.’
As he watched his brother strut his way into the private carriage Edward Dymoke decided that he now sympathized with the more radical brethren who thought the House of Lords and the hereditary peers who made up its numbers should all be abolished.