Page 42 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

What he liked best on those evenings was when he was dummy and could walk about and talk to other guests, and the supper break when everyone was released from the table. Mrs Asquith – always known as Margot – had an unfettered intellect and a wild spirit. It puzzled many how she and the dry, lawyerly, widowed Asquith had come together. She had a passion for politics, and since her husband told her everything, and she held nothing back, Richard found his visits to Cavendish Square not only lively but informative. Mr Asquith seemed to be the coming man, and Mrs Asquith spoke openly of him as prime-minister-in-waiting. Richard wondered whether their combined indiscretion would cause problems if he ever led a government.

It was axiomatic that one social event begets another: at A’s card evening you meet B, who invites you to their soirée, where you meet C, who asks you to dinner, and so on. And the personable bachelor is always at the top of every hostess’s list. By the time the Season got into full flow in May, Richard was besieged by invitations every time he came up to Town. Out of curiosity, and for variety, he decided to sample the artistic circle – writers, poets, painters, sculptors – of the Morrells, who functioned a little further east from the Asquiths, in Bedford Square.

Lady Ottoline Morrell was more aristocratic than Margot Asquith, having been born a Cavendish-Bentinck, but like her had married a commoner. Philip Morrell was the Liberal MP for Henley (where Uncle Sebastian had his house) and in fact had been adopted as candidate under the patronage of Mr Asquith, which Richard thought simply proved that everyone in London was connected to everyone else. As further proof of the theory, at his first Morrell soirée he found Mawes Morris among the guests.

Morris came straight to Richard with a genial grin. ‘Well met, Tallant! What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were interested in things artistic.’ Before Richard could answer, he opened his eyes wide and lowered his voice. ‘Don’t tell me you’re Ottoline’s latest lover! I thought you had to write a book or paint a picture to be invited into her bed. She is lovely in a sultry, brooding sort of way, isn’t she? But I always thought she looked rather as though she ate her partners after mating.’ Richard glanced around uneasily and tried to shush him, but he shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, everybody knows and nobody minds. The Morrells both fish in the open ocean, with each other’s full knowledge and permission.’

‘In that case, thank you for warning me,’ Richard said. ‘I shall view all baited hooks with suitable suspicion. In the same spirit of enquiry, what are you doing here?’

‘Oh, no, no, no – I’m far too old and fat to be in danger! And I’m strictly monogamous. I’m invited purely as a Renaissance man, for my various artistic gifts. I shall probably be asked to play the piano later.’

‘You’ve been before, then?’

‘Several times. I come en garçon – Isabel finds them uncomfortably pretentious – but Ottoline wants me to paint her portrait, and I must say I’m tempted. One feels it was for her that chiaroscuro was invented.’

‘I feel even more out of place now,’ Richard said. ‘All I can do is talk. I’m here at the end of a chain of acquaintance that started with the Asquiths.’

‘Ah, yes – now Margot Asquith has a fascinating face. I’d love to paint her, but I fear one could never get her to sit still for long enough.’

‘You know them?’

‘Of course.’ Morris seemed surprised at the question.

Richard laughed. ‘Of course it’s “of course”. You know everyone, don’t you?’

‘Not quite everyone,’ Morris said modestly.

‘Well, I’m coming up fast behind you. Isn’t that Ivor Wentworth over there?’

‘Oh, yes. You know him?’

‘I know his work. And he teaches at the art school my sister is attending.’

‘I met him last year at a dinner at the Cowlings,’ Morris said. ‘Rather a loss to society this year, the Cowlings – our dear Nina is increasing and has rusticated herself, and he spends every moment he can spare from business at her side. Ah, now there’s someone I don’t know.’

Richard looked, and laughed. ‘I was thinking a little while ago that it’s a very small world, and here’s more evidence! That very handsome female is Lady Shacklock, the wife of a neighbour of mine. I don’t see her husband anywhere, though. Perhaps she’s here without him. He’s not very convivial.’

‘Seize the opportunity of his absence, then, and introduce me,’ said Morris. ‘If those diamonds are genuine he is a rich man, and rich men with beautiful wives generally want their portrait taken.’

‘You are shameless!’

‘A man with a coal bill the size of mine can’t afford shame. Lead on!’

Lady Shacklock was not interested in Mawes Morris and made it so plain that after a few moments of polite chit-chat he excused himself and went away. Richard would have done the same, but she immediately said, ‘How comfortable it is to see a familiar face! Dear Mr Tallant, I have been in Town a week – what news of Canons Ashmore? Large parties can be such a bore, don’t you think? Especially among the Bohemian set. Literary people talk about nothing but the iniquities of their publishers. And painters talk only about affaires, their own or each other’s, which is worse.’

‘If the company is so disagreeable,’ Richard asked, ‘why did you come? I see your husband is not here, so he can’t have made you.’

‘Oh, Henry never goes to parties if he can help it, and he doesn’t care for Town. Ottoline and I are old friends. Our fathers were in the army together and Henry approves of army people so he never minds my coming to visit her.’

‘Perhaps I should tell him next time we meet that I was in the army. I don’t think he approves of me very much.’

‘Oh, no, he quite likes you.’

‘I’m sure I’d never know it.’

‘But I’ve never once heard him say he’d like to horsewhip you, which is a sure sign,’ she said encouragingly. The peacock feathers fastened in her hair with a diamond clip nodded. ‘It’s your brother he can’t bear,’ she went on, with what he was discovering was a devastating frankness. ‘Because of the archaeology, you see. He thinks Lord Stainton is an intellectual, and he despises intellectuals. He often says his father never read a book in his life except for the Army List, and was all the better for it.’

‘I don’t think my father ever read a book either,’ Richard said. ‘When the estate hit hard times, the one thing that didn’t get sold off was the library. Not because my father couldn’t bear to part with the books, but because he didn’t realise they had any value.’