Page 89 of The Gathering Storm

‘Sucked in?’ James queried.

Charlie looked a little embarrassed. ‘The Duke’s accustomed to having equerries, you see, and he’s no good at being on his own. He tends to buttonhole you, and I haven’t time to hang around and chat. Don’t take me wrong, he’s an excellent fellow, and we’re very proud to be hosting his wedding, but with so much to do in such a short time …’

James’s duties did not take him into the château very often, but he did encounter the Duke now and then, walking the dogs around the gardens, or setting off for a round of golf on the eighteen-hole course in the grounds. His bow was met each time with a blank look and the merest twitch of acknowledgement. James was sure the Duke had no idea who he was.

He was an odd-looking soul, James thought, so thin and small and undeveloped – James towered over him – that he looked from a distance like a fourteen-year-old boy. His hair was flaxen and still thick, but close to, his face was covered with fine lines, like the glaze on an old piece of china, and there were heavy bags under his eyes, and a wattling of the flesh under his chin. And his left eye was noticeably lower than the right. Even when he smiled, his expression was sad: he didn’t seem at all like a bridegroom. But one day James saw him approaching the house just as Mrs Simpson stepped out of the front door, and then his face lit up with an expression of almost religious adoration.

Mrs Simpson, when he was presented to her, looked him over intently but unsmilingly. She was terribly thin, with bad skin, a big nose and a big chin with a slash of scarlet mouth in between, shiny black hair tightly drawn back, smart, elegant clothes and some very sparkling jewellery. He could not for the life of him see what there was about her to make her worth a kingdom – and yet, there was that look on the face of the Duke. It was, he thought, like the rapture of a lost toddler who suddenly spies its mother again.

His job involved a lot of driving: meeting people at the station and fetching things from the town. He had to collect Mr Main Bocher and his retinue of assistants, who brought The Dress and conducted a final fitting; the next day it was a Mrs Spry to do the flowers, and Mr Cecil Beaton, to do the official photographs in full costume. The rosy-cheeked maid, whose name, he had discovered, was Cécile, was upset about that, saying it was bad luck to wear the wedding dress before the wedding day. James was called into the château to help with the photography session, since Mr Beaton was making all sorts of demands about moving furniture, lights, mirrors and drapes, which Mrs Simpson was countermanding as fast as he ordered. Neither of them spoke any French. He was approaching the door of the Red Sitting-room when he heard Mrs Simpson’s harsh bray: ‘Where’s that young man, the tall one – Bedaux’s assistant? He speaks French. Get him here – he might as well earn his keep.’ And when he entered the room, she said, ‘Oh, there you are!’ as though he had been keeping her waiting. ‘Tell these people I want that armoire moved – it’s hideous. And I want the two lamps from the Music Room brought in, the ones with the glass shades. And the blue-and-green rug from the Library, the one by the window at the far end.’

The Duke, in his morning-suit, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, was standing by, looking on helplessly. He reminded James of a clockwork toy that hadn’t been wound up.

Later he had to collect the clergyman from the station. Under French law, there had to be a civil ceremony before the mayor; but the Duke was determined they should be married by the Church of England rite. The Archbishop of Canterbury had forbidden any Anglican priest to have anything to do with it, and things were looking desperate when a letter came from a Reverend Robert Jardine, the vicar of a poor parish in Darlington, offering to perform the ceremony.

Jardine was a short, red-faced man with thinning black hair carefully eked over his scalp; his suit was worn at the seams. He chatted to James all the way back to the château. He thought it a disgrace, the way the ex-King had been treated. If a man had a sincere desire to wed the woman he loved under the auspices of the Church, no man, even the archbishop, ought to deny him. He didn’t care a fig for the archbishop, anyway – Lang was an ecclesiastical cad. Suppose the ex-King were to have his throne restored to him, where would Lang be then, having snubbed him? The Church, in any case, was stuffy and outdated, riddled with prejudice and back-scratching. There was no future in it for a modern thinker, or an ambitious man without the right contacts. He was thinking of emigrating to California.

At the château, they set about creating something like a chapel in the Music Room with a massive oak chest for an altar and a fine white tablecloth for an altar cloth. Chairs for the guests were arranged before it. A plain silver cross and silver candlesticks had to be borrowed from a nearby Protestant chapel to stand on it – Jardine wouldn’t have a crucifix. Then Mrs Simpson demanded more candles: the whole ceremony was to be candlelit. Electric lamps were tacky. She ordered more mirrors to be brought in to reflect the candles, and directed where they were to be put. Here. There. And there. A little more to the left. A little higher. That’s it. James wondered what Fern would think about the nails being hammered into her newly restored woodwork.

On the eve of the wedding James had to go to Tours station and meet the last two guests. Emma, in a close hat and a fox fur over a dark cloth suit, stopped in astonishment, then came towards him with outstretched hands. ‘James! What on earth are you doing here? Surely you don’t know David and Wally.’

‘No, I’m Charlie Bedaux’s assistant. I’ve worked for him on and off for years.’

‘Well, it’s wonderful to see a friendly face,’ she said.

Kit shook his hand. ‘How are things at the château? Is it all tantrums and scalded cats? Or is everything proceeding calmly, like a liner gliding across a tranquil sea?’

‘A bit of one and a bit of the other. I think we’ve got it all set out now, barring last-minute changes. I can’t help feeling,’ he added, carrying Emma’s bag to the car, ‘that a wedding would go off much more smoothly if there were no bride and groom involved.’

‘Especially this bride and groom,’ Kit said, heaving the other bag in beside Emma’s.

‘I’m sorry about the car. The press are everywhere, and they know the good motors by sight, so we have to trundle about in these battered things we’ve borrowed from the neighbours. Charlie calls them the Old Contemptibles.’

‘Who else is here?’ Kit asked.

‘The Metcalfes, of course. Mrs and Mrs Rogers have arrived, and I picked up Mr Monckton this afternoon. Mrs Simpson’s Aunt Bessie has been here for a while.’

‘Is that all?’

‘I understand so. Well, there’s Charlie and Fern, and me, of course – if you count us.’

Kit looked at Emma. ‘So it’s come to this – only seven English people will witness the wedding of the man who just six months ago was King of England and Emperor of India.’

‘Actually, I’m not sure if I’ll be at the ceremony,’ James said. ‘I’m not a guest, you know, just an assistant, and I’m staying in the staff wing. In fact, I may even be told not to talk to you once we get there. Mrs Simpson doesn’t like the staff taking liberties – she likes the distinctions to be maintained.’

‘If I know Wally,’ Kit said, ‘and I do, she’ll want you at the wedding, for decoration. She likes handsome young men. I hope you have a good suit with you?’

The wedding day was fine: sunshine, clear skies, and a very light cooling breeze. Charlie went over to the château after breakfast, and returned with an order from Mrs Simpson that James was to attend the ceremonies, ‘in case any translations need to be done’. So Kit had been right, James thought.

The mayor arrived promptly at noon to perform the civil ceremony in the Library, wearing over his suit an immense red-white-and-blue sash.

‘It’s lucky they’re the colours of America and Great Britain as well as France,’ Baba Metcalfe said to Emma, ‘or it might be seen as a revolutionary taunt to a king without a throne.’

The civil ceremony was short, registers were signed, and then everyone passed into the Music Room, where the carefully placed mirrors reflected a prodigious twinkling from the multitude of candles, and from the bride’s diamonds. Wally was in her Main Bocher gown: floor-length and close-fitting in ice-blue crêpe, under a tight, boxy jacket with long sleeves and a ruched bodice, and a halo-shaped straw hat with a tulle half-veil. Fruity Metcalfe was the Duke’s supporter, and Herman Rogers gave away the bride.

‘I think the hat is a mistake,’ Kit murmured to Emma. ‘Straw? Too picnic-like. I’d have thought a tiara …’

‘Ssh!’ Emma said.