Alice in Exile by Piers Paul Read

Author:Piers Paul Read
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Part Three

One

On the first morning of their honeymoon on Lake Como, Edward and Elspeth Cobb ate their breakfast at a table placed by the window of their room. It looked out over the lake to the sheer mountains behind. There was a sheen on the still water below and a ground mist that made it seem as if the mountains were detached from the earth. However, neither Edward nor Elspeth looked at the view. Both their heads were bent over newspapers, one a local paper published that morning in Como that had been delivered with their breakfast, the other the Corriere della Sera bought at Milan’s Termini station where they had changed trains the day before.

Elspeth wore a light peignoir over her nightdress. This was the first time she had worn it – it was part of her trousseau – and she looked dazzling, like a great amaryllis or a cluster of double-lilac in flower. It was clear, however, from the way in which she concentrated, with a slight frown, on what she was reading that Elspeth was not thinking about how dazzling she looked; and it was also apparent that Edward, her husband, when he shifted his chair to face the shadow, did so to escape not the radiance of his bride but the glare that came from the sunlight and its reflection on the lake. His expression, like Elspeth’s, was serious because the dispatches they were reading were grave: the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria had been assassinated in Sarajevo.

Elspeth understood Italian imperfectly and Edward hardly at all. By applying his schoolboy knowledge of Latin and French, Edward managed to decipher some of the Italian text; every now and then he turned to Elspeth and asked her the meaning of a word. More often than not, she simply said, ‘No,’ meaning that she did not know it. Edward showed no irritation or disappointment: he had not married Elspeth for her knowledge of foreign tongues.

* * *

Why had he married Elspeth? The simple answer he gave when he asked himself this question was that it had been the obvious thing to do – obvious to the Cobbs, particularly Sylvia, to Elspeth’s parents, the St Gileses, to all his relatives and to most of his friends. The course was set for his meteoric career as a statesman, for which he needed a suitable wife. Alice Fry had been an aberration, all the more easily forgotten because she had disappeared off the face of the earth.

Elspeth was more than a suitable wife for a prospective Parliamentary candidate; he was to a large extent her creation. Edward recognised that he would not be where he was without her and that with her he would go further and faster than if he remained on his own. She loved him – that was never in doubt; and they got on together exceptionally well. They had a similar background, shared interests, the same sense of humour; and, to top it all, Elspeth was generally acknowledged to be one of the great beauties of her year.

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