Chapter 1 - The Countess

London, 1921, was just coming out of the post war malaise but not had not yet heard the full roar of the flapper’s decade when Bill Wood entered the Ritz Hotel for the first time. Noel Coward was entertaining, loudly, in the main dining room. The place was packed with famous people he would have loved to have interviewed, but today he was being led to a private dining room for a meeting with a little known author whose novels might be described as difficult. He was no critic, but fiction without a discernible plot was certainly an intellectual exercise.

Darcey Foskett, the Countess of High Wycombe, was radiant. For a woman in her early forties, she was extraordinarily well preserved. Her natural blonde hair, green eyes and near flawless ivory skin could still turn every male head in the room. Also at the table was Margaret Goodchild, her personal maid. They both stood and the Countess held out her hand. It was the softest skin young Bill had ever felt.

“Delighted to meet you, Mr Wood, won’t you please take a chair?” Margaret took that as a signal to leave them alone.
“Yes ma’am … your ladyship … Countess …Lady Wycombe” – one of them had to be correct – and they sat down.
She smiled “At least you didn’t bow. To you, Darcey, but strictly speaking, which I rarely do, it’s Lady High Wycombe. Countess should only be used for royals.”
“Lady …” he paused as she put her finger to her bee-stung lips. “Darcey, not that I am not extremely flattered but, why did you want to see me? I do not review books or write about Society.”
“Edmonia described you as someone I might be interested in. She was very impressed with your article about her in The Manchester Guardian.”

Lady Edmonia, who hated the title but was not above using it to get a better seat, was the Countess’s middle child and quite a character. Few women turn up to an interview in a double breasted leather jacket and jodhpurs. Even fewer have blue hair and matching make-up. The referenced article had been about the next stage for the suffragettes, once they had the vote.

“I was impressed with her. She is a remarkably intelligent and assured woman.” Bill opined.
“And she was impressed with you. In fact she was very excited. She is an unusual girl.”
“Unconventional maybe, but all the more intriguing because of it.”
“Are you really surprised? You have researched our family, I assume.”

Bill nodded. He knew the Earl was a post-impressionist artist of some note who very quickly had to marry his young Anglo Irish model, when she was just 18. Among their friends were Virginia Woolf, her sister Vanessa Bell, the critic Clive Bell, E.M.Forster and John Maynard Keynes. Having attended Oxford, if only briefly, the Earl was never considered a full member of the Cambridge educated Bloomsbury Group. It is not wholly true that Cambridge represents the radical and Oxford, the establishment, but it was not an entirely amicable relationship.

The philosophy of the group was to challenge everything: how you wrote a novel; how you painted a picture; how you lived your life and who you slept with. They were what are known as High Bohemians; liberals and libertines, well off, and/or talented, enough to behave how they wanted without materially affecting their lives. Based on this knowledge, maybe Edmonia’s freedom of thought was to be expected.

The Countess continued, “She told me you did not judge her. Most journalists would have forgotten about her politics, and concentrated on her appearance, but you are different. I want you to come to our house, and stay for a while, if you think you can handle it. You can take what you want from the experience but it would be educational to see how another writer interprets our way of life. One thing though, Mr Wood, you must let me vet anything you intend to print, but I am sure you will be skillful enough to avoid specifics. Now, while you think over my offer, let us eat.”

That was just too much temptation for Bill. What could possibly be so shocking that names needed protecting? In addition, he was equally fascinated by Edmonia’s excitement as he distinctly remembered being convinced that she batted for the other team.