As the butler opened the door he caught Julian checking his watch.
“Not the last to arrive, by any means, sir,” he assured him. “Must be the weather, sir,” he continued in the deferential manner that all the best servants adopted to ensure the upper classes never felt themselves to be in the wrong.
The dining room was on the first floor, facing the street. Julian helped himself to a glass of champagne from a tray, and went over to join the other members of the lunch party who were standing at the open window.
He was surprised to see Lottie, swinging her elegant legs, sitting on the high window seat next to Rupert. Why wasn’t she in the country?
“Hallo, Julian, you didn’t think I would miss a good party did you?” Her carefree tone was at odds with the apprehensive expression on her face.
Julian managed a smile.
“Hallo, old chap,” Rupert said. “Good of you to prize yourself away from all those lectures to join us! And how is the world of the legal wizard?”
“The law term hasn’t begun yet,” Julian replied quickly. “But you made it safely back from Berlin in the Talbot then I see?”
“Ran like the wind, it did.” Rupert replied confidently, but looking strangely sheepish.
“So sorry your mother isn’t getting any better,” Julian said.
“Thanks, old chap. I must remind Bettina that we should go down and see Mama soon. Awfully difficult to know what to say to someone who doesn’t even know us. And that sister of mine is so busy playing games with a new German soldier friend she met at a party for the new German ambassador. She says he’s going to take her to Berlin to show her the sights! Anyway, have you been down to Cuckmere recently?”
Julian murmured that he had, not wanting to admit that he went to see Joan (and everyone else at Cuckmere) every week, and more recently every couple of days. He kept to himself the disapproval felt by the Cuckmere staff, who had not seen either of Lady Joan’s children for a good couple of months.
Julian turned his attention to the noise coming from the direction of Piccadilly Circus. As the sound of chanting grew louder, the first of several hundred brown flat caps appeared in the street below the window, looking like a field full of flattened molehills, their blue and white banners plainly visible, rising above the caps. Two of the men were carrying a coffin-size container beneath the protection of several battered umbrellas. Another was holding the lead of a Labrador. The dog was moving as slowly as the men.
“It must be the ship builders from the North with their petition for Downing Street,” a member of the lunch party called out from inside the chandelier-hung room.
“Yes, that’s right,” confirmed another, leaning precariously far out of the window to get a better view of the street. “I can see that redheaded MP Ellen Wilkinson,” he added. “Apparently she has marched with them all for miles. She cannot be more than five foot tall.”
Julian was silent. The sight of the slow steps of the Jarrow marchers, who had been on their feet for over three weeks, was one of a desperateness that he had not encountered since his visit to Wigan over six months ago. He had read about the march in the newspapers of course and barely a day had gone by since last April without him thinking of the men standing on those street corners, looking forward to nightfall when another day without work or pay would be over. Further north eight men in ten were said to be unemployed, and since business at Palmers’ shipyard on the Tyne had dried up, the figure was sometimes even higher. But these men who had arrived in the heart of London, just a few feet from where Julian held a brimming glassful of champagne, were passing through one of the richest, most privileged areas in the country. Oh yes, he thought, cynicism washing over him. Most onlookers agreed they were witnessing dignity, pride and courage. But the point was what was anyone, what was he, doing about it?
Slamming his glass down hard on the table beside him he heard it crack. He turned away from the window, tripping over a well-known member of the peerage, who was lying at full stretch in an armchair, blowing smoke rings from a cigar and managing to yawn at the same time.
Lottie looked up from her position on Rupert’s knee.
“You off then?”