‘Ah!’ he cried, greatly relieved, ‘here come the others at last.’
A buzz of lively conversation could be heard approaching down the corridor. Mrs Lace took up a position by the window, twitching at her fox. She opened her eyes very wide and assumed an expression of romantic gloom.
The door burst open. Lady Marjorie, radiant and beautiful in white crêpe-de-chine with a huge black hat, appeared hand in hand with Mr Wilkins. She looked the very picture of happiness. Mr Wilkins looked the same as usual, except for his smart grey suit and buttonhole of a red carnation. Immediately after them came Lady Fitzpuglington, escorted by a well-known statesman and followed by a flock of smart and glittering young people, which included Poppy St Julien.
Lady Fitzpuglington, considering what her feelings must have been on the subject, had behaved extraordinarily well to Marjorie over this marriage. She had made three earth-shaking scenes about it, after which, seeing that nothing she could say would avail to alter the girl’s determination, she had given way with a good grace, merely stipulating that the wedding itself should be kept absolutely private, in order that the Duke of Dartford’s feelings might be spared as far as possible.
‘There’s nothing to be done,’ she told her brother. ‘Marjorie is of age and madly in love, therefore nothing I can say or do will stop her. We must make the best of a bad job and be thankful that divorce is such an easy matter in these days. Poor Mr Wilkins, of course, doesn’t want to marry her in the least, but there it is, poor man. Now, if Puggie had only taken my advice and left her a minor until the age of forty, how different it would all have been. We should at least have had some hold over the little idiot then.’
Her ladyship’s brother did not reply. He thought that the unlucky Fitzpuglington, floating as he had been, a six months corpse in the Atlantic when his daughter was born, might be excused for having failed to provide against her passion for Mr Wilkins. Lady Fitzpuglington was noted in the family as being an adept at loading her own responsibilities upon the shoulders of other people.
Mrs Lace noticed that the ladies of the party were not curtsying to Noel – even his hostess had not greeted him. She found this puzzling. Surely in London he did not preserve his incognito. Also she was very much annoyed when she saw that the other young women present were every bit as pretty as she. She thought their clothes excessively boring, however. They were all of the plainly tailored variety, consisting of little suits or crêpe-de-chine dresses covered by thin woollen coats. Mrs Lace only cared for fancy dress. She wished, all the same, that she had put on something a trifle cooler, she was boiled in her riding habit.
‘I say, darling,’ whispered one of the pretty ladies to Marjorie, ‘is that a fortune-teller over by the window, or what? And who is that lovely mad-looking girl with no hat?’
Major Lace now appeared. He had been best man to his friend and had only just got away from the registry office. Mrs Lace, for once in her life, was pleased to see her husband. In all this large gay crowd nobody was paying any attention to her; she almost felt that she would be glad to be back in Chalford again where she was the undisputed belle.
‘Are you going to marry Union Jackshirt Aspect?’ Eugenia asked Poppy.
‘Yes darling, I am, isn’t it wonderful. My husband was rather tiresome about it at first, but now he’s really behaving quite well and I think, with any luck, he ought to let me divorce him.’
‘Why?’ asked Eugenia.
‘Well, it’s not usual for ladies to be divorced, you know, my sweet, and the old boy has always been a great one for etiquette. Those detectives were never anything to do with him at all, just down there for a hol. we found out afterwards. Awfully funny, really, when one thinks of it. Will you come to my wedding, Eugenia?’
‘I will, and we’ll have a Social Unionist guard of honour, if you like. I hope you will be very happy, Cousin Poppy St Julien, and continue to work for the Cause after your marriage.’
At luncheon Jasper and Noel sat one on each side of Mrs Lace.
‘By the way old boy,’ Jasper said to Noel, leaning across her, ‘I don’t want that job of yours any more. Poppy and I got forty thousand pounds for the tiara, you know, and I think of standing for Parliament or something like that as soon as the divorce is over. It occurred to me that if your Viennese business doesn’t come off as you hope, you might care to go back to Fruel’s. Sir Percy seems quite anxious to have you there again. I went to see him yesterday about a few investments I am making.’
‘Too kind of you,’ said Noel.
Faint suspicions, shadowy doubts which had long been gathering in Mrs Lace’s mind were thus rudely confirmed. She would not, however, allow her brain to take in the full-portent of all this until she was safely in her first-class carriage, alone with Major Lace. Then she cried and cried. Major Lace supposed that she was in the family way again. She was.
Afterwards, Jasper said to Noel, ‘Was it tactless of me to mention Fruel’s like that? It occurred to me, too late, that perhaps you would really feel safer if she thought you were abroad?’
‘She seems just about as ready to wind it all up as I am. I do think girls are queer.’
‘Perhaps she has found out something to your discredit.’
‘I don’t suppose any such thing,’ said Noel, peevishly.
‘Bit tired of you perhaps?’
‘Certainly not. The girl is madly in love with me, madly, but the husband has been cutting up rough and all that, and naturally she can’t face leaving the children.’
‘That must be a great relief for you, old boy.’
After luncheon the elder statesman made a speech proposing the health of bride and bridegroom. It was a long speech with rather poor jokes distributed like sugar plums here and there. Lady Marjorie replied to it, as Mr Wilkins was too bashful. She said that it was fearfully kind of everybody to give her a second lot of wonderful wedding presents so soon after having the first ones returned. The second ones were much the nicest, too. She was fearfully happy, she said, inconsequently, and indeed this was apparent to all beholders. She hoped that everybody would come to her house-warming party when she and Mr Wilkins had returned from their honeymoon and settled in Carlton House Terrace, where she had bought a house. ‘In fact, you can all come and stay if you like,’ she added, ‘as we shall have quantities of spare rooms.’
‘Good,’ said Jasper, ‘“where I drinks I sleeps” has always been my favourite motto.’
Eugenia was now called upon, and leapt to her feet without the smallest diffidence, amid ringing cheers. She said that she was sure nobody could grudge any amount of gorgeous wedding presents to such a heavenly person as Lady Marjorie, or to such a brave Union Jackshirt as Mr Wilkins. In any case they certainly took with them on their honeymoon any amount of good wishes from herself and all the members of the Chalford Branch. As for the spare rooms, she said, it was to be hoped that they would soon be quite filled up with healthy little Aryan babies. The company then rose at her suggestion and sang:
‘Land of Union Jackshirts,
Mother of the Flag.’
*
Two days later Noel was back once more in the office of Fruel and Whitehead. Miss Brisket, Miss Clumps and Mr Farmer sat as of old in their appointed places. Noel was just coming to the end of a long telephone conversation. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ he was saying, in a firm and final voice, ‘not sufficiently attractive.’
FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, AUGUST 2010
Copyright © 1935 by Nancy Mitford
Introduction copyright © 2010 by Charlotte Mosley
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Thornton Butterworth, Ltd., London, in 1935.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. A
ny resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mitford, Nancy, 1904-1973.
Wigs on the green / by Nancy Mitford; introduction by Charlotte Mosley. —
1st Vintage Books ed.
p. cm.
Originally published: London : T. Butterworth, 1935.
eISBN: 978-0-307-74137-0
1. Sisters—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6025.I88W54 2010
823′.912—dc22
2010021931
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.0
Nancy Mitford, Wigs on the Green
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