The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

  The day after his scene with Mrs Lace, Noel was obliged to go to London. His lawyer wanted to see him; a visit to his dentist was becoming necessary. Jasper suggested that as he was going anyway, he should use the opportunity to buy some little present for Anne-Marie.

  ‘I’ve never known it do much harm at this stage in the proceedings,’ he said, ‘and after all, you’re simply stiff with cash old boy aren’t you?’

  Noel said it was no thanks to Jasper if he was. He thought the idea a good one, however, and when he had finished all his business and eaten his luncheon he went to a pawnshop and bought a small but pretty aquamarine set in a ring. The price, as the jeweller told him, was extremely reasonable, and this was because the market had been flooded ever since the sale of the Russian Imperial jewels, which had included several parures of this stone.

  When he slipped his present on to Anne-Marie’s finger he said, to make it seem more romantic, ‘This ring, my beloved, once shone upon the finger of an Empress, but she wasn’t half as beautiful as you.’

  ‘An Empress!’ cried Mrs Lace. ‘How wonderful!’

  Meanwhile arrangements for the pageant were going ahead in good earnest. It had been settled that the inhabitants of the Jolly Roger, Mrs Lace, Eugenia and her Comrades of the Chalford Branch, were to be responsible between them for providing all the clothes and for the opening scene, in which George III would arrive and be welcomed to Chalford House. After this, George and Charlotte, surrounded by their courtiers, were to mount a small platform on which there would await them two thrones, and here they would remain whilst the other scenes, consisting of salient events of the reign, were enacted on the lawn before them. These episodes were being entrusted by Eugenia to various neighbouring branches of Social Unionists, each branch to be responsible for one episode. (Mr Leader and his friends, having learnt that the pageant was in aid of the Social Unionist funds, had politely intimated to Mrs Lace that they would be unable to help.)

  Rehearsals for the first scene had already begun. Mrs Lace, having resigned herself to the dismal necessity of driving with Mr Wilkins, was greatly cheered when Jasper promised her that Noel, taking the part, and wearing the actual clothes of the Lord Chalford of the day, should receive them at the front door, help her from the coach and arm her to the platform, where he would then present an address of welcome. Eugenia, as the Prince of Wales, Poppy as Fanny Burney, and Lady Marjorie as the Duchess of Devonshire, would also be there to greet them with billowing curtsies. Mrs Lace felt that after all there would now be even greater opportunities for interplay of flirtatious gestures between herself and Noel than if they had arrived together in the coach, and was happy. Jasper, when the first rehearsal was over, told Poppy that in the minds of those who saw the pageant horrid scandals would be associated with the hitherto unsullied name of Queen Charlotte.

  Lady Chalford had invited Jasper to write and produce the pageant on the grounds of his grandfather’s well-remembered talent for composing Valentines. Jasper was finding the job anything but agreeable, each decision in turn seemed to give offence to somebody, while Eugenia plagued him unmercifully, insisting that he must introduce a strong Social Unionist interest.

  ‘My dear child, I don’t see how I can,’ he said, in despair. ‘I mean, think for yourself, what have George III and Social Unionism in common? Not one single thing.’

  ‘And what about the Glory of England?’ cried Eugenia, in a grandiose voice.

  ‘Glory of bottoms. The ordinary person simply remembers George III by the fact that he went mad and lost America. That’s all he’s ever supposed to have done for England, poor old boy.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ said Eugenia, ‘If we are having a Grand Social Unionist rally and pageant, Social Unionism has got to come into it somehow.’

  Jasper tore his hair.

  Next day Eugenia appeared very early at the Jolly Roger having spent a sleepless night in the throes of composition. As soon as Jasper was up she handed him a document, which ran as follows:

  SPEECH BY GEORGE III

  Hail! and thanks for all your good wishes, we are happy to be among our loyal Aryan subjects of Chalford and district. In our speech today we thought we would tell you of a very curious prophetic dream which we had last night. We dreamt that by degrees this, our glorious country, will begin to sink into the slush and slime of a decaying democracy. America, as we are sure you must have all noticed with horror, is already tainted with the disease, and we expect we shall soon have to be kicking her out of our glorious Empire; but even this wonderfully foreseeing action on our part won’t make any difference in the long run. Nothing can save our country from a contagion which is to sweep the earth. Never mind, Britons, do not despair, for in our dream we foresaw that when you shall have been plunged into the darkest night, governed (if one can use such a word) by a pack of disastrous old ladies who ought to have been dead for years, a new day will dawn, the old ladies will be forced to retire to their unhallowed beds, and their place at Westminster will be taken by young and victorious Comrades. In those days, the streets will ring with the cry of youths who will march, each carrying his little banner, towards the fulfilment of a Glorious Britain. A new spirit, the spirit of Social Unionism will be abroad in the land, vitality will flow back into her withered veins, hateful democracy will die the death. We will now all sing the Social Unionist Hymn, ‘Land of Union Jackshirts, Mother of the Flag’.

  ‘What d’you think of it?’ asked Eugenia, anxiously.

  ‘It’s a fine speech,’ said Jasper, who had evidently got some beer up his nose and was choking into a handkerchief.

  When Mr Wilkins saw it he said that it was very good but much too long for him to learn by heart.

  ‘Oh! you must try,’ said Eugenia. ‘It would spoil a speech like that if you read it. Learn one sentence every day – you’ve got heaps of time.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Mr Wilkins, good-naturedly.

  ‘I’m hoping,’ continued Eugenia, ‘that you will join the Social Unionist party. You are asked to pay ninepence a month, the Union Jack shirt costs five shillings and the little emblem sixpence. When you have signed on you will be able to use the head-quarters as much as you like. I hope to arrange for instruction in boxing and other Social Unionist sports there soon, and we shall be having a social every Tuesday evening as well. So do join up.’

  ‘Anything to please you, Miss Eugenia, but I’m afraid I don’t know much about it at present. Wait a minute, though, is it against foreigners and the League of Nations, because if so I’ll join with pleasure. Damned sewers.’

  Mr Wilkins had spent several years tea-planting in Ceylon where ‘sewer’ is apparently a usual term of approbrium.

  ‘It is,’ said Eugenia, earnestly. ‘Some of us think of sterilizing all foreigners, you know, but I’m not sure our Captain would go quite as far as that.’

  ‘That’s the stuff to feed the troops! Well done! just what they need. I think Hitler’s a splendid fellow too, although I’m not sure he doesn’t carry things a shade far sometimes. I mean, shoot up the chaps as much as you like, but don’t kill their wives at breakfast – eh?’

  ‘When shooting is in progress,’ said Eugenia, coldly, ‘the woman’s duty is to retire to her proper place, the bedroom. If she interferes in men’s business she must put up with a man’s fate.’

  ‘There’s something in what you say, by Jove; women are a damned sight too fond of poking their noses into things that are none of their business, these days specially. Look here, I’m joining up; what did you say I owe you?’

  ‘Ninepence a month, the Union Jack shirt costs five shillings, and sixpence for the little emblem. You sign here – see?’

  Jasper’s embarrassment as pageant producer reached a climax when Poppy came to him and said, ‘Look here, darling, Marge wants to know whether she can’t be Queen Charlotte instead of Mrs Lace. Do say “Yes”.’

  ‘No, really, I don’
t think she can,’ said Jasper, ‘and anyway why does she want to be, all of a sudden like this?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t want me to tell you, but I suppose I shall have to. The fact is, you see, she’s keen on Mr Wilkins, and so of course she quite naturally wants to drive in the coach with him.’

  ‘Darling Miss Smith, you’ll have to tell her to be sensible. Tell her she can make eyes at him on the platform as much as she likes (she had better take a lesson in amorous gestures from Mrs Lace), but I don’t see how the whole works can be altered now.’

  ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Marge will be simply furious. She is used to getting her own way in life.’

  ‘All I can say is that she must be furious for once. Why, it’s as much as my place is worth to tell Mrs Lace she can’t be Queen Charlotte – Noel would stop paying my expenses down here most likely, if I did, and you don’t want me to go straight back to London, I suppose! No, my angel, I’m sorry but it’s quite out of the question. Tell you what I will do though, if you like.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’ll give you a good bite on the back of your neck.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Poppy, ‘I’m a mass of bruises as it is.’

  The question, however, was by no means dropped, Lady Marjorie herself coming to the charge, hotly supported by Eugenia.

  ‘Is this to be a Great Social Unionist rally, or not?’ the latter demanded furiously, ‘because if it is, it stands to reason that we must keep the best parts for Union Jackshirts. Mrs Lace is not only not one of us, she is a well-known friend of Pacifists – in fact, it would never surprise me if she should turn out to be a Pacifist spy. How absurd then to insist that she shall be the one to drive along hailed by Social Unionist cheers.’

  ‘I dare say, but you should have thought of all this sooner,’ said Jasper, with some irritation, ‘before it was settled. Personally, I don’t give a damn who plays which part, and I wish you were all at the bottom of the sea, anyway, but you might remember that wretched old Local Beauty is slaving herself to death over your dresses, and if she wants to take the part of the least attractive queen in history, I should have thought it would be a matter of ordinary decency to let her. In any case you must arrange it among yourselves, I absolutely refuse to make any such suggestion to her.’

  ‘Oh, well, I see your point,’ said Lady Marjorie, good-temperedly, ‘I’ll ask her myself at the committee meeting tomorrow.’

  Mrs Lace, however, when approached was perfectly firm. She listened calmly while the suggestion was being made, and then said that it was too unlucky, but Queen Charlotte’s dress was now finished, and could never be altered to fit Lady Marjorie, as there were no means of letting out the seams on the hips and round the waist. Marjorie, who had never been spoken to in such a way before, was more surprised than angry, and took her defeat with the greatest of good humour. Poppy and Eugenia were furious, and said afterwards that Mrs Lace was a spiteful cat, and Poppy said at the time to Mrs Lace that as she looked exactly like Queen Charlotte, she was quite right to keep the part. Unfortunately, owing to its target’s total ignorance of English history, this Parthian shaft went wide of the mark.

  Noel and Jasper, who seldom met these days, over a quiet glass at the Rose Revived, made a point of doing so now, and agreed together that women were impossible everywhere, except in what Eugenia had referred to as their proper place. Noel no longer took Mrs Lace’s side on every subject; feeling quite certain, as he now did, of her great love for him, he was able to adopt a high-handed attitude towards her, and was by no means inclined to jeopardize all future relations with Eugenia Malmains on her account.

  Mrs Lace, on her part, secure in the knowledge of her own romantic situation, felt that she could now alienate dukes’ ex-fiancées and earls’ granddaughters with the most perfect indifference. She carried her head in the air and permitted herself the luxury of being extremely disagreeable to everybody except Noel.

  11

  Meanwhile the two detectives continued to ply their lugubrious trade. They appeared to ignore the necessity for repose, and the inhabitants of the Jolly Roger were continually being startled by their appearance in the most unexpected places. They would jump out from dark corners like sinister Jack-in-the-Boxes, at all times of the day and night. It was most unnerving. Finally, Jasper made a heroic if unsuccessful attempt to win their confidence. He stood them drink after drink at the bar. Their heads proved to be of the ox-like variety; and although they unbent after the fourth whisky sufficiently to admit to their profession, and made after the seventh some startling disclosures as to the present tendencies of modern London society, human ingenuity and liberality could push them no further than this. The two things which Poppy was so anxious to find out, namely, whether Anthony St Julien himself was employing them or whether it was the mother of his débutante, and how much or how little they knew of her relationship with Jasper, remained locked in their own bosoms. The end of the matter was that the detectives were obliged to carry Jasper upstairs to bed, where he lay, fully clothed and staring at the electric light bulb until far on into the next day.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said to Poppy, when he had more or less recovered from the attack of alcoholic poisoning which ensued, ‘I am on exceedingly good terms with them now, which is always something. The worst of it is that I rather think I told them about us being engaged. Would that matter, do you suppose?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Poppy. ‘I don’t think it was very clever of you and anyway we’re not.’

  ‘Oh! aren’t we? I thought we were?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Poppy. ‘You might bear in mind the fact that I have a perfectly good husband already, would you?’

  ‘Perfectly good strikes me as an euphemism. Besides, it’s quite obvious to any thinking man that you are heading for the divorce courts at present.’

  ‘That’s no reason for wanting to marry you,’ said Poppy, ‘and anyway I hope you always take very good care to come in through Marge’s room. You do, now don’t you, Jasper?’

  ‘I do when I remember. That sort of thing is so awfully easy to forget.’

  ‘I’d be very much obliged if you would bear it in mind all the same. After all, I’ve only got to hold out for long enough and Anthony St. Julien will be forced to let me divorce him. Then we shall be on clover.’

  ‘Only so-so. Remember what awful times the innocent party has before the absolute, with the King’s Proctor breathing down its neck every night. I often think one should look at every side of a question before settling upon a course of action. However, I see you are admitting our engagement; that’s always something.’

  ‘Indeed, I am not.’

  ‘Now I have thought out a very good scheme whereby we might yet be able to raise some money to live on. We will go and see my grandfather, who is binned-up in an asylum near here. He may fall for you (it seems to run in the family), and come across with the goods. You never know.’

  ‘If he’s binned-up he won’t have any goods to come across with, will he?’ said Poppy.

  ‘That’s just where you’re wrong, little Miss Know-all. You see, my grandfather is in a very special kind of bin, for lunatic peers only, and it has quite different rules from the ordinary sort. It was endowed by some rich old peeress in 1865 who was clearly insane herself; she had it built on the exact plans of the House of Lords, so that the boys should feel at home, and she made up the rules as she went along. I once got hold of a copy of them, feeling it might come in handy – here we are.’ He pulled a bundle of typescript out of his pocket. ‘I’ll read you out the bits that matter,’ he said. ‘First of all there’s a sort of preface, pointing out that madness is an infliction which can befall any one of us, from the most humble to the most noble, and that therefore it is quite possible even for peers of the realm to be attacked by this distressing malady. The old girl goes on to say that for too long it has been a disgraceful scandal, a blot on the name of En
gland, that such quantities of these poor, good old men should, through no fault of their own, have been allowed to perish in the hateful and unrefined atmosphere of the common madhouse. This scandal apparently weighed on her mind to such a degree that she spent most of her time visiting the poor good old men and trying to ease their lot by reading to them, teaching them poker work and other useful and profitable occupations, and providing them, as far as the regulations of their bins permitted, with those little luxuries which do so much to make life worth living. “I feel,” she says, “and our dear Queen has been gracious enough to approve of my sentiments on this subject, that the most one can do for gentlemen who have so faithfully served their Sovereign and their Country, but who through the inscrutable visitation of Providence have been rendered unable, not only to continue such service, but to enjoy any of the amenities of life, and worse yet are cut off from the society of their loved ones and of those of their fellow peers upon whom the infliction has not yet fallen, can never be too much.” And so on and so forth. Now – are you listening, Miss Smith – here is the rule on which I build my hopes, Rule 6.