‘Who else was there,’ asked Davey, ‘the Dougdales?’
‘Oh, yes. Isn’t the Lecturer stchoopid?’
Davey laughed. ‘And lecherous?’ he said.
‘No, I must say not actually lecherous, not with me.’
‘Well, of course, he couldn’t be with Sonia there, he wouldn’t dare. He’s been her young man for years, you know.’
‘Don’t tell me!’ I said, fascinated. That was the heaven of Davey, he knew everything about everybody, quite unlike my aunts, who, though they had no special objection to our knowing gossip, now that we were grown-up, had always forgotten it themselves, being totally uninterested in the doings of people outside their own family. ‘Davey! How could she?’
‘Well, Boy is very good-looking,’ said Davey, ‘I should say rather, how could he? But as a matter of fact, I think it’s a love affair of pure convenience, it suits them both perfectly. Boy knows the Gotha by heart and all that kind of thing, he’s like a wonderful extra butler, and Sonia on her side gives him an interest in life. I quite see it.’
One comfort, I thought, such elderly folk couldn’t do anything, but again I kept it to myself because I knew that nothing makes people crosser than being considered too old for love, and Davey and the Lecturer were exactly the same age, they had been at school together. Lady Montdore, of course, was even older.
‘Let’s hear about Polly,’ said Aunt Emily, ‘and then I really must insist on you going out of doors before tea. Is she a real beauty, just as we were always being told, by Sonia, that she would be?’
‘Of course she is,’ said Davey, ‘doesn’t Sonia always get her own way?’
‘So beautiful you can’t imagine,’ I said. ‘And so nice, the nicest person I ever met.’
‘Fanny is such a hero-worshipper,’ said Aunt Emily, amused.
‘I expect it’s true though, anyway, about the beauty,’ said Davey, ‘because, quite apart from Sonia always getting what she wants, Hamptons do have such marvellous looks, and after all, the old girl herself is very handsome. In fact, I see that she would improve the strain by giving a little solidity – Montdore looks too much like a collie dog.’
‘And who is this wonderful girl to marry?’ said Aunt Emily. ‘That will be the next problem for Sonia. I can’t see who will ever be good enough for her.’
‘Merely a question of strawberry leaves,’ said Davey, ‘as I imagine she’s probably too big for the Prince of Wales, he likes such tiny little women. You know, I can’t help thinking that now Montdore is getting older he must feel it dreadfully that he can’t leave Hampton to her. I had a long talk about it the other day with Boy in the London Library. Of course, Polly will be very rich – enormously rich, because he can leave her everything else – but they all love Hampton so much, I think it’s very sad for them.’
‘Can he leave Polly the pictures at Montdore House? Surely they must be entailed on the heir?’ said Aunt Emily.
‘There are wonderful pictures at Hampton,’ I butted in. ‘A Raphael and a Caravaggio in my bedroom alone.’
They both laughed at me, hurting my feelings rather.
‘Oh, my darling child, country-house bedroom pictures! But the ones in London are a world-famous collection, and I believe they can all go to Polly. The young man from Nova Scotia simply gets Hampton and everything in it, but that is an Aladdin’s Cave, you know, the furniture, the silver, the library – treasures beyond value. Boy was saying they really ought to get him over and show him something of civilization before he becomes too transatlantic.’
‘I forget how old he is,’ said Aunt Emily.
‘I know,’ I said, ‘he’s six years older than me, about twenty-four now. And he’s called Cedric, like Lord Fauntleroy. Linda and I used to look him up when we were little to see if he would do for us.’
‘You would, how typical,’ said Aunt Emily. ‘But I should have thought he might really do for Polly – settle everything.’
‘It would be too much unlike life,’ said Davey. ‘Oh, bother, talking to Fanny has made me forget my three o’clock pill.’
‘Take it now,’ said Aunt Emily, ‘and then go out please, both of you.’
From this time on I saw a great deal of Polly. I went to Alconleigh, as I did every year, for some hunting, and from there I often went over to spend a night or two at Hampton. There were no more big house parties, but a continual flow of people, and in fact the Montdores and Polly never seemed to have a meal by themselves. Boy Dougdale came over nearly every day from his own house at Silkin, which was only about ten miles away. He quite often went home to dress for dinner and came back again to spend the evening, since Lady Patricia it seemed was not at all well, and liked to go to bed early.
Boy never seemed to me quite like a real human being and I think this is because he was always acting some part. Boy the Don Juan alternated with Boy the Old Etonian, squire of Silkin, and Boy the talented cosmopolitan. In none of these parts was he quite convincing. Don Juan only made headway with very unsophisticated women, except in the case of Lady Montdore, and she, whatever their relationship may have been in the past, had come to treat him more as a lady companion or private secretary than as a lover. The squire played cricket in a slightly arch manner with village youths, and lectured village women, but never seemed like a real squire, for all his efforts, and the talented cosmopolitan gave himself away whenever he put brush to canvas or pen to paper.
He and Lady Montdore were much occupied, when they were in the country, with what they called ‘their art’, producing enormous portraits, landscapes and still lifes by the dozen. In the summer they worked out of doors, and in the winter they installed a large stove in a north-facing bedroom and used it as a studio. They were such great admirers of their own and each other’s work that the opinion of the outside world meant but little to them. Their pictures were always framed and hung about their two houses, the best ones in rooms and the others in passages.
By the evening Lady Montdore was ready for some relaxation.
‘I like to work hard all day,’ she would say, ‘and then have agreeable company and perhaps a game of cards in the evening.’
There were always guests for dinner, an Oxford don or two with whom Lord Montdore could show off about Livy, Plotinus and the Claudian family, Lord Merlin, who was a great favourite of Lady Montdore and who published her sayings far and wide, and the more important county neighbours, strictly in turns. They seldom sat down fewer than ten people; it was very different from Alconleigh.
I enjoyed these visits to Hampton. Lady Montdore terrified me less and charmed me more, Lord Montdore remained perfectly agreeable and colourless, Boy continued to give me the creeps and Polly became my best-friend-next-to-Linda.
Presently Aunt Sadie suggested that I might like to bring Polly back with me to Alconleigh, which I duly did. It was not a very good time for a visit there since everybody’s nerves were upset by Linda’s engagement, but Polly did not seem to notice the atmosphere, and no doubt her presence restrained Uncle Matthew from giving vent to the full violence of his feelings while she was there. Indeed, she said to me, as we drove back to Hampton together after the visit, that she envied the Radlett children their upbringing in such a quiet, affectionate household, a remark which could only have been made by somebody who had inhabited the best spare room, out of range of Uncle Matthew’s early morning gramophone concerts, and who had never happened to see that violent man in one of his tempers. Even so, I thought it strange, coming from Polly, because if anybody had been surrounded by affection all her life it was she; I did not yet fully understand how difficult the relations were beginning to be between her and her mother.
8
Polly and I were bridesmaids at Linda’s wedding in February, and when it was over I motored down to Hampton with Polly and Lady Montdore to spend a few days there. I was grateful to Polly for suggesting this, as I remembered too well the horrible feeling of ant
i-climax there had been after Louisa’s wedding, which would certainly be ten times multiplied after Linda’s. Indeed, with Linda married, the first stage of my life no less than of hers was finished, and I felt myself to be left in a horrid vacuum, with childhood over but married life not yet beginning.
As soon as Linda and Anthony had gone away Lady Montdore sent for her motor car and we all three huddled on to the back seat. Polly and I were still in our bridesmaids’ dresses (sweet-pea tints, in chiffon) but well wrapped up in fur coats and each with a Shetland rug wound round our legs, like children going to a dancing class. The chauffeur spread a great bearskin over all of us and put a foot warmer under our silver kid shoes. It was not really cold, but shivery, pouring and pouring with rain as it had been all day, getting dark now. The inside of the motor was like a dry little box, and as we splashed down the long wet shiny roads, with the rain beating against the windows, there was a specially delicious cosiness about being in this little box and knowing that so much light and warmth and solid comfort lay ahead.
‘I love being so dry in here,’ as Lady Montdore put it, ‘and seeing all those poor people so wet.’
She had done the journey twice that day, having driven up from Hampton in the morning, whereas Polly had gone up the day before, with her father, for a last fitting of her bridesmaid’s dress and in order to go to a dinner-dance.
First of all we talked about the wedding. Lady Montdore was wonderful when it came to picking over an occasion of that sort, with her gimlet eye nothing escaped her, nor did any charitable inhibitions tone down her comments on what she had observed.
‘How extraordinary Lady Kroesig looked, poor woman! I suppose somebody must have told her that the bridegroom’s mother should have a bit of everything in her hat – for luck perhaps. Fur, feathers, flowers and a scrap of lace – it was all there and a diamond brooch on top to finish it off nicely. Rose diamonds – I had a good look. It’s a funny thing that these people who are supposed to be so rich never seem to have a decent jewel to put on – I’ve often noticed it. And did you see what mingy little things they gave poor Linda? A cheque – yes, that’s all very well but for how much, I wonder? Cultured pearls, at least I imagine so, or they would have been worth quite £10,000, and a hideous little bracelet. No tiara, no necklace, what will the poor child wear at Court? Linen, which we didn’t see, all that modern silver and a horrible house in one of those squares by the Marble Arch. Hardly worth being called by that nasty German name, I should say. And Davey tells me there’s no proper settlement – really, Matthew Alconleigh isn’t fit to have children if that’s all he can do for them. Still, I’m bound to say he looked very handsome coming up the aisle, and Linda looked her very best too, really lovely.’
I think she was feeling quite affectionately towards Linda for having removed herself betimes from competition, for although not a great beauty like Polly she was certainly far more popular with young men.
‘Sadie, too, looked so nice, very young and handsome, and the little thing’s so puddy.’ She pronounced the word pretty like that.
‘Did you see our dessert service, Fanny? Oh, did she, I’m glad. She could change it, as it came from Goodes, but perhaps she won’t want to. I was quite amused, weren’t you, to see the difference between our side of the church and the Kroesig side. Bankers don’t seem to be much to look at – so extraordinarily unsuitable having to know them at all, poor things, let alone marry them. But these sort of people have got megalomania nowadays, one can’t get away from them. Did you notice the Kroesig sister? Oh, yes, of course, she was walking with you, Fanny. They’ll have a job to get her off!’
‘She’s training to be a vet,’ I said.
‘First sensible thing I’ve heard about any of them. No point in cluttering up the ballrooms with girls who look like that, it’s simply not fair on anybody. Now Polly, I want to hear exactly what you did yesterday.’
‘Oh – nothing very much.’
‘Don’t be so tiresome. You got to London at about twelve, I suppose?’
‘Yes, we did,’ said Polly, in a resigned voice. She would have to account for every minute of the day, she knew, quicker to tell of her own accord than to have it pumped out of her. She began to fidget with her bridesmaid’s wreath of silver leaves. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said, ‘I must take this off, it’s giving me a headache.’
It was twisted into her hair with wire. She tugged and pulled at it until finally she got it off and flung it down on the floor.
‘Ow,’ she said, ‘that did hurt! Well yes then, let me think. We arrived. Daddy went straight to his appointment and I had an early luncheon at home.’
‘By yourself?’
‘No, Boy was there. He’d looked in to return some books, and Bullitt said there was plenty of food so I made him stay.’
‘Well then, go on. After luncheon?’
‘Hair.’
‘Washed and set?’
‘Yes, naturally.’
‘You’d never think it. We really must find you a better hairdresser. No use asking Fanny I’m afraid, her hair always looks like a mop.’
Lady Montdore was becoming cross, and, like a cross child, was seeking to hurt anybody within reach.
‘It was quite all right until I had to put that wreath on it. Well then, tea with Daddy at the House, rest after tea, dinner you know about, and bed,’ she finished in one breath. ‘Is that all?’
She and her mother seemed to be thoroughly on each other’s nerves, or perhaps it was having pulled her hair with the wreath that made her so snappy. She flashed a perfectly vicious look across me at Lady Montdore. It was suddenly illuminated by the headlights of a passing motor. Lady Montdore neither saw it nor, apparently, noticed the edge in her voice and went on,
‘No, certainly not. You haven’t told me about the party yet. Who sat next to you at dinner?’
‘Oh, Mummy, I can’t remember their names.’
‘You never seem to remember anybody’s name, it is too stupid. How can I invite your friends to the house if I don’t know who they are?’
‘But they’re not my friends, they were the most dreadful, dreadful bores you can possibly imagine. I couldn’t think of one thing to say to them.’
Lady Montdore sighed deeply.
‘Then after dinner you danced?’
‘Yes. Danced, and sat out and ate disgusting ices.’
‘I’m sure the ices were delicious. Sylvia Waterman always does things beautifully. I suppose there was champagne?’
‘I hate champagne.’
‘And who took you home?’
‘Lady Somebody. It was out of her way because she lives in Chelsea.’
‘How extraordinary,’ said Lady Montdore, rather cheered up by the idea that some poor ladies have to live in Chelsea. ‘Now who could she possibly have been?’
The Dougdales had also been at the wedding and were to dine at Hampton on their way home; they were there when we arrived, not having, like us, waited to see Linda go away. Polly went straight upstairs. She looked tired and sent a message by her maid to say that she would have her dinner in bed. The Dougdales, Lady Montdore, and I dined, without changing, in the little morning-room where they always had meals if there were fewer than eight people. This room was perhaps the most perfect thing at Hampton. It had been brought bodily from France and was entirely panelled in wood carved in a fine, elaborate pattern, painted blue and white; three cupboards matched three French windows and were filled with eighteenth-century china. Over cupboards, windows and doorways were decorative paintings by Boucher, framed in the panelling.
The talk at dinner was of the ball which Lady Montdore intended to give for Polly at Montdore House.
‘May Day, I think,’ she said.
‘That’s good,’ said Boy, ‘it must either be the first or the last ball of the season, if people are to remember it.’
‘Oh, not the last, on any account. I
should have to invite all the girls whose dances Polly had been to, and nothing is so fatal to a ball as too many girls.’
‘But if you don’t ask them,’ said Lady Patricia, ‘will they ask her?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lady Montdore shortly, ‘they’ll be dying to have her. I can pay them back in other ways. But, anyhow, I don’t propose to take her about in the débutante world very much (all those awful parties, S.W. something), I don’t see the point of it. She would become quite worn out and meet a lot of unsuitable people. I’m planning to let her go to not more than two dances a week, carefully chosen. Quite enough for a girl who’s not very strong. I thought later on, if you’ll help me, Boy, we could make a list of women to give dinners for my ball. Of course, it must be perfectly understood that they are to ask the people I tell them to; can’t have them paying off their own friends and relations on me.’
After dinner, we went back to the Long Gallery. Boy settled down to his petit-point while we three women sat with idle hands. He had a talent for needlework, had hemstiched some of the sheets for the Queen’s doll’s house and had covered many chairs at Silkin and at Hampton. He was now making a fire-screen for the Long Gallery which he had designed himself in a sprawling Jacobean pattern, the theme of it was supposed to be flowers from Lady Montdore’s garden, but these flowers really looked more like horrid huge insects. Being young and deeply prejudiced it never occurred to me to admire his work. I merely thought how too dreadful it was to see a man sewing and how hideous he looked, his grizzled head bent over the canvas, into which he was deftly stitching various shades of khaki. He had the same sort of thick coarse hair as mine and I knew that the waves in it, the little careless curls (boyish) must have been carefully wetted and pinched in before dinner.