The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘D’you mean that comic child from Eton who’s always here? Of course I know him quite well, but how could I have guessed his other name was Bobbin? It’s unnatural, Bobby Bobbin. Oh, dear, I do feel wretched.’

  ‘Poor old boy, it is boring for you.’

  ‘It’s far worse than boring,’ said Paul vehemently, ‘it’s the end of my literary career. From now onwards I am condemned to the life of a social parasite. If I can’t write the life of Lady Maria I shall never set pen to paper again. She is not only my favourite poetess, but my affinity, my period, my ideal heroine. I understand her mentality, I could write the most beautiful life of her. Oh, it is too hard to bear. I tell you that since I had this idea I have thought of nothing else night and day, not even of Marcella. However, I can’t despair yet, it means too much to me. I shall get inside Compton Bobbin by hook or by crook, even if I have to disguise myself as a housemaid to do it.’

  Amabelle looked at him thoughtfully. There was nothing in the world she enjoyed so much as getting herself involved in other people’s affairs, and she was beginning to see here a good chance to indulge in this hobby.

  ‘Are you quite serious, Paul?’

  ‘Yes, Amabelle. More serious than you would believe. I honestly think I could write a first-class book on Lady Maria, and I want to do it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.’

  ‘Really and truly?’

  ‘I promise you.’

  ‘In that case, my dear, and especially if it’s going to cure you of that dreary little Marcella, I think I must try to help you. I’ll go down to Eton at once and call on Bobby, I expect that between us we could think out some scheme for getting you into Compton Bobbin.’

  ‘Oh, Amabelle, if only you could,’ said Paul, but he went away feeling depressed and not very hopeful.

  The next day, at one o’clock punctually, Amabelle, dressed in pale beige furs, stepped out of her pale beige Rolls-Royce into the High Street of Eton, where she was met with noisy acclamations of delight by Sir Roderick Bobbin, Baronet, of Compton Bobbin, in the county of Gloucestershire.

  ‘Cad, cad, Amabelle darling! First of all you haven’t written to me once as you promised you would, and then you send me a wire only this morning to say you’re coming down. If you had let me know a tiny bit sooner I could have ordered a decent lunch, but as it is I don’t know what we shall get, something uneatable probably. Two days’ notice in future, please, my sweet!’

  ‘I’m sorry, duckie, I simply couldn’t. I only had today free, and I must see you about something very particular. I’m sure the luncheon will be perfect, anyway, it always is. In here?’

  She followed Bobby into a little old house that was half curiosity shop, half restaurant. It was stuffed so full of antiques that every step had to be taken carefully for fear of knocking down some fragile object, while interspersed among the curios were luncheon tables covered with check cloths and arty crafty earthenware. Bobby passed these by, however, and led the way up a dark and narrow staircase, hung with Indian fabrics, to a miniature room at the top of the house, where luncheon for two was laid out in front of a lattice window. A peat fire burned in the open hearth, giving off a delicious smell. The room was cosy and comfortable in the extreme, and seemed to have the very definite atmosphere, unexpected in a shop, of belonging to one particular person. This was indeed the case. Sir Roderick (who had been born with an unerring instinct for living in the greatest available comfort, and who always seemed to know exactly how that comfort could be obtained with the least amount of trouble to himself) had, by dint of showering boyish charm upon the proprietress of the shop, appropriated this room to his own use, and the objects that were strewn about it in casual disorder belonged to him.

  A guitar, that he could not play (lying beside a red leather gramophone that he could and did), a tasteful edition of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, the complete works of Messrs Ronald Firbank and Aldous Huxley, together with reproductions of two of Picasso’s better-known aquarelles, bore testimony to the fact that young Sir Roderick liked to associate himself with modern culture. The possessor of keen eyes, however, observing some well used bridge markers, the masterpieces of Wallace, and a positive heap of society weekly journals, might suspect that the child was in no real danger at present of overtaxing his mind.

  Amabelle, who had had many opportunities of drawing her own conclusions on these matters, sat down at the table and picked up an enormous bunch of orchids that lay beside her plate. ‘Are these for me? Thank you, darling, so much.’ During the excellent luncheon that followed Bobby chattered incessantly, telling her with immense gusto the latest scandals from London as viewed at Eton, generally through the prejudiced eyes of son or brother to the person concerned.

  ‘By the way, Felton’s sister, the pretty one, has run away with her chauffeur – did you know?’

  ‘Barbara Casement? Really, darling, do be careful what you say; it sounds most unlikely to me. Are you quite certain?’

  ‘Oh, yes, rather. Felton and I saw them driving through Slough together the day before yesterday. We rocked with laughter, I must say.’

  ‘Well, people generally do drive with their chauffeurs, it’s quite usual.’

  ‘No, I promise it’s true. Felton says she never could resist a peaked cap.’

  ‘I can’t believe it – those lovely babies, she couldn’t leave them.’

  ‘Oh, heavens,’ said Bobby, suddenly whispering. ‘The most awful thing – I quite forgot. Felton’s people are down today and they’re certain to be lunching in the next room. You can hear every word. Gosh, that’s just about torn it.’

  ‘We don’t hear them, though.’

  ‘I know. They never speak, that’s why. But people always hear their own name, don’t they? Isn’t it too ghastly – what can we do?’

  ‘Pretend I’ve got a dog here called Melton.’

  ‘Oh, what a good idea. Lie down, Melton,’ he shouted. ‘Stop eating my bootlaces, you little devil. There, good boy, Melton – want a drinkie water?’ He made loud noises intending to imitate a dog drinking until, overcome with hysteria, he and Amabelle were forced to bury their heads in cushions to smother the sound of their giggles. Presently they ascertained from the waitress, greatly to their mutual relief, that Sir Oswald and Lady Felton and their family had left about half an hour previously.

  When the bill came, Bobby said, ‘You can pay that, darling, if you’d like to. I don’t see why I shouldn’t trade on my status as a schoolboy for as long as I possibly can. All too soon I shall be the one to pay, and that will last to the end of my life, worse luck.’

  ‘When are you leaving Eton for good?’

  ‘I shall trail away clasping (we hope) my little leaving book and draped in my tiny Old Etonian tie at the end of the summer half, unless, of course, the beaks should happen to find out before then that you are my dentist, darling. Such bad teeth. But I don’t expect they will, I’m hardly ever unlucky.’

  ‘Is it settled what you’re going to do after that?’

  ‘Well, Mother keeps on droning about Sandhurst, but I fully intend to go to Oxford, and I usually get my own way with the old girl in the end, you know, so I expect it will be all right.’

  Presently they went for a walk. It was a beautiful day, sunny and windy; little golden leaves like small coins, earnest of a treasury to come, blew about the school yard; one of those days at Eton when Windsor Castle has all the appearance of the better type of Victorian water-colour painting, clean, clear and romantic. Specimens of the British aristocrat in embryo were to be seen on every hand running, or lounging about the place in and out of ‘change’. They were hideous, pathetic little boys for the most part, with one feature, whether nose, ears, chin, Adam’s apple or eyebrows outstripping its fellows which, having apparently forgotten how to grow, were overshadowed quite by their monstrous neighbour. They all stared hard at Amabelle, whose beauty was of the obvious, mature description tha
t children always admire, and looked enviously at Bobby. He was considered a bit of a masher by the younger ones; his own contemporaries, although for the most part quite fond of him, merely thought him an extremely funny joke.

  As they strolled among those playing-fields whose connexion with the Battle of Waterloo had been cause for so much facetious comment, Amabelle said:

  ‘How about this holiday tutor you mentioned in your last letter – has your mother engaged one yet, d’you think?’

  ‘Not yet, thank goodness,’ said Bobby sulkily. ‘It is a bit hard, you know. I saw my sister, Philadelphia, last Sunday, she came over with darling Aunt Loudie, and she says that Mother is still quite determined to have one who will “get me out of doors”. This out of doors idea is a perfect fetish with Mamma; she quite honestly believes that there is something wrong about being under a roof unless you have to be for purposes of eating or sleeping. Last summer hols were unbelievably horrible. I was made to be out of doors from dawn till dark, and then Mother and Uncle Ernest used quite often to drag me out after dinner and make me lay traps for crayfish. Cruel and boring it was.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if that’s why you have such a lovely complexion; you ought to be very glad you’re not like all these spotty little wretches.’

  ‘I know,’ said Bobby with alluring archness. ‘But you see, I was born with that, anyhow, it’s one of my natural attributes. But do say you think this tutor business is the last straw; it’s such a ghastly idea.’

  ‘Yes, in a way. But supposing it was somebody you liked very much yourself?’

  ‘My dear, have you met many tutors?’

  ‘Somebody you knew already – Paul Fotheringay, for instance.’

  ‘Of course that would be heaven. But I can’t quite imagine it happening, can you?’

  Amabelle then expounded her plot.

  When she had finished speaking Bobby cried in tones of high delight: ‘It’s a divine idea! You mean that Paul shall come to Compton Bobbin disguised as my tutor so that he can read up the old girl’s journal without Mother knowing. Oh, yes, it’s there all right, neatly bound in red morocco – it takes up a whole shelf of the library. I rather think there are some bags full of letters, too. How marvellous you are to think of it, darling. Oh, what heavenly fun it will be!’ and Bobby vaulted over some fairly low railings and back, casting off for a moment his mask of elderly roué and slipping on that of a tiny-child-at-its-first-pantomime, another role greatly favoured by this unnatural boy. ‘Only it’s too awful to think you won’t be there, joining in the riot.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ said Amabelle darkly.

  ‘You’re not coming too by any chance, disguised as my nanny?’

  If Amabelle flinched inwardly at this remark she showed no signs of it and merely said, ‘But why the disguise? As a matter of fact though I shall be in your neighbourhood then, because I’ve taken a little house for Christmas time which can’t be very far from you – Mulberrie Farm.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not true! You haven’t taken Mulberrie Farm, have you? It’s only two miles from us. You are an angel, Amabelle. I say, though, have you seen it?’

  ‘No, why? Is it horrible?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Bobby hastily, ‘quite attractive. Very comfortable and all that. Tee-hee, though, this will ginger up the hols for me top-hole, it will. Do you really think you can persuade m’tutor to recommend Paul to Mother?’

  Bobby’s house-master was Amabelle’s first cousin and one of her greatest friends.

  ‘I can’t see why not,’ said Amabelle, ‘because I honestly do think that Paul will have a very good influence on you.’

  ‘Personally I can’t imagine Paul having influence over man, woman or child.’

  ‘Anyhow, it can do no harm and may do good, as Geoffrey said when he joined the Embassy Club. And as we are here I think I might as well go in and see Maurice about it now, so good-bye, darling, try to be good, and buy yourself some sausages with that, will you?’

  Amabelle, as always, had her own way, and the upshot of her visit to Eton was that Bobby’s house-master, Maurice Pringle, wrote off to Lady Bobbin highly recommending one Paul Fisher as holiday tutor to her son, Roderick.

  ‘I am not actually acquainted with this young man, but I have received from mutual friends a most glowing account of his character and attainments, and I feel certain, from what I hear, that he is in every way qualified to fill your post. I understand that he is a particularly sportsmanlike young fellow, devoted to outdoor pursuits, and at the same time (which is important), a first-class coach. Should you wish to interview him, I shall be most happy to arrange this for you …’

  Lady Bobbin, however, who was at that time busy hunting five days a week, did not wish to waste one of them by spending it in London, and engaged Mr Fisher by return of post with no mention of an interview. She merely remarked in her letter that he would be expected to ride, shoot and play golf with ‘the boy’, as well as to coach him in whatever subjects Mr Pringle might think advisable, and ended up by saying that Roderick would be hunting three days a week. Paul wondered with a shudder whether he would also be obliged to participate in this unnerving sport.

  The five weeks which still remained before Christmas were unpleasantly strenuous ones for Paul. His mornings were spent clinging in a frenzy of fear to the backs of ancient hirelings in the Row, mild, drowsy animals which were in his eyes monsters of fire and speed, savagely awaiting an opportunity to hurl him to his doom. His afternoons, less fraught with actual danger than with the horror of an almost equally distressing boredom, alternated between a shooting school at Richmond and golf lessons in Putney. By the evening he could hardly either stand or see. He regarded himself, however, as a martyr in the cause of Art, and this sustained him. Marcella, piqued by a sudden cessation of his advances, was now seldom off the telephone, a state of things which would have seemed unbelievably blissful two or three weeks before. But, although he still fed her loyally at the Ritz every day, he was beginning, if the truth must be known, to find her beauty less maddening and her lack of intelligence more so than formerly.

  5

  Walter and Sally Monteath, accompanied by Miss Elspeth Paula Monteath, now an accredited member of the Church of England, and her nanny, travelled down to Gloucestershire by train a few days before Christmas. They had temporarily solved their always-pressing money troubles by letting their flat for a few weeks, during which time they intended to live entirely at Mrs Fortescue’s expense, and by selling the ancient motor car. This had from the first proved to be more in the nature of a luxury than an economy, and latterly it had cost them endless money and bother owing to what Walter was pleased to call ‘Sally’s incurable habit of ploughing her way through human flesh’. Walter, while showing a greater respect for life where pedestrians were concerned, was all too much addicted to tearing mudguards, headlights and other gadgets from onrushing vehicles. In fact, the sale of the car was regarded by all their friends as an undisguised blessing, and they themselves were highly relieved to see the last of it.

  ‘Isn’t this too perfect,’ said Sally as she settled herself into the corner seat of a first-class carriage. ‘Now, just run along and buy me all the weekly papers, will you, darling. Oh, you have already. Thanks so much. Do you realize,’ she added, opening the Tatler and throwing a copy of the Sketch over to Walter, ‘that from this moment we literally shan’t have to put hand to pocket for six whole weeks. It’s a beautiful thought. Such a comfort too that Amabelle’s taken a small house, so that there’ll only be her and Jerome for Christmas presents. Yes, I got them on Monday, hankies. Quite nice and very cheap.’

  ‘I must say I rather hope they won’t retaliate with diamond links and things. D’you remember the Liberty boxes?’ said Walter.

  Two years before, Walter and Sally, then newly married, had spent Christmas with a millionaire and his wife. On Christmas Day Sally had duly presented them
with chintz handkerchief and tie boxes from Liberty, which she had chosen with some care as being suitable gifts. Slight embarrassment had been felt even by the ordinarily shameless Monteaths when they were given in return enamel waistcoat buttons, gold cigarette and vanity cases, and a handbag with a real diamond clasp.

  ‘Oh, I’m past minding about that sort of thing now,’ said Sally cheerfully. ‘I’m only so thankful Elspeth Paula did well at her christening, the angel. We ought to get quite a lot for that pearl necklace, and I suppose the mugs will fetch something. I say, here’s the most ghastly photo of Paul and Marcella at a night club. Do look. Aren’t they exactly like deep-sea monsters! What a girl!’

  They were met at Woodford station by the beige Rolls-Royce, and on the doorstep of Mulberrie Farm by Amabelle herself, exquisitely turned out in that type of garment which is considered suitable for le sport by dressmakers of the rue de la Paix.

  ‘Thank God you’ve come at least,’ she said in her gloomiest voice. ‘Darling Sally, looking so lovely, the angel. Oh, Paula! Isn’t she sweet? Well, come in. You won’t like it, but I can only hope you’ll be amused by it, that’s all.’

  ‘My dear Amabelle,’ cried Walter in tones of horror as he followed her into the hall, ‘what a house!’

  ‘Yes, you don’t have to tell me that; I’ve been here now for a week, kindly remember. And do you know that from what the agents said I honestly thought it was going to be really old and attractive. They never stopped talking about its old-world charm, mullioned windows, oak beams and so on. Look at it – how could I have guessed it would be anything like this?’

  ‘You just made the mistake,’ said Walter soothingly, ‘of confusing old world with olde worlde. You should have been more careful to find out whether or not there was an “e”; so much hangs on that one little letter. In any case, I must submit, with all deference, that the very name of the house, Mulberrie Farm, ought to have aroused your worst suspicions. I never heard anything so art and craft in my life, and I bet the yokels have no idea it’s called that, they probably knew it as The Grange before all these inglenooks and things were put in. You must be crackie-boo, poor sweet, to go and take a house you’ve never even seen.’