It must have been rather sad for Lady Montdore (though with her talent for ignoring disagreeable subjects she probably never even realized the fact) that friendship with royal personages only ever began for her when their days of glory were finished. Tsarskoe-Selo, Schönbrunn, the Quirinal, Kotrocheny Palace, Miramar, Laecken and the island of Corfu had never known her, unless among an enormous crowd in the state apartments. If she went to a foreign capital with her husband she would, of course, be invited to official receptions, while foreign rulers who came to London would attend her big parties, but it was all very formal. Crowned heads may not have had the sense to keep their crowns but they were evidently not too stupid to realize that give Lady Montdore an inch and she would take an ell. As soon as they were exiled, however, they began to see her charm, and another kingdom gone always meant a few more royal habitués at Montdore House; when they were completely down-and-out and had got through whatever money they had managed to salt away, she was allowed to act as lady-in-waiting and go with them to Woollands.
Polly handed her a cup of tea and told her my news. The happy afterglow from her royal outing immediately faded, and she became intensely disagreeable.
‘Engaged?’ she said. ‘Well, I suppose that’s very nice. Alfred what did you say? Who is he? What is that name?’
‘He’s a don, at Oxford.’
‘Oh, dear, how extraordinary. You don’t want to go and live at Oxford, surely? I should think he had better go into politics and buy a place – I suppose he hasn’t got one by the way? No, or he wouldn’t be a don, not an English don at least, in Spain of course, it’s quite different – dons are somebody there, I believe. Let’s think – yes, why shouldn’t your father give you a place as a wedding present? You’re the only child he’s ever likely to have. I’ll write to him at once – where is he now?’
I said vaguely that I believed in Jamaica, but did not know his address.
‘Really, what a family! I’ll find out from the Colonial Office and write by bag, that will be safest. Then this Mr Thing can settle down and write books. It always gives a man status if he writes a book, Fanny, I advise you to start him off on that immediately.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t much influence with him,’ I said uneasily.
‘Oh, well, develop it dear, quick. No use marrying a man you can’t influence. Just look what I’ve done for Montdore, always seen that he takes an interest, made him accept things (jobs, I mean) and kept him up to the mark, never let him slide back. A wife must always be on the look-out, men are so lazy by nature, for example, Montdore is forever trying to have a little nap in the afternoon, but I won’t hear of it, once you begin that, I tell him, you are old, and people who are old find themselves losing interest, dropping out of things and then they might as well be dead. Montdore’s only got me to thank if he’s not in the same condition as most of his contemporaries, creeping about the Marlborough Club like dying flies and hardly able to drag themselves as far as the House of Lords. I make Montdore walk down there every day. Now, Fanny dear, the more I think of it, the more it seems to me quite ridiculous for you to go marrying a don, what does Emily say?’
‘She’s awfully pleased.’
‘Emily and Sadie are hopeless. You must ask my advice about this sort of thing, I’m very glad indeed you came round, we must think how we can get you out of it. Could you ring him up now and say you’ve changed your mind, I believe it would be kindest in the long run to do it that way.’
‘Oh, no, I can’t.’
‘Why not, dear? It isn’t in the paper yet.’
‘It will be tomorrow.’
‘That’s where I can be so helpful. I’ll send for Geoffrey Dawson now and have it stopped.’
I was quite terrified. ‘Please –’ I said, ‘oh, please not!’
Polly came to my rescue. ‘But she wants to marry him, Mummy, she’s in love, and look at her pretty ring!’
Lady Montdore looked, and was confirmed in her opposition. ‘That’s not a ruby,’ she said, as if I had been pretending it was. ‘And as for love I should have thought the example of your mother would have taught you something – where has love landed her? Some ghastly white hunter. Love indeed – whoever invented love ought to be shot.’
‘Dons aren’t a bit the same as white hunters,’ said Polly. ‘You know how fond Daddy is of them.’
‘Oh, I dare say they’re all right for dinner, if you like that sort of thing. Montdore does have them over sometimes, I know, but that’s no reason why they should go marrying people. So unsuitable, megalomania, I call it. So many people have that, nowadays. No, Fanny, I’m very much distressed.’
‘Oh, please don’t be,’ I said.
‘However, if you say it’s settled, I suppose there’s no more I can do, except to try and help you make a success of it. Montdore can ask the Chief Whip if there’s something for you to nurse, that will be best.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that what I hoped to be nursing before long would be sent by God and not the Chief Whip, but I restrained myself, nor did I dare to tell her that Alfred was not a Tory.
The conversation now turned upon the subject of my trousseau, about which Lady Montdore was quite as bossy though less embarrassing. I was not feeling much interest in clothes at that time, all my thoughts being of how to decorate and furnish a charming little old house which Alfred had taken me to see after placing the pigeon’s egg on my finger, and which, by a miracle of good luck, was to be let.
‘The important thing, dear,’ she said, ‘is to have a really good fur coat, I mean a proper, dark one.’ To Lady Montdore, fur meant mink; she could imagine no other kind except sable, but that would be specified. ‘Not only will it make all the rest of your clothes look better than they are but you really needn’t bother much about anything else as you need never take it off. Above all, don’t go wasting money on underclothes, there is nothing stupider – I always borrow Montdore’s myself. Now for evening a diamond brooch is a great help, so long as it has good big stones. Oh, dear, when I think of the diamonds your father gave that woman, it really is too bad. All the same, he can’t have got through everything, he was enormously rich when he succeeded, I must write to him. Now, dear, we’re going to be very practical. No time like the present.’
She rang for her secretary and said my father’s address must be found out.
‘You could ring up the Under Secretary for the Colonies with my compliments, and will you make a note that I will write to Lord Logan tomorrow.’
She also told her to make a list of places where linen, underclothes, and house furnishings could be obtained at wholesale prices.
‘Bring it straight back here for Miss Logan when it is ready.’
When the secretary had gone, Lady Montdore turned to Polly and spoke to her exactly as if I had gone too, and they were alone. It was a habit she had, and I always found it very embarrassing, as I never quite knew what she expected me to do, whether to interrupt her by saying good-bye, or simply to look out of the window and pretend that my thoughts were far away. On this occasion, however, I was clearly expected to wait for the list of addresses, so I had no choice.
‘Now, Polly, have you thought of a young man yet, for me to ask down on the third?’
‘Oh, how about John Coningsby?’ said Polly, with an indifference which I could plainly see must be maddening to her mother. Lord Coningsby was her official young man, so to speak. She invited him to everything, and this had greatly pleased Lady Montdore to begin with since he was rich, handsome, agreeable and an ‘eldest son’, which meant in Lady Montdore’s parlance the eldest son of a peer (never let Jones or Robinson major think of themselves for one moment as eldest sons). Too soon, however, she saw that he and Polly were excellent friends and would never be anything else, after which she regretfully lost all interest in him.
‘Oh, I don’t count John,’ she said.
‘How d’you mean yo
u don’t count him?’
‘He’s only a friend. Now, I was thinking in Woollands – I often do have good ideas in shops – how would it be to ask Joyce Fleetwood.’
Alas, the days when I, Albert Edward Christian George Andrew Patrick David, was considered to be the only person worthy of taking thee, Leopoldina, must have become indeed remote if Joyce Fleetwood was to be put forward as a substitute. Perhaps it was in Lady Montdore’s mind that, since Polly showed no inclination to marry an established, inherited position, the next best thing would be somebody who might achieve one by his own efforts. Joyce Fleetwood was a noisy, self-opinionated young Conservative M.P. who had mastered one or two of the drearier subjects of debate, agriculture, the Empire, and so on, and was always ready to hold forth upon them in the House. He had made up to Lady Montdore who thought him much cleverer than he really was; his parents were known to her, they had a place in Norfolk.
‘Well, Polly?’
‘Yes, why not?’ said Polly. ‘It’s a shower-bath when he talks, but do let’s, he’s so utterly fascinating, isn’t he?’
Lady Montdore now lost her temper and her voice got quite out of control. I sympathized with her really, it was too obvious that Polly was wilfully provoking her.
‘It’s perfectly stupid to go on like this.’
Polly did not reply. She bent her head sideways and pretended to be deeply absorbed in the headlines, upside-down, of the evening paper which lay on a chair by her mother. She might just as well have said out loud, ‘All right, you horrible vulgar woman, go on, I don’t care, you are nothing to me,’ so plain was her meaning.
‘Please listen when I speak to you, Polly.’
Polly continued to squint at the headlines.
‘Polly, will you please pay attention to what I’m saying?’
‘What were you saying? Something about Mr Fleetwood?’
‘Let Mr Fleetwood be, for the present. I want to know what, exactly, you are planning to do with your life. Do you intend to live at home and go mooning on like this for ever?’
‘What else can I do? You haven’t exactly trained me for a career, have you?’
‘Oh, yes, indeed I have. I’ve trained you for marriage which, in my opinion (I may be old-fashioned), is by far the best career open to any woman.’
‘That’s all very well, but how can I marry if nobody asks me?’
Of course, that was really the sore point with Lady Montdore, nobody asking her. A Polly gay and flirtatious, surrounded by eligible suitors, playing one off against the others, withdrawing, teasing, desired by married men, breaking up her friends’ romances, Lady Montdore would have been perfectly happy to watch her playing that game for several years if need be, so long as it was quite obvious that she would finally choose some suitably important husband and settle down with him. What her mother minded so dreadfully was that this acknowledged beauty should appear to have no attraction whatever for the male sex. The eldest sons had a look, said, ‘Isn’t she lovely?’ and went off with some chinless little creature from Cadogan Square. There had been three or four engagements of this sort lately which had upset Lady Montdore very much indeed.
‘And why don’t they ask you? It’s only because you give them no encouragment. Can’t you try to be a little jollier, nicer with them, no man cares to make love to a dummy, you know, it’s too discouraging.’
‘Thank you, but I don’t want to be made love to.’
‘Oh, dear, oh, dear! Then what is it you do want?’
‘Leave me alone Mother, please.’
‘To stay on here, with us, until you are old?’
‘Daddy wouldn’t mind a bit.’
‘Oh, yes he would, make no mistake about that. Not for a year or two perhaps, but in the end he would. Nobody wants their girl to be hanging about for ever, a sour old maid, and you’ll be the sour kind, that’s too obvious already, my dear, wizened-up and sour.’
I could hardly believe my ears; could this be Lady Montdore speaking, in such frank and dreadful terms, to Polly, her beautiful paragon, whom she used to love so much that she was even reconciled to her being a daughter and not an heir? It seemed to me terrible, I went cold in my very backbone. There was a long and deeply embarrassing silence, broken by Frankenstein’s monster who jerked into the room and said that the King of Portugal was on the telephone. Lady Montdore stumped off and I seized the opportunity to escape.
‘I hate her,’ said Polly, kissing me good-bye. ‘I hate her, and I wish she were dead. Oh, Fanny, the luck of not being brought up by your own mother – you’ve no idea what a horrible relationship it can be.’
‘Poor Polly,’ I said, very much upset. ‘How sad. But when you were little it wasn’t horrible?’
‘Always, always horrible. I’ve always hated her from the bottom of my heart.’
I did not believe it.
‘She isn’t like this the whole time?’ I said.
‘More and more. Better make a dash for it, love, or you’ll be caught again. I’ll ring up very soon –’
11
I was married at the beginning of the Christmas vacation, and when Alfred and I returned from our honeymoon we went to stay at Alconleigh while our little house in Oxford was being got ready. This was an obvious and convenient arrangement as Alfred could go into Oxford every day for his work, and I was at hand to supervise the decoration of the house, but, although Alconleigh had been a second home to me from my babyhood, it was not without misgivings that I accepted Aunt Sadie’s invitation to take my husband there for a long visit, at the very outset of our married life. My Uncle Matthew’s likes and dislikes were famous for their violence, for the predomination of the latter over the former, and for the fact that he never made the slightest attempt to conceal them from their object; I could see that he was already prejudiced against poor Alfred. It was an accepted fact in the family that he loathed me; furthermore he also hated new people, hated men who married his female relations, hated and despised those who did not practise blood sports. I felt there was but little hope for Alfred, especially as, culmination of horror, ‘the fella reads books’.
True, all this had applied to Davey when he had first appeared upon the scene, engaged to Aunt Emily, but Uncle Matthew had taken an unreasoning fancy to Davey from the very beginning, and it was not to be hoped that such a miracle could repeat itself. My fears, however, were not entirely realized. I think Aunt Sadie had probably read the riot act before our arrival; meanwhile I had been doing my best with Alfred. I made him have his hair cropped like a guardsman, explained to him that if he must open a book he should do so only in the privacy of his bedroom, and specially urged great punctuality at meal times. Uncle Matthew, as I told him, liked to get us all into the dining-room at least five minutes before the meal was ready. ‘Come on,’ he would say, ‘we’ll go and sit in.’ And in the family would sit, clasping hot plates to their bosoms (Aunt Sadie had once done this, absent-mindedly, with a plate of artichoke soup), all eyes upon the pantry door.
I tried to explain these things to Alfred, who listened patiently though uncomprehendingly. I also tried to prepare him for the tremendous impact of my uncle’s rages, so that I got the poor man, quite unnecessarily, into a panic.
‘Do let’s go to the Mitre,’ he kept saying.
‘It may not be too bad,’ I replied, doubtfully.
And it was not, in the end, too bad at all. The fact is that Uncle Matthew’s tremendous and classical hatred for me, which had begun when I was an infant and which had cast a shadow of fear over all my childhood, had now become more legend than actuality. I was such an habitual member of his household, and he such a Conservative, that this hatred, in common with that which he used to nurture against Josh, the groom, and various other old intimates, had not only lost its force but I think had, with the passage of years, actually turned into love; such a lukewarm sentiment as ordinary avuncular affection being of course foreign to his expe
rience. Be that as it may, he evidently had no wish to poison the beginning of my married life, and made quite touching efforts to bottle up whatever irritation he felt at Alfred’s shortcomings: his unmanly incompetence with his motor car, vagueness over time and fatal disposition to spill marmalade at breakfast. The fact that Alfred left for Oxford at nine o’clock, only returning in time for dinner, and that we spent Saturday to Monday of every week in Kent with Aunt Emily, made our visit just endurable to Uncle Matthew, and, incidentally to Alfred himself, who did not share my unquestioning adoration for all members of the Radlett family.
The Radlett boys had gone back to their schools, and my cousin Linda, whom I loved best in the world after Alfred, was now living in London, expecting a baby, but, though Alconleigh was never quite the same without her, Jassy and Victoria were at home (none of the Radlett girls went to school) so the house resounded as usual with jingles and jangles and idiotic shrieks. There was always some joke being run to death at Alconleigh and just now it was headlines from the Daily Express which the children had made into a chant and intoned to each other all day.
Jassy: ‘Man’s long agony in a lift-shaft.’
Victoria: ‘Slowly crushed to death in a lift.’
Aunt Sadie became very cross about this, said they were really too old to be so heartless, that it wasn’t a bit funny, only dull and disgusting, and absolutely forbade them to sing it any more. After this they tapped it out to each other, on doors, under the dining-room table, clicking with their tongues or blinking with their eyelids, and all the time in fits of naughty giggles. I could see that Alfred thought them terribly silly, and he could hardly contain his indignation when he found out that they did no lessons of any sort.
The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford Page 100