When Mrs Heathery offered the fish to Lady Montdore she scooped up the whole thing. No tiresome inhibitions caused her to ask what I would eat, and in fact I had some potatoes and salad. She was good enough to say that the quality of the food in my house seemed to be improving.
‘Oh, yes, I know what I wanted to ask you,’ she said. ‘Who is this Virginia Woolf you mentioned to me? Merlin was talking about her too, the other day at Maggie Greville’s.’
‘She’s a writer,’ I said, ‘a novelist really.’
‘Yes, I see. And as she’s so intellectual, no doubt she writes about nothing but station-masters.’
‘Well, no,’ I said, ‘she doesn’t.’
‘I must confess that I prefer books about society people, not being myself a highbrow.’
‘She did write a fascinating book about a society person,’ I said, ‘called Mrs Dalloway.’
‘Perhaps I’ll read it then. Oh, of course, I’d forgotten – I never read, according to you, don’t know how. Never mind. In case I have a little time this week, Fanny, you might lend it to me, will you? Excellent cheese, don’t tell me you get this in Oxford?’
She was in an unusually good temper that day. I believe the fall of the Spanish throne had cheered her up, she probably foresaw a perfect swarm of Infantas winging its way towards Montdore House, besides, she was greatly enjoying all the details from Madrid. She said that the Duke of Barbarossa (this may not be the name, but it sounded like it) had told her the inside story, in which case he must also have told it to the Daily Express, where I had read word for word what she now kindly passed on to me, and several days before. She remembered to ask for Mrs Dalloway before leaving, and went off with the book in her hand, a first edition. I felt sure that I had seen the last of it, but she brought it back the following week, saying that she really must write a book herself as she knew she could do much better than that.
‘Couldn’t read it,’ she said. ‘I did try, but it is too boring. And I never got to that society person you told me of. Now have you read the Grand Duchess’s Memoirs? I won’t lend you mine, you must buy them for yourself, Fanny, and that will help the dear duchess with another guinea. They are wonderful. There is a great deal, nearly a whole chapter, about Montdore and me in India – she stayed with us at Viceroy’s House, you know. She has really captured the spirit of the place quite amazingly, she was only there a week but one couldn’t have done it better oneself, she describes a garden party I gave, and visits to the Ranees in their harems, and she tells what a lot I was able to do for those poor women of India, and how they worshipped me. Personally, I find memoirs so very much more interesting than any novel because they are true. I may not be an intellectual, but I do like to read the truth about things. Now in a book like the Grand Duchess’s you can see history in the very making, and if you love history as I do (but don’t tell your husband I said so dear, he would never believe it), if you love history, you must be interested to know the inside story, and it’s only people like the Grand Duchess who are in a position to tell us that. And this reminds me, Fanny dear, will you put a call through to Downing Street for me please, and get hold of the P.M. or his secretary – I will speak myself when he is on the line. I’m arranging a little dinner for the Grand Duchess, to give her book a good start, of course, I don’t ask you dear, it wouldn’t be intellectual enough, just a few politicians and writers, I thought. Here is the number, Fanny.’
I was trying at this time to economize in every direction, having overspent myself on doing up the house, and I had made a rule never to telephone, even to Aunt Emily or to Alconleigh, if a letter would do as well, so it was most unwillingly that I did as she asked. There was a long wait on the line before I got the Prime Minister himself, after which Lady Montdore spoke for ages, the pip-pip-pips going at least five times, I could hear them, every pip an agony to me. First of all she fixed a date for her dinner party, this took a long time, with many pauses while he consulted his secretary, and two pip-pip-pips. Then she asked if there were anything new from Madrid.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘badly advised, poor man [pip-pip-pip] I fear. I saw Freddy Barbarossa last night (they are being so brave about it, by the way, quite stoical. Yes, at Claridges) and he told me …’ here a flood of Daily Express news and views. ‘But Montdore and I are very much worried about our own special Infanta – yes, a close friend of ours – oh, Prime Minister, if you could hear anything I should be so more than grateful. Will you really? You know, there is a whole chapter on Madrid in the Grand Duchess’s book, it makes it very topical, rather splendid for her. Yes, a near relation. She describes the view [pip-pip-pip] from the Royal Palace – yes, very bleak, I’ve been there, wonderful sunsets though, I know, poor woman. Oh, she hated them at first, she had special opera glasses with black spots for the cruel moments.
‘Have you heard where they are going? Yes, Barbara Barbarossa told me that too, but I wonder they don’t come here. You ought to try and persuade them. Yes, I see. Well, we’ll talk about all that, meanwhile, dear Prime Minister, I won’t keep you any longer [pip-pip-pip] but we’ll see you on the tenth. So do I. I’ll send your secretary a reminder, of course. Good-bye.’
She turned to me, beaming, and said, ‘I have the most wonderful effect on that man, you know, it’s quite touching how he dotes on me. I really think I could do anything with him, anything at all.’
She never spoke of Polly. At first I supposed that the reason why she liked to see so much of me was that I was associated in her mind with Polly, and that sooner or later she would unburden herself to me, or even try and use me as go-between in a reconciliation. I soon realized, however, that Polly and Boy were dead to her; she had no further use for them since Boy could never be her lover again and Polly could never now, it seemed, do her credit in the eyes of the world; she simply dismissed them from her thoughts. Her visits to me were partly the outcome of loneliness and partly due to the fact that I was a convenient half-way house between London and Hampton and that she could use me as restaurant, cloakroom, and telephone booth when in Oxford.
She was horribly lonely, you could see that. She filled Hampton every week-end with important people, with smart people, even just with people, but, although so great is the English predilection for country life, she generally managed to get these visits extended from Friday to Tuesday, even so she was left with two empty days in the middle of the week. She went less and less to London. She had always preferred Hampton, where she reigned alone, to London, where she faced a certain degree of competition, and life there without Polly to entertain for and without Boy to help her plot the social game had evidently become meaningless and dull.
3
It was no doubt the dullness of her life which now deflected her thoughts towards Cedric Hampton, Lord Montdore’s heir. They still knew nothing about him beyond the mere fact of his existence, which had hitherto been regarded as extremely superfluous since but for him the whole of ‘all this’, including Hampton, would have gone to Polly, and, although the other things she had been going to inherit were worth more money, it was Hampton they all loved so much. I have never made out his exact relationship to Lord Montdore, but I know that when Linda and I used to ‘look him up’ to see if he was the right age for us to marry it always took ages to find him, breathing heavily over the peerage, pointing, and going back and back.
… having had issue,
Henry, b. 1875, who m. Dora, dau. of Stanley Honks Esq. of Annapolis, Nova Scotia, and d. 1913 leaving issue, Cedric, heir pres., b. 1907.
Just the right age, but what of Nova Scotia? An atlas, hastily consulted, showed it to be horribly marine. ‘A transatlantic Isle of Wight’ as Linda put it. ‘No thanks.’ Sea breezes, in so far as they are good for the complexion, were regarded by us as a means and not an end, for at that time it was our idea to live in capital cities and go to the Opera alight with diamonds, ‘Who is that lovely woman?’ and Nova Scotia was clearly not a suitable
venue for such doings. It never seemed to occur to us that Cedric could perhaps have been transplanted from his native heath to Paris, London, or Rome. Colonial we thought, ignorantly. It ruled him out. I believe Lady Montdore knew very little more about him than we did. She had never felt interest or curiosity towards those unsuitable people in Canada, they were one of the unpleasant things of life and she preferred to ignore them. Now, however, left alone with an ‘all this’ which would one day, and one day fairly soon by the look of Lord Montdore, be Cedric’s, she thought and spoke of him continually, and presently had the idea that it would amuse her to see him.
Of course, no sooner had she conceived this idea than she wanted him to be there the very next minute, and was infuriated by the delays that ensued. For Cedric could not be found.
I was kept informed of every stage in the search for him, as Lady Montdore could now think of nothing else.
‘That idiotic woman has changed her address,’ she told me. ‘Montdore’s lawyer has had the most terrible time getting in touch with her at all. Now fancy moving, in Canada. You’d think one place there would be exactly the same as another, wouldn’t you? Sheer waste of money, you’d think. Well, they’ve found her at last, and now it seems that Cedric isn’t with her at all, but somewhere in Europe, very odd of him not to have called on us in that case, so now, of course, there’ll be more delays. Oh, dear, people are too inconsiderate – it’s nothing but self, self, self, nowadays, nothing –!’
In the end Cedric was traced to Paris (‘Simply extraordinary,’ she said. ‘Whatever could a Canadian be doing in Paris? I don’t quite like it.’) and an invitation to Hampton was given and accepted.
‘He comes next Tuesday, for a fortnight. I wrote out the dates very carefully indeed, I always do when it is a question of a country-house visit, then there is no awkwardness about the length of it, people know exactly when they are expected to leave. If we like him he can come again, now we know that he lives in Paris, such an easy journey. But what do you suppose he is doing there, dear, I hope he’s not an artist. Well, if he is we shall simply have to get him out of it – he must learn to behave suitably, now. We are sending to Dover for him, so that he’ll arrive just in time for dinner. Montdore and I have decided not to dress that evening, as most likely he has no evening clothes, and one doesn’t wish to make him feel shy at the very beginning of his visit, poor boy.’
This seemed most unlike Lady Montdore, who usually loved making people feel shy; it was well known to be one of her favourite diversions. No doubt Cedric was to be her new toy, and until such time as, inevitably I felt, just as Norma felt about Mrs Heathery, disillusionment set in, nothing was to be too good for him, and no line of conduct too much calculated to charm him.
I began to think a great deal about Cedric, it was such an interesting situation and I longed to know how he would take it, this young man from the West, suddenly confronted with aristocratic England in full decadence, the cardboard earl, with his nobility of look and manner, the huge luxurious houses, the terrifying servants, the atmosphere of bottomless wealth. I remembered how exaggerated it had all seemed to me as a child, and supposed that he would see it with very much the same eyes and find it equally overpowering.
I thought, however, he might feel at home with Lady Montdore, especially as she desired to please, there was something spontaneous and almost childlike about her which could accord with a transatlantic outlook. It was the only hope, otherwise, and if he were at all timid, I thought, he would find himself submerged. Words dimly associated with Canada kept on occurring to me, the word lumber, the word shack, staking a claim (Uncle Matthew had once staked a claim, I knew, in Ontario in his wild young poker-playing days, with Harry Oakes). How I wished I could be present at Hampton when this lumber-jack arrived to stake his claim to that shack. Hardly had I formed the wish than it was granted, Lady Montdore ringing up to ask if I would go over for the night, she thought it would make things easier to have another young person there when Cedric arrived.
This was a wonderful reward, as I duly remarked to Alfred, for having been a lady-in-waiting.
Alfred said, ‘If you have been putting yourself out all this time with a reward in view, I don’t mind at all. I objected because I thought you were drifting along in the wake of that old woman merely from a lazy good-nature and with no particular motive. That is what I found degrading. Of course, if you were working for a wage, it is quite a different matter, so long, of course,’ he said, with a disapproving look, ‘as the wage seems to you worth while.’
It did.
The Montdores sent a motor car to Oxford for me. When I arrived at Hampton I was taken straight upstairs to my room, where I had a bath and changed, according to instructions brought me by Lady Montdore’s maid, into a day dress. I had not spent a night at Hampton since my marriage. Knowing that Alfred would not want to go, I had always refused Lady Montdore’s invitations, but my bedroom there was still deeply familiar to me. I knew every inch of it by heart. Nothing in it ever changed, the very books between their mahogany bookends were the same collection that I had known and read there now for twelve years, or more than half my life: novels by Robert Hichens and W. J. Locke, Napoleon, The Last Phase by Lord Rosebery, The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, Hare’s Two Noble Lives, Dracula, and a book on dog management. In front of them on a mahogany tallboy was a Japanese bronze tea-kettle with embossed water-lilies. On the walls, besides the two country-house old masters despised of Davey, were a Morland print, ‘The Higglers preparing for Market’, a Richmond water-colour of the ‘old lord’ in a kilt and an oil painting of Toledo either by Boy or Lady Montdore. Their styles were indistinguishable. It was in their early manner, and had probably hung there for twenty years. This room had a womb-like quality in my mind, partly because it was so red and warm and velvety and enclosed, and partly because of the terror with which I always used to be assailed by the idea of leaving it and venturing downstairs. This evening as I dressed I thought how lovely it was to be grown-up, a married woman, and no longer frightened of people. Of Lord Merlin a little, of the Warden of Wadham perhaps, but these were not panicky, indiscriminate social terrors, they could rather be classed as wholesome awe inspired by gifted elders.
When I was ready I went down to the Long Gallery, where Lord and Lady Montdore were sitting in their usual chairs one each side of the chimneypiece, but not at all in their usual frame of mind. They were both, and especially Lady Montdore, in a twitter of nerves, and looked up quite startled when I came into the room, relaxing again when they saw that it was only me. I thought that from the point of view of a stranger, a backwoodsman from the American continent, they struck exactly the right note. Lord Montdore, in an informal green velvet smoking-jacket, was impressive with his white hair and carved, unchanging face, while Lady Montdore’s very dowdiness was an indication that she was too grand to bother about clothes, and this too would surely impress. She wore printed black-and-white crêpe-de-chine, her only jewels the enormous half-hoop rings which flashed from her strong old woman’s fingers, and sat as she always did, her knees well apart, her feet in their large buckled shoes firmly planted on the ground, her hands folded in her lap.
‘We lit this little fire,’ she said, ‘thinking that he may feel cold after the journey.’ It was unusual for her to refer to any arrangement in her house, people being expected to like what they found there, or else to lump it. ‘Do you think we shall hear the motor when it comes up the drive? We generally can if the wind is in the west.’
‘I expect I shall,’ I said, tactlessly. ‘I hear everything.’
‘Oh, we’re not stone deaf ourselves. Show Fanny what you have got for Cedric, Montdore.’
He held out a little book in green morocco, Gray’s poems.
‘If you look at the fly-leaf,’ he said, ‘you will see that it was given to my grandfather by the late Lord Palmerston the day that Cedric’s grandfather was born. They evidently happened to be
dining together. We think that it should please him.’
I did so hope it would. I suddenly felt very sorry for these two old people, and longed for Cedric’s visit to be a success and cheer them up.
‘Canadians,’ he went on, ‘should know all about the poet Gray, because General Woolf, at the taking of Quebec –’
There were footsteps now in the red drawing-room, so we had not heard the motor after all. Lord and Lady Montdore got up and stood together in front of the fireplace as the butler opened the door and announced ‘Mr Cedric Hampton’.
A glitter of blue and gold crossed the parquet, and a human dragon-fly was kneeling on the fur rug in front of the Montdores, one long white hand extended towards each. He was a tall, thin young man, supple as a girl, dressed in rather a bright blue suit; his hair was the gold of a brass bed-knob, and his insect appearance came from the fact that the upper part of the face was concealed by blue goggles set in gold rims quite an inch thick.
He was flashing a smile of unearthly perfection; relaxed and happy he knelt there bestowing this smile upon each Montdore in turn.
‘Don’t speak,’ he said, ‘just for a moment. Just let me go on looking at you – wonderful, wonderful people!’
I could see at once that Lady Montdore was very highly gratified. She beamed with pleasure. Lord Montdore gave her a hasty glance to see how she was taking it, and when he saw that beaming was the note, he beamed too.
‘Welcome,’ she said, ‘to Hampton.’
‘The beauty,’ Cedric went on, floating jointlessly to his feet. ‘I can only say that I am drunk with it. England, so much more beautiful than I had imagined (I have never had very good accounts of England, somehow), this house, so romantic, such a repository of treasures, and above all, you – the two most beautiful people I have ever seen!’
He spoke with rather a curious accent, neither French nor Canadian, but peculiar to himself, in which every syllable received rather more emphasis than is given by the ordinary Englishman. Also he spoke, as it were, through his smile, which would fade a little, then flash out again, but which never altogether left his face.
The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford Page 108