The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘I make her say “brush” before she comes into a room,’ he told me. ‘It’s a thing I got out of an old book on deportment and it fixes at once this very gay smile on one’s face. Somebody ought to tell Lord Alconleigh about it.’

  Since she had never hitherto made the smallest effort to appear younger than she was, but had remained fundamentally Edwardian-looking, as though conscious of her own superiority to the little smart ephemeral types, the Chaddesley Corbetts and so on, Cedric’s production of her was revolutionary. In my opinion it was not successful; for she made the sacrifice of a grand and characteristic appearance without really gaining in prettiness, but no doubt the effort which it involved made her perfectly happy.

  Cedric and I became great friends and he visited me constantly in Oxford, just as Lady Montdore used to before she became so busy, and I must say that I greatly preferred his company to hers. During the later stages of my pregnancy, and after the baby was born, he would come and sit with me for hours on end, and I felt completely at ease with him; I could go on with my sewing, or mending, without bothering about what I looked like, exactly as if he were one of my Radlett cousins. He was kind and thoughtful and affectionate, like a charming woman friend; better, because our friendship was marred by no tinge of jealousy.

  Later on, when I had got my figure back after the baby, I began to dress and make myself up with a view to gaining Cedric’s approbation, but I soon found that, with the means at my disposal, it was not much use. He knew too much about women and their accessories to be impressed by anything I could manage. For instance, if with a great effort I changed into silk stockings when I expected him, he could see at once that they were Elliston, 5s. 11d., all I could afford, and it really seemed more sensible to stick to lisle. Indeed, he once said to me,

  ‘You know, Fanny, it doesn’t matter a bit that you’re not able to dress up in expensive clothes, there’d be no point in it anyway. You are like the Royal Family, my darling. Whatever you wear you look exactly the same, just as they do.’

  I was not very much pleased, but I knew that he was right. I could never look fashionable, even if I tried as hard as Lady Montdore, with my heather-hair and round salubrious face.

  I remember that my mother, during one of her rare visits to England, brought me a little jacket in scarlet cloth from Schiaparelli. It seemed to me quite plain and uninteresting except for the label in its lining, and I longed to put this on the outside so that people would know where it came from. I was wearing it, instead of a cardigan, in my house when Cedric happened to call, and the first thing he said was,

  ‘Aha! So now we dress at Schiaparelli, I see! Whatever next?’

  ‘Cedric! How can you tell?’

  ‘My dear, one can always tell. Things have a signature, if you use your eyes, and mine seem to be trained over a greater range of objects than yours, Schiaparelli – Reboux – Fabergé – Viollet-le-Duc – I can tell at a glance, literally a glance. So your wicked mother the Bolter has been here since last I saw you?’

  ‘Might I not have bought it for myself?’

  ‘No, no my love, you are saving up to educate your twelve brilliant sons, how could you possibly afford twenty-five pounds for a little jacket?’

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ I said. ‘Twenty-five pounds for this?’

  ‘Quite that, I should guess.’

  ‘Simply silly. Why, I could have made it myself.’

  ‘But could you? And if you had would I have come into the room and said Schiaparelli?’

  ‘There’s only a yard of stuff in it, worth a pound, if that,’ I went on, horrified by the waste of money.

  ‘And how many yards of canvas in a Fragonard? And how much do planks of wood cost, or the skin of a darling goat before they are turned into commodes and morocco? Art is more than yards, just as One is more than flesh and bones. By the way, I must warn you that Sonia will be here in a minute, in search of strong tea. I took the liberty of having a word with Mrs Heathery, the love of whose life I am, on my way up, and I also brought some scones from the Cadena which I deposited with her.’

  ‘What is Lady Montdore doing now?’ I said, beginning to tidy up the room.

  ‘Now, this very minute? She is at Parker’s buying a birthday present for me. It is to be a great surprise, but I went to Parker’s and prepared the ground and I shall be greatly surprised if the great surprise is not Ackerman’s Repository.’

  ‘I thought you turned up your nose at English furniture?’ I said.

  ‘Less and less. Provincial but charming is now my attitude and Ackerman’s Repository is such an amusing book, I saw a copy the other day when Sonia and I went over to Lord Merlin’s, and I long to possess it. I expect it will be all right. Sonia loves to give me these large presents, impossible to carry about; she thinks they anchor me to Hampton. I don’t blame her, her life there must have been too dull for words, without me.’

  ‘But are you anchored?’ I said. ‘It always seems to me that the place where you really belong is Paris – I can’t imagine you staying here for ever.’

  ‘I can’t imagine it either, but the fact is, my darling, that the news from Paris is not too good. I told you, didn’t I, that I left my German friend Klugg to look after my apartment and keep it warm for me? Now what do I hear? The baron came last week with a camion and took all the furniture, every stick, leaving poor Klugg to sleep on bare boards. I dare say he doesn’t notice, he is always quite drunk by bedtime, but for waking up it can’t be very nice, and meanwhile I am mourning my commodes. Louis XV – a pair – such marqueterie, such bronzes, really important pieces, objets de musée – well, often have I told you about them. Gone! The baron, during one fatal afternoon, took everything. Bitter work!’

  ‘What baron?’ I asked.

  I knew all about Klugg, how hideous and drunken and brutal and German and unlettered he was, so that Cedric never could explain why he put up with his vagaries for a single moment, but the baron was a new figure to me. Cedric was evasive, however. He was better than anybody I have ever known at not answering questions if he did not want to.

  ‘Just another friend. The first night I was in Paris I went to the Opera, and I don’t mind telling you, my darling, that all eyes were upon me, in my box, the poor artistes might just as well not have been on the stage at all. Well, one of the eyes belonged to the baron.’

  ‘Two of the eyes, you mean,’ I said.

  ‘No dear, one. He wears a patch to make himself look sinister and fascinating. Nobody knows how much I hate barons, I feel exactly like King John whenever I think of them.’

  ‘But Cedric, I don’t understand. How could he take your furniture away?’

  ‘How could he? How, indeed? Alas, he has, and that is that. My Savonnerie, my Sèvres, my sanguines, all my treasures gone and I confess I am very low about it, because, although they cannot compare in quality with what I see every day round me at Hampton, one does so love one’s own things which one has bought and chosen oneself. I must say the Boulle at Hampton is the best I have ever seen – even at Chèvres we had no Boulle like that. Sensational. Have you been over since we began to clean the bronzes? Oh, you must come. I have taught my friend Archie how to unscrew the bits, scrub them with ammonia, and pour boiling water on them from a kettle so that they dry at once with no moisture left to turn them green. He does it all all day, and when he has finished it glitters like the cave of Aladdin.’

  This Archie was a nice, handsome boy, a lorry-driver, whom Cedric had found with his lorry broken down near the gates of Hampton.

  ‘For your ear alone, my darling, it was a stroke of thunder when I saw him. What one does so love about love is the time before they find out what One is like.’

  ‘And it’s also very nice,’ I said, disloyally, ‘before One finds out what they are like.’

  Archie had now left his lorry for ever, and gone to live at Hampton to do odd jobs. Lady Montdore was enthusiastic about h
im.

  ‘So willing,’ she would say, ‘so clever of Cedric to think of having him. Cedric always does such original things.’

  Cedric went on, ‘But I suppose you would think it more hideous than ever, Fanny. I know that you like a room to sparkle with freshness, whereas I like it to glitter with richness. That is where we differ at present, but you’ll change. Your taste is really good, and it is bound to mature one day.’

  It was true that my taste at this time, like that of the other young people I knew who cared about their houses, favoured pickled or painted furniture with a great deal of white, and upholstery in pale cheerful colours. French furniture with its finely chiselled ormolu (what Cedric called bronzes), its severe lines and perfect proportions was far above my head in those days, while Louis XIV needlework, of which there was a great amount at Hampton, seemed dark and stuffy. I frankly preferred a cheerful chintz.

  Cedric’s word with Mrs Heathery had excellent results, and even Lady Montdore showed no signs of despising the tea which arrived at the same time as she did. In any case, now that she was happy again, she was much more good-natured about the attempts of the humble, such as myself, to regale her.

  Her appearance still gave me quite a jump, though by now I really should have been getting accustomed to her flashing smile, her supple movements, and the pale blue curls, a little sparse upon the head, not unattractively so, but like a baby’s curls. Today she was hatless, and wore a tartan ribbon to keep her hair in place. She was dressed in a plain but beautifully made grey coat and skirt, and as she came into the room, which was full of sun, she took her coat off with a curious, swift, double-jointed movement, revealing a piqué blouse and a positively girlish waist-line. It was warm spring weather just then, and I knew that she and Cedric did a lot of sunbathing in a summer-house specially designed by him, as a result of which her skin had gone rather a horrid yellow, and looked as if it had to be soaked in oil to prevent it from falling into a thousand tiny cracks. Her nails were varnished dark red, and this was an improvement, since formerly they had been furrowed and not always quite clean. The old-fashioned hoops of enormous diamonds set in gold which used so stiffly to encircle her stiff fingers were replaced by square-cut diamonds in clusters of cabochon emeralds and rubies, her diamond earrings too had been reset, in the shape of cockle shells, and more large diamonds sparkled in a fashionable pair of clips at her throat. The whole thing was stunning.

  But although her aspect was so much changed, her personality remained the same, and the flashing (brush) smile was followed by the well-known up-and-down look.

  ‘Is that your baby making that horrid noise, Fanny?’

  ‘Yes. He never cries as a rule but his teeth are upsetting him.’

  ‘Poor thing,’ said Cedric, ‘couldn’t he go to the dentist?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got your birthday present, Cedric. It can’t be a surprise though, because it’s all over the floor of the motor. They seemed to think, at Parker’s, that you would like it – a book called Ackerman’s Suppository or something.’

  ‘Not Ackerman’s Suppository – not really!’ said Cedric, clasping his hands under his chin in a very characteristic gesture. ‘How kind you are to me – how could you have guessed? Where did you find it? But, dearest, it’s bad about the surprise. Birthday presents really ought to be surprises. I can’t get Sonia to enter into the true spirit of birthdays. Fanny, what can One do about it?’

  I thought One had done pretty well. Lady Montdore was famous for never giving presents at all, either for birthdays or at Christmas, and had never even relaxed this rule in favour of the adored Polly, though Lord Montdore used to make up for that by giving her several. But she showered presents, and valuable presents too, on Cedric, snatching at the smallest excuse to do so, and I quite saw that with somebody so intensely appreciative this must be a great pleasure.

  ‘But I have got a surprise for you, as well as the books, something I bought in London,’ she said, looking at him fondly.

  ‘No!’ said Cedric. I had the feeling he knew all about that, too. ‘I shan’t have one moment’s peace until I’ve wormed it out of you – how I wish you hadn’t told me.’

  ‘You’ve only got to wait until tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, I warn you I shall wake you up for it at six. Now finish your tea, dear, and come, we ought to be getting back, I’m in a little bit of a fuss to see what Archie has been up to with all those bronzes. He’s doing the Boulle today and I have had a horrid idea – suppose he has reassembled it into a lorry by mistake? What would dearest Uncle Montdore say if he suddenly came upon a huge Boulle lorry in the middle of the Long Gallery?’

  No doubt, I thought, but that both Lord and Lady Montdore would happily have got into it and been taken for a ride by Cedric. He had completely mesmerized them, and nothing that he could do ever seemed otherwise to them than perfection.

  5

  Cedric’s advent at Hampton naturally created quite a stir in the world outside. London society was not at first given the chance to form an opinion on him, because this was the year following the Financial Crisis – in fact, Cedric and the Crisis had arrived at about the same time, and Lady Montdore, though herself unaffected by it, thought that as there was no entertaining in London it was hardly worth while to keep Montdore House open. She had it shrouded in dust-sheets except for two rooms where Lord Montdore could put up if he wanted to go to the House of Lords.

  Lady Montdore and Cedric never stayed there, they sometimes went to London, but only for the day. She no longer invited large house parties to Hampton. She said people could talk about nothing but money any more and it was too boring, but I thought there was another reason, and that she really wanted to keep Cedric to herself.

  The county, however, hummed and buzzed with Cedric, and little else was talked of. I need hardly say that Uncle Matthew, after one look, found that the word sewer had become obsolete and inadequate. Scowling, growling, flashing of eyes and grinding of teeth, to a degree hitherto reserved for Boy Dougdale, were intensified a hundredfold at the mere thought of Cedric, and accompanied by swelling veins and apoplectic noises. The drawers at Alconleigh were emptied of the yellowing slips of paper on which my uncle’s hates had mouldered all these years, and each now contained a clean new slip with the name, carefully printed in black ink, Cedric Hampton. There was a terrible scene on Oxford platform one day. Cedric went to the bookstall to buy Vogue, having mislaid his own copy. Uncle Matthew, who was waiting there for a train, happened to notice that the seams of his coat were piped in a contrasting shade. This was too much for his self-control. He fell upon Cedric and began to shake him like a rat; just then, very fortunately, the train came in, whereupon my uncle, who suffered terribly from train fever, dropped Cedric and rushed to catch it. ‘You’d never think,’ as Cedric said afterwards, ‘that buying Vogue magazine could be so dangerous. It was well worth it though, lovely Spring modes.’

  The children, however, were in love with Cedric and furious because I would not allow them to meet him in my house, but Aunt Sadie, who seldom took a strong line about anything, had solemnly begged me to keep them apart, and her word with me was law. Besides, from my pinnacle of sophistication as wife and mother, I also considered Cedric unsuitable company for the very young, and when I knew that he was coming to see me I took great care to shoo away any undergraduates who might happen to be sitting about in my drawing-room.

  Uncle Matthew and his neighbours seldom agreed on any subject. He despised their opinions, and they in their turn found his violent likes and dislikes quite incomprehensible, taking their cue as a rule from the balanced Boreleys. Over Cedric, however, all were united. Though the Boreleys were not haters in the Uncle Matthew class, they had their own prejudices, things they ‘could not stick’, foreigners, for example, well-dressed women and the Labour Party. But the thing they could stick least in the world were ‘aesthetes – you know – those awful effeminate creatures – pansies
’. When, therefore, Lady Montdore, whom anyhow they could not stick much, installed the awful effeminate pansy Cedric at Hampton, and it became borne in upon them that he was henceforth to be their neighbour for ever, quite an important one at that, the future Lord Montdore, hatred really did burgeon in their souls. At the same time they took a morbid interest in every detail of the situation, and these details were supplied to them by Norma, who got her facts, I am ashamed to say, from me. It tickled me so much to make Norma gasp and stretch her eyes with horror that I kept back nothing that might tease her and infuriate the Boreleys.

  I soon found out that the most annoying feature of the whole thing to them was the radiant happiness of Lady Montdore. They had all been delighted by Polly’s marriage, and even those people who might have been expected wholeheartedly to take Lady Montdore’s side over it, such as the parents of pretty young daughters, having said with smug satisfaction, ‘Serve her right’. They hated her and were glad to see her downed. Now, it seemed, the few remaining days of this wicked woman, who never invited them to her parties, were being suitably darkened with a sorrow which would surely bring her grey hairs to the grave. The curtain rises for the last act, and the stalls are filled with Boreleys all agog to witness the agony, the dissolution, the muffled drum, the catafalque, the procession to the vault, the lowering to the tomb, the darkness. But what is this? On to the dazzling stage springs Lady Montdore, lithe as a young cat, her grey hairs now a curious shade of blue, with a partner, a terrible creature from Sodom, from Gomorrah, from Paris, and proceeds to dance with him a wild fandango of delight. No wonder they were cross.

  On the other hand, I thought the whole thing simply splendid, since I like my fellow-beings to be happy and the new state of affairs at Hampton had so greatly increased the sum of human happiness. An old lady, a selfish old creature admittedly, who deserved nothing at the end but trouble and sickness (but which of us will deserve better?) is suddenly presented with one of life’s bonuses, and is rejuvenated, occupied and amused; a charming boy with a great love of beauty and of luxury, a little venal perhaps (but which of us is not if we get the opportunity to be?), whose life had hitherto depended upon the whims of barons, suddenly and respectably acquires two doting parents and a vast heritage of wealth, another bonus; Archie the lorry driver, taken from long cold nights on the road, long oily hours under his lorry, and put to polish ormolu in a warm and scented room; Polly married to the love of her life; Boy married to the greatest beauty of the age, five bonuses, five happy people, and yet the Boreleys were disgusted. They must indeed be against the human race, I thought, so to hate happiness.