In spite of the fact that she was by way of being unable to stick Lady Montdore, Norma got into a perfect state over this dinner party, dropping in on me at all hours to discuss the menu and the fellow guests, and finally imploring me to come on the morning of the day to make a pudding for her. I said that I would do so on one condition, she must buy a quart of cream. She wriggled like an eel not to have to do this, but I was quite firm. Then she said would the top of the milk do? No, I said, it must be thick rich unadulterated cream. I said I would bring it with me and let her know how much I had paid for it, and she very reluctantly agreed. Although she was, I knew, very wealthy, she never spent a penny more than she could help on her house, her table, or her clothes (except her riding-clothes, for she was always beautifully turned out in the hunting-field and I am sure her horses lived on an equine substitute for cream). So I went round, and, having provided myself with the suitable ingredients, I made her a crême Chantilly. As I got back to my own house the telephone bell was pealing away – Cedric.
‘I thought I’d better warn you my darling that we are chucking poor Norma tonight.’
‘Cedric, you simply can’t, I never heard anything so awful, she has bought cream!’
He gave an unkind laugh and said,
‘So much the better for those weedy tots I see creeping about her house.’
‘But why should you chuck, are you ill?’
‘Not the least bit ill, thank you, love. The thing is that Merlin wants us to go over there for dinner, he has got fresh foie gras, and a fascinating Marquesa with eyelashes two inches long, he measured. Do you see how One can’t resist it?’
‘One must resist it,’ I said, frantically. ‘You simply cannot chuck poor Norma now, you’ll never know the trouble she’s taken. Besides, do think of us, you miserable boy, we can’t chuck, only think of the dismal evening we shall have without you.’
‘I know, poor you, won’t it be lugubrious?’
‘Cedric, all I can say is you are a sewer.’
‘Yes, darling, mea culpa. But it’s not so much that I want to chuck as that I absolutely know I shall. I don’t even intend to, I fully intend not to, it is that something in my body will make me. When I’ve rung off from speaking to you, I know that my hand will creep back to the receiver again of its own accord, and I shall hear my voice, but quite against my will, mind you, asking for Norma’s number, and then I shall be really horrified to hear it breaking this dreadful news to Norma. So much worse, now I know about the cream, too. But there it is. But what I rang you up to say is, don’t forget you are on One’s side – no disloyalty Fanny, please, I absolutely count, dear, on you not to egg Norma on to be furious. Because so long as you don’t do that you’ll find she won’t mind a bit, not a bit. So, solidarity between working girls, and I’ll promise to come over tomorrow and tell about the eyelashes.’
Oddly enough, Cedric was right and Norma was not in the least put out. His excuse, and he had told the truth, merely adding a touch of embroidery by saying that Lady Montdore had been at school with the Marquesa, was considered quite a reasonable one, since dinner with Lord Merlin was recognized at Oxford as being the very pinnacle of human happiness. Norma rang me up to say that her dinner party was postponed, in the voice of a society hostess who postpones dinner parties every day of the week. Then, lapsing into more normal Oxford parlance, she said,
‘It’s a bore about the cream, because they are coming on Wednesday now, and it will never keep in this weather. Can you come back and make another pudding on Wednesday morning, Fanny? All right, and I’ll pay you for both lots together, if that suits you. Everybody is free and I think the flowers may last over, so see you then, Fanny.’
But on Wednesday, Cedric was in bed with a high temperature, and on Thursday he was rushed to London by ambulance and operated upon for peritonitis, lying between life and death for several days, and in the end it was quite two months before the dinner party could take place.
At last, however, the date was fixed again, another pudding was made, and, at Norma’s suggestion, I invited my Uncle Davey to come and stay for it, to pair off with her beagling sister. Norma looked down on dons quite as much as Lady Montdore did, and as for undergraduates, although of course she must have known that such things existed, since they provided her husband and mine with a livelihood, she certainly never thought of them as human beings and possible diners-out.
It would never formerly have occurred to me that ‘touching’, a word often on Lady Montdore’s lips (it was very much of her day), could come to have any relation to herself, but on the occasion of Norma’s dinner, the first time I had seen Lady Montdore with Cedric since his illness, there was really something touching about her attitude towards him. It was touching to see this hitherto redoubtable and ponderous personage, thin, now, as a rake, in her little-girl dress of dark tulle over pink taffeta, with her little-girl head of pale blue curls, dark blue ribbons and a swarm of diamond bees, as she listened through her own conversation to whatever Cedric might be saying, as she squinted out of the corner of her eye to see if he was happy and amused, perhaps even just to be quite sure that he was actually there, in the flesh; touching to see with what reluctance she left the dining-room after dinner; touching to watch her as she sat with the rest of us in the drawing-room waiting for the men to return, silent, or speaking at random, her eyes fixed upon the door like a spaniel waiting for its master. Love with her had blossomed late and strangely, but there could be no doubt that it had now blossomed, and that this thorny old plant had very much altered in character to accord with the tender flowers and spring-time verdure which now so unexpectedly adorned it. During the whole of the evening there was only one respect in which she behaved as she would have done in her pre-Cedric days. She piled wood and coal, without so much as a by your leave, on to the tiny fire, Norma’s concession to the fact that winter had begun, so that by the end of the evening we sat in a mellow warmth such as I had never known in that room before.
The men, as they always do in Oxford, remained an inordinate length of time over their port, so long, in fact, that Lady Montdore, with growing impatience, suggested to Norma that they might be sent for. Norma, however, looked so absolutely appalled at the idea that Lady Montdore did not press it any further, but went on with her self-appointed task as stoker, one spaniel-eye on the door.
‘The only way to make a good fire,’ she said, ‘is to put on enough coal. People have all kinds of theories about it, but it’s really very simple. Perhaps we could ask for another scuttle, Mrs Cozens? Very kind. Cedric mustn’t get a chill, whatever happens.’
‘Dreadful,’ I said, ‘him being so ill, wasn’t it?’
‘Don’t speak of it. I thought I should die. Yes, well, as I was saying. It’s exactly the same with coffee, you know, people have those percolators and things and get the Bolter to buy them special beans in Kenya, perfectly pointless. Coffee is good if it is made strong enough and nasty if it is not. What we had just now would have been quite all right if your cook had put in three times the amount, you know. What can they be talking about in the dining-room? It’s not as if any of them were interested in politics.’
At last the door opened. Davey came in first, looking bored and made straight for the fire. Cedric, the Professor, and Alfred followed in a bunch, still pursuing a conversation which seemed to be interesting them deeply.
‘Just a narrow edging of white –’ I heard Cedric say, through the open door, as they came down the passage.
Later on I remembered to ask Alfred what could have led up to this remark, so typical of Cedric but so untypical of the conversation in that house, and he replied that they had been having a most fascinating talk on burial custom in the High Yemen.
‘I fear,’ he said, ‘that you bring out the worst in Cedric Hampton, Fanny. He is really a most intelligent young man, interested in a large range of subjects, though I have no doubt at all that when he is with you he
confines himself, as you do, to remarks in the nature of “and did you notice the expression on her face when she saw who was there?” because he knows that general subjects do not amuse you, only personalities. With those whose horizon is a little wider he can be very serious, let me tell you.’
The fact was that Cedric could bring out edgings of white to suit all tastes.
‘Well, Fanny, how do you like it?’ he asked me, giving a twitch to Lady Montdore’s tulle skirt. ‘We ordered it by telephone when we were at Craigside – don’t you die for television – Mainbocher simply couldn’t believe that Sonia had lost so much weight.’
Indeed, she was very thin.
‘I sit in a steam barrel,’ she said, looking fondly at Cedric, ‘for an hour or two, and then that nice Mr Wixman comes down twice a week when we are at Hampton and he beats and beats me and the morning is gone in a flash. Cedric sees the cook for me nowadays, I find I can’t take very much interest in food, in my barrel.’
‘But my dear Sonia,’ said Davey, ‘I hope you consult Dr Simpson about all this? I am horrified to see you in such a state, really much too thin, nothing but skin and bones. You know, at our age, it’s most dangerous to play about with one’s weight, a terrible strain on the heart.’
It was generous of Davey to talk about ‘our age’, since Lady Montdore was certainly fourteen years older than he was.
‘Dr Simpson!’ she said derisively. ‘My dear Davey, he’s terribly behind the times. Why, he never even told me how good it is to stand on one’s head, and Cedric says in Paris and Berlin they’ve been doing it for ages now. I must say I feel younger every day since I learnt. The blood races through your glands you know, and they love it.’
‘How d’you know they love it?’ said Davey, with considerable irritation. He always scorned any régime for health except the one he happened to be following himself, regarding all others as dangerous superstitions imposed on gullible fools by unscrupulous quacks. ‘We understand so very little about our glands,’ he went on. ‘Why should it be good for them? Did Dame Nature intend us to stand on our heads – do animals stand on their heads, Sonia?’
‘The sloth,’ said Cedric, ‘and the bat hang upside down for hours on end – you can’t deny that, Davey.’
‘Yes, but do sloths and bats feel younger every day? I doubt it. Bats may, but I’m sure sloths don’t.’
‘Come on, Cedric,’ said Lady Montdore, very much put out by Davey’s remarks, ‘we must be going home.’
Lady Montdore and Cedric now installed themselves at Montdore House for the winter and were seen no more by me. London society, having none of the prejudices against the abnormal which still exists among Boreleys and Uncle Matthews in country places, simply ate Cedric up, occasional echoes of his great success even reaching Oxford. It seemed that such an arbiter of taste, such an arranger of festivities, had not been known since the days of the beaux, and that he lived in a perfect welter of parties, dragging Lady Montdore along in his wake.
‘Isn’t she wonderful? You know, she’s seventy – eighty – ninety –’ her age went up by leaps and bounds. ‘She’s a darling, so young, so delicious, I do hope I shall be just like her when I’m a hundred.’
So Cedric had transformed her from a terrifying old idol of about sixty into a delicious young darling of about a hundred. Was anything beyond his powers?
I remember one icy day of late spring I ran into Mrs Chaddesley Corbett, walking down the Turl with an undergraduate, perhaps her son, I thought, chinless, like her.
‘Fanny!’ she said. ‘Oh, of course, darling, you live here, don’t you? I’m always hearing about you from Cedric. He dotes on you, that’s all.’
‘Oh,’ I said, pleased, ‘and I’m so very fond of him.’
‘Couldn’t like him more, could you? So gay, so cosy, I think he’s a perfect poppet. As for Sonia, it’s a transformation, isn’t it? Polly’s marriage seems to have turned out to be a blessing in disguise for her. Do you ever hear from Polly now? What a thing to have done, poor sweet. But I’m mad about Cedric, that’s all – everybody in London is – tiny Lord Fauntleroy. They’re both dining with me this evening, I’ll give them your love, shall I? See you very soon, darling, good-bye.’
I saw Mrs Chaddesley Corbett perhaps once a year, she always called me darling and said she would see me very soon, and this always left me feeling quite unreasonably elated.
I got back to my house and found Jassy and Victoria sitting by the fire. Victoria was looking very green.
‘I must do the talking,’ Jassy said, ‘Fa’s new car makes poor Vict. sick and she can’t open her mouth for fear of letting the sick out.’
‘Go and let it out in the loo,’ I said. Victoria shook her head vehemently.
‘She hates being,’ said Jassy, ‘anything rather. We hope you’re pleased to see us.’
I said that I was, very.
‘And we hope you’ve noted how we never do come nowadays.’
‘Yes, I have noted. I put it down to the hunting.’
‘Stupid you are. How could one hunt, in this weather?’
‘This weather only began yesterday, and I’ve heard of you from Norma, hunting away like anything up to now.’
‘We don’t think you quite realize how bitterly offended we feel over your behaviour to us the last year or two.’
‘Now, now children, we’ve had this out a thousand times,’ I said firmly.
‘Yes, well, it’s not very nice of you. After all, when you married we rather naturally expected that your home would open up all the delights of civilized society to us, and that sooner or later we should meet, in your salon, the brilliant wealthy titled men destined to become our husbands. “I loved her from the first moment I saw her, the leggy little girl with the beautiful sensitive face, who used to sprawl about Mrs Wincham’s drawing-room at Oxford.” Well, then, what happens? One of the richest partis in Western Europe becomes an habitué de la maison and are we thrown at his head by our cousin, naturally ambitious for our future, does she move heaven and earth to further this splendid match? Not even asked to meet him. Spoilsport.’
‘Go on,’ I said, wearily.
‘No, well, we’re only bringing it up’ – Victoria here fled the room, Jassy took no notice – ‘in order to show our great magnanimity of soul. The fact is that we know a very interesting piece of news, and in spite of your Counter-Honnish behaviour we are going to tell it to you. But we want you to realize that it is pretty noble of us, when you take everything into account, his flashing eyes, his floating hair, only seen in the distance, it is such a shame, and I must wait for Vict. to come back or it would be too unfaithful, and can we have some tea, she’s always starving after.’
‘Does Mrs Heathery know you’re here?’
‘Yes, she held Vict.’s head.’
‘You don’t mean to say she’s been sick already?’
‘It’s always thrice – once in the car and twice when we get there.’
‘Well, if Mrs Heathery knows, tea will appear.’
It appeared simultaneously with Victoria.
‘Fanny’s loo! The bliss! It’s got a carpet, Jassy, and it’s boiling warm, one could stay there all day. Crumpets! Oh, Fanny!’
‘What’s this news you know?’ I asked, pouring out milk for the children.
‘I like tea now, please,’ said Jassy, ‘which shows how long since you saw us. I like tea and I almost like coffee. So the news is, Napoleon has left Elba and is on his way back.’
‘Say it again.’
‘Dense. Nobody would think that you were a hostess to the younger cosmopolitan intellectual set, noted for her brilliant repartee.’
‘Do you mean Polly?’ I said, light suddenly dawning.
‘Very bright of you, dear. Josh was out exercising this morning and he stopped at the Blood Arms for a quick one, and that’s what he heard. So we came dashing over to tell you, Fanny, in si
ckness and in health, so does one good turn not deserve another, Fanny?’
‘Oh, do stop being such a bore,’ I said, ‘and go on telling. When?’
‘Any day now. The tenants have gone and the house is being got ready, Lady Patricia’s sheets and things, you know. She’s going to have a baby.’
‘Who is, Polly?’
‘Well dear, who do you think? Not Lady Patricia. So that’s what she’s coming back for. So are you admitting that it was handsome of us to come over and tell you?’
‘Very handsome,’ I said.
‘So will you invite us to luncheon one day soon?’
‘Any day you like. I’ll make chocolate profiteroles with real cream.’
‘And what about closing our eyes with holy dread?’
‘Cedric, if that’s what you mean, is in London, but you can close them at Jack Boreley,’ I said.
‘Oh, Fanny, you brute. Can we go upstairs and see dear little David?’
7
The weather now became intensely cold, and much snow fell. The newspapers came out every day with horror stories of sheep buried in snowdrifts, of song-birds frozen to the branches on which they perched, of fruit trees hopelessly nipped in the bud, and the situation seemed dreadful to those who, like Mrs Heathery, believe all they see in print without recourse to past experience. I tried to cheer her up by telling her, what, in fact, proved to be the case, that in a very short time the fields would be covered with sheep, the trees with birds, and the barrows with fruit just as usual. But though the future did not disturb me I found the present most disagreeable, that winter should set in again so late in the spring, at a time when it would not be unreasonable to expect delicious weather, almost summer-like, warm enough to sit out of doors for an hour or two. The sky was overcast with a thick yellow blanket from which an endless pattern of black and white snowflakes came swirling down, and this went on day after day. One morning I sat by my window gazing idly at the pattern and thinking idle thoughts, wondering if it would ever be warm again, thinking how like a child’s snowball Christ Church looked through a curtain of flakes, thinking too how cold it was going to be at Norma’s that evening without Lady Montdore to stoke the fire, and how dull without Cedric and his narrow edging of white. Thank goodness, I thought, that I had sold my father’s diamond brooch and installed central heating with the proceeds; then I began to remember what the house had been like two years before when the workmen were still in it, and how I had looked out through that very same pane of glass, filthy dirty then, and splashed with whitewash, and seen Polly struggling into the wind with her future husband. I half wanted and half did not want Polly in my life again. I was expecting another baby and felt tired, really, not up to much.
The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford Page 113