‘I shall be if you are,’ he said.
From Honoria, Dowager Duchess of Denver, to Cornelia Vanderhuysen, in New York.
Bredon Hall, 21 April, 1952
My dear Cornelia,
Please forgive me for taking so long to write to you upon my return, after all your hospitality to me over so many weeks. This is the sort of letter that used to be called a bread and butter letter, but in your case it should be a caviar and champagne letter, so generous you were to me. I know you were worried about me on the voyage home, and in a way you were right – we had terrible weather the moment we left the Hudson, and Franklin was so sea-sick that she could not do anything for me and I had to rely on the cabin staff. They were perfectly kind and efficient, and you know, dear Cornelia, I had to come home some time. Well! You’ll never imagine what I found when I got there! As you know I was expecting a cold welcome from Helen, and a lodging of some kind in the Dower House, but I found instead that I am to have a very nice set of rooms in the Hall itself, all ready for me with fires burning, and many of my own pretty things already installed. So odd, really, Cornelia, to think of Harriet getting things ready for me, when I remember so well all the fun I had on Peter’s marriage getting the Audley Square house ready for her. I have to say that although there is still a lot to do, the poor old lopsided house is really quite charming, and when Harriet asked me if I thought they had done the right thing in not rebuilding the whole stately pile, I said yes very sincerely. Just the same, I shall have to remember where the house now stops, and not go sleep-walking into the garden . . .
I’m sure you will be wanting me to tell you about more important things, and not go running on about bedrooms and sitting-rooms and such like, although really, dear, such things do matter more than we like to admit. As you know I have been very anxious about Peter being squashed flat by his dukedom, and losing that devil-may-care exuberance that made us all love him so dearly. I thought he might turn into another version of Gerald, although I could not imagine Harriet playing Helen; Bunter was the only one of the three that I thought would be like a duck in the water . . . Or should that be on the water? They do tend to float on the top, don’t they? But you know, dear, I had been underestimating my son. He always was a chimera – or do I mean a chameleon? Always playing about with disguises. All that man-about-town he used to go in for, it was always a mask for the real man; I did know that. And now the dukedom is a cover story, and he’s playing it really rather well, though with a much lighter touch than Gerald, of course. And the real Peter is still there, and even managing moments of the old panache. It’s Harriet that is the big surprise; she seems so competent and rather in her element as if she was as much in charge as when she is writing a novel. When I asked her how she was managing she said, ‘I’m just making it up as I go along, and when in doubt I ask Bunter.’
Helen is very grumpy and cross about it all. I rather think she was looking forward to Harriet making a mess of things, either so that she could take over and run everything herself, or so that she could snipe from the sidelines. I am very relieved that I am not under the same roof as her, although I think she will spend a lot of her time in London. Even Peter’s fortune won’t do everything as it used to be done, and a lot of his property in London was flattened in the Blitz. Things certainly will have to be scrimped a lot according to the past. I shan’t mind that, and neither will Harriet.
So all’s well here, Cornelia, and you needn’t worry about me one bit. In fact you had better plan to come and visit and see it all for yourself. I should like that very much.
Always your affectionate friend,
Honoria
PS: You’ll never guess what has just happened, not if I gave you a hundred tries!
That Maharaja person who bought the emeralds – remember we were looking at a report of it together in the New York Times – has decided to give Peter a present. A sundial, he said, and Harriet, I understand, thought it would look good in the middle of her new garden. But yesterday, it came in three lorries! You would call them trucks, dear. And a team of Indian masons to put it together, following the lorries up the drive in a coach. And two Indian astrologers, and the Astronomer Royal no less, our very own Harold Spencer Jones, to get the thing properly lined up. Harriet fled into the kitchen, and she and Mrs Farley managed a sandwich lunch, while Bunter produced some rather nice white wine, so the house held its head up in a manner of speaking. Luckily the Indian masons were provided with their own lunch, because some of our sandwiches were roast beef. They have been building the thing for two days now, and it’s very strange. It’s all pink and white marble, and it has a crescent moon shape, lying on its side, and a little flight of steps rising in the middle, which casts a shadow left or right as the sun goes by. It’s a sort of prefab, with all the stones numbered and ready to put together.
The experts were all saying it wouldn’t be very accurate because it’s too small – my dear it’s twelve feet high! But the Maharaja said the one it is a copy of is one hundred and twenty feet high! His will tell the time by the second, ours will only do it to the right six seconds. But then, dear, whoever really tells the time by a sundial? Peter said something about making a botch of something done much better by a watch, but he said it just to me when the Maharaja was out of earshot.
As I write the workmen are putting a little cupola on the top of the steps to crown the whole thing, and I do think when we have great-grandchildren they will love running up and down those steps, though I am probably far too old to be around to see that.
PPS: By yesterday evening I still hadn’t posted this letter – so sorry, Cornelia, you will think me bad-mannered – the Maharaja and the Astronomer R had all gone home, and just the masons and the astrologers were left. Mrs Farley has been feeding people like a one-woman British Restaurant; nicer food, of course, but the same feeling of emergency numbers, so I’m sure she’s glad to see the back of everybody. Anyway, after dinner Bunter came in with the coffee and told us that everybody had now gone – the masons’ bus had taken them off while we were eating, and it was a lovely moonlit evening, so we all went out into the garden to have a look. Harriet said, ‘Oh, Peter, it works as a moon-dial as well!’ and she went forward to look closely, and she saw that there was some funny writing on the white marble curve where the ruler marks are for reading the time. Peter came to look, and he said, ‘I think I can guess what that is,’ and then they were kissing like newly-weds, so I scrambled away to the other side of the thing, and watched the moon by myself for a minute or two before we all went in to bed.
I shall ask Bunter in the morning what the words on the sundial say – he will know. He always knows everything.
But by then this letter will at last be in the post.
PPPS: You really will have to come to visit, Cornelia, if only to see the sundial for yourself.
Always your loving friend,
Honoria
The Attenbury Emeralds Page 28