by Alec Waugh
‘Ada’s a Nigerian,’ he said. ‘She won a scholarship and is reading history and law at London—Queen’s College. Her class was taken to Lloyd’s. That’s how I met her. She said she had never met a novelist so I thought of you.’
She asked me the usual questions: Did I keep regular hours, did I take my characters from real life, how did I get my plots? She had a pleasant voice, with something of a singsong accent. She was very natural. The Nigerians at that time were a happy people. They did not think they had been exploited by the English. They were grateful to the English for the modern methods, the machinery, the medicine, the education they had acquired.
‘Is Ada the first Nigerian you have met?’ he asked.
‘No, there was a very attractive one in Tangier.’
‘Was she at all like your West Indians?’
‘Not in the least. Neither to look at nor in herself.’
‘That’s what I would say. The West Indians will take a long time to forget that their ancestors were slaves, though a lot of those ancestors did come from Nigeria; the Nigerians themselves have always been free.’ He paused. We were halfway through our lunch. ‘I think, Ada, that it’s time you put on your rings.’
She laughed. Her laugh was the one thing about her that reminded me of the Caribbean. It was loud, it was high-pitched, it was a cackle. She opened her handbag. She took from it a small round enamel box. She laid it on the table. She opened it. It contained two rings. The one was a large emerald in a silver setting: the other a single gold band of alternating diamonds and rubies. She slid the gold band onto the fourth finger of her left hand. Then she slid on the emerald.
‘Allow me to present the Honourable Mrs Timothy Peronne. Could I knock you down with a feather ?’
‘You wouldn’t need anything as powerful as that.’ We laughed together.
‘When did this take place?’ I asked.
‘Officially last week. Unofficially two months ago.’
‘I’m slowly recovering my breath.’ I raised my glass to Ada, ‘Good luck’; to Timothy Alexander, ‘Congratulations.’ Then I started asking questions. When were they moving down to Charminster ? Was she going on with her course at Queen’s? Did Eileen know? What had his father said? Those questions took a while to answer. Yes, she was going to finish her course. Yes, Eileen knew: she had met Ada and was delighted. No, his father did not know, not yet. They could not move down to Charminster until he knew. As soon as the wedding was announced they would take a flat in London. Until then they were continuing the unofficial pattern of the last two months, his staying in his club and visiting her in her flat.
‘When are you going to tell your father ?’
‘As soon as possible. That’s one of the things you’re here for. I want him to get letters from all four of us simultaneously: my mother’s the fourth of course. I want each of us to mail a letter in London at ten o’clock on Monday morning. On my envelope I’ll mark “please read this first”. Ada’s will be the second, my mother’s the third, yours the fourth. How do you think he’ll take it?’
‘He should be delighted.’
‘Yes, but will he? He may not fancy the idea of a coloured grandson in the House of Lords.’
I laughed at that. ‘By the time that grandson comes to take his place there, the world, and the House of Lords along with it, will be a very different place.’
Ada looked puzzled at that. The House of Lords was an unreal issue to her.
I endeavoured to be reassuring. But I could not help wondering a little bit how Raymond would take it. He thought of colour, after all, in terms of the West Indies. In my letter I would point out that Nigerians were as different from West Indians, in spirit though not in blood, as Syrians were from either. I wondered how Eileen felt about it. I rang her up that evening and next day we lunched. She was happy all right. ‘A thoroughly nice girl; responsible, and clever. I’m sure that they’re in love. And she’s not self-conscious about being black. That’s part of her appeal for him. She thinks that marrying a white man’s a great joke. The fact that he’s the heir to a title cuts no ice. It’s simply a little extra sugar on the joke. With an English girl or an American, he’d have kept wondering how much the prospect of being Her Ladyship affected her.’
‘You always come back to that question of the title.’
‘You can’t ignore it. Raymond himself was always aware of being a second son, though he never mentioned it.’
Except, I thought, where Whistler was concerned, but that point I wasn’t mentioning. I wondered how soon we’d have the answer. ‘I wonder if he’ll cable us,’ she said.
He did. Four enthusiastic cables. Mine said, ‘You told me exactly what I needed to know. See you very soon.’ To Ada he cabled, ‘Welcome into the family. Your father-in-law longs to meet you.’ His cable to Timothy Alexander announced his immediate return. By now Dominica had an airstrip, and daily BEA connections with Antigua.
* * *
He arrived in the highest spirits. ‘I’m delighted,’ he told Ada. Tt was time he married, and I was terrified lest he’d marry some simpering, designing debutante who’d set her cap at him. I’m sorry you married secretly: but I see your point. It would have been difficult with your parents in Nigeria. But it would have been an adventure to have us all flying out there for a tribal feast. However we’ll do the best we can. We’ll have a celebration party that’ll make London talk.’
It was to be at the House of Lords. He discussed it with Eileen and myself. ‘There’s not to be anything hole and corner about this,’ he said. Tt must be done on a grand scale. We’ll have it in costume. Ada will look superb in her national dress. Have you ever seen it? Terrific. Long skirts down to the ankles. Very bright tunic in primary colours, broad diagonal stripes, and an elaborate headdress. I’ll get the High Commissioner. He’ll be delighted to come in his full war paint.’
‘Do you know him?’ Eileen asked.
‘Not yet. But that’s the kind of thing it isn’t difficult to manage.’
‘For me to manage’ he should have added. I remembered how he said all those years ago in Beirut, on the verandah of the St George, that he always seemed to know the key man who could further a friend’s interest, though he was never able to pull the right string in his own. He was very tactful with the High Commissioner. He asked him to choose a day that would be convenient. Tt is most important that you should attend. I want this marriage to start under the right auspices.’ He made the High Commissioner feel that the wedding would be a valuable piece of publicity for the new Dominion. And indeed it was. Raymond insisted that all Ada’s friends should come in their national costume. And the High Commissioner arranged for the presence of one or two prominent nationals. The House of Lords has rarely in recent years been afforded such a chromatic spectacle.
It was a warm October day; though the reception was held indoors, it was warm enough for the guests to stroll along the terrace. The invitations had gone out in Eileen’s name as well as Raymond’s. She and Raymond stood together with the High Commissioner beside them. Seeing them together sent a nostalgic wave along my nerves. How different their own wedding must have been, in a dingy impersonal office in Dominica. They looked so right standing there together, she so elegant and he so handsome; never had his good looks been so striking. There was a glow about him. He looked more like a bridegroom than his son did. ‘One would think you were in love too,’ I said. He laughed. ‘I haven’t yet reached the Sophoclean calm,’ he said.
Ada was enchanted with him. ‘He looks so young,’ she said. Her face was transfigured with a bright, broad grin. She was like an exotic jungle creature, something out bf a Rousseau canvas. ‘I never thought I should have a wedding anything like this,’ she said. And indeed I would question if there has been a wedding party quite like that: with the river flowing below it to the sea, Big Ben counting the minutes; and the brilliandy robed Nigerians mingling with the fashionably dressed English men and women; the setting sun spread its benediction on t
hem.
Next day it provided the press and on Saturday the social weeklies with a series of decorative photographs. The photograph in the Express was captioned ‘Nigerian females, my Lords, after all are ladies’.
Later at the Beefsteak that caption was to be the cause of comment. I was sitting next to a youngish man in the foreign office who was largely responsible for Dominion and Colonial postings. ‘I’ve an idea,’ he said, ‘that Peronne’s stock must stand high now with Africans and West Indians. Dominica will be needing a new Administrator shortly. In a very little while Dominica will be getting its independence. Peronne might be the man to bridge the gap. It might be easier for him than for a career diplomat. When were you there last?’
‘Five years ago.’
‘I don’t suppose it’s altered very much in that time.’
‘It hasn’t altered much since I went there first in 1929.’
‘Is Peronne popular ?’
‘Yes, and respected too.’
‘Just what’s needed in an Administrator. I wonder how he’d like the job.’
‘I’d say he’d jump at it.’
‘I’ll think it over.’
A week later I met him again. ‘I’ve had a talk with Peronne. The idea appealed to him.’
‘Will you be able to fix it up?’
‘As far as one can be sure of anything, it’s settled.’
‘I couldn’t be more pleased.’
The Administrator of Dominica, during the period of changeover, was the equivalent, on an infinitely lower level, of the role that Mountbatten had played in India. It was good to think of Raymond, sitting in Government House, presiding over the legislative assembly, exercising authority over an island and a people that he had loved so long. It was far from being a fulfilment of the promise that he had showed as a young man, but it was not negligible. And he would do it very well.
I rang him up next morning to congratulate him, but to my surprise I learnt that he had left the country. I had believed that he was planning to stay on for another month. Presumably the offer of the Administratorship had hurried his return, so that he could organise his new routine. How soon would it be before the appointment was confirmed ?
I myself left London a little later. On my return I got in touch with his son. ‘What news of Dominica?’ Presuming that I had missed the Times that announced Raymond’s appointment, I expected to be told ‘Oh, haven’t you heard? The old man’s very grand. His Excellency now.’
But the reply was as it had always been. ‘As happy there as ever. Very proud of having developed a White Anthurium.’ No reference to GH. I assumed that the projected appointment had been sidetracked in the corridors of Whitehall. I felt sorry for Raymond. It must have been a considerable disappointment.
It was a couple of years before I again ran into my friend at the Foreign Office. ‘What happened about Peronne’s appointment to Dominica?’
‘That’s what I’ve asked myself. He was most enthusiastic when I put up the idea. In fact he returned to Dominica two weeks before he had intended, to reorganise his commitments. I thought the whole thing was settled. Then I got a letter six weeks later saying that now he was back, he felt that the job was more than he could manage. A great pity. He’d have done it very well. Now and again it pays to have a non-career diplomat in a special post and Dominica always has been a special post.’
I wondered what had happened. Had Raymond felt that his strength would not stand it ? He had looked so surprisingly well at the wedding party. I did not mention it in my letters to him, nor did I mention it to either Eileen or Timothy Alexander. Raymond had a regard for privacy.
16
Two years after his marriage, Timothy Alexander became the father of a son, eighteen months later of a daughter. He took a flat in Dolphin Square. His business commitments were now too many to let him spend more than his weekends at Charminster. He had fingers in a great many pies. ‘Those two years at Harvard are invaluable to me now,’ he told me. ‘They gave me a global view of business.’
‘What about those two years in the ranks, do you think they helped?’
‘Ultimately, yes. If I’d gone into the Brigade I’d have met a number of useful people, and I’m not sure that being an officer in the Brigade isn’t a better training for handling men than having a more intimate knowledge of what I used to call “the other half”. But I believe that those two years in the ranks made it easier for me to fit into American life. If I’d been a Guardee I might have adopted a patrician attitude that would have put people off. That row at Eton was a blessing in disguise.’
His marriage seemed to be going very well.
London was rapidly becoming a four-and-a-half-day city. Men went down to the country on Friday afternoon. Many clubs were closed on Friday evenings and Ada came up to Dolphin Square in the middle of each week.- On Monday and Thursday nights Timothy Alexander saw his men friends; dining at Pratt’s or White’s. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights he and Ada entertained or were entertained. Twice a month they would go to a play.
‘It’s turning out very well,’ said Eileen. ‘They’re very good friends and there’s still electricity between them. Everybody likes her. She looks so unusual, yet actually she’s natural and straightforward. She takes herself for granted, which is more than a lot of people do.’
One Saturday I went down to Charminster, on a warm July afternoon. There was a cricket match and Timothy Alexander was captaining the village side. It was all very much as it had been, thirty, fifteen years ago: the only thing I missed was the old man in his straight-backed chair by the pavilion. Ada with her two dusky infants was the only addition to the scene.
I stayed the night. Timothy Alexander looked very patriarchal, sitting at the head of the table in a bottle-green velvet dinner jacket with elaborately frogged buttonholes, like a French Hussar’s. Iris’s daughter was now fifteen. She looked five years older. She was fresh and pretty, with an air of race. She joined unassertively but independently in the conversation. She did not wait to be spoken to, but she did not interrupt. She asked me about women novelists, just as her mother had done on the Lady Nelson. What was Elizabeth Jane Howard like; had I met Iris Murdoch? It was consoling to an ageing writer that she should be curious about two of the same writers that her mother had— Rosamund Lehmann and Rebecca West.
Eileen and I had a long talk about her. Tt seems to be turning out all right,’ she said. ‘She’s had a strange upbringing, never seeing her mother and not feeling curious about her. She doesn’t feel underprivileged with two devoted grandmothers, and Timothy Alexander’s wonderful. Better than most fathers.’
‘Doesn’t Iris want to see her?’
‘Not much. She had a curious childhood. All those stepfathers. All those changes of home. And then that marriage that hardly had time to become a marriage. The first solid thing in her life was this American. She’s got her feet on solid rock. To her all this life over here must be very unreal in comparison with what she has.
‘I’ve had a funny life too, you know,’ she added, ‘one thing and then another; my roots being pulled up so often. But I’ve a good feeling about things now. After all these broken marriages, it’s a relief to see a marriage that you feel must last. If you marry someone as unlikely as Ada you do stick there.’
‘What would the old man have made of her?’
‘Oh, he’d have liked her. Everybody likes her. She’s so real.’
Eileen herself was looking wonderful. She had kept her figure and the lines in her face had given her character. She was now in her middle sixties, yet she was still a woman at whom a man, seeing her across a crowded room, would bother to look twice. Margaret, however, had greatly changed. There are some men and women who from thirty on will not seem to change at all. Year after year they will look the same, then suddenly in the course of three months, they will put on thirty years. That had happened to her. She had neither grown thin nor put on weight. But suddenly, inexplicably, she had grown old. I asked Eile
en if she had been ill.
‘No.’
‘What’s happened then?’
Eileen shrugged. ‘The kind of thing that happens. One week one looks twenty years younger than one’s age. A month later one is old.’
It sent a quiver along my nerves. I remembered how all those years ago, nearly thirty now, there had passed between us that flicker of recognition. She might have been my fate. We might have been each other’s fate. Had things gone that way, how should I be feeling now?
I didn’t feel that she would be around much longer. But it was Whistler, not she, who was the first to go. He made so few demands upon himself, that one had imagined his vegetable existence going on for ever; then one morning he did not come down for breakfast. There was no more any reason for his dying than there had been for his inability to recover from his three years in prison.
‘I miss him,’ Eileen said. ‘It’s absurd that I should. There was no, what’s the modern word?—communication between him and me—but in his curious way he was companionable. I don’t suppose I’ll ever watch “Coronation Street” again.’
Another landmark: and the years went by.
I was not aware of the pattern of my own life altering but when at the end of each year I took stock of the last twelve months, I would find that I was spending less and less time in England. Not so very many of my friends were left. ‘Do you know that I haven’t seen your father since your wedding?’ I was to remark to Timothy Alexander.