Love in a Cold Climate (10 page)

“Fanny is such a hero-worshipper,” said Aunt Emily, amused.

“I expect it’s true though, anyway about the beauty,” said Davey. “Because, quite apart from Sonia always getting what she wants, Hamptons do have such marvellous looks, and, after all, the old girl herself is very handsome. In fact, I see that she would improve the strain by giving a little solidity—Montdore looks too much like a collie dog.”

“And who is this wonderful girl to marry?” said Aunt Emily. “That will be the next problem for Sonia. I can’t see who will ever be good enough for her?”

“Merely a question of strawberry leaves,” said Davey, “as I imagine she’s probably too big for the Prince of Wales, he likes such tiny little women. You know, I can’t help thinking that now Montdore is getting older he must feel it dreadfully that he can’t leave Hampton to her. I had a long talk about it the other day with Boy in the London Library. Of course, Polly will be very rich—enormously rich, because he can leave her everything else—but they all love Hampton so much, I think it’s very sad for them.”

“Can he leave Polly the pictures at Montdore House? Surely they must be entailed on the heir?” said Aunt Emily.

“There are wonderful pictures at Hampton,” I butted in. “A Raphael and a Caravaggio in my bedroom alone.” They both laughed at me, hurting my feelings, rather.

“Oh, my darling child, country-house bedroom pictures! But the
ones in London are a world-famous collection, and I believe they can all go to Polly. The young man from Nova Scotia simply gets Hampton and everything in it, but that is an Aladdin’s Cave, you know, the furniture, the silver, the library—treasures beyond value. Boy was saying they really ought to get him over and show him something of civilization before he becomes too transatlantic.”

“I forget how old he is,” said Aunt Emily.

“I know,” I said. “He’s six years older than I, about twenty-four now. And he’s called Cedric, like Lord Fauntleroy. Linda and I used to look him up when we were little to see if he would do for us.”

“You would. How typical,” said Aunt Emily. “But I should have thought he might really do for Polly—settle everything.”

“It would be too much unlike life,” said Davey. “Oh, bother, talking to Fanny has made me forget my three o’clock pill.”

“Take it now,” said Aunt Emily, “and then go out, please, both of you.”

FROM THIS TIME
on I saw a great deal of Polly. I went to Alconleigh, as I did every year, for some hunting, and from there I often went over to spend a night or two at Hampton. There were no more big house parties but a continual flow of people and, in fact, the Montdores and Polly never seemed to have a meal by themselves. Boy Dougdale came over nearly every day from his own house at Silkin which was only about ten miles away. He quite often went home to dress for dinner and came back again to spend the evening, since Lady Patricia, it seemed, was not at all well, and liked to go to bed early. Boy never seemed to me quite like a real human being, and I think the reason for this was that he was always acting some part. Boy, the Don Juan, alternated with Boy, the Squire of Silkin and Boy, the Cultivated Cosmopolitan. In none of these parts was he quite convincing. Don Juan only made headway with very unsophisticated women, except in the case of Lady Montdore, and she, whatever their relationship may have been in the past, was treating him by now more as a private secretary than as a
lover. The squire played cricket with the village youths and lectured the village women, but never seemed like a real squire for all his efforts, and the cultivated cosmopolitan gave himself away every time he put brush to canvas or pen to paper.

When he was with Lady Montdore they occupied much of their time painting, water-colour sketches out of doors in the summer and large set pieces in oils, using a north bedroom as a studio in the winter. They covered acres of canvas and were such great admirers of their own and each other’s work that the opinion of the outside world meant but little to them. Their pictures were always framed and hung about their two houses, the best ones in rooms and the others in passages.

By the evening Lady Montdore was ready for some relaxation.

“I like to work hard all day,” she would say, “and then have agreeable company and perhaps a game of cards in the evening.”

There were always guests for dinner, an Oxford don or two, with whom Lord Montdore could show off about Livy, Plotinus and the Claudian family, Lord Merlin, who was a great favourite of Lady Montdore and who published her sayings far and wide, and the more important county neighbours strictly in turns. They seldom sat down fewer than ten people. It was very different from Alconleigh.

I enjoyed these visits to Hampton. Lady Montdore terrified me less and charmed me more, Lord Montdore remained perfectly agreeable and colourless, Boy continued to give me the creeps and Polly became my best-friend-next-to-Linda.

Presently Aunt Sadie suggested that I might like to bring Polly back with me to Alconleigh, which I duly did. It was not a very good time for a visit there since everybody’s nerves were upset by Linda’s engagement, but Polly did not seem to notice the atmosphere and no doubt her presence restrained Uncle Matthew from giving vent to the full violence of his feelings while she was there. Indeed, she said to me as we drove back to Hampton together after the visit that she envied the Radlett children their upbringing in such a quiet, affectionate household, a remark which could only have been
made by somebody who had inhabited the best spare room, out of range of Uncle Matthew’s early morning gramophone concerts, and who had never happened to see that violent man in one of his tempers. Even so, I thought it strange, coming from Polly, because if anybody had been surrounded by affection all her life it was she; I did not yet fully understand how difficult the relations were beginning to be between her and her mother.

P
OLLY AND I
were bridesmaids at Linda’s wedding in February, and when it was over I motored down to Hampton with Polly and Lady Montdore to spend a few days there. I was grateful to Polly for suggesting this, as I remembered too well the horrible feeling of anti-climax there had been after Louisa’s wedding, which would certainly be ten times multiplied after Linda’s. Indeed, with Linda married, the first stage of my life no less than of hers was finished and I felt myself to be left in a horrid vacuum, with childhood over but married life not yet beginning.

As soon as Linda and Anthony had gone away, Lady Montdore sent for her car and we all three huddled onto the back seat. Polly and I were still in our bridesmaid’s dresses (sweet pea tints, in chiffon) but well wrapped up in fur coats and each with a Shetland rug wound round our legs, like children going to a dancing class. The chauffeur spread a great bearskin over all of us and put a foot warmer under our silver kid shoes. It was not really cold, but shivery, pouring and pouring with rain as it had been all day, getting dark now. The inside of the motor car was like a dry little box, and as we splashed down the long wet shiny roads, with the rain beating
against the windows, there was a specially delicious cosiness about being in this little box and knowing that so much light and warmth and solid comfort lay ahead.

“I love being so dry in here,” as Lady Montdore put it, “and seeing all those poor people so wet.”

She had done the journey twice that day, having driven up from Hampton in the morning, whereas Polly had gone up the day before with her father for a last fitting of her bridesmaid’s dress and in order to go to a dinner-dance.

First of all we talked about the wedding. Lady Montdore was wonderful when it came to picking over an occasion of that sort. With her gimlet eye nothing escaped her, nor did any charitable inhibitions tone down her comments on what she had observed.

“How extraordinary Lady Kroesig looked, poor woman! I suppose somebody must have told her that the bridegroom’s mother should have a bit of everything in her hat—for luck, perhaps. Fur, feathers, flowers and a scrap of lace—it was all there and a diamond brooch on top to finish it off nicely. Rose diamonds—I had a good look. It’s a funny thing that these people who are supposed to be so rich never seem to have a decent jewel to put on. I’ve often noticed it. And did you see what mangy little things they gave poor Linda? A cheque—yes, that’s all very well, but for how much, I wonder. Cultured pearls, at least I imagine so, or they would have been worth quite £10,000, and a hideous little bracelet. No tiara, no necklace—what will the poor child wear at Court? Linen, which we didn’t see, all that modern silver and a horrible house in one of those squares by the Marble Arch. Hardly worth being called by that nasty German name, I should say. And Davey tells me there’s no proper settlement. Really, Matthew Alconleigh isn’t fit to have children if that’s all he can do for them. Still, I’m bound to say he looked very handsome coming up the aisle, and Linda looked her very best too, really lovely.”

I think she was feeling quite affectionately towards Linda for having
removed herself betimes from competition, for, although not a great beauty like Polly, she was certainly far more popular with young men.

“Sadie, too, looked so nice, very young and handsome, and the little things so puddy.” She pronounced the word pretty like that.

“Did you see our desert service, Fanny? Oh, did she? I’m glad. She could change it, as it came from Goods, but perhaps she won’t want to. I was quite amused, weren’t you, to see the difference between our side of the church and the Kroesig side. Bankers don’t seem to be much to look at—so extraordinarily unsuitable having to know them at all, poor things, let alone marry them. But those sort of people have got megalomania nowadays, one can’t get away from them. Did you notice the Kroesig sister? Oh, yes, of course, she was walking with you, Fanny. They’ll have a job to get her off!”

“She’s training to be a vet,” I said.

“First sensible thing I’ve heard about any of them. No point in cluttering up the ballrooms with girls who look like that; it’s simply not fair on anybody. Now, Polly, I want to hear exactly what you did, yesterday.”

“Oh, nothing very much.”

“Don’t be so tiresome. You got to London at about twelve, I suppose?”

“Yes, we did,” said Polly in a resigned voice. She would have to account for every minute of the day, she knew. Quicker to tell of her own accord than to have it pumped out of her. She began to fidget with her bridesmaid’s wreath of silver leaves. “Wait a moment,” she said. “I must take this off, it’s giving me a headache.”

It was twisted into her hair with wire. She tugged and pulled at it until finally she got it off and flung it down on the floor.

“Ow,” she said, “that did hurt. Well, yes, then, let me think. We arrived, Daddy went straight to his appointment and I had an early luncheon at home.”

“By yourself?”

“No, Boy was there. He’d looked in to return some books, and Bullitt said there was plenty of food so I made him stay.”

“Well then, go on. After luncheon?”

“Hair.”

“Washed and set?”

“Yes, naturally.”

“You’d never think it. We really must find you a better hairdresser. No use asking Fanny, I’m afraid, her hair always looks like a mop.”

Lady Montdore was becoming cross and like a cross child was seeking to hurt anybody within reach.

“It was quite all right until I had to put that wreath on it. Well then, tea with Daddy at the House, rest after tea, dinner you know about, and bed,” she finished in one breath. “Is that all?”

She and her mother seemed to be thoroughly on each other’s nerves, or perhaps it was having pulled her hair with the wreath that made her so snappy. She flashed a perfectly vicious look across me at Lady Montdore. It was suddenly illuminated by the headlights of a passing motor. Lady Montdore neither saw it nor, apparently, noticed the edge in her voice and went on, “No, certainly not. You haven’t told me about the party yet. Who sat next you at dinner?”

“Oh, Mummy, I can’t remember their names.”

“You never seem to remember anybody’s name. It is too stupid. How can I invite your friends to the house if I don’t know who they are?”

“But they’re not my friends. They were the most dreadful, dreadful bores you can possibly imagine. I couldn’t think of one thing to say to them.”

Lady Montdore sighed deeply. “Then after dinner you danced?”

“Yes. Danced, and sat out and ate disgusting ices.”

“I’m sure the ices were delicious. Sylvia Waterman always does things beautifully. I suppose there was champagne?”

“I hate champagne.”

“And who took you home?”

“Lady Somebody. It was out of her way because she lives in Chelsea.”

“How extraordinary,” said Lady Montdore, rather cheered up by the idea that some poor ladies have to live in Chelsea. “Now who could she possibly have been?”

The Dougdales had also been at the wedding and were to dine at Hampton on their way home; they were there when we arrived, not having, like us, waited to see Linda go away. Polly went straight upstairs. She looked tired and sent a message by her maid to say that she would have her dinner in bed. The Dougdales, Lady Montdore and I dined, without changing, in the little morning room where they always had meals if there were fewer than eight people. This room was perhaps the most perfect thing at Hampton. It had been brought bodily from France and was entirely panelled in wood carved in a fine and elaborate pattern, painted blue and white; three china cupboards matched three French windows and contained a Sèvres dinner service made for Marie Antoinette; over cupboards, windows and doorways were decorative paintings by Boucher, framed in the panelling.