‘No, darling. I shouldn’t fancy that – fuzzy wuzzies aren’t at all my dish!’
18
A large luncheon-table was prepared in the Iolanthe room at the Savoy. There were a great many glasses on it and a huge bouquet of orchids, while several champagne bottles in buckets of ice completed an atmosphere of extreme gaiety. The room next door was also thrown open and a cocktail bar here awaited the assembling of the guests. All was now in readiness for the wedding luncheon-party of Mr Wilkins and Lady Marjorie Merrith, who were busy uttering nuptial vows in the presence of their nearest and dearest at the Caxton Hall, Westminster.
The first guest strayed into Iolanthe and thence into the next room, where she refused a cocktail which was pressed upon her by several waiters, but fell with healthy appetite upon the salted almonds and potato crisps. It was Eugenia, who, having given T.P.O.F. the slip, had found her way to London by an early train, and from thence to the Union Jack House, where she had spent a blissful morning with Comrades of the London branch. Her eyes still sparkled from excitement at the memory of her reception. The Captain had himself granted her an interview, warmly thanked her for all the work she had done on behalf of the Movement and had finally, as a token of gratitude, plucked, like the pelican, his own little emblem from his own bosom and pinned it, still warm, upon hers. When she had left the great man, tears of emotion streaming from her eyes, the Comrades had clustered round her and had made her give her own account of the now epic Battle of Chalford Park. After this they had made much of her, fed her on sausage rolls and twopenny bars, given her a special cheer and salute, and had all promised to visit the Chalford Branch in the nearest of futures.
As Eugenia was still wearing her usual costume of Union Jack shirt, old grey woollen skirt, belt complete with dagger, and bare legs and head, she cut a sufficiently incongruous figure in the sophisticated atmosphere of a large hotel. The waiters stared at her in astonishment and she returned their glances quite unabashed; she was lacking in the nervousness which many a young girl might have felt while spending her first day in London.
Presently Mrs Lace came trailing in, wearing clothes reminiscent of the riding habit of a widowed queen-empress. She also had been unable to attend the marriage ceremony, having spent her morning in a frenzied rush round the shops. Eugenia had already seen her that day, they had come up from Rackenbridge by the same train, the Laces travelling first-class and Eugenia third.
‘Oh! how are you?’ said Mrs Lace. For the hundredth time she took in the details of Eugenia’s attire with a kind of disgusted satisfaction, disgust that one so rich should put her money to so little use, satisfaction that Eugenia would certainly never rival herself as the best-dressed woman in the Cotswolds. Eugenia, who could not understand the significance of her glances, thought that Anne-Marie was looking more grumpy than usual today. Presently, gathering up her velvet train, Anne-Marie sauntered to a looking-glass, where she rearranged her silver fox to its best advantage and pinned to it a couple of gardenias which she took out of a thick white paper bag. She looked at herself with her head on one side and her lips pursed as though she were about to whistle, after which she swayed back to the side of Eugenia, who was happily browsing in a basket of crystallized fruits.
‘Cold, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Lace, in her foreign accent. In truth, she was not feeling quite happy about her black velvet, furs and feathers; the day being a particularly hot one in late September, she was beginning to wonder whether she was not rather unsuitably dressed for it. ‘Cold, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ said Eugenia, with her mouth full.
‘I always think these autumn days singularly deceptive, they look so warm, but one has to be very careful, le fond de l’air est cru.’
‘It’s perfectly boiling today,’ said Eugenia, scornfully. ‘I don’t know what those foreign words mean I’m afraid. Under the régime people will talk English or hold their tongues.’
‘My dear child, how ridiculous you are. Régime itself is a French word, you know.’
‘Oh! no, it’s not,’ said Eugenia, ‘it has become anglicized long ago by the Comrades.’
Jasper and Noel now came in. Jasper flung his arms round Eugenia’s neck. ‘You simply can’t have any idea how pleased I am to see you, darling,’ he cried, ‘I never thought you would make it.’
‘Nor did I,’ said Eugenia. ‘Luckily T.P.O.F. is ill in bed, so she will never know, unless that old yellow Pacifist of a nanny tells her. I rode to the station on Vivian Jackson and had to leave him tethered there all day, the poor angel.’
‘Well, and what have you been up to since we left?’
‘Oh! nothing much, it’s been fairly dull down there (you heard we made a hundred and eighty-six pounds for the Movement, I suppose?) But today has been wonderful. I was able to keep a non-Aryan family from getting into my carriage at Oxford simply by showing them my little emblem and drawing my dagger at them and I can’t tell you what a morning I’ve had with the Comrades at the Union Jack House – Oh, boy!’
‘Come next door and let’s hear about it,’ said Jasper, mischievously, leaving Noel to a tête-à-tête with Mrs Lace.
Noel was now wondering whether he had ever really been in love with her at all. Good manners, however, demanded that he should keep up the fiction, so he kissed her hand, gazed passionately into her eyes and murmured that he was happy to be with her again.
‘Moi aussi je suis contente,’ said Mrs Lace, with a mournful look. She felt that her black velvet, if rather
