Accordingly he ate in turns like Gandhi and like Henry VIII, went for ten-mile walks or lay in bed all day, shivered in a cold bath or sweated in a hot one. Nothing in moderation. ‘It is also very important to get drunk every now and then.’ Davey, however, was too much of a one for regular habits to be irregular otherwise than regularly, so he always got drunk at the full moon. Having once been under the influence of Rudolf Steiner he was still very conscious of the waxing and waning of the moon, and had, I believe, a vague idea that the waxing and waning of the capacity of his stomach coincided with its periods.
Uncle Davey was my one contact with the world; not the world of bread-and-butter misses but the great wicked world itself. Both my aunts had renounced it at an early age so that for them its existence had no reality, while their sister, my mother, had long since disappeared from view into its maw. Davey, however, had a modified liking for it, and often made little bachelor excursions into it from which he would return with a bag of interesting anecdotes. I could hardly wait to have a chat with him about this new development in my life.
‘Are you sure he’s too drunk, Aunt Emily?’
‘Quite sure, dear. We must leave it until tomorrow.’
Meanwhile, as she always answered letters by return of post, she wrote and accepted. But the next day, when Davey reappeared looking perfectly green and with an appalling headache (‘Oh, but that’s splendid don’t you see, such a challenge to the metabolism. I’ve just spoken to Dr England and he is most satisfied with my reaction’) he was rather doubtful whether she had been right to do so.
‘My darling Emily, the child will die of terror, that’s all.’ He was examining Lady Montdore’s letter. I knew quite well that what he said was true, I had known it in my heart ever since Aunt Emily had read me the letter, but nevertheless I was determined to go; the idea had a glittering fascination for me.
‘I’m not a child any longer, Davey,’ I said.
‘Grown-up people have died of terror at Hampton before now,’ he replied. ‘Two young men for Fanny and Polly indeed! Two old lovers of two of the old ladies there if I know anything about it. What a look, Emily! If you intend to launch this poor child in high society you must send her away armed with knowledge of the facts of life, you know. But I really don’t understand what your policy is. First of all you take care that she should only meet the most utterly innocuous people, keep her nose firmly to Pont Street – quite a point of view, don’t think I’m against it for a moment – but then all of a sudden you push her off the rocks into Hampton and expect that she will be able to swim.’
‘Your metaphors, Davey – it’s all those spirits,’ Aunt Emily said, crossly for her.
‘Never mind the spirits and let me tell poor Fanny the form. First of all, dear, I must explain that it’s no good counting on these alleged young men to amuse you, because they won’t have any time to spare for little girls, that’s quite certain. On the other hand who is sure to be there is the Lecherous Lecturer, and as you are probably still just within his age group there’s no saying what fun and games you may not have with him.’
‘Oh, Davey,’ I said, ‘you are dreadful.’
The Lecherous Lecturer was Boy Dougdale. The Radlett children had given him this name after he had once lectured at Aunt Sadie’s Women’s Institute. The lecture, it seemed (I was not there at the time), had been very dull, but the things the lecturer did afterwards to Linda and Jassy were not dull at all.
‘You know what secluded lives we lead,’ Jassy had told me when next I was at Alconleigh. ‘Naturally, it’s not very difficult to arouse our interest. For example, do you remember that dear old man who came and lectured on the Toll Gates of England and Wales? It was rather tedious, but we liked it – he’s coming again, Green Lanes this time. Well, the Lecherous Lecturer’s lecture was Duchesses, and of course, one always prefers people to gates. But the fascinating thing was after the lecture he gave us a foretaste of sex, think what a thrill. He took Linda up on to the roof and did all sorts of blissful things to her; at least, she could easily see how they would be blissful with anybody except the Lecturer. And I got some great sexy pinches as he passed the nursery landing. Do admit, Fanny.’
Of course, my Aunt Sadie had no inkling of all this; she would have been perfectly horrified. Both she and Uncle Matthew always had very much disliked Mr Dougdale, and, when speaking of the lecture, she said it was exactly what she would have expected, snobbish, dreary and out of place with a village audience, but she had such difficulty filling up the Women’s Institute programme month after month, in that remote district, that when he had himself written and suggested coming she had thought ‘Oh, well –!’ No doubt she supposed that her children called him the Lecherous Lecturer for alliterative rather than factual reasons, and indeed with the Radletts you never could tell. Why, for instance, would Victoria bellow like a bull and half kill Jassy whenever Jassy said, in a certain tone of voice, pointing her finger with a certain look, ‘Fancy’? I think they hardly knew why themselves.
When I got home I told Davey about the lecturer, and he had roared with laughter, but said I was not to breathe a word to Aunt Emily or there would be an appalling row, and the one who would really suffer
