That was where her charm lay. She would suddenly be nice just when it seemed that she was about to go for you tooth and nail, it was the charm of a purring puma. She now sent one of the men off to look for Polly.
‘Playing billiards with Boy, I think,’ and poured me out a cup of tea.
‘And here,’ she said, to the company in general, ‘is Montdore.’
She always called her husband Montdore to those she regarded as her equals, but to border-line cases such as the estate agent or Dr Simpson he was Lord Montdore, if not His Lordship. I never heard her refer to him as ‘my husband’, it was all part of the attitude to life that made her so generally unbeloved, a determination to show people what she considered to be their proper place and keep them in it.
The chatter did not continue while Lord Montdore, radiating wonderful oldness, came into the room. It stopped dead, and those who were not already standing up, respectfully did so. He shook hands all round, a suitable word for each in turn.
‘And this is my friend Fanny? Quite grown-up now, and do you remember that last time I saw you we were weeping together over the Little Match Girl?’
Perfectly untrue, I thought. Nothing about human beings ever had the power to move me as a child. Black Beauty now –!
He turned to the fire, holding his large, thin white hands to the blaze, while Lady Montdore poured out his tea. There was a long silence in the room. Presently he took a scone, buttered it, put it in his saucer, and turning to another old man said, ‘I’ve been wanting to ask you –’
They sat down together, talking in low voices, and by degrees the starling chatter broke loose again.
I was beginning to see that there was no occasion to feel alarmed in this company, because as far as my fellow guests were concerned, I was clearly endowed with protective colouring; their momentary initial interest in me having subsided I might just as well not have been there at all, and could keep happily to myself and observe their antics. The various house parties for people of my age that I had been to during the past year had really been much more unnerving, because there I knew that I was expected to play a part, to sing for my supper by being, if possible, amusing. But here, a child once more among all these old people, it was my place to be seen and not heard. Looking round the room I wondered vaguely which were the young men Lady Montdore had mentioned as being specially invited for Polly and me. They could not yet have arrived as certainly none of these were the least bit young, all well over thirty I should have said and probably all married, though it was impossible to guess which of the couples were husbands and wives, because they all spoke to each other as if they all were, in voices and with endearments which, in the case of my aunts, could only have meant that it was their own husbands they were addressing.
‘Have the Sauveterres not arrived yet, Sonia?’ said Lord Montdore coming up for another cup of tea.
There was a movement among the women. They turned their heads like dogs who think they hear somebody unwrapping a piece of chocolate.
‘Sauveterres? Do you mean Fabrice? Don’t tell me Fabrice is married? I couldn’t be more amazed.’
‘No, no, of course not. He’s bringing his mother to stay, she’s an old flame of Montdore’s – I’ve never seen her, and Montdore hasn’t for quite forty years. Of course, we’ve always known Fabrice, and he came to us in India. He’s such fun, a delightful creature. He was very much taken up with the little Ranee of Rawalpur, in fact they do say her last baby –’
‘Sonia –!’ said Lord Montdore, quite sharply for him. She took absolutely no notice.
‘Dreadful old man the Rajah, I only hope it was. Poor creatures, it’s one baby after another, you can’t help feeling sorry for them, like little birds you know. I used to go and visit the ones who were kept in purdah and of course they simply worshipped me, it was really touching.’
Lady Patricia Dougdale was announced. I had seen the Dougdales from time to time while the Montdores were abroad because they were neighbours at Alconleigh and although my Uncle Matthew by no means encouraged neighbours, it was beyond even his powers to suppress them altogether and prevent them from turning up at the meets, the local point-to-points, on Oxford platform for the 9.10 and Paddington for the 4.45, or at the Merlinford market. Besides, the Dougdales had brought house parties to Alconleigh for Aunt Sadie’s dances when Louisa and Linda came out and had given Louisa, for a wedding present, an antique pin cushion, curiously heavy because full of lead. The romantic Louisa, making sure it was curiously heavy because full of gold, ‘somebody’s savings don’t you see?’ had ripped it open with her nail scissors, only to find the lead, with the result that none of her wedding presents could be shown for fear of hurting Lady Patricia’s feelings.
Lady Patricia was a perfect example of beauty that is but skin deep. She had once had the same face as Polly, but the fair hair had now gone white and the white skin yellow, so that she looked like a classical statue that has been out in the weather, with a layer of snow on its head, the features smudged and smeared by damp. Aunt Sadie said that she and Boy had been
