‘But can you stop loving people because they do things you don’t approve of?’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘What a lucky talent,’ I said, ‘I’m sure I couldn’t.’
We had come to the end of the avenue and before us lay a field of stubble. The sun’s rays were now beginning to pour down and dissolve the blue mist, turning the trees, the stubble, and a group of ricks into objects of gold. I thought how lucky I was to be enjoying such a beautiful moment with so exactly the right person and that this was something I should remember all my life. The duke interrupted these sentimental reflections, saying,
‘Behold how brightly breaks the morning,
Though bleak our lot our hearts are warm.
Am I not a perfect mine of quotations? Tell me, who is Veronica’s lover now?’
I was once more obliged to confess that I had never seen Veronica before, and knew nothing of her life. He seemed less astounded by this news than Roly had been, but looked at me reflectively, saying,
‘You are very young. You have something of your mother. At first I thought not, but now I see there is something.’
‘And who do you think Mrs Chaddesley Corbett’s lover is?’ I said. I was more interested in her than in my mother at the moment, and besides all this talk about lovers intoxicated me. One knew, of course, that they existed, because of the Duke of Monmouth and so on, but so near, under the very same roof as oneself, that was indeed exciting.
‘It doesn’t make a pin of difference,’ he said, ‘who it is. She lives, as all those sort of women do, in one little tiny group or set, and sooner or later everybody in that set becomes the lover of everybody else, so that when they change their lovers it is more like a Cabinet reshuffle than a new government. Always chosen out of the same old lot, you see.’
‘Is it like that in France?’ I said.
‘With society people? Just the same all over the world, though in France I should say there is less reshuffling on the whole than in England, the ministers stay longer in their posts.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Frenchwomen generally keep their lovers if they want to because they know that there is one infallible method of doing so.’
‘No!’ I said, ‘Oh, do tell.’
I was more fascinated by this conversation every minute.
‘It’s very simple. You must give way to them in every respect.’
‘Goodness!’ I said, thinking hard.
‘Now, you see, these English femmes du monde, these Veronicas and Sheilas and Brendas, and your mother too though nobody could say she stays in one little set, if she had done that she would not be so déclassée, they follow quite a different plan. They are proud and distant, out when the telephone bell rings, not free to dine unless you ask them a week before – in short, elles cherchent à se faire valoir, and it never never succeeds. Even Englishmen, who are used to it, don’t like it after a bit. Of course, no Frenchman would put up with it for a day. So they go on reshuffling.’
‘They’re very nasty ladies, aren’t they?’ I said, having formed that opinion the night before.
‘Not at all, poor things. They are les femmes du monde, voilà tout, I love them, so easy to get on with. Not nasty at all. And I love la mère Montdore, how amusing she is, with her snobbishness. I am very very much for snobs, they are always so charming to me. I stayed with them in India, you know. She was charming and Lord Montdore pretended to be.’
‘Pretended?’
‘That man is made up of pretence, like so many of these stiff old Englishmen. Of course, he is a great great enemy of my country – dedicated to the undoing of the French empire.’
‘Why?’ I said, ‘I thought we were all friends now.’
‘Friends! Like rabbits and snakes. I have no love for Lord Montdore but he is rather clever. Last night after dinner he asked me a hundred questions on partridge shooting in France. Why? You can be very sure he had some reason for doing so.’
‘Don’t you think Polly is very beautiful?’ I said.
‘Yes, but she also is rather a riddle to me,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps she is not having a properly organized sex life. Yes, no doubt it is that which makes her so dreamy. I must see what I can do for her – only there’s not much time.’ He looked at his watch.
I said primly that very few well brought up English girls of nineteen have a properly organized sex life. Mine was not organized at all, I knew, but I did not seem to be so specially dreamy.
‘But what a beauty, even in that terrible dress. When she has had a little love she may become one of the beauties of our age. It’s not certain, it never is with Englishwomen. She may cram a felt hat on her head and become a Lady Patricia Dougdale, everything depends on the lover. So this Boy Dougdale, what about him?’
‘Stupid,’ I said, meaning, really, ‘stchoopid’.
‘But you are impossible, my dear. Nasty ladies, stupid men – you really must try and like people more or you’ll never get on in this world.’
‘How d’you mean, get on?’
‘Well, get all those things like husbands and fiancés, and get on with them. They are what really matter in a woman’s life, you know.’
‘And children?’ I said.
He roared with laughter.
‘Yes, yes, of course, children. Husbands first, then children, then fiancés, then more children – then you have to live near the Parc Monceau because of the nannies – it’s a whole programme having children, I can tell you, especially if you happen to prefer the Left Bank, as I do.’
I did not understand one word of all this.
‘Are you going to be a Bolter,’ he said, ‘like your mother?’
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘A tremendous
