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 thing’s so puddy.’ She pronounced the word pretty like that.
‘Did you see our dessert service, Fanny? Oh, did she, I’m glad. She could change it, as it came from Goodes, 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 these 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 to 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, elaborate pattern, painted blue and white; three cupboards matched three French windows and were filled with eighteenth-century china. Over cupboards, windows and doorways were decorative paintings by Boucher, framed in the panelling.
The talk at dinner was of the ball which Lady Montdore intended to give for Polly at Montdore House.
‘May Day, I think,’ she said.
‘That’s good,’ said Boy, ‘it must either be the first or the last ball of the season, if people are to remember it.’
‘Oh, not the last, on any account. I should have to invite all the girls whose dances Polly had been to, and nothing is so fatal to
