‘The important thing, dear,’ she said, ‘is to have a really good fur coat, I mean a proper, dark one.’ To Lady Montdore, fur meant mink; she could imagine no other kind except sable, but that would be specified. ‘Not only will it make all the rest of your clothes look better than they are but you really needn’t bother much about anything else as you need never take it off. Above all, don’t go wasting money on underclothes, there is nothing stupider – I always borrow Montdore’s myself. Now for evening a diamond brooch is a great help, so long as it has good big stones. Oh, dear, when I think of the diamonds your father gave that woman, it really is too bad. All the same, he can’t have got through everything, he was enormously rich when he succeeded, I must write to him. Now, dear, we’re going to be very practical. No time like the present.’
She rang for her secretary and said my father’s address must be found out.
‘You could ring up the Under Secretary for the Colonies with my compliments, and will you make a note that I will write to Lord Logan tomorrow.’
She also told her to make a list of places where linen, underclothes, and house furnishings could be obtained at wholesale prices.
‘Bring it straight back here for Miss Logan when it is ready.’
When the secretary had gone, Lady Montdore turned to Polly and spoke to her exactly as if I had gone too, and they were alone. It was a habit she had, and I always found it very embarrassing, as I never quite knew what she expected me to do, whether to interrupt her by saying good-bye, or simply to look out of the window and pretend that my thoughts were far away. On this occasion, however, I was clearly expected to wait for the list of addresses, so I had no choice.
‘Now, Polly, have you thought of a young man yet, for me to ask down on the third?’
‘Oh, how about John Coningsby?’ said Polly, with an indifference which I could plainly see must be maddening to her mother. Lord Coningsby was her official young man, so to speak. She invited him to everything, and this had greatly pleased Lady Montdore to begin with since he was rich, handsome, agreeable and an ‘eldest son’, which meant in Lady Montdore’s parlance the eldest son of a peer (never let Jones or Robinson major think of themselves for one moment as eldest sons). Too soon, however, she saw that he and Polly were excellent friends and would never be anything else, after which she regretfully lost all interest in him.
‘Oh, I don’t count John,’ she said.
‘How d’you mean you don’t count him?’
‘He’s only a friend. Now, I was thinking in Woollands – I often do have good ideas in shops – how would it be to ask Joyce Fleetwood.’
Alas, the days when I, Albert Edward Christian George Andrew Patrick David, was considered to be the only person worthy of taking thee, Leopoldina, must have become indeed remote if Joyce Fleetwood was to be put forward as a substitute. Perhaps it was in Lady Montdore’s mind that, since Polly showed no inclination to marry an established, inherited position, the next best thing would be somebody who might achieve one by his own efforts. Joyce Fleetwood was a noisy, self-opinionated young Conservative M.P. who had mastered one or two of the drearier subjects of debate, agriculture, the Empire, and so on, and was always ready to hold forth upon them in the House. He had made up to Lady Montdore who thought him much cleverer than he really was; his parents were known to her, they had a place in Norfolk.
‘Well, Polly?’
‘Yes, why not?’ said Polly. ‘It’s a shower-bath when he talks, but do let’s, he’s so utterly fascinating, isn’t he?’
Lady Montdore now lost her temper and her voice got quite out of control. I sympathized with her really, it was too obvious that Polly was wilfully provoking her.
‘It’s perfectly stupid to go on like this.’
Polly did not reply. She bent her head sideways and pretended to be deeply absorbed in the headlines, upside-down, of the evening paper which lay on a chair by her mother. She might just as well have said out loud, ‘All right, you horrible vulgar woman, go on, I don’t care, you are nothing to me,’ so plain was her meaning.
‘Please listen when I speak to you, Polly.’
Polly continued to squint at the headlines.
‘Polly, will you please pay attention to what I’m saying?’
‘What were you saying? Something about Mr Fleetwood?’
‘Let Mr Fleetwood be, for the present. I want to know what, exactly, you are planning to do with your life. Do you intend to live at home and go mooning on like this for ever?’
‘What else can I do? You haven’t exactly trained me for a career, have you?’
‘Oh, yes, indeed I have. I’ve trained you for marriage which, in my opinion (I may be old-fashioned), is by far the best career open to any woman.’
‘That’s all very well, but how can I marry if nobody asks me?’
Of course, that was really the sore point with Lady Montdore, nobody asking her. A Polly gay and flirtatious, surrounded by eligible suitors, playing one off against the others, withdrawing, teasing, desired by married men, breaking up her friends’ romances, Lady Montdore would have been perfectly happy to watch her playing that game for several years if need be, so long as it was quite obvious that she would finally choose some suitably important husband and settle down with him. What her mother
