We found her and Davey in the hall, she was quite pink with interest, and as for Davey he was looking as much excited as if he had developed some fascinating new symptom.
‘Come on,’ said the children, question-marks all over their faces. ‘Tell.’
‘You’ll never believe it,’ said Aunt Sadie, addressing herself to me, ‘Polly Hampton has informed her poor mother that she is going to marry Boy Dougdale. Her uncle, if you please! Did you ever hear such a thing? The wretched Patricia, not cold in her grave –’
‘Well,’ said Jassy, aside, ‘cooling in this weather –’
‘Miserable old man!’ Aunt Sadie spoke in tones of deep indignation and was clearly a hundred per cent on Lady Montdore’s side. ‘You see, Davey, how right Matthew has been about him all these years?’
‘Oh, poor Boy, he’s not so bad,’ Davey said, uncomfortably.
‘I don’t see how you can go on standing up for him after this, Davey.’
‘But Sadie,’ said Victoria. ‘How can she marry him if he’s her uncle?’
‘Just exactly what I said. But it seems, with an uncle by marriage, that you can. Would you believe that anything so disgustingly dreadful could be allowed?’
‘I say,’ said Jassy. ‘Come on, Dave.’
‘Oh, no dear, thank you. Marry one of you demons? Not for any money!’
‘What a law!’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘whenever was it passed? Why, it’s the end of all family life, a thing like that.’
‘Except it’s the beginning for Polly.’
‘Who told Lady Montdore?’ Of course, I was fascinated. This key-piece of the jigsaw made everything quite clear, and now I could not imagine how I could ever have been so stupid as to have missed it.
‘Polly told her,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘It happened like this. They hadn’t seen Boy since the funeral because he caught a bad cold at it and stayed indoors – Sonia got an awful cold there too and still has it, but he had spoken to Sonia every day on the telephone, as he always does. Well, yesterday they both felt a bit better and he went over to Hampton with the letters he’d had about poor Patricia from Infantas and things, and they had a good gloat over them, and then a long discussion about what to put on the tombstone. It seems they more or less settled on “She shall not grow old as we that are left grow old”.’
‘Stupid!’ said Jassy. ‘She had grown old already!’
‘Old! A few years older than me,’ said Davey.
‘Well –!’ said Jassy.
‘That’s enough, miss. Sonia says he seemed terribly low and unhappy, talking about Patricia and what she’d always been to him, and how empty the house seems without her – just what you’d expect after twenty-three years or something. Miserable old hypocrite! Well, he was supposed to stay for dinner, without dressing, because of his cold. Sonia and Lord Montdore went upstairs to change, and when Sonia came down again she found Polly, still in her day clothes, sitting on that white rug in front of the fire. She said, “What are you doing, Polly? it’s very late. Go up and dress. Where’s Boy then?” Polly got up and stretched herself and said, “He’s gone home and I’ve got something to tell you. Boy and I are going to be married!” At first, of course, Sonia didn’t believe it, but Polly never jokes as you know, and she very soon saw she was in deadly earnest, and then she was so furious she went sort of mad – how well I can understand that – and rushed at Polly and boxed her ears, and Polly gave her a great shove into an arm-chair and went upstairs. I imagine that Sonia was perfectly hysterical by then; anyway, she rang for her maid who took her up and put her straight to bed. Meanwhile, Polly dressed, came down again and calmly spent the evening with her father without saying a single word about it all to him, merely telling him that Sonia had a headache and wouldn’t dine. So this morning poor Sonia had to tell him, she said it was terrible, because he so adores Polly. Then she tried to ring up Boy but the wretched coward has gone away, or pretends to have, leaving no address. Did you ever hear such a story?’
I was speechless with interest. Davey said,
‘Personally, and speaking as an uncle, the one I feel for over all this is the unhappy Boy.’
‘Oh, no, Davey, nonsense. Just imagine the Montdores’ feelings – while they were trying to argue her out of it this morning she told them she’d been in love with him since before they went to India, when she was a little girl of fourteen.’
‘Yes, very likely, but how do we know he wanted her to be in love with him? If you ask me I don’t suppose he had the very faintest idea of it.’
‘Come now, Davey, little girls of fourteen don’t fall in love without any encouragement.’
‘Alas, they do,’ said Jassy, ‘look at me and Mr Fosdyke. Not one word, not one kindly glance has he ever thrown me, and yet he is the light of my life.’
Mr Fosdyke was the local M.F.H.
I asked if Lady Montdore had had an inkling of all this before, knowing really quite well that she had not, as everything always came
