‘Simply no idea at all, it was a complete bolt from the blue. Poor Sonia, we know she has her faults but I can’t think she has deserved this. She said Boy had always been very kind about taking Polly off her hands when they were in London, to the Royal Academy and so on, and Sonia was pleased because the child never seemed to have anybody to amuse her. Polly wasn’t a satisfactory girl to bring out, you know. I’m very fond of her myself, I always have been, but you could see that Sonia was having a difficult time in many ways. Oh, poor Sonia, I do feel – now children, will you please go up and wash your fishy hands before tea?’
‘This is the very limit, you’re obviously going to say things while we’re away. What about Fanny’s fishy hands, then?’
‘Fanny’s grown-up, she’ll wash her hands when she feels like it. Off you go.’
When they were safely out of the room she said, in horror, to Davey and me,
‘Just imagine, Sonia, who had completely lost control of herself (not that I blame her), sort of hinted to me that Boy had once been her own lover.’
‘Darling Sadie, you are such an innocent,’ Davey said, laughing. ‘It’s a famous famous love affair which everybody except you has known all about for years. I sometimes think your children are right and you don’t know the facts of life.’
‘Well, all I can say is, I’m thankful I don’t. How perfectly hateful. Do you think Patricia knew?’
‘Of course she did and she was only too glad of it. Before his affair with Sonia began, Boy used to make Patricia chaperone all the dismal little débutantes that he fancied, and they would sob out broken hearts on her shoulder, and beg her to divorce him, very last thing he wanted, naturally. She had a lot of trouble with him, you know.’
‘I remember a kitchen-maid,’ Aunt Sadie said.
‘Oh yes, it was one thing after another before Sonia took him on, but she had some control over him and Patricia’s life became much easier and more agreeable, until her liver got so bad.’
‘All the same,’ I said, ‘we know he still went for little girls, because look at Linda.’
‘Did he?’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘I have sometimes wondered – Ugh! What a man! How you can think there’s anything to be said for him, Davey, and how can you pretend he hadn’t the faintest idea Polly was in love with him? If he made up to Linda like that, of course he must have done the same with her.’
‘Well, Linda’s not in love with him, is she? He can’t be expected to guess that because he strokes the hair of a little girl when she’s fourteen she’s going to insist on marrying him when she grows up. Bad luck on a chap I call it.’
‘Davey, you’re hopeless! And if I didn’t know quite well that you’re only teasing me I should be very cross with you.’
‘Poor Sonia,’ said Davey. ‘I feel for her, her daughter and her lover at a go – well, it often happens but it can’t ever be very agreeable.’
‘I’m sure it’s the daughter she minds,’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘she hardly mentioned Boy, she was moaning and groaning about Polly, so perfectly beautiful, being thrown away like that. I should be just the same, I couldn’t bear it for any of mine – that old fellow, they’ve known all their lives, and it’s worse for her, Polly being the only one.’
‘And such a treasure, so much the apple of their eye. Well, the more I see of life the more profoundly thankful I am not to have any children.’
‘Between two and six they are perfect,’ said my aunt, rather sadly I thought, ‘after that I must say they are a worry, the funny little things. Then another horror for Sonia is wondering what went on all those years between Polly and Boy. She says last night she couldn’t sleep for thinking of times when Polly pretended to have been to the hairdresser and obviously hadn’t – that sort of thing – she says it’s driving her mad.’
‘It needn’t,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m quite sure nothing ever happened. From various things I can remember Polly saying to me, I’m quite sure her love for the Lecturer must always have seemed hopeless to her. Polly’s very good, you know, and she was very fond of her aunt.’
‘I dare say you’re right, Fanny. Sonia herself said that when she came down and found Polly sitting on the floor she thought at once “the girl looks as if she had been making love”, and said she’d never seen her look like that before, flushed, her eyes simply huge and a curl of tousled hair hanging over her forehead – she was absolutely struck by her appearance, and then Polly told her –’
I could so well imagine the scene, Polly sitting, it was a very characteristic attitude with her, on the rug, getting up slowly, stretching, and then carelessly and gracefully implanting the cruel banderillas, the first movement of a fight that could only end in death.
‘What I guess,’ I said, ‘is that he stroked a bit when she was fourteen and she fell in love then without him having any idea of it. Polly always bottles things up, and I don’t expect anything more happened between them until the other evening.’
‘Simply too dreadful,’ said Aunt Sadie.
‘Anyhow, Boy can’t have expected to get engaged there and then, or he wouldn’t have had all that talk about the Infanta’s letter and the gravestone, would he?’ said Davey. ‘I expect what Fanny says is true.’
‘You’ve been telling things – it is unfair – Fanny’s hands are still foully fishy.’ The children were back, out of breath.
‘I do wonder what Uncle Matthew and Lord Montdore talked about in the business-room,’ I said. I could not imagine
