They went. As they reached the door Jassy said in a loud aside,
‘This labile and indeterminate attitude to discipline may do permanent damage to our young psychology. I really think Sadie should be more careful.’
‘Oh, no, Jassy,’ Victoria said, ‘after all, it’s our complexes that make us so fascinating and unusual.’
When they had shut the door Davey said rather seriously,
‘You know, Sadie, you do spoil them.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘I’m afraid so. It comes of having so many children. One can force oneself to be strict for a few years, but after that it becomes too much of an effort. But Davey, do you honestly imagine it makes the smallest difference when they are grown-up?’
‘Probably not to your children, demons one and all. But look how well we brought up Fanny.’
‘Davey! You were never strict,’ I said, ‘not the least bit. You spoilt me quite completely.’
‘Yes, now that’s true,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘Fanny was allowed to do all sorts of dreadful things – especially after she came out. Powder her nose, travel alone, go in cabs with young men – didn’t she once go to a night club? Fortunately for you, she seems to have been born good, though why she should have been, with such parents, is beyond me.’
Davey told Polly that he had seen her mother but she merely said,
‘How was Daddy?’
‘In London, House of Lords, something about India. Your mother doesn’t look at all well, Polly.’
‘Temper,’ said Polly, and left the room.
Davey’s next visit was to Silkin. ‘Frankly, I can’t resist it.’ He bustled off in his little motor car on the chance of finding the Lecturer at home. He still refused to come to the telephone, giving out that he was away for a few weeks, but all other evidence pointed to the fact that he was living in his house, and indeed this now proved to be the case.
‘Puzzled and lonely, and gloomy, poor old boy, and he’s still got an awful cold he can’t get rid of. Sonia’s evil thoughts, perhaps. He has aged, too. Says he has seen nobody since his engagement to Polly – of course, he has cut himself off at Silkin but he seems to think that the people he has run into, at the London Library and so on, have been avoiding him as if they already knew about it. I expect it’s really because he’s in mourning – or perhaps they don’t want to catch his cold – anyway, he’s fearfully sensitive on the subject. Then he didn’t say so, but you can see how much he is missing Sonia – naturally, after seeing her every day all these years. Missing Patricia too, I expect.’
‘Did you talk quite openly about Polly?’ I asked.
‘Oh, quite. He says the whole thing originated with her, wasn’t his idea at all.’
‘Yes, that’s true. She told me that herself.’
‘And if you ask me, it shocks him dreadfully. He can’t resist it, of course, but it shocks him, and he fully expects to be a social outcast as the result. Now that would have been the card for Sonia to have played, if she had been clever enough to foresee it all. Too late once the words were spoken, of course, but if she could have warned Boy what was likely to happen and then rubbed in about how that would finish him for ever in the eyes of society, I think she might have stopped it. After all he’s frightfully social, poor chap. He would hate to be ostracized. As a matter of fact, though I didn’t say so to him, people will come round in no time once they are married.’
‘But you don’t really think they will marry?’ said Aunt Sadie.
‘My dear Sadie, after ten days in the same house with Polly, I don’t doubt it for one single instant. What’s more, Boy knows he’s in for it all right whether he likes it or not – and of course he half likes it very much indeed. But he dreads the consequences, not that there’ll be any. People have no memory about that sort of thing, and after all, there’s nothing to forget except bad taste.’
‘Détournement de jeunesse?’
‘It won’t occur to the ordinary person that Boy could have made a pass at Polly when she was little, we would never have thought of it except for what he did to Linda. In a couple of years nobody outside the family will even remember what all the fuss was about.’
‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ said my aunt. ‘Look at the Bolter! Ghastly scandal after ghastly scandal, elopements, horse-whippings, puts herself up as a prize in a lottery, cannibal kings – I don’t know what all – headlines in the papers, libel actions, and yet she only has to appear in London and her friends queue up to give parties for her. But don’t encourage Boy by telling him. Did you suggest he might chuck it and go abroad?’
‘Yes, I did, but it’s no good. He misses Sonia, he is horrified in a way by the whole thing, hates the idea of his money being stopped, though he’s not penniless himself, you know, he’s got an awful cold and is down in the dumps, but at the same time you can see that the prospect dazzles him, and as long as Polly makes all the running, I bet you he’ll play. Oh, dear, fancy taking on a new young wife at our age – how exhausting. Boy, too, who is cut out to be a widower, I do pity him.’
‘Pity him indeed! All he had to do was to leave little girls alone.’
‘You’re so implacable, Sadie. It’s a heavy price to pay for a bit of cuddling – I wish you could see the poor chap –!’
‘Whatever does
