‘Do you think he really will?’
‘As if I cared! The only thing I mind about is Hampton and he can’t leave me that even if he wants to. Then I shall say “Do you intend to put a good face on it and let me be married in the chapel (which Boy terribly wants for some reason, and I would rather like it, I must say), or must we sneak off and be done in London?” Poor Mummy. Now I’m out of her clutches I feel awfully sorry for her in a way. I think the sooner it’s over the better for everybody.’
Boy, it was clear, was still leaving all the dirty work to Polly. Perhaps his cold was sapping his will-power, or perhaps the mere thought of a new young wife at his age was exhausting him already.
So Polly rang up her mother and asked if she could lunch at Hampton the following day and have a talk. I thought it would have been more sensible to have had the talk without the additional strain imposed by a meal, but Polly seemed unable to envisage a country house call which did not centre round food. Perhaps she was right, since Lady Montdore was very greedy and therefore more agreeable during and after meals than at other times. In any case, this is what she suggested; she also told her mother to send a motor as she did not like to ask the Alconleighs for one two days running. Lady Montdore said very well, but that she must bring me. Lord Montdore was still in London and I suppose she felt she could not bear to see Polly alone. Anyhow, she was one of those people who always avoid a tête-à-tête if possible, even with their intimates. Polly said to me that she herself had just been going to ask if I could come too.
‘I want a witness,’ she added, ‘if she says yes in front of you she won’t be able to wriggle out of it again later.’
Poor Lady Montdore, like Boy, was looking very much down; not only old and ill (like Boy, she was still afflicted with Lady Patricia’s funeral cold which seemed to have been a specially virulent germ), but positively dirty. The fact that she had never, at the best of times, been very well-groomed, had formerly been offset by her flourish and swagger, radiant health, enjoyment of life, and the inward assurance of superiority bestowed upon her by ‘all this’. These supports had been cut away by her cold as well as by the simultaneous defection of Polly, which must have taken much of the significance out of ‘all this’, and of Boy, her constant companion, the last lover, surely, that she would ever have. Life, in fact, had become sad and meaningless.
We began luncheon in silence. Polly turned her food over with a fork, Lady Montdore refused the first dish, while I munched away rather self-consciously alone, enjoying the change of cooking. Aunt Sadie’s food, at that time, was very plain. After a glass or two of wine, Lady Montdore cheered up a bit and began to chat. She told us that the dear Grand Duchess had sent her such a puddy postcard from Cap d’Antibes, where she was staying with other members of the Imperial family. She remarked that the Government really ought to make more effort to attract such important visitors to England.
‘I was saying so only the other day to Ramsay,’ she complained. ‘And he quite agreed with me, but of course, one knows nothing will be done, it never is in this hopeless country. So annoying. All the Rajahs are at Suvretta House again – the King of Greece has gone to Nice – the King of Sweden has gone to Cannes and the young Italians are doing winter sports. Perfectly ridiculous not to get them all here.’
‘Whatever for,’ said Polly, ‘when there’s no snow?’
‘Plenty in Scotland. Or teach them to hunt, they’d love it, they only want encouraging a little.’
‘No sun,’ I said.
‘Never mind. Make it the fashion to do without sun and they’ll all come here. They came for my ball and Queen Alexandra’s funeral – they love a binge, poor dears. The Government really ought to pay one to give a ball every year, it would restore confidence and bring important people to London.’
‘I can’t see what good all these old royalties do when they are here,’ said Polly.
‘Oh, yes, they do, they attract Americans and so on,’ said Lady Montdore, vaguely. ‘Always good to have influential people around you know, good for a private family and also good for a country. I’ve always gone in for them myself and I can tell you it’s a very great mistake not to. Look at poor dear Sadie, I’ve never heard of anybody important going to Alconleigh.’
‘Well,’ said Polly, ‘and what harm has it done her?’
‘Harm! You can see the harm all round. First of all the girls’ husbands’ – on this point Lady Montdore did not lean, suddenly remembering no doubt her own situation in respect of daughters’ husbands, but continued, ‘Poor Matthew has never got anything, has he – I don’t only mean jobs, but not even a V.C. in the war and goodness knows he was brave enough. He may not be quite cut out to be a Governor, I grant you that, especially not where there are black people, but don’t tell me there’s nothing he could have got, if Sadie had been a little cleverer about it. Something at Court, for instance. It would have calmed him down.’
The idea of Uncle Matthew at Court made me choke into my pancake, but Lady Montdore took no notice and went on,
‘And now I’m afraid it will be the same story with the boys. I’m told they were sent to the very worst house at Eton because Sadie had nobody to advise her or help her at all when the time came for them to
