‘It’s so terrible,’ I wailed, ‘because I can’t return the call, our cards haven’t come yet. Oh, yes, they are promised for next week, but I long to go now, this very minute, don’t you see?’
‘Next week will do quite well,’ Alfred said, shortly.
Soon an even more blissful day dawned; I woke up in my own bed in my own bedroom, done up in my own taste and arranged entirely to suit me. True, it was freezing cold and pouring with rain on this occasion, and, since I had as yet no servant, I was obliged to get up very early and cook Alfred’s breakfast, but I did not mind. He was my own husband, and the cooking took place in my own kitchen; it all seemed like heaven to me.
And now, I thought, for the happy sisterhood on which I had pinned my hopes. But alas, as so often happens in life, this turned out rather differently from what I had expected; I found myself landed with two sisters indeed, but they were very far removed from the charming companions of my dream. One was Lady Montdore and the other was Norma Cozens. At this time I was not only young, barely twenty, but extremely simple. Hitherto all human relationships had been with members of my family or with other girls (schoolfellows and débutantes) of my own age, they had been perfectly easy and straightforward and I had no idea that anything more complicated could exist; even love, with me, had followed an exceptionally level path. I supposed, in my simplicity, that when people liked me I ought to like them back as much, and that whatever they expected of me, especially if they were older people, I was morally bound to perform. In the case of these two, I doubt if it ever occurred to me that they were eating up my time and energy in a perfectly shameless way. Before my children were born I had time on my hands and I was lonely. Oxford is a place where social life, contrary to what I had imagined, is designed exclusively for celibate men, all the good talk, good food and good wine being reserved for those gatherings where there are no women; the whole tradition is in its essence monastic, and as far as society goes wives are quite superfluous.
I should never have chosen Norma Cozens to be an intimate friend, but I suppose that her company must have seemed preferable to hours of my own, while Lady Montdore did at least bring a breath of air which, though it could not have been described as fresh, had its origins in the great world outside our cloister, a world where women do count for something more than bed-makers.
Mrs Cozens’ horizon also extended beyond Oxford, though in another direction. Her maiden name was Boreley, and the Boreley family was well known to me, since her grandfather’s huge 1890 Elizabethan house was situated not far from Alconleigh and they were the new rich of the neighbourhood. This grandfather, now Lord Driersley, had made his money in foreign railroads, he had married into the landed gentry and produced a huge family, all the members of which, as they grew up and married, he settled on estates within easy motoring distance of Driersley Manor; they, in their turns, became notable breeders, so that the Boreley tentacles had spread by now over a great part of the West of England and there seemed to be absolutely no end of Boreley cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, and sisters and their respective in-laws. There was very little variety about them; they all had the same cross, white guinea-pig look, thought alike, and led the same sort of lives, sporting, country lives; they seldom went to London. They were respected by their neighbours for their conformity to the fashion of the day, for their morals, for their wealth, and for their excellence at all kinds of sport. They did everything that they ought to do in the way of sitting on Benches and County Councils, walking hound puppies and running Girl Guides, one was an M.P., another an M.F.H. In short, they were pillars of rural England. Uncle Matthew, who encountered them on local business, loathed them all, and they were collectively in many drawers under the one name, Boreley, I never quite knew why. However, like Gandhi, Bernard Shaw, and Labby the Labrador, they continued to flourish, and no terrible Boreley holocaust ever took place.
My first experience of Oxford society, as the wife of a junior don, was a dinner party given in my honour by the Cozenses. The Waynflete Professor of Pastoral Theology was the professor of Alfred’s subject, and was, therefore, of importance in our lives and an influence upon Alfred’s career. I understood this to be so without Alfred exactly putting it into words. In any case I was of course anxious that my first Oxford appearance should be a success, anxious to look nice, make a good impression, and be a credit to my husband. My mother had given me an evening dress from Mainbocher which seemed specially designed for such an occasion; it had a white pleated chiffon skirt, and black silk jersey top with a high neck and long sleeves, which was tucked into a wide, black, patent-leather belt. Wearing this with my only jewel, a diamond clip sent by my father, I thought I was not only nicely, but also suitably, dressed. My father, incidentally, had turned a deaf ear to Lady Montdore’s suggestion that he should buy me a place, and had declared himself to be too utterly ruined even to increase my allowance on my marriage. He did, however, send a cheque and this pretty jewel.
The Cozenses’ house was not a nobleman’s folly. It was the very worst kind of Banbury Road house, depressing, with laurels. The front door was opened by a slut. I had never seen a slut before but recognized the genus without difficulty
