Lady Montdore’s plan was to descend upon me without warning, either on her way to or from London, or on shopping expeditions to Oxford, when she would take me round with her to fetch and carry and check her list. She would engage all my attention for an hour or two, tiring me out, exactly as small children can, with the demands she made of concentration upon her, and then vanish again, leaving me dissatisfied with life. As she was down on her own luck, but would have considered it a weakness to admit it even to herself, she was obliged to bolster up ‘all this’, to make it seem a perfect compensation for what she had lost by denigrating the circumstances of other people. It was even a help to her, I suppose, because otherwise I cannot account for her beastliness, to run down my poor little house, so unpretentious, and my dull little life, and she did so with such conviction that, since I am easily discouraged, it often took days before everything seemed all right again.
Days, or a visit from some member of the Radlett family. The Radletts had the exactly opposite effect, and always made me feel wonderful, owing to a habit known in the family as ‘exclaiming’.
‘Fanny’s shoes –! Where? Lilley and Skinner? I must dash. And the lovely new skirt! Not a new suit, let’s see – not lined with silk – Fanny! You are lucky, it is unfair!’
‘Oh, dear, why doesn’t my hair curl like that? Oh, the bliss of Fanny altogether – her eyelashes! You are lucky, it is unfair!’
These exclamations, which I remember from my very earliest childhood, now also embraced my house and household arrangements.
‘The wallpaper! Fanny! Your bed – it can’t be true. Oh, look at the darling little bit of Belleek – where did you find it? No! Do let’s go there. And a new cushion! Oh, it is unfair, you are lucky to be you.’
‘I say, Fanny’s food! Toast at every meal! Not Yorkshire pudding! Why can’t we live with Fanny always – the heaven of it here! Why can’t I be you?’
Fortunately for my peace of mind, Jassy and Victoria came to see me whenever there was a motor car going to Oxford, which was quite often, and the elder ones always looked in if they were on their way to Alconleigh.
As I got to know Lady Montdore more intimately I began to realize that her selfishness was monumental, she had no thoughts except in relation to herself, could discuss no subject without cleverly edging it round to something directly pertaining to her. The only thing she ever wanted to know about people was what impression did she make on them, and she would do anything to find this out, sometimes digging traps for the unwary, into which, in my innocence, I was very apt to tumble.
‘I suppose your husband is a clever man, at least so Montdore tells me. Of course, it’s a thousand pities he is so dreadfully poor – I hate to see you living in this horrid little hovel, so unsuitable – and not more important, but Montdore says he has the reputation of being clever.’
She had dropped in just as I was having my tea, which consisted of a few rather broken digestive biscuits with a kitchen pot on a tray and without a plate. I was so busy that afternoon, and Mrs Heathery, my maid of all work, was so busy too, that I had dashed into the kitchen and taken the tray myself, like that. Unfortunately, it never seemed to be chocolate cake and silver teapot day when Lady Montdore came, though, such were the vagaries of my housekeeping while I was a raw beginner, that these days did quite often, though quite unaccountably, occur.
‘Is that your tea? All right dear, yes, just a cup, please. How weak you have it – no no, this will do quite well. Yes, as I was saying, Montdore spoke of your husband today at luncheon, with the Bishop. They had read something of his and seem to have been quite impressed, so I suppose he really is clever after all.’
‘Oh, he is the cleverest man I ever met,’ I said, happily. I loved to talk about Alfred, it was the next best thing to being with him.
‘So of course, I suppose he thinks I’m a very stupid person.’ She looked with distaste at the bits of digestives, and then took one.
‘Oh no, he doesn’t,’ I said, inventing, because Alfred had never put forward any opinion on the subject one way or another.
‘I’m sure he must, really. You don’t mean to tell me he thinks I’m clever?’
‘Yes, very clever. He p’r’aps doesn’t look upon you as an intellectual –’
Crash! I was in the trap.
‘Oh, indeed! Not an intellectual!’
I could see at once that she was terribly offended, and thrashed about unhappily in my trap trying to extricate myself; to no avail, however, I was in it up to the neck.
‘You see, he doesn’t believe that women ever are intellectuals hardly hardly ever, perhaps one in ten million – Virginia Woolf perhaps –’
‘I suppose he thinks I never read. Many people think that, because they see me leading this active life, wearing myself out for others. I might prefer to sit in a chair all day and read some book, very likely I would, but I shouldn’t think it right, in my position, to do so – I can’t only be thinking of myself, you see. I never do read books in the daytime, that’s perfectly true. I simply haven’t a moment, but your husband doesn’t know, and nor do you, what I do at night. I don’t sleep well, not well at all, and at night I read volumes.’
Old volumes of the Tatler, I guessed. She had them all bound
