‘You know, Fanny,’ she went on, ‘it’s all very well for funny little people like you to read books the whole time, you only have yourselves to consider, whereas Montdore and I are public servants in a way, we have something to live up to, tradition and so on, duties to perform you know, it’s a very different matter. A great deal is expected of us, I think and hope not in vain. It’s a hard life, make no mistake about that, hard and tiring, but occasionally we have our reward – when people get a chance to show how they worship us, for instance, when we came back from India and the dear villagers pulled our motor car up the drive. Really touching! Now all you intellectual people never have moments like that. Well,’ she rose to leave, ‘one lives and learns. I know now that I am outside the pale, intellectually. Of course, my dear child, we must remember that all those women students probably give your husband a very funny notion of what the female sex is really like. I wonder if he realizes that it’s only the ones who can’t hope for anything better that come here. Perhaps he finds them very fascinating – one never sees him in his own home, I notice.’ She was working herself up into a tremendous temper now. ‘And if I might offer you a little advice, Fanny, it would be to read fewer books, dear, and make your house slightly more comfortable. That is what a man appreciates, in the long run.’
She cast a meaning look at the plateless digestives, and went away without saying good-bye.
I was really upset to have annoyed her so stupidly and tactlessly, and felt certain that she would never come and see me again; funnily enough, instead of being relieved by this thought, I minded.
I had no time to brood over it, however, for hardly was she out of the house than Jassy and Victoria bundled in.
‘Not digestives! Vict. – look, digestives! Isn’t Fanny wonderful, you can always count on something heavenly – weeks since I tasted digestives, my favourite food, too.’
Mrs Heathery, who adored the children and had heard their shrieks as they came in, brought up some fresh tea and a Fuller’s cake, which elicited more exclamations.
‘Oh, Mrs Heathery, you angel on earth, not Fuller’s walnut? How can you afford it, Fanny – we haven’t had it at home since Fa’s last financial crisis – but things are better you know, we are back to Bromo again now and the good writing-paper. When the loo paper gets thicker and the writing-paper thinner it’s always a bad sign, at home.’
‘Fa had to come about some harness, so he brought us in to see you, only ten minutes though. The thing is we’ve got a funny story about Sadie for you, so are you listening? Well, Sadie was telling how some people, before their babies are born, gaze at Greuze so that the babies shall look like it, and she said “You never know about these things, because when I was a little girl in Suffolk a baby was born in the village with a bear’s head, and what do you think? Exactly nine months before a dancing bear had been in that neighbourhood.” So Vict. said “But I can quite understand that, I always think bears are simply terribly attractive”, and Sadie gave the most tremendous jump I ever saw and said, “You awful child, that’s not what I mean at all”. So are you shrieking, Fanny?’
‘We saw your new friend Mrs Cozens just now and her blissful Borders. You are so lucky to have new friends, it is unfair, we never do, really you know, we are the Lady of Shalott with our pathetic lives we lead. Even Davey never comes now horrible Polly’s marriage is over. Oh, by the way, we had a postcard from horrible Polly, but it’s no use her bombarding us with these postcards – we can never never forgive.’
‘Where was it from?’
‘Seville, that’s in Spain.’
‘Did she sound happy?’
‘Do people ever sound unhappy on postcards, Fanny? Isn’t it always lovely weather and everything wonderful, on postcards? This one was a picture of a glorious girl called La Macarena, and the funny thing is this La Macarena is the literal image of horrible Polly herself. Do you think Lady Montdore gazed a bit before H.P. was born?’
‘You mustn’t say horrible Polly to me when I love her so much.’
‘Well, we’ll have to see. We love her in a way, in spite of all, and in a few years, possibly, we might forgive, though I doubt if we can ever forget her deep, base treachery. Has she written to you?’
‘Only postcards,’ I said. ‘One from Paris and one from St Jean de Luz.’
Polly had never been much of a letter-writer.
‘I wonder if it’s as nice as she thought, being in bed with that old Lecturer.’
‘Marriage isn’t only bed,’ I said, primly, ‘there are other things.’
‘You go and tell that to Sadie. There’s Fa’s horn, we must dash or he’ll never bring us again if we keep him waiting, and we promised we would the very second he blew. Oh, dear, back to the fields of barley and of rye, you are so lucky to live in this sweet little house in a glamorous town. Good-bye, Mrs Heathery – the cake!’
They were still cramming it into their mouths as they went downstairs.
‘Come in and have some tea,’ I said to Uncle Matthew, who was at the wheel of his new big Wolseley. When my uncle had a financial crisis he always bought a new motor car.
‘No thank you, Fanny, very kind of you but there’s a perfectly good cup of tea waiting for me at home, and you know I never go inside other people’s houses if I can possibly avoid it. Good-bye.’
He put on his green hat called a bramble, which he
