I was kept informed of every stage in the search for him, as Lady Montdore could now think of nothing else.
‘That idiotic woman has changed her address,’ she told me. ‘Montdore’s lawyer has had the most terrible time getting in touch with her at all. Now fancy moving, in Canada. You’d think one place there would be exactly the same as another, wouldn’t you? Sheer waste of money, you’d think. Well, they’ve found her at last, and now it seems that Cedric isn’t with her at all, but somewhere in Europe, very odd of him not to have called on us in that case, so now, of course, there’ll be more delays. Oh, dear, people are too inconsiderate – it’s nothing but self, self, self, nowadays, nothing –!’
In the end Cedric was traced to Paris (‘Simply extraordinary,’ she said. ‘Whatever could a Canadian be doing in Paris? I don’t quite like it.’) and an invitation to Hampton was given and accepted.
‘He comes next Tuesday, for a fortnight. I wrote out the dates very carefully indeed, I always do when it is a question of a country-house visit, then there is no awkwardness about the length of it, people know exactly when they are expected to leave. If we like him he can come again, now we know that he lives in Paris, such an easy journey. But what do you suppose he is doing there, dear, I hope he’s not an artist. Well, if he is we shall simply have to get him out of it – he must learn to behave suitably, now. We are sending to Dover for him, so that he’ll arrive just in time for dinner. Montdore and I have decided not to dress that evening, as most likely he has no evening clothes, and one doesn’t wish to make him feel shy at the very beginning of his visit, poor boy.’
This seemed most unlike Lady Montdore, who usually loved making people feel shy; it was well known to be one of her favourite diversions. No doubt Cedric was to be her new toy, and until such time as, inevitably I felt, just as Norma felt about Mrs Heathery, disillusionment set in, nothing was to be too good for him, and no line of conduct too much calculated to charm him.
I began to think a great deal about Cedric, it was such an interesting situation and I longed to know how he would take it, this young man from the West, suddenly confronted with aristocratic England in full decadence, the cardboard earl, with his nobility of look and manner, the huge luxurious houses, the terrifying servants, the atmosphere of bottomless wealth. I remembered how exaggerated it had all seemed to me as a child, and supposed that he would see it with very much the same eyes and find it equally overpowering.
I thought, however, he might feel at home with Lady Montdore, especially as she desired to please, there was something spontaneous and almost childlike about her which could accord with a transatlantic outlook. It was the only hope, otherwise, and if he were at all timid, I thought, he would find himself submerged. Words dimly associated with Canada kept on occurring to me, the word lumber, the word shack, staking a claim (Uncle Matthew had once staked a claim, I knew, in Ontario in his wild young poker-playing days, with Harry Oakes). How I wished I could be present at Hampton when this lumber-jack arrived to stake his claim to that shack. Hardly had I formed the wish than it was granted, Lady Montdore ringing up to ask if I would go over for the night, she thought it would make things easier to have another young person there when Cedric arrived.
This was a wonderful reward, as I duly remarked to Alfred, for having been a lady-in-waiting.
Alfred said, ‘If you have been putting yourself out all this time with a reward in view, I don’t mind at all. I objected because I thought you were drifting along in the wake of that old woman merely from a lazy good-nature and with no particular motive. That is what I found degrading. Of course, if you were working for a wage, it is quite a different matter, so long, of course,’ he said, with a disapproving look, ‘as the wage seems to you worth while.’
It did.
The Montdores sent a motor car to Oxford for me. When I arrived at Hampton I was taken straight upstairs to my room, where I had a bath and changed, according to instructions brought me by Lady Montdore’s maid, into a day dress. I had not spent a night at Hampton since my marriage. Knowing that Alfred would not want to go, I had always refused Lady Montdore’s invitations, but my bedroom there was still deeply familiar to me. I knew every inch of it by heart. Nothing in it ever changed, the very books between their mahogany bookends were the same collection that I had known and read there now for twelve years, or more than half my life: novels by Robert Hichens and W. J. Locke, Napoleon, The Last Phase by Lord Rosebery, The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, Hare’s Two Noble Lives, Dracula, and a book on dog management. In front of them on a mahogany tallboy was a Japanese bronze tea-kettle with embossed water-lilies. On the walls, besides the two country-house old masters despised of Davey, were a Morland print, ‘The Higglers preparing for Market’, a Richmond water-colour of the ‘old lord’ in a kilt and an oil painting of Toledo either by Boy or Lady Montdore. Their styles were indistinguishable. It was in their early manner, and had probably hung there for twenty years. This room had a womb-like quality in my mind, partly because it was so red and warm and velvety and enclosed, and partly because of the terror with
