I soon found out that the most annoying feature of the whole thing to them was the radiant happiness of Lady Montdore. They had all been delighted by Polly’s marriage, and even those people who might have been expected wholeheartedly to take Lady Montdore’s side over it, such as the parents of pretty young daughters, having said with smug satisfaction, ‘Serve her right’. They hated her and were glad to see her downed. Now, it seemed, the few remaining days of this wicked woman, who never invited them to her parties, were being suitably darkened with a sorrow which would surely bring her grey hairs to the grave. The curtain rises for the last act, and the stalls are filled with Boreleys all agog to witness the agony, the dissolution, the muffled drum, the catafalque, the procession to the vault, the lowering to the tomb, the darkness. But what is this? On to the dazzling stage springs Lady Montdore, lithe as a young cat, her grey hairs now a curious shade of blue, with a partner, a terrible creature from Sodom, from Gomorrah, from Paris, and proceeds to dance with him a wild fandango of delight. No wonder they were cross.
On the other hand, I thought the whole thing simply splendid, since I like my fellow-beings to be happy and the new state of affairs at Hampton had so greatly increased the sum of human happiness. An old lady, a selfish old creature admittedly, who deserved nothing at the end but trouble and sickness (but which of us will deserve better?) is suddenly presented with one of life’s bonuses, and is rejuvenated, occupied and amused; a charming boy with a great love of beauty and of luxury, a little venal perhaps (but which of us is not if we get the opportunity to be?), whose life had hitherto depended upon the whims of barons, suddenly and respectably acquires two doting parents and a vast heritage of wealth, another bonus; Archie the lorry driver, taken from long cold nights on the road, long oily hours under his lorry, and put to polish ormolu in a warm and scented room; Polly married to the love of her life; Boy married to the greatest beauty of the age, five bonuses, five happy people, and yet the Boreleys were disgusted. They must indeed be against the human race, I thought, so to hate happiness.
I said all this to Davey and he winced a little. ‘I wish you needn’t go on about Sonia being an old woman on the brink of the grave,’ he said, ‘she is barely sixty, you know, only about ten years older than your Aunt Emily.’
‘Davey, she’s forty years older than I am, it must seem old to me. I bet people forty years older than you are seem old to you, now do admit.’
Davey admitted. He also agreed that it is nice to see people happy, but made the reservation that it is only very nice if you happen to like them, and that although he was, in a way, quite fond of Lady Montdore, he did not happen to like Cedric.
‘You don’t like Cedric?’ I said, amazed. ‘How couldn’t you, Dave? I absolutely love him.’
He replied that, whereas to an English rosebud like myself Cedric must appear as a being from another, darkly glamorous world, he, Davey, in the course of his own wild cosmopolitan wanderings, before he had met and settled down with Aunt Emily, had known too many Cedrics.
‘You are lucky,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t know too many. And if you think I find him darkly glamorous, you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick, my dear Dave. He seems to me like a darling Nanny.’
‘Darling Nanny! Polar bear – tiger – puma – something that can never be tamed. They always turn nasty in the end. Just you wait, Fanny, all this ormolu radiance will soon blacken, and the last state of Sonia will be worse than her first, I prophesy. I’ve seen this sort of thing too often.’
‘I don’t believe it. Cedric loves Lady Montdore.’
‘Cedric,’ said Davey, ‘loves Cedric, and furthermore he comes from the jungle, and just as soon as it suits him he will tear her to pieces and slink back into the undergrowth – you mark my words.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if so, the Boreleys will be pleased.’
Cedric himself now sauntered into the room and Davey prepared to leave. I think after all the horrid things he had just been saying he was afraid of seeming too cordial to him in front of me. It was very difficult not to be cordial to Cedric, he was so disarming.
‘I shan’t see you again, Fanny,’ Davey said, ‘until I get back from my cruise.’
‘Oh, are you going for a cruise – how delicious – where?’ said Cedric.
‘In search of a little sun. I give a few lectures on Minoan things and go cheap.’
‘I do wish Aunt Emily would go too,’ I said, ‘it would be so good for her.’
‘She’ll never move until after Siegfried’s death,’ said Davey. ‘You know what she is.’
When he had gone I said to Cedric,
‘What d’you think, he may be able to go and see Polly and Boy in Sicily – wouldn’t it be interesting?’
Cedric, of course, was deeply fascinated by anything to do with Polly.
‘The absent influence, so boring and so overdone in literature, but I see now that in real life it can eat you with curiosity.’
‘When did you last hear from her, Fanny?’ he said.
‘Oh, months ago, and then it was only a postcard. I’m so delighted about Davey seeing them because he’s always so good at telling. We really shall hear how they are getting on, from him.’
‘Sonia has still never mentioned her to me,’ said Cedric, ‘never once.’
‘That’s because she never thinks of her, then.’
‘I’m sure she doesn’t. This Polly can’t be much of a personality, to have left such a small dent where
