Best love. Come and see us soon.
Sally.
Poor Jane found that it took her the best part of that day to answer these – and some thirty-five other letters, and Albert felt himself rather neglected. When the next morning she received not thirty-five but sixty-five, he announced that he would go to Paris until this influx of congratulations was over.
‘But my dear,’ said Lady Dacre, ‘when the letters come to an end the presents will begin, and that is much worse, because it is such an effort pretending to be grateful for absolute horrors.
‘Hubert and I were discussing your plans this morning, and we think that if you want to be married in November we had better go back quite soon to Wilton Crescent. There is Jane’s trousseau to be ordered, for one thing.’
‘If you do that I can stay with Mr Buggins, but meanwhile I really think I had better go over to Paris for a bit. I ought to be getting rid of my present studio, and have several things that must be seen to sometime soon. I won’t bother to look for a new flat yet. We can stay in an hotel after our honeymoon, until we find a nice one, but I must wind up my affairs, and this seems to be a good moment. Jane is far too much occupied to need me about the place now.’
18
Albert went to Paris meaning to stay there for a fortnight, but in a week’s time he was standing outside the Dacres’ front door in Wilton Crescent. Frankly, he had not enjoyed himself and had spent his time counting the hours to when he should see Jane again. This worried him a great deal. Always before he had been perfectly happy in Paris and he had expected to be so still – had thought that he would hardly miss her at all and that he might even find it quite an effort to come back to her, instead of which he found himself restless and miserable and unable to stay away. He began to realize that nothing would ever again be as it had been for him, and the realization annoyed him.
He found Jane alone in the downstairs drawing-room; she was not expecting him and flew into his arms.
‘Darling sweetest,’ she said after a few minutes, ‘don’t go away again. It was dreadful, I had to be thinking about you the whole time.’
‘I got so bored with thinking about you that I had to come back.’
‘Angel, did you really? I am pleased. Come and see the presents, they’re simply unbelievable!’ And she dragged him upstairs to a large empty room which had been set aside for the wedding presents.
‘There are masses for you, too. I put them all over there. Shall we unpack them now?’
‘Let’s look at yours first. My dear, what a lot, though! You must know a quantity of people. But how absolutely horrible they are! What on earth shall we do with all these atrocious things? And where do people go to buy wedding presents? Is there a special shop for them, because these things are all exactly alike? Have you noticed that? Oh, look at the Lalique, and all that dreadful glass with bubbles in it! I shall burst into tears in a moment.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Jane, ‘don’t take it to heart too much. It only needs a good kick.’
‘I know what we’ll do,’ said Albert, ‘we’ll have a wedding-present shoot, and get General Murgatroyd to arrange it for us. You see, the drivers can throw the things over our heads and we’ll shoot at them. Then, when it’s all over, we’ll be photographed with the bag. Haven’t you any nice presents, darling?’
‘Not one,’ said Jane, sadly. ‘Now let’s open yours.’
They set to work, and soon the floor was covered with brown paper, shavings and pieces of string. Whereas Jane’s presents were nearly all made of glass, Albert’s seemed to consist mainly of leatherwork. Leather blotters, wastepaper baskets and note-cases were unpacked in quick succession, and lastly, a cigarette-box made out of an old book. This present, which was sent by someone he had known at Oxford, perfectly enraged Albert: it had originally contained the works of Mrs Hemans.
‘My favourite poetess. Why couldn’t he send me the book unmutilated? He must remember that I never smoke, in any case. Still, sweet of him to think of me.’
The maid came in with some more parcels for Jane, containing a Lalique clock from Lady Brenda (‘How kind! considering we’ve only met her once. It will do for the shoot, too.’), a lampshade made out of somebody’s last will and testament and a hideous little glass tree, growing in a china pot, from Lady Prague.
‘I’m beginning to understand about wedding presents,’ said Albert. ‘It seems to me that they can be divided into three categories: the would-be useful, the so-called ornamental, and those that have been converted from their original purpose into something quite different, but which is seldom either useful or ornamental.’
‘I think,’ said Jane bitterly, ‘that they can be divided into two categories: those that have been bought in a shop, which are beastly, and those that have been snatched off the mantelpiece and given to the butler to pack up, which are beastlier. Look here, Albert darling, I’m getting really sick of this wedding. I do nothing all day but thank for these revolting presents, which I would pay anybody to take away, and try on clothes I don’t want. Couldn’t we chuck the whole thing and be married quietly somewhere? If I have to face another two months like this I shall be ill. Really, I mean it. Please, Albert.’
‘Well, darling, personally I think it would be heaven, but I must be in London for my exhibition, you know.’
‘When does that open?’
‘In three weeks tomorrow.’
‘That gives us heaps of time to have a honeymoon and everything. Please, let’s do that. Go and see
