Love in a Cold Climate (28 page)

The county, however, hummed and buzzed with Cedric, and little else was talked of. I need hardly say that Uncle Matthew, after one look, found that the word sewer had become obsolete and inadequate. Scowling, growling flashing of eyes and grinding of teeth, to a degree hitherto reserved for Boy Dougdale, were intensified
a hundredfold at the mere thought of Cedric, and accompanied by swelling veins and apoplectic noises. The drawers at Alconleigh were emptied of the yellowing slips of paper on which my uncle’s hates had mouldered all these years, and each now contained a clean new slip with the name, carefully printed in black ink, Cedric Hampton. There was a terrible scene on Oxford platform one day. Cedric went to the bookstall to buy
Vogue
, having mislaid his own copy. Uncle Matthew, who was waiting there for a train, happened to notice that the seams of his coat were piped in a contrasting shade. This was too much for his self-control. He fell upon Cedric and began to shake him like a rat. Just then, very fortunately, the train came in, whereupon my uncle, who suffered terribly from train fever, dropped Cedric and rushed to catch it. “You’d never think,” as Cedric said afterwards, “that buying
Vogue
magazine could be so dangerous. It was well worth it though, lovely Spring modes.”

The children, however, were in love with Cedric and furious because I would not allow them to meet him in my house. But Aunt Sadie, who seldom took a strong line about anything, had solemnly begged me to keep them apart, and her word with me was law. Besides, from my pinnacle of sophistication as wife and mother, I also considered Cedric to be unsuitable company for the very young, and when I knew he was coming to see me I took great care to shoo away any undergraduates who might happen to be sitting about in my drawing room.

Uncle Matthew and his neighbours seldom agreed on any subject. He despised their opinions, and they, in their turn, found his violent likes and dislikes quite incomprehensible, taking their cue as a rule from the balanced Boreleys. Over Cedric, however, all were united. Though the Boreleys were not haters in the Uncle Matthew class, they had their own prejudices, things they “could not stick,” foreigners, for example, well-dressed women and the Labour Party. But the thing they could stick least in the world were “Aesthetes—you know—those awful effeminate creatures—pansies.”
When, therefore, Lady Montdore, whom anyhow they could not stick much, installed the awful effeminate pansy Cedric at Hampton, and it became borne in upon them that he was henceforth to be their neighbour for ever, quite an important one at that, the future Lord Montdore, hatred really did burgeon in their souls. At the same time they took a morbid interest in every detail of the situation, and these details were supplied to them by Norma, who got her facts, I am ashamed to say, from me. It tickled me so much to make Norma gasp and stretch her eyes with horror that I kept back nothing that might tease her and infuriate the Boreleys.

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, 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 must soon 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? Onto the stage in a dazzling glare, springs Lady Montdore, supple as a young cat and her grey hair now a curious shade of blue, with a partner, a terrible creature from Sodom, from Gomorrah, from Paris, and with him proceeds to dance 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 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, 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?”

“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 Dave 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 she used to live?”

“Personality …” I said. “I don’t know. The thing about Polly is her beauty.”

“Describe it.”

“Oh, Cedric I’ve described it to you hundreds of times.” It rather amused me to do so though, because I knew that it teased him.

“Well,” I said, “as I’ve often told you before, she is so beautiful that it’s difficult to pay much attention to what she is saying, or to make out what she’s really like as a person, because all you want to do is just gaze and gaze.”

Cedric looked sulky, as he always did when I talked like this.

“More beautiful than
one?”
he said.

“Very much like you, Cedric.”

“So you say, but I don’t find that you gaze and gaze at
one
. On the contrary, you listen intently, with your eye out of the window.”

“She is very much like you, but all the same,” I said firmly, “she must be more beautiful because there is that thing about the gazing.”

This was perfectly true, and not said to annoy poor Cedric or make him jealous. He was like Polly, and very good-looking, but not an irresistible magnet to the eye as she was.

“I know exactly why,” he said. “It’s my beard, all that horrible shaving. I shall send to New York this very day for some wax—you can’t conceive the agony it is, but if it will make you gaze, Fanny, it will be worth it.”

“Don’t bother to do that,” I said. “It’s not the shaving. You do look like Polly, but you are not as beautiful. Lady Patricia also looked like her, but it wasn’t the same thing. It’s something extra that Polly has, which I can’t explain, I can only tell you that it is so.”

“What extra can she possibly have except beardlessness?”

“Lady Patricia was quite beardless.”

“You are horrid. Never mind, I shall try it and you’ll see. People used to gaze before my beard grew, like mad, even in Nova Scotia.
You are so fortunate not to be a beauty, Fanny, you’ll never know the agony of losing your looks.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“And as talking about pretty Polly makes us both so disagreeable let’s get onto the subject of Boy.”

“Ah, now, nobody could say that Boy was pretty. No gazing there. Boy is old and grizzled and hideous.”

“Now, Fanny, that’s not true, dear. Descriptions of people are only interesting if they happen to be true, you know. I’ve seen many photographs of Boy. Sonia’s books are full of them, from Boy playing diabolo, Boy in puttees for the war, to Boy with his bearer Boosee. After India I think she lost her Brownie, in the move, perhaps, because ‘Pages from Our Indian Diary’ seems to be the last book, but that was only three years ago and Boy was still ravishing then, the kind of looks I adore, stocky and with deep attractive furrows all over his face—dependable.”

“Dependable!”

“Why do you hate him so much, Fanny?”

“Oh, I don’t know, he gives me the creeps. He’s such a snob, for one thing.”

“I like that,” said Cedric. “I am one myself.”

“Such a snob that living people aren’t enough for him, he has to get to know the dead, as well—the titled dead, of course, I mean. He dives about in their memoirs so that he can talk about his ‘dear Duchesse de Dino,’ or ‘as Lady Bessborough so truly says.’ He can reel off pedigrees; he always knows just how everybody was related, Royal families and things I mean. Then he writes books about all these people, and, after that, anybody would think they were his own personal property. Ugh!”

“Exactly as I had supposed,” said Cedric. “A handsome, cultivated man, the sort of person I like the best. Gifted too. His needlework is marvellous and the dozens of
toiles
by him in the squash court are worthy of the Douanier himself, landscapes with gorillas. Original and bold.”

“Gorillas! Lord and Lady Montdore, and anybody else who would pose.”

“Well, it is original and bold to depict my aunt and uncle as gorillas. I wouldn’t dare. I think Polly is a very lucky girl.”

“The Boreleys think you will end by marrying Polly, Cedric.” Norma had propounded this thrilling theory to me the day before. They thought that it would be a deathblow to Lady Montdore, and longed for it to happen.

“Very silly of them, dear, I should have thought they only had to look at
one
to see how unlikely that is. What else do the Boreleys say about me?”

“Cedric, do come and meet Norma one day—I simply long to see you together.”

“I think not, dear, thank you.”

“But why? You’re always asking what she says and she’s always asking what you say, you’d much better ask each other and do without the middleman.”

“The thing is, I believe she would remind me of Nova Scotia, and when that happens my spirits go down, down, past
grande pluie
to
tempête
. The house carpenter at Hampton reminds me, don’t ask me why, but he does, and I have to rudely look away every time I meet him. I believe that’s why Paris suits me so well, there’s not a shade of Nova Scotia there, and perhaps it’s also why I put up with the Baron all those years. The Baron could have come from many a land of spices, but from Nova Scotia he could not have come. Whereas Boreleys abound there. But though I don’t want to meet them I always like hearing about them, so do go on with what they think about
one.”

“Well, so then Norma was full of you just now, when I met her out shopping, because it seems you travelled down from London with her brother Jock yesterday, and now he can literally think of nothing else.”

“Oh, how exciting. How did he know it was me?”

“Lots of ways. The goggles, the piping, your name on your luggage. There is nothing anonymous about you, Cedric.”

“Oh, good!”

“So according to Norma he was in a perfect panic, sat with one eye on you and the other on the communication cord, because he expected you to pounce at any minute.”