Wigs on the Green (7 page)

The day was very hot and breathless. Jasper, Noel, and the two ladies sat beneath a large lime tree on the village green and found little to say to each other. Jasper, who had a great many subjects in common with Mrs St Julien, when alone with her, and who could, he felt sure, have made a most pleasing impression on Lady Marjorie under the same circumstance, found it strangely difficult to deal with the two of them together. The presence of Noel, too, rather cramped his style. Lady Marjorie and Mrs St Julien made desultory conversation, while Jasper bided his time, and Noel silently considered where, when, and how, he should make a declaration to Mrs Lace.

At four o’clock, exactly, Eugenia arrived, swinging down the village street with the gait of a triumphant goddess, and closely followed by Vivian Jackson and the Reichshund. ‘Hail!’ she cried, throwing up her arm in the Social Unionist salute.

‘Snow,’ replied Noel, laughing immoderately at this very poor joke.

Eugenia regarded him with lowering brow. ‘Union Jackshirt Foster,’ she said sternly, ‘beware, I have had to speak to you once before. If you continue to be facetious at the expense of our Movement I shall be obliged to degrade you before the comrades. In fact I will cut off all your buttons with my own dagger.’

‘Quite right,’ said Jasper ‘Ignominy or a Roman death for Union Jackshirt Foster. Miss Eugenia, I want to introduce you to your cousin Mrs St Julien, and to Lady Marjorie Merrith. They are staying at the Jolly Roger like us.’

‘Hail!’ said Eugenia. She saluted each in turn and then shook hands. ‘I am very pleased to see you here. We are badly in need of members for a women’s branch in this village, perhaps you would help me to organize one?’

‘Of course we will,’ said Poppy. She was attracted by her cousin.

‘Union Jackshirt Aspect,’ Eugenia went on, ‘I have brought you a message from T.P.O.F. She says that your poor grandfather was one of her greatest friends and she wishes to meet you. Would it be convenient for you to take tea at Chalford House today?’

‘Perfectly convenient,’ said Jasper. ‘I accept with pleasure.’

‘Perhaps my cousin would care to come?’

‘Thank you, I should like to,’ said Poppy St Julien.

Eugenia then rather half-heartedly invited the others. She evidently hoped that they would refuse, which they did. Noel had arranged to visit Mrs Lace at tea-time; Lady Marjorie said that she must grease her face and lie down for a bit.

So the three of them set forth, with Vivian Jackson and the Reichshund trotting at their heels.

‘Is it far?’ asked Mrs St Julien.

‘Oh! no,’ Eugenia replied. Her cousin was not much reassured. Eugenia walked with effortless strides, giving the impression that twenty miles to her would be the merest stroll. Quite soon, however, they came upon the lodge gates of Chalford Park, which were large and beautiful, and surmounted by a marble arch of baroque design. The two lodges, one on each side, were small round temples. Inside the park there was an atmosphere of unreality. They advanced up
an avenue of elm trees which hung in the sleepy air like large green balloons. The surface of the drive, although in perfect repair, was faintly tinged with mossy green; it was evident that wheeled traffic seldom passed that way.

‘Are we approaching the palace of the Sleeping Beauty?’ Jasper murmured.

‘You will see the house from the top of this rise,’ said Eugenia. She looked a little anxious, as though hoping so much that they would like it. She need not have worried. The house, when it appeared to view, presented the most beautiful vision that could be imagined. Built, in the Palladian style, of pale pink marble, it consisted of a central dome flanked by two smaller ones, to which it was connected by gleaming colonnades. The whole thing was raised above the level of the drive, and approached in the front by a huge twisted marble staircase. Beyond the house there lay a gleaming lake, beyond that again a formal garden of clipped yews, grass and statuary, and in the background of this picture was the pale but piercing blue of a far-distant landscape.

‘Good heavens,’ said Jasper, when the power of speech returned to him.

‘Do you think it beautiful?’ said Eugenia. ‘I do. I think it is the most beautiful house in the world, but then, of course, I have seen few others.’

‘I have never, in any country, seen one to beat it,’ said Poppy.

They began to walk slowly towards it.

‘Under the Social Unionist régime,’ said Jasper, ‘your Captain should make a law that all really beautiful houses must be preserved and occupied. It is much the most horrible feature of this age that so many are being destroyed, allowed to stand derelict, or, worst of all, handed over to the proletariat and turned into post-card counters and ice-cream booths. That is too ignoble. Beautiful houses ought to be a setting for beautiful women, their lovers, and perhaps a few frail, but exquisite little children.’

Eugenia looked at him reprovingly. ‘Under our régime,’ she said, ‘women will not have lovers. They will have husbands and
great quantities of healthy Aryan children. I think you forget the teachings of our Captain, Union Jackshirt Aspect.’

Poppy St Julien said, ‘I don’t know a thing about politics, but I’m sure Hitler must be a wonderful man. Hasn’t he forbidden German women to work in offices and told them they never need worry about anything again, except arranging the flowers? How they must love him.’

‘They do,’ said Eugenia.
‘Heil Hitler!
Cousin Poppy St Julien, you must be enrolled as a Union Jackshirt at once. It costs ninepence a month, the Union Jack shirt is five shillings, and sixpence for the little emblem. Here we are.’

Vivian Jackson and the Reichshund followed them up the twisted marble staircase, but when they had reached the top a word from Eugenia made them turn round and trot down it again. ‘Stay there,’ she said, over her shoulder, and ushered Poppy and Jasper into a huge domed room, so blue that it might have been a pool in some Mediterranean lagoon, and they fishes swimming in it.

Across its azure immensity sat Lady Chalford waiting to dispense tea out of a golden tea-pot of exquisite design. She looked rather like Whistler’s portrait of his mother.

If Lady Chalford was like a relic from a forgotten age, a museum-piece of great antiquity, it was not because her years were heavy so much as that her speech, her dress, and her outlook, had remained unaltered since before the War. Nineteen fourteen had marked the evening of her days when she should have been yet in her prime.

The world calamity, however, had little or nothing to do with this decline, having been far eclipsed in her eyes by the disastrous marriage made by her only son; while to her, his death in 1920 from wounds received the day before the Armistice, was a lesser disaster than the fact of his divorce. It made no difference in the eyes of his parents that Lord Malmains had divorced his wife; her shame was his, and theirs, and furthermore the heiress to their lands and titles had the tainted blood of an adulteress in her veins. No such thing had ever happened before in the Malmains family, throughout history no shadow of disgrace had ever fallen upon the proud ambitious heads whose likenesses now stared down from pink brocade walls in Lord Chalford’s portrait gallery.

Since the disaster Lady Chalford had never set foot outside her park gates. Lord Chalford, protected by an armour of total deafness, had, until recently laid low by a stroke, performed his duties as a legislator most punctiliously, but when in London he had always stayed at his club, the almost unearthly beauties of Malmains Palace, in Cheyne Walk, having now been hidden from all human eyes, except those of the caretaker, for sixteen long years.

Eugenia had been handed over to her grandparents at the age of three, after her father’s death. They could never forgive her for what her mother had been, and regarded the poor child with suspicion, which became tempered, however, as she grew older with a
sort of sorrowful affection. Luckily, her appearance made things easier for them, Malmains women were all large blonde goddesses, and her looks bore no relation to those of their sinful daughter-in-law. Now that she had reached the age of seventeen she presented a problem with which poor Lady Chalford wrestled miserably. What was to be done with her? Of no use to give her a London season, how should any respectable mother invite, any decent young man propose, to the Child of Scandal. (Lady Chalford, it will be observed, was a trifle pessimistic in her estimate of modern London Society’s attitude towards heiresses.) And yet Eugenia must marry, Chalford House and the barony of Malmains which she would in due course inherit from her grandfather must have an heir.

Haunted night and day by these problems, Lady Chalford had been constrained to question Eugenia with regard to the two young strangers whom she had so indiscreetly spoken to on the village green. Had they been suitable friends for the child they would surely have waited to be presented before addressing a young lady, yet, might it be that they had been brought by the hand of a far-seeing Providence to Chalford? She was disposed to consider that such had been the case when she learnt that one of them was Mr Jasper Aspect, grandson, she reassured herself with Debrett, yes, sure enough, grandson of her old friend, Driburgh, and child of that enchantingly pretty little Lady Venetia. Her delight knew no bounds, at last somebody of her own kind, somebody whom she could consult on equal terms, was at hand. Her thoughts sprang happily forward, even should he wish to marry Eugenia the match would be a perfectly suitable one, the Aspects although far from rich, were an old family of unimpeachable antecedents.

Lady Chalford’s pleasure at seeing Jasper was greatly, however, surpassed by that which she felt when she realized Poppy’s identity. Here was a member of her own family, a married woman and a woman of the world at that; Poppy would certainly be able to advise her what were the best measures to
take for her granddaughter’s future happiness. She would be able now to talk without the reservations which would have been imposed upon her if she were discussing the case with a gentleman. For the first few moments indeed she did not at all realize the good fortune which had befallen her. She was immensely annoyed with Eugenia for bringing two visitors when only one had been expected. There were a cup and plate too few, another chair must be drawn up. Eugenia’s reluctance to invite Marjorie and Noel now became comprehensible, Lady Chalford would fuss herself almost ill over such an incident. When at last they were settled, however, she declared herself overjoyed to see Poppy.

‘Agatha’s granddaughter,’ she cried, embracing her. ‘When I was ten years old Agatha and I were inseparable. I remember so well that we both had plum-coloured merino dresses with beautiful brass buttons, the size of pennies, down the front of the bodices. When my poor great-uncle died mamma cut the brass buttons off mine, I was very much displeased by this, having hoped for a proper mourning such as grown-up people had, and besides, I was fond of those buttons – the dress was never much without them. At nineteen Aggie was a most beautiful girl. We went to the same drawing-room and everyone was talking of her beauty. I never shall forget her as a bride. Everybody loved her. Poor Driburgh was so madly in love with her that we feared he should kill himself when she married your dear grandfather. And at twenty-two she was dead. I remember that I heard the news a week after I became engaged myself, and it seemed to take away all my happiness. I think now that she was perhaps fortunate to die so young and still so happy. I am very glad that you have come to see me, my dear child.’

Poppy was moved by this tribute to her grandmother, who, up to now had seemed a most shadowy figure.

‘Also I am very much pleased to meet you, Mr Aspect. How is poor dear Driburgh?’

‘I believe he is perfectly happy,’ said Jasper. ‘My mother goes to see him fairly often.’

‘Of course Peersmont is a wonderful place,’ said Lady Chalford, referring to that lunatic asylum, which, as its name denotes, is kept exclusively for the use of insane peers. ‘I often think to myself where should we be without it? To know that our loved ones, in their great trouble, are so perfectly cared for, that indeed is much. You know, I suppose, that it is not at all far from here, in fact I think you ought to visit your dear grandfather. I will be happy to send you over in one of my motor cars if you should wish to do so.’

Jasper thanked her and said he would be glad to avail himself of her kindness. He then began to ask many questions about Chalford House, but was obliged to be content with the vaguest of information, Lady Chalford evidently noticed its beauties no more than the air she breathed.

After tea, however, she said that as Jasper appeared to be so much interested in it, Eugenia might show him the other rooms and the pictures, so long as they were suitably chaperoned by Nanny.

‘I wish to have a little talk with dear Poppy,’ she said, and presently she conducted Mrs St Julien upstairs to a small boudoir decorated in the Edwardian manner. It was pink and white, like a sugar cake, with white lace over pink satin in panels on the walls. There were two exquisitely comfortable
chaise-longues
upholstered in white brocade edged with pink silk rosebuds, several small pink satin armchairs, each with a blue muslin beribboned cushion, and a quantity of occasional tables covered with albums, photographs of ladies with tremendous eyebrows in straw boaters, and bric-à-brac of every description. Poppy thought she had never seen anything so pretty and so feminine in her life.

During the little talk that followed, Lady Chalford poured out all her misgivings over the future of Eugenia into Poppy’s sympathetic ear. ‘You see how it is,’ she said, ‘dear Poppy. Now what should you advise me to do with the poor child?’

‘Personally I should be inclined to take her out in London,’ said Poppy. ‘Everything is so changed there, since the War, and people are by no means as strict as they were.’

‘My dear, that may well be the case in certain circles,’ said Lady Chalford stiffly. ‘Among my own friends, however, and those people with whom I should wish my granddaughter to visit, I am convinced that she would never be received. And even if, out of charity or friendship for me, people did invite her to their houses, it would still be most painful to me. What pleasure could I derive, for instance, from taking the child of a divorced woman to Court? The scandal nearly killed both my husband and myself at the time; with Eugenia making a début in London we must continually be reminded of it. To begin with, neither of us has set foot inside Malmains Palace since the last day of that terrible trial. And then consider what anxiety I should feel in chaperoning her. Eugenia is the child of a bad, wicked woman, never forget that. No, I assure you that it would be impossible for me to take her out in London. My only wish is that she may marry as soon as may be. But whom? This Mr Aspect, now, what should you say are his intentions?’