Love in a Cold Climate (33 page)

“No, not even your mother’s new Infanta. Cedric was adamant.”

“Fanny, it’s your duty to go to it. You will, won’t you?”

“Oh, darling, I can’t. I feel so sleepy after dinner when I am pregnant, you know. I really couldn’t drag myself. We shall hear about it all right, from Cedric.”

“And when does it take place?”

“Under a month from now, the sixteenth, I believe.”

“Why that’s the very day I’m expecting my baby. How convenient. Then when everything’s all over we can meet, can’t we? You will fix it, promise.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We shan’t be able to hold Cedric back. He’s fearfully interested in you. You’re Rebecca to him.”

Boy came back to my house just as we were finishing our tea. He looked perished with cold and very tired but Polly would not let
him wait while some fresh tea was made. She allowed him to swallow a tepid cup and dragged him off.

“I suppose you’ve lost the key of the car as usual,” she said unkindly on their way downstairs.

“No no, here it is, on my key ring.”

“Miracle,” said Polly. “Well, then, good-bye, my darling. I’ll telephone and we’ll do some more benders.”

WHEN ALFRED CAME
in later on I said to him, “I’ve seen Polly! Just imagine, she spent the whole day here, and oh, Alfred, she’s not a bit in love any more!”

“Do you never think of anything but who is or is not in love with whom?” he said in tones of great exasperation.

Norma, I knew, would be just as uninterested, and I longed very much for Davey or Cedric to pick it all over with.

S
O POLLY NOW
settled into her aunt’s house at Silkin. It had always been Lady Patricia’s house more than Boy’s, as she was the one who lived there all the time, while Boy flitted about between Hampton and London with occasional visits to the Continent, and it was arranged inside with a very feminine form of tastelessness, that is to say, no taste and no comfort, either. It was a bit better than Norma’s house, but not much, the house itself being genuinely old instead of Banbury Road old and standing in the real country instead of an Oxford suburb. It contained one or two good pieces of furniture, and where Norma would have had cretonnes the Dougdales had Boy’s needlework. But there were many similarities, especially upstairs, where linoleum covered the floors, and every bathroom, in spite of the childlessness of the Dougdales, was a nursery bathroom, smelling strongly of not very nice soap.

Polly did not attempt to alter anything. She just flopped into Lady Patricia’s bed, in Lady Patricia’s bedroom whose windows looked out onto Lady Patricia’s grave. “Beloved wife of Harvey Dougdale,” said the gravestone, which had been erected some weeks after poor Harvey Dougdale had acquired a new beloved wife. “She shall not grow old as we that are left grow old.”

I think Polly cared very little about houses, which, for her, consisted of Hampton and the rest, and that if she could no longer live at Hampton she could not take much interest in any other house. Whatever it was in life that Polly did care for, and time had yet to disclose the mystery, it was certainly not her home. She was in no sense what the French call a
“femme d’intérieur,”
and her household arrangements were casual to the verge of chaos. Nor, any longer, alas, was it Boy. Complete disillusion had set in, as far as he was concerned, and she was behaving towards him with exactly the same off-hand coldness that had formerly characterized her attitude towards her mother, the only difference being that whereas she had always been a little frightened of Lady Montdore it was Boy, in this case, who was a little frightened of her.

Boy was busily occupied with his new book. It was to be called
Three Dukes
, and the gentlemen it portrayed were considered by Boy to be perfect examples of nineteenth-century aristocracy in their three countries. The Dukes in question were Paddington, Souppes and Monte Pincio, all three masters, it seemed, of the arts of anecdote, adultery and gourmandise, members of the Jockey Club, gamblers and sportsmen. He had a photograph, the frontispiece for his book, of all three together, taken at a shoot at Landçut, standing in front of an acre of dead animals; with their tummies, their beards, their deerstalker’s hats and white gaiters they looked like nothing so much as three King Edwards all in a row. Polly told me that he had finished Pincio while they were in Sicily, the present man having put the necessary documents at his disposal, and was now engaged upon Paddington with the assistance of the Duke’s librarian, motoring off to Paddington Park every morning, notebook in hand. The idea was that when that was finished he should go to France in pursuit of Souppes. Nobody ever had the least objection to Boy “doing” their ancestors: he always made them so charming and endowed them with such delightful vices, besides which it gave a guarantee, a hallmark of ancient lineage, since he never would take on anybody whose family did not go
back to well before the Conquest, in England, or, who, if foreign, could not produce at least one Byzantine Emperor, Pope or pre-Louis XV Bourbon in their family tree.

The day of the Montdore House ball came and went, but there was no sign of Polly’s baby. Aunt Sadie always used to say that people unconsciously cheat over the dates when babies are expected in order to make the time of waiting seem shorter, but if that is so it certainly makes the last week or two seem endless. Polly depended very much on my company and would send a motor car most days to take me over to Silkin for an hour or two. The weather was heavenly at last, and we were able to go for little walks and even to sit in a sheltered corner of the garden, wrapped in rugs.

“Don’t you love it,” Polly said, “when it’s suddenly like this after the winter and all the goats and hens look so happy?”

She did not seem very much interested in the idea of having a baby, though she once said to me, “Doesn’t it seem funny to have talcum powder and things and boring old Sister waiting about, and all for somebody who doesn’t exist?”

“Oh, I always think that,” I said. “And yet the very moment they are there they become such an integral part of your life that you can’t imagine what it was like without them.”

“I suppose so. I wish they’d hurry up. So what about the ball—have you heard anything? You really ought to have gone, Fanny.”

“I couldn’t have. The Warden of Wadham and Norma went—not together, I don’t mean, but they are the only people I’ve seen so far. It seems to have been very splendid, Cedric changed his dress five times. He started with tights made of rose petals and a pink wig and ended as Doris Keane in
Romance
and a black wig. He had real diamonds on his mask. Your mother was a Venetian youth, to show off her new legs, and they stood in a gondola giving away wonderful prizes to everybody—Norma got a silver snuffbox—and it went on till seven. Oh, how badly people do describe balls.”

“Never mind, there’ll be the
Tatler.”

“Yes, they said it was flash, flash all night. Cedric is sure to have the photographs to show us.”

Presently Boy strolled up and said, “Well, Fanny, what d’you hear of the ball?”

“Oh, we’ve just had the ball,” said Polly. “Can’t begin all over again. What about your work?”

“I could bring it out here, if you like.”

“You know I don’t count your silly old embroidery as work.”

Boy’s face took on a hurt expression and he went away.

“Polly, you are awful,” I said.

“Yes, but it’s for his own good. He pretends he can’t concentrate until after the baby now, so he wanders about getting on everybody’s nerves when he ought to be getting on with Paddington. He must hurry, you know, if the book is to be out for Christmas. Have you ever met Geoffrey Paddington, Fanny?”

“Well, I have,” I said, “because Uncle Matthew once produced him for a house party at Alconleigh. Old.”

“Not the least bit old,” said Polly, “and simply heavenly. You’ve no idea how nice he is. He came first to see Boy about the book and now he comes quite often, to chat. Terribly kind of him, don’t you think? Mamma is his chief hate, so I never saw him before I married. I remember she was always trying to get him over to Hampton and he never would come. Perhaps he’ll be here one day when you are. I’d love you to meet him.”

I did meet him after that, several times, finding his shabby little Morris Cowley outside Silkin when I arrived. He was a poor man, since his ancestor, the great Duke, left much glory but little cash, and his father, the old gentleman in spats, had lavished most of what there was on La Païva and ladies of the kind. I thought him rather nice and very dull, and could see that he was falling in love with Polly.

“Don’t you think he’s terribly nice?” said Polly, “and so kind of him to come when I look like this.”

“Your face is the same,” I said.

“I really quite long for him to see me looking ordinary—if I ever do. I’m losing hope in this baby being born at all.”

It was born, though, that very evening, took one look, according to the Radletts, at its father, and quickly died again.

Polly was rather ill and the Sister would not allow any visitors for about ten days after the baby was born, but as soon as she did I went over. I saw Boy for a moment in the hall. He looked even more gloomy than usual. Poor Boy, I thought, left with a wife who now so clearly disliked him and not even a baby to make up for it.

Polly lay in a bower of blossoms. The Sister was very much in evidence and there should have been a purple-faced wailing monster in a Moses basket to complete the picture. I really felt its absence as though it were that of a person well known to me.

“Oh, poor …” I began. But Polly had inherited a great deal of her mother’s talent for excluding what was disagreeable, and I saw at once that any show of sympathy would be out of place and annoy her, so, instead, I exclaimed, Radlett fashion, over two camellia trees in full bloom which stood on each side of her bed.

“Geoffrey Paddington sent them,” she said. “Do admit that he’s a perfect love, Fanny. You know Sister was with his sister when she had her babies.”

But then whom had Sister not been with? She and Boy must have had some lovely chats, I thought, the first night or two when Polly was feverish and they had sat up together in his dressing room. She kept on coming into the room while I was there, bringing a tray, taking away an empty jug, bringing some more flowers, any excuse to break in on our talk and deposit some nice little dollop of gossip. She had seen my condition at a glance, she had also realized that I was too small a fish for her net, but she was affability itself and said that she hoped I would come over every day now and sit with Lady Polly.

“Do you ever see Jeremy Chaddesley Corbett at Oxford?” she asked. “He is one of my favourite babies.”

Presently she came in empty-handed and rather pink, almost, if such a thing were possible with her, rattled, and announced that Lady Montdore was downstairs. I felt that, whereas she would have bundled any of us into our coffins with perfect calm, the advent of Lady Montdore had affected even her nerves of iron. Polly, too, was thrown off her balance for a moment and said faintly, “Oh! Is Mr.—I mean my—I really mean is Boy there?”

“Yes, he’s with her now. He sent word to say, will you see her? If you don’t want to, Lady Polly, I can say quite truthfully that you may not have another visitor to-day. You really ought not to, the first day, in any case.”

“I’ll go,” I said, getting up.

“No, no, no, Fanny, you mustn’t, darling. I’m not sure I will see her, but I couldn’t possibly be left alone with her. Sit down again at once, please.”

There were voices in the garden outside.

“Do go to the window,” said Polly. “Is it them?”

“Yes, and Cedric is there, too,” I said. “And they’re all three walking round the garden together.”

“No! But I must I must see Cedric! Sister, do be a darling, go down and tell them to come up at once.”

“Now, Lady Polly, no. And please don’t work yourself up, you must avoid any excitement. It’s absolutely out of the question for you to see a stranger to-day. Close relations was what Dr. Simpson said, and one at a time. I suppose your mother must be allowed up for a few minutes if you want her, but nobody else and certainly not a strange young man.”

“I’d better see Mummy,” Polly said, to me, “or else this silly feud will go on for ever, besides, I really can’t wait to see her hair and her legs. Oh, dear, though, the one I long for is Cedric.”

“She seems to be in a very friendly mood,” I said, still looking at them out of the window. “Laughing and chatting away. Very smart in navy blue with a sailor hat. Boy is being wonderful. I thought he might be knocked groggy by her appearance, but he’s pretending
not to notice. He’s looking at Cedric all the time. They are getting on like mad.”

Most astute of him, I thought privately, if he hit it off with Cedric he would, very soon, be back in Lady Montdore’s good graces, and then, perhaps, there could be a little modification of Lord Montdore’s will.

“I die for the sailor hat. Come on, let’s get it over. All right then, Sister, ask her to come up—wait—give me a comb and a glass first, will you? Go on with the running commentary, Fanny.”