Wigs on the Green (23 page)

The Olde Englyshe Fayre from now on became more like an Olde Englyshe Orgy. An enormous bonfire was made, on which Karl Marx and Captain Chadlington (the local Conservative Member of Parliament) were burnt together in effigy amid fearful howls and cat-calls from the Comrades. ‘Down with the Pacifists! Down with the Communists! Down with non-Aryans! Down with the Junket-fronted National Government! – We defend the Union Jack, we will whack and we will smack and we will otherwise attack all traitors to the Union Jack —’

Everybody danced with everybody else, some people even danced alone, certain sign of a good party, while the Rackenbridge brass band moaned out ‘Night and Day’, it’s latest number, for hours on end. The visitors from Peersmont became as drunk as the lords they were, and, each with a pretty girl on his arm, refused to budge when the curator said that it was time to go home. Lady Marjorie and Mr Wilkins disappeared together for a while; when they rejoined the throng of merry-makers it was to dance a jig and announce their engagement. The Comrades cheered and sang their Union Jackshirt songs until they could cheer and sing no more, and it was not before one o’clock in the morning that they finally packed themselves into their charabancs and drove away, hoarse but happy.

Silence at last fell upon the park. Under a full moon Poppy and Jasper staggered hand in hand towards the Jolly Roger. In spite of their extreme exhaustion they still went on talking over the events of that sensational afternoon.

‘Did you adore the fight?’ asked Poppy; ‘I did. I dug my heel into a fallen Pacifist’s face – remind me to tell Eugenia that, by the way. It ought to give me a leg up in the Movement. And what were you up to? I never saw you.’

‘No,’ said Jasper, ‘because I was hiding underneath the platform all the time. I can’t bear being hurt.’

‘Darling Jasper, you never let one down for a moment, do you?’

‘Are you going to marry me?’

‘Honestly, I don’t see how I can help it. It would seem a bit wasteful not to keep you about the place, considering that you are the only person I’ve ever met who makes me laugh all the time without stopping.’

‘Good,’ said Jasper, ‘we’ll sell the tiara then, shall we?’

‘Yes, darling!’

‘And go to Uruguay next week?’

‘No, darling. I shouldn’t fancy that – fuzzy wuzzies aren’t at all my dish!’

A large luncheon-table was prepared in the Iolanthe room at the Savoy. There were a great many glasses on it and a huge bouquet of orchids, while several champagne bottles in buckets of ice completed an atmosphere of extreme gaiety. The room next door was also thrown open and a cocktail-bar here awaited the assembling of the guests. All was now in readiness for the wedding luncheon-party of Mr Wilkins and Lady Marjorie Merrith, who were busy uttering nuptial vows in the presence of their nearest and dearest at the Caxton Hall, Westminster.

The first guest strayed into Iolanthe and thence into the next room, where she refused a cocktail which was pressed upon her by several waiters, but fell with healthy appetite upon the salted almonds and potato crisps. It was Eugenia, who, having given T.P.O.F. the slip, had found her way to London by an early train, and from thence to the Union Jack House, where she had spent a blissful morning with Comrades of the London branch. Her eyes still sparkled from excitement at the memory of her reception. The Captain had himself granted her an interview, warmly thanked her for all the work she had done on behalf of the Movement and had finally, as a token of gratitude, plucked, like the pelican, his own little emblem from his own bosom and pinned it, still warm, upon hers. When she had left the great man, tears of emotion streaming from her eyes, the Comrades had clustered round her and had made her give her own account of the now epic Battle of Chalford Park. After this they had made much of her, fed her on sausage rolls and twopenny bars, given her a special cheer and salute, and had all promised to visit the Chalford Branch in the nearest of futures.

As Eugenia was still wearing her usual costume of Union Jack
shirt, old grey woollen skirt, belt complete with dagger, and bare legs and head, she cut a sufficiently incongruous figure in the sophisticated atmosphere of a large hotel. The waiters stared at her in astonishment and she returned their glances quite unabashed; she was lacking in the nervousness which many a young girl might have felt while spending her first day in London.

Presently Mrs Lace came trailing in, wearing clothes reminiscent of the riding habit of a widowed queen-empress. She also had been unable to attend the marriage ceremony, having spent her morning in a frenzied rush round the shops. Eugenia had already seen her that day, they had come up from Rackenbridge by the same train, the Laces travelling first-class and Eugenia third.

‘Oh! how are you?’ said Mrs Lace. For the hundredth time she took in the details of Eugenia’s attire with a kind of disgusted satisfaction, disgust that one so rich should put her money to so little use, satisfaction that Eugenia would certainly never rival herself as the best-dressed woman in the Cotswolds. Eugenia, who could not understand the significance of her glances, thought that Anne-Marie was looking more grumpy than usual today. Presently, gathering up her velvet train, Anne-Marie sauntered to a looking-glass, where she rearranged her silver fox to its best advantage and pinned to it a couple of gardenias which she took out of a thick white paper bag. She looked at herself with her head on one side and her lips pursed as though she were about to whistle, after which she swayed back to the side of Eugenia, who was happily browsing in a basket of crystallized fruits.

‘Cold, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Lace, in her foreign accent. In truth, she was not feeling quite happy about her black velvet, furs and feathers; the day being a particularly hot one in late September, she was beginning to wonder whether she was not rather unsuitably dressed for it. ‘Cold, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Eugenia, with her mouth full.

‘I always think these autumn days singularly deceptive, they look so warm, but one has to be very careful,
le fond de l’air est cru.’

‘It’s perfectly boiling today,’ said Eugenia, scornfully. ‘I don’t
know what those foreign words mean I’m afraid. Under the régime people will talk English or hold their tongues.’

‘My dear child, how ridiculous you are. Régime itself is a French word, you know.’

‘Oh! no, it’s not,’ said Eugenia, ‘it has become anglicized long ago by the Comrades.’

Jasper and Noel now came in. Jasper flung his arms round Eugenia’s neck. ‘You simply can’t have any idea how pleased I am to see you, darling,’ he cried ‘I never thought you would make it.’

‘Nor did I,’ said Eugenia. ‘Luckily T.P.O.F. is ill in bed, so she will never know, unless that old yellow Pacifist of a Nanny tells her. I rode to the station on Vivian Jackson and had to leave him tethered there all day, the poor angel.’

‘Well, and what have you been up to since we left?’

‘Oh! nothing much, it’s been fairly dull down there (you heard we made a hundred and eighty-six pounds for the Movement, I suppose?) But today has been wonderful. I was able to keep a non-Aryan family from getting into my carriage at Oxford simply by showing them my little emblem and drawing my dagger at them and I can’t tell you what a morning I’ve had with the Comrades at the Union Jack House – Oh, boy!’

‘Come next door and let’s hear about it,’ said Jasper, mischievously, leaving Noel to a tête-à-tête with Mrs Lace.

Noel was now wondering whether he had ever really been in love with her at all. Good manners, however, demanded that he should keep up the fiction, so he kissed her hand, gazed passionately into her eyes and murmured that he was happy to be with her again.

‘
Moi aussi je suis contente
,’ said Mrs Lace, with a mournful look. She felt that her black velvet, if rather sweaty in such weather, at least assisted her to present a highly romantic appearance. ‘How are things going with you,
mon cher?’
She had been cheated out of her great renunciation scene at Chalford, perhaps she would be able to enact it here and now.

‘I am rather worried,’ said Noel, snatching at any opportunity to talk about himself as opposed to themselves. The others could not now be long in coming, until they did, the conversation must be kept on a safe level. He cursed Jasper for leaving them together, typical piece of spitefulness. ‘I am doubtful now whether I shall get that appointment in Vienna I told you of. My uncle, who has some influence there, is still trying hard to get it for me, and General von Pittshelm, an old friend of my parents, is pulling certain strings, I believe. All the same, it seems fairly hopeless – so much stands in the way.’

On hearing this Mrs Lace felt thankful that things had gone no farther between herself and Noel. She had begun to think during the calm, dull weeks which had succeeded the pageant that the penniless heir to a throne, which he was unlikely ever to ascend, would be a poor exchange for the solid comforts of the Lace home, although he might provide a sweet romance to while away a boring summer. It behoved her to be discreet.

‘You never came to say goodbye to me,’ she murmured, plaintively.

‘Darling, it wasn’t possible. If you only knew —’

‘I think I do. We must say goodbye here, then, I suppose. In public. It seems hard.’

‘But I shall come to Chalford again awfully soon, you know.’

‘It can never be the same. My husband – he knows something of our romance and suspects more. I have had a terrible time since you left.’

‘I say, not really? Is he – will he – I mean he hasn’t got anything on us, has he?’

‘My husband,’ said Mrs Lace, grandiloquently, ‘will forgive me everything. He has a noble character and moreover he loves me to distraction.’

‘Thank heaven!’ said Noel, ‘I mean – you know, darling, that I would love to carry you right away from Chalford for ever, but it isn’t possible in the circumstances. I am much too poor. Besides, I could never have taken you from your children; the thought of
them would have come between us in the end. All the same, I shall love you for ever; you will always be the love of my life.’

‘And you,’ said Mrs Lace, ‘of mine.’

She looked up at him with her sideways glance that she supposed to be so alluring, and thought, as she used to think when he first came to Chalford, that his was an unromantic appearance. ‘More like a stockbroker than a king,’ she thought.

‘If you should ever happen to be passing through Vienna,’ he was saying, ‘you must look me up, if I go, and we will do the night-clubs together if there are any, although I hear it is far from gay there now. A friend of mine who has just come back from there tells me that he is off to North Wales in search of amorous adventure – been reading Caradoc Evans, I suppose.

‘Ah!’ he cried, greatly relieved, ‘here come the others at last.’

A buzz of lively conversation could be heard approaching down the corridor. Mrs Lace took up a position by the window, twitching at her fox. She opened her eyes very wide and assumed an expression of romantic gloom.

The door burst open. Lady Marjorie, radiant and beautiful in white crêpe-de-chine with a huge black hat, appeared hand in hand with Mr Wilkins. She looked the very picture of happiness. Mr Wilkins looked the same as usual, except for his smart grey suit and buttonhole of a red carnation. Immediately after them came Lady Fitzpuglington, escorted by a well-known statesman and followed by a flock of smart and glittering young people, which included Poppy St Julien.

Lady Fitzpuglington, considering what her feelings must have been on the subject, had behaved extraordinarily well to Marjorie over this marriage. She had made three earth-shaking scenes about it, after which, seeing that nothing she could say would avail to alter the girl’s determination, she had given way with a good grace, merely stipulating that the wedding itself should be kept absolutely private, in order that the Duke of Dartford’s feelings might be spared as far as possible.

‘There’s nothing to be done,’ she told her brother. ‘Marjorie is
of age and madly in love, therefore nothing I can say or do will stop her. We must make the best of a bad job and be thankful that divorce is such an easy matter in these days. Poor Mr Wilkins, of course, doesn’t want to marry her in the least, but there it is, poor man. Now, if Puggie had only taken my advice and left her a minor until the age of forty, how different it would all have been. We should at least have had some hold over the little idiot then.’

Her ladyship’s brother did not reply. He thought that the unlucky Fitzpuglington, floating as he had been, a six months corpse in the Atlantic when his daughter was born, might be excused for having failed to provide against her passion for Mr Wilkins. Lady Fitzpuglington was noted in the family as being an adept at loading her own responsibilities upon the shoulders of other people.

Mrs Lace noticed that the ladies of the party were not curtsying to Noel – even his hostess had not greeted him. She found this puzzling. Surely in London he did not preserve his incognito. Also she was very much annoyed when she saw that the other young women present were every bit as pretty as she. She thought their clothes excessively boring, however. They were all of the plainly tailored variety, consisting of little suits or crêpe-de-chine dresses covered by thin woollen coats. Mrs Lace only cared for fancy dress. She wished, all the same, that she had put on something a trifle cooler, she was boiled in her riding habit.

‘I say, darling,’ whispered one of the pretty ladies to Marjorie, ‘is that a fortune-teller over by the window, or what? And who is that lovely mad-looking girl with no hat?’

Major Lace now appeared. He had been best man to his friend and had only just got away from the registry office. Mrs Lace, for once in her life, was pleased to see her husband. In all this large gay crowd nobody was paying any attention to her; she almost felt that she would be glad to be back in Chalford again where she was the undisputed belle.

‘Are you going to marry Union Jackshirt Aspect?’ Eugenia asked Poppy.

‘Yes darling, I am, isn’t it wonderful. My husband was rather tiresome about it at first, but now he’s really behaving quite well and I think, with any luck, he ought to let me divorce him.’