Wigs on the Green (8 page)

‘Oh, I’m sure he thinks of her as a child,’ said Poppy. ‘She is so young, isn’t she, and young for her age at that. I shouldn’t marry her off just yet, Lady Chalford. I think that would be a mistake if I may say so. Why don’t you entertain for her down here? Give a garden party, for instance, and perhaps a ball later on, in the autumn. There must be some nice young people in the neighbourhood?’

Lady Chalford considered for a little while and then said: ‘This seems to me, dear Poppy, a most excellent plan. I will mention it to my husband this evening, and if he agrees we will give a garden party for the child next month. Now you must promise that you will stay down here and help me, little Poppy. I have not entertained for many years, and we shall want it to be gay. Darling Aggie had the greatest talent for organizing picnics and such things; I vividly remember one enchanting expedition she arranged to a wishing-well, when I wished that I might marry that handsome Mr Howard (I was very young then). But I told my wish to Effie Cholmondely, so of course it never could come true. And then there were always the theatricals at Christmas time. How would it be if we combined
something of that sort with our garden party? A pageant, for example – I am told they are tremendously popular nowadays? Then all you young people could take part in it.’

‘I think that’s a splendid idea,’ said Poppy.

‘Very well then, we’ll see what can be arranged. By the way where is your husband, my dear?’

Poppy considered it on the whole discreet to say that her husband was delayed in London on business, but that she was expecting him to join her at the Jolly Roger in a few days time.

‘My friend, Marjorie Merrith, is there and her maid,’ she went on, feeling secure in the assumption that Lady Chalford was no reader of the illustrated daily Press.

‘Ah! yes,’ said Lady Chalford, ‘bring her to see me some time. Poor dear Puggie (her father) was a great friend of my darling Malmains. But, dearest child, is it not rather adventurous for you two young women to be staying quite alone in a country inn? Of course I know the Jolly Roger is a very respectable sort of place, but even so, I feel that it is hardly suitable. Would you not both prefer to move in here until your husband arrives?’

Poppy however, deciding in her own mind that freedom was preferable to comfort, made excuses which Lady Chalford accepted graciously enough. Soon after this Jasper and Eugenia appeared, having finished their tour of the house.

‘I think we should be going now,’ Poppy said.

When they had left Lady Chalford made her way to her husband’s bedroom, and shouting down his ear-trumpet informed him that Poppy was a dear child with wonderfully red lips who reminded her vividly of darling Aggie. ‘I only fear,’ she added, ‘that she may be rather unconventional in some of her habits. She evidently walked home quite alone with young Mr Aspect. I wonder whether I ought to encourage Eugenia in this friendship.’ Lord Chalford made no comment. He lay, as always, on his back, staring at the beautiful plaster ceiling high above his bed. Lady Chalford invariably consulted him before taking any decision.

‘Perhaps really,’ she went on, ‘I ought not to invite her here
again, perhaps I should give up all idea of this garden party and pageant.’

She sighed, knowing quite well that to do so would be beyond her power. Now that it had once made its appearance that young gay face must often be seen at Chalford House. It had brought a happiness into her life which she had not known for sixteen years, the happiness of talking freely, cosily, and at length to another woman.

Eugenia walked back to the Jolly Roger with her friends. Her animals came too.

Poppy said: ‘I think your grandmother is a perfect angel.’

‘She is,’ said Eugenia, ‘I’m fond of the poor old female myself, but I can never forget that she has treated me really very badly. She wouldn’t let me go to school, you see, and the result is that I hardly know any Greek at all. I did manage to learn Latin, with the clergyman at Rackenbridge but only after making the most fearful fuss. She never wanted me to.’

‘I doubt whether you would have learnt much Greek at school, judging by the perfect illiteracy of the schoolgirls I have met,’ said Jasper.

‘Then I wanted to go and study National Socialism in Germany, but she stopped me doing that too. She is a great trial to me, the poor old female.’

Poppy told them about the projected garden party, and Lady Chalford’s idea of having a pageant at the same time, upon which Eugenia flew into a state of excitement.

‘Don’t you see,’ she cried, ‘that this is a most wonderful opportunity for having a grand Social Unionist rally. All the comrades (the Union Jackshirt Comrades, I mean) for miles round, can act in the pageant and help us in every way; they’d love it. Then we will make the people pay to come in and like that will earn a lot of money for the funds.’

‘That wasn’t quite your grandmother’s idea, you know,’ said Poppy doubtfully.

‘No, of course not, but there’s no reason why T.P.O.F. should ever find out, she’s very easy to deceive in such ways. I say, the Comrades will be pleased. Union Jackshirt Aspect, I shall count on your support in this matter.’

‘You shall have it,’ said Jasper.

In the garden of the Jolly Roger they found Noel, who, accompanied by Mrs Lace, was gloomily awaiting their arrival. Noel would have preferred to keep his find to himself for a little longer, but Mrs Lace, having wheedled out of him the true identities of Miss Smith and Miss Jones, absolutely insisted upon meeting them. Lady Marjorie, however, was still reposing on her bed.

The introductions having been effected Mrs Lace became extremely gushing towards Poppy, and waved her hips at Jasper in a most inviting fashion, much to poor Noel’s apprehension. Eugenia she evidently regarded as a mere child, beneath her notice. Jasper took an immediate dislike to her, and rudely went on discussing the pageant with Poppy as though they were alone together.

‘A pageant?’ cried Mrs Lace, when after listening eagerly to them for a few minutes she had gathered what they were talking about. ‘In Chalford Park? But this is unheard of. Nobody in the neighbourhood has seen Chalford House since the div—for years and years,’ she emended, looking at Eugenia.

‘I have never seen it although I live so near. How too exciting. You must be sure and give me a good part in the pageant,’ she added archly, ‘because I studied acting in Paris, you know, under the great Bernhardt.’

‘The great Bottom,’ said Jasper, in a loud aside to Poppy.

The others felt that he had gone too far, and Poppy, who was a kind little person, quickly said that of course Mrs Lace must have the chief part.

‘You must let me help you with the clothes too,’ Mrs Lace went on, looking at Jasper from beneath her eyelashes, ‘my nanny and I between us could easily run them up on the sewing-machine, and at Rackenbridge there is a dressmaker who is quite competent.
We might get her to help us cheap if it’s for charity. I am sure Mr Aspect would design some beautiful dresses for us.’

‘What on earth do you suppose I am?’ asked Jasper, highly indignant. ‘A pansy dress designer, eh?’ Jasper felt that in thus discouraging Mrs Lace he was, as far as Noel was concerned, singing for his supper; he did not perhaps yet quite realize that she was the kind of woman who thrives on kicks and blows.

‘If you want actors for crowd scenes and so on I can round up the Women’s Institute and put you in touch with every sort of person,’ she went on, perfectly unmoved.

It was by now apparent that Mrs Lace was one of those people whose energies, whilst often boring, are occasionally indispensable. Poppy and Jasper recognized though they deplored this fact. Noel sat in a kind of admiring trance.

‘Now,’ said Mrs Lace briskly, ‘we must all lay our heads together and decide what period this pageant is to be.’

‘A Pageant of Social Unionism,’ said Eugenia at once, ‘the March on Rome, the Death of Horst Wessel, the Burning of the Reichstag, the Presidential Election of Roosevelt.’

‘Very nice, but don’t you think perhaps a trifle esoteric?’ said Jasper.

Mrs Lace looked scornfully at Eugenia. ‘Pageants,’ she said, ‘must be historical. Now I suggest Charles I and Henrietta Maria’s visit to Chalford – it actually happened, you know. They came to Chalford Old Manor, a perfect little Tudor ruin on the edge of the park.’

Jasper observed that a perfect ruin was a contradiction in terms.

Eugenia vetoed the suggestion of Charles I. ‘You can’t have Charles and Henrietta Maria at a Social Unionist rally,’ she said. ‘Cromwell and Mrs Cromwell, if you like – the first Englishman to have the right political outlook.’

‘Nobody ever heard of Mrs Cromwell appearing in a pageant,’ said Noel. ‘It would be simply absurd. Do for goodness’ sake stick to the ordinary pageant characters – Edward I, Florence Nightingale, Good Queen Bess, Hengist and Horsa, the Orange Girl of Old Drury,
William Rufus, Sir Philip Sidney, or Rowena, otherwise you’ll find yourselves getting into a fearful muddle.’

‘Oh! I don’t agree with you at all,’ said Mrs Lace, thinking thus to curry favour with Jasper. ‘Do let’s be original, whatever happens.’

Poppy, seeing that the discussion was about to become acrimonious, put an end to it by reminding the others that the idea of a pageant had originated with Lady Chalford, and that therefore it would be a matter of ordinary politeness to let her choose its period. Eugenia said that she must now return home as T.P.O.F. would scold her for going to Chalford with the others if it were found out.
‘Heil Hitler!’
she cried, and swinging herself on to the back of Vivian Jackson she galloped away.

‘Poor little thing, what a bore she is with her stupid Movement,’ said Mrs Lace spitefully.

‘Oh, dear, how I do disagree with you,’ said Jasper. ‘Personally I can’t imagine a more fascinating girl. If all débutantes were like that I should never be away from Pont Street during the summer months.’

‘Such awful clothes,’ said Mrs Lace angrily.

‘Are they? I really hadn’t noticed. In the face of such staggering beauty I suppose little details of that sort are likely to escape one.’

‘And all that Social Unionist nonsense.’

‘Nonsense, is it?’ cried Jasper. ‘Perhaps you are not aware, Madam, that Social Unionism is now sweeping the world as Liberalism swept the world of the eighteenth century. You call it nonsense – in spite of the fact that millions of people are joyfully resigning themselves to its sway. Pray now let us have an attack on the principles of Social Unionism delivered from a standpoint of sense.’

Mrs Lace did not take refuge in silence as a lesser woman might have done. She tossed her head and pronounced that when you find schoolgirls like Eugenia going mad about something you can be pretty sure that it is nonsense.

‘I’m afraid I don’t follow your argument. On the contrary,
I believe that Eugenia belongs to a new generation which is going to make a new and better and a cleaner world for old back numbers like you and me to end our days in.’

Mrs Lace winced at this, but returned gallantly to the charge. ‘I am sure we must be very well off as we are. Why do you want to have a lot of changes in the Government of this country?’

‘My dear good Mrs Lace, you must have been keeping company with the local Conservative M.P. Captain Chadlington, I believe, has the honour of representing this part of the world (and a more congenital half-wit never breathed).’

Mrs Lace was not altogether displeased by this allegation. Captain Chadlington and his wife, Lady Brenda, constituted, in fact, a peak of social ambition which she had recently conquered.

‘Well?’ she said, ‘and then?’

‘I suppose that poor baboon has been telling you that we are very well off as we are? Very well off, indeed! I don’t ask you to look at the unemployment figures which are a commonplace. I do point to the lack of genius to be found in the land, whether political, artistic, or literary. I point with scorn to our millionaires, who, not daring to enjoy their wealth, cower in olde worlde cottages, and hope that no one will suspect them of being rich; to the city man grubbing his ill-gotten money in the hopes of achieving this dreary aim, and unable to take an interest in anything but market prices or golf; to the aristocrats who, as Eugenia truly says, prefer the comfort of a luxury flat to the hardship of living on their own land; to the petty adulteries, devoid of passion, which are indulged in by all classes, and to the cowardly pacifism which appears to be the spirit of the age. Nothing grand, nothing individual, nothing which could make anybody suppose that the English were once a fine race, brave, jolly and eccentric. So I say that we need a new spirit in the land, a new civilization, and it is to the Eugenias of this world that I look for salvation. Perhaps that new spirit is called Social Unionism, in any case let us leave no stone unturned. Our need is desperate, we must hail any movement which may relight the spark of vitality in this
nation before it is too late, anything which may save us from the paralysing squalor, both mental and moral, from which we are suffering so terribly at present. Germany and Italy have been saved by National Socialism; England might be saved by Social Unionism, who can tell? Therefore I say,
“Heil Hitler!” “Viva il Once!,”
and “Miss” – Miss, I’ll have another beer, please.’

Lady Marjorie Merrith leant back in the bath that was, so disturbingly, not built in, and covered her smooth white arms with lacy sleeves of soap.

‘You must admit that it’s tiresome of them,’ she said to Poppy who, faithful to her rôle of confidante, was perched on a chair beside the bath. ‘After all, I particularly said in both my notes that any communications would be forwarded by my bank, and besides, they could easily have found out where we are by now, if they had really wanted to. I do think they might show some sign of life – makes it so awkward for me. What is my next move?’

‘Really, darling, you must decide these things for yourself. It all depends on whether or not you want to marry Osborne – which is it?’

Marjorie said with petulance that she didn’t know. ‘I ran away,’ she continued angrily, ‘to find romance, and I have only found this disgusting bath.’