Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  The next part concerns itself with Harris Faulkener’s revenge on Lady Isobel, and the publishers of this book say that it is not to be put in — which in itself really practically proves that the thing wouldn’t go down with a West-End audience — and the last curtain of all is Lady Isobel strangling herself with her own hair — which cannot, naturally, be either bobbed or shingled.

  *

  It will now perhaps be understood that there may be a certain element of doubt in young Cathcart-Symington’s return to the Classics. What he finds there will be — but perhaps really the best word to describe what he finds there is just “classical”.

  THE SINCEREST FORM...

  THE SUPREMACY OF MR. PONDS

  Take Sir Woodcock Wells, for instance. When you stopped talking — if you ever did — about Art, Militarism, God, Fascism, Feminism, this League of Nations business — Sir Woodcock Wells would say: “Cheep”.

  He was always saying it. Like a canary.

  “Cheep!”

  But Mr. Ponds could not allow himself to be divorced from Sir Woodcock by “Cheep”. Needed him. That they might make History. World History. History like the Conquest of Babylonia by the Persians, the Removal of the Papal See to Avignon, the Burning of the Cakes by Alfred, the formidable careers of Solomon, Ninon de Lenclos, and Horatio Bottomley.

  You needed Sir Woodcock.

  You needed him in Fleet Street. To buy up all the dailies, weeklies, monthlies, in one vast conglomeration of printer’s ink, and to reissue them as one. Making you its Editor.

  “Why,” said Mr. Ponds, “not?”

  Mr. Ponds became the Omnipotent of Fleet Street.

  And Fleet Street recognized it. Mutely accepted his stupendous, and yet unstupendous, domination. Rotherbrook and Beavermere ate out of his hand. The Times crawled to him. The whole of the monthlies threw up their pens. Of the weeklies only Ebb and Flow held out.

  “Ebb,” said Sir Woodcock, “and Flow?”

  “Put,” said Sir Woodcock, “an end to it.”

  “It,” said Sir Woodcock, “what-I-mean-to-say Gets my goat. Cheep.”

  “The Press,” said Mr. Ponds, “was evolved originally as a fighting, competitive thing. It was made so. It is still made so. It competes instinctively. Like a woman dressing for a party. Or an actor-manager on the stage. Or a frog trying to swell itself into an ox. Anything like that. Take Prohibition, for instance, or the Einstein theory. Take the South Pole. Take Russia. Size. Space. A Gray Deal of it,” said Mr. Ponds.

  “Cheep!”

  Mr. Ponds vanished instantly.

  How to defeat Ebb and Flow. Just to defeat it. Thoroughly.

  An attempt had been made to buy it up. Useless. Mr. Ponds went himself to interview the Board of Directors. It was a feminine Board, and therefore to be conquered en masse by the beauty of his slight, but permanent, wave, the eloquence of his language, and the extraordinary quality of his sex appeal.

  A formidable contingent of reporters was present.

  The Editor of Ebb and Flow was in the Editorial Chair.

  “That Chair,” said Mr. Ponds. “Mine.”

  “No,” said the Editor.

  Round the chair, clustering thickly, were the Directors, the Office Staff, a handful of Direct Subscribers. Obstinate, idealistic, socialistic, democratic, antagonistic. Some, even, feminine. Talk, thought Mr. Ponds. Talk to them.

  “Take the Government,” said Mr. Ponds. “Or take the Lambeth Conference. Take Agriculture. It’s like a pincushion that’s been stuffed with marbles. All wrong. This Ebb and Flow business. Look at it.”

  He found the word he wanted.

  “Zinziberaceous” said Mr. Ponds.

  You went on talking. On. And on. And again on. About Disarmament, and the Coal-crisis, and Birth-control, and Politicians. You heard the Direct Subscribers drop away, making low, unimaginative sounds, rather like bullocks. You could see the Office Staff retreating down the office stairs, gesticulating, rather like penguins. But the Directors, and the Editor, stayed. Rather like mastodons.

  “Cheep!”

  You became excessively aware of Sir Woodcock Wells. In the office. Carrying a glass retort. And the liquid in the retort was seething and swirling, here totally stagnant, and there wildly ebullient, and wherever the retort was not convex, Mr. Ponds observed that it was concave.

  “Ugh,” he said.

  “Microbes,” retorted Sir Woodcock. “If I let them loose out of that glass container, — well, Fleet Street goes west. It isn’t only Ebb and Flow. That too, of course.”

  Mr. Ponds was unable to refrain from looking at the Editor, and the still clustering Directors.

  “Not ready to die.” That was the illuminating phrase.

  Unready.

  “The microbes,” said Sir Woodcock, “will devastate the universe. Kingdoms, Empires. Homes. Institutions. Newspapers, with their Editors and Directors. They’ll have to go. Then we shall build. New. Clean. Untraditional. Sociological. Building.”

  A strange conflict prevailed in the mind of Mr. Ponds. He found the thought of the microbes disconcerting, for who knew where they might stop? But devastation was necessary. For the elimination of Ebb and Flow.

  “My world,” said Sir Woodcock. “Run on Words.”

  “Cheep!”

  A crash, as the glass retort broke. Another crash — louder. As Fleet Street went west. Several crashes. All at once. The Editor and the Directors. A universe of sound pressed upon Mr. Ponds. The words of Sir Woodcock, building up his New World.

  “Cheep!” Like a canary. And again “Cheep!” Almost more like a parrot than a canary, perhaps.

  “Done it,” said Sir Woodcock Wells.

  Then Mr. Ponds went off at a tangent.

  “The Ebb and Flow people. What-I-mean-to-say, where are they? You’ve been in too great a hurry. Exterminating them like that.

  “What-I-mean-to-say, take Work. If you and I are talking all the time, who’s to do it?”

  Sir Woodcock glanced at Mr. Ponds.

  “Cheep!” he said at last.

  Never before had Mr. Ponds heard a “Cheep” so fraught with indecision, so unconvincing.

  “It isn’t,” said Mr. Ponds, “good enough.”

  The illuminating word flashed upon him.

  “Not Woodcock,” said Mr. Ponds. “Poppycock.”

  ARNOLD PROHACK

  Journal 1929

  Note. — Most of the Hotels mentioned here bear no name. I have censored the names, sometimes for reasons understood only by myself, and sometimes for fear of sending the prices up.

  London.

  I resolved not to drink cocktails any more. Champagne is better, because more expensive. I went to a party, and talked to a very famous rich man. He said: “Drink is a very great evil”. He drank five cocktails. My own consumption was limited to three.

  Paris

  I took a young friend out to lunch. I ordered a magnum of champagne. They said they had only half-bottles. So I ordered two magnums. Then they brought them. The fish was good, and served with two sauces poured on it together. I sent for the manager, and told him that I should not be prepared to pay separately for each sauce; it was absolutely out of the question.

  Then my young friend confided to me that she wanted to buy a pair of ear-rings, so we went by car to a large expensive jeweller’s shop, containing millions of pounds’ worth of jewellery. The lovely, ridiculous, mysterious, acquisitive creature spent two hours choosing what she wanted — one hour for each ear-ring. I thought: Men and women are entirely different. They conduct the business of living differently.

  Rome

  A very large Hotel, with very large prices. I engaged a large double bedroom with private bathroom, and had a fire all the time in each. One of the pillow-cases had been darned. I got this changed.

  Food good.

  Lighting indifferent.

  No dirty-clothes basket.

  Heating bad.

  Drink ruinous, but worth it.

  La
vatory lined with porcelain.

  Went by car to Frascati, where there is a Grand Hotel, with uniformed porter.

  Sunset in Rome

  I ignite a most excellent cigar, on the top of the Pincio. An Earl of my (intimate) acquaintance once said to me that a Corona-Corona is better smoked after dinner than before it. I agreed with him.

  I look down on the scene below me. There are people, cars, buildings. Most of the cars are cheap makes. I look at the sky. The sinking sun reminds me at once that the hour is ripe for the drinking of cocktails. I send for two cocktails and one olive. Later, two olives and one cocktail.

  New York

  I met an American millionaire, who asked me for the address of my tailors. I replied that it would be impossible for him to afford their prices.

  Antibes

  A party of sixty-five of us went for a picnic, which included motor-boating, driving in cars, flying in aeroplanes, yachting, eating, drinking, sleeping, and drinking again. The only picnic I have ever really enjoyed. Women enjoy picnics, although men do not. But then women are like that.

  After lunch we had tea. After tea, dinner. After dinner, supper. After supper we found a night-restaurant where they served salads and coffee. After that it was breakfast-time.

  London

  I went to see a famous play. It seemed to me poor. The stage-door-keeper failed to recognize me as I went in: Why? I am constantly being photographed for the Press. Before the play, the longest lunch that I have ever attended, lasting from 2 P.M. to 8.5.

  Copenhagen

  A good Hotel. The one defect of the town is that the cafés are too far apart. Also there were only unpadded coat-hangers in the bedroom.

  Berlin

  If you tell a woman that women are charming, inferior, irresponsible, ridiculous creatures, who cannot understand food and wines, she will resent it. The foolish, pretty thing!

  Charlotte Brontë may not have been a great novelist, but at least she was unhampered by sex appeal. What an entirely futile creation on the part of Providence!

  London

  I dined in Park Lane. The food was bad. No caviar. No out-of-season fruit. Yet there was a good fruit-shop no further off than Piccadilly. I went home so hungry that I was obliged to order soup, sandwiches, and a bottle of champagne. I am troubled with insomnia. I cannot understand why I should be a bad sleeper.

  Tokio

  The great Hotel de Luxe is a very solemn subject. In my opinion, a unique, tremendous, colossal subject. Volumes should be written about it.

  London

  Cup Final, and the streets full of charabancs carrying football enthusiasts. One charabanc was labelled “From the Potteries”. I was struck by this naïve self-revelation. I asked myself what I remembered in connection with the Potteries, the life of the Five Towns. Nothing.

  SUPER-SUPERLATIVE

  It was two and a half minutes to 4 A.M. The managing director of the greatest luxury-hotel on earth or in Heaven crossed the enormous foyer, in which the chandeliers — twenty-five lights apiece — blazed. The Reception counter had only twenty lights. The Enquiry Bureau fifteen. The Grill-room one hundred, that were kept burning day and night.

  The night-manager was at his post. He was an Italian, of French extraction, with a Polish father, no mother, and some Anglo-Indian cousins.

  The eight hall-porters, on duty from 6 A.M. to 6 A.M. all the year round, sprang to attention as Cecil, perfectly correctly dressed, appeared. Four of the hall-porters were Jugo-Slavs, two were agreeably Irish, and the remainder came from a place called Putney, of which the hotel knew naught.

  Some millionaires and a young girl were coming in at the immense revolving doors as Cecil went out at them. He was obliged to make a complete circle and follow them in again. Mysterious compulsion! He had seen the vivacious, agreeable back of the young girl, and had instantly visualized her as his mistress. And similar reactions to the backs, or fronts, of scarcely seen young women are entirely natural to all men.

  The lift-man — a naturalized Bulgarian on his mother’s side — rushed to press the central switch that brought all the twenty-eight lifts of the greatest luxury-hotel in the world to attention at once. Each millionaire entered one of them and was wafted out of sight.

  The young girl and Cecil gazed calmly at one another.

  “Now,” thought Cecil, “this is all very well, but the ridiculous, inconsequent, womanish creature must know well that this will cause talk amongst my secretaries, housekeepers, managers, sub-managers, floor-waiters, head-waiters, ordinary waiters, and hall-porters.”

  (The eight-thousand-odd fellow-creatures below the rank of hall-porter who worked day and night in the service of the Super-Superlative, he reckoned as naught.)

  Ingratiatingly, intimately, amazingly, she stepped up to him.

  “Come with me to Paris for the week-end. At once!” she commanded.

  Astonishing creature! She had guessed at once that he intended to allow her to seduce him!

  And he was delighted, provided that she did not expect to interfere with his career, his work for the greatest luxury-hotel in the universe.

  Cecil was a serious man with a conscience. His career came first. And he knew women. “They” were all alike. “They” made a fuss if they were neglected, they thought about appearances, they disliked being ill, or unhappy, or cruelly treated. Nevertheless he was ready to concede to the exquisite, entrancing, stimulating daughter of one of the hotel’s millionaire clients a week-end in Paris with him, so long as she was prepared to give everything and to ask nothing.

  “Miss Prowler!” said Cecil curtly — Napoleonically.

  Miss Prowler was the hotel’s head-Housekeeper, and her suite was on the roof-garden of the hotel, whence she could look down on the tower of Westminster Cathedral far below.

  Efficiently, miraculously, instantaneously, Miss Prowler appeared. She had been on duty without a break since midnight of the previous Saturday fortnight, for such was the devotion of its employés to the greatest luxury-hotel in the world.

  “I want an aeroplane,” said Cecil as casually as possible.

  And Miss Prowler, equally casual, replied:

  “Certainly, sir. I’ll telephone to the Works at once.”

  Admirable creature! She knew as well as possible that the Works might be shut at 4 A.M. Nevertheless, she disappeared, and in an instant returned, followed by twenty of the fourteenth-floor valets, carrying a disused aeroplane that had once been left at the hotel by an absconding Sultan in lieu of payment. The amazing, resourceful Prowler had remembered it!

  “Thanks,” said Cecil negligently, and was secretly thrilled to see tears of joyful gratitude spring into the eyes of Miss Prowler at his acknowledgment of her faithful service.

  Nevertheless, in another instant he had forgotten the very existence of Miss Prowler, as he found himself being piloted through the air at a hundred miles an hour by the millionaire’s daughter — the magnificent, cajoling, alluring Gracie.

  “Where are we going to stay?” he ventured to ask.

  “Oh, at the Railway Inn at St. Cloud,” she answered carelessly.

  The astonishing girl had realized that he would not want to stay at the Ritz, where he was well known as the managing director of the greatest luxury-hotel in the whole of creation!

  Women were all alike. “They” had intuition — impossible to deny it.

  He would have to reward her. “They” needed rewards, notice, occasional kindnesses. “They” also needed quarrels, scenes, blows, reconciliations. Poor, feeble, exquisite things! Gracie, for a week-end, should be permitted to minister to him, to be his slave.

  At the St. Cloud Railway Inn, Cecil sought the telephone. He must needs enquire after the welfare of the Super-Superlative.

  It was naught to him that Gracie expected him to remain at her side. She was his toy, his distraction, his delectation. But not to be compared to his career as managing director of the greatest luxury-hotel ever known.

  It took Ceci
l nearly an hour to get into telephonic communication with the Super-Superlative. Monstrous outrage! It should have been instantaneous. When at length there came a voice across the wires, it was unintelligible. Yet it was that of his own third secretary, a young, fluffy Eskimo girl of Swiss origin, who knew scarce a word of English. Strange how women were all alike! Unable to make themselves intelligible in languages that they had not yet learnt to speak.

  He saw that he must return instantly.

  He would have to arrange for his third secretary to receive lessons in English from his head Banqueting-Manager, a Franco-Russian with international blood in his veins. They could meet in the vast basements of the Super-Superlative, between four and five every morning, when it would be at its least active.

  Cecil thought: “I am a matchless director. There is no detail beneath my personal attention where the hotel is concerned.”

  He walked away from the telephone-box in search of a special train.

  He recked naught of Gracie, left alone in a strange Railway Inn at St. Cloud without a word. Masculine, implacable, omnipotent, he re-entered the Super-Superlative less than five hours from the time that he had left it.

  Breakfast cocktails were being carried in every direction as he walked into the restaurant: every one of the eight hundred tables was occupied: every one of the nine hundred waiters — the exact nationality of each one of whom, however hybrid, was known to Cecil — was also occupied.

  The greatest luxury-hotel in any of the four quarters of the globe had survived the unexplained absence of its managing director.

  But only just.

  STILL DUSTIER

  Publisher’s Note. (Not in Music.) — Here is the successor to a very remarkable best-seller. The author’s theme is the complete physical, mental, and moral degradation of middle age in the provinces, contrasted with the bright, brilliant decadence of quite utterly modern youth, straight from the ‘Varsity and London.

  PART I