The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  Sally felt strangely comforted by his attitude, although not very optimistic about the job. She sat by the fire and thought that, after all, these bothers were very trifling matters compared to the happiness of being married to Walter.

  While she was sitting there thinking vaguely about him, there was a resounding peal on the front-door bell.

  Sally remembered that the daily woman had gone home, and was half-considering whether she would sit still and pretend that everybody was out, when it occurred to her that it might be Walter, who was in the constant habit of losing his latch-key. The bell rang again, and this time Sally, almost mechanically, went to the door and opened it.

  She was a little bit alarmed to see, standing in the passage, three tall bearded strangers, but was soon reassured by the unmistakably gloomy voice of Ralph Callendar which issued from behind one of the beards, and said:

  ‘Sally, dear, I hadn’t realized until this very moment that you are enceinte. How beautifully it suits you! Why had nobody told me?’

  Sally laughed and led the way into the drawing-room. She now saw that the other men were Jasper Spengal and Julius Raynor, very efficiently disguised.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but how could you tell? It’s really very exciting, due in April. Morris, if a boy, Minerva, if a girl, and we haven’t the slightest idea where she’s going to live (there’s no room here, as you know) or how we can afford to educate him. But Walter’s out now, looking for a job. Have a cocktail: Ralph dear, be an angel and make one; the things live in that chest. But why fancy dress so early in the evening, and why haven’t we been asked to the party?’

  ‘No, dear,’ said Ralph sadly, taking some bottles out of the chest. ‘Not fancy dress at all – disguise.’

  ‘Are you – not wanted by Scotland Yard for anything, I hope?’

  ‘No, dear, curiously enough. No; we are going, simply in order to please Jasper, to the Savoy Theatre, where we shall see a Gilbert and Sullivan operette, called – what is it called, Jasper?’

  ‘“I Gondolieri.”’

  ‘Yes, “I Gondolieri.” Jasper has a new philosophy, which is that one should experience everything pleasant and unpleasant, and says that nobody ought to die until they have seen one Gilbert and Sullivan operette and one Barrie play. Last night he begged us to accompany him on these grim errands, and after much talk, we allowed ourselves to be persuaded. But as it would be impossible to explain this to all the casual acquaintances whom we might meet at the theatre, we decided to take the precaution of a disguise.

  ‘It is one thing to see a Gilbert and Sullivan, and quite another to be seen at one. We have our unborn children to consider, not to mention our careers.

  ‘It has taken us nearly all day, but I think the result satisfactory. To complete the illusion we intend to limp about during the entr’acte. Jasper, as you see, has a slight hump on one shoulder, and Julius a snub nose.

  ‘I myself have not been obliged to go to such lengths. Nobody would ever suspect me. Even if I went undisguised, they would only say, “We didn’t know Ralph had a double.” Did you mention, Sally, that Walter is looking for a job?’

  ‘Yes, poor lamb, he is.’

  ‘He won’t find one, of course. But never mind, there are worse things than poverty, though I can’t for the moment remember what they are, and we’ll all take it in turns to keep the baby for you. A poet of Walter’s ability has no business with money troubles and jobs and nonsense like that. Are you very hard up at the moment, Sally?’

  ‘Yes, terribly, you know. We’ve got such debts and then our people simply can’t help. They give us more than they can afford as it is.’

  ‘Well, then, my dear, I’ll tell you what to do, straight away. Come and live with me till Christmas and let the flat to an American woman I know for twenty guineas a week. Would that help?’

  ‘Ralph, what an angel you are! But, of course, we can’t do that, and we’re not really so hard up, you know, only one likes a little grumble. Anyway, who would pay twenty guineas for a tiny flat like this? What are you doing?’

  ‘Hullo! Regent 3146,’ said Ralph into the telephone, his eyes on the ceiling. ‘Hullo! Mrs Swangard? Ralph here. Yes, I found you the very thing – a jewel, 65 Fitzroy Square. Belongs, you know, to the famous poet Monteath. Yes, I had the greatest difficulty … Oh, no, no trouble. I knew at once it would be the place for you. Heart of Bloomsbury … Oh, most fashionable, all the famous people … Yes, all round you, roaring away. What? I said “roaringly gay” … My dear, you’ll be astounded when I tell you … only twenty guineas! A week, not a day.

  ‘Wonderful, yes. Of course, they wouldn’t let it to just anybody, as you can imagine … No … As soon as you like – tomorrow if you like … Tomorrow, then … Yes, I’ll come round and see you about it after the play tonight … Yes, perfect … good-bye.’

  ‘Oh, Ralph!’ said Sally, almost in tears. ‘How sweet you are! That means more than a hundred pounds, doesn’t it, and almost at once? Think what a help it will be. That is, if she likes the flat; but perhaps she won’t?’

  ‘My dear, that woman will like just exactly what I tell her to like. So pack up and come round some time in the morning. There’s quite a good-sized bedroom you can have, if you don’t mind sharing my sitting-room. Oh, nonsense, darling, you’d do the same by me, as you know very well. The poor are always good to each other. Are you going to Albert’s private view?’ he added, as though anxious to change the subject.

  ‘Oh, that’s tomorrow, of course, I’d forgotten. Yes, we’re supposed to be lunching with him first.’

  ‘I hear he’s given Jane for an engagement ring a garnet with Queen Victoria’s head carved on it.’

  ‘No! has he? Have you any idea at all what his pictures will be like?’

  ‘Absolutely none; but Bennet, I believe, thinks well of them.’

  Jasper and Julius, who had been looking at Vogue, now came over to the fireplace. Feeling that they had so far not quite earned their cocktails, they began to pour forth a flood of semi-brilliant conversation, mostly in Cockney, told two stories about George Moore, one about Sir Thomas Beecham, asked if there was any future for Delius, and left, taking Ralph with them.

  Sally resumed her meditations. How right she had been to marry Walter after all. Nobody could have made her so happy; life with him was very nearly perfect. The same tastes, the same friends, the same sense of humour and, above all, no jealousy. She dropped happily into an almost voluptuous doze. The rain was falling outside, which made the room seem particularly warm and comfortable.

  Her thoughts became more and more misty, and chased each other through her head in the most inconsequent way until they were nonsense and she was on the edge of sleep – ‘When the rain is falling thickly there should be long white hands waving in it.’

  Walter, finding her fast asleep on the floor, her head buried in a cushion, wondered whose were the empty cocktail glasses. He found a thimbleful of cocktail left in the shaker which he drank, and then woke up Sally by kissing her.

  ‘It’s no good, darling,’ he said, ‘I cannot dig, and to write gossip I’m ashamed, but I’ve borrowed ten pounds from Albert, and I love you dreadfully, and I’ll write some articles for the Sunday papers. We’ll get rich somehow. Meanwhile, I’m going to take you out to dinner at Quaglino’s because you haven’t been there and it might amuse you. And who’s been drinking out of my cocktail glasses, I should like to know?’

  ‘I made a hundred pounds while you were out, my angel, by letting the flat to an American friend of Ralph’s from tomorrow, and Ralph says we can go and live in Gower Street while it’s let; he’s got a bedroom all ready for us. So what d’you think of that, sweetest?’

  ‘Well, I think that beggars can’t be choosers. If it’s a load off your mind, I’m glad and, of course, it’s divine of Ralph. Still, of course, really it’s too bloody, because we shall never have a single minute to ourselves. You know what
it is in Ralph’s flat – one long party.’

  ‘I know, darling, but it’s only for six weeks, and it will be such a saving. Also, I didn’t like to hurt his feelings by refusing, it was so sweet of him to think of it. As a matter of fact, we could go for some of the time to my family: they’re always asking us to stay with them.’

  ‘I believe it would be cheaper in the end,’ said Walter crossly, ‘to stay on here. Couldn’t you telephone to Ralph and say that we’ve changed our minds?’

  ‘No, darling, I couldn’t. If you can’t support me, somebody must, you know, and as we’re both devoted to Ralph why not let it be he? We needn’t really go to the family, of course; I only said that to annoy you, although I shall have to go sometime. By the way, too, remind me to tell Mother about Morris-Minerva. I’m sure I ought to have told her ages ago, because it’s the sort of thing it drives her mad to hear from somebody else.

  ‘Darling Walter. And I’m sorry I said all that about supporting me because I know you would like to be able to. And anyway, we’re so much happier like this than if you had some horrid sort of job which you hated. And if we’re really going to Quaglino’s hadn’t you better telephone for a table, my sweet?’

  20

  Albert had decided that the private view of his pictures should take the form of a giant cocktail party at the Chelsea Galleries, where they were being exhibited, the afternoon before they were to be opened to the public. Guests were invited from half-past three to seven, and at three o’clock Albert and Jane, supported by the Monteaths and Mr Buggins, with whom they had all been lunching, arrived at the Galleries in a state of some trepidation.

  Walter and Sally, who had not seen the pictures before, gasped with amazement as they entered the room, and for several moments were left quite speechless. The pictures were indeed, at first sight, most peculiar and Albert appeared to have employed any medium but the usual. Some of them stood right out like bas reliefs, while various objects such as hair, beards, buttons and spectacles were stuck on to them. Others were executed entirely in string, newspaper and bits of coloured glass.

  The first picture – Child with Doll – had a real doll stuck across it. The child also had real hair tied up with blue ribbons. The next on the catalogue, ‘No. 2. Fire irons, formal design’, represented a poker and tongs and was executed in small pearl buttons, varying in shade from dead white to smoke-grey. This was framed in empty cotton-reels.

  The most important picture in the exhibition was ‘No. 15. The Absinthe Drinker’. This was tremendously built out, the central figure – that of a woman – being in a very high relief. On her head was perched half a straw hat with black ostrich feathers. In one hand was a glass filled with real absinthe. This was felt by Albert himself to be his masterpiece.

  The only painting in the ordinary sense of the word, was his portrait of Sally, which, hung between two huge still-lifes with surgical limbs, stuffed birds and ukuleles stuck all over them, hardly showed up to its best advantage.

  Mr Buggins was rather shocked at this travesty of painting, but was nevertheless obliged to admit that there was a great deal of force in the pictures, while the Monteaths, when the first sensation of surprise had left them, pronounced themselves in raptures.

  Albert was evidently in a state of nerves and hardly listened to what was said, but went from picture to picture, adjusting the feathers of The Absinthe Drinker at a slightly less-tipsy angle, retying one of Child with Doll’s hair-ribbons and borrowing Jane’s comb with which to tidy its hair. Finally, he ran round combing all the hair and beards that he could find.

  The others stood about rather gloomily wishing that the party would begin. Albert’s nervousness had imparted itself to them and especially to Jane, who was terrified that the pictures (much as she personally admired them) might be a most dreadful failure.

  If this happened, she thought selfishly, a gloom would certainly be cast over their whole wedding.

  Albert, from having always before been perfectly indifferent as to what people might think of his work, now that the pictures were about to be exhibited had become almost childishly anxious for them to have a success.

  The first guest appeared in the shape of Ralph, who was received with exaggerated cries of joy.

  ‘Ralph dear, how nice of you to come so early! We were hoping someone would come soon. You will try and make the party go, Ralph, won’t you? We’re all simply terrified, and it’s sure to be sticky at first, so promise to help?’

  Ralph smiled sadly.

  ‘So these are your pictures, Albert,’ he said, and very slowly walked round the Gallery, carefully examining each one from various angles. Having completed the tour he went up to Albert and said earnestly, ‘Go on painting, Albert. I mean that. Go on with it and one day you will be a very considerable artist indeed. Good-bye, my dears, I must go home to bed.’

  ‘Don’t go!’ they cried in disappointed voices; but he took no notice of their protestations and left the Gallery.

  Albert wiped his eyes. He was more than touched and flattered by this attitude of Ralph’s, and followed his friend out into the street to tell him so.

  Jane broke rather an awkward silence by wondering who the next visitor would be. It was felt that Ralph had not exactly proved the life and soul of the party.

  ‘I think this is quite awful,’ said Walter. ‘I’m not easily frightened myself, but the beginning of a party is always apt to upset me; and now in addition to the social fear I’m suffering, there is this enormous empty room with Albert’s terrifying pictures. The whole atmosphere is painful to a degree. Not that I don’t think the pictures very clever, mind you, Jane, because I do, and they will certainly cause a great sensation, but you must admit that they are terrifying, specially for that child. Sally, darling, I beg you won’t look at it for too long, because if Morris-Minerva even faintly resembles it I shall commit infanticide on the spot.’

  Sally now had a brainwave.

  ‘Why don’t we begin the cocktails?’

  This brilliant idea was immediately acted upon, and when Albert came back a more cheerful atmosphere was pervading the whole place. He felt glad of a drink himself after an emotional scene with Ralph in the street.

  The next arrival was Admiral Wenceslaus, who came in rather jauntily, saying:

  ‘And don’t offer me a cocktail; I never touch the things. How are you? How are you all?’

  He took the cocktail which Albert was rather diffidently holding out towards him and drank it off at a single gulp.

  ‘My dear Gates, I have brought back your trousers which I have had well pressed for you. They needed it. And also a little wedding present in the shape of a book which I thought you might read on your honeymoon. It is by an old friend of my own, Admiral Sir Bartelmass Jenks, and is entitled The Prize Courts and Their Functions or The Truth About Blockade. The prize courts, my dear Gates, as you know, investigate the case of ships captured in times of war …’

  At this moment, as so often happens at parties, about twenty people all came in a lump together and the admiral, deprived of his audience, settled down to some more cocktails.

  Soon the room was buzzing and humming with talk. The pictures, as Walter had foreseen, were causing a real sensation. People were, for the most part, very guarded in their criticism, asking each other rather anxiously what they thought about them.

  Not so, however, Lady Prague, who, imposing but dowdy in a coat of Paisley pattern with brown fur, was accompanied by General Murgatroyd and Lady Brenda Chadlington.

  She walked round the Gallery rather flat-footedly, pausing here and there to inspect the more outstanding pictures rather closely with her nose almost touching them, and then at an exaggerated distance (a trick she had learnt while visiting the Royal Academy).

  When she had completed this tour she turned to Lady Brenda.

  ‘Of course, Brenda, I expect it’s my own fault, but I really think these pictures are ve
ry ugly. Not the sort of thing I should care to have in a drawing-room at all. In fact, I don’t see that you could call this Art. I mean, when you think of those wonderful Dutch pictures we saw last year. These are so terribly out of drawing. And then, all that hair! Well, I suppose they’re very clever, but –’

  Lady Brenda said, ‘Ssh! they will hear you,’ and General Murgatroyd said loudly and angrily that it was another art hoax and that he was not the least taken in by it.

  ‘If you want to see some really good pictures,’ he said, ‘go to the Army and Navy Stores. There’s one I saw yesterday – some sheep going into a little birch wood with a mist – early morning, I should say. I think of buying it for Craig’s silver wedding – silver birches, you know; makes it rather suitable.’

  ‘Personally, I’m glad I have a sense of humour,’ went on Lady Prague, warming to her subject. ‘That controversy about Rima now: what I said was, “Why be angry? Every time you want a good laugh in future you only have to go into Hyde Park and there it is!” Killing! A perfect scream!

  ‘Ah! here’s Jane. Well, my dear, congratulations on your engagement. We are just admiring your fiancé’s pictures – quite pretty, aren’t they? No cocktail, thank you, dear, I’m not very modern, I’m afraid.’

  The Gallery was suddenly and surprisingly invaded by a large crowd of people dressed in the deepest mourning and carrying wreaths; among others, Jasper Spengal, who rushed up to Albert saying breathlessly:

  ‘Such heaven, my dear! We’ve just been having a mock funeral. We bought a plot at the London Necropolis and we drove for miles and miles through the streets in carriages with black horses, and all the time Julius was in the coffin in grave-clothes which we bought at Harrods. And, did you know that one has grave-stockings, too? Then, when we reached our plot in the Necrop., he just pushed up the lid and walked out, and we all picked up the wreaths and ran for dear life.