The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘I fear that it will be necessary for us to work from 9 to 1 p.m. Personally, I am a great believer in morning work for young people. I think it most valuable. The whole afternoon will then be free for outdoor exercise – I am glad to hear that there are some squash courts near-by, as we shall be able to play them after it is too dark for riding or golf. We will see how the work is going, but I expect that I shall be obliged to call upon a couple of hours of his time after dinner as well.’

  ‘I see that you intend to be very severe with Roderick, so much the better. The boy has needed a man’s hand for some years. I’m afraid I have been rather inclined to spoil him myself. All right, then, we’ll leave it at that. I should be obliged if you would let me know from time to time how the work is getting on.’

  So saying, Lady Bobbin hurried away to the stables.

  ‘That’s grand,’ said Bobby, when Paul had told him with a good deal of unseemly merriment, the results of his interview. ‘I’m thankful you were quite firm about the morning work. Actually, of course, what I shall do is to tuck up on this sofa; it doesn’t suit my constitution to be awake before lunch time, while you get on with great-grandmamma’s journal. You might read out any juicy bits that you happen to come across. Then the moment lunch is finished we’ll hack over to Mulberrie Farm. Amabelle says there is a groom who can exercise the horses for us, while we play bridge and gossip with her – I’ll tell him to jolly well tire them out, too. If we get back late we’ll pretend that we stopped at Woodford Manor (that’s Major Stanworth’s) for a game of squash and some tea. Mother will be awfully pleased. Well, thanks to you, Paul, old boy, I’m looking forward to the decentest hols. for years.’ And Bobby flung himself on to the sofa, where he immediately fell asleep.

  Meanwhile Paul returned to the journal, and was soon in the middle of that part of it which describes at immense length and in great detail the last weeks and hours of Sir Josiah Bobbin, who died, at the age of sixty-one, evidently from chronic over-eating.

  Aug. 6th, 1878.

  Spent many happy hours today in the Beloved Sick Room. I occupied some of them by reading aloud from the ‘Idylls of the King’, a work combining such noble sentiments with such an interesting narrative (both of which are, in my opinion, and that of Josiah, a sine qua non of really great poetry) that it is truly pleasant and edifying to read. How different from so much that is written in these days! My Dear One slept most of the time. He still has, I am most thankful to say, a good appetite, although so unwell, and it is by the means of constant feeding with nourishing foods that we are able to maintain his Precious Strength. It is now very late, almost midnight, the hour always consecrated to my journal. Ah! Faithful Page, to thee how many sorrows have I confided, safe in the knowledge that thou at least will never misconstrue my meaning, never repeat my secrets to a hard, uncomprehending world. Tonight I will unburden more of myself to thee, as I sit beside the Beloved Bed. For the day which is just dawning is the anniversary of the death of Dearest Mamma, who passed away when I was but an unthinking babe of four months old. Oh, cruel Fate which robbed nine little ones of their Guiding Star at such an early age, leaving them to reach maturity without a Mother’s care.

  At such sacred moments I sometimes think that I myself could have made a truer Wife, a more attentive Mother, if I had been less devoted to my Art. Alas! Can it be so? Would Arthur, George, Edward, Albert, Frederick and William, Alice, Julia, Maud, Eva, Louise and Beatrice have been better men and women, had I given up my writing? The very thought is a knife in my heart! Would darling Josiah have had a more perfect helpmeet but for the cultivation of my Gift? The knife turns! And yet I console myself with remembering that Nature teaches us a different, and, I hope, a truer lesson. The gentle nightingale can ever find time for the duties of her home in the intervals of charming the woodlands with her silvery note; the merry lark, soaring above the cornfields, the perky robin hopping among the evergreens, each has its little song to sing, yet is not therefore a neglectful Mother! And surely it has ever been thus with me? Surely I have no cause for self-reproach on that dread score? I know that I have not, otherwise how could I survive another moment at such a melancholy time? Sometimes it comes upon me with a fearful shudder that I am soon to be left a Widow. Widow! Hateful word, how could these fingers fashion thee? Surely I must be spared that unbearable, that fatal blow awhile? And yet I saw in the doctor’s eye today a look of cruel foreboding as he said: ‘Give Sir Josiah anything he likes to eat, we must not cross him now.’ That word ‘now’, I shuddered as I heard it, nor dared to ask its meaning.

  Ah! Leave, my darling, leave me not awhile,

  Lonely upon this planet sere and grey;

  Spare poor my heart such melancholy trial,

  Lest frail my courage faint and fade away.

  Forget that thou art ill and tired of woe,

  Think rather of the day when first we met.

  Forget the hateful burdens here below,

  Sorrow, ingratitude and loss, forget!

  Think only, love, upon our wedding day,

  The lilies and the sunshine and the bells;

  Of how, the service o’er, we drove away

  To our blest honeymoon at Tunbridge Wells.

  Think of our life together all these years,

  The joys we’ve shared, the sorrows we have known;

  The laughter of our children, and their tears,

  The happiness of duty bravely done.

  But if with longing thou art overcome

  To leave forthwith this sad and tearful earth,

  E’en should my heart with poignant grief be numb,

  It yet would not begrudge thee Heavenly birth!

  Then song of nightingales in the wet leaves

  Of churchyard yews shall be thy heavy dirge;

  Though for a space alone my bosom heaves,

  It everlastingly with thine shall merge!

  Paul recognized these as being the first verses of what later became one of Lady Maria’s best known and most popular poems, ‘At a Husband’s Death-Bed, or The Passing of a Beloved’, set to music by her son-in-law, Lord Otto Pulman, and published shortly after Sir Josiah’s death. Presently he came to the following entry:

  Aug. 26th, 1878.

  ’Tis o’er. All is over, and I a Widow. Little Hudson came to me just now as I sat by the Loved Remains in a kind of sad trance.

  ‘Granny,’ he said, in his little lisping voice, ‘what is a widow, granny?’

  ‘Alas! I am a widow, my love,’ I replied.

  ‘And granny,’ went on the poor innocent, ‘what is a corpse, granny?’

  ‘Look there,’ I said in awful tones, pointing to the Bed.

  ‘But, granny, I want to see a corpse. That’s only grandpa, gone to sleep.’

  At this I quite broke down, and I think that the tears have done me some little good. Now I must collect my thoughts and try to recall, while it is yet fresh in my memory, every incident connected with The End.

  At four o’clock, or it may have been a few minutes later, I went to my room, to rest before tea time. I removed some of my garments and lay down on the couch, and I think I must have dozed for a few moments. At any rate, I remember nothing more until I saw, with a fearful start, that darling Alice was standing near me, pointing with her hand towards Heaven. I realized, as soon as I observed this significant and awful gesture, that The End must now be very near, so hastily throwing a shawl around my shoulders I returned to the Bedside, where I found dear Arthur, George, Edward, Albert, Frederick, William, Julia, Maud, Eva, Louise and Beatrice standing around it in various attitudes of pious resignation very beautiful to see. As I approached my darling Josiah he turned over in bed, a smile of happy anticipation o’erspread his features and he spoke, not very coherently, a few words. In my agitation I thought at first that he was saying ‘Bring me the oysters,’ a dish
to which he has ever been most partial, but of course, as dearest Edward remarked when speaking of it to me afterwards, he must really have said, ‘Bury me in the cloisters,’ a curious fancy as there are no cloisters in this neighbourhood. There was a long silence after this, which my Loved One broke himself. He looked darling Edward full in the face, said, very loudly, ‘Pass the Port,’ and fell lifeless to his pillow. Edward said immediately, in low but ringing tones, ‘Safe past the Port indeed, Life’s perilous journey done.’ A moment later dearest Alice very reverently took my blue shawl from off my shoulders and replaced it with a black one. Then and then only did I realize that all was over, and I indeed a Widow. The best, the noblest husband that woman ever had – I can write no more at present.

  Aug. 31st, 1878.

  I have just returned to the house from attending My Angel’s funeral. Such a long, and such a very beautiful service, how he would have rejoiced in it had he but been there to participate. Afterwards I sent for Mr Brawn, our incumbent, and spoke with him upon the subject, now most dear to my Poor Widowed Heart, that of erecting some Gothick cloisters in the churchyard as a memorial to Him. It was His dying wish. Mr Brawn, I am thankful to say, is delighted with the idea and has made one or two very feeling suggestions. He thinks, and this shows him to be a man of true sensibility, that the cloisters should have fourteen arches, one for Darling Josiah, one for myself, and one for each of our dear sons and daughters. The Dear Tomb can then repose in the middle.

  The children have been very kind and considerate, and so have the poor people, who for miles around came with their little offerings of flowers, most touching. Baby Hudson’s has been the only smiling face on which I have looked for days. I would hardly have it otherwise; he is mercifully too young as yet to know the dreadful anguish which he must else have felt at the loss of Such a Grandfather.

  Paul read on for the rest of that day. (It was pouring wet, and even Lady Bobbin conceded, at luncheon time, that their first ride had better be postponed until slightly more reasonable weather should have set in. Bobby and Philadelphia went instead to Oxford to do some Christmas shopping, and to bring back Lord Lewes, who had telephoned to say that his car had broken down there.)

  Lady Maria Bobbin, after the death of her husband, retired to a dower house in the park, where she lived for some years with her only unmarried daughter, Eva, as a companion. Her life there appeared to have been singularly uneventful, except for certain little disagreements with her daughter-in-law, Lady Feodora Bobbin, whom she too evidently detested, until, in 1888, Paul came upon the following entry:

  June 3rd, 1888.

  A most extraordinary and agitating event occurred this afternoon. A person of the name of Hardysides came to see me and made a proposal for dear Eva’s hand. I very naturally said that I could not possibly consider this matter, and bid him good day; but the whole affair has upset me dreadfully. Supposing that Eva were in time to marry? Not Hardysides, of course, the idea is ridiculous, but supposing (which God be thanked is unlikely owing to our very retired position) that some young man of family and fortune were to make an offer for her? What could I say? For Eva’s presence here is very necessary to me. If she left me, who would copy out my poems ready for the publisher? Who would order the food, arrange the flowers, attend to the linen and perform the hundred and one little odd jobs which it is a daughter’s plain and joyous duty to do for her Mother? I cannot believe that dearest Eva would be so base and selfish as to leave me alone for the few years that remain before I join my beloved Josiah on High. Who are these Hardysides? A family with which I seem to be unacquainted. I very much hope that no more will be said on this subject, as these shocks are most injurious to my health.

  June 4th, 1888.

  Dearest Eva herself broached the subject of Mr Hardysides (whom she most improperly refers to by his christian name of Horace) during the time which I always devote to my correspondence. I kindly, but very firmly, explained my reasons for objecting to this marriage, absurd, preposterous, unthinkable, and indicated to the dear child that I should be much obliged if, in future, she would refrain from taking up my valuable time with such foolishness. I feel quite tired and done up, but I am thankful to think that this will not occur again. (It appears that Mr Hardysides is an artist, an acquaintance of dearest Feodora’s, and has several times lately been to stay at Compton Bobbin. I must speak to darling Edward about this.)

  June 8th, 1888.

  I feel so much agitated that I can hardly even hold my pen, to communicate my feelings to this Sacred Page. That any child of mine should behave with such ingratitude, such selfishness, such rank inconsideration for others, and such utter lack of modesty or self-restraint, is hard to record. This Little Book has been the recipient of many sorrows and some joys, but never before has it chronicled a Deed of this description. Let the facts then speak for themselves, for who am I to judge another sinner?

  This morning, as I was pondering over the proofs of my ‘Peasant Children on Mount Snowdon’, Eva came into my morning-room, wearing as I noticed somewhat to my surprise, a new bonnet and shawl.

  ‘Are you going out, dearest child?’ I said, intending, if this should indeed prove to be the case, to give her one or two little commissions for me in the village.

  ‘Yes, dear Mamma,’ she replied, a guilty flush o’er-spreading (and, alas! with what reason) her usually somewhat pallid cheeks. ‘I have just come to acquaint you with the fact that I am now going out to be married, by special licence, to Horace Hardysides.’

  I flatter myself that I maintained, on hearing these insolent words, an admirable composure.

  ‘Then Go!’ I said, in very awful tones, which I fear may ring in poor Eva’s ears to the hour of her death. ‘Go! But do not seek to return! When your Hardysides has proved himself false and unfaithful, this roof shall never shelter you again!’

  ‘Mamma!’ she cried imploringly, the full sense of her guilt coming over her, no doubt, for the first time.

  ‘Go!’ I reiterated. ‘Pray go!’

  Hesitatingly, she turned and went.

  Without another word, without even so much as a glance, she left her lonely, Widowed Mother for the embraces of a stranger. May he never use her so! How sharper than the serpent’s tooth –

  I have sent in haste for dear Edward and told him to summon dear Arthur, George, Albert, Frederick and William, Alice, Julia, Maud and Louise. (Darling Beatrice is shortly expecting a happy event, and I refused to have her informed, as I fear that the shock might have disastrous consequences and jeopardize a little Life.) No doubt they will all, as ever, be very kind, but ah! how I long on such occasions for the guidance and wisdom of my own Sainted Josiah – I can only hope that in a very little while we shall once more be united – Above! This Happy and Dreadful thought has made me wonder how Eva will be enabled to meet her Father’s eye when her day shall come – if, indeed one so selfish and untruthful be granted entrance to the Heavenly Spheres. Poor, poor misguided Child.

  Later.

  My darling Edward has just been round to see me. He is very much perturbed, not only upon my account, though, naturally, I am his chief preoccupation in the matter, but also because of the disgrace which poor Eva’s dreadful action will have brought upon the whole Family. Dearest Feodora is immeasurably distressed (he says) and well she may be, at her share in this matter. It appears that she met this Mr Hardysides in London and asked him down to Compton Bobbin to paint a group of herself and the five eldest children. The picture was never finished, as darling Edward, when in Town, was taken to see some of the artist’s works; and finding that they were most dreadfully secular and unedifying, besides being devoid of the smallest genius, whether of composition, style or design, and finding also that Mr Hardysides had a most unsavoury and immoral reputation, he gave him his immediate congé. Since then it would appear that the wretch has been staying in the neighbourhood in order to compl
ete his seduction – already half begun – of poor Eva. I am saddened and amazed, and can write no more for today.

  9

  Lord Lewes, who arrived that evening, was the true type of Foreign Office ‘young’ man. (Men remain, for some reason, ‘young men’ longer in the Foreign Office than in any other profession.) He was tall, very correctly dressed in a style indicating the presence of money rather than of imagination, and had a mournful, thin, eighteenth-century face. His correct and slightly pompous manner combined with the absence in his speech of such expressions as ‘O.K. loo’, ‘I couldn’t be more amused’, ‘We’ll call it a day’, ‘lousy’, ‘It was a riot’, ‘My sweetie-boo’ and ‘What a poodle-pie’ to indicate the barrier of half a generation between himself, Paul and Bobby; a barrier which more than any other often precludes understanding, if not friendship, between young and youngish people.

  He appeared, in a totally undistinguished way, however, to be a person of some culture, and since being en poste at Cairo, had interested himself mainly in Egyptology. He told Paul that he had recently spent much time and money on excavations, and had been rewarded, just before he had left, by finding the tomb of some early and unknown (he did not use the word ‘bogus’) Shepherd King, the unearthing of which had caused a certain stir amongst Egyptologists.

  ‘Isn’t it supposed to be unlucky to dig up tombs?’ asked Philadelphia, who had languidly been listening to Michael’s conversation.

  ‘Who was it said that “only shallow men believe in luck”?’ he replied, smiling sadly. ‘Emerson, I think. In any case, it is certain that if luck exists I have had a very small share of it in my life, either before digging up poor old Papuachnas or since. Besides, I haven’t kept any of the things I found for myself, not a single scarab, and I think that might make a difference, don’t you?’