The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  Philadelphia parted from him in the hall and ran upstairs to her bedroom. Her mind was in a state of excitement and confusion. She had never had a proposal of marriage before, and she was now thinking less of how she intended to answer Michael than of what she should do immediately and whom she could tell the grand news to. Deciding, as she powdered her nose, that it would be awkward to see Michael again before his departure, which was imminent, and that she must tell Sally first of anybody, she stole downstairs by the back way, got out her little car, and drove over to Mulberrie Farm.

  She found Sally wheeling the baby up and down the gravel path. ‘The little monster hasn’t been asleep the whole afternoon,’ she said. ‘No, talking doesn’t keep her awake; in fact, it seems to send her off, on the contrary. Your odious brother is in there, inducing Walter to waste his time and lose his money at bridge. It is so naughty of him. I know he’s not written his weekly article yet, and it ought to have gone off by this post at the latest. I wish the game had never been invented.’

  ‘Then who’s the fourth?’ asked Philadelphia, who knew that, except during week-ends, when Jerome came down from London, poor Sally was usually dragged in, much against her will, to play.

  ‘Giles Stanworth, of course, my dear. He’s never out of the house now, you know, night or day. The poor man’s quite batty about Amabelle, and he’s having to earn his keep by learning contract. Walter’s taken a packet off him already, I may say.’

  ‘Isn’t it funny? I can’t imagine Major Stanworth in love with anybody.’

  ‘Can’t you just! You wait till tea-time and then watch the way he goes on. It’s pathetic. But the really extraordinary thing is that I believe Amabelle rather fancies him too, I honestly think she does. Yesterday evening –’ Sally broke off. She was a very discreet person where her friends were concerned, and decided that for the present she would keep the doings of yesterday evening to herself. ‘I dare say we shall see the old girl a farmer’s wife yet,’ she added hastily to cover her lapse. ‘What news from Compton Bobbin?’

  ‘Michael’s motoring back to Lewes after tea.’

  ‘He is, is he? That’s no great loss anyway. I shouldn’t think anyone will miss him unbearably – I never notice whether he’s about or not myself, do you?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Philadelphia, rather dashed by this remark. She feared that Sally would be unimpressed by her news. There was a short silence. ‘He proposed to me before he left,’ she said at last.

  ‘Delphie! You don’t say so? My dear, isn’t that grand. When are you going to announce it? Oh, you lucky girl.’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t said yes. I mean I haven’t given him any answer yet, you see. I’m to think it over until he comes back.’

  ‘But of course you’ll accept, won’t you?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought so. I’m not in love with him.’

  ‘My darling Delphie, you mustn’t hesitate. Michael is a divine person. We all adore him; he’s quite perfect in every way. Attractive, intelligent, everything you could want in the world. Besides just think of all that money. Why, you could afford to have ten children if you liked.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ said Philadelphia doubtfully; ‘but you see I’m not in love with him.’

  ‘Nonsense, of course you are. One couldn’t help being in love with a heavenly person like that if he wanted one to be. Besides, nobody is in love with their husbands before they marry, at least I was, but that’s most exceptional. It’s hardly ever done. You’re not fancying anyone else, by the way, are you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Of course you’re not.’ Sally looked relieved. ‘Well, that’s too lovely, darling, I do congratulate you. I wonder where you’ll be married, Westminster Abbey, perhaps. Shall we go and tell the others? No, no, not unless you like, of course, but I’ll tell Amabelle afterwards as a great secret, can I? And you wouldn’t be an angel, I suppose, and let me sell it to the press (I mean when it’s all quite settled, naturally), because I could get at least a tenner for the news, do let me have it and not Bobby, please. How gorgeous of you, isn’t it? I wonder what sort of ring he’ll be giving you. You are a lucky girl, Delphie, I must say.’

  After Sally had been working on her mind in this manner for about half an hour, Philadelphia began to regard herself quite as the future Lady Lewes, doubts and misgivings faded from her mind and she felt already a delightful new sense of her own importance. If Sally, whom she looked up to in every way, thought that it would be all right for her to marry Michael she herself would raise no further objections. Indeed, Sally had done Michael’s own work for him most efficiently, and by the time that they had discussed every aspect of the wedding, from the cheering crowds outside the Abbey to the pattern of night-dress for her trousseau, Philadelphia was feeling quite romantic about him. She had some difficulty at tea-time in keeping the news to herself, and even threw out one or two hints at a mystery to which she alone had a clue, but nobody paid much attention to her. They were all busy watching the latest developments in the situation between Mrs Fortescue and Major Stanworth.

  When Philadelphia returned to Compton Bobbin she found a note from Michael on the hall table.

  My Dearest Philadelphia,

  I couldn’t find you anywhere to say good-bye. However, I shall be back again in less than a week (next Tuesday at the very latest, D.V.), and shall expect my answer then. Consider the matter very carefully, my dear, remembering that marriage is a state which, once entered into, lasts the whole of one’s life. I need hardly say how much I hope that you will consent to be my wife, and I truly believe that in trusting me with your future happiness you will be putting it into reliable hands. I spoke of this before I left to Aunt Gloria. Remember, dearest Philadelphia, that if you are in any doubt as to how you should act, there can be no one so well fitted to guide and advise you as your own mother.

  with love from

  Michael.

  This peculiar missive probably seemed less chilling to Philadelphia, who had never in her life before received a love letter, than it would have to most girls of twenty-one. On the other hand, it certainly did not arouse in her those emotions which the loved handwriting is usually supposed to evoke, and the reference to Lady Bobbin annoyed her a good deal.

  Michael went to Lewes Park to settle up certain matters with his estate agent. He intended to stay there under a week. The day after he arrived, however, he caught a chill which developed into jaundice and kept him in bed for nearly a month. This circumstance very nearly altered the entire course of his life.

  Before leaving Compton Bobbin he had an interview with his Aunt Gloria, during which he informed her of his intentions and hopes with regard to Philadelphia. Lady Bobbin was, of course, delighted.

  ‘My dear Michael,’ she said, almost with emotion, ‘this is the best news I could possibly have. How pleased poor Hudson would have been, too. We will discuss the business side of it another time – I have to go now and speak to the huntsman about a new horse – but I may as well tell you that I have always intended to settle £2,000 a year on Philadelphia if she marries with my approval, and of course when I die she will be fairly well off. I must rush away now, so good-bye, and we meet again on Tuesday?’

  ‘Of course she hasn’t accepted me for certain yet,’ said Michael with more than a touch of complacency, ‘but I may say that I have little doubt that all will be well in that direction. Good-bye, then, Aunt Gloria, thank you so much for my delightful visit.’

  Philadelphia herself came back from Mulberrie Farm with her mind quite made up. Sally’s way of treating the whole thing as an accomplished fact had made her feel that it was so, and she only wished that Michael had not gone away and that they could begin all the exciting business, as outlined by Sally, of being engaged that very evening. She decided to answer his letter at once, begging him to return as soon as he could, and was going towards the schoolroom with this object in
view when she ran into her mother.

  ‘Oh, Philadelphia, come in here a minute. I want to speak to you. Well, darling, Michael has told me your news and I am, I need hardly say, quite delighted. It is far the best thing that could possibly have happened, and we shall be able to announce your engagement at the dance I am giving the day before Bobby goes back to Eton.’

  Lady Bobbin had the somewhat unfortunate effect upon both her children of invariably provoking them to argument.

  ‘But I haven’t any intention of marrying Michael,’ said Philadelphia defiantly. ‘He proposed to me, certainly, but I never accepted him.’

  ‘Then I hope that you will do so without delay,’ said Lady Bobbin acidly. ‘Michael spoke to me as though it was all settled.’

  ‘He may have settled it, but I haven’t.’

  ‘You really are a very silly obstinate little girl. Michael will make you a most ideal husband. Surely you like him, don’t you? What is it you have against him?’

  ‘Yes, I like him all right, except that I think he’s rather a pompous old thing,’ said Philadelphia, a phrase she had borrowed from Bobby.

  ‘Nonsense. Michael has a very proper sense of duty, of the responsibilities attached to his position in the world, and I am very glad that he has. You don’t want a sort of clown and buffoon for a husband. And in any case, if you don’t marry him you’ll probably remain an old maid, I should think. I can’t imagine that you will ever find anybody else half so suitable or so nice. And I may as well tell you, Philadelphia, while we are on this subject, that I am not obliged to settle a penny of money on you if you marry without my approval.’

  ‘All right,’ said Philadelphia sulkily, ‘I’ll think about it.’ She left the room, tearing up Michael’s letter into small pieces as she went.

  In the schoolroom she found Paul, whom she had hardly seen all day.

  ‘Your grandmother was most certainly a genius,’ he said, looking up from the journal, ‘although in some respects her character was not everything that could have been wished for. But her prose seems to me even to transcend her poetry in literary merit, and her metaphysical conclusions are always faultless. Listen to this now:

  ‘One curious and very noticeable feature of the workings of a human mind is that so often it will seize upon and stress the unimportant almost to the exclusion of anything else. This it does most especially in dreams. Last night, for example, I dreamt that I was playing in the nursery with darling Julia when, suddenly seizing her teddy-bear, which I gave her yesterday and which cost me 4s. 6d. in the Baker Street Bazaar, she flung herself upon the blazing fire and was burnt to a cinder. In the dream (and this illustrates my point) I was worried far less by the extinction of poor Julia than by that of the bear, and I wandered about saying very sorrowfully, “It was a four-and-sixpenny bear”.

  ‘Funny reading that just now,’ Paul went on, ‘because last night I had just such a dream myself. Would you like to hear it?’

  Philadelphia stifled the feeling of acute boredom which comes over those about to hear the dreams of others, and said that she would.

  ‘Well, it was a very odd dream indeed. You and I and Michael were going down to Brighton for the wedding of the Prince Regent to Mrs Fitzherbert. We took first-class return tickets. But when we arrived at the Pavilion, where the wedding was to be held, we found that all the people there were French, and dressed in clothes of the time of Louis XIV, and Michael was very much put out by this. He said to me, loudly and angrily, “This is really too much. These people to begin with are not English, most of them don’t know the Regent, even by sight, and they haven’t had the common decency to dress in the proper clothes of the period. Besides, Sheridan isn’t here, and Mrs Fitzherbert has gone off to the Y.W.C.A. in a rage. I don’t blame her, I must say, but I do feel annoyed that we have been dragged all the way down here, first-class for nothing.” So we all came straight back to London, first-class.

  ‘Now in the whole of that dream, which was long and quite involved, I was only really impressed by one important fact, which was that we travelled first-class. I woke up with the words “first-class” on my lips, and can still, although the rest of the dream has practically faded from my mind, see most clearly in my imagination the upholstered seats with arms, clean white lace antimacassars and little views of Bath and Wells in our first-class carriage.’

  ‘Very strange,’ said Philadelphia, burning the pieces of Michael’s letter. Life itself, she thought, as she went upstairs to dress for dinner, was stranger than dreams and far, far more disordered.

  18

  ‘Jerome,’ said Amabelle.

  Jerome looked up from his weekly, rather shamefaced, perusal of the Tatler.

  ‘Yes, Amabelle?’

  ‘I’ve got some news to tell you.’

  ‘What’s that, my dear?’

  ‘I’m going to marry Giles Stanworth.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Jerome, and buried his face in his hands.

  ‘Amabelle – it isn’t true, is it?’ he said, a minute later; ‘you don’t really mean it, do you?’

  ‘Yes, you know, it’s quite true. The banns are going to be called tomorrow in the village church – not in this village, because Giles says the parson here is really a papist, but in Hogrush. It’s jolly exciting, don’t you think? We’re being married at the beginning of February, down here. I shall wear a hat, of course, and we both hope that you’ll give me away, darling.’

  ‘I shall do no such thing.’

  ‘Then Bobby will have to.’

  ‘Are you off your head, Amabelle? I really never heard such scandalous nonsense in all my life. Only think of that poor man dragged up to Portman Square, out of his element, wretched, bored –’

  ‘I don’t think of it for a moment. Giles would never leave his precious farm, not even for me; besides, I shouldn’t ask him to. I’m looking forward to living in the country myself.’

  ‘My dear, you are being a little bit childish, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, darling, not in the least. However, I suppose I had better explain the situation to you quite clearly, then perhaps you’ll see my point of view for once. First of all, then, I happen to be very fond of Giles, and I adore his little boy.’

  ‘If you’re so anxious to be married, why not marry Michael?’

  ‘Because Michael bores me into fits, and I don’t like being laughed at by my friends and acquaintances. People always laugh when a woman marries someone fifteen years younger than herself, quite right, too.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you want to marry at all. Aren’t you happy?’

  ‘If you would listen to me for one single minute –’

  ‘Oh, all right, go on.’

  ‘The real point is, old boy, that I am forty-five. You didn’t know that, did you? Still, there it is. Now what happens to women like me, unattached but not unattractive women, when they are over forty-five? It’s very tricky, I can tell you. They gradually begin to get taken up by boys at Oxford, who rather like being seen about with them and all that, but who really regard them as a cross between a fortune-teller, a nanny, and an interesting historical character who has somehow managed to live on until the present day. I’ve seen it happen over and over again, haven’t you, honestly? And at about fifty-five or so people start saying, “How wonderful Amabelle looks for her age. Of course she must be well over seventy now, why, when I was a girl she was quite an old woman.” It’s an awful, and, as far as I can see, an inevitable fate, and it seems to me more dignified to retire before it overtakes one.’

  ‘I think you are wrong,’ said Jerome. ‘You have been feeling depressed, I suppose, and no wonder in this ghastly house, but that is no reason for making such a terrible mistake. You’ll be miserable, bored and miserable living down here always. Giles Stanworth is very nice, of course, I think he is charming, but what interests have you in common?’

  ‘The Fluke, for one. Yo
u wouldn’t believe how passionately I am interested in the Fluke. There is another fascinating disease called the staggers too, he tells me; horses have that. Then the rotation of crops –’

  ‘Can’t you be serious for one minute?’ cried Jerome in exasperation. ‘I see nothing to joke about in the fact that you are jeopardizing your whole future happiness for a crazy idea like this. Look here, Amabelle, if you must marry, marry me.’

  ‘Darling Jerome, you are sweet. But what would Mrs Nickle say?’ Mrs Nickle had been Jerome’s housekeeper for twenty years. ‘No, no, my dear, that would never do. Besides, strange though it may seem to you, I actually do want to marry Giles; and as nothing that you can say will stop me you might just as well look pleasant and wish me happiness.’

  ‘I may be dense, but I still don’t see the point in taking this step. It’s no good pretending to me that you are passionately in love with Giles Stanworth, or anything so silly as that.’

  ‘Actually I am rather in love with him. But that’s neither here nor there. The point, as I’ve told you already, is that I don’t want to be taken up by Oxford undergraduates.’