The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  It was on her honeymoon in Rome that she first met Rudolph Jocelyn. He made no great impression on her, being the antithesis of what she then so much admired. He was not bald, suave, or in any sense of the word a diplomat. On the contrary, he had a shock of tow-coloured hair, spoke indistinctly, dressed badly, and was always in a great hurry. Luke disapproved of him; he said that Jocelyn’s journalistic activities were continually getting the Embassy in trouble with the Italians. Besides, he kept low company and looked disreputable, and the fact that he spoke Italian like a native, and two dialects as well, failed to endear him to Luke. Some months later Sophia heard that he had mobilized the Italian army in a moment of light-heartedness; his newspaper splashed the martial news, and Rudolph Jocelyn was obliged to abandon journalism as a career.

  Sophia had a happy character and was amused by life; if she was slightly disillusioned she was by no means unhappy in her marriage. Luke was as cold as a fish and a great bore; soon however she began to regard him as a great joke, and as she liked jokes she became quite fond of him when, which happened soon, she fell out of love with him. Also she saw very little of him. He left the house before she was properly awake in the morning, returning only in time to dress for dinner, then they dined out. Every Saturday to Monday they stayed with friends in the country. Sophia often spent weeks at a time with her father, in Worcestershire or Scotland. Luke seemed to be getting very rich. About twice a week he obliged her to entertain or be entertained by insufferably boring business people, generally Americans. He explained that this must be regarded as her work so she acquiesced meekly, but unfortunately she was not very good at her work, as Luke never hesitated to tell her. He said that she treated the wives of these millionaires as if they were cottage women and she a visiting duchess. He said they were unused to being treated with condescension by the wives of much poorer men, who hoped to do business with their husbands. Sophia could not understand all this; she thought she was being wonderful to them, but they seemed to her a strange species.

  ‘I simply don’t see the point of getting up at six all the time you are young and working eighteen hours a day in order to be a millionaire, and then when you are a millionaire still getting up at six and working eighteen hours a day, like Mr Holst. And poor Mrs Holst, who has got up at six too all these years, so that now she can’t sleep on in the morning, only has the mingiest little diamond clip you ever saw. What does it all mean?’

  Luke said something about big business and not tying up your capital. Mr Holst was the head of the firm of which Luke’s was the London office, and the Holst visits to England were a nightmare for Sophia. She was obliged to see a great deal of Mrs Holst on these occasions and to listen by the hour to her accounts of their early struggles as well as to immense lectures on business ethics.

  ‘Lady Sophia,’ Mrs Holst would say, fingering her tiny diamond clip, ‘I hope that you and Sir Luke fully realize that Mr Holst has entrusted his good name – for the good of the business, Lady Sophia, is the good name of Mr Holst, and in fact Mr Holst has often said to me that Mr Holst’s business is Mr Holst – well, as I was saying, this good name is entrusted into Sir Luke’s keeping and into your keeping, Lady Sophia. I always say a business man’s wife should be Caesar’s wife. As I have told you, Lady Sophia, Mr Holst worked for twenty hours a day for thirty years to build up this business. Often and often I have heard him say “My home is my office and my office is my home” and that, Lady Sophia, is the profound truth. Now, as I was saying …’ and so it went on.

  Sophia, who was never able to get it out of her head that the City was a large room in which a lot of men sat all day doing sums, and who was of course quite unable to distinguish between stockbrokers, billbrokers, bankers and jobbers, found these lectures almost as incomprehensible as the fact that Mrs Holst should take so much interest in her husband’s profession when it had only produced, for her, such a wretched little diamond clip. Sophia loved jewels, she had fortunately inherited very beautiful ones of her own from her mother, and Luke, who was not at all mean, often added to them when he had brought off a deal.

  The train stopped. The Scotch officer, his wife, the nasty lady and their puppies all got out. It was one o’clock in the morning. The carriage then filled up, from the corridor which was packed, with very young private soldiers. They were very drunk, singing over and over again a dirty little song about which bits of Adolph they were going to bring back with them. They all ended by passing out, two with their heads in Sophia’s lap. She was too tired to remove them, and so they lay snoring hot breath on to her for the rest of the journey.

  Her thoughts continued. After some years of marriage Luke had joined the Boston Brotherhood, one of those new religions which are wafted to us every six months or so across the Atlantic. At first she had suspected that he found it very profitable in the way of deals with other Brothers; presently however he became earnest. He inaugurated week-end parties in their London house, which meant a hundred people to every meal, great jolly queues waiting outside the lavatories, public confessions in the drawing-room, and quiet times in the housemaid’s cupboard. Sophia had not been very ladylike about all this, and in fact had played a double game in order to get the full benefit of it. She allowed people to come clean all over her, and even came clean herself in a perfectly shameless way, combing the pages of Freud for new sins with which to fascinate the Brotherhood. So, of course, they loved her. It was just at this time that everything in Sophia’s life began to seem far more amusing because of Rudolph Jocelyn whom she had fallen in love with. He came to all the week-end parties, tea parties, fork luncheons and other celebrations of the newest Christianity, and Luke disliked him as much as ever but endured him in a cheery Brotherly way, regarding him no doubt as a kind of penance, sent to chasten, as well as a brand to be snatched from the burning. Brothers, like Roman Catholics, get a bonus for souls.

  Sophia and Rudolph loved each other very much. This does not mean that it had ever occurred to them to alter the present situation, which seemed exactly to suit all parties; Rudolph was unable to visualize himself as a married man, and Sophia feared that divorce, re-marriage and subsequent poverty would not bring out the best in her character. As for Luke, he took up with a Boston Brotherly soulmate called Florence, and was perfectly contented with matters as they stood. Florence, he realized, would not show to the same advantage as Sophia when he was entertaining prospective clients; Sophia might not be ideally tactful with their wives, but she did radiate an atmosphere of security and of the inevitability of upper-class status quo. Florence, however saintly, did not. Besides that, Luke was hardly the kind of man to favour divorce. Middle-aged, rather fat and very rich, he would look ridiculous, he knew, if his wife ran away with a poor, handsome and shabby young man. Let it be whispered too that Luke and Sophia, after so many years, were really rather attached to each other.

  As she sat in the train reviewing her past life, Sophia felt absolutely certain that it was now over and done with. It lay behind her, while she, with every revolution of the wheels, was being carried towards that loud bang, those ruins, corpses and absence of loved ones. She had been taken very much unawares by the war, staying with her father in a remote part of Scotland where telephone and radio were unknown, and where the newspapers were often three days late. Now in the blacked-out train crowded with soldiers, she was already enveloped by it. The skies of London were probably dark by now with enemy planes, but apprehension was of so little use that she concentrated upon the happiness of her past life. The future must look after her in its own way. She became drowsy, and her mind filled with images. The first meet she ever went to, early in the morning with her father’s agent. She often remembered this, and it had become a composite picture of all the cub-hunting she had ever done, the autumn woods and the smell of bonfires, dead leaves and hot horses. Riding home from the last meet of a season, late in the afternoon of a spring day, there would be primroses and violets under the hedges, far far aw
ay the sound of a horn, and later an owl. The world is not a bad place, it is a pity to have to die. But, of course, it is only a good place for a very few people. Think of Dachau, think of China, and Czechoslovakia and Spain. Think of the distressed areas. We must die now, and there must be a new world. Sophia went to sleep and only woke up at Euston. She went to the station hotel, had a bath, and arrived at the Commercial Road at exactly eight o’clock. Of the day which followed she had afterwards but little recollection. The women from London were wonderful, their hostesses in the country extremely disagreeable. It was a sad business.

  When it was over Sophia went to bed and slept for thirteen hours.

  2

  She got up in time for luncheon. There had been no loud bang, the house was not in ruins, and when she rang her bell Greta, her German maid, appeared.

  ‘Oh Greta, I thought you would have gone.’

  ‘Gone, Frau Gräfin?’

  Arguments and persuasion from Sophia failed to prevent Greta from calling her this.

  ‘Back to Germany.’

  ‘Oh no, Frau Gräfin; Sir Luke says there will be no war. Our good Führer will not make war on England.’

  Sophia was rather bored. She had never liked Greta and had not expected to find her still there. She asked whether Sir Luke was in, and was told yes, and that he had ordered luncheon for four. It was a very hot day, and she put on a silk dress which, owing to the cold summer, she had hitherto been unable to wear.

  Rudolph was in the drawing-room making a cocktail.

  ‘I say, have you seen Florence? God has guided her to dye her hair.’

  ‘No – what colour – where is she?’

  ‘Orange. Downstairs,’ he said, pulling Sophia towards him with the hand which did not hold the cocktail shaker, and kissing her. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Very pleased to see you, my darling. It seemed a long time.’

  Florence appeared, followed by Luke. Her hair, which had been brown, was indeed a rich marmalade, and she was rather smartly dressed in printed crêpe-de-chine, though the dress did not look much when seen near Sophia’s.

  ‘Have a drink,’ said Rudolph, pouring them out. Florence gave him a tortured, jolly smile, and said that drinking gave her extraordinarily little pleasure nowadays. Luke, who hated being offered drinks in his own house, refused more shortly. ‘Lunch is ready,’ he said.

  They went downstairs.

  ‘Has the war begun?’ asked Sophia, wondering who could have ordered soup for luncheon, and seeing in this the God-guided hand of Florence. She guessed that Florence was staying in the house.

  ‘No,’ said Rudolph. ‘I don’t know what we’re waiting for.’

  ‘My information is,’ said Luke, at which Rudolph gave a great wink, because Luke so often used those words and his information was so often not quite correct, ‘my information is that Our Premier (his voice here took on a reverent note) is going to be able to save the peace again. At a cost, naturally. We shall have to sacrifice Poland, of course, but I hear that the Poles are in a very bad way, rotten with Communism, you know, and they will be lucky to have Herr Hitler to put things right there. Then we may have to give him some colony or other, and of course a big loan.’

  ‘What about the Russian pact?’ said Rudolph.

  ‘Means nothing – absolutely nothing. Herr Hitler will never allow the Bolsheviks into Europe. No, I don’t feel any alarm. We have no quarrel with Germany that Our Premier and Herr Hitler together cannot settle peacefully.’

  Sophia said shortly, ‘Well, if they do, and there isn’t a revolution here as the result, I shall leave this country for ever and live somewhere else, that’s all. But I won’t believe it.’

  Then, remembering from past experience that such conversations were not only useless but also led to ill-feeling, she changed the subject. She had never been so near parting from Luke as at the time of Munich, when, in his eyes, Our Premier had moved upon the same exalted sphere as Brother Bones, founder of the Boston Brotherhood, and almost you might say, God. His information then had been that the Czechs were in a very bad way, rotten with Communism, and would be lucky to have Herr Hitler to put things right. It also led him to believe that universal disarmament would follow the Munich agreement, and that the Sudetenland was positively Hitler’s last territorial demand in Europe. Carlyle has said that identity of sentiment but difference of opinion are the known elements of pleasant dialogue. The dialogue in many English homes at that time was very far from pleasant.

  ‘Then a silly old welfare-worker came up to a woman with eight coal-black children and said, “You haven’t got a yellow label, so you can’t be pregnant,” and the woman said, “Can’t I? Won’t the dad be pleased to hear that now?” And when we got to the village green the parson was waiting to meet us, and he looked at the pregnant ladies and said, very sadly, “To think that one man is responsible for all this.” It’s absolutely true.’

  Rudolph watched her with admiration. He enjoyed Sophia’s talent for embroidering on her own experiences, and the way she rushed from hyperbole to hyperbole, ending upon a wild climax of improbability with the words ‘It’s absolutely true.’ According to Sophia, she could hardly move outside her house without encountering the sort of adventure that only befalls the ordinary person once in a lifetime. Her narrative always had a basis of truth, and this was an added fascination for Rudolph who amused himself by trying to separate fact from fiction.

  ‘Darling Sophia,’ he said, as she came to the end of a real tour de force about her father, whom she had left, she said, blackening the pebbles of his drive which he considered would be particularly visible from the air, ‘I know what your job will be in the war – taking German spies out to luncheon and telling them what you believe to be the truth. When you look them in the eye and say “I promise it’s absolutely true”, they’ll think it’s gospel because it’ll be so obvious that you do yourself. The authorities will simply tell you the real truth, and you’ll do the rest for them.’

  ‘Oh, Rudolph, what a glamorous idea!’

  She took Florence upstairs. Florence wriggled a good deal which she always did if she felt embarrassed, and in spite of her conscious superiority in the moral sphere she often felt embarrassed with Sophia. Presently she said in a loud, frank voice, ‘I hope it’s all right, Sophia. I’m staying here.’

  ‘Oh, good. I hope you’re comfortable. If you want any ironing done, just tell Greta.’

  Florence said she required extraordinarily little maiding, but this did not for a moment deceive Sophia, who had been told by Greta, in a burst of confidence, that Fraulein Turnbull gave more trouble than three of the Frau Gräfin.

  Florence now drew a deep breath, always with her the prelude to an outburst of Christianity, and said that the times were very grave and that it made her feel sad to see people pay so little attention to their souls as Sophia and Rudolph.

  ‘We don’t think our rotten little souls so important as all that.’

  ‘Ah but you see it isn’t only your souls. Each person has a quantity of other souls converging upon his – that’s what makes this life such a frightfully jolly adventure. In your case, Sophia, with your looks and position, you could influence directly and indirectly hundreds – yes, hundreds of people. Think how exciting that would be.’

  Sophia saw that she was in for a sermon, and resigned herself. She knew from sad experience that to answer back merely encouraged the Brotherhood to fresh efforts.

  ‘You know, dear, Luke feels it very much. It hurts him when you talk as you did at lunch, flippantly and with exaggeration. I wish you could realize how much happier it makes one to be perfectly truthful, even in little ways. Truth is a thing that adds so greatly to the value of human relationships.’

  ‘Some,’ said Sophia carelessly. ‘Now it adds to the value of my relationship with Rudolph to tell more and funnier lies. He likes it.’

  ‘I wonder if that sort of relations
hip is of much value. Personally the only people I care to be very intimate with are the ones you feel would make a good third if God asked you out to dinner.’

  Sophia wished that Florence would not talk about the Almighty as if his real name was Godfrey, and God was just Florence’s nickname for him.

  ‘Oh, God would get on with Rudolph,’ she said.

  Florence smiled her bright, crucified smile, and said that she was sure there was good material in Rudolph if one knew where to look for it. Then she wriggled about and said, very loudly, ‘Oh, Sophia, how much happier it would be for you, and for those about you, if you would give your sins to God. I feel there would be, oh! such a gay atmosphere in this house if you could learn to do just that.’

  ‘Only one sin, Florence, such a harmless one. I don’t steal, I honour my father, I don’t covet, and I don’t commit murder.’

  ‘Perhaps flippancy is the worst sin of all.’

  ‘I’m not flippant but I’m not religious and I never will be, not if I live to a hundred. It’s a matter of temperament, you know.’

  This was a false step. Florence now embarked on a rigmarole of bogus philosophy which no power short of an explosion could have stopped. Poor Sophia lay back and let it flow, which it did until the men came into the drawing-room, when Florence gave Luke a flash of her white and even teeth which all too clearly said ‘I have failed again.’

  ‘I’m just going up for a little quiet time,’ she said. ‘I’ll be ready in half an hour.’ She and Luke played golf on Saturday afternoons.

  ‘I’m just going down for a little quiet time and I’ll be ready in about half an hour,’ said Rudolph, picking up the Tatler. When he got back, he said, ‘Come along, Sophia, I’m taking you to the local A.R.P. office to get a job.’

  ‘There won’t be any war,’ said Luke comfortably, as he settled down to his Times.