The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  Always at the end of his concerts the Lieder König announced succulent pieces of good cheer for the English Slavery Party. Soon, according to his information, vast concentration camps would spring into being all over England, to be filled with Churchill, Eden and other Marxist – here he corrected himself – Liberals, Jews and plutocrats.

  Soon the benevolent rule of National Socialism would stretch across the seas to every corner of the British and French Empires, harnessing all their citizens to the tyrant’s yoke, and removing the last vestiges of personal freedom. Soon all nations of the world would be savouring the inestimable advantages of Slavery.

  ‘Here are the Reichsender Bremen, stations Hamburg and D x B operating on the thirty-one metre band. This is the end of the Lieder König’s talk in English.’

  8

  Sophia was dressing to go out to dinner with Fred, Ned and Lady Beech. She took a good deal of trouble always with her appearance, but especially when she was going to be seen in the company of Lady Beech, whose clothes were the most exquisite in London and whom it was not possible in that respect to outshine. Sophia had not attempted to replace Greta and was beginning to realize what an excellent maid that boring German had been; on this occasion she could not find anything she wanted, nor was Elsie, the housemaid, very much help to her.

  Sophia was a very punctual character, with the result that she often found herself waiting for people, and indeed must have spent several weeks of her life, in all, waiting for Rudolph. On this occasion Fred and she arrived simultaneously and first, in spite of the many setbacks in her bedroom. He ordered her a drink and muttered in her ear that Ned was behaving as if he had been in the Cabinet all his life. It seemed anyhow that he felt himself firmly enough in the saddle after three Cabinet meetings to be able once more to consort with those victims of circumstances, Fred and Sophia. But of course Fred in the uniform pertaining to his Blossom was hardly at all reminiscent of Fred in the pin-stripe trousers of his disgrace; he looked already brown and healthy and seemed to have grown quite an inch.

  Lady Beech appeared next, wonderful in sage green and black with ostrich feathers and a huge emerald laurel leaf. Sophia felt at once extremely dowdy.

  ‘You are lucky,’ she said, ‘the way you always have such heavenly things. I do wish I were you.’

  ‘Child!’ said Lady Beech, deprecatingly.

  Very late the Minister himself galloped up to them complaining loudly that he had been kept at No. 10. As his own house happened to be No. 10 Rufford Gate, there was a pleasing ambiguity about this excuse. They went in to dinner.

  Fred and Ned were very partial to Lady Beech. She was the only link they had with culture, and Fred and Ned were by no means so insensible to things of the mind as they appeared to be. At school and at Oxford they had been clever boys with literary gifts and a passion for the humanities; it was only their too early excursion into politics which had reduced their intellectual capacity once more to that of the private school. The poor fellows still felt within them a vague yearning towards a higher plane of life, and loved to hear Lady Beech discourse, in polished accents now sadly unfamiliar, of Oscar, Aubrey, Jimmy, Algernon, Henry, Max, Willie, Osbert and the rest. They could talk to her, too, of those of their contemporaries whose lives had taken a more intellectual turn than their own, for Lady Beech is as much beloved by the present as she was by a past generation of artists and writers. Another thing which endeared her to them was the fact that she, unlike anybody else, called them Sir Frederick and Lord Edward and, instead of telling them her opinion of The Situation, flatteringly deferred to theirs. It made them feel positively grown up. She liked them, too; they were such pretty, polite young men, and she particularly liked oysters and pink champagne. When, on this occasion, they suggested that a little white wine would be suitable because of the income tax, and the fact that poor Fred had so little income left to tax, she sighed very dreadfully indeed and they good naturedly reverted to pre-war rations for that evening. The dinner having been ordered to her entire satisfaction, Lady Beech turned to Ned with her usual opening gambit of, ‘Tell me, Lord Edward.’ This was really rather horrid of her as, hitherto, it had always been, ‘Tell me, Sir Frederick.’

  ‘Tell me what you think will happen?’

  Ned opened his napkin and said cheerfully, ‘Oh gracious, I don’t know. Nothing much, I don’t expect.’

  ‘Ah! You mean there will be no allied offensive for the moment?’

  ‘Hullo, there’s Bob! Well, now, Lady Beech, you won’t quote me, will you? I never said that, you know. But between ourselves, quite between, well I rather expect we shall all go bumbling along as we are doing until we have won the war – or lost it, of course.’

  ‘Should you say there was quite a good possibility of that?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of our losing the war?’

  ‘Oh quite a good chance, oh Lord yes. Mind you, of course, we’re bound to win really, in the end, we always do. All I say is it may be a long business, the way we’re setting about it. Well, Fred, so how’s the balloon these days, eh?’

  ‘Up and down, you know. It’s rather like playing a salmon, getting her down. I enjoy it. Frankly I enjoy it more than – oh well, it’s a healthy outdoor life.’

  ‘Should you say,’ asked Lady Beech, ‘that the balloons are of much use?’

  ‘I’m told none whatever,’ said Ned in his loud jolly voice.

  ‘Ah!’ she looked searchingly at Fred who was quite nettled.

  ‘That’s entirely a matter of opinion,’ he said crossly. ‘I should think myself they are a jolly sight more use than – oh well. Anyway, it’s a healthy outdoor life for the lads who do it, which is more than you can say for – well, some other kinds of lives.’

  ‘Do you think you can keep off the parachutists?’ said Sophia. ‘They are the only thing I mind. Give me bombs, gas, anything you like. It’s the idea of those sinister grey-clad figures, with no backs to their heads, slowly floating past one’s bedroom window like snowflakes that gives me the creeps.’

  ‘They would not be grey-clad,’ Ned assured her. ‘If they come at all, which is very unlikely (not that the balloons would stop them) they will be dressed as Guards’ officers.’

  ‘Lean out of your window and break their legs with a poker as they go by,’ suggested Fred.

  Lady Beech now broke the ice by saying, ‘I was listening to my poor old brother-in-law on the wireless before I came out.’

  Everybody had, of course, been dying to begin on this topic but none of the others had liked to, Sophia because of poor Fred, poor Fred because he knew that Lady Beech was the ‘King’s’ sister-in-law, and Ned because, although the least sensitive person in the world, he did feel it was perhaps hardly for him to do so, having made such good capital out of Sir Ivor’s defection.

  Lady Beech went on, ‘He was giving a concert of Mozart, and I must tell you that it was perfectly exquisite. Schumann herself could not have given such an ideal rendering of ‘Voi che sapete’ – I never heard such notes, never.’

  ‘Yes, the old beast can sing,’ Fred muttered gloomily.

  ‘I wonder what he feels like,’ said Sophia. ‘I mean, when he thinks of all of us he must be rather sad. He did so love jokes, too, and I don’t suppose he gets many of them, or at any rate people to share them with.’

  ‘It is so strange,’ said Lady Beech, ‘oh, it is so strange! As you know, I was very intimate indeed with him, and I should have said that he had a particularly strong love of his country, and of his own people. He was so attached to you, darling, and to all his friends – I think I may add, to me.’ She sighed. The disposition of Vocal Lodge, although it had proved to be premature, still rankled a little with her. ‘Well, there it is. I shall never understand it, never, it seems to me that it can’t be true, and yet – tell me, Lord Edward, is it possible that he is doing this with some motive that we know nothing about?’

&
nbsp; ‘I couldn’t say. I suppose the old buffer gets well paid, what?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t know Ivor if you think that would have anything to do with it. He never cared the least bit for money. He had far too much of it for his needs. Why should he want more?’

  ‘I put it down to a morbid love of publicity,’ said Fred. He could not speak without bitterness of the wrecker of his career.

  ‘But he would have had publicity under your scheme, Sir Frederick, and with it love and praise instead of hatred and contempt.’

  ‘Depends which way you look at it. I expect he gets love and praise in Germany all right.’

  ‘I can’t believe that that is much comfort to him. He never cared for Germany as far as I knew; he certainly never sang there. I should have said he cared for nothing, these last years, but his garden. He was even neglecting his voice in order to be able to work longer hours among his cabbages. I reproached him for it.’

  ‘Perhaps they promised him a whole mass of Lesbian Irises.’

  ‘Perhaps they caught him and tortured him until he said he would sing for them.’

  ‘Ah, now that I think is very probably the explanation,’ said Lady Beech with mournful satisfaction. ‘And curiously enough, just the one that had occurred to me. Terrible, terrible. What should you say they do to him, Lord Edward?’

  ‘Oh, really, I don’t know much about these things. Thumbscrew, I suppose, then there was the rack, the boot and the peine forte et dur, but I always think a night-light under the sole of the foot would be as good as anything.’

  ‘Do stop,’ said Sophia, putting her fingers in her ears. She could never bear to hear of tortures.

  ‘Actually I wonder if he would do it with such gusto if he had the thumbscrew hanging over him, so to speak. I mean he does get the stuff off his chest as if he really enjoyed it – eh?’

  ‘You forget,’ said Lady Beech, ‘that Ivor was nothing if not an artist. Once he began to sing he would be certain to do it well, whatever the circumstances. That he could not help.’

  ‘Oh, poor old gentleman,’ said Sophia, ‘it would really have been better for him to have died on Kew Pagoda all along.’

  ‘Very, very much better,’ said Lady Beech. ‘Now, tell me, Lord Edward (I am changing the subject to one hardly less painful) supposing, I say supposing anybody had a very small sum of money to invest, what should you yourself advise doing with it? I don’t mean speaking as a Member of the Cabinet; I just want your honest advice.’

  ‘Personally,’ said Ned, brightening up, ‘I should put it on a horse. I mean, a sum like that, the sort of sum you describe, is hardly worth saving, is it? Why not go a glorious bust on Sullivan in the 3.30 tomorrow?’

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew how unlucky I am, would he, child?’ she said to Sophia; ‘but what I really wanted to know about is these defence loans, to buy or not to buy? I thought you could advise me.’

  Ned gave a guilty jump and said the defence loans were just the very thing for her. ‘I bought a certificate for my little nipper today,’ he said, ‘but the little blighter wanted it in hard cash. Couldn’t blame the kid either – I mean, of course, at that age. In fifteen years he’ll be glad – if he’s not dead. Well,’ he looked importantly at his watch, ‘I must be getting back to No. 10.’

  ‘Child,’ said Lady Beech, ‘have you got Rawlings with you? No? Then perhaps Lord Edward will escort me to a bus.’

  Fred and Sophia decided to make a night of it. They went to several very gay restaurants and then to a night club. Here, many hours after they had left the Carlton, Fred talked about his Ideals. It seemed that, at night, as he watched his Blossom careering about among the stars, Ideals had come to Fred, and he had resolved, should he ever again achieve Cabinet rank, that he would be guided by them.

  ‘I used to go on, you know, from day to day, doing things just as they came without any purpose in my life. But now it will be different.’

  Sophia had heard this kind of talk before; it sounded horribly as though the Brotherhood was claiming another victim. Apparently however, this time it was Federal Union, and Fred expounded its theories to her at great length.

  ‘So what d’you think of it?’ he said when he had finished.

  ‘Well, darling, I didn’t quite take it in. I feel rather deliciously muzzy to tell you the truth, you know the feeling, like that heavenly anaesthetic they give you nowadays.’

  ‘Oh.’ Fred was disappointed.

  ‘Tell me again, darling, and I’ll listen more carefully.’

  He told her.

  ‘Well, if it means the whole world is going to be ruled by the English, I’m all for it.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s not like that at all; I must have explained it badly.’

  He began again, taking enormous trouble.

  Presently someone Sophia knew came up to their table. Sophia was feeling extremely vague. She introduced Fred as Sir Frederick Union. After this he took her home.

  9

  The Lieder König had just finished one of his Pets’ Programmes. These were a terrible thorn in the side of the authorities, who considered that all the other pieces in his repertoire were exceedingly harmless, although the news which was thrown in at the end always included some item proving that the German Secret Service arrangements for transmitting facts to Berlin had ours beat by about twelve hours, and this certainly did tease the M.I. rather. But the Pets’ Programmes were a definite menace. Playing upon the well-known English love of animals the wily Hun provided this enormous treat for the pets of the United Kingdom.

  ‘Bring your Bow-wow, your Puss-puss, your Dickie-bird, your Moo-cow, your Gee-gee, your Mousie and your three little fishes to the radio. Or, take the radio out to the stables if your pets cannot be brought indoors. For those raising hens on the battery system these concerts should prove profitable indeed – few hens can resist laying an egg after hearing the Lieder König. The real object of these programmes is not, however, a mercenary one, the object is to bring joy to the hearts of dumb creatures, too many of whom spend a joyless life without song. There is no need for your pets to belong to this category any more; bring them all to the radio and see what pleasure you will give them. The Lieder König himself, who can sing so high that bats can hear him, and so low that buffaloes can, is here expressly to minister to your dumb ones, and bring them strength through joy.’

  The old gentleman then came to the radio and gave first a little talk about the muddle of animal A.R.P. in London. Few dogs and no cats, he said, carried gas masks, and gas-proof cages for birds and mice were the exception rather than the rule. The animal First Aid Posts were scandalously few and ill equipped. The evacuation scheme had not been a success, and many mothers of dogs had fetched their little ones home rather than unselfishly bear the parting for their sakes. ‘I dedicate this concert to the animal evacuees in strange homes,’ he said, ‘may they think of England and stay away from London until this stupid war is over. Here in Germany you hardly ever see a pet; all the dogs are at the West Wall, and the rest are nobly playing their part, somewhere.’ He then delivered a series of shrieks and groans which certainly did have an uncanny effect upon any animals who happened to listen in. Dogs and cats joined in the choruses, horses danced upon their hind legs, and dickie-birds went nearly mad with joy. Mice crept out of their holes to listen, while in the country the radio on these occasions proved such a magnet to frogs and snails and slugs that many people thankfully used it as a trap for small garden pests. The authorities at the Zoo had gramophone records made to cheer up their charges during the black-out, and Ming, the panda, would soon eat no food until one of them was played to her.

  The results of all this can readily be imagined. On the day after one of these concerts Members of Parliament would be inundated by a perfect flood of letters from sentimental constituents demanding instant cessation of hostilities against our fellow animal-lovers, the Germans. In fact, the Pets�
� Programme did more for the enemy cause over here than all the broadcasts by Lord Haw-Haw, all the ravings of the Slavery Party’s organ, The New Bondsman, and all the mutterings of Bloomsbury’s yellow front put together.

  ‘If the pets all over the world,’ concluded the Lieder König, ‘were to rise up as one pet and demand peace, peace we should have.’

  ‘Here are the Reichsender Bremen, stations Hamburg and D x B operating on the thirty-one metre band. The Lieder König wishes to thank all pets for listening. The next Pets’ Concert will be on Tuesday next at 9.45.’

  Sophia and Fred, who had dined with her, had been listening, for the benefit of those returned evacuees, Milly and Abbie. Sophia had sent for Milly, against her better judgment, because she did not get along without her very well, and also for protection from the parachutists. She was a French bulldog, as clever as she was beautiful, and Abbie was her daughter. Abbie’s blood was mixed, Milly having thrown herself away upon a marmalade Don Juan, one spring morning in Westminster Abbey, but she was very sweet and the apple of Fred’s eye. When the Pets’ Programme was over, they took their leave, Sophia going a little way up the Square with them in order to give Milly a run after her emotional experience. When they got back, Milly galloped upstairs and burrowed her way under Sophia’s quilt until she came to where the hot-water bottle was, when she flopped at once into a snoring sleep.

  Sophia followed more slowly. She had a pain which had not been improved by her excursion into the cold. When she reached her bathroom she looked for the Cachets Fèvre, but presently remembered that she had given the box to Florence, and went up the next flight of stairs to Florence’s bedroom. She knocked on the door without much expecting any reply: when there was none, she went in.