The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘Serge came round this morning to horse-whip me,’ he said; ‘wasn’t it fascinating? It seems that he bought a horse-whip at Fortnum’s on Olga’s account, and he turned up here with it very early, about nine. He hadn’t been to bed at all (there’s a new place called The Nut-house, we’ll go tonight). The porter telephoned up to my room and said, “There’s a gentleman in sporting kit, wants to see you most particular,” so I had him sent up with my breakfast, and in comes old Voroshilov, furling and unfurling a great whip; I felt quite giddy. So I ordered some drinks and he sat on my bed and told me that Olga bumps up his allowance every time he horse-whips anybody for making a pass at her, because she read somewhere that this was the form in Imperial Russia. Then he told me all about his Blossom. He simply loved his Blossom, apparently he never loved any other creature so much in his life. He says it was grossly unfair, the way they dismissed him; he only passed out because she passed out first and he couldn’t think of anything else to do, with her lying there so flat and dead looking, and the idea of her being in the charge of poor Fred makes him quite sick. I should think he feels quite sick, quite often actually, because he is busy drinking himself to death – he was, anyway, of course, so it doesn’t make all that difference. Still, it’s rather dreadful to see the poor old tartar so sad and low; he used to be such a jolly old drunk, but he was crying like anything; he has only just gone. When do I see you, shall I come round now or meet you at the Post?’

  ‘No, neither. I don’t want to be seen seeing you, you see.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Well, I can’t explain for the present.’

  ‘Good heavens, Sophia, is Luke cutting up rough?’

  ‘Luke’s not back yet, and you know quite well he never cuts up rough. I will meet you at the Ritz in half an hour.’

  ‘You’ll be seen seeing me there all right. However,’ said Rudolph quickly, not wishing her, as in her present eccentric mood she easily might, to change her mind, ‘meet you there, darling; good-bye.’

  Sophia smiled to herself. That evening spent with Heatherley instead of with Rudolph had been wonderfully productive of results, one way and another.

  When she arrived at the Ritz, Rudolph was already there reading an early edition of an evening paper. He stood up to greet her, hardly raising his eyes from the paper. Sophia sat down beside him, then, remembering what she was, she bobbed up again in order to see that nobody was lurking behind her chair and that there was no microphone underneath it.

  ‘Walking round your chair for luck?’ said Rudolph, still reading.

  ‘Put that paper down, darling. I’ve got a very great deal to tell you.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Stop reading, then.’

  ‘I can read and listen to you quite well.’

  ‘Probably you can. But I can’t talk to you while you’re reading. Darling, really you are rude. You might have been married to me for years.’

  ‘To all intents and purposes I have.’

  ‘That’s very rude, too. Thank heavens I have Luke to fall back on.’

  ‘Poor old Luke. You always talk about him as if he were a lie-low.’

  ‘So he is, and it’s a jolly nice thing to be. The more I see of you, the more I like Luke, as somebody said about dogs. Rudolph now, please don’t let’s quarrel. Put that paper down and talk to me.’

  Rudolph did so with bad grace. They were both by now thoroughly out of temper with each other.

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘Darling, now listen. You know about me being beautiful?’

  ‘You’re all right.’

  ‘No, Rudolph, please say I’m beautiful; it’s part of the thing.’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re a beautiful female spy?’

  ‘In a way, I was.’

  ‘Yes, I’m quite sure you were. And that you have a Chief, but you don’t feel happy about his loyalty, so you’re really working on your own, and the War Office and Scotland Yard haven’t got an inkling of what you’re up to because you’re blazing a lone trail, but soon there will be sensational revelations, and you will be a national heroine. Oh God! women are bores in wars.’ Rudolph returned to his paper.

  Sophia left the Ritz in a great temper, and went straight to her Post where she had lunch alone at the canteen. It was much too late now to ring up Fred; he would be with his Blossom; she would have to make investigations on her own after all.

  13

  Sophia had wondered why the canteen was so empty, and when she got downstairs she found the reason was that the Post was in the throes of a major practice. This event had been canvassed with great excitement for the past few days, and nothing but Sophia’s preoccupation with other matters could have put it out of her mind. As soon as she arrived, she was engulfed in it. Not only did the Southern Control hiss into her ear ‘Practice Red, expect casualties’, not only did casualties covered with ‘wounds’ of the most lugubrious description appear in shoals – these things had often happened before and been regarded as part of everyday work – today was made memorable by the fact that a real (not practice) Admiral was scheduled to escort a real (not practice) Royal Princess round the Post to see it at work.

  Sophia immediately saw that if she was ever going to conduct investigations, this would be the time. Heatherley and Winthrop were on continual stretcher duty and would not be able to leave the Treatment Room for a moment, except to carry ‘cases’ upstairs to the Hospital. Only Florence was unemployed; this must be remedied. Sophia went into the Treatment Room in search of Sister Wordsworth. It was a hive of industry; dressings and splints were laid out in quantities, and the instruments were all getting a double dose of sterilization, as though the royal eye were fitted with a microscopic lens which would enable it to note, with disapproval, fast-gathering clouds of streptococci. Sister Wordsworth stood surveying the scene.

  Sophia said, ‘Can I speak to you a moment?’ and suggested that if everything was supposed to be in progress exactly as though there had been a real raid, surely Florence ought to be sent a practice pregnancy. Sister Wordsworth saw the force of this argument, and taking hold of the next woman ‘patient’ who appeared, she bundled her into the Labour Ward.

  ‘Sixty-five if she’s a day,’ she said in a loud cheerful aside. ‘I should think it will be a very difficult delivery. Have the forceps handy, Sister Turnbull, and plenty of hot water.’ Florence looked very peevish indeed, and prepared to do as she was told with a bad grace.

  At this moment the real Princess appeared, and jokes were forgotten.

  As soon as H.R.H. had seen her office, and gone through into the Treatment Room, Sophia summoned up all her courage and left her chair by the telephone. If it rang while she was gone, Sister Wordsworth would never forgive her; this would have to be risked, among other things. She ran down a back passage to the Hospital Museum. The door was locked but she had Sister Wordsworth’s master-key, with which she opened it. Florence was standing in the Labour Ward, the door of which was at right angles to that of the Museum; she appeared to be leaning over her aged victim, and her back was turned on Sophia who slipped into the Museum carefully, shutting the door behind her. Then, shaking with terror, she switched on her electric torch and crept down the main avenue between the glass cases. She passed the pre-natal Siamese twins, fearful little withered white figures, unnaturally human and with horrible expressions of malignity on their faces. She passed the diseased hearts and decayed livers, and reached the case of brains with tumours on them. Then her heart stood still. On the floor beneath the brains, shining in the light of her torch like a golden wire, was a springy butter-coloured curl which could only have come from one source. The horrified curiosity felt by Robinson Crusoe when he saw the footstep of Man Friday, the ecstasy and joy of Madame Curie when at last she had a piece of radium, were now experienced with other and more complex sensations by Sophia. For a minute or two she almost choked
with excitement; then, recovering herself, she followed in the direction in which (so far as a curl can be said to point) it pointed. Under the large intestines another one winked out a welcome, under the ulcerated stomachs was a third. The passage ended with a case of bladders against the wall, and under this was a curl. Very gingerly Sophia pushed the case. It moved. She put down her torch and lifted the case away from the wall. Behind it there was a door. As she opened this door she knew that she must be the bravest woman in the world. As a child, if she had been extremely frightened of something, she used to remind herself that she was descended from Charles II, and this had sustained her. She now invoked this talisman, to but little avail. The Merry Monarch had lived too long ago, and blankets the adult Sophia knew to have more than one side. In any case, even if his blood did flow in her veins, she thought, the worst terrors he had faced were Roundheads and death on the block, or, later in life, highwaymen who would have been easily charmed by a guinea and a royal joke. A Hospital Museum with its grisly exhibits, the darkness, the main drain, possible rats and creeping spies, were a test of nerves which might well break down the resistance of a man far braver than Charles II had ever shown himself to be.

  She was now faced by a long flight of stone stairs leading, she supposed, to some fearful dungeons. She went down them, and then down a short passage at the end of which was another door which she opened. Sitting in quite a cheerful little room with an electric fire was the old gentleman himself.

  ‘Darling,’ he cried, ‘what has happened – are they all caught? How did you get here? Where are the police?’

  ‘Ssh,’ said Sophia, her knees turning to jelly. ‘I am all alone. I came down from the Post.’

  ‘But my darling child, this is terrible, so terribly dangerous. You must go back at once. But just listen carefully to me. They – (do you know who I mean, Florence and the others?)’

  Sophia nodded. ‘Yes, I know about them being spies; go on.’

  ‘They have got some scheme on foot which I must find out. They are putting it into execution next Friday, in three days’ time. It is something devilish; I have half guessed what, but I must know for certain. Apart from that, I know everything about the German spies in this country. Now I want you to tell the police where I am and all about Florence and co., so that they can be watched. But I also want them to wait before rounding up the gang until six o’clock on Friday evening. It, whatever it is, will happen at ten o’clock that night, so if I don’t know all by six, I probably never shall. Anyhow, I don’t dare leave it until later. Now quickly go back. If they find you here they will put us both in the main drain, and all my work will have been wasted. Go, go. Be careful now. Good-bye till we meet again, my dearest. Good-bye.’

  Something in the old King’s manner terrified Sophia. He looked at her, she thought, as if he never expected to see her again in life; he spoke with the abruptness and irritation of a badly frightened man. She turned and fled back, up the stairs to the Museum; here, with shaking hands, she put back the case of bladders as she had found it against the door. Then she crept through the medical curiosities and out again into the Post. The door of the Labour Ward was shut this time and the coast seemed clear. She ran as fast as she could to the office, collapsed into her chair and felt extremely faint; she held her head between her knees for a few moments until the giddiness had passed off. She longed for brandy, which she knew to be unobtainable.

  The Royal inspection was still in progress; indeed, although it seemed to her like several days, Sophia had only been away from the office for ten minutes, and very fortunately the telephone bell had not rung once during this time. It did so now, ‘Southern Control speaking, practice White.’ Sophia decided that she was not temperamentally suited to the profession, which she had so gaily chosen, of secret agent; she was not nearly brave enough. Her teeth were still chattering, her hand was trembling so much that she could hardly lift the telephone receiver. She would blaze her lone trail no longer, that evening the whole affair was going to be placed before Scotland Yard, and her responsibility would be at an end. This comforting resolution greatly strengthened her nerves; a large, red-faced policeman would be more stimulating than brandy and she would insist on having one to watch over her until Friday. She wondered if she could persuade him to sleep in her bathroom, and thought that nothing could give her so much happiness.

  Sister Wordsworth now made a cheerful reappearance, having just seen the Princess out to her car. She said that everything had gone off perfectly. Sister Turnbull’s patient, it seemed, had come through her dangerous and unusual experience as easily as if she had been twenty instead of sixty (twin boys, Neville and Nevile, after the Blue Book), and was now with all the other patients enjoying a nice cup of tea in the canteen. The Princess had been charming and had amazed everybody, royal persons always being assumed to be half-witted, deaf and dumb until they have given practical proof to the contrary, by asking quite intelligent questions. The Admiral had winked at several of the nurses, and had been bluff, honest-to-God, hearty and all other things that are expected of seafaring men. In the short, everybody had been pleased and put into a satisfied frame of mind, and the Post rang with the rather loud chatter which is induced by great relief from strain. Sophia, joining with the others, almost forgot her nightmare experiences in the Museum.

  When the time came for her to go home, however, she felt that she really could not face the terrors of the black-out and walk, as she generally did. She was feeling frightened again, and the idea of masked men waiting to boo out at her from behind sandbags was too unnerving. So she telephoned for a taxi. As she got into it, she wondered whether she really ought to go straight to Scotland Yard before going home. After some hesitation she decided that she felt too tired and dirty. Dinner and especially a bath were necessary before she could undertake such an expedition; besides, it was quite possible that she might even persuade some fatherly inspector to go and see her, in comfort, at Granby Gate, which would be much nicer.

  She took a whisky and soda to her bedroom, undressed slowly before the fire, and wrapped herself in her dressing-gown; then she sat for a time sipping the whisky. She felt very much restored, and presently went to turn on her bath. Sitting on the edge of it was Heatherley.

  Sophia huddled into her dressing-gown, paralysed with terror. She had a remote feeling of thankfulness that she had put on the dressing-gown; as her bathroom led out of her bedroom and had no other entrance she very often did not. Heatherley had an extremely disagreeable, not to say alarming expression on his face, and she was far too much unnerved to reproach him for being in her bathroom, or indeed to say anything.

  He stood up and barked at her, and any doubts left in her mind as to his being a German were removed.

  ‘You were seen this afternoon, coming out of the Hospital Museum. What were you doing there?’

  Sophia felt like a rabbit with a snake. ‘Oh, nothing much,’ she said. ‘I always think those Siamese twins are rather little duckies, don’t you?’

  She saw that this had teased Heatherley and it occurred to her that he did not know about her finding the King of Song. She rather supposed that if he had even guessed at such a thing, she would by now be going for a swim down the drain. ‘Pull yourself together, you’re descended from Charles II, aren’t you?’ Sophia was enough of a snob to feel that this equivocal connexion put her on a superior footing to Heatherley whether he was American or German, neither country having, so far as she could remember, existed in Charles II’s day. ‘Now do you agree,’ she babbled on, playing for time, ‘that Charles II was far the most fascinating of all our Kings?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have not come here to discuss Charles II. I have come to inform you upon two subjects. First, you should know that I am not, as you supposed, a counter-spy.’

  ‘Hun or Yank?’ asked Sophia. A spasm of intense rage crossed Heatherley’s face. She was beginning positively to enjoy the interview.

  ‘I
am the head of the German espionage system in this country. My name is Otto von Eiweiss. Florence is Truda von Eiweiss, my wife. Heil Hitler.’

  ‘Your wife!’ said Sophia, ‘goodness me, all this time I’ve been thinking you fancied her!’

  ‘Secondly,’ went on Heth, taking no notice of her but trembling with anger, ‘Truda and I think you know too much. We think you have been prying into affairs which do not concern you. We also think that you might soon begin to prattle of these affairs to your friends, who, although they all belong to that decadent class which we National Socialists most despise, might in their turn (purely by accident, of course, they are too soft and stupid to have any purpose in life) harm us with their talk. So, in order to make certain that none of this shall happen, we have taken your bulldog, Millicent, into protective custody, as we have noticed that in your unnatural English way you seem to love her more than anything else. In three days’ time, if you behave exactly as we tell you, she will be back once more under your eiderdown, but otherwise –’

  ‘Quilt,’ Sophia corrected him mechanically. She despised the word eiderdown. Then, suddenly realizing what he meant, ‘My bulldog, Millicent – Milly? You fearful brute,’ and she forgot all about Charles II and what fun it was to tease Heth, and went for him tooth and nail.

  Heatherley warded off her bites and scratches with humiliating ease, and twisting one of her arms in schoolboy fashion, he continued, ‘Now, be quite quiet, and listen to me.’

  ‘Ow, this hurts; let me go.’

  ‘Are you going to be quiet? Good. Now I shall continue our little chat. The bulldog, Millicent, as I was just remarking, is in protective custody.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I shall not divulge.’

  ‘Has she had her dinner at six?’