The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  The famous trout stream that ran through the valley below Alconleigh was one of Uncle Matthew’s most cherished possessions. He was an excellent dry-fly fisherman, and was never happier, in and out of the fishing-season, than when messing about the river in waders and inventing glorious improvements for it. It was the small boy’s dream come true. He built dams, he dug lashers, he cut the weed and trimmed the banks, he shot the herons, he hunted the otters, and he restocked with young trout every year. But he had trouble with the coarse fish, especially the chubb, which not only gobble up the baby trout but also their food, and they were a great worry to him. Then, one day, he came upon an advertisement in Exchange and Mart. ‘Send for the Chubb Fuddler.’

  The Radletts always said that their father had never learnt to read, but in fact he could read quite well, if really fascinated by his subject, and the proof is that he found the Chubb Fuddler like this all by himself. He sat down then and there and sent. It took him some time, breathing heavily over the writing-paper and making, as he always did, several copies of the letter before finally sealing and stamping it.

  ‘The fella says here to enclose a stamped and addressed envelope, but I don’t think I shall pander to him, he can take it or leave it.’

  He took it. He came, he walked along the river bank, and sowed upon its waters some magic seed, which soon bore magic fruit, for up to the surface, flapping, swooning, fainting, choking, thoroughly and undoubtedly fuddled, came hundreds upon hundreds of chubb. The entire male population of the village, warned beforehand and armed with rakes and landing-nets, fell upon the fish, several wheelbarrows were filled and the contents taken off to be used as manure for cottage gardens or chubb pie, according to taste.

  Henceforward chubb fuddling became an annual event at Alconleigh, the Fuddler appearing regularly with the snowdrops, and to watch him at his work was a pleasure which never palled. So here we all were, waiting for him, Uncle Matthew pacing up and down outside the front door, the rest of us just inside on account of the bitter cold but peering out of the window, while all the men on the estate were gathered in groups down at the river’s edge. Nobody, not even Aunt Sadie, wanted to miss a moment of the fuddling except, it seemed, Davey, who had retired to his room saying,

  ‘It isn’t madly me, you know, and certainly not in this weather.’

  A motor car was now heard approaching, the scrunch of wheels, and a low, rich hoot, and Uncle Matthew, with a last look at his watch, was just putting it back in his pocket when down the drive came, not at all the Chubb Fuddler’s little Standard, but the huge black Daimler from Hampton Park containing both Lord and Lady Montdore. This was indeed a sensation! Callers were unknown at Alconleigh, anybody rash enough to try that experiment would see no sign of Aunt Sadie or the children, who would all be flat on the floor out of sight, though Uncle Matthew, glaring most embarrassingly, would stand at a window in full view, while they were being told ‘not at home’. The neighbours had long ago given it up as a bad job. Furthermore, the Montdores, who considered themselves King and Queen of the neighbourhood, never called, but expected people to go to them, so from every point of view it seemed most peculiar. I am quite sure that if anybody else had broken in upon the happy anticipation of an afternoon’s chubb fuddling Uncle Matthew would have bellowed at them to ‘get out of it’, possibly even have hurled a stone at them. When he saw who it was, however, he had one moment of stunned surprise and then leapt forward to open the door of the motor, like a squire of olden times leaping to the stirrup of his liege lord.

  The hell-hag, we could all see at once, even through the window, was in a dreadful state. Her face was blotchy and swollen as from hours of weeping, she seemed perfectly unaware of Uncle Matthew and did not throw him either a word or a look as she struggled out of the car, angrily kicking at the rug round her feet, she then tottered with the gait of a very old woman, legs all weak and crooked, towards the house. Aunt Sadie, who had dashed forward, put an arm round her waist and took her into the drawing-room, giving the door a great ‘keep-out, children’ bang. At the same time Lord Montdore and Uncle Matthew disappeared together into my uncle’s business-room; Jassy, Victoria and I were left to goggle at each other with eyes like saucers, struck dumb by this extraordinary incident. Before we had time to begin speculating on what it could all mean, the Fuddler drove up, punctual to the very minute.

  ‘Damned fella,’ Uncle Matthew said afterwards, ‘if he hadn’t been so late we should have started by the time they arrived.’

  He parked his little tinpot of a motor in line with the Daimler, and bustled, all happy smiles, up to the front door. At his first visit he had gone modestly up the back drive, but the success of his magic had so put Uncle Matthew on his side that he had told him, in future, to come to the front door, and always gave him a glass of port before starting work. He would no doubt have given him Imperial Tokay if he had had any.

  Jassy opened the door before the Fuddler had time to ring and then we all hung about while he drank his port, saying ‘Bitter, isn’t it?’ and not quite knowing what to be at.

  ‘His Lordship’s not ill, I hope?’ he said, surprised no doubt not to have found my uncle champing up and down as usual, his choleric look clearing suddenly into one of hearty welcome as he hurried to slap the Fuddler’s back and pour out his wine.

  ‘No no, we think he’ll be here in a moment. He’s busy.’

  ‘Not so like His Lordship to be late, is it?’

  Presently a message came from Uncle Matthew that we were to go down to the river and begin. It seemed too cruel to have the treat without him, but the fuddling had, of course, to be concluded by daylight. So we shivered out of the house, into the temporary shelter of the Fuddler’s Standard and out again into the full blast of a north wind which was cutting up the valley. While the Fuddler sprinkled his stuff on the water we crept back into his car for warmth and began to speculate on the reason for the extraordinary visit now in progress. We were simply dying of curiosity.

  ‘I guess the Government has fallen,’ said Jassy.

  ‘Why should that make Lady Montdore cry?’

  ‘Well, who would do all her little things for her?’

  ‘There’d soon be another lot for her to fag – Conservatives this time perhaps. She really likes that better.’

  ‘D’you think Polly is dead?’

  ‘No no, they’d be mourning o’er her lovely corpse, not driving about in motor cars and seeing people.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve lost all their money and are coming to live with us,’ said Victoria. This idea cast a regular gloom, seeming as it did rather a likely explanation. In those days, when people were so rich and their fortunes so infinitely secure, it was quite usual for them to think that they were on the verge of losing all their money, and the Radlett children had always lived under the shadow of the workhouse, because Uncle Matthew, though really very comfortably off with about £10,000 a year gross, had a financial crisis every two or three years and was quite certain in his own mind that he would end up on parish relief.

  The Fuddler’s work was done, his seed was sown and we got out of the motor with our landing-nets. This was a moment that never failed to thrill, the river banks were dotted with people all gazing excitedly into the water and very soon the poor fish began to squirm about the surface. I landed a couple of whales and then a smaller one, and just as I was shaking it out of the net a well-known voice behind me, quivering with passion, said,

  ‘Put it back at once, you blasted idiot – can’t you see it’s a grayling, Fanny? O my God, women – incompetent – and isn’t that my landing-net you’ve got there? I’ve been looking for it all over the place.’

  I gave it up with some relief. Ten minutes at the water’s edge was quite enough in that wind. Jassy was saying ‘Look, look, they’ve gone’, and there was the Daimler crossing the bridge, Lord Montdore sitting very upright in the back seat, bowing a little from side to side, almost like roy
alty. They overtook a butcher’s van and I saw him lean forward and give the driver a gracious salute for having got out of the way. Lady Montdore was hardly visible, bundled up in her corner. They had gone, all right.

  ‘Come on, Fanny,’ said my cousins, downing tools, ‘home, don’t you think? Too cold here,’ they shouted at their father, but he was busy cramming a giant chubb in its death throes into his hare pocket, and took no notice.

  ‘And now,’ said Jassy, as we raced up the hill, ‘for worming it all out of Sadie.’

  It was not, in fact, necessary to do any worming, Aunt Sadie was bursting with her news. She was more human and natural with her younger children than she had ever been with the elder ones. Her attitude of awe-inspiring vagueness, alternating with sudden fits of severity, which had combined with Uncle Matthew’s rages to drive Louisa and Linda and the boys underground, so that their real lives were led in the Hons’ cupboard, was very much modified with regard to Jassy and Victoria. She was still quite as vague, but never very severe, and far more companionable. She had always been inclined to treat her children as if they were all exactly the same age, and the younger ones were now benefiting from the fact that Louisa and Linda were married women who could be spoken to, and in front of, without reserve.

  We found her and Davey in the hall, she was quite pink with interest, and as for Davey he was looking as much excited as if he had developed some fascinating new symptom.

  ‘Come on,’ said the children, question-marks all over their faces. ‘Tell.’

  ‘You’ll never believe it,’ said Aunt Sadie, addressing herself to me, ‘Polly Hampton has informed her poor mother that she is going to marry Boy Dougdale. Her uncle, if you please! Did you ever hear such a thing? The wretched Patricia, not cold in her grave –’

  ‘Well,’ said Jassy, aside, ‘cooling in this weather –’

  ‘Miserable old man!’ Aunt Sadie spoke in tones of deep indignation and was clearly a hundred per cent on Lady Montdore’s side. ‘You see, Davey, how right Matthew has been about him all these years?’

  ‘Oh, poor Boy, he’s not so bad,’ Davey said, uncomfortably.

  ‘I don’t see how you can go on standing up for him after this, Davey.’

  ‘But Sadie,’ said Victoria. ‘How can she marry him if he’s her uncle?’

  ‘Just exactly what I said. But it seems, with an uncle by marriage, that you can. Would you believe that anything so disgustingly dreadful could be allowed?’

  ‘I say,’ said Jassy. ‘Come on, Dave.’

  ‘Oh, no dear, thank you. Marry one of you demons? Not for any money!’

  ‘What a law!’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘whenever was it passed? Why, it’s the end of all family life, a thing like that.’

  ‘Except it’s the beginning for Polly.’

  ‘Who told Lady Montdore?’ Of course, I was fascinated. This key-piece of the jigsaw made everything quite clear, and now I could not imagine how I could ever have been so stupid as to have missed it.

  ‘Polly told her,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘It happened like this. They hadn’t seen Boy since the funeral because he caught a bad cold at it and stayed indoors – Sonia got an awful cold there too and still has it, but he had spoken to Sonia every day on the telephone, as he always does. Well, yesterday they both felt a bit better and he went over to Hampton with the letters he’d had about poor Patricia from Infantas and things, and they had a good gloat over them, and then a long discussion about what to put on the tombstone. It seems they more or less settled on “She shall not grow old as we that are left grow old”.’

  ‘Stupid!’ said Jassy. ‘She had grown old already!’

  ‘Old! A few years older than me,’ said Davey.

  ‘Well –!’ said Jassy.

  ‘That’s enough, miss. Sonia says he seemed terribly low and unhappy, talking about Patricia and what she’d always been to him, and how empty the house seems without her – just what you’d expect after twenty-three years or something. Miserable old hypocrite! Well, he was supposed to stay for dinner, without dressing, because of his cold. Sonia and Lord Montdore went upstairs to change, and when Sonia came down again she found Polly, still in her day clothes, sitting on that white rug in front of the fire. She said, “What are you doing, Polly? it’s very late. Go up and dress. Where’s Boy then?” Polly got up and stretched herself and said, “He’s gone home and I’ve got something to tell you. Boy and I are going to be married!” At first, of course, Sonia didn’t believe it, but Polly never jokes as you know, and she very soon saw she was in deadly earnest, and then she was so furious she went sort of mad – how well I can understand that – and rushed at Polly and boxed her ears, and Polly gave her a great shove into an arm-chair and went upstairs. I imagine that Sonia was perfectly hysterical by then; anyway, she rang for her maid who took her up and put her straight to bed. Meanwhile, Polly dressed, came down again and calmly spent the evening with her father without saying a single word about it all to him, merely telling him that Sonia had a headache and wouldn’t dine. So this morning poor Sonia had to tell him, she said it was terrible, because he so adores Polly. Then she tried to ring up Boy but the wretched coward has gone away, or pretends to have, leaving no address. Did you ever hear such a story?’

  I was speechless with interest. Davey said,

  ‘Personally, and speaking as an uncle, the one I feel for over all this is the unhappy Boy.’

  ‘Oh, no, Davey, nonsense. Just imagine the Montdores’ feelings – while they were trying to argue her out of it this morning she told them she’d been in love with him since before they went to India, when she was a little girl of fourteen.’

  ‘Yes, very likely, but how do we know he wanted her to be in love with him? If you ask me I don’t suppose he had the very faintest idea of it.’

  ‘Come now, Davey, little girls of fourteen don’t fall in love without any encouragement.’

  ‘Alas, they do,’ said Jassy, ‘look at me and Mr Fosdyke. Not one word, not one kindly glance has he ever thrown me, and yet he is the light of my life.’

  Mr Fosdyke was the local M.F.H.

  I asked if Lady Montdore had had an inkling of all this before, knowing really quite well that she had not, as everything always came straight out with her and neither Polly nor Boy would have had one moment’s peace.

  ‘Simply no idea at all, it was a complete bolt from the blue. Poor Sonia, we know she has her faults but I can’t think she has deserved this. She said Boy had always been very kind about taking Polly off her hands when they were in London, to the Royal Academy and so on, and Sonia was pleased because the child never seemed to have anybody to amuse her. Polly wasn’t a satisfactory girl to bring out, you know. I’m very fond of her myself, I always have been, but you could see that Sonia was having a difficult time in many ways. Oh, poor Sonia, I do feel – now children, will you please go up and wash your fishy hands before tea?’

  ‘This is the very limit, you’re obviously going to say things while we’re away. What about Fanny’s fishy hands, then?’

  ‘Fanny’s grown-up, she’ll wash her hands when she feels like it. Off you go.’

  When they were safely out of the room she said, in horror, to Davey and me,

  ‘Just imagine, Sonia, who had completely lost control of herself (not that I blame her), sort of hinted to me that Boy had once been her own lover.’

  ‘Darling Sadie, you are such an innocent,’ Davey said, laughing. ‘It’s a famous famous love affair which everybody except you has known all about for years. I sometimes think your children are right and you don’t know the facts of life.’

  ‘Well, all I can say is, I’m thankful I don’t. How perfectly hateful. Do you think Patricia knew?’

  ‘Of course she did and she was only too glad of it. Before his affair with Sonia began, Boy used to make Patricia chaperone all the dismal little débutantes that he fancied, and they would sob out broken hearts on her sho
ulder, and beg her to divorce him, very last thing he wanted, naturally. She had a lot of trouble with him, you know.’

  ‘I remember a kitchen-maid,’ Aunt Sadie said.

  ‘Oh yes, it was one thing after another before Sonia took him on, but she had some control over him and Patricia’s life became much easier and more agreeable, until her liver got so bad.’

  ‘All the same,’ I said, ‘we know he still went for little girls, because look at Linda.’

  ‘Did he?’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘I have sometimes wondered – Ugh! What a man! How you can think there’s anything to be said for him, Davey, and how can you pretend he hadn’t the faintest idea Polly was in love with him? If he made up to Linda like that, of course he must have done the same with her.’

  ‘Well, Linda’s not in love with him, is she? He can’t be expected to guess that because he strokes the hair of a little girl when she’s fourteen she’s going to insist on marrying him when she grows up. Bad luck on a chap I call it.’

  ‘Davey, you’re hopeless! And if I didn’t know quite well that you’re only teasing me I should be very cross with you.’

  ‘Poor Sonia,’ said Davey. ‘I feel for her, her daughter and her lover at a go – well, it often happens but it can’t ever be very agreeable.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s the daughter she minds,’ said Aunt Sadie, ‘she hardly mentioned Boy, she was moaning and groaning about Polly, so perfectly beautiful, being thrown away like that. I should be just the same, I couldn’t bear it for any of mine – that old fellow, they’ve known all their lives, and it’s worse for her, Polly being the only one.’

  ‘And such a treasure, so much the apple of their eye. Well, the more I see of life the more profoundly thankful I am not to have any children.’

  ‘Between two and six they are perfect,’ said my aunt, rather sadly I thought, ‘after that I must say they are a worry, the funny little things. Then another horror for Sonia is wondering what went on all those years between Polly and Boy. She says last night she couldn’t sleep for thinking of times when Polly pretended to have been to the hairdresser and obviously hadn’t – that sort of thing – she says it’s driving her mad.’