The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  Hughie said to Grace, ‘This child must go to Eton – I’m sure they’d make a cricketer of him. Seems waste of excellent material for him to go to some French school where they do nothing but lessons.’

  ‘But he was never put down for it,’ said Grace.

  ‘I can fix that, I’m sure. A word with Woodford. The boy is exceptional, you see.’

  ‘Oh dear, I wonder whether Charles-Edouard would allow it. He did once seem to think of it, I remember.’

  ‘It’s my opinion that child can do anything he likes with his father. If he wants to go he’ll go, it all depends on that.’

  Hughie was one of those to whom Eton is bathed retrospectively in a light that never was on land or sea. He talked much of it to Sigi, who began to imagine himself as Captain and Keeper of this and that, and inclined very favourably to the idea. At last Hughie suggested that the three of them might go down for the day, take out his own nephew, Miles Boreley, and let Sigismond have a look round.

  ‘We’ll go down next Thursday, I’ll ring up Miles’s tutor now and arrange it. Once the child has seen it for himself the thing’s a foregone conclusion – there’ll be no holding him – he’ll be as good as there.’

  Miles Boreley was a sad little boy. He stood waiting for them at the Burning Bush, top hat crammed on to large red ears, mouth slightly open, large, red hands hanging down. Though very plain, he had a disquieting look of his handsome uncle Hughie. They left the motor and walked with him towards Windsor. He said he had engaged a table for luncheon at a restaurant there.

  It was one of those summer days when the cold of the Thames valley eats into the very bone, though the boys who slouched about the street with no apparent aim in view, looking like refugees in a foreign town, did not seem to notice it. Sigi’s bright little eyes, which missed nothing, darted from one to another. He was amazed by their archaic black clothes and general air of ill-being. Hughie, bathed in the light that never was, glanced at him from time to time, wondering if the magic had already begun to work. Had he known his Sigi better he would have been quite well aware that it had not. The corners of the mouth were drooping in a very tell-tale way.

  They were shown their table in the restaurant and were settling themselves round it when Miles, looking with disfavour at the seat of his chair, asked if he could have a cushion. The waitress quite understood, and went off to get him one.

  ‘Been in trouble, old boy?’ said Hughie.

  ‘Only been beaten by the library.’

  ‘Bad luck. What for?’

  ‘Changing the times sheet, as usual.’

  ‘Oh I say, you shouldn’t do that, you know.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘Beaten?’ said Sigi. His blood ran cold.

  ‘Yes, of course. Aren’t you ever beaten?’

  ‘Certainly not. I’m a French boy – I wouldn’t allow such a thing.’

  ‘What a sissy!’

  ‘But do you like being beaten?’

  ‘Not specially. But I shall like it all right when it’s my turn to beat the others.’

  Hughie said, ‘When I got into the library I used to lay about me like Captain Bligh. I had a lot of leeway to make up – we had an awful time at m’tutor’s from a brute called Kroesig. But I got my own back. How’s the food this half, Miles?’

  ‘Well you literally can’t see it, there’s so little. We buy everything at the sock shop now. M’tutor is married,’ he explained for the benefit of Grace and Sigi, ‘and Mrs Woodford has got three children and a fur coat, all paid for by the housebooks, of course, and is saving up for more.’

  ‘More children or more fur coats?’

  ‘More of everything. She’s literally the meanest miser you ever saw.’

  ‘Yes, married tutors can be the devil,’ said Hughie. ‘Mine was a bachelor and I’m bound to say he never starved us, but m’dame used to steal our money.’

  ‘Steal it!’ said Grace. ‘What a shame.’

  ‘Well that’s what we used to say. Rather like Miles and the fur coats, you know. These Eton rumours shouldn’t be taken too seriously, they would none of them stand up to scientific investigation.’

  Sigi looked relieved. ‘What about the beating?’ he said. ‘Is that a rumour too?’

  ‘Just take a look at my behind,’ said Miles. ‘I’ll show you after. That will stand up to any amount of scientific examination, as you’ll see.’

  A family party now came in. A woman, looking incredibly old to be the mother of children in their teens, was followed by two little girls and a stocky boy with a square of pink elastoplast on the back of his neck. They hurried through the restaurant and went upstairs.

  Miles’s mouth opened wider; he turned quite pink.

  ‘Badger-Skeffington,’ he said.

  ‘No!’ said Hughie, craning round to look. But they had disappeared.

  ‘Badger-Skeffington!’ said Grace, laughing hysterically. She was thinking that, wonderful as it seemed, some man must have gone to bed with that old lady only a few years before, since the youngest little girl was not more than twelve.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ said Hughie.

  ‘Such a funny name.’

  ‘It may seem funny to you, but I can tell you, you haven’t heard it for the last time. That boy is an extraordinary athlete; it’s years since they’ve had such a boy here. Tell them, Miles.’

  ‘Keeper of the Field, Keeper of Boxing, Captain of the XI. They’ll be having a black-market lunch up there,’ he said enviously. ‘Badger-Skeffington’s mother is a most famous black-marketeer.’

  ‘Are you sure? She doesn’t look a bit like that.’

  ‘Didn’t you notice how they were all weighed down with baskets and things? Tons of beefsteak, I expect, pots of cream, pounds of butter. That’s why they go upstairs, so that nobody shall see what they are unpacking. They bribe the police with huge sums, it’s well known.’

  ‘Miles! I expect they have a farm.’

  ‘So likely, in Ennismore Gardens. That’s why Badger-Skeffington always wins everything – Daddy says he’s literally full of food, like a French racehorse. They’re nouveaux riches, you know.’

  ‘Now hold on, Miles, that’s not true. I often see Bobby Badger at my club, he’s frightfully poor, it was a fearful effort to send the boy here at all, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, I know, Uncle Hughie, the point is they are nouveaux riches and frightfully poor as well. There are lots like that here. Their fathers and mothers give up literally everything to send them.’

  ‘Oh dear, how poor everybody seems to be, in England,’ said Grace. ‘It’s too terrible when even the nouveaux riches are poor.’

  ‘Yes, and while we are on the subject I would like to know exactly why it is they are all so stinking rich in France,’ said Hughie, stuffily. He was rich himself, but his capital seemed to be melting away at an alarming rate. ‘It seems quite sinister to me.’

  ‘Quite easy really. The French have always looked after their estates. They have foresters in their forests, not just gamekeepers, and their vineyards are a gold mine. In England, when I was a child anyhow, landed estates simply drained away the money – I remember quite well how my father and uncles used to talk as if it was a most tremendous luxury, owning land. There was never any idea of making it pay.’

  ‘H’m,’ said Hughie. Were he clever, like Albertine, had he the gift of the gab, like Heck, he would have been able, he thought bitterly, to prove to Grace the undoubted fact that the French are rich because they are wicked, while the English are poor because they are good. As he was neither clever nor gabby he was obliged to leave the last word with her. It was most annoying.

  Some friends of Hughie’s now came in, accompanied by two charming little boys. They said ‘hullo’, looked with interest at Sigi, and went through to another room. ‘See you later, perhaps.’

  ‘They look rather nice,’ said Grac
e to Miles. ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘Who, Stocker?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, he’s in my house.’

  ‘Is he nice?’ she persevered.

  ‘He’s just a boy.’

  ‘Yes, I see. And the other?’

  ‘The other one is a tug. We must only hope Badger-Skeffington doesn’t see him. Badger-Skeffington is the scourge of the tugs.’

  ‘What is a tug?’ said Sigi.

  ‘Somebody a bit brighter in the head than the rest,’ said Grace, to tease Hughie. He was suddenly very much on her nerves. They had been too much lately at Yeotown, she thought, and decided they must have a few days in London, though no doubt Sigi would complain dreadfully at being dragged away from his riding and all the games.

  After luncheon they went with Miles to his house, and there they followed him through a rabbit warren of passages and up and down little dark staircases. A deathly silence reigned.

  ‘How empty it all seems,’ said Grace. ‘Where’s everybody?’

  ‘Having boys’ dinner.’

  ‘Very late.’

  ‘Yes, well, it doesn’t make much difference. Late or early there’s literally nothing to eat.’

  Miles’s room, when they finally got to it, was extraordinarily bare and bleak. The walls were beige, the window curtains orange, and a black curtain hung from ceiling to floor in one corner. Over the empty fireplace there was a valedictory poem, illuminated and framed, on the closing of the Derby racecourse.

  There’ll be no more racing at Derby

  It rings indeed like a knell, etc., etc.

  It was terribly cold, colder than winter. Grace sat on the only chair, huddling into her fur coat, and the others stood round her as if she were a stove.

  ‘Is this your bedroom?’ Sigi said, taking in every detail.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Is there a bed?’ If he had been told that Miles slept on a heap of rags on the floor, like the concierges in Poland, he would not have been at all surprised.

  ‘Here, of course,’ said Miles scornfully. He lifted the black curtain to disclose an iron instrument against the wall. ‘You pull it down at night, and the boys’ maid makes it. And now, Uncle Hughie, if you’ll excuse me, I must go off and do my time. Will you wait here or what?’

  ‘I’m so terribly cold,’ Grace said imploringly to Hughie. ‘Couldn’t we go home?’

  ‘Well, rather bad luck on Miles when we’ve come to take him out. His time won’t last more than three-quarters of an hour, you know.’

  ‘Give him two pounds, he won’t mind a bit,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh I say, Uncle Hughie, thanks very much. Are you going, then?’ he said, in tones of undisguised relief. ‘Good-bye. Will you excuse me? – I shall be late.’ He clattered away down the passage.

  ‘Really, Grace – two pounds! I usually give him ten bob.’

  ‘I’ll go shares,’ she said, ‘put it on the bridge book. Worth it to me, I was dying of cold simply.’

  The visit to Eton finished off Hughie’s chances of marrying Grace for ever. Sigismond had seen a red light, and immediately took action.

  ‘Mummy!’

  ‘Hullo – you’re early this morning!’

  ‘Well yes, I’ve got something rather important to say. You know Hughie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you thinking of marrying him?’

  ‘Why, darling?’

  ‘The Nannies always say you will.’

  ‘Would you like me to?’

  ‘That’s just the point. I would not.’

  ‘Oh – Sigi –!’

  ‘No use pretending, I would not.’

  ‘Very well, darling. I promise I’ll never marry anybody you don’t like. And now just go and tell Nanny to pack, will you? We’re going up to London after luncheon.’

  Sigi gave his mother a nice hug and trotted off. He was not at all dissatisfied to find himself later in the day on the road back to London. The riding and the games had been great fun, but if they were to lead to the prison house, whose shades he had now seen for himself, they simply were not worth it.

  10

  All this time the Captain had been going on with his pursuit of Grace, and of course he too had seen that, if there were a way to her heart, that heart so curiously absent, it would be through Sigismond.

  ‘Bring him to Sir Theseus on Thursday afternoon,’ he said.

  ‘My dear Captain – is Phèdre very suitable for little boys?’

  ‘Exquise Marquise, what about the Matinée Classique at the Français – is it not full of little boys seeing Phèdre?’

  ‘All right then,’ she said. It was a comfort to her to be with somebody who knew about the Matinée Classique and other features of French life. Hughie, in spite of all his efforts to educate himself in the Albertine days, had never really got much further than the Ritz bar, and now his love for everything French had turned to unreasonable hatred. Whenever Grace spoke to him of France he would say horrid little things which annoyed her. Like many large, bluff, and apparently good-natured men, Hughie had a malevolent side to his character, and knew exactly how to stick a pin where it hurt. He was always exceedingly catty about the Captain, who spoke, however, rather charmingly of him.

  ‘Why does he hate her so much?’ asked Sigi, as Hyppolitus recoiled in homosexual horror before the advancing Phaedra.

  ‘Because she’s his stepmother.’

  ‘Oh. If Papa married Madame Marel would she be my stepmother and would I hate her?’

  ‘Sh – darling, don’t talk so loud, it’s rude to the actors.’

  She couldn’t very well have said it was disturbing to the audience. A beautiful, hot day, one of the very few that summer, had not been helpful in filling the Matinée Classique with little scholars of modern psychological drama, and the theatre was empty. Three or four members of the Crew sat about, balefully watching Grace through their hair; the Captain, who always said he preferred to see his plays from the back of the gallery, an excellent alibi, was having a guilty sun-bath on the roof of his house.

  ‘Mum?’ Sigi was wriggling about, bored.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where’s Hyppolitus’s own mummy?’

  ‘I’m not sure, I think she’s dead, we must ask the Captain.’

  ‘Mummy? Sir Theseus what?’

  ‘You must ask the Captain that too.’

  ‘Well – what’s happened to Hyppolitus now?’

  ‘Darling, try and pay attention. Didn’t you hear Theramenus saying how he had fallen off his bicycle and been run over by a lorry?’

  ‘Coo! Phaedra is upset and no mistake.’

  ‘Don’t say coo. I’m always telling you.’

  ‘Mummy, why has Sir Theseus adopted Hara-See?’

  ‘I suppose he feels rather lonely, now everybody seems to be dead.’

  ‘Will he have to make over some of his money to Hara-See?’

  ‘I don’t know. Here’s the Captain, you must ask him.’

  The Captain took them backstage and showed them the machinery, switchboard, and so on, all of which interested Sigi a great deal more than the play. After this he was allowed the run of the Royal George, to the displeasure of the younger members of the Crew, who had seen through their hair exactly how the land lay. Phaedra, however, took a great fancy to Sigi and spoilt him.

  The Captain’s courtship, meanwhile, was not making much real progress. He was hampered in it by Grace’s failure to attract him sexually, by a shyness and feeling of discomfort in her presence that he never seemed to get over. While it may be possible to do without sex in married life, he began to realize that it is very difficult to propose to a beautiful young woman without ever having had any physical contact with her. A little rumpling and cuddling bridges many an awkward gulf. In fact it now seemed to him as if the impossibility of cuddling Grace
was endangering his whole heavenly scheme. He blamed her bitterly for it. Why should she be so stiff and remote? Why not unbend, make things easier for him? It was very hard. He had thought so much, during many a wakeful night, of all that marriage with her would bring. The laurels of Madame Victoire, the griffins and castles of Madame de Pompadour, the dolphins and the fleur-de-lis; Château Yquem, Chambolle-Musigny, Mouton Rothschild. He could feel, he could see, he could taste them. Sometimes he thought that he would break down and cry like a child if all this and much more were to elude his grasp, simply because of his inability to grasp the waist of Grace.

  Nothing was going well for the Captain at this time. Subscriptions to the Royal George were falling off at a disquieting rate, various creditors were pressing their claims, Sir Theseus could obviously not be made to run much longer, and, worst of all, the Crew was in a chronic bad temper. Only old Phaedra was nice to him now, but her varicose veins had got worse and the doctor said she must give up the kitchen while she was playing this long and arduous role. So he was at the mercy of the others for his comforts, and they gave expression to their feelings through the medium of housework. Smash and burn were the order of the day. His home life had never been so wretched.

  It now became imperative to find another play with which to replace Sir Theseus. The Crew pushed their hair out of their eyes and read quantities of manuscripts, many of them in the original Catalan, Finnish, or Bantu, and wrote résumés of them for the Captain to see. He had told them, and indeed in their hearts they knew it, that this time they must put on something which would sell a few seats. ‘For once,’ he said, ‘try and find a play with a plot. I believe that would help. Something, for once, that the critics could understand.’

  One bright spot in the Captain’s life just then was how well he was getting on with Sigismond. The little boy hung about the theatre, thoroughly stage-struck, and told his mother, who of course repeated it, that he revered the Captain second only to M. l’Abbé.

  The Captain, on his side, was entranced. Knowing as he did no children of that age, Sigi appeared to him a perfect miracle of grace and intelligence. He kept begging to be given a part in a play, and the Captain thought that, if something suitable could be found, it would be from every point of view a good idea. The child had received a great deal of publicity for having ridden the cheval de Marly, he was very pretty, possibly very talented, and the whole thing would bring the Captain into continual contact with Grace. Sitting with her in his box on the first night, both feeling rather emotional, it might suddenly become possible for him to take her hand, to press her knee, even to implant a kiss on a naked shoulder when nobody was looking.