The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘I hardly care to tell you. He has left the crammer, given up all idea of the Foreign Service and has become a travel agent.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Alfred, ‘Basil too?’

  ‘But he’s not quite as bad as poor darling David,’ I hastened to say, ‘because there is no bogus philosophy, no wife, no adopted baby involved and at least he has work and prospects of a sort. He doesn’t do nothing all the time. Oh, how I wish I knew where we went wrong with those boys – !’

  ‘Perhaps it’s the modern trend and not exactly our fault.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ I asked.

  ‘Having breakfast with the Zen family in the dining-room. David has come down in his dressing-gown today – he looks ghastly. They started nagging away at each other – I couldn’t stand it, I took my coffee to the library.’

  ‘Nagging about what?’

  ‘It seems [falsetto] that Beards never get on with Teds. Well, I must go, I’m due at the Affaires Étrangères.’

  ‘The Eels?’

  ‘Oh yes indeed – the Eels, the European Army, Guinea, Arms to Arabs – I’ve got a horrible morning ahead.’

  ‘And the young man who pirated Dior’s designs?’

  ‘No, Mr Stock copes with that, thank goodness. See you presently.’

  My next visitor was Basil. I saw what Alfred meant: with his loose garment, tight trousers and hair curling under at the back he had the silhouette of a troubadour. Although I vastly preferred his appearance to that of David (he was quite clean, almost soigné in fact) I wished so much that they could both be ordinary, well-dressed Englishmen. I felt thankful that we had been able to send the two youngest to Eton; presumably they at least, when grown up, would look like everybody else.

  Basil plumped on to my bed. ‘I say, old David’s gone to seed, hasn’t he? Of course one knows he’s holy and all that – still – !’

  ‘How long since you saw him?’

  ‘About a year, I should think.’

  ‘He told me it was he who advised you to take to the road, or whatever it is you have taken to?’

  ‘The coffee-and-jump, did he just? What a build-up! It’s true, he used to bang out long saintly letters in that weird old Bible script of his but naturally I never read them.’

  ‘I worry about you boys. What are you up to, Baz?’

  ‘Well, it’s like this. The Spanish season is over, thanks be. I’ve brought over a flock of the bovines on the hoof – turned them out to graze in the Louvre this morning – this afternoon I shall be flogging them down to Versailles. But these little tours are peanuts; we want to keep the racket going until Grandad can get the hustle on his new phenangles. And oh boy! Is he cooking up some sleigh-rides!’

  My heart sank. If I did not quite understand what Basil was saying I felt instinctively against phenangles and sleigh-rides. They were not likely to denote a kind of work that Alfred would approve of. ‘Could you talk English, darling?’

  ‘Yes, Mother dear, I will. I gets carried away when I thinks of me ole Grandad. Well then, with Granny Bolter’s capital (she sends her love incidentally) he is building a fleet of telly-rest coaches. Get the idea? The occupational disease of the British tourist is foot and mouth. Their feet are terrible, it makes even my hard heart bleed when I see what they suffer after an hour or two in a museum. By this evening several of them will be in tears. There are always some old bags who flatly refuse to get out of the bus towards the end of a day; they just sit in the car-park while their mates trail round the gilded saloons to see where the sneering aristocrats of olden times used to hit it up. Sometimes gangrene sets in – we had two amputations at Port Bou – very bad for trade – just the sort of thing that puts people off lovely holidays in Latin lands. The other trouble, mouth, is worse. Britons literally cannot digest Continental provender – it brings on diarrhoea and black vomit as surely as hemlock would. The heads I’ve held – I ought to know. After a bit they collapse and die in agony – no more foreign travel for them. So I reports all this to ole Grandad and ’e strikes ’is forehead and says, “Now I’ve got a wizard wheeze” and just like that, in a flash, this man of genius has invented the telly-rest coach. When they gets to the place they’ve come to see – the Prado, say, or some old-world hill town in Tuscany, they just sits on in the coach and views the ’ole thing comfortable on TV while eating honest grub, frozen up in Britain, and drinking wholesome Kia-ora, all off plastic trays like in aeroplanes. If they wants a bit of local atmosphere, the driver can spray about with a garlic gun. You wait, Ma, this is going to revolutionize the tourist trade. Grandad has got a board of experts working out the technical details and we hope to have the first coaches ready by next summer. We reckon it will save many a British life – mine among others, because they will no longer need a courier.’

  ‘Ah! So then what will you do?’

  ‘Specials. Millionaires and things like that. We’ve got an interesting special coming off next month which I’m partly here to see about. Grandad wants to capture the do-gooders market, he thinks it has enormous possibilities for the future – you know, all those leisured oldsters who sign letters to The Times in favour of vice. Now they and their stooges are forever going abroad, to build up schools the French have bombed, or rescue animals drowning in dams, or help people to escape from Franco gaols. They’ve got pots of money and Grandad thinks no harm in extracting a percentage.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s right to cash in on people’s ideals, Basil, even if you haven’t got any yourself.’

  ‘Somebody’s got to organize their expeditions for them. Now me Grandad has thought of a particularly tempting line-up, see – an atom march. These do-gooders are not like ordinary Britons, they have feet of sheer cast iron and love a good long walk. But they’ve had Britain. They’ve done John o’ Groat’s and all that and they know every inch of the way to Aldermaston. So me Grandad thinks they might like to walk to Saclay, where the French atom scientists hang out – make a change. If that’s a success they can go on to the great atom town in the Sahara. We call it A.S.S. – they start at Aldermaston as usual – Saclay – Sahara. Well, Ma, I wish you could see the provisional bookings. It is a smashing pisseroo old Grandad’s got there. He’s busy now, working out the cost. He’ll make them pay a sum down, quite substantial – you see it’s a different public from our Spanish lot, ever so much richer. Then the idea is to have some treats on the side which they’ll pay extra for – interviews with atom ministers and such like. I thought Father would come in useful there?’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

  ‘Oh well then, Northey can –’

  ‘What can I do?’ She reappeared, with Philip. ‘Hot news,’ she said. ‘Bigman’s going to fall again (that’s French for Président du Conseil) – not national parks, Sunday speed limit – so we shall see more of him. Goody gum trees.’

  ‘It’s gum drops, not gum trees,’ Basil said, scornfully.

  ‘Oh Lord,’ said Philip, ‘not another chap in fancy dress? What have you come as, may one ask? Really, Fanny, your children! Do you know, the Ambassador has just been obliged to go to the Quai in a taxi because David sent Jérôme with the Rolls-Royce to fetch his Zen Master?’

  ‘No! It’s too bad of David – I can’t have him doing that sort of thing. Go upstairs, Northey, and tell him to come here at once, will you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be any use – they’ll be Zenning away with the door locked by now. They go back to bed after breakfast to empty their minds again. Suzanne can never get in to do the room until luncheon-time. The mess is not to be believed. Have you been up there, Fanny?’

  ‘I had a feeling I’d better not.’

  ‘I went to have a chat with Dawnie yesterday when David was out. It’s rather fascinating. You’d never think so much deep litter could come out of one canvas bag. Then they’ve stuck up mottoes everywhere: “How miraculous this is: I draw water and I carry fuel” (it would be, if
they did) and a picture of a hoop saying “The man and his rice bowl have gone out of sight.”’

  ‘When you chat with Dawn what does she talk about?’

  ‘I do the talking. She looks sweet and says nothing. She can explain about the ten stages of spiritual dish-washing but she hasn’t much ordinary conversation. I love her and adorable ’Chang. If only David would bugger off and leave them both behind –’

  ‘Northey, if you say that word again I shall send you straight back to Fort William.’

  ‘Northey,’ said Basil, ‘do you know any atom ministers?’

  ‘Yes, there’s a dear one called Busson in the rue de Varennes, terribly excited about his old bomb. He’s going to poop it off in 1960.’

  ‘Is he indeed?’ said Philip. ‘Thanks for the tip, Mees. At last you’ve produced the solid fruit of all that spying you do.’

  ‘I read it in Aux Écoutes, to tell you the truth.’

  Basil said, ‘Could you get permission for a few people to see him?’

  ‘What sort of people?’

  ‘Britons.’

  ‘Rather,’ said Philip. ‘He simply dotes on Britons, he’s always hanging about here, under the Union Jack, keenly waiting for one.’

  ‘Witty,’ said Northey. ‘Yes, Baz, I expect so. You must put it in writing. You can get permission for anything in France if you send up a written request. Come to my office and I’ll type it out for you.’ She gave Philip a long look under her eyelashes which would have transported any of the followers and left the room with Basil.

  When they had gone, I said to Philip, ‘Oh! the children! What a worry they are. Basil has got some horrible new scheme on foot. Never mind. Meanwhile I’ve decided that somehow or other I must get rid of the Davids.’

  ‘Now you’ve mentioned it – I didn’t like to – but how?’

  ‘So far I haven’t thought of a way. After all, our house is their home. We can’t turn them out if they don’t want to go, Dawn so pregnant and that darling ’Chang, and let David drag them off to China. Then it’s no good arguing with him, he has studied philosophy and knows all the answers.’

  ‘Besides, he’s such a humbug. All that rot about time meaning nothing – turns up sharp enough for meals, I notice, and the Guru is on the dot when Jérôme goes for him – won’t miss a lift if he can help it.’

  ‘Yes – yes,’ I said rather impatiently. Poor David, it was too easy to criticize and laugh at him and really got us no further.

  ‘Need your house be his home now that he is married?’

  ‘I suppose the boys never seem grown up to me. Yes, I like them to feel that it is. Nothing would matter if it didn’t upset Alfred, but he has got such a lot of worries now and I can see that David is fearfully on his nerves. I must protect him – I must try and get them to go back to England. David can always earn a living there with his qualifications.’

  ‘What are they using for money?’

  ‘A tiny little pittance I give him.’

  ‘Can’t you cut it off and say he must find work?’

  ‘His pathetic allowance? No, really I don’t think I could.’

  ‘One doesn’t have to be a fortune-teller to see they’ll be here the full seven years.’

  ‘I’m not sure, Philip. I often get my own way – Lady Leone left quite quickly, did you notice? Oh!’ I said, sitting up in bed and seizing the telephone. ‘Davey! We must get him over – I’ll ring him up now this very minute!’

  14

  Davey arrived post-haste, in the early afternoon of the following day. ‘Quite right to send for me. Oh – this room?’ he said displeased, when I had taken him upstairs. He had had the Violet Room before but it was now occupied by David and Dawn and I had been obliged to change him over. I sat on his bed. ‘I’ll tell you the reason. It’s all to do with why I asked you to come.’

  ‘Don’t begin yet. I must go for a walk. The thing about having three kidneys is that you need a great deal of exercise. Until you have had it you are apt to see things out of proportion.’

  ‘That won’t do. We are all trying to keep a sense of proportion. Can I come with you? I’d love a walk. Is there anywhere special you’d like to go to?’

  ‘Yes, there is.’ He opened his medicine chest and took out a piece of glass. I looked at it, fascinated, wondering what part of his anatomy it could be destined for.

  ‘My housemaid broke this off a candelabra I’m fond of. I want to see if the man in the rue de Saintonge who used to blow glass is still there. I last saw him forty years ago – Paris being what it is I’m quite sure we shall find him.’

  ‘Where is the rue de Saintonge?’

  ‘I’ll take you. It’s a beautiful walk from here.’

  It was indeed a beautiful walk. Across the Tuileries, through the Cour Carrée, and the Palais Royal and then past acres of houses exactly as Voltaire, as Balzac, must have seen them, of that colour between beige and grey so characteristic of the Île de France, with high slate roofs and lacy ironwork balconies. Though the outsides of these houses have a homogeneity which makes an architectural unit of each street, a glimpse through their great decorated doorways into the courtyards reveals a wealth of difference within. Some are planned on a large and airy scale and have fine staircases and windows surmounted by smiling masks, some are so narrow and dark and mysterious, so overbuilt through the centuries with such ancient, sinister rabbit-runs leading out of them, that it is hard to imagine a citizen of the modern world inhabiting them. Indeed, witch-like old women, gnome-like old men do emerge but so, also, do healthy laughing children, pretty girls in stiletto heels and their prosperous fathers, Legion of Honour in buttonhole. Most of the courtyards contain one or two motor cars – quite often D.S.s or Jaguars – mixed up with ancient handcarts and pedal bicycles. The ground floors are put to many different uses, shops, workshops, garages, cafés; this architecture has been so well planned in the first place that it can still serve almost any purpose.

  Davey and I walked happily, peering and exclaiming and calling to each other to come and look. I said, ‘Bouche-Bontemps and the other Frenchmen I see always talk as if old Paris has completely gone; Théophile Gautier died of grief because of what Haussmann did here; a book I’ve got, written in 1911, says that Paris has become an American city. Even so, it must have far more beautiful old houses left than any other capital in the world. We have walked for half an hour and not seen one ugly street.’

  ‘What I think sad about modern buildings,’ Davey said, ‘is that when you’ve seen the outside you know exactly what the inside will be like.’

  ‘Northey said that, about Notre Dame. But I admit she was in a hurry to get to Lanvin.’

  The rue de Saintonge itself is inhabited by artisans. Its seventeenth-century houses, built originally for aristocrats and well-to-do burgesses, have not been pulled down (except for one block where the Département de la Seine has perpetrated a horror) but they have been pulled about, chopped and rechopped, parcelled and reparcelled by the people who have lived and worked in them during the last two hundred years. Here are the trades which flourish in this street:

  Workers in morocco, fur, india-rubber, gold, silver and jewels; makers of buttons, keys, ribbons, watches, wigs, shoes, artificial flowers and glass domes; importer of sponges; repairer of sewing-machines; great printer of letters; mender of motor cars; printer; midwife. There may be many more hidden away; these put out signs for the passer-by to read.

  At the end of the street we came to Davey’s glassblower, still there, covered with smiles. He and Davey greeted each other as if it were only a week instead of forty years since they last met. The piece of glass, produced from Davey’s pocket, was examined. It could be copied, quite easily, but there would be a delay of perhaps two months.

  ‘That has no importance,’ said Davey, in his perfect, literary French, ‘my niece here is our Ambassadress – when it’s ready you will send it round to her.
’

  More smiles, compliments, protestations of love: ‘How we thought of you, when London was bombed.’

  ‘And how we thought of you, during the Occupation. Thousands of times worse to have them marching about the streets than flying about overhead.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps. My son deported – my son-in-law murdered – c’est la vie – !’

  Back in the Tuileries Gardens we sat down in order to begin our, what statesmen call, discussions about David. I described the arrival of the Holy Family and their subsequent behaviour. Davey was very much interested. ‘My dear! The unkind French! So how did they take it?’

  ‘Sweet and polite as they always are, to me anyhow.’

  ‘I wish I could have heard what they said to each other, afterwards. Of course I saw Mockbar’s account of the Zen Buddhists and paid no attention, but for once there seems to have been a grain of truth in his ravings. I say, look at that statue of an ancient Gaul. What can he be doing?’

  ‘He seems to be eating a Pekinese – or perhaps he’s kissing it?’

  ‘No – it’s his own beard, but why is he holding it up like that with both hands?’

  ‘Most peculiar.’

  ‘You might have let me know that my godson was married.’

  ‘Nobody let anybody know. The Bishop of Bury saw it in the paper – Alfred rang him up and they mourned together. Oh, Dave, isn’t the modern world difficult!’

  ‘Ghastly. No standards of behaviour any more.’

  We sat sadly looking at the Gaul.

  Presently Davey said, ‘I expect I know what we shall have to do for David. It must be the old, old pattern of emotional unstability and absence of rationalism plus a serious defection of the glands. He will almost certainly have to have a series of injections and a course of psychotherapy. I count on the Jungfleisches to find us a good man – where there are Americans there are couches galore. Madness is their national industry. What’s the joke?’