The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘Go to the nursery, darling,’ I was telling her, ‘and fetch ’Chang. There’s a riot or something in the garden. We’d better all stay together.’

  Alfred said, ‘The French have had enough and I don’t altogether blame them. I wrote in my last dispatch that it would end like this; now it has. Not a bad thing perhaps, it will shake both the governments into seeing sense. Meanwhile I hope these hooligans will bear in mind that the person of an Ambassador is sacred and the territory of an Embassy inviolable.’

  ‘They haven’t remembered about the territory. They are completely ruining all our nice new shrubs – just come and see.’

  We went back to the Salon Vert and looked out at the rioters.

  ‘I shall lodge a complaint. The police force is inadequate, in my view. What are they shouting? It sounds like a slogan.’

  ‘Listen – no, I can’t make it out.’ They seemed to be shouting two words and stamping in unison.

  Philip ran in, breathless, having come from his own flat. ‘The Faubourg is full of demonstrators,’ he said. ‘Good Lord – the garden too! We are completely surrounded in other words. They are shouting “Minquiers Français”, do you hear?’

  ‘That’s it, of course,’ said Alfred. ‘Minquiers Français, Minquiers Français. I only hope this will show the Foreign Office there are limits of ineptitude beyond which they should not go. Another time perhaps they will listen to the man on the spot.’

  I said, ‘They are nearly up to the veranda now – ought you not to let Bouche-Bontemps know?’

  ‘All in good time,’ said Alfred, ‘no need to panic. We are his responsibility.’

  Northey appeared, ’Chang in her arms, grumbling about her badger.

  ‘Pity we can’t all be safely down there with him,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve just had a word with B.B.,’ said Northey, ‘he is the absolute, utter limit. Shrieking with laughter if you please. He says we may have to stand a long siege and he hopes we’ve got plenty of Spanish champagne. He can’t get the police to do much, he says, it’s only a crowd of children.’

  ‘Yes, they do look young – I was thinking that. Why should these boys and girls mind about the Îles Minquiers?’

  ‘Agitators. You can work up a crowd on any subject.’

  ‘B.B. is delighted. He says the teenagers here are supposed to think of nothing but jazz – look at them now! Riddled with patriotism.’

  ‘So he’s not going to rescue us?’

  ‘Not he!’

  ‘Then who will? What about N.A.T.O?’

  ‘We only know one thing for certain about N.A.T.O. – it can’t get a force into the field in less than six weeks.’

  ‘Anyhow,’ said Philip, ‘this is the Supreme Commander’s time for Dr Jore – nobody’s allowed to interrupt them, they’ll be in full flood of Gettysburg at this very minute – can’t you hear it? “Foor-scoor and savan eers ago oor faethers brourt fourth –”’

  ‘Don’t tell me the Supreme Commander has a Pull to the East?’

  ‘Of course. All Dr Jore’s patients have.’

  Alfred said, ‘You must try and check this latent anti-Americanism, Philip – I’ve already spoken to you about it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Now I’m going to the Chancery to do some telephoning. You take Northey and Fanny to your flat, will you? The rioters can come through the veranda any minute, those feeble policemen aren’t going to stop them.’

  ‘Minquiers Français – Minquiers Français –’ rose ever more insistent from the garden.

  ‘I do wish they would leave off stamping, they are ruining the lawn.’

  ‘The French government will be obliged to make good any damage.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Philip. ‘Alfred’s quite right, you’ll be better over there. Besides, I want to see what’s happening in the Faubourg.’

  We crossed the courtyard, went into Philip’s flat and looked out of his dining-room window at the street which was jammed as far as the eye could see with young people stamping and shouting ‘Minquiers Français’. I was glad to notice quite a large force of policemen looking, I thought, very much amused, but keeping the crowd away from our gate and exhibiting more authority than those in the garden.

  ‘Oh do look!’ said Northey. ‘There’s good little Amy – the brave soul.’

  ‘I don’t see him?’

  ‘Yes, in the ancient bibelot shop, pretending to be a Dresden figure.’ She leant out of the window and waved at Mockbar who looked sheepish and seemed not to see her. Then she shouted ‘Aimée!’ whereupon he began scribbling in his notebook.

  ‘He’s ashamed of you,’ said Phillip. ‘Anyway I’m glad to see he’s on the job all right. For once we need all the publicity we can get; it’s the only way to stop this silly bickering – give Bouche-Bontemps and our Foreign Minister a bit of a jolt. They don’t want actual war, one supposes.’

  ‘Can’t see that it’s B.B.’s fault.’

  ‘He’d much better let the thing go to The Hague and be settled once for all.’

  Suddenly the shouting and stamping and clapping subsided and a rather sinister silence fell on the crowd. Philip said, anxiously, ‘Don’t like this much, I hope they’re not waiting for a signal.’

  Almost as he spoke, the crowd came violently, terrifyingly to life. It surged in the narrow street as if it must burst apart the houses; the slogan took on a blood-curdling note. ’Chang began to scream at the top of his voice; the din was deafening. The police now joined hands and forced the rioters away from the entrance to our courtyard; to my horror I saw that the huge wooden gates were slowly opening.

  ‘Look,’ said Northey, ‘the gates – a traitor – !’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Philip and made as though to go downstairs.

  ‘Don’t leave us –’ I was frightened for the baby who might so easily be hurt if the mob poured in and overwhelmed us. I looked out again. The police seemed to be in control. In the middle of the screaming crowd a London taxi, escorted by policemen, was crawling up the street. It was driven by Payne; Uncle Matthew, deeply interested, craned from the window; on its roof, dressed from head to foot in shiny black plastic material, were our boys, Fabrice and Charlie, with another boy, a stranger to me, dressed in shiny white. This child was waving a guitar at the crowd as though he thought the screams and shrieks were meant for him. The more the people cried Minquiers Français the more he grinned and waved in acknowledgement. With a superhuman effort, the police cleared a passage for the taxi, got it into the courtyard and shut the gates behind it. We all ran downstairs.

  Uncle Matthew was being helped out of the cab by Charlie and Fabrice. The other boy was fidgeting about, snapping his fingers. He looked cross and impatient.

  ‘Excitable lot, these foreigners,’ said my uncle, ‘how are you, Fanny? Here are your spawn, safe and sound thanks to Payne. We found them in the aeroplane or at least they found me, I didn’t know them from Adam of course. They recognized me and hopped into the cab. Do you know, we flew it over – now your stepfather thought of that, very competent fellow.’

  ‘This is Yanky Fonzy, Mum,’ said Fabrice, indicating the third lad. He was an unprepossessing hobbledehoy, with pasty face, sloppy look about the mouth and hair done like Queen Alexandra’s after the typhoid. ‘Didn’t the kids give him a wonderful reception – you heard them screaming, “Yanky Fonzy, Yanky Fonzy”? It’s never been like this in London.’

  ‘D’you mean that terrifying riot was all about him?’ I said.

  ‘It only was a riot of enthusiasm,’ said the youth. ‘The kids are never nasty or out for manslaughter. They buy my discs and support me. Why are they shut away from here? Where can I go and wave to them? Why are the arrangements breaking down? Where’s my French agent?’ He fired these questions at each of us in turn, snapping his fingers. He seemed in a thoroughly bad humour.

  This curious new light having been thrown
on the situation, Philip burst into a loud laugh and went into the house, no doubt, I supposed, to find Alfred.

  ‘He’s not much to look at,’ said Uncle Matthew, indicating Mr Fonzy, ‘and his clothes would frighten the birds, but I’m bound to tell you he whacks merry hell out of that guitar. We had tunes the whole way here.’

  I took Charles by the arm and led him out of earshot of the others. ‘Just tell me what this means? Your packing job – have you left it?’

  ‘Definitely. Chucked it.’

  ‘Tell me truthfully, Charlie, you haven’t been nicking shavers?’

  ‘Oh no, Mum, hardly at all. But even you wouldn’t want us to go on packing for the rest of our lives? It turned out to be rather ghoulish and there’s no future in it whatever. No, we’ve moved on. We’re in the Showbiz now where there are fortunes to be picked up. Actually we are Yanky’s publicity agents. Grandad arranged it for us – he’s a smashing old forebear! It was he who thought of arriving like that with the weirdie in the taxi – oh boy, what a gimmick! Yank’s Continental debew has started with a real explosion, hasn’t it? – there must be thousands of kids round this dump.’

  Fabrice came over to us. ‘I say, Mum, the kiddos are yearning for Yank, you know. They may easily turn ghoulish if you keep him shut up in this yard for ever.’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Charles.

  ‘But how did they know he was coming?’

  ‘That’s all done by Sigi, our Paris agent. First-class organization!’

  The hobbledehoy was now behaving like a prima donna.

  ‘Where can I go and be with my fans? What’s happening here? They’ll turn dangerous if they don’t see me soon. I say, you kids, something has gone wrong. Please send me my Paris agent at once.’

  ‘Here I am.’ Sigi appeared out of the blue.

  ‘Well done, Sigi,’ said Fabrice, ‘jolly spiffing show.’

  ‘So far,’ said Yanky, ‘but we must keep up the tempo. Where are the kids now? I want to be with them.’

  ‘They’ve all gone round to the other side of the house,’ said Sigi. ‘There’s a huge garden and a balcony where you can do your act. I’ve just been rigging up the mike. Come on, no time to waste. Excuse us,’ he said to me, ever polite, kissing my hand, ‘but if they don’t see him soon they will rush the place.’ He ran into the house, followed by the other boys.

  I turned to Uncle Matthew, feeling I had not made enough fuss of him in all the commotion. ‘How d’you do, Payne?’

  ‘Payne’s just had a word with your porter,’ said Uncle Matthew, ‘it seems the street is clear now so I think we’ll be on our way. I never meant to bother you at all – Paris isn’t on our itinerary – we came here to oblige those boys.’

  ‘Now you are here, do stay. Where are you off to, anyhow?’

  ‘Ypres,’ said my uncle. ‘Payne and I thought we’d like to see old Wipers again. A fellow in the House told me there’s a sector they’ve preserved exactly as it was. We had the time of our lives in those trenches when we were young, didn’t we, Payne?’

  ‘To tell the truth, m’lord, I’d just as soon see them in present circumstances.’

  ‘Nonsense! It will all seem very dull, though better than nothing no doubt.’

  ‘But there’s no hurry, is there? Don’t go yet. Now you are here, stay for a few days.’

  ‘Oh my dear child, but where?’

  ‘Here, with us, of course.’

  ‘You haven’t got room?’

  ‘Darling Uncle Matthew – in that enormous house? Jérôme, our chauffeur, will show Payne where to put the cab and fill it up and everything.’

  ‘Well, that’s very civil of you, Fanny. I do feel rather tired. Will there be a cocktail party?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, nearly every evening. I know we’ve got some people coming presently.’

  Uncle Matthew gave me a superior look, saying, ‘I thought you’d find out about them sooner or later. Well, that’s splendid. If I could see my room I’ll go and sit down for a few minutes, then I’ll be ready for anything.’

  ‘Take your grandfather up in the lift,’ I said to Northey. ‘I think we’ll give him the Violet Room. Then will you send Jérôme out to look after Payne, please? I must go and see what those boys are up to.’

  On the stairs I was overtaken by Philip. ‘That unspeakable Sigi,’ he said.

  ‘Where’s Alfred?’

  ‘He’s gone to the Quai to complain – he went out by the Chancery as soon as the street began to clear. Now listen, Fanny –’

  ‘Yes, but hurry. I must go and stop it all –’

  ‘This is very important though. Don’t tell Alfred. I don’t believe those journalists in the Faubourg have understood – I hope that at this very moment they are whizzing back stories of a riot about the Minquiers. Alfred has already informed the F.O. If we can keep up the fiction, this so-called riot will have a splendid effect. Both sides will feel they have gone too far and there’ll be a beautiful reconciliation.’

  ‘That would be perfect but I’m afraid it’s too good to be likely. They are all in the garden still, according to Sigi.’

  ‘Yes, they are, I’ve just been through to have a look. The boy is crooning and the fans are swooning and so on. But the only people there who look like journalists all belong to jazz papers – they won’t get anything into the general news and they don’t even know that they are in the Embassy garden. Now I’m off to the Crillon to see the press boys there. So sealed lips, eh? – and shoo Yanky off, that’s your job.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. But Philip – you’ll have to square Mees or good little Amy will know all. She’s taken ’Chang to the nursery I think.’

  ‘Right, I’ll do that first.’

  I ran on up to the yellow drawing-room where I found the boys making a perfect exhibition of themselves. The French windows were wide open; on the little balcony Yank Fonzy was bellowing into a microphone; behind him on the parquet my boys and Sigi were stamping and clapping while the huge crowd of children in the garden had lost all control. The scene was vividly evoked afterwards in Le Discophile and I cannot do better than to quote: ‘L’atmosphère fut indescriptible. Ce jazz-man chanta avec une passion qui n’appartient qu’aux grands prédicateurs. On dansait, on entrait en transes, on se roulait au sol tout comme les convulsionaires de Saint Médard. Le gazon était lacéré, les arbustes déchiquetés – affligeant spectacle.’

  I pounced forward and very crossly dragged Master Yanky back into the room, then I disconnected the microphone and slammed the windows on the afflicting spectacle. He was so much surprised at this unaccustomed behaviour that he put up no resistance; in any case his body felt as if it were made of dough. Sigi opened the windows again, went on to the balcony and shouted, ‘Tous au Vél d’Hiv’: a cry which was taken up by the crowd and had the effect of clearing the garden. Chanting ‘Yanky Fonzy – Yanky Fonzy’ the fans made off in the direction of the river.

  ‘I’m sorry, Madame l’Ambassadrice,’ ever polite, ‘but it was the best way to get rid of them.’

  ‘And what next?’ I said. I was almost too angry with Sigismond to be able to speak to him, but it must be said that he was the only one of the boys in control of himself. The others were still rolling and stamping about like poor mad things, well and truly sent.

  ‘Please don’t worry at all, we are going now. I’ll take Yanky, Charlie and Fabrice to the Club to meet the Duke. After that we’re joining up with the kids at the Vélodrome d’Hiver, where there is the great Yanky Fonzy Pop Session you have no doubt seen advertised on all the kiosks.’

  ‘The Club? The Duke?’ I had a horrid vision of Yanky in white leather and my boys in black leather bursting in on the Duc de Romanville at the Jockey Club.

  ‘Le Pop Club de France. We’ve got a rendezvous with Duke Ellington there.’

  ‘Now listen to me, Sigi, I’m not going to have that boy to stay.’

 
‘No, no.’ Sigi laughed inwardly, reminding me of his father. ‘He has got the honeymoon suite at the George V. I went there to see that everything was all right, which is why I was a bit late. You can’t imagine what the flowers and chocolates are like. I managed to nick some and gave them to the concierge for you.’

  ‘Too good of you. And now be off, I beg, and don’t use this house any more for your disreputable activities.’

  ‘Count on me, Madame l’Ambassadrice,’ he said, with his annoying politeness.

  22

  As six o’clock struck, a remarkable demonstration of English punctuality occurred in the Salon Vert. Uncle Matthew stood at the ready by the fireplace, while a procession, of a sort very familiar to me by now, came across the Salon Jaune. Few days ever passed without this sort of influx. First there was Brown, the butler. Two fine, upstanding men, older than they looked, as could be seen by grey flecks in the hair, but without a line on their faces or, obviously, a care in the world, marched close on his heels. Conservatives I knew they were, from one or other of the Houses of Parliament. Two elderly wives panted and limped after them in an effort to keep up, one arm weighed down by those heavy bags which Conservative women affect and in which they conserve an extraordinary accumulation of rubbish and an extraordinarily small amount of cash. Two or three boys, of a demeanour already described, which proclaimed that they had but recently left Eton, trailed along behind them, then two or three pretty, cheerful, elegant schoolgirls who seemed to view their relations rather objectively. They were probably about to be confided to ‘families’ and I would be asked to keep an eye on them. They looked, and no doubt were, ready for anything and I only hoped that I should not be held responsible when anything overtook them.

  Simultaneously Alfred, whom I had not seen since the riot, came through the door which led to his own room and library. I had just time to say, ‘Alfred, here’s Uncle Matthew who has come for a few days. Imagine, he has brought our two little boys – they all arrived in the middle of the excitement!’ when the Conservative wives, breaking into a rapid hobble, managed to catch up with Brown and precede their husbands through the double doors.