The Pursuit of Love

by Nancy Mitford

Linda’s upbringing had made all this incomprehensible to her; for money was a subject that was absolutely never mentioned at Alconleigh. Uncle Matthew had no doubt a large income, but it was derived from, tied up in, and a good percentage of it went back into, his land. His land was to him something sacred, and, sacred above that, was England. Should evil befall his country he would stay and share it, or die, never would the notion have entered his head that he might save himself, and leave old England in any sort of lurch. He, his family, and his estates were part of her and she was part of him, for ever and ever. Later on, when war appeared to be looming upon the horizon, Tony tried to persuade him to send some money to America.

  ‘What for?’ said Uncle Matthew.

  ‘You might be glad to go there yourself, or send the children. It’s always a good thing to have –’

  ‘I may be old, but I can still shoot,’ said Uncle Matthew, furiously, ‘and I haven’t got any children – for the purposes of fighting they are all grown up.’

  ‘Victoria –’

  ‘Victoria is thirteen. She would do her duty. I hope, if any bloody foreigners ever got here, that every man, woman, and child would go on fighting them until one side or the other was wiped out. Anyhow, I loathe abroad, nothing would induce me to live there, I’d rather live in the gamekeeper’s hut in Hen’s Grove, and, as for foreigners, they are all the same, and they all make me sick,’ he said, pointedly, glowering at Tony, who took no notice, but went droning on about how clever he had been in transferring various funds to various places. He had always remained perfectly unaware of Uncle Matthew’s dislike for him, and, indeed, such was my uncle’s eccentricity of behaviour, that it was not very easy for somebody as thick-skinned as Tony to differentiate between Uncle Matthew’s behaviour towards those he loved and those he did not.

  On the first birthday she had after her marriage, Sir Leicester gave Linda a cheque for £1,000. Linda was delighted and spent it that very day on a necklace of large half pearls surrounded by rubies, which she had been admiring for some time in a Bond Street shop. The Kroesigs had a small family dinner party for her, Tony was to meet her there, having been kept late at his office. Linda arrived, wearing a very plain white satin dress cut very low, and her necklace, went straight up to Sir Leicester, and said: ‘Oh, you were kind to give me such a wonderful present – look –’

  Sir Leicester was stupified.

  ‘Did it cost all I sent you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Linda. ‘I thought you would like me to buy one thing with it, and always remember it was you who gave it to me.’

  ‘No, dear. That wasn’t at all what I intended. £1,000 is what you might call a capital sum, that means something on which you expect a return. You should not spend it on a trinket which you wear three or four times a year, and which is most unlikely to appreciate in value. (And, by the way, if you buy jewels, let it always be diamonds – rubies and pearls are too easy to copy, they won’t keep their price.) But, as I was saying, one hopes for a return. So you could either have asked Tony to invest it for you, or, which is what I really intended, you could have spent it on entertaining important people who would be of use to Tony in his career.’

  These important people were a continual thorn in poor Linda’s side. She was always supposed by the Kroesigs to be a great hindrance to Tony, both in politics and in the City, because, try as she might, she could not disguise how tedious they seemed to her. Like Aunt Sadie, she was apt to retire into a cloud of boredom on the smallest provocation, a vague look would come into her eyes, and her spirit would be absent itself. Important people did not like this; they were not accustomed to it; they liked to be listened and attended to by the young with concentrated deference when they were so kind as to bestow their company. What with Linda’s yawns, and Tony informing them how many harbour-masters there were in the British Isles, important people were inclined to eschew the young Kroesigs. The old Kroesigs deeply deplored this state of affairs, for which they blamed Linda. They saw that she did not take the slightest interest in Tony’s work. She tried to at first but it was beyond her; she simply could not understand how somebody who already had plenty of money could go and shut himself away from God’s fresh air and blue skies, from the spring, the summer, the autumn, the winter, letting them merge into each other unaware that they were passing, simply in order to make more. She was far too young to be interested in politics, which were anyhow, in those days before Hitler came along to brighten them up, a very esoteric amusement.

  ‘Your father was cross,’ she said to Tony, as they walked home after dinner. Sir Leicester lived in Hyde Park Gardens, it was a beautiful night, and they walked.

  ‘I don’t wonder,’ said Tony, shortly.

  ‘But look, darling, how pretty it is. Don’t you see how one couldn’t resist it?’

  ‘You are so affected. Do try and behave like an adult, won’t you?’

  *

  The autumn after Linda’s marriage Aunt Emily took a little house in St Leonard’s Terrace, where she, Davey and I installed ourselves. She had been rather unwell, and Davey thought it would be a good thing to get her away from all her country duties and to make her rest, as no woman ever can at home. His novel, The Abrasive Tube, had just appeared, and was having a great success in intellectual circles. It was a psychological and physiological study of a South Polar explorer, snowed up in a hut where he knows he must eventually die, with enough rations to keep him going for a few months. In the end he dies. Davey was fascinated by Polar expeditions; he liked to observe, from a safe distance, how far the body can go when driven upon thoroughly indigestible foodstuffs deficient in vitamins.

  ‘Pemmican,’ he would say, gleefully, falling upon the delicious food for which Aunt Emily’s cook was renowned, ‘must have been so bad for them.’

  Aunt Emily, shaken out of the routine of her life at Shenley, took up with old friends again, entertaining for us, and enjoyed herself so much that she talked of living half the year in London. As for me, I have never, before or since, been happier. The London season I had with Linda had been the greatest possible fun; it would be untrue and ungrateful to Aunt Sadie to deny that; I had even quite enjoyed the long dark hours we spent in the Peeresses’ gallery; but there had been a curious unreality about it all, it was not related, one felt, to life. Now I had my feet firmly planted on the ground. I was allowed to do what I liked, see whom I chose, at any hour, peacefully, naturally, and without breaking rules, and it was wonderful to bring my friends home and have them greeted in a friendly, if somewhat detached manner, by Davey, instead of smuggling them up the back stairs for fear of a raging scene in the hall.

  During this happy time I became happily engaged to Alfred Wincham, then a young don at, now Warden of, St Peter’s College, Oxford. With this kindly scholarly man I have been perfectly happy ever since, finding in our home at Oxford that refuge from the storms and puzzles of life which I had always wanted. I say no more about him here; this is Linda’s story, not mine.

  We saw a great deal of Linda just then; she would come and chat for hours on end. She did not seem to be unhappy, though I felt sure she was already waking from her Titania-trance, but was obviously lonely, as her husband was at his work all day and at the House in the evening. Lord Merlin was abroad, and she had, as yet, no other very intimate friends; she missed the comings and goings, the cheerful bustle and hours of pointless chatter which had made up the family life at Alconleigh. I reminded her how much, when she was there, she had longed to escape, and she agreed, rather doubtfully, that it was wonderful to be on one’s own. She was much pleased by my engagement, and liked Alfred.

  ‘He has such a serious, clever look,’ she said. ‘What pretty little black babies you’ll have, both of you so dark.’

  He only quite liked her; he suspected that she was a tough nut, and rather, I must own, to my relief, she never exercised over him the spell in which she had entranced Davey and Lord Merlin.

  One day, as we were busy with wedding invitat
ions, she came in and announced:

  ‘I am in pig, what d’you think of that?’

  ‘A most hideous expression, Linda dear,’ said Aunt Emily, ‘but I suppose we must congratulate you.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Linda. She sank into a chair with an enormous sigh. ‘I feel awfully ill, I must say.’

  ‘But think how much good it will do you in the long run,’ said Davey, enviously, ‘such a wonderful clear-out.’

  ‘I see just what you mean,’ said Linda. ‘Oh, we’ve got such a ghastly evening ahead of us. Some important Americans. It seems Tony wants to do a deal or something, and these Americans will only do the deal if they take a fancy to me. Now can you explain that? I know I shall be sick all over them, and my father-in-law will be so cross. Oh, the horror of important people – you are lucky not to know any.’

  *

  Linda’s child, a girl, was born in May. She was ill for a long time before, and very ill indeed at her confinement. The doctors told her that she must never have another child, as it would almost certainly kill her if she did. This was a blow to the Kroesigs, as bankers, it seems, like kings, require many sons, but Linda did not appear to mind at all. She took no interest whatever in the baby she had got. I went to see her as soon as I was allowed to. She lay in a bower of blossom and pink roses, and looked like a corpse. I was expecting a baby myself, and naturally took a great interest in Linda’s.

  ‘What are you going to call her – where is she, anyway?’

  ‘In Sister’s room – it shrieks. Moira, I believe.’

  ‘Not Moira, darling, you can’t. I never heard such an awful name.’

  ‘Tony likes it, he had a sister called Moira who died, and what d’you think I found out (not from him, but from their old nanny)? She died because Marjorie whacked her on the head with a hammer when she was four months old. Do you call that interesting? And then they say we are an uncontrolled family – why even Fa has never actually murdered anybody, or do you count that beater?’

  ‘All the same, I don’t see how you can saddle the poor little thing with a name like Moira, it’s too unkind.’

  ‘Not really, if you think. It’ll have to grow up a Moira if the Kroesigs are to like it (people always grow up to their names I’ve noticed) and they might as well like it because frankly, I don’t.’

  ‘Linda, how can you be so naughty, and, anyway, you can’t possibly tell whether you like her or not, yet.’

  ‘Oh, yes I can. I can always tell if I like people from the start, and I don’t like Moira, that’s all. She’s a fearful Counter-Hon, wait till you see her.’

  At this point the Sister came in, and Linda introduced us.

  ‘Oh, you are the cousin I hear so much about,’ she said. ‘You’ll want to see the baby.’

  She went away and presently returned carrying a Moses basket full of wails.

  ‘Poor thing,’ said Linda indifferently. ‘It’s really kinder not to look.’

  ‘Don’t pay any attention to her,’ said the Sister. ‘She pretends to be a wicked woman, but it’s all put on.’

  I did look, and, deep down among the frills and lace, there was the usual horrid sight of a howling orange in a fine black wig.

  ‘Isn’t she sweet,’ said the Sister. ‘Look at her little hands.’

  I shuddered slightly, and said:

  ‘Well, I know it’s dreadful of me, but I don’t much like them as small as that; I’m sure she’ll be divine in a year or two.’

  The wails now entered on a crescendo, and the whole room was filled with hideous noise.

  ‘Poor soul,’ said Linda. ‘I think it must have caught sight of itself in a glass. Do take it away, Sister.’

  Davey now came into the room. He was meeting me there to drive me down to Shenley for the night. The Sister came back and shooed us both off, saying that Linda had had enough. Outside her room, which was in the largest and most expensive nursing home in London, I paused, looking for the lift.

  ‘This way,’ said Davey, and then, with a slightly self-conscious giggle: ‘Nourri dans le sérail, j’en connais les détours. Oh, how are you, Sister Thesiger? How very nice to see you.’

  ‘Captain Warbeck – I must tell Matron you are here.’

  And it was nearly an hour before I could drag Davey out of this home from home. I hope I am not giving the impression that Davey’s whole life was centred round his health. He was fully occupied with his work, writing, and editing a literary review, but his health was his hobby, and, as such, more in evidence during his spare time, the time when I saw most of him. How he enjoyed it! He seemed to regard his body with the affectionate preoccupation of a farmer towards a pig – not a good doer, the small one of the litter, which must somehow be made to be a credit to the farm. He weighed it, sunned it, aired it, exercised it, and gave it special diets, new kinds of patent food and medicine, but all in vain. It never put on so much as a single ounce of weight, it never became a credit to the farm, but, somehow, it lived, enjoying good things, enjoying its life, though falling victim to the ills that flesh is heir to, and other, imaginary ills as well, through which it was nursed with unfailing care, with concentrated attention, by the good farmer and his wife.

  *

  Aunt Emily said at once, when I told her about Linda and poor Moira:

  ‘She’s too young. I don’t believe very young mothers ever get wrapped up in their babies. It’s when women are older that they so adore their children, and maybe it’s better for the children to have young unadoring mothers and to lead more detached lives.’

  ‘But Linda seems to loathe her.’

  ‘That’s so like Linda,’ said Davey. ‘She has to do things by extremes.’

  ‘But she seemed so gloomy. You must say that’s not very like her.’

  ‘She’s been terribly ill,’ said Aunt Emily. ‘Sadie was in despair. Twice they thought she would die.’

  ‘Don’t talk of it,’ said Davey. ‘I can’t imagine the world without Linda.’

  11

  LIVING in Oxford, engrossed with my husband and young family, I saw less of Linda during the next few years than at any time of my life. This, however, did not affect the intimacy of our relationship, which remained absolute, and, when we did meet, it was still as though we were seeing each other every day. I stayed with her in London from time to time, and she with me in Oxford, and we corresponded regularly. I may as well say here that the one thing she never discussed with me was the deterioration of her marriage; in any case it would not have been necessary, the whole thing being as plain as relations between married people can ever be. Tony was, quite obviously, not good enough as a lover to make up, even at first, for his shortcomings in other respects, the boredom of his company and the mediocrity of his character. Linda was out of love with him by the time the child was born, and, thereafter, could not care a rap for the one or the other. The young man she had fallen in love with, handsome, gay, intellectual, and domineering, melted away upon closer acquaintance, and proved to have been a chimera, never to have existed outside her imagination. Linda did not commit the usual fault of blaming Tony for what was entirely her own mistake, she merely turned from him in absolute indifference. This was made easier by the fact that she saw so little of him.

  *

  Lord Merlin now launched a tremendous Kroesig-tease. The Kroesigs were always complaining that Linda never went out, would not entertain, unless absolutely forced to, and did not care for society. They told their friends that she was a country girl, entirely sporting, that if you went into her drawing-room she would be found training a retriever with dead rabbits hidden behind the sofa cushions. They pretended that she was an amiable, half-witted, beautiful rustic, incapable of helping poor Tony, who was obliged to battle his way through life alone. There was a grain of truth in all this, the fact being that the Kroesig circle of acquaintances was too ineffably boring; poor Linda, having been unable to make any headway at all in it, had given up the struggle, and retired to the more congenial com
pany of retrievers and dormice.

  Lord Merlin, in London for the first time since Linda’s marriage, at once introduced her into his world, the world towards which she had always looked, that of smart bohemianism; and here she found her feet, was entirely happy, and had an immediate and great success. She became very gay and went everywhere. There is no more popular unit in London society than a young, beautiful, but perfectly respectable woman who can be asked to dinner without her husband, and Linda was soon well on the way to having her head turned. Photographers and gossip writers dogged her footsteps, and indeed one could not escape the impression, until half an hour of her company put one right again, that she was becoming a bit of a bore. Her house was full of people from morning till night, chatting. Linda, who loved to chat, found many congenial spirits in the carefree, pleasure-seeking London of those days, when unemployment was rife as much among the upper as the lower classes. Young men, pensioned off by their relations, who would sometimes suggest in a perfunctory manner that it might be a good thing if they found some work, but without seriously helping them to do so (and, anyhow, what work was there for such as they?) clustered round Linda like bees round honey, buzz, buzz, buzz, chat, chat, chat. In her bedroom, on her bed, sitting on the stairs outside while she had a bath, in the kitchen while she ordered the food, shopping, walking round the park, cinema, theatre, opera, ballet, dinner, supper, night clubs, parties, dances, all day, all night – endless, endless, chat.

  ‘But what do you suppose they talk about?’ Aunt Sadie, disapproving, used to wonder. What, indeed?

  Tony went early to his bank, hurrying out of the house with an air of infinite importance, an attaché case in one hand and a sheaf of newspapers under his arm. His departure heralded the swarm of chatterers, almost as if they had been waiting round the street corner to see him leave, and thereafter the house was filled with them. They were very nice, very good-looking, and great fun – their manners were perfect. I never was able, daring my short visits, to distinguish them much one from another, but I saw their attraction, the unfailing attraction of vitality and high spirits. By no stretch of the imagination, however, could they have been called ‘important’, and the Kroesigs were beside themselves at this turn of affairs.