The Pursuit of Love

by Nancy Mitford

  Linda came to see me in Oxford. She was on her way back to London after having broken the news at Alconleigh. I thought it was really very brave of her to do it in person, and indeed, the first thing she asked for (most unlike her) was a drink. She was quite unnerved.

  ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten how terrifying Fa can be – even now, when he’s got no power over one. It was just like after we lunched with Tony; in the business-room just the same, and he simply roared, and poor Mummy looked miserable, but she was pretty furious too, and you know how sarcastic she can be. Oh, well, that’s over. Darling, it’s heaven to see you again.’

  I hadn’t seen her since the Sunday at Planes when she met Christian, so I wanted to hear all about her life.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m living with Christian in his flat, but it’s very small, I must say, but perhaps that is just as well, because I’m doing the housework, and I don’t seem to be very good at it, but luckily he is.’

  ‘He’ll need to be,’ I said.

  Linda was notorious in the family for her unhandiness, she could never even tie her own stock, and on hunting days either Uncle Matthew or Josh always had to do it for her. I so well remember her standing in front of a looking-glass in the hall, with Uncle Matthew tying it from behind, both the very picture of concentration, Linda saying: ‘Oh, now I see. Next time I know I shall be able to manage.’ As she had never in her life done so much as make her own bed, I could not imagine that Christian’s flat could be very tidy or comfortable if it was being run by her.

  ‘You are horrid. But oh how dreadful it is, cooking, I mean. That oven – Christian puts things in and says: “Now you take it out in about half an hour.” I don’t dare tell him how terrified I am, and at the end of half an hour I summon up all my courage and open the oven, and there is that awful hot blast hitting one in the face. I don’t wonder people sometimes put their heads in and leave them in out of sheer misery. Oh, dear, and I wish you could have seen the Hoover running away with me, it suddenly took the bit between its teeth and made for the lift shaft. How I shrieked – Christian only just rescued me in time. I think housework is far more tiring and frightening than hunting is, no comparison, and yet after hunting we had eggs for tea and were made to rest for hours, but after housework people expect one to go on just as if nothing special had happened.’ She sighed.

  ‘Christian is very strong,’ she said, ‘and very brave. He doesn’t like it when I shriek.’

  She seemed tired I thought and rather worried, and I looked in vain for signs of great happiness or great love.

  ‘So what about Tony – how has he taken it?’

  ‘Oh, he’s awfully pleased, actually, because he can now marry his mistress without having a scandal, or being divorced, or upsetting the Conservative Association.’

  It was so like Linda never to have hinted, even to me, that Tony had a mistress.

  ‘Who is she?’ I asked.

  ‘Called Pixie Townsend. You know the sort, young face, with white hair dyed blue. She adores Moira, lives near Planes, and takes her out riding every day. She’s a terrific Counter-Hon, but I’m only too thankful now that she exists, because I needn’t feel in the least bit guilty – they’ll all get on so much better without me.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Oh, yes, and divorced her husband years ago. She’s frightfully good at all poor Tony’s things, golf and business and Conservatism, just like I wasn’t, and Sir Leicester think’s she’s perfect. Goodness, they’ll be happy.’

  ‘Now, I want to hear more about Christian, please.’

  ‘Well, he’s heaven. He’s a frightfully serious man, you know, a Communist, and so am I now, and we are surrounded by comrades all day, and they are terrific Hons, and there’s an anarchist. The comrades don’t like anarchists, isn’t it queer? I always thought they were the same thing, but Christian likes this one because he threw a bomb at the King of Spain; you must say it’s romantic. He’s called Ramón, and he sits about all day and broods over the miners at Oviedo because his brother is one.’

  ‘Yes, but, darling, tell about Christian.’

  ‘Oh, he’s perfect heaven – you must come and stay – or perhaps that wouldn’t be very comfortable – come and see us. You can’t think what an extraordinary man he is, so detached from other human beings that he hardly notices whether they are there or not. He only cares for ideas.’

  ‘I hope he cares for you.’

  ‘Well, I think he does, but he is very strange and absent-minded. I must tell you, the evening before I ran away with him (I only moved down to Pimlico in a taxi, but running away sounds romantic) he dined with his brother, so naturally I thought they’d talk about me and discuss the whole thing, so I couldn’t resist ringing him up at about midnight and saying: “Hullo, darling, did you have a nice evening, and what did you talk about?” and he said: “I can’t remember – oh, guerrilla warfare, I think”’

  ‘Is his brother a Communist too?’

  ‘Oh, no, he’s in the Foreign Office. Fearfully grand, looks like a deep-sea monster – you know.’

  ‘Oh, that Talbot – yes, I see. I hadn’t connected them. So now what are your plans?’

  ‘Well, he says he’s going to marry me when I’m divorced. I think it’s rather silly, I rather agree with Mummy that once is enough, for marriage, but she says I’m the kind of person one marries if one’s living with them, and the thing is it would be bliss not to be called Kroesig any more. Anyway, we’ll see.’

  ‘Then what’s your life? I suppose you don’t go to parties and things now, do you?’

  ‘Darling, such killing parties, you can’t think – he won’t let us go to ordinary ones at all. Grandi had a dinner-dance last week, and he rang me up himself and asked me to bring Christian, which I thought was awfully nice of him actually – he always has been nice to me – but Christian got into quite a temper and said if I couldn’t see any reason against going I’d better go, but nothing would induce him to. So in the end, of course, neither of us went, and I heard afterwards it was the greatest fun. And we mayn’t go to the Ribs or to…’ and she mentioned several families known as much for their hospitality as for their Right-wing convictions.

  ‘The worst of being a Communist is that the parties you may go to are – well – awfully funny and touching, but not very gay, and they’re always in such gloomy places. Next week, for instance, we’ve got three, some Czechs at the Sacco and Vanzetti Memorial Hall at Golders Green, Ethiopians at the Paddington Baths, and the Scotsboro’ boys at some boring old rooms or other. You know.’

  ‘The Scotsboro’ boys,’ I said. ‘Are they really still going? They must be getting on.’

  ‘Yes, and they’ve gone downhill socially,’ said Linda, with a giggle. ‘I remember a perfectly divine party Brian gave for them – it was the first party Merlin ever took me to so I remember it well, oh, dear, it was fun. But next Thursday won’t be the least like that. (Darling, I am being disloyal, but it is such heaven to have a chat after all these months. The comrades are sweet, but they never chat, they make speeches all the time.) But I’m always saying to Christian how much I wish his buddies would either brighten up their parties a bit or else stop giving them, because I don’t see the point of sad parties, do you? And Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly. You see, I bet the Scotsboro’ boys will be electrocuted in the end, if they don’t the of old age first, that is. One does feel so much on their side, but it’s no good, people like Sir Leicester always come out on top, so what can one do? However, the comrades don’t seem to realize that, and, luckily for them, they don’t know Sir Leicester, so they feel they must go on giving these sad parties.’

  ‘What do you wear at them?’ I asked, with some interest, thinking that Linda, in her expensive-looking clothes, must seem very much out of place at these baths and halls.

  ‘You know, that was a great tease at first, it worried me dreadfull
y, but I’ve discovered that, so long as one wears wool or cotton, everything is all right. Silk and satin would be the blunder. But I only ever do wear wool and cotton, so I’m on a good wicket. No jewels, of course, but then I left them behind at Bryanston Square, it’s the way I was brought up but I must say it gave me a pang. Christian doesn’t know about jewellery – I told him, because I thought he’d be rather pleased I’d given them all up for him, but he only said: “Well, there’s always the Burma Jewel Company.” Oh, dear, he is such a funny man, you must meet him again soon. I must go, darling, it has so cheered me up to see you.’

  I don’t quite know why, but I felt somehow that Linda had been once more deceived in her emotions, that this explorer in the sandy waste had seen only another mirage. The lake was there, the trees were there, the thirsty camels had gone down to have their evening drink; alas, a few steps forward would reveal nothing but dust and desert as before.

  *

  A few minutes only after Linda had left me to go back to London, Christian and the comrades, I had another caller. This time it was Lord Merlin. I liked Lord Merlin very much, I admired him, I was predisposed in his favour, but I was by no means on such intimate terms with him as Linda was. To tell the real truth he frightened me. I felt that, in my company, boredom was for him only just round the corner, and that, anyhow, I was merely regarded as pertaining to Linda, not existing on my own except as a dull little don’s wife. I was nothing but the confidante in white linen.

  ‘This is a bad business,’ he said, abruptly, and without preamble, though I had not seen him for several years. ‘I’m just back from Rome, and what do I find – Linda and Christian Talbot. It’s an extraordinary thing that I can’t ever leave England without Linda getting herself mixed up with some thoroughly undesirable character. This is a disaster – how far has it gone? Can nothing be done?’

  I told him that he had just missed Linda, and said something about her marriage with Tony having been unhappy. Lord Merlin waved this remark aside – it was a disconcerting gesture and made me feel a fool.

  ‘Naturally she never would have stayed with Tony – nobody expected that. The point is that she’s out of the frying-pan into an empty grate. How long has it been going on?’

  I said I thought it was partly the Communism that had attracted her.

  ‘Linda has always felt the need of a cause.’

  ‘Cause,’ he said, scornfully. ‘My dear Fanny, I think you are mixing up cause with effect. No, Christian is an attractive fellow, and I quite see that he would provide a perfect reaction from Tony, but it is a disaster. If she is in love with him he will make her miserable, and, if not, it means she has embarked upon a career like your mother’s, and that, for Linda, would be very bad indeed. I don’t see a ray of comfort anywhere. No money either, of course, and she needs money, she ought to have it’

  He went to the window, and looked across the street at Christ Church gilded by the westerly sun.

  ‘I’ve known Christian,’ he said, ‘from a child – his father is a great friend of mine. Christian is a man who goes through the world attached to nobody – people are nothing in his life. The women who have been in love with him have suffered bitterly because he has not even noticed that they are there. I expect he is hardly aware that Linda has moved in on him – his head is in the clouds and he is always chasing after some new idea.’

  ‘This is rather what Linda has just been saying.’

  ‘Oh, she’s noticed it already? Well, she is not stupid, and, of course, at first it adds to the attraction – when he comes out of the clouds he is irresistible, I quite see that. But how can they ever settle down? Christian has never had a home, or felt the need for one; he wouldn’t know what to do with it – it would hamper him. He’ll never sit and chat to Linda, or concentrate upon her in any way, and she is a woman who requires, above all things, a great deal of concentration. Really it is too provoking that I should have been away when this happened, I’m sure I could have stopped it. Now, of course, nobody can.’

  He turned from the window and looked at me so angrily that I felt it had all been my fault – actually I think he was unaware of my presence.

  ‘What are they living on?’ he said.

  ‘Very little. Linda has a small allowance from Uncle Matthew, I believe, and I suppose Christian makes something from his journalism. I hear the Kroesigs go about saying that there is one good thing, she is sure to starve.’

  ‘Oh, they do, do they?’ said Lord Merlin, taking out his notebook, ‘can I have Linda’s address, please, I am on my way to London now.’

  Alfred came in, as usual unaware of exterior events and buried in some pamphlet he was writing.

  ‘You don’t happen to know,’ he said to Lord Merlin, ‘what the daily consumption of milk is in the Vatican City?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Lord Merlin, angrily. ‘Ask Tony Kroesig, he’ll be sure to. Well, good-bye, Fanny, I’ll have to see what I can do.’

  What he did was to present Linda with the freehold of a tiny house far down Cheyne Walk. It was the prettiest little doll’s house that ever was seen, on that great bend of the river where Whistler had lived. The rooms were full of reflections of water and full of south and west sunlight; it had a vine and a Trafalgar balcony. Linda adored it. The Bryanston Square house, with an easterly outlook, had been originally, dark, cold, and pompous. When Linda had had it done up by some decorating friend, it had become white, cold, and tomblike. The only thing of beauty that she had possessed was a picture, a fat tomato-coloured bathing-woman, which had been given her by Lord Merlin to annoy the Kroesigs. It had annoyed them, very much. This picture looked wonderful in the Cheyne Walk house, you could hardly tell where the real water-reflections ended and the Renoir one began. The pleasure which Linda derived from her new surroundings, the relief which she felt at having once and for all got rid of the Kroesigs, were, I think, laid by her at Christians’s door, and seemed to come from him. Thus the discovery that real love and happiness had once more eluded her was delayed for quite a long time.

  14

  THE Alconleighs were shocked and horrified over the whole Linda affair, but they had their other children to think of, and were, just now, making plans for the coming out of Jassy, who was as pretty as a peach. She, they hoped, would make up to them for their disappointment with Linda. It was most unfair, but very typical of them, that Louisa, who had married entirely in accordance with their wishes and had been a faithful wife and most prolific mother, having now some five children, hardly seemed to count any more. They were really rather bored by her.

  Jassy went with Aunt Sadie to a few London dances at the end of the season, just after Linda had left Tony. She was thought to be rather delicate, and Aunt Sadie had an idea that it would be better for her to come out properly in the less strenuous autumn season, and, accordingly, in October, took a little house in London into which she prepared to move with a few servants, leaving Uncle Matthew in the country, to kill various birds and animals. Jassy complained very much that the young men she had met so far were dull and hideous, but Aunt Sadie took no notice. She said that all girls thought this at first, until they fell in love.

  A few days before they were to have moved to London Jassy ran away. She was to have spent a fortnight with Louisa in Scotland, had put Louisa off without telling Aunt Sadie, had cashed her savings, and, before anybody even knew that she was missing, had arrived in America. Poor Aunt Sadie received, out of the blue, a cable saying: ‘On way to Hollywood. Don’t worry. Jassy.’

  At first the Alconleighs were completely mystified. Jassy had never shown the smallest interest in stage or cinema, they felt certain she had no wish to become a film star, and yet, why Hollywood? Then it occurred to them that Matt might know something, he and Jassy being the two inseparables of the family, and Aunt Sadie got into the Daimler and rolled over to Eton. Matt was able to explain everything. He told Aunt Sadie that Jassy was in love with a film star called Gary Coon (or Gary Goon, he could
not remember which), and that she had written to Hollywood to ask him if he were married, telling Matt that if he proved not to be she was going straight out there to marry him herself. Matt said all this, in his wobbling half grown-up, half little-boy voice, as if it were the most ordinary situation imaginable.

  ‘So I suppose,’ he ended up, ‘that she got a letter saying he’s not married and just went off. Lucky she had her running away money. What about some tea, Mum?’

  Aunt Sadie, deeply preoccupied as she was, knew the rules of behaviour and what was expected of her, and stayed with Matt while he consumed sausages, lobsters, eggs, bacon, fried sole, banana mess, and a chocolate sundae.

  As always in times of crisis, the Alconleighs now sent for Davey, and, as always, Davey displayed a perfect competence to deal with the situation. He found out in no time that Cary Goon was a second-rate film actor whom Jassy must have seen when she was in London for the last parties of the summer. He had been in a film then showing called One Splendid Hour. Davey got hold of the film, and Lord Merlin put it on his private cinema for the benefit of the family. It was about pirates, and Cary Goon was not even the hero, he was just a pirate and seemed to have nothing in particular to recommend him; no good looks, talent, or visible charm, though he did display a certain agility shinning up and down ropes. He also killed a man with a weapon not unlike the entrenching tool, and this, we felt, may have awakened some hereditary emotion in Jassy’s bosom. The film itself was one of those of which it is very difficult for the ordinary English person, as opposed to the film fan, to make head or tail, and every time Cary Goon appeared the scene had to be played over again for Uncle Matthew, who had come determined that no detail should escape him. He absolutely identified the actor with his part, and kept saying:

  ‘What does the fella want to do that for? Bloody fool, he might know there would be an ambush there. I can’t hear a word the fella says – put that bit on again, Merlin.’