Highland Fling

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘It’s nearly finished already, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very nearly, which is lucky, as I leave on Thursday for Paris.’

  Jane felt as though somebody had hit her very hard and very suddenly in the middle of her chest. ‘Today is Tuesday.… He goes on Thursday.… Only one more day! Albert, oh, Albert darling! He doesn’t love me, then: it’s quite certain now that he doesn’t; but he loves Sally, so he’s running away. Lady Prague was right. But if he doesn’t love me, why, why, why did he pretend to? Only one more day!’

  While all these thoughts were racing through Jane’s head she was talking and laughing in the most natural way. Nobody could have suspected that she was in Hell.

  Lady Prague came in, followed by Mr Buggins.

  ‘We’ve come to see this famous picture,’ she said, walking up to it.

  Albert, who hated the idea of Lady Prague criticizing his work, stood aside reluctantly.

  (‘Only one more day!’)

  ‘How very sympathetic that is, Gates, or do I really mean simpatica?’ said Mr Buggins. ‘I feel it to be so exactly right. I can’t tell you how much I admire it, really too delightful.’

  ‘Quite pretty,’ said Lady Prague, half-shutting her eyes and putting her head on one side as she had learnt to do years ago at an art school in Paris. ‘The face, of course, is a little out of drawing. But it’s so difficult, isn’t it,’ she added, with an encouraging smile. ‘And when you’ve once started wrong it hardly ever comes right, does it? One fault, if I may say so, is that Mrs Monteath has blue eyes, hasn’t she? And there you can hardly tell what colour they’re meant to be, can you? But perhaps your brushes are dirty.’

  (‘Only one more day!’)

  Thirteen

  Jane dressed for dinner that night with unusual care, even for her. She put on a white satin dress that she had not yet worn, feeling that it was a little too smart for a Scottish house party. With it she wore a short coat to match, trimmed with white fur. She spent almost an hour making up her face and looking in the glass before going downstairs, and felt that, at any rate, she appeared at her very best. This made her feel happier until she went into the drawing-room.

  Albert was talking to Sally by the fire when Jane came in. He looked up for a moment and then, not rudely but as though unintentionally, he turned his back on her.

  Jane felt that she would burst into tears, but, controlling herself, she talked in a loud, high voice to Walter until dinner was announced.

  She sat between Admiral Wenceslaus and Captain Chadlington. The admiral poured a torrent of facts and figures relating to the freedom of the sea into her all but deaf ears. She caught the words: ‘Prize Courts.… Foreign Office.… Nearly two millions.… International law.… Page.… Permanent officials.… Blockade.’… And said: ‘No’ … ‘Yes’ … and ‘Not really?’ from time to time in as intelligent a voice as she could muster.

  When the grouse was finished she was left to the mercies of Captain Chadlington, which meant that she could indulge in her own thoughts until the end of the meal. He had given up asking what pack she hunted with in despair, and that was his only conversational gambit. Albert was sitting next to Sally again and Jane hardly even minded this. She was worn out with her emotions.

  After dinner Lady Prague suggested ‘Lists’. Sally said she was tired and would go to bed. Walter settled down to the piano, and Albert pleaded that he had work to do.

  ‘Very well, if nobody wants to play we might as well go and listen to the wireless.’

  ‘It’s a wonderful programme tonight,’ said the general. ‘A talk on how wire-netting is made from A to B—Z, I mean – and selections from The Country Girl. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.’

  They all left the room except Walter, who was playing some Brahms, and Jane and Albert who stood by the fire laughing.

  ‘Why are you going away so soon?’ she asked him, almost against her will.

  ‘I am wasting time here. I must return to Paris,’ he said. And then, abruptly: ‘Come with me. I’ve something to show you.’

  Jane’s heart thumped as she followed him into the billiard-room.

  Albert shut the door and looking at her in a peculiar way, his head on one side, he said:

  ‘Well?’

  Jane put up her face to be kissed.

  ‘Darling, Albert!’

  He took her in his arms and kissed her again and again.

  ‘Oh, Albert! I was so miserable. I thought you’d stopped loving me.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I meant you to.’

  ‘Oh, you monster! Why?’

  ‘Because it was the only way for you to make up your mind. I won’t be kept on a string by any woman.’

  ‘But I’d made it up completely after that walk. Yes, it’s no good shaking your head. I had, and I was going to tell you as soon as I got a chance to. Oh, darling, how I do love you!’

  ‘Come and sit here.’

  Jane put her head on his shoulder. She had never been so happy.

  ‘When did you fall in love with me?’

  ‘The first time I saw you at Sally’s.’

  ‘Did you? Fancy, I thought you seemed so bored.’

  ‘How beautiful you are!’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Don’t say “Am I?” like that, it’s disgusting. Yes you are – very!’

  ‘Oh good. Albert?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Shall I come and live with you in Paris?’

  ‘Well, wives quite often do live with their husbands, you know, for a bit, anyhow.’

  Jane sat up and stared at him.

  ‘Do you want to marry me?’

  ‘But, of course, you funny child. What d’you imagine I want?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought you might like me to be your mistress. I never really considered marrying you.’

  ‘Good gracious, darling! What d’you suppose I am? An ordinary seducer?’

  Jane grew rather pink; it sounded unattractive, somehow, put like that.

  ‘And may I ask if you’re in the habit of being people’s mistress?’

  ‘Well, no, actually I’m not. But I should love to be yours. Albert, don’t be so childish. Have you no modern ideas?’

  ‘Not where you’re concerned, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I don’t think I believe in marriage.’

  ‘Now you’re being childish. Anyway, why don’t you?’

  ‘Well, none of my friends have made a success of it, except Walter and Sally, and they’re such very special people.’

  ‘So are we very special people. If you can’t make a success of marriage you’re no more likely to make a success of living together. In any case, I insist on being married, and I’m the grown-up one here, please, remember.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. Still I expect it would be rather nice, and I do look terribly pretty in white tulle. You’ll have to meet my family, in that case, you know. You’re not really going to Paris?’

  ‘No, of course not – now. Let’s stay here for a bit and then we’ll go and see your parents. Will they disapprove of me?’

  ‘I expect so, most probably,’ said Jane hopefully. She had refused to marry at least two people she was quite fond of, on the grounds that her family would be certain to approve of them. ‘They simply hate artists. But we need never see them once we’re married.’

  ‘I think that would be dreadful,’ said Albert. ‘After all, you are their only child, think how they will miss you. I shall have to spare you to them occasionally.’

  ‘Darling, how sweet you are! Have you ever had a mistress?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Do you love me as much as them?’

  ‘I might in time.’

  ‘Will you love me forever?’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t think so. It doesn’t happen often.’

  ‘Do you love me a lot?’

  ‘Yes I do. A great lot.’

  ‘When shall we be married?’

  ‘After my exhibition, about the end of November.’


  ‘Where shall we live?’

  ‘Somewhere abroad. Paris, don’t you think? I’ll go back and find a flat while you’re buying your trousseau, or you could come, too, and buy it there.’

  ‘Albert, you’re such a surprise to me. I should have imagined that you were the sort of person who would like to be married in the morning, and never think of a trousseau.’

  ‘Well, my angel, you know how I hate getting up, and after all, I’ve got to see your underclothes, haven’t I? No, I’m all for having a grand wedding I must say; one gets more presents like that, too.’

  ‘My dear, you’ve never seen any wedding presents or you wouldn’t call that an advantage.’

  ‘Still, I suppose they’re marketable?’

  ‘Shall we be frightfully poor?’

  ‘Yes, fairly poor. I have just over a thousand a year besides what I make.’

  ‘And I’ve four hundred. Not too bad. Walter and Sally have to manage on a thousand between them. I must say they’re generally in the deep end, though. I simply can’t think what they’ll do now, poor sweets. How soon shall I tell my family?’

  ‘Not till we leave here, if I were you. You might change your mind.’

  ‘Yes, I quite expect I shall do that. We won’t tell the Murgatroyds, either, will we? Just Walter and Sally.’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘How many children shall we have?’

  ‘Ten?’

  ‘Albert! You can consider that our engagement is at an end.’

  ‘About four, really. Of course, you may have three lots of triplets like Lady Prague in the Consequences.’

  ‘You do love me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do. How many more times?’

  ‘As many as I like. You know I’m very glad I came to Scotland.’

  ‘So am I. Come on, funny, d’you realize it’s past one; we must go to bed or there’ll be a hideous scandal.’

  Fourteen

  The days which followed were spent by Jane and Albert in a state of idyllic happiness. It was quite easy to keep their engagement a secret from all but the Monteaths as the heartier members of the house party were so seldom indoors; when there was no shooting to occupy them they would be fishing or playing tennis. The evenings were no longer brightened by the inevitable ‘Lists’; nobody dared to thwart Lady Prague by refusing to play, but at least Albert, who could bear it no longer, read out a list of diseases so shocking and nauseating that the affronted peeress took herself off to the study and the game was never resumed.

  One day they were all having tea in the great hall. This was an important meal for the shooters, who ate poached eggs and scones and drank out of enormous cups reminiscent of a certain article of bedroom china ware. Albert, who detested the sight of so much swilling, seldom attended it, preferring to have a cup of weak China tea or a cocktail sent into the billiard-room, but on this occasion he had come in to ask Walter something and had stayed on talking to Jane.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Mr Buggins to the company at large, ‘there are to be some very good Highland games at Invertochie which is about thirty miles from here. I have been talking to the general and he sees no reason why we shouldn’t all go over to them. There are two cars, his own and Craig’s Rolls-Royce, so there’ll be plenty of room if everyone would like to come. We think it would be advisable to take a picnic luncheon which we could eat on the way at a very well-known beauty spot called the Corbie’s Egg.’

  There was a murmur of assent and ‘That will be lovely,’ from the assembled guests.

  ‘The Corbie,’ went on Mr Buggins, ‘is the local name for a crow. It is not known how that particular mountain came to be called the Corbie’s Egg, but the name is an ancient one: I came across it once in a sixteenth-century manuscript.’

  Mr Buggins’s audience began to fade away. The ‘grown-ups,’ as Albert called them, were frankly bored by folklore, which, it is only fair to add, was already well known to them, they had all been fellow-guests with Mr Buggins before. The others, who had not, politely listened to a long and rather dreary account of how he, personally, was inclined to think that sacrifices might have taken place on the mountain at some prehistoric date, first of human beings, then, when people were becoming more humane, of animals, and finally the whole thing having degenerated into mere superstition, of a Corbie’s Egg.

  ‘I do hope you will all come to the games,’ he added rather wistfully. ‘Of course, I know you don’t really much like that sort of thing, but I feel that it would be a great pity for you to leave the Highlands without having seen this typical aspect of the national life. And it would make my day very much pleasanter if you came. We could all pack into the Rolls and the others could drive with the general in his Buick.’

  Mr Buggins had so evidently been thinking it all out and was so pathetically anxious for them to go, that the Monteaths, Albert and Jane, who had each inwardly been planning a happy day without the grown-ups, were constrained to say that there was nothing they would enjoy so much, that they adored picnics, and could hardly wait to see the Corbie’s Egg, let alone the Highland games.

  ‘And what games do they play?’ asked Albert.

  ‘Actually, in the usual sense of the word, no games. It is what you would call in the South, sports.’ (Mr Buggins identified himself so much with the North that he was apt to forget that he also was a mere Englishman. He had once seriously contemplated adding his grandmother’s maiden name to his own and calling himself Forbes-Buggins.) ‘The programme consists of dancing, piping, tossing the caber, and such things. The chieftains of the various neighbouring clans act as judges. It is all most interesting.’

  ‘It must be,’ said Albert. ‘I long to see the chieftains.’

  At dinner the subject was once more discussed at some length, and it was finally decided that the whole party should go, starting punctually at half-past twelve; and Lady Prague, who to Sally’s great relief had taken upon herself all questions of housekeeping, gave the necessary orders for a picnic luncheon.

  The next morning at twelve o’clock Albert had not put in an appearance, and kind Mr Buggins, knowing his customary lateness and aware that Lady Prague and General Murgatroyd wait for no man, went to his bedroom to see if he had awakened.

  Albert was sitting on the edge of his bed, wearing a pair of exquisite sprigged pyjamas. A gramophone blared out ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’; the whole room smelt strongly of gardenias. He stopped the gramophone and said:

  ‘This is a great pleasure, Mr Buggins. So early, too; your energy never ceases to amaze me. I am in a state of intense excitement. Look what I received this morning from a friend in London.’ He held out a Victorian glass paperweight.

  ‘Look into it carefully.’

  Mr Buggins did so, and was immediately rewarded by the sight of Gladstone’s memorable features.

  ‘Now,’ said Albert excitedly, ‘turn it round just a little.’

  Mr Buggins obeyed, and lo and behold! Mr Gladstone changed before his very eyes to Mr Disraeli. He made a suitable exclamation of gratified surprise.

  ‘It is unique!’ cried Albert. ‘Unique in the iconography of Gladstone and Disraeli and also as a paperweight. I regard it as a find of the greatest significance.’

  ‘Very interesting. To what date do you think it belongs?’

  ‘Mr Buggins, I have a theory about that paperweight; but this, of course, is just my own idea, and must not be taken too seriously, as I am by no means an infallible authority on the subject, though it is one which I have studied deeply. You have guessed, of course, that I refer to Gabelsburgher.’

  Mr Buggins had guessed no such thing, but he bowed courteously.

  ‘In other words, I believe this paperweight to be an original Gabelsburgher. It will, of course, be some time before I shall be able to proclaim this as an established fact. You ask what date it is? I reply that if, as I think, it is by the hand of the master, it would almost certainly have been made between the years 1875 and 1878. Gabelsburgh
er, as you know, came to England for the first time in ’75. In ’76 Elise was taken ill, in ’78 he laid her remains in the Paddington cemetery and came away a broken man. Many of his best paperweights were buried with his beloved, and from that time his work deteriorated beyond recognition. It is easy to see that this jewel belongs to his very greatest period, and I should myself be inclined to think that it was created in the March or April of ’76 while Elise was still in the heydey of her youth and beauty. But, as I said just now, I am very far from infallible.’

  Mr Buggins, who knew nothing and cared less about Gabelsburgher, and who heard the cars arriving at the front door, became a little restive during this speech, repeating at the end of it:

  ‘Very interesting. I really came to tell you that we start in about ten minutes for the Highland games.’

  ‘Ah! good gracious! I had quite forgotten!’ cried Albert, leaping out of bed and seizing his black taffeta dressing-gown. ‘But have no fear, I shall not be late.’

  Albert, Walter, Mr Buggins, Jane and Sally went in the first car, the Craigdalloch’s Rolls-Royce, and with them, as they had the most room, was packed the luncheon: one large picnic basket, two thermos flasks and several bottles of beer and whisky.

  In the general’s Buick, which he drove himself and which was to start a few minutes later than the Rolls, were Lady Prague, the Chadlingtons and Admiral Wenceslaus. Lord Prague was in the apparently moribund condition which characterized him on non-shooting days, and stayed behind.

  The Rolls-Royce drove along with a pleasantly luxurious motion. Mr Buggins pointed out many places of interest as they passed through typical Highland scenery, among others the ‘banksome brae’ where ‘Ronnie waur killed i’ the ficht,’ and the lodge gates of Castle Bane, let at present to some rich Americans who had installed (Mr Buggins shook his head sadly) a cocktail bar in the chief dungeon. Sally was much excited to hear this and wondered if it would be possible to make their acquaintance.

  ‘I should so love to see the inside of Castle Bane!’ she cried. ‘And I simply worship dungeons, of course!’