Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘And Susan and Elizabeth and Sheila and Sonia and Rosemary and Joan and Veronica?’

  ‘Sally’s been talking to you. I think it’s very naughty and horrid of her. I promise you I never cared for any of those girls in the way I care for you. No other woman will ever be the same to me, you’re something quite special in my life, quite apart.’

  ‘Well, I believe you, darling, though I expect it’s very silly of me to, and you must see it’s a risk I’m taking. In any case, it’s time we began to think of what we’re going to do next.’

  ‘Darling, don’t be so practical. Everything will be all right in the end, I promise you it will, only don’t hiss.’

  ‘But I am fussing. Here we’ve been engaged for two whole days, and you’ve done nothing about it except to kiss me on the sofa and tell me lies about other girls you’ve been in love with.’

  ‘But, my darling, what d’you expect me to do?’

  ‘I expect you to take steps.’

  ‘What steps?’

  ‘Oh, you are maddening.’

  ‘Yes, but really, what steps? I’m going to marry you, my precious, and that’s taking a big step, I should have thought.’

  ‘Marry me!’ cried Philadelphia in despair. ‘I know, so you say, but how – how – how? How are you going to tell mother, how do you intend to support me; above all, how am I to get disengaged from Michael? You don’t seem to realize that if he hadn’t caught jaundice, by the mercy of Providence, he would have been back again yesterday, ring and all.’

  ‘I can see quite plainly that you’ve been talking about this to Sally,’ said Paul sulkily, ‘and if it goes on I shall be obliged to tell your mother that as soon as her back is turned you are off like greased lightning to Mulberrie Farm. She’ll soon put a stop to that.’

  ‘Paul, darling, do you love me?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Then go and tell mother that we’re engaged.’

  ‘I’m going to, tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You said that yesterday.’

  ‘I know I did. I felt so awful this morning that I simply couldn’t face it. There were brains for breakfast again, and the sight of them always upsets me. But tomorrow I’m going to be brave and heroic. And you’re going to write to Michael, aren’t you, and I’m going to write a best-seller about your great-grandmother, and we shall be as happy as the day is long, you’ll see. So give me a kiss and stop bothering, won’t you?’

  ‘No, I won’t. Will you go and tell mother this evening as soon as she comes in from hunting?’

  ‘Darling, please not. You don’t know the effect your mother has on my nerves; it’s positively uncanny. I shiver and shake like an aspirin leaf, whatever that may be.’

  ‘Have a whisky and soda first.’

  ‘That wouldn’t really do. Supposing she smelt my breath, like the police in motor accidents?’

  ‘Well, when do you intend to tell her?’

  ‘Darling, you’re not being just a shade governessy, are you? If you really want to know, I don’t see very much point in telling her at all. It will only mean that I shall have to leave by the next train if I do. Imagine my position. “Oh, Lady Bobbin, by the way, my name is Fotheringay, not Fisher, and I’ve been here all this time under false pretences, and I’ve never done a stroke of work with Bobby, but instead I’ve been collecting material for the life you don’t want me to write of Lady Maria, and I should like to marry your daughter, but as I haven’t any money I should be glad if you would pay off just a few of my more pressing debts and buy me a tail coat to be married in as I’ve rather grown out of my old Eton one.” It doesn’t sound too well, you know.’

  ‘Oh, Paul, whatever are we to do?’

  ‘ “The glory of man is in being, not in doing.” ’

  Philadelphia burst into angry tears.

  ‘Don’t cry now, darling. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.’

  ‘Let’s go and ask Amabelle what she thinks, shall we?’

  ‘Oh, very well, if you like. Anything to stop you crying. Not that I imagine she’ll be much good to us, but still –’

  They found Amabelle wringing her hands in front of the drawing-room fire at Mulberrie Farm. There was a strong smell of bananas in the room.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘This is not a sign of mental anguish. Giles hasn’t given me the raspberry or anything like that. I’ve just been varnishing my nails, and I simply can’t get them to dry.’ And she fell to wringing her hands with even greater vigour than before. ‘I wanted particularly to see you, Philadelphia. Walter and Sally left for the south of France yesterday in a wild hurry. Someone was paying for them, and the poor sweets think it will cost them nothing. Sally was miserable she couldn’t say goodbye, and left a thousand messages. They’re only going for a couple of weeks, but you see they won’t be coming back here again as I’m off to London myself on Saturday to buy my trousseau, dear, for the farm. I think of having corduroy trousers like the ones that Giles wears; they ought to be quite attractive. Lucky I’ve kept my figure, isn’t it? Where’s Bobby, by the way?’

  ‘He’s staying with Bunch for a shoot; he’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘Send him along, will you? I want to see him before I go. I don’t suppose I shall get out of it under a fiver, but still. What it will save me in tips when that child goes to Oxford.’

  ‘Amabelle, we really came to ask your advice about something.’

  ‘Oh, did you just?’

  ‘Paul and I are engaged to be married.’

  ‘I know; Sally told me. You don’t expect me to congratulate you or anything like that, do you?’

  ‘I think you’re being rather unkind; it’s nearly always done, isn’t it? And anyway, why not?’

  ‘Because it is no matter for congratulations, my poor sweet. I suppose you think you are in love with each other?’

  ‘We don’t think it. We are in love,’ said Paul defiantly. He had an idea of what Amabelle was going to say next.

  ‘Then how can I possibly congratulate you? You must both know quite well that this marriage is practically an impossibility. At the best you have endless fusses and bothers in front of you; Lady Bobbin will, very naturally, refuse to give you any money. Paul has nothing but debts, you will both have to be terribly worried and unhappy for ages before you can be married, and miserably poor, probably for years, afterwards. Not a very enchanting prospect, to my mind.’

  ‘Look how poor Walter and Sally are,’ said Philadelphia. ‘They couldn’t be worse off, but they are the two happiest people I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Walter and Sally are very exceptional. I am inclined even to think that they are unique; anyhow, I personally have never come across another case like theirs in my life. Nothing that could happen would ever make the smallest difference to their feeling for each other. I suppose a love of that sort can be found once in a generation. I don’t want to seem unkind, because I am very fond of you both, but I very much doubt whether either you or Paul has the character which is needed to sustain such a relationship – you won’t believe me, of course. It’s a funny thing that people are always quite ready to admit it if they’ve no talent for drawing or music, whereas everyone imagines that they themselves are capable of true love, which is a talent like any other, only far more rare. I don’t doubt, mind you, that if Paul were an eligible young man and if you could be married in the usual way without any trouble, you would probably be quite happy. I only say that as things are it’s impossible.’

  ‘Oh, Amabelle,’ cried Philadelphia, ‘unkind, unkind! I thought that you at least would be able to advise us.’

  ‘If you really want my advice here it is, but you won’t like it much. Don’t say a word to anybody; don’t let your mother or Bobby suspect a thing, but have a lovely time together till next week, when Paul is going away in any case. Then, as soon as Michael has finished having jaundice, announce your engagement to him. Please believe me when I say that you’ll be very happy with him. I know Mich
ael so well and I feel sure of it. He’ll take you for a gorgeous honeymoon, all round the world perhaps, and when you get back you’ll settle down at that exquisite Lewes Park and have some nice babies, and entertain a lot, and be the best-dressed marchioness in England. I don’t know how you can hesitate, I really don’t.’

  Philadelphia began to cry again.

  ‘Thank you for nothing,’ said Paul loudly and angrily. ‘Look how you’ve upset my poor darling Delphie. Don’t cry, my precious; you shan’t marry that old bore, he’d drive you mad in a week. I thought at least you would have shown us some sympathy, Amabelle, but I suppose it’s too much to expect even that. You women are all the same, a lot of blasted matchmakers, that’s what you are.’

  ‘Paul, Paul, don’t be so bitter. You must have known that I of all people would take the common sense point of view. Just think for a moment; use your intelligence, my dear. You and Philadelphia have known each other for exactly three weeks. You both think, honestly I’m sure, that you are ready to undergo almost intolerable hardships over a period of years, and possibly for life, in order to be able to remain in each other’s company. I say that it would be much easier, more to your mutual advantage and eventual happiness, if you could bring yourselves to part now and lead different lives. That’s all.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Philadelphia, sniffing rather loudly, ‘my mother would probably give us some sort of allowance once we were actually married; she’d be obliged to, really.’

  ‘I doubt it very much,’ said Amabelle; ‘from what I know of your mother’s character I should think it most unlikely. At present she naturally wishes you to marry Michael; when you tell her of your engagement to Paul she will be furious, and doubly so when she discovers the trick that has been played on her all this time. Think of her feelings when you tell her that he is not only not Mr. Fisher, but actually that Mr. Fotheringay whom she refused to have in the house!’

  ‘Yes, that’s awful, I must say,’ said Paul.

  ‘And what will happen? Angry words will pass of the sort that can never, never be forgotten, and you will find yourselves faced with the alternative of eloping on the spot and living on Paul’s £300 a year’ (Amabelle had an amazing faculty for knowing to a penny the incomes of her friends) ‘or of staying at home and leading an incredibly drab and dreary life, more or less in disgrace with your mother, until he can make enough money to support you in moderate comfort, which, as far as I can see, will be never.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Paul.

  ‘I’m sorry to be so depressing, but I say again, for heaven’s sake, marry Michael. If you don’t I see nothing but trouble ahead for you, my poor Philadelphia.’

  ‘Now listen to me, Amabelle,’ said Philadelphia, with unexpected firmness. ‘I am not going to marry Michael, and I am going to marry Paul. Get that clear, and then tell me what I ought to do about it.’

  Amabelle frowned. She was incapable of seeing Philadelphia’s point of view, and thought that the child was being merely obstinate.

  ‘Thank heaven I haven’t got a daughter,’ she said impatiently. ‘However, if you really mean what you say, I consider there is only one course open to you. Refuse Michael, giving no reason for doing so, keep all this a deadly secret (and by that I mean a secret – no hints or half-confessions to anybody, you understand) and wait for a few months while Paul finds some good, steady job. Then let Bobby go to your mother, tell her the whole story and ask her to give you enough money to be married; he is much more likely to get round her than you are, I imagine. By then she will have lost all hope of Michael as a son-in-law and may be quite anxious to get you off, even to somebody as ineligible as Paul. Only it’s essential that he should first get a proper job and keep it for a few months. That seems to me your only possible hope. And of course, Paul, it goes without saying that you must give up the idea of publishing Lady Maria’s life, anyhow, until you have got a good marriage settlement tucked away.’

  Paul and Philadelphia looked glum. The prospect of a glamorous elopement was far more attractive to them than a course of action which necessitated on his part the daily grind of some regular job, so long and so studiously avoided by him, and on hers the indefinite continuation of her present dreary life. However, they could not but admit that this was the most sensible course to follow, and both felt immensely relieved that it would not, at present, be necessary to beard Lady Bobbin in her den.

  ‘Thank you, dear Amabelle,’ said Philadelphia. ‘I think you are quite right, although it will be terrible to wait all that time. Still, it won’t be so bad when you come to live here for good.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Amabelle cheerfully. ‘I’ll have Paul to stay every week-end, and I expect Walter and Sally will be down sometimes, so it won’t be nearly as lonely for you at Compton Bobbin as it used to be. All the same, I think you’re making a terrible mistake, my dear, in refusing Michael. I shall never alter my opinion about that.’

  Paul said, as they walked back to Compton Bobbin, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. My Uncle Joseph has some ghastly sort of business in the city. I’ll make him give me a job, he has offered to before. I see what Amabelle means; your mother is far more likely to come round to the idea of our marriage if she thinks I have definite work. People of that generation are so extraordinary in those ways; they don’t care about self-expression or any of the things that really matter. So long as one has a good solid and respectable job they are quite satisfied about one. The truth is that they have misused leisure themselves for so long that they think of it as a bad thing for anybody to have. Never mind, I will crucify myself for your sake, sweet one, on an office stool, for a month or two anyway, until we see what happens. Something is sure to turn up, it always does. It’s a bit souring about Lady Maria all the same. I was looking forward to publishing that.’

  ‘Darling, I hate to think of you making such a sacrifice.’

  ‘There’s no sacrifice I wouldn’t make for you, darling. Besides, the moment we’re married I shall bring it out and show the world that I’m a serious writer of the front rank.’

  ‘Paul, I do love you.’

  ‘Darling, darling Philadelphia. How do you manage to be so heavenly with a mother like that?’

  ‘I believe daddy was rather sweet.’

  ‘That accounts for it then, no doubt.’

  As soon as Bobby got back from his shoot he went round to see Amabelle.

  ‘What’s all this nonsense about Paul and Delphie?’ he said accusingly.

  ‘Oh, so you know about it by now, do you? Who told you?’

  ‘Nobody told me, but I should have to be as dense as my mother seems to be if I couldn’t see with half an eye what’s happening. They sit holding hands on the drawing-room sofa all day, and Delphie keeps on throwing out dark hints about how wonderful it is to be in love and all that sort of thing. It can only be a matter of moments now before mummy tumbles to it, I should think, and then there’ll be the devil to pay.’

  ‘Didn’t I know those silly children would never be able to keep it quiet? And what view do you take of the whole thing, Bobby? You needn’t tell me, darling. I can guess.’

  ‘Well, naturally, I think it’s quite crazy. I only hope and pray that Delphie won’t ruin her chances of marrying Michael by her idiocy, that’s all. Thank heaven he’s out of the way for the present. As for Paul, I really do think it’s a bit hard he should behave like this after all the trouble I’ve taken for him.’

  ‘I must say I agree with you for once,’ said Amabelle. ‘They came over yesterday to confess it all and ask my advice, and I’m afraid I was rather unkind to them. I’ve seen Paul wildly in love with too many people to take that very seriously, and as for Philadelphia, why at her age one is in love every other week. I gather that Michael made a mess of everything as usual. He had only to go about it with a little ordinary sense and she’d have been crazy about him by now. Really that young man, I’ve no patience at all with him; he behaves like a very unconvincing character in a book,
not like a human being at all.’

  ‘Yes, doesn’t he. The sort of book of which the reviewers would say “the characterization is weak; the central figure, Lord Lewes, never really coming to life at all; but there are some fine descriptive passages of Berkshire scenery.” What did you say to Delphie?’

  ‘I told her she was mad not to marry Michael, and then she began to cry, and I really hadn’t the heart to go on. I finally told them that if they intend to marry in spite of everything they must keep this affair a deadly secret until Paul has some satisfactory job. Of course they’ll do neither the one thing nor the other. They are evidently not capable of keeping a secret, and I can no more imagine Paul in a job than a fly.’

  ‘Good gracious, no; he’d never stick to it for a day.’

  ‘I suppose, in point of fact, that if they did marry your mother would have to give them some sort of allowance, but it’s much better that they shouldn’t think so, because Paul, who must, after all, have a good idea of what poverty means, isn’t likely to elope with her unless he can be fairly certain that there will be some money eventually.’

  ‘Paul’s not mercenary, you know,’ said Bobby.

  ‘Not in the least, but he’s not an absolute fool either. I doubt if he’d risk such a thing, for her sake as well as his own. The worst of it is that I don’t believe, apart from the money side of it, that they would be particularly happy together. They are really most unsuited. Paul needs somebody who is very strong-minded and who will manage him. Why, even that repellent girl, Marcella, would be a better wife for him. As for Philadelphia, the darling, she is obviously cut out to have money and position.’

  ‘And I shall do my very best to see that she gets both,’ said Bobby with one of his self-conscious smiles. ‘What a fund of common sense you are, darling. You’ve cheered me up enormously. What is my line for the moment, then?’

  ‘You must do all you can to keep this nonsense a secret from your mother. If she finds out it will be fatal. She’ll probably say a lot of bitter and unkind things to both of them and as likely as not drive them straight into an elopement. If it can be kept from her I give the whole thing three months at the most before it fizzles out.’