THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. M. DELAFIELD (Illustrated Edition). E. M. Delafield
I remember, says Serena, meeting J. L. at her flat?
Certainly. He said Plato provided him with escape literature.
Serena exclaims in tones of horror that he isn't really like that. He's quite nice. Not a great sense of humour, perhaps, but a kind man, and not in the least conceited.
Agree that this is all to the good.
Do I think it would be a good plan to marry him?
Look at Serena in surprise. She is wearing expression of abject wretchedness and seems unable to meet my eye.
Reply, without much originality, that a good deal depends on what she herself feels about it.
Oh, says Serena, she doesn't know. She hasn't the slightest idea. That's why she wants my advice. Everyone seems to be getting married: haven't I noticed the announcements in The Times lately?
Yes, I have, and they have forcibly recalled 1914 and the three succeeding years to my mind. Reflections thus engendered have not been wholly encouraging. Still, the present question, I still feel, hinges on what Serena herself feels about J. L.
Serena says dispassionately that she likes him, she admires his work, she finds it very easy to get on with him, and she doesn't suppose they would make more of a hash of things than most people.
If that, I say, is all, better leave it alone.
Serena looks slightly relieved and thanks me.
I venture to ask her whether she has quite discounted the possibility of falling in love, and Serena replies sadly that she has. She used to fall in love quite often when she was younger, but it always ended in disappointment, and anyway the technique of the whole thing has changed, and people never get married now just because they've fallen in love. It's an absolutely understood thing.
Then why, I ask, do they get married?
Mostly, replies Serena, because they want to make a change.
I assure her, with the greatest emphasis, that this is an inadequate reason for getting married. Serena is most grateful and affectionate, promises to do nothing in a hurry, and says that I have helped her enormously—which I know to be quite untrue.
Just as she is leaving, association of ideas with announcement in The Times leads me to admit that she is still only known to me as Serena Fiddlededee, owing to Aunt Blanche's extraordinary habit of always referring to her thus. Serena screams with laughter, asserts that nowadays one has to know a person frightfully well before learning their surname, and that hers is Brown with no E.
October 5th.—Lunch with Lady Blowfield and am privileged to meet cosmopolitan friend.
He turns out to be very wild-looking young man, hair all over the place and large eyes, and evidently unversed in uses of nailbrush. Has curious habit of speaking in two or three languages more or less at once, which is very impressive as he is evidently thoroughly at home in all—but cannot attempt to follow all he says.
Sir Archibald not present. He is, says Lady Blowfield, more occupied than ever owing to Hitler's iniquitous peace proposals. (Should like to ask what, exactly, he is doing about them, but difficult, if not impossible, to word this civilly.)
Young cosmopolitan—introduced as Monsieur Gitnik—asserts in French, that Ce fou d'Itlère fera un dernier attentat, mais il n'y a que lui qui s'imagine que cela va réussir. Reply En effet, in what I hope is excellent French, and Monsieur Gitnik turns to me instantly and makes me a long speech in what I think must be Russian.
Look him straight in the eye and say very rapidly Da, da, da! which is the only Russian word I know, and am shattered when he exclaims delightedly, Ah, you speak Russian?
Can only admit that I do not, and he looks disappointed and Lady Blowfield enquires whether he can tell us what is going to happen next.
Yes, he can.
Hitler is going to make a speech to the Reich at midday tomorrow. (Newspapers have already revealed this, as has also the wireless.) He will outline peace proposals—so called. These will prove to be of such a character that neither France nor England will entertain them for a moment. Monsieur Chamberlain prendra la parole et enverra promener Monsieur Itlère, Monsieur Daladier en fera autant, et zut! la lutte s'engagera, pour de bon cette fois-ci.
Poor de ploo bong? says Lady Blowfield uneasily.
Gitnik makes very rapid reply—perhaps in Hungarian, perhaps in Polish or possibly in both—which is evidently not of a reassuring character, as he ends up by stating, in English, that people in this country have not yet realised that we are wholly vulnerable not only from the North and the East, but from the South and the West as well.
And what, asks Lady Blowfield faintly, about the air?
London, asserts Gitnik authoritatively, has air defences. Of that there need be no doubt at all. The provinces, on the other hand, could be attacked with the utmost ease and probably will be. It is being openly stated in Istanbul, Athens and New Mexico that a seventy-hour bombardment of Liverpool is the first item on the Nazi programme.
Lady Blowfield moans, but says nothing.
Remaining guests arrive: turn out to be Mr. and Mrs. Weatherby, whom I am not particularly pleased to meet again, but feel obliged to assume expression as of one receiving an agreeable surprise.
Gitnik immediately addresses them in Italian, to which they competently reply in French, whereupon he at once reverts to English. Weatherbys quite unperturbed, and shortly afterwards enquire whether he can tell us anything about America's attitude.
Yes, as usual, he can.
America will, for the present, keep out of the conflict. Her sympathies, however, are with the Allies. There will undoubtedly be much discussion over this business of the embargo on the sale of arms. It has been said in Rome—and Gitnik must beg of us to let this go no further—that the embargo will probably be lifted early next year.
At this Lady Blowfield looks impressed, but the Weatherbys are left cold—for which I admire them—and conviction gains strength in my own mind that Monsieur Gitnik resembles fourteenth-rate crystal-gazer, probably with business premises in mews off Tottenham Court Road.
Luncheon extremely welcome, and make determined effort to abandon the sphere of European unrest and talk about rock-gardens instead. This a dead failure.
Excellent omelette, chicken-casserole and accompaniments are silently consumed while Monsieur Gitnik, in reply to leading question from hostess—(evidently determined to Draw him Out, which is not really necessary)—tells us that if ever he goes to Russia again, he has been warned that he will be thrown into prison because he Knows Too Much. Similar fate awaits him in Germany, Esthonia and the Near East generally, for the same reason.
Mrs. Weatherby—my opinion of her going up every moment by leaps and bounds—declares gaily that this reminds her of a play, once very popular, called The Man Who Knew Too Much. Or does she mean The Man Who Stayed At Home?
Mr. Weatherby thinks that she does. So do I. Lady Blowfield says sadly that it matters little now, it all seems so very far away.
Gitnik crumbles bread all over the table and says something in unknown tongue, to which nobody makes any immediate reply, but Lady Blowfield's dog emits short, piercing howl.
This leads the conversation in the direction of dogs, and I find myself giving rather maudlin account of the charms of Robert's Benjy, wholly adorable puppy resembling small, square woolly bear. Mrs. Weatherby is sympathetic, Mr. W. looks rather remote but concedes, in a detached way, that Pekinese dogs are sometimes more intelligent than they are given credit for being, and Lady Blowfield strokes her dog and says that he is to be evacuated to her sister's house in Hampshire next week.
Gitnik firmly recalls us to wider issues by announcing that he has received a rather curious little communication from a correspondent whose name and nationality, as we shall of course understand,