E. Delafield - The Collected Works of E. M. Delafield (Illustrated Edition)

She is kind and voluble; Felicity and I gradually recover; someone in a blue dress and pince-nez appears, and is introduced as My Friend Miss Postman who Lives with Me; someone else materialises as My Cousin Miss Crump, and we all go in to lunch. I sit next to hostess, who talks competently about modern poetry, and receives brief and evasive replies from myself. Felicity has My Friend Miss Postman, whom I hear opening the conversation rather unfortunately with amiable remark that she has so much enjoyed Felicity's book. Should like to hear with exactly what energetic turn of phrase Felicity disclaims having had anything to do with any book ever, but cannot achieve this, being under necessity of myself saying something reasonably convincing about Masefield, about whose work I can remember nothing at all.

Hostess then talks about her own books, My Friend Miss Postman supplies intelligent and laudatory comments, seconded by myself, and Felicity and the cousin remain silent, but wear interested expressions.

This carries us on safely to coffee in the loggia , where Felicity suddenly blossoms into brilliancy owing to knowing names, both Latin and English, of every shrub and plant within sight.

She is then taken round the garden at great length by our hostess, with whom she talks gardening. Miss P. and I follow, but ignore flora, and Miss P. tells me that Carina--(reference, evidently, to hostess, whose name is Charlotte Volley)--is Perfectly Wonderful. Her Work is Wonderful, and so are her Methods, her Personality, her Vitality and her Charm.

I say Yes, a great many times, and feel that I can quite understand why Carina has Miss P. to live with her. (Am only too certain that neither Felicity nor dear Rose would dream of presenting me to visitors in similar light, should occasion for doing so ever arise.)

Carina and herself, continues Miss P., have been friends for many years now. She has nursed Carina through illness--Carina is not at all strong--and never, never rests. If only she would sometimes spare herself, says Miss P. despairingly--but, no, she has to be Giving Out all the time. People make demands upon her. If it isn't one, it's another.

At this, I feel guilty, and suggest departure. Miss P. protests, but faintly, and is evidently in favour of scheme. Carina is approached, but says, No, no, we must stay to tea, we are expected. Miss P. murmurs energetically, and is told, No, no, that doesn't matter, and Felicity and I feign absorption in small and unpleasant-looking yellow plant at our feet. Later, Miss P. admits to me that Carina ought to relax absolutely for at least an hour every afternoon, but that it is terribly, terribly difficult to get her to do it. To-day's failure evidently lies at our door, and Miss P. remains dejected, and faintly resentful, until we finally depart.

Carina is cordial to the last, sees us into car, has to be told that that door won't open, will she try the other side, does so, shuts it briskly, and says that we must come again soon . Final view of her is with her arm round Miss P.'s shoulder, waving vigorously. What, I immediately enquire, did Felicity think of her? to which Felicity replies with some bitterness that it is not a very good moment for her to give an opinion, as Carina has just energetically slammed door of the car upon her foot.

Condolences follow, and we discuss Carina, Miss P., cousin, house, garden, food and conversation, all the way home. Should be quite prepared to do so all over again for benefit of Robert in the evening, but he shows no interest, after enquiring whether there wasn't a man anywhere about the place, and being told Only the Gardener.

April 23rd. --Felicity and I fetch as many of Carina's works as we can collect from Boots', and read them industriously. Great excitement on discovering that one of them--the best known--is dedicated to Carina's Beloved Friend, D. P., whom we immediately identify as Miss Postman, Felicity maintaining that D. stands for Daisy, whilst I hold out for Doris. Discussion closes with ribald reference to Well of Loneliness .

April 26th. --Felicity, after altering her mind three times, departs, to stay with married sister in Somersetshire. Robin and Vicky lament and I say that we shall all miss her, and she replies that she has loved being here, and it is the only house she knows where the bath towels are really large . Am gratified by this compliment, and subsequently repeat it to Robert, adding that it proves I can't be such a bad housekeeper. Robert looks indulgent, but asks what about that time we ran out of flour just before a Bank Holiday week-end? To which I make no reply--being unable to think of a good one.

Telephone message from Lady Frobisher, inviting us to dinner on Saturday next, as the dear Blamingtons will be with her for the weekend. I say The Blamingtons? in enquiring tones, and she says Yes, yes, he knew me very well indeed eighteen years ago, and admired me tremendously. (This seems to me to constitute excellent reason why we should not meet again, merely in order to be confronted with deplorable alterations wrought by the passage of eighteen years.)

Lady F., however, says that she has promised to produce me--and Robert, too, of course, she adds hastily--and we must come. The Blaming-tons are wildly excited. (Have idle and frivolous vision of the Blamingtons standing screaming and dancing at her elbow, waiting to hear decision.)

But, says Lady F., in those days--reference as to period preceding the Stone Age at least--in those days, I probably knew him as Bill Ransom? He has only this moment come into the title. I say Oh! Bill Ransom , and lapse into shattered silence, while Lady F. goes on to tell me what an extraordinarily pretty, intelligent, attractive and wealthy woman Bill has married, and how successful the marriage is. (Am by no means disposed to credit this offhand.)

Conversation closes with renewed assurances from Lady F. of the Blamingtons' and her own cast-iron determination that they shall not leave the neighbourhood without scene of reunion between Bill and myself, and my own enfeebled assent to this preposterous scheme.

Spend at least ten minutes sitting by the telephone, still grasping receiver, wondering what Bill and I are going to think of one another, when compelled to meet, and why on earth I ever agreed to anything so senseless.

Tell Robert about invitation, and he says Good, the Frobishers have excellent claret, but remains totally unmoved at prospect of the Blamingtons. This--perhaps unjustly--annoys me, and I answer sharply that Bill Ransom once liked me very much indeed, to which Robert absently replies that he daresays, and turns on the wireless. I raise my voice, in order to dominate Happy Returns to Patricia Trabbs of Streatham, and screech that Bill several times asked me to marry him, and Robert nods, and walks out through the window into the garden.

Helen Wills and children rush in at the door, draught causes large vase to blow over, and inundate entire room with floods of water, and incredibly numerous fragments of ribes-flower, and all is merged into frantic moppings and sweepings, and adjurations to children not to cut themselves with broken glass. Happy Families follows, immediately succeeded by Vicky's bath, and supper for both, and far-distant indiscretions of self and Bill Ransom return to oblivion, but recrudesce much later, when children have gone to bed, Casabianca is muttering quietly to himself over cross-word puzzle, and Robert absorbed in Times .

Take up a book and read several pages, but presently discover that I have no idea what it is all about, and begin all over again, with similar result. Casabianca suddenly remarks that he would so much like to know what I think of that book, to which I hastily reply Oh! very good indeed, and he says he thought so too, and I offer help with cross-word puzzle in order to stem further discussion.