Love in a Cold Climate Read Online Free PDF Page B

and could keep happily to myself and observe their antics. The various house parties for people of my own age that I had been to during the past year had really been much more unnerving, because there I knew that I was expected to play a part, to sing for my supper by being, if possible, amusing. But here, a child once more among all these old people, it was my place to be seen and not heard. Looking round the room, I wondered vaguely which were the young men Lady Montdore had mentioned as being specially invited for Polly and me. They could not yet have arrived, as certainly none of these were the least bit young, all well over thirty, I should have said, and probably all married, though it was impossible to guess which of the couples were husbands and wives, because they all spoke to each other as if they all were, in voices and with endearments which, in the case of my aunts, could only have meant that it was their own husbands they were addressing.
    “Have the Sauveterres not arrived yet, Sonia?” said Lord Montdore coming up for another cup of tea.
    There was a movement among the women. They turned their heads like dogs who think they hear somebody unwrapping a piece of chocolate.
    “Sauveterres? Do you mean Fabrice? Don’t tell me Fabrice is married? I couldn’t be more amazed.”
    “No, no, of course not. He’s bringing his mother to stay. She’s an old flame of Montdore’s—I’ve never seen her, and Montdore hasn’t for quite forty years. Of course, we’ve always known Fabrice, and he came to us in India; he’s such fun, a delightful creature. He was very much taken up with the little Ranee of Rawalpur; in fact, they do say her last baby …”
    “Sonia …!” said Lord Montdore, quite sharply for him. She took absolutely no notice.
    “Dreadful old man the Rajah, I only hope it was. Poor creatures, it’s one baby after another; you can’t help feeling sorry for them, like little birds, you know. I used to go and visit the ones who were kept in purdah and of course they simply worshipped me, it was really touching.”
    Lady Patricia Dougdale was announced. I had seen the Dougdales from time to time while the Montdores were abroad because they were neighbours at Alconleigh and although my Uncle Matthew by no means encouraged neighbours it was beyond even his powers to suppress them altogether and prevent them from turning up at the meets, the local point to points, on Oxford platform for the 9.10 and Paddington for the 4.45, or at the Merlinford market. Besides, the Dougdales had brought house parties to Alconleigh for Aunt Sadie’s dances when Louisa and Linda came out and had given Louisa, for a wedding present, an antique pin cushion, curiously heavy because full of lead. The romantic Louisa, making sure it was curiously heavy because full of gold, “Somebody’s savings, don’t you see?” had ripped it open with her nail scissors, only to find the lead, with the result that none of her wedding presents could be shown, for fear of hurting Lady Patricia’s feelings.
    Lady Patricia was a perfect example of beauty that is but skin deep. She had once had the same face as Polly, but the fair hair had now gone white and the white skin yellow, so that she looked like a classical statue that has been out in the weather, with a layer of snow on its head, the features smudged and smeared by damp. Aunt Sadie said that she and Boy had been considered the handsomestcouple in London, but of course that must have been years ago; they were old now, fifty or something, and life would soon be over for them. Lady Patricia’s life had been full of sadness and suffering, sadness in her marriage and suffering in her liver. (Of course I am now quoting Davey.) She had been passionately in love with Boy, who was younger than she, for some years before he had married her, which he was supposed to have done because he could not resist the relationship with his esteemed Hampton family. The great sorrow of his life was