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By Root 265 0

bridal; I thought no more about it, although had I worked it out I would have realized that nobody would have sent flowers to Monica or Mme de Bon-neuil or myself, and that only left the Puseys. Of course, Jennifer might have a boyfriend somewhere, and the higher reason suggests that she must have, but somehow it seems unlikely. I think she is the sort of girl who will never leave her mother. I have met many such daughters. Penelope, you might be surprised to know, has refused offers of marriage because in her opinion few of the men she meets come up to Mother’s exacting standards, of which I have heard so much. Penelope quotes Mother as the final authority on every subject, and sometimes I envy her this certainty, this piety. I wish that I had had a mother who handed down maxims on tablets of stone, and who was never without a wise saw or a modern instance. I never knew my poor mother to do much more than bark with derision. And yet I think of her as my poor mother. As I grow older myself I perceive her sadness, her bewilderment that life had taken such a turn, her loneliness. She bequeathed to me her own cloud of unknowing. She comforted herself, that harsh disappointed woman, by reading love stories, simple romances with happy endings. Perhaps that is why I write them. In her last months, she lay in bed, wearing the silk peignoir that my father bought her on their honeymoon in Venice, not caring, perhaps not noticing, that the lace was torn, the pale blue faded to grey, and when she raised her eyes from her book, her eyes too were faded from blue to grey, and full of dreams, longings, disenchantment. My mother’s fantasies, which remained unchanged all her life, taught me about reality. And although I keep reality in the forefront of my mind, and refer to it with grim constancy, I sometimes wonder if it serves me any better than it served my mother.

‘But all this is by the way. I went out for the day and when I turned up for dinner that evening all was revealed. The dining room had emptied after the bustle of the weekend and was reduced to a paucity of numbers which spelled out “end of season” for anyone who had an instinct for such things. Even the waiters seemed to have given up and could be seen talking among themselves. Monica fed her first course to Kiki quite openly and nobody seemed to care. Mme de Bonneuil, who eats very quickly, sits silently between courses, smoothing the tablecloth with her hands. I was three quarters of the way through my sweetbreads when I was aware of a slight commotion in the doorway, and there I beheld Mrs Pusey being led in, laughing and protesting, by M. Huber. It was clear that this was no ordinary occasion. Not only was her table decked with flowers (the ones I had seen delivered that morning) but Mrs Pusey had scaled heights of dressing up that put the rest of us to shame. To be quite truthful, I did not think that she had quite brought it off. Her midnight blue lace was surmounted by a sort of spangled jacket, obviously extremely expensive; this in its turn was enlivened by several strings of beads, pearls, gold chains, and even a rather beautiful lapis lazuli pendant. Her hair had been re-gilded, and her nails were flawlessly pink. I have to say that she looked quite splendid, in a baroque sort of fashion. By that I mean that either she appeared out of context or the rest of us did. It seemed to me that the verdict was in the balance only for a brief moment. After that, it began, imperceptibly, to go in Mrs Pusey’s direction. Of course she willed it so, but there is always some sort of consensus in these matters. And in that crucial moment the consensus was somehow secured. Waiters darted to pull out her chair; menus were flourished in front of her; champagne produced for her inspection. Mme de Bonneuil watched all this quite impassively. Monica rolled her eyes heavenwards.

‘You must understand that we were not prepared for any of this. We were all in our mid-week, fairly subdued, evening wear, saving the one “best” dress for Friday, and the second “best” dress for Saturday, and