be no need for that. If I ladder my stocking, I shall just have him drive me home so I can change it. Still, it does show he has the right attitude.
6th October 1932
Wilton Place is ready for me. On Saturday, I shall sleep my first night there. A fresh start, and how fitting. It will be a year to the day since I lost Brumby.
George Lightfoot was in the nursery when I returned from Monsieur Jules, helping Doopie and Flora fete the absent Melhuish with a rather dry marble cake.
“Ah,” he said, “the very girl I was hoping to see. Come with me Monday next to Philip Sassoon’s. He’s asked me to Park Lane to see his new majolica urns.”
Over drinks, I heard Melhuish say he didn’t think Sir Philip was “quite the thing.”
Lightfoot said, “What can you mean?”
Melhuish said, “I don’t know. He strikes me as a bit of a Johnny-come-lately. Belchester told me he has a footman serve tea. Can you imagine!”
Violet said, “But dearest, he does raise a great deal of money for hospitals. And we’re very fond of Sybil.”
Melhuish said, “Oh, quite so. Sybil’s one hundred percent. I used to play polo with her husband. Never see him nowadays, of course. Seems to spend most of his time in the south of France.”
All I said was, “Like Thelma Furness’s husband.”
Violet said, “No, Maybell. Not at all like that. Rock plays in tennis tournaments.”
That, of course, would be Rock Chumley, spelled Cholmondeley, nota bene.
Well, tennis, tootsies, whatever the excuse, it sounds to me as though the south of France is teeming with restless English husbands.
7th October 1932
To the Café de Paris with Pips and Freddie, the Erlangers, and the Simpsons for steak Diane and a Dixieland band. Wally and Ernest brought along Lily Drax-Pfaffenhof, who turns out to be much more fun than she sounds. Her first husband was in Manchester cotton and left her stony broke but fortunately, she made a good second marriage to a landgrave called Willi, which makes her a landgravine. Somewhere between a countess and a duchess, according to Ernest. Anyhow, she wears it very lightly. I think we shall become friends.
Wally believes she may know the Sassoons. When she was in Hong Kong, there was a family of that name, and she’s almost certain she went to a party at their house, but Hattie Erlanger says it must be a different lot, because Philip and Sybil are Jews from Baghdad.
Freddie said, “Yes, Hattie, but not recently. Sassoon’s been in the Commons twenty years at least.”
According to Freddie, he’s something important at the Air Ministry, entertains lavishly, and has a reputation as a firecracker, always sparkling and fizzing and dashing between his various wonderful homes. Sir Philip Firecracker Sassoon! I can’t wait.
8th October 1932, Wilton Place
My first year without Brumby. It seems longer, so much has happened. Well, I think I’ve conducted my period of mourning in a decorous manner. Violet may make her disparaging remarks about niteries, but even widows have to while away their evenings somehow, and I’m sure Danforth Brumby would prefer me looking radiant in claret rather than haggard in black.
9th October 1932
I’ve suggested to Padmore that we dispense with the customary black dress for her, too. We can get her something more modern. Dark blue, perhaps, or dove gray, with a little white apron. “Whatever you think, madam,” she said. That’s the kind of attitude I like!
10th October 1932
I am in love! Philip Sassoon is delicious. He’s the same age as Melhuish, but you’d never think it, he’s so svelte and so vibrant. Also, he has exquisite taste. Blood-red roses arranged against a panel of black glass. Twinned pewter buckets filled with white oxeye daisies.
He dashed around, showing us everything. The drawing room—one of the drawing rooms—all pink and gilt and tapestries. The dining room azure and silver. Everything done with a very sure touch. Only the ballroom was too hectic for my taste, no surface left unpainted. Camel trains, palm trees, sheikhs of Araby.
“The problem with owning a ballroom,” he said, “is that one feels an obligation to use it.”
Lightfoot sang my praises as a dancer, but, sadly, Sir Philip doesn’t dance.
He said, “One always feels obliged to buzzz around like a bumble bee, pollinating one’s guests with gaiety, and then, when the evening’s over, the room looks horrrribly like the Battle of Culloden Moor.”
A location from his Baghdad period, I suppose.
I said, “What you need is a woman to hold your balls for you.”
“Maybell!” he said, “I think I may thrrrreaten you with an invitation to Trrrrent Park.”
I said, “Invite away! You don’t frrrrighten me.” How we laughed.
A small point of accuracy for Melhuish. Sir Philip does not have a footman serve tea. He has footmen. And why not!
11th October 1932
Wally was infuriatingly vague about her plans for the day, and then, when I walked into the Ivy to meet Pips, there she was, tête-à-tête with Thelma Furness. They waved but made no move to invite us over to join them.
Pips says she finds it horribly entertaining to watch Wally at work. “Spinning her web,” she called it.
She said, “Look at her. I mean, Thelma’s nice in her own sappy way, but Wally can’t possibly find her that interesting. She’s just cultivating her so she can get her foot in Wales’s door.”
I said, “There are worse projects. I wouldn’t mind meeting him myself. They say he’s a nifty dancer.”
Pips said, “Well, I think it’s all rather desperate and sad. It reminds me of the trouble she went to snag a dance with Chevy Auburn. Remember? Cozying up to his sister. Memorizing all his sprint times. And men are so dumb. They fall for it every time. I’ll bet she worked the same old business with Ernest. I’ll bet she pumped Mary Kirk for useful tidbits, filed them under ‘Ernest,’ and then fed them right back to him.”
I think Wally just uses what little God gave her. She has a very plain face, no figure, and no fortune. It stands to reason she’s had to develop her wits.
Pips could have shown more interest in my tea with Philip Sassoon.
All she said was, “But isn’t he a fruit?”
12th October 1932
Penelope
