Страница 6 из 89
4 October.-Went round to Peter’s flat to advise about settings for some stones he picked up in Italy. While there registered post brought large, flat envelope-Harriet’s writing. Wondered what it was she wanted to send and not bring. (Inquisitive me!) Watched Peter open it, while pretending to examine zircon (such a lovely colour!). He flushed up in that absurd way he has when anybody says anything rather personal to him, and stood staring at the thing till I got quite wound up, and said, ‘What is it?’ He said, in an odd sort of voice, ‘The bride’s gift to the bridegroom.’ It had been worrying me for some time how she’d grapple with that, because there isn’t an awful lot, really, one can give a very well-of man, unless one is frightfully well off oneself, and the wrong thing is worse than nothing, but all the same, nobody really wants to be kindly told that they can’t bring a better gift than their sweet selves-very pretty but so patronising and Lord of Burleigh-and after all, we all have human instincts, and giving people things is one of them. So I dashed up to look, and it was a letter written on a single sheet in a very beautiful seventeenth-century hand. Peter said, ‘The fu
5 October.-Worth has made magnificent effort and delivered dress. Few select friends invited to see trousseau-including Miss Climpson, miraculously reduced to speechlessness by Peter’s gift of mink coat-950 guineas admittedly perhaps a trifle extravagant, but his sole contribution, and he looked as scared and guilty when he presented it as he did when he was a small boy and his father caught him with his pocket full of rabbits after a night out with that rascally of poacher Merryweather he took such a fancy to-and how that man’s cottage did smell! But it is a lovely cloak, and H. hadn’t the heart to say more than, ‘Oh, Mr Rochester!’-in fun, and meaning Jane Eyre, who I always think behaved so ungraciously to that poor man-so gloomy to have your bride, however bigamous, insisting on grey alpaca or merino or whatever it was, and damping to a lover’s feelings… Hell-hound’s paragraph in Morning Star-discreetly anonymous but quite unmistakable. Helen rang up to know if it was true. I replied, with exactness, that it must be all invention! In evening, took Peter and Harriet to Cheyne Walk to dine with Paul-who insists on coming to wedding, arthritis or no arthritis. Noticed unusual constraint between P. and H., who had been all right when I saw them off to di
7 October.-Harriet came to see me before starting for Oxford-very nice to me. I think she will give Peter all he wants-yes, I really do. If anybody can… Felt depressed, all the same, for nearly half an hour… Later on, while coping with preparations for wedding-breakfast-all made more difficult by need for secrecy-interrupted by Peter on phone, gone suddenly all fractious because it had rained in the night and roads would be slippery, and convinced Harriet would have a skid and be killed on way to Oxford. Begged him not to behave like a half-wit and said, if he wanted healthy occupation he could come and help Emily wash all the ornaments out of drawing-room cabinets. He didn’t come-but Jerry did, in high spirits at idea of being best man, and broke a Dresden shepherdess.
Later.-Peter and Jerry got (thank goodness!) safely out of the way to Oxford. Preparations completed and all wished-for guests summoned and transport arranged for the impecunious… In evening, furious trunk-call from Helen at Denver, having had wire from Peter and demanding what we meant by inconsiderate behaviour. Took great pleasure in telling her (at considerable length and her expense) nothing to thank but her own tactlessness.