Hello there,
It's Mandy here.
Welcome back to Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.
M.
Delafield.
Thanks for joining me tonight and we've reached chapter 21.
More praise for E.
M.
Delafield's writing comes from the critic Henry Canby who attributed her lack of resounding critical success to her unpretentiousness,
Saying she was one who,
Like Jane Austen,
Seems to write easily on her lap while others talk and clamour about her.
Faye Hamill argued of the Provincial Lady that enormous skill,
Subtlety and power of selection have gone to create this seemingly mild and commonplace character.
So,
Before we go ahead tonight,
Please feel free to make yourself really comfortable,
Settling down into your chair or into your bed,
Relaxing your hands,
Releasing your shoulders and softening your jaw.
That's great.
So,
If you're ready,
Then I shall begin.
May the 17th.
Robert drives me to North Road Station to catch train for Bude.
Temperature has fallen again and I ask Robert if it is below zero.
He replies briefly and untruthfully that the day will get warmer as it goes on and no doubt Bude will be one blaze of sunshine.
We arrive early and sit on a bench on the platform next to a young woman with a cough who takes one look at me and then says,
Dreadful isn't it?
Cannot help feeling that she has summarised the whole situation quite admirably.
Robert hands me my ticket.
He has handsomely offered to make it first class and I have refused and gazes at me with a rather strange expression.
At last he says,
You don't think you're going there to die do you?
Now that he suggests it,
Realise that I do feel very like that,
But summon up smile that I feel to be unconvincing and make sprightly reference to Bishop,
Whose name I forget,
Coming to lay his bones at place the name of which I cannot remember.
All of it appears to be Greek to Robert and I leave him still trying to unravel it.
Journey ensues and proves chilly and exhausting.
Rain lashes at the window and every time the carriage door opens,
Which is often gust of icy wind mysteriously blowing in two opposite directions at once,
Goes up my legs and down the back of my neck.
Have not told children by what train I am arriving,
So no one meets me,
Not even bus on which I had counted.
Am however secretly thankful as this gives me an excuse for taking a taxi.
Reach lodgings at rather uninspiring hour of 2.
45,
Too early for tea or bed,
Which constitute present summit of my ambitions.
Uproarious welcome from children,
Both in blooming health and riotous spirits,
Makes up for everything.
May the 19th.
Recovery definitely within sight,
Although almost certainly retarded by landlady's inspiration of sending up a nice jelly for supper on evening of arrival.
Rooms reasonably comfortable except for extreme cold,
Which is,
Says landlady,
Quite unheard of at this or any other time of year.
All is linoleum,
Pink and gold china and enlarged photographs of females in lace collars and males with long moustaches and bow ties.
Robin,
Vicky and the hospital nurse,
Retained at vast expense as a temporary substitute for mademoiselle,
Have apparently braved the weather and spent much time on the breakwater.
Vicky has also made friends with a little dog whose name she alleges to be Baby,
A gentleman who sells papers,
Another gentleman who drives about in a sunbeam and the head waiter from the hotel.
I tell her about mademoiselle's illness and after a silence she says,
Oh,
In tones of brassy indifference,
And resumes topic of little dog Baby.
Robin,
From whom I cannot help hoping better things,
Makes no comment except,
Is she,
And immediately adds a request for a banana.
Memo.
Would it not be possible to write more domesticated and less foreign version of High Wind in Jamaica,
Featuring extraordinary callousness of infancy?
Can distinctly recollect heated correspondence in Time and Tide regarding raison blanche or otherwise of Jamaica children,
And now range myself decidedly and forever on the side of the author,
Can quite believe that dear Vicky would murder any number of sailors if necessary.
May 23rd.
Sudden warm afternoon.
Children take off their shoes and dash into pools.
Landlady says that it's often like this on the last day of a visit to the sea,
She's noticed,
And I take a brisk walk over the cliffs wearing thick tweed coat and really begins to feel quite warm at the end of an hour.
Pack suitcase after children are in bed,
Register resolution never to let stewed prunes and custard form part of any meal ever again as long as I live,
And thankfully write postcard to Robert announcing time of our arrival at home tomorrow.
May the 28th.
Mademoiselle returns and is greeted with enthusiasm to my great relief.
Robin and Vicky perhaps less like Jamaica children than I had feared.
She has on a new black and white check skirt,
White blouse with frills,
Black kid gloves embroidered in white on the backs,
And black straw hat almost entirely covered in purple violets,
And informs me that the whole outfit was made by herself at the total cost of one pound nine shillings and four pence ha'penny.
The French undoubtedly thrifty and gifted in using a needle,
But cannot altogether stifle conviction that a shade less economy might have produced better results.
She presents me in the kindest way with a present in the shape of two blue glass flower vases of spiral construction and adorned with gilt knobs at many unexpected points.
Vicky receives a large artificial silk red rose which fortunately she appears to admire,
And Robin a small affair in wire that is intended says Mademoiselle to extract the stones out of cherries.
Memo interesting to ascertain number of these ingenious contrivances sold in a year,
And privately rather overcome by Mademoiselle's generosity,
And wish that we could reach the level of the French in what they themselves describe as petit soin.
Place the glass vases in conspicuous position on dining room mantelpiece,
And unfortunately just in time to stem comment which I see rising to Robert's lips when he sits down to midday meal and perceives them.
After lunch Robin is motored back to school by his father,
And I examine Vicky's summer wardrobe with Mademoiselle,
And find she has outgrown everything she has in the world.
May the 30th,
Arrival of time and tide,
Find that I have been awarded half a second prize for charming little effort that in my opinion deserves better.
Robert's attempt receives an honourable mention,
Recognize pseudonym of first prize winner as being that adopted by Mary Kelway.
Should like to think that generous satisfaction envelops me at dear friend's success,
But I'm not sure.
This week's competition announces itself as a triolet,
A literary form that I cannot endure,
And rules of which I am totally unable to master.
Receive telephone invitation to lunch with the Frobishers on Sunday.
I accept,
Less because I want to see them than because a change from domestic roast beef and gooseberry tart is always pleasant.
Moreover,
Absence makes work lighter for the servants.
Memo,
Candid and intelligent self-examination as to motive etc often leads to very distressing revelations.
To be continued.
