Free Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford Page B

her hips at Jasper in a most inviting fashion, much to poor Noel’s apprehension. Eugenia she evidently regarded as a mere child, beneath her notice. Jasper took an immediate dislike to her, and rudely went on discussing the pageant with Poppy as though they were alone together.
    ‘A pageant?’ cried Mrs Lace, when after listening eagerly to them for a few minutes she had gathered what they were talking about. ‘In Chalford Park? But this is unheard of. Nobody in the neighbourhood has seen Chalford House since the div—for years and years,’ she emended, looking at Eugenia.
    ‘I have never seen it although I live so near. How too exciting. You must be sure and give me a good part in the pageant,’ she added archly, ‘because I studied acting in Paris, you know, under the great Bernhardt.’
    ‘The great Bottom,’ said Jasper, in a loud aside to Poppy.
    The others felt that he had gone too far, and Poppy, who was a kind little person, quickly said that of course Mrs Lace must have the chief part.
    ‘You must let me help you with the clothes too,’ Mrs Lace went on, looking at Jasper from beneath her eyelashes, ‘my nanny and I between us could easily run them up on the sewing-machine, and at Rackenbridge there is a dressmaker who is quite competent.We might get her to help us cheap if it’s for charity. I am sure Mr Aspect would design some beautiful dresses for us.’
    ‘What on earth do you suppose I am?’ asked Jasper, highly indignant. ‘A pansy dress designer, eh?’ Jasper felt that in thus discouraging Mrs Lace he was, as far as Noel was concerned, singing for his supper; he did not perhaps yet quite realize that she was the kind of woman who thrives on kicks and blows.
    ‘If you want actors for crowd scenes and so on I can round up the Women’s Institute and put you in touch with every sort of person,’ she went on, perfectly unmoved.
    It was by now apparent that Mrs Lace was one of those people whose energies, whilst often boring, are occasionally indispensable. Poppy and Jasper recognized though they deplored this fact. Noel sat in a kind of admiring trance.
    ‘Now,’ said Mrs Lace briskly, ‘we must all lay our heads together and decide what period this pageant is to be.’
    ‘A Pageant of Social Unionism,’ said Eugenia at once, ‘the March on Rome, the Death of Horst Wessel, the Burning of the Reichstag, the Presidential Election of Roosevelt.’
    ‘Very nice, but don’t you think perhaps a trifle esoteric?’ said Jasper.
    Mrs Lace looked scornfully at Eugenia. ‘Pageants,’ she said, ‘must be historical. Now I suggest Charles I and Henrietta Maria’s visit to Chalford – it actually happened, you know. They came to Chalford Old Manor, a perfect little Tudor ruin on the edge of the park.’
    Jasper observed that a perfect ruin was a contradiction in terms.
    Eugenia vetoed the suggestion of Charles I. ‘You can’t have Charles and Henrietta Maria at a Social Unionist rally,’ she said. ‘Cromwell and Mrs Cromwell, if you like – the first Englishman to have the right political outlook.’
    ‘Nobody ever heard of Mrs Cromwell appearing in a pageant,’ said Noel. ‘It would be simply absurd. Do for goodness’ sake stick to the ordinary pageant characters – Edward I, Florence Nightingale, Good Queen Bess, Hengist and Horsa, the Orange Girl of Old Drury,William Rufus, Sir Philip Sidney, or Rowena, otherwise you’ll find yourselves getting into a fearful muddle.’
    ‘Oh! I don’t agree with you at all,’ said Mrs Lace, thinking thus to curry favour with Jasper. ‘Do let’s be original, whatever happens.’
    Poppy, seeing that the discussion was about to become acrimonious, put an end to it by reminding the others that the idea of a pageant had originated with Lady Chalford, and that therefore it would be a matter of ordinary politeness to let her choose its period. Eugenia said that she must now return home as T.P.O.F. would scold her for going to Chalford with the