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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
E. M. Delafield's 'The Diary of a Provincial Lady (Illustrated)' is a charming and witty portrayal of an English woman's daily life in the early 20th century. Written in diary format, the book provides a humorous and insightful look into the protagonist's struggles with social conventions, family dynamics, and other challenges of the time. Delafield's literary style is marked by its sharp observation and dry humor, making the book a delightful read for fans of classic British literature. The novel also sheds light on the changing role of women in society during the interwar period, offering a valuable historical perspective for readers. The illustrations accompanying the text add an extra layer of charm to the story, bringing the characters and setting to life in a visual way. E. M. Delafield, a prolific British author known for her engaging literary works, drew inspiration from her own experiences as a woman navigating the complexities of English society. Her keen eye for detail and satirical wit are evident throughout 'The Diary of a Provincial Lady,' making the book a standout in her body of work. Delafield's insightful depiction of everyday life and social mores resonates with readers to this day, making her a timeless voice in British literature. I highly recommend 'The Diary of a Provincial Lady (Illustrated)' to readers who appreciate nuanced character studies, witty humor, and a keen portrayal of historical context. Delafield's delightful blend of satire and observation will captivate and entertain those looking for a unique glimpse into the life of a provincial woman in early 20th century England. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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The Diary of a Provincial Lady
(Illustrated)
Published by
Books
Table of Contents
Introduction
In The Diary of a Provincial Lady, E. M. Delafield distills the comedy and poignancy of a life lived between relentless domestic minutiae and an incisive private intelligence, exploring how a cultivated, self-aware woman maintains poise amid bills, committees, unhelpful weather, and the expectations of class and marriage, while quietly testing the limits of what can be said, what must be left unsaid, and how far everyday resilience, tact, and wit can stretch before revealing the honest anxieties and aspirations that flicker beneath the rituals of provincial propriety and the consolations of small triumphs hard-won at home.
First published in 1930 during the interwar years, this comic novel in diary form situates its narrator in the English countryside, where village routines and social hierarchies set the tempo of her days. Delafield, already an accomplished novelist, turns the intimate ledger of dated entries into a nimble instrument of social observation. The provincial setting is not a mere backdrop but a pressure system, shaping conversations, obligations, and the delicate choreography of appearances. The result is a work that belongs to the tradition of satirical domestic fiction while remaining distinct for its clarity of perspective and quick, economical wit.
At the outset, the diarist records the practical concerns that govern a household: accounts that never quite add up, staff who must be managed with tact, children’s needs that expand to fill every margin, and invitations that create as many problems as pleasures. Her voice is brisk, understated, and acutely self-mocking, the rhythm of short entries building a sly cumulative portrait. The humor arises from the gap between polite surface and private commentary, from sudden self-corrections and afterthoughts. In an illustrated edition, the visual cues reinforce this effect, amplifying comic timing and enhancing our sense of fleeting expressions, missteps, and recoveries.
Threaded through the comedy are themes of money, class, gendered expectation, and the invisible labor that keeps households and communities running. The Provincial Lady navigates the paradox of social belonging: to keep one’s place requires constant expenditure—of funds, energy, and charm—that threatens stability. Delafield maps the uneasy treaty between self-respect and social performance, noting how language itself becomes a tool of accommodation. Yet the book is also generous, honoring the competence derived from experience and the small ethical choices that sustain dignity. Its interest lies not in melodrama but in the moral texture of ordinary days and their negotiated compromises.
For contemporary readers, the diary speaks directly to questions of balance, identity, and the mental load of care. The protagonist’s calculations about money, time, and reputation echo familiar pressures, even as the particulars of the 1930 setting differ from our own. Her frank inner commentary models a humane skepticism toward status games without denying their power. The book’s comedy, grounded in precision rather than cruelty, offers a way to notice institutional absurdities without scorning the people caught within them. That stance—clear-eyed, forgiving, and exact—helps explain why the Provincial Lady continues to feel like a sympathetic companion rather than a museum piece.
Delafield’s craft rewards close attention. The dated entries create a tempo of anticipation and ellipsis: what is not recorded can be as telling as what appears. Small recurring predicaments—domestic logistics, seasonal rituals, committee work—form a pattern that lets readers watch the narrator refine strategies for survival. Dialogue often arrives refracted through her temperament, producing a double vision that is funny and diagnostic at once. The illustrated format heightens these effects by punctuating the text with images that capture posture, gesture, and spatial relations, giving visual shape to the book’s central concern with how people present themselves and are perceived.
The Diary of a Provincial Lady stands as both a consummate entertainment and a quietly radical record of attention, proving that intimate scale can accommodate large questions about autonomy, community, and worth. It inaugurated one of the twentieth century’s most beloved comic voices and led to further chronicles, yet this first volume remains complete in its design and satisfactions. To enter its pages is to dwell with a narrator whose good sense is equal to her insecurity and whose sensibility transforms constraint into art. Readers meeting her now will find conversation, perspective, and laughter that travel undiminished across time.
Synopsis
The Diary of a Provincial Lady (Illustrated) by E. M. Delafield presents a year in the life of a middle-class woman in interwar rural England, written as brisk, dated diary entries. The narrator charts the practicalities and small humiliations of managing a household, a marriage, and social expectations with wry restraint. Domestic budgets, servants, children, and village hierarchies set the scene for a comedy of observation rather than melodrama. The illustrated edition adds visual cues that echo the book’s light, satirical touch without altering its substance. The tone is poised and unsentimental, attentive to detail, and quietly revealing of class, gender, and the rhythms of provincial life.
Early entries establish recurring pressures: the need to appear competent and tasteful while coping with thin finances, fickle weather, and an often recalcitrant garden. Catalogues promise transformation; plantings and housekeeping schemes rarely cooperate. A socially superior neighbor hovers as a tactful adversary, administering advice that stings. Committee obligations, parish events, and the Women’s Institute fill afternoons otherwise devoted to managing suppliers and soothing staff. The narrator’s husband is steady yet reserved, a counterpoint to her constant improvisations. Children’s routines, lessons, and minor illnesses punctuate the days, reminding her that public performance and private care are entwined, and both are measured against prevailing standards.
Money, a constant subplot, generates discreet embarrassments: letters from the bank, unanticipated bills, and the quiet arithmetic of trimming expenses without appearing to do so. Servant management provides another thread, as cooks, maids, and childcare arrangements bring competence, personality, and occasional upheaval. The Provincial Lady cultivates tact as both shield and tool, placating tempers while preserving dignity. She balances frugality against the rituals that signal respectability, from appropriate clothes to acceptable hospitality. The diary’s humor arises from understatement and timing, allowing everyday misalignments—between aspiration and outcome—to register as both comic incident and social commentary rather than crisis.
Village sociability supplies the stage for many set pieces. Bazaars, lectures, and teas demand costumes, speeches, and donations that must look effortless, even when they are not. The narrator’s poised self-mockery tracks the protocols of calling, seating, invitations, and gratitude, revealing a choreography that maintains harmony while concealing strain. Fads drift through—new books, decorative schemes, health remedies—testing her resolve to be up-to-date without courting ridicule. A sense of proportion is the desired virtue, yet proportion is hard to maintain under scrutiny. Across these scenes, the diary maps an unspoken curriculum in belonging, with failure always possible and rarely admitted.
Occasional excursions to the city offer contrast and temptation. Shops, theaters, and crowded schedules promise renewal, yet they also magnify costs and social anxieties. Encounters with acquaintances and new contacts bring status calculations into sharper relief, while the narrator quietly tests her own capacities as an observer and potential writer. The diary registers the exhilaration of movement and the fatigue that follows, closing the distance between aspiration and logistics. Returning home, she confronts the debris of absence—unsettled accounts, domestic muddles—and reframes metropolitan impressions within the slower tempo of provincial duty, where even small decisions can acquire disproportionate social weight.
Family life anchors the narrative as seasons turn. Children advance through school terms, expressing preferences that complicate timetables and budgets. A pragmatic mother or older relative appears periodically, supplying brisk judgments that both grate and steady. The husband’s laconic reliability remains a puzzle as well as a comfort, a stable axis around which the protagonist’s quicksilver adjustments revolve. Illnesses, holidays, and weather punctuate the entries, reminding readers how external conditions shape domestic tempo. By year’s end the diarist has accumulated experience rather than resolutions, a ledger of missteps, economies, and small triumphs that suggests growth measured in tact, not transformation.
Read as a whole, The Diary of a Provincial Lady endures as a precise social comedy that documents the texture of ordinary constraints with sympathetic intelligence. Its achievement lies in converting minutiae into meaning, letting a single household reflect larger interwar tensions around class, money, and women’s roles. The illustrated format enhances the observational pace without changing the diary’s steady, self-scrutinizing voice. Without relying on dramatic revelation, the book accumulates insight through pattern and tone, inviting readers to recognize themselves in small accommodations and quietly defiant choices. Its resonance persists where wit, resilience, and civility meet under practical pressure.
Historical Context
First published in book form in 1930 after appearing in the weekly Time and Tide, E. M. Delafield's The Diary of a Provincial Lady is set in interwar England, primarily in a rural county far from London's political and literary centers. Its milieu is the English "provinces," where the parish church, village hall, and local committees structure daily life. The diarist's world is recognizably middle-class, navigating neighbors of modest means and nearby gentry. Written as short, dated entries, the book draws on the conventions of contemporary magazine humor while observing the practical routines that defined domestic life between the First and Second World Wars.
British provincial society in the late 1920s and early 1930s retained visible hierarchies while experiencing economic and cultural leveling. Country houses and small market towns coexisted with expanding suburbs and improved transport that brought London fashions into rural shops. Middle-class families commonly relied on overdrafts, prudent shopping, and circulating libraries for entertainment. Boots Booklovers' Library and other lending services made fiction accessible beyond metropolitan bookstores. The diary's social field - garden shows, teas, and local lectures - mirrors this blend of aspiration and constraint. It records the understated frictions between professional households and local aristocracy that shaped manners, conversation, and expectations in the English shires.
Women's public roles had expanded in the decade before the book's appearance. The Representation of the People Act 1918 enfranchised many women over thirty, and the Equal Franchise Act 1928 extended the vote on the same terms as men at twenty-one. Women joined parish councils, school boards, and voluntary associations, notably the rapidly growing Women's Institute, founded in Britain in 1915. Such bodies organized lectures, sewing circles, fetes, and charitable drives that structured social calendars outside paid employment. Delafield's diarist navigates this civic sphere, reflecting the interwar mix of new authority and persistent domestic expectations placed on educated, middle-class women in provincial communities.
The diary's time frame intersects with Britain's economic uncertainty after the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Though effects varied by region, Britain faced deflation, contracting trade, and high unemployment, particularly in industrial areas. The political response included formation of a National Government in 1931 under Ramsay MacDonald and spending cuts that emphasized thrift. For provincial households, anxiety about bills, credit, and the price of coal or clothing became daily concerns rather than dramatic crises. Delafield channels this milieu through wry references to budgets, subscriptions, and small economies, charting how global downturns translated into parochial caution and careful housekeeping in the early 1930s.
Interwar print culture favored short forms - columns, sketches, and diaries - circulated through newspapers, humorous weeklies, and feminist periodicals. Time and Tide, founded in 1920 by Margaret, Lady Rhondda, provided a rare national platform for women writers and commentators on politics and culture. The Provincial Lady's origins there shaped its pace, topicality, and audience. Circulating libraries, book clubs, and inexpensive reprints broadened readership beyond London. Illustrated editions drew on familiar magazine cartoon styles, using expressive line drawings to emphasize social nuance, fashion, and domestic mishaps. This visual-verbal pairing located the work within a recognizably modern, urbane comic tradition while remaining rooted in provincial settings.
Household arrangements reflected national shifts in women's employment and domestic service. Between the pre-war census and 1931, the pool of live-in servants declined, as alternative clerical, retail, and factory jobs expanded. Middle-class homes increasingly balanced part-time help with new appliances, electricity, and reliable rail and motor transport for shopping and social visits. The diary turns such changes into comedy - ordering coal, managing gardeners, arranging cleaning days - without grand pronouncements. These details align with broader interwar adjustments: reduced staff expectations, rising costs for skilled cooks, and the negotiation of status through etiquette, clothes, and leisure when income and servants no longer guaranteed effortless gentility.
The Church of England remained a central organizing institution in provincial life, shaping calendars through Sundays, fetes, harvest festivals, and charity bazaars. Clergy families, churchwardens, and lay committees oversaw events that blended devotion with fundraising and sociability. Village schools, reading rooms, and halls offered additional venues for talks and lectures, often sponsored by voluntary societies from temperance groups to missionary associations. Such networks appear in Delafield's landscape not as dogma but as routine obligation - attendance, subscriptions, raffle prizes, and the gentle competitions of taste. They frame a world where public respectability and private economy met, producing both social cohesion and opportunities for satire.
Taken together, these contexts reveal a quietly transformative era that the book renders through domestic wit rather than manifesto. The Diary of a Provincial Lady registers the post-suffrage confidence of women readers, the strains of interwar finance, and the fading certainties of class and service. Its provincial-metropolitan contrasts track new mobility and taste-making, while committee culture and church calendars anchor continuity. By turning overdrafts, flower shows, and neighborly rivalries into artful observation, Delafield offers a social document as much as comedy. The work preserves the texture of everyday English life circa 1930 and gently critiques the conventions that governed it.
The Diary of a Provincial Lady (Illustrated)
November 7th.—Plant the indoor bulbs. Just as I am in the middle of them, Lady Boxe[1] calls. I say, untruthfully, how nice to see her, and beg her to sit down while I just finish the bulbs. Lady B. makes determined attempt to sit down in armchair where I have already placed two bulb-bowls and the bag of charcoal, is headed off just in time, and takes the sofa.
Do I know, she asks, how very late it is for indoor bulbs[2q]? September, really, or even October, is the time. Do I know that the only really reliable firm for hyacinths is Somebody of Haarlem[2]? Cannot catch the name of the firm, which is Dutch, but reply Yes, I do know, but think it my duty to buy Empire products. Feel at the time, and still think, that this is an excellent reply[4q]. Unfortunately Vicky comes into the drawing-room later and says: "O Mummie, are those the bulbs we got at Woolworths[3]?"
Lady B. stays to tea. (Mem.: Bread-and-butter too thick. Speak to Ethel.) We talk some more about bulbs, the Dutch School of Painting, our Vicar's wife, sciatica, and All Quiet on the Western Front[4].
(Query: Is it possible to cultivate the art of conversation when living in the country all the year round[3q]?)
Lady B. enquires after the children. Tell her that Robin—whom I refer to in a detached way as "the boy" so that she shan't think I am foolish about him—is getting on fairly well at school, and that Mademoiselle says Vicky is starting a cold.
Do I realise, says Lady B., that the Cold Habit is entirely unnecessary, and can be avoided by giving the child a nasal douche of salt-and-water every morning before breakfast? Think of several rather tart and witty rejoinders to this, but unfortunately not until Lady B.'s Bentley[5] has taken her away.
Finish the bulbs and put them in the cellar. Feel that after all cellar is probably draughty, change my mind, and take them all up to the attic.
Cook says something is wrong with the range[1q].
November 8th.—Robert has looked at the range and says nothing wrong whatever. Makes unoriginal suggestion about pulling out dampers. Cook very angry, and will probably give notice. Try to propitiate her by saying that we are going to Bournemouth[6] for Robin's half-term, and that will give the household a rest. Cook replies austerely that they will take the opportunity to do some extra cleaning. Wish I could believe this was true.
Preparations for Bournemouth rather marred by discovering that Robert, in bringing down the suit-cases from the attic, has broken three of the bulb-bowls. Says he understood that I had put them in the cellar, and so wasn't expecting them.
November 11th.—Bournemouth. Find that history, as usual, repeats itself[5q]. Same hotel, same frenzied scurry round the school to find Robin, same collection of parents, most of them also staying at the hotel. Discover strong tendency to exchange with fellow-parents exactly the same remarks as last year, and the year before that. Speak of this to Robert, who returns no answer. Perhaps he is afraid of repeating himself[6q]? This suggests Query: Does Robert, perhaps, take in what I say even when he makes no reply?
Find Robin looking thin, and speak to Matron who says brightly, Oh no, she thinks on the whole he's put on weight this term, and then begins to talk about the New Buildings. (Query: Why do all schools have to run up New Buildings about once in every six months?)
Take Robin out. He eats several meals, and a good many sweets. He produces a friend, and we take both to Corfe Castle. The boys climb, Robert smokes in silence, and I sit about on stones. Overhear a woman remark, as she gazes up at half a tower, that has withstood several centuries, that This looks fragile—which strikes me as a singular choice of adjective. Same woman, climbing over a block of solid masonry, points out that This has evidently fallen off somewhere.
Take the boys back to the hotel for dinner. Robin says, whilst the friend is out of hearing: "It's been nice for us, taking out Williams, hasn't it?" Hastily express appreciation of this privilege.
Robert takes the boys back after dinner, and I sit in hotel lounge with several other mothers and we all talk about our boys in tones of disparagement, and about one another's boys with great enthusiasm.
Am asked what I think of Harriet Hume[9] but am unable to say, as I have not read it. Have a depressed feeling that this is going to be another case of Orlando[8] about which was perfectly able to talk most intelligently until I read it, and found myself unfortunately unable to understand any of it.
Robert comes up very late and says he must have dropped asleep over the Times. (Query: Why come to Bournemouth to do this?)
Postcard by the last post from Lady B. to ask if I have remembered that there is a Committee Meeting of the Women's Institute on the 14th. Should not dream of answering this.
November 12th.—Home yesterday and am struck, as so often before, by immense accumulation of domestic disasters that always await one after any absence. Trouble with kitchen range has resulted in no hot water, also Cook says the mutton has gone, and will I speak to the butcher, there being no excuse weather like this. Vicky's cold, unlike the mutton, hasn't gone. Mademoiselle says, "Ah, cette petite! Elle ne sera peut-être pas longtemps pour ce bas monde, madame." Hope that this is only her Latin way of dramatising the situation.
Robert reads the Times after dinner, and goes to sleep.
November 13th.—Interesting, but disconcerting, train of thought started by prolonged discussion with Vicky as to the existence or otherwise of a locality which she refers to throughout as H.E.L. Am determined to be a modern parent, and assure her that there is not, never has been, and never could be, such a place. Vicky maintains that there is, and refers me to the Bible. I become more modern than ever, and tell her that theories of eternal punishment were invented to frighten people. Vicky replies indignantly that they don't frighten her in the least, she likes to think about H.E.L. Feel that deadlock has been reached, and can only leave her to her singular method of enjoying herself.
(Query: Are modern children going to revolt against being modern, and if so, what form will reaction of modern parents take?)
Much worried by letter from the Bank to say that my account is overdrawn to the extent of Eight Pounds, four shillings, and fourpence. Cannot understand this, as was convinced that I still had credit balance of Two Pounds, seven shillings, and sixpence. Annoyed to find that my accounts, contents of cash-box, and counterfoils in cheque-book, do not tally. (Mem.: Find envelope on which I jotted down Bournemouth expenses, also little piece of paper (probably last leaf of grocer's book) with note about cash payment to sweep. This may clear things up.)
Take a look at bulb-bowls on returning suit-case to attic, and am inclined to think it looks as though the cat had been up here. If so, this will be the last straw. Shall tell Lady Boxe that I sent all my bulbs to a sick friend in a nursing-home.
November 14th.—Arrival of Book of the Month[7] choice, and am disappointed. History of a place I am not interested in, by an author I do not like. Put it back into its wrapper again and make fresh choice from Recommended List. Find, on reading small literary bulletin enclosed with book, that exactly this course of procedure has been anticipated, and that it is described as being "the mistake of a lifetime". Am much annoyed, although not so much at having made (possibly) mistake of a lifetime, as at depressing thought of our all being so much alike that intelligent writers can apparently predict our behaviour with perfect accuracy.
Decide not to mention any of this to Lady B., always so tiresomely superior about Book of the Month as it is, taking up attitude that she does not require to be told what to read. (Should like to think of good repartee to this.)
Letter by second post from my dear old school-friend Cissie Crabbe, asking if she may come here for two nights or so on her way to Norwich. (Query: Why Norwich? Am surprised to realise that anybody ever goes to, lives at, or comes from, Norwich, but quite see that this is unreasonable of me. Remind myself how very little one knows of the England one lives in, which vaguely suggests a quotation. This, however, does not materialise.)
Many years since we last met, writes Cissie, and she expects we have both changed a good deal. P.S. Do I remember the dear old pond, and the day of the Spanish Arrowroot. Can recall, after some thought, dear old pond, at bottom of Cissie's father's garden, but am completely baffled by Spanish Arrowroot. (Query: Could this be one of the Sherlock Holmes stories? Sounds like it.)
Reply that we shall be delighted to see her, and what a lot we shall have to talk about, after all these years! (This, I find on reflection, is not true, but cannot re-write letter on that account.) Ignore Spanish Arrowroot altogether.
Robert, when I tell him about dear old school-friend's impending arrival, does not seem pleased. Asks what we are expected to do with her. I suggest showing her the garden, and remember too late that this is hardly the right time of the year. At any rate, I say, it will be nice to talk over old times—(which reminds me of the Spanish Arrowroot reference still unfathomed).
Speak to Ethel about the spare room, and am much annoyed to find that one blue candlestick has been broken, and the bedside rug has gone to the cleaners, and cannot be retrieved in time. Take away bedside rug from Robert's dressing-room, and put it in spare room instead, hoping he will not notice its absence.
November 15th.—Robert does notice absence of rug, and says he must have it back again. Return it to dressing-room and take small and inferior dyed mat from the night-nursery to put in spare room. Mademoiselle is hurt about this and says to Vicky, who repeats it to me, that in this country she finds herself treated like a worm.
November 17th.—Dear old school-friend Cissie Crabbe due by the three o'clock train. On telling Robert this, he says it is most inconvenient to meet her, owing to Vestry Meeting, but eventually agrees to abandon Vestry Meeting. Am touched. Unfortunately, just after he has started, telegram arrives to say that dear old school-friend has missed the connection and will not arrive until seven o'clock. This means putting off dinner till eight, which Cook won't like. Cannot send message to kitchen by Ethel, as it is her afternoon out, so am obliged to tell Cook myself. She is not pleased. Robert returns from station, not pleased either. Mademoiselle, quite inexplicably, says, "Il ne manquait que ca!" (This comment wholly unjustifiable, as non-appearance of Cissie Crabbe cannot concern her in any way. Have often thought that the French are tactless.)
Ethel returns, ten minutes late, and says Shall she light fire in spare room? I say No, it is not cold enough—but really mean that Cissie is no longer, in my opinion, deserving of luxuries. Subsequently feel this to be unworthy attitude, and light fire myself. It smokes.
Robert calls up to know What is that Smoke? I call down that It is Nothing. Robert comes up and opens the window and shuts the door and says It will Go all right Now. Do not like to point out that the open window will make the room cold.
Play Ludo with Vicky in drawing-room[7q].
Robert reads the Times and goes to sleep, but wakes in time to make second expedition to the station. Thankful to say that this time he returns with Cissie Crabbe, who has put on weight, and says several times that she supposes we have both changed a good deal, which I consider unnecessary.
Take her upstairs—spare room like an icehouse, owing to open window, and fire still smoking, though less—She says room is delightful, and I leave her, begging her to ask for anything she wants—(Mem.: tell Ethel she must answer spare room bell if it rings—Hope it won't.)
Ask Robert while dressing for dinner what he thinks of Cissie. He says he has not known her long enough to judge. Ask if he thinks her good-looking. He says he has not thought about it. Ask what they talked about on the way from the station. He says he does not remember.
November 19th.—Last two days very, very trying, owing to quite unexpected discovery that Cissie Crabbe is strictly on a diet. This causes Robert to take a dislike to her. Utter impossibility of obtaining lentils or lemons at short notice makes housekeeping unduly difficult. Mademoiselle in the middle of lunch insists on discussing diet question, and several times exclaims: "Ah, mon doux St. Joseph!" which I consider profane, and beg her never to repeat.
Consult Cissie about the bulbs, which look very much as if the mice had been at them. She says: Unlimited Watering, and tells me about her own bulbs at Norwich. Am discouraged.
Administer Unlimited Water to the bulbs (some of which goes through the attic floor on to the landing below), and move half of them down to the cellar, as Cissie Crabbe says attic is airless.
Our Vicar's wife calls this afternoon. Says she once knew someone who had relations living near Norwich, but cannot remember their name. Cissie Crabbe replies that very likely if we knew their name we might find she'd heard of them, or even met them. We agree that the world is a small place. Talk about the Riviera, the new waist-line, choir-practice, the servant question, and Ramsay MacDonald[10].
November 22nd.—Cissie Crabbe leaves. Begs me in the kindest way to stay with her in Norwich (where she has already told me that she lives in a bed-sitting-room with two cats, and cooks her own lentils on a gas-ring). I say Yes, I should love to. We part effusively.
Spend entire morning writing the letters I have had to leave unanswered during Cissie's visit.
Invitation from Lady Boxe to us to dine and meet distinguished literary friends staying with her, one of whom is the author of Symphony in Three Sexes. Hesitate to write back and say that I have never heard of Symphony in Three Sexes, so merely accept. Ask for Symphony in Three Sexes at the library, although doubtfully. Doubt more than justified by tone in which Mr. Jones replies that it is not in stock, and never has been.
Ask Robert whether he thinks I had better wear my Blue or my Black-and-gold at Lady B.'s. He says that either will do. Ask if he can remember which one I wore last time. He cannot. Mademoiselle says it was the Blue, and offers to make slight alterations to Black-and-gold which will, she says, render it unrecognisable. I accept, and she cuts large pieces out of the back of it. I say: "Pas trop décolletée," and she replies intelligently: "Je comprends, Madame ne desire pas se voir nue au salon."
(Query: Have not the French sometimes a very strange way of expressing themselves, and will this react unfavourably on Vicky?)
Tell Robert about the distinguished literary friends, but do not mention Symphony in Three Sexes. He makes no answer.
Have absolutely decided that if Lady B. should introduce us to distinguished literary friends, or anyone else, as Our Agent, and Our Agent's Wife, I shall at once leave the house.
Tell Robert this. He says nothing. (Mem.: Put evening shoes out of window to see if fresh air will remove smell of petrol.)
November 25th.—Go and get hair cut and have manicure in the morning, in honour of Lady B.'s dinner party. Should like new pair of evening stockings, but depressing communication from Bank, still maintaining that I am overdrawn, prevents this, also rather unpleasantly worded letter from Messrs. Frippy and Coleman requesting payment of overdue account by return of post. Think better not to mention this to Robert, as bill for coke arrived yesterday, also reminder that Rates are much overdue, therefore write civilly to Messrs. F. and C. to the effect that cheque follows in a few days. (Hope they may think I have temporarily mislaid cheque-book.)
Black-and-gold as rearranged by Mademoiselle very satisfactory, but am obliged to do my hair five times owing to wave having been badly set. Robert unfortunately comes in just as I am using bran-new and expensive lip-stick, and objects strongly to result.
(Query: If Robert could be induced to go to London rather oftener, would he perhaps take broader view of these things?)
Am convinced we are going to be late, as Robert has trouble in getting car to start, but he refuses to be agitated. Am bound to add that subsequent events justify this attitude, as we arrive before anybody else, also before Lady B. is down. Count at least a dozen Roman hyacinths growing in bowls all over the drawing-room. (Probably grown by one of the gardeners, whatever Lady B. may say. Resolve not to comment on them in any way, but am conscious that this is slightly ungenerous.)
Lady B. comes down wearing silver lace frock that nearly touches the floor all round, and has new waist-line. This may or not be becoming, but has effect of making everybody else's frock look out-of-date.
Nine other people present besides ourselves, most of them staying in house. Nobody is introduced. Decide that a lady in what looks like blue tapestry is probably responsible for Symphony in Three Sexes.
Just as dinner is announced Lady B. murmurs to me: "I've put you next to Sir William. He's interested in water-supplies, you know, and I thought you'd like to talk to him about local conditions."
