Some Sparkling Memoirs
Some People. By Harold Nicolson. (Constable. 7s. Gd.) Mn. NICOI.SON has written a most attractive book. He has found a form of his own—part fiction, part biography, but most of all, autobiography. His nine chapters are each short stories, taken from some incident in his own life, or character studies of some acquaintance, twisted just enough so as to pre- serve the decencies. Nearly all the papers are amusing. The least so, in our opinion, is the first, a rather ordinary study of a pathetic spinster who chanced to have been his governess. A far more amusing chapter, though to an equal extent an attack upon a defenceless female," is the last, " Miriam Codd " ; she is an American behaviourist," who travels with him to Persia.
But all the other papers arc in fact overshadowed by the one entitled Arketall," which is the name that Mr. Nicolson gives to one of Lord Curzon's valets. This chapter, besides being an extraordinarily amusing account of that gentleman's aberrations from the paths of decorum, is a perfect study of the Marquis himself. No more friendly and appreciative and yet funnier account of that great personage has ever been written. Mr. Nicolson tells us that he was once summoned to Lord Curzon's bedroom in Carlton House Terrace and gives us his account of the interview. • " My eyes wandered round the room in mute surprise. They returned finally to the figure in the bed. He was no longer looking at the documents, he was looking at me. ' You are observing,' he said, the simple squalor of my bedroom. I can assure you, however, that my wife's apartments are of the most unexampled magnificence.' And at this his shoulders shook with that infectious laughter of his, that rich eighteenth- century amusement."
We are then told how it came about that the new valet Arketall ever came to be engaged. Lord Curzon begins to speak of the telephone. " A disastrous invention, my dear Nicolson, but it has its uses. Thus if I make upon this ivory lever a slight pressure to deflect it to the right, a mere exiguum clinanien, the whole secrets of my household arc revealed to me. I overhear. This morning, for instance,- when thus switchCci on (I think that is the correct term) to the universe, the bell rang. A voice said, ' Is that you, Alf, and 'ows it feeling this morning ? I 'ad a devil of a time coming in with the milk like that. My dear young lady,' I answered, you are singularly mistaken. You are not speaking to Mr. Alfred Horlick, you are speaking to Lord Curzon himself.' The noises, I may say, which greeted me from the other end indicated that my words had produced an effect which was positively blasting. And Horlick, an excellent valet, leaves me to-morrow."
Arketall was taken to the Lausanne Conference, whither we too are transported by Mr. Nicolson's airy descriptions. There, Arketall more and more reveals himself to be, like the telephone, a disastrous innovation. Finally he is found dancing, inebriated, with the hotel guests, is instantly dismissed, and nearly creates a grave diplomatic incident by being suspected, though as it turns out wrongfully, of having stolen Lord Curzon's trousers. It is here that Mr. Nicolson reveals to us his profound diplomatic instinct. He is sent for by Lord Curzon. " I found him in his dressing-gown. He was
half-angry and half-amused. That indefinite Arketall,' he said, has stolen my trousers.'—' Not all your trousers ? '
I asked in some confusion. Yes, all of them, except these.' Lord Curzon was wearing his evening trousers of the night before. I ran for Bill Bentinck and told him to telephone to the frontier police : Don't say trousers,' I shouted after him, say quelques effets. ' " The instinct which made Mr. Nicolson, at such a crisis, realize that a British plenipotentiary can never be in undignified circumstances should carry him far in his profession.
The trousers recovered, Mr. Nicolson was duly rewarded. " Thank you," said Lord Curzon, " I shall now complete my toilet. There will only be Leeper to dinner to-night, and as a reward I shall give you my celebrated imitation of Tennyson reciting Tears, idle tears.' " And then Mr. Nicolson ends his best chapter with unquestionably the best passage in his book.
" He kept his promise. It was an amazing performance. We expressed our admiration and gratitude. A sudden wave of depres- sion descended upon Lord Curzon. Ah, yes,' he sighed, Ah, yes. I know. All that was years ago, when I was young and could still laugh at my elders. But all young men are remorseless. You will go upstairs this evening and chaff me behind my back. You will give imitations in after life of the old buffer imitating Tennyson. And so it continues.' He sighed deeply. And then he grinned. ' I am sorry,' he said, for Arketall. I liked that man.' "
We have quoted enough to show Lord Curzon in a new and kindly light, and something of the quality of Mr. Nicolson's sparkling memoirs.
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