A Spectator's Notebook
Yesterday Sir Peter Daubeny and his lady came to lunch. When one reaches a certain age all one's friends seem to be either dead or knighted. Sir Peter happily is still very much With us and never was a knighthood more richly deserved.
He first came into my life at the Ritz during the war, disguised as a second lieutenant in the Coldstreams. The disguise was ineffective; he looked like a cherubic schoolboy who ought to be changing into shorts for a run over the Marlborough Downs. But even in thise days there was a gleam of fanaticism in the clear young eyes. What was he going to do when the war was over? Helping himself to another portion of Spam en camouflage a La guerre he replied, "I shall be a theatrical manager." He used the word 'shall' with total authority. There was no question of 'might' or 'would like to be.' The word was 'shall.'
And of course that was what he did become, though the phrase ' theatrical manager' sounds rather meagre for the man who made himself the most distinguished international Impresario in the modern world. Admittedly, the pink-cheeked schoolboy-officer had one or two hurdles to surmount before he achieved his ambition. There was a war to be fought, and an arm to be lost. There were the embattled ramparts of an all-powerful Theatrical Establishment, manned by cunning officers, to be scaled and assaulted, almost single-handed. Indeed, literally single-handed, for after the war he had only one hand to fight with. But he made it. .
"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet," as We have been frequently reminded, "are of Imagination all compact." If we sbstituted the word ' impresario ' for the ' poet ' the immortal generalisation has even greater force. Which is my excuse for .suggesting that dear Peter, ably assisted by his enchanting wife, is more than slightly nuts, always has been, and always will be.
All very simple, and of no great gastronomic interest, except that I did it all myself. Blended the watercress in the mixer, prepared the pdte, mixed the salad, and achieved the syllabub, which is perhaps not so simple after all. For when you have grated the lemon peel, and squeezed the lemon juice on the sugar, and sprinkled it with powdered 'cinnamon, and stirred in the liqueur brandy. you have to be quite adroit when you are whipping in the double cream. Otherwise the whole thing dissolves into a mass of repulsive ectoplasm. The " Syllabub Gascoigne " is in memory of my Jeeves, Mr Reginald Arthur Gaskin. who served me for more years than I care to remember. He was a cordon bleu cook; even his scrambled eggs had magic; and when he died, life was rather bleak. I had to learn to cook for myself — and not only cook but go into shops and carry things in bags. and wash up. This is not easy, but it is not impossible, and sometimes it can be quite amusing.
When he died, people said, "You must get another Gaskin." Such a suggestion showed a strange ignorance of the facts of modern life. There will never be "another Gaskin "; the breed is extinct. Over the hills and far away. The cause of this sad state of affairs has little to do with economics. There are still thousands of rich men who could afford to pay astronomical wages for the sort of inspired service which Gaskin provided. But the Gaskins of today, who might have developed into the Jeeves of the future, can no longer be tempted. Why? Because ' service ' has become a dirty word. Better to sweat as an anonymous unit in a tactory than to play a minor role in a stately home. Better to struggle in solitude on a meagre pension than to grow old among the members of a family of ,whom, in your way, you have become a part. It is sad and it is silly but perhaps it is not so hard to understand, when one remembers the way in which servants used to be treated. Once, walking through Euston Square with Arnold Bennett, he pointed down to the dark basements in which the servants of the great houses were confined. "One day," he stuttered, "those slaves will revolt." Well, they have revolted. And there will never be a counter-revolution.
Duke of non-U
From my study window, half hidden by the trees of neighbouring gardens. I can see the house where Nell Gwynn held the baby out of the window. The baby's father, of course, was King Charles. Legend has it that one day, having driven from London, he found her in a state of mounting indignation because he had , not given the child a title, presumably because he thought that England was already sufficiently bespattered by royal bastards. Seizing the wretched infant she intended to hurl it into the courtyard. whereupon he promptly created it the first Duke of St Albans.
This story, and the identity of the house itself, was confirmed by the twelfth Duke of St Albans on the one and only occasion when I met him. He was a charming old gentleman, who looked exactly like Hollywood's idea of the perfect duke, elegant, aquiline, parchment-skinned. etc. And since he was so extremely ducal it was instructive to be given a practical lesson by him in what was ' U ' and what was `non-U.' Taking me by the arm he said, "Let us go into the library." Then he uttered these terrible words. "I would like to show you a very pretty mirror over the mantelpiece."
Nancy Mitford would have fainted. 'Mirror!' How could noble lips frame such a hideous expression? ' Mantelpiece' was even worse. This may sound old-hat, but is not. The ' U ' nonsense had a lasting effect in British social circles whose members should have known better. It still operates. Well — what was good enough for a duke (to say nothing of Shakespeare) is good enough for me.
A pound a brick
Wages. This is far too large a subject to cover in a couple of paragraphs. But from the aforesaid window, of my study I can see a little wall that protects part of the tiny. courtyard. This was built, or rather repaired, by one of a large gang of workmen who were recently milling round the cottage for a period of six months.
The wall is nine feet long by eighteen inches high and it contains precisely 120 bricks. The workman took three weeks to repair it. during which time he was in receipt of a wage of £40 a week. Unless my arithmetic is at fault, this works out at El per brick. Incidentally the wall is already showing signs of imminent collapse.
El per brick. Not for the first tithe I wonder whether I am in the right job.
Beverley Nichols
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