Idina “extracted a large pearl ring—by everything as only she knows how!”
A large pearl ring. One of the things a woman does when she wants to know how much a man loves her is see how large a piece of jewelry she can persuade him to buy. One of the things a man does when he feels guilty is to buy it. The next morning Idina led Euan back to the jeweler’s, where she had seen a vast pearl ring. She left the store with it on her finger.
Idina wore that pearl ring through thick and thin. After four more husbands, the ring Euan had given her was still on her hand.
The morning after Euan bought Idina the ring, she wrote in his diary again, filling the bottom of the page. It wasn’t the done thing for a woman to worry about fidelity in an upper-class marriage. Their money and property were bound for life. But Idina, as much as she enjoyed her sexual freedom, had had a father who had simply left.
She wrote, “Little One the only woman, wicked little creature,” reminding him that no glacial beauty could offer what she did in bed.
They had three days left in Paris: more shopping, more lunching, more tennis. They visited Sturges and his pet, now more lion than cub. They dined in a group and found a gramophone to dance to. Little One and Brownie dined alone together at the lowbrow streetside caféconcertof Les Ambassadeurs on the Champs-Elysées, just around the corner from the Ritz. They watched the vaudeville, listened to an operetta, and slid on to a show called Hello Boys . But Idina clearly still felt insecure. She tried to see just how much money she could persuade Euan to spend on her on an evening out—and then made a point about it. “Little One very sweet,” she scrawled in his diary, pretending to be Euan, “but I was certainly taken for my high class keep.”
But, as entertaining as Idina made herself, Euan was still drifting from her. This time he resented having to escort her around the permit office, the prefecture, and the railway station for all the pieces of paper she needed to travel back to England: “took all morning,” he wrote. And at breakfast time the next day he packed her onto the London train.
WITHIN THREE WEEKS Euan was back in London. On 25 September he reached Victoria at six for another fortnight’s home leave. Idina’s first move was to order herself a new car to be brought around for a test drive. It was a Calcott and the latest wartime fashion accessory: a small car, half the size of the Rolls, it was powered by a four-foot-high rectangular gas bag perched above the roof. The Calcott arrived at Connaught Place at lunchtime. As soon as they had finished eating they leapt into it, “tried it for half an hour,” wrote Euan, and then drove off in it to play a couple of sets of tennis. At teatime they returned home, where “the man from Cambridge” who had brought it down was still waiting. They persuaded him to exchange the Calcott for their old Singer.
At first the arrival of a fun new car seemed to have done the trick. For the next few days, as Euan wrote in his diary, he and Idina were barely out of it. They went shopping “in the Calcott,” they drove out to lunch, to tea, to dinner, “in the Calcott.” They went off to play tennis at Queen’s Club, at the Ranelagh, at Prince’s, “in a covered court, in the Calcott.” They “went out again” and drove around for the hell of it “until tea, in the Calcott.” On Sunday the two of them took off together in it “down the Guildford Road.” They ended in Ockham, found somewhere to eat and “went for a walk in the woods after.” And their gas-powered Calcott was such an intensely fashionable car that it was photographed for the Illustrated London News . 5
Even back in London, with her husband in reach of all those young girls, Idina appears to have been enjoying a new honeymoon with Euan, and the shadows that had crowded in on their marriage three months earlier seemed to have faded away.
Idina’s
A large pearl ring. One of the things a woman does when she wants to know how much a man loves her is see how large a piece of jewelry she can persuade him to buy. One of the things a man does when he feels guilty is to buy it. The next morning Idina led Euan back to the jeweler’s, where she had seen a vast pearl ring. She left the store with it on her finger.
Idina wore that pearl ring through thick and thin. After four more husbands, the ring Euan had given her was still on her hand.
The morning after Euan bought Idina the ring, she wrote in his diary again, filling the bottom of the page. It wasn’t the done thing for a woman to worry about fidelity in an upper-class marriage. Their money and property were bound for life. But Idina, as much as she enjoyed her sexual freedom, had had a father who had simply left.
She wrote, “Little One the only woman, wicked little creature,” reminding him that no glacial beauty could offer what she did in bed.
They had three days left in Paris: more shopping, more lunching, more tennis. They visited Sturges and his pet, now more lion than cub. They dined in a group and found a gramophone to dance to. Little One and Brownie dined alone together at the lowbrow streetside caféconcertof Les Ambassadeurs on the Champs-Elysées, just around the corner from the Ritz. They watched the vaudeville, listened to an operetta, and slid on to a show called Hello Boys . But Idina clearly still felt insecure. She tried to see just how much money she could persuade Euan to spend on her on an evening out—and then made a point about it. “Little One very sweet,” she scrawled in his diary, pretending to be Euan, “but I was certainly taken for my high class keep.”
But, as entertaining as Idina made herself, Euan was still drifting from her. This time he resented having to escort her around the permit office, the prefecture, and the railway station for all the pieces of paper she needed to travel back to England: “took all morning,” he wrote. And at breakfast time the next day he packed her onto the London train.
WITHIN THREE WEEKS Euan was back in London. On 25 September he reached Victoria at six for another fortnight’s home leave. Idina’s first move was to order herself a new car to be brought around for a test drive. It was a Calcott and the latest wartime fashion accessory: a small car, half the size of the Rolls, it was powered by a four-foot-high rectangular gas bag perched above the roof. The Calcott arrived at Connaught Place at lunchtime. As soon as they had finished eating they leapt into it, “tried it for half an hour,” wrote Euan, and then drove off in it to play a couple of sets of tennis. At teatime they returned home, where “the man from Cambridge” who had brought it down was still waiting. They persuaded him to exchange the Calcott for their old Singer.
At first the arrival of a fun new car seemed to have done the trick. For the next few days, as Euan wrote in his diary, he and Idina were barely out of it. They went shopping “in the Calcott,” they drove out to lunch, to tea, to dinner, “in the Calcott.” They went off to play tennis at Queen’s Club, at the Ranelagh, at Prince’s, “in a covered court, in the Calcott.” They “went out again” and drove around for the hell of it “until tea, in the Calcott.” On Sunday the two of them took off together in it “down the Guildford Road.” They ended in Ockham, found somewhere to eat and “went for a walk in the woods after.” And their gas-powered Calcott was such an intensely fashionable car that it was photographed for the Illustrated London News . 5
Even back in London, with her husband in reach of all those young girls, Idina appears to have been enjoying a new honeymoon with Euan, and the shadows that had crowded in on their marriage three months earlier seemed to have faded away.
Idina’s
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