Title: Diary of a Holiday Tutor
Fandom: Diary of a Provincial Lady -- E.M. Delafield
Rating: G
Length: 850 words
Author notes: Church & Gargoyle, scholastic agents, find work for Paul Pennyfeather in Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall. Casabianca is reading cantos 29 and 30 of the Purgatorio, and the line he quotes describes Beatrice as being like an admiral encouraging the fleet.

Summary: Casabianca's diary reveals that he has immortal longings in him.




August 1st: To Church & Gargoyle, scholastic agents. Maniacally cynical man in horn-rims asks my reason for leaving last situation. Resolved on honesty, I tell him, at which he assures me that Officially I Have Not Told Him. He picks up telephone and enquires of a Mr Samson if they have anything suitable for Incompatibilities in Educational Philosophy, adds with a small frown, Male, and after a pause and a grimace of hideous confidentiality in my direction clarifies, No, Thank God, The Bursar’s Wife. I am given the choice of: 1) rectory in Swallow, widowed father of four children (3 m, 12, 10 and 9 y.o. 1 f, 14 y.o.) boys requiring intensive tuition to Catch Up Following Measles or 2) Devon, land agent to Lady Boxe, two children (1, m, 11 y.o.; 1 f, 7 y.o.), must be prepared to accompany family to Brittany, swimmer and French-speaker preferred. I plump for swimming and Brittany over bleak Lincolnshire wolds and remedial Algebra.

August 4th: Travel to Salisbury to be interviewed by mother of potential pupils. Terrific inconvenience of reaching this equidistant rendezvous predisposes me to accept position at all costs, but am aware this is irrational and make resolutions against impulsiveness.

Resolutions fade on sight of Mrs D—, who is in her early forties, handsome with huge brown heavy-lidded eyes, and are forgotten entirely after half an hour’s conversation, during which she neither patronises me as species of upper servant nor tries to persuade me of the surpassing intelligence and sensitivity of her offspring. Charmed by her self-deprecating humour, find myself urgently hoping she will make offer there and then. However she merely and rather airily promises to Write, but does at least offer expenses, which fund large, insipid tea in the train. Am ploughing through vast, arid scone when thought occurs that employment in close proximity to captivating, witty and unstimulated wife of former colonel has in the past proved inadvisable. Dismiss this as unworthy of own hard-won powers of continence. Roused from pleasing romantic reverie at Biggleswade by the muttered commentary of an urn-shaped lady in bilious crepe upon the unchivalry of Hale Young Men who Spread Themselves Out Across the front-facing seats.

August 7th: Arrive at the D—s and am admitted by an emphatically harassed maid to the usual disorder of a provincial entrance hall, odd galoshes, autumn bulbs, at least twice as many tennis racquets as inmates. Meet my charges, who are typical impervious, utterly mindless little English children, the girl indiscriminately affectionate. We play tip-and-run until tea. Am introduced to the husband, who is taciturn but has a humorous face. Not the sort to make an unseemly fuss over a little hair-stroking and playful chastisement.

August 8th: Embarrassing incident while helping Mrs D—, (who in the course of operations suggests first name terms, blissful bliss) to pack the boy’s suitcase. Stuffed with redundant linen, it fails to shut. I offer to sit on it, whereupon, murmuring softly about the hygienic deficiencies of French trains (? but she is lovelier than ever when mysterious) she leaves the room. Since she clearly intends to return within a few minutes, I maintain my position atop the case. Ten minutes pass swiftly in recollection of her statuesque posterior aspect. After a quarter of an hour I consider that perhaps she has been waylaid by one of the children or a departing maid, and resolve to wait another five minutes before going to look for her. After twenty-five minutes reflect that to abandon my post at this stage would be in some obscure way Dereliction of Duty, find pocket-edition of Dante in coat pocket (Mem.: replace with Montaigne for French Practice) and absorb myself in it for a few cantos. Have just concluded Earthly Paradise quite absurd, a sort of village fête Kitchen-and-Jumble of an Allegory, and Matilda a repulsively pert little madam, when She finally comes back in, dragging a wicker basket that seems to contain a very great quantity of green, white and red fabric (? domestic life continues an entire mystery to me) and with at least a dozen cakes of Pears Transparent Soap wedged between elbow and chin. & I feel at last I Understand.

‘You Ridiculous Boy,’ she exclaims in stern quarterdeck tones (Quasi ammiraglio che in poppa e in prora—) ‘what on earth do you mean by sitting there like—like—?’

Mean to get up and explain myself, realise combination of usual somatic response to rebuke by striking middle-aged woman and thin flannels make this impossible and freeze, whereupon my Beatrice at once drops both her superb demeanour and all the soap and apologises profusely. This, though a disappointment in an aesthetic sense, at least permits me to rise in a state of moderate decency. Trembling, I reply that It Is Nothing (that such a worm as I should accept Her apology!) and together we conquer the delinquent valise. Her perfume is Floris Stephanotis. I foresee a most diverting fortnight in Brittany.

O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD O GOD