What Bingo Little said
Fernsby of The Daily Trail, a photographer we have all come to regard with equal measures of admiration and apprehension, somehow contrived to capture this moment and permanently redefine the expression afternoon glow. One simply couldn’t use the phrase afterwards without someone producing the photograph.
His reputation in Fleet Street, already growing at an alarming pace, expanded considerably, to the undisguised irritation of the earnest fellows at The Daily Socialite, who had been under the impression that they possessed an exclusive lease on glamour.
Before long photographers across Europe were experimenting with this curious new notion that sunlight might actually improve a picture instead of merely illuminating it. Across the Atlantic came reports that Hollywood had convened emergency meetings. Glamour, it appeared, was no longer to be manufactured entirely indoors.
The French press, meanwhile, reacted with admirable dignity.
Mais que se passe-t-il donc en Angleterre ? Depuis quand sont-ils devenus aussi raffinés ? Aussi glamour ? Ces deux femmes sont-elles vraiment anglaises ? Il va falloir revoir toute notre stratégie.
Which, loosely translated, means that several distinguished editors simultaneously reached for very strong coffee.
What Oofy Prosser Said
Fernsby must now be regarded as a strategic national asset. I offer this opinion after considerable reflection and, I might add, entirely without exaggeration.
This photograph was, to put it mildly, devastating. For this is not studio glamour.
It is daylight glamour.
And daylight glamour is infinitely more dangerous.
There is no carefully arranged lighting. No velvet curtains. No whispered suggestion of mystery.
Only sunlight. Stone. Moving water.
Two women strolling as though they had no idea they were quietly forcing every fashion editor in Europe to reconsider his profession.
What Pongo Twistleton said
Bingo, your comment about the French concerns had me in absolute convulsions.
“Mais que se passe-t-il donc en Angleterre?”
Perfect.
One can see the entire scene. Paris.
A newsroom perfumed with Gauloises, espresso and existential certainty.
The editor throws the photograph upon the desk.
“Non.”
Silence.
Then, with increasing feeling—
“Non… non… non.”
The assistant ventures cautiously.
“What is it, Monsieur?”
The editor stares at the picture for what must have been a full minute.
“It is England.”
“The English?”
“The English.”
Another editor wanders over. More silence.
Finally he removes his spectacles.
“Mon Dieu…”
“What?”
“They have discovered restraint.”
At which point, I imagine, someone cancelled lunch and summoned the Ministry of Culture.
What Bingo Little said
What am I expected to say about this? We have descended from the dizzying heights of Bobbie-and-Pauline-induced glamour and returned firmly to the mortal plane.
No ordinary conversation, this.
Sir Shash and Bertie Wooster are discussing the finer points of the Kathi Roll as opposed to the Tortilla Wrap.
Sir Shash, speaking with the quiet authority of a man who has sampled the species in its natural habitat, is explaining that a proper Kathi Roll ought to be purchased from a bustling street vendor sometime around early evening, when the griddle has acquired wisdom through long experience.
Bertie, meanwhile, is wondering whether Anatole might be persuaded to produce one upon their return to Brinkley.
I suspect the idea occupied him for the remainder of the holiday.
What Pongo Twistleton said
Shash is clearly in lecture mode.
One hand is moving with the measured confidence of a university don. Bertie wears the expression of a man who realises he is being educated, while simultaneously suspecting there may be an examination afterwards.
I can hear every word.
Bertie: But surely, old bean, a wrap is a wrap? One encloses fillings in a flat carbohydrate envelope and proceeds with quiet confidence.
Sir Shash: Bertie, that is rather like saying Jeeves and a valet who habitually loses one’s socks are identical because both happen to wear morning clothes.
Bertie: Ah.
Sir Shash: The Kathi Roll is architecture.
Bertie: Architecture?
Sir Shash: Balance. Sequence. Intent.
Bertie: Right-ho.
Sir Shash: First, the paratha. It is not merely bread. It has layers. It should be crisp without and yielding within.
Bertie: Good Lord. There are specifications.
Sir Shash: Naturally. Then comes the filling with charred meat or paneer, onions, lime, green chutney…
Bertie: Egg?
Sir Shash: Egg.
Bertie: Inside?
Sir Shash: Inside.
Bertie: Along with the meat?
Sir Shash: Certainly.
A thoughtful silence.
Bertie: India really has been holding out on us.
What Oofy Prosser said
A tortilla wrap, broadly speaking, strives for consistency. Everything is measured. Everything is arranged. Everything behaves.
A proper Kathi Roll, on the other hand, embraces what might best be described as disciplined anarchy. No two bites are quite alike.
One offers smoke and spice. The next onion and lime. The next an entirely unexpected but wholly welcome encounter with green chutney. If a little of it fails to escape onto one’s cuff, the establishment has almost certainly misunderstood the assignment.
That, I fancy, is what Sir Shash was trying to explain.
Bertie’s contribution, naturally, was immediate.
“Do you suppose Anatole could make one?”
One imagines the great chef receiving the proposal with profound Gallic indignation.
“Monsieur Wooster wishes zat I take magnificent cuisine… and wrap eet in bread… for eating in ze street?”
However, because a genius chef recognizes genius good, he does his research.
Within a fortnight Aunt Dahlia was entertaining half the Home Counties with Anatole’s Imperial Kathi Roll à la Brinkley—prepared with buttered paratha, delicately spiced lamb, pickled onions, mint chutney, and sufficient culinary genius to convince several elderly peers that experimentation with food could produce extraordinary flavour.
What Bingo Little said
Here, I think, we witnessed the moment society collectively abandoned all pretence of behaving sensibly. Fernsby of The Daily Trail, already developing an inconvenient reputation for producing photographs that people simply could not stop discussing, secured another triumph. Lady Wickham, displaying a confidence rarely encountered outside royalty and exceptionally successful actresses, gave permission for its publication.
The consequences were immediate.
There were persistent rumours that grateful members of the newsroom began leaving cakes, bottles of claret and anonymous notes of thanks upon Fernsby’s doorstep. Competing newspapers attempted to lure him away with offers of employment enclosing crisp hundred-pound notes, apparently on the understanding that genius ought not to be negotiated with empty hands.
The hotel where the photograph was taken experienced such an influx of distinguished guests hoping to occupy the very same balcony that the proprietor eventually ceased answering the telephone altogether.
Several Countesses quietly summoned their dressmakers. More than one duchess cancelled an already completed wardrobe.
At one of England’s premier institutions for higher education, the most enthusiastically attended debate of the term became:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”
Curiously enough, the motion proved so popular that it had to be held twice.
When an intrepid journalist asked the celebrated Miss Bow for her thoughts on the photograph, she is said to have replied,
“Would someone kindly ask those two to leave a little glamour for the rest of us in pictures?”
Which, under the circumstances, was perfectly reasonable.
What Oofy Prosser said
This is controlled detonation masquerading as a photograph.
I have reached the conclusion that Fernsby could comfortably have retired on the strength of this single exclusive. Its greatest stroke of genius, however, was that it appeared with Lady Wickham’s explicit approval.
That transforms the entire enterprise. She is not being discovered.
She is saying, with perfect composure,
Yes. Print it.
The public, naturally, mistook this for an invitation to remain calm. They failed.
The setting assists enormously. A Mediterranean balcony. The final gold of the evening. Lace curtains stirred by the sea breeze. Old stone. Older money. The sort of view which quietly reminds one that Europe has been practicing elegance for rather a long time.
And standing before it…
Lady Wickham and Baroness Pauline Stoker.
Not displaying themselves. Simply existing. Sometimes that is quite sufficient.
What Pongo Twistleton said
I can picture Bertie reading the morning paper over breakfast at Berkeley Mansions.
I say, Bobbie, the newspapers appear to have become rather emotional.
Have they?
There is an editorial in the Modern Times
On what subject?
The future of Western civilization.
That seems a trifle ambitious.
Apparently, it began with your balcony.
Just then Jeeves arrives with the coffee.
The nation appears somewhat distracted this morning, sir.
Yes, Jeeves. I had formed much the same impression.
My favourite aspect of the whole affair, however, is that this is not a portrait of one remarkable woman. It is a portrait of two remarkable women.
Separately, each commands attention. Together, they become legend.
Not rivals. Never rivals. One seems to complete the composition begun by the other. Like sunrise and sunset sharing the same horizon.
No wonder Fernsby found cakes arriving at his front door.
Had the King chosen to tap him on the shoulder with a ceremonial sword a week later, I doubt anyone would have considered the honour excessive.
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