The Blessing Read online

  Charles-Edouard was particularly nice to Grace about this dinner, and insisted on asking the Dexters back the following week. The two couples dined alone together, rather quickly, and went to Lorenzaccio. If Charles-Edouard had suffered from boredom at the Dexter dinner, he had more than his revenge on Hector, who really could hardly sit still at Lorenzaccio, and said, quite rudely, in the entr’acte, that whoever would take this play to Broadway was heading for a very very serious financial loss indeed.

  *

  ‘But my dearest,’ said Albertine, ‘dinner with the wife’s best friend and the best friend’s husband is a classic. I could have warned you about that, as much a part of married life as babies, nannies, and in-laws. Of course a jolly bachelor like yourself had never envisaged such developments.’

  ‘I wish I understood Americans,’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘They are very strange. So good, and yet so dull.’

  ‘What makes you think they are so good?’

  ‘You can see it, shining in their eyes.’

  ‘That’s not goodness, that’s contact lenses – a kind of spectacle they wear next the eyeball. I had an American lover after the liberation and I used to tap his eye with my nail file. He was a very curious man. Imagine, his huge, healthy-looking body hardly functioned at all by itself. He couldn’t walk a yard; I took him to Versailles, and half-way across the Galerie des Glaces he lay on the floor and cried for his mother. He couldn’t do you know what without lavages, he could only digest yoghourt and raw carrots, he couldn’t sleep without a sleeping draught or wake up without benzedrine, and he had to have a good strong blood transfusion every morning before he could face the day. It was like having another automaton in the house.’

  ‘You had him in the house?’

  Albertine, who hated too much intimacy, had never done this with any of her lovers.

  ‘For the central heating, dearest,’ she said apologetically. ‘It was that very cold winter. Americans have no circulation of their own – even their motors are artificially heated in winter and cooled in summer. I never shall forget how hot he kept this room – my little thermometer sprang in one day from “rivières glacées” to “vers à soie”, and even then he complained. Finally it reached Sénégale, all the marquetry on my Oeben began to spring, and I was obliged to divorce him. We were married, by the way.’

  ‘Married?’ Charles-Edouard was quite astounded.

  ‘Yes, he could do nothing in bed without marriage lines. I tried everything, I even got an excellent aphrodisiac from the doctor. Useless. We had to go to the Consulate together, and after that he was splendid. The result is I’ve got an American passport, which never does any harm.’

  ‘And what has become of him now?’

  ‘Oh he’s got the cutest little wife and the two loveliest kids, and he sends me boxes of cleansing tissues every Christmas.’

  11

  Madame de Valhubert died suddenly the very day she was to have left Bellandargues for Paris. She made the journey all the same, and was buried in the family grave at the Père La Chaise. Charles-Edouard was very sad, cast down as Grace had never seen him. He said they must go into mourning in the old-fashioned, strict way which has been greatly relaxed in France since the war; it was a tribute, he said, that he owed to his grandmother. So Grace was no longer subjected to an enormous dinner party, reception or ball nearly every day, and this was a great comfort to her. Not a truly social person, these parties, as soon as they had ceased to frighten, had begun to bore her, and she envisaged almost with horror the endless succession there would be of them to the end of her life. She was very much happier now that, for the moment, they were ruled out. She did not have much more of her husband’s company than usual; he continued to spend whole days at the sale-rooms in the Hôtel Drouot and with the antique dealers, and was still always out at tea-time. They never spent an evening at home together quietly; the moment he had swallowed his dinner he would drag Grace to a film, a play, or a concert.

  Charles-Edouard’s long absences from his house had never surprised her or struck her as needing an explanation. She had been brought up in the shadow of Parliament, Brooks’s, White’s, and Pratt’s; her own father was practically never at home, and she supposed that all men were engaged, for hours every day, on some masculine business, inexplicable, at any rate never explained, but quite innocent and normal.

  But although she saw rather little of him it seemed to her that Charles-Edouard was cosier, more at home with her now, than when they had first arrived in France. It had never even occurred to her that she was, perhaps, more in love than he was. In her eyes, all the evidence pointed to a great deal of love on his side. He was very nice to her, he made love continually, and she had not enough experience to look for any of the other signs that indicate the condition of a man’s heart. Now that they were no longer going out she never saw Juliette, and assumed that Charles-Edouard never did either. This was certainly a relief, though the affair had annoyed rather than worried her. It seemed to her that it was too open to matter, she had taken it half as a joke, and teased him about it.

  So Grace regarded herself as a perfectly happy woman whose marriage was entirely satisfactory, with one very small reservation.

  ‘You know, Charles-Edouard,’ she said to him, ‘I can’t help thinking it’s a pity you never set eyes on our Blessing. I often wonder whether I see enough of him, but you are an absolute stranger to the poor little boy. Sigi,’ she called, hearing him outside on the stairs, ‘come in here. Who is this gentleman?’

  ‘Papa!’

  ‘Yes, quite right, but how did you guess?’

  He looked his mother up and down. ‘I say, Mummy, you are getting Frenchified.’

  ‘Don’t you think we all are, now we live in France?’

  ‘Nanny isn’t, and Nanny Dexter isn’t, and Mrs Dexter isn’t.’

  ‘Well, perhaps not. Are you just going out?’

  ‘Oh yes, boring old Parc Monceau as usual.’

  ‘Does he go to the Parc Monceau?’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘This is very foolish. Why not the Tuileries, or the Luxembourg, or the beautiful garden of the Musée Rodin? I should hate it if my childhood memories were of the Parc Monceau.’

  ‘His little friend goes there.’

  ‘My little friend indeed! Nanny’s little friend. I loathe him. Anyway, I like grown-up people.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘How I agree with you, so do I. Will you chuck the Parc Monceau today and come for a walk with me instead?’

  ‘With delight. And Mummy too?’

  Grace thought it would be much better if they went off alone, without her, and said, ‘I can’t, darling. I’ve got to try on a hat. Go with Papa and I’ll be here for tea when you get back.’

  ‘Always hats! Wouldn’t be much good in a tight fix with interior tribes, you and your old hats.’ He was not displeased, however. His experience of walking with two grown-up people was that they chatted away together up there in the air while you were left to look for francs in the gutter.

  ‘I think you underestimate the value of hats,’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘They can have a very civilizing influence on interior tribes. Look at Mummy –’

  ‘Oh shut up, Charles-Edouard.’

  ‘Cut the necking,’ said Sigi.

  ‘Where does the child learn this sort of language?’

  ‘It’s what I tell you. If he was more with us –’

  ‘Where shall we go, Papa?’

  ‘Promenons-nous dans le bois

  Pendant que le loup n’y est pas.’

  ‘No, not dans les bois. A street walk.’

  ‘The most beautiful walk in the world then. Across the Beaux Arts bridge, through the Cour Carrée, under the Arc du Carousel (averting the eye from Gambetta) and across the Place de la Concorde. How would that be?’

  ‘Then we could have a word with Pascal on the way?’

  ‘Who is Pascal?’

  ‘My goat.’

  ‘Ah no. No words with goats.’


  They set off hand in hand, Charles-Edouard dragging the child along at a furious speed. At the Arc du Carousel Charles-Edouard began reciting ‘A la voix du vainqueur d’Austerlitz – when you know that by heart,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you a prize.’

  ‘What sort of prize?’

  ‘I don’t know. A good sort.’

  ‘How can I learn it?’

  ‘It’s written up there on the arch. At your age I used to read it every day. Oh how I loved the Emperor, at your age.’

  ‘How can I read it when we never come here?’

  ‘You must come. You must refuse the Parc Monceau and come.’

  ‘But Papa –’

  ‘No excuses. Nothing so dull.’

  Sigi waved at Pascal with his free hand, but was dragged on.

  ‘You are too old for goats. I’ll show you some horses. There, the flying horses of Coysevox, are they not wonderful?’

  ‘Look, look, Papa! Mrs Dexter in her lovely new Buick.’

  ‘Come on, she’s not my type. What is a Buick?’

  ‘Papa! It’s a motor, of course.’

  ‘Ha! You know Buick and you’ve never heard of Coysevox. What a world to be young in. Now here are the chevaux de Marly – are they not beautiful?’

  ‘Can I get up there and ride on one of them?’

  ‘Ride on the chevaux de Marly? Certainly not, what an idea.’

  They hurried on to Charles-Edouard’s destination, the shop of an art dealer who had written to him about a pair of vases. Here Sigi was put to sit, kicking his heels, on one of those stools which, at Versailles, were kept exclusively for dukes. ‘So now,’ said the dealer, ‘you are duc et pair de France.’

  Charles-Edouard began an exhaustive examination of everything in the shop: the vases, a tray of jewelled boxes, an ink-stand which had belonged to Catherine the Great, a pair of cherubs said to be by Pigalle, and so on. He always asked the price of everything, like a child in a toy shop, and roared with derisive laughter when he was told. He was the flail of the dealers, his technique being to arrive with the words, loudly enunciated before the other customers, ‘Why don’t you burn all this rubbish and get some decent stock?’ But they respected his knowledge and his love of beautiful things.

  Sigi gazed out of the plate-glass window. It was very dull being duc et pair de France for so long. In a window across the road there was a great heap of mattresses, as in the story of the Princess and the pea. The sight of these mattresses, combined with the endless aeons of inactivity so terrible to a child, filled him with a great longing to jump up and down on them.

  Presently Madame Marel came into the shop. Charles-Edouard, who had forgotten that he had half arranged to meet her there, was a little bit put out at being found with Sigi. He knew that all would be reported to Grace.

  ‘How are you, my dear Albertine? Here are the vases – not bad, what do you say? But the price is the funniest thing I ever heard. M. Dupont does love to make me laugh. Now what of this bronze? I am thinking of it most seriously. I do love Louis XIV bronze, so delightfully solid, so proof against housemaids. Once you fall into Louis XV you are immediately in the domain of restored terre cuite and broken china, of things which must go behind glass in any case. I love them too, far too much, but there is something comfortable about this old satyr. As soon as M. Dupont has mentioned its real price I shall buy it – at present he is in the realms of romance. Such an imaginative man, such an artist in figures, M. Dupont. So – this is Sigismond.’

  Sigi, rather unwillingly, but forced to it by a severe look from his father, kissed her hand.

  ‘This is Sigi? Now all is explained – he is well worth it. Have you been here long? Very long? Poor little boy, not very amusing for you, sitting on that tabouret and thinking of what, I wonder? What were you thinking of, Sigismond?’

  ‘The mattresses over there. I would like to jump and jump and jump and roll and roll and roll on them.’

  ‘Already?’ she said. ‘How like your father. I’ll tell you what, darling, shall we go over there and jump while he goes on breaking poor M. Dupont’s heart? Shall we? Come on.’

  ‘No, Albertine, certainly not. I am a well-known figure in Paris, please try and remember. It is quite out of the question.’

  ‘He wants to so badly.’

  ‘But this child has the most peculiar ambitions. On the way here he wanted to chat to a goat and to ride on the chevaux de Marly.’

  ‘What a lovely idea, and how well I can understand it. Why don’t we arrange it for him?’

  ‘Try not to be foolish, Albertine. Flirt with the child if you can’t help it, but keep within reason.’

  ‘Your father has this pompous side to his nature, you know. When one comes up against that there’s nothing to be done. Will you come to tea with me one day, if I collect some little friends?’

  ‘He loathes little friends.’

  ‘So much the better, he can come alone. There are lots of things in my house to amuse you – things that you wind up which do tricks. A dancing bear, a drinking monkey, a singing dog. Will you come?’

  ‘Oh yes please,’ said Sigi. He took greatly to this lady who was so nice to him and who smelt so delicious.

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Not today,’ said Charles-Edouard rather hastily. ‘I’m taking him home now, he has been out long enough. Say good-bye, Sigismond.’

  Madame Marel said, in French, which she presumed the child would not understand, ‘Then come straight on to me – tea will be ready and I’ve got many things to tell you.’

  ‘Did you enjoy your walk with Daddy?’ Grace asked as they sat down to tea. The two nannies had at last found an English grocer, so their tables were laden now with (for export only) such delicacies as Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, good black Indian tea, Tiptree’s strawberry jam, Gentleman’s Relish, and rich fruit cake.

  At luncheon, chutney, Colman’s mustard, and horseradish sauce made it possible to swallow the nasty foreign-looking meat swimming in fat, and hardly a day went by without a sago pudding or castle cakes with Bird’s custard.

  Grace never went to the nursery without feeling rather like the maiden in the fairy story whose husband allowed her to have one room in the castle lined with nettles to make her feel at home again.

  ‘I enjoyed it very much indeed. We saw Pascal in the distance, but he didn’t see me.’

  ‘You didn’t have a drive?’

  ‘Papa was in such a hurry. Then we saw Mrs Dexter in her Buick but she’s not his type, then we saw the chevaux de Marly but he was in too much of a hurry to let me ride on them, then we saw a huge heap of mattresses and I wanted to jump and jump up and down on them, but Papa wouldn’t let me even though the lady we met said he ought to because it would be very amusing, and she said it was just like Papa, wanting to jump and roll on the mattresses.’

  ‘You met a lady?’

  ‘Yes, she smelt heavenly and Papa has gone to tea with her. I think she is his type.’

  ‘A pretty lady?’

  ‘Very Frenchified.’

  ‘So on the whole you had a good time?’

  ‘Smashing,’ said Sigi with conviction, his hour of restless boredom on the tabouret quite forgotten.

  When Charles-Edouard got back he found Grace in the little library next door to her bedroom where she generally sat when she was alone. She was tucked up on a chaise-longue looking pretty and comfortable and a little fragile, since she was expecting a child.

  ‘Who was it you met on your walk? She’s made a great hit with Sigi, he said she smelt too delicious.’

  ‘Yes. I wish I knew what scent she uses, but it has always been a state secret. Albertine Marel-Desboulles.’

  ‘Marel. Oh! Isn’t that the woman Hughie’s in love with?’

  ‘Exactly. She tells me she has fourteen English suitors, it’s very amusing.’

  ‘Not very amusing for poor Hughie. He’s terrified that she’ll go into a convent, according to Carolyn. Do you think it’s likely?’
/>   Charles-Edouard roared with laughter. ‘Convent indeed! Never, in a long life, have I heard anything so funny.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Just round the corner in the rue de l’Université, in that house you always look at with the two balconies.’

  ‘Oh, the lovely house. Does she live there?’

  ‘As you would know if you ever listened to what I say. She has extraordinary furniture, and the most famous collection of old toys in the world. Her husband’s family made all the toys for the French court from the time of Henri II to the Revolution.’

  ‘Does she live with her husband?’

  ‘He is dead. He was vastly rich and he died.’

  ‘And she’s an old friend of yours?’

  ‘Since always. We had the same nurse.’

  ‘Take me to see her one day?’

  ‘Perhaps – I’m not sure. Albertine is not very fond of women.’

  Three or four days later Grace was driving home at tea-time when she saw Charles-Edouard leaning against the great double doors of Madame Marel’s house. He had evidently just rung the bell. A small side door flew open and he disappeared through it. For the first time since her marriage Grace felt a jealous, heart-sinking pang. By the time he came in, some two hours later, she was so nervous that she thought it better to speak.

  ‘But Charles-Edouard,’ she said, ‘you went to tea with Madame Marel again today?’

  Charles-Edouard always acted on the principle with women, of telling the truth and then explaining it away so that it sounded highly innocent.

  ‘Yes,’ he said carelessly. ‘It’s an old habit of all my life. I go there every day, at tea-time.’

  ‘Then you are in love with her?’

  ‘Because I go to tea?’ He raised his hand and shook his head reassuringly, but with his inward, guilty laugh.

  Grace was not reassured. ‘Because you go there every day. That’s why you never come and have tea with us, in the nursery.’