The Blessing Read online

  ‘Only partly why.’

  ‘When you told me about M. de la Bourlie visiting your grand mother every day you said in such a case there is always love. I remember so well, they were your very words, Charles-Edouard.’

  ‘Now listen, my dearest Grace. As life goes on each person develops many different relationships with many different people, and each of these relationships is unique in quality. My relationship with you is perfect, is it not?’

  ‘I thought so,’ she answered sadly.

  ‘If you think so it is so. Is it spoilt if I have another relationship, much less intense, much less important, but also perfect in its way, with Albertine Marel? Be frank now. You didn’t mind me being alone for hours with my grandmother; you wouldn’t mind if I went to a club, or spent hours with some old school friend, a man. You are not sad because the hours are not spent with you, you realize we can’t be together every minute of the day; you mind because Albertine is a still desirable woman. And yet we are old school friends – nursery friends, in fact, and we share a great interest and hobby, that of collecting. I will tell you something very seriously, Grace. If you don’t empty your mind and heart of sexual jealousy, if you let yourself give way to that, you will never be happy with me. Because I really cannot help liking the company of women. Do you understand what I have said?’

  ‘It sounds all right,’ said Grace.

  ‘Try and remember it then.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll try.’

  ‘Are you happy again?’

  ‘Yes. But, oh dear, how nice it would be if you had tea here with us every day.’

  ‘In the nursery? With Nanny? Are you mad?’

  12

  On Madame de Valhubert’s birthday, in February, Charles-Edouard, Grace, and Sigismond went to the Père La Chaise with a bunch of spring flowers for her. It was beautiful weather, a respite between two particularly sharp spells of winter. The sun shone, the birds sang, and the blue gnomes who keep order in the streets of the dead were all beaming cheerfully. Even the floating widows looked as if they did not much object to being left alone a few more years above the ground.

  ‘Have a good look at everything, Sigi,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘you will be longer here than anywhere on earth.’

  ‘Oh the funny little houses,’ said the child, running from one to another and looking in, ‘can I come and live in one?’

  ‘All in good time. So, we’ll pay some visits as we go.’

  They climbed the long, steep hill, Charles-Edouard pulling Grace up by the hand.

  ‘Many friends. Here are the Navarreins. The first ball I ever went to was in their house. M. de Navarrein was a link with the past, one of those things I never can remember. Let me see, his father was kissed by somebody whose great-great-grandfather had been held in the arms of le grand Condé. You know, it all depends on everyone concerned having children when they are ninety, really rather disgusting. There’s the beautiful tomb of the Grandlieus – Madame de Grandlieu was my godmother, and she gave me the praying hands by Watteau which are over my bed.’

  ‘Oh look,’ said Grace, ‘poor little Laetitia Hogg – younger than Sigi. What was she doing in Paris, and why did she die, I wonder?’

  ‘One of those questions which are posed in graveyards. James and Mary Hogg must have loved her, since they bought her this tomb in perpetuity. Ha! the Politovskis, I’d not noticed them here before.’ He went up to read the inscription, and began to laugh loudly. ‘Oh no! This is too much! I’ve never heard such a thing! They’ve given themselves an S.A.R.! It’s perfect, I can’t wait to tell Tante Régine, what rubbish really. “Il conquit Naples et resta pur.” Maybe he did, though not very likely, but even that doesn’t entitle him to be a Royal Highness. Langeais and his wife, so charming, Sauveterre (poor Fabrice, give me one flower for him, how he would have laughed to see me here with wife and child). We’ve already passed enough friends to collect a large dinner party, a large amusing dinner party. Hélàs, where are they all now, I wonder?’

  ‘Having large, amusing dinner parties somewhere else,’ said Grace, suddenly seeing herself as doomed to eternal dinner parties, ‘wishing you were there and wondering what I’m like.’

  ‘Yes indeed. L’Anglaise! Intelligence Service. Fille de francmaçon,’ said Charles-Edouard with his inward laugh. ‘Here we are, this is the Avenue of the Marshals of France, our future home. Sigismond will spend some melancholic moments here, I hope, before it is his turn. Is it not beautiful up on this cliff, are we not lucky to be so well placed? Mind you, it is not the smart set, but at least we are not among presidents of the Republic, actors, duellists, and English pederasts. We have this pretty view and we have la gloire. Not bad, is it?’

  ‘I feel sad,’ said Grace, ‘it reminds me of your dear grandmother’s funeral.’

  ‘I was very sad. Tired, and very sad. But there is only one thing I clearly remember of that whole day, the look of terrible triumph on the face of Madame de la Bourlie.’

  ‘Oh surely not, at her age?’

  ‘Age cannot blunt the hatred of a lifetime.’

  They put their flowers at the base of a stone pyramid. It was a fine Empire tomb with bas-reliefs of battles and battle trophies.

  ‘Poor Grandmère, she can’t be very much pleased with the neighbours – Masséna, Lefebvre, Moscowa, Davout – not at all for her, I’m afraid. Come here, Sigismond, can you read this?’

  ‘Famille Valhubert,’ he spelt it out.

  ‘This is your little house.’

  ‘Can’t I have one with a lace table-cloth and a door?’

  ‘No. You will lie here with Grandmère and all of us.’

  ‘Yes, but supposing I am killed in a stratospheric battle with the Martians?’

  ‘That I should applaud. You may or may not become a Marshal of France, but you should always die in battle if you can, or you may live to be shot by your fellow-countrymen, like poor Ney over there, who was not fortunate enough to be killed by the enemy like Essling and Valhubert. I hope you are paying attention to what I am telling you, Sigismond. And now who would you like to see? I can offer you painters, writers, musicians, cooks (Brillat-Savarin, the French Mrs Beeton, is here), and all the great bourgeois of Paris. The 19th-century Russians, rastaquouères of their day, with huge, extravagant tombs, Rumanian princes in miniature Saint Sophias, domed and frescoed. Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism, might interest Sigi? But you look very tired, my dearest, and I think we had better walk gently back to the motor.’

  The following day Grace had a miscarriage. They said she had perhaps walked too fast up the hill. It was not serious, quite early in her pregnancy, but it pulled her down, depressed her spirits, and she was a long time in bed. This was not a bad place just then. Late snow had fallen, it lay in the garden, white and brown, under a low, dark sky.

  But her room gave a sunny impression, yellow with spring flowers. The mimosa was changed three times a day so that it should be always fluffy. People were very kind; Ange-Victor said that Madame Auriol herself would not have had more inquiries, flowers and books poured into the house, and so, when she was well enough to receive them, did visitors. Among those who came, and found Grace by chance alone, was Albertine Marel-Desboulles.

  ‘I never see you,’ she said, smiling with all her great charm at Grace. ‘Before Madame de Valhubert died I used to have the pleasure of that lovely face to look at over the dinner-table – those huge, boring dinners in the autumn. Now, though we live so near, you have vanished again. But I have met the entirely delightful Sigismond.’

  ‘I know. He told me. He thought you were heavenly.’

  ‘When I heard you were ill I decided to call on you. Charles-Edouard and I are the oldest friends in the world – foster-brother and sister in a way, since we had the same nanny – well, to cut short all these explanations, here I am. How pretty you have made this room. I know it of old because here we used to put our coats when Madame de Valhubert gave her famous music parties.’

  ‘I didn
’t know Madame de Valhubert was musical.’

  ‘Oh well, music was not the only object of the parties, but the house has this music room and Régine Rocher had a Polish lover who played Chopin, so it all fitted in rather conveniently. As I was saying, then, we used to come up here with our coats – it was a hundred years ago – and in those days there was an Empire dressing-table with a marble top, very ugly, I can see it now, and on this slab of horrid grey marble there were hair-pins and safety-pins and papier à poudre for our shiny noses. I must explain that this was thought very old-fashioned and a great joke even then. I am old, but not so old that I have ever not owned a powder puff. It was freezing up here, agony to take off our coats, so we only stayed a moment, I don’t suppose anybody ever used the papier à poudre. Then we would go to the music room, where the Polish lover was fiercely thumping away with passionate glances at Régine, and Charles-Edouard couldn’t be stopped from talking. He would sit next the prettiest woman, which sometimes happened to be me, and talk at the top of his voice, while Régine got more and more furious. But dear Madame de Valhubert, who literally never knew one note from another, not that it would have made much difference if she had, was quite delighted to see him enjoying himself so much.

  ‘So I’ve known this room a long time, but it’s never been as pretty as now. I can see that you are one of those women with a talent for living in a house, which is quite different from the talent for arranging houses, and far more precious.’

  Of course Grace was completely won over. Presently the door opened again and the pretty head of Juliette Novembre, in a sable hat with violets, peeped round it.

  ‘I’ve brought you a camellia – can I come in, or are you talking secrets?’ she said, like a child.

  ‘Oh please please come in.’

  ‘Just look at her, la jolie,’ said Albertine, ‘what a seasonable hat.’

  ‘I love my little bit of rabbit. How are you?’ she said to Grace. ‘Isn’t it horrid? I had one last year.’

  Albertine said, ‘I’m longing to hear about the ball, Juliette.’

  ‘Yes, but why didn’t you come? We were all wondering.’

  ‘I was discouraged. My new dress wasn’t ready, and I do hate autumn clothes in the spring. So after dinner I went home. But as soon as I had sent the motor away I longed very much for the ball. I couldn’t go to bed, I sat in my dressing-room until three consumed by this longing to be at the ball. Isn’t it absurd, really! But to me a ball is still a miracle of pleasure. I see it with the eyes of a Tolstoy and not at all those of a Marcel Proust, and really, I promise you, it is terrible for me to miss one, even at my age. So now, torture me, tell us exactly what it was like.’

  ‘Divine, a bal classique – no fancies, no embroideries. The prettiest women, in their prettiest clothes, a very good band, sucking pig for supper, wonderful champagne, in that house where everybody always looks their best. I loved it; I stayed to the end, which was after six. But nothing dramatic, Albertine, no fight, no elopement, nothing to tell really, hours and hours of smiling politeness.

  ‘I knew it, what I love the most. You have twisted a knife in my heart,’ cried Albertine. ‘Perhaps I ought to have gone, even in an old dress. But there – a ball to me is such a magical occasion that I cannot enjoy it wearing just anything. For days I have been seeing myself at that ball wearing my new dress, and when I found it couldn’t be ready in time (nobody’s fault, influenza in the workrooms), I didn’t want to spoil the mental picture by going in another dress. Don’t you understand?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Juliette. ‘I’m just the same. I can’t think of any occasion – a tea party even – without seeing an exact picture of how I shall look at it, down to shoes and stockings. I often wonder how social life – or life at all – can be much pleasure to people who don’t care about dress. I’d hardly get myself out of bed in the morning if I hadn’t something pretty and rather new to put on, and never get myself to a party. Now take all one’s old relations, they love going out, but why? How can they enjoy it, really?’

  ‘Oh their enjoyment comes from thinking of all the money they have saved by not dressing. They look at Régine Rocher and they add up what her clothes must have cost (you’ll find they know, too, to a penny) and they feel as if somebody had given them a present of the amount.’

  ‘Poor you, all that mourning,’ Juliette said to Grace.

  Like Albertine, she was out to please. They chatted away and Grace enjoyed herself. It was the enjoyment of frivolous, cosy, feminine company, of which she was very much starved. Carolyn, her only woman friend in Paris, could neither be described as frivolous nor cosy. She had many virtues, Grace knew that she was loyal and would be a rock in times of trouble, but she was not much fun, too restless and discontented. These two, rattling on with their nonsense, seemed to her perfectly fascinating, and she quite forgave Charles-Edouard for liking to be with them, it seemed so natural that he should.

  Presently she sent for Sigi, who arrived hand in hand with his papa. Juliette became extremely animated, almost fidgety, making up to both father and son. Grace thought ‘it’s rather charming now, she’s still only like a little girl, but at forty she will be terrible’. Albertine went to the chair on which she had put her things, produced a long, beautifully made wooden box, and gave it to Sigi.

  ‘A present for you, darling. Open it.’

  ‘What is it?’ he said, pink and excited.

  ‘It’s called a kaleidoscope. Take it out. It was made for the poor little Dauphin,’ she said to Grace.

  ‘Oh you shouldn’t! How good of you.’

  Charles-Edouard took it from Sigi. ‘You shut one eye, like Nelson, and see the stars. So.’

  ‘Is it a telescope?’

  ‘Better, you make your own stars as you go along. Venus – can you see? Shake it. Mars. Shake it. Jupiter as himself. Shake it. Jupiter as a swan.’

  ‘Charles-Edouard, you’ll muddle him.’

  ‘Now here’s another star you can see with the naked eye,’ he said, pointing to Juliette. ‘Doesn’t she twinkle? She’ll tell us all the gossip of the heavens. So, Juliette, tell.’

  ‘Nothing to tell. I lead the life of a good little girl who does her lessons.’

  ‘Ah yes? What lessons?’

  ‘In the morning I sing, coloratura, “Hark, hark the lark”; in the afternoon I paint a snowy landscape; and when it is night I go to the Louvre and see the statues lit up.’ She looked at Charles-Edouard with huge, innocent, blue eyes.

  ‘Hm, hm,’ he said, clearly rather annoyed. Grace felt again that horrid pang or twinge of jealous uneasiness that she had had on seeing Charles-Edouard outside Albertine’s house in the rue de l’Université. Only that morning he had promised to take her, when she was well again, to see the statues lit up, saying how beautiful was the Winged Victory, white in the black shadows and then black against a white wall. She could not help noticing his present embarrassment, and was quite sure that he must have been to see the statues with Juliette. Her feeling of not being able to blame him for liking to be with this pretty wriggler, this flapper of eyelids and purser of lips, suddenly gave way to a feeling that she blamed him very much, and indeed could hardly bear it.

  Meanwhile Sigi was entranced with the kaleidoscope.

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘can I take it to bed when I go?’

  ‘But this child is his father over again,’ cried Albertine. ‘The moment he sees something pretty he wants to take it to bed with him.’

  Two large tears rolled down Grace’s cheeks. She felt, all of a sudden, most exceedingly tired.

  Sir Conrad now came over to visit Grace, though he refused to stay with her, preferring the freedom of an hotel. When in Paris he liked to submit himself to the rather strenuous attentions of a certain Hungarian countess, an old friend of before the war; after visiting her establishment he needed a restful morning, and did not feel up to much family life before luncheon-time.

  Charles-Edouard introduced him to Madame Rocher, and th
is was a stroke of genius, they could have been made for each other. She came out of mourning and gave a large dinner party for him, at which he charmed everybody. The rumours about the Allinghams not being people to know were now forever scotched. He and Madame Rocher embarked upon a shameless flirtation, and were soon on such intimate terms that she even taxed him with being a Freemason. Sir Conrad, who was of course perfectly aware of the implications of this in France, roared with laughter, did not make any definite statement but let it be understood that his daughter had, of course, been joking, and a very good joke too. Madame Rocher, who was no fool, began to see that Charles-Edouard must have been quite right in what he had said about English Freemasons. Henceforward she addressed Sir Conrad as Vénérable, referred to him as le Grand Maître, and all was merry as a marriage bell.

  He liked Charles-Edouard more than ever. It would have surprised and gratified Grace to know that they had long, interesting discussions on political subjects when they were alone together, during which Charles-Edouard showed himself quite as serious, if not quite as long-winded, as Hector Dexter. One evening Charles-Edouard, though protesting that he himself only cared for society women, took his father-in-law round the brothels. These, having lately been driven underground by the ill-considered action of a woman Deputy, had become rather difficult for a foreigner to find.

  Sir Conrad, who had never had many topics on which he could converse with his daughter, now found fewer even than when she was living with him.

  ‘Are you happy?’ he asked her, before leaving.

  ‘Very happy.’

  ‘Take care of yourself, darling. You don’t look well.’

  ‘I was quite ill. I shall be all right in a week or two.’

  ‘Nanny hasn’t changed much.’

  ‘Oh dear, no.’

  ‘Well, sooner Charles-Edouard than me is all I can say. Must you keep her? Couldn’t you get a governess soon, or a tutor or something?’

  ‘Papa! Nanny! – I couldn’t possibly do without her.’