The Blessing Read online

  By the time they were drinking their coffee he had more or less finished with the roots, which were very dull and into which the word ‘vision’ came a great deal, and was warming up to the remedy.

  ‘Now you will ask me if I can see a remedy for this state of things, a state of things, mind, which I do not only observe and take cognizance of in your country but which I have observed and taken cognizance of in all the European countries, that is to say all those countries in Europe west of the so-called Iron Curtain, to which I am sent by my government in order to form my views in order to acquaint my government of those views which I have formed. Now what you need in this little old island, and what is needed in all the countries of Europe west of the so-called Iron Curtain, and even more I imagine, though I do not speak with personal experience, in all the countries of Europe east of the so-called Iron Curtain as well as in the backward lands of the Far East and the backward lands of Africa, is some greater precognition of and practice of (but practice cannot come without knowledge) our American way of living. I should like to see a bottle of Coca-Cola on every table in England, on every table in France, on every –’

  ‘But isn’t it terribly nasty?’ said Grace.

  ‘No, ma’am, it most certainly is not. It tastes good. But that, if I may say so, is entirely beside the point which I am trying, if I can, to make. When I say a bottle of Coca-Cola I mean it metaphorically speaking, I mean it as an outward and visible sign of something inward and spiritual, I mean it as if each Coca-Cola bottle contained a djinn, and as if that djinn was our great American civilization ready to spring out of each bottle and cover the whole global universe with its great wide wings. That is what I mean.’

  ‘Goodness!’ said Hughie.

  ‘I say,’ said Grace, who was getting rather fidgety, ‘oughtn’t we to have another rubber before tea?’

  Grace did all she could to avoid being left alone with Carolyn, but to no avail. Carolyn came into her bedroom while she was dressing for dinner and was quite extraordinarily tactless; she seemed not to have any consideration whatever for her friend’s feelings.

  ‘Well,’ she began. ‘So what happened, exactly? Didn’t I tell you, it’s not possible for an English girl to settle down with a French husband and be happy. What finally drove you away?’

  ‘Nothing, Carolyn. I’m not finally driven away. I haven’t been very well since my miscarriage, so I’ve been quietly at home with Papa.’

  ‘Oh bunkum! I know you’re going to divorce, Madame Rocher has told everyone so. I don’t blame you, Grace, on the contrary, you’re quite right. But now there’s the problem of Sigi. You really must try and get him away from his father. I think it’s my duty to tell you that Charles-Edouard is ruining that child. They’re never apart, according to Nanny; he takes him to visit all his mistresses, has him down to dinner, keeps him up far too late and gives him wine. Nanny is quite in despair. You ought to see a lawyer and try and get a court injunction to stop it, you know.’

  ‘But Sigi is a French boy. It’s only right for him to be brought up at least half in France; Charles-Edouard won’t do anything that’s bad for him.’

  ‘My dear Grace! I think it’s your positive duty to get him away and bring him up yourself. Don’t you lie down under it, show a little backbone.’

  ‘I don’t want to bring him up entirely myself. A boy needs his father.’

  ‘Yes well, I’m coming to that. What we all hope is that you’ll do as you ought to have done in the first place, marry Hughie. You’re made for each other. Then he’ll be a father to the boy, who couldn’t have a better one. Hughie is through with the frogs for ever, he told Heck, no more sand in his eyes. He’ll arrange for Sigi to go to Eton, and make a man of him.’

  ‘Charles-Edouard used to be rather in favour of Eton – more than I was in fact.’

  ‘Rather in favour! What a way to talk about Eton.’ Carolyn’s family, the Boreleys, were passionate Etonians.

  ‘You’re sending Foss there?’ said Grace, hoping to change the subject. She couldn’t bear discussing Sigi and Charles-Edouard, who were so much in her heart at the moment, with Carolyn. She had been half pleased and half tormented to hear from Nanny of Charles-Edouard’s odd new passion for the child.

  ‘It’s a little different for us,’ said Carolyn. ‘Foss is an American boy and Heck thinks an Eton accent would do him a lot of harm when the time comes for him to get a job.’

  ‘I wouldn’t lie down under that,’ said Grace. ‘Show a little backbone, Carolyn.’

  ‘Simply absurd, Grace. You don’t seem to realize the unique position of the Union of States to which Hector and I belong. You can’t compare them with any other country, because in a very few years they will be the absolute rulers of the world.’

  ‘Oh. So we’re going to be ruled by Foss, are we?’

  ‘Yes, in a way. It’s a privilege for a young man to be brought up there, as Foster will be. But France is finished and done for, and that’s the difference.’

  ‘It may be finished and done for, but it’s far the most agreeable country to live in.’

  ‘Well I notice you didn’t stay there very long,’ said Carolyn, triumphantly having the last word.

  There was a tinkle of cowbells, meaning that dinner was ready, and they went downstairs.

  Early on Monday morning the Dexters drove away in their huge, sick-coloured motor from which issued puffs of heat and high strains of coloratura. They were to visit some more factories on their way to London.

  Hughie said he would motor Grace up in time for dinner. He took her for a long walk and asked her to marry him.

  ‘But what about Albertine?’ she said, in great surprise. ‘I don’t think I want another husband who goes to tea at the rue de I’Université every day. Charles-Edouard always did, you know; how I hated it.’

  ‘You needn’t worry about that. I shall never see her again as long as I live.’

  ‘Why? Has something happened?’

  ‘Yes. When I went over to Paris in October she played me a thoroughly low and dirty trick which I shall never forgive. But it did have one good result, it showed me quite clearly that you and I ought never to have got mixed up with all these foreigners; we ought to have married in the first place. The sooner we do so now, forget all about these people and settle down to an ordinary English life, the better.’

  ‘I often think that,’ said Grace. ‘What was it, Hughie?’

  ‘I haven’t told you before because it involves your husband, Grace, but now I hear you are divorcing anyhow, so I can. Well. I hadn’t seen her since the summer, as you know; she was away for ages, first Venice and then Vienna. I spoke to her on the telephone as soon as I arrived. She was terrifically loving, I was to go round at six, take her to a varnishing, and then dine with her.

  ‘I was there on the stroke of six, as you can imagine, and Pierre showed me into the little salon there is under her dressing-room, saying she was changing and would be down at once. I could hear her upstairs, getting ready as I supposed, walking to and fro. I imagined her at her dressing-table, going over to the cupboard, trying on one hat, changing it, perhaps changing her dress again. I’d so often seen it – she takes hours to get ready, and then she changes everything again, and so on. I was feeling most awfully romantic, so I got a bit of paper and wrote a little poem about her in her dressing-room and hearing the tap tap of her heels overhead. Fearful rot, of course, but I began longing to show it to her, and finally I thought “why not, I’ll go upstairs and find her.”

  ‘I went into the dressing-room, but it was Maria, her Italian maid, who was walking up and down. I didn’t think much of this, I thought Albertine must be in her bedroom and I went through, and sure enough there she was – in bed with your husband. Never had such a shock in my life. She must have told Maria to walk to and fro to keep me quiet downstairs. You see? Not very nice, was it? But I think that kills two birds with one stone; it kills Albertine for me and it ought to kill Valhubert for you.’

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nbsp; Grace tried not to laugh. The story did not upset her at all. Could she possibly, she thought, be coming round to the point of view of her father and Charles-Edouard on these matters?

  ‘Very French,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, and I wish you could have heard her trying to explain it away on the telephone afterwards – very French too. “Come now, Hughie, Charles-Edouard is my foster-brother, we had the same nurse and drank the same milk, how could there be anything between him and me? We were having a little rest after luncheon.” ’Course I just rang off.’

  ‘Poor Hughie!’

  ‘Funny thing is I honestly didn’t mind, in fact it was really, after the first shock, a great relief. You see, I’m too English, just as you are, Grace, to cope with people like that. It’s unsuitable, we shouldn’t attempt it. And it showed me something else too, that it’s you I love, Grace. What I felt for Albertine was simply infatuation.’

  ‘I always wish I knew the difference between infatuation and love,’ said Grace.

  ‘You are infatuated with your husband, but it can’t last, it’s not built on anything solid and very soon you’ll begin to love me again. You like this place, don’t you, and our life here, it suits you, and you like being with me. Then if I take up politics you’ll like that; you’re used to it, with your father, and you’ll be a great help to me. You loved me all right before you met Valhubert, and I’m sure you will again, and you’ll like having some real English children with blue eyes and things, more natural for you. Besides, we’ve both had the same experience now, it makes us understand each other as an outside person never would. So, when the divorce is over, Grace –?’

  ‘Let’s wait a bit,’ said Grace. ‘No hurry, is there? I’m pleased and touched to have been asked, but I can’t say, yet. It all depends, very much, on Sigismond.’

  ‘He’ll be all for it, you’ll see,’ said Hughie with confidence. ‘I’ll think of every sort of amusing thing for him to do when he gets back.’

  5

  It did not take Sigi very long to notice that life in Paris alone with Charles-Edouard was a very different matter from family life there with a mummy you only saw at tea-time and a daddy you hardly ever saw at all. It was much more fun. He was with his father morning, noon, and night, and all the things they did together were delightful. They went to the antique shops and museums; Sigi learnt about marquetry and china and pictures and bronzes and was given a small cabinet to house an ivory collection of his own. They went to the Jockey Club, and though Sigi was left sitting, like a dog, in the hall, he didn’t mind that because he collected small, but regular, sums in tips from various members who thought he looked bored and wanted to see him smile.

  ‘Shall I belong to the Jockey Club when I’m grown up?’

  ‘If I remember to do for you what my father did for me,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘and get you in before you’ve made too many enemies among husbands. Husbands can be most terrible blackballers. But it’s very dull.’

  ‘Then why do we come so often?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  On the rare occasions when Charles-Edouard was at home in the evening Sigi dined downstairs with him, and this was the greatest treat of all. He was given a glass of wine, like his father, and made to guess the vintage. When he got it right Charles-Edouard gave him 100 francs.

  ‘In England,’ said Sigi, ‘little boys don’t have dinner.’

  ‘No dinner?’

  ‘Supper. And sometimes only high tea.’

  ‘What is this, high tea?’

  ‘Yes well, it’s tea, you know, with cocoa and scones, and eggs if you’ve got hens and bacon if you’ve killed a pig, and marmalade and Bovril and kippers, and you have it late for tea, about six.’

  ‘How terrible this must be!’

  ‘Oh no – high tea is absolutely smashing. Until you come to supper-time, and then I must say you do rather long for supper.’

  Nanny sat talking with the Dexter Nanny, who had come round for her evening off. They had been obliged to put Sigi to bed in the middle of their nice chat, which they both considered an outrageous bore. He now lay in the next room, on the verge of sleep but not quite off, and a certain amount of what they were saying penetrated his consciousness. It was all mixed up with noise from the B.B.C., which ran on in that nursery whatever the programme. Young, polite, rather breathy English voices were playing some sort of paper game; their owners hardly seemed to belong to the same race as the two Nannies, so dim their personalities, so indefinite their statements.

  ‘The Marquee never used to look at him when Mummy was with us. Funny, isn’t it? It’s as much as I can do now to get him up here for the time it takes to change his shoes – thoroughly spoilt he’s getting – out of hand. More tea, dear?’

  ‘Thanks, dear. But it’s always like that with separated couples, in my opinion. I’ve seen it over and over. Because, you know, each one is trying to give the child a better time than the other.’ At these words Sigi woke right up and began listening with all his ears. ‘Nothing can be worse for the children.’

  ‘I know. Shame, really. Well I told Mummy – I don’t care for these youths on the wireless much, do you?’

  ‘Not at all. There seems to be nothing else nowadays, youth this and youth that. Nobody thought of it when I was young.’

  ‘Yes well, as we were saying. If you ask me I rather expect they’ll come together again, and I’m sure it’s to be hoped they will. I know Mummy was awfully upset about something, but I don’t suppose he’s worse than most men, except for being foreign of course, and I think it’s their plain duty to make it up for the sake of the poor little mite. That’s what I shall tell Mummy when I see her again, and I shall warn her plainly that if he goes on like this, getting his own way with both of them as he does now, he’ll become utterly spoilt and impossible. No use saying anything to the Marquee, he’s always in such a tearing hurry, though I must say I’d like to give him a piece of my mind about these dinners – the poor little chap comes to bed half drunk if you ask me.’

  It was while listening to this conversation that Sigismond first made up his mind, consciously, that his father and mother must never be allowed to come together again if there was anything he could do to prevent it.

  Charles-Edouard always took Sigi with him now when he went, at five o’clock, to see Albertine. She gave them an enormous tea, after which Sigi would play with her collection of old toys and automata. The most fascinating, the one of which he never tired, was a toy guillotine. It really worked, and really chopped off the victim’s head, to the accompaniment of sinister drums and the horrified gestures of the other dolls on the scaffold. Besides this there were many varieties of musical box, there were dancing bears, smoking monkeys, singing birds, and so on, and while Albertine told the cards Sigi was turned loose among them, with tremendous injunctions from Charles-Edouard to be very very careful as they were very very precious.

  ‘Why are they more precious than other toys?’

  ‘Because they are old.’

  ‘Are old things always precious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case Nanny must be very precious.’

  ‘Always this young man between you and the blonde lady you think about so much.’

  ‘Could it be Hughie?’ Charles-Edouard was very much puzzled. He knew that Grace was seeing a good deal of Hughie now, but had never given the matter a serious thought. ‘Did he ever come back again, by the way, Albertine? What happened?’

  ‘He was furious, I’ve never known a man so angry. I rang him up twice and explained everything, but each time he rang off without even saying good-bye. These English –!’

  ‘How did you explain it?’ said Charles-Edouard, very much amused.

  ‘I told him the truth.’

  ‘No wonder he rang off in a rage.’

  ‘My dearest, you know as well as I do that there is never only one truth and always many truths. I told him that you, Charles-Edouard de Valhubert, and I, Albertine Labé
de Lespay, had drunk the same milk when we were little, young babies.’

  ‘What milk?’

  ‘Come now, Charles-Edouard, we had the same nurse!’

  ‘Old Nanny Perkins didn’t have one drop of milk when I first knew her, and wasn’t that amount younger when she was with you!’

  ‘We had the same nurse, therefore, to all intents and purposes, we drank the same milk. We are foster-brother and sister – how could he think of us as anything else? The Anglo-Saxon mind reduces everything to sex, I’ve often noticed it. Cut three times. Very odd indeed – here is the young man again, keeping you apart. Surely surely she cannot love Hughie?’

  ‘Oh yes she does,’ Sigi piped up from his corner. ‘He is the love of her life.’

  ‘This is very strange,’ said Charles-Edouard, genuinely surprised that anybody in a position to be in love with him could fancy Hughie.

  Albertine was not displeased. ‘Come here, Sigi, and tell us how you know.’

  ‘When Mr Palgrave is coming to see her, she looks like this,’ he said, and did a lifelike imitation of his mother as she had looked after the front door had slammed that morning when Charles-Edouard came to fetch him away. He opened enormous eyes and smiled as if something heavenly were about to happen. ‘She thinks the world of Mr Palgrave, and so do I. He gives me pounds and pounds.’ He was twisting his hair into curls as he spoke.