The Blessing Read online

  ‘Go on with the cards,’ said Charles-Edouard, very much put out.

  ‘Cut then. But why did you not have an explanation with her when you were in England?’ she said in Italian, so that Sigi would not understand.

  ‘She was in her room and refused to see me.’

  ‘Unlike you not to gallop up the stairs.’

  ‘In what way unlike me? I would have you observe, Albertine, that I have never forced my way into a woman’s bedroom in my life.’

  ‘Take four cards. What a curious thing – intrigues and misunderstandings, just like a Palais Royal farce, with this real old-fashioned villain plotting away in the background. Fancy Hughie being so wicked, it makes him more interesting, all of a sudden. I must send him a Christmas card. What do you want for Christmas, Sigi?’

  ‘I want to ride on the cheval de Marly.’

  ‘This child has an obsession.’

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘Be very careful, Sigismond. Consider it well. Do you really want to wake up with an empty stocking, to find a tree loaded with no presents, to spend the whole day unpacking no parcels?’

  ‘Well, what will you give me?’

  ‘You must say what you want first. It’s always like that. Then we have to consider whether we can afford it.’

  Sigismond became very thoughtful and hardly spoke another word the rest of the evening.

  ‘M.P.’s daughter divorces French Marquis,’ Sigi, chanting this loudly, came into his father’s bathroom. Charles-Edouard was shaving at the time.

  ‘What do you know about this – who told you?’

  ‘I heard Nanny clicking her tongue at the Daily, so I went and looked over her shoulder and saw it. I can read quite well now, you see, how about a prize?’

  ‘You couldn’t read a word of Monte Cristo last night.’

  ‘I can only read if it’s in English, and printed, and I want to. At first the marriage was a happy one – who are the other women, Papa? I know, Madame Marel and Madame Novembre.’

  ‘Be quiet, Sigi. These are things you must not say.’

  ‘Pas devant?’

  ‘Pas du tout. If you do you’ll be punished.’

  ‘What sort of punishment?’

  ‘A bad sort. And you’ll never never be allowed to ride on the chevaux de Marly.’

  ‘O.K. And if I don’t speak, when can I ride?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So now you can’t be married to Mummy again, can you?’

  ‘Yes I can. Tomorrow, if she likes.’

  ‘Oh!’ His mouth went down at the corners.

  ‘Why, Sigi? Don’t you want us to be?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the slightest good wanting, I’m afraid. My mummy is quite wrapped up in Hughie now.’ His hand went to his hair and began twisting it.

  ‘Mr Palgrave.’

  ‘He lets me call him Hughie.’

  ‘How very unsuitable. But is she?’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘Is she really, Sigi? He is very dull.’

  ‘That’s nothing. Look how dull is Mr Dexter, and yet Mrs Dexter is quite wrapped up in him, the Nannies always say so.’

  ‘What is all this wrapping up, Sigi?’

  ‘Emballé. Like you are with Madame Novembre.’

  ‘Hm. Hm. Get ready to go out and I’ll take you to see Pascal.’

  ‘Well if I can’t ride on you know what, I suppose that dreary old Pascal will have to do.’

  Now that Charles-Edouard’s divorce was in the papers, great efforts were made, in many directions, to marry him, and nobody tried harder than his two mistresses.

  Albertine, shuffling the cards, said, ‘I have been noticing a very different trend in your fate. It seems to become more definite, more inescapable, every time I take up the pack. You have turned a corner, as one sometimes does in life, and a new landscape lies at your feet. For some days the cards have left the atmosphere of Palais Royal and have pointed to a grave decision – two grave decisions in fact – which lead to extraordinary happiness, to a journey and to advancement. Anybody who knew the rudiments of fortune-telling would see these bare facts, they repeat and repeat themselves; it now remains to interpret them, and that, of course, is more difficult. Cut the cards. There now. It looks very much like service to your country in some foreign land.’

  ‘Indo-China?’ Charles-Edouard looked puzzled. ‘I’m rather old, now, it’s only the regular army they want. Still, I suppose there would be something for me, though I can’t say I’m absolutely longing to go back.’

  ‘Oh I don’t mean that, not military service. All the same, have you never thought that now your marriage is over it might be a good thing to go away for a while? To change your ideas?’

  ‘But Albertine, I never go away from Paris, you know that very well. I go to Bellandargues when I must, but otherwise I can’t be got as far as St Cloud even. What are you thinking of?’

  ‘Let me tell you, calmly and clearly, what I see. Cut the cards. I will lay out the whole pack. Now. I see you in a foreign land, a civilized one, among white people, and I see you negotiating, treating, making terms, and driving bargains, for France.

  ‘There is a word for somebody who does all those things – ambassador. Why should you not, in fact, become an ambassador?’

  ‘Me? Albertine, you must be mad!’

  ‘So mad, my love? After all, you have been in the foreign service – there are still broken hearts in Copenhagen I believe.’

  ‘Oh that Copenhagen – dinner at 6.30 – never shall I forget it. But if you remember, I resigned because I can’t bear to be away from Paris. I was away seven years during and after the war, and that is enough for my lifetime, thank you very much.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. I believe you would like to serve your country once more, to put this time at her disposal, as well as your great courage, your charm and eloquence, and gift for languages. You have extraordinary gifts, Charles-Edouard.’

  ‘Well, but who is going to make me an ambassador all of a sudden?’ he said, rather more favourably.

  ‘I could help you there. I am on very good terms with the Foreign Minister, and, even more important, with Madame Salleté. I am practically certain it would be arranged. And that brings us back to the cards. You understand that you would need to be married for such an assignment; an unmarried ambassador (and especially if that ambassador were you, dear Charles-Edouard) is in a position to be gravely compromised. It wouldn’t do at all. Salleté wouldn’t consider it for a single moment. Now the cards, ever since they have taken on this new direction, as you might call it, have been pointing to re-marriage. An older wife, not only nearer your own age but older, mentally, than our poor dear Grace. A Frenchwoman, of course, who would be able to play her part; a widow, whom you could marry in church. Above all,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘somebody who would be able to help you with the education of our beloved little Sigismond.’

  Charles-Edouard saw just what she meant. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘but the fact is that I am obliged to remain in Paris precisely on Sigi’s account. Presently he must go to the Condorcet as I did, while living here with me.’

  ‘You don’t feel that a cosmopolitan education is more precious for a boy of today?’

  ‘Sigi will be bilingual whatever happens. I think he ought to go to school in France. And besides, I don’t, I really don’t, think I could accept any favour from Salleté.’

  Albertine was much too clever to press her point. ‘Think it over,’ she said, calmly, ‘and now, cut three times.’

  Charles-Edouard did think it over, and soon began to feel that marriage with Albertine was perhaps not such a bad idea. He got on very well with her, old friend of all his life; she never failed to amuse him, they talked the same language, understood the fine shades of each other’s character and behaviour; they knew the same people and had identical tastes. Albertine owned several pictures that Charles-Edouard had always coveted; he would give a great deal to see her big Clau
d Lorraine on his own walls, not to mention her Louis XIV commode in solid silver. No need for a quick decision, his divorce was not yet absolute, but some time, he thought, he might find out how Sigismond felt about it.

  Juliette’s approach was more direct. She rolled lazily over in Madame de Hauteserre’s bed (the door now bolted as well as locked), her eyes, which always became as big as saucers after making love, upon the erotic ceiling, and said, ‘So I hear you have your divorce at last. What now, Charles-Edouard?’

  ‘I’m tired. Perhaps I’ll sleep for a few minutes.’

  ‘No. Don’t sleep. I want to talk. What are your plans?’

  ‘No plans.’

  ‘Charles-Edouard! But you must marry again.’

  ‘No more marriage.’

  ‘But my dearest, you’ll be lonely.’

  ‘I’m never lonely. It’s people who can’t amuse themselves who feel lonely, another word for bored. I am never bored, either.’

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think?’

  ‘No. Tell me a story, to amuse me.’

  ‘Presently. I think you and I ought to go and see M. le Maire together.’

  ‘And what about poor Jean?’

  ‘I’m perfectly sick of poor Jean. He’s the dullest boy in Paris.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to be a duchess?’

  ‘I will renounce it for your sake. I will be divorced and give up being a duchess, Charles-Edouard, and all for you.’

  ‘How would you get an annulment?’

  ‘There may be grounds for that.’

  ‘It would take years and years.’

  ‘But I thought we might be married by M. le Maire, as you were with Grace.’

  ‘Yes, and a terrible mistake too. I will never be married again, except in church. No,’ he said sleepily, ‘of all the women in the world you are the one I would soonest marry, but, alas, it cannot be.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of Sigismond. From now on my life must be dedicated to him.’

  ‘But the poor child needs a mother. And little sisters, Charles-Edouard, darling, pretty little girls, surely you’d like that?’

  ‘Well now, perhaps I would,’ said Charles-Edouard. He turned over, laid his head between Juliette’s breasts and went to sleep.

  As it became increasingly obvious that the key to Charles-Edouard’s heart was held by his little boy both Albertine and Juliette now proceeded to pay their court to Sigismond. Juliette employed exactly the same technique of seduction and cajolery as with his father; Albertine’s approach, while she never neglected the uses of sex, was rather more subtle.

  Juliette gave the little boy treat after treat. She took him to all the various circuses, to musical plays, to the cinema, and even to see the clothes at Christian Dior. Greatest treat of all, and a tremendous secret, she would drive him out of Paris in her pretty little open motor, and when they came to the straight, empty, poplar-bordered roads which lead to the east she would change places with him and let him take over the controls.

  ‘Look, look, Madame Novembre, cent à l’heure,’ he would cry in ecstasy as the speedometer went up and up. She bore it unflinchingly, though sometimes very much frightened.

  After one of these clandestine outings they were drinking hot chocolate with blobs of cream in her pretty, warm little boudoir at the rue de Varenne. The mixture of camaraderie and sex in Juliette’s approach to Sigi made her almost irresistible and the little boy was fascinated by her, though rather sleepy now from the cold afternoon air. Presently she said, ‘We do have a good time together, eh, Sigismond?’

  ‘Oh we do!’

  ‘You’d like it to go on for ever, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes please, I would.’

  ‘For ever and ever. It easily could, you know. I could become your maman and live in the same house – would you like that?’

  ‘Mm,’ he said, his nose in the chocolate.

  ‘Then you could drive my motor every day, not only sometimes, like now. We’d do all sorts of other lovely things, specially in the summer.’

  ‘Could we have a speed-boat on the river?’

  ‘Yes, that would be great fun.’

  ‘And a glider perhaps.’

  ‘Surely.’

  ‘And I very much long for a piebald rat.’

  ‘Well –’ she said with a slight shudder, ‘why not?’

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘Let’s see what would be nice. Perhaps – little brothers and sisters?’

  Sigi took his nose out of the chocolate and gave her a very sharp and wide-awake look. He finished the cup, put it down on the table and said, ‘I think it’s time to go home.’

  Juliette realized at once that she had made a blunder, though she did not know quite how fatal it was going to be to her ambitions, and nor could she know that her words would be underlined that very evening by the two Nannies.

  ‘That Madam November,’ Sigi overheard, from his bed, ‘is a perfect menace. She gets hold of the child, and the things they do – thoroughly unsuitable – dress shows, and awful sorts of films, and he says (not that I quite believe it, mind you, but you never know) that she lets him drive her car. Anyway she fills his little head with rubbish and spoils him, oh she does spoil him. If you ask my opinion it’s the Marquee she’s after and that’s the way she’s setting about it, and quite likely it would be all for the best if she got him. Because then little Master Grown-up would be back in the nursery for good, sure as eggs is eggs, no more high jinks, and the young person occupied with her own children likely as not.

  ‘That child’s getting ruined between the lot of them, and I don’t mind who knows it. I can’t do a thing with him any more.’

  ‘Yes well,’ said Nanny Dexter, ‘none of it’s any surprise to me.’

  ‘Papa,’ said Sigi next morning.

  ‘Hullo! You’re early today.’

  ‘Yes I’ve got something very important I want to talk about.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You know how you’re wrapped up in Madame Novembre?’

  ‘So you always tell me.’

  ‘Were you thinking of marrying her?’

  ‘Why, Sigismond?’

  ‘Because she’s not at all the type of person I would like to have as my maman – not at all.’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘could be further from my thoughts.’

  But this was not perfectly true. The idea of marriage with Juliette had been occupying his mind of late, chiefly because, as he said to one of his men friends, it was so dreadfully tiresome always going to bed in the afternoon. However if Sigi felt like that about it the question would arise no more.

  6

  Albertine played upon the little boy’s social sense, already very much developed.

  ‘I have three invitations for you, darling, two parties and luncheon at the Ritz.’

  ‘You know, Madame Marel, I’m very tired of parties. Always that silly old conjurer, he’s getting on my nerves with his doves and rabbits. Can’t I go to a ball?’

  ‘You want to go to a ball now, do you? But for several reasons that is impossible. Firstly, how would you dress? Secondly, you are too small for dancing with grown-up people, and thirdly, as it is not the custom for boys of your age to go to balls you’d find that you would not enjoy yourself at it. You must wait for balls until you are older.’

  Sigi’s mouth went down at the corners and he looked very glum. He was not accustomed, now, to being refused things.

  ‘What can we do?’ Albertine said to Charles-Edouard when he had gone home. ‘The poor little boy looked so sad. I must think this over.’

  She thought it over, and presently had an idea of genius. She would give a ball for Sigi, a fancy-dress ball, ‘Famous parents with their famous children’, which would be the most sensational of the season. Her first intention was that parents with their children only would be allowed, no famous child admitted without a famous parent, and, far more testing, no famous parent without his
or her own famous child. But this rule led to such shrieks down the telephone from Albertine’s many bachelor friends that she was finally obliged to relax it in favour of uncles and aunts. Further she would not budge; nobody, she said, would be allowed in without either their own child or their own nephew or niece.

  Never before had children been at such a premium. A great deal of sharing out took place in families. ‘If I have Stanislas and you take Oriane that still leaves little Christophe to go with Jean’; fleets of aeroplanes were chartered to bring over nephews and nieces for the many bachelors from Chile, Bolivia, and the Argentine who live in France, while legal adoptions were hurried through at a rate never previously known in the department of the Seine. The Tournons, and others who, like them, had had several children in order to avoid taxation, now sent to the country for them, and these little strangers suddenly found themselves the very be-all and end-all of their parents’ existence.

  As was to be expected, the Tournons were positively dramatic in their approach to the ball; indeed one night, shortly before it was to take place, Madame de Tournon woke up screaming from a nightmare in which her nursery had caught fire before her very eyes and all her now priceless brood had perished in the flames. M. de Tournon calmed her with difficulty, promising to go out as soon as the shops opened and buy the latest form of fire-escape. Even so this dream, which had been a particularly vivid one, recurred to her at intervals for several days. She was dreadfully shaken by it, and never felt quite comfortable again until the ball had begun. Of course the great question was how should they go to it. What famous couple, fair husband dark wife, with three boys and one girl, was famous enough for the Tournon family? They racked their brains, they refused all their invitations in order to stay quietly at home, thinking. At last Eugène de Tournon said that they would never have any truly original idea in the hurly-burly of a town, and that the absolute peace and quiet of the country were essential to any such act of creation. So away they went. They had not seen the country, except through the windows of some fast-moving vehicle, for several years, and they came back to Paris saying that people ought to go there more, it really was rather pretty. Their friends were relieved to hear that the journey had been a success, the great inspiration having come to them as they walked down a forest glade – Henri II, Catherine de Medicis, the three little kings and la Reine Margot. Almost every other family of four children had had the same idea. Indeed there was very little originality in the choice of characters; parents with only sons were Napoleon, Eugénie, and the Prince Imperial; mothers with only daughters Madame de Sévigné and Madame de Grignan; uncles with only nephews (of which there seemed to be dozens) Jerome or Lucien with l’Aiglon; families of a boy and a girl Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and their children, and so on. Charles-Edouard decided upon Talleyrand and Delacroix, chiefly because Sigismond looked so charming in the black velvet coat and big, floppy bow tie of the artist. Albertine, in a wonderfully elaborate dress made of fig leaves, was Eve the Mother of All.