The Blessing Read online

  The Captain passed a sleepless night, during which he decided that there was only one course left for him to take. He must go and see Grace and persuade her to marry him. Not a bad thing, perhaps, to do it on an impulse, though he would have preferred to lead up to it with the triumphant success on the boards of Sigismond. He must try and whirl her to a registry office before either she or he had any more chance of thinking it over. Thinking it over was no good now, the time had come for action. Breakfastless, feeling rather sea-sick, the Captain set out for Queen Anne’s Gate.

  Now it so happened that on this particular day Grace had woken up sadder and more hopeless than at any time since leaving Paris. Her divorce had just become absolute, and she had finished her carpet. She had made a sort of bet with herself that before these two things happened there would have been a sign from Charles-Edouard; none had come. The weather, which always affected her spirits, remained terrible, as it had been so far the whole summer. Day after day it was a question of putting on winter clothes and crowning them, for no other reason than that the month was June, with a straw hat, through which the cold wind whistled horribly. She was putting on one of these hats to go out to a dull luncheon when her maid came in and said that the Captain was downstairs. This news cheered her up.

  ‘Give him a glass of vodka – I’m just coming.’

  The Captain was already pouring vodka down his throat in great gulps like a Russian and feeling much more confident that all would yet be well. The door opened, and, instead of Grace, Sigismond appeared.

  ‘Good morning, Old Salt,’ he said, too cockily for a child of his age the Captain thought, irritated. He must get rid of him, he had got to see Grace alone while the action of the vodka on his doubly empty stomach (no dinner, no breakfast) was having its excellent effect.

  ‘And when do I go into rehearsal, Cap?’

  This was too much for the Captain’s nerves. He took Sigi by the shoulder, propelled him to the door, gave him a sharp push and said,

  ‘It’s your Mummy I want to see, not you. Run along to Nanny, there’s a good boy.’

  Sigi gave him a very baleful glance. Aware that he had done himself no good, the Captain felt about in his pocket. He had a shilling and a fiver, and if one seemed too little the other seemed immeasurably too much. He fished out the shilling, which Sigi pocketed without a word, going furiously upstairs. Nobody had ever insulted him with so small a coin in his life before.

  Grace appeared. She looked very pretty and was pleased to see the Captain, quite approachable, he thought. He took the plunge.

  ‘I’ve come on an impulse, to ask you to marry me, Grace.’

  ‘Good heavens, Captain!’

  ‘I suppose you think I ought to lead up to it, pave the way, break it like bad news. I don’t. We’re both grown-up people, and I think if I want to marry you the easiest thing is to say so straight out.’

  ‘Yes. I expect you’re quite right.’

  ‘And please don’t think it over. I hate the sort of people who are for ever thinking things over, horrid, calculating thoughts. Say yes now – and I’ll go off and get a licence.’

  Grace was seriously tempted to do so. She was feeling furious with Charles-Edouard, with his attitude of ‘come back whenever you like but don’t expect me to bother about you, or make it any easier for you’, and with his manner of conveying it to her, indirectly, through Sir Conrad. Why did he never telephone, write, or make any direct approach? It was intolerable. She felt it would punish him if she were to marry the Captain, brilliant, sparkling, friend of Paris intellectuals, much more than if she were to marry someone like Hughie. Hughie could only be a stopgap, the Captain might well be a great new love.

  ‘I don’t want to think it over,’ she said, ‘but I shall have to consult Sigismond.’

  The Captain was very much taken aback. ‘Consult Sigi?’

  ‘Oh Captain, if Sigi didn’t like it I could never do it, you know. I’ve given him my word never to marry without asking him first.’

  ‘It’s mad. Little boys of that age change their ideas every few minutes – he might say yes one day and no the next, it would mean nothing at all. According to whether – well for instance according to whether one had last tipped him with a shilling or five pounds. Sigi is very fond of me, you must have noticed that for yourself. I shan’t turn out to be a Mr Murdstone, I can assure you – I am good-natured and I love children. I tell you this, so it must be true. What people say about themselves is always true. When they say “Don’t fall in love with me, I shall make you very unhappy” you must believe them, just as you must believe me when I tell you that both you and Sigi will have happy lives once you are married to me. Quiet, uneventful, but happy.’

  ‘Oh I do, Captain, I do believe it. I’ve known it really for a long time.’

  As Grace said this she looked positively cuddlable, and the Captain was about to press her to his bosom when she saw the time, gave a tremendous jump, said she was half an hour late for luncheon already and fled – shouting from the staircase ‘Come back at tea-time.’

  ‘Tell me something, Sigi. You love the Captain, darling, don’t you?’

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think of the Captain?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I’m asking you.’

  ‘I think he’s a bloody bastard, so there.’

  ‘Sigismond – go to bed this instant. Nanny – Nanny –’ Grace was running furiously upstairs, ‘Please put Sigismond to bed without any supper and without Dick Barton. I won’t have it, Sigi, you’re not to speak of grown-up people like that, do you understand? Oh no, it’s too much,’ and she burst into tears. She had quite made up her mind that she was going to marry the Captain and now this consolation was to be denied her.

  Sigi, rather puzzled and very cross, received pains and penalties, but he had hit his target first. That night the Captain left London, alone, for France. The Royal George had gone down, without her crew complete. Her new owner, having repainted, furbished up, and rechristened her, more in the spirit of the age, The Broadway, opened triumphantly that autumn with a dramatization of Little Lord Fauntleroy.

  11

  Madame Rocher des Innouïs, as old ladies sometimes do, now got an idea into her head, and decided that she would not rest until she had seen it carried out. The idea was that Grace and Charles-Edouard must be brought together again, must be married properly this time, that Grace must be converted, that they must have more children, and do their duty by the one they had already. The present situation had become impossible. Charles-Edouard quite clearly had no intention of marrying any of the nice, suitable girls vetted and presented by his aunt, and was now in trouble with half the husbands of Paris. Grace, according to information received by Madame Rocher through the French Embassy in London, was contemplating remarriage with some very unsuitable sailor, and the child was being outrageously spoilt on both sides of the Channel. Bad enough that a Valhubert should be written about and photographed in Samedi Soir, it now seemed that his mother contemplated putting him on the London stage, while Sir Conrad, whom Madame Rocher loved but whom she did not trust a yard, was no doubt initiating him into the terrible rites of Freemasonry. Charles-Edouard’s heir was on the way to becoming a publicity-monger, an actor, and a Nihilist; what must poor Françoise be thinking?

  Madame Rocher took action. She arrived in London to stay with the French Ambassador, sent for Grace, and weighed in at once with what she had to say.

  ‘Grace, my child, it is your duty to return to Paris and marry Charles-Edouard. Picture this unfortunate man, lonely, unhappy, reduced to pursuing the wives of all his friends, forced to go to bed at the most inconvenient times, and always with the risk of his motive being misunderstood. He may find himself trapped into some perfectly incongruous marriage before we know where we are. Then think of your little boy, brought up like this between the two of you, no continuity in his education. Nothing can be worse for a child than these six months of hysterical spoiling from each of you in turn. You
are very reasonable, Grace dear, surely you must understand where it is that your duty lies.

  ‘I know the English are fond of duty, it is their great speciality. We all admire you so much for having no black market, but what is the good of no black market if you will not do your duty by your own family, Grace? Have you thought of that?’

  Grace, sick to death of living alone, longing night and day for Charles-Edouard, was unable to conceal from Madame Rocher’s experienced eye the happiness these words gave her, and that in her case duty and inclination were the same.

  ‘But Charles-Edouard never asks me to go back,’ she said. ‘I’m always hearing from my father that he wants me, but I’ve never had a direct communication from him. It makes it rather difficult.’

  Madame Rocher gave a sigh of relief. The day, she saw, was won.

  ‘It is perhaps not so very strange,’ she said. ‘Charles-Edouard has never been left before by a woman. He fully understands the technique of leaving, one might say he has brought it to a fine art, but being left is a new experience. No doubt it puzzles him, he is not quite sure how to deal with it. Could you not take the first step?’

  ‘Oh Tante Régine! Yes, perhaps. But then what about Juliette and Albertine?’

  ‘Back to them again? You are behind the times, my dearest. Juliette is quite finished. But let’s try and be sensible about it. Charles-Edouard was sleeping with you, I suppose?’

  Grace became rather pink, but she nodded.

  ‘Well then, that’s all right. Why not look upon these others as his hobby? Like hunting or racing, a pursuit that takes him from you of an afternoon sometimes, amuses him, and does you no harm?

  ‘There’s another thing I wanted to tell you. Of course one never can say for certain, and people vary in this respect, but very often at Charles-Edouard’s age a man does begin, all the same, to settle down with his own wife. If you go back to him it would not surprise me in the least to see a very different Charles-Edouard five or ten years from now.

  ‘Tea with Albertine, yes I expect so, she is one whom people never quite get out of their systems, I’m afraid, and Charles-Edouard had her in his long before he ever met you. But the Juliettes of this world have their little day, it is soon over, and sometimes they are not replaced. I think Charles-Edouard is a particularly hopeful case because of the great love he has of his home. Consider the hours and the energy he expends on it, rearranging his furniture and pictures, adding to his collections, pondering over almost insignificant details of the lighting, and so on. Think how much he hates to leave it, even for a short holiday at Bellandargues or in Venice. He goes away, complaining dreadfully, for a month while the servants have their holiday and is back before the dust sheets are off.

  ‘All this can be very much on your side if you can manage to make him feel that you are part of his home, its goddess, in fact. I had a cousin, a terrible Don Juan, whose wife retrieved him, really, with her knitting. She sat through everything with this eternal ball of wool and click of needles – how we used to mock at her for it. But it was not stupid. In the end it became a symbol to him I think, a symbol of home life, and he so turned to her again that when they were old he seemed never to have cared for anybody else. Could you not try to see this whole problem rather differently, Grace? More like a Frenchwoman and less like a film star?’

  Grace felt that she could, and knew that she longed to, since this different vision was clearly essential if she were to go home to Charles-Edouard.

  ‘Yes, Tante Régine,’ she said. ‘I will try, I promise you. But Charles-Edouard must come and fetch me.’

  ‘Oh – that! I shall have a word with him, and I can promise he’ll be here next week. So all is settled then – good. And now, when do I see my dear Vénérable?’

  ‘Ah well, the Vénérable dies for you. He rang up the Embassy to find out your plans – it seems they are taking you to the Ballet tonight, so he hopes that you will dine with us tomorrow. He’s out shopping this very moment, trying to find something fit to offer you.’

  ‘Wearing his apron, no doubt. But please tell him not to trouble. I love your English cuts, sirloins and saddles – you see how I remember, and I haven’t been here since 1914. I love them just as they are. That excellent roast meat, those steak and kidney puddings, what could be more delicious? At eight o’clock then tomorrow?’ She kissed Grace most affectionately on both cheeks.

  Grace went home, a warm feeling at her heart. Everything was going to be all right now, she knew.

  The dinner party for Madame Rocher consisted of an M.P., Clarkely by name, member of the Anglo-French Parliamentary Committee, Sir Henry and Lady Clarissa Teazle, owner of one of the big Sunday papers and his wife, noted francophiles, and, of course, Mrs O’Donovan. Madame Rocher arrived in full Paris fig. Her breasts were contained (but only just, it seemed that they might spring out at any moment, and then how to coax them back again?) in pale blue glass bubbles embroidered on yellow silk; her pale blue skirt, carved, as it were, out of hundreds of layers of tulle, was rather short, and when she sat down it could be seen that she wore yellow silk breeches also embroidered at the knee with bubbles. Mrs O’Donovan and Lady Clarissa could not take their eyes off bosom and knees, and exchanged many significant glances.

  ‘What a joy,’ Madame Rocher cried effusively, ‘to see dear Meg. Why do you never come to Paris now? I know more than one who still dies of love for you there. Nobody,’ she said to the company at large, ‘certainly no foreigner, has ever had so much success in Paris as Madame Audonnevent.’

  All the English guests had been chosen because they spoke excellent French, but they did not get much opportunity to air this accomplishment, since Madame Rocher was determined to practise her English, and, furthermore, never drew breath the whole evening.

  Her theme was the delight, the ravishment, the ecstasies into which she had been thrown by her two days in London.

  ‘This morning,’ she said, ‘I got up at eight, and imagine! I was ready for the opening at nine.’

  ‘The opening?’

  ‘Of the shops. Oh those shops! I have already bought all my hats for the Grande Semaine.’

  ‘No! Where?’ said Mrs O’Donovan, hoping for the name of a talented little French modiste, kept perhaps in some secret mews by the ladies of the French Embassy.

  ‘My dear, can you ask? D. H. Heavens, of course – in the basement. I never saw such beauties – the straw! the workmanship! the chic! I have got Christmas presents for all my friends – how they will be thrilled – of your famous English scent, the Yardley – so delicious, so well presented, such chic bottles. Then all my cotillon favours for the bal des Innouïs at the Woolworth – oh the joy just to wander in the Woolworth. The very names of the shops are a poem – the Scotch House – I bought a hundred mètres of tartan to cover all my furniture, many country beréts, and a lovely fur bag, in the Scotch House, while as for the Army and the Fleet! The elegance! I shall come over once a month now for the elegance alone.

  ‘At Oopers I ordered a new Rolls-Royce, of cane-work – you see the chic of that. From time to time, when I get a little tired, for all this shopping does tire me rather, I go to the Cadena Café and order a café crême and sit very happily watching your English beauties. They are a refreshment to the eye. I notice how sensible they are, they scorn the demi-toilette, and quite right too, there is nothing worse. They come out with no make-up, hardly having combed their hair even, to do their shopping. Then, of course, they go home and arrange themselves properly. Now I admire that. All or nothing, how I agree.

  ‘So I had no time for luncheon as you can imagine, but who cares when you can have a bun and a cup of tea? The afternoon I spent in fittings!’

  ‘Fittings?’ Mrs O’Donovan and Lady Clarissa were stunned by this recital.

  ‘Junior Miss, my dear. All my little dresses for the plage. Don’t ask me what Dior will say when he hears of Junior Miss. I’d rather not think. No thank you, no wine – when I am in England I drink nothing but
whisky.’

  Mr Clarkely, more interested in French politics than English elegance, began asking a few questions about the Third Force, saying that he had made friends, through his Committee, with many of the Ministers, but Madame Rocher merely cried,

  ‘Don’t talk to me of these dreadful people – they think of nothing, day and night, but their stomachs and their mistresses.’

  ‘Really?’ said Mr Clarkely. ‘Are you sure?’ It had not been his impression at all.

  ‘On what do you suppose they squander their salaries – those huge augmentations for which they are always and for ever voting?’ (Madame Rocher would have complained very much if she had found herself compelled to dress on the amount annually earned by a French Minister.) ‘Stomachs, dear sir, and mistresses. The vast sums that dreadful Dexter gives them for tanks and aeroplanes, what d’you suppose happens to them? My nephew, a commandant, tells me there are no tanks and no aeroplanes and hardly even a pop-gun. Why? Because, my dear sir, these sums are spent on the stomachs and the mistresses of your friends.’

  Mr Clarkely was very much surprised. ‘Surely not so and so,’ he said, mentioning a certain prominent Minister noted for his dyspeptic austerity of life and devotion to work.

  ‘All – all! Don’t mention their names or I shall have an attack! All, I tell you, all! They take the best houses to live in, they have fleets of motors, they spend the day eating and drinking and all night the relays of mistresses are shown up the escalier de service. It has ever been so, but let me tell you that the scandals of Wilson and Panama, of the death of Félix Fauré even, are nothing, but nothing, to what goes on today. Give us back our King, my dear sir, and then speak to me of politics,’ she said, rather as if her King were kept a prisoner in the Tower of London. ‘More whisky, Vénérable, I pray.’