The Blessing Read online

  ‘Are you sure,’ said Grace, ‘about these numbers? I’ve never heard of them. Placement doesn’t bother us because nobody minds where they sit, at home.’

  ‘People always mind. I mean the numbers in the beginning of the peerage. I subscribe to your peerage, such a beautiful book, and then I know where I am with English visitors. I only wish we had such a thing here, but we have not, and as a result the complications of precedence are terrible. There is the old French nobility and that of the Holy Roman Empire (Lorraine, Savoy, and so on). These are complicated enough in themselves, but then we have the titles created by Napoleon, at the Restoration, by the July monarchy and Napoleon III. There are the Bourbon bastards and the Bonaparte bastards. I think you have no special place for your big bastards in England?’

  ‘I don’t think there are any.’

  He looked at her with pity and reeled off some well-known English family names. Grace saw that she was doing badly in this witness box.

  ‘Mrs Jordan alone had about eighteen children,’ he said. ‘After all, royal blood is not nothing. But to come back to France. Suppose you have asked three dukes to dinner, which do you put first? You ring up the protocol – good, but the dukes meanwhile ring you up, each putting forward his claim. Then, my dear, you will positively long to be back in England, where you can have any number of dukes and members of the Academy at the same time. Where do you place Academicians, in England?’

  ‘R.A.s?’ said Grace. ‘I don’t know any.’

  ‘Indeed! Now here, when you get to the dining-room, those of your guests who think themselves badly placed, if they don’t leave at once, will turn their plates in protest and refuse the first course (though if it looks very delicious they may take it when it is handed round again).’

  ‘Goodness!’ said Grace, ‘so what is the solution?’

  ‘Do not ask more than one duke at a time.’

  ‘But supposing they are friends?’

  ‘Never will they be friends to that extent. But it shows how you are fortunate over there, you could ask all twenty-six – am I not right in saying there are twenty-six?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Grace.

  ‘I think so. You could ask all twenty-six to the same dinner without making a single enemy. Unimaginable. To go on with our lesson. Whereas in England the host and hostess sit at the ends of the table, here they face each other across the middle, the ends being reserved for low people, those who have married for love and so on. Two years of love, we say here, are no compensation for a lifetime at the end of the table.’

  ‘Might not the end be more amusing?’

  ‘No. It is not amusing to be with one’s near relations and the people other people have married for love. Because near relations of the house go to the end, you and Charles-Edouard would be there tonight, except that this dinner is being given in your honour. Juliette, as you see, is there; as you also see, she is far from liking it.’

  The young woman he indicated was the prettiest of them all, and the most dressed-up. She wore white tulle with swags of blue taffeta which matched her eyes, her skin looked as if a light were shining through it, and her hair fell on her shoulders in fat, chestnut curls. She was very lively and very young, hardly more than a child.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Juliette Novembre de la Fertè, daughter-in-law of the house. The other end is her husband, watching with his jealous eye, poor Jean, and much good will it do him. She is the great success of the year.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Eighteen? – nineteen? Very soon she will have to begin her family, poor dear. Jean will have to take her to the country if he wants the necessary number, and wants them to be his.’

  ‘Necessary number?’

  ‘Yes, hasn’t Charles-Edouard explained? We all have to have six nowadays if we are to prevent everything – but everything – being taken away in taxation. So most of us took advantage of the war years and just devoted ourselves to procreation. My wife and I have four (we prayed for twins – in vain, alas). Very soon we shall have to make up our minds again. Oh, how we were bored, I never shall forget it. We had our house full of Germans, how they were middle-class and dreary.’

  Grace, who regarded Germans as frightening rather than dreary, was very much surprised, and more so when he went on:

  ‘There was one not so bad, a Graf, who sang little lieder after dinner, a charming baritone. But we had moments of grave disquietude, you know, caused by the maquisards. They were well-intentioned, but so tactless – at one moment we thought they would kill our baritone, and then, only think, there might have been a battle!’

  ‘In wars,’ said Grace, ‘you rather expect battles.’

  ‘Not in one’s own château, my dear! How we were relieved when the Germans went away – just packed up one day and went – and we saw two nice young Guards officers of good family, Etonians, coming up the drive. Because please don’t think I was on the side of the Germans. Why, when I saw them swarming over the hill (we lived in the unoccupied zone), I put out my hand and took down my gun. There and then I made a vow never to shoot again until they were out of France.’

  ‘You mean, never to shoot birds again?’

  ‘And rabbits and pigs, yes. You may not think much of this vow, but I live for shooting, it is my greatest joy.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you join the maquis and shoot the Germans?’

  ‘Oh no, my dear, one couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘For many reasons. My brother-in-law joined a maquis, dreadful people, he soon had to give that up. They weren’t possible, I assure you.’

  ‘Well they may not have been possible, but they were on our side, and I love them for it.’

  ‘Oh! my dear, we were all on your side, so you must love us all in that case.’

  After dinner Charles-Edouard made a bee-line for Juliette Novembre. Grace heard him say, ‘If you were Juliette de Champeaubert how is it I don’t remember you? Jeanne Marie is one of my very greatest friends.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve only just been invented,’ she said gaily, ‘but before I was invented I used to hang out of the window, waiting to see you get into that pretty black motor you had in those days. My governess used to pull me back by my hair.’

  ‘No! But that’s awfully nice,’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘Come – I want to see my uncle’s Subleyras again.’

  They went off together into another room. Somebody said, ‘It was quite indicated that those two would take to each other – she might be made for Charles-Edouard.’

  M. de Tournon brought his wife over to Grace. He wanted her to see for herself this uncouth girl Charles-Edouard had so oddly married, in order to be able to talk about her when they got home. Madame de Tournon was Italian, more really beautiful and more elegant than Juliette Novembre but with much less sparkle.

  ‘I am a cousin of yours now,’ she said. ‘Let’s all sit here. So tell me what you have been doing in Paris since you arrived – there haven’t been any dinners so far, have there? We only got back ourselves last night – we came back for this.’

  ‘Really I’ve done very little. I’ve bought some clothes.’

  ‘Is that Dior? Yes, I could see. But are they making these high necks now?’

  ‘I had it altered – it seemed too naked.’

  ‘Oh no, my dear,’ said Madame de Tournon, ‘you’ve got beautiful breasts, so why hide them up like that? It spoils the line. What else?’

  ‘I’ve met Charles-Edouard’s aunts.’

  Madame de Tournon made a little face of sympathy. ‘Any cocktail parties?’

  ‘There have been one or two, but I never go to them, I hate them. Charles-Edouard goes. I don’t terribly like lunching out either,’ she went on. ‘If I had my way I’d never go out before dinner-time.’

  The Tournons looked at each other in growing amazement as she spoke.

  ‘But listen,’ cried Madame de Tournon, ‘nobody can dine out more than eight times i
n a week. But if one lunches every day and goes to, say, three cocktails, as well as dining out, one can go to forty houses in a week. We often have, haven’t we, Eugène?’

  ‘Sometimes more, in the summer. I wish you could see us in July, fit for a nursing home by the time we get to the seaside.’

  ‘Where do you go to the seaside as a rule?’ asked Grace, thinking of them on the sands of some French Eastbourne with their four tots.

  ‘Always Venice. Say what you like, it’s the only place in August.’

  ‘But is it fun for the children?’

  They stared at her. ‘We don’t take the children to Venice – poor little things, what on earth would they do there? Besides, the children don’t need a change, they don’t have an exhausting season in Paris, they lead a perfectly healthy outdoor life in the Seine et Marne.’

  Charles-Edouard and Juliette only reappeared when a general move was being made to go home. In the hall, as they were putting on their coats, Juliette flourished a hand for Charles-Edouard to kiss, saying, ‘Good-bye for the present then, wickedness, I will consider your proposition.’ She and her husband then got into the lift which took them to their own apartments.

  ‘What proposition?’ said Grace, in the motor.

  ‘No proposition.’

  ‘Oh dear! Need we dine out very often?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Let’s dine together, alone, in future.’

  ‘It would be very dull,’ said Charles-Edouard.

  ‘Such a terrible man I sat next to.’

  ‘Eugène? He’s a friendly old thing.’

  ‘You can’t think what he’s like when he talks about the war.’

  ‘I know. I saw him at a picture dealer’s the other day and we had it all. But you mustn’t be too hard on old Eugène – he joined up quite correctly in ’39 and fought quite bravely in ’40. His father was killed quite correctly in 1917. These Eugènes are not so rotten, it is the State of Denmark.’

  The Tournons, meanwhile, were discussing Grace.

  ‘My dear, the lowest peasant of the Danube knows more than she – just fancy, she had never heard of the English order of precedence, didn’t know how many dukes there are in England, and didn’t seem to think any of it mattered.’

  ‘And did you hear what she said about taking the children to Venice? She must be backward, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Allingham. What is this name? I must write at once to Molly Waterloo and ask her if they are people one can know. Poor Charles-Edouard – I pity him really.’

  ‘Everything will be all right. Madame Rocher told my mother they are not married religiously.’

  Madame Rocher had gone to Venice the week after Grace and Charles-Edouard left Bellandargues, and there she had managed to do quite a lot of harm to Grace, not wilfully at all, not intending mischief, but because she was utterly incapable of holding her tongue on any subject of general interest. Interest was very much centred, at the moment, on Charles-Edouard and his marriage.

  Everybody thought it a pity that he, with his name and his fortune, should have married an English Protestant. When it transpired that she was the daughter of a Freemason, the general disapproval knew no bounds, a Bolshevist would have been as gladly received. Those who were informed on political subjects pointed to the dire results, for France, of the Allingham Commission, and it was freely hinted that Grace was very likely in the pay of the Intelligence Service. Rather soon, however, the pendulum swung back in her favour. Older, cosmopolitan Frenchmen, writers, diplomats, and the like, who did not only live for society and yet had great influence with the Tournons of the world, had known the charming, cultivated, francophile Sir Conrad, and had read his books. They said he was by no means to the Left in politics, a rigid Conservative, in fact. Silly old Régine must have got the Freemason story all wrong, so like her, for it could not possibly be true. As to the Allingham Commission, the prime mover in that was a terrible villain called Sparks, paid by Arabs, in whose hands poor Sir Conrad had been as putty, and furthermore the results of the Commission, while annoying to the French government of the day, had not in the long run done any harm to France. It was absurd to say that the Allinghams were not the sort of people you could know; even Eugène de Tournon was quite impressed when he saw in his peer-age who Grace’s mother had been.

  The highbrow aunts, who, dowdy as they seemed, counted for a good deal in society, weighed in on her side, saying that, though not an intellectual, she was very nice and well brought up. Her beauty, too, was in her favour. At last the nine days’ wonder came to an end, and Grace was accepted. She was a new girl, she must watch her step, but the general feeling was that she would do.

  She and Charles-Edouard now dined out nearly every day, and after all these dinners Charles-Edouard would sit with Juliette Novembre, as far removed from the rest of the company as possible, until it was time to go home.

  9

  Carolyn Dexter and Grace saw a good deal of each other, sitting on nursery fenders, and at first this was a comfort to Grace because of her need to feel at home somewhere. She felt at home with Carolyn. But as time went on Carolyn often irritated her dreadfully. Since marriage with the important Mr Dexter the swagger and self-assurance which had made her so fascinating to the other girls at her school had deteriorated into bossiness. She was forever telling Grace what she ought to do and whom she and Charles-Edouard ought to see, and was also forever enlarging upon the faults of the French. She had a particular grievance against the world of Parisians which was led by such young couples as the Tournons and the Novembre de la Fertés, not, oddly enough, on the grounds of their really frightening frivolity, but because they so seldom invited herself and her husband to their houses. In view of the importance of Mr Dexter and the fact that she was the niece of a former British Ambassador to Paris, she had expected immediately to be asked everywhere, but, except for big, official parties, the Dexters moved almost entirely in an Anglo-American world. Mr Dexter did not mind this at all. When he said, as he continually did, that he despised the French, he meant it. He had no wish to meet any, except those he was obliged to work with. But Carolyn was not quite so honest. If the French annoyed her it was very largely by ignoring her presence in their town.

  Carolyn thought that Grace ought to give a dinner party for her, and said so in her extremely outspoken way. Grace replied, with perfect truth, that, for the moment, she and Charles-Edouard were taken up with his many relations. Carolyn did not accept this as easily as some people would have, and often returned to the charge.

  ‘I hear you dined last night with the Polastrons. Are they relations of your husband?’ she said, before even saying hullo to Grace, who had come to tea.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘How are they related?’

  ‘Perhaps they’re not. But anyway, great old friends.’

  ‘Great old friends, but not related. I thought you were only seeing relations at present?’

  ‘Well, but Carolyn – I leave it all to Charles-Edouard, you know.’

  She felt instinctively that Charles-Edouard would find the Dexters very dull.

  ‘Let’s have a cocktail,’ said Carolyn. ‘I’m exhausted. I’ve had an awful afternoon struggling with the garage people to do something about my car. Promised for yesterday – you know the sort of thing. Really I’m fed up with these wretched French.’

  ‘I thought you loved France. You always used to.’

  ‘I love France, but I can’t say I love the French, nowadays. They are quite different, you know, since the war. Everybody says the same.’

  Grace somehow felt sure that they were not quite different at all. She really did love them. She loved the servants in her house for their friendly efficiency, their faithfulness to Charles-Edouard; she loved the highbrow aunts, now that she was getting to know them, for being so clever and so serious, and she loved the gay young diners for being so pretty and so light-hearted. She even loved their snobbishness, it seemed to her such a tremendous j
oke, so particularly funny, somehow, nowadays. She was beginning to love the critical spirit of all and sundry. It kept people up to the mark, no doubt, and had filled her with the desire to improve her mind and sharpen her wits. She longed to make a better appearance in the box, and be a credit to Charles-Edouard. And she loved the people in the streets for smiling at her and noticing her new clothes.

  ‘I don’t say I hate them,’ said Carolyn, ‘but they irritate me, and I see their faults.’

  ‘What faults?’

  ‘Oh, you’re sold to the French, Grace, it’s hardly worth talking to you about them. Faults! They hit you in the eye if you’re not blind. Never punctual – don’t get things done – not reliable (you should hear Hector) – dirty – The dirt! Look at the central heating here – just gusts of hot dust, impossible to keep anything clean. Then the butchers’ shops – after living in America you feel ill to see them – flies all over the meat –’

  ‘I like that,’ said Grace. ‘Meat can’t be too meaty, for my taste.’

  ‘Ugh! Anyhow, you can’t like the rudeness –’

  ‘Nobody’s ever rude to me. They smile when they see me, even strangers in the street.’

  ‘Trying to pick you up. And what about those dreadful policemen!’

  ‘I always think they look like young saints, in their capes.’

  ‘Saints! I must tell that to Hector, he’ll roar.’

  ‘I’ve never had anything but niceness from them – over Nanny’s identity card and so on.’

  ‘I expect your husband gives them enormous bribes.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t.’

  ‘I suppose even you will admit the French would do anything for money.’

  ‘Perhaps they may – it’s never crossed my path, but you may be right. Perhaps they are more frank and open about it than other people.’

  ‘Frank and open is the word. They always frankly and openly marry for money, to begin with.’

  ‘Charles-Edouard didn’t.’

  ‘Are you – Oh well there may be exceptions, and I suppose he wouldn’t need to. But at the time when our grandfathers were marrying actresses for love their contemporaries here were all marrying Jewesses for money. I was thinking of dozens of examples last night in bed.’