The Blessing

  Grace, too, had made a mental picture of what marriage with the Captain would be like, as women always do when they become aware that a man’s thoughts have turned in that direction. Her picture was not so very different from his. As with his, sex was left out. They would live together like brother and sister, she thought, a long, quiet, cultivated life. She saw them as the Wordsworths, in a larger, warmer house, nearer to London and without Coleridge; as Charles and Mary Lamb without the madness; as Mr and Mrs Carlyle without the liver attacks. Visits to Paris came into this picture, since she could not imagine life always away from France, and revenge of some sort on Charles-Edouard for making her so very unhappy. She began to see a great deal of the Captain, whose intentions became increasingly clear.

  Sir Conrad was not enthusiastic about either of his possible sons-in-law as such. Hughie was a nice, good creature, of course, but so boring, with his political pretensions. Sir Conrad thought that politics should be transacted, lightly, by clever men, and not ponderously by stupid ones. The Captain, whose company he very much enjoyed, seemed to him altogether too bohemian for marriage.

  ‘Don’t you think,’ he said to Mrs O’Donovan, ‘that there may still be a chance of her marrying Charles-Edouard again? They both adore the boy, surely it’s only reasonable to think that they ought to make some sacrifices on his account. After all, so little is wanted – a little discretion from Charles-Edouard and a little toleration from Grace. Mind you, it all depends on Grace. I happen to know that Charles-Edouard would take her back tomorrow, he still wants her.’

  ‘It all depends,’ said Mrs O’Donovan rather severely, ‘on Grace taking a more Christian view of the duties of a wife. I have been able to forgive her behaviour up to now on account of the shock she must have received, but she has got over that. She is certainly planning to marry again, and is making up her mind whether it shall be Hughie or the Captain. This ceremony, if you can call it that, in a registry office naturally meant nothing to her and marriage as a sacrament is quite outside her experience.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’re a Papist, Meg, so that’s how you look at it. I think it all comes from a sort of silly pride. Anyhow it’s most exceedingly tiresome. That wretched Carolyn with her mania for sight-seeing. I never could stand her, even as a child. The sort of woman who always manages to put her foot in it. Well she managed that time to some tune, it’s enough to make you cry. Just when everything was going like a marriage bell. Grace was so happy with Charles-Edouard, and furthermore so happy, which is rare for an Englishwoman, living in Paris. She loved it.’

  ‘Is that rare?’ she said with a sigh. ‘I know I should love it.’

  ‘Most English people hate living in France. I always think it’s got a great deal to do with French silver. They don’t realize it’s another alloy, they think that dark look means that it hasn’t been properly cleaned, and that makes them hate the French. You know what the English are about silver, it’s a fetish with them. I’ve so often noticed it. In the other war the silver at Bombon used to put up the backs of all our generals; they never could talk about anything else after a meal there with old Foch.’

  ‘I like that rich, dark silver,’ said Mrs O’Donovan.

  But then she liked everything French, indiscriminately and unreasonably, and her life in England, though it was all she had ever known, seemed to her a perpetual exile, so insistent was the beckoning from over the Channel.

  9

  Grace, called to the telephone in the middle of a rubber of bridge at Yeotown, came back and said to Hughie, ‘Most mysterious – Sigi and Nanny have arrived in London. I think I must go back.’

  ‘Don’t do that. I’ll send the motor for them. They’ll be here by dinner-time.’

  Dinner had begun when the little boy burst into the room and threw himself into his mother’s arms, saying ‘D’you know what, Mum – I rode on a cheval de Marly.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes I did – look!’ He fished some very tattered newspaper cuttings out of one pocket, but somehow forgot to fish a letter from Charles-Edouard out of another. Charles-Edouard had written coldly but clearly stating that, in his view, it was their absolute duty to their child to re-marry as soon as possible. He had done so without much hope of moving Grace, but he wanted her to know quite definitely, to read in black and white, his views on the subject, and to make it clear that their continued estrangement was her own responsibility.

  ‘My darling Sigi – however did you get up there? But first say how d’you do please to Mr and Mrs Fawcett and Hughie, and thank Hughie very very much for sending his motor. No – you don’t kiss people’s hands in England.’

  ‘Please always kiss mine,’ said Mrs Fawcett, ‘I love it, Sigismond.’

  ‘Don’t muddle him, Virginia, he must learn the difference.’

  ‘Well, Mummy, I got up a ladder the workmen had left. Papa allowed me to and then he went home and left me there, and I rode for ages, it was so lovely up in the sky, and there was an enormous crowd to see me and I recited to them. Well first I said the words, that was for Papa, then we had Waterloo, morne plaine, then we all sang Les voyez-vous, and then the pompiers came and we had the Marseillaise, all the verses, then they carried me down and took me home.’

  ‘I never heard such a thing,’ said Grace, with a look at Hughie which clearly said ‘Now what? We can never compete with this.’ ‘Ask Hughie if you may dine here with us as a great great treat.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be any treat at all in Paris, I always dine with Papa and have a glass of Bordeaux and 100 francs if I can tell the vintage.’

  ‘You can have a glass of Bordeaux here,’ said Hughie, ‘only we call it claret, and half a crown if you can tell the vintage.’

  He poured it out.

  ‘Quite an honourable wine,’ said Sigi, ‘but not grand cru. I can only tell when it’s grand cru.’

  This remark having gone down, he saw, rather badly, Sigismond settled to a hearty meal.

  Presently Hughie said to him, ‘What do you do all day in Paris, Sigi?’

  ‘In Paris,’ said Sigi, ‘I have two great friends. One is Madame Novembre de la Ferté, who gives me treats, allows me to drive her motor, and so on, and the other is Madame Marel, who gives me my lessons. They both give me very very expensive presents.’

  ‘But doesn’t M. l’Abbé give you your lessons any more?’

  ‘He did for a while, but he’s gone away. So now I have lessons with Madame Marel. I like it far better. I know masses of poetry by heart and we go to the jardin des plantes.’ Sigi was curling up bits of hair with one hand. ‘And what d’you think we saw the turtles doing? Yes, but it wasn’t her fault, they only do it once every three years – bad luck really. You ought to have heard them bellowing.’

  ‘Well,’ said Hughie, ‘that doesn’t amount to much. You’ve ridden a stone horse and driven a car – which you’ll do every day of your life when you’re grown up – and learnt poetry and heard turtles bellowing.’

  ‘They weren’t only bellowing,’ said Sigi. ‘Expensive presents, too – and a ball.’

  He spoke very crossly. He was tired after the journey, more than half asleep, and felt that he had not done himself justice or made it sufficiently clear that nobody in Paris could think of anything from morning till night but how best to keep him amused. However he was reassured by Hughie’s next words.

  ‘What about learning to ride a real horse so that you can go hunting next winter?’

  ‘O.K. Can I begin tomorrow?’

  ‘No. Tomorrow is Sunday. You can begin on Monday.’

  Grace left Sigi in the dining-room and went up to see Nanny.

  ‘High time we did get back, in my opinion. Such goings on, dear. The Marquee does spoil him – oh he does, lets him do anything he says. That Madam November too and that Madam Marel – they fill his head with the most unsuitable ideas between them. Did he tell you about the ball?’

  ‘He did say something. He’s half-asleep, I think.’

  ‘
You’ll hear it all, no doubt. I never saw such an exhibition in my life, those poor little mites, in ridiculous clothes for children (though I must say Sigi looked sweet) kept up I believe, some of them, till six in the morning. Nanny Dexter and I – the servants didn’t want to let us in, but we weren’t having any of that – we went and fetched our two away quite early on. Sigi was sound asleep, but poor little Foss, oh he was sick. I wish you could have seen the stuff he kept on bringing up. She hasn’t got his little tummy right yet. The usual rush over the packing, of course, and nobody to meet us at Victoria, dear.’

  ‘But Nanny, nobody knew you were coming.’

  ‘There now. The Marquee said he’d rung up and everything was arranged – oh well, French you know!’

  Sigismond was very sleepy indeed, but not too sleepy to burn his father’s letter to his mother in the empty nursery grate, with a match he had brought upstairs with him on purpose, while Nanny was running his bath.

  The fact that Hughie now began to pay court to Sigismond just as, in Paris, Albertine and Juliette had paid court, and with the same end in view, that of becoming his step-parent, was clear as daylight to the little boy. Like his mother he had been quite doubtful whether the high level of amusement to which he had lately become accustomed could be maintained in England. Greatly to his surprise he found that it was positively surpassed. It so happened that Sigi had a natural aptitude for all forms of sport, and therefore very much enjoyed practising them. Hughie, an excellent athlete, gave up hours a day to coaching him; he played tennis, squash, and cricket with him, and taught him to ride. So of course Sigi loved being at Yeotown and very much approved of Hughie, whose stock, in consequence, soared with Grace. Visits to Yeotown became more and more frequent and prolonged, and very soon Sigi was quite ready to consider Hughie as an auxiliary papa. He realized that his mother could never have put on such a good show by herself.

  Hughie said to Grace, ‘This child must go to Eton – I’m sure they’d make a cricketer of him. Seems waste of excellent material for him to go to some French school where they do nothing but lessons.’

  ‘But he was never put down for it,’ said Grace.

  ‘I can fix that, I’m sure. A word with Woodford. The boy is exceptional, you see.’

  ‘Oh dear, I wonder whether Charles-Edouard would allow it. He did once seem to think of it, I remember.’

  ‘It’s my opinion that child can do anything he likes with his father. If he wants to go he’ll go, it all depends on that.’

  Hughie was one of those to whom Eton is bathed retrospectively in a light that never was on land or sea. He talked much of it to Sigi, who began to imagine himself as Captain and Keeper of this and that, and inclined very favourably to the idea. At last Hughie suggested that the three of them might go down for the day, take out his own nephew, Miles Boreley, and let Sigismond have a look round.

  ‘We’ll go down next Thursday, I’ll ring up Miles’s tutor now and arrange it. Once the child has seen it for himself the thing’s a foregone conclusion – there’ll be no holding him – he’ll be as good as there.’

  Miles Boreley was a sad little boy. He stood waiting for them at the Burning Bush, top hat crammed on to large red ears, mouth slightly open, large, red hands hanging down. Though very plain, he had a disquieting look of his handsome uncle Hughie. They left the motor and walked with him towards Windsor. He said he had engaged a table for luncheon at a restaurant there.

  It was one of those summer days when the cold of the Thames valley eats into the very bone, though the boys who slouched about the street with no apparent aim in view, looking like refugees in a foreign town, did not seem to notice it. Sigi’s bright little eyes, which missed nothing, darted from one to another. He was amazed by their archaic black clothes and general air of ill-being. Hughie, bathed in the light that never was, glanced at him from time to time, wondering if the magic had already begun to work. Had he known his Sigi better he would have been quite well aware that it had not. The corners of the mouth were drooping in a very tell-tale way.

  They were shown their table in the restaurant and were settling themselves round it when Miles, looking with disfavour at the seat of his chair, asked if he could have a cushion. The waitress quite understood, and went off to get him one.

  ‘Been in trouble, old boy?’ said Hughie.

  ‘Only been beaten by the library.’

  ‘Bad luck. What for?’

  ‘Changing the times sheet, as usual.’

  ‘Oh I say, you shouldn’t do that, you know.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘Beaten?’ said Sigi. His blood ran cold.

  ‘Yes, of course. Aren’t you ever beaten?’

  ‘Certainly not. I’m a French boy – I wouldn’t allow such a thing.’

  ‘What a sissy!’

  ‘But do you like being beaten?’

  ‘Not specially. But I shall like it all right when it’s my turn to beat the others.’

  Hughie said, ‘When I got into the library I used to lay about me like Captain Bligh. I had a lot of leeway to make up – we had an awful time at m’tutor’s from a brute called Kroesig. But I got my own back. How’s the food this half, Miles?’

  ‘Well you literally can’t see it, there’s so little. We buy everything at the sock shop now. M’tutor is married,’ he explained for the benefit of Grace and Sigi, ‘and Mrs Woodford has got three children and a fur coat, all paid for by the housebooks, of course, and is saving up for more.’

  ‘More children or more fur coats?’

  ‘More of everything. She’s literally the meanest miser you ever saw.’

  ‘Yes, married tutors can be the devil,’ said Hughie. ‘Mine was a bachelor and I’m bound to say he never starved us, but m’dame used to steal our money.’

  ‘Steal it!’ said Grace. ‘What a shame.’

  ‘Well that’s what we used to say. Rather like Miles and the fur coats, you know. These Eton rumours shouldn’t be taken too seriously, they would none of them stand up to scientific investigation.’

  Sigi looked relieved. ‘What about the beating?’ he said. ‘Is that a rumour too?’

  ‘Just take a look at my behind,’ said Miles. ‘I’ll show you after. That will stand up to any amount of scientific examination, as you’ll see.’

  A family party now came in. A woman, looking incredibly old to be the mother of children in their teens, was followed by two little girls and a stocky boy with a square of pink elastoplast on the back of his neck. They hurried through the restaurant and went upstairs.

  Miles’s mouth opened wider; he turned quite pink.

  ‘Badger-Skeffington,’ he said.

  ‘No!’ said Hughie, craning round to look. But they had disappeared.

  ‘Badger-Skeffington!’ said Grace, laughing hysterically. She was thinking that, wonderful as it seemed, some man must have gone to bed with that old lady only a few years before, since the youngest little girl was not more than twelve.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ said Hughie.

  ‘Such a funny name.’

  ‘It may seem funny to you, but I can tell you, you haven’t heard it for the last time. That boy is an extraordinary athlete; it’s years since they’ve had such a boy here. Tell them, Miles.’

  ‘Keeper of the Field, Keeper of Boxing, Captain of the XI. They’ll be having a black-market lunch up there,’ he said enviously. ‘Badger-Skeffington’s mother is a most famous black-marketeer.’

  ‘Are you sure? She doesn’t look a bit like that.’

  ‘Didn’t you notice how they were all weighed down with baskets and things? Tons of beefsteak, I expect, pots of cream, pounds of butter. That’s why they go upstairs, so that nobody shall see what they are unpacking. They bribe the police with huge sums, it’s well known.’

  ‘Miles! I expect they have a farm.’

  ‘So likely, in Ennismore Gardens. That’s why Badger-Skeffington always wins everything – Daddy says he’s literally full of food, like a
French racehorse. They’re nouveaux riches, you know.’

  ‘Now hold on, Miles, that’s not true. I often see Bobby Badger at my club, he’s frightfully poor, it was a fearful effort to send the boy here at all, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, I know, Uncle Hughie, the point is they are nouveaux riches and frightfully poor as well. There are lots like that here. Their fathers and mothers give up literally everything to send them.’

  ‘Oh dear, how poor everybody seems to be, in England,’ said Grace. ‘It’s too terrible when even the nouveaux riches are poor.’

  ‘Yes, and while we are on the subject I would like to know exactly why it is they are all so stinking rich in France,’ said Hughie, stuffily. He was rich himself, but his capital seemed to be melting away at an alarming rate. ‘It seems quite sinister to me.’

  ‘Quite easy really. The French have always looked after their estates. They have foresters in their forests, not just gamekeepers, and their vineyards are a gold mine. In England, when I was a child anyhow, landed estates simply drained away the money – I remember quite well how my father and uncles used to talk as if it was a most tremendous luxury, owning land. There was never any idea of making it pay.’

  ‘H’m,’ said Hughie. Were he clever, like Albertine, had he the gift of the gab, like Heck, he would have been able, he thought bitterly, to prove to Grace the undoubted fact that the French are rich because they are wicked, while the English are poor because they are good. As he was neither clever nor gabby he was obliged to leave the last word with her. It was most annoying.