The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

  ‘No, Albertine, certainly not. I am a well-known figure in Paris, please try and remember. It is quite out of the question.’

  ‘He wants to so badly.’

  ‘But this child has the most peculiar ambitions. On the way here he wanted to chat to a goat and to ride on the chevaux de Marly.’

  ‘What a lovely idea, and how well I can understand it. Why don’t we arrange it for him?’

  ‘Try not to be foolish, Albertine. Flirt with the child if you can’t help it, but keep within reason.’

  ‘Your father has this pompous side to his nature, you know. When one comes up against that there’s nothing to be done. Will you come to tea with me one day, if I collect some little friends?’

  ‘He loathes little friends.’

  ‘So much the better, he can come alone. There are lots of things in my house to amuse you – things that you wind up which do tricks. A dancing bear, a drinking monkey, a singing dog. Will you come?’

  ‘Oh yes please,’ said Sigi. He took greatly to this lady who was so nice to him and who smelt so delicious.

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Not today,’ said Charles-Edouard rather hastily. ‘I’m taking him home now, he has been out long enough. Say good-bye, Sigismond.’

  Madame Marel said, in French, which she presumed the child would not understand, ‘Then come straight on to me – tea will be ready and I’ve got many things to tell you.’

  ‘Did you enjoy your walk with Daddy?’ Grace asked as they sat down to tea. The two nannies had at last found an English grocer, so their tables were laden now with (for export only) such delicacies as Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, good black Indian tea, Tiptree’s strawberry jam, Gentleman’s Relish, and rich fruit cake.

  At luncheon, chutney, Colman’s mustard, and horseradish sauce made it possible to swallow the nasty foreign-looking meat swimming in fat, and hardly a day went by without a sago pudding or castle cakes with Bird’s custard.

  Grace never went to the nursery without feeling rather like the maiden in the fairy story whose husband allowed her to have one room in the castle lined with nettles to make her feel at home again.

  ‘I enjoyed it very much indeed. We saw Pascal in the distance, but he didn’t see me.’

  ‘You didn’t have a drive?’

  ‘Papa was in such a hurry. Then we saw Mrs Dexter in her Buick but she’s not his type, then we saw the chevaux de Marly but he was in too much of a hurry to let me ride on them, then we saw a huge heap of mattresses and I wanted to jump and jump up and down on them, but Papa wouldn’t let me even though the lady we met said he ought to because it would be very amusing, and she said it was just like Papa, wanting to jump and roll on the mattresses.’

  ‘You met a lady?’

  ‘Yes, she smelt heavenly and Papa has gone to tea with her. I think she is his type.’

  ‘A pretty lady?’

  ‘Very Frenchified.’

  ‘So on the whole you had a good time?’

  ‘Smashing,’ said Sigi with conviction, his hour of restless boredom on the tabouret quite forgotten.

  When Charles-Edouard got back he found Grace in the little library next door to her bedroom where she generally sat when she was alone. She was tucked up on a chaise-longue looking pretty and comfortable and a little fragile, since she was expecting a child.

  ‘Who was it you met on your walk? She’s made a great hit with Sigi, he said she smelt too delicious.’

  ‘Yes. I wish I knew what scent she uses, but it has always been a state secret. Albertine Marel-Desboulles.’

  ‘Marel. Oh! Isn’t that the woman Hughie’s in love with?’

  ‘Exactly. She tells me she has fourteen English suitors, it’s very amusing.’

  ‘Not very amusing for poor Hughie. He’s terrified that she’ll go into a convent, according to Carolyn. Do you think it’s likely?’

  Charles-Edouard roared with laughter. ‘Convent indeed! Never, in a long life, have I heard anything so funny.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Just round the corner in the rue de l’Université, in that house you always look at with the two balconies.’

  ‘Oh, the lovely house. Does she live there?’

  ‘As you would know if you ever listened to what I say. She has extraordinary furniture, and the most famous collection of old toys in the world. Her husband’s family made all the toys for the French court from the time of Henri II to the Revolution.’

  ‘Does she live with her husband?’

  ‘He is dead. He was vastly rich and he died.’

  ‘And she’s an old friend of yours?’

  ‘Since always. We had the same nurse.’

  ‘Take me to see her one day?’

  ‘Perhaps – I’m not sure. Albertine is not very fond of women.’

  Three or four days later Grace was driving home at tea-time when she saw Charles-Edouard leaning against the great double doors of Madame Marel’s house. He had evidently just rung the bell. A small side door flew open and he disappeared through it. For the first time since her marriage Grace felt a jealous, heart-sinking pang. By the time he came in, some two hours later, she was so nervous that she thought it better to speak.

  ‘But Charles-Edouard,’ she said, ‘you went to tea with Madame Marel again today?’

  Charles-Edouard always acted on the principle with women, of telling the truth and then explaining it away so that it sounded highly innocent.

  ‘Yes,’ he said carelessly. ‘It’s an old habit of all my life. I go there every day, at tea-time.’

  ‘Then you are in love with her?’

  ‘Because I go to tea?’ He raised his hand and shook his head reassuringly, but with his inward, guilty laugh.

  Grace was not reassured. ‘Because you go there every day. That’s why you never come and have tea with us, in the nursery.’

  ‘Only partly why.’

  ‘When you told me about M. de la Bourlie visiting your grandmother every day you said in such a case there is always love. I remember so well, they were your very words, Charles-Edouard.’

  ‘Now listen, my dearest Grace. As life goes on each person develops many different relationships with many different people, and each of these relationships is unique in quality. My relationship with you is perfect, is it not?’

  ‘I thought so,’ she answered sadly.

  ‘If you think so it is so. Is it spoilt if I have another relationship, much less intense, much less important, but also perfect in its way, with Albertine Marel? Be frank now. You didn’t mind me being alone for hours with my grandmother; you wouldn’t mind if I went to a club, or spent hours with some old school friend, a man. You are not sad because the hours are not spent with you, you realize we can’t be together every minute of the day; you mind because Albertine is a still desirable woman. And yet we are old school friends – nursery friends, in fact, and we share a great interest and hobby, that of collecting. I will tell you something very seriously, Grace. If you don’t empty your mind and heart of sexual jealousy, if you let yourself give way to that, you will never be happy with me. Because I really cannot help liking the company of women. Do you understand what I have said?’

  ‘It sounds all right,’ said Grace.

  ‘Try and remember it then.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll try.’

  ‘Are you happy again?’

  ‘Yes. But, oh dear, how nice it would be if you had tea here with us every day.’

  ‘In the nursery? With Nanny? Are you mad?’

  12

  On Madame de Valhubert’s birthday, in February, Charles-Edouard, Grace, and Sigismond went to the Père La Chaise with a bunch of spring flowers for her. It was beautiful weather, a respite between two particularly sharp spells of winter. The sun shone, the birds sang, and the blue gnomes who keep order in the streets of the dead were all beaming cheerfully. Even the float
ing widows looked as if they did not much object to being left alone a few more years above the ground.

  ‘Have a good look at everything, Sigi,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘you will be longer here than anywhere on earth.’

  ‘Oh the funny little houses,’ said the child, running from one to another and looking in, ‘can I come and live in one?’

  ‘All in good time. So, we’ll pay some visits as we go.’

  They climbed the long, steep hill, Charles-Edouard pulling Grace up by the hand.

  ‘Many friends. Here are the Navarreins. The first ball I ever went to was in their house. M. de Navarrein was a link with the past, one of those things I never can remember. Let me see, his father was kissed by somebody whose great-great-grandfather had been held in the arms of le grand Condé. You know, it all depends on everyone concerned having children when they are ninety, really rather disgusting. There’s the beautiful tomb of the Grandlieus – Madame de Grandlieu was my godmother, and she gave me the praying hands by Watteau which are over my bed.’

  ‘Oh look,’ said Grace, ‘poor little Laetitia Hogg – younger than Sigi. What was she doing in Paris, and why did she die, I wonder?’

  ‘One of those questions which are posed in graveyards. James and Mary Hogg must have loved her, since they bought her this tomb in perpetuity. Ha! the Politovskis, I’d not noticed them here before.’ He went up to read the inscription, and began to laugh loudly. ‘Oh no! This is too much! I’ve never heard such a thing! They’ve given themselves an S.A.R.! It’s perfect, I can’t wait to tell Tante Régine, what rubbish really. “Il conquit Naples et resta pur.” Maybe he did, though not very likely, but even that doesn’t entitle him to be a Royal Highness. Langeais and his wife, so charming, Sauveterre (poor Fabrice, give me one flower for him, how he would have laughed to see me here with wife and child). We’ve already passed enough friends to collect a large dinner party, a large amusing dinner party. Hélàs, where are they all now, I wonder?’

  ‘Having large, amusing dinner parties somewhere else,’ said Grace, suddenly seeing herself as doomed to eternal dinner parties, ‘wishing you were there and wondering what I’m like.’

  ‘Yes indeed. L’Anglaise! Intelligence Service. Fille de francmaçon,’ said Charles-Edouard with his inward laugh. ‘Here we are, this is the Avenue of the Marshals of France, our future home. Sigismond will spend some melancholic moments here, I hope, before it is his turn. Is it not beautiful up on this cliff, are we not lucky to be so well placed? Mind you, it is not the smart set, but at least we are not among presidents of the Republic, actors, duellists, and English pederasts. We have this pretty view and we have la gloire. Not bad, is it?’

  ‘I feel sad,’ said Grace, ‘it reminds me of your dear grandmother’s funeral.’

  ‘I was very sad. Tired, and very sad. But there is only one thing I clearly remember of that whole day, the look of terrible triumph on the face of Madame de la Bourlie.’

  ‘Oh surely not, at her age?’

  ‘Age cannot blunt the hatred of a lifetime.’

  They put their flowers at the base of a stone pyramid. It was a fine Empire tomb with bas-reliefs of battles and battle trophies.

  ‘Poor Grandmère, she can’t be very much pleased with the neighbours – Masséna, Lefebvre, Moscowa, Davout – not at all for her, I’m afraid. Come here, Sigismond, can you read this?’

  ‘Famille Valhubert,’ he spelt it out.

  ‘This is your little house.’

  ‘Can’t I have one with a lace table-cloth and a door?’

  ‘No. You will lie here with Grandmère and all of us.’

  ‘Yes, but supposing I am killed in a stratospheric battle with the Martians?’

  ‘That I should applaud. You may or may not become a Marshal of France, but you should always die in battle if you can, or you may live to be shot by your fellow-countrymen, like poor Ney over there, who was not fortunate enough to be killed by the enemy like Essling and Valhubert. I hope you are paying attention to what I am telling you, Sigismond. And now who would you like to see? I can offer you painters, writers, musicians, cooks (Brillat-Savarin, the French Mrs Beeton, is here), and all the great bourgeois of Paris. The nineteenth-century Russians, rastaquouères of their day, with huge, extravagant tombs, Rumanian princes in miniature Saint Sophias, domed and frescoed. Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism, might interest Sigi? But you look very tired, my dearest, and I think we had better walk gently back to the motor.’

  The following day Grace had a miscarriage. They said she had perhaps walked too fast up the hill. It was not serious, quite early in her pregnancy, but it pulled her down, depressed her spirits, and she was a long time in bed. This was not a bad place just then. Late snow had fallen, it lay in the garden, white and brown, under a low, dark sky.

  But her room gave a sunny impression, yellow with spring flowers. The mimosa was changed three times a day so that it should be always fluffy. People were very kind; Ange-Victor said that Madame Auriol herself would not have had more inquiries, flowers and books poured into the house, and so, when she was well enough to receive them, did visitors. Among those who came, and found Grace by chance alone, was Albertine Marel-Desboulles.

  ‘I never see you,’ she said, smiling with all her great charm at Grace. ‘Before Madame de Valhubert died I used to have the pleasure of that lovely face to look at over the dinner-table – those huge, boring dinners in the autumn. Now, though we live so near, you have vanished again. But I have met the entirely delightful Sigismond.’

  ‘I know. He told me. He thought you were heavenly.’

  ‘When I heard you were ill I decided to call on you. Charles-Edouard and I are the oldest friends in the world – foster-brother and sister in a way, since we had the same nanny – well, to cut short all these explanations, here I am. How pretty you have made this room. I know it of old because here we used to put our coats when Madame de Valhubert gave her famous music parties.’

  ‘I didn’t know Madame de Valhubert was musical.’

  ‘Oh well, music was not the only object of the parties, but the house has this music room and Régine Rocher had a Polish lover who played Chopin, so it all fitted in rather conveniently. As I was saying, then, we used to come up here with our coats – it was a hundred years ago – and in those days there was an Empire dressing-table with a marble top, very ugly, I can see it now, and on this slab of horrid grey marble there were hair-pins and safety-pins and papier à poudre for our shiny noses. I must explain that this was thought very old-fashioned and a great joke even then. I am old, but not so old that I have ever not owned a powder puff. It was freezing up here, agony to take off our coats, so we only stayed a moment, I don’t suppose anybody ever used the papier à poudre. Then we would go to the music room, where the Polish lover was fiercely thumping away with passionate glances at Régine, and Charles-Edouard couldn’t be stopped from talking. He would sit next the prettiest woman, which sometimes happened to be me, and talk at the top of his voice, while Régine got more and more furious. But dear Madame de Valhubert, who literally never knew one note from another, not that it would have made much difference if she had, was quite delighted to see him enjoying himself so much.

  ‘So I’ve known this room a long time, but it’s never been as pretty as now. I can see that you are one of those women with a talent for living in a house, which is quite different from the talent for arranging houses, and far more precious.’

  Of course Grace was completely won over. Presently the door opened again and the pretty head of Juliette Novembre, in a sable hat with violets, peeped round it.

  ‘I’ve brought you a camellia – can I come in, or are you talking secrets?’ she said, like a child.

  ‘Oh please please come in.’

  ‘Just look at her, la jolie,’ said Albertine, ‘what a seasonable hat.’

  ‘I love my little bit of rabbit. How are you?’ she said to Grace. ‘Isn?
??t it horrid? I had one last year.’

  Albertine said, ‘I’m longing to hear about the ball, Juliette.’

  ‘Yes, but why didn’t you come? We were all wondering.’

  ‘I was discouraged. My new dress wasn’t ready, and I do hate autumn clothes in the spring. So after dinner I went home. But as soon as I had sent the motor away I longed very much for the ball. I couldn’t go to bed, I sat in my dressing-room until three consumed by this longing to be at the ball. Isn’t it absurd, really! But to me a ball is still a miracle of pleasure. I see it with the eyes of a Tolstoy and not at all those of a Marcel Proust, and really, I promise you, it is terrible for me to miss one, even at my age. So now, torture me, tell us exactly what it was like.’

  ‘Divine, a bal classique – no fancies, no embroideries. The prettiest women, in their prettiest clothes, a very good band, sucking pig for supper, wonderful champagne, in that house where everybody always looks their best. I loved it; I stayed to the end, which was after six. But nothing dramatic, Albertine, no fight, no elopement, nothing to tell really, hours and hours of smiling politeness.

  ‘I knew it, what I love the most. You have twisted a knife in my heart,’ cried Albertine. ‘Perhaps I ought to have gone, even in an old dress. But there – a ball to me is such a magical occasion that I cannot enjoy it wearing just anything. For days I have been seeing myself at that ball wearing my new dress, and when I found it couldn’t be ready in time (nobody’s fault, influenza in the workrooms), I didn’t want to spoil the mental picture by going in another dress. Don’t you understand?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Juliette. ‘I’m just the same. I can’t think of any occasion – a tea party even – without seeing an exact picture of how I shall look at it, down to shoes and stockings. I often wonder how social life – or life at all – can be much pleasure to people who don’t care about dress. I’d hardly get myself out of bed in the morning if I hadn’t something pretty and rather new to put on, and never get myself to a party. Now take all one’s old relations, they love going out, but why? How can they enjoy it, really?’