by Ann Bridge
‘All men are clots about practical things’ she said cheerfully. ‘Very well; you were a clot!—that’s agreed. But that’s all over now, so let’s forget it, as well as the Bonnecourts, and think about us. Could you persuade your miserable Office to let you have August and September off next year?—then we could come together, and have some walks. I’ve seen nothing but what is visible from this house, and the path.’
They talked on. Philip said one never could be sure when the Service would want one; Julia stated roundly that she refused to be pregnant again next summer, because she wanted to explore the surroundings of Larége, and that through Luzia she should lay on a Portuguese girl to help in the house, and wheel the Philipino about in his pram. ‘Nannie MacKenzie would hate it here; we’ll send her off for her holiday.’ She added that the year after Master Philip Bernard would be walking—‘So you’ll have to put some wire, or railings, along the path and the lawn here, to stop him from falling over. It wouldn’t matter so much if I were preg then, because I shall be rather tied anyhow.’
Julia’s happy plans for the future at Larége enchanted Philip. Plainly the place was already beginning to mean to her something of what it had meant to him, since his boyhood—the ideal refuge from modern life—in pastoral surroundings, in simplicity, and peace, and beauty. And now, in his mind, really the place where his first son was born; labour had begun here; the clinic didn’t count. But he looked further ahead than the years of toddling childhood.
‘Of course in twenty years time Bernard will have to come back’ he said presently. ‘He’ll be eligible then for his service militaire.’
‘What can you mean?’ Julia asked.
‘But naturally. Born in France, birth registered in France; he is due for conscription, like all the other young men.’
Julia was aghast.
‘But we’re English. So he’s English too, surely?’
‘No—he has dual nationality. If he’d even been born on a French ship at sea, he would still be liable for conscription.’
‘La loi de France again!’ Julia exclaimed, bitterly.
‘No, I believe it operates in all countries which have conscription’ Philip said temperately. ‘By the way, have you done anything about having him registered as a British subject with the Consulate-General at Bordeaux?’
Of course Julia hadn’t; no one had told her that she ought to do so.
‘Oh well, I’ll see to it on my way through. Their time-limit isn’t so strict as the French—I believe it’s four or five months.’
Julia was still thoroughly upset at the idea of her Philipino having to serve as a conscript in the French Army.
‘What happens if he just doesn’t?’ she asked.
‘He will be liable to arrest as a deserter the moment he sets foot on French soil, if he fails to present himself’ Philip told her.
‘But that means that he can’t ever come to Larége!’ Julia exclaimed, wretchedly. ‘Oh dear!—I wish he hadn’t been born here. Why did I have to fall down those bloody steps?’
Philip had never heard about the fall—they had really had so little time to talk, what with the child’s perpetual feeds, and one interruption or another.
‘Yes, I stumbled when I was bringing back the poubelle after emptying it; Luzia had gone down to the ball. But in fact I wasn’t feeling too well before that’ Julia said, in reply to his question. Suddenly she looked very alert.
‘What about the twins? Why aren’t they doing their military service?’
Philip didn’t know. ‘Were they born in France?’
Julia didn’t know that, either. In fact, as she learned later, Lord Heriot had wisely taken his wife to Scotland for her confinement, precisely in order to avoid this complication.
‘But look, dearest, being a French conscript isn’t all that bad’ Philip said. ‘It seemed to do Hilaire Belloc all the good in the world! Anyhow, I believe one can pay someone else to take one’s place—didn’t the Curé d’ Ars do that?’
Julia knew nothing about the Curé d’ Ars; she was surprised that Philip should, when she learned that he was a relatively modern French Saint. ‘Oh well, we must find out nearer the time’ she said. ‘Twenty years is a long way off. But the others had better be born at home!’
‘They may all be girls’ he said, smiling fondly at her.
‘Oh I hope not—three of each is what I should like! I think we ought just to be able to fit that in in the time.’
‘Even if you take every other summer off to walk?’ he asked, with affectionate mockery.
‘Well, I might not. Anyhow a great-aunt of mine had her last child when she was fifty!’
Presently Julia looked at her watch.
‘Oh dear, time’s getting on! Let’s take all this in and get it washed up and stowed; then we might have a few more minutes out here. I do love sitting by the spring.’
The water was hot by now, and there was anyhow very little to wash up; Philip looked on with pleasure at his wife’s swift bestowal of plates and knives, as he wiped them, in their appropriate places, and then switched off the water and electricity. She had so much made this house of his her own!—was so fully and happily the mistress of it, in spite of all the preliminary difficulties. His heart, his normally unexpressive Scottish heart, fairly sang with happiness, confidence in the future, and grateful love.
‘Now your note to Mme. B.’ Julia reminded him, remembering what he had forgotten.
‘Oh God, yes! What a bore she is, poor little soul—taking up all that time.’ Julia found him paper, and gave him the Biro from her hand-bag; while he was writing his instructions she fetched the table and the extra chair in from the lawn and put them in the maison des cochons.
‘Got a stamp?’ he asked, when she came back.
Julia had stamps in her handbag too. ‘But my pen, please,’ as he made to put it in his pocket.
‘Oh, sorry. Well we’ll post that; she’ll get it in oceans of time. Let’s go out again—how long have we got?’
‘Eight minutes.’
‘Philipinus Tyrannus!’ Philip said, as they walked back to the spring and sat down. ‘Why did you say you love sitting here?’ he asked; he couldn’t hear enough about Julia’s reactions to Larége.
‘Oh, the shade, and that dropping water, and the view’—she stretched out a hand towards the section of the silver saw of peaks, with their pine-clad slopes below them; drooped it to indicate the meadows with their grazing cows, just under the house. ‘And I sat here so much, while angelic Luzia was doing all the work. Do you believe in pre-natal influence?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Yes, I do. Why?’
‘Only I should like it if some of this could have seeped through into Philip Bernard; then he might love it, presently, as much as we do. I want him to.’
Philip got up, knelt beside her chair, and enfolded his wife in a long embrace. This was completely satisfying; everything he had hoped to achieve by his ill-thought-out plan had been achieved, child and all. When he released her Julia looked at her watch again.
‘Time to go. We’ve got to post that letter, and drop the key at the inn. Bring in the chairs, darling.’ She got up.
Philip folded the canvas chairs; then he put his arm round her.
‘Till next summer’ he said. ‘Au revoir, Larége.’
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright © Ann Bridge 1965
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ISBN: 9781448204236
eISBN: 9781448203642
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