‘Nanny says the cheese was matured in manure,’ Sigi chipped in, eyes like saucers.
‘I wish you could have smelt it, dear, awful it was, and still covered with bits of straw. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Well, we just had a bite of bread and butter and a few of Mrs Crispin’s nice rock cakes I happened to have with me. Not much of a dinner, was it? Funny-looking bread here, too, all crust and holes, I don’t know how you’d make a nice bit of damp toast with that. Poor little hungry boy – never mind, it’s all right now, darling, your mummy will go to the kitchen for us and ask for some cold ham or chicken – a bit of something plain – some tomatoes, without that nasty, oily, oniony dressing, and a nice floury potato, won’t you, dear?’
These words were uttered in tones of command. An order had been issued, there was nothing of the request about them.
‘Goodness, I’ve no idea what floury potato is in French,’ said Grace, playing for time. ‘Didn’t you like the food, Sigi?’
‘It’s not a question of like it or not like it. The child will eat anything, as you know, but I’m not going to risk having him laid up with a liver attack. This heat wave is quite trying enough without that, thank you very much, not to mention typhoid fever, or worse. I only wish you could have smelt the cheese, that’s all I say.’
‘I did smell it, we had it downstairs – delicious.’
‘Well it may be all right for grown-up people, if that’s the sort of thing they go in for,’ said Nanny, with a tremendous sniff, ‘but give it to the child I will not, and personally I’d rather go hungry.’ This, however, she had no intention of doing. ‘Now, dear,’ she said briskly, ‘just go and get us a bite of something plain, that’s a good girl.’
‘I’m so dreadfully starving, Mummy, I’ve got pains in my tummy. Listen, it rumbles, just like Garth when he’d been floating for weeks on that iceberg.’
Sigi looked so pathetic that Grace said, ‘Oh all right then. I don’t know where the kitchen is, but I’ll see what I can do. I think it’s all great rubbish,’ she added in a loud aside as she slammed the nursery door behind her.
She wandered off uncertainly, hardly able, in that big, complicated house built at so many different dates, on so many different levels, to find her way to the first-floor rooms. At last she did so, looked into the drawing-room, and was almost relieved that there was nobody there. Her mission seemed to her absurd, and really so ill-mannered, that she quite longed for it to fail. She assumed that everybody except Charles-Edouard would be happily asleep by now, and only wished that she were too. Loud French voices came from the library, apart from them the house was plunged in silence. She stood for a moment by the library door but did not dare to open it, thinking how furious Sir Conrad would be at such an interruption. The dining-room was empty; no sign of any servant. She went through it, and found a stone-flagged passage, which she followed, on and on, up and down steps, until she came to a heavy oak door. Perhaps this led to the kitchen; she opened it timidly. A strangely dark and silent kitchen, if so, with cool but not fresh air smelling of incense. She stood peering into the gloom; it was quite some moments before she realized that this must be a chapel. Then, not two yards from her, she saw Madame de Valhubert, a lace shawl over her head, praying deeply. Grace shut the door and fled, in British embarrassment, back to the nursery.
‘I can’t find the kitchen, or one single person to ask,’ she said, in a hopeless voice. Nanny gave Grace a look. ‘Where’s Papa then?’
‘At a meeting. Well Nan you do know, we should never have dared disturb my papa at a meeting, should we? I don’t see how I can. Are you sure you haven’t any food with you, to make do just for now?’
‘Nothing whatever.’
‘No groats?’
‘Groats isn’t much of a dinner. The poor little chap’s hungry after all that travelling. We didn’t get much of a dinner yesterday if you remember, in that aeroplane, expecting every moment to be our last.’
Sigismond now began to grizzle. ‘Mummy I do want my dinner, please, please Mummy.’
‘Oh all right then,’ said Grace, furiously. There was clearly nothing for it but to set forth again, to summon up all her courage and put her head round the library door. Abashed by the sudden silence that fell and the looks of surprise and interest on eight or ten strange masculine faces, she said to Charles-Edouard, who was the furthest from her so that she had to say it across the whole room, ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt, but could I possibly have a word with you?’
He came out at once, shut the door, put his arms round her, and said, ‘You were quite right to come. It was very dull in there, and now we’ll go to your room.’
‘Oh no,’ said Grace. ‘It wasn’t for that.’
‘How d’you mean? it wasn’t for that. What is “that”, anyway?’ he said, laughing.
‘Oh don’t laugh at me, it was terrible going in there. I was so terribly frightened, but I had to. It’s about Nanny.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. We must have a long talk about Nanny, but not now. First we go upstairs – what must be must be, and quickly too.’
‘No, first we go to the kitchen and ask for a floury potato for Nanny, who is waxy, in a bait, I mean, because they’ve had no luncheon.’
Grace, by now, was really rather hysterical.
‘Had no luncheon!’ cried Charles-Edouard, ‘this is too much. I must find my grandmother.’
‘Oh they had it all right, they just couldn’t eat it.’
‘What d’you mean, Grace? I’m sure they had the same as we did. You said yourself it was delicious.’
‘Yes, of course it was, and I’m furious with Nanny for complaining, but the fact is Nannies never can bear new food you know, it’s my own fault, I ought to have remembered that. Now dear, dearest Charles-Edouard, do come to the kitchen and help me to find something she can eat.’
‘Very well. And tomorrow we send her back to England.’
There. Grace’s heart sank.
‘But who would look after poor little Sigi?’
‘M. le Curé must find him a tutor. This child is quite unlettered, I had a long talk with him in the train. He knows nothing, and can’t even read.’
‘But of course not, poor little boy. He isn’t seven yet!’
‘When I was five,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘I had to read all Dumas, père.’
‘I’ve noticed everybody thinks they themselves could read when they were five.’
‘Ask M. le Curé.’
‘Anyway you must have been too sweet for words,’ said Grace. ‘I only wish I’d known you then.’
‘I was exceedingly brilliant. Now here is the kitchen, and here, by great good luck, is M. André, the head chef. Will you please explain exactly what it is that you do want?’
While some of the household slept (though sharp attacks of insomnia characterized that afternoon) and Madame de Valhubert prayed, Madame Rocher des Innouïs and M. de la Bourlie took themselves off to a little garden, deeply shaded by an ilex tree, to have a nice chat about Grace. One summer long ago they had conducted a violent love affair under the very noses of Madame de Valhubert, Madame de la Bourlie, M. Rocher, and Prince Zjebrowski, the lover of Madame Rocher. It had really been a tour de force of its kind; they had succeeded in hoodwinking all the others, none of whom had ever had the slightest suspicion of it. After that they had remained on cosy, rather conspiratorial terms.
‘We must begin by saying that she is beautiful – more beautiful, perhaps, than Priscilla.’ Madame Rocher spread out the ten yards of her Dior skirt and settled herself comfortably with cushions. ‘But not, as anyone can see, a society woman. Of good family, yes perhaps, but perfectly green in worldly matters. She told me, at luncheon, that she has hardly been out in society since the war, but spent all those years looking after goats. Of course the English are very eccentric, you don’t know that, Sosthène, you have never crossed the Channel, but you can take it from me
that they are all half mad, a country of enormous, fair, mad atheists. Why did she look after goats? We shall never know. But looking after goats can hardly be considered as a good preparation for life with Charles-Edouard, and I am bound to say I feel uneasy for her. They are not married religiously, by the way.’
‘Oh! How do you know?’
‘I asked her.’
‘What an extraordinary question to ask.’
‘After all, I am Charles-Edouard’s aunt.’
‘I meant what an extraordinary idea. It would never have occurred to me that they might not be.’
‘It occurred to me. I know England, Sosthène. We went every year for the Horse Show, don’t forget.’
‘Shall you tell Françoise?’
‘Of course not, on no account, and nor must you. It would upset her dreadfully.’
‘Speaking frankly then, nothing matters very much?’
‘I don’t agree at all. It’s true that they can easily be divorced, and that Charles-Edouard will be able to marry again without waiting for an annulment, but before that happens he will have made her totally miserable. Charles-Edouard is a good, warm-hearted boy, he won’t be able to help making her miserable, but he will suffer too. Oh dear, what could have induced him to marry an Englishwoman – these English with their terrible jealousy – it will be the story of Priscilla all over again, you’ll see.’
‘But the English husbands then, how do they manage?’
‘English husbands? They go to their clubs, their boat race, their Royal Academy – they don’t care for making love a bit. So they are always perfectly faithful to their wives.’
‘What about the Gaiety Girls?’
‘I don’t think they exist any more. You are behind the times, my poor Sosthène, it is the gaiety boys now, if anything. But they have no temperament. Now Charles-Edouard cannot – he really cannot – see a pretty woman without immediately wanting to sleep with her. What foolishness, then, to go and marry an Anglo-Saxon.’
‘You talk as if Latins are never jealous.’
‘It is quite different for a Frenchwoman, she has ways and means of defending herself. First of all she is on her own ground, and then she has all the interest, the satisfaction, of making life impossible for her rival. Instead of sad repining her thoughts are concentrated on plot and counterplot, the laying of traps and the springing of mines. Paris divides into two camps, she has to consider most carefully what forces she can put in the field, she must sum up the enemy strength, and prepare her stratagem. Whom can she enlist on her side? There is all society to be won over, the hostesses, the old men who go to tea parties, and the families of those concerned. Then there is the elegance, the manicurists, the masseuses, the vendeuses, the modistes, the bottiers, and the lingères. A foothold among the tradesmen who serve her rival’s kitchen may prove very useful; we must not, of course, forget the fortune-tellers, while a concierge can play a cardinal role. The day is not long enough for all the contrivances to be put on foot, for the consultations with her women friends, the telephoning, the messages, the sifting and deep consideration of all news and all fresh evidence. Finally, and not the least important, she has her own lover to comfort and advise her. Ah! Things are very different for a Frenchwoman. But these poor English roses just hang their lovely heads and droop and die. Did Priscilla ever defend herself for a single moment? Don’t you remember how painful it was to us, for years, to see how terribly she suffered? And now I suppose we are condemned to live through it all over again with this Grace.’
M. de la Bourlie thought how much he would have liked to appropriate to himself one of these loving, faithful and defenceless goddesses. When Madame de la Bourlie finally succumbed to a liver attack, he thought, why should he not take a little trip to London? But then he remembered his age.
‘So hard to believe that we are all over eighty now,’ he said, peevishly.
‘Yes, it must be, but what has that to do with Charles-Edouard? Poor boy, he has certainly made an unwise marriage. All the same I rather like this Grace, I can’t help it, she is so lovely, and there is something direct about her which I find charming. I also think her tougher, a tougher proposition than poor Priscilla was, more of a personality. There was never any hope for Priscilla, and I’m not quite so sure about Grace. If I can help her I will. Should I try to prepare her a little while she is here? Warn her about Albertine, for instance? What do you advise?’
‘I don’t think it ever does much good, to warn,’ said M. de la Bourlie, thinking how furious he would be, in Charles-Edouard’s place, if somebody were to warn his exquisite new wife about his intoxicating old mistress.
‘No good at all,’ agreed Madame Rocher, ‘you are quite right. And then it’s not as if it were only Albertine. I’d have to warn against every pretty woman and every jolie-laide at every dinner and every luncheon that they go to. I’d have to warn against Rastaquouères and Ranees, Israelites and Infantas, Danes and Duchesses, Greeks and Cherokee Indians. I’d have to give her a white list and a black list, and now, I suppose, since he has just come back from Indo-China, a yellow list as well. No, it would really be too exhausting, the young people must work it out for themselves – everybody has storms and troubles at their age no doubt, and there is no point in getting mixed up in them. All the same, I do wish so very much that Charles-Edouard could have married a good, solid, level-headed little French woman of the world instead of this beautiful goat-herd.’
The long summer days went by, slowly at first and then gathering speed, as days do which are filled from dawn to dusk with idleness. Grace spent most of the morning on the terrace outside her bedroom sewing away at her carpet. Charles-Edouard liked to see her doing it; her fair, bent head and flashing, white hands made such a pretty picture, but he decided that the day the carpet was finished it would have to be overtaken by some rather fearful accident, a pot of spilt indelible ink, or a spreading burn. Charles-Edouard was not one to cherish an object, especially so large and ugly an object as this was going to be, for reasons of sentiment.
After luncheon there was the siesta, and then Charles-Edouard and she would often drive down to the sea for a bathe. He had countless friends and acquaintances on the coast to whose villas they could go and from whose rocks they could swim, but Grace’s complete lack of suitable clothes protected her from a really social life, from dinner parties, and visits to the Riviera. For this she was thankful. She liked the sleepy existence at Bellandargues, though Charles-Edouard complained of its dullness. His crony there was Madame Rocher, who poured into his ears an endless saga, her own version of all that had happened to all his friends since he had last seen them in 1939. It sounded simply terrific to Grace, whenever she overheard any of it. Madame Rocher was bored herself, longing to be off to yachts and palazzos and villas at which various impatient hosts and hostesses were said to be awaiting her. But this year she had decided to obey her doctor, and to stay quietly at Bellandargues for at least a month. She kept herself amused by the overwhelming interest she took in all that happened in house, village, and neighbourhood. When Grace and Charles-Edouard went off on their bathing expeditions she was able to tell them a great deal about their hosts, and what they were likely to find in the way of a household.
‘Is it today you go to the English Lesbians? The nephew of the old one is there, I believe – if he is her nephew. They’ve just bought a refrigerator, what extravagance!’
‘The Italian ménage à trois? Have you explained to Grace that she only like boys of sixteen and they get them for her? An excellent cook, I hear, this year.’
‘Those two pederasts? Poor people, they are being horribly blackmailed by an ex-convict who lives in the village. But their rocks have never been nicer.’
And so on.
‘Your aunt sees life through a veil of sex,’ Grace said to Charles-Edouard when, for the third or fourth time, the company, represented to her by Madame Rocher as steeped in lurid vice, h
ad turned out to be an ordinary, jolly house party.
‘And who’s to say she’s wrong?’
‘Well, I do think to call Mrs Browne and Lady Adela the English Lesbians is going rather too far. Anybody can see they’ve never heard of such a thing, poor darlings.’
‘Then it’s time somebody told them. More fun for them, if they know.’
‘Charles-Edouard! And that dear old Italian lady with her two nice friends and all their grandchildren. I can’t believe it!’
‘One must never entirely discount Tante Régine’s information on these subjects.’
One day when they were going to see an intensely pompous French duke and his wife, Madame Rocher hissed through the window of the motor at Grace, ‘Reds.’
‘Dear Tante Régine, come now!’ Even Charles-Edouard was laughing.
‘That family have always been Orleanists, my dear boy, and you very well know it. Impossible to be more to the Left.’
As they drove back in the beautiful evening light Charles-Edouard said, ‘Shall we go to Venice? You could buy some clothes in Cannes on our way.’
Grace’s heart sank. ‘I’m happy here – aren’t you, Charles-Edouard?’
‘The evenings here are so terrible,’ he said. ‘I can get through the day, but the evenings –!’
‘I love them,’ she said, ‘they must have been exactly the same for hundreds of years.’
She dreaded leaving Bellandargues, she felt she could cope with life there. The world that awaited them outside its walls was so infinitely complicated, according to Madame Rocher.
‘Very well,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘if you like it so much we’ll stay until we go to Paris. I like it all right except for after dinner.’
Certainly the evenings were not very gay. The party repaired for coffee and tisane to a small salon where they chatted or played bridge until bedtime. Hot night noises floated in through the open windows. ‘Why do French ducks quack all night?’ Grace had asked. ‘Those are frogs, my dearest, our staple diet you know.’ Sometimes Madame Rocher played Chopin. It really was rather dull. Then Charles-Edouard discovered that she knew how to tell fortunes by cards, after which there was no more Chopin and no more gossiping. Grace was left at the bridge table while Charles-Edouard bullied Madame Rocher in a corner.
The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford Page 119