The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘Shall I belong to the Jockey Club when I’m grown up?’

  ‘If I remember to do for you what my father did for me,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘and get you in before you’ve made too many enemies among husbands. Husbands can be most terrible black-ballers. But it’s very dull.’

  ‘Then why do we come so often?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  On the rare occasions when Charles-Edouard was at home in the evening Sigi dined downstairs with him, and this was the greatest treat of all. He was given a glass of wine, like his father, and made to guess the vintage. When he got it right Charles-Edouard gave him 100 francs.

  ‘In England,’ said Sigi, ‘little boys don’t have dinner.’

  ‘No dinner?’

  ‘Supper. And sometimes only high tea.’

  ‘What is this, high tea?’

  ‘Yes well, it’s tea, you know, with cocoa and scones, and eggs if you’ve got hens and bacon if you’ve killed a pig, and marmalade and Bovril and kippers, and you have it late for tea, about six.’

  ‘How terrible this must be!’

  ‘Oh no – high tea is absolutely smashing. Until you come to supper-time, and then I must say you do rather long for supper.’

  Nanny sat talking with the Dexter nanny, who had come round for her evening off. They had been obliged to put Sigi to bed in the middle of their nice chat, which they both considered an outrageous bore. He now lay in the next room, on the verge of sleep but not quite off, and a certain amount of what they were saying penetrated his consciousness. It was all mixed up with noise from the B.B.C., which ran on in that nursery whatever the programme. Young, polite, rather breathy English voices were playing some sort of paper game; their owners hardly seemed to belong to the same race as the two nannies, so dim their personalities, so indefinite their statements.

  ‘The Marquee never used to look at him when Mummy was with us. Funny, isn’t it? It’s as much as I can do now to get him up here for the time it takes to change his shoes – thoroughly spoilt he’s getting – out of hand. More tea, dear?’

  ‘Thanks, dear. But it’s always like that with separated couples, in my opinion. I’ve seen it over and over. Because, you know, each one is trying to give the child a better time than the other.’ At these words Sigi woke right up and began listening with all his ears. ‘Nothing can be worse for the children.’

  ‘I know. Shame, really. Well I told Mummy – I don’t care for these youths on the wireless much, do you?’

  ‘Not at all. There seems to be nothing else nowadays, youth this and youth that. Nobody thought of it when I was young.’

  ‘Yes well, as we were saying. If you ask me I rather expect they’ll come together again, and I’m sure it’s to be hoped they will. I know Mummy was awfully upset about something, but I don’t suppose he’s worse than most men, except for being foreign of course, and I think it’s their plain duty to make it up for the sake of the poor little mite. That’s what I shall tell Mummy when I see her again, and I shall warn her plainly that if he goes on like this, getting his own way with both of them as he does now, he’ll become utterly spoilt and impossible. No use saying anything to the Marquee, he’s always in such a tearing hurry, though I must say I’d like to give him a piece of my mind about these dinners – the poor little chap comes to bed half drunk if you ask me.’

  It was while listening to this conversation that Sigismond first made up his mind, consciously, that his father and mother must never be allowed to come together again if there was anything he could do to prevent it.

  Charles-Edouard always took Sigi with him now when he went, at five o’clock, to see Albertine. She gave them an enormous tea, after which Sigi would play with her collection of old toys and automata. The most fascinating, the one of which he never tired, was a toy guillotine. It really worked, and really chopped off the victim’s head, to the accompaniment of sinister drums and the horrified gestures of the other dolls on the scaffold. Besides this there were many varieties of musical box, there were dancing bears, smoking monkeys, singing birds, and so on, and while Albertine told the cards Sigi was turned loose among them, with tremendous injunctions from Charles-Edouard to be very very careful as they were very very precious.

  ‘Why are they more precious than other toys?’

  ‘Because they are old.’

  ‘Are old things always precious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case Nanny must be very precious.’

  ‘Always this young man between you and the blonde lady you think about so much.’

  ‘Could it be Hughie?’ Charles-Edouard was very much puzzled. He knew that Grace was seeing a good deal of Hughie now, but had never given the matter a serious thought. ‘Did he ever come back again, by the way, Albertine? What happened?’

  ‘He was furious, I’ve never known a man so angry. I rang him up twice and explained everything, but each time he rang off without even saying good-bye. These English –!’

  ‘How did you explain it?’ said Charles-Edouard, very much amused.

  ‘I told him the truth.’

  ‘No wonder he rang off in a rage.’

  ‘My dearest, you know as well as I do that there is never only one truth and always many truths. I told him that you, Charles-Edouard de Valhubert, and I, Albertine Labé de Lespay, had drunk the same milk when we were little, young babies.’

  ‘What milk?’

  ‘Come now, Charles-Edouard, we had the same nurse!’

  ‘Old Nanny Perkins didn’t have one drop of milk when I first knew her, and wasn’t that amount younger when she was with you!’

  ‘We had the same nurse, therefore, to all intents and purposes, we drank the same milk. We are foster-brother and sister – how could he think of us as anything else? The Anglo-Saxon mind reduces everything to sex, I’ve often noticed it. Cut three times. Very odd indeed – here is the young man again, keeping you apart. Surely surely she cannot love Hughie?’

  ‘Oh yes she does,’ Sigi piped up from his corner. ‘He is the love of her life.’

  ‘This is very strange,’ said Charles-Edouard, genuinely surprised that anybody in a position to be in love with him could fancy Hughie.

  Albertine was not displeased. ‘Come here, Sigi, and tell us how you know.’

  ‘When Mr Palgrave is coming to see her, she looks like this,’ he said, and did a lifelike imitation of his mother as she had looked after the front door had slammed that morning when Charles-Edouard came to fetch him away. He opened enormous eyes and smiled as if something heavenly were about to happen. ‘She thinks the world of Mr Palgrave, and so do I. He gives me pounds and pounds.’ He was twisting his hair into curls as he spoke.

  ‘Go on with the cards,’ said Charles-Edouard, very much put out.

  ‘Cut then. But why did you not have an explanation with her when you were in England?’ she said in Italian, so that Sigi would not understand.

  ‘She was in her room and refused to see me.’

  ‘Unlike you not to gallop up the stairs.’

  ‘In what way unlike me? I would have you observe, Albertine, that I have never forced my way into a woman’s bedroom in my life.’

  ‘Take four cards. What a curious thing – intrigues and misunderstandings, just like a Palais Royal farce, with this real old-fashioned villain plotting away in the background. Fancy Hughie being so wicked, it makes him more interesting, all of a sudden. I must send him a Christmas card. What do you want for Christmas, Sigi?’

  ‘I want to ride on the cheval de Marly.’

  ‘This child has an obsession.’

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘Be very careful, Sigismond. Consider it well. Do you really want to wake up with an empty stocking, to find a tree loaded with no presents, to spend the whole day unpacking no parcels?’

  ‘Well, what will you give me?’
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  ‘You must say what you want first. It’s always like that. Then we have to consider whether we can afford it.’

  Sigismond became very thoughtful and hardly spoke another word the rest of the evening.

  ‘M.P.’s daughter divorces French Marquis,’ Sigi, chanting this loudly, came into his father’s bathroom. Charles-Edouard was shaving at the time.

  ‘What do you know about this – who told you?’

  ‘I heard Nanny clicking her tongue at the Daily, so I went and looked over her shoulder and saw it. I can read quite well now, you see, how about a prize?’

  ‘You couldn’t read a word of Monte Cristo last night.’

  ‘I can only read if it’s in English, and printed, and I want to. At first the marriage was a happy one – who are the other women, Papa? I know, Madame Marel and Madame Novembre.’

  ‘Be quiet, Sigi. These are things you must not say.’

  ‘Pas devant?’

  ‘Pas du tout. If you do you’ll be punished.’

  ‘What sort of punishment?’

  ‘A bad sort. And you’ll never never be allowed to ride on the chevaux de Marly.’

  ‘O.K. And if I don’t speak, when can I ride?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So now you can’t be married to Mummy again, can you?’

  ‘Yes I can. Tomorrow, if she likes.’

  ‘Oh!’ His mouth went down at the corners.

  ‘Why, Sigi? Don’t you want us to be?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the slightest good wanting, I’m afraid. My mummy is quite wrapped up in Hughie now.’ His hand went to his hair and began twisting it.

  ‘Mr Palgrave.’

  ‘He lets me call him Hughie.’

  ‘How very unsuitable. But is she?’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘Is she really, Sigi? He is very dull.’

  ‘That’s nothing. Look how dull is Mr Dexter, and yet Mrs Dexter is quite wrapped up in him, the nannies always say so.’

  ‘What is all this wrapping up, Sigi?’

  ‘Emballé. Like you are with Madame Novembre.’

  ‘Hm. Hm. Get ready to go out and I’ll take you to see Pascal.’

  ‘Well if I can’t ride on you know what, I suppose that dreary old Pascal will have to do.’

  Now that Charles-Edouard’s divorce was in the papers, great efforts were made, in many directions, to marry him, and nobody tried harder than his two mistresses.

  Albertine, shuffling the cards, said, ‘I have been noticing a very different trend in your fate. It seems to become more definite, more inescapable, every time I take up the pack. You have turned a corner, as one sometimes does in life, and a new landscape lies at your feet. For some days the cards have left the atmosphere of Palais Royal and have pointed to a grave decision – two grave decisions in fact – which lead to extraordinary happiness, to a journey and to advancement. Anybody who knew the rudiments of fortune-telling would see these bare facts, they repeat and repeat themselves; it now remains to interpret them, and that, of course, is more difficult. Cut the cards. There now. It looks very much like service to your country in some foreign land.’

  ‘Indo-China?’ Charles-Edouard looked puzzled. ‘I’m rather old, now, it’s only the regular army they want. Still, I suppose there would be something for me, though I can’t say I’m absolutely longing to go back.’

  ‘Oh I don’t mean that, not military service. All the same, have you never thought that now your marriage is over it might be a good thing to go away for a while? To change your ideas?’

  ‘But Albertine, I never go away from Paris, you know that very well. I go to Bellandargues when I must, but otherwise I can’t be got as far as St Cloud even. What are you thinking of?’

  ‘Let me tell you, calmly and clearly, what I see. Cut the cards. I will lay out the whole pack. Now. I see you in a foreign land, a civilized one, among white people, and I see you negotiating, treating, making terms, and driving bargains, for France.

  ‘There is a word for somebody who does all those things – ambassador. Why should you not, in fact, become an ambassador?’

  ‘Me? Albertine, you must be mad!’

  ‘So mad, my love? After all, you have been in the foreign service – there are still broken hearts in Copenhagen I believe.’

  ‘Oh that Copenhagen – dinner at 6.30 – never shall I forget it. But if you remember, I resigned because I can’t bear to be away from Paris. I was away seven years during and after the war, and that is enough for my lifetime, thank you very much.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. I believe you would like to serve your country once more, to put this time at her disposal, as well as your great courage, your charm and eloquence, and gift for languages. You have extraordinary gifts, Charles-Edouard.’

  ‘Well, but who is going to make me an ambassador all of a sudden?’ he said, rather more favourably.

  ‘I could help you there. I am on very good terms with the Foreign Minister, and, even more important, with Madame Salleté. I am practically certain it would be arranged. And that brings us back to the cards. You understand that you would need to be married for such an assignment; an unmarried ambassador (and especially if that ambassador were you, dear Charles-Edouard) is in a position to be gravely compromised. It wouldn’t do at all. Salleté wouldn’t consider it for a single moment. Now the cards, ever since they have taken on this new direction, as you might call it, have been pointing to re-marriage. An older wife, not only nearer your own age but older, mentally, than our poor dear Grace. A Frenchwoman, of course, who would be able to play her part; a widow, whom you could marry in church. Above all,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘somebody who would be able to help you with the education of our beloved little Sigismond.’

  Charles-Edouard saw just what she meant. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘but the fact is that I am obliged to remain in Paris precisely on Sigi’s account. Presently he must go to the Condorcet as I did, while living here with me.’

  ‘You don’t feel that a cosmopolitan education is more precious for a boy of today?’

  ‘Sigi will be bilingual whatever happens. I think he ought to go to school in France. And besides, I don’t, I really don’t, think I could accept any favour from Salleté.’

  Albertine was much too clever to press her point. ‘Think it over,’ she said, calmly, ‘and now, cut three times.’

  Charles-Edouard did think it over, and soon began to feel that marriage with Albertine was perhaps not such a bad idea. He got on very well with her, old friend of all his life; she never failed to amuse him, they talked the same language, understood the fine shades of each other’s character and behaviour; they knew the same people and had identical tastes. Albertine owned several pictures that Charles-Edouard had always coveted; he would give a great deal to see her big Claud Lorraine on his own walls, not to mention her Louis XIV commode in solid silver. No need for a quick decision, his divorce was not yet absolute, but some time, he thought, he might find out how Sigismond felt about it.

  Juliette’s approach was more direct. She rolled lazily over in Madame de Hauteserre’s bed (the door now bolted as well as locked), her eyes, which always became as big as saucers after making love, upon the erotic ceiling, and said, ‘So I hear you have your divorce at last. What now, Charles-Edouard?’

  ‘I’m tired. Perhaps I’ll sleep for a few minutes.’

  ‘No. Don’t sleep. I want to talk. What are your plans?’

  ‘No plans.’

  ‘Charles-Edouard! But you must marry again.’

  ‘No more marriage.’

  ‘But my dearest, you’ll be lonely.’

  ‘I’m never lonely. It’s people who can’t amuse themselves who feel lonely, another word for bored. I am never bored, either.’

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think?’

  ‘No. Tell me a story, to amuse me.’

  ‘Presently. I think you and I ou
ght to go and see M. le Maire together.’

  ‘And what about poor Jean?’

  ‘I’m perfectly sick of poor Jean. He’s the dullest boy in Paris.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to be a duchess?’

  ‘I will renounce it for your sake. I will be divorced and give up being a duchess, Charles-Edouard, and all for you.’

  ‘How would you get an annulment?’

  ‘There may be grounds for that.’

  ‘It would take years and years.’

  ‘But I thought we might be married by M. le Maire, as you were with Grace.’

  ‘Yes, and a terrible mistake too. I will never be married again, except in church. No,’ he said sleepily, ‘of all the women in the world you are the one I would soonest marry, but, alas, it cannot be.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of Sigismond. From now on my life must be dedicated to him.’

  ‘But the poor child needs a mother. And little sisters, Charles-Edouard, darling, pretty little girls, surely you’d like that?’

  ‘Well now, perhaps I would,’ said Charles-Edouard. He turned over, laid his head between Juliette’s breasts and went to sleep.

  As it became increasingly obvious that the key to Charles-Edouard’s heart was held by his little boy both Albertine and Juliette now proceeded to pay their court to Sigismond. Juliette employed exactly the same technique of seduction and cajolery as with his father; Albertine’s approach, while she never neglected the uses of sex, was rather more subtle.

  Juliette gave the little boy treat after treat. She took him to all the various circuses, to musical plays, to the cinema, and even to see the clothes at Christian Dior. Greatest treat of all, and a tremendous secret, she would drive him out of Paris in her pretty little open motor, and when they came to the straight, empty, poplar-bordered roads which lead to the east she would change places with him and let him take over the controls.

  ‘Look, look, Madame Novembre, cent à l’heure,’ he would cry in ecstasy as the speedometer went up and up. She bore it unflinchingly, though sometimes very much frightened.