The Blessing (2 page)

‘Papa loves France.’

‘I’m sure he does. The Englishmen who love France are always the worst.’

‘The worst?’

‘Each man kills the thing he loves, you know. Never mind.’

‘You’ve come from Cairo?’ she said. ‘I thought I read Cairo in your letter and something about Hughie? You saw him?’

‘The fiancé I saw.’

‘And you’ve come to give me news of him?’

‘Good news – that is to say no news. Why is this picture labelled Drouais?’

‘I suppose it is by Drouais,’ said Grace with perfect indifference. Brought up among beautiful things, she took but small account of them.

‘Indeed? What makes you think so?’

‘Are you an art dealer?’

‘An art deal-ee.’

‘But you said you had news. Naturally I supposed it was the reason for your visit, to tell this news.’

‘Have you any milk chocolate?’

‘No, I’m sure we haven’t.’

‘Never mind.’

‘Would you like a cocktail – or a glass of sherry?’

‘Sherry, with delight.’

‘Did you enjoy Cairo? Hughie says it’s great fun.’

‘The museum is wonderful – but of course no pictures, while the millionaires, poor dears, have wonderful pictures, for which they’ve paid wonderful prices (from those ateliers where Renoirs and Van Goghs are painted on purpose for millionaires), but which hardly satisfy one’s cravings. Even their Corots are not always by Trouillebert. You see exactly how it is. So this afternoon I went to the National Gallery – shut. That is war. Now you will understand what an oasis I have found in Sir Conrad’s drawing-room, though I must have a word with him some time about this Drouais, so called.’

‘I’m afraid you won’t see many pictures in London now,’ said Grace. ‘Papa has sent all his best ones to the country, and most people have shut up their houses, you know.’

‘Never mind. I love London, even without pictures, and English women I love.’

‘Do you? Don’t we seem terribly dowdy?’

‘Of course. That’s what make you so amusing and mysterious. What can you possibly do, all day?’

‘Do?’

‘Yes. How do you fill those endless eons of time when Frenchwomen are having their hair washed, trying on hats, visiting the collections, discussing with the
lingère
– what is
lingère
in English?’

‘Underclothes-maker.’

‘Hours they spend with the underclothes-maker. What a funny word – are you sure? Anyhow, Frenchwomen always give one to understand that arranging themselves is full-time work. Now you English, like flowers in a basket, are not arranged, which is quite all right when the flowers are spring flowers.’ He gave her another long, approving look. ‘But how do you fill in the time? That is the great puzzle.’

‘I’m afraid,’ she said, laughing, ‘that we fill it in (not now, of course, but before the war) buying clothes and hats and having our hair washed. Perhaps the results were not quite the same, but I assure you that great efforts were made.’

‘Please don’t tell me. Do leave me in the dark, it makes you so much more interesting. Do let me go on believing that the hours drift by in a dream, that those blind blue eyes which see nothing, not even your father’s pictures, are turned inward upon some Anglo-Saxon fairyland of your own. Am I not right?’

He was quite right, though perhaps she hardly knew it herself. She thought it over and then said,

‘Just before the war I used to have a terribly thrilling dream about escaping from the Germans.’

‘One must always escape from Germans. They are so very dull.’

‘But now my life is as flat as a pancake, and I can hardly bear it. I quite – almost – long for bombs.’

‘I am sorry to have to say that when life is flat it is your own fault. To me it is never flat.’

‘Are you never bored?’

‘I am sometimes bored by people, but never by life.’

‘Oh how lucky.’

‘Perhaps I’ll take you out dancing. But where? The night clubs here must be terrible.’

‘It depends on who you go with.’

‘I see. Like all night clubs everywhere. So, I pick you up at eight? I love the black-out. I am trained to be a night bomber – I have flown behind the German lines dropping delightful leaflets, so of course I can find my way by the stars. This gives me confidence, sometimes misplaced I am obliged to own. Then we’ll dine at the Connaught Hotel, where I’m staying, and where they have a very good
plat sucré
. What is
plat sucré
in English? – don’t tell me, I know, pudding.’

‘How d’you know such wonderful English?’

‘My mother was. Still it is rather wonderful, isn’t it? I can recite the whole of the
Excursion
, but not now. So eight o’clock then.’

‘I’ll be quite ready,’ said Grace.

The Frenchman ran downstairs and out of the house, and she saw him from the window running towards St James’s Park. Then she went up to her room, pulled a lot of clothes from various drawers and cupboards, laid them on her bed, and hovered about wondering what on earth she should wear. Nothing seemed somehow quite suitable.

Nanny came in. ‘Good gracious! The room looks like a jumble sale.’

‘Run me a bath, darling. I’m going out to dinner with that Frenchman.’

‘Are you, dear? And what’s his name?’

‘Bother. I never asked him.’

‘Oh well,’ said Nanny, ‘one French name is very much like another, I dare say.’

2

His name was Charles-Edouard de Valhubert. About a month later he said to Grace, ‘Perhaps I will marry you.’

Grace, in love as never before, tried to keep her head and not to look as if about to faint with happiness.

‘Will you?’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘In ten days I go back to the Middle East. The war will begin soon, anything may happen, and I need a son.’

‘How practical you are.’

‘Yes. I am French.
Mais après le mariage – mince de – nettoyage, – La belle-mère! – on s’assied dessus!’
he sang. He was for ever singing little snatches of songs like that. ‘But you won’t have a
belle-mère
, unfortunately, since she died, poor dear, many years ago.’

‘I must remind you,’ said Grace, ‘that I am engaged to somebody else.’

‘I must remind you that your behaviour lately has not been the behaviour of a faithful fiancée.’

‘A little flirtation means nothing at all. I am engaged, and that’s that.’

‘Engaged. But not married and not in love.’

‘Fond.’

‘Indeed?’

‘You really did see Hughie in Cairo?’

‘I saw him plain. He said, “Going to London are you? Do look up Grace.” Not very clever of him. So I looked up. He is very dull.’

‘Very handsome.’

‘Yes. So perhaps on Wednesday?’

‘Wednesday what?’

‘The marriage? I will now go and call on your father – where can I find him?’

‘At this time of day he’ll be at the House.’

‘How little did I ever think I should end up as the son-in-law of the Allingham Commission. How strange is one’s fate. Then I’ll come back and take you out to dinner.’

The next day Sir Conrad Allingham went to see Mrs O’Donovan, a widow with whom he had had for many years a loving friendship. Sir Conrad preferred actually making love, a pastime to which he devoted a good deal of energy, with those whose profession it is, finding it embarrassing, never really able to let himself go, with women whom he met in other circumstances. But he liked the company of woman to an extent rare among Englishmen, and often went to chat for an hour or so with Mrs O’Donovan in her light sunny little house which looked over Chelsea Hospital. She was always at home, always glad to receive a visitor, and had a large following among the more intellectual of the right-wing politicians. Her regard for Sir Conrad was special; she spoke of him as ‘my Conrad’ and was out to other callers when he came to see her. It was said that he never took a step without asking her advice first.

He said, without preamble, ‘Have you seen Charles-Edouard de Valhubert?’

‘Priscilla’s son?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he in London?’

‘He’s been in London several weeks, courting Grace so it seems.’

‘Conrad! How extraordinary! What’s he like?’

‘Really, you know, irresistible. Came to see me at the House yesterday – wants to marry her. I knew nothing – but nothing. I thought Grace was buried in that First Aid Post, and, of course, I’ve been busy myself. Rather too bad of her really – here I am presented with this
fait accompli
.’

‘Well, but what about Hughie?’

‘What indeed? Mind you, my sympathies with Hughie are limited – he ought to have married her before he went away.’

‘Poor Hughie, he was longing to. He thought it wouldn’t be fair.’

‘What rubbish though. He leaves a position utterly undefended, he can’t be surprised if it falls into – well, Allied hands. I never cared for him, as you know, quite half-baked and tells no jokes. However, she didn’t ask my advice when she became engaged to him, nor did she ask it before breaking the engagement (if, indeed, she has remembered to do so). Clearly it doesn’t matter what I think. So much for Hughie. He has made his exit all right.’

‘I can see that you’re pleased, really.’

‘Yes and no. Valhubert is quite a chap I will say, tall, attractive (very much like his father to look at, much better dressed). He is clearly great fun. But I don’t like the idea of Grace marrying a frog, to tell the truth.’

‘Conrad! With your love for the French?’ Mrs O’Donovan loved the French too. She had once spent several months in Paris as a child; it had touched her imagination in some way, and she had hankered to live there ever since. This love was one of the strongest links between her and Sir Conrad. They both belonged to the category of English person, not rare among the cultivated classes, and not the least respectable of their race, who can find almost literally nothing to criticize where the French are concerned.

‘Only because of Grace’s special character,’ he said. ‘Try and picture her mooning about in Paris society. She would be a lamb among wolves; it makes me shudder to think of it.’

‘I’m not sure – after all she’s a beauty, and that means a great deal more in France than it does here.’

‘Yes, with the men. I’m thinking of the women. They’ll make short work of our poor Grace, always in the clouds.’

‘Perhaps her clouds will protect her.’

‘In a way, but I’m afraid she’s deeply romantic, and Valhubert has a roving eye if ever there was one. Don’t I remember that Priscilla was very unhappy? There used to be rumours –’

Mrs O’Donovan delved in her mind for everything she had known, long ago now and buried away, about Priscilla de Valhubert. Among other things she brought to the surface was the memory that when she had first heard of Priscilla’s engagement she had felt exactly what she was feeling now, that it was really rather unfair. Mrs O’Donovan was as much like a Frenchwoman as it is possible for any Anglo-Saxon to be. She spoke the language faultlessly. Her clothes, her scent, the food she ate, the wine she drank, all, in fact, that makes life agreeable, came from France. There was a
bidet
in her bathroom; she had her afternoon rest on a chaise-longue; she hardly read a word of anything but French; her house was a centre for visiting Frenchmen; the cheese appeared before the pudding at her table, and her dog, a poodle, was called Blum.

In London she was considered the great authority on everything French, to all intents and purposes a Frenchwoman, and she had therefore, quite naturally, come to have a proprietary feeling with regard to France. So it had seemd unfair then that Priscilla, just as it seemed unfair now that Grace, ordinary, rather dull English girls, should marry these fascinating men and sink back with no further effort to the enjoyment of all the delights of French civilization.

Mrs O’Donovan had never wanted to marry any particular Frenchman, and had been exceedingly happy with her own husband, so that this feeling was nothing if not irrational. All the same, as jealousy does, it stung.

‘Yes, very unhappy,’ she said, ‘partly because she never felt comfortable in Paris society (she never quite learnt French) but chiefly, as you say, owing to the terrible unfaithfulness of Charles-René, which really, I believe, killed her in the end.’

‘Oh – killed her,’ said Sir Conrad. ‘I don’t suppose she died of love all the same. French doctors, more likely. When did Charles-René die?’

‘Years ago. Fifteen years I should think – very soon after Priscilla. Is old Madame de Valhubert still alive? And Madame Rocher?’

‘No idea – never knew them.’

‘Madame Rocher des Innouïs is, or was, Madame de Valhubert’s sister. Madame de Valhubert herself was always a kind of saint, as far as I can remember, and Madame Rocher was not. I knew them when I was a child, they were friends of my mother.’

‘Oh well,’ said Sir Conrad testily, ‘nobody tells me anything. Nothing was said about any relations. I just talked with the chap for half an hour, mostly about my Drouais, which, according to him, is by some pupil of Nattier. Terrible rot. I did ask him why he wanted to marry her. They won’t have many interests in common, unless Grace makes an effort to educate herself at last.’ Grace’s dreamy illiteracy always exasperated her father.

‘What did he say?’

‘He said she is so beautiful and so good.’

‘And so rich,’ said Mrs O’Donovan.

‘It can’t be that, my dear Meg. The Valhuberts have always been immensely rich.’

‘Yes, but nobody, and especially no French person, ever minds having a bit more, you know.’

‘I don’t somehow feel it’s that. Wants a son before he gets killed, more likely. The marriage, if you please, is tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yes, well, what can I do? Grace is of age – 23, time she did marry, in fact – and in love, radiant with love, I must say. Valhubert is more than old enough to know his own mind, 28 it appears, and is off to the war. They have decided, without asking me, that they will marry tomorrow. It remains for me to make a settlement and look pleasant.’

In spite of all this peppery talk, Mrs O’Donovan, who knew him so well, could see that ‘her’ Conrad was not really displeased at the turn of events. He always rather liked the unexpected, so long as it did not interfere with his personal comfort, and was infinitely tolerant towards any manifestation of love. He had taken a fancy to Valhubert, who, since he was off to the war, would not be removing Sir Conrad’s housekeeper and companion for months, possibly years to come. He who was so fond of Paris would be glad to have a solid family foothold there when the war was over, while the incompatibility of the couple, as well as Grace’s broken heart, were, after all, only matters for speculation.