Octave was her late husband’s nephew, the present holder of his title, whom Madame Rocher had brought up and then, because he bored her, had pushed into the army. The old Marquis had left her every penny of the enormous fortune which came to him through his mother, so she was able to behave in a very high-handed manner with his relations.
‘Oh poor Octave, no luck at all, as usual,’ said Madame Rocher. ‘He is still with his regiment, still only a captain. Of course, if it hadn’t been for this wretched war he would be at least a colonel by now.’
‘Hm. Hm,’ said Charles-Edouard, bursting with inward laughter. ‘And I, in spite of this wretched war, am a colonel, do you know that? Grandmother, did you know that I am a colonel?’
‘Yes, yes, we know a great deal about you here. Little Béguin, who was invalided home after the Libération, was full of your exploits.’
‘Indeed I did splendidly,’ said Charles-Edouard, laughing. ‘I am a colonel and I have a son – where is this son, by the way?’
He dragged Sigi out from behind a curtain, where he was hiding in a most unusual state of shyness.
‘Sigismond, come and kiss the hand of your ancestress. Now that you are a French boy we should like to see some manners, please.’
Sigi became quite scarlet with embarrassment, but the old lady, taking two boxes of sweets from a table, held them out to him and said, ‘You can kiss my hand another time, darling, but now choose which you’ll have, a chocolate or a marron glacé. A little bribery never spoils anything,’ she said to Charles-Edouard as Sigi carefully made his choice. ‘Well?’
‘Well, I do love chocolate, certainly I do, but I suppose I ought to choose the one with the silver paper on account of the poor lepers.’
‘What, my child?’
‘You see Nanny – well you haven’t met her yet – she keeps a silver-paper ball, and when it weighs a pound she sends it up and one poor leper can live on that – oh for years, probably. They hardly need anything at all Nanny says, quite contented with a handful of rice from time to time, but it’s ages now since Nanny sent up, silver paper is so terribly rare in these days. She will be pleased.’
‘But this child has saintly thoughts!’ cried Madame de Valhubert. ‘M. le Curé, did you understand? The little one is already planning for the lepers. It is wonderful, so young. How he does look like you, Charles-Edouard, the image of what you were at that age, though I don’t remember that you had such gratifying preoccupations.’
‘Yes, isn’t he the very picture,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘but I’m afraid he’s not as brilliant as I was. Now if you will excuse us perhaps I’ll show Grace the rest of the house before luncheon, and take St François Xavier up to his nursery.’
Outside on the staircase, Nanny was hovering with a face of leaden reproach. She pounced upon Sigi and hurried him off, muttering her recitative under her breath. She was very slightly in awe of Charles-Edouard, and would only let herself go, Grace knew, when alone with her. The words ‘unbearably close, here’ were just distinguishable, a look of terrifying malice flashed in the direction of Charles-Edouard, and she was gone. Grace absolutely dreaded the day when she would be obliged to have it out with him about Nanny. She had known, as a child, that her father and mother used to have it out at intervals, until her mother, by dying, had saddled Sir Conrad with Nanny for ever. She gave Charles-Edouard a nervous, laughing look, but he did not notice it; he put his arm round her waist, and they went slowly up the stairs.
Then she went back to what she had been wondering as they came out of the drawing-room. ‘But why didn’t you tell me about your grandmother – well, really, all these people?’
‘I have one very firm rule in life,’ he said, ‘which is never to talk to people about other people they have never seen. It is very dull, since people are only interesting when you know them, and furthermore it can lead to misunderstandings. You and my grandmother, having no preconceived ideas about each other –’
‘You haven’t got a wife hidden away in some other room, I hope?’
‘No wife.’
‘Oh good. But of course it’s just like in Rebecca. By degrees I shall find out all about your past.’
‘Oh my past! It’s such a long time ago now.’
‘So tell me more, now I’ve seen them. Who is the old man?’
‘M. de la Bourlie? He is my grandmother’s lover.’
‘Her lover?’ Grace was very much startled. ‘Isn’t she rather old to have a lover?’
‘Has age to do with love?’ Charles-Edouard looked so much surprised that Grace said,
‘Oh well – I only thought. Anyway, perhaps there’s nothing in it.’
He roared with laughter, saying, ‘How English you are. But M. de la Bourlie has visited my grandmother every single day for forty-six years, and in such a case you may be sure that there is always love.’
‘He doesn’t live here, too?’
‘No. He has a beautiful house in Aix. He generally comes over in the afternoon, but today, of course, he has come early, dying of curiosity to see l’Anglaise. They all must be, we shall have the whole neighbourhood over. It will be very dull. Never mind.’
‘Why don’t they marry?’ said Grace.
‘Who? Oh my grandmother. Well, but poor Madame de la Bourlie.’
‘Poor her anyway. In England, when there is a long love affair like that people always end by marrying.’
‘And in America if you hold a woman’s hand you are expected to go round next day with the divorce papers. The Anglo-Saxons are very fond of marriage, it is very strange.’
‘I’ve never seen a pale green wig before.’
‘He’s worn that wig ever since I was a little boy. He has been a tremendous lady-killer
