‘And when I am old like your grandmother, will you love me still?’
‘It depends.’
‘How horrid. Depends on what?’
‘It all depends, entirely, on you.’
‘Charles-Edouard, was the reason you didn’t tell me about your grandmother because you thought I wouldn’t like the idea of sharing my house with another woman?’
Charles-Edouard looked immensely surprised. ‘It never occurred to me for a single minute,’ he said. ‘It’s not your house, exactly, but a family house, you know. But we shall hardly ever be here.’
‘Oh! I thought it was my new home?’
‘One of them. Our real home is in Paris, and there my grandmother, though she lives in the house, has a separate establishment. You will love her, you know. For one thing, French people (and you are French now) always love their relations, and then my grandmother is a saint.’
‘Yes,’ said Grace, ‘I see that. I know I shall. It was so charming the way she gave those chocolates to Sigi when she saw he didn’t want to kiss her hand. But how sad, Charles-Edouard, to have this lovely house and not to live in it?’
‘Oh dearest Grace, for living the country is really impossible. It is too dull. I am obliged to come down here on business, but I could never never live here.’
‘What business?’
‘I must explain that, whereas in England the country is for pleasure and the town for business, here it is the exact opposite. We French have all our pleasure in Paris, where we have nothing to do except amuse ourselves, but we work really hard in the country. I have a lot of work when I am here, local business, since I am the mayor, and much family business, looking after my property.’
They had reached a wide landing, arranged like a room, with old-fashioned, chintz furniture. Two great windows from floor to ceiling were open upon an expanse of pale blue sky. Charles-Edouard led her through one of them on to a balcony, and, waving at the green acres far below, he said,
‘There grows the wealth of the Valhubert family.’
‘D’you mean that vegetable? But what is it? I was wondering.’
‘Vegetable indeed! Have you never been in the country in France before! How strange. These are vineyards.’
‘No!’ said Grace. She had supposed all her life that vineyards were covered with pergolas, such as, in Surrey gardens, support Miss Dorothy Perkins, heavy with bunches of hot-house grapes, black for red wine, white for champagne. Naboth’s vineyard, in the imagination of Grace, was Naboth’s pergola, complete with crazy paving underfoot.
However she did not explain all this to Charles-Edouard, but merely said, ‘I’ve never seen one before. I thought they would be different, somehow.’
Grace’s bedroom was at the top of the house. It was a large, white-panelled room with many windows, from most of which, so high up was it, so hanging in the firmament, nothing was visible but sky. But on one side two French windows opened on to a tiny garden of box hedges and standard roses, which looked like a stage set forming part of the room itself.
‘Very English,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘you will feel at home here.’
It had been arranged by his mother with old-fashioned chintz and embroidered white muslin.
‘The garden!’ said Grace. ‘I never saw anything so lovely.’
‘Every floor of this house has a terrace. It is built on the side of a hill, you see. Here are your bathroom and dressing-room, and here are my rooms. So we are all alone together.’
‘Literally in heaven,’ said Grace, with a happy sigh.
‘Now perhaps I’ll take you to the nursery; we go down again and up this little staircase. Here we are.’
‘Oh, what a lovely nursery – isn’t it lovely, Nan, much the biggest we’ve ever had, and so light – and what a view!’
This was Grace’s technique with Nanny. She would open an offensive of enthusiasm, hoping to overcome and silence the battery of complaints before Nanny could begin firing them off. It almost never worked, she could see it not working now, though for the moment she was shielded by the presence of Charles-Edouard. Nanny remained silent and went on with what she was at, grimly unpacking toys from a hamper.
‘I’ll come back,’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘I want a word with Ange-Victor.’
Grace’s heart sank, but she rattled bravely on. ‘You’ve got a garden, too, isn’t it delightful? I love it being surrounded by those pretty red roofs against the sky, like Kate Greenaway. Look at the plants growing out of them, what are they, I wonder? Doesn’t it all smell delicious? I long for you to see my bedroom; it is so pretty. Tell you what, darling, I’ll get you a garden chair, then you’ll be able to sit out here of an evening.’
Nanny looked over her shoulder to make sure that Charles-Edouard had gone, and then spoke. ‘Horribly draughty I should think, with all those roofs. Smutty, too, I dare say. Aren’t the stairs awful? I shan’t be able to manage them many times a day, in this heat. Well, I’ve been trying to unpack, but there’s nowhere to put anything, you know – shame, really – no nice shelves for our toys. No mantelpieces, either, for my photographs and the ornaments. Funny sort of rooms, aren’t they? Not very homey. I’d like to show you the bathroom and lavatory, dear – nothing but a cupboard – no window at all, really most insanitary – it would never be allowed at home.’
‘How fascinating,’ said Grace, ‘look, it’s built in the thickness of the wall, this big bathroom.’
‘Perhaps it may be. Then what is that guitar-shaped vase for, I wonder? Oh, well, it’ll do to put the things to soak. Not very nice, is it? Leading out of our bedroom like that?’
‘Never mind, in this lovely weather you can leave everything wide open – it’s quite different from England.’
‘Different!’ a deep sniff, ‘I should say it is.’
‘Look at the swing! How amusing! That will quite make up to Sigi for leaving his rocking-horse behind.’
‘Yes, well
