11
Madame de Valhubert died suddenly the very day she was to have left Bellandargues for Paris. She made the journey all the same, and was buried in the family grave at the Père La Chaise. Charles-Edouard was very sad, cast down as Grace had never seen him. He said they must go into mourning in the old-fashioned, strict way which has been greatly relaxed in France since the war; it was a tribute, he said, that he owed to his grandmother. So Grace was no longer subjected to an enormous dinner party, reception or ball nearly every day, and this was a great comfort to her. Not a truly social person, these parties, as soon as they had ceased to frighten, had begun to bore her, and she envisaged almost with horror the endless succession there would be of them to the end of her life. She was very much happier now that, for the moment, they were ruled out. She did not have much more of her husband’s company than usual; he continued to spend whole days at the sale-rooms in the Hôtel Drouot and with the antique dealers, and was still always out at tea-time. They never spent an evening at home together quietly; the moment he had swallowed his dinner he would drag Grace to a film, a play, or a concert.
Charles-Edouard’s long absences from his house had never surprised her or struck her as needing an explanation. She had been brought up in the shadow of Parliament, Brooks’s, White’s, and Pratt’s; her own father was practically never at home, and she supposed that all men were engaged, for hours every day, on some masculine business, inexplicable, at any rate never explained, but quite innocent and normal.
But although she saw rather little of him it seemed to her that Charles-Edouard was cosier, more at home with her now, than when they had first arrived in France. It had never even occurred to her that she was, perhaps, more in love than he was. In her eyes, all the evidence pointed to a great deal of love on his side. He was very nice to her, he made love continually, and she had not enough experience to look for any of the other signs that indicate the condition of a man’s heart. Now that they were no longer going out she never saw Juliette, and assumed that Charles-Edouard never did either. This was certainly a relief, though the affair had annoyed rather than worried her. It seemed to her that it was too open to matter, she had taken it half as a joke, and teased him about it.
So Grace regarded herself as a perfectly happy woman whose marriage was entirely satisfactory, with one very small reservation.
‘You know, Charles-Edouard,’ she said to him, ‘I can’t help thinking it’s a pity you never set eyes on our Blessing. I often wonder whether I see enough of him, but you are an absolute stranger to the poor little boy. Sigi,’ she called, hearing him outside on the stairs, ‘come in here. Who is this gentleman?’
‘Papa!’
‘Yes, quite right, but how did you guess?’
He looked his mother up and down. ‘I say, Mummy, you are getting Frenchified.’
‘Don’t you think we all are, now we live in France?’
‘Nanny isn’t, and Nanny Dexter isn’t, and Mrs Dexter isn’t.’
‘Well, perhaps not. Are you just going out?’
‘Oh yes, boring old Parc Monceau as usual.’
‘Does he go to the Parc Monceau?’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘This is very foolish. Why not the Tuileries, or the Luxembourg, or the beautiful garden of the Musée Rodin? I should hate it if my childhood memories were of the Parc Monceau.’
‘His little friend goes there.’
‘My little friend indeed! Nanny’s little friend. I loathe him. Anyway, I like grown-up people.’
‘Ha!’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘How I agree with you, so do I. Will you chuck the Parc Monceau today and come for a walk with me instead?’
‘With delight. And Mummy too?’
Grace thought it would be much better if they went off alone, without her, and said, ‘I can’t, darling. I’ve got to try on a hat. Go with Papa and I’ll be here for tea when you get back.’
‘Always hats! Wouldn’t be much good in a tight fix with interior tribes, you and your old hats.’ He was not displeased, however. His experience of walking with two grown-up people was that they chatted away together up there in the air while you were left to look for francs in the gutter.
‘I think you underestimate the value of hats,’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘They can have a very civilizing influence on interior tribes. Look at Mummy –’
‘Oh shut up, Charles-Edouard.’
‘Cut the necking,’ said Sigi.
‘Where does the child learn this sort of language?’
‘It’s what I tell you. If he was more with us –’
‘Where shall we go, Papa?’
‘Promenons-nous dans le bois
Pendant que le loup n’y est pas.’
‘No, not dans les bois. A street walk.’
‘The most beautiful walk in the world then. Across the Beaux Arts bridge, through the Cour Carrée, under the Arc du Carousel (averting the eye from Gambetta) and across the Place de la Concorde. How would that be?’
‘Then we could have a word with Pascal on the way?’
‘Who is Pascal?’
‘My goat.’
‘Ah no. No words with goats.’
They set off hand in hand, Charles-Edouard dragging the child along at a furious speed. At the Arc du Carousel Charles-Edouard began reciting ‘A la voix du vainqueur d’Austerlitz – when you know that by heart,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you a prize.’
‘What sort of prize?’
‘I don’t know. A good sort.’
‘How can I learn it?’
‘It’s written up there on the arch. At your age I used to read it every day. Oh how I loved the Emperor, at your age.’
‘How can I read it when we never come here?’
‘You must come. You must refuse the Parc Monceau and come.’
‘But Papa –’
‘No excuses. Nothing so dull.’
Sigi waved at Pascal with his free hand, but was dragged on.
‘You are too old for goats. I’ll show you some horses. There, the flying horses of
