‘Look, look, Papa! Mrs Dexter in her lovely new Buick.’
‘Come on, she’s not my type. What is a Buick?’
‘Papa! It’s a motor, of course.’
‘Ha! You know Buick and you’ve never heard of Coysevox. What a world to be young in. Now here are the chevaux de Marly – are they not beautiful?’
‘Can I get up there and ride on one of them?’
‘Ride on the chevaux de Marly? Certainly not, what an idea.’
They hurried on to Charles-Edouard’s destination, the shop of an art dealer who had written to him about a pair of vases. Here Sigi was put to sit, kicking his heels, on one of those stools which, at Versailles, were kept exclusively for dukes. ‘So now,’ said the dealer, ‘you are duc et pair de France.’
Charles-Edouard began an exhaustive examination of everything in the shop: the vases, a tray of jewelled boxes, an ink-stand which had belonged to Catherine the Great, a pair of cherubs said to be by Pigalle, and so on. He always asked the price of everything, like a child in a toy shop, and roared with derisive laughter when he was told. He was the flail of the dealers, his technique being to arrive with the words, loudly enunciated before the other customers, ‘Why don’t you burn all this rubbish and get some decent stock?’ But they respected his knowledge and his love of beautiful things.
Sigi gazed out of the plate-glass window. It was very dull being duc et pair de France for so long. In a window across the road there was a great heap of mattresses, as in the story of the Princess and the pea. The sight of these mattresses, combined with the endless aeons of inactivity so terrible to a child, filled him with a great longing to jump up and down on them.
Presently Madame Marel came into the shop. Charles-Edouard, who had forgotten that he had half arranged to meet her there, was a little bit put out at being found with Sigi. He knew that all would be reported to Grace.
‘How are you, my dear Albertine? Here are the vases – not bad, what do you say? But the price is the funniest thing I ever heard. M. Dupont does love to make me laugh. Now what of this bronze? I am thinking of it most seriously. I do love Louis XIV bronze, so delightfully solid, so proof against housemaids. Once you fall into Louis XV you are immediately in the domain of restored terre cuite and broken china, of things which must go behind glass in any case. I love them too, far too much, but there is something comfortable about this old satyr. As soon as M. Dupont has mentioned its real price I shall buy it – at present he is in the realms of romance. Such an imaginative man, such an artist in figures, M. Dupont. So – this is Sigismond.’
Sigi, rather unwillingly, but forced to it by a severe look from his father, kissed her hand.
‘This is Sigi? Now all is explained – he is well worth it. Have you been here long? Very long? Poor little boy, not very amusing for you, sitting on that tabouret and thinking of what, I wonder? What were you thinking of, Sigismond?’
‘The mattresses over there. I would like to jump and jump and jump and roll and roll and roll on them.’
‘Already?’ she said. ‘How like your father. I’ll tell you what, darling, shall we go over there and jump while he goes on breaking poor M. Dupont’s heart? Shall we? Come on.’
‘No, Albertine, certainly not. I am a well-known figure in Paris, please try and remember. It is quite out of the question.’
‘He wants to so badly.’
‘But this child has the most peculiar ambitions. On the way here he wanted to chat to a goat and to ride on the chevaux de Marly.’
‘What a lovely idea, and how well I can understand it. Why don’t we arrange it for him?’
‘Try not to be foolish, Albertine. Flirt with the child if you can’t help it, but keep within reason.’
‘Your father has this pompous side to his nature, you know. When one comes up against that there’s nothing to be done. Will you come to tea with me one day, if I collect some little friends?’
‘He loathes little friends.’
‘So much the better, he can come alone. There are lots of things in my house to amuse you – things that you wind up which do tricks. A dancing bear, a drinking monkey, a singing dog. Will you come?’
‘Oh yes please,’ said Sigi. He took greatly to this lady who was so nice to him and who smelt so delicious.
‘Today?’
‘Not today,’ said Charles-Edouard rather hastily. ‘I’m taking him home now, he has been out long enough. Say good-bye, Sigismond.’
Madame Marel said, in French, which she presumed the child would not understand, ‘Then come straight on to me – tea will be ready and I’ve got many things to tell you.’
‘Did you enjoy your walk with Daddy?’ Grace asked as they sat down to tea. The two nannies had at last found an English grocer, so their tables were laden now with (for export only) such delicacies as Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, good black Indian tea, Tiptree’s strawberry jam, Gentleman’s Relish, and rich fruit cake.
At luncheon, chutney, Colman’s mustard, and horseradish sauce made it possible to swallow the nasty foreign-looking meat swimming in fat, and hardly a day went by without a sago pudding or castle cakes with Bird’s custard.
Grace never went to the nursery without feeling rather like the maiden in the fairy story whose husband allowed her to have one room in the castle lined with nettles to make her feel at home again.
‘I enjoyed it very much indeed. We saw Pascal in the distance, but he didn’t see me.’
‘You didn’t have a drive?’
‘Papa was in such a hurry. Then we saw Mrs Dexter in her Buick but she’s not his type, then we
