‘Oh look,’ said Grace, ‘poor little Laetitia Hogg – younger than Sigi. What was she doing in Paris, and why did she die, I wonder?’
‘One of those questions which are posed in graveyards. James and Mary Hogg must have loved her, since they bought her this tomb in perpetuity. Ha! the Politovskis, I’d not noticed them here before.’ He went up to read the inscription, and began to laugh loudly. ‘Oh no! This is too much! I’ve never heard such a thing! They’ve given themselves an S.A.R.! It’s perfect, I can’t wait to tell Tante Régine, what rubbish really. “Il conquit Naples et resta pur.” Maybe he did, though not very likely, but even that doesn’t entitle him to be a Royal Highness. Langeais and his wife, so charming, Sauveterre (poor Fabrice, give me one flower for him, how he would have laughed to see me here with wife and child). We’ve already passed enough friends to collect a large dinner party, a large amusing dinner party. Hélàs, where are they all now, I wonder?’
‘Having large, amusing dinner parties somewhere else,’ said Grace, suddenly seeing herself as doomed to eternal dinner parties, ‘wishing you were there and wondering what I’m like.’
‘Yes indeed. L’Anglaise! Intelligence Service. Fille de francmaçon,’ said Charles-Edouard with his inward laugh. ‘Here we are, this is the Avenue of the Marshals of France, our future home. Sigismond will spend some melancholic moments here, I hope, before it is his turn. Is it not beautiful up on this cliff, are we not lucky to be so well placed? Mind you, it is not the smart set, but at least we are not among presidents of the Republic, actors, duellists, and English pederasts. We have this pretty view and we have la gloire. Not bad, is it?’
‘I feel sad,’ said Grace, ‘it reminds me of your dear grandmother’s funeral.’
‘I was very sad. Tired, and very sad. But there is only one thing I clearly remember of that whole day, the look of terrible triumph on the face of Madame de la Bourlie.’
‘Oh surely not, at her age?’
‘Age cannot blunt the hatred of a lifetime.’
They put their flowers at the base of a stone pyramid. It was a fine Empire tomb with bas-reliefs of battles and battle trophies.
‘Poor Grandmère, she can’t be very much pleased with the neighbours – Masséna, Lefebvre, Moscowa, Davout – not at all for her, I’m afraid. Come here, Sigismond, can you read this?’
‘Famille Valhubert,’ he spelt it out.
‘This is your little house.’
‘Can’t I have one with a lace table-cloth and a door?’
‘No. You will lie here with Grandmère and all of us.’
‘Yes, but supposing I am killed in a stratospheric battle with the Martians?’
‘That I should applaud. You may or may not become a Marshal of France, but you should always die in battle if you can, or you may live to be shot by your fellow-countrymen, like poor Ney over there, who was not fortunate enough to be killed by the enemy like Essling and Valhubert. I hope you are paying attention to what I am telling you, Sigismond. And now who would you like to see? I can offer you painters, writers, musicians, cooks (Brillat-Savarin, the French Mrs Beeton, is here), and all the great bourgeois of Paris. The nineteenth-century Russians, rastaquouères of their day, with huge, extravagant tombs, Rumanian princes in miniature Saint Sophias, domed and frescoed. Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism, might interest Sigi? But you look very tired, my dearest, and I think we had better walk gently back to the motor.’
The following day Grace had a miscarriage. They said she had perhaps walked too fast up the hill. It was not serious, quite early in her pregnancy, but it pulled her down, depressed her spirits, and she was a long time in bed. This was not a bad place just then. Late snow had fallen, it lay in the garden, white and brown, under a low, dark sky.
But her room gave a sunny impression, yellow with spring flowers. The mimosa was changed three times a day so that it should be always fluffy. People were very kind; Ange-Victor said that Madame Auriol herself would not have had more inquiries, flowers and books poured into the house, and so, when she was well enough to receive them, did visitors. Among those who came, and found Grace by chance alone, was Albertine Marel-Desboulles.
‘I never see you,’ she said, smiling with all her great charm at Grace. ‘Before Madame de Valhubert died I used to have the pleasure of that lovely face to look at over the dinner-table – those huge, boring dinners in the autumn. Now, though we live so near, you have vanished again. But I have met the entirely delightful Sigismond.’
‘I know. He told me. He thought you were heavenly.’
‘When I heard you were ill I decided to call on you. Charles-Edouard and I are the oldest friends in the world – foster-brother and sister in a way, since we had the same nanny – well, to cut short all these explanations, here I am. How pretty you have made this room. I know it of old because here we used to put our coats when Madame de Valhubert gave her famous music parties.’
‘I didn’t know Madame de Valhubert was musical.’
‘Oh well, music was not the only object of the parties, but the house has this music room and Régine Rocher had a Polish lover who played Chopin, so it all fitted in rather
