‘Mummy’s in bed and asleep,’ he said.
‘Asleep – so late – are you sure?’
‘Quite quite sure. She went out dancing last night – she expected to be out till any hour, and strict orders are she is not to be called.’
‘And your grandfather?’
But Sir Conrad was away, shooting in the North.
Charles-Edouard considered what he should do.
Nanny appeared on the stairs, the footman was sent to fetch a taxi, Sigi’s luggage being far too much for one motor, and the footman and Nanny went off to Victoria to register the heavy things.
‘Now listen, Sigi,’ said Charles-Edouard when they had gone, ‘you run up to your mummy’s room, say I’m here (wake her up if she’s asleep) and ask if I can see her for a moment.’
‘All right.’ Sigi ran up, but not to his mother’s room. He waited on the landing for a minute and then skipped downstairs again, curling up bits of his hair with one hand, as he always did when telling lies though nobody had ever noticed the fact, and saying, ‘No good. The door’s locked and she’s written up “don’t disturb”. I tell you, she wants to sleep till luncheon.’
‘Come on then,’ said Charles-Edouard, taking Sigi by the hand, ‘we’ll walk to the station. I need a little air.’ He felt furious with Grace, deeply hurt and deeply disappointed.
The front door slammed again and Grace was left alone in the house, Sigi had not even said good-bye to her.
‘Well,’ said Charles-Edouard, settled in the train with a large English breakfast before him and Sigi opposite. ‘Come on now, what are the news? What have you been doing in England?’
‘Oh, Papa, I’ve had the whizz of a time. I caught a burglar all by myself – I cunningly trapped him in the silver cupboard – and I’ve saved up nearly £5 out of tips, and Grandfather is investing it at 21/2 per cent compound interest, and I’ve got a gun and I shot an ill thrush, it was kinder really, and I’ve got a bike wot fair mops it up.’
‘You’ve got a what which does what?’
‘Un vélo qui marche à toute vitesse,’ he kindly explained.
‘Good gracious! And I have to compete with all this?’
‘Yes, you have. But it’s quite easy – I only want to ride on the chevaux de Marly.’
‘Is that all. Which one?’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘Ah! But do you know the words?’
The little boy shut his mouth tight and laughed at his father with shining black eyes.
‘Sigismond. Do you?’
‘I shall say the words when I am on the horse, and not before.’
‘Then I fear,’ said Charles-Edouard, ‘that these words will remain for ever unspoken.’
In the Customs shed at Dover there was quite an excitement. The woman next to them was asked to hand over a coat she was carrying on her arm. From its pockets the Customs officer drew several pound notes. He then began to search her luggage, and produced pound notes from everything he touched, like a conjurer; from books and sponge bag and hot-water-bottle cover and bags and pockets and shoes, everything capable of containing a pound note seemed to do so. The poor lady, white and sad, was then led away. Sigismond looked on, perfectly fascinated.
‘She won’t catch the boat,’ said Charles-Edouard with the smugness of one who, having an English father-in-law, was under no necessity to conduct any illicit currency operations.
‘Won’t she really, Papa? Why?’
‘She’s a silly fool, breaking a silly law in a very silly way.’
‘So will she go to prison?’
‘No, not for pound notes. Gold would have been more serious. I expect she’ll miss the boat, that’s about all,’ said Charles-Edouard. ‘Come come, up that gangway with you.’
4
As soon as Madame Marel was back in the rue de l’Université from her summer holiday, which had included a long visit to Vienna after Charles-Edouard’s Venetian party had broken up, Hughie rushed over to Paris. He only stayed there two days, returning to London in a thoughtful frame of mind, the very day that Sigi left with his father.
Grace rather wondered what could have happened, but she said nothing and she was not a woman to ask for confidences. As she now felt lonely without her little boy, and as Hughie seemed to be at a loose end, they began to see a great deal of each other. Nearly every week he drove her down to his country house for a few days.
This house, Yeotown Manor, in Hertfordshire, was like a large, rambling cottage. Part of it was really old, a little old manor, but most of the low, dark, inconvenient rooms, the huge beams, the oak doors with wooden bolts and latches, the linen-fold panelling and inglenooks, while quite genuine of their sort, had a certain false air owing to the fact that they had been added to the structure by Hughie’s mother out of old cottages which she had bought and carved up to serve her purpose. It had no beauty but a certain cosy charm, to which Grace was susceptible at that time since it was so completely English, so much the antithesis of anything she had known in France. Nothing in it reminded her of either of her French homes, or of Charles-Edouard. She was dreadfully saddened now by such memories, and only longed to put them from her.
Hughie always had a few people at week-ends, and perpetual games of bridge went on day and night. Thump thump thump went the radiogram, thumping its way through great heaps of jazz records from breakfast to bedtime, while Hughie and his guests sat by electric light at green baize tables, drink at their elbows, ashtrays filling all round them, shuffling, dealing, playing, and scoring.
At this time Grace was happier there than anywhere. She had always liked gambling, and now she flew to it as to a drug. Also she missed Charles-Edouard less acutely when she was with Hughie, whose
