It seemed quite natural to see him, she felt no embarrassment or constraint, and nor, quite obviously, did he.
‘Ravi de vous voir, ma chère Grace,’ he said, kissing her hand in his rapid way.
She opened the door with her key and they went into the house together.
‘So how is he? And when is the operation? I was out when your father telephoned or I could have been here sooner.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, ‘he’s been asleep more or less all day and the operation isn’t till the morning. There’s no danger, and no need to worry.’ She sat down rather suddenly, feeling giddy.
‘You look tired.’
‘Yes. I was up most of the night, and I’ve been at the nursing home ever since without much to eat. I shall feel better after dinner.’
The butler came into the hall. He looked uncertainly at Charles-Edouard’s bag, left it where it was and said, ‘Sir Conrad won’t be back from the House until late.’
‘Perhaps we could have dinner at once then, please.’
Charles-Edouard was delightful at dinner; he told her all the Paris gossip.
‘I’m so very pleased to see you,’ he said from time to time, and towards the end of the meal, ‘You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.’
‘Oh Charles-Edouard, I’ve been ill from missing you.’
‘I thought I would open Bellandargues this summer. Sigi can get over his operation there. Won’t you come?’
‘For a week-end?’
‘For good. Let’s go upstairs.’
They went up. When they got to the drawing-room Grace opened the door, but Charles-Edouard took her hand and pointed further up.
‘Charles-Edouard, we can’t. We’re not married.’
‘We never have been married,’ he said.
They went together into her bedroom.
‘But I think we had better be,’ he said, later on, ‘and properly this time. For the sake of the child.’
Grace repeated happily and sleepily ‘For the sake of the child.’ Then she woke up a little more and said, ‘But why, Charles-Edouard, did you never make a sign? A whole year and no sign?’
‘No sign? When you refused to see me although I’d come all the way from Paris – when you told Sigi nothing would induce you to speak to me on the telephone – when you never answered the long letter I gave him for you. No sign? What more could I have done?’
So then it all came out. All poor Sigi’s major acts of iniquity and minor acts of trouble-making were revealed before the horrified gaze of his parents.
‘We seem to have given birth to a Borgia,’ said Charles-Edouard at last.
‘Rubbish!’ Grace said indignantly, ‘he’s a dear, affectionate little boy. The whole thing was entirely our own fault for leaving him too much alone when we were happy and depending too much on him when we were lonely. We’ve been thoroughly selfish and awful with the poor darling from the very beginning, I see it all now. He only did it because he loves us and wants to be with us. When we were together we left him out and made him jealous, so of course he thought the best plan would be to keep us apart.’
‘It’s terrible all this jealousy. First you and then the child. What am I going to do about it?’
‘You must try to be nicer, Charles-Edouard.’
‘I must anyhow try to be more careful.’
‘One thing, he did stop us marrying anybody else.’
‘Were we seriously considering such a step?’
‘I was, twice.’
‘How extraordinary. Confess you would never have amused yourself so much as you do with me.’
‘Amusement is not the only aim of marriage,’ said Grace primly.
‘Are you quite sure?’
They decided never to let Sigi realize that they knew all, but to keep a firm look-out for any underhand dealings in the future.
When Sir Conrad got back, very late, he found Charles-Edouard’s suitcase still in the hall, the drawing-room empty and dark. He nodded to himself, and went happily to bed.
Next morning Sigismond, still very much interested, was lifted on to a trolley, ‘Like the pudding tray at the Ritz,’ he said, and was wheeled away. The last thing he knew was the surgeon’s enormous eye gazing into his.
The very next minute, or half a lifetime later, he opened his eyes again. He was back in his bed. He saw the nurse and smiled at her. Then he saw his father and mother. They were holding hands. His mother leant over him. ‘How d’you feel, darling?’ Suddenly the full significance of all this became hideously apparent. He shut his eyes again with a shudder.
‘He’s not quite round,’ said the nurse, ‘he hasn’t seen you yet.’
‘Oh yes I have,’ said Sigi, ‘and I’m going to be sick.’
As soon as Sigismond was well enough to travel they all left for Paris on the Golden Arrow, complete with Nanny, the usual mountain of luggage, and Grace’s carpet, a huge roll done up with straps.
‘It will do for your bedroom at Bellandargues,’ said Charles-Edouard.
‘I meant it for your bedroom in Paris.’
But Charles-Edouard raised his hand, shook his head, and said, very kindly but firmly, ‘No.’
Madame Rocher, who was already back in Paris and delighted by this turn of events, rang up Charles-Edouard the day before their journey. ‘I’ve got Fr Lanvin,’ she said, ‘he’ll marry you on Thursday morning at eleven, and then Grace must be converted by him. He’s far the best and quickest, he did the Princesse de Louville in no time.’
But Albertine, whom Charles-Edouard rang up to make quite sure that all Paris should know the facts of the case, begged him to go to her priest. ‘Fr Lanvin is quite all right, I’m sure, but I think you need somebody of a different calibre. Fr Strogonoff is so gentle and understanding, and then he specializes in foreign converts –’
‘Yes, I’m sure, Albertine, but you see
