‘What a funny thing to mind losing.’
‘It would be ghastly for them if they did. They’d be branded for ever as un-American. Finally we have the Henry James type of expatriates who live here because they can’t stick it at home – perfect dears. A bit on the serious side perhaps, but at least they don’t jabber on about art and dollars – it’s the future of mankind with them. Mildred is in that camp – camp commandant you might say.’
‘Shall I like her?’
‘You won’t get the chance. She adores Pauline and is preparing to be very cold and correct with you.’
‘Then why does she send me flowers?’
‘It’s an American tic. They can’t help doing it – they send them to friend and foe alike. Whenever they pass a flower shop their fingers itch for a pen to write down somebody’s name and address.’
‘I’m all for it,’ I said, looking at the Jungfleisch sweet-peas on my dressing-table. ‘Lovely, they are –’
After a few days in the Embassy I began to suspect that something was afoot. Of course in a new house one cannot account for every sight and sound; even allowing for this I sensed a mystery. From my bedroom I distinctly heard a gathering of people making merry, some sort of party which went on every evening until the early hours; I would wake up in the night to shriek upon shriek of laughter. I thought the noise must come from the next house until I discovered that this is a block of offices belonging to the American government. Surely their employees did not laugh all night? By my bed there was a telephone with a line direct to the public exchange, not through the Embassy, and a discreet little buzzing bell. This sometimes rang and when I answered it I would hear confused phrases like ‘Oh Lord – I forgot’, ‘C’est toi, chérie? Oh pardon, Madame, il y a erreur’ – or merely ‘Aïe!’ before the line went dead. Twice Alfred’s Times arrived late with the crossword puzzle already done.
The courtyard always seemed to be full of elegantly dressed people. I presumed they had come to write their names in our book (whose pages, according to Alfred, read like a dramatis personae of the whole history of France). Why, then, were they so often grouped on the little outside staircase in the south-west corner of the courtyard? I could have sworn that I saw the same ones over and over again, people with famous faces known even to me; a bejewelled dressmaker like a puppet in a film cartoon, face composed of brown golf balls; a Field-Marshal; a pianist with a guilty look; an ex-king. A pretty young woman, vaguely familiar to me, seemed to live in the courtyard, constantly up and down the little staircase with flowers, books, or gramophone records; sometimes she was carrying a huge picnic basket. Catching my eye one day she blushed and looked away. Mockbar, whom I had now met, was often in the Faubourg peering through our gateway. No mistaking him; he had the bucolic appearance of some little old groom, weather-beaten face, curved back, stiff bandy legs, wildly flailing elbows and an aureole of fuzzy grey hair.
‘I wonder if you would like to make a statement?’ he said, rolling towards me as I was walking home from the dressmaker one afternoon.
‘Statement?’
‘On the situation in your house.’
‘Oh you are kind, but no, thank you very much, you must ask my husband.’ I went indoors and sent for Philip.
‘Philip,’ I said, ‘I’m a paper. Would you like to make a statement?’
‘Statement?’
‘On the situation in my house.’
He gave me a whimsical look, half-amused, half-worried.
‘Who has the rooms on the right-hand side of the courtyard – did I see them when you showed me round?’
‘Yes, it’s time you knew,’ he said. ‘The fact is, Pauline has dug herself in there and we can’t get her to leave.’
‘Lady Leone? But she did leave. I saw her on a newsreel, in floods. How can she still be here?’
‘She left the Gare du Nord all right, but she had the train stopped at Orry-la-Ville and came straight back, still holding Bouche-Bontemps’ roses. She said she was very ill, possibly dying, and forced Mrs Trott to make the bed in the entresol for her. There’s a sort of little flat where the social secretary used to live. Naturally she’s not ill in the least. She has the whole of Paris in there day and night – I wonder you haven’t heard them.’
‘I have. I thought it was the Americans next door.’
‘Americans never shriek like that.’
‘Now I understand everything. But Philip, this is very bad for Alfred. Such an absurd situation, at the beginning of his mission.’
‘That’s what the F.O. thinks. They tell us to get her out – yes, but how? I’ve just been on to Ashley again. You see, at the beginning one thought it was a lark – that in a day or two she’d get tired of it. So the idea was not to bother you. But now the Parisians have joined in the joke and it’s the fashion to go and see her there. People are pouring back from their holidays so as not to be left out. The smart resorts are in despair – nobody left to be photographed on the beaches. So, of course, she’s having the time of her life and quite honestly I don’t see how we shall ever induce her to go. We’re all at our wits’ end.’
‘Can’t we tell the servants not to feed her?’
‘They don’t. Mildred brings her food, like a raven.’
‘The one with picnic basket? We could stop her coming – tell the concierge not to let her in?’
‘Very difficult – it would be awfully embarrassing for him to have to bar the way. He’s known her for years.’
‘Yes, I see, and of course we can’t very
