‘You said you’d pick me up and take me,’ Northey brimmed.
‘But we will. Grace won’t mind a bit.’
‘I mind.’
‘Ah! Then you’d better tell them to send the Presidential motor, with its moon, for you.’
‘Very funny and witty.’
‘Jérôme can take you, darling. Send him on to the Valhuberts’, that’s all.’
‘It’s because – I don’t like going in there alone. I know.’ She took the telephone and said, ‘Katie, love, put me through to the Bureau of the Assemblée, will you? I’ll speak in my own room.’
8
Alfred had gone to London for a day or two, so Philip took me to the Valhubert dinner. I was beginning to lose my fear of such social occasions now that I knew some of the people likely to be present. They were all very nice to me. I was dazzled by the French mode of life; they keep up a state in Paris which we English only compete with in country houses. A Paris dinner party, both from a material point of view and as regards conversation, is certainly the most civilized gathering that our age can produce, and while it may not be as brilliant as in the great days of the salons, it is unrivalled in the modern world.
The Hôtel de Valhubert, like the Hôtel de Charost (the English Embassy), lies between a courtyard and a garden. It is built of the same sandy-coloured stone and, though smaller and of a later date, its ground plan is very similar. There the resemblance ends. The Embassy, having been bought lock, stock and barrel from Napoleon’s sister, is decorated and furnished throughout in a fine, pompous, Empire style very suitable to its present use. The Hôtel de Valhubert is a family house. The rooms still have their old panelling and are crammed with the acquisitions of successive Valhuberts since the French revolution (when the house was sacked and the original furnishings dispersed). Beautiful and ugly objects are jumbled up together, and fit in very well. Grace’s flowers were perfection; no yards of velvet, no dead hares, not a hint of harvest home, pretty bouquets in Sèvres vases.
After praising my dress, which was, I thought myself, quite lovely and which came from her dressmaker, Grace introduced me to various people I did not know already. ‘It’s pouring in London tonight,’ she said, ‘I’ve just had a word with Papa. He’d been to Eton and taken the boys out – you’ll be glad to hear they are all three alive. He says he never saw such rain!’
Mrs Jungfleisch said the weather had been perfect when she was in London, much better than in Paris.
‘Come off it, Mildred. You see London through rose-coloured specs, though I notice you don’t go and live there.’
I had not met Mrs Jungfleisch since she came down my staircase, in white linen, actively participating in the rapine of the gramophone. She showed no signs of embarrassment but said, ‘Nice to see you again.’ I felt as if I had behaved badly in some way and had now been forgiven.
At dinner I sat next to Valhubert and we talked about the children, a ready-made topic whenever he and I saw each other.
‘Poor Fabrice,’ he said, speaking of my Fabrice’s father. ‘He was my hero when I was a little boy and as soon as I grew up we were more like brothers than cousins. I must say the child has a great look of him. I was telling my aunt – naturally she is anxious to see him – will you allow me to take him down there when he comes for Christmas? It could be to his advantage, she is rich and there is nobody left of the Sauveterre family. She might adopt him – no – you wouldn’t care for that?’
‘I don’t think I would mind. After all, she is his grandmother. In another five years I suppose he will have gone out of my life. These boys seem to vanish away as soon as they are grown up.’
‘And then what do they do?’
‘I wish I knew. Alfred and I have always acted on the principle with them of never asking questions.’
‘Like the Foreign Legion?’
‘Exactly. Now I sometimes wonder if it has been a good plan. We have no idea what goes on; the two elder sons might be dead for all we see or hear of them.’
‘Where are they – in diplomacy?’
I began telling him about Beard and Ted, but I could see that he was not listening. He was interested in his own Sigi and in his cousin’s Fabrice while accepting our Charlie as inseparable from the others. Bearded professors, whiskered travel agents (if that was what Basil had become) were out of his ken. I knew that my encounter in the street with Basil’s accomplice would have seemed strange and dreadful to any man of my own generation; I had never told Alfred of it.
‘Aren’t you going down to the House?’ I said, to change the subject. I knew that the session began at nine o’clock.
‘My father-in-law always says down to the House – I like it very much. Yes, presently I will. There’s no hurry, we know to a minute what is happening.
