The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

Jules Bouche-Bontemps at this moment is launching a pathetic appeal – no, pathetic is not the translation, it is one of those trap words which mean different things in the two languages. Rousing, perhaps, a rousing call, or a moving speech. (Nobody will be roused or moved by it, but let that pass.) I could make this speech for him if he fell ill in the middle, I know it as well as he does and so does the whole of his audience. He will begin by saying that our divisions suit nobody except certain allies who had better be nameless. Here we shall have a long digression on Les Îles Minquiers, their history and moral attachment to France. (Those islands are a bore, I can’t listen to anything which concerns them, it is too dull.) This will be put in so that if we lose them – and who, except, of course, Grace, cares if we do? – he will be able to say that it is the fault of my party and les Madames who are all preparing, as he very well knows, to vote against him. He will pretend to be deeply shocked by the unholy alliance between les Madames and the Gaullists, all playing London’s game. Well, that’s a change from Moscow’s game, isn’t it, which he generally accuses us of playing? Then he will move on to next week’s railway strike. The rotting vegetables and stranded tourists will also be the fault of ourselves and Mesdames. Of course all these gloomy prophecies and reproaches and upbraidings will have not the slightest effect and he knows it. He knows to a vote where he will be at the end of the session, that is to say out, not in, so he really might save himself the trouble of making this speech. But he is fond of speaking, it amuses him, and above all it amuses him to publish the iniquities of his fellow-countrymen. Do you like him?’

‘Oh yes – very much.’

‘I love him – I really love old Bouche-Bontemps.’

Philip leant across the table and said to me, ‘All French politicians love each other, or so they say. You see, they never know when they may want to join each other’s governments.’

Everybody laughed. Conversation became general, people shouting remarks at each other in all directions. I like this lively habit which enables one to listen without the effort of joining in, unless one has something to say. When the babel died down again I asked M. Hué, my other neighbour, what would happen if the crisis went on.

‘René Pléven, Jules Moch and Georges Bidault, in that order, will try and form governments and they will fail. Anglo-French relations will deteriorate; social troubles will multiply; North Africa will boil. In the end even the deputies will notice that what we chiefly need is a government. They will probably come back to Bouche-Bontemps who will get in with the same ministers and the same programme they will have rejected tonight. Is it true that Sir Harald Hardrada is coming over to give a lecture?’

‘So Alfred tells me.’

‘That’s bad.’

‘Oh – I was looking forward –’

‘I don’t mean the lecture. There is nothing on earth more enjoyable than listening to Sir Harald. But it is a storm signal – the first in a sequence of events only too well known to us at the Quai d’Orsay. Whenever your government is planning some nasty surprise they send over Sir Harald to lull our suspicions and put us in a good humour.’

‘What’s the subject of the lecture?’ Valhubert asked me.

‘I think I heard it was to be Lord Kitchener.’

The two Frenchmen looked at each other.

‘Nom de nom – !’

‘We always think we can tell what is coming by the subject, you see. How well I remember “A Study in Allied Solidarity”. It was intensely brilliant – delivered in Algiers just before the Syrian affair. “Lord Kitchener” can only mean good-bye to Les Îles Minquiers. Well, if it’s that, it’s no great surprise. Let’s hope the Intelligence Service is not preparing something much worse.’

‘Talking of the Service,’ said Valhubert, ‘when do I meet the irresistible Mees Nortee?’

‘Oh, poor Northey, so she’s a spy, is she?’

‘Of course. And such a successful one. It was devilish work sending her.’

‘Well, you’ll be able to see for yourself at our dinner party next week.’

‘Good. Can I sit next to her?’

‘Certainly you can’t,’ said Philip.

‘Why not? If it’s an official dinner, I get the bout de table anyway.’

‘No – we have other candidates – me for one – it’s a big dinner and you’ll be well above the salt.’

‘I thought the English never bothered about protocol?’

‘When in Rome, however, we do as the Romans do – eh, Hughie?’

‘Put me next to Mees –’

‘After dinner,’ said Philip, ‘you may have a tête-à-tête with her on a sofa. It’s as far as I can go.’

As we left the dining-room Valhubert and two or three other deputies took themselves off, leaving a preponderance of Anglo-Saxons. Philip looked sadly across the room at Grace. I noticed that when she was present Philip became unsure of himself in his anxiety to please her and, as a result, lost much of the charm which lay in his lounging, bantering, casual, take-it-or-leave-it manner. It was rather pathetic to see him sitting bolt upright, hands folded on his knees like a small boy. Presently Mrs Jungfleisch moved over to join him. She began questioning him about what all the Americans in Paris seemed to call the Eels. I listened with half an ear. I had got M. Hué again and he was telling a long, probably funny story about Queen Marie of Rumania. It was the kind of thing I often have trouble in listening to; this time, I had a feeling he had told it to me before and that I had not listened then, either.

Mrs Jungfleisch was saying, ‘This parochial squabble over a few small rocks hardly seems to fit into the new concept of a free