Philip looked sceptically at the headlines. ‘You can thank the General for this. If he were not sitting like the rock of ages at Colombey we should never have a government here at all. As it is they are obliged to come to these little temporary arrangements simply in order to keep King Charles in exile. This ministry won’t last six weeks. Hullo – have you seen Mockbar?’
‘No – don’t tell me – better not shake my nerve – !’
‘Not too bad. It’s headed: Paris Dinner Muddle. “Confusion – bungling – secrecy – lack of organization are casting a shadow over our amateur envoy’s first official dinner.” And so on. Zero, in fact. The old boy’s losing his grip – he’ll get the sack if he can’t do better than that. Where’s Mees – I thought she was to come for orders?’
‘Naughty girl. I suppose she’s overslept as usual.’
‘She’s not in her room – I banged as I came up the back stairs – nor in the bath, I banged there, too.’
‘Are you sure? How very odd. I wonder if Katie knows anything?’
Katie knew everything, as she always did, in her cage and told what she knew with evident enjoyment. Philip listened in to her account with the earphone. It seemed that while Alfred and I had been out the evening before, rushing from the National Day of Iceland to a party for the Foreign Minister of Bali, ending up at a concert at the Costa Rican embassy, a hamper of live lobsters had arrived for me. They were a present from M. Busson, a deputy with a seaside constituency, one of the people invited to our dinner. The chef, overjoyed, unable to get hold of me, had informed Northey, saying that the menu would now have to be altered. It would then have been Northey’s plain duty to send interim acknowledgment and thanks to M. Busson. No such thing. On seeing the dear lobsters, which were lurching about on the kitchen floor, she flew into a fantigue. She made Katie put her through to the Ministère de la Marine where, strange to say, she had no friend, and asked to speak to the Chef de Cabinet. Presenting Alfred’s compliments she inquired at what point the Seine became salt. The answer was Rouen. She then ordered Jérôme for 8.30 a.m. When the time came she forced the furious chef to cram the lobsters back into their hamper, and made the footmen load them on to the Rolls-Royce (not in the boot, for fear of smothering the darlings, but inside, on the pretty carpet). By now she was well on the way to Normandy where the sweet creatures would duly be put back in their native element.
‘Thank you, Katie.’ I rang off and looked at Philip, suppressing a giggle as best I could. He shook his head, not very much amused.
‘This Northey!’ he said. ‘In the first place the French navy, a thoroughly Anglophobe institution, will immediately assume that we are up to some monkey work. Why should Alfred want to know where the Seine becomes tidal, all of a sudden? In the second place Busson, who is the new Minister of Atomic Energy, is the leader of a small but powerful group in the Chambre. He is also a famous gourmet. He will be angry and disappointed when his lobsters fail to appear this evening – he may never forgive. In the third place, I think it’s too irresponsible of Mees to go off like this on the one day when she might be some slight use to you!’
The telephone bell rang: Katie again. ‘I forgot to say, she took a follower. At least I expect he is one by now –’
‘Who?’
‘The Chef de Cabinet. She arranged to pick him up at the side door of the Ministry in the rue St Florentin.’
‘That’s quite a good thing,’ I said to Philip, ‘at least he’ll see for himself she’s not spying.’
‘My dear, they are madly suspicious of Mees – all the ones who aren’t in love with her, that is. The sweet lobsters won’t reassure them, I can tell you.’
‘What time should you say she’ll be back?’
‘Who knows? Rouen is nearly 100 miles, I think. The Chef de Cabinet will spin it out as long as he can, no doubt. Oh well – it’s not as if she’d be much use here, one can’t trust her even to put cards round the table, let alone work out the seating. I should have had to do it for you in any case. I’ll get on to old Hughie, presently.’
‘Let’s put M. Busson next to Northey so that she can explain about the lobsters in her own words – ?’
‘And make an enemy for life? He has never been a minister before, he wouldn’t at all relish sitting next to your social secretary. We must make her apologize to him before dinner – lucky she’s so irresistible to French politicians. Now – business. Let’s see who we’ve got. I suppose I shall have to have Mees – no hope of Grace for me, eh? Talking of Grace, why not ask her to come and give you a hand with the flowers and things? I know she’d love to.’
‘Philip, what a good idea!’
‘Yes, I’m going to telephone now – she’ll turn up trumps, you’ll see.’
He was quite right. Grace came for me in her motor after luncheon and took me to St Cloud to pick flowers for the party. Valhubert had a property there, just outside the park, an ancient garden on the site of a hunting-lodge which the Germans had destroyed in 1870. Here he grew flowers and fruit for his own use. It was a melancholy, romantic spot, especially in the autumn when
