I was busy just then. Mr Gravely, the Foreign Minister, came and went. I saw little of him as the dinner which Alfred gave in his honour was for men only. He seemed a dry old stick. I said to Philip, ‘I do love Grace’s idea of him being driven to the brothels because his wife didn’t come!’
‘She’s not far wrong. All English politicians want to do dirty things as soon as they get to Paris. Only of course they don’t want to be seen by Mockbar. It’s a nuisance that the only night club which is fairly respectable should happen to be called Le Sexy. La Tomate sounds quite all right but we really could not let them go there – no, I couldn’t possibly tell you. Ask Mees –’
Contrary to all known precedent, Mr Gravely did not fall in love with Northey, in fact he hardly noticed her. He gave her various odd jobs to do for him, speaking in a dry, official, impersonal voice which so took her by surprise that she actually did them all herself, quite efficiently.
The night he left we dined at home. Alfred seemed tired and depressed; the visit had probably added to his difficulties. I had not yet had an account of it. David and Dawn had gone to share a bowl of rice with a friend – they never could say they were dining out, like anybody else. However, when we got to the dining-room we found that my social secretary was honouring us, a very unusual occurrence.
‘Your cows, Northey,’ said Alfred, ‘are a nuisance.’
‘I know – isn’t it splendid! B.B. has stopped them, Fanny, I quite forgot to tell you. You see what can be done, by making a fuss!’
‘Again I say, they are a nuisance. The Irish Ambassador was so friendly to me, everything seemed perfect between us. Now he has been called home by his government for consultation. It’s very serious for the Irish – one of their main exports has vanished overnight. They all think it’s due to the devilish machinations of the English.’
‘So it is and serve them right for being so cruel!’
‘All poor peasant communities are cruel to animals, I’m afraid – and not only the Irish. If they can’t export cattle to France they’ll be even poorer. It’s not the way to make them kinder. The result will probably be that they will send the unhappy beasts to other countries where the journey will be longer and the slaughter-houses more primitive.’
‘B.B. doesn’t think so. He says there are no other practicable markets.’
‘You know you should use your, apparently absolute, power to make the French eat frozen food. If they would do that these journeys could all be stopped and the beasts could be killed at home.’
‘They won’t,’ said Northey, ‘they call it frigo and they loathe it. B.B. says they are quite right – it’s disgusting.’
‘All very well – they’ll have to come to it in the end.’
After dinner she said she was simply exhausted. ‘I must dree my weird to bed – oh the pathos of the loneliness!’ She trotted off to her entresol. We too went early to our rooms. Before I went to bed I heard a little cheeping noise, very far off, rather like a nest of baby birds, which meant that Northey was on the telephone. I could just hear her when all was quiet in the house. As I went to sleep she was still at it. I woke up again at three in the morning; she was still piping away.
When she came for her orders next day I said, ‘Northey, I don’t want to be indiscreet, but were you telephoning practically half the night?’
‘The agony of clutching the receiver all those hours! My arm is still aching!’
‘Who was it? M. Bouche-Bontemps?’ She looked surprised that I should ask but replied, nonchalantly, ‘No, poor duck, he is too busy nowadays. It was Charles-Edouard.’
Just as I thought. It was evidently time that I should intervene, unless I were going weakly to let things take their course. I went on, very much against my own inclination, ‘Whatever was it all about?’
‘My investments.’
‘Indeed! Have you investments – ?’
‘Yes. He has forwarded me my wages until Alfred’s sixtieth birthday by which time you will retire and I shall be out of a job. Now he is advising me how to place the money. He says it’s very important because nobody else will ever employ me and I am facing a penurious old age. So I have bought Coffirep, Finarep and Rep France. You can’t imagine how they whizz. Les reps sont en pleine euphorie, the Figaro said, yesterday.’
‘I don’t think you ought to let M. de Valhubert talk to you all night. Grace might not like it.’
Northey’s face closed up in a mutinous expression. ‘Who cares?’
‘I do, for one. But it’s not that, darling, I worry about you. I’m so dreadfully afraid you will fall in love with Charles-Edouard.’
‘Fanny! Hoar antiquity!’
‘No hoarier than most of your followers – they all seem to be over forty and Bouche-Bontemps –’
‘But I’m not in love with any of them. Is this a talking-to?’
‘I suppose it is a sort of one.’
‘Quelle horrible surprise! You never scold me. What’s come over you?’
‘I’m not scolding, I’m trying to advise. There are sometimes moments in people’s lives when they take a wrong direction. I feel that both Basil and David have – but men can more
